The Real Meaning of Love | Mia Suissa | TEDxMilkenSchool
what is the real meaning of love we think we understand love we think we know what love is because it's in our hearts we can feel it but of all the things we may know and feel about love maybe this is the biggest we all know that loving means giving if you love your wife then be a giving husband if you love your students than be a giving teacher if you love your children then be a giving parent and if you love people then be a giving person go to skid row and give to the homeless well fundraiser and give to your favorite charity go to your mother and give her a great birthday gift this is what we are taught from our earliest years loving means given and I get that it makes sense if I love you I want to give to you so why am I here to challenge this big accepted truth what can I say that will make you look at love differently so over the next few minutes I will share with you guys a personal story that has made me look at love differently it's a sweet little story that has helped me discover an expression of love that goes even deeper than just giving but before I tell you all what that expression is let's go back to skid row we're now in the summer of two thousand thirteen and I'm volunteering at a woman's homeless shelter in downtown Los Angeles my father would drop me off every morning on his way to work and like a good parent show off to all of his friends I just dropped my daughter off to volunteer on Skid Row I guess was proud of me because I was giving my time to the homeless and I was proud of myself too because I was doing a good deed one of my activities at the shelter that summer was to teach jewelry design I had started a business designing accessories myself so I was already very in tune with that whole world I was there to teach and give over what I knew on that day there were about six or seven women around a table and specifically I was teaching about earrings everything was going as planned the woman were engaged and appreciative for my presence but there was one woman sitting next to me named Gloria and she was doing her own thing she wasn't necessarily following instructions but that didn't really bother me because after all this was just a homeless shelter but after a while I noticed something Gloria have been doing something completely different she had been mixing beads and patterns and colors in a way that I had never seen before so of course i said to her Wow Gloria that's really neat I've never seen that before and then I blurted out the magic words you taught me something there was a surprised look on her face it had a little sparkle in it it was a look of bashful pride it was a look that didn't say Thank You Mia for teaching me but rather Thank You Mia for allowing me to teach you and that was the magic moment when I began to realize how much love can in fact go much deeper than just giving here was a woman who was so used to feeling helpless and needless and useless a woman who believed she had nothing to give a woman who thought she could only take and then in one instant this woman felt needed felt useful why because I stopped giving and started receiving in this moment what I really did for Gloria will show her my deepest love it was a love that gave her the deepest gift the gift of feeling needed the gift of feeling the joy of giving this is my dream for the world it turns out that psychologists have been exploring this very idea for many years now and in an essay i stumbled upon titled why is it so hard to receive dr. john amodio a San Francisco psychologist lists five reasons one we put up a defense against intimacy receiving creates a moment of connection and people who prioritize giving / receiving may be conveniently trying to keep people distant and this distance is a comfort zone for many especially those who have yet to form a relationship with themselves too when we give we are in control but when we receive we let go of control completely so yes it's easier to offer a kind word to someone or buy someone a gift but can we truly allow ourselves to surrender to the good feeling of receiving a gift and a compliment or even just a suggestion or a warm smile from a stranger who passed by you on the street 3 we have a fear of strings attached so if when we were growing up we only received compliments or gifts we accomplished something we may feel that we have to earn every gift or complement in other words if we weren't being accepted for who we are but rather our achievements we probably won't feel safe enough now to receive fourth we are taught that it is selfish to receive but truth is there is a fine line between a destructive narcissistic entitlement and a healthy narcissistic entitlement a destructive narcissistic entitlement is believing that you deserve more than others whereas a healthy narcissistic entitlement is understanding your self-worth and the truth is here receiving with appreciation and humility is what keeps us nourished and balanced in life finally it is difficult to receive because we have a self-imposed pressure to reciprocate you know if I allow myself to receive from you do I now owe you something in return what's the catch here as dr. amodeo writes in his article presuming that gifts or compliments are attempts to control and manipulate us we are preemptively defending ourselves from any sense of obligation so as we can see receiving maybe this powerful idea but it's not easy so of course naturally it makes us uncomfortable imagine how uncomfortable it was for me when I received from a homeless woman but I needed that extreme example on Skid Row to help me understand and appreciate the emotional power of receiving and why it's worth taking that extra effort I needed to see the bashful pride on Gloria's face I needed to see a helpless woman feel useful what I really did for Gloria here again will show her my deepest love it was a love that gave her that deepest gift that gift of feeling needed the gift of feeling the joy of giving and this is my dream for the world it is a dream where we are no longer afraid to receive from one another where we make each other feel needed where a teacher doesn't just teach but learns from a student where we go around a dinner table and ask every single person to contribute a story or even just an idea or a thought where we ask our grandparents to share stories with us and share their wisdom with us we're a husband doesn't just send his wife flowers but asks honey I need your advice what do you think of this idea where we listen and receive from those we disagree with where we learn each other's melodies and taste each other's cuisines where we open our minds and hearts to ideas that make us uncomfortable where our love of receiving creates a world of happy givers where everyone can feel needed even the homeless and that for me is the real meaning of love thank you for a severe shout out all my family in Canada watching this right now chateau