Love encompasses a broad spectrum of positive and deep emotional states, from the sublime virtue or highest personal level of good health, the purest sexual desire, to the easiest imaginable pleasure. It is the state of total and unselfish love that makes us complete and gives us our uniqueness and allows us to experience a life beyond ourselves. There are many ways to express love, but what matters most in the end is how we feel about other people, and how deeply we connect to them on a personal level. If we don’t love others, it becomes impossible to love ourselves.
True love includes feelings such as compassion, care, respect, patience, kindness, enthusiasm, joy, happiness, tenderness, devotion, appreciation, and delight. These combine in such a way as to create a feeling of well-being, a feeling of total and open connection with that person. True love will fill our hearts with joy as well as our bodies with energy. A person who lacks true love has a dark, depressed and unhappy view of himself. He often feels alone, without any true friends or family to turn to for support.
True love encompasses a variety of strong feelings – compassion for another person, deep appreciation of beauty, a desire to be a good example, generosity, enjoyment, creativity, strength and courage. And these strong feelings do not just spring into our laps; they must be earned. Love does not just “fall into” us; it requires some effort on our part. It is not always easy to love someone because we may have been conditioned by society to only think of love in terms of romance and marriage. When we meet someone, we experience immediate love and romantic interest.
However, this kind of love is not the same as sexual or romantic affection. Although both of them can mean a lot to us, there are clear distinctions between them. Sexual affection is often associated with lust or the excitement of having sex. True love, on the other hand, is much deeper and involves sharing physical feelings with another person but it is also often accompanied by other kinds of affection such as sharing of our homes, friendship, or sharing of our minds and bodies.
Our brains are really very complex machines. The connections that we make with others and with our physical selves are extremely complex. Our brain does not just automatically start working in a way that causes us to like someone. We have to put in a lot of effort to establish a loving relationship. Some people have the uncanny ability to fall in love easily while other people need a great amount of time to develop this loving bond.
People who have a loving and affectionate relationship tend to be more open to one another’s feelings and they are also less likely to be hurt by their partner’s passionate feelings. In contrast, individuals who are in serious relationships sometimes don’t have this quality. Individuals who fall in lust have a tendency to shut down when their feelings are expressed, so it can be difficult for them to truly feel one another’s love.