I was fortunate enough to be present at a tribute last night to a beautiful musician, Jo Mall Kahn (from Edo and Jo) who passed away from Cancer a few days ago. It was reiterated many times throughout the evening that Jo absolutely encapsulated ‘love’, and it got me thinking deeply about this word. What follows is a culmination of that thought process, and I lovingly dedicate this post to Jo.
The problem with using words to represent concepts is that they are limited by being just that; A mere representation of a powerful concept that is in fact beyond words.
What’s worse is that we tend to abuse words, throwing them around nonchalantly, becoming more and more de-sensitised to the underlying concepts that they were once conjured up to represent in the first place.
Love, is one of these words. What underlying concept does this word ‘love’ truly represent?
Love is more than just a feeling or an emotion. In fact it trumps all other feelings and emotions.
Love is…
- Connection – sharing a mutual bond with another;
- Empathy – truly feeling what another is feeling;
- Compassion – desiring to alleviate the suffering of another;
- Respect – deep admiration for another’s true worth;
- Understanding – pure appreciation for the perspective of another;
- Gratitude – feeling honoured by another’s doing or being;
- Joy – feeling pure happiness and utter bliss;
…all rolled into one.
Love is a force. It transcends time and space. It is the force that drives our own evolution. It breeds authenticity. And when we are being authentic and ‘speaking from the heart’, we are literally a force to be reckoned with. We pierce through other’s jealousy, egotism, deceit, and anger. We inspire the other person to hear us, understand us, and get on board with us. When we are being authentic, everything seems to ‘work-out’ for the best and simply ‘fall into place’.
The good news is that love is like a muscle that can be trained. The more we actively induce this force, the more it naturally exudes from us. We’ve all heard the saying a hundred times: “life is short”. It’s a beautiful reminder not to waste our time infatuated with a story in our heads about how another intentionally said or did something to hurt us. It’s not easy, but the more that we actively connect, feel empathy, show compassion, attempt to respect and understand, be grateful and feel joy for others, the more we will have the space to think about and do what truly makes us happy. And life might not get longer, but our days will certainly be lengthened.
So the next time we mindlessly use the term love, let’s aim to bring our full intention to the word so that we activate the powerful force underlying its mere letters.
With love,
Nikki
