What Is Love?

LOVE: to joyously care for, answer the emotional needs of and do good things for one's self, and share the same with others without expecting anything in return

An age-old question: What is love? It has had many definitions from as many people, as well as the Holy Bible's spiritual teachings; yet it, for the most part, has remained allusive to most: appearing virtually unattainable, except on a seemingly temporary basis.

The above definition is that of this author and counselor: after many years of overcoming the affects of an abusive childhood, the result of growing and learning to rise above it. However, it also is the same definition of many psychologists; better, it is that of the great psychiatrist: God Almighty, for He said it first.

About now, one might be asking, "Isn't it natural to want to be loved in return?" Is not expecting and wanting two entirely different emotions and desires? One expects the sun to rise each morning and to set every evening; but, neither is necessary to one's sleeping or waking. Neither is one disconcerted when clouds prevent the sun. Thus, why do we expect to be loved just because we love?

The answer lies in our brain's infantile programming: basic emotions and fears established from the cradle up, which become the motivators of our adult behaviour mostly void of consciousness. The negative aspect of this early indoctrination could have been very minor or very critical or at any point in between. As an infant or small child, a little or a lot would have had a monumental and lasting effect.

If this were so, then how can one experience the purest form of loving: to love without expectation? It is safe to state that we always will want to be loved; however, the lack of expectation must override the want in order to allow the ability to love without condition or boundaries.

Condition or boundaries? Love without expectation only can exist without condition or set boundaries. These limits are exemplified by the following nonverbal hidden agendas, actions literally building the words: 1) I will love you as long as you respond favorably to my needs, which I will not express. You should love me enough to figure them out; and, 2) I will love you as long as you do not cross over into my personal space.

Ironically, it is the very lack of verbally expressing one's emotional needs, and failure to allow another person into our personal space, which literally prevents our love from being returned. No one is a mind reader: so, no matter how much another person may desire to meet our every emotional need, they are prevented by our silence about what are those needs. Sometimes, a person's silence is due to not fully understanding what it is he or she does need emotionally: then, it's time to enter counseling before a relationship is destroyed by mere silence. Therefore, if the other person cannot meet our needs, it is not his or her fault. Yet, that is the very person who ends up being blamed.

How can we overcome setting conditions and boundaries? First, one must overcome the fear of looking back at painful realities from childhood. After exploring and identifying the things that pained and/or frightened us as a child, then we must associate those findings with our adult choices and behaviour— which often can be much more like that which we hate than we even realize.

Are we not instinctively drawn to someone much like our mother or father or a combination of both? Indeed. And, does this new love eventually hurt us in much the same way as did our parent or parents? Yes. This act is repeated time and again as we move from relationship to relationship, ever seeking that which we were denied as a child: be it approval, compliments, encouragement, safety, touching, hugs, and/or unconditional love upon which all other needs hinge.

O—kay. So, we explore our childhood and reluctantly identify those things we feel we were denied and accept that these are our emotional needs and now are prepared to voice them. Alas, we find it does not alleviate our expectations of the other person. And, of course, it doesn't. The subconscious never forgets the primary programming and consistently will motivate our conscious behaviour— unless and until it is reprogrammed.

How do we reprogram? Without detailing the complexities of the brain and, more specifically, the subconscious mind, suffice it to say here that to consciously and repeatedly replace the negative with a positive soon will override and ultimately delete negatives.

More simply put, if you were abused as a child with the resulting emotions of feeling unworthy, undeserving, invisible, unheard, unloved, then consciously and repeatedly tell yourself just the opposite: I am worthy, deserving, visible, heard, and loved— even, if at the time, it is only God who finds you worthy, deserving, visible, heard, and loved; for, indeed, He does all the time and especially when there is no one else.

Repetition is the key to ultimately changing negatives to positives. Once gaining positive emotions on a consistent basis, then we know the reprogramming has been achieved. At this time, proceed with any and all other reprogramming that may be needed in order to answer all of one's internal needs, rather than expecting those needs to be met by external sources: i.e. another person.

