I’m Done Watering Down Love

Lately I’ve been hosting conversations on Clubhouse under the title, ‘What Does It Mean To Call Yourself A Love Extremist?’. This project has always been a powerful prospect for people, they see the words ‘love’ and ‘extremist’ side by side and are immediately on board. They like love, they want more, it sounds powerful…

But actually ask yourself; What does it mean for me to be and live as a Love Extremist? Sit with that question and you’ll see that the extremist piece requires facing challenges and obstacles most would rather avoid, it requires being honest with yourself and how you exist in relation to love. It means going outside your comfort zone and being a loving person in this big bad scary world.

Love in public is actionable, it’s not just a feeling but an actual practice. It includes specific principles like care, well-being, health, education, shelter, food, community… that uphold our shared humanity as a baseline for planetary health. It also puts accountability on us as individuals to commit to growth for ourselves, our relationships AND the planet. Not just one or another, all three.

But I Can’t Possibly Love THEM…

In America, we’re taught to protect what’s ours, to focus on our individuality and our immediate families or chosen communities. However, for love to exist for one group and not another is to deny it’s all-encompassing nature. If we truly have love within, we must have love without. If we truly love our families, we can’t withhold love for another’s family, even if we disagree or live differently or must establish loving boundaries for safety and protection.

When we withhold love for others and teach the withholding as a principle in our immediate circles, we are instilling separation, fear, hatred, mistrust and other non-loving practices into the family we claim to ‘love’. This, I believe, is a form of abuse. Boundaries can be established with love and often are. Withholding love and punishing others for being different, however, is not about boundaries, it’s about power, fear and oppression.

But What Do We Mean When We Say Love?

Defining love helps me get closer to a practical definition of Love Extremism. While we all may have different definitions of…