If there is one word that summarizes what the concept of love is all about, it would be dedication. Love is a group of behaviours and emotions characterized by total emotional commitment, passion, intimacy, and commitment to another. It entails emotional care, closeness, devotion, affection, and trust in a relationship.
Sometimes, though not always, romantic love includes an awareness of the other person’s needs and feelings. However, one doesn’t need to know the other person’s state of mind to fall in love with him/her. It can also develop from feelings of affection or compassion, or even just strong physical attraction towards someone.
Many cultures around the globe believe that expressing and sharing love requires an inner journey through self-love. The spiritual nature of self-love is related to the spiritual nature of one’s personality. It tells us that we are not alone in this world, nor does anyone else have all the answers to our questions. Self-love, according to this concept, makes us feel good about being human, as well as good about being one’s own individual self.
Self-love includes feelings of compassion, understanding, trust, respect, and appreciation. These feelings lead to the other four characteristic traits of love, intimacy, commitment, and caring. By means of this understanding, we are able to know how to harness our love, temperament, energy, and resources to bring about positive changes in our relationships.
Sometimes, the concept of love may also involve attraction. That is, it may be possible for a person to be in love with another person because of his/her physical attraction towards that person. This type of attraction does not need to be reciprocated, although the feelings involved may be mutual, depending on how that particular person responds to your affection and attention.
Self-love allows you to experience greater well-being. Self-love gives you a sense of acceptance, security, as well as a feeling of well-being. It permits you to focus on the positive qualities of another person, rather than focusing on the negative characteristics. By practicing this sort of love, you will find that you can better manage and deal with life’s issues, as well as create better interpersonal relationships. You will be able to better provide for the needs of your family, as well as being able to fully enjoy your relationships with your co-workers, friends, as well as your loved ones.
In order to understand the difference between romantic love and self-love, it helps to examine some of the common assumptions we make about these two emotions. Romantic love often involves being consumed by the “feelings” of love while self-love typically does not. Romantic love involves an exchange of physical intimacy. Self-love does not. While most relationships that do not involve physical intimacy do share some emotions, they are usually more passive or are not based on true love. True love includes compassion, commitment, trust, understanding, support, and emotional investment.
One of the most common assumptions about love is that it is only physical. Yet it can also be emotional, as well. Your feelings are powerful. Learn more about the nature of your feelings so that you can learn to respond to them with love, health, and well-being rather than with fear, anger, sadness, and jealousy.
