What is Your Understanding of Love?

[empowered]

I've always struggled with the feeling/concept/defining of love.

Love to me seems to be something that has to be earned and easily lost. Lost when you don't do enough for that person.

I feel confused about what love means and how it's supposed to feel, as it was not something traught/shown/given when I was young.

This is a definition I found and wrote in my journal which has help me.

We come to understand love as something chaotic, dramatic, and often painful..something we had to give up our own dreams and desires for....Loving behaviour doesn't grind you down, keep you of balance, or create feelings of self-hatred. Love doesn't hurt, it feels good. Loving behaviour nourishes your emotional well being. When someone is being loving to you, you feel accepted, cared for, valued, and respected. Genuine love creates feelings of warmth, pleasure, safety, stability, and inner peace!

[sisu]

Hello empowered,
Love....that is a huge emotion and a beautiful thing. Love does not hurt, is kind and accpepting. I believe the following words sum it up...

No one falls in love by choice, it’s by chance.
No one stays in love by chance, it’s work.
No one falls out of love by chance, it’s by choice.

When you meet the right person, you will know when it is love. You may think that you are ready for love...but you may not really be. When you are truly ready, love will find you and it will be wonderful. My prayers are with you.

Sisu

[TLight]

Boy, whenever anyone uses the word with me, I want to run or puke.

But I like the definition. I'll hang onto in my brain. I don't want to be isolated forever. This journey is about change.

[linasmom]

I wish I could offer something like a definition but I can't. I, too, never understood what love was because of my childhood. For years and years, I had such a twisted outlook on what love must be. Then, I met my husband and it was like the world came to a screeching halt and then restarted again.

I feel like being "valued, cared for, and respected" are things that I should expect from friends, not just lovers. Though, a lover should be your friend, as well.

Love is something that two people create and not something that is predetermined.

Best,
Rachel

[Roo]

Love to me implies gentleness ... a choice to do no harm ... a deep constancy of kindness and presence ... cherishment ... a sense of home with another being ... a singular way of seeing and being seen ... a sturdy, no-nonsense respect ... a "no matter what" kind of presence ... an ease and safety in being-with ...

It is difficult to define! :think:

A quotation comes to mind: "Love that stammers, that stutters, is apt to be the love that loves best." (Gabriela Mistral)

Roo

[She Cat]

Love sucks........Can you tell I have had a few bad relationships??? LOL!!!!!

[JustJane]

She Cat, I dare say you have never known true love. You thought you did, but if it isn't true love, nothing can be imitated forever. I dare say that whatever you felt and thought of as love was nothing of the sort. Real love never ends in divorce - it ends in death. And until you find it, you can't understand it.

I don't mean to be offensive, but that's the long and short of it.

[dlross]

While I don't have a definition of my own to offer, I am touched by the ones given here. On second thought, my one word definition would be: gentleness. That means even when being angry or stern or whatever...just always gentle...careful of another's fragility.

[pandora]

lOVE IS LIKE ANOTHER FOUR LETTER WORD FOR ME FOR RELATIONSHIPS, MY mOM AND NOW FRIENDS TOO! oops!

I can only receive and give unconditional love from my son.

Someone, anyone that says they love me.....always leaves me in the end. Your family is supposed to show love to you mine only shows resentment and hate.

[pandora]

Love has only shown me hurt and abandonment.

[Cecilia]

My definition is not sweet or romantic. Love is a choice. Nobody (including myself) is always gentle, patient and kind. However, if I choose to love that person, then I can endure their bad moments just as they choose to endure mine.

Friends are chosen. If somebody is too negative or too abrasive then I can choose to stay away from them or choose to love them in spite of their faults.

My family is the same. I can choose to over-look faults and extend love, even if the same is not extended to me. Or I can choose to walk away and save my sanity.

It is my choice.

[goingonhope]

My personal simplified definition of Love is: Love as a choose and a gift we give others freely without expectation in return.

But here below is a better understanding of exactly what I believe and practice when allowed to remain conscious and not swallowed up in an overload of life's stress and mine and too many others expectations of me.

It was shared with me during past retreats, I easily understand every word of it, bc this too is what love means to me.

Principles of Loving:

More Than Anything Else, We want to Love and be Loved.

Love is a Gift.

Love is Not Time Bound.

Love is Good Will in Action.

Love is a Response to Need.


Skills of Loving:

Seeing: I do not look over or through you. I see you in your uniqueness.

Hearing: I listen to what you are saying.

Honoring of Feelings and Ideas: I recognize your right to feel and think as you do.

