1. How to Love
Love is expressed as an action and experienced as a feeling. Yet, love has an essence that resists defining
in any single way — it encompasses compassion, determination, tolerance, endurance, support, faith, and
much more. If you're in the dark about how to love, this article should give you some food for thought,
and perhaps teach you a little bit about how to love yourself, love the world, and love other people just a
little bit more.
Acknowledge the breadth of love. Love isn't simply about romance — to define it so narrowly is to
deprive yourself of the beauty and full extent of love. Love is a feeling, drive, or emotion that we
experience usually with people, but also with pursuits, other animals, and nature in general. If you're
looking for it, love can be found in many places, situations and relationships.
Love is shared between people — our parents and children, siblings, spouses and partners, dates, friends,
neighbors, community members and humanity.
It's found in the passion for the things you do in your life, including work, hobbies, volunteering and the
like; it can be found when you're at your most creative, or "in the flow."
Begin to recognize what love isn't. Because love can't be pigeonholed, it's sometimes hard to say it is
one things and it isn't another. But in general, people agree that love is selfless, lasting, and larger than
yourself. In general, people also agree that love isn't the same as:
Feelings of lust (e.g., purely sexual interest)
Ownership or control (co-dependency or manipulation)
Obsessive worrying (over-involved parenting or a spouse always checking up)
Learning to love yourself
Begin by loving yourself. You can only truly love another being when you love yourself properly.
Otherwise, you risk spending a lot of your life projecting insecurities, pain and other negative emotions
onto other people. People who do this tend to see the worst in other people so as to avoid facing that
insecurity, pain, or negativity in themselves.
Loving yourself is not about putting yourself before others — that's another form of confusion. Loving
yourself is about having self-respect, discovering what really makes you tick, and spending your life being
true to your real talents.

2. Forgive yourself and give yourself license to make mistakes. Don't be too hard on yourself. Life is
short, and it's about learning. You won't learn unless you make mistakes. Give yourself license to make
mistakes, and then love who you are for all your imperfections.
If you love yourself only for being perfect, you're probably making two mistakes:
o Thinking that you are perfect when it's probably not the case. Unless you're a new super-breed of human,
you're probably deluding yourself a little bit.
o Holding yourself at a double-standard. You don't expect everyone else to be perfect, so why do you expect
perfection from yourself? Treat everyone, yourself included, by the same standards.
Know what loving yourself feels like. Once you learn to love yourself, you won't feel threatened by
others' success (real or apparent). You won't constantly compare yourself to others. You'll be able to
share your love freely with other people. You'll feel good about yourself even when you're feeling down.
You'll feel proud without being cocky; optimistic without being oblivious; and free without being
paralyzed by freedom. You'll feel unafraid to cry.
To love truly is not only having a capacity to give love, but also to gracefully open your heart to receive
love. Know that you deserve love. You are worthy of love. The more you feel love in your heart, the more
you are able to give love to others.
Starting to love other
Actively show love in your words. Ultimately, you are the one who must take action in order to
discover love. Because actions can sometimes be misinterpreted, or have unclear motivations, it's often
important to communicate what you're doing or feeling in words. Often, people do this by saying "I love
you."
Tell people you love that you love them whenever you feel love. Regularly say "I love you" to your child,
your parents, your lover, your spouse, or your friend.
When you say the words "I Love You", say them with real conviction. You're not telling a person that you
love them just because you want to feel good––you're saying it because you want the other person to feel
good!
Know, too, that there are other ways to express love when "I love you" doesn't seem appropriate. "You
mean a great deal to me," "You inspire me," "You are the most amazing person I've ever known," and "I
am a better person for having known you" are just a few of the ways that people say "I love you" without.
Love unconditionally. Love is something from which you shouldn't expect anything in return.
Sometimes, ye shall give without receiving. If you cannot love another person without attaching
stipulations or requests to your love — this is often called "emotional bribery," or just bribery — then
you're not talking about love at all; you're talking about a transaction.
If your love for someone isn't wanting them to be happy, but rather in asking how that person can
enhance your life, or ensure your well-being, you're mistaking love for something else.
Expecting nothing in return doesn't mean you should allow someone to mistreat or undervalue you. It
means that giving love does not guarantee receiving love.Although it's helpful to realize that people have
different ways of showing their love, if someone abuses your love, be aware of what's happening.

3. Be tolerant. You cannot say in one breath that you're a loving and caring person and in the other breath say that
you hate a particular person or type of person. To do so is to contradict love, which is accepting of even the things
you find hard to love in another person.
Allow other people to be themselves. Accept them as they are, not as you want them to be. Healthy love is a steady
understanding of who other people are.
Love does not compartmentalize — it sees a person as a whole, rather than focusing on a part you dislike and
turning that disliked part into the person's whole. Love doesn't judge; it tolerates the differences, accepting the
choices people make for themselves in life.
You may have heard someone say that they love a person but do not like them. In this case, the speaker is likely
telling you that they accept the person and respect the dignity of that person as a whole but that they couldn't get
along with that person. Love doesn't ask you to befriend a person; it asks you to tolerate, to think beyond your own
notions of how the world should be, and to accept differences without judging.
Have an imagination. Imagine the different options out there, waiting to be seized. Don't just find out who you are.
Create who you want to be.
Love those who don't love you. When hate is directed toward you, repel it with love and use their
hatred as motivation to show that tolerance, kindness, and acceptance are better ways to get along in our
communities.
Love teaches you that hateful people are often driven by a lack of self-respect and that they're agitated
about all the things they don't like about themselves. This causes them to project this hate onto others. Of
all people, people who hate probably need your compassion most.
Tips
It does not make you a bad person to desire someone else's love, even if they do not love you. However, to
truly love someone, you must let them be free. It is selfish to blame them for your feelings.
There are many types of relationships that involve love, but love itself is a common thread to all those
relationships. For example: a mother-son relationship is different from the relationship with a best
friend, and both these relationships are different from a romantic relationship. But in each of these
relationships, each person loves the other (wants the best for the other). Love is the base of the pyramid.
On top of the base, we can add other items such as other common interests (in the case of friends) or sex
(in the case of romantic relationships). Therefore, relationships can grow and evolve but the love itself is
solid and constant. It does not change.
Remember there is no failure in love, because once you show somebody that you love them, then you
have already succeeded in love, even if they don't care.
People become beautiful to you because you love them. In a society obsessed with appearance, it can
often seem the other way around but the reality is that love makes a person beautiful and the imperfect
perfect.