What do you love?

In this episode I chose to explore a very special powerful question - a question that not only will bring deeper awareness to you and others about a very important aspects of our lives but also has the potential to grow and expand it further. I hope you love it! 

Transcript

Hello and welcome to the twentieth episode of the powerful questions Podcast. My name is David Shaked. 

To be honest, I can’t quite believe this podcast series has reached its 20th episode. When I started it, I only had a few powerful questions in mind to share with the world. It seems like my focus on generativity has helped bring forward many more ideas for powerful questions. I hope these questions bring new ideas and fresh energy to you too. 

This episode will focus on a very special powerful question and a topic we rarely talk about with others or in our professional lives. The question is:  “What do you love?”.  

As in previous episodes we will look at the question from lots of different angles and explore the many ways it can be used to bring insights, energy, inspiration and well… Love, of course! 

So, are you ready to talk about LOVE? 

You might think that I just posed this question as a nice opening before I move forward but actually it is important to check – are you truly ready to explore and ask questions about love? Do you feel safe and open enough to reflect on it? Let’s stop for a second before I carry on.  What does the word LOVE bring up for you? Something pleasant? Something desirable? Or does it perhaps bring some discomfort, pain or sadness?

I invite you to check in with yourself before we carry on. Are you ready to go deeper into the topic of love?  It’s a topic that requires psychological safety and willingness to open up about it. I know from my own experience that there have been times in my past I wasn’t ready, willing, or at ease talking about love. What could help you explore this topic more comfortably? 

Checking with you if you are ready to talk about love is my way to help you establish your own psychological safety and a deeper awareness. If you plan to use this question with other people pay attention to how you feel about this topic and be aware that those you might pose this question to will also need to have a sense of safety to explore this topic with you.  If the topic of love raises any sense of unease for you, let’s pause here. Allow yourself to connect with and stay present to whatever comes up for you without judging it. We all have stories, ideas and beliefs about love and/or past experiences around love – some might be positive and some less so. If the topic raises discomfort for you, it will come across to others even if all you do is just pose the question to someone else.

Love may be only a four letters word, but it is a big word! It represents a powerful emotion. Many say it is the most powerful emotion. It is something we can connect with not just emotionally but also mentally and even somatically – we can sense it physically, with our bodies. The only other powerful emotion that can perhaps match it in its intensity may be hate, which is of course the polar opposite of love. Still, we can probably all agree that love has a much stronger generative and positive impact.

Most of us associate love with romance and the relationship we have with a special person in our lives. Others associate it with their kids, parents and other family members. We don’t often think about it in connection with our social or professional lives, but actually, why not? 

The question “What do you love?” can be used in both our personal and professional contexts. It can bring a unique awareness and inspiration.

Let’s start with ourselves first. 

Take a few deep breaths and connect with yourself.  

What do you LOVE IN or ABOUT yourself? Please be very specific… we’re not talking about what do you LIKE about yourself… Liking something in yourself is all well and good, but I invite you to be even more choiceful – what do you LOVE in yourself? Is it something around the way you look? Your talents or abilities? Your life experiences? Your situation or stage in life?  

Paying attention to what you love about yourself is important – and many of us have been taught to be modest about ourselves, which may drive us to neglect what we love about ourselves. 

Many of us tend to be over-critical of ourselves – I certainly used to be – with the ability to precisely name every aspect I do not love in myself.  We need to nourish our sense of self-love rather than ignore or actively diminish it. Being clear about what we love in or about ourselves, helps build our self-trust and confidence. Beyond the impact it can have on our wellbeing, it will also help us connect better with others.

So please take the time you need to reflect about what you love about yourself. Pause here if you need some time. Be generous with yourself first, and take the time to identify what you truly love. Being able to connect with that will strengthen your ability and comfort when using this question with others. 

Try also saying out loud or in your inner voice, what you love about yourself. Notice how it makes you feel or what sensations arise in your body as you answer this powerful question.
 

Now let’s expand the inquiry a little.  What do you love in your surroundings, your context – the place you live in? the area or town you in? the job you have?  

And what about the people around you? 

Your significant other, if you have one? What do you love about them?

What about your family members? What do you love about each of them?

And next, how about your friends? What do you love about them and about the time you get to spend together? When you get the opportunity to connect with them, what do you love in those moments?

And let’s go even wider - your neighbours? The people you socialise or spend time with? What do you love about each of them? What do you love about the activities you do and places you share together?

How do you feel now that we’ve started to surface all this love? What does this awareness bring up for you? 

Now let’s turn to your professional life.  The simplest and most straight forward version of this question for that area of your life is: “What do you love about your work?” 

Take a few minutes to reflect about it and feel free to pause here if you need more time. Let me also be specific here once again – I’d like you to reflect on what you LOVE, not what you LIKE, about your work.  Love is so much more powerful than like and it invites us to be more precise with the answers we give.

So… of all the things you get to do or be at work, what do you truly and deeply love doing or getting involved with?

What else do you love?

What makes it so special for you that you love doing it?

Are there particular moments or points in time you love in the normal cycle of your work and professional assignments? For example, if you are working in sales, is it the moment you close a deal? The moment you get an inquiry about your product or service? The moment you solved an issue that troubled your customers?  What are the professional moments you love experiencing time and time again? What is so special about these moments?

What tasks or projects do you love engaging with? 

And what about your previous roles or professional experiences? What did you love about them?

Now, most people should be able to find something they love about their work, but it is also possible that some of you, or someone you would pose this question to, might struggle to come up with an answer – that’s fine. They might be going through a challenging time at work. There may also be reasons, other than love, for why they are in that work.  Let’s not make it an issue for you or for them or push harder to get an answer. Even the awareness of their struggle to answer the question is in itself generative because it has the potential to drive a positive change.  

At this stage you might wonder why am I focusing so much on love? Especially love in our professional contexts. Isn’t it enough to like what we do? 

I believe that being more aware of what we love is important, even essential. It brings to our awareness what we are passionate about and the specific things that resonate the most for us.  It is also very helpful in navigating along and adjusting certain parts of our professional paths. The things we love about our work give us the energy to keep going and to cope with the less exciting parts.  

And as we surfaced all this lovely love up, why not raise it even further through a few other powerful questions…  In what other ways or in what other parts of yourself or your life would you like to manifest or experience love?  How would you know when that has happened? What will you feel? Sense? Know? Or experience differently? 

Or how can the love you feel about something be deepened or expanded?

I hope you have enjoyed and maybe even loved listening to this episode! Who would you love to have a conversation about love with now?  

As for me, the work on this podcast so far has truly been a work of love. It has evolved and flourished from the humble beginning.  After twenty episodes, it feels like a good moment to take a little break…My intention is to have a creative break, to come up with fresh ideas and new powerful questions in a new season. In the meantime, the podcast will remain live and available. I remain committed to the podcast, to spreading generativity and to all of you, my listeners. Please get in touch if you have feedback to share, a question to ask or have your own powerful questions or suggestions for them.  Until then, I wish you many new insights and fresh energy!