What is Love?

Love...we all want it in our lives, right? What is the definition of Love? Is it a feeling? An action? A way of being? Does anyone really know? Is it different for each person? In the last year and a half, I’ve found myself questioning what exactly love is. Religion would tell us we are to love all people...how’s that workin’ for ya? Did you love that guy on the freeway this morning who cut in front of you? What the heck does that mean anyway...love all people? Well, from a spiritual perspective we are all created from the same Divine Source, or God....call it whatever you like. We are all connected...even science is beginning to prove that through quantum physics. And that Divine Source is pure love, so we must be pure love right? Do you feel like pure love? Or are you like a lot of people constantly criticizing yourself and judging yourself and others? Do you look in the mirror and only see what you don’t like? Or can you get to a place where you begin to see what you do like both inside and out? That is self-love. I’ve begun to think that while love can be a feeling, an emotion that stirs from deep within, to truly love means to unconditionally accept another Being just as they are and it begins with the self. When we begin to love our self, we begin to see our self and others in a new way. We begin to live empathetically. We begin to put ourselves in another’s shoes as best we can. We see a mother have an angry outburst towards her child and rather than judge her as a bad mother, we acknowledge we’ve been where she is and our hearts open with compassion rather than close with judgment. Rather than curse the guy who cut us off in traffic, we know we’ve been in a hurry like that before and cut someone off in order to reach our destination faster and we hope he makes it where he needs to be...perhaps he just learned his loved one was taken to the emergency room. We have no idea what another person is experiencing, so truly, who are we to judge? So now I’ve moved from love, to unconditional acceptance, to empathy, to compassion...seems I’m all over the board...but maybe not. Maybe they are all tied together.

Here’s a challenge. Begin to work on self-unconditional acceptance. I think this will naturally flow into you beginning to unconditionally accept your family, your husband or partner, your children, your co-worker, the stranger at the grocery store. It’s a process, just start with a little awareness. I promise if you continue, the awareness continues to grow.

So I think love is a feeling, a deep emotional stirring, and an action. Questioning this all started about a year and half ago while I was on a quest for love from a man and I read a book called A New Earth. The book really made me question what love is, it actually turned me off of love for a short while because I thought if everything in creation is love, what’s the point of “special” relationships? Thankfully I did not completely give up on love, really that is impossible for me. But I did have to get love from myself first. I still want to share love with one man, but I now know he must love himself first, then he can let it flow to me and others. No amount of love from me can change that fact. When you get to a place where you love yourself, everything else in your life balances out and you can then fully receive love from others. And as always, I remain a work in progress...