This is the first of several blogs regarding this most important concept, most certainly one of the most important concepts, ideas, facts, feelings, and experiences in the human experience. In the following blogs we will be examining the following:
- You were not loved right (as a child)
- “Love problems” (the emotions associated with love)
- Temperamental love (4 different ways of loving)
- Being lovable (being open to being loved)
- Love heals (how people can heal each other with love)
- Getting better at loving
- Or more, if it comes to me
So what is love, anyway, this ubiquitous part of everyone’s live? Let’s start with something that was the most important thing I learned in Physics. By the way, it was in Physics (in college) where I got my first and only academic D, something that put me on academic probation (GPA 1.73, this after my stellar 4.0 my first semester in college. Might have had something to do with my joining fraternity, but actually due more to my lack of maturity in discipline.) I learned in Physics, actually my high school Physics that there are three main ingredients in the known universe around everything else is defined. These three things are undefined. They are time, distance, and mass. So, every time we had a Physics test, there would be a question like, “Define distance.” The answer should be “undefined.” So, we can define velocity as distance over time, and we can define weight as gravity times mass, but we don’t define time, distance and mass. We just know what they are.
The same is true of love: we know what it is but we can’t define it. More importantly, the more we observe love, the better we are able to understand it. Likewise, the more a child experiences distance, time, and mass, the more s/he has a grasp of how the universe works. The child learns that there is a “distance” between her and her favorite stuffed animal. She learns that her mass affects her movement. And a bit later she learns that she has to wait (time) for something. She learns about time, distance and time by observing these things. Likewise with love: we learn love by experiencing it, first by being loved and then by loving. And the more we have both of these experiences, the more we understand love.
Various people have attempted to define love, and they are all wrong…and all right. Some people define love as action. Love often is active in some way, but perhaps love is not always active. Others have defined love as physical, but again love might not always be physical. Or, love could be emotional, but not always emotional, or cognitive, or verbal, or relational. You might have your own definition, or more accurately, your own understanding of love, or your own experience of love.
Trying to avoid the danger of defining love, I would like to suggest that love is one of those things in the universe that are so important, like distance, time, and mass, that it cannot be defined. Instead of defining love, I would like to start with suggesting that love is a spiritual quality of human existence like other spiritual qualities that are undefined. Deb and I wrote I Want to Tell You How I Feel for the purpose of helping people understand the equally undefinable word, “feelings” that is also central to human existence. We suggested that feelings are also “spiritual,” but then we have to admit that we have defined the word feelings with another undefinable word, spiritual. We use the term spiritual to include but not be equated with religion. Atheists are now using the term spiritual in their philosophical understanding of psychology and human interaction but they do not believe in a god of any kind, something that I find quite interesting.
Simply stated, the more you are around love the more you understand it, just as the infant or toddler begins to understand time, distance, and mass the more he moves around in the world. We will be discussing the presence of love, the absence of love, and the inadequacies of love in later blogs. The fact that there has been a deficiency of love in someone’s life is often the central ingredient in his finding some healing. We will discuss the central ingredient of love in any healing process.
Preparing yourself for the following blogs on love consider:
- How would you “define” this undefinable word, Love?
- How have you experienced being love?
- How do you express love?
- What might be missing in your having been loved?
- What might be missing in your love others?
- Can you think of a time or times when you have been healed by love?