LOVE = LOVE? 💕
DIFFERENT TYPES OF LOVE
“Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies.” — Aristotle
I wrote about the Hullabaloo in my Letter last Friday and love is just something that makes life so worth living. But what does it mean to love? There are probably as many definitions as there are people on this planet, so we cannot really put a label on love - and probably shouldn’t. I do believe though that there are certain qualities that are connected to love. So let’s look at a few of the different kinds of love and their „official“ definitions and my personal take on them:
PUPPY LOVE: romantic love that a young person feels for someone else, which usually disappears as the young person becomes older.
If I remember correctly, when I was very young, this puppy love was something so very exciting. Of course, at the time I always believed - not knowing any better - that it was true love, the real deal. I believe that puppy love is being more in love with being in love than actually loving. Does that make sense?
BLIND LOVE: loving someone so much that it makes you unable to see their faults.
This is probably an unhealthy kind of love. I think at the beginning of every love one is more or less blind. It is especially in the phase of infatuation that one overlooks the faults of others and even finds them charming. But we are beings with flaws. If love remains blind, the relationship is usually rather unbalanced and has more to do with adoration than with true love. I do believe, no matter how much you love someone, it is important to see their faults and love them despite or perhaps even for these.
“The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved; loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves.” — Victor Hugo
TRUE LOVE: perfect romantic love between people.
Ok, let’s face it, nothing in life is perfect. Love is not perfect, we are not perfect. So I don’t really like this definition very much. For me, true love evolves from being in love with someone to loving someone. There is a huge difference between the two. Falling in love, at least for many (me not included) comes easily. When the rose glasses clear up and the butterflies are not there anymore, that is when love is actually defined. It is the crossroads of being in love with someone and truly loving someone.
“I love her, and that’s the beginning and end of everything.” — F. Scott Fitzgerald
UNCONDITIONAL LOVE: is known as affection without any limitations, or love without conditions. This term is sometimes associated with other terms such as true altruism or complete love.
Now, this one is probably the ultimate kind of love you can feel for anyone. I must admit that the very first time I felt this kind of unconditional love - until that point I believed it to be a myth - was when I held my beautiful little girl in my arms for the very first time when I was 31. I felt it a second time when my wonderful son was born and I held him for the first time at the age of 35. I knew immediately that I would not do almost anything for these tiny beings but absolutely everything, without question and unconditionally. I still feel that way about my children and I am sure this will not change as long as I breathe. Admittedly only once did a man come close to being loved unconditionally in my life and I was already 43 when we first met. So this is something that can happen at any time in your life and obviously at any age.
PASSIONATE LOVE: a love in which emotional arousal and usually sexual passion are prominent features.
This is the kind of love that can cause wars and bring people to do the craziest things. When passion overwhelms us, anything is possible. When this passionate love comes with true love or possibly even unconditional love, it is most likely the best thing that can happen to any human being. Passionate love is a fragile thing though and needs to be nurtured and cared for to ensure that the flame - even if it can sometimes just flicker - will not extinguish.
COMPANIONATE LOVE: a love characterized by strong feelings of intimacy and affection for another person rather than strong emotional arousal in the other’s presence.
This is the kind of love you have with great friends in your life. This is also the kind of love that can evolve from true love, passionate love, and even unconditional love. This is what often happens when couples do not nurture their love and take one another for granted or when they evolve at a different pace and in different directions. They often live together - in harmony - like roommates or like brother and sister. This is absolutely alright if you are willing and able to forego passion and the excitement that comes with true love.
Millions of songs and poems have been written about love, more than about any other topic. We adore romantic films with tacky happy endings. Sometimes we take love for granted and sometimes we treat love with disrespect and without the appreciation it deserves, hurting the ones we love badly and beyond repair. Too often we only really appreciate love when it is gone, when we have lost it, destroyed it, or neglected it in favour of other things we thought more important at the time. We often forget that love is something precious that needs nurturing and should be treated with kindness and respect. You even have to put work into love to maintain it and also accept and even embrace the changes that come over time.
For some people, it is so easy to fall in love and I often admire them.
“When I saw you I fell in love, and you smiled because you knew.” — Arrigo Boito
I have always needed time to really get to know someone and that is when love followed. I never gave my heart easily. But when you have fallen in love with someone and it just doesn’t work out, how do you manage to fall out of love again? Can you will yourself to stop loving someone? Can you decide to fall out of love? Or do you need to be hurt so badly that you are numb from the pain and shut your heart down? Falling out of love with someone is probably one of the hardest things to do and it helps to grieve the loss. Some say that time heals all wounds but some wounds are just too deep. They will close more and more over time but they are still there and you have the scars to remind you. There are only so many scars a heart can bear.
So falling out of love is easier said than done. But luckily there are wonderful examples that love, with all its ups and downs, really can last a lifetime.
“The best thing to hold onto in life is each other.” — Audrey Hepburn
I don’t believe in perfection, but then I do believe that the ideal love or the love that comes closest to perfection is the one that entails all of the above.
For the sake of completeness, there is still room for forms of love that I have not mentioned so far, the sad and unhealthy ones.
Unrequited Love: a love where one person loves someone and is not loved back, whereas the loved person often doesn’t even know they are loved.
This is a very sad kind of love and one that can quickly become dangerous as this is probably also the kind of love that stalkers have for their victims. I say this because I once had someone stalking me and his crazed love terrified and terrorised me for quite some time. I believe this kind of unhealthy love can very easily turn into obsession - definitely nothing you want to experience.
Unfulfilled Love: a love that cannot be lived for reasons of distance, social status, fear, responsibility, and so many other reasons.
The sad thing about this is that unlike unrequited love this love entails that both love one another deeply but simply cannot find a way to live this love. Tragic really, a bit like in the film “The Last Letter From Your Lover”, a bit tacky but rather beautiful - remember, I am a hopeless romantic after all. Just watch it!
🎶My Song of the Week
Finding the right song for this letter was a challenge but I am rather happy with my choice and I hope you enjoy this beautiful song by Chrisette Michele - Love Is You
For more good music, go to this Spotify playlist where you can find all the songs from the Change & Evolve Letters!
📚My Poem of the Week
Is a beautiful love poem by Christina Rossetti (1830–1894)
I wish I could remember that first day
I wish I could remember that first day, First hour, first moment of your meeting me, If bright or dim the season, it might be Summer or Winter for aught I can say; So unrecorded did it slip away, So blind was I to see and to foresee, So dull to mark the budding of my tree That would not blossom yet for many a May. If only I could recollect it, such A day of days! I let it come and go As traceless as a thaw of bygone snow; It seemed to mean so little, meant so much; If only now I could recall that touch, First touch of hand in hand – Did one but know!
👀Impressions
Love comes in different shapes and sizes 😂
To begin any kind of transformation, you have to know what your story is before you can navigate to something better and write a new story, becoming the best possible version of yourself. This is what the Enneagram and I can do for you. I would be happy to take the time for a speed coaching call that you can reserve right here go to my website or simply hit reply and get in touch with me directly.
If you enjoyed this letter, leave a ❤️ and a comment! I wish you an amazing weekend and look very much forward to your feedback and comments.
Yours
Tanja 🤗