Love

Happy Valentine's Day!

I've been "writing" this post in my head for several days, unsure of how to word it or what exactly to say. I know what I want to talk about, but sometimes these things don't go exactly as planned. Take this introduction, for example. How do I adequately introduce such a significant and deep topic as love? I will start with a story ...

A few weeks ago, a friend asked me to contribute to something he is creating for his partner for Valentine's Day. In order to participate, my contribution required me to consider a seemingly simple question: "What does love mean to me?" At the time, I thought "Oh sure, that will be easy!" However,  the more I thought about it, the more I realized that his question was anything but simple.

For one, there are so many varying opinions on what love is, types of love, purposes or functions of love, definitions of love, and so on, that I didn't really know where to start. In his book The Four Loves, C.S. Lewis divides love into four categories based on four Greek words for love: affection, friendship, eros, and charity.

Another theory, which I distinctly remember learning in university, was developed by psychologist Robert Sternberg. Sternberg postulates that there are three components of love, and that these interact with each other to form seven different love experiences (with nonlove being the absence of all three components).

Personally, I really like Sternberg's theory. It incorporates several aspects of what I see as essential to the experience of love. Sternberg acknowledges the wide range of love many of us experience throughout our lives, and his theory also recognizes that there is more to love than simply having feelings for another person.

According to Sternberg, the three components of love are:

[caption id="attachment_3228" align="alignright" width="248"] Sternberg's Triangular Theory of Love[/caption]

1) Intimacy: feelings of attachment, closeness, connectedness and bondedness

2) Passion: encompasses feelings of limerence (adoration with the intense desire to have your feelings reciprocated) and sexual attraction

3) Commitment: the decision to remain with your partner (short term) as well as shared achievements and plans made together (long term)

As you can see, Sternberg's theory places each component at the vertices of a triangle. Each component interacts with the others, leading to seven different kinds of love experiences. The size of the triangle represents the "amount" of love, while the shape represents the style of love. Both of these tend to vary over the course of a relationship.

"The amount of love one experiences depends on the absolute strength of these three components, and the type of love one experiences depends on their strengths relative to each other."^[2] Different stages and types of love can be explained as different combinations of these three elements; for example, the relative emphasis of each component changes over time as an adult romantic relationship develops. A relationship based on a single element is less likely to survive than one based on two or three elements. Source: Wikipedia - Triangular Theory of Love

Now that we've established what scholars/writers/psychologists consider "love" to be, what about my contribution to my friend's project? When it came time to share my thoughts on love, I didn't refer to any theories or statements from scholars, writers or other brilliant minds. Instead, I reflected on my own experiences with love - romantic and otherwise. I quickly realized my own definition of love is centered on my understanding of how people connect -- at the level of our basic energy.

For me, real love is an intense and soul-deep connection; it's about understanding, accepting and supporting your loved one(s) for who they truly are and not who someone else wants them to be.

The happy ending to my story is the video below. It wasn't easy, but I finally managed to put into words what had been going through my head every time I thought about the question "what does love mean to me?". I'll leave you with my own thoughts, and I would love to hear your answer to the same question: "What does love mean to you?"



Wishing you a Happy Valentine's Day, and more love than you could ever need, today and every day.

- Candice :)

It's All About Sex

It's no secret that 2012 was a bit of a struggle for me. One of the difficulties I continually ran into was a lack of content for my blog. I simply didn't want to write, and when I did want to write, I didn't know what to write about. It wasn't "flowing" the way writing always has for me. This quickly became a debilitating and frustrating cycle, and eventually, I pushed posting to the back of my mind.

[caption id="attachment_3176" align="alignright" width="216"] Source: www.soulseeds.com[/caption]

Since then I've realized that one of the key issues was that I was holding myself back -- telling myself that everything I wrote had to be about sex, sex ed, sexuality ... and I felt very limited and uninspired. I mean, sex is a fantastic topic, but I'll be the first to admit that there's more to life!

The more I engaged in reflection and redefining my goals, however, the more I realized that sexuality is as much a part of day-to-day life as eating and breathing. Don't get me wrong - I'm not saying that our entire day-to-day lives are (or should be) consumed by sex ... we'd never get anything done! And I'm also not saying that every person is/should be highly sexual.

What I mean is that sexuality - our sexual energy / sexual self - is ingrained into how we interact with and see ourselves, others and the world in general.

Does that make sense?

I'll use myself as an example. Through my self-reflection have realized that, among other things, my energy / essence is very sensual and flirtatious. I thrive off of positive interactions with others, no matter who the other person is. This doesn't mean that I'm having sex with every person I meet (wow, that would be exhausting, not to mention dangerous!). It does, however, mean that my energy - my essence - is part of every interaction with others. And sex is a major part of my energy. This helps explain why people have always been drawn to me and why I've never had trouble finding a lover, should I want one. I'm not saying that's all there is to it, but I definitely feel that my energy has had a lot to do with my interpersonal interactions.

The point of this post is to say that I will be writing about more than overtly obvious sex this year. I believe that, if you look closely enough, you will see the energies of life behind every experience. And quite often there will be a sexual component to those energies.

So in the end, it's all about sex. ;)