I don’t know about you, but when I love someone or something, I want to hold on to it. I want to protect it. I want to nurture the relationship so that I can continue to love, but just as importantly, so I can continue to receive the love I feel from the other.

But, sometimes loving another this way assures that we will lose that love. For if we try to keep getting the love we want to hold on to, we are inclined to keep seeing the other as they were when we got the love we wanted. A possessive love assumes that love is available only as we have known it and only from the person as they are.

This possessiveness is grounded in a sense of scarcity. When I don’t think there will be enough to sustain me in the future, I hoard that which I have. If I am afraid that there will not be enough love to sustain me in the future, I will want to store up as much of it as I can so it is there when love runs low.

But, from what I have learned in living, those who believe that there is love enough to nourish a needful soul, discover that indeed there is plenty. When we live in the fear that we won’t have enough, we hang onto what is and there is no room for another kind of love to enter our lives. When we define love as one thing, we miss all the other experiences of love that are there to be received.

And when we believe there is enough love to sustain us, we will also give love away. What we have received will be made available without reserve to others with whom we come in contact. It may indeed to be more blessed to give than to receive, but maybe that is because when we give love freely, we simply open ourselves to receive the blessed love of others.