Years
ago, I read a small but powerful book about the ways in which we love. I tried
to locate the title for reference here, but I was unsuccessful. I believe the title was The Four ways in
which we Love. This small book went through the ways that we ourselves receive
love by asking questions like:
1. Action: Do you received by someone doing
things for you?
2. Gifts: Do you received Love in the form of
gifts that someone gives by appreciation?
3. Communication: Or it is when your partner expresses verbally
to you, how much they love you for you being you?
4. This fourth one I can’t remember but you
can come up with your own: Listening to
you, being touched, connecting deeply to you and how you emotionally feel.
There is a need to have a deeper soul connection to another, but you have to
know yourself first.
I
find that many times that we don’t even know ourselves enough to see how we
express love to our partner or even our self. We want so much to be loved, yet
it alludes us. I was wondering why this simple act comes with so many
complications. I think it is because we’re not really taught about love in its
trueness of its form. The word itself has come to mean so many other things
that it gets lost. Love itself is a feeling and emotion which are two different
things. Yet, it is used as more of a term of endearment then the true attribute
that it is. Most Mothers and Fathers will tell you on the onsite of their child
being born, that there are no words that can be expressed in the love that they
feel for their child. It’s there the very moment that they see or hold their
child for the first time.
People
flutter to newborns as if they have never seen a child before. Why do you think
this is? Is it because they are a true reflection of what we are, and we have
just forgotten that part of ourselves. Much like a newborn baby are
relationships to ourselves and others are about love too. So, what do our
relationships have to do with ourselves?
The
simple act of questioning what we know about expressing love within ourselves
is the first start:
How
do I express love?
How
do I say “I love you” to someone?
Do I
do things to express how I feel to someone that I love?
Do I
express “love with gifts”, hoping the other person realizes how much I care for
them?
There
is no one way that we express love, most people expressed several of these ways
to a partner or friends. There is even a difference when we express love to our
friends versus our partner. We even go about saying that we love clothes,
jewelry, cars, etc. you get the idea, but it is not the same as a person or a
pet. We tend to say that we love ice cream, but do we question why we love it?
Or is it a feeling that it brings to us? Besides not knowing how we express
love, we don’t question how we were taught about love from our parents or
guardians.
We
tend to repeat the same type of love that our families gave to us until it is
pointed out to us. Then we wonder why relationships fail and why we aren’t
getting the love that we think we want. If we started questioning what are or
were the ways that I wanted my family, parents or guardian to express love to
me and felt I never received? You will find the one way that you are
unconsciously wanting to be loved and are not getting it for yourself or from
another. You see love begins with you and until you make these inquiries into
yourself. There will always be something missing. You have to know what you
were shown and how you want and need to be loved, to love another.
As
most parents will tell you children or life does not come with a road map or
book, but it does come with the ability to question a thought. Now if you
travel a little further into the inquiry you will start to question the why’s
as I call them. Where did my parents or guardian learn about love and what type
of life did they lead or what type of history was playing out. These are all
factors that are playing out currently in your psyche right now. So much of
what you do is because we are taught to do instead of being. You went to school
to do learning, to do work, to do what you were told and never really allowed
to just be. You never were really asked what is love, what is it that I feel,
what emotions do I feel and what is it to be myself.
If you are born from love and raised to be
love or loved, why is what you see so much outside of yourself reflecting
differently then, you perceive. There is a saying “So within, So without”. This is a metaphor for what is in you, is a
direct reflection of what is happening in the world outside of you.
There
are songs, stories, plays, and movies written all about love but what is love
really within me? Why is there a need to connect to it in another person? It is
a simple question but is it ever really questioned? So, I will leave it with
you for now.
To
find love within you, you must first see love in you. before anything else.
Credit for Pic from
Pinterest, quote from The Emerald tablet of Hermes, 3000 Circa BC
The Voice Within©Donna Millward,2019
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