Can you share a positive example of where you’ve felt loved?

Absolutely. And not just one—there are many. But there’s one moment, quiet and ordinary, that always rises to the top.

I was maybe eight years old. It was late—probably past bedtime. I had been sick with a fever all day, the kind where everything hurts: your bones, your skin, even your eyelashes. My mom had just helped me take some medicine, tucked me in again, and dimmed the light in the room. I was curled up, trying to get comfortable, when I felt the mattress dip slightly. I looked up. She had come back, sitting on the edge of the bed, rubbing my back in slow circles. No words. Just warmth. Her presence told me: You are not alone. I will sit here until you feel safe enough to sleep.

“Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies.”
— Aristotle

This speaks to love as something beyond physical or transactional—a deep, soulful connection. Love isn’t about possession; it’s about shared essence, mutual understanding.

I didn’t need to be entertained. I didn’t want toys. I didn’t even want the pain to go away in that moment. I just wanted someone to stay. And she did.

That moment was small, but it’s branded in my memory with more clarity than birthdays or vacations. Why? Because it was pure love. No performance. No reward. No transaction. Just quiet, consistent care.

But what is love, really?

We talk about love like we all understand it—like it’s this obvious, universal thing. We throw the word around constantly: “I love pizza,” “I love this show,” “I love you.” But that word carries different meanings in different mouths.

At its core, love is an emotion—but also an action, a decision, a pattern. It’s neurochemical, psychological, spiritual, and deeply cultural.

Psychologically, love is often rooted in attachment. As infants, we first experience love (or the lack of it) through caregivers. That’s how our brains learn what safety feels like. When someone meets your needs consistently—feeds you when you’re hungry, soothes you when you cry—you start forming the basic blueprint for what love is: safety, trust, comfort, presence.

The problem is, not everyone gets that early model. Some grow up learning that love is conditional, transactional, dangerous, or even absent. For them, love isn’t a soft place to land—it’s a moving target, or worse, a trap. So asking someone to love or receive love when they’ve never seen it modeled is like asking them to write a novel in a language they’ve never heard spoken.

Still, the desire for love is universal. It’s embedded in our biology. Humans are wired to connect. We have mirror neurons that help us feel what others feel. We release oxytocin—the “bonding hormone”—when we hug, when we laugh, when we make love, when we cry in someone’s arms. Love is literally in our bloodstream.

But here’s where it gets philosophical: even though love is a natural impulse, it’s also one of the most fragile things to hold. Because love requires vulnerability. And vulnerability requires risk.

How do you love when you’ve never felt it?

This is a question I think about a lot. Maybe you didn’t grow up in a loving home. Maybe you’ve been hurt by the people you trusted. Maybe you’ve spent years building walls because every time you opened the door, someone walked out or broke in.

So how do you learn love then?

The answer, I think, begins with unlearning. You unlearn the story that you are hard to love. You unlearn the belief that love equals pain. You unlearn the reflex to push people away before they can leave. And that takes time. It takes safe people. It takes consistent experiences that contradict the old narrative.

You learn love by being witnessed and still accepted. You learn it by messing up and being forgiven. You learn it when someone shows up not because they have to, but because they want to. That’s why therapy can be so powerful for people—because it’s often the first relationship where boundaries are respected, where feelings are validated, where presence is consistent. It’s not the only way to learn love, but it’s a powerful one.

Love isn’t always romantic.

Let’s talk about this. Because for a lot of people, when you say “love,” they think romance. They think of flowers and holding hands and passionate kisses. But that’s one kind of love. And honestly, it’s not even the most important.

There’s the love between a parent and child. The love between friends who’ve walked with you through hell and back. The love of a pet who greets you like you’re the best thing that’s ever happened. The love of a stranger who pays for your meal just because. The love in a song that understands your sadness. The love in the quiet moments, where no one’s watching, but someone chooses to be kind anyway.

That’s the kind of love that changes people. Not the grand gestures, but the daily ones.

