Are You Ready to be Loved?

In the past we’ve discussed the importance of feeling loved and accepted. As humans we have an innate psychological need to feel like we belong, no matter the situation. That being said, a lack of acceptance can pose some serious hindrances to a healthy and productive life.
People in this situation may often think to themselves, “Nobody loves me”, and in turn this negative thinking may make them feel even worse. However, in many situations a more accurate statement would be “I’m not letting myself feel loved”.
This idea challenges what most people commonly believe about love and relationships. It’s an interesting change in perspective, yet it does have legitimate psychological backing. The lonely man is indeed lonely by choice, but that choice is often made indirectly and subconsciously due to a variety of other factors.
Even with that in consideration, you still do have the ability to improve your situation. Thus the goal of this article is a simple one; we aim to help put the choice of feeling loved back into your hands. After all, you certainly don’t want to feel depraved of love, so learning to really notice the love that you already receive can do you a world of good.

Love as a Conscious Choice
Love encompasses a very wide range of factors including passion, intimacy, and commitment. Therefore it’s incorrect to attribute love to nothing but feelings; there are many other dimensions to consider, and they all contribute to how we give and receive love.
The three facets listed above are all part of a commonly accepted theory known as Sternberg’s Triangle. In 1986 a man named Robert Sternberg theorized that love could be broken up into the three categories listed at the beginning of this section, and that any ideal love required all three in equal amounts in order to be sustained.
However, for our purposes we’re going to focus on the aspect of love that can be seen as a conscious choice: commitment. Think of it this way; if you were in a happy relationship with someone for 5 years and I asked you if you loved your partner, what would you say? Would you have to examine your feelings at that exact moment in order to decide? Would you have to discuss how close the two of you were before giving an answer?
Probably not. Most people would answer “yes” with little to no hesitation. You’ve made that commitment already, and whether or not you ‘love’ your partner reflects that accordingly. By the way, commitment doesn’t just refer to intimate relationships. You’re committed to your friends by still being friends with them. You’re committed to your family because you’ve spent many of your living years with them (along with the fact that most of us don’t have the opportunity to choose where and when we’re born).
All of these things show commitment, and guess what? Where there’s commitment there’s love, and often pretty strong love at that. It may not be the traditional “drive your mind crazy with emotion” style of love, but it’s still a very real and very meaningful force that shouldn’t be ignored.
Unless you’re a complete hermit, chances are you have some of this type of love in your life. However, there are still countless people who are suffering by not recognizing this fact in their own lives.

Choosing to Be Loved
The first step in feeling all the love in your life is to locate the sources. I personally never realized quite how abundant they were until I had a few choice questions posed to me. If you’re really ready to be loved, ask yourself the following queries.
• Do your friends love you?
• Does your family love you?
These aren’t meant to be opinions in any way; instead you should answer them as objectively as possible. That being said, chances are the answer is yes for both of these. Remember, we’re not just talking about intimate love; your same gender friends probably don’t want to make out with you, but I would definitely argue that they do indeed love you in a committal sense. After all, your friends wouldn’t be your friends without some kind of commitment love. Your family members are also biologically predisposed to love you as well, even if they don’t show it very well.
If you did answer no, I would argue that you’re already making a somewhat active choice to disallow feelings of love in your life. Not only is this unhealthy, but it’s unfair to yourself and to those around you. The love is there, it’s just up to you to recognize it. Now ask yourself this?
• Do you feel loved by your friends?
• Do you feel loved by your family?
This is where opinion will shine through, and it’s also where you’ll begin to recognize any potential problems. Feelings are very subjective, and as such they may be skewed based on personal perception errors and other biases.
What’s more, the people around us often don’t show us love in a way that makes it abundantly clear. We all have preferences for how we’d like to be loved; for example, I would enjoy having a woman whom I could hang around with, have fun with, and be connected to (along with sharing in some other common debauchery). This would make me feel loved more than anything else.
My friends don’t do this. My family doesn’t do this. Does that mean that I’m not loved?
Of course not! My specific qualifications may not be met for an optimal situation, but -as we’ve discussed - love can come in many forms. Your opinion of what love is shouldn’t be constricted to anything, because we all show it differently. A strong goal to set is to uncover and appreciate all the different ways that people show you that they love you in your own life.
So, what do you think? Are you ready to be loved yet?