If you’re getting stuck in negativity, you’re likely to assume that other people feel the same way about you, and mostly that’s not true. People who really love you keep on loving you, even when you’re not loving yourself. The love you get is limited only by your ability to receive it.

It’s amazingly easy to shut someone else down. Without thinking about it we let pass countless occasions during the day when love makes a tentative appearance – in other words, we turn our backs on spirit.

Your beloved may start to say something nice or give you an affectionate touch or ask how you are feeling. Notice how often this seed isn’t allowed to grow, how quickly you simply cut the gesture off or take it for granted. In this way you limit the love you are receiving, rather than nurturing its faint beginnings.

Being shown a gesture of love is like being offered a portion of God.

Look into the eyes of your beloved and learn to believe that love is really there.

Adapted from The Path to Love, by Deepak Chopra (Three Rivers Press, 1997).