What type do you want?
You already know physical love, as it’s the type you see all around you everyday, on television, in books and in movies.
When you’re young, you’re attracted to physical attributes of people, to looks and bodies and spend a great amount of time and effort trying to explore these.
Also, there’s no denying the power of the physical biology of love: our bodies are designed to reproduce. You were likely taught about this at school and gossiped about it with friends.
Marketers also use this type of love to sell things to you, so you have this type of love pushed to you all the time. You’re led to believe that you must have it or you’re missing out and will suffer. This has also distorted much thinking about love.
Once you experience and somewhat understand the physical aspects of love, you might realise that there’s something more, that there’s a ‘mental’ or social form of love.
Mental love is where you want loving companionship, conversation and friendship as much, if not more, than the physical aspects of love. It’s why and how you seek relationships with friends, family and a special partner.
While physical love fulfils our physical and biological needs, mental love helps alleviate loneliness, makes you feel more connected, safer and secure.
This type of love has a lot to do with how you feel and think. Studies have found that just mentally recalling thoughts of a loved one can create pleasant feelings; that meditating about love can generate more harmonious heart waves (ECGs) than people who are simply resting.
Once you obtain mental love you might sense that there’s still something more. For example, you can be in a relationship, in a marriage with children, and never be physically alone, yet still feel isolated and that something is missing.
What’s missing is spiritual love…