Today is Valentine’s Day and the subject of love ties into this day. We fall in love. We grow into love. We experience love at first sight. We love our material objects. But the greatest love of all, is the simplest form of love: being love.
Being love is to feel that flutter in our heart not only when our loved one walks into the room, but also as we look out at the morning sunshine. Being love is that appreciation of driving in rush hour traffic, knowing it means we have an hour to sing to the radio or to transition from work to home life. Being love is that feeling of going to bed knowing everyone we love is right where they need to be, safe and sound for another day.
So what is “being love?” It is living in the present moment and treating each moment as a gift or a miracle.
In yoga, we practice being in the moment. We transition to our mats and release our busy thoughts. We take our attention to our breath, and follow the breath into the lungs, progressing the breath up through the lungs with our inhale and down through the lungs in our exhale. As we lift the breath to the top of the lungs, we feel our hearts open. As our hearts open, we may feel an awakening, an opening, within the heart. That is the opening for us to bring love into the heart. That is our moment to feel love in the present moment.
Our goal is to remind ourselves each time we inhale to be present in love. Both on and off the mat. Like Pavlov, we condition our brain to breathe in love, to “be love” on the inhale. The exhale becomes the release of what we do not need. We release it to the world for healing and nurturing.
Today we are reminded of being love. Tomorrow, we continue to be love. Valentine’s Day can be every day of the year.