Rethinking Love

​Two years ago, Mary Beth and I wrote and published Living Brave…In Love, Stories of Intimacy Lost & Found. It is a collection of heart-felt tales of how people come to fall in love and for a variety of reasons become unfastened from the love they thought was secure.  As the stories develop and unfold each person eventually finds their way back to falling in love again. Not always in a romantic partnership, love shows up again and blossoms from the seeds we were born to grow, and mature into loving connections yet again. Love cannot be stopped from being part of who we are as a species and love is how we keep the human race blooming. After all, according to Dr. Amy Banks, author and love researcher in the neuroscience of relationships, our brain is naturally wired to have genuine connections with others.  

While writing the book and listening to the stories of the different ways people come to love, we became acutely aware that similar to our changing world, how we experience love has also changed, or what Mary Beth and I decided, we have to rethink love. The gamut of research we explored from How-to-Love books to the Internet on “finding and doing love” led us to indeed rethink love. The following is what Mary Beth expressed in Living Brave…In Love, "As I personally “rethink love” I’ve learned that love is not stagnant; it ebbs and flows with time based on years of experience and maturity. As is evident with the contributors to the book, they loved, they hurt, they sacrificed, they got knocked down, and they got back up----all in the name of love.  Whether loving a spouse, a significant other, a child, a grandchild, a friend, or a colleague, the way in which we love can be compared to a body of water – some days it’s the pounding waves of an ocean and other days it’s a serene, placid lake.  And yes, to carry the metaphor a bit further: it’s ultimately our choice whether to sink or swim.  I have chosen to swim and I so want to improve upon the way in which I love. With gratitude to the women and men who contributed to the book, I have (and hopefully you do as well) a great appreciation for the ways in which others love.  I want to approach love with even more bravery than I exhibited in the past – to know when to speak with honesty and fearlessness in order to nurture a relationship or perhaps end a relationship."

As February unfolds and the promise of love looms around us through the Internet, greeting cards, restaurant advertisements, and grocery store displays consider opening your heart to all of it. As the tried and true quote states, Nothing ventured nothing gained, one must take risks to achieve something. And as stated in our book, “One must be brave to love.”
Happy February.

With love for you, Hilda