What Can We Substitute for Love?

Think that's a strange concept? Think you're exempt? Have you ever heard of "Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also?" Your treasure is what you concentrate most of your daily thoughts on. Are you engrossed in repeated, driving thoughts of any of the following: making money, being successful and popular, food, pornography, drugs or alcohol, gambling, over-spending, having things? You are not alone. Most all of us struggle with one or more of the above on a regular basis. Millions are looking, every day, for the answers to fill the void of their heart. And most often they try one thing and then the next, always substituting and re-filling, but waking up the following morning and still, that horrible unexplained void that nothing seems to satisfy.

I love the internet. What a vast place to visit in order to find information on just about anything typed into the address bar. People searching for every kind of knowledge to fill their minds through e-books, ezines, tele-classes, cd's, dvd's, movie presentations, books and more books. Who has the time to buy and read all this data and info anyway? And, quite honestly, how many books on the same topic, with very little angle shift do we really need? Are the true answers to a satisfying life so easy to find?

How many "How To....." books and reports do we read and apply the suggested principles or follow the list and still not see real change in our lives in the areas we so desire? Are we missing some great scientific secret that has yet to reach our minds and souls? Or is the answer in front of us all along and we simply need to recognize it for what it is?

One of the greatest uses of the internet, if not THE main use is to establish a business to make money. People have bills and there are many wonderful ways to create finances in order to make a living. People looking for a business that 'runs without us', or one that's on 'auto-pilot.' We use virtual assisted, auto-contracted, tele-classes, voice-mail (leave a message and I'll email the answer.) The less contact the better, right?

Let me ask you a question. Money aside, or let's say you have all the money you want or need. What is it, that people strive for most and even spend most all their money to get? Isn't it the following; love, joy, peace and respect? Oh, and free time to spend. Can money really buy these things? Well, enough money does buy free time. But, how is the time spent? Don't people fill their time with ways to find love, joy and peace? An example would be a possible vacation.

When you do finally take that much needed vacation and your spouse feels like a stranger, your son would rather stay home with his peers and your daughter's too pre-occupied with her own life to care, can you give them money to care? Can you truly buy love? How about real joy and true peace, can they be purchased? Where? And then there's respect. What good is all the money in the world if the people around you don't treat you with respect?

Can you tell the difference between respect that's paid for and respect that's genuine from the heart? Al Capone had people around him who did exactly what he told them to. So did Saddam Hussein. Did that mean those people were obedient out of true love and respect? No. They obeyed out of fear and money. Isn't true respect earned by freely giving love, joy and peace and respect out to others? How can someone give out something they don't have? If you're not feeling loved, then what you give off or out to others, is it love? Or are we giving out by rote or habit?

So many try so hard to find the right partner, caring relationship, joining teams, groups with a promise that this is the one who truly cares and will help you to get where you desire to go, or direct you in that place where fulfillment is certain. And once again, you find they had some hidden agenda, surprise trick up their sleeve that only meant you were used once again for their profit. How can we discern these things ahead of time so we don't fall prey to every deceiver around?

Do you find it easy to laugh, when parts of your heart are breaking? Do you find it easy to respect others, when a simple courtesy is difficult to find? Where's the peace in your day when important parts of your life seem to be falling apart and your efforts to rectify it appear to fall on deaf ears?

We've become a society that structures our lives to run on as much auto-pilot as possible. This in itself keeps us at a distance from people. Interaction becomes more difficult as we find new ways to not touch one another's lives.

We all want to be successful and feel respect from others, but to what expense? Our work or other time fillers, can easily become a synthetic substitute for personal relationship. I believe that one-on-one life coaching is one avenue available to us that is really from the heart and quite personal. It's a place where value is created and/or discovered. It's a place where the personal touch can be restored through an exchange of ideas, thoughts and plans. A place where quality of life is appreciated.

Sure, we all want to expand but there is no escaping the essence and the deep-seated importance of a one-on-one relationship where we're certain we are understood in the areas that matter most to us. Coaching can be that relationship. The right coach becomes a partner that can change a person's life and make a difference.

I don't believe there's one human walking that couldn't use restoration in at least one area of their lives. What's it worth to us to connect with a life coach who can show us ways to see and appreciate one another once again. What would it be worth to you to experience the laughter and joy that once brought you together with those you miss the most? No matter what chains you, through your own thought process, these can be broken. Freedom is possible. The right Life Coach can be the answer to put back the basic, vital human touch that God meant for you to retain.

What can we substitute for love? Well, many try substituting many things, but what's the point, we only go in circles. God made us to need one another. When we replace things where people should be, we create our own void and literally shut out the fruit of the Spirit, which is love, joy and peace and real freedom. And respect becomes only an act of one's behavior rather than true admiration.

Friend, ask yourself today if you're worth the time and effort as well as the cost to have a life that's restored. A life where the essential ingredients of love, joy, peace and yes, respect are the elements in your life operating on 'auto-pilot', because you've learned ways to capture these precious fruits, once again, and freely give them out to others. I believe you'll find that answer is absolutely! A life coach can help you get from where you are to where you'd like to be. Trust God and make that move today. I believe you're worth it!

© Susan David Susan David Life Coach