What is love? The word is so encapsulating, it can only be distinguished through context. We know if a parent tells their child “I love you”, it is evident it is an unconditional and parental love being shown. If in a developing romantic relationship, your partner tells you “I love you”, we can be fairly certain it is in a romantic dimension, and not a parental kind of love.

But what if the context is cloudy? What if you’re getting along with a person – and you know there is love – but have no idea what kind of love? Or you know you have romantic interests in a person, but are uncertain where they stand. The word love here becomes fuzzy, and in these situations people can find themselves in societal limbo as they risk their relationship with a person, on high hopes they feel the same way. Both parties can express love for the other, but mean completely different things.

This one word approach works in a clear contextual situation, but lacks distinction in cloudy situations. The same word is used to explain your feelings to an important person in one’s life, a doughnut you can’t get enough of, or a traffic cone you may find on a drunken stumble home after a night out. How are we able to navigate such a dominant part of our lives, without the dynamic language to communicate it?

Imagine trying to explain to someone what a sunflower looked like, but you only had the word “flower” to explain it. If you could show the person contextually, they would get it immediately. But explaining it without the name can cause confusion:

“Yeah its a flower, it has yellow petals and a brown centre”

We can explain it and get the point across, but it takes longer, and could even be mistaken for something else like a Gloriosa daisy.

In Sanskrit, they have 90+ words for love. Tamil has 50+. In Greek, they have 3 main words for love; Eros, Ludus and Storge. In between these pillars are 3 more words that sit in between; Pragma, Agape and Mania.

Ludus is any kind of love that is playful or flirtatious. It reveals itself through having fun with each other.

Eros is a romantic kind of love, linked to the dopamine system. This is an exciting and sexual dominion that creates adventure and strong emotional connections.

Storge is a familial love – the type of love you would show to your child or parents.

Agape is the closest of these descriptions to the source essence of love. It is an unconditional love that is altruistic in nature. You view the people around you as blessings and want the best for them – often giving out more love than receiving.

Pragma is a practical love, served out of convenience and service. There is often not much romance attached to this.

A crucial distinction between these expressions is volition. Are you acting out of fear or love? You can notice that the majority of these definitions are based on the emotions you feel after an experience with someone. The vibratory essence of love sits on a spectrum between fear and love. If expressed with fear, it is filtered – attached with programming from past traumas and events.

A person or persons acting out of fear or lack can enter a state of Mania. Instead of being a true expression of love, it is a reactionary state from fear. This changes the internal state of a person and can influence them in a way they think the only way they are complete is with the other person. There is no doubt this person is in love – but the source of their feelings comes from fear, and is always sabotaging.

These are more tools for identifying your state of love with a person, rather than the source essence of love itself. The closest to source love from the list above is Agape. Unconditional, unfiltered love. Everything is a blessing and completely selfless, attained in its purest form when you love yourself.

Depression and loneliness are so prevalent now, and whilst there are numerous factors that contribute to this (social media, loss of an ideal, etc), our inability to navigate what is so close to all of us – and arguably the most important essence of the universe – love, leaves us in confusion and lack.

The true expression of a love comes when your intention is from love – devoid from fear. When you tell your partner you love them for the first time, you have an overwhelming feeling of pure love for this person – followed quickly by fear. Fear they don’t love you back. When they tell you they love you too, then the emotions of love come rushing back. The fear we feel in moments like this can last as long as you consciously choose to.

So what is the solution? Do we need to educate ourselves with more words, so we can communicate our feelings better? It would clear a lot of the fog away when navigating relationships. But the core fundamental issue at play is the love we show to ourselves.

Self-love is the gravitational force that binds all aspects of love and allows you to play the spectrum with freedom – exploring and understanding yourself to a point where the semantics don’t matter. You express who you are unfiltered and let the world respond accordingly.

Loving yourself lays the foundation for the fountain of infinite love to pour out of you. Without this, all love can become validatory or a blind reach to fulfil your needs. It can stem into areas of codependency, lust, obsession, possession or all at once.

All types of love (and fears) are emotions, they are felt not spoken. Language gives us a way of describing an emotion to some extent, but the essence of the experience is lost in translation when spoken. If we all strive to be who we know we should be, the semantics wouldn’t be as detrimental as they are.

But we are struggling as a species to love ourselves. So having more ways of bending our language to communicate more efficiently would be a good step in getting us into firmer grounds regarding communication about love, but only in conjunction with awareness.