When we say “I love you,” we have a subject, verb and object. Love is in the position of action.

We love something when we feed, pay attention or act in service to it.

We love what we continually think and talk about. How we angle our dialogue speaks to what we actually love. Do we love to be right by focusing on the seeming mal-intent or shortcomings of others? Or do we love ourselves and others by looking to what might really be going on and assuming the best of what they can give at the moment?

If something needs to be called on and worked through in a relationship, can we focus our attention on that which we can truly change? Can we say, “how can I manage, do, or see this differently to affect the change that I want?” Because change doesn’t happen by putting someone down or by telling the other person that they are wrong. It happens through our ownership of it. And when we do that, we act in service to what we truly love: peace and harmony. When we can’t, we may be acting in service of our own sense of lack, of needing to feel right, which we then perpetuate.

Whether or not we know it, the objects of our love grow. How we love them is how we experience them.