Valentine's Day is near, and I noticed a new mood in people that made me think about their need to find reasons to express themselves. That's how I started thinking about love and the many ways to convey this emotion.
Self-love is the ability to know ourselves, accepting our shortcomings, weaknesses and limitations, without being paralyzed by this reality. It's the ability to build a way to overcome them. It's also giving the good things within ourselves their fair value, so we can feel satisfied with what we are. Therefore, this condition enables us to evolve and grow.
Love for others arises from self-love. We project onto others who we are. When we cherish others healthily, we love with affection, respect and confidence. We are able to work together for the common good and a better quality of life. Respect for others allows us to live together in harmony, meeting our vital needs for everyone's well-being.
Affectionate, tender, appealing, sincere, assuring, reconciling, and patient.
Welcoming, constructive, forgiving, respectful, enlightening, and healing.
Delicate, compassionate, polite, inspiring, kind, and brave.
Brings light, connects, bonds, creates, expands, encourages, helps, and shares.
Esteems, knows how to demand, acknowledges accordingly, and takes responsibility.
Is perceptive, sensitive and sensual.
Requests, rewards and is grateful.
Wishes, desires, dreams, arouses, supports, eases, clarifies, and waits.
Is fair, proclaims, protests, persists and fights.
Is proactive, friendly, generous, considerate, constructive, exemplary, patient, and understanding.
Amends, complies and knows its limitations.
Caters to needs, plants, heals wounds, keeps secrets and comforts.
Forgets offenses, has a sense of humor, likes the truth and overcomes evil with good.
It is said that no one can give what they do not have. That means you can only give what you possess. These are qualities that perfectly apply to Love.
So this Valentine's Day, take the time to reflect on the power of love and be thankful for the love you recognize around you and in yourself. After all: "At the evening of life, we shall be judged on our love" – St. John of the Cross (sixteenth-century mystic and poet whose work is considered one of the peaks of all Spanish literature).