Once achieved, we learn to love without expecting to be loved in return; thus, we gain the ability to truly give and give and give. Still, one might say, "But, I want to be loved!" Yes, although self will not, at this point, feel unloved. To feel unloved is an internal emotion, negative in its very nature; and, that particular programming would have been replaced by repeatedly telling self, "I am loved simply because I am," until self feels loved internally. The greatest love of all is that which is found within: without it, we are incapable of giving or receiving love; instead, giving only conditions and boundaries to both self and others.

In the childish mind, self has imposed upon self those same conditions and boundaries and, unfortunately, upon everyone remotely close to self. These hidden, as it were, conditions and boundaries ultimately destroy relationships, which initially might have appeared loving: whether they were intimate or friendships or family. The very negative traits self claims to abhor in his or her parents, and consciously claims to avoid, are the very same traits self unconsciously draws out in the other person.

Literally, self sets up the other person to become all that self hates: subconsciously motivated to do so. Once the other person becomes all those terrible things, self is justified: I am truly UNWORTHY! Then sets about blaming the other person for failure of the relationship. Self is in a push-pull mode: push the other person away then yank them back, push, pull… until the other person finally walks away feeling as though they have whiplash from the yo-yo effect.

Appeared is the key word: for self was, initially and subconsciously, attracted to the other person's traits resembling the role model of our infantile mind: including the negatives, which consciously go ignored until the relationship is established. However, as an adult, self might see that person as the hope he or she will answer all those needs self was denied in childhood: "This time it will be different!"

Of course, the other person cannot meet those needs and, eventually, the relationship disintegrates: usually with self claiming he or she changed overnight into someone self did not know, which is not true at all. Alas, self will again be drawn to yet another person who epitomizes the infantile role model.

To avoid making the same bad choices over and over again, one must reprogram and restructure the infantile model to that of a mature, nurturing adult model. This is done by visualization: repeatedly visualize self's parents as the kind of parents they should have been, careful to include appropriate discipline and so forth. After all, every child does things for which he or she should be corrected or taught or punished: depending on the infraction. It also helps to be realistic and honest about self's own behaviour as a child.

In other words, for every memory self has of interacting with his or her parents, visualize it the way it should have been until the should have been replaces what actually was. This does not mean self will forget the reality. This is nothing more than a reprogramming designed to change self's inappropriate and destructive behaviour. The next step is to look for all the good about self's parents and focus on those. Perhaps they taught really good lessons: maybe they didn't live them but they taught them. Whatever that is good.

Once accomplished, self still will have the same basic emotional needs; however, now self instinctively will be drawn to a person capable of meeting those needs. And, self also will have the conscious ability to verbally state self's needs and the capability to respond to another person's needs without concentrating on self.

Fear is the one factor that automatically disappears when one meets his or her own emotional needs. Fear originally existed because self expected the needs to be met by those outside self: fear the other person would not or might ridicule us if we expressed those needs. It does not matter how inconsequential a need might seem to others, it is very real and very much an issue with the person who has the need. So speak up, but also know that the need first must be met within before it ever can be met without.

What if self currently is in a floundering relationship? Should self pull out, reprogram, then seek a new mate? God forbid. If self is in an intimate relationship— whether married or just living together— understand that God considers it a marriage and He has rules to be followed. It may take both parties to reconcile the relationship, which does not always happen. Still, self must make the necessary changes for self or continue to live in misery, full of unrealistic expectations and unreasonable boundaries. It is amazing, nonetheless, how well a relationship can function when only one becomes emotionally unneedy.

"Why," one might ask, "would I still find the need for a relationship with the opposite sex if I answer my own emotional needs?" By design, man and woman were meant to be together; and, it is within our genes to instinctively want to share joy, happiness, life and, of course, love. Further, in a state of emotional wellness, self now has a great need to love: for self has learned that to love is to be loved, not necessarily by everyone but certainly loved by many. Albeit, being able to love unconditionally eliminates a driving force to be married. If it happens, it is great; if not, that's great, too.

