The Ripple Effect of LOVE

Seeking more love in your life?

A fast, easy way to make it happen is to put your attention on all the love that is already around you (family, friends, pets, etc.) and then actively engage in making love happen and spread by creating a “ripple effect.”

Everything we do and think affects the people in our lives and the choices we make have far-reaching consequences. Like an incredibly interwoven and complicated tapestry, the Ripple Effect, creates connections that we are all a part of. Thoughts and actions are like stones dropped in a pond and they create ripples that travel outward.

Each of us carries within us the capacity to change the world in small ways for better or worse. One inspiring example of the ripple effect was appeared in The New England Journal of Medicine: it recently published a study that showed how a single altruistic kidney donation set off a domino effect, resulting in 10 successive transplants!

10 Ways to share the LOVE:

• When it’s hot outside, offer lemonade or iced tea to your mail carrier, garbage collectors, police officers and others.
• Rescue a wallflower! Strike up a conversation with someone who’s standing alone at a party.
• Send the amazing people in your life an e-card telling them why they’re awesome and how much they mean to you.
• I once read about a family out to dinner with a special needs child. The child was acting up and the waitress brought over a note that said “God only gives special children to special people” from a mystery guest who paid for the family’s meal.
• If you are artistic, paint small rocks with words like “Believe” or “Have Faith” or Love Will Find You” and leave in random places.
• Pay for someone else’s coffee, or their meal when you are in the drive through lane or pay the toll for the car behind you or put coins in the street meters for someone else’s car.
• Buy gift cards to Subway or McDonalds and hand out to homeless people or pack up meals, socks, and goody bags to hand out to those living on the street.
• Help someone get recognition for their new business, book or fundraising project by spreading the word for them via your social networks or help an elderly neighbor with chores like yard work raking leaves.

According to a study by Dacher Keltner, PhD, co-director of the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkley, “being generous is a health booster and has shown to reduce the negative effects of stress and it also slows the heart rate, boosts immune function, and decreases the inflammatory response.”

Finally, another great reason for sharing your love, generosity and kindness is that it’s an oxytocin booster: this is the brain hormone known as the “super glue of love” which is a critical component to experiencing pleasure!

This summer please consider consciously choosing to add more love to the world. And start your own ripple!

Wishing you love, laughter, and magical kisses,

Arielle