Love for your spouse, your loved ones, or love for life itself does not remain alive by chance. It nurtures when you remain curious, receptive, and eager to go beyond what you believe you already know. Authentic love flourishes when we practice courageous curiosity: the ability to say, "I don't know, but I want to learn more."
Why Curiosity Keeps Love Alive
Your mind runs on autopilot every day. From the moment you wake up, it drives you through routines, assumptions, and habits meant to leave you comfortable. You don't usually take time to question yourself:
- Why am I assuming this?
- What if there's another possibility?
- Am I wrong?
Rather, you're basing it on old tales memories, cultural norms, family teachings, and history that color your perception of the world. These internal "stories" determine your right and wrong, good and evil, love and fear.
The catch? Many of these stories are no longer relevant. They keep you safe but stifle your growth, deepen your love, and live fully.
The Stories That Shape Us
Within your brain resides a library of tales that function as an inner operating system. They were constructed out of your childhood, your culture, your relationships, and experiences that raised strong feelings. Like gravity, they affect you all the time even when you're unaware of it.
Author Jonathan Gottschall said it best: "For humans, story is like gravity: a field force that surrounds us and influences all of our movements."
But when they're based on fear or past hurt, they create distortions. You find yourself judging the world from a limited perspective, missing out on chances for love, connection, and happiness.
Breaking Free from Limiting Beliefs
Psychologist M. Scott Peck once described human beings as "poor examiners, prone to superstition, prejudice, and bias, and a deep tendency to notice what they want to notice rather than what is actually there.
This is why it takes courage to keep love alive. You need to be brave enough to challenge your stories. Rather than posing, "Is this right or wrong?" you can ask more profound questions such as:
- For whom is this true?
- Under what conditions?
- What else might be possible?
By moving from certainty to curiosity, you open up to more compassion, more openness, and more love.
How Coaching (or Honest Reflection) Helps
Sometimes, challenging your own stories is difficult. That's why having a coach or a trusted guide can be so potent. They can point out blind spots, question old assumptions, and guide you into the emotional darkness you've shied away from.
Through introspection, you start rewriting your stories by not eliminating the past but by growing in awareness of what's possible. This creates space for:
- More emotional freedom
- Deeper, more significant relationships
- A higher platform of hope and joy
- More profound passion for life itself
Choosing Love Every Day
To really keep your love alive, you have to embrace the uncertainty of life. Love isn't controlling what happens; it's embracing what may. Every individual you encounter, every problem that you solve, and every surprise that life has in store is a part of a beautiful mosaic of progress.
Loving life starts with humility: "I don't know… but I'm willing to learn."
And if you live with that kind of fearless curiosity, love doesn't just get by, it flourishes.