It’s Valentine’s Day, a day dedicated to love. Cupid is the mascot, a cherub that goes around shooting arrows at people to bring them under love’s spell. Once the arrow finds its target, the victim then seeks a partner and asks the question, “Will you be my Valentine?” offering flowers, candies, and kisses. Valentine’s Day is full of tradition and a great way to celebrate your significant other, except that the love reserved for intimate relationships is just a small sliver of what it really means to love.
Love is so much greater than an intoxicating feeling between two people in an intimate relationship. In his book, Loveability, my mentor and spiritual teacher, Robert Holden, explains that love is so broad and deep that it cannot be defined. It is everywhere and permeates everything. Yet, while Robert says it cannot be defined, and I agree, its still fun to try and put some parameters around it so we can better understand. The Meriam Webster definition of love as a noun uses a number of words that are helpful to our rational minds. They include:
- “strong affection for another,”
- “attraction based on sexual desire,”
- “affection based on admiration,”
- “warm attachment, enthusiasm, or devotion,”
- “unselfish loyal and benevolent concern for the good of another.”
Of the five phrases included above, only one need be reserved for “that special someone.” We can surely feel strong affection, enthusiasm, admiration and benevolence towards all people, can’t we? This kind of love can be felt towards animals and nature as well, can it not? Yet a great part of our society still considers the word love to be mushy and soft. We may choose to use the word sparingly for fear of our intentions being misunderstood. If I tell someone I love them, it might be misinterpreted to mean that I am seeking an exclusive special relationship with them. The Bud Light “I Love You Man,” made us laugh, but he also proliferated this stigma as he sappily confessed his love to his dude buddies. (I still think it’s a great commercial though.)
Love surrounds us as we are made of love. A Course in Miracles teaches that we are pure love and it is only fear that rolls in, like clouds in the sky blocking the sun’s rays, that keeps us from fully living in its power. A Course in Miracles calls separation a “detour into fear,” and requires the ego for survival. But we are not separate, we are all one. And just as sunlight will eventually dissolve the clouds and shine through, love will always dissolve fear.
As a practical example I can describe the transmutation of fear through love using envy. In a seminar that I recently attended, another mentor and coach, Brian Buffini, said that a feeling of envy is evidence that you are not living up to your full potential. It is a fearful response to another person and is ultimately a judgment of oneself that causes us to feel resentment towards the other person. When we bring love to the same situation, we can turn envy into admiration. Instead of feeling resentment, we can become enthusiastic towards the other. I have most certainly found myself feeling envious in the past. But my conscious awareness of such thoughts and feelings, and a desire to transcend the fear and live in love, has helped me to intentionally honor the other person instead of placing judgment on my own perceived deficiencies. One way to accomplish this, when a thought or feeling of envy arises, is to immediately compliment the other person. In this way, we turn envy into admiration, fear into love, and in our own way, we acknowledge them with our own version of “I Love You Man.’
Transmuting envy into admiration is only one example of love dissolving fear. We can consciously take the same loving actions to combat any egoic, separation based negative emotions. And with practice, love transforms our entire lives. We begin to love and appreciate all people, animals, nature, the universe and the oneness of all these things. As Tony Robbins says, “when you trade your expectations for appreciation, your world changes in an instant.” And as Huey Lewis’s theme song for “Back to the Future,” reminds us, “That’s the Power of Love.” Happy Valentine’s Day friends. Much love to everyone!
Photo by Charu Chaturvedi on Unsplash
