🌟Weekly Inspiration🌟

It was my 20th wedding anniversary yesterday and it had me thinking about LOVE ❤️.  

There is often this idea that love just happens to us—we fall in love with our partners or with our children…that love is a thing, that love is a noun. I was listening to a Brene Brown podcast, Unlocking Us, where she interviewed Drs. John and Julie Gottman, relationship experts. They discussed the idea that Love is a verb—love is active, requires attention and practice, it doesn’t just sit there in our lives like a noun. This was a simple reminder about LOVE that really resonated with me. It is an important concept in our romantic relationships and marriages and it’s also essential to approaching loving our children in the same manner. Parenting and loving don’t always come naturally to us, especially in the challenging and thankless seasons of raising human beings. It helps to remember that loving our partners and our children, requires effort, patience, grit, and stamina.

Ask Yourself:

Have I considered love a noun or a verb in my life?
Do I have a realistic expectation of the amount of effort it requires to actively love the people around me?
Is it hard for me to put forth effort in this area? Why?
In my family of origin, did the adults actively love each other and actively love me and my siblings?
What were some of these early examples of loving and how have they impacted my own relationships and parenting?
Is it worth re-considering the effort it truly takes to love someone over a lifetime?

Be well ⭐. The Gottmans have a new book out on marriage if you are interested!