Love is probably one of the most misunderstood words ever. Is it a feeling? A duty? A commitment made to another person? Is it transactional, so that I can only love you if you love me back? Are there different kinds of love? Or are those different types just love mixed with other ingredients? Is love what is written about in love songs? Or is it in the showing up, day in and day out, through the mundane and the exciting parts of life? I could probably go on and on with the questions. Love is an abstract concept, difficult to grasp. If you search up “types of love” on Google, there will be between 3-8 types of love listed, depending on the source. I’d like to think that love is just love, whether it’s platonic, romantic, familial or some other facet of love. I’d like to think that love can only be unconditional. Once you start putting conditions on it, is it even love anymore? Conditional love says, “I’ll only love you if…” That’s a statement that is taking a huge step away from love and not towards it.
Love is, at its core, about acceptance. Whether it’s love for your family, a friend, a significant other, or yourself- that deep, unconditional kind of love starts with acceptance. The different kinds of love just change slightly by adding some different ingredients. Agape love is the highest form of love like we see from Jesus in the Bible. It is the most unconditional kind of love, asking for nothing in return. Though we cannot love as perfectly as Jesus did, this is the ideal we should be reaching for. There should be a thread of Agape love weaving through the love we give, if we are to have meaningful relationships. All other love should build from this. Platonic love adds a dash of companionship, intimacy and commitment. Romantic love adds on to that with a dash of passion and attraction. Ice cream is still ice cream, whether you’re eating chocolate chip or butter pecan. Love is still love, whether you’re dealing with a friendship or a marriage.
With all of the different types of love, it can be easy to forget what love is fundamentally. I think that people often miss the very basic nature of love, because it’s become this misconstrued concept in a culture where love has lost its meaning. In our culture, love has become interchangeable with lust, and people walk away from love as easily as they do from an object that they no longer have a use for. People “fall in love” without really getting to know each other, then they get to know each other and realize they might not be in love. And what does it all come down to? Acceptance. If you cannot accept somebody, flaws and all, loving them is going to become a real struggle. Honestly, it starts with you. If you cannot accept yourself, with all of your imperfections, how can you love yourself? And if you cannot love yourself, how are you ever going to be able to love someone else? And I mean love someone else well. Deeply, consistently, and unconditionally.
We’ve heard it said over and over again right? You have to love yourself before you can love someone else. This will just be a cliché we’ve heard all our lives until we understand what this really means. It will just be another abstract concept we can’t grab hold of, until we break it down into something more concrete. Self-love is so important. Yes, all the other types of love matter too, and they enrich our lives in significant ways. But it’s going to have to start with you. If you want to demystify this word called love, the most tangible way to do so is within yourself. When you love someone else, in any capacity, you only experience your side. You don’t experience what they are feeling or how they are receiving your love. It’s just something you put out there and hope it’s being perceived the way you want it to. But when you learn to love yourself, unconditionally, you get a little taste of what you’re giving and start to see what love should be. And with time you increase your understanding of what this called love actually is.
So here’s the bottom line- loving yourself means accepting the light and the dark inside of you. We all have some darkness, some selfishness, some parts that we want to keep hidden. We want to present our best selves, not only to others but in our own minds as well. We acknowledge and embrace ourselves when we are being kind, generous or helpful. Then we turn around and berate ourselves when we are being mean, greedy or dismissive. I’m not saying that you should encourage yourself to be a bad person, but just that you have to accept that no one’s perfect and we all have moments of weakness. We are all walking contradictions, filled with bravery and fear, truth and lies, love and hate. You have to see and accept all of you if you want to be free to love yourself completely. You have to be willing to stare your darkness in the face. We all have it. It is a condition of humanity and living in a fallen world.
Of course, we can and should cultivate the light in ourselves so that we are feeding our better qualities, but we cannot deny all that’s inside of us. If you don’t believe that you have flaws, imperfections, and weaknesses then you are denying a part of yourself. Love does not operate in parts. You either love your whole self or you don’t. This means loving yourself through your failures and your mistakes. This means loving yourself even when you’re being stubborn or hard to get along with. We all have our moments. Don’t turn your love for yourself on and off depending on whether you think you deserve it from moment to moment. Be gentle and compassionate toward yourself. If God loved you enough to send his son as a sacrifice for your sins, you can certainly love yourself through that bad decision, that regret, that angry outburst, that time you didn’t quite measure up, that lack of self-discipline. Yes, absolutely learn from your mistakes and do better next time, but don’t stop the flow of love. Don’t beat yourself up and lose sight of the fact that through it ALL you are worthy of love, especially from yourself.
So why did I go into this tangent on self-love? Because until you can learn to love every last part of yourself- the good, the bad and the ugly- you’ll struggle to truly love another. Other people have their own darkness, their own inner struggles, their own flaws and weaknesses. Those are hard things to face in another person if you haven’t faced them within yourself. This is why I think a lot of relationships and friendships don’t last. People tend to present the good stuff, and when that other stuff starts creeping out, people start walking away because they’re not used to dealing with it. And that’s not love. Love is acceptance. You look at another person and you truly see them. You see their good qualities. You see their faults. You know they’ve been there for you and supported you. You also know they’ve disappointed you and probably will again at some point in the future because they’re human. You like spending time with them. Other times they drive you crazy. You see it all and you accept it all. That is love, at its core.
And isn’t that what we all want? Beyond the passion and the romance, we just want to belong. We want to be accepted. We need love but not the kind we hear about in love songs. That kind of love is fleeting, based on a feeling that can change anytime. We need love but not the kind with conditions. That kind of love is based on performance, and no one can play the part perfectly. We need love that shows up every day no matter what. We need love that sees beyond the physical and into our hearts, minds and souls. A love that sees us, from the inside out, with our scars and blemishes on display, and doesn’t walk away. Unconditional love. It’s always there for the taking from God. He does it best and is the best source of Agape love to learn from. Personally, I had to find my identity and worth in Christ before I could learn to love myself completely. Even then it was a process. I’ve grown a lot in the amount of love and compassion I show towards myself. As a result, I’ve learned to be more loving and compassionate towards others as well. Lord knows things didn’t go so well when I was trying to be perfect and expecting others to do the same. There was no love in that. I used to be the one who would walk away from love the moment it got hard. I used to fall easily into bitterness and resentment. I would feel jilted if people didn’t live up to my expectations and conditions for love. I was missing the concept of love by a long shot.
These days I try to make sure I’m walking towards love in my actions and thoughts. I do that by being more accepting of others, knowing that we’re all fighting our own struggles and doing our best. I give people the benefit of the doubt. I love without expecting anything in return. I try to refrain from attaching “if” statements to my love. I reach more and more for that ideal of Agape love. And in all honesty, there are some people that I have to love from afar. In my effort to love more purely, I still acknowledge my boundaries and my need to protect my mental and emotional health. But I understand love better these days. And I’m no longer on a search for some romantic love. I’ll happily receive it if it comes, but to search for it makes it seem like I don’t already have it. No, I don’t have the passion and attraction, but I have the companionship, intimacy and commitment. My life is overflowing with love from friends, family and God. I have all the love I need. I have learned to be vulnerable and transparent with myself and with others. I am seen and accepted and that is what I have been searching for. Love at its core. Unconditional, transformative, healing love. Receive it from God, give it to yourself and others, then watch your life change in remarkable ways.