Love isn't just a word
A piece from the vaults, edited for today
What does it mean to love? To love another. To love yourself. Romantic love. Platonic love. Parental love. Familial love.
How do we define the ideas of mature love and immature love?
How do our attachment wounds and trauma come into play?
How do we not have expectations, demands or assumptions and still have our boundaries, wants, and needs met?
How do we know when we are in love? How do we know it’s actually love and not simply another repetition of a well known (and ultimately harmful) pattern or cycle?
How do we know when our relationships are helpful and not harmful? Nurturing and nourishing, not stunting and stifling?
What is passion? Is it a repeat of harmful patterns? Does it really boil down to chemical reactions (dopamine, serotonin, ocytocin)?
When we love a person, be that our Self or another, how do we treat them? How do we want to treat them? Are we willing to do the work of love to make the shift?
I deeply believe the work of breaking our inter-generational patterns and cycles is an act of love.
But what does that mean?
Love is caring.
Love is boundaries.
Love is connection.
Love is being seen and heard, exactly as we are, being accepted while also being given space for evolution.
Love is seeing and hearing another, exactly as they are, accepting who they are right now while also giving the space for their own evolution.
Love is being accountable. To ourselves. To others.
Love is holding others accountable.
Love is encouraging growth, expansion, even when that growth and expansion may mean the end of the relationship.
Love is beginnings and endings. Love is allowing the beginnings and endings.
Love is not forced, however, love is work.
Love is a verb. An action.
Love is freedom, liberation.
Love is change.
Love is release. Letting go.
Love is not flowery words or poetry.
Love is not forever and ever if the cost is stagnation.
Love is not promises we can never keep simply because we are human and we cannot foresee what the future holds. However, love is commitment.
Love is not ownership.
Love is not confinement.
Love is not punishment or retribution
Love is not lies or dishonesty to “save someone’s feelings”. With our Self or with others.
Love is not safe, in that love is a risk, love is vulnerable and vulnerability.
Love is not comfortable. In fact, love encourages discomfort. Because discomfort is a sign of growth and change.
Love is not pain. (There is a distinct difference between pain and discomfort).
Love is not isolation.
Love is not about winning or getting rewards.
These are some of the ways I define love. And love is so much more than that. It is also an act of rebellion. It requires us to do layers and layers of inner work, unraveling and dislodging the harmful conditioning and socialization we’ve internalized. Love is finding new and different ways of being in relationship, with ourselves and others, without supremacy, patriarchy, or capitalism. Love is no longer utilizing the “master’s tools” and creating new ways of relating that not only are not harmful, but are nurturing and nourishing for every being.
Love is an emotion, sure. Love is a feeling, absolutely. And in so many ways, love is non-verbal and indescribable, ineffable.
And.
Love is not an excuse for breaking boundaries. Love is not an excuse for harm (i.e. I’m doing this because I love you or for your own good). Love is not hierarchies or striving or needing to prove our worth.
Love is a willingness, and the ability, to do the challenging, uncomfortable, work of breaking the patterns and cycles that have been passed down to us and of healing our own wounds and processing our own traumatic experiences.
Love is not easy, but the choice to love can be.
This essay was originally published on my blog in May 2020. It has been revised for publication today.
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