Love is the most beautiful and powerful feeling. Not only does it spring from the depth of our being, but it also changes the way we experience the world. We have known love since we were young and feel we understand it. And yet when we reflect on it, we will realise that it is not the intellectual appreciation of love, but the lived experience with love that makes all the difference. We can’t think love; we have to feel it.

We feel love when what we are doing is not only effortless but enjoyable as well. With proficiency, we may do something well, though our heart may not be in it. But when we look forward to something, no matter how difficult, and when we surprise ourselves with our own creativity and imagination, we have felt love.

We feel love when we automatically reach out and do things for someone. We may offer help, but it may not really move us within. But when we go beyond what is expected, not because we are expected to, but because we want to, and when we feel the pain of the other, we have felt love.

We feel love when we respond to aggression with compassion. With self-control we may not react, and may still be agitated within. But when we find it in ourselves to think well even for those who may have hurt us, knowing they too may be deeply hurt and agitated, we have felt love.

When there is someone in our life whose very thought fills us with joy, and who means the world to us, we realise how precious they are to us. Even though we may not have said it to them, they know how much we love them. And when we feel their presence in our life even when they are not with us, we have felt love.

To have loved is to have lived. When we find the surge of love swelling within and we allow it to express itself, we will discover the true beauty in our relationships. And we will know we have truly felt love, when someone we love feels it too.

(Picture – Tulips in Queen Elizabeth Park, Vancouver)