By Danielle Loveless, Australia
Like many, when I first met Serge Benhayon, his family, and other students embracing the esoteric way of living, I felt something very different, I felt much more in my skin or at ease with myself. I later realised that although these people felt different, they were just ordinary people getting on with life.
As I spent time with Serge and his family I began to feel truly met and loved, but what I was really feeling was that I was starting to truly meet, love and accept myself, in a way I had never done before. This was all very confronting. Feeling the love wasn’t confronting, it was that I hadn’t felt such love with my close family, partner or the people I had known for many years. I had to admit that the ‘love’ that I had previously felt was not love, but recognition and attention or ‘emotional love’ that I had strived for my whole life. But all I ever really wanted was to feel true love, to meet the love within myself and feel this with others.
To this very day I am still letting go of the need for the emotional love that is so familiar from the past. Looking for certain body language, certain eye contact, or words or physical actions that indicate to me that I am being loved or liked by someone. If in that moment I am not truly feeling what is there, then this is where the problems begin, because I either miss the fact that love is actually there, or I miss the fact that there is something more harmful under the so called love, and I take all of this on instead.
The other harm I see in wanting emotional love is the constant program being played by me, doing or being what I think is needed to try and get what I need to see or experience to feel the so-called ‘loved’. This prevents me from being myself or being able to relax and respond to life naturally, and instead I am constantly analysing or on edge. It is also a very unloving way to be with others, because it is silently demanding them to be a certain way so I can see what I need to see to feel loved. Ouch!
The Truth about Serge Benhayon 
We accept emotional ‘love’ because it doesn’t ask us to be more responsible, that is, to love another without any conditions. Having conditions in relationships (our needs) has become so normal that we call this way of relating to each other ‘love’, yet what if a complete review of ‘love’ is required rather than continue something that, given the divorce rates, clearly isn’t working?
The deep seated and insidious way we can perceive love is loveless, once realised we can start to shed the trappings and re-connect to true love with-in, a yummy whole universe to explore and expand from with-in. Very different from personal expectations and attachments waiting to come in from others.
Its kind of ridiculous what we have fallen for as being love, when actually that emotional love you speak of is nothing to do with love. Love is forever unfolding, and love is forever reminding us we are immense, we are wonderful, and we are one.
Looking at my relationship with myself, this need to be liked/loved is something I still clock at times. Or at least being somehow confirmed that I am lovable. It is a baby step negotiation of going backwards and forwards, and blogs like yours remind me that there is no other way but to deepen connection with myself and accept wherever I am at for all that I am.
The term unconditional love has been bandied about by the spiritual new age for years as the true goal of love. But it is not real as your blog exposes, for love that demands or does not demand something from another is still about the other, and not about the inner connection.
I am shown constantly through life that everything is about true connection. This is what Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine support me with most. It’s not something they coined or gave to me because I already had it and knew it. I remember growing up and having a sense of what things were about, the way things were truly meant to be but I also recall not being able to live that consistently. That is where I ask for support, support to live more and more consistently the feelings I’ve had for as long as I can remember.
This simple and yet profound blog is a great expose of difference between emotional love and true love. We are so used to being pandered to and calling that pandering love that when real love is shown to us we cannot at first recognise it for there is nothing there for the individual (the separated individualised self) to hook onto and call its own. True love enters and says you are love, we are love, this is our essence and in essence we are all the same without any pandering whatsoever, in fact it calls you to drop the individuality and be the love that you are.
This is a fantastic blog and it would be so great if everyone knew the difference between emotional love and true love from day one, instead most people are caught in doing or being what they think is needed to try and get what they need to see or experience to feel this elusive ‘love’. This has the consequence of preventing us from ‘ being myself or being able to relax and respond to life naturally, and instead I am constantly analysing or on edge.’ Is it any wonder we become exhausted.
