Love is surely the most mysterious force of all.
What is Love to you?
…A feeling? A state? A decision? A lifetime of actions?
Your essential nature?
Connection to a unified field of Oneness?
…all of these and more have been used to try to define Love.
Yet it seems to me that with all that has been written, researched, celebrated in art, music and myth throughout human history, the essence of love remains a mystery, something you can experience but not adequately put into words.
Let’s talk about it anyway!
Love has many faces.
These include self love, family love, intimate love, spiritual love and love of nature and humanity.
Bonding and healthy attachment between people also gives rise to a state of safety, harmony and well-being that could be referred to as love.
The Heartmath Institute has done decades of research on the heart rhythm patterns, hormones and electromagnetic fields created by the human heart and the optimal coherent states associated with feelings of appreciation, compassion, care and love.
Common to all these faces of love is a quality of deep enduring care.
What we truly love, we tend to care for.
For example, over time a person, a place, or even a cause we love is revealed for who/what they really are, including their flaws and limitations, and our hearts are still moved by them, we continue to feel care and affection, we want the best for them.
Love exposes both the strength and the exquisite tenderness of our hearts.
Love is not Pain.
Some people object saying love is not a state of caring, it’s a minefield, it’s painful! But, remember, the pain we can experience in love is not the love itself.
Very often we just don’t know how to be with this tenderness, this vulnerability. We fear loss, rejection, we fear caring too much. Most of us have not had good role models when it comes to vulnerability, to talking honestly about our needs, for feeling fear and hurt without shutting down.
So a lot of this pain actually gets caused by us acting out the old dysfunctional strategies we developed to avoid being hurt and to get our needs met. We do this because we haven’t learned what else to do.
We can be clumsy, unskilled and even cruel when in love, but none of this is love.
Love is an ongoing Journey with many faces, phases and twists and turns.
So what do you think?
Here are a few questions for self-reflection if you want to explore this topic in your own life:
What do you love?
And what are your thoughts, feelings and actions like in this love?
Are there places where you are focussing on pain and self-protection instead of the love?
Are there ways you could bring more care to yourself or the situation to nurture the love?
Enjoy your exploration and I wish you a rich and joyous Lovers Journey.
Find Martina on Social Media: @myloversjourney