Love Is ...

I’m Judith Ashley, author of The Sacred Women’s Circle series, romantic fiction that honors spiritual practices that nourish the soul and celebrate the journey from relationship to romance.

Love is …?

I invite you to take a moment and finish that sentence.

What words came to you?

Were they specific to a person as in “Love is how I feel about my (name of special person here).

Or perhaps something like this?

"Love is a warm/passionate/______ feeling."

Or maybe

"Love is how I know someone is right for me."

When we first think of love, seldom do we consider the painful side of the word – unrequited love, abusive love, controlling love, hateful love.

If you've ever been in a relationship that started out to be everything you thought or hoped a loving relationship would be, only to find yourself caught up in a nightmare, your perspective about the word “love” may be forever changed. 

To find yourself in a relationship where loving words are spoken against the backdrop of painful actions is crazy-making. What is the message about love then? How do you find the connection between loving words and a slap or fist to the face? Hateful words said in the context of "I love you".

As a writer of romance, my heroines and even my heroes are acquainted with this other side of love. Part of their journey is about finding their way back, back to deserving to be loved, or back to willing to do the work to have the loving relationship they dream of.

For these characters, the feeling of being "in love" is not wrapped in warm cozy feelings. They remain suspicious. They fight physical attraction. They dance away when the feelings become too intense. Until they are convinced this is real, right and forever, they resist. Why? They want it all. 

What that “all” looks like is different for each of them.

However, there are similar elements. 

They are safe (physically, emotionally, mentally).

They are confident they are loved in return.

They are respected, listened to and are co-creators of their relationship which means they've found a way to communicate with each other..

I’d love to know what four words you’d use to describe love, so please share.

For more about “love” check out my post at Intentions and Synchronicities. 

For more information about The Sacred Women’s Circle series, check here or here.

Remember the Genre-istas are sharing thoughts, excerpts, ideas and feelings about love so stop in often to see what romance authors have to say about this most powerful four letter word.