By Fred Cavaiani
Yesterday we celebrated Valentine’s Day. It is a day focused on love. Everyone wants to be loved. It becomes an affirming experience when someone is kind and loving to us. Valentine’s Day could be called a “feel good” day. It could also be called “an affirming of love” day. We greeted people with a “Happy Valentine’s Day.” We affirmed family members and friends. The flowershops have a booming business on this day. It seems like “love is in the air.” So many people remember giving fellow students a Valentine on this day. Even I remember this and grade school has been many years behind me. Now I see that my grandkids are doing same thing. The celebration still continues.
It has always impressed me that when I am loving and kind toward someone, I experience an inner peace and freedom. It is like my heart and mind open up to a positive experience of love. Whenever I go to the store, a restaurant, greet a stranger, I smile and warmly greet this other person. I feel better doing this regardless of what the other person might feel. I believe that most of the time the other person feels better also.
Whenever I invest in a negative thought about someone else, I put myself into an emotional prison. Whenever I invest in how I think someone should be, I block myself from experiencing inner freedom. I think the secret of a joyful and peaceful life is to be always invested in being positive and loving. This means being positive and loving in words, in actions, and in thoughts. This brings me into an emotional and spiritual freedom.
It can be so easy to think negatively. But when life is filled with negative thinking and negative words of how other people should be, I do not have a positive influence on anyone. As I look over my life, I realize that whenever I have shared critical remarks with another person about someone else, this did not help me or help the other person. When I can realize this, I then can invest in being loving and positive. And when I remain loving and positive, my mind and heart open up to a new emotional and spiritual freedom. This attitude of being loving and positive is so simple and so profound. Yet it can be easily minimized and ignored. To share negativity with another person puts both the other person and myself in an emotional and spiritual prison. No one benefits from this.
An old professor of mine who is now in his mid-90s, a Capuchin priest, still is very active and very sharp. He puts up positive messages on Facebook almost every day. These messages are filled with joy and love. I have known him since I started college so many, many years ago. He has always been positive and loving and continues this to this day. Whenever I think about him, positive images of kindness and affirmation surface.
Love and kindness open our hearts to experience God. It creates a loving bond with other people. An inner freedom within ourself becomes deeper. No one and nothing have to change for us to be happy. I simply have to continue to be loving and kind.
Our little dog, Daisy, consistently wants to sit next to me or my wife. She simply wants to feel loved. It is an internal desire that everyone in life wants. It is a God-given desire. But I have the freedom to choose to be loving and kind and I have the freedom to choose to be angry, judgmental and authoritative. The choice to be loving and kind puts me into an internal state of freedom. The choice to be condemning and judgmental puts me into an internal state of being blocked off from joy. This is like living in a dark prison.
There will always be negativity surrounding us. Life is filled with this. And with modern technology we experience this throughout the day as we watch the news, movies, television, and have conversations with other people. I still have a choice to remain loving and positive. I do not have to allow negativity to become part of my emotional and spiritual system. I can still choose to be loving and positive.
Everyone has a choice to remain in the darkness and prison of negativity or remain in the light and freedom of positivity. When I am loving, light and peace fill my heart and soul. When I am negative, I fill my heart and mind with a darkness and a prison that blocks my emotional and spiritual growth.
When I am around someone who is loving and positive, I never have to feel worried because I know I will always feel loved and affirmed. When I am around someone who is negative and condemning, I will feel on edge waiting for the negativity to be turned at me. Life is not meant to be worried about walking on egg shells.
So, once I realize that no one has to change for me to be happy then happiness and peace will be the result of my decision to be loving and positive in this present moment. I then become open to God and open to the best parts of myself and I can allow my wounds to heal because I will not avoid them. Love heals and brings me into a peaceful state no matter what might happen. Yes, emotional and spiritual freedom become a joyful and peace way to live. This wonderful state of freedom is possible for everyone to possess. It simply begins with a decision to be loving and positive. When that decision is made often throughout the day, I become nudged toward a positive experience of God. I become open to inspiration. I have let go of the blockades of negative attitudes and thinking. Imagine being with a group of people who are very kind and loving. Imagine being around a group of people who are angry and critical. Where would you like to be? That group of people who are loving positively brings us into an atmosphere of love and joy and inner freedom.
We can invest throughout the day to be in an atmosphere of love and joy and internal freedom. We do this every time we choose to be loving and positive. It is the best emotional and spiritual investment we can make. And life will always be internally better and more peaceful, no matter how other people may be or what circumstances may happen to us. Enjoy emotional and spiritual freedom!
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Fred Cavaiani is a licensed marriage counselor and psychologist with a private practice in Troy. He is the founder of Marriage Growth Center, a consultant for the Detroit Medical Center, and conducts numerous programs for groups throughout Southeast Michigan. His column in the Legal News runs every other Tuesday. He can be reached at 248-362-3340. His e-mail address is: Fredcavi@yahoo.com and his website is fredthecounselor.com.
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