While the concept of love is important all year long, we all need a reminder of the important role it plays in our lives. As February is often viewed as the month of love, it is a good time to ponder the universal concept of love. Further, this is a time of great chaos, confusion, hate, and anger in our country, and perhaps now discussing love is more important than ever.
What Is Love?
Love can be thought of as a higher power or a state you fall in and out of. Whatever your stance or belief, the concept of love most often elicits positive emotions and connotations. Ever since receiving my first love letter from my grade school sweetheart, I knew that falling and being in love can be life-changing and offers powerful emotions, such as joy and elation. There is a wonderfully indescribable feeling and sense of glow that emanates from someone in love.
bell hooks, in her poignant book, All About Love, says that to truly love, we must learn to mix various ingredients—care, affection, recognition, respect, commitment, and trust, as well as honest and open communication. We discover a lot about ourselves when we love. Being in love is not easy. Oftentimes, it puts us at risk. We change when we love. We transform.
5 Types of Love
- Spiritual Love: Seen as a deep sense of connection, unity, and compassion for another person or the collective. It extends way beyond intimacy or physical attraction.
- Romantic Love: An emotional state marked by affection, attraction, and desire for another person.
- Self-love: Knowing that you’re not alone and that you live in a state of love. It’s about making decisions with love and following the path that resonates love in you.
- Love of nature: Characterized by care, love, and responsibility for everything in the natural world.
- Friendship and family: Having affection and connection for friends and family is characterized by emotional closeness, care, and loyalty.
The Need to Be Loved
The need to be loved is universal. Being loved supports survival, development, and a sense of well-being. It also supports self-worth and a sense of identity. I recently pulled another classic off my bookshelf, The Art of Loving by Eric Fromm. This book highlights the importance of love as the answer to the problems of human existence. I believe that to love another person, you must love yourself first, and Fromm supports this premise.
Love and Childhood
According to bell hooks, we learn a lot about love in our childhood. Our childhood experiences shape our view of love. Most people can narrow their focus to their childhood and reminisce about a time when they felt most loved and by whom. This even applies to those who were raised in dysfunctional families. There must have been someone who came through for them when they needed it the most.
Love and Relationships
In his book, Love the Way You Want It, Robert Sternberg says that the most frequent cause of a failing relationship is when one or both of the partners are selfish. Unfortunately, we do live in an age of narcissism.
When I turned 16, our family physician handed me a copy of Love and Will by Rollo May. When I cracked this book open for the first time, I had no idea what the author was talking about. I was probably too young to understand, so I put it on my bookshelf and forgot about it.
Years ago, while working on my dissertation researching the healing and transformative powers of memoir writing, I rediscovered the book in all its wisdom. May emphasizes how we all yearn to have a love relationship greater than ourselves, most often to overcome loneliness. Sometimes, these relationships are long-lived or short-lived. In either case, love and eros can be driving forces.
Love as a Daily Practice
In order for it to be effective, love must be practiced on a regular basis. We need to offer love to ourselves and to others. This implies the need to pay attention and be in the moment, while offering empathy and kindness, as needed. It is also about being respectful and caring to others as a way to nurture their well-being.
Relationships Essential Reads
According to Ram Dass in Be Love Now, “If you put out love, then you immerse yourself in the sea of love. You become a beacon of love for those around you.”
As we age, I think what’s important is feeling a sense of contentment. We shift from ego to soul, in that our work is not as important as our essence. The soul is awareness. Ram Dass says the shift from ego to soul happens through love.
Those who can put love out in the world often feel better about the world and themselves. It feels empowering to love and help others. For example, sharing a smile or a small gesture can make all the difference in someone else’s day. Elizabeth Kubler Ross, in her memoir, The Wheel of Life, said the greatest rewards in your life will come from offering love to someone in need, and that the greatest blessings come from helping.
Sometimes we’re simply having a bad day, and it might feel more difficult to feel love. One way to deal with that is to offer love to another person. Chances are, this will already make you feel better. Being focused on someone else instead of ourselves can do this. Giving is healing to the spirit. Music is often thought of as healing. Another thing to do is create a playlist of love songs to nurture your soul.
In Summary
Love is an emotion we seem to have little control over. It is either there or it is not. Yet love is perhaps the most profound, wondrous, and complex word in the human language, suggesting desire and interconnectedness. Love and compassion are at the heart of the world’s great spiritual traditions. Love is often said to be synonymous with the divine essence of existence and the wellspring of all life, or whatever name each religion gives to its highest truth.
At a time when there is so much chaos and hate in the world, it’s important to step back and think about how we can love one another more fully. In fact, the Beatles were correct back in the sixties when they said, “All you need is love.”
