H is for Heart

H is for Heart...of course! Was there every any doubt? ;) There are many senses of the word "heart." When it comes to loving from the inside out, it naturally is about what's at the core of a person--their intellect, their emotions, their personality--their essential character...and relating to them on that basis. It does others' hearts good when you treat them that way, and, I can tell you from experience, it can do your heart good too. (More on that in a future post. Update: Here is that post.)

source: istockphoto.com

But I want to talk too about the literal sense of "heart"--the one beating inside your chest. It was a heart attack that killed Ron (see "About This Blog," left). Now, the autopsy said that was caused by his obesity, and of course, I have a hard time disputing that. In any case, Ron did not get the kind of medical help that he needed. He was trying to lose weight (for my sake), but, tragically, it was too little, too late.

So, I beg of you: Please, take care of yourself. If not for your own sake, then at least for the sake of those who love you. Granted, doing so won't guarantee you long life or even continued life at all. We could all go at any second. But if you do take care of yourself, then at least those who love you won't have that as one more reason to be angry with you when you're gone.

G is for Growth

image credit: Dani Simmonds

When we love others from the inside out, we grow as human beings; we become deeper people. It's one way we can focus on what's most important in life. We can succumb to the more shallow instincts of our nature and to the prevailing influences of our culture, or we can choose to view others as full, nuanced people and treat them with the respect they inherently deserve; it's up to us. Is it always easy? Certainly not. But we can reap many rewards when we do, and personal growth is certainly one of them.

F is for Focus

Sometimes it takes focus to love people from the inside out. Sometimes it takes focus to remember to treat even some strangers we encounter with respect regardless of how they present themselves. For example, at the grocery store recently, as I was looking for a checkout lane, I saw one with only one customer in it. But I almost didn't go into that lane, because that one customer was a man who, frankly, looked disgusting. His hair was very greasy and stringy. His teeth were very yellow. He seemed to be a little slow. I was about to turn away in disgust, when the thought popped into my head, "This is a person God loves; maybe I can at least find a way to be civil?" I don't often think that way, but the thought came, I acted on it, and I'm glad I did. The man didn't speak to me or anything; I don't think he even looked at me. I'm just glad I remembered and acted on the notion that just because a person doesn't "present" well does not mean that I shouldn't even be around them.

When it comes to people we know, we might have to really work to remember the good things about some of them--or even to find the good things in the first place. I mean, we all know people who just rub us the wrong way, who really get on our nerves. The better part of valor is to look for the good in them, because no one is just "one thing." Everyone has traits that are more positive and some that are less so. But do we focus only on the negative ones and not give the person a chance to prove that they are more than just that one thing that annoys us? By the way, I'm totally "preaching to myself" here. This is not something I'm particularly good at. I tend toward black-and-white thinking. I need to find ways to look for the good in others--even when it's hard to find.

How have you focused on the good, and how has it changed your life?

E is for Equality

Equality is one of the foundations of American society. It's in the one of the most well-known parts of our Declaration of Independence: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." Of course, the founding fathers were focused on the political aspects of liberty when they wrote that, but think about this: can people really experience liberty fully or pursue happiness fully when they aren't being treated as equal in other areas? When strangers, peers, even so-called friends are treating them as "less than" because of some external characteristic—or for any reason really? If we truly believe all people are equal, it has to extend to all aspects of how we treat others...or we're just not being honest.