Latest / The MysticWithin Podcast / Ep. 15: Is Love Enough? (The Eternal Debate)
Transcript
- Vanessa: I decided to make history today because I never thought I would have ever, ever changed my mind about this topic we're talking about. If you would have asked me even a month ago, my answer would have been no. But I've gone through a transformative perspective shift that's honestly changed my outlook on everything. I didn't realize how deep this transformation would go, but it actually started months ago. So I need you to mark this day on your calendar as the day Vanessa says that yes, love is enough. Wow. My heart's fluttering right now. I can't believe I just said that. But today we're talking about the perseverance of love and the energy of love. And I have been actually actively avoiding this topic. And I didn't know what I wanted to say about it until this week because love is one of the highest frequencies of energy, but I also think we are completely confused about what love actually is. Today we are diving into the question, is love enough? I've already said my opinion, but I'm going to break it down for you on why I was a firm no and how I actually started to slowly change into a yes, enough. My name is Vanessa. And this is the Mystic Within Podcast, a podcast design for women reconnecting with their power, their purpose, and their intuition, one honest conversation at a time. Let's get into this historical conversation at hand. All right, I actually have source material for this podcast. And it all flourished. The seed was planted. With this lovely book here, if you're watching on YouTube, you can see. If not, the book I am holding is called All About Love by Belle Hooks. Now, I have put this book down many times because the messages in this book. Are so powerful and potent, and it totally sparked and put a seed within me about how I view love, how I receive love, how I give love, what is my perception of love? And then it made me spiral into a whole deep dive into what is love? What do we do when we have love in our hands? Where do we learn love from? Why is love some tangible thing in society that we think we can buy or have? What does this all mean? This book is one of the most transformational books I have ever picked up in my entire life. And it is one of the most powerful mindset switches I've ever had. As the title states, this book is all about love. It's a deep dive into love. this is a book that centers around love and the lessons of love. maybe it sounds simple and unnecessary? Like, why do we need a book about something that's natural to us. But is it natural to us? Love? my hypothesis is that love is actually foreign in this society. And I'm talking about true, honest, pure love. We are detached from that pureness of what love actually is. And this is what I am curious about. This is what sparked this existential thought thread that I've been having for the past few months. Within this book, one of the very first chapters is how we don't have a universal definition of what love is. It's not written down anywhere. There's no collective understanding of what love is. If I describe it as one thing, the next person is going to describe it as something completely different. We all have a feeling of love. We all have recognition of what love could be, but it all differs. How can we know what love is or when it's present in an experience or relationship without it ever being defined? And I found that so compelling within the first few pages. I was like, how do we not have a definition of what love is? It's because love has a hard time being defined. We all learn love in different ways. Now, the definition that Belle Hooks uses is actually a reference from the 1978 self help book by Scott Pex. It's called The Road Less Traveled. And she uses this definition as her truth throughout the entire book. And when I first heard it, I was like, yep, I relate to that. I relate to that. And it sparked and clicked something different in my brain. So I'm going to read you the definition that the roadless travel. defined love as. The will to extend oneself for the purpose of nurturing one's own or another's spiritual growth. Love is as love does. Love is an act of will, namely, both in intention and in action. Will also implies choice. We do not have to love. We choose to love. And Belle Hooks adds to this definition, and she says. Since the choice must be made to nurture growth, this definition counters the more widely assumption that we love instinctually. And when I first was reading these passages, I was like, whoa. yeah, like love is a choice and an action that we actually do. And I was curious about the word spiritual growth because obviously I'm a spiritually aligned person. And I define that in my own way, But Pex refers to one's own or another spiritual growth as that dimension of our core reality where the mind, body, and spirit are one. So it's about choosing somebody's essence and seeing them completely and seeing their mind, body, and spirit as their core, and quite frankly, giving a shit about it. And it's not only other people, but upon our own will, our upon our own mind and body and spirit. And I think that is a beautiful definition. And that was actually the first thing that sparked something very intrinsic within me that said, maybe love is not something that we instinctually do, or an energy that we instinctually fall into. And that really brought a lot of curiosity to me. Now, spiritual growth really obviously sparked my interest because I'm a spiritually aligned person. I have my own definitions for what that means, but not everyone aligns with that spirituality. But it has nothing to do with spirituality actually at all. It's about somebody's core. It's about feeling seen and being seen and offering somebody that sight and being able to bear witness to their lives. In short, love is not a feeling, like we think