When to move on from Step 1 to Step 2
Step 1 -- expanding in love -- produces changes you will readily feel. You have fulfilled Step 1, and it's time to move on to Step 2, when you feel:
upliftment -- fullness -- spaciousness -- concentration
The simple act of loving produces UPLIFTMENT -- a sense of elevated consciousness. You will feel lighter and higher than when you sat down. (In essence, this feeling of upliftment is a sign that loving has shifted your self-identification away from normal bodily, egoic consciousness, toward your spirit reality.)
Simply loving in Step 1 also produces a feeling of FULLNESS -- a pleasurable sensation of higher energy filling your body. You may feel it as warmth, a pleasant outward pressure, and/or increased aliveness.
Another result is a feeling of SPACIOUSNESS -- a feeling of being BIGGER, and being aware of a larger space. The experience of spaciousness feels like standing on a mountain, beholding a great, expansive view.
The fourth "indicator" of fulfilling Step 1 is CONCENTRATION. By loving so deliberately in this step, you collect or gather up your mind. As a result, you will enjoy a sense of enhanced alertness, clarity, and focus. It will become noticeably easier to concentrate on loving, or on the object of your love, than when you started. (That change is a sign that love is weaning you of the ordinary habit of being inward, mental, and unconscious. When you first begin to open into love, your attention is divided between inward self-focus and outward love-focus. But as you expand with love, love distracts you from your own ego-self concerns, lower mind, and bodily awareness.)
Summary: When the four results described above have been achieved, AND they are reasonably stable, it's time to move on to Step 2.
Note: There is no rush to go beyond Step 1, and no need to change what you are doing until it is natural and appropriate to do so.
We recommend that you don't even read the instructions for the later steps until you are comfortable with the practice of Step 1.