Many
people believe love is a sensation that magically generates when Mr. or
Ms. Right appears. No wonder so many people are single. An excerpt from
"Head to Heart."
Love is the attachment that results from deeply appreciating another's goodness.
The
word "goodness" may surprise you. After all, most love stories don't
feature a couple enraptured with each other's ethics. ("I'm captivated
by your values!" he told her passionately. "And I've never met a man
with such morals!" she cooed.) But in her study of real-life successful
marriages ("The Good Marriage: How and Why Love Lasts"), Judith
Wallerstein reports that "the value these couples placed on the
partner's moral qualities was an unexpected finding."
To the
Jewish mind, it isn't unexpected at all. What we value most in
ourselves, we value most in others. God created us to see ourselves as
good (hence our need to either rationalize or regret our wrongdoings).
So, too, we seek goodness in others. Nice looks, an engaging
personality, intelligence, and talent (all of which count for
something) may attract you, but goodness is what moves you to love.
How do you define love?
Some say it's mysterious, magical,
complex, difficult, imaginary, thought-provoking, inspirational,
intuitional, joyous, immeasurable, ecstasy, and undefinable. Perhaps.
In
one of Dr. John Gray's audio cassettes he defines love as follows:
"Love is a feeling directed at someone which acknowledges their
goodness."
On the same cassette, he refers to the definition by M. Scott Peck: "The willful intent to serve the well being of another."
Love
is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is
not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily
angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil
but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always
hopes, always perseveres. - 1 Corinthians 13:5-7
My favorite is
by Paramahansa Yogananda: "To describe love is very difficult, for the
same reason that words cannot fully describe the flavor of an orange.
You have to taste the fruit to know its flavor. So with love."
Love
itself is a universal experience. Yet, every individual occurrence -
while perhaps bound by a common thread - seems absolutely unique. Love
is what love is! To everyone it expresses itself differently.
Love is the answer to "all" questions!
It is important to stand in Love, not fall into it.
Love is waking up to find the object of your affection in the dream you were having asleep on your shoulder.
Could it be that Love is a story that can never be fully expressed?
Love
is a bond or connection between two people that results in trust,
intimacy, and an interdependence that enhances both partners.
Love
is the ability and willingness to allow those you care for to be what
they choose for themselves, without any insistence that they satisfy
you. - Leo Buscaglia
Making Love is the highest level and the
most loving way we can physically express or demonstrate our Love for
our love partner. Everyone knows that the sexual experience can be the
single most loving, most exciting, most powerful, most exhilarating,
most renewing, most energizing, most affirming, most intimate, most
uniting, most stress-relieving, most recreative physical experience of
which humans are capable.
When you tell someone something bad
about yourself and you're scared they won't Love you anymore. But then
you get surprised because not only do they still Love you, they Love
you even more.
WHAT IS LOVE ?
The question ‘What is Love ?’ is one that will arise for most intelligent
people at some point in their lives. Understanding love is not something
that comes easily for everyone. How to create love, understanding why
love fades, getting your head around the sex and love connection –
these are questions we all struggle with at certain times.
There are two things we can say for sure:-
* Love arises in the heart
* The heart is a very different organ from the brain
Hence, to our rational and educated minds, love will always be something mysterious.
Understanding love will elude our rational analysis.
This makes love something very difficult for us to get a handle on and control.
‘What Is Love ? – the spiritual purpose of relationships’,
‘What is Love ?’ appeals to our emotional intelligence as well as our rational intelligence.
By using our emotional intelligence, we get many new insights into how the heart really
functions. These insights bring us to an understanding of love and the mysteries of the heart.
Through ‘What is Love ?’ you will learn:-
* How to create loving relationships
* How to overcome difficulties in your relationship
* How you can best help your partner
* How to create a blissful sexuality
* The spiritual purpose of relationships
* A greater awareness and understanding of love in your daily life
There is another reason why understanding love presents such difficulties
for many people. Strange as this may sound, there is a part of us
that does not want to know about love. Our rational mind wants to be in
control. It cannot admit that there are things – such as love –
that it does not understand. Our rational mind, which includes our ego,
is very useful in practical things, but not in emotional matters.
Unfortunately, it also includes our vanity, and the belief that we already know everything.
Our rational mind can cause us to become arrogant and isolated and lonely.
It can cut us off from love, and cause us to feel threatened when love tries to enter our lives.
The Spiritual Purpose of Relationships
It is often a part of our soul’s purpose to isolate ourselves – to turn our backs on love.
We do this in order to experience the pain and isolation of being without love.
