Love 

Love in its natural state is a positive and powerful energetic force that promotes feelings of comfort and wellbeing within us. In its true state love is given unconditionally and freely without any expectation of an outcome. The positive energy of love can help us to dissolve our emotions, minimise stress and amplify a positive energy out to others. It can be a simple feeling of warmth and affection or a highly vibrating positive energy that zings out with passion.

However, love gets a bad name as it is often mistaken for negative emotions. For example the absence of love hurts and so you may say that you have been hurt by love.  In truth by its very nature love cannot hurt you.  It is the absence of love that causes you pain. The emotional response to feeling neglected, unloved or unwanted, the fear of being abandoned. Emotions can often trick you into believing that they are love when in fact they are complex emotions in disguise. Love is simple, uncomplicated and unconditional whereas emotions are complex and usually made up of several feelings and beliefs. When someone says they acted out of love, and it has a negative impact, you can be sure it wasn’t love but an emotion driving their actions.

An easy way to check if what you are feeling is love or an emotion is to do a simple test.  If you are giving love and positive energy out to a person or a project regardless of what you may get back then your energy is coming from a place of love. If deep down you expect something in return, to be loved back, to feel good about yourself, for others to think more of you because of your efforts then you are actually coming from an emotion. Try and find out as much about that emotion as you can.  What triggers it, what drives it, what needs does it have and does it make you act or behave in a certain way either if it feels good or if it feels bad. Once you have examined the feelings and beliefs within this emotion and you have fully understood them, you will find it easier to give love unconditionally and in a way that makes you feel calmer, free from neediness and altogether better about yourself.

True love is the most precious gift that you can give yourself. Not in a way that is driven by negative emotions such as an overactive ego, feelings of inadequacy, a need to be superior or an unquenchable thirst for more. But as an intentional energetic surge of warmth and positivity directed at the centre of your being. Most people find it easy to give love to others, their partner, children, friends and animals but they rarely give the same love back to themselves. Try thinking of someone or something that you love and then send that loving energy to yourself.  When you love yourself in a positive way it is not selfish or extravagant. Love is a never-ending energetic force, it simply cannot run out or be used up so you could never give yourself or others too much of it.

When you have mastered true self love and you are able to fully love yourself unconditionally, accepting yourself as perfect in this moment just the way that you are, you will find that your need to receive love from others, which is likely driven by your emotions, diminishes.  That is not to say that receiving a positive, loving energy from others is not a wonderful experience. It is just to understand that there is a difference between needing to receive love from others, which can have a negative impact on you, and receiving love freely as it is truly intended.

If you are feeling worn out as though you don’t have anymore love to give then it is because you have been giving away your life force energy, not just your love. Replenish your love for yourself, really fill yourself up with it so you don’t need to get it from others and focus on what emotions are compelling you to give yourself away, look especially for feelings of unworthiness, not feeling good enough or a need to please others and work through them until you have a full understanding of why you are behaving in a way that may have a negative impact on your emotional wellbeing.

What love is not