it is. It's actually an act that we do for ourselves and for other people's betterment. It's funny because society really marks love as a feeling. Love at first sight. And that feeling that embarks the butterflies in our stomach is mistaken as love when really it's biological. We're always told love is a feeling and we have no control over those feelings. And when I heard this definition, I connected automatically because it changes the expression of love from a feeling to an intentional action. And that is love. To choose to love somebody or something means to assume the accountability and responsibility in that action of love. You take on that role of love. And I think that is more powerful than any feeling ever. Love is too vibrational to be just associated with a feeling. I think love is an action. It's a choice that we participate in and we make. And the feelings that are associated with it are beautiful and joyful and vibrant, and they complement the act of love. And sometimes love is not a feeling that feels good. Sometimes we have to be disciplined and devoted and put in the work. And those feelings are sometimes odd, but it's out of love that we do that. It's out of love that we put up boundaries with ourselves and others. It's out of love that we know what is best for us and we turn the cheek to things that do not fit into our lives. So love cannot be a feeling because love is omnipresent. Love is all around. Love is an act that we participate in. And the universe gives to us that action as well. And the universe assumes that responsibility and accountability every day. Hook goes on to speak about how society doesn't have structures on how to teach us about love. We don't have classes, we don't have courses that we go to as children or adults where it's like, this is what love is, this is how to love, this is why we have to love. There's nothing like that. The first teachers of love are our families, are the parents. But to put it bluntly and explicitly, what if your family has no freaking clue what love is? Like what if they have a really messed up way of showing love? now you grow up. thinking that is what love is. And I feel like that explains so many reasons why people get into toxic relationships or people, you know, continue cycles of abuse. They believe that is what love is. So they inflict it upon another generation of people or other people in general. It's actually kind of parasitic in that way. It shapes our relationships to others and ourselves. The first examples of love are the foundations of how we identify love moving forward, how we participate in the act of loving moving forward, or how we feel love feels. For example, if you grew up in a home of abuse, in which you were told the abuse happens out of love or protection for you, then you grow up thinking harm is love. But one of the major lessons in this book is love can never ever exist beside abuse. love is never going to exist where abuse resides. They're opposites in identity. Now, I think society, as time has gone on and we've shown different forms of love, and people identify love in different ways. And we have a hard time, I think, really coming from a pure place with love. Again, they say hurt people, hurt people, but the reality is that is true to a certain extent. We do have responsibility over that hurt at a certain point in our lives, but it is a pattern. And it is a cycle. And to love someone purely is to love someone, spiritual growth. It's to participate and act in accordance to that love. And I think that is the most beautiful definition I've heard of love. To me, love is so community-based. And I think it gets reduced to romance. And I don't love that. I don't love the feeling that. Love is something that you won't fully experience if you are not in a relationship setting. I think actually so many more valuable forms of love can show up in so many other places. And I think the person who you need to love the most in this world is yourself. Now, if you take that definition and really think about it in accordance to self-love, I'm gonna read it again. The will to extend oneself for the purpose of nurturing one's own or another spiritual growth. Love is as love does, love is an act of will. And it's an intention and it's an action. And I again, I don't think love is a feeling, and that's the biggest hypothesis Love is bigger than that. Love is something that binds us as humans. It's actually the one thing we have in common. And I really wish if there was one thing in this world, I wish people could begin to understand that. Love is not something that's exclusive. It's the strongest thing we have on this earth besides gratitude. And it's something that unifies us as people. I think there's so much strength in standing together in love. And I think the society makes that feel corny because there's such power behind that. You know, there's so much going on in this world right now where love is binding people and love is. Pointing out the impure flaws, where it's like when we stand together in love, we see how strong we are and powerful as people, just as people and humans. There's nothing of divide within that because the love is what binds us, especially when there's harm being done to other people and we can feel something and we can identify with the humanity in those people who are being afflicted. That really breaks my heart. But it makes me feel hopeful that love is an action. And love is something humans participate in. And again, on the bigger scale, that's all of humanity. And on a small scale, it's with your family and cooking a dinner for them or participating in conversation about their day. You're actively showing up in those moments. Or it can be a relationship. And I think relationships are beautiful. I think we yearn for that too much in this society and we put too much importance on being in a couple and marriage and all of