What many of us have thought was love was really just ’emotional love’, a very needy emotion – us wanting recognition and/or attention from outside ourselves. And yes ’emotional love’ is in fact a ‘very unloving way to be with others, because it is silently demanding them to be a certain way so I can see what I need to see to feel loved,’ this shows why ’emotional love’ is doomed to fail in the long run.
We seek ceaselessly for love except for the place where it already is – in our inner-heart where we connect to the Divine love of who we are and from there meet true love in the essence of all.
‘ I had to admit that the ‘love’ that I had previously felt was not love, but recognition and attention or ‘emotional love’ that I had strived for my whole life.’ So true Danielle and a bit of an ‘ouch’ moment for me as I only knew emotional love until I met Serge Benhayon and his family who all reflect beautifully what true love is to everyone on a consistent basis.
It is so true we miss out because we are wanting to be loved so badly that we would do almost anything to get that love. It is so easy to compromise ourselves when we want something so much so being aware of this potential is very empowering.
All the games that we play when all we really want is to love and be loved, truly so. There are so many notions of what love truly is that we have forgotten that it’s us being in stillness with ourselves and then as an awesome follow on we can be (in) love with others.
Even though we may not have ever been met with the love that you were sharing on Danielle, we can certainly change that for ourselves and meet everyone we meet with love. Not always an easy task in my experience, but certainly great to have as an intention.
“The other harm I see in wanting emotional love is the constant program being played by me, doing or being what I think is needed to try and get what I need to see or experience to feel the so-called ‘loved’” Danielle there are so many people falling for this so-called love program therefore it is very refreshing to read what you have shared in your inspiring blog.
Danielle I appreciate all of your blogs and the way you deliver such wisdom by simply sharing your life. This blog is really supportive for me as emotional love is still a big hook for me, and I can find a significant portion of my day getting caught up in neediness, attachment, images and falsities which are definitely not love. In your above comment you mention that for you emotional love is “all because of not appreciating the love that I already am.” Wow, reading this was a big stop moment for me to see how I can begin to build a stronger foundation of being love instead of seeking emotional (false) love.
Yes, it’s quite a rude awakening to realise that that thing called love that we’ve been chasing has been of an emotional variety that has us looking to get our needs met through another so that we feel OK about ourselves. It’s a false economy, since we give our power away playing hostage to fortune and forget the love we already truly are.
“all I ever really wanted was to feel true love, to meet the love within myself and feel this with others.” I had only every thought there was emotional love but when I met Serge Benhayon and listened to presentations I came to feel the depth of true love that was within my inner-heart just waiting for me to feel it. A love that has no boundaries and is forever expanding.
Although it took some time to be willing to admit the difference between true love and emotional love, I did feel it right from the very first time I met Serge Benhayon. It took time to admit the difference because I had to admit that my whole life had been about seeking the recognition and acceptance of emotional love. In fact it took time to let go of the addiction one can develop to the stimulation, excitement and rise of emotional love, which now all feel very numbing because it takes me away from myself and my body and into the elation that everything is great! True love pulls me deep into myself and my body to feel the absolute steadiness and preciousness of my own love within.
Yes playing the emotional love game is actually very irresponsible because it attempts to control and manipulate others to get what we need, so nobody has the freedom to be themselves and instead are constantly imposed on to be another way. Ironically this pushes people away any way leaving us left to feel any lack of relationship with ourselves.
“It is also a very unloving way to be with others, because it is silently demanding them to be a certain way so I can see what I need to see to feel loved. Ouch!” Ouch indeed, as I too have lived that way for all my life. It is a complete trap that most of us have fallen for – allowing how others respond to us to dictate how we feel. How crazy is that?! Deep gratitude to Serge Benhayon and all his family for showing us that there is another Way.
Such a beautiful and power-full sharing Danielle on true love vs emotional love. I can feel how I used to live in the trap of emotional love – a trap because we imprision ourselves with this version of love that is not true and is always constantly seeking something from others. Serge Benhayon and the entire Benhayon family have deeply inspired me to know what love truly is, allowing me to let go of old patterns of emotional love that were holding me back and stopping me experiencing a grander form of love.
