
Seriously, what is it? I ask myself all the time because I know for many it seems synonymous with things like…
sacrifice
passion
sex and lust
modesty
self-denial for the sake of another
But I would have to say the purest definition of love, I’ve discovered, is more synonymous with words like rhis:
God
wholeness
completeness
appreciation
acceptance
inclusion
integration
I’m convinced that love is a mentality, state of being, as well as an inner feeling about yourself or someone else.
If you have come to truly love yourself, this means that you are aware of your own duality(opposing characteristics).
Each of us is dual, because that is the nature of this reality. Hello protons(positive) and electrons(negative).
As such, in order to wholly accept yourself, you must accept that for every “good trait,” you have “bad traits” too.
Or, we could call them “beneficial traits” and ”detrimental” ones.
So what are you saying, Nia? I should love my bad parts?
That is precisely what I’m saying. The thing about negative traits is that they almost always stem from unintegrated or unacknowledged pain(negative emotions).
But if you ignore the pain, meaning you don’t accept it for what it is, this is when you start to commit the crime of self-hate. And when you hate yourself, you can not love another. (or yourself)
And we are mostly raised this way, right? Our parents express love to us when they like what we are doing, and scold us when they don’t like something we are doing.
With the scolding, we start to think there us something inherently “bad” about us. Something unchangable and permanently wrong with us.
If we get scolded enough, we run the risk of starting to identify and integrate with the negative persona. We learn that if we are not sacrificing our free-will to please our parents, then we are ”unlovable.” But this all happens at the subconscious level; when we are children.
This cycle of scolding instead of unconditional love, teaches us to feel shame about our pain. This teaches us to bury our pain. It teaches us to FEAR(opposite of love) our pain.
But it does not teach us how to FACE, USE or TRANSMUTE our pain into something useful. This is the most valuable thing you can do with pain.
But if no one teaches you, if no one has ever even told you that you can transmute your pain, how will you know how?
WHEN YOU INTEGRATE WITH YOUR ENTIRE SELF by accepting all facets of you, YOU UNDERSTAND THAT THERE IS NOTHING TO FEAR ABOUT YOURSELF.
and then, you can love you.
through anything.
Check out 1 Corinthians 13:4–5; this is a solid description.
So, what do you think love is?
-Nia 💋
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