Practicing The Art Of Loving - by Jonathan Lehmann

COURSE

Practicing The Art Of Loving

With Jonathan Lehmann

What is the purpose of life? Why are we here? I believe that we are here to learn how to love - to love ourselves, other beings, and our planet. We're here to explore to understand and overcome the roots of things that hinder our ability to love - our fears, judgments, anxieties, jealousy, and sense of separateness; everything that gives us a sense of disconnection from life. The purpose of this course is to delve deeper into the art of loving using breathing exercises, visualizations, and affirmations to embed these learnings into your subconscious. This course was inspired by a short yet powerful book "The Art Of Loving" published by the German author, Erich Fromm, in 1956. Drawing from this text, it becomes clear that loving is an art, a skill that needs to be perfected over time, and over the next 10 days we will learn how to embark on this process to live and love more fully.

LoveRelationshipsAcceptanceHealth & HappinessConsciousnessSpiritualityMindfulnessMindfulness MeditationClarityPerformanceIntuitionSpiritualVisualizationFocusBody ScanConcentration

Meet your Teacher

Jonathan Lehmann
Lisbonne, Portugal

I used to be an unhappy Wall Street lawyer. Now I devote myself to the study of happiness as a blogger, writer, and meditation coach. My intent is to share the teachings that have made a profound impact on my path, specifically on my ability to feel joy, find purpose, and connect to the present moment. I am particularly interested in the ways in which the compulsive and negative human mind can be transformed into a magical tool that can channel gratitude, compassion, and creativity.

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10 Days

11.6k students

4.9 stars

16 min / day

Love

English

Lesson 1

Loving Ourselves

Self-love is the foundation of the art of loving. Our ability to give love to others is directly related to our ability to love ourselves. Other people act as mirrors to our own strengths and flaws. When we judge other people, it is actually a sign that there is a part of ourselves that we cannot accept because what we see in other people is always related to something that is a part of who are. To love ourselves, we must learn to be truly honest to ourselves, to accept those things that may not be the most attractive parts of our character. Loving ourselves is a two-step process: fully accepting who we are and understanding of the darkness within ourselves; and secondly, the practice of giving love to ourselves on a daily basis.

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Lesson 2

Loving Our Bodies

Erich Fromm states that we cannot love something that we do not know well. To love our bodies - the one and only vehicle given to us to go through life - is another fundamental aspect of the art of loving. And to properly love our bodies, we first have to get to know it better. We have to be more and more attuned to what it needs and the messages it sends us. Through the technique of the body scan, we can dive deeper into the myriad sensations our bodies are constantly experiencing. The more we practice observing the sensations in our bodies without reacting compulsively but rather noticing them with equanimity, the better equipped we become in reining in the thoughts and emotions that tend to limit our ability to give and receive love.

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Lesson 3

The Art Of Listening

In this session, we expand our practice of the art of loving by turning it outward by learning to listen to others. Erich Fromm said that to love something, we must know it. And to know it, we must learn to listen to it to the best of our abilities. More often than not, we are focused on what we want to tell other people, on selling the stories of our lives that we forget the art of listening. To properly listen to someone, we must give utmost focus and precedence on what they're saying, not just for the sake of adding our clever response or idea. Practicing our ability to listen is crucial to making progress in our practice of the art of loving.

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Lesson 4

Loving The Shadow

One of the most difficult aspects of the art of loving is learning to love aspects of our personalities that are not so beautiful. These aspects, which include selfishness, anger, jealousy, narcissism, and fear, are what we refer to as the shadow or lower self. These are the things that we all attempt to conceal behind our masks. In our practice today, we learn to accept that we all have a shadow. There is no such things as selfish and kind people, smart or dumb people, or kind or mean people. Everyone's capability to give love is contextual. We are all capable of good and not-so-good deeds. Acknowledging our dark side is key. Denying it can mean unconsciously acting out our dark sides and hurting others. Meeting ourselves with compassion and understanding when it arises, increase our ability to respond to these darker aspects of ourselves consciously and wisely.

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Lesson 5

Dealing With Other People's Negativity

It's easy to be a loving person to the people who are nice to us. However, the real test of our ability to practice love is when we're confronted with someone who is negative, maybe even someone who is attacking us. If we withhold love during those instances, then we're not truly practicing the art of loving. Why? To love is to understand that other people's negativity always arises from some sort of suffering. It has nothing to do with us, and that we're free to choose not to take it personally. To love is also to want to alleviate suffering whenever we see it. Loving our enemies is where we can truly progress in the art of loving. Going from judgment to compassion is not only good for our hearts but also terrific for our brains. Neurological studies suggest that nothing is as good for our brains as connecting to the frequency of love and wishing for the suffering of other people to end.

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Lesson 6

Grudges

To become the Picasso of the art of loving, we must truly learn to love those who do not love us. That includes those who trigger some aspects of our shadow self. True love is unconditional. Mastering the art of true love is akin to how a tree gives its fruits, without regard as to the identity of its recipient. To perfect the art of loving, there's no better exercise than to send love to the people who may have wronged us or whom we may not like.