Emotional love is an imprisonment because it actually prevents us from seeing what is true and not true and even manipulates us to not be ourselves, but instead perform like a monkey to meet the needs of others, to get our own needs met, It’s actually a big mess.
So true Amanda, emotional love and the dramas it brings is such a hook. It distracts us with its highs and lows; giving us all the excuses under the sun to not take responsibility for our choices. We can indulge in our happiness and follow this up by our hurts forever isolating. Blaming the other, playing the victim or the bully with attitude are all part of ‘not-so-merry-go-round of need’ . Emotional love, as you say, is not love at all. And to be love, well, we already are love; all we need do is to reconnect to our self and a great way to start is with the gentle breath meditation and here is the link: http://www.unimedliving.com/meditation/free/meditation-for-beginners/reconnecting-gentle-breath-meditation.html
Yes Amanda I too have learnt a lot from the Benhayon’s about what love truly is and isn’t. After a few years of observing them I realised that my definition of love, which I have taken in from humanity was so far from what love truly is. In society love is niceness and not exposing people’s ill and loveless ways. Where as true love exposes anything that is not love, so will often rock the boat and make people uncomfortable or even tense, if they are not wanting to look at what in their life is loveless.
Oh Boy Danielle, your last paragraph has really hit home. There is a deep sadness that can be felt when we don’t receive what we think we should from others. But the truth is that the sadness is often there because we’ve left the pure loving self-acceptance of ourselves for something we hoped another could give us.
Yes it’s so true shevonsimon the sadness, grief and lovelessness we feel in life is all because we’ve left ourselves, it’s not really anything to do with life outside of us. This is empowering to change this, because we can change the lack of relationship with ourselves and our own inner-love and we cannot change the world outside of us.
Emotional love and relationships in a deadly combination. Because the relationship is only built on needs, “what can I recieve from being with this person, what can they give me?”
Instead, my preferred option… Be all that you are and the love that we are, meet another person who is honouring of these same qualities and hey presto – the potential for a power house relationship.
This is said in simple terms and there is more to consider.
Absolutely Danielle, I’m very familiar with this, designing outcomes before any kind of interaction has even taken place rather than remaining open and allowing my true feelings to guide me to love and connection. More recently I’ve realised that even though my need for identification and recognition has greatly reduced, the game can continue to subtly play out simply by using my eyes to seek any kind of conformation in the eyes of others. The true deep knowing connection and feeling of absolute equality, true confirmation, is lost. What a set up!
Great sharing Danielle – and I for so long was looking for ‘recognition and attention or ‘emotional love’ that I had strived for my whole life’. And yet ‘all I ever really wanted was to feel true love, to meet the love within myself and feel this with others’. It was as though I knew what it was I truly wanted and yet continued to seek and need what is a very poor substitute – and even worse a kind of love that is quite destructive as it slowly eats away at one’s connection to one’s soul – it is soul destroying.
it is quite a revealing feeling to me when I go somewhere hoping to be emotionally loved and all I feel is my own need for others to love me. When that is noticeable I make changes quickly but when we live in a world where everyone is feeding each others emotions and confirming the emotional love is the way to go, it is so easy to forget about yourself and get caught up in those emotions. To me it’s a blessing I have met Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine to realise there is another way, that is, TRULY loving.
Some great points you make here Danielle, there is lots we can get caught up in with emotional love, I am still learning to allow the love I am to be and to fully recognise the love that is there in everyone. It feels really taking the time to feel what is going on is key. Thanks for all you have shared.
I can so relate to what you have so beautifully and so honestly shared Danielle. Your article is an inspiring reminder for me of the difference between emotional love and its associated insatiable need and true love which is a quality that is lived and shared with all equally. If innately what we all want to truly feel is a love that is true, why do we waste so much time exhausting ourselves by staying trapped in our patterns and trying to satisfy the craving and capture a type of emotional love that is fundamentally insatiable, unsustaining and unnourishing? How crazy is that?
