Respect = Love
Love is a complex animal, a creation of innumerable combinations of emotions, abstractions, ideals and values. There is no molecular symbol for love, because it’s ever-changing. And while the outer shells of love shift and move and change, varying from person to person, the inner core, the foundation, the centerpiece is steadfast, immovable. And yet, it too is composed of several different things.
One of these things being respect. Sure, you can accurately say that love is an unyielding desire, a yearning for companionship, a natural human quality, a fateful attraction. All these things can be true. But again, the core of love is a multi-faceted gem-and I have come to realize that love is a deep manifestation of respect.
Notice how, the more you come to respect someone, the closer those feelings you have toward them become to love. When someone is taken from you after many, many years of a relationship full of respect, the heart wrench of losing them is due to a loss of that love. Respect is a seed that, when planted, cared for and nurtured into growth, can become the fruits of love.
Respect is a necessary shard of the crystal core of love. You can respect someone you do not love. This is true and quite common. But scrutinize that relationship. Scrutinize any relationship you’ve been involved in. Differentiate between friendships and actual relationships, but keep both in mind.
Of those relationships or friendships you’ve enjoyed, how many of those did you feel love toward that person? Have there been relationships where you never felt love, or didn’t feel respect toward someone? There have been relationships where you have enjoyed a friendship based on respect, but no more than a friendship? Have you fallen so in love with someone whom you admire wholeheartedly, whom you respect without question?
We have all been guilty of overestimating the intensity of our love. Oftentimes this has led to humiliation and embarrassment when this is revealed to us. Sometimes even we have been guilty of introducing those feelings of embarrassment to other people. It’s not an easy game we play. At the end of a relationship, we’ll feel a need to reevaluate ourselves, evaluate what happened, what went wrong.
In these periods of unhappiness, gauge your respect. Gauge how deeply you respected that other person. That friend or lover. How deeply they respected you. How deeply each of you respected yourselves. If the answer is no, you didn’t respect them or vice versa, then you never felt love.
LOVE is a DEEP manifestation of respect. What you had was something else, possibly driven by more physical factors, and this is not necessarily a bad thing. But if you want to be in that place, you must nurture the respect into a deep loving for that person. This is something undoubtedly many of us need to review within ourselves. And if you never felt the respect, and therefore never loved, it’s something we must review within ourselves, even if it’s hard to do so.
It is all about respect. You may certainly respect without love. But you can never love without respect.
One of these things being respect. Sure, you can accurately say that love is an unyielding desire, a yearning for companionship, a natural human quality, a fateful attraction. All these things can be true. But again, the core of love is a multi-faceted gem-and I have come to realize that love is a deep manifestation of respect.
Notice how, the more you come to respect someone, the closer those feelings you have toward them become to love. When someone is taken from you after many, many years of a relationship full of respect, the heart wrench of losing them is due to a loss of that love. Respect is a seed that, when planted, cared for and nurtured into growth, can become the fruits of love.
Respect is a necessary shard of the crystal core of love. You can respect someone you do not love. This is true and quite common. But scrutinize that relationship. Scrutinize any relationship you’ve been involved in. Differentiate between friendships and actual relationships, but keep both in mind.
Of those relationships or friendships you’ve enjoyed, how many of those did you feel love toward that person? Have there been relationships where you never felt love, or didn’t feel respect toward someone? There have been relationships where you have enjoyed a friendship based on respect, but no more than a friendship? Have you fallen so in love with someone whom you admire wholeheartedly, whom you respect without question?
We have all been guilty of overestimating the intensity of our love. Oftentimes this has led to humiliation and embarrassment when this is revealed to us. Sometimes even we have been guilty of introducing those feelings of embarrassment to other people. It’s not an easy game we play. At the end of a relationship, we’ll feel a need to reevaluate ourselves, evaluate what happened, what went wrong.
In these periods of unhappiness, gauge your respect. Gauge how deeply you respected that other person. That friend or lover. How deeply they respected you. How deeply each of you respected yourselves. If the answer is no, you didn’t respect them or vice versa, then you never felt love.
LOVE is a DEEP manifestation of respect. What you had was something else, possibly driven by more physical factors, and this is not necessarily a bad thing. But if you want to be in that place, you must nurture the respect into a deep loving for that person. This is something undoubtedly many of us need to review within ourselves. And if you never felt the respect, and therefore never loved, it’s something we must review within ourselves, even if it’s hard to do so.
It is all about respect. You may certainly respect without love. But you can never love without respect.