Here are my takeaways from bell hook’s book “all about love: new visions” (insert Amazon affiliate link here).

On loving

  • People have a difficult time wrapping their head around loving, mostly because they do not have a clear definition of love.
    • Having a clear definition of love lets us make clear sense of it and know which steps to take to access it.
    • if we do not define love, if we do not know what love is, we cannot practice it. Knowing what we are searching for or setting out to, is the starting point.
    • With a clear and simple definition of love, the practice of love becomes clear and simple.
  • Love is the will to nurture one’s own or another’s spiritual growth. (in French: bienveillance; ≈ benevolence, wanting good things for someone, “loving kindness”)
    • Love is the be-all, end-all; the alpha and omega; what gives life meaning.
      • “Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone — we find it with another.”
    • Love is a gift, an earthly paradise.
    • Love is of great significance and has enormous power.
      • “Love is, in fact, an intensification of life.”
    • The components of love are honest and open communication, commitment, trust, recognition, respect, affection and care. Just because you have one element (e.g. affection) doesn’t mean it is love. By conflating any of those elements with love, it becomes more difficult to assess a relationship objectively, for what it is, and especially when it is dysfunctional.
  • Hence, love is a decision, a choice; and not a feeling.
    • By viewing love as a choice, we take responsibility for it, and can act in love with consistency. When viewing love as a feeling, we are its helpless, passive recipient, with no say in it — it is disempowering. We can control our actions, but not our feelings.
    • With the traditional definition of love as a feeling, the promise to love someone forever does not make sense, as we have no control over our feelings. If we define love as an action, then it makes more sense.
    • We can distinguish the action of love from feelings of care, affection, respect, cathexis (emotional investment), etc.
    • We can view the action of love as engendering feelings, rather than the other way around.
    • Love is fundamentally a verb and not a noun; an action, rather than a concept.
    • Love is an art; something that one can practice and become better at.
    • “Love in action is always about service, what we do to enhance spiritual growth.”
      • “The choice of love is a choice to connect, and to find ourselves in the other.”
  • Love is the intention (to nurture someone’s spiritual growth) and the subsequent act.
  • Many people feel that they do not have a clue as to how to love.
    • Our education doesn’t teach us how to love.
    • We learn love primarily from our family of origin, which can be dysfunctional and convey a very distorted understanding of love.
      • Some parents do not know how to love (properly). They can have very a twisted and unhealthy understanding of love, that they then pass on.
  • Families are an autocratic (and dangerous) structure, with the parents exerting complete, unmoderated power over the child.
    • It is all the more problematic as people tend to feel uncomfortable meddling or interfering with the way that their friends or acquaintances raise their children.
    • In that sense, children are deprived of autonomy, of human rights.
    • Because children otherwise have no recourse, it is all the more important that they have access to “outsiders”, or that outsiders can witness the situation.
      • This can take the form of electing somebody to fulfill the traditional role of a godparent (being a confidant)
      • This can take the form of raising the child within a larger community, for example with more family members involved or within a voluntary community (as things used to be).
    • With this “enlightened witness” that the child can turn to, he understands that his parents do not know it all, that they can make mistake; and that the way things are done in his family are not necessarily the norm.
      • “In a loving household where there are several parental caregivers, when a child feels one parent is being unjust, that child can appeal to another adult for mediation, understanding or support.”
      • It is equally insightful to the child when a parent turns personally to this “enlightened witness” for mediation and for seeking counsel for conflicts within the family, thereby conceding that they are not infallible or omniscient — and by the same token, serving as a model for the child by revealing their willingness to accept criticism and their capacity to reflect on their behaviour and to change.
    • Diversity in the community around the child increases the likelihood of finding someone sane that the child can confide in or get advice from; someone showing that the family’s interactions are not the norm. An “enlightened witness”: “someone whose kindness, tenderness and concern restore their sense of hope”
