31: How to Love Difficult People (learning to love others right where they are).

Sometimes loving others can be hard. Okay, a lot of the time it might be hard. But luckily, we can choose to let it be easy.

It may be tempting to label others as “difficult to love,” but that only makes them difficult for us to love. Instead, we can choose label ourselves as “always loving,” and make everyone easy to love simply because we’ve made that our nature.

In this episode we’re chatting about loving others just as they are, not withholding love from them on any certain terms, and faithfully growing our capacity to love others through deep gratitude practices.

Links Mentioned

• Embody Love Workbook
• My story 
• Episode 6 
• Etsy Shop – the products that help you be loving and joyful 
• Dr Jasmine – the mom psychologist
• Freebie: Happy Mom Mindset Mini Guide

How to Love Others, Right Where They Are.

Sometimes loving others can be hard. Okay, a lot of the time it might be hard. But loving others can be easy, if we choose to let it be easy. We don’t have to label others as “difficult to love,” we can label ourselves as “always loving.” 

1. Grace and Understanding.

We’ve got to stop waiting to fully love people once they change. We’ve got to learn to love them just as they are, right now. We can’t withhold love with hopes of gaining anything. Often we do this without meaning to, we do this without noticing, and we do this without having malicious intentions. Sometimes it’s in a well intended habit that we deny love to those we’re closest to. 

Like the disconnection we create between ourselves and our kids by denying them something they view as an expression of love (like sitting with them to watch a movie) until they’ve done something for us that we view as a sign of respect or love (like picking up their toys before the movie). We don’t always deny love on purpose. We don’t always do it to be mean. Often it’s simply miscommunications. 

I’m not saying to be a doormat and never correct your kids or ask that they help out around the house to clean up before family time. I’m saying pay attention to how you’re asking and how others are perceiving your requests. You’re in control though of what you give and take. You can use mindful reflection and an extreme amount of grace to allow others to feel loved. 

2. Embody Love.

Take on the adjectives that describe love (in 1 Corinthians 13:4-7) and become love. Create affirmations by flipping these verses into “I am” statements. 

You set the tone for your home and family. Make corrections to your kids from a place of peace and calm and love. You’re the gatekeeper of the energy and the emotions in your home. You get to set the tone. You get to be calm first, you get to regulate your own emotions so you can help others too. 

3. Intentional Gratitude.

Designate a journal or notebook to practice gratitude. Take it out everyday and choose one person every single day and fill a page of things you love about this person or what about them you’re very grateful for. I’d start with your spouse (if you’ve got one). Then move on to whoever you see the most everyday – your kids, your parents, your siblings, your boss or coworkers… Practice gratitude repeatedly for the people in your life – especially those who’ve been a stress for you lately. Start paying attention to the positive things. Start falling in love with your own life. 

Make the negative smaller in your mind, focus on the positive, let it grow.