Love makes a family

“Other things may change us, but we start and end with family.”

-Anthony Brandt

From the moment we are born, we are connected to our family in a way that we are connected to no one else in the entire world. Just as we inherit our eye and hair color from our families, we also inherit unconscious emotional patterns and tendencies…the strongest of which is love.

Love makes a family. The things that children remember most when they grow up is how much love surrounded them and how much time we spent with them. Children watch everything we do and inevitably mimic us in most every fashion. A child catches a love of learning from parents who continue to learn and, in turn, teach their children to do the very same.

Every person in a family plays a certain role. Generally speaking, the woman brings life, the father brings strength and everyone brings love. That does not mean friction does not exist in some shape or form in every family. Some amount of friction in a familial relationship is an opportunity to realize the differences that exist between us and accept that although we can never fully understand each other, nonetheless we accept and love each other.

Make the most of your family and show them all the love and respect that they deserve. Your family is the reason you have become the person that you are today. Without family there is no love and without love there can be no family.

Good Loving

So, we’re here to talk about love today. It’s January 1^st 2009. The beginning of a New Year. What can we learn about love this year? What kind of love. What kind of loves are there. What kind of relationships based upon love. How do we define love and all of it’s meaning.

There’s romantic love. Love of family. There’s non-sexual love and there is love as in sex. With good loving we want to talk about the whole spectrum of love. From loving your friend. The intimacy of the sexual encounter. We want to talk about techniques to improve relationships. To techniques to improve enjoyment in bed and out of bed between couples.

When you say that you are in love, what does that mean? Is it an external force acting upon you? Is your heart out of control? Are you unable to concentrate on anything else other than the person of interest? What happens when you’re in love and why do we say that we “fall in love”?

Love affects us all very differently and we all have our own interpretation and reaction to it. We feel it in different strengths and different manners. Some people have difficulty in allowing themselves to feel love and sometimes they have difficulty in allowing themselves to feel loved. If we were to assume that love is all around us, it would mean that we need to be tuned into it. We have to be able to perceive it, to see it, to feel it, to sense it, to taste it, to touch it. It’s invisible but still, we do see it. It’s in all literature, television, movies, everything around us. Listen to a couple of songs. What are they singing about? Love, love, love.

Romantic love is one of the most popular themes in the world. All cultures, all ages. It does not exist only within one country, within one type of person. As human beings we have the capacity to feel love and to want to give love. There are those that are hungry for love. They feel that love is lacking in their lives and as a result have a reduced sense of meaning and purpose in life. When we go out to movies we see good old Adam Sandler succeed in his quest for romantic love and in the end all is happy and his heart is filled with joy. Where does love fill us with joy? Does love really fill us with joy or does it unlock something within ourselves? Or is it somewhere between the two? If you have difficulty with love in your life; do you think it was more on your side or the other persons? Or a combination. By the way, I believe that there are tools that will help each of us grow in our ability to feel love and to enjoy it. It should not be such a painful experience, should it? If one loses a love we can have heartbreak and sadness and feeling a lack of something that we once had. Feeling the lack of something that we once had, we want to fill it with a different sensation and thus, sometimes people do turn to things that are not so healthy to replace that. That affection, that sense, the balance. I believe we all need to learn to balance ourselves whether we have more love coming in or less love coming in; let us learn to perceive more love in the environment around us. And if not in the environment directly around us, in the general environment in the world. There is beauty, there are awesome and amazing things in this world of ours, and if we can be inspired by these, perhaps we can feel love of a greater nature as well. So what is there about love? Well, there is love in romance, your very first romance. There’s love in a partner for life and having children. And there is love after that, for our children and for our extended family. How can we make love stronger? What is it? What blocks or reduces love within ourselves? Perhaps it is fear. Fear of pain, rejection and non-acceptance. If we are to love someone that does not return the emotion of the same level or type, how do we feel? It hurts perhaps. But why does it hurt and why do we let it hurt us? Do we need to take it so personally? If we take it so personally aren’t we injuring ourselves through our own actions by allowing it to happen? I think we need tools to protect ourselves and to allow such feelings to not affect us so long and so deeply. So what kinds of tools can we develop to allow our hearts to love fully? And experience at the same time, less pain in the case that our love is not accepted or is rejected. Where is the balance? There should be a balance because in popular literature people go crazy with love. “Crazy in Love”. “Loco Love”. Where does loco love fit in and what is it’s purpose. It certainly is a high point in life and a high point in personal emotions, to experience that. We have the rush, our hearts are beating, our anticipation is high. We want to hold, to caress. We want to spend our time with that person. We want that experience. And when they are not there, we want to feel that connection. So how much is love about connection? How much is love about the string of emotion that connects two people? We need to look at this.

