Talking about love may seem unnecessary. You may be perfectly fine with talking lovingly, but are probably hesitating to have “love” be the main topic of one of your conversations. The importance of actually being brave and expressing love increases very quickly once we’re about to lose someone or worse yet, we suddenly lose them. If we love someone and hear of their passing, we notice right away that our hesitation to talk about love doesn’t justify keeping our love for others to ourselves. But fear shouldn’t be what prompts us to give love.

Love is a treasure. While you must care for it, it does the most good and it shines brighter when you gift it to someone than when you keep it all to yourself.”                                                                                                                 -Haydee Montemayor

So how can you start your love conversations? Using the following 7 steps.

Step 1: Consider Yourself Worthy of Giving and Receiving Love

We are personal beings who thrive with and are worthy of social interpersonal relationships. Simply put, love and appreciate yourself. Do you have to be perfect at this? Of course not! But at the very least, you have to love yourself enough to know that you and your love really can matter and do matter to someone. Similarly, others in your life love you because they too consider you worthy.

Step 2: Consider Who to Give Your Love To

Love can be subtle, normal, passionate, friendly, familial or romantic. Did you know that there is such a thing as a vagus nerve? You might be wondering, “what’s that?” It turns out that according to MedTerms, the vagus nerve is:

“A nerve that supplies nerve fibers to the pharynx (throat), larynx (voice box), trachea (windpipe), lungs, heart, esophagus, and intestinal tract, as far as the transverse portion of the colon. “

Why does this matter? Because when you watch a video of someone’s success or inspirational experience and it makes you tear up or flat out cry, it’s because of your vagus nerve. It’s what causes the lump in your throat. This nerve is highly associated with oxytocin (the feel good hormone) and it is also closely linked to empathy, love and hugs.  It’s probably my favorite body part, because in my mind, it’s the one that most connects us to other human beings on a spiritual “we are all one” level whether we believe in this premise or not. Is your vagus nerve very active in you, or are you hardly even aware that it exists due to your self-imposed disconnection from the world?

If someone holds a special place in your heart, it’s not a bad idea to let them know. It’s important to note that talking about love doesn’t mean pulling out all the stops on your love and making a big “fiesta” out of how you feel. You can if you want to, but you and I know that this isn’t the best way to express your love for everybody, and in every circumstance. There are tactful, appropriate and spectacular ways of expressing love and the adequacy of each varies on the love intensity that you feel. The most important thing is for your love to feel genuine to you and to the other person.

Step 3: How Can You Ensure that Your Conversations about Love and Expressions of Love Are Genuine?

By showing interest. Interest is key to making any conversation meaningful. And you won’t convey interest if you ask blah questions. Your choice to talk about blah topics leads to blah feelings. The same goes with blah comments. On the flip side:

“The deeper the questions you ask, the deeper the answers you’ll receive, the deeper the answers you receive, the deeper the relationship, the deeper the relationship, the deeper the amount of joy you’ll get out of love and life.” -Haydee Montemayor

Why will you get joy? Because despite how self-absorbed you are in your own little world with your own little gadgets, you are meant to interact with others. But as you know, the quality of the interaction matters.

Step 4: Evaluate the Quality of Love Because it Too Has a Quality of Life

Here’s a simple “in theory” but a “harder to always put into process” acronym that shows you how your LOVE has a better chance of being met with open arms if you routinely give it the following check-up:

• Learn your loved one’s preferred way of being loved and express your love to them in that manner
• Offer them quality time
• Volunteer to support them emotionally, mentally, physically and spiritually even when they don’t ask for it, but make sure that your timing of your support is right for them, not convenient for you
• Evaluate the way they respond to your love often. (Be wise enough to know that if they aren’t receptive to your love– it’s because it’s probably soothing to you, but not soothing to them). Repeat this LOVE acronym as often as needed.

The most important thing to remember is to love consciously and that you expand your love awareness. No matter how often you give love, it should never with a mundane attitude, because it will quickly be, seem or become mundane to the other person.

Step 5: Love Abundantly

In most circumstances (with the exception of probably the workplace) it is better to love more than enough than to not love enough.

Do you remember when you were little, that there was that someone in your life that loved you the best? Perhaps it was a parent or a grandparent.

• How did they love you?
• With a thin paint brush?
• Or with a thick paint brush?
• in other words, did they give you their love dot by dot or with broad beautiful brush strokes?

I would say that they were the type of person that loved you spontaneously, immensely and with all their being. Do you remember how that kind of love made you feel? Or how it still does (regardless of whether they’re still around or not)? If you’re getting teary-eyed or emotional just thinking about how grandiose that love is, it’s because you appreciate that type of love. The type that has broad beautiful brush strokes.

So why is it that most of us go throughout life giving our love dot by dot, sporadically and extremely cautiously? Really! WHY do we do this? Why are there people who seem to think that they only have 10 dots/drops of love for their entire lifetime, and for them, giving love almost causes a “loving remorse” feeling very much like people sometimes get “buyers remorse”? You know if you’re in the presence of someone like that, when they are willing to love you only when the conditions are right. And if they give you love and you don’t respond the way that they want to, they want their love back. Or they simply don’t express their much at all— and if they do, it’s always after you have expressed your love to them. The most probable answer to this question is because that person might either be egocentric, hasn’t made the decision to love unconditionally, has a love poverty mentality, simply devalues love (it’s just there, it’s blah, it’s meh— it’s not something that they want to talk about unless it leads to their own needs being met) or worse yet, they simply don’t love you. OUCH, I know, but it happens. But, maybe, perhaps maybe, if everybody analyzed how their way of expressing love or in some cases of not expressing love may be perceived, perhaps they may be able to notice that they do have the potential of loving more than they are and sharing that love. Even if people are shy, introverted or not used to expressing their love… at least everybody can give love using a thin, constant brush stroke, right? As it’s often said, it’s the small things that count.

“Expressions of love don’t have to be huge to make a difference…. but they do have to be expressed.” – Haydee Montemayor

Step 6: Love Like You Mean It Not Like You Need It

The best way to test your courage is to test for how long and how much you can love in a healthy relationship… without getting it back when and how you want. When you love for the sake of loving without expectation, the possibility of rejection seems way less scary.

Step 7: Be Coherent With Your Love

“If you say you love someone act like you do. If you are acting like you love someone say that you do.” -Haydee Montemayor

Part of the reason we are hesitant to express our love is because since love is everywhere, it falls into scenarios where it may be considered a taboo to love or where we might be judged because we love. When we express our love to someone in and out of these scenarios we often feel like we have to walk a tight rope to ensure that we’re giving just the right amount of love, not too much and not too little for fear of what others may say. Get over that! Puhhhlease!

Have you ever been to a funeral and seen how someone expresses their love to someone, often between yells, tears and a whole bunch of “why’s” ? I don’t think that person is caring at the moment what others think. Why? Because their need to express love is THAT compelling, forceful and critical at that moment. Often, these are the people who didn’t say how much they loved the person when they were alive. Or realized that they gave their love, drop by drop, dot by dot, inconsistently, and with a super thin brush and now they’re eager to use the thick brush in those last few hours.

When is it better for you to talk about love? When you for sure won’t get a reaction out of the person you’re expressing your love to or while you still can?

Love and Treasure this Introspection Moment

I have included a PDF that has some sample questions that you can start using to talk about love. As you’ll see, talking about love can be fun, playful, creative and deep.

Pick one of the questions from this Love and Treasure this Moment of Introspection- How to Start Love Conversations with the World at Large (PDF), whichever one you want, and answer it in the comments below. Have fun! 🙂