this week, take note of your loving impulse to prepare for an end-of-week reflection.
what is a loving impulse?
a desire to get up close to a dog? straightening someone’s shirt collar, holding a door open, wanting to give a compliment, wanting to touch the hand of your friend through the video? feeling tender toward someone struggling to find some change for the meter, wishing you could stop to help? combing a strand of hair behind your own ear? noticing some green emerging from the ground, and noticing how you smile? hoping someone you used to know is right now having a good day?
what impulses do you have that feel like they are coming from a place of love? you don’t have to write down every instance as it’s happening—chances are, once you start to try to notice your loving impulse, you’ll feel it coming up more than you’d expected, and you don’t want your note-taking to interrupt your life-doing.
you do want to learn about your patterns and surprises, and use your note-taking skills to help. first, try to recognize what your most regular loving impulses are. then, when you feel a new, particularly strong, or surprising loving impulse, do your loving action if you can and then make a quick note of what prompted the feeling, what you did with it, and / or how it felt. you’re practicing how to select important details and capture feelings in your quick notes. whether in your mind or in your note-book, pay attention to how much this feeling appears, and how it feels. at the end of the week, free write for twenty to thirty minutes about what you’ve learned of your own loving impulse—what constitutes your impulsive movements of lovingness?
depending on where you’re at, you might notice and take note of just one loving impulse this week—that’s enough! ‘one moment’ is a great goal, so’s ‘one pattern or recurring impulse.’ you can keep adding to your knowledge a little bit each week. i’d still suggest the reflection this first week as well :)