Love Is Not a Feeling - It’s a Practice
February inevitably turns our attention toward love.
Valentine’s Day will soon fill our screens and shop windows with hearts, roses, and invitations to buy something to prove how much we care. Some of us enjoy the ritual. Others notice the quiet pressure to consume, perform, and display affection in a very particular way.
It invites a deeper question: what are we really celebrating when we celebrate love?
In everyday language, we use the word “love” to describe everything from our partners and friends to our favourite food or football team. One word, stretched to cover an enormous range of meaning. English, it turns out, is rather limited in this regard.
Other languages are more precise. Arabic is said to have 99 words for love. I am reliably informed that Sanskrit, one of the most ancient human languages, is believed to have over 260. That’s a bit much for me to contemplate, but I do often find that the Greek words which distinguish so clearly between different kinds of love, are so helpful. Each word has its own character, responsibility, and expression.
Among these are:
Éros — romantic, passionate love
Philía — friendship, trust, and mutual respect
Storgē — the love between parents and children
Ludus — playful affection and lightness
Philautía — healthy self-love and self-regard
Erôtopreía — flirtation and attraction
And Agápē — selfless, unconditional love, considered the highest form
When we place Valentine’s Day under this wider lens, it becomes clear how narrowly we tend to define love, and how much we overlook.
At Indigo Brave, we began celebrating Galentine’s Day many years ago, as a way of honouring the female friendships that quite literally make our lives and leadership possible. There is a card I received decades ago that still makes me smile:
“Between me and insanity lie my friends.” It remains profoundly true.
One of the places I believe we get most lost is in the idea that love is purely a feeling. The feelings of love, the rush, the chemistry, the excitement, are wonderful. The physical, and emotional - perhaps even psychic connection to our children or other family members. But those feelings change dramatically when people do not behave in the way we expect them to! Some of them are so transient, hormonally driven, and when those ‘feelings’ are gone, what are we left with?
Real love, in my experience, is something else entirely.
I have been married now for 23 years, and have 2 ‘kidults’, so I feel I have learned something about this!
Love is a choice.
It is a state of being we can step into, again and again, even when it is inconvenient, uncomfortable, or unseen. It is a way of relating, not just reacting.
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin wrote:
“Someday, after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness the energies of love, and then, for a second time in the history of the world, humanity will have discovered fire.”
Love, understood in this way, becomes a powerful force. In our work at Indigo Brave, this understanding of love as a frequency or state is one of the most practical and effective foundations for sustainable success, clarity, and leadership.
This is Agápē - love as conscious practice.
As you move through this season, it may be worth reflecting:
Which forms of love are present and well-nourished in your life?
Which are quietly missing?
And what would it look like to choose love deliberately, in the way you lead, work, and relate?
The FREE Indigo Brave Firelight Circle is a space for thoughtful leaders and professionals, in senior roles who want to work with their energy rather than against it. Through seasonal wisdom, embodied practices, and shared reflection, we explore sustainable ways of leading, creating, and navigating change.
If you’re ready to nurture your spark gently now, so it can grow into strength and clarity later in the year, you’re warmly invited to join us.