Today is February 14th and it's Valentine's Day! This is an opportunity for me to tell you about my thoughts on this beautiful expression of love.
When we think of Valentine's Day, the immediate picture that comes to our mind is a couple with all the romance, flowers and chocolates and all sweet things, right?

But the word love has so much more meaning...

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💗 Here is a definition of love:

Love encompasses a variety of different emotional and mental states, typically strongly and positively experienced, ranging from the deepest interpersonal affection to the simplest pleasure.
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Love, in my opinion, has many different dimensions and expressions that differ from person to person. It can be love for your parents, children, siblings, steemians friends, neighbors, colleagues, pets, anyone and everyone ...

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The ancient Greek used 7 words to define the different states of love:

Storge: natural affection, the love you share with your family.

Philia: the love that you have for friends.

Eros: sexual and erotic desire kind of love (positive or negative)

Agape: this is the unconditional love, or divine love

Ludus: this is playful love, like childish love or flirting.

Pragma: long-standing love. The love in a married couple.

Philautia: the love of the self (negative or positive)

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These are 7 different types of feelings. The love you feel for your partner is not the same as the love you feel for your sister for example. But, we use the same words to express both "I love you", pouting the feelings are different. The intensity is not the same and it can also change over time, intensify or decrease.

💗 You need to love yourself first before you can truly love others!

Following relational failures, this subject has made me think a lot in recent years. I think it has become this ingrained belief that we need a relationship to define our path and our identity. And if unfortunately, we do not have this relationship by a certain amount of time then we missed our life!
That's what the consumer society wants us to believe but, it's false in reality.

Self-love is the key to healthy relationships! Because if we do not love ourselves, we will look for a relationship to fill a gap. We must seek in ourselves the love and self-confidence to be at peace. Then we can love others and help them to be a better version of themselves.
It's the most important thing I've learned in my life about love.

So, don't worry if you have not found your "soulmate", it's not a "blemish".
Do not let others make you think you have a problem. Maybe it's time to focus on yourself and your goals in life. Love can not really control itself, not like a job for example. If this is not the right moment, do not worry, focus on something else and love will come.

Take care of those you love all year long. But above all, take care of yourself!

If you liked reading this post, do not hesitate to UPVOTE, COMMENT and REESTEM!
Thank you for your support and long life to the STEEMIT community !!!

🎀 FlaminGirl 🎀
With love...