LOVE
- May 27
- 3 min read
Defining the Word That Defines Us
Love is arguably the most sought-after human experience on the planet.
People cross oceans for it.
Destroy themselves for it.
Write songs about it.
Start wars because of it.
Stay too long because of it.
Leave because of the absence of it.
And yet despite how central love is to the human experience, very few people ever stop to ask themselves a simple question:
What does love actually mean to me?
Not the poetic answer. Not the socially acceptable answer. Not the version you post online. The real answer. The unconscious one. The inherited one. The one your nervous system quietly learned through experience long before you were old enough to consciously choose it.
Because most people don't realize this: you are not only shaped by the love you received. You are shaped by the definition of love you formed from it.
For some, love became safety. For others, love became sacrifice. Performance. Caretaking. Instability. Longing. Abandonment. Earning. Survival.
And the difficult part is that many of these definitions don't announce themselves clearly. They disguise themselves as normal. Familiar. Even romantic.
Consciously said
Love should be unconditional.
Subconsciously believed
Love must be earned.
Another person may say they just want consistency — while repeatedly choosing relationships built on unpredictability and emotional chaos, because their nervous system learned to associate inconsistency with attachment itself.
This is why defining love requires a honesty deeper than intellect.
Because your real definition of love will not be found in what you say. It will be found in:
your patterns
your tolerances
your fears
your attractions
your wounds
your relationships
your triggers
the things you continue to normalize
Your life will always reveal the definition you're truly operating from.
For a long time, I only ever defined love based on how I was treated by my parents. It was the only blueprint I had — and without realizing it, that blueprint mirrored itself in every relationship I entered. The same patterns, the same tolerances, the same quiet expectations baked into the way I gave and received love.
Until I became a mother, I honestly hadn't grasped the depth of it — not even a little. It was overwhelming. Consuming. A little anxiety-inducing. It changed me within an instant.
Children can be our mirrors of the unhealed childhood wounds we carry. Until you are placed in a scenario that echoes your own childhood — with a little version of you staring right back at you — you may never truly question the love you were given as a child yourself.
My parents had only my brother and me, with me being the oldest. Now I have a daughter and a son. I see so much of myself in my daughter. And my son — he has always felt like a twin to my little brother, as if I somehow rebirthed the two of us in a karmic reset.
And suddenly, I was the one in charge. Not just of raising them — but of the definition of love they would carry. The blueprint they would mirror until they were old enough to build their own.
That realization is a lot to hold. But once you hold it, you can't unsee it. You start observing how people parent, and it tells you everything — what they had growing up, and what they didn't.
Because none of us arrive at love in a vacuum. We arrive at it shaped — by hands that held us, and hands that didn't. By voices that steadied us, and silences that unsettled us. And somewhere in all of that, we built a definition. We just rarely know it until we're asked to pass it on.
This blog isn't here to tell you what love should mean. It's here to help you uncover what it currently means — to you. Because if you can define it consciously, you can finally begin aligning with it intentionally.
If this chapter stirred something in you, don’t rush past it.
Most people never pause long enough to examine the definition of love they’ve been unconsciously living by. They just continue repeating the pattern — calling it fate, chemistry, loyalty, “just how relationships are,” or even personality.
But awareness changes everything.
I created a reflective journaling guide filled with deep questions designed to help you uncover the definition of love your nervous system, experiences, and relationships may have quietly shaped over time.
Not the polished answer.The honest one.
The one hidden beneath your patterns, tolerances, fears, attachments, and emotional conditioning.
Because once you can define love consciously, you can finally begin choosing it intentionally.
Download the Love Reflection PDF below and begin the work of meeting your definition face-to-face.
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