The Three Types Of Love

Defining love in different variations is actually one of life’s greatest pleasures. When experiencing it, we tend to experience it in various states from happiness, upset, fearful, joyful, confused and even infatuated. Although some may fall into a more extreme of experiencing love in all the above, for the majority it comes in a more subtle variation. For instance, you may be extremely happy after overcoming an addiction, yet may be worried that your ex would reject you if you went back into your addiction. So how do you get across the difference?

Love as a feeling is much different to our experience of it as an emotion. For instance, you may be in love with someone because they make you feel good about yourself, without ever trying to reciprocate this love physically. The difference between the two is that while physical love creates a strong need to reciprocate the emotions generated by this love and often results in an addictive behaviour pattern, emotional love does not and tends to be much more passive. As such, it has less of an addictive potential and therefore less likelihood of resulting in an emotional reaction as does the former.

Emotional attachment is based on the idea that we are social animals and that we connect with others through shared feelings. It therefore makes sense that we would seek to share our feelings with one another and consequently develop romantic love. However, the difference here is that while we naturally share our feelings with someone else, only some of these feelings have an addictive potential. These feelings, once developed and allowed to become dominant, can result in behavioural addictions such as eating, smoking, gambling, drinking, etc which are associated with poor health, as well as feelings of anger, anxiety and depression which are associated with low self-esteem, as well as less enjoyment of life.

On the other hand, the affection that develops from romantic love is based on the feeling of deep connection and care that develop between two people. When one person develops such feelings for another, this can often result in them forming a deep emotional bond which is very similar to the emotional attachment that develops with a parent or another trusted person. As well as sharing our emotions, we also feel responsible for the other person’s emotions and may often go to great lengths to make them happy. As well as this emotional bond developing, we also develop caring skills and can often find ourselves behaving towards others in a similar way.

When a person feels love for another, they often want to engage in intimate and frequent acts of affection in order to “catch” the other person’s attention. In doing this we can display feelings of love towards others, which are a form of self-fulfilment, as well as being aware that we are affecting the other person and their well-being. In addition to this, intimacy can often provide the opportunity to talk about issues in our relationship that are unresolved and which may have been building up for some time. This is important as it allows us to discuss what is happening in our relationships so that we can work towards healing the underlying problems. Additionally, talking about our emotions and how we feel about them helps form new connections with others which is beneficial for our well-being.

Finally, there is a form of spiritual love which can be developed within a relationship. Spiritual love is essentially connected to your higher self and your spirit and it is a powerful source of happiness and fulfillment. Spiritual love does not just come from love for one person; it is also a type of compassion towards others and involves a dedication to helping others. As well as this, spiritual love can be a powerful force for good within a home. In fact, many individuals who have a large number of spiritual relationships in their lives say that they have greater peace of mind and happiness than most people do.