12 Types of Love
Part One
By Matthew Laffer
November 8, 2024
Books, films, and songs. Thousands of them. All about love.
But what if \”Hear me out”\ there’s more to love than Huey Lewis and Julia Roberts are letting on?
What if deepening our understanding of love, beyond the commodification and abstractification, can move us from a pool to an ocean? Not to get lost in, but to expand and be one with.
We know that everything – literally everything – around us is composed of energy that vibrates at different frequencies. Love is the highest frequency of them all. And the response of all things to love is nothing less than grandeur.
Love, however, can be commonly misunderstood or it can be extraordinary depending on our depth of understanding. She says she loves plants, but then forgets to water them. He says he loves fish, but then orders fish off the menu.
We speak of love all the time, but what if our understanding of love is inaccurate or incomplete at best? What if having too few expressions of love is limiting us and all that can be transformed through love? What if we can experience love in all of its forms?
Welcome to a journey into 12 Types of Love.
1. Unconditional Love.
The OG way that people think about love is unconditional love. I am loved for what I am, or perhaps more accurately, I am loved because I am. You might find this type of love between a mother and her infant. Even more exceptional is to find this love as the child and the separation from their mother grows.
Unconditional love is the highest kind of love, but it is only one type of love. And for many it is their de facto standard definition of love. This journey into different types of love is a re-examination of the meanings and the applications to experiencing love in all of its forms.
2. Forgiving Love.
Forgive like your freedom depends on it, because it does.
If we do not forgive, then we cannot break free. We cannot move forward. We are the ones who are tying ourselves energetically with that person or situation by our lack of forgiveness.
If you have a situation where it is really hard to forgive, find the blessing in it. What have you learned from it? How has your life changed for the better because of it? How can you alter your course to be even more aligned with your highest good?
The extent that you do not forgive others is usually an excellent indication of the lack of self-forgiveness that you hold. Forgiveness of self and others *is* love.
Here is an offering:
If there is someone you need to forgive, picture them standing about three feet in front of you. Say to that person, using their name, “I forgive you. I forgive you. I forgive you. I set you free. And I set myself free.”
Pro-tip:
If it is done passively, you will not have the experience that you are intending. How much do you want to feel it? With increased intentionality comes a feeling of lightness like cotton to the body.
3. Accepting Love.
What is scarier than public speaking or death? Trying to live the path or circumvent the path of another.
WARNING: Being involved in another’s path may result in an elongated process and a pathway of distortions and difficulties for us and for them.
If we wouldn’t label a green banana as “bad”, then why do we do it so freely with people? Everyone is going through their own journey of ripening.
So then, how do we help those that we love? We pray for them, and we transform ourselves. We change the aspects within ourselves that are required for our own evolution, including our ego, our fear, our judgement, our selfishness, and our negativity.
When we transform ourselves, then we can spiritually affect the root soul of our loved ones.
This is a journey for us. We are part of a system. And that system is perfect.
4. Just For You Love.
This is the type of love where the universe is doing things just for you. Yep, you read that right.
Just for you.
A person is called a small world, for good reason. Everything that exists in the world has a correlation to our soul. That is the general understanding.
The deeper consciousness can be found in the precise packaging in which a situation arrives for your highest good. All the details of the situation, both positive and “negative”, are exactly what you need to create the life you want and are meant to live.
That cave in the desert was a refuge. The carob tree and spring of water that emerged was food and drink for the soul. The wise man, of blessed memory, who visited daily to reveal secrets was a channel of Light.
Not coincidentally, all of these blessings were perfectly connected and synchronized in the right place and the right time.
Most people are unaware of this love or struggle with the idea of it. Just for you love requires a gentle receiving because you have to believe that you are worthy of it. This is not ego, but an understanding that you were not only meant to have this experience, but to have it as specifically as it has been set up for you.
Everything is love and there is nuance in everything.
If we do not know what types of love there are, then how will we recognize them? If we have not experienced a type of love, then can we truly understand it?
What other types of love do most people not understand?
5. Righteous Love.
A fierce love for truth. An unwavering struggle for justice.
If your love is built on a system of lies and deception, then is it even love?
The heart drives the desire for this fight. The consciousness of this battle is not to harm another, but to awaken the force of our soul.
Focusing on others will not change the world. The way to change the world is by looking inward and focusing on the truth of the internal work we still have to do.
You want justice? Be just. You want peace? Be peaceful. It is as simple as, be kind. Not to retaliate in kind.
Paradoxically, living simply and recognizing the unity of all loving beings may present as non-cooperation and civil disobedience to those who still believe in the great lie of separation.
That is neither here nor there for righteous lovers of the world. We are here to shake things up in the best way possible.
Truth and love are what make us alive. This is our birthright.
6. Love Loss.
Most of the world lives either in denial of death or in terror of it. The denial of truth is the action of fear.
How do you know if something is true? It will last forever.
Nature tells us there is no end and no separation. It tells us that all is unified, and nothing stands on its own. The world should never say one thing and nature another.
The physical world provides a limited view of reality. Those whom we love and “lost” may not be visible, but it doesn’t mean they have left us. The truth is our loved ones are always with us.
Some forms of love are not experienced until our loved one departs. A feeling akin to not appreciating what we have until it’s gone, we may not feel the expanse of our love for another while they are here in a body.
The more physicality there is, the less light there is. When there is no physicality, all of their light and love are available to us. This same principle can be seen in a microchip. The smaller the chip, the more powerful it is.
So, what does happen to the light of a loved one when they leave this world?
On the day they depart, the totality of the light they revealed in this physical domain is available to tap into. They become an endless bridge to the upper worlds; available to guide and to assist us on our journey. And by connecting to them on the anniversary of their departure, especially the night prior, we can channel their energy into our lives and the world.
What about the pain and sorrow? It is real, real beautiful.
It isn’t the absence that causes it though. It is the love. Without love, such absences would cause us no pain. The pain reveals that this love matters which gives even more meaning to life.
Part Two:
What to expect? Six more types of love. Plus, tools and exercises that will support, challenge, and inspire the love you want and are meant to have.
Matthew Laffer is a 3x entrepreneur and the Founder and CEO at Goalspriing.
