There is a lot of confusion about love. Popular singers sing about love; spiritual people talk about love; and children fail to thrive without love. Most people want love. Not many doubt that love has power, for it is said to be the greatest force in the Universe. But love still remains a mystery.

It is so natural for us to have love that we seem to only notice when it is absent. Then we are in pain. The greatest pain in our lives is when love leaves, either through betrayal or abandonment. Contrary to popular belief, love doesn't really hurt. It is the absence of love that hurts.

The act of loving takes many forms: our love for God, the love between a parent and a child, sibling love, love for friends and animals. It is often through loving that we come to the peak experiences of our lives -- our Soul connections. In a sense that is what love does - it weaves our souls together. Love is an energy or force that seems to move among us, waiting for a chance to weave.

Falling in love is when you energetically go into orbit with another person. A perfect match creates an energy exchange system that becomes an open channel for the love force to act through. Remember when you were very "in love?" Energetically, you locked your pelvis with another in a continuous exchange of energy. You had so much energy moving that you didn't even need physical food to sustain your body -- the love force did it for you. Remember when your baby was first born? At that time, a deep bonding occurred that thrust you instantly in love. Remember the time you met your best friend and experienced a magical connection from the very first moment? People "in love" create a high frequency that can heal their bodies and increase their life force. Love gives life. The more we love, the higher the quality of life we have.

Trouble can come when we think that our beloved is the source of our love instead of only a part of the channel. In rushes the fear that begins to destroy love. Mistakenly, we often think that people are the source of love, and so we try to control and possess the ones we love in an effort to keep love from leaving. In reality, love is a force that flows through us when the conditions are right and we have a good channel going. There is always another channel -- many, many channels and ways to get the conditions right.

Some people can't seem to get love moving in their lives and these are the ones among us who are "depressed." Depression always seems to carry the thought "I am not loved," which shuts us off to any love coming our direction and makes us unable to love. Lovable means "able to love." When we can find no one to love we become unlovable - unable to love. Hopelessness sets into a channel that is already shutting down. Depression results when the shutdown feels total. Who wants to live a life of no love? Depression lifts when we realize that we shut down the channel. If we shut down the channel, we can open it up again. We are not really love's victims.

Depression is always a spiritual issue, and love is always the way out. The dark night of the soul is often the spot in our lives when the ego burns out and the birth of unconditional love takes place.

In helping people work on their relationships and working a lot on my own, I have come to see that what most hurts a relationship is the emotional abuse involved in the struggle for power. In a sense, all abuse begins with emotional abuse. No matter how you look at it, to have a problem in the relationship department is to have an abuse issue, even if that abuse is neglect or excessive control. The permanent cure for all relationship trouble is to stop making abuse okay.

We treat people the way we were treated as children. We also treat others the way our parents taught us to treat them through role modeling. From our families, we learn to respect each other or not; we learn just how much abuse we can get away with to get what we want. To have good solid relationships, we have to let go of the old dysfunctional family system and make love our top priority.

How do we get more love? We open to love by honoring and respecting every living thing, letting go of our judgments of others and making ourselves a channel that love loves to flow through. We practice not attacking others, even mentally. I have a sign on my wall that says, "There's no excuse for abuse."

The funny thing about the Universe is that we get back what we give out. A person who gives love (practices unconditional love, meditates on love, loves God, does random acts of kindness or loves themselves) opens wide to the love flow. With a wide-open flow of love comes continuous joy and fulfillment. Starting today, never miss an opportunity to practice loving!