Love. The biggest source of happiness and suffering in the world at the same time. Sadly enough, the duration of suffering caused by love is much longer for most people. It doesn’t have to be that way. After many many years, I finally found that out for myself, and most importantly, I started to truly feel it from the core of my being. It has changed my entire life, it has changed my perception of life, my relationship with other people, and how I connect with them, and it has given me a sense of freedom I rarely experienced in my life before.

What I learned is that there are four basic understandings you must figure out to be able to elevate your perception of love.

1. Love is Always One-way Traffic
2. Love Equals Freedom
3. True Love Raises Your Vibration
4. Receiving Love is Natural

Love Is Always One-way Traffic

Let’s start with the first one. Love is always one-way traffic. This might feel very odd because what is love when it’s not shared and flowing in all directions? And that’s exactly the key to understanding this principle. Love has to be one-way traffic in order to flow freely.

Imagine a street where the love traffic is going in all directions. Collisions will occur everywhere and a big part of the love will never reach its intended destination. There are conflicts of interest, conditions, rules, third parties interfering, traffic jams, and sometimes even traffic lights to try to regulate the traffic. And even for the love that does reach its destination, it rarely does so without any physical or emotional damage.

Now, imagine a private road, one lane, surrounded by beautiful nature, it’s only accessible to you, and it leads to all possible destinations you can imagine. The love on this road will have an amazing and peaceful journey to its final destination.

Some will think this road is boring and willfully choose the chaos of traffic and that’s ok. But eventually, everyone will long for the peaceful one-way road.

This analogy perfectly demonstrates how love is never really influenced by external circumstances. It’s the vehicle that gets lost and beaten up by the traffic on the road, which makes it seem like love is shaped by external events. You have pure unaltered love within you, and it depends on how you treat your vehicle, both externally and internally, where you take that love, and how you experience it. The more you protect that love from external influences, the higher the chances are it will reach its destination as intended.

Love Equals Freedom

And when the love you feel inside is not changed by external circumstances anymore, you are finally free to love unconditionally. Because nothing people say or do can change it, it comes from within. It’s not motivated by certain goals or desires, it just is.

That doesn’t mean you are soft and let other people use and abuse you at will. On the contrary, you see the masks of the people around you, as well as your own, and are able to stand strong and firm when necessary. You act out of compassion and understanding, even when saying “no”.

This type of love should not be confused with the free love that seems to be so popular these days. It doesn’t mean you’ll have open relationships or sleep with anyone you encounter on your path. It has nothing to do with romantic or sexual love. Those types of love are based on individual preferences and choices and are part of being human.

But the freedom you feel when you experience true love transcends all of that. And it allows you to simply love, regardless of that special person, long-time friend, or family member, being physically present in your life or not.

It also allows you to separate true love from your personal choices and preferences. You feel love, regardless of your choice to be with someone or not, to share a part of your life in one way or another with someone or not.

True Love Raises Your Vibration

This feeling of freedom is liberating and extremely empowering. Because it enables you to be who you are in all circumstances. It raises your self-esteem, and your sense of self-worth, and provides inner peace and a new level of control over your mind and your thoughts.

Because love is the driving force of the universe. When you let your perception of it be influenced by external circumstances that force is diminished. But when you let it be as it is, it raises your vibration, leading to a more authentic version of yourself. Not everyone will be able to recognize this in you. But you will see the world with different eyes and gain a new understanding of the world that surrounds you.

And when you are more authentic you see how the world around you starts to interact differently with you. This means some people will feel repelled and might leave and disappear and others will feel this magnetic pull toward you. Authentic people tend to be more attractive, more admired, more respected, more loved, and more of a lot of other things. Not that those things matter to you when you love from within. But it does make life easier and more fulfilling.

The trick is to know how to balance the external experiences with your internal perceptions. And as long as you are not deceived by them and let yourself be guided from within at all times, you’ll be able to remain authentic.

Receiving Love is Natural

But it’s important to be real here for a moment. Often it’s not that easy to not be confused or misguided by your perceptions. This is why it’s important to understand how love is received. You might think that now you’re more authentic and guided by the love you feel within, having raised your vibration and seeing and feeling the admiration and appreciation of people around you, those are the things that make you feel loved.

Don’t be fooled by how it might feel. It certainly feels nice to be appreciated by others. But that’s not where you receive the love that will leave you satisfied and at peace. It’s a trap that will leave you feeling lost when, for some reason, the external input changes. People change, they come and go, true love does not.

Remember how it felt on that one-way road surrounded by nature, peace, love, and satisfaction, and enjoying the journey without being obsessed with the destination. Because you know love can reach all destinations.

You receive love because it flows through you from within, from a fountain with infinite supply. External sources don’t provide love, as much as it might appear to be like that sometimes. At most, they inspire you to tap into that infinite source of love within yourself. 

You can compare it with a river flowing from a mountaintop. The closer to the top you are, the more clear and pure water you will see. You can drink it, nourish yourself with it, and bathe in the river. But the further down the river you go, the more and more trash will appear. And by the time the water reaches the sea, it’s not a great idea to drink straight from the river without purifying the water.

You are the mountain, and the closer you can get to the symbolic top, the more you will feel and receive the love that is flowing through you. And if you want to share that type of love with the world around you, you’ll need to keep your river as clean as possible.

And that’s a journey we’re all on for the rest of our lives. It’s a journey on a one-way road, we can’t share the road, but we can share the journey. Thank you for joining my journey for the past few minutes.