What's The Diffference Between LOVE and IN LOVE?

Last night at my apartment, I had a discussion with 5 intelligent young ladies and I learned a lot about myself, relationships and love. One of the questions raised in our discussion was, “what’s the difference between "LOVE and IN LOVE?" I often hear people say, “I love him/her but I'm not in love. So I asked the ladies for their opinions. One young lady stated, “to be in love means to experience the pain of love." At first I was confused by her statement because to me love does not involve pain, if it’s painful how it can be love? Isn’t that abuse; is what I stated back to her. Another young lady further explained the concept of love and pain. She stated,” we are not talking about pain in physical sense, but to be able to experience the emotions that your partner is experiencing so for example, she said, “if your dude is hurting or having a bad day, you feel a sense of sadness and hurt because you don’t want to see him that way." The other young lady added, “to be in love you cannot be guarded you have to be able to be vulnerable, be willing to give your all even if it means risk getting hurt."

Wow! After listening to these ladies share their personal experience on love and relationships I began to reflect and think about love in a different way. In order to experience true love, you have to learn to love fearlessly, is what I repeated to myself after they left. Guarding our hearts blocks us from experiencing the true essence of love. Often as women we guard our hearts because of fear of getting hurt due to our past experiences or due to witnessing negative experiences of other people relationships. When our heart is guarded we find ourselves running from commitment, ruining good relationships and developing irrational beliefs about love itself. We say things like “love doesn’t exist, love is overrated, there are no good men or women...etc" these negative thoughts keep us from experiencing good relationships. The reason why many people who have these irrational beliefs cannot find a good man or woman is because they don’t believe that one exists.

So I challenge all of you who have given up on love, not to guard your heart, but to let your guard down and believe in love again. One or two bad experiences should not ruin your future experiences. You NEXT should not have to pay for what your EX did. (lol, sorry that’s kind of funny) But on a serious note, as my friend stated, “Love is LIVING, it gives us purpose." Everyone deserves to be loved and find true love. If you have not found love perhaps you need to reflect on your views about love...ask YOURSELF am I guarded. Have I healed from my last relationship? What are my beliefs about love and how have I come to believe that? so the difference between love and in love depends on how much you are willing to invest in a person, are you willing to give a 100% or just 50%....There is no half stepping when you are in love. THINK ABOUT IT!



~ God Bless, keep the FAITH, luv Ms. Kinsey~