Tough Love

Just some random questions that came to mind. If the first question cannot be answered, the rest are pretty much pointless.

If we can't objectively define “love”, how do we know when we are in it, giving it or receiving it?

Can you love another if you don't love yourself?

Is it easier to love another or be loved by another?

If we don't love ourselves, is it possible to be loved by another?

Does the love we give reduce the love we give ourselves?


Thanks

a reply to: eisegesis

If we see a random act of kindness happen then we have observed a act of love .Love is kind .....Love is a action ....

1. You can't define love but it can be felt. Defining love is like trying to describe color to a blind person. The best way to "define" color is to describe it through feeling, like hot is red, cold is blue, etc. Same goes for love, the only way to describe it is to "feel" it. If you feel it then you know you are in it.

2. I don't believe so, love emanates from your being, so if you do not love yourself then how can you emanate it to others? Sorry for answering your question with another question.

3. It's easier to be loved by another because it requires no work from yourself whereas to love another requires personal input from yourself.

4. It's possible to be loved by another without loving yourself.

5. Not in my opinion, love for others should multiply love for yourself because to love others truly is to put yourself in their shoes.

Hope that helped.

a reply to: eisegesis

If I defined "love" it is to care more strongly toward the person than I care about myself.

Example. I "love" my son. I would do anything for him. I have sacrificed and I would give my life. That is "love".

Can you love another if you don't love yourself?

No. If you can't love yourself, then you can't truly love others. You can be kind. You can be caring, but I believe the true essence of love starts from within.

Is it easier to love another or be loved by another?

It's always easier to take than it is to give yourself.

If we don't love ourselves, is it possible to be loved by another?

Of course, look at the parents of any new baby. A parent almost never stops loving.

Does the love we give reduce the love we give ourselves?

Once you've mastered the trick of loving yourself, you treat others with that same without going through the motions.

originally posted by: the2ofusr1
a reply to: eisegesis

If we see a random act of kindness happen then we have observed a act of love .Love is kind .....Love is a action ....

Would it be an act of love if someone robbed you at gunpoint in order to feed their children?

a reply to: eisegesis

I guess it would depend on the full scenario.

a reply to: 3NL1GHT3N3D1

You can't define love but it can be felt.

If you can't define love, but you can feel it, you must be able to define the feeling? Circular logic...

Colors do not represent hot or cold in any way. That is a subjective description of what you think those colors should represent which so happens to be widely accepted around the world.

I don't believe so, love emanates from your being, so if you do not love yourself then how can you emanate it to others? Sorry for answering your question with another question.

An actor can convey "love" in a movie though they may be empty inside and the audience still gets emotional. Could this same "act" hold up in a real relationship and fool someone into thinking that you love them?

It's easier to be loved by another because it requires no work from yourself whereas to love another requires personal input from yourself.

In my opinion, that is absolutely untrue. How do you know that everything you are not doing is the very reason why someone cannot or will not love you?

It's possible to be loved by another without loving yourself.

That was kind of a trick question. Someone who loves you no matter how much you hate yourself is a testament to that persons strength, will, and selflessness. In that example, it is the purest form of loving unconditionally. Even if the one loving you goes through suffering to do it.

love for others should multiply love for yourself because to love others truly is to put yourself in their shoes.

I like your answer. Two people who truly love themselves first will have their love multiplied when they love each other.

a reply to: eisegesis

If we can't objectively define “love”, how do we know when we are in it, giving it or receiving it?

Love is the promise of unreliable emotions and irrational conclusions in the presence of someone.

It depends on how the word is used. The claim "I love these new shoes" differs from "I love my mother". The first denotes some kind of aesthetic appeal towards the shoes which induces this state of 'love'. Whereas, in the latter, 'love' is used in a different sense from the former, it is a much stronger love, it is a kind of love which can bring about indescribable feelings; a love that a person would die for. For the former, I doubt that any reasonable and educated person would die for a pair of shoes. Words such as love have a scaling effect. It has varying degrees to it, dependent on the circumstances in which it is used.