Having Good Will. I will you good and not evil.

Responding to Need: If you let me know what you needs are, withing the limits of my value system, I will not run away. I wll be there for you.

[rt1967]

absence of fear

[nic]

This is my favorite sonnet, and it pretty much sums up what I believe love to be.

-nic :-)


Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O, no! It is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand'ring bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his ending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

--W. Shakespeare, Sonnet CXVI

[cherryblossom]

I don't know what love is any more.
I know I had it and I lost it.
I know that I wish I had it now. Maybe it's niave, but I think if I had someone to share this PTSD crap with, then it wouldn't be half as bad.

(sorry - just venting - I guess 'love' is a touchy subject for some of us?!)

[shadowmedic]

love, in my opinion, is selflessness and unconditionality at its best.

[linasmom]

Cherryblossom-

'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. ~Tennyson

[upstream]

There was a time when I believed that being in love meant caring for someone else more than you care about yourself. Perhaps that is co-dependent thinking though.

"There is no Shangri-La, you know? Every relationship is messed up. What makes it perfect is if you still want to be there when things really suck." ~Carla in Scrubs

[Seeking_Nirvana]

Upstream I agree with your definition and if it seems like love is co-dependent to you, then that is what it probably is to you.

But if I can look death in the face and say, "Take me, not my child or husband". That is love, not co-dependent because I wouldn't be here anymore to depend on them.

I can say to the evils of the world, "Hurt me not my child or husband". That is love. I'm certain I could do this for the ones I love because this life (not that I want to leave it any time soon) has been hard one me and I will leave in hopes they survive.

My husband and kids have not suffered in the way I have, and they deserve a chance to live life and be able to find the beauty in it all without all of the ugly, tainted shit.

Peace
Tammy

[Roo]

A few folks here have mentioned love as a choice...yes. So many choices embedded in that one choice: to be kind, merciful, present, accountable to and with another. To choose to stand beside another...and remain when all hell breaks loose. To choose a commitment...day after day after day.

I think of marriage vows -- and how they can relate to all our intimate relations. We don't make vows as such with our dear friends, our children, our relatives, our animal companions, our students, etc. ... but it's interesting to imagine what they might be.

I've read (three times!) a marvelous book called A General Theory of Love; it's by Thomas Lewis, MD, and two other physicians. It is a beautiful blend of brain/social science and stories/poetry. It is an urgent call to action --> to love actively. It's a wake-up call, and states in no uncertain terms that we need to love and be loved or we wither and die. Beautiful book.

I also think of love as a call-and-response of hearts...:Hug_emoticon:

Roo

[EmoxxKid]

Love is something that can't be put down in words really...we can try but...it wont ever work really. You FEEL love. You know it when you feel it...it's like nothing ever...

When someone loves you or you love someone...or both at the same time hopefully ;)
you don't question certain things....in fact lots of things really don't matter anymore.

I mean this is how I feel anyway...lol

[nor]

I was brought up to understand love as an act of caring for those around you. Being of service, without any negative feelings. Cooking, cleaning, putting up with everyone's abuse without showing any effect. Being totally compliant with the person you are supposed to love. Not giving them any need for upset.

In other words. I never felt love, therefore I never understood it.......

Not until I had my beautiful son. I do want to take care of him, yes-but I also want to share things with him, show him things, spend time with him, and just give him a hug. I don't want any harm to come to him, and I want to help him grow into a happy, loving, successful man. I want to nurture him as I was never nurtured.

That is now my understanding of love. I love my son (and my dog)

[spiritofnow]

I think this is a lovely thread :wink:

Love; a warm knowing smile, even when things are not going great! An outstreched hand even if you believe the other person may not reach out and grab it. Acceptance, of an individuals limitations, their power to grow, their vision of life, all sides of them. A light on when you return home, a meal cooked with love, a look that has meaning between the two, a warm bed, indepedence and togetherness. Sharing dreams and helping to facilitate them. Knowing that they can never disappoint! 'To actively listen and allow yourself to learn from them, not to judge. 'To accept yourself so you can truly love others'.

Spirit x

[Lucky Laser]

I can't claim to be able to define love, but I think I've seen it in several instances.

1. For me personally, I often feel it when I look into my best friend's eyes and get the safe, secure, and happy feeling that no matter what happens, no matter how irrational or crazy I get, he will never abandon me.

