To love is to empower, they are one and the same thing. If your brand of love does not empower, then sadly it is not true love. For by its very nature, love is empowering.

There are two distinct levels of this empowerment. The first which should ensue automatically and unconsciously from the very existence of love, and the second which should be intentionally and purposefully bestowed between those who love each other.

The first automatic type should come from feelings of positivity, of being supported morally, of stability and of protection. You are no longer alone. There is someone constantly by your side, either physically or mentally, or ideally both. You have someone to share your problems, your woes and your doubts. You have someone to share your joys, your secrets and your most exhilarating moments.

You are no longer alone. Being loved is one of the best feelings on earth, especially when this love is fully and unashamedly expressed in all its forms.

All these feelings are very empowering. You are happy and proud. You are motivated in much of what you do and take life by the horns and shove it in the direction that suits you. You are elated, virtually high, and feel invincible. You have no time for negative thoughts and people. You walk a bit quicker, you stand a bit taller, you push a bit harder, you talk with greater enthusiasm, you discuss and negotiate better, you are much less shy and reserved. You are made strong.

In turn people will listen to you, they will believe you and follow you and respect you. They will want you and love you. This is how love empowers you more than anything else in life.

Then there is the second level, the conscious empowering of your loved one. There are many ways you can treat your partner. You can try to cage them and to confine them. You may try to bully and intimidate them. Others just go with the flow and seem to be indifferent and dispassionate. Some think they are being exceptionally generous and lenient, simply by according a few liberties.

Then there are the few wise ones whose only wish is to empower. Not to control or suffocate. Not to ban and forbid. Not even to impose any form of limitation. Rather than putting a bird in a cage, or clipping its wings, or even attaching it to a long cord, you should simply set it free. And moreover before you do, you should also make sure that you have shown it how to fly, taught it how to soar, far above all the others, and to glide away further and stronger than is really necessary.

Give it all the required skills and abilities to be totally independent. To make it on its own and to thrive fully without you. This is true love.

If you do this perfectly and truthfully, without any hidden agenda, then the bird will fly and soar high up in the sky. But it will always return, nowhere else but to you. It will come back and eat from your hand, it will love you dearly for the rest of its days. For it was you who gave it all its power and strength and somehow in certain irony, the stronger it has become, the more it will consider you its creator and its master.

Do not restrict and impede. You are nobody and nothing without creating others bigger and better than you. They are nothing without their creator. The pupil must always surpass the teacher, if the teacher is at all a good instructor. If you are unable to produce anything that surpasses you, then it is you who is a limited person.

If you do not want to set them free, then it is you who is insecure. If you do not want your loved ones to be stronger than you and independent of you, then you are afraid that they will crush you.

If on the other hand you don’t just sanction, but you relish, the total liberation of your most loved ones, the greater they will one day become, the greater this will elevate you.

Set them free, let them run and play, all the games they want to. Give them all the freedom they want, as this will be your freedom, your choice, your decision, not theirs. And hence they will always be yours.

Only in this way can they never escape from you, by creating the space not where you lock them, but where you have set them free.