Too many people mixing love with liking, lust or 'the good'. Love is the one thing that doesn't need to be defined, it's better when left undefined. It hits you, can't be denied, the deeper it gets the less need there is to question it.

a reply to: eisegesis

I wouldn't consider that a act of love no .It would be a desperate attempt to feed your child . Love is first and foremost a act of kindness .Stealing is not a act of kindness .

originally posted by: eisegesis
Just some random questions that came to mind. If the first question cannot be answered, the rest are pretty much pointless.

If we can't objectively define “love”, how do we know when we are in it, giving it or receiving it?

Can you love another if you don't love yourself?

Is it easier to love another or be loved by another?

If we don't love ourselves, is it possible to be loved by another?

Does the love we give reduce the love we give ourselves?

Thanks

1. You could ask that question about any number of emotions - hate, for instance. My feeling is that if we feel it then we 'know'.

2. I have no problem loving another even if I'm not particularly fond of myself.

3. Far easier to love another. I feel too beholden if someone loves me, as if I have to be on best behaviour so as not to disappoint them. I'm fine if someone can just treat me with consideration and if someone can't do that, then I don't believe they love me. And it's amazing to me how many people can claim to love another without showing them any kindness or consideration at all.

4. I don't see why not - other people have many and varied reasons for loving someone else.

5. I don't believe that love is a finite commodity. One might sacrifice for another and maybe it seems as if we don't love ourselves so much if we put someone else first, but I think it's swings and roundabouts. What we lose out on in one way, we gain in another.

That's my answers to your questions but I'll add some personal information. Some years ago, I had my heart broken - well and truly shattered, for good.

I had little pets at the time and had to re-learn how to love using my brain rather than my heart. Somehow, I got by and they delighted me in their own little way and I didn't stint on my love for them.

I realised that I'd never love from the heart again and did a good job in 'faking' it.

Fast forward to a couple of years ago, after I'd been living in the country for a while. I started to realise that I was loving again - genuinely. Only, this time it came from the soul. Deeper, more meaningful than any sort of love I could have felt with my heart. Having my emotions ripped out of me left a void and, gradually, I found a better way to be.

You'll have to take my word for all of that - I can't express it any more clearly. I just had a profound realisation one day - I was probably watching squirrels or something when I had the revelation.

For me, love is an empathic identification with another. So that their state of being becomes also yours, so that your own drives towards happiness, pleasure, and comfort are activated for them as well as yourself.

How that is expressed, in concrete terms, can have a huge variety of behaviors.

It all kind of hinges upon how you are with yourself, and how your intellect and emotions interplay.

I don't give into each and every desire, drive or emotion that arises in me, so I don't do that with the ones I love either.
Some of those are shortsighted, and can be more damaging than beneficial in the long run.
But I recognize the necessity of fulfilling as much as is possible, to lead a productive life, so strive for a balance of long term and short term happiness and comfort for both myself and those I love.

This is why synthesis is my main focus in almost all endeavors- finding points of action and choice which can best address my needs as equally well as those around me. I don't want to sacrifice my self, but nor do I want to sacrifice other!
Either one of those ways, I'll hurt or suffer.
I think that is the idea some are trying to express when they say things like "We are all one." -Not that we aren't individuals, with our own distinctive minds, but that we all share a basic biology, that has the same potential emotions and feelings, and that those are shared and contagious, in a way which makes us never quite completely isolated from one another.

EVEN if we disconnect with our emotions and physical reactions, that is an illusion we create. Our science has uncovered the ways our mirror neurons work, with or without our conscious awareness. We have learned that we are influenced by all sorts of sub-conscious interactions between bodies in terms of hormones, smells, images, movement, sounds....

So for me, love, in a general way, is simply a conscious recognition of that connection. What is good for those around me is good for me, and what is good for me is also good for those around me.

A choice of a partner (a mate, monogamy) is a choice of just increasing those levels of empathy, to make the connection more consciously and intensely experienced.

a reply to: eisegesis

I'm not sure if a Q&A is the right way to go about love-work. Instead, seek inside yourself for barriers against love, and dismantle them. Love will take care of the rest.

Oh, and read the love poetry of Rumi. Lots of Rumi.



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