these things. I think that is such a beautiful experience. But I think we've centered someone's timeline and worth upon that. And there's a billion reasons why that is, but we won't get into those things today. But I do believe that being in a relationship where you are chosen and loved and safe is such a beautiful, wonderful experience as well. And I think the purity of love is beautiful wherever it shows up. And I I like the energy of love is really showing up in this in this message today, too. It is that joy, it is that that stroke of humanity. before I read this book and felt this definition, I had had thoughts like, what is love? What would I define it as? And The reality is the word connection always came up for me. It's about really connecting with someone and seeing somebody. And I think that's so fascinating. Connection was the word. And it's that visual of everyone holding hands, and it's like seeing you. I understand you. I am listening to you. I hear you. I bear witness to your journey here. And maybe that sounds woo-woo, but. Hello, you're on the Mystic Within podcast. it's a slow woo-woo here, and that's good. But it's woo-woo, why? Like, why is connection woo-woo? Why is that? Why are we so detached from that? Why are we so detached from love and kindness and joy or support? I think at like love's core, it's really about connection, support, and bearing witness. And I think that is beautiful. Is love enough? The question came up in a romantic relationship sense. And I think a lot of people would disagree with me. Well, I was one of those people maybe three weeks ago. Where it's like, no, love is not enough. You need communication. You need this, you need that. But are those things not done out of love? Do you not communicate your needs and desires or what hurt you because you love that person and you want to grow and connect? Do not stay disciplined for yourself out of love. The whole hypothesis, and thought process, changed when I started centering and making love a core of those questions. if I've just said love is connection and love is what binds humanity, love is human, then isn't anything we do out of love? I described love as parasitic earlier in reference to abuse, but now I'm saying it in a way where it's like a river and the river breaks off into little streams and it flows and it's everywhere. Love is everywhere. It's human, it's connection, it's all of these beautiful things, it's spiritual growth of yourself and others. Yet we don't have any structures in society to actually show that. And that's why they say it takes a village in this world. Because this world centers on others. We're not here alone. You're not here wandering alone. And I think that's where things get dangerous for people because that feels like an absence of love, aka a separation of community, a separation from love. I think loneliness is a very dangerous experience to go through. And when you can incorporate support and love into that experience, it actually drags you out of it. one thing I do know is love is one of the highest frequencies of being energetically. And how do we fall into love? How do we fall in love with ourselves and others? I think we need to be thinking about it from a very pure space. What are things that people do that make you feel loved? What do you do to make yourself feel loved and others? If love is an action, how can we better participate in the community of loving? How can we teach love better? It's through showing up and acting upon your own will of love. That is really how we need to start setting the precedent for that. Kindness, gratitude, love, connection, community, showing up, seeing people for who they are. Allowing people to be human. These things are all out of love. So in closing, is love enough? Yes, I do believe it. Because right now I feel light I feel hope. I feel connected to you. I feel connected to the purpose of what I'm doing here. I think love is something that is not tangible necessarily. It's not something I can grab and say this is love, but I know when my family cooks me dinner, that is out of love. I know that when my friend ta answers my call when I'm going through a bad day, that is love. I think it's beautiful. I think showing up for community and yourself and the people around you, aka the humans having a human experience and journey is beautiful. And I think the journey of love is a human one. And I think we all go through this. And my closing advice for this. Whether you're looking for a romantic relationship or you're looking for a community to be a part of, you're looking for a life that feels more aligned and connected through love, I think you need to remember that love is a choice and we can choose to participate in love. Those are just a few of my little thoughts. But if you would have asked me, if you would have asked me even a month ago this question, it would have been completely different. But I think when you take a step back and understand that love is connection at its core, you start to understand that you deserve it too. As always, if you are interested in working one-on-one with me through tarot sessions or mentorship or anything else I offer, link is always in my bio. Thank you so much, guys, for chatting with me today. This is such an interesting topic, and I'm sure I will have more love-focused episodes. I've been hesitant to talk about this because there's so many facets of how love can show up in so many different relationships and what it doesn't look like necessarily, but we will get into that in the next few weeks, I am sure. I love you guys all so much. If this episode has taught you anything or you just want to share it, please do. It is available always on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Substack, and then YouTube, obviously. Have an amazing week, guys. I will see you back next Wednesday for my next episode. Have a great week. Bye.