Energy and love are a lot alike. In fact, love is a form of spiritual energy that can be generated and received in mental, physical or emotional forms. Just like energy, love can come from many sources and can be used in many ways.
For example, your car generates kinetic energy when it is moving. The headlights use electrical energy to produce radiant energy when they shine. A compressed spring stores energy, and there’s even energy in your car’s heated and air-conditioned air.
Your car’s energy can be used in positive ways like driving a friend to the airport, or in negative, destructive ways like crashing through a wall into someone’s living room. Your car can even give energy to and receive energy from another vehicle, like when a truck pulls a trailer.
Energy can mean different things, depending on how it is used. Have you ever heard the expression, “I energy you!”? What does that mean? Who knows — it could mean anything, just like the expression, “I love you!” What does it mean to you when someone says, “I love you”? What does this expression imply when you say it to your child? What about your relationship partner?
Do you love your child the same way you love your spouse? What about people who say they love their cars? What does that mean? Are they referring to a feeling, a thought, an action or an energy?
Like energy, love can mean different things to different people. So let’s look at how love applies to your personal relationships and how you can use it in a healthy or unhealthy manner.
The value of love:
Love is the most valuable commodity in the world. We all need love just like a fish needs water. Without love, life would not be worth living. With love in our lives we are empowered beyond belief.
Without love in our lives we will shrivel up and die a slow, painful and lonely death. Love is the very essence and core of our being. It is the energy that sustains who and what we are. Everyone in life has a deep-rooted desire to love and be loved.
The different forms of love:
Many times people only recognize love in its emotional form. We might hear people on television say things like, “I don’t love you anymore,” as they express their emotional feelings. But love is a lot more than what we feel.
Love is a spiritual form of energy that can be given or received in physical, emotional or mental forms. Love usually starts in our thoughts, then spreads to the physical world through our actions, and then it will produce the emotional feelings.
If you want to experience those powerful emotional feelings of love, it’s necessary to think loving thoughts and produce some loving actions. If you think angry, vindictive thoughts, there is no way you will experience loving feelings or produce any loving actions.
It’s possible to be angry with our spouse and force ourselves to do something nice for them in our actions, like buying flowers. Pretty soon our minds kick in and after we see how happy our partner is upon receiving the gift, our emotions will follow.
Love is a spiritual gift from God that starts mentally and finds its way to physical expression. But the emotional feelings we call love have very little to do with what love really is all about.
Reprinted from The Relationship Toolbox by Robert Abel.
Robert Abel is director of Relationship Rebuilders, a marriage and family psychotherapy counseling practice in Colorado. He works with couples and families helping them heal the emotional wounds of the past and incorporate spirituality into their lives.
A member of the American Psychological Association with extensive studies in psychology and sociology, one of Abel’s highest goals is to dramatically reduce the current divorce rate by encouraging couples to develop the tools to rebuild, maintain and strengthen their relationships.