Wednesday Wisdom: Love
Dear Fearless family,
Today, I wanted to share with you this quote from Plato’s works that have layers of depth and meaning for me:
Love is simply the name of the desire and pursuit of the whole.
(Plato, The Symposium)
In the Symposium, the ancient Greek philosopher Plato discusses love as a quality beyond physical love, as a phenomenon within us that is capable of inspiring courage and great acts of bravery, brilliant works of art and world-changing creations, even of overcoming our natural fear of death.
We often think of love as something we must ‘give’ to someone or as something we must be ‘given’ by someone else. When we limit ourselves to thinking of love as an exchange between people, we start to treat it as a transactional quality:
“You love me this much, so I must return an equal amount of love to you.”
“If I want more of your love, I must do more for you.”
“You don’t love me enough, so I should do less for you.”
“You love me more than I love you, so I am indebted to you.”
“I gave you so much love, therefore you owe me so much thanks.”
So many times we allow ourselves to say that we love someone or would love to have something in our lives, but we stop ourselves from going the whole way. We give into our fears and don’t allow the full expression of our creativity and passion, because we feel vulnerable, and we don’t like to feel that way. We like to know that we will get ‘great returns on our investment’, that we will receive what we want even though we only give as we please. Our Fear wants to have endless guarantees that we will be safe and loved and successful and respected and free and happy and on and on…., or we will not stretch beyond our comfort zone to do what it takes.
And yet, when we really love someone unconditionally (for example, as a parent to child), or desire an outcome so much that we are compelled to act towards it no matter what, we give it our all. We transcend all that holds us back and find ourselves acting with vulnerability, courage, and generosity of spirit. We don’t count how many steps we have taken, we don’t worry about what other people will think, we don’t stop if we feel afraid or angry or sad…we simply love - we simply give it our all, with heart, power and compassion. We go beyond our comfort zone and our fear patterns and don’t allow even our own selves to hold us back. We don’t make it about us, we simply love the person or end result with all our heart and give it our whole.
Love is knowing that we will do what it takes to serve that which we love.
We seek love because we desire to realise the wholeness within us, and our wholeness doesn’t depend on anything or anyone external to us. Love is, in fact, that desire within us that is bursting to express ourselves in the world for who we are, with all our gifts, ideas and purpose - and it even allows our fears to exist because it is not afraid of them!
Know that there is a desire within you to realise all of who you are, and it is in constant pursuit of bringing your full potential to the world. All you need to do is to recognise this as Love and give a little bit more of your love to this Love every day.
