Estimated Reading Time 8 Minutes
Hey You! Happy Friday and welcome back to the podcast. I’m Emily Romrell and it’s great to be here with you. I hope your past week was full to the brim with love. Did y’all have a fabulous Valentines Day? Whether you had a hot date or not, I hope you had the chance to be with people you care about, because in the end, that’s what life is about.
I am a big Beatles fan and as I am kicking things off here I have the song “All You Need Is Love” spinning around in the back of my brain. I want to swing my arms in conductor style and queue you to sing with me, “All together now…All you need is love.” But it’s true, and I’m grateful for every opportunity to celebrate the love in our lives. So I hope you were able to do that whether you have romantic love in your life right now, or not.
I guess I’m an old soul, because another person I’m a huge fan of is C. S. Lewis. I’ll happily talk about his books any chance I get, and one of his shortest books is called The Four Loves. It’s a discourse on the different kinds of love we feel in our relationships throughout life, and it’s only 141 pages long. This is a great read and I highly recommend it. But for convenience I’ll give you a quick rundown of his ideas:
Affection
The first love is affection. Many loves are touched by affection. It is built on what is known and familiar and it often coexists with other loves. For instance, when couples fall in love, it’s frequently because of certain affections that start to wrap around the couple, making love an expected and familiar aspect of their shared existence – a certain place, hobbies, personality traits, etc. Even if we don’t define it, the majority of the love we feel in our normal day-to-day lives is affection for the individuals who are always around us. It’s a kind of warm feeling, you know. You know what affection is, you like them. It’s a warm, concentrated like.
Friendship
The purest type of love is friendship, believe it or not. A true friendship, according to Lewis, is one that goes beyond simple companionship to address a higher objective, a shared passion, or a pressing issue. Lewis lamented the nature of friendships in his own day and recognized how difficult it was for people to relate to others in a way that was not simply affectionate or romantic. I think that’s only gotten more precarious in our times. Lewis’ idea of friendship was two people, side by side with a shared vision of the future. It’s a love of genuine concern, dignity, and respect for one another. You really care about the other person.
Romantic
The risk in romantic love is when one chases an intense emotion blindly. Once the passion has passed, we believe that love has died. True love is not so unreliable. But passion isn’t bad or wrong as long as it’s harnessed in the right way. Still, when we learn that romance is more deeply rooted than the nonsense pushed by our culture, we will be better able to love our partner in an unconditional and beautiful way.
“The event of falling in love is of such a nature that we are right to reject as intolerable the idea that it should be transitory,” says Lewis. “In one high bound it has overleaped the massive wall of our selfhood; it has made appetite itself altruistic, tossed personal happiness aside as a triviality and planted the interests of another in the center of our being. Spontaneously and without effort we have fulfilled the law (towards one person) by loving our neighbour as ourselves. It is an image, a foretaste, of what we must become to all if Love Himself rules in us without a rival.”
Charity
The unconditional love Heavenly Father expressed to us through his Son is our main goal. Affection, friendship, and romantic love all serve as stepping stones for the development of charity. Using some strong words, Lewis reminds us:
“There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket—safe, dark, motionless, airless—it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.”
So pretty strong words. But you know, that’s what we risk. What do we risk by choosing not to love? And ultimately charity is the highest form of love. The aim then is to love others as God loves us. Thus we become more like Him and develop into our highest selves.
So there you have it. The Four Loves by C. S. Lewis summarized by yours truly with a neat imaginary bow. I think it’s very valuable to think about love like this and the different ways it influences our lives. It’s useful to think about how much actual affection we are feeling toward the people we interact with. It’s useful to ponder on the deeper connection found in friendship. It’s useful to clarify the difference between lust and a true romantic love that we find in a life partner. And if we’re lucky we will be able to feel the pure love of Christ toward others in charity. All of this is extremely important to know and to employ in our everyday lives.
“Okay, Emily,” you might be asking right about now. “What is your point?” I know that was a long setup, but Here it is peeps. Let me ask you. In all of my talk so far about the various forms of love, have you had an inkling of how important it is to love yourself? My guess is, no. And that needs to change. Today I want to offer the idea that the true love of your life is not your romantic partner. I’m sure they are wonderful, but it’s YOU. The true love of your life is the relationship you have with yourself.
