Lust And Love: What Are They And How Can They Be Good Or Bad?

Love is a powerful and common emotion that can bring happiness and contentment in your life. It can be described as a divine, unconditional human feeling, not unlike our mother-love or father-love. It is the one feeling that brings us together and unites us in our broken hearts and with our spouses. Love encompasses a whole range of positive and deep emotional states, from the strongest personal ethic or good behavior, the sweetest personal experience, to the most sublime emotional experience. But it is also the one feeling that can tear us apart, that can make us feel like we are dying, that can make us feel sad and worthless. It is the one feeling that makes you want to give up everything to have it back, that makes you willing to suffer through the pain of heartache again.

And it’s not just the first love that is the most important love; even in this lifetime, there are still powerful feelings for family, friendship, pets, sex, safety, romance and sexual intimacy. When I was young, the only love that really mattered was my own, and that was enough for me. Over time, as I became more mature, my innermost feeling of love and longing for my parents, siblings and friends, however genuine or sincere, became much stronger than my feelings for my spouse.

Love, however, is something that is meant to endure forever. And as my adult years approached, it became obvious that I was experiencing different types of romantic love. There were those strong feelings of love for my spouse that I could not control. There were those intense feelings of love for a different person that I desperately desired but could never seem to obtain.

Then there were the feelings that I sometimes experienced when I spent some time alone with my partner or when I received physical contact from my partner, but my thoughts and intentions were entirely different from my intimate partner’s thoughts and intentions. All the same, it did not change the fact that, on some level, I had love for my partner when we were together. These feelings had to be dealt with, as I now fully realized that they were unhealthy relationships. So I sought out an addiction treatment program that taught me to learn the love language, which is the same language that I speak to my own inner child, whom I love very much.

My first step in becoming aware of the love language was to realize that all feelings come from feelings. We feel angry, sad, joyful, successful, lonely, fearful, nervous, rejected, bored, happy, tired, or we experience pain or discomfort. No matter what we are feeling at any given time, we can choose to feel these various emotions and attach them to various categories. Feelings range from being barely noticeable (which I call “the energy of love”) to intense emotions (which I call “the love energy”). My mission then became to learn how to cultivate these love energies and allow them to flow freely through me rather than storing up and interpreting negatively.

It took me a while to understand the full power of feelings. This understanding came with practice. One day, as part of my spiritual practice, I had to envision myself with my partner in love. After I was able to visualize this scenario, it suddenly became clear that I could not allow my feelings to take control over my actions or feelings in any way. I could no longer let lust or love dominate my life.