This is a concept that’s hard for people to understand and equally hard to write about. The truth is that most people love in a way that’s comfortable to them. We protect ourselves by letting people get just close enough but not close enough to hurt us. We hide behind layers of ourselves to hide our vulnerabilities. Our relationships appear like really close friendships. Our friendships appear like shallow work interactions or specific convenient interactions.
The truth is protecting ourselves is really costing us something we don’t know we need. That is, sincere connections made out of pure love. Pure love is based on giving. Therefore, giving love freely consists of the following:
Love kindly.
Treat them how you want to be treated. Attempt to treat them with kindness and openness. Allowing people to be themselves while maintaining your own sense of self.
Love without envy.
Your life isn’t perfect, but it’s yours. You don’t have all the things that you want, but appreciate what you do have. Therefore, it won’t offend you when other people talk about their lives. Instead of thinking about what someone has, think about the potential to learn from someone in some magnitude.
Love is not self -seeking.
Love is something you give and something you are happy to receive. From my point of view, love is something you achieve by having a deep care for an individual. This sounds like a choice. You have to choose to give and choose to accept the positive feelings that someone wants to have for you. Some people love because they like the way it feels, but it becomes a temporary feeling because they can’t give it back.
Loving without a tally.
At this point you have noticed I am focusing on the giving of love. Loving freely is to love without the expectation of someone loving you back. When we love freely, we are attempting build a positive relationship based on feelings of care. We aren’t worried about reciprocity. The truth about loving freely is that it’s something we do because the opportunity to develop a positive, supportive relationship.
Love never fails.
If we love freely, we could change the world, we can accomplish great things, we can build great people, support great people and overall create a world of love. When we choose to protect ourselves from love, we choose to leave a void of love in the world.
If you are protecting yourself from being hurt by not loving freely, feel free to call Amy Wine Counseling Center at 832-421-8714.