I know the ease of which you speak. It is so much more Full-feeling than any recognition, approval or acceptance from outside of ourselves.
Our essence is love, but because we do not connect to this fact, we are always looking outside ourselves for recognition and ’emotional love’. Thank God that we have people like the Benhayons, and you, reflecting the truth that we are all looking for.
Danielle what a simple and powerful blog.
Emotional love and true love are worlds apart.
One is based on needs and what we have to do to get it and the other is based on a quality of being with no need or desire.
Every day I am becoming more aware of this difference.
Thank you ✨
Danielle I totally agree. I had no idea that emotional love wasn’t it until love and acceptance was reflected to me by Serge Benhayon and family – I was so caught up in the idea that emotional love was only uncomfortable because I was doing something wrong or because the other person was – or a good dose of both!
Thanks for a beautiful blog Danielle. I love how you describe that what you thought was a feeling of love and acceptance from Serge Benhayon and his family, was in fact you “..starting to truly meet, love and accept myself, in a way I had never done before.”
What a wonderful learning.
Feeling more in your skin and at ease with yourself is a blessing unto itself, one for which I will be eternally grateful to Serge Benhayon for inspiring a deeper connection, understanding and acceptance of myself. The truth about emotional love that you have exposed is an almighty ouch indeed and something we can all learn from and then choose to replace through our own connection with the true love that emanates from inside us all.
Thank you Danielle, for your honest and aware sharing of how the old patterns don’t give up easily, how we can get caught up in them and how they can sneak up on us. I am learning to be more loving, nurturing and gentle with myself when I realise that I have allowed myself to follow an old pattern to achieve a particular end result that I am ‘craving’. Each time I come back and re-connect, I find that the beautiful stillness that is me, is always there waiting.
‘The beautiful stillness that is me, is always waiting.’ This is so true Christine. Thank you. 😊
One of the beautiful things I earned due to my association with Universal Medicine is the confirmation (because the knowing was there) that what I called love was emotional love, a very limited and limiting kind of love. Embodying and living true love on an everyday basis is still work in progress for me. Although I do not yet choose true love consistently across the board and permanently I have made tremendous progress in this direction. This process has allowed me to keep deepening and deepening my relationship with life.
Love is such a misinterpreted thing. So called love as we know it is often used as the currency for manipulation and control. It’s only when we re-connect to the true love, we understand how off the mark we have been.
This age-old illness of seeking emotional love was cured the moment I met Serge Benhayon. Not that I never fell into this trap again, but there is an instant knowing, a marker of how real love feels like. And if I so choose to, I am able to discern whether it is the false or the true love.
Danielle you put it sweet and short. That made it even more revealing about a behavior which we all payed out a hundred times. You wrote: “Looking for certain body language, certain eye contact, or words or physical actions that indicate to me that I am being loved or liked by someone.” Who is not guilty of doing this???? So Thank you very much to show us that there is an other way
Thank you Danielle, I gave away myself for this so called love, which only left me with emptiness and a neediness, until I came across Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine Teachings , which has shown me that the love I longed for, was deep inside me all this time, and all I needed to do was to connect to this love.
Beautiful Dragana, how you make it about true family and letting go of the ideal of sharing the same blood or name. I find it so freeing to allow myself to feel how big my family is if I make it about love. A rich feeling inside through feeling all the connections with other people.
I’ve come to realise that we can love everyone equally, whether they are loving me in truth or emotional or fake love. So we can even love a stranger as much as we love our family when making it about connection, openness and intimacy. When we love people like this we can’t help but feel how much love is in out lives, and that everyone is family. At first we can freak out a little when we are first met with this amount of love by a stranger, because it doesn’t make sense if we have never felt this amount of love with our so called family who we have known and been with for many many years.
I found it quite revolutionary to discover that we are one family, one humanity here on earth and I can love each and every human being as they are my brother.