  • Do not fantasize or sermonize at length about love. Practice love first-hand, experience it first-hand and learn from it first-hand.
  • Love takes work, commitment, and trust.
    • “One can only foster growth through a relationship of constancy.”
      • Do not treat relationships as Dixie cups. If it’s not working, power into it, be proactive, make it work. Talk.
      • “In the case of romantic relationships, many people fear getting trapped in a bond that is not working, so they flee at the onset of conflict. […] They flee from love before they feel its grace.” Instead, commit first, commit to the action of loving, and work through the conflict.
        • Commit and stick through experiences until the end; until you have found or understood their meaning. Only when committing and doing things completely, do you have a clear result and acquire clear insight on whether or not this is something for you. Do things with intention, reason, purpose and meaning. Intention yields reason yields meaning. Know the meaning in what you’re doing. “What is this experience teaching me?” Go all the way through the end, through the meaning and on to the other side.
      • Respond to tension, conflict or estrangement not with distancing, but with a will to reconnect. “Whenever I hear friends talk about estrangement from family members, I encourage them to seek a path of healing, to seek the restoration of bonds.”
    • Love is not about providing us with safety and a steady state of bliss. Rather, love is about transforming us and making us grow (and experiencing beauty along the way).
      • “Love does not lead to an end to difficulties, it provides us with the means to cope with our difficulties in ways that enhance our growth.”
        • “Difficult and down times are not a lack of love, but part of the process. In actuality, true love thrives on the difficulties. The foundation of such love is the assumption that we want to grow and expand, to become more fully ourselves.”
        • There is joy in the struggle.
        • Going through a challenge (confronting it, instead of fleeing it) can be transforming and let us deal with future challenges with a lot more ease.
      • Love and emotional closeness inherently contain risk, yet provides us at the same time with the faith to take our chances and push through.
        • Faith in the power and possibility of radical change enables us to move past fear; the faith in the fact that love is there and taking care of us, that we are guided by love.
      • “As long as we are afraid to risk, we cannot know love.”
        • “So many of us long for love but lack the courage to take risks.”
        • Fear is often the fear of change, or the fear of the other (of separation; of difference).
          • “Fear intensifies our doubts. It paralyzes.”
        • Fear is out instinctual reaction to risk, and can be overcome with love. Love is the opposite of fear.
          • When you deliberately reject fear, you come back to love. “The choice of love is a choice to connect — to find ourselves in the other.” “Our fear may not go away, but it will not stand in the way.” “That which is rendered separate or strange through fear (or shame) is made whole through perfect love.”
      • “The vulnerability in love is at once what makes it dangerous and beautiful, prone to wounding and prone to healing; the force that transforms, changes you and lets you grow.”
      • “By learning to love, we learn to accept change. Without change, we cannot grow. Our will to grow in spirit and truth is how we stand before life and death, ready to choose life.” (As opposed to stagnation.)
        • “We are all capable of shifting our paradigms”
      • We tend to turn our back on love when its practice brings up pain, while this is precisely the moment that could lead to a breakthrough and awakening.
        • “The place of suffering — the place where we are broken in spirit — when accepted and embraced, is also a place of peace and possibility. Our sufferings do not magically end; instead we are able to wisely alchemically recycle them.” (× subliming feelings, Psycho-Cybernetics)
        • You have to learn to accept pain as part of love. Pain is a necessity, suffering is optional.
  • Spiritual practice is “the liberation of the heart, which is love […]; to uncover the radiant, joyful heart within each of us and manifest this radiance to the world” (joy, self-expression and letting each other radiate, be the full expression of themselves.)
    • “All awakening to love is spiritual awakening” (though not all spiritual awakening is awakening to love)
  • Love and power are antinomic.
    • The will to love is at odds with the will to power.
    • Love includes relinquishing power.
  • We must acknowledge how little we know of love in both theory and practice.

