Passion Test-Should You Give Or Trade Love?
By Hadley Finch. Posted on .
Earlier in our series, you discovered how to transcend divorce baggage that blocks love, take 3 steps to a passionate life, fall in love and sustain passion with your partner. Now, find out how giving or trading love affects a relationship in Part 4 highlights of my conversation for A Lasting Love with Janet Bray Attwood.
Janet is co-author of NY Times bestselling book, The Passion Test-Discovering Your Effortless Path To Your Destiny. She’s helped millions find the best path to the life you love.
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Hadley: You’ve said that the first step to falling in love is to ask yourself, “What is it that I care about? What is it that lights my fire?” How does finding the top five passions you love and taking action on them affect your fulfillment in a relationship?
Janet: In terms of a relationship, the world is as you are. When you’re coming from a happy, loving place, the relationship reflects that.
Every time you say YES to your passions that you truly love, you grow naturally in space of self love. By saying YES to what you’re most passionate about and allowing yourself to live your passions full out, what can be more fulfilling in life?
As you grow in fulfillment, you start to overflow, and you want to give. In giving you become sincerely happy, because it’s a natural progression from being full. From abundance comes abundance and abundance remains.
You can only give from what you have. When you’re full, you’re overflowing so you reach out to give to others. All masters say that giving is a secret of being happy.
Giving from place of centeredness. The teacher who’s living the teaching must be able to give to yourself first, and then to others.
Hadley: If you give and expect something in return from the same source, that’s trading, not giving. It’s important to give as a gift, not a trade.
Janet: That’s the only way to give. Know that for you to be a true giver, who’s coming from a full heart, you give to yourself the things that have greatest meaning to you. When you do that everyone wins.
When you say YES to others and NO to yourself, everyone loses. When you say YES but you mean NO, how does it feel?. When you say NO from a place of love, how do you feel?
Hadley: People may be surprised to know you’d suffered from low self esteem earlier in your life. Tell us the game you played to kick up confidence.
Janet: It’s the appreciation game. Every day you spend time appreciating each other or yourself. The game it goes like this.
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You say this to someone you care about, “What I appreciate about you is...” To get below the surface, you also say, “And I appreciate that about you because...”
You share with the other person or do this with yourself.
This helps you put your attention on things that you do right, instead of wrong. What you appreciate appreciates. That which you place your attention grows stronger in your life. I expanded the game to do it with Chris Attwood and with my friend, Marci Shimoff.
