Discovering love

“All you need is love”, the Beatles claimed half a century ago.

Why do we need love at all, and how can we find it?

Most people look for love in a relationship. We wish for a partner in the hope of finding love, security and support. People expect a relationship to fulfil concrete needs that they have had from the moment they first saw the light of day. When we strive for security, this longing shows that we feel insecure and that such support has been missing in our lives so far. Those who are sad hope for joy, comfort and lightness. Ultimately, we expect a relationship to fulfil our needs.

Yet most people never experienced, even in childhood, the kind of fulfilment they believe they will find in a relationship. This includes, for example, trust, a sense of safety and love without conditions attached. Whatever of this was withheld from us in childhood, we seek outside ourselves through the recognition of others. Usually we compensate for these deficits through achievement, because we believe we have to do something to receive attention and recognition and, in the end, to be loved.

But we should be honest with ourselves and ask which concrete wishes, needs and longings drive us to enter into a relationship. What makes us more alive, more content, happier and gives us more joy in life? Is it really love within a relationship?

What is love?

Everyone talks about love. Countless books are filled with treatises on it. Mostly, however, they are about emotional love, the love we feel for someone else.

Love, however, is a state of being that thinking cannot find. In this state there is no “I” with its identifications, fears and possessions. Love and thinking are opposites that can never be reconciled. By thinking we mean “psychological thinking” here – when we think, for example, about the past, the future and the many fears that plague us. If we dwell on our emotions, the creative power that we really are cannot unfold. Love is what we are and what we feel within us.

Anyone who is able to relate to other people without judging or expecting anything will find that they can take in and use universal, positive energy. By taking in this energy in the present moment, we feel strengthened, harmonious, invigorated and free. We regain our self-confidence, our self-respect and our self-love. Love is a force, a state of BEING. Love is not something you do; love is what you are.

In the state of love we experience ourselves as independent and free. Love is life in the here and now.

The law of harmony

• Unconditional love accepts our partner just as they are. This creates harmony.
• If I want to change something about my partner, however logical it may seem, I only create a blockage in their mind.
• My partner’s subconscious perceives my thoughts of change and immediately builds a wall of resistance. When people change, they can only do so from within. Moreover, in order even to consider changing someone, I must first have classed them as imperfect. I must have ranked them below myself. This immediately provokes unconscious resistance.
• We are all different, unique and incomparable. No one is more important than anyone else. Every person is something special. The ability to recognise another person’s unique qualities and their problems without questioning them or wanting to change them allows us human beings to live in harmony with one another.

With warmest regards, Franco Stolz

I have been a member of GAIA since the spring of this year. I am happy to pass on my knowledge, my topics and my many years of experience as a coach and therapist. I very much welcome feedback and comments.

Let us live our true potential and change the times with it.

I work in the Vienna area, among other places. To arrange a personal conversation or to work through personal issues, I am available on +43 660 6064228 or by email (in German).