It seems like one of the biggest tasks of life is figuring out how we wish to be loved. Unfortunately, this task usually begins in heartbreak. We do not begin our lives by laying out the terms by which we will receive love. We take what is given to us; how others define love, what they think it means to love us. We accept it because we begin by accepting everything. We spend the first decade or so of our lives as passive recipients, left with the remaining years to sort through it all like a chaotic yard sale, deciding what to keep and what to get rid of.
The great tragedy of life is that our own relationship with true love often begins with betrayal and heartache. At some point we realize we do not want this thing that others are calling love. We wake to the awareness that just because someone is our parent, sibling, or mentor, does not mean that they know how to love us. Bell Hooks, in her book “All About Love”, wrote about the difference between the words “care” and “love”, reminding us that just because someone cares about us does not mean they know how to love us.
So we begin only by knowing what love is not.
Love is not that which makes me afraid. Love is not manipulative. It does not make me feel small or insignificant. It is not selfish or mean. Love does not explode abruptly, and does not require everyone around it to creep around on eggshells. Love does not demand a price. These things we often learn not from a human teacher, but from ourselves - our own desires, intuition, and whatever spiritual guide we are connected to.
Love is not a feeling, but an action - a million actions and choices enacted every hour of every day. Love is necessarily relational, even self-love, which means it can never only be unilateral. You cannot put your love on someone without their participation, like you might wax a car or paint a living room. To do so negates it as love, since what might be received as love for one person could feel like harm to another. So just as we must first investigate our own needs and desires, asking what makes us feel cherished, so we must do the same for others.
This is a tremendous amount of work, which is perhaps where M Scott Peck’s definition of love comes in: love is “the will to extend one’s self for the purpose of nurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth.” Love demands us to extend ourselves, which reminds us that work is involved, but perhaps not the kind of work we assume. Part of the false vision of love we have inherited is that, to give it, we must exert ourselves in the kind of work that pushes down our own needs or desires. In this false vision, “true love” is completely selfless, meaning without self. Only the object of our love exists, and only their needs matter. This is why I love Peck’s definition, because it contradicts this commonly held assumption, including both the self and the other in love. They exist simultaneously, and must both be present in order for real love to emerge. The work of true love is not a self-effacing kind of work. It is work that brings the full self to the table and honors the needs of the self as much as the other.
Here is where love begins - in the liminal space between what has been and what could be. This is a scary but fertile field, where hopeful possibilities abound. We learn to let go of all the other voices and begin learning how to recognize our own. What do I like? What do I deserve? What makes me feel special? How do I wish others to treat me? It is through this process of self-recognition that the secret of loving others presents itself. It is hidden in sacred texts, like the one that instructs its readers, “love your neighbor as yourself.” This is the step that many of our parents and elders skipped, or never knew existed. Those who never asked us how we wished to be loved also never asked that question of themselves. How do you know to ask a question that has never been asked of you? How do you love your neighbor if you do not first know how you wish to be loved?