I’ve just returned from two weeks in Africa.

While I was there, I discovered a love ritual so powerful that it can actually make relationships more intimate and rewarding. It can make sex hotter and arguments much cooler. The best part of it is that it always works.

There are three surprisingly simple steps in the formula. Try them, and watch your relationships transform before your eyes into what you’ve always wanted.

1. Think less.

While wandering the beaches of Mozambique and the streets of South Africa, I noticed that people aren’t thinking a lot. If they are walking down the street, they are simply walking down the street. In the United States, life isn’t that simple—many people are thinking about being somewhere they aren’t, gnawing their faces off with internal conversations and pictures.

Think when you need to, but not when you don’t. Think when you have some sort of real problem to solve, like a math problem, or figuring out how to earn more money, or putting together your kids new wagon. But don’t think about relationship or satisfaction. There is no positive contribution that thinking more offers to relationships, romance, overall satisfaction, or quality of life.

In fact, the primary purpose of thinking is to create problems and then solve them. Thinking about our relationships makes the road unnecessarily bumpy. Let some air out of your tires (by focusing attention on your exhale) to make the road smoother, just by thinking fewer thoughts and holding each thought more loosely.

Thinking without acting causes stress, and none of us need any more of that.

Think less (here’s how), and you are well on the way to loving more.

2. Feel more.

When you think less, you will have time on your hands. Use that time to feel more. Feel your limbs, your heart, the very nature of the love that you are.

The more you feel, the more real you will become. You won’t stumble over the illusions that thoughts create; instead, you will flow freely through life.

Reach out to your partner—not with words, but with your hand, your hip, or rest your head on their shoulder. Let them support you, literally and physically.

Wandering the streets of Africa, people touch freely. There is no “political correctness.”

I watched two fisherman fight. It was amazing. They hit each other without any intent to hurt. They softly swatted each other, ridding themselves of whatever wasn’t right between them. Compared to the way so many people glare, pierce, and slander each other, their interaction was positively charming. And in the next moment, their deep connection was present again—they were pulling in nets together and acting as one.

The only downside of touching more and feeling more is that it may put a lot of therapists out of business. However, it is worth it, because it will embed a lot of couples more deeply in hot, loving pleasure together.

3. Laugh and smile often.

Levity is all around us, but it often can’t claw its way into our lives, because we are so busy being serious.

Practice smiling, cackling, and giggling. Look up laughing in the thesaurus, and discover that there are nearly as many different words for laughter as there are occasions to use them.

In Africa, people seem to be either smiling or on the brink of smiling, laughing, or just giggling their little hearts out. Walking down the avenue is a great pleasure as bright, white teeth stand out against black faces offering a special kind of gentle path forward.

When two people are laughing, they become one. When two people are genuinely smiling, they are simply that “genuine.”

You will never regret having smiled or laughed too often. Welcoming the next moment with a smile will have you and that moment feeling at home; it fuses the two of you into a lovely dance together befriending time, welcoming change, and enhancing your experience of being a light and lively human sun.

Try it.

Practice these three steps of the secret love ritual, and you will find yourself feeling lighter and happier, boldly living your life just the way you want it. Relax into the transformation. Feel your way into a whole new world of simply being your wonderfully loving self.

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Relephant:

Tears on the Smiling Coast: How my Time in Africa Changed Me.

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Author: Jerry Stocking
Image: Author’s own
Editor: Yoli Ramazzina
Copy editor: Travis May
Social editor: Waylon Lewis