Self-love and action

  • Personal integrity, setting boundaries, or making decisions aiding your spiritual growth are all acts of self-love.
    • Self-assertiveness leads to self-esteem. (× Psycho-Cybernetics)
    • Only from the stable base of self-love can you extend this love to others, and relate to others as you relate to yourself.
      • “Long before community assumes external shape and form, it must be present as a seed in the undivided self: only as we are in communion with ourselves can we find community with others.” Intimacy and collegiality with oneself foster intimacy and collegiality, community with others.
  • Telling one’s story over and over again can be a way of holding on the past and to the grief. It can make you stuck. It can be a way to put the blame on others or on circumstances outside your control (× Psycho-Cybernetics, pleading in front of the “court of life”). Be proactive instead.
    • In order to grow out of patterns, it is important but not necessary to understand the origins or details of your current behaviour (Just like in Psycho-Cybernetics: “you don’t have to psychoanalyze yourself; you can just take action towards changing whatever is not working.”)
      • “Growing up is, at heart, the process of learning to take responsibility for whatever happens in your life.”
    • “To be fully alive is to act.” “Action is the visible form of an invisible spirit, an outward manifestation of an inward power. […] We express what is in us and help give shape to the world.”
    • Spirituality needs action. “Spirituality is most gloriously embodied in our actions.”
  • Creating domestic bliss is a first step towards self-love (× The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying up)
  • A lack of self-worth/self-esteem prevents us from seeing our needs as valid and worthy to be met. As a consequence, we do not voice them, as we deem ourselves unworthy to have our needs met. This gets in the way of love and creates shame, and secrecy and shame stifle love.

Work

  • Doing a job well, even if it’s not one that you like or enjoy, bolsters your self-esteem. “It’s not what you do, but how you do it.”
    • “Bringing love into the work environment can create the necessary transformation that can make any job we do, no matter how menial, a place where workers can express the best of themselves.”
    • “When we work with love, we create a loving working environment.”
  • Doing a job that you don’t like is a big threat to your self-esteem, hence the need to be particularly vigilant there, and to do it well, or find a better job — otherwise there is a loss of meaning. “Sometimes we learn what we need to avoid by doing it” (clearly, until the end.)
  • You can decide to work (only) in an environment with an ethic of love; and not just settle for a work you enjoy.
  • Your work can support your non-work activities by providing balance (financially, socially, energetically.) For example, the noise and social stimulation of your work as a cook in a nightclub can make you cherish your quiet, solo time writing your book in your free time — and let you do so without any feeling of imbalance.
    • Solitude lets us appreciate others more. “Solitude allows us to respect others in their uniqueness and to create community.”
  • “Doing what they want to do.”

Friendships

  • Friendships are the one area, besides their family of origin, where children can experience and learn love.
    • We are often told that love is to be experienced in one’s family of origin, or in one’s family of choice, but friendships get forgotten.
  • Learning and practicing love in friendships lets us become a better lover in our family and romantic bonds. The love in friendships can be seen as a stepping stone to the love in romantic relationships, with romantic relationships building upon, an extension of that love in friendships — just as the love in friendships is an extension of our self-love.
    • The foundation of all love is the same (especially when considering our definition of love). “The values that inform our behaviour, when rooted in a love ethic, are always the same for any interaction.”
      • When you live with consistency by a set of principles (for example, with a love ethic), anything that happens is practice and growth (and beautiful.) These principles make every experience and encounter exciting. “Living ethically ensures that relationships in our lives, including encounters with strangers, nurture our spiritual growth.”
  • Do not devalue or neglect friendships because of a romantic bond. A healthy romantic bond will bolster your friendships, and vice versa; also offering you with third parties that can mediate or provide support, advice or understanding during conflicts — much the same way as a godparent, an “enlightened witness” for a child.
    • “The more genuine our romantic loves the more we do not feel called upon to weaken or sever ties with friends in order to strengthen ties with romantic partners.”
      • This is reminiscent of the underlying principle in non-exclusive romantic relationships to want our partner to grow with other people, to learn and get inspired by other people.
    • “Deep and profound connections in friendships strengthen all our intimate bonds.”
    • “Satisfying friendships in which we share mutual love provides a guide for behaviour in other relationships, including romantic ones.’
  • Give gifts. Mutual giving strengthens community.
    • Services are also gifts.
    • “Serving others is as fruitful a path to the heart as any other therapeutic practice.”
  • Sharing time, attention, material objects, skills, money are also ways to express love.

