The Safe Enough Podcast: Ep 17 - Love Is Not A Feeling
When you think about love, what comes to mind?
Though there’s likely a lot of variance in answers to that question, chances are that feelings come to mind. Feelings of lust, of happiness, of sadness, anger, frustration, disappointment, of gratitude, and all the feelings in between. Feelings about someone else, or feelings about what someone else has felt, or currently feels, about you. And that’s what I thought love was too. That’s what we’re taught. That love is a feeling, and you either feel it or you don’t. It’s an on or off thing. All or nothing. That it’s a thing, a noun, that you can either have, or not have.
But it’s more complex than that.
Welcome to the Safe Enough Podcast! This podcast is an exploration of what it means to feel safe enough in order to live the kind of life, or make the kind of changes that transform our lives, into those with all the love, connection, belonging and purpose that we seek and strive for. My name is MacPherson Worobec, founder of the It Begins To Move studio. I am a safety and self-worth recovery partner, and I’m so happy that you’re here.
This is the first of a series of 3 episodes that are being published in the month of February, which for much of the western world contains the holiday Valentine’s Day. As Valentine's Day is typically a celebration of love, I thought I’d make this month’s theme all about love. In this first episode, I’ll talk about how love is not a feeling, and the ingredients that make up genuine love.
When you think about love, what comes to mind? For each person, based on your unique history with love, different things will come to mind, and that’s completely understandable. So some folks might have pleasant associations with love, others might have painful associations, and some might have a mixture of both. For example, right after I separated from my ex-spouse, I attended a wedding. At that moment in time, I had a very negative, disappointing and painful association with love and declarations of forever in partnerships, and it was hard to be at that wedding around all that love. Now, I have a different relationship with romantic love, and though that memory of divorce pain still remains, after 10 years it’s not as biting as it was when it was fresh. I have loved again, and I have room now for positive associations with romantic love that weren’t there at the painful time before. Similarly, after many years of processing the pain of my childhood, the association that I have with family love is still painful, but less biting. I have created a family of my own, and there’s lots of fulfilling love here. And that means that what I associate with family love is more diverse and nuanced than it was before. In addition to romantic and family love, there’s also love in friendships, love at work, love in communities, in social movements, in countries, regions, religions, all over the place. Love is all over the place….So, when you think about love, what comes to mind?
Though there’s likely a lot of variance in answers to that question, chances are that feelings come to mind. Feelings of lust, of happiness, of sadness, anger, frustration, disappointment, of gratitude, and all the feelings in between. Feelings about someone else, or feelings about what someone else has felt, or currently feels, about you. And that’s what I thought love was too. That’s what we’re taught. That love is a feeling, and you either feel it or you don’t. It’s an on or off thing. All or nothing. That it’s a thing, a noun, that you can either have, or not have.
But it’s more complex than that. Though we treat it like it’s a noun, and you either have it or you don’t, there’s all this fuzziness about what it means if you have it or you don’t, or what it means if someone else has it or doesn’t have it in relation to you. For example, if someone says they feel love for you, if they love you, then there are expectations about what they should and shouldn’t do when they have love for you. There are so many arguments, painful experiences, hurt feelings, miscommunications, abuse, neglect and everything in between, that come from the cultural notions about what it means to have the feeling of love. To be in love. To be in a state of feeling love. And it’s all that fuzziness that feminist author bell hooks aimed to clear up by suggesting love is not a feeling. It’s not a noun, that you either have or don’t have. It’s a verb. She says that love is an action. And looking at it in this way brings me so much clarity about confusing and painful situations where love is supposed to be present, but isn’t actually experienced.
In her book all about love, bell hooks says that if our society had a commonly held definition “of the meaning of love, the act of loving would not be so mystifying.” Using the definition of love that psychiatrist M. Scott Peck’s puts forth in his book The Road Less Traveled, hooks emphasizes the sentiments of choice and intentionality in what it means to love another person. Peck defines love as: “‘the will to extend one’s self for the purpose of nurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth’” Hooks says in this definition that spiritual is not necessarily religious, but instead refers to the growth of a “core reality where mind, body, and spirit are one. [It’s] an animating principle in the self–a life force [she says] (some of us call it soul) that when nurtured, enhances our capacity to be more fully self-actualized and able to engage in communion with the world around us.”
Whoooo…heck yeah! This definition of love really resonates with me. To love someone is to take action in service of their self-actualization. What specifically resonates about this, is the idea that you can say you feel love all day long, but unless your actions match the sentiment, those words mean nothing. And I think this can really affirm the experience of many of us who have been deeply hurt by others who say they love us, but act in ways that hurt us.
