To Make You Feel Loved

Loving someone isn’t simply about giving them what we think they need. It’s about taking the time to discover how they experience love, what makes them feel safe, understood, appreciated, and free to be themselves. Real intimacy lives in the details, in the things we notice, ask, listen for, and learn to share.

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I think it’s exceedingly rare these days that we take the time to truly understand how someone wants to be loved: how they prefer to be treated, acknowledged, left alone or kept company; how they want to be heard, understood, and validated; how they want to be touched and embraced, and what helps them feel safe enough to welcome it.

Instead, caught up in the hectic, restless business of everyday life, we’re often scarcely aware of its cumulative effects. We default to keeping things functional, offering little more than superficial attention and satisfaction of our loved ones’ needs.

Our insecurities frequently dictate the attitude and energy of a relationship, while its foundations suffer the corrosive effects of apathy, impatience, intolerance, and repeated miscommunication.

He’ll deflect, she’ll run and hide. She’ll attack, he’ll shut down. He’ll project, she’ll defend. On and on, ’round and ’round.

There are emotional risks and challenges in deep connection, trust, intimacy, and love. The real substance is in the details, revealed through presence, authenticity, vulnerability, and the freedom to be entirely ourselves… especially with our beloved.

It takes time. Sometimes, the more we’ve dared greatly and failed, and the more deeply we’ve worked through our hurts and traumas, the longer it takes to settle into that new seat of the soul. The lightness comes only with letting go.

I would wager that the truest partners find one another serendipitously, in alignment with who they’re ready to be, both for themselves and for each other.

Look again. Listen closer. Feel into the space between.

Trust you’ll know.

Amor sine metu