How Does Love Feel like?

[Athelstone]

Love is when someone else's happiness matters more to you than your own.

I must respectfully disagree with this statement. I believe that for one to truly be able to love another, one must allow to love themselves as much as they would the other. In loving oneself, and cultivating our own happiness may we realize the love and joy in others. This would not be possible if another's happiness is placed above your own.

(This viewpoint is not to be confused with narcissism, which is an obsession with oneself).

[ileo75]

...stopping love when it wants to be expressed is painful, but if someone is in your heart even if not with you in a physical relationship then I don't think that affects the actual love for them in any way. Some people can always be in your heart even if they are not with you.

Mostly whatever is in your heart ends up coming out, once you realize the barrier to experiencing that is within yourself.


The only real action to take is not to hold on to anything, to let the love as it is felt flow freely and find its place. If you are holding on to it then it is not love, but once you let go you realize love is infinite and has no boundaries.

i agree with you sash

[ileo75]

Love is when someone else's happiness matters more to you than your own.

I must respectfully disagree with this statement. I believe that for one to truly be able to love another, one must allow to love themselves as much as they would the other. In loving oneself, and cultivating our own happiness may we realize the love and joy in others. This would not be possible if another's happiness is placed above your own.

(This viewpoint is not to be confused with narcissism, which is an obsession with oneself).

what i think journeyman161 wanted to say with this is exactly what he wrote, not necessarily saying that by wishing the happinness of the other to affect negatively your own.
I see it like this:
I love a man and want him to be happy. I really will be extremely happy to make him and see him happy and of course by being able to do so i am at the same time filling myself with happiness for being able to fill him with happiness. Obviously if his hapinness would come in some way in detriment of my own, then it is not fair on his behalf towards me, in case he becomes aware of this. Then obviously he is not loving me.
If he is not aware that my will and actions for his happinnes destroy my own, then it is an obsession on my side. No healthy thinking person would continuosly sacrifice their happiness in detriment of themselves i think.

We are talking about LOVE between two humans, so each will be happy to see the other happy, but not damaging themselves because of this.

[journyman161]

what i think journeyman161 wanted to say with this is exactly what he wrote, not necessarily saying that by wishing the happinness of the other to affect negatively your own.
I see it like this:
I love a man and want him to be happy. I really will be extremely happy to make him and see him happy and of course by being able to do so i am at the same time filling myself with happiness for being able to fill him with happiness. Obviously if his hapinness would come in some way in detriment of my own, then it is not fair on his behalf towards me, in case he becomes aware of this. Then obviously he is not loving me.
If he is not aware that my will and actions for his happinnes destroy my own, then it is an obsession on my side. No healthy thinking person would continuosly sacrifice their happiness in detriment of themselves i think.

We are talking about LOVE between two humans, so each will be happy to see the other happy, but not damaging themselves because of this.

What she said... *grins*

I don't know if you can love someone else without at least starting the journey towards loving yourself. For me, 50 passed with relationships that I knew almost from the start would end shortly. For most of those 50 years I didn't think much of myself.

Then I accepted the rest of my life I would be alone & probably wind up being one of those old guys up the street whose house the kids avoid because 'he's creepy' (joke) & set my mind to never finding the soul mate I had looked for for so long. I never married because I wanted it to be forever & I knew that was available if only I could meet her.

Only when I started to look to myself, to realise I wasn't such a bad guy after all, could I really give in to my life's purpose which was to help others. In reaching out to do so, I found Love & through trial & joy, we've come together & found happiness with each other.

I don't think I could have claimed my place in her life without at least liking myself a bit. Sort of - I have to be worthy of her. Yes I know she has faults & is human & we've already had times to battle through to be together, but if I still disliked myself I would have found a way to sabotage it all to make sure I didn't get anything good in my life.

If I make her happy, it makes me happy & vice versa. If that ever changes on either side, I think we're both aware enough as beings that we'd feel it.

[ileo75]

For me, 50 passed with relationships that I knew almost from the start would end shortly. For most of those 50 years I didn't think much of myself.

Then I accepted the rest of my life I would be alone & probably wind up being one of those old guys up the street whose house the kids avoid because 'he's creepy' (joke) & set my mind to never finding the soul mate I had looked for so long. I never married because I wanted it to be forever & I knew that was available if only I could meet her.

I heard a few times the expression stating that a man only knows what he wants from a woman (as a wife to share his life with) only after his 40's...
May be because man are more interested initially only in sex than woman, they aren't apparently as demanding as woman are towards other domestic activities and responsabilities. In the meantime they learn from every relationship and start defining the exact image of the ideal woman to dedicte their lives to.

It really looks like that to let someone in our life means we need to know better who and what we are or want to be truly.

Either way i am very glad to know journeyman161 found himslef and his love on his path towards happiness. May it last forever
IMO, as an example, we should learn from his experience

by the way, what is a grin?

[journyman161]

You don't know 'grin?' Like a smile but only bigger. Usually shows teeth. Take a look at your avatar - she's either got a really big smile or she is grinning. :grin: <-- one of them things...

[wstein]

I have been watching this thread with interest.

I know my parents loved me. I could see by what they did and how they treated me. But i did not FEEL that love.

I ask: What does it feel like to be loved?

[journyman161]

I had it different to that... I was told I was loved & told how the things done were evidence of love & then when I left home, found that following God is no guarantee of either truth or love. That those I'd felt sorry for in their godless world were actually better off than I.

I spent a life alone in company. I refused to 'settle' for the type of marriage my parents had & thought that had finally isolated me from sharing my life with a partner.

How does it feel to be loved? Like after all my wanderings, I have a home. As though, even though I live in the unit I've been in for the past 4 years, I've moved into a place I want to come home to. Like it's no longer me against the world & that 'us' now means something.

It feels like I've had a healing of a hole in my soul I didn't know was there - or rather, I knew I had a lack but I didn't realise how much of me was missing.

[Palehorse Redivivus]

I can relate to that (wstein and Jman); there was a time when I wasn't able to feel it either, but I think things have changed. Having operated on both sides of the coin I'm still not sure I've fully wrapped my head around it myself, so I don't know how good my explanation will be. For that matter I don't know if what is a mostly subjective experience can be explained in words. But with that said...

What you're describing, I think, is a more intellectual knowledge of being loved; i.e. you know someone loves you because of what they do for you, how they act toward you, etc. This kind of love is, in a sense, dependent on those external factors. If the good words and actions stopped, would you still believe that you're loved? In that position, I may or may not have, largely depending on how I was feeling about myself in a given moment.

When you're able to feel it, there's a more experiential level of "knowing" that is not dependent on those external factors. There's a degree of security that comes with it, that doesn't really apply at the more intellectual level. There are connections possible between people that simply are what they are; they exist and can be perceived largely independent of words, actions, distance, frequency of contact and so forth. With that kind of experience, the external demonstrations become a welcome confirmation of what one already knows, rather than being the whole focus of the relationship. As for what it feels like... when I'm feeling particularly close to someone, or in some cases when we've been tossing that kind of energy back 'n forth, I experience it as a spreading, quasi-physical warmth in the chest that has a really happy and calming vibe to it.

So there's my attempt to explain; hopefully it made some sense.

it feels wonderful.. its so secure like being wrapped in a big warm blanket but at the same time it feels like platform from which to fly too, uplifting and warm and it colors the world around me too so that nothing bothers me

theres no effort involved at all..no insecurity..no worry..no doubt nothin