love exercises

[teriyaki]

Hi all, wondering if anyone knows. There are energetic exercises you can do for energy work. Are there love exercises you can do to get the love chemicals going?
Apart from making love :P as I'm thinking for more of an application in a public one to one or group setting.
Some things I was thinking of are hugging, eye gazing and meditation.
Let me know your thoughts.
Cheers!
John

[susan]

Hi Teriyaki, how about using your senses and thinking of something each time you realy love.

Smell....
Is there a smell you adore? A flower, fragrance, damp earth,just sitting down with this and smelling thinking how beautiful this smells and how it makes you feel.

Sight...
Is there a sight you love to look at? It could be the beauty of a particular flower, a painting, a scene outside, the sea, just something you would look at and think ' I love this ' think how it makes you feel.

Taste....
Is there a taste you love? Try it and savour this, take your time with it . How do you feel.?

Sound...
Is there a sound you love to listen to? This could be classical music, heavy rock if that's what you love,someone singing love songs. ( for me I sometimes listen to the ocean waves and all the soft noises included in meditation CDs but recently since buying Elvis Presley's CD ' If I could dream' I just love his warmth in his voice that this stirs more in me than most other sounds.

Find a hobby you love doing. Analyse at the end how much you've loved doing this.How did it make you feel?

You see the problem I have with the thought of groups of people hugging each other is do you know them? Is everyone there just acting out the exercise hoping to feel something from a complete stranger ?
Looking into someone's eyes, are you performing the exercise looking into a strangers eyes hoping to feel something?
Now I'm going to contradict myself here because I have felt this looking into the eyes of my poor lost elderly ladies living with dementia. However this came about because I loved being with them . If I had just walked up to them not knowing them and looked into their eyes I wouldn't have felt what I felt.

One summers day I had spent all day in the garden attending to what needed doing. I was so happy doing this that as I left to come in I stood at the door just looking at the colours and flowers and was so happy with the end result I was just thinking that there was nothing else I could do to make it more perfect and I seemed to loose myself for a few seconds. I can't describe what happened because I don't know but it was as if I had absorbed all of this and lost myself in a kind of semi trance.

So the best advice I could give is to ' Pleasure Your Senses'.

[teriyaki]

Hi Susan, thanks for the response.
I find it difficult to discriminate things I love. Maybe it's a delusion of mine, I want to love everything and believe the nature of everything is love.
Maybe me wanting to do this is my way of finding a definitive answer as to whether this is the way to approach love, through will of loving.

I can't say I specifically love anything, maybe it's how my hormones are idk?. But I do believe that by performing exercises with the purpose of facilitating higher intention I can create change within myself and others. Whether this is true or not remains to be seen.

I feel like I can love any stranger because I have had access to that part of myself where I can relate to the higher and lower aspects of the human condition simultaneously.

It's funny though of the senses you mentioned, you did not mention touch? touch is the most important to me. I think exercises including spoken word, eye gazing and touch can most definitely create love and if people come together for that purpose I see nothing in the way of stopping them. Unless you know something I don't :)

[susan]

Well spotted John. My wake up coffee had not done its job, yes I forgot touch.
You want to love everything you say. Yes that is I believe our ultimate goal for the entire world. All religious books and teachings want us to love. Easy to say the words but doing is a challenge for many. I still discriminate between beauty and ugliness and that is SO SO wrong of me. When I see a beautiful dog I could cuddle it to death and make such a fuss of it but if I see a small yappy dog I don't feel the same so I know even by that small test I am no where near to loving everything and everyone although I do try. Now compassion is a different thing. I am working on that .
You do whatever works for you. I'm just replying with what works for me.
I'm sure you'll have plenty of tips from others.

[teriyaki]

hi susan, I'm getting your point of view.
Eye gazing for example would seem quite dry as what is being looked at, there's nothing really for the mind to attach to.
The idea is that the higher senses get activated so that through just holding another person in that space of awareness, giving them attention for a little while can make them feel safe and loved. and hardly anyone does it, so its kind of refreshing to hold the gaze of another even for 5 minutes. if anything its like a meditation. of course it could be that nothing happens at all. ive only tried it once really lol

In terms of compassion i think service is the best activity, like you i am working on that also

[triciamint]

Try Ecstatic Intimacy. You can do it as a couple. Those who are single can do a different type of activity. :)

[olyris]

appreciate beauty.

if you are ever without love it is because you are not in touch what is... beauty is that thought.

[CFTraveler]

Casting love seems to be a practice, I believe BW has a thread about it somewhere. Also, there is a book by Jurgen Ziewe called 'The Ten Minute Moment' that is quite on point with this, in terms of meditation. It's a fun read.