Community

  • To make community more prevalent in this world, you don’t have to self-organize towards a widespread change, you can just start leading by example and creating a community wherever you are.
  • Small towns are places where a strong love ethic and sense of community still prevails. “I like living in small towns precisely because they are most often the places in our nation where basic principles underlying a love ethic exist and are the standards by which most people try to live their lives. In the small town where I live there is a spirit of neighborliness — of fellowship, care, and respect.”
    • A village is a self-contained community where every person has a role; a miniature society.
    • This state of interdependency and close daily contact with one another is the standard for many places in the world.
      • Many cultures around the world have a stronger sense of community and love than we have in our modern world.
      • “Western travelers journey to the poorest countries and are astounded by the level of communion between people who, though not materially rich, have full hearts.”

Romantic love

  • Talk about love. (× Sex Talks: acknowledge it, talk about it, communicate about it.)
    • Mass media wants us to picture love as mysterious, tacit, silent; while in fact these characteristics do not fuel love, but do the opposite. Love thrives on communication and knowledge, not on silence and ignorance.
      • “We see movies in which people are represented as being in love who never talk with one another; who fall into bed without ever discussing their bodies, their sexual needs, their likes and dislikes. Indeed, the message received from the mass media is that knowledge makes love less compelling; that it is ignorance that gives love its erotic and transgressive edge.”
      • “Where once knowing nothing was the basis for excitement and erotic intensity, knowing more is now the basis. Lots of people who feared a loss of romantic and/or erotic intensity made this radical change in their thinking and were surprised to find that their previous assumptions that talk killed romance were wrong.”
      • The patriarchal masculine construct of “not asking questions”, of knowing it all already, gets in the way of communication and love.
      • Mass media has been brainwashing us (into silence); the actual way is full of talking and communicating.
    • By communicating with others, including partners and potential partners, about love, we make sure we are on the same page. “Had I shared with others a common understanding of what it means to love, it would have been easier to create love.”
      • Share your thoughts, beliefs, intentions, expectations, desires, visions and fears about love to your partner or potential partner, such that you are not trapped anymore in ignorance-bound anxiety, such that you are not in the dark anymore. Knowledge (transparency) and communication fuel love. Talk to your partner, about what you are looking for; set up a culture of communication beforehand, before things get heated or intimate; such that this culture of communication persists into intimacy and the rest; such that you go into all of these activities accompanied with that culture.
        • “I suggested she might try meeting with the new man in her life over lunch with the set agenda of talking to him about sexual pleasure, their likes and dislikes, their hopes and fears. She reported back that the lunch was incredibly erotic; it laid the groundwork for them to be at ease with each other sexually when they finally reached that stage in their relationship.”
  • Romantic love is just one kind of love, one that tends to be over-emphasized in definitions of love. Romantic love is an extension of general love, building on it.
  • In contrast to general love (“heart” connections), romantic love (“soul” connections) involves a feeling of mutual recognition and resonance at a deeper level, an awareness of the potential of the other person, and how both of you could evolve if you were to support each other; the sense that you are on a common mission and can help each other more fully realize each other’s potential and self-expression; as a form of (intimate) co-coaching.
  • Choose love, rather than fall in love.
    • Have an active part, rather than a passive part. (Same as for taking responsibility for loving, and viewing it as an action rather than a feeling.)
  • Be clear on what you want from a partner. “We wanted the lover to appear but most of us were not really clear about what we wanted to do with them — what the love was that we wanted to make and how we would make it.”
  • Distinguish romantic attraction from sexual attraction.
    • Who you choose based on sexual attraction might be different from who would be good for you romantically and relationally.
    • There can be (romantic) love without sex.
    • There can be sex without love.
    • Sex enhances love, can be a catalyst for intimacy.
  • Look for love not wanting to re-experience past loves, but instead being open to whatever new forms love might take this time around.
  • A single encounter can change your life, even if you just meet the person once.
  • Love is blind.
    • The intensity of connection can blind you to the reality of the person; can bias you towards picking a partner that is, in fact, not good or right for you.
      • Assess with objectivity your partner’s ability to love, and whether they match your criteria for a lover, that you had set prior to meeting them.
    • “Often we confuse perfect passion with perfect love.”
  • Once the stage of “new relationship energy” has passed, you want to convert the connection and love to something more grounded, stable and sustainable.
    • “Perfect passions usually end when we awaken from our enchantment and find only that we have been carried away from our true selves. It becomes perfect love when our passion gives us the courage to face reality, to embrace our true selves”, and see things objectively.
  • True, romantic love still is not easy or simple, and takes work.
  • “Genuine love requires a recognition of the autonomy of ourselves and the other person.”

