Do you know what Healthy Love is?
LOVE - A Life-long Study
What amazes me about life, is that even though we know that love is probably the most important fundamental human experience we need for optimal wellbeing and abundance in life, it’s not something we dedicate a lot of time to learning about.
Who Taught You How to Love?
Who taught you about love and how to love? Your version is probably a combination of what you witnessed and experienced from your primary caregivers, and what you’ve seen and heard in the media, movies and novels. Plus throw in your own experiences so far to date, and you definitely have some form of foundational knowledge on how to give and receive love.
But you see, this probably isn’t not enough for you to understand this vast, rich and deep topic and this foundational knowledge may contain flaws when it comes to giving and receiving love in a healthy way. What if what we saw in the movies isn’t realistic, or it’s an illusion, or what if your primary caregivers didn’t know much about healthy love either. What if the celebrities relationships you hear about are fabricated stories or simply don’t relate to the lives that the majority of us lead?
Love is Multi-Dimensional
Now I’m not just talking about romantic love here, I‘m talking about all kinds of love from erotic love, parental love, Motherly love, Self love, to general Human and Earth love.
Rupi Kaur’s poem above are just some of the many touching words I have found on the topic of Love since I started delving deeper and researching about 5 years ago. I won’t be able to share all of it in this blogpost, but i’ll share some highlights that I’ve been sharing in my weekly Yin Yoga classes on Zoom and that have left an imprint in my brain.
The 5 Love Languages
According to Gary Chapman, he believes that in romantic relationships we have one of five primary love language preferences when it comes to receiving love. Those 5 Love Languages are:
Words of Affirmation
Quality Time
Receiving Gifts
Acts of Service
Physical Touch
After reading this book, I personally was able to practically identify what my primary language is when I receive love (the one that starts to make me feel empty if I don’t receive it). I was also able to identify my Partner’s primary language. Now we know on days when we get overly busy with life, and we have limited resources for each other, we know what action to take to sustain each other’s love tank at a healthy level.
Gary Chapman also wrote books of the 5 Love languages for Singles, Children, Teenagers and Men.
The Plot Thickens
But of course true and deep love extends beyond 5 love languages. Sure - it REALLY helps to speak the right language to your partner, your friends, your family if you know it makes them feel amazing. But I also recently read a book called “The Road Less Travelled” by Scott M. Peck. And he wrote some outstanding words which I will quote and paraphrase here.
“Genuine love requires an extension of oneself.
Genuine love, with all the discipline that it requires, is the only path in this life to substantial joy.
When I genuinely love I am extending myself, and when I am extending myself I am growing. The more I love, the longer I love, the larger I become.
Genuine love is self - replenishing.
The more I nurture the spiritual growth of others, the more my own spiritual growth is nurtured.
I am in fact a totally selfish human being.
I never do something for somebody else but that I do it for myself.
And as I grow through love, so grows my joy, ever more present, ever more constant”
Self Love
He implies starting at the very root of love - which is starting with yourself. You have to extend and nurture yourself, it takes a lot effort and doing what makes you feel uncomfortable of course. When you do this for yourself and you truly understand what self love means, you then extend this behaviour and way of being to others. You can’t just self love and not love others, and you can’t just love others and not truly love yourself. This is what would be called unhealthy, or an unbalanced perception on true love.
He also refers to a beautiful Greek word that I’m glad I learned about.. And that word is;
“Cathexis”
In other words, in order to “cathect” something or someone, it really requires an ongoing investment of time and care. Not just for one year, or two years, or even for a decade. But rather, for a love that lasts, we are looking at eternity.
That’s why Friendships fall away, lovers are no longer lovers anymore and relationships with family can become estranged. Because we stopped “cathecting” them.
That can also, and quite often includes ourselves. We can stop putting the effort in and can suffer from self abandonment issues when we are no longer in pursuit of our own interests or we are not emotionally invested in our own boundaries and what is our truest essence. If you are not invested in yourself, can you truly invest in others? Perhaps to a certain extent, but it’s not a healthy way to love. If you can’t even treat yourself with the same respect and care in which you treat others, this eventually causes an imbalance in your life.
The Cosmos
I feel I can’t discuss the topic of love, without bringing up the topic of the cosmos and the Universe. I always find it helpful to remember that this life is more than my mind and my body. And I am part of a network of nature, and to truly love means to exist in harmony with what I am a part of.
In fact I learned last week that even though the universe is billions of years old, the universe is in fact still in its infancy. And human life as we know it, is just a tiny fraction of the universes total lifespan. We are in a rare and unique moment in time. Our universe gives life and living intelligence only a brief window that provides a safe haven for us to even exist.
As a fraction of the lifespan of the universe, as measured from its fiery birth and beginning, to the evaporation of the very last black hole;
“Life as we know it is only possible for 1 thousandth of a billion billion billionth, billion billion billionth, billion billion billionth of a %”
YEP - you heard it. If that isn’t a reason to wake up to the blessing of life as we know it, and how able we are able to deeply feel and to love, I don’t know what is.
Your Words Matter
Finally, we now know according to neuroscience and especially with the placebo affect, that the quality of our life is determined by the quality of our thoughts. Affirmations can be powerful in anchoring is what feels important to you and what serves as your value. There are days when we can all feel neglected and we struggle to see all the love that is right in front of us regardless of our situation. So for those days, I will leave you with these words in case they can help.
8 positive affirmations to assist with Self-Love
I am doing my best every day
True love starts within
I accept myself how I am and cultivate self-love.
I am enough, even when I’m not doing and just being
I am worthy of love.
I am grateful for every day
I believe in my dreams
The best is yet to come
More to come on this, but until next time - Belinda xxx