The word love is used as an expression of affection towards someone else and it expresses a human virtue that is based on compassion, affection and kindness. This is a state of being, that isn’t necessarily connected with something or someone outside of ourselves.
Intimate love requires vulnerability and that’s a part of what makes it sacred. Stepping toward love with someone, no matter the outcome, creates an opportunity for someone else to take a step closer to living the concept of love. In doing so, we are also being asked to step closer to living loving. If we cling to or spend hours fantasising about the outcome of stepping toward it, we cause ourselves sorrow and distress.
The history of the concept of love is polarising and ever-changing. It’s a living concept that almost appears to breathe as it changes depending on the environment in which it is explored and expressed.
Historically love has been seen as self-seeking or self-giving; possessive or submissive; Illusion-creating or truth-seeking; conditional or unconditional; inconsistent or enduring, enmeshed in fantasy or a privileged window onto reality. Despite this contradictory conceptualisation of love throughout time, the quality of its nature has been the litmus test in question.
Love is an ideology, a human conditioning, a practise and a paradigm which can provide us with a compass towards genuine love, that being unconditional, non-possessive, enduring and selfless. Loving ourselves provides a stable foundation for loving others.
As Esther Perel aptly describes “Love is at once an affirmation and a transcendence of who we are”. Whether we are seeking love or in love, it is important to have a self reflective practise that privileges self compassion and creates space for us to live lovingly in our life’s expression.
Further Reading
Simon May. (2011). Love: A History. Yale University Press
Mika Bell Counselling 