By Dina Evan, PhD

We are covided, inflationed, politicized, angered, stressed to the max and pooped! As we fall into our easy chair or bed after what seems like the longest days ever, could we have forgotten to tell the most important people in our lives we love them? No matter how much money or how many luxuries we may amass, without love — it’s all meaningless.

I’m not talking about hearts and Valentines. I am talking about the kind of love for kids, friends, extended family members, co-workers, partners and even strangers that echoes in every pore in your body. Love is simply the most important feeling in our lives and forgetting to empower and expand it can cause physical, emotional and spiritual illness. Love is the greatest teacher on the planet and every day we need to be asking love… “What are you here to teach me?”

Why love is so important

To begin with, love is the emotion that teaches us the most about ourselves. It teaches us whether we are willing to be vulnerable, where we are shut down or holding fear. It teaches us love is not about owning someone, it’s about appreciating them — finding the gold and Spirit in them, and reflecting the beauty they share from a soul level back to them.

Love is not a contract or agreement. Love is about dedication, commitment and the ability to stay present and tell your truth. It’s about you more than about the other. It’s about your ability to take risks, be open, and honest. It only matters you give love and stay present even in the face of the most outrageous and wonderful growth opportunities you’ll ever have.

Without love, the value of anything else you can buy or acquire is diminished. Many of us have that truth backwards. Even Pascal Bruckner (2013) argues that, “in the past, marriage was sacred, and love, if it existed at all, was a kind of bonus. Now that love has come to be seen as essential in marriage, love is perceived as sacred, and marriage as secondary.”

Even though it changes form as we grow from infants to elderly, the importance and need for love never lessens. It changes from the excitement of a crush to a life-long enduring gift. All too often the elderly get less and less. When it is given, it just begins to spread like warm frosting into our hearts and consciousnesses and we begin to understand that it doesn’t even matter who you may choose to give it to, it only matters that you do give it!

With the sensory over-load of stress today we can be so exhausted and worried about our own state of income, wellness and the state of our country, that we forget about the state of love and our hearts, even though nothing matters more.

You may have noticed that you hold back from expressing any emotion and your senses feel turned down or off. Exhaustion sets in as stress increases. The question is what to do. Blow out the exhaustion…. and if you feel like crying do it. Then stop and ask where can I make a difference? Take a breath. Think of one person to whom you can express love, someone who needs to hear and feel it. It may be a stranger, a friend, a partner or a family member. Then go do that no matter what. It’s as simple as a phone call… “I was thinking about you and how much I love you and had to call and say it.”

What you will discover is it not only heals the person you express love to, it heals you. You will feel energized and enlivened. Love is the most healing energy on the planet and it is vital to our health and to healing the planet.

Decide right now you will give love to someone every day, even if it’s a stranger. Your life will be so much more joyful! We cannot afford to forget that we are love, and loving is what we came here to do, what we came here to teach and who we came here to be. Start now. Pick up the phone, or give someone a hug and commit to doing it again every day.

Do it for you and do it for all of us.

Dr. Evan is a marriage, family, child therapist and consciousness counselor. She has presented nationwide seminars and workshops, written several books and created meditation CDs for couples, individual and mental health professionals. Visit drdinaevan.com or call 602-571-8228.