What Is Love? (Baby don’t hurt me!)

Sorry. Whenever I hear ‘What is love?’ the inter monologue in my head loves finishing the sentence with the classic lyric from Haddaway!

I’m sure this question is cropping up a lot lately considering it’s February and all, what’s really interesting about it is that love means so many different things to different people. You can have love for another person, a love for life and you certainly should have love for yourself.

Some people think of love as a passionate and intense feeling while others think of it as a strong bond of security between two people. We took our question to the streets! Well…to our social media pages and here’s our lovely readers thoughts on what love meant to them:

“Love is giving someone your everything, your love, trust and all of your heart and knowing they’ll love, treat and respect it at all times. Love is waking up next to someone and pressing snooze just to spend those extra few minutes with someone even if you get shouted at by the boss. Love for me is all these things and so much more that I can’t even begin to explain, love Is my relationship with Ben, love is my future.” – Ellie, Gloucestershire

“It is a million little things that when you add them all up mean we’re supposed to be together” – Cambridge Weddings (from Sleepless in Seattle)

“Love is about being supportive and willing to listen to each other moan after a bad day. When a cuddle makes everything better. encouraging each other to get what you want from life, being positive about each others ideas & suggestions, showing your appreciation and saying ‘i love you.’ Never holding a grudge and always willing to say sorry when you need to. Being able to laugh together over silly things. Making plans for the future” – Christobel, One Life Weddings

Love is not only a feeling, it’s an expression… and while I was on my virtual quest for what people thought about love I came across this heart warming article on Marcandangel.com about tiny love stories and expressing love, I couldn’t resist sharing a few!…

“Today, I walked up to the door of my office (I’m a florist) at 7AM to find a uniformed Army soldier standing out front waiting. He was on his way to the airport to go to Afghanistan for a year. He said, “I usually bring home a bouquet of flowers for my wife every Friday and I don’t want to let her down when I’m away.” He then placed an order for 52 Friday afternoon deliveries of flowers to his wife’s office and asked me to schedule one for each week until he returns. I gave him a 50% discount because it made my day to see something so sweet.”

“When she woke up from an eleven month coma, she kissed me and said, “Thank you for being here, and telling me those beautiful stories, and never giving up on me… And yes, I will marry you.”

“There are two senior boys at my school who have an openly gay relationship. They have experienced verbal humiliation on a daily basis for the last two years, yet they continue to hold each other’s hand in the hallways. Despite threats and vandalized lockers, they showed up to prom this evening wearing matching tuxedos. Seeing them on the dance floor, smiling from ear to ear in spite of all the haters”

“My 75-year-old grandpa who has been blind from cataracts for almost 15 years said to me, “Your grandma is just the most beautiful thing, isn’t she?” I paused for a second and said, “Yes she is. I bet you miss seeing that beauty on a daily basis.” “Sweety,” my grandpa said, “I still see her beauty every day. In fact, I see it more now than I used to when we were young.”

Love isn’t just about loving another person, it’s also about loving yourself…

I strongly believe that us women have a terrible, TERRIBLE habit of putting ourselves down, nothing is ever perfect and it never will be, we seem to always focus on what we consider the bad things about ourselves to be and not the good things. This is silly. It gets us nowhere and only makes us feel bad, surely we want to make ourselves feel good and happy right?

“Learning to love yourself will change everything else in your life. You will feel more confident, more happy & more aware. You’ll be more positive & more assertive. You won’t be afraid to ask for what you want — you will know that you deserve everything you desire.” – Gala Darling

Now, I’ve read a lot of ‘self help’ books and blogs in my time but none of them had struck a cord like the posts of Gala Darling. Gala’s blog is dedicated to self love, she helps women fall in love with themselves and rightly so! I strongly recommend reading a few of these articles even if you do feel perfectly fine with yourself, they will put a smile on your face and have you feeling even happier in no time!

♥ 100 Ways You Can Start Loving Yourself Right Now

♥ Your Radical Self Love Bible

♥ How Do You Embrace And Celebrate Your Body?

♥ What Do You Love About Yourself?

♥ 50 Ways To Put The Light Back In Your Heart

And since it’s Valentines Day, whether you ‘believe’ in the day or not, let’s all start spreading a little love, even if it is to yourself!

Much Bespoke Love