These days I really see how much attachment and need I placed on love- which made it so emotional. But I was also of the belief that being emotional was a good thing – it meant I was showing how I was feeling. But that wasn’t it at all. Love is like you say – a connection with yourself. A nurturing and a being.
All it takes is one person meeting you (and me) in full, allowing us to feel the difference between what we thought love was and what true love is After meeting Serge Benhayon my life was never the same. There is a life before and a life after the realisation I don’t have to look outside myself and ‘work real hard’ to be loved.
“I began to feel truly met and loved, but what I was really feeling was that I was starting to truly meet, love and accept myself, in a way I had never done before” – I love this Danielle, brilliant blog
Hi Danielle, what you’ve concluded with here is profound when fully accepted; that emotional love “is silently demanding them to be a certain way so I can see what I need to see to feel loved.” When I feel into these words, I understand why I have experienced so much bitterness, resentment and even rage in my life. After a while, the frustration of not having my needs met by those who are ‘supposed to love me’, of giving in to the expectations of others and of silently enduring it all, ends in many tears after the bottled up anguish, anger and desperation for what is not forthcoming is eventually expressed.
Ultimately, the realisation comes that no one can be for you what you are not being for yourself. Feeling and being that true love, with no needs or expectations of others, has become a process and lesson in humility for me. For letting go of the arrogance of assuming I know what is ‘love’ over others, and learning to see beneath the sadness to the essential truth of the true love that unites us all can and has been for me, at times confronting and very challenging, but also definitely worth it.
Danielle, thank you. I have never felt so much love as I feel now. Serge Benhayon has shown me the way to true love, to connect to the love that is within me, rather than the emotional love I had been living from for so long.
I can definitely resonate with this blog you have written Danielle. This emotional love is so deeply ingrained in us. I recognised within myself I used to count on that certain look or body language or words for me to feel liked or loved. But then I started to ponder on ‘why’? why did I feel this way? For me it was lack of self worth and not choosing to connect and feel the love I already am. I now know, through the inspiration and reflection of Universal Medicine and Esoteric practioners, that I don’t need to look for that certain look anymore or word etc… I have all the love I could possibly want living innately within me…all I have to do is choose to re-connect to it. When you connect to it …it is amazing….True Love..
So many people confuse emotions with love. The two are not separate in their perceptions, and so they feel that they are not being loving unless they feel emotional with it. I remember the agony this caused me in the past, but now I understand that difference so much more my relationships have changed, and the feeling is so much more expansive and does not contain any of those niggling “what about me?” thoughts of possession and need.
I’ve been feeling that too Rosanna. I had become distracted and something a friend did affected me and I felt less. Then I reconnected to my deep self and it all fell back into place. It’s ok to be ordinary – extraordinarily ordinary!
Beautiful Danielle and so true, how many of us (mankind) have been raised with emotional love? This is not a criticism, as those before us have been raised in the same way, but how incredible to be able to meet true Love and see as a consequence how emotional love can often leave us powerless, always wanting something from someone else to confirm us, rather than confirming ourselves with our own love. It is a heartfelt thank you to Serge Benhayon and his family for their inspiration and support that I have begun to truly love again and have healed my own neediness so that I don’t need anything from anyone to know who I am; I can just BE my truly beautiful self. Thank you.
I can really relate to this blog, Danielle. It is like relearning to just be yourself, without measurement and it is when we are with someone who does not do this that we are really exposed in how we chose to live. I too, are much more at ease with myself but feel a long way from not needing others to respond in a certain way etc for me to feel ok. When I do feel at ease and free of this conditioned way of living, it feels amazing and it’s well worth putting it to the forefront of life.
It’s crazy how much attention we give to the outer world, to needing them to respond to us in a certain way, or even needing people to be a certain way with us that reflects what we need to see to feel better about ourselves. It’s all one ill game that is not as harmless as we think and actually locks the body away from being able to fully express who we are. I agree that letting go of this conditional way of living is absolutely amazing and worth choosing.
A great expose of the lovelessness in emotional love! Thank you Danielle.