Peck’s definition of love has a second part too, which I think is just so key. Not only does Peck suggest that love is an action of nurturing someone in being their best self, but by calling it a “will” implies choice too. The “will to extend one’s self for the purposes of nurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth.” Love is an act of will. He says “We do not have to love. We choose to love.” Yes!! If you are taking action in service of someone else, it means that you are actively choosing to love. Whereas the feeling of love can be spoken but not meant, doing a loving action is a concrete declaration. There’s nothing abstract about it. You can’t fake the action. Now, don’t get me wrong, someone can still do something for someone that they do not love, so let’s take a look at hooks’ full definition of genuine love in just a moment. But the part I want to highlight before moving onto that full definition, is that love as a verb means that to love someone is to choose to love them again, and again, and again. With every action, that commitment is reaffirmed. It's not just a one and done kind of thing. Love has to be continuously created. And again, I think that’s deeply affirming to those of us who have had experiences with folks who say they love us, but continue to act in ways that hurt us.
Which is really a lead right into hook’s full definition of genuine love. Because sometimes folks can hit some of the ingredients, but not all. And sometimes those folks aren’t trying to be hurtful, they’re just not aware of what else we might need in order to truly feel loved. And I think that’s part of what creates confusion about advocating for what you need in love. Because if you say “I don’t feel like you love me,” someone can reply, “But I do…let me prove it to you, I do x, y and z.” And perhaps in the best case scenario, x, y and z are all ingredients in genuine love, but so are a, b and c, and it’s THOSE things that are missing. This full definition of the ingredients can help make good relationships better. And for relationships that are truly hurtful, it can illuminate exactly how love is lacking. For me, hook’s definition really helps clarify all that, which is why it feels so important to share. I hope that it helps you too.
Hooks says that genuine love is the sum total of a combination of six different kinds of actions. Those six kinds of actions are: care, commitment, trust, knowledge, responsibility and respect. She says “to truly love,” we, must learn to mix those six ingredients with affection, recognition as well as honest and open communication. She says, quote “When we are loving we openly and honestly express care, affection, responsibility, respect, commitment, and trust.” End quote. And the same could be said of others towards us too. When we are being genuinely loved by someone else, they are openly and honestly expressing care, affection, responsibility, respect, commitment and trust towards us. All of those. Now, folks are human. Everyone surely has bad days and limited capacity, everyone makes mistakes, and miscommunication certainly happens. But as a general rule, all of those things should be present most of the time. Every single person deserves to experience all of those things. As a matter of fact, I might say that it's this combination of qualities that define the really important and significant relationships, from all others that are less significant.
So perhaps hooks’ six categories might be helpful guideposts in helping you understand where genuine love resides in your life, and perhaps relationships wherein you need more. And in those relationships that aren’t providing you what you need, perhaps the guideposts might help identify which ingredient is lacking. Or perhaps where there’s actually more harm than connection. In her book, hooks says that abuse and neglect and harmful behavior cannot coexist with action based love. Because if someone is acting with true care, commitment, trust, knowledge, responsibility, respect, affection, recognition and honest and open communication, there’s no room for anything other than love. She says quote “Love and abuse cannot coexist. Abuse and neglect are, by definition, the opposites of nurturance and care.” End quote.
It’s okay to need all parts of love. In fact, I would say that needing all parts of hooks’ definition of love, strongly aligns with my definition of self-worth and value. In episodes 12 and 13 of The Safe Enough Podcast, I go through what I consider self-worth and value to be, and you can check those out if you’re interested in learning more about what that is. But nonetheless, every human on the planet deserves and is worthy of love. The whole thing. All parts of genuine love that someone freely chooses to actively express to you.
AND, you also deserve to experience that same kind of freely given, intentional genuine love from your own self too. If love is the will to nurture our own or someone else’s full potential, then let's now spend some time talking about how self-love is the will to grow or discover self-worth, self-value, self-actualization, or the highest and best versions of your unique and incredible self! In order to do the act of nurturing our own growth with self-care, self-affection, self-recognition, self-respect, self-commitment, self-trust, and open and honest communication with our self, often that means we have to unlearn how we previously learned to be neglectful or hurtful to our own tender hearts in the first place. And it’s so hard, because usually we continue to be neglectful or hurtful towards ourselves for one of two reasons: either we think it’s the only way to behave towards ourselves, or we’re trying to self-protect. And both of those are tough behaviors to transform. It’s totally possible to do, but it’s hard work. It takes action. Love is not a feeling, it’s a verb. It’s a consistent act that proclaims “I am worthy!” Loving actions don’t need to be extreme and overwhelming, they can be gentle and sweet. In fact, consistent gentleness, compassion and kindness will likely bring the fastest results overall. And in the next episode I’ll talk more about unlearning feeling love, and learning loving action. In the spirit of love, I wish you gentle, empowered, and nurturing giving and receiving of full and genuine love. I’ll see you in the next episode. Take care, kind soul.
