Perception. Love. God.
For as long as I remember, these three words have always felt ‘uncomfortable’ to me.
There was something not quite right, something missing, some niggling, some vague sense of ‘it does not quite fit’, whenever I heard these words.
In fact, I preferred not to hear these words and I certainly did not use them.
‘Love’ was the first one I ‘mistrusted’.
As a young woman, I would ask myself endless questions:
How would I know when I loved someone?
How would I know it is not just a passing fancy?
What is the difference?
How do you know what real love is?
You can imagine the consequences of this. No matter what showed up, you question it to death and the mystery, the beauty, the joy evaporates and before you know it, you have lost a precious love.
Ok, OK! Let’s get honest here: this is how it was for me!
Consequently, love is a word that hardly ever featured in my everyday life and language.
Nowadays, I am a little bit wiser. I understand that what we tend to call love is a mutual agreement between people. I will love you as long as you behave in a way that reflects well on me. I will love you as long as you look good and don’t embarrass me by piling on loads of weight and become unattractive. (I am not kidding; I have heard a woman say this was what her husband demanded.) I will love you as long as I like what you do, what I can get from you, what you provide me with. When those benefits are no longer available, I am out of here. So some agreement, bargaining, something we may not be aware of, something deep in our subconscious.
This kind of love is conditional. There is judgement attached.
The holy grail of love is unconditional love.
My definition of unconditional love is when I love all equally because of your humanity, because of your essence, peace, love, bliss, joy, who you are at your core being, the spirit that animates you and me, that’s in both of us. And along with that appreciation I love you beyond your physical being and your behaviour, even despite your behaviour. To me, Mother Theresa is the best example of someone who loved unconditionally.
Recently I came across a definition of unconditional love that described it as about honour, respect and compassion for every living thing, including yourself. It is unselfish love, with no expectations, asking nothing from another and giving from the heart. I like that.
So now I am a lot more comfortable with that word ‘love’. I know what I mean when I use it. And I find that it is creeping more and more into my everyday life and language.
How about you? Is love a word that puzzled you? Still puzzles you? How have you come to understand what love is or what it’s not?
Let me know here in the comments, or send me an email.
