Relationships - The true colours of love
Love is a learned and constructed attitude.
I want to write about love. Again? Yes!! After all it's love that is driving the world; although, admittedly, hate and evil exist and are ever present. Yet I believe these only exist at the service of love, to fuel it into new dimensions.
You ask anyone who is having trouble with love in a relationship and they tell you about the sadness, frustration and a host of other unpleasant feelings they experience. Some actually develop psychological problems and others even physical ones. Research has consistently shown that those who are in love are happier and healthier.
One doesn't actually need to ask. Love is something people express through every pore of their body. I mean, the way people speak about themselves, their loved ones and the world is completely different. Their outlook on life is different. People in love feel safer in our threatening and threatened world. The way people speak about their partner reflects one's feelings towards the same partner and towards oneself too.
Being in love, feeling in love, or whatever you want to call it, is not simply a feeling as some wrongly assume. Love is something more than feelings and I'm sure I don't need to preach about the sacrifices and so on. Even these become beautiful experiences when made out of love for someone.
Love goes beyond places. It is an attitude one carries within oneself wherever they go. It provides a sense of security even when thousands of miles away from home. It doesn't depend on the other person. On the contrary, love is something one carries within. Those who love know they can love anyone, regardless of who they are. Love needs a lot of investment in a bio-psycho-socio-spiritual way. That means in all spheres of human existence.
I am seated on a plane right now and a baby cries behind me. It resuscitates the love I have for my children. But one cannot love one's children unless one can love oneself. One's children are a representation of all the children, including my own child within. My love for them is simply a representation of the love for myself, my partner, the child within me, my parents, and the pilot that's driving the plane.
Romantic love is only one type of love emerging from the human capacity of universal love; which means loving life itself, the ultimate of love. This expands love to an unlimited state of being. For example, how can I love my children if I can't make sure that I promote the environment and contribute towards its preservation? So many people live the contradiction of saying they love someone and then throw rubbish in our valleys, contaminate the sea, are careless about electricity and water consumption, and so on.
So many others live the contradictions of declaring love to others and simultaneously destroying themselves through reckless driving, drinking, drug abuse, gambling, self neglect in its many forms, and so on. In a few words you are either ready to love or you are not.
Love is an attitude one nurtures over time. It is an enrichment to one's life one has to work for in the attempt to move away from the primitive survival responses of the innocent infant. Love is not innocent, but an aimed effort at becoming a better person for oneself and for the world.
We complicate love by justifying the many contradictions we prefer to embrace. Some children are made to believe their parents love them because they work long hours for them. But what does love have to do with materialism and consumerism? It's only us who want to believe they are combined.
We further complicate love by believing it is only a feeling. All feelings are bio-psycho-social reactions to situations. Fear can be a reaction to threats, and sadness a reaction to loss. Many people for example confuse anger with aggression. Anger is a feeling, aggression is behaviour, often a consequence of anger. The same as crying is a behavioural reaction to feeling sad, or happy.
One big mistake many do for example is that they base their choice of partner on the passionate feeling of romantic love. This feeling, like all the others, is bound to fade by time and is superseded by more practical matters. Love then becomes more pragmatic in nature, which is normal and healthy if well-managed.
Love is therefore feeling, doing, thinking, and all. Love is being. The ultimate of love is the giving of oneself for another. The romantic version of this is sex. When one gives oneself sexually to another one is giving himself romantically. But one can give oneself to one's love for humanity. One big mistake here is to compare this love with that of Jesus Christ. It's easy to compare oneself with Him and say "but He was the son of God". Human, less godly versions of that are Mother Teresa and all those who distinguish themselves in their dedication to the well-being of all.
I know many who dedicate their life to a good and valuable cause without expecting anything in return. You may know some as well, for example, missionaries who spend their lives in deprived areas of the world doing voluntary work. Some dedicate their life to protect the environment while others' mission is to help those around them; including those who dedicate their lives to their partner's well-being, their family's well-being and their children's well-being. Parenting our children can be a mission, a true mission of love. (Only that much of it is being institutionalised and we are made to believe that schools can teach our children better than we do, and that play schools are better for the children to socialise than for them to stay at home with their mum or dad. I'm afraid we use this to justify and relieve our pain and guilt of having to leave our children behind and go to work).
In short, love is a learned and constructed attitude. It's the best thing we can teach our children from the earliest days of their life. It's not only love for the parents but also love towards all around us including nature, humanity, and all.
