There are two kinds of love, some say: 

Needy love; and
Being love. 

Needy love comes from our weakness, from our desire to have someone affirm and protect us. Needy love is co-dependent. It is consumed by our false self. It grasps outside of our self, seeking the power of the one to whom it has attached itself, unwittingly thinking that if that person would love us, we’d be safe, secure.  And when they don’t, we self-destruct on the inside, or worse yet, attempt to manipulate others to get our needs met.

Needy love worships heroes.  It creates icons of people we wish we were like. It is never content, always restless.

Being love comes from within. It arises out of the wisdom of knowing we are fully loved by the Creator. It is consumed by the truth that we are good just as we are. 

Being love allows us to be perfectly human. It is interdependent—accepting other’s love as icing on the cake of life.

Being love stands in the freedom of our own power, the power of knowing we are the love of God, which formed us and which flows in and through us.  Being love blesses others with compassion simply because doing so feels good on the inside.  It’s natural to who we are.


Being love flows from our understanding of God’s unconditional love for us.  It allows his love to transform us as we respect our dignity and honor our self-worth and then allow the Creator’s love to flow through us and into the universe generating more love.

When Jesus walked on the earth, he simplified all the rules, all the theologies, all the human complexities with three simple invitations:

Love God.Love yourself.Love others. 
A gentle balance of these three establishes the trinity within us. 

Loving our self, however, is often the hardest love to accept and practice, perhaps because somewhere along life’s path we were taught (or taught our self) that self-love was selfish.  But, as St. Paul writes, it takes a lifetime to fully understand the depth and breadth of God’s love for us. And when we do give our self the freedom to experience self-love and respect, we live from a place of being love.   
We understand that self-love is the foundation of shared love.


—brian j plachta
brianplachta.net