Why? Because this is often the only way we can learn important life lessons.
It is only by experiencing the absence of something that we learn to
fully appreciate how important it is to us.
Experiencing the pain and loneliness of being separate from others is
what will motivate us to take up the challenge of creating a loving relationship.
Once we decide to take up this challenge, we will find that – at first – love
does not come so easily. There are blind spots and obstacles in ourselves
that we need to overcome.
This is the spiritual purpose of relationships – the willingness to take up the
challenge of learning how to love, to face and overcome the obstacles in
ourselves, and to reach out to another person with honesty and sincerity and
say ‘You are important to me, I value you, you bring great joy and blessings to my life’.
Basic Components of Love
What do you feel when
you love someone? If distilled down to it’s core components, what would
those be? Yes, love is an emotion, a feeling, a wanting, and a “being”.
We know it feels good, but what specific feelings, wantings, and beings
are present when we feel love? Here are the common denominators of
love...
*Love is Accepting.
Acceptance is labeling
someone as "okay" and having no particular desire to change them. Who
they are is perfectly fine with you. You pose no condition on whether
you will love them or not. This is call unconditional love. When your
love IS conditional, the moment they step outside your set of
conditions, love evaporates.
*Love is Appreciating.
Appreciation is one step beyond acceptance. Its when your focus is on
what you like about another. We look at them and feel this sweeping
appreciation for who they are, their joy, their insights, their humor,
their companionship, etc. When someone says they are "in love" with
another, they mean their appreciation is so enormous for this person
that it consumes their every thought.
*Love is Wanting Another to Feel Good.
We want those we love to be happy, safe, healthy, and fulfilled. We
want them to feel good in all ways, physically, mentally and
emotionally.
How Do We Express Love?
We don’t always express our love. Love is a
feeling and the expression of that feeling is separate. It’s an action.
There’s a practical reason we don’t always express our love for
another. It’s an issue of TIME. We only have 24 hours in a day (if you
make it up that way). If the expression of love was a core ingredient
to love, we would have to be stingy with who we loved, because there
simply wouldn’t be enough time to demonstrate our love for everyone! If
you see the distinction between the feeling and the expression, you can
then love endless numbers of people.
Attention
Love expressed
is when you give your attention, your time, your focus to someone.
Webster defines attention as “the giving of one’s mind to something."
There
are many ways in which we give our attention to another. We use our
five senses. Our ears to listen. Being completely present with the one
who is speaking. Our eyes, watching another, undivided attention.
Tasting/smelling? (I’ll let you figure that one out). Touching, giving
a hug, holding a hand, a caress, or sexual expression. How you express
your love depends on the type of relationship.
Is Love Painful?
“The pain associated with relationships has more to do with fear, than love.”
Who
hasn't experienced the pain of love? Or is it the pain of rejection?
The pain of self doubt? The pain of fear? It's important to distinguish
between love and totally separate feelings.
When it comes to
pain surrounding love, we're more likely referring to the “add-ons” of
love. The love baggage, we might call it. For some reason, many people
assume negative emotions are a part or element of love. But
experientially we know this isn't true.
Love is not painful, it
feels incredible. The pain and hurt we feel doesn’t come from love, it
comes from our doubts, fears, anxiety, perceived rejections, broken
trusts, anger, jealousy, envy, etc. So why do we as a culture lump all
those other feelings in with love?
Perhaps its because we feel
these uncomfortable emotions most often in association with our love
relationships. Our primary relationships are important to us, so we
assume these doubts and fears are all part of the loving experience.
But is this really true?
When we are fearful, angry, anxious, unhappy, or jealous, are we truly
experiencing a state of love? They sure feel different, don't they?
Love feels warm, open, joyous and filled with a deep sense of
appreciation. Pain steps into a love relationship when you switch it
from a "wanted relationship," into a "needed relationship." You don't
NEED any one relationship. Want? Yes. Need? No.
If you go into a
relationship not feeling terribly good about yourself, you're more
likely to become dependent on your partner to help you feel good about
yourself. If we felt empty before they appeared in our lives, we fear
the emptiness returning if they leave, so their staying with us becomes
paramount. That dependency can create all kinds of fear and unhappiness
when there's a perceived threat to you staying together.
If we
aren’t giving ourselves the acceptance we crave, we look to those
around us to provide it for us. Again, none of this has a thing to do
with the love you feel, but everything to do with the fear you feel.
If
you really want to remove the love baggage of fear and unhappiness, the
first step is to improve your self awareness and self acceptance.