My V-Day Thoughts: What Love Really Is

Written By Bethany Davis

Hello, loves. Happy day of love. ❤️

I have been thinking so much of love lately. Having been divorced, started non-profits out of love and not money, giving up a business that I love, losing friends I love…. what is the definition of love? Is it to give someone more parts of yourself than you’d give yourself? Is it to give physical items or your time? What does love mean? Is it a feeling, an action, a verb? Is it forever? Temporary? What exactly are the parameters?

I don’t mean to be too poetic, I’ve just realize over the years that if you ask anyone, they’re all going to have a different definition of it. Love to a mother is different than a love for a co-worker… or is it?

It’s hard to measure how any of us feel. To say that you love something more than someone else is folly. Love is not necessarily measurable. My weekend with my girlfriends this weekend was similar in the feeing of when I opened a business. To when I felt love for the first time again. To the feeling I get when I create or write. It’s a feeling, and nobody else will ever feel what you feel or be able to compare it.

Whatever love is for you, make sure that you experience it often. I make a good hourly wage at the hospital; I’ve accomplished many things in my life in terms of the “societal standards”, but none of that really matters that much. You’ve probably accomplished many things, too, but really when we look back on our lives at 80 (hopefully 100 or older if we’re living like those in the Blue Zones), and measure our lives in one thing:

The love we experienced.

The moments where you laugh about dumb things, the email that brings you joy in the morning, the patient you helped, the dog that licked your face, the time you baked with your mom, the time that a lover made you laugh so hard or sang you to sleep, the vacation you took… those are the moments that you will remember. As someone who works with the dying population daily and has also found so much joy simply making someone a pour over in a coffee shop: it’s all so similar: we just want to love, be loved, and show love. It’s our nature.

So I hope that today, and all days, you find love in all the little moments. Often, when external circumstances are hard, we have to create it ourselves. We show up with love, even if those around us are rude to us or show us the opposite of love. Love is the only way through.

And lastly, as a reminder (and something I’m learning so much of lately): people are always going to choose themselves first; and so should you. People will come and go, people with change, and circumstances and jobs will change. But the one thing that will stand through time is love you have for yourself: It is THE most important love of all. You will be with you, forever. So how do you treat yourself? Your body? How do you talk to yourself? Of course, the more love you show to yourself, the move love that pours out into those in your life around you. So always make sure that you’re self love comes first, then the people that you love.

Lastly, some ways to show yourself love are to be alone, to make time for your hobbies, to get your nails done or to read a book you’ve been wanting to. To go for a walk, to workout in ways that feel good, to make a smoothie and nourish your body, to dance, sing, or create in a way that is authentic to you. And the biggest way to show yourself is love is to never conform to what others what you to be. To be 100% fully, authentically, and unapologetically yourself, no matter what.

I hope you have the best day today, whether you are “with” someone or not, you’re always with you. ❤️ So give yourself some love today (and every day).

Xo,
B

Here a few little love ways from me to you that you can fill yourself with today:

Bethany Davis
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