The Many Faces of Love
If you ask ten people to give you their definition of love, you will likely get ten different answers. Most people will begin by saying that love is a feeling, and if I ask them to describe the feeling, I will again get many different answers. And all of them will probably be valid, because love in human relationships encompasses a spectrum of feelings including warmth, positive regard, respect, desire, attraction, longing, loss, separation, disappointment and grief.
Some people will say that love is a choice, and that is true too. It is possible to choose to love someone even when we don’t feel in love. Ask anyone who has been in a committed relationship for more than 5 years. Our feelings of being in love will ebb and flow over the course of a relationship, and as they do it is our choice to love that holds us together.
The commitment of marriage is exactly that; it is a commitment (choice) to love and honor that overrides fluctuating feelings. As a colleague recently reminded me, there is no place in traditional marriage vows that asks if the bride and groom feel in love. It asks if they promise to love.
One of my favorite descriptions of committed love was described by actor Susan Sarandon in the movie Shall We Dance?
”We need a witness to our lives. There’s a billion people on the planet. What does any one life really mean? But in a marriage, you’re promising to care about everything. The good things, the bad things, the terrible things, the mundane things; all of it, all of the time, every day. You’re saying ‘Your life will not go unnoticed because I will notice it. Your life will not go unwitnessed because I will be your witness’.”
Another powerful way to think about love is as a capacity; specifically the capacity to hold another in high positive regard; to be mindful, nurture, uplift, support and care for them. As a capacity, this is something I can practice, and it’s something I can expand within myself.
On the day that I was married, I was sure I could never experience more love than I did that day. When I had my first child, I realized that I could love my husband even more, and that I had a whole new capacity to love my daughter beyond anything than I could have imagined. When I had my son, I found that my love for him did not diminish my love for my daughter. How could this be? Our capacity for love is only limited by our willingness to grow.
This limitless quality leads us to experience love as Divine; as spiritual in nature. We can learn to connect with the divine capacity within us so that we can share it with others. When it comes to love, the age-old adage that we cannot give to others what we do not find within ourselves, holds true. If we want to experience more love in our lives, we need to begin by looking inside and connecting to the Source.
Love really does have many faces. It’s is a glorious feeling, a conscious choice, a daily witness, an expanding capacity, and a taste of the Divine. How do you define love? Please leave a comment and share your thoughts.