Moonwoman on Love and Relationships

Your Love Map!

compass How did I do that? Firstly I had to define what love is for me. That’s a toughie for most of us. I was brought up in a world where you didn’t say, “I love you”. I was brought up in a world where the only person I got warm hugs from was my mother. I knew I loved dogs and wild animals. I knew I loved the freedom of roaming the countryside on my own. I guessed that I sometimes loved my family, but not all the time. That was my total childhood frame of reference in a nutshell about love. So I had to learn for myself about all the types of love that are out there. Leo Buscaglia’s books were the compass helped guide me. James Redfield’s series of books on The Celestine Prophecy helped me to understand the concept of energy better.

Coupled with my counseling and psychology background, I used the knowledge gleaned from these books. I began asking myself some difficult questions. Here are some of those for you.

How on earth can you possibly ever find love?
Where on earth are you going to find the love you seek?
When can you ever have rich relationships if you don’t know what you are looking for?
What on earth does love mean to you?

You can’t possibly find it, if you can’t define it. You might want to look deep inside yourself to find out what you mean by the term love. But first you must truly love yourself!

hug There are many types of love. So that’s the first problem. Let’s begin there. Add your own descriptors to my list. Beside each type of love, add only two adjectives or descriptive words that show your feelings.

1. Family Love

your mother’s love for you
your father’s love for you
your love for your mother
your love for father or father figure
your love towards your first child
your love towards your second child, etc.

Okay, so now a picture of our Love Map is emerging. The reason I want you to confine it to two adjectives is it forces you to really think about how you feel about these relationships. Don’t worry. This is for your eyes only, so don’t feel guilty when your relationship with one of the above is not the greatest. However, you begin to see a pattern that is in your family. Frankly, if you go back a generation or two and write down the description to include your grandparents, the picture becomes much clearer to you.

"Loving oneself does mean a genuine interest, caring, concern and respect for oneself. To care about oneself is basic to love. Man loves himself when he sees himself with accuracy, genuinely appreciates what he sees, but is especially excited and challenged with the prospect of what he can become. (Leo Buscaglia. Love)

Affirmation

infinity I am connected with the infinite energy of universal Love. I love my heart, my mind, my soul and my body. I look in the mirror every day and tell the wise person in my soul’s eyes, I choose to love myself unconditionally!