• Mr Azzopardi is a systemic family psychotherapist.
You ask anyone who is having trouble with love in a relationship and they tell you about the sadness, frustration and a host of other unpleasant feelings they experience. Some actually develop psychological problems and others even physical ones. Research has consistently shown that those who are in love are happier and healthier.
One doesn't actually need to ask. Love is something people express through every pore of their body. I mean, the way people speak about themselves, their loved ones and the world is completely different. Their outlook on life is different. People in love feel safer in our threatening and threatened world. The way people speak about their partner reflects one's feelings towards the same partner and towards oneself too.
Being in love, feeling in love, or whatever you want to call it, is not simply a feeling as some wrongly assume. Love is something more than feelings and I'm sure I don't need to preach about the sacrifices and so on. Even these become beautiful experiences when made out of love for someone.
Love goes beyond places. It is an attitude one carries within oneself wherever they go. It provides a sense of security even when thousands of miles away from home. It doesn't depend on the other person. On the contrary, love is something one carries within. Those who love know they can love anyone, regardless of who they are. Love needs a lot of investment in a bio-psycho-socio-spiritual way. That means in all spheres of human existence.
I am seated on a plane right now and a baby cries behind me. It resuscitates the love I have for my children. But one cannot love one's children unless one can love oneself. One's children are a representation of all the children, including my own child within. My love for them is simply a representation of the love for myself, my partner, the child within me, my parents, and the pilot that's driving the plane.
Romantic love is only one type of love emerging from the human capacity of universal love; which means loving life itself, the ultimate of love. This expands love to an unlimited state of being. For example, how can I love my children if I can't make sure that I promote the environment and contribute towards its preservation? So many people live the contradiction of saying they love someone and then throw rubbish in our valleys, contaminate the sea, are careless about electricity and water consumption, and so on.
So many others live the contradictions of declaring love to others and simultaneously destroying themselves through reckless driving, drinking, drug abuse, gambling, self neglect in its many forms, and so on. In a few words you are either ready to love or you are not.
Love is an attitude one nurtures over time. It is an enrichment to one's life one has to work for in the attempt to move away from the primitive survival responses of the innocent infant. Love is not innocent, but an aimed effort at becoming a better person for oneself and for the world.
We complicate love by justifying the many contradictions we prefer to embrace. Some children are made to believe their parents love them because they work long hours for them. But what does love have to do with materialism and consumerism? It's only us who want to believe they are combined.
We further complicate love by believing it is only a feeling. All feelings are bio-psycho-social reactions to situations. Fear can be a reaction to threats, and sadness a reaction to loss. Many people for example confuse anger with aggression. Anger is a feeling, aggression is behaviour, often a consequence of anger. The same as crying is a behavioural reaction to feeling sad, or happy.
One big mistake many do for example is that they base their choice of partner on the passionate feeling of romantic love. This feeling, like all the others, is bound to fade by time and is superseded by more practical matters. Love then becomes more pragmatic in nature, which is normal and healthy if well-managed.
Love is therefore feeling, doing, thinking, and all. Love is being. The ultimate of love is the giving of oneself for another. The romantic version of this is sex. When one gives oneself sexually to another one is giving himself romantically. But one can give oneself to one's love for humanity. One big mistake here is to compare this love with that of Jesus Christ. It's easy to compare oneself with Him and say "but He was the son of God". Human, less godly versions of that are Mother Teresa and all those who distinguish themselves in their dedication to the well-being of all.
I know many who dedicate their life to a good and valuable cause without expecting anything in return. You may know some as well, for example, missionaries who spend their lives in deprived areas of the world doing voluntary work. Some dedicate their life to protect the environment while others' mission is to help those around them; including those who dedicate their lives to their partner's well-being, their family's well-being and their children's well-being. Parenting our children can be a mission, a true mission of love. (Only that much of it is being institutionalised and we are made to believe that schools can teach our children better than we do, and that play schools are better for the children to socialise than for them to stay at home with their mum or dad. I'm afraid we use this to justify and relieve our pain and guilt of having to leave our children behind and go to work).
In short, love is a learned and constructed attitude. It's the best thing we can teach our children from the earliest days of their life. It's not only love for the parents but also love towards all around us including nature, humanity, and all.
• Mr Azzopardi is a systemic family psychotherapist.