What is love anyway? 

"There's a hundred shades of love, and a million in-between, if you can't get enough, then there's more you haven't seen" ~Andrew Donovan

“I LOVE YOU”

What does that mean?

What does it mean to love someone, what does it mean to be loved?

What is love anyway?

I started to ponder these questions when I noticed this gap between someone telling me they love me and how I felt in relationship to their engagement with me, which I did not experience as love.

Love is a feeling we feel inside toward someone but how does it go from a feeling to something we share with another?

Just because I feel love inside for someone else doesn't mean it translates into them receiving love from me. You can “love” someone- have that love feeling inside- and at the same time behave toward them in ways that do no at all feel loving to that other person.

Abusers often claim that their actions were motivated by their love. 

If someone “loves” me but it doesn't land for me as love, or if I can't feel or receive what they offer as love, then how am I included in their love for me?

No wonder people feel so confused by love!!!

There's love that is a way we feel, that is really a personal and internal experience which can have little connection to what is happening in the other person.

Then there's love that is about what we receive as love, or offer as love, which is greatly about the interplay and interconnection between two people. These two loves usually have relationship with each other, though, as I experienced, there can often be disconnection and gaps between the two.

How do we move love from the feeling we have inside to a way of engagement that is successfully received by the other person as love? Or how do we receive what someone else offers as love?

We tend to give love in ways that we enjoy receiving it or that would feel loving to us, However, that doesn't always register as love for someone else.

In-order for love to be received- to be experienced as love by the person it is intended for- it must take into consideration in some way the feelings, needs, desires and preferences of that other person.

We must consider what that person would actually receive or experience as love. This may or may not be how we would naturally express love or what we would receive as the most loving.

If, however, we want it to feel like love to that other person, then we must take them into consideration.

The best guidance I can offer is, if you truly want to love someone and to have them experience you're expression of that love as love, then do your best to create connection and understanding around what that person enjoys or experiences as love.

You might even ask them. Here are some questions you could use:

• What would feel most loving to you right now?
• How do know when someone is loving you?
• What do people do or say that contribute to your experience of being loved?
• Are there particular things I do or say that connect you with my love for you?
• Can you imagine something that someone would do or say that would give you a sense of being deeply loved?
• If there are times that you are feeling particularly loved by me, would you be willing to point them out, so that I can better know how to love you?

Might sound silly, but if you can get over your initial awkwardness or discomfort it can save a lot of frustration, disconnection or hurt in the long run and help you really know how to translate that internal feeling of love into shared loving connection.

While your at it, it can't hurt to ask yourself the same questions, especially if the ways that people treat you that claim to love you don't actually feel like love to you... 

If you're having trouble coming up with answers, look at the things people do or say that don't contribute to your experience of being loved. There's a good chance that the things people do that detract from your experience of love will point you right to the things you find most loving. (Whatever is the opposite!) 

And you know what else? You can apply this process to any quality and gain greater understanding...

What is it to care for someone in a way that they receive as caring?
What is it to respect someone in ways they find respectful?

We  can learn to translate from giver to receiver so that what we wish to offer and communicate is received with the intention that it holds.