Personally, my relationship with myself hasn’t always been great. I sometimes shake my head at the way I used to talk to myself and the negative feelings I had. I’m still working on this. I still have negative feelings sometimes. I’m definitely not perfect. But I’ve done a lot of work, and now I can honestly say that I love myself. I do. A few years ago I wouldn’t be able to say that sentence out loud, even just to myself. I can’t tell you how grateful I am for the work I’ve put in to come this far. I’m grateful for others around me who helped me find my way, for a counselor who really went the extra mile, for a loving family, for mentors and friends. They all supported me in the journey and still do. But the person who really did the work and who is still going at it, is me.
I think you’ll be able to relate. In my crazy head, I used to have the idea that if I had a strong love for myself I would be conceited or arrogant, two things that are my biggest turn-offs ever. I felt that in order to truly love others I had to somehow hold them up higher than myself. It was imperative to put everyone else first which meant I shouldn’t shine. If you are currently thinking similar things, stop it. These kinds of thoughts are lies. They are meant to keep you from living your fullest, most vibrant life, and we don’t fall for that kind of crap here.
Here’s the truth. When you think less of yourself, there is less of yourself to give. You feel small, so you act small. You refuse to shine and so your talents stay hidden away, tucked inside your soul getting rusty. Who is that helping? No one. But especially not you.
It’s true that when you do love yourself, you are more capable of loving others, but that is a secondary benefit. The main reason to love yourself is that doing this makes you happy, go figure. That’s the only way you’re going to find lasting joy in this life. When you love yourself, your passions and talents burst out of you with abandon. Your life is made vibrant through the act of living. You’ll dance if you love dancing, or bake, or experiment, or build, or create, or just simply feeling. Just feeling the emotion of love that you might have held back from yourself is powerful and so beautiful.
Now let me go through our list of four loves again and let’s see if we can feel these emotions in the relationship that matters most, you guessed it, ourselves:
Do you feel affection for yourself? Do you smile when you see yourself in the mirror? Do you like yourself? What do you like about yourself? Personally, I like the darker rings of brown that frame the lighter brown in the irises of my eyes. I like my quirky, goofy sense of humor, I like how creative I am, I like the dimples in my smile. What do you like about yourself? If you’re having a hard time thinking of things, work on it. It’s important.
Are you a friend to yourself? Do you talk to yourself in your mind like you talk to a cherished friend? Do you have a genuine concern for yourself, for your past, present, and future you? Are you gentle with yourself? Do you take care of yourself? Do you love what makes you uniquely, YOU? Because wherever you go, you’ll meet yourself there. And the friendship that you build with yourself is the one that is going to carry you through this life.
Now, romantic love doesn’t really apply. Romantic love is a sacred thing that is supposed to be shared with another very special person. But I will say this. You can’t rely on your romantic partner to make you happy. True happiness comes from within and that starts with being willing to look at yourself intimately and being vulnerable with yourself. Then you can share your true self with your romantic partner.
Last of all, but most importantly, can you have true charity in your heart for yourself? We are all children of God. You are a child of God and so am I. When we embrace this truth, then we catch a glimpse of the love our Heavenly Father has for us. We need to try to love ourselves like he does. We need to be patient with ourselves like he is. We need to forgive ourselves like he does. We need to encourage ourselves like he does. Having the pure love of Christ for others is important, but it’s also crucial to have the pure love of Christ for ourselves. It’s not always easy, but if you pray and ask for help, Heavenly Father will pour his love out to you, and you can keep a little of it, and love yourself as he does.
There are many different kinds of love, they are all special and they all make a difference. But my friends, YOU are the true love of your life. Your relationship with yourself is the sustaining power of your life. You are so special and you have a lot to offer the world. But you will also have the most fun and experience the most joy when you embrace who you truly are. When you love yourself everything changes, and the change is beautiful.
I love you, sincerely. I genuinely do. But it’s my earnest hope that you can tap into the power of your own self-love. Thanks for spending some time here with me on the podcast today. Take care, and Live the Vibrant Life!
