How To Love

I’m starting off this series with Love because without love, you wouldn’t and shouldn’t even be in a relationship. That being said, you would be surprised to know how many people don’t know how to love and I wouldn’t even blame them. We mimic whatever definitions of love we were brought up with and that causes to act the same way when in ‘love’ and seek those definitions of love. To start of, first of all,

Love is a choice, not just a feeling

If you think it’s all goo-goos and ga-gas, then think again. Now our first model of love is how we were brought up as children. But this is wrong. That love was selfish on our parts and selfless from our parents. It was a one-sided relationship which if it existed in our adult lives would be toxic.  Our parents probably didn’t tell us all they had to go through. Adults wouldn’t do that. Not even Jack from the Titanic.  It has to go both ways ALL the time. The way I see it, if both parties are selfless ALL the time, then no-one has to bother about feeling like they’re giving too much but that’s just fantasy to some extent. Life is less straightforward than that.

You can’t be loved the same way you were loved as a child.

When you realize that it’s so not about you. It’s about that person. Loving them means thinking about their well-being over yours. Putting them first, how they feel and how everything affects them. Even times when you want to be selfish, you first think of them and the consequences of your selfishness. Love requires sacrifice. The kind that you don’t mention every other day. It’s the kind that when they look at you, they know they don’t deserve to even be with you but you chose to be there.

For a relationship to work, you must be ready to love and not just be loved.

Loving someone means giving them time and space to grow. Most of the time, we want ready-made men and women. While, this would make such a splendid concept, most people don’t come that way. You’d think their past relationships have been moulding them. Rather it’s been breaking them into pieces. In the end, you may have to pick them up and build them again. This is the ‘work’ part if it. It requires patience, kindness and readiness to forgive. Growth takes time and if you push too hard, it may seem like you have an idea of them in your head you want them to be and this may cause negative results.

Growth takes time, trees take years to bear fruit.

If you want results, you must be ready to wait. Did you know that psychologically, we don’t want happiness, we just want what we’re used to. So we either find people who mimic those characteristics or we become those people, however bad or good. In our eyes, we’re showing ‘love’ .

To love a person right, perfectly and selflessly, you need a model to look at. Society and the family have portrayed such broken and flawed versions of love that it’s hard to discern which is right. The best model to look at would be JESUS. He came down and died for people who didn’t even care for him one bit. This is the kind of love we should portray in our everyday lives. In the light of Easter, which has become about eggs and bunnies, I hope you remember the real reason for the season.

Loving someone perfectly takes time. You grow into it.

Loving perfectly does not mean suffering in silence. If you’re in a relationship where you’ve loved with all your heart and you are being abused or you’re being hurt. Please find the courage to leave but every chance you get to show love to someone, I hope you do it right. That way, even when you leave, the other party know that you cannot be blamed for what happened, not that their opinion matters anyway.