Let Us Make 2025 the Year of Love

This new year is an opportunity to renew and redouble our commitment to love.

Dear Friends,

Happy New Year! And thank you for subscribing to this newsletter!

I am deeply grateful to each and every one of you who signed up.

Your presence here is more meaningful than I can put into words. It is the resonance of hearts that helps me in growing this work and indeed, that is what will carry all of us forward as we work to create a more loving and compassionate world.

Let us make 2025 the Year of Love

As we enter 2025, let us declare this year the Year of Love. This is more than a phrase—it’s an invitation to reflect on what love truly means and to act with intentionality to increase the sum of love in the world.

Love is the answer to many of life’s challenges, from interpersonal conflict to social discord. It is the foundation for health, happiness, and flourishing—for individuals, communities and even nations.

Please remember that love is more than just an emotion. It is a powerful force that can be nurtured and cultivated to build a better tomorrow not only for ourselves but also for our children and grandchildren.

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Metaphors to Consider

There are various metaphors we can use to understand more deeply the importance of love in everyone’s lives, and to also understand how a deficit of love can have a negative impact on people.

Just as there is financial poverty, which compromises people’s health, there can be emotional poverty which keeps people from realizing their fullest potential.

Love is also an essential nutrient for our well-being—analogous to protein for our body.

Love is an important basic element for our survival — similar to oxygen for our brain and other organs.

Love can also function like a vaccine against violence.

Love can boost our psychological immunity, promote our resilience and reduce our risk for depression, especially in difficult circumstances.

The wonderful thing about love is that it is not patented like an expensive medicine, though its effects can be equally profound and life-saving at times.

Love is freely available within everyone’s hearts and we can expand our hearts and help others overcome their emotional poverty or emotional malnutrition.

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What Exactly Does the Year of Love Mean?

Over the course of this year, we will embark upon a journey into uncharted waters, as we work individually and collectively to increase love and love-informed actions in our daily lives.

To that end, here are some reflections to start the new year with:

• How can love help you overcome personal challenges?

• How can love shape policies, media, and education?

• How can love improve the quality of healthcare delivery?

• How can you create a ripple effect, where love-inspired actions lead others to do the same?

• What are simple actions that don’t take much effort on your part, that yet you can easily do to show someone that you care about them?

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Thank You for Being a Part of This Movement: from Local to Global

Whether it’s a small act of kindness, or advocating for improving conditions for people within your community, every action matters.

Together, each of us can amplify the positive impact of love, and through that, contribute to the betterment of conditions locally, and globally.

When you signed up for this newsletter, you took a step toward building a better future. I look forward to sharing further what we can all do in the coming weeks and months. And of course, I welcome your thoughts on this - which we can share and amplify as we work toward this collective goal.

Here’s to your dreams of building the world you wish for, for yourself, your children and your grandchildren! Together we can do this, starting with 2025 as the Year of Love.

With heartfelt gratitude for your presence,
SD Shanti

P.S. If you have not already signed up for the sister site Brush Your Mind, I invite you to please have a look at this post which explains the interconnectedness between self-regulation and love and how each supports the other. In a nutshell, it works like this: the more we have love in the world, the more we advance emotional health; and when people are in a state of optimal emotional health, their ability to be loving and caring toward others is also increased.

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Photo by Mayur Gala on Unsplash

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