So, the different types of love Sexual love – very popular! Always has been. Sexually and erotic love. This can exist without loving a person, so is it still love or is it a technique and art. Or just simple technique? When is sex sensual? Perhaps there is just sex, but then there’s sensual sex and then there is loving sex. If you look at it this way: we have experiences in our lives that affect all three of these levels of love and sex. Certainly most of us have sex without strong love feelings for our partner and certainly we have had erotic, sensual times with emotional connection and attachment. Hopefully also we have had the experience of love and giving in a stronger and more complete sense.

Sex and love. The Indians have studied it for years. The Kama Sutra. Which is actually more about technique than the emotional component to open oneself up to love. To open oneself up to the partner, to give and to take freely, to trust. In today’s world/society we do not normally have the time to give to our partner to strengthen our relationship and to keep the faith. With todays pressures of work, money, job, friends and partying, where is the connection time? The time spent shared that builds these things? Well, I believe that we can develop tools and techniques to spend 15 minutes to 30 minutes at one time and build these intimate connections between you and your love so that you and your loved one can experience a higher level of emotional and physical bliss. Ecstacy – but emotional. I think that is something very beautiful and is a goal for which we will strive. And this will not be possible with all partners. And this will take an open emotional stance, which is difficult certainly for some people to allow themselves to get to. Is it worth doing? For most people it certainly is. Only you can decide if these experiences and exercises can bring you to a greater level of happiness as far as these things go. If you have been married for a very long time, it can mean new magic in the bedroom or outside the bedroom. For two lovers, a glance, a look, a light touch, can have such a greater meaning. It can be emotional and sexual tension or it can be simple affection and love. We are going to look into all of this. We want to be able to improve our heart’s ability to give love of all types. To be able to love our friends the best we can. To be able to love our family the best we can. And to give the special love to our partner.

Let’s look into some of the concepts and see what we can come up with to solve these problems. Problems that we may not think really exist but we can look at what the result will be. A better place. A little bit more happiness is going to be worth the voyage.

Love

What is it? Do any of us really know? I have been in and out of love numerous times and I would hardly call myself an expert. Quite frankly, I wouldn’t really trust someone who would call his or herself an expert. How can anyone be an expert on something that is experienced on so many different levels and is experienced differently by everybody? I would venture to guess that no two people experience love in the same way. We have common behaviors and feelings, yes. But the actual experience? I doubt it.

Let’s take for example the overly used, widely misunderstood term “unconditional love.” Aside from the bond between parent and child, I really don’t think that this exists. Hold off on your hate mail until you hear me out! Have you ever truly loved someone unconditionally? We are living in the human condition, with human fallibility, human emotion, ego and needs. We don’t love unconditionally when it comes to romantic relationships. For example, you love your partner on the condition that they treat you kindly, that they are faithful, that they don’t run off with your money and your car and take your best friend with them. Am I right? Those are conditions. There is nothing wrong with it. Love should be conditional in regards to relationships. Of course you can always love someone as a sentient being but then we are venturing out of the realm of the “romantic relationship” and headed into spirituality.

So what is love? How do we know when we are experiencing true love and not just a deeper level of lust? When chemicals enter into the equation, it can become very convoluted indeed. When she kisses you on the neck and you feel the fire start from the tips of your toes and radiate to the top of your head, making pit stops in highly sensitive areas along the way, does that mean love? When you can’t stop thinking about him and it is affecting your everyday life – you are bumping into walls and only hearing bits and pieces of the conversations you are involved in, is that love? Could be. Could be not.

Love is a basic human need. To love and to be loved. We are always on a quest for love – to give and to receive. We want nothing more than to be and feel loved by someone else. But is there truly that “one love” out there for all of us? I don’t think so. Not for everybody. I think that some people are meant to experience love on many different levels throughout their lives and with that, the pain and heartbreak that goes along with it. Yes, some do find that “Soulmate” (another overly used and grossly misunderstood term, in my opinion) and stay with that person forever. Bless them. I would like to find that for myself one day. But I don’t know if it is in my cards. I may be one of those destined to learn about love on as many levels as I possibly can in my lifetime.

Someone once summed it for me quite beautifully. He said “Love is unconditional understanding.” I like that. It makes sense to me.

What types of love have you experienced? Let’s talk about it.