Real love feels like safety.

Not comfort, necessarily. Not ease. But safety—as in, “I can be my full self and not be punished for it.” That’s huge.

When I think back to moments I’ve felt loved—truly loved—it wasn’t about people agreeing with me or flattering me. It was the feeling of being seen, understood, and not judged.

Like when I was 23 and called a friend crying in the middle of the night after a breakup. I expected her to say “You’ll get over it,” or “He wasn’t worth it.” Instead, she said, “Do you want me to come over? I can bring snacks.” That was love.

Or when my grandfather, who barely spoke about feelings, once put his hand on my shoulder when I was silently grieving a loss. No words. Just that gesture. That was love too.

Love is presence. Love is action.

Love is not just something you feel. It’s something you do. It’s calling someone back. It’s checking in. It’s keeping your word. It’s listening when you’re tired. It’s staying when it would be easier to leave.

“Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.”
— Robert A. Heinlein

A powerful reminder that real love is selfless. It ties back to presence and consistent care—putting someone else’s well-being at the center, not out of obligation, but out of genuine desire.

Love is choosing someone—again and again—not because they’re perfect, but because you see their worth, even when they don’t.

And sometimes, love means letting go. Sometimes it means telling the hard truth. Sometimes it means setting a boundary or walking away. That can be love too. The kind that doesn’t always feel good, but is still rooted in care.

The pain of love—and why we keep choosing it anyway.

Here’s the paradox: love is what makes us most alive. It’s also what can hurt us the most. The people we love are the ones who can wound us most deeply. Why? Because we let them in. We give them access to our softest places.

And yet… we keep doing it. We keep loving. We keep hoping. We keep searching for connection. Because something in us knows: a life without love is not a life fully lived.

Loss doesn’t negate love. It proves it. Grief is love with nowhere to go. So even when love ends—through death, distance, or heartbreak—it still matters. It still shapes us.

Love across generations, cultures, and time.

What’s amazing is that love looks different everywhere—but the feeling is the same. A mother rocking her baby in Nigeria. Two teens holding hands in Tokyo. An old couple in New York walking slowly across the street, still choosing each other after decades. Different languages, different customs—but the heart recognizes it.

There’s a reason every great story is, in some way, about love. Every song. Every poem. Even the angry ones. Because love is the engine. The thing we’re all trying to understand, find, recover, protect.

Love isn’t earned. It’s received.

This is maybe the hardest part to grasp, especially if you’ve been told otherwise. But love, real love, isn’t a reward for being good. It’s not a currency for performance. It’s not something you “deserve” only when you’re perfect.

You don’t have to look a certain way, achieve a certain goal, or fix yourself completely to be loved. You are already worthy. Right now. With your mess. With your fears. With your scars.

The people who truly love you—romantically, platonically, spiritually—see the whole of you and stay anyway. That doesn’t mean they don’t challenge you or hold you accountable. But they don’t withdraw love when you struggle.

“To be fully seen by somebody, then, and be loved anyhow—this is a human offering that can border on miraculous.”
— Elizabeth Gilbert

This perfectly captures the power of unconditional love: not just being admired for your strengths, but being known—flaws and all—and still held close.

So, to answer the question again:

Yes, I’ve felt loved. In moments big and small. By people close and distant. In words and silences.

I’ve felt loved when someone picked up the phone on the third ring and said, “I’ve got time.”

I’ve felt loved when a teacher told me I had something special.

I’ve felt loved when a friend saved me a seat, when someone said “text me when you get home,” when I was told “you matter” without having to prove it.

Love is the moment someone chooses you just as you are—and keeps choosing you. That feeling? That’s home.

And if you’ve never felt that—if love has always felt just out of reach—I hope you know this: it’s not too late. You can still learn. You can still find it. You can still be it.

Love is not a finite resource. It doesn’t expire. And it’s not a mystery reserved for the lucky.

It’s in you. Already. Waiting for a chance to breathe.

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