2. One time I was in a hospital waiting room and I saw a woman getting angry. I think she was either very ill or high on drugs. A man was with her and as she got angrier and angrier she turned on him and started screaming at him and hitting him. He didn't get angry in return; he just held her and talked gently to her. I think that was an example of love.

There are lots more but many instances where I find love are just too indescribable...

[tude]

Wow, this thread about 'love' is like reading any thread about 'God'... I think I just threw up in my mouth. No, I am just kidding (about the love part).

I first learned what love is from my first born niece. I learned about the love of a child and the love for a child. I learned that it is unconditional and pure.

I have yet to discover if this kind of love is possible with other relationships.

[linasmom]

*sigh* the love for a child. It is seriously the most wonderful feeling in the entire world. When my daughter was born, everything changed. Everything. I had never felt that way in my life.

When I met my husband, I had never felt that way, either. The love is just as strong for both of them, but it is a different kind of love.

I guess it goes back to what I said earlier in the thread - that love is created.

[spiritofnow]

I have never found the love I speak of with a mate but I have found it through my beautiful boy. I wish to love like this and to be loved back in the same way with someone I can call my 'soul mate'.

A gentle kiss when you least expect it!

Spirit x

[Grama-Herc]

Years ago I asked my mother how I would know if I was in "Love"

Her response surprised me . She said "Love is caring for the other person more than you care for yourself"

[sallyb98178]

Love is what you DO, not how you feel. Did you know love, lust, pain all have different places in the brain where they are experienced? I wish they could excise the ptsd.

[spiritofnow]

Love has only shown me hurt and abandonment.


That was not love Pandora, that was the misguided, who also do not know how to love. Love never abandons you once you have it in your heart. Love is what we should give to oursleves. I believe this, no matter how hurt or betrayred I have been. Love comes from within and then surrounds you. I am waiting too, to feel it every day no matter how the wolrd wakes up and behaves.

Spirit x

[pandora]

I realize that tihs was negative.....I have felt love from my second husband and there are always factors they have to work on he was willing too and i ran...left all my belongings there came home, started over. I know he loved me really to have think it was love becasuse I fell dead over heels...does love make you dumb, it seemed to make me deaf dumb and blind.......I guess love still confuses me!

[Awakening]

Love is letting go

[spiritofnow]

Love is acceptanace; to accept we cannot control others'. To accept that life is flawed, messy and beautiful all in the same breath. Acceptance, that love too, is not perfect and comes in many different guises. To accept love and to give love is indeed a gift. To accept that love and happiness are inextricably linked and that our quest for both is not always about ownership, but the experience of them. Acceptance that love can just grab a hold of you and shake you around. Acceptance that we cannot control when love appears. Acceptance, that sometimes we wait....

Spirit x

[Ubu]

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. Love never fails....And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love (http://christianity.about.com/od/topicaldevotions/qt/greatestislove.htm)

This is a biblical definition. But me wife has PTSD moved out over a year ago. talk to her everyday. The kids n i see her for a couple days of each month. This is the saying that keeps me going. Im not saying im all of these, im human and it very hard and sad somedays being without the one you love. But I strive for this. Pure Love.

[Cowgirl]

Someone said that love never ends except with death. No, I don't buy that.

I was married before. We were in love. After four years of marriage, I got pregnant. That pregnancy was nearly the death of me, and I spent the last portion of it in the hospital. Mention was made of a heart lung machine to keep my body alive for the baby, but fortunately it never got quite that bad.

My then husband did not cope well with this crisis. He ended up spending time with another woman as his coping mechanism, rather than sitting with me in the hospital. I found out because I brought home a baby, and he brought home an STD (thankfully one treatable with antibiotics).

I struggled to keep the marriage together for a number of years after that, but in the end we divorced. It is difficult to rebuild trust once shattered, and different people deal with crises in different ways - some healthy, some unhealthy. Love without trust can die.

Lasting love requires the commitment of two people. It isn't all a rose garden. Some love survives because both people in the relationship are strong enough to pull through anything together, and to be there for each other through the worst of times. Love is easy during the good times, it is tested (as are the people themselves) during the hard times.

Cowgirl

[upstream]

Wow, this thread about 'love' is like reading any thread about 'God'... I think I just threw up in my mouth.


Interesting observation, tude. I wonder what the connection is.

Perhaps we should distinguish between the noun and the verb? Love and "in love"? The feeling and the act? How many forms of love are there? A trip to wikipedia uncovered many, many different forms of love
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love

[Nicolette]

Love without trust can die.

Love without honesty can die too...trust is your faith in the other person....the other person must have integrity and be honest to earn and keep that trust.