What the World Needs Now is Loving

You’ve probably heard the phrase what the world needs now is love – it’s even a song title – and I feel sure you’ll agree with me that the world would be so very different if it operated through love rather than fear. But think about this. The word love is a noun, but isn’t love meant to be more about action? By changing the word from love to loving, it becomes an action word, commonly known as a verb.

I imagine all of you reading this know the importance of living through love, at least have a partial knowledge. You know that when you respond lovingly and act through love, things work more smoothly and peacefully, and bring you more favorable outcomes. And I believe you also know that if you react to something or someone in anger, it creates friction at the very least. The reason this is so is due to the absolute fact that love heals, anger does not.

Here’s an example. Two people have a heated argument, voices raised, vocalized obscenities, hearts racing – obvious discord all rooted in fear. No resolution seems possible as the two individuals glare at each other, maybe contemplating whether or not to throw a punch. A silence follows briefly when suddenly, one of the individuals realizes the needlessness of the argument and apologizes for his part in it. What happens? Everything transforms. Why? Because one of the individuals decided to step into a loving place so the argument and lingering anger could end. When an individual says they’re sorry – forgiveness – that is love expressed, and love is the only way this argument can heal. If the argument had ended with each person standing their ground in anger, huffy and not budging, the result would have been a far cry from love in action.

If you look around your community, our country, and the world, there is little evidence of loving actions. Most people operate from fear and thus create experiences or outcomes from fear, often things they don’t really want but create from that lower fear vibration. There is a collective body of intense energy permeating the world, and if it is primarily originating from fear, it will take a large collective body of healing love energy to overcome the present lower vibrations our world is experiencing.

People are seeking happiness, in every nook and cranny. Most people look in all the wrong places to find it, and they soon realize what they thought was happiness oftentimes vanishes as fast as it appears. Happiness comes from within, not without, meaning that it’s up to each individual to create their own happiness. Any thing and any person that exists in the external realm can add to our happiness, but they cannot create it for us. We have to create it. Love in action produces happiness!

In order to move into a place of loving action, you have to practice it, all the time. Anything worth doing involves practice to improve it. The same is true for loving – it has to be practiced. What does loving action look like? Doing random acts of kindness for others; accepting each person as they are at that moment; forgiving even if no one asked for it; remove the need to be “right”; support and encourage individuals in distress, listening completely as someone talks with you, keep a humble spirit; refuse to control anything or anyone, and the list could go on and on for ways to share love in action.

So how can you show love today? Before you can begin sharing love with another, you must share love with yourself. You see, you cannot give what you do not have. Begin by being kind to yourself, honoring yourself enough to say no if necessary, taking time to relax, eating healthy foods, getting enough sleep, etc. Once you’ve taken care of you, begin spreading love around you in every direction.

Remember the movie Pay it Forward? Acts of kindness were given to three people and those three people each gave to three people, and soon the acts of kindness were spreading like a wildfire. Do something loving to three people and suggest they do the same to others, then watch how the world changes. The answer for the hurt and pain the world is experiencing is loving.