Wikipedia defines love as: Love encompasses a range of strong and positive emotional and mental states, from the most sublime virtue or good habit, the deepest interpersonal affection, to the simplest pleasure.
This broad definition covers the basics. It leaves out the one aspect that can’t be easily put into words.
Personal experience.
While there may be many ways to describe or define love, we decide what that looks like throughout our individual journeys. Our experiences give love a singular identity.
This coincides with the concept of love languages, where we each see love play out in different ways. Intimacy versus gifts, quality time versus labor, and other mix-and-match pairings. We express love differently, just as we receive love differently.
Our perception of love is rooted in childhood moments and evolves over time through relationships with others and eventually with ourselves as we explore and build self-awareness.
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Love is both dynamic and fragile.
We change our perception of love as we experience it with different people. Sometimes it only takes a second to cement part of that perception. Trauma is fast like that.
Sometimes it takes years to unlearn parts of the definition and replace them with aspects that better serve us. Healing can be slow like that.
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I’m still refining my own definition.
As a kid, I learned that love was quality time with my dad, sharing laughs with my friends, and getting five-dollar bills from my grandpa.
As an adult, I have learned that love can be a cross-country road trip or a cross-continental flight. It can also be fickle and destructive, loud and mean. I learned to be afraid of love while also learning that I was bad at it.
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How did we get here?
When we start dating someone, everything is new and fresh and all the slates are clean. We share all the good parts of ourselves, the easy stuff, the fun stuff, the universally attractive stuff.
Over time, we share more and go through more and experience more. More of the daily pressure, more of the pet peeves, more of the nuances we missed those first few weeks or months.
Nuances like derogatory comments or abrasive behaviors. Friction that feels a bit too deep. Tension that doesn’t dissipate after sex.
And all the while, hearing I love you.
We probably heard it before the haze cleared and the nuances surfaced.
We heard it before the tides changed.
We heard I love you alongside the tension, after the arguments, before the derogatory comments. We heard I love you swirling around amid the friction.
This how we learn our partner’s definition of love.
Sometimes, we reject it. And other times, we accept and internalize it.
We accept and internalize all the icky stuff with all the nicer stuff because, well, he loves me. She loves me. Love means insults and injuries but also forgiveness, commitment, and second chances. Love means forever.
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Another way to say it.
Someone says I love you and we attach every other word or behavior to that.
We accept the love we think we deserve. ~Stephen Chbosky
It’s not always negative or destructive, of course.
But it should, at least, always be nice. Always be respectful and kind and patient.
“…a range of strong and positive emotional and mental states…” hardly leaves room for hurtful comments or blatant disregard.
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Where do we go from here?
Learning to define love on your terms starts with self-awareness. Add to that self-reflection and personal history until you get a clear picture of your own unique journey.
This is how we can uncover internalized beliefs about love.
And once we uncover them, we can work to strengthen or weaken them.
It sounds systematic, and it can be. It’s also messy, like most personal growth stuff.
The idea is to reflect on moments in your life when you felt love. Ask yourself what about that moment feels loving or what you love about that moment.
Do this over and over until you have a good list of qualities — emotional and physical and mental.
For example, your list can include:
My face smiles without me trying.
Intimate conversations that last hours.
I can be my whole self all the time.
There are both tangible aspects and internal states. This list is not at all exhaustive.
Remember, love is dynamic. Love is personal.
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It might take a couple cups of coffee and a few attempts to get there, but it’s worth it. You are worth it. You deserve to experience love on your terms.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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From The Good Men Project on Medium
What Does Being in Love and Loving Someone Really Mean? | My 9-Year-Old Accidentally Explained Why His Mom Divorced Me | The One Thing Men Want More Than Sex | The Internal Struggle Men Battle in Silence |
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Photo credit: Anna Kolosyuk on Unsplash