We all have our own ideas about love – what it should look like, how it should feel, who it should be with, and how that person should behave.

The funny thing is that love isn’t something we are supposed to have or get. Love is something that transforms us. Love reveals more love to us. Love shows us the truth of who we are, what we are, what life and God and the universe really is.

Think of love as an infinite natural resource. There isn’t a limited supply. And we all have the capacity to be vessels for love. So to worry whether or not someone has enough love for us is, well, kind of erroneous.

But we think love is limited. At least, many of us act like it is. This has more to do with our expectations than the reality of love itself.

When we stop expecting love to show up how we think it should we take the first major step in opening to the transformation that love brings.

If you want to stop playing small – if you want to find out how delicious and amazing you and others really are – then you have to learn to love outside the box.

Today I will share the #1 secret to doing this: (drumroll please)

Curiosity.

Yep, curiosity. It’s the opposite of knowing. It is the one thing that will open your eyes to discovering what love really is and the antidote to the things inside each of us that make us make love small.

Let’s take a peek at how this can work.

Scenario #1: Without curiosity

He says “You gonna wear that tonight?”

You get defensive – is he trying to say you look fat? That you look stupid? You feel yourself tighten up, all the affection and romance drains out of your body, and you retreat to the bathroom. No sex tonight. You probably wont even kiss, maybe not even hold hands.

Scenario #2: With curiosity

He says “You gonna wear that tonight?”

You become curious and say “I am. Why do you ask?”

He says “Because I don’t know if I can handle being around you in that outfit in public – you look really hot. I might embarrass myself.”

There are countless opportunities every day to be curious rather than small – to love outside the little boxes we try to put on everyone.

Judgment limits the expression and expansion love offers. It makes everything small. It makes life not-juicy. It makes us not-juicy. And it creates a world that is not fun to be in.

Your homework is to cultivate the habit of asking “Why do you ask?” There are a zillion questions that cultivate curiosity but let’s start here. Asking “why do you ask” will allow you to discover the reality that lurks beneath all the stories we all make up every day.

Curiosity allows us to discover the truth of the fact that most people, I mean 90%+, aren’t saying and doing things to antagonize us. Most people, in fact, want to connect. We’re hard-wired for it.

Curiosity allows us to make room for other people – their personalities, styles, approaches, beliefs, tendencies, quirks. It allows us to form real connection and not walk around in the isolated little scenarios in our own heads.

Dare to step outside the box of judgment and discover what’s really going on in the hearts and minds of others. And even if you get a snarky response to the question “Why do you ask?” you can get curious about the snarkiness! Personally, I find that most people are snarky for reasons that have nothing to do with me and when I don’t react to it but, instead, get curious, it often happens that the walls fall away and they tell me about what a hard few days they’ve had or that their mother is really ill or something else that reveals the truth of their humanity.

Cultivate curiosity. At the very least you will discover a much bigger world than the one you’ve been living in. Who knows, things might even get juicy!