Dysfunctions

  • It is possible to describe something (e.g. your family, or a person) as dysfunctional, not knowing how to give and receive love; and do so objectively, descriptively, and without any judgment. Many people have difficulty acknowledging dysfunctions because of the stigma associated with it.

Shame

  • Shame makes us feel divided with ourselves, separated from ourselves, split. Shame divides us both from ourselves and from others.
  • A wound is nothing to be ashamed of. It is just the mark of something we have experienced. We are not to blame for it, and have no reason to be ashamed of it. It is simply an admission of (past) vulnerability.
    • Identify wounds (in yourself and in the other) without judgment. By recognizing a wound, you can tend it.
  • Love knows no shame. When we practice forgiveness, we let go of shame.

Death

  • Before coming into the world (while still in the womb), we were still “dead”. Just as death springs from life, life springs from death. “Our first experience of living is a moment of resurrection.” Life and death are intricately linked.
  • We can face death without fear.
  • Death reminds you to love. Being confronted with the imminent possibility of dying, we reflect on the place love has had in our life.
    • Use death as a compass for your decisions, and for your decisions about your life. When putting things off (or declining life-affirming invitations), remember that “life is not promised”.
  • “You have to trust that every friendship has no end, that a communion of saints exists among all those living and dead, who have truly loved God and one another. Those who have loved deeply and who have died live on in you, not just as memories but as real presences.”
    • People leave a trace, a mark on you, even after they are no longer here, and live on within you and the other people they have met, interacted with, influenced. Having transformed us, they live on in our brains, our soul, our spirit, as a result of our interrelational colliding with them.
  • Wholesome grief is an expression of appreciation and love.
  • Talk about death; un-taboo death, just like you un-taboo love, just like you un-taboo sex (× Sex Talks)

Forgiveness

  • “True forgiveness requires that we understand the negative actions of another.”
  • Forgiveness is a creative, positive force. Forgiveness lets us see humans as a creative force, capable of renewal (“who can choose to lovingly create”), rather than a destructive force (“selfish, destructive, sinners”). Forgiveness is life-affirming, a celebration of re-creation. (× Psycho-Cybernetics, Sex Talks)
  • “Forgiveness is an act of generosity. It requires that we place releasing someone else from the prison of their guilt or anguish over our feelings of outrage or anger.”
    • Have a ritual for clearing the slate, for example leaving the room and entering it again. “Let’s start again.” (x Sex Talks)
  • Practice forgiveness as leaving the door open on your side. “She still has a place in my heart, should she wish to claim it.”
  • Distinguishing the person from your relationship to the person, and distinguishing between the different selves of the person (× Your Symphony of Selves) can help you forgive.

Honesty

  • Openness and truth-telling, honesty, is a prerequisite for trust, a prerequisite for love.
    • “Practically every mental health care practitioner, from the most erudite psychoanalysts to untrained self-help gurus, tell us that it is infinitely more fulfulling and we are all saner if we tell the truth.”
    • You cannot nurture someone’s spiritual growth if the core of their being and identity is shrouded in secrecy.
    • Openness is necessary to allow for love and benevolence, to allow for other people to help you. Sharing your experience is offering the space for love and benevolence.
    • “When we reveal ourselves to our partner and find that this brings healing rather than harm, we make an important discovery — that intimate relationship can provide a sanctuary from the world of facades, a sacred space where we can be ourselves, as we are… This kind of unmasking — speaking our truth, sharing our inner struggles, and revealing our raw edges — is sacred activity, which allows two souls to meet and touch more deeply.”
    • “A commitment to knowing love protects us by keeping us wedded to a life of truth.”
      • “To be loving, we willingly hear each other’s truth and, most important, we affirm the value of truth telling.”
      • On sensitive or difficult subjects, speak the truth in a positive, caring manner.
      • Truth-telling is personal integrity, respecting the other person and trusting them to deal with it.
        • Truth can be one of your higher values or principles. You then trust that the other people will cope with it.
      • Truth and openness, sharing, fosters understanding and prevents judgment. Judgment increases our alienation. When people share openly about their thoughts and feelings, it is more difficult for you to project stuff onto them. Hence the importance of a culture of openness and communication.
  • When declining invites, omit giving a reason instead of giving a false one (white lies). “Either tell the truth or simply decline.”

