What is Love??

Throughout the history of mankind, we as a world culture have made love out to be mysterious, complex, difficult, and undefinable. It’s the subject of endless poems and literary works. There is an enormous amount of material available out there about love, a lot of it contradictory.

We’ve been given the impression that to define love is near to impossible. Maybe there’s a fear that if we define it, it would somehow be less powerful...less impactful...less exhilarating. Maybe we like the mystery of it. But is it really that complicated? Perhaps the complications surrounding love come from all “stuff” we add on to this powerful emotion. Lets drop all the baggage surrounding relationships and define what it is we are experiencing in the moment of love.

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 wanes. Consequently, love is rarely a constant state but fluctuates based on our degree of acceptance.    

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.

( "Oh man, he/she is so smart, attractive, funny, talented, etc." ..and if they are all these wonderful things AND they like me, I must be pretty darm wonderful too!)

 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.