Very true Eunice, emotional love is fed to us breakfast lunch and dinner through all the relationships around us, through the media, TV etc. To break out of that requires some inspiration and Serge Benhayon has definitely provided a living example of that.
Yes simonwilliams8, emotions are our biggest addiction and emotional love is full of drama, the ups and the downs, so it is little wonder that we are willing to indulge so freely. What Serge Benhayon does is meet the person behind the addiction. We can all do this for each other it is just about building a deep connection within ourselves so that we can then connect deeply to another. In connection we know we are love and that this love is not emotional in any way.
It’s true kathleenbaldwin we are all brought up indulging on emotional love. I remember resisting or not understanding the connection and true care and love that I received from the Serge Benhayon and his family because it was not filled with the recognition I had always hunted. Instead I was being met for just being me, which was deeply encouraging me to be me, and they were not meeting my needs for recognition which at the time turned everything upside down. Once I realised what was going on I was then left with the emptiness of feeling that I hadn’t been meeting myself, which was actually a true blessing to then have the opportunity to fill this myself. This is what true love is, to not give people the recognition they need for what they do, and instead let them feel where their own relationship is at, so they can start to choose to love and care for themselves. Beautiful.
That old chestnut of recognition and acceptance that I search for, as a poor cousin to love is so familiar, and so deadly. It simply exposes that I don’t feel enough in the first place, and then have to work really hard (hence getting exhausted) to try and get it.
The alternative to just be me is refreshing because it’s effortless and therefore there can be so much more of it.
Danielle, a lovely blog. I grew up seeking emotional love from anyone, to the point that is all that I knew. It’s a very freeing feeling now, to know true love.
My words exactly Rachel, you have beautifully summed up what my experience of emotional love was, and what in contrast true love is.
Beautifully expressed Danielle, yes, how the old form of emotional love is a trap and so not the real true love. I agree with what you honestly share here.
Thank you Danielle for the honesty of your sharing which I can really relate to and the ongoing vigilance needed to not fall back into old familiar patterns that prevent me from truly loving and accepting myself and others.
I can relate to what you have said Helen about ongoing vigilance needed to not fall back into old familiar patterns! This is such an inspirational blog Danielle, one to read time and again.
Having constructed a life around seeking attention and acceptance from the outside world, I had forgotten how to behave with ease and trusting that what I am seeking is already within me. No seeking or striving or trying required. But having allowed myself a moment (or multiple moments) to stop the drive and the trying, confirms to me more and more that I don’t have to do anything, just allow myself to be me.
This is a lovely and simple blog, but no less powerful for its simplicity. I love how clearly feeling true love has allowed you to see the difference between it and emotional love. It is a big one to work on, because emotional love is such a normal expression – considered good even, compared to the other emotions out there, but it’s still not the truth. And it is so true the games and scenarios that can play out when our focus becomes emotional love and attention, rather than meeting someone and seeking a true connection. Thank you for sharing.
It’s true Rebecca emotional love has become the norm, but it is so utterly unnatural. Our body actually shuts down to emotional love, the expansion and warmth in our chest withdraws as our shoulders become rigid, our voice controlled and our expression hard and shallow. Emotional love only appeals to our mind and giving us something to focus on to not have to feel the hurts we hold onto in our body.
This is a great deep and honest sharing Danielle and I love it.
You have expressed it very simply about the emotional love which we all get caught up in.
I agree with Dragana’s comment about ‘true family’. I too realise it is not about the same blood and surname but about those that I feel deeply connected to and there is no emotional love – this is what I now call ‘true family members’. It feels like I have known them for aeons if that makes sense.
It’s a great point about true family Bina and I feel there reaches a point where we realise that being related to someone means nothing, especially if it is an abusive relationship not based on true love but instead on needs and emotional love. It empowers us to say no to abuse and not have to put up with abuse, or stay in abusive situations because ‘they are family’. Once we learn true love over emotional love, and that we can have it with anyone it’s deeply inspiring to say no to abuse, no matter who it is.