/ Nothing More Precious
Love is not just a feeling; it's the source of all goodness and true happiness. Love is a sort of innate (e.g., inborn) spiritual awareness that gives meaning to life. At birth, we are all given the ability to love during a state when we are most innocent and fragile. It is likely the purest love we may ever experience because we are at the most vulnerable point of our existence. As infants, adolescents, and into adulthood, love must be cultivated unconditionally but, sorrowfully, that is not always the case.
/ When Lacking
If we are lacking love anytime in life, it can have severe lasting psychological consequences that may affect us throughout adulthood. Furthermore, it is important to understand if we are not shown unconditional love as infants, children, and as teenagers, it can become more difficult to develop meaningful, loving, or romantic relationships later into adulthood. We must first feel unconditionally loved to fully love ourselves and thus love others openly and completely. Through guidance from caring counselors and mentors while surrounding ourselves with healthy friendships and loving family members, over time, we can develop the ability to fully love ourselves which can blossom into a loving and trusting romantic relationship that can last a lifetime.
/ 7 Types of Love
To learn about the various categories of love, check out Dr. Sternberg's "7 Types of Love" in his "Triangular Theory of Love." His research can help us better understand the love we currently experience or the love we aspire to achieve in future relationships!
/ Brings Meaning
As we mature, most of us will seek out a meaningful depth of love in adulthood—romantic love. When we think of the beginnings of this love, it can bring about feelings of a long-lost romance, a teenage crush, or a time when love was exciting and new yet often confusing. As adults, we begin to realize that love is not necessarily encapsulated within a person, but it is a set of values and self-worth that must first exist within us before we can fully love. It is also important to remember how we felt during the beginnings of romantic love because it can inspire us to love more deeply and help us to discover our desire for consummate [complete] love in adulthood. While there are many forms of love, there is nothing more meaningful and special than the love two people share while devoting their lives to each other in unconditional fidelity, honesty, integrity, and trust.
While love is what bonds mother to child, father to child, sibling to sibling, and friend to friend, consummate [complete] love is something special—maybe even the most grandiose some might argue. It's a love that binds once two complete strangers together in deeply affectionate adoration and adds an emotional completeness unlike anything else. When we continually remind ourselves of consummate love's beauty, elegance, warmth, and passion, we can continually embrace it as a means for long-term emotional, spiritual, and meaningful fulfillment.
/ Security and Understanding
Consummate love has the ability to offer not only security but an innate understanding that those in our lives may not fully comprehend—our perspectives, quirks, and most intimate desires. Security and understanding are essential to a feeling of being accepted and validated in a world which may not fully understand who we are. That's why romantic love is so special and highly regarded—it brings us highest inner validation and joy on a level often not fully understood by even ourselves. Yet, almost all of us feel the need for it and often live our lives in search of someone who can fulfill it, until, one day, when we recognize it in ourselves, our soul mate may finally appear.
"The love we seek without must first be found within." LMP