Justice

  • “The heart of justice is truth telling, seeing ourselves and the world the way it is rather than the way we want it to be.”

Religion

  • Religious tolerance is the understanding that though our paths are many, our objective is the same; we are all after the same thing.
    • All churches want to foster love.
  • You can embrace and practice multiple religions at the same time; find community in different churches. Non-exclusive religious practice.

Humans

  • Each person’s way is different. (× Psycho-Cybernetics) Talk about your wisdom as applying to you only. “I had to find a way to talk about my choices that did not imply that they would be the correct or right choices for someone else.”
  • “The light of love is always in us, no matter how cold the flame. It is always present, waiting for the spark to ignite, waiting for the heart to awaken and call us back to the first memory of being the life force inside a dark place waiting to be born — waiting to see the light.”
  • One can see or train to see the light of love in all living spirits, the humanness in every person.
  • We have many examples in our lives of gifts of love and compassion from people, freely given. These are people who infuse us with a sense of hope. We can pay it forward.

Vision, mission and activism

  • We have to see, and know, how we wish the future to be; have a vision.
    • “A vision articulates a future that someone deeply wants, and does it so clearly and compellingly that it summons up” what is needed to make that vision happen.
  • Our mission should be to work towards bringing humanity to a state of radical love to each other, a state of symbiosis and harmony, “for love to become a social and not a highly individualistic, marginal phenomenon.”, “for ours to become a culture where love’s sacred presence can be felt everywhere.”
    • “We must live for the day, and work for the day, when human society realigns itself with the radical love of God.”
    • “Culturally, all spheres of American life could and should have as their foundation a love ethic. If all public policy was created in the spirit of love, we would not have to worry about unemployment, homelessness, schools failing to teach children, or addiction.”
  • Radical action is needed for such drastic, far-reaching, extensive changes; for a movement to be created and to catch on.
  • Change is possible. The state we have reached in this world is a proof of it; and it happened through all the people who have worked hard towards it, towards the world we currently live in. Just as we currently benefit from all of the fighting of our ancestors; so can future generations benefit from the result of fights we are conducting now. “Exceptional individuals […] who lived the truth of their values.”
    • By working hard towards our vision for the future, we will make the change.
  • Do not wallow in your privilege but also assist people in more disadvantageous situations to enjoy it as well. Level things up.
    • Help people with human rights violations (e.g. LGBTQ+ in oppressive countries) enjoy the same rights and freedom as you do in your country.
      • Be proud and happy of the society you live in, and support other societies to reach this state.
      • Be courageous enough to be radical. Have faith and let faith overcome the fear; the faith in the possibility; the hope and vision.
  • At the dinner party among abusive parents: “I was a lone voice speaking out for the rights of children”. There are different activisms.
  • We have power as consumers, and we can exercise that power all the time by choosing what we use, what we give our attention, time, energy and funds — and by boycotting products and companies not in line with our ethics and with life-enhancing values.
  • To catch on, change has to come from within the mainstream, and not remain in an enclave (which is the reason that the ’70s hippie movement fizzled away). Working towards your vision from within the mainstream is more work but is further-reaching, more in-depth and longer lasting.

Domination and power structures

  • “Cultures of domination (as opposed to cultures of love) rely on the cultivation of fear as a way to ensure obedience. Fear is the primary force upholding structures of domination. It promotes the desire for separation, the desire not to be known. When we are taught that safety lies always with sameness, then difference, of any kind, will appear as a threat.”

Other

  • Being an outsider can be a place of creativity and possibility

Quotes

  • “There is a realm of mystery that cannot be explained by human intellect of will. We all experience this mystery in our daily lives in some ways, however small, whether we see ourselves as “spiritual” or not. Often we look at events retrospectively and can trace a pattern, one that allows us to intuitively recognize the presence of an unseen spirit guiding and directing our path.”

See also my summary of the book Sex Talks by Vanessa Marin