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Lesson 7

Gratitude For Our Loved Ones

Our greatest tendency is to give more weight to negative information such as threats than to positive ones. This has the effect of taking for granted important things in our lives such as people close to us. Sometimes, we get stuck in unfulfilling patterns with our loved ones, and it's easy to lose sight of the fact that they won't always be with us. Today's meditation is about celebrating and actively nurturing our relationships with our loved ones.

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Lesson 8

One Human Family

According to Erich Fromm, the fundamental problem of human existence is the feeling of separateness we feel from others and the rest of the world. Although there are temporary ways of numbing this feeling of separateness, such as addiction, the only real and sustainable way of addressing this problem is simply to love. Contrary to the notion of love propagated by society as an emotion we can receive from a specific person, love here is to mean an attitude, an orientation of character towards acknowledging the relatedness of a person to the whole through our work and our relationships with others. In this meditation, we move from extending love to our small circles of friends and relatives to seeing the whole of humanity as one big family.

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Lesson 9

Loving Nature

To truly become the master of the art of loving, we need to connect not just with other humans but to the whole of creation. Distinctions and separations we make as human beings between ourselves and nature are arbitrary and conceptual. We are all living organisms and fundamentally inseparable from our living environments. We're as much a part of nature as nature is part of us. When we remember that we are not an isolated entity far removed from the external world, we can understand intuitively how we treat our environment with kindness is reflected back at us in the form of wellbeing.

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Lesson 10

The Art Of Loving: Course Recap

The essence of the art of loving, according to Erich Fromm, is to change our view of love from the common understanding of receiving it as an object from someone to viewing it as an art, as a lifelong practice of furthering the growth and wellbeing of all the relationships in our life in an ever-expanding circle of love. It's about loving ourselves, our loved ones, strangers, and enemies, and ultimately, loving the whole of nature and humanity around us. This is a truly great idea but it remains a theory until we put it into practice. Fromm reminds us of three fundamental qualities that any artist has to develop within themselves to become a master of the art of loving: discipline, concentration, and patience. The art of loving is only mastered by practicing on a daily basis, cultivating each quality along the way.

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Ask your teacher

This course includes 189 community questions and 9 audio replies from Jonathan Lehmann. The community classroom and teacher audio replies are only available via the app.

189

4.9 (953)

Recent Reviews

Shari

Shari

February 14, 2026

The balm the world needs right now. You’ve inspired me and given me direction for my continued personal growth. Thank you, Jonathan

Nicole

Nicole

January 2, 2026

Great course. I liked the pace and affirmations.

Mitzi

September 15, 2025

Jonathan is so very talented in presenting concepts ! His style is calming and effective in reaching others’ hearts

Maureen

June 5, 2025

Jonathan is a wise, gentle and also powerful guide in his Art of Loving Meditation Course. He has a soothing voice and calm demeanor that come through in each lesson, and tha pacing is soothing. Each lesson provides pearls to assimilate into our lives and “being”. Very thankful!

Alex

June 4, 2025

Yet another wonderful course! Thank you so much for teaching and guiding us!

Natya

June 2, 2025

Beautiful course, resonated with me profoundly. 🙏❤️

Beth

Beth

March 14, 2025

Really beautiful and thought provoking course. I will return to this. 🙏😊 🌟

Julia

Julia

January 17, 2025

Excellent course

Philip

December 17, 2024

Wonderful course. Exactly what I needed especially before the holidays! Thank you! I look forward to more meditation sessions with you! Very calming voice and pace.

Dennis

December 2, 2024

Good course until it came to Day 6. To make a point, he had to bring politics into a serene setting of a meditation. He couldn’t leave his personal life off of Insight Timer, bringing Donald Trump up for a cheap shot. Let’s keep politics out of Insight Timer, please.

leslie

leslie

November 14, 2024

Thank you

Ria

October 21, 2024

Thank you for a beautiful course on the art of loving. Everything in this course rang true for me and I will go forward by letting go of resentments, more compassion for suffering, including my own, and giving love as far and wide as possible. I love the quote from Nelson Mandela "Resentment is like drinking poison and then hoping it will kill your enemies"

Peggy

Peggy

July 23, 2024

I really appreciate the quality and cadence of Jonathan’s voice in addition to the content of his teachings.

David

David

July 4, 2024

I absolutely loved this work. I’m fortunate to to be able to practice these techniques when many around me are suffering. It allows perspective and motivation to tenderly show compassion without judgement. Some days are better than others. Peace to all.

Elizabeth

June 9, 2024

Thank you, Jonathan, for an illuminating, well paced and thoughtful course. I looked forward to sitting and hearing your comforting voice every day. Your courses are such a gift. Thank you.

Ani

Ani

May 22, 2024

Loved every day

Claire

Claire

May 14, 2024

Many thanks Jonathan for this wonderful course. Much to reflect on and much to practice. A work in progress, but one that I'm enjoying. Wishing you love in your life. Blessings to you.

Karen

April 15, 2024

Substantial, helpful course. I looked forward to its fresh, well articulated topics everyday, and will refer back to these powerful meditations. Thank you.

Phyllis

April 14, 2024

Thank you

yvonne

April 12, 2024

Loved this course! I use some of the practical techniques for daily life. Total value add.

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