Love and the Heart  
By Joanne Page PhD

Love is the key to a healthy heart – physically, emotionally and spiritually. Hearts are fragile and can be broken. We need intimate connection to others in order to heal and to be healthy.

There are many different forms of love and this is more clearly expressed in Greek than English: eros, sexual or romantic love; storge: the love between family members: agape, affection; philos, friendship and charitas, Divine love. ‘Tough love’ disciplines and sets boundaries while unconditional love gives and forgives all.

Genuine, healing and transforming love can be very hard to find and to give. In order to love others it is first essential to cultivate a healthy love of self. This is not narcissistic self-adoration: it is a kindness and gentleness, an understanding and tolerance of oneself – an intimacy with authentic self that is born out of befriending and living from one’s own heart. The consequences of trying to ‘love your neighbour as you love yourself’ while disconnected from heart or filled with self-hatred can be seen all too often in our fractured world.

Eros, romantic, sexual love, is often seen as the ideal, but unless both partners are entering into a romantic relationship consciously – intimate with themselves and taking responsibility for their own wounds and neediness – then unrealistic hopes and expectations may result in bitter disappointment and a great deal of emotional pain.

Romantic love can also be addictive, quite literally, at the physiological level: a rush of hormones to receptors in brain cells produces a powerful feeling of euphoria. Rejection, loss or disappointment in love can spark a frantic search for the next ‘love fix’ and romantic ‘high’.

Romantic love can lead to deep emotional and spiritual connection and growth but when entered into unconsciously by individuals seeking to meet the needs and heal the wounds left by failed storge, love in the family of origin - it can lead to the hell of love addiction – the shadow side of eros and of the spiritual quest.

The love between intimate friends, agape and philos can be deeply healing. This kind of love allows for a mutual opening of the heart. Achieving intimacy with another person means risking, being vulnerable, dropping the persona or mask and showing one’s true self, shadow aspects and all. Being seen, known and loved for all of one’s self, not just the parts we feel are ‘acceptable’, is a deeply healing experience and a wonderful, healing gift to receive and to give.

On a spiritual level the deepest core of us longs for intimate relationship not only to another, but also to The Other, the Divine Beloved, the Great Mystery that is both within and beyond us. To open up to charitas, Divine love, is the most deeply healing and transformative experience the heart can know. In the end, love – having it, losing it, experiencing its dark side – is the single cause of our human joys and sorrows, and love is the ground and purpose of our being.    

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