The Energy Of Love In Raising Personal Power

Written by: Anna Niemira

“Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength while loving someone deeply gives you courage.”– Lao Tzu

Humans seek love. We are ready to go through hoops, face challenges, and change from within to find and experience the feeling of love. We are naturally neurologically equipped to connect with and gain satisfaction from interactions with other human beings. We thrive when we feel the acceptance of our social circles and suffer when we experience rejection.

From writers and poets to heads of states, love has been a fountain of inspiration, a source of deep feelings and understanding toward oneself and others. It has been an ardour taking the soul to another level to experience a deeper dimension of care and affection.

Yet, love follows certain principles. Like freedom, it demands courage. Being an art, it requires practice. As a mystery, it calls for discovery. To change the love we receive, we need to modify the love we give.

The Meaning of Love

"He who knows nothing loves nothing. He who can do nothing understands nothing. But he who understands also loves, notices, sees..." - Paracelsus

Different cultures might have various definitions of love. However, in general, love is defined as a strong affection, a bond for another person based on mutual attraction, or kinship. We correlate love with a feeling in our heart, yet, from a biological perspective, it relates to our brain. The formation and release of chemicals help to stimulate various stages of love, from positive feelings of attraction and attachment to more complicated and even dangerous emotions of jealousy, dependency, and irrational behaviour.

It is important to keep an eye on mood swings and the occasionally reckless conduct love might sometimes cause. More often than not, those involved in loving relationships experience healthier, happier, longer, and more fulfilling lives.

Love, like good medicine, helps us to heal more effectively, supports our immune system, improves our heart condition, and lets us stay physically fit and mentally alert.

Raising or Falling in Love?

“The quest for love changes us. There is no seeker among those who search for love who has not matured on the way. The moment you start looking for love, you start to change from within and without.” – The Forty Rules of Love, Elif Shafak

We tend to focus more on being loved than loving. We tend to approach love seeking a mutually favourable exchange dictated by our consumerism. Men like to be perceived as successful, powerful, and well established, whereas, women, generally, focus more on their attractiveness.  Well-developed pleasant manners, eloquence, friendliness, and thoughtfulness are attractive qualities for both men and women. We associate success and good looks with being loveable.

Often, love is considered a simple feeling; however, finding the right person to love, or coming across someone who loves us, is perceived as a difficult task.

Falling in love refers to lowering our boundaries, becoming more vulnerable, and being open in sharing our feelings and emotions. Yet, we are reluctant to do so, afraid of getting hurt and losing the value of attractiveness. We can instead approach love from the inner sense of personal courage and strength, feeling complete, understanding our qualities, virtues and values, and also recognizing our weaknesses and areas on a personal and professional level we need to improve.  Following such a perspective, we might raise through love experiences furthering our development, growth, and knowledge about the other and ourselves.

A mature approach to love and understanding of each person's individuality creates a union of integrity and mutual respect, with two beings becoming one, equally contributing on an emotional level, yet, carrying on as two separate individuals pursuing their passions and advancing their ambitions.

Love as an Art

"Is love an art? Then it requires knowledge and effort." - The Art of Loving, Erich Fromm

If we were to create an image of love based on the sentimental love presented in movies, magazines, and other creative endeavours, we would be buying into a fantasy. The development of a real relationship, either personal or professional, requires care, respect, responsibility, understanding, knowledge, and collaboration. It is about communicating, experiencing challenges, and working together in different conditions, including conflict and sadness while remaining in the essence of personal existence and strength.

If love is an art, as such, it requires the development of discipline, concentration, and patience. Setting up the routine and daily practice of these disciplines help us in building inner qualities that are also applicable in our love relations.

The Magic of Love

“Loving is not just looking at each other, it’s looking in the same direction.” – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

There is no single recipe for successful and rewarding relationships, either personal or professional. Starting any relation with a purpose of building long-term commitment, as we mean to go on, sets the tone for more meaningful connection, or association.

It is important to pay attention to the unions formed based on a sense of inertia and a feeling of loneliness. Desperation is a bad advisor when it comes to choosing a partner in life or in business. It is about taking a pause, analyzing, and making selective and careful choices before investing time and effort into new relationships. It is about having courage to say “no” but also accepting a rejection, not taking that personally.

It is good to review and revise periodically our current circumstances and consider our personal progress and goals in setting up our relationship needs, remembering that what we want or wish for might not necessarily be what we really need to advance and evolve as individuals.

Beginning a new relationship with a sense of purpose and from a position of personal strength and wholeness, understanding our needs, help us to make the right choice. Having similar vision, going in the same direction supports forming of a lasting bond and prevents future conflicts and power struggles.

The Power of Love

“There is only one happiness in this life, to love and be loved.” – George Sand

Practice makes us perfect in many disciplines, including love. Knowing how to love and accept love is a skill we need to keep learning throughout our lives.  Education starts with understanding and knowing oneself, becoming a complete individual aware of own advantages and disadvantages, and working out over personal issues and traumas.  It is about solving, not avoiding, personal conflicts and issues with others. Effective communication is a primary resolution tool in building valuable and long-lasting bonds. It is about creating an essence of our persona, independent from the expectations of our parents, communities, and general societal rules. It is about connecting and collaborating on an equal level, without expectations from others to give us unconditional motherly love and paternal praise, to complete us or patch up our deficiencies.

The key to loving and being loved is to have faith, in ourselves, and others. It is about focusing on what we can give, instead of what we can receive and how we can benefit from our partner and our relationship.  It is not about focusing on being loved and being loveable, but on loving with one's capacity to love wholeheartedly.

Love is an art.  As such, it is about long-lasting creation, with a focus on "standing" in love versus the initial "falling" in love or retaining a permanent state of "being" in love.  It is about the mastery of the practice through our constant life's ups and downs.

“I’m laughing at clouds

So dark up above

The Sun is in my heart

And I am ready for love” – “Singing in the rain”

Gene Kelly