Love as a verb, loving ourselves, loving through grief and hard times, loving all but with healthy boundaries, loving even when, or especially when, it seems like the harder thing to do… These are all ideas that we talked about in our Love in Action group.
My biggest takeaway from these wonderfully honest and open group discussions we had is that we all face personal and societal barriers when it comes to love. It’s not just a personal issue. It’s a global one. And overcoming loneliness sometimes means breaking through concepts of love that we have learned throughout our lives from family, neighbors, friends, first relationships, books and movies, and even the media.
My favorite metaphor was from our module on grief, stating: “Social support is the penicillin to grief.” It’s the cake to our celebrations. It’s the campfire to our night in the woods. It’s the comfortable shoes we need for a challenging hike.
Overcoming loneliness through love is a courageous form of protest. It’s helping others and ourselves at the same time. Is it any wonder that part of Jesus’ greatest commandment was to love our neighbors as ourselves? I don’t think this commandment was ever meant to be easy. I think it could be the greatest challenge that we’ll ever face. And we have to keep choosing love over and over again because oftentimes it’s the harder option when choosing between comfort and vulnerability. Or when having to confront our internal biases, beliefs, or fears.
As Sheridan Voyse, the founder of Friendship Lab, would say: Bring on the friendship revolution!