To love self is to have the glorious, unconditional capacity to love others. Therefore, if one actively and desperately seeks love from others, it is because there is no love within self. We simply cannot give or even receive that which we first do not have within self. There is no such thing as degrees of love: love for a child differing from love for a spouse or parent or sibling or friend.

Love is love and it is a choice: it is NOT chemistry. For this reason, couples would be wise to abstain from sex until three things are achieved and in this precise order: 1) get to know one another as friends for at least a year; 2) at some point determine that each loves the other; and finally, 3) get married. Best friends make the best marriage partners.

The chemistry, if not immediately present, will build rapidly within the marriage bed and will take on so much more precious significance than had a couple not abstained in favor of marriage. It then will enhance the couple's love. But, love still is love and chemistry is chemistry: neither element depends on the other— never has and never will.

Fact is, the only chemistry present when first meeting a person, would be chemistry spawned by emotional need attracted to inferior infantile role models. Something about the person feels familiar thus we are drawn to him or her in a sexual way. This should serve as a red flag instead of a green light: "This person has the capacity to fail me just as my parents failed me." Chemistry always should come last, if we've made a choice absent of need.

While the three proprieties listed above may seem quite old fashioned to most people today, especially living in a society incredibly self-involved, God has not changed and neither have His Laws. But, most of all, His requirements always were in our best interest. Failing to follow those has resulted in this nation having the highest rate of divorce than in any country in the world: we don't even need a reason for divorce! It also has resulted in this nation having one of the highest percentages of unwed mothers, irresponsible fathers, and overflowing orphanages as well as countless abortions.

Based on those percentages, it is obvious that women suffer the most: as opposed to men. This is not to say men do not suffer. Certainly they do. No one is immune to the feelings of failure when a relationship ends untimely. However, women would not be so quick to hop into bed with a man if she better understood her own body.

Men can engage in sex and not bond physically or even emotionally with the woman: that is as it should be within certain spiritual terms. This is not true of women: because during the act of intercourse, women produce a specific hormone in exceeding abundance and which immediately and irrevocably bonds her to the man; in turn, it activates her emotional attachment.

Both man and woman were design by God: the man originally outliving the woman, thus assumed to marry again. The woman was intended to be with one man for life, that man normally chosen for her: therefore, she was designed to bond emotionally and physically upon entering the marriage bed. Once married, the man bonds mentally based on his wife's level of respect and admiration for him. If she fails to provide those qualities, the husband will fail to bond: nevertheless, she will be bonded— irrevocably.

It is for this reason women usually are the most angered and vengeful when divorced from her husband: albeit, she should have taken a look at herself long before it happened. This is not to say there are not reverse situations. Certainly there are, but to a much lesser degree of frequency. There simply is no getting around the fact that God placed the success of marriage predominately on the shoulders of women: after all, woman was the cause of Adam being evicted from the Garden of Eden.

It is woman's just due, of which most of us have failed miserably— including this counselor. Sadly, I did not learn all these things until it was way too late. Hopefully, I did learn them soon enough and well enough to spare many other men and women from the same pitfalls. It is the inherent nature of man to seek a virtuous wife: after all, he was created holy unto God.

Then, the woman was created from and for man. She is not holy unto God; rather she is to be man's glory. Jesus did not change this fact. If the woman will sleep with the man before married, she already has failed him and likely will continue to do so in many other ways: for he will have a niggling lack of trust in her fidelity for a very long time to come— unless she was a virgin and no other man has "defiled that land."

Still, love is a choice and must first come from within. Love is unconditional and does not set boundaries. Love gives and never expects anything in return and is pleasantly surprised if it is: almost to the point of being embarrassed. Chemistry is just that, chemistry. Love does not create chemistry: intercourse creates chemistry. Love is a choice. Looking for love in the midst of chemistry is to look for love in all the wrong places and all the wrong times.

©copyright 1984 Bonita M Quesinberry, R.C. 060184

Unicorn Haven
Home of free Counselor and Author, Bonita M Quesinberry, R.C.