This week I searched for the word "LOVE" in the on-line thesaurus and it came up as: "love - 10 of 111 thesaurus results" on the first page. There are a lot of different ways to use this misunderstood four letter word, while we use the other four letter word for everything else, and create confusion.
It is easy to misunderstand the word love because we attach our expectations to others and our relationships with them. We tend to approach relationships expecting, wanting and desiring. Naturally we are upset when the object of our possession doesn't seem to reciprocate our fantasy. We want people to read our mind, communicate in ways we find acceptable, and behave as we have decided is appropriate to our liking. The reality is often a shocking difference from our dream, then the blame game begins and the war to prove who is right or wrong. And, well, Lord forbid that someone has a boundary, it must mean they don't love us. In reality our fantasy is not an act of love per se, it's an attachment and an expectation that leads to trouble.
Even the Greeks understood that love required some definition, so they negoiated it into four slim categories: Eros, Agape, Philia, and Storge or passionate love, unconditional love, friendship love, affectionate love.
There is more than one way to love, more than one way to communicate or express that love and several authors have commented on love. Osho said, "Love is a verb." Love is timeless. In her book, A Return to Love, Marianne Williams said, "We are not held back by the love we didn't receive in the past, but by the love we're not extending in the present.” I should write more to support this paragraph, and maybe I will later, or maybe I will leave it to the reader to discover their own quotes on love.
As for myself, I often try to cultivate love in its myraid of expressions throughout my life experience. I too have been deeply wounded and misunderstood. I recall then that in The Course in Miracles it reads "Everything is a call for Love." When I ponder that, I realize it is a love that is about acceptance and belonging. We all want to belong and be accepted for who we are. I am fortunate to say that I feel loved, as much as I have also loved deeply, but that doesn't mean I always feel I am understood or received by those I love. It is perhaps part of our journey toward the ultimate love to discover that we have to begin within ourselves to accpet who we are and trust in the Divine plan of our lives to guide us toward being the expression of love in its highest form. Keep in mind, it might not lead to marriage (wink).
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free dreamstime image: love heart by alejandro duran
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