What and Where is True Love?

What is true love? You can google it, get a million answers and spend the entire evening scrolling through web pages.

Or, you can search for it inside your best friend: your body.

It can sound odd, but when you reflect upon it, you’ll start to feel the vast ocean of unconditional love that’s residing within you this moment and has always been with you since you were born.

This doesn’t necessarily mean that you don’t need a partner with whom you share true love. Rather, I look at it as a starting point for cultivating true love.

What if you observe, acknowledge, and feel wonder and gratitude for the love that resides within your body?
What if you use the insights from that observation to boost your existing love traits, so that if/when you approach a relationship, you do it with an enhanced loving mindset?

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Well…so, how do you get started?

Here are some elements of what I consider to be true love, and how they’re found in abundance in your mind and body.

Support:

If you’re walking down tall stairs, with your left knee hurting, your right knee offers to bear the weight, giving the left knee the reprieve and healing it deserves. There’re no arguments as to whose responsibility it is, how the right knee has often been taking on the ‘workload’, how ‘it’s tired of putting up with this stuff’ — nothing of that sort. There’s just pure unwavering love and support.
There are no second thoughts as to whether the right knee should take on the extra burden. It’s a natural instinct that flows across the two-way street of the mind-body: left and right knees? They are one. They are me. I am them. They are my body.

Faith:

The lungs expand to take in a breath of fresh air, knowing that they will get what they need, knowing that the miraculous body will do what it takes to bring in the oxygen it needs and feed it across its entire self.
The lungs don’t spend anxious seconds wondering if the diaphragm will contract and expand, letting the air in and out. The blood doesn’t worry if it will get the oxygen it needs from the lungs, or if it will be able to let go of the carbon dioxide.
There’s a sacred thread of faith that runs across all the elements involved in the miraculous process of inhaling and exhaling. It’s a thread that was gifted to the body when it came onto the earth, and it stays connected, faithfully, reciting vows of love, with every nourishing breath that’s let in and out.

Intimacy:

The word ‘intimacy’ is derived from the Latin word ‘intimus’, which means innermost. When you think about your body, you’ll find instances of intimacy in every part of your being.
There are hairs on the skin of the arms. Veins and arteries under the skin. Blood in the veins and arteries. Plasma and blood cells in the blood.
Layers of intimacy and wonder rest on top of each other, building a grateful foundation called life. There are no squabbles — ‘why are you leaning so heavily on me?’, ‘why do you have to be so long?’. There’s just an intimate peaceful unity, honoring and sustaining the beauty that the body is.

Communication:

When the mind is feeling joyous, the muscles, delicately and strongly tuned into it, sense that happy feeling and relax, becoming at ease.
When the muscles are tight and clenched, the mind, constantly watching out across the entire body, gets concerned and asks the muscles: ‘What can I do to help you relax, my loves?’
There’s a two-way supportive, compassionate and powerful language of communication that’s spoken in the mind and the body. There are no judgments or biases; just plain love and care.

Empathy:

The mind is craving a spicy burrito, but the digestive system is pleading: ‘No, I can’t handle it’. The mind listens compassionately and caringly, thinking about what it would be like if it overrode the stomach’s request and had the burrito. Yes, there would be a few minutes of delicious fun, but it may cause hours’ worth of discomfort. What matters more?
The mind could go for what it wants (and tell the digestive system to ‘just suck it up and get over it’), but because it’s laden with neurons of empathy, it’s able to understand things from others’ perspective, act upon that understanding, and seek input. ‘Yes, my dear, we’ll do what it takes to care for our entire being. Let’s skip the burrito. What would you like to eat instead?’

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How do you feel after you’ve spent time exploring your faithful lover?

I hope that:

It builds a sense of gratitude, confidence and support within you.
You feel more loved and cared for, knowing that the best love you’ll ever find is already within you.
You use that inner love — intimus — to inspire you to continue to become the best version of yourself.

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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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