In every challenging moment you are faced with a choice… Do you react with negative emotion or do you react with calm?

Your reactions to these challenging moments will determine whether you feel defeated by the challenge or empowered by it.

Will emotions take over and cause a volcanic eruption? Or will you be calm, cool and collected?

In the explosion of emotion, we tend to take things personally, get angry, withdraw or freeze in confusion. We lose our power, we become childlike and we are definitely not the finest version of who we can be.

So how can you learn to regulate your emotions? How can you learn to press pause and create a space between that which is triggering you and your response? How can you learn to be your full potential and the best version of yourself in those moments of challenge?

Here is one tool which continues to help me stay aligned with my true self.

In the moment of being triggered, I pause, I breathe into my emotions to soothe the wild beast within and I ask myself this simple, yet powerful question:

What would love say right now?

This question acts like a universal lasso, grabbing hold of my ego and helping me decide… how can I chose to respond effectively? By responding effectively I leave myself feeling empowered and proud of myself rather than filled with shame, guilt and disappointment.

 This question, has the power to immediately activate the values and virtues of love.

What does it mean to be the virtues of love?

First let’s look at what it’s not. Love is not selfish, love is not needy, and love is not codependent. Love is not insecurity, love is not anger and love is not judgment. Love is not the needs or demands of the Ego self.

Love, that is, the true essence of love, is compassion, trust, humility, grace, peace, confidence, wisdom and courage. Love is the expression of what is in our heart, it is the language of the soul.

So by asking yourself, what would love say right now, or how would love respond, you activate these inner virtues and express the voice of the soul rather than the needs and demands of the Ego.

By activating the virtue of grace you respond gracefully. By activating the virtue of compassion, you respond compassionately. By activating the virtue of courage you respond courageously.

Picture yourself responding with one of these virtues, rather than from a negative emotion. How does that expression of love make you feel?

Doesn’t grace, compassion or courage have the power to transcend that experience and transform the pain or discomfort into enlightening growth?

Imagine a world when we all stop to ask ourselves this question, imagine a world when we are directing our intentions towards being love? Imagine a world when we are activating the virtues and power of love? Imagine a world choosing the soul over the ego?

Wow, what would love say about that?