Skip to content
quotesby

About this quote

What does it mean?
True love requires openness to pain as well as joy, deepening consciousness.
In plain terms
Love means opening yourself to pain and joy alike.
What can you take from it?
Embrace the full range of emotions to love deeply.

Where it applies

  • building intimate relationships
  • recovering from loss
  • self-growth

Putting it to work

  • practice emotional honesty
  • accept discomfort
  • journal feelings

Questions to consider

  • Are you avoiding pain to protect yourself?
  • How has grief shaped your capacity to love?

Another view

Some argue protecting oneself from pain is necessary for mental health.

More from Rollo May

  1. When we 'fall' in love, as the expressive verb puts it, the world shakes and changes around us, not only in the way it looks but in our whole experience of wha…

    Permalink to quote #30
  2. Our age is one of transition, in which the normal channels for utilizing the daimonic are denied; and such ages tend to be times when the daimonic is expressed…

    Permalink to quote #32
  3. The constructive schizoid person stands against the spiritual emptiness of encroaching technology and does not let himself be emptied by it. He lives and works…

    Permalink to quote #29

Related quotes

  1. Of love that never found his earthly close, What sequel? Streaming eyes and breaking hearts? Or all the same as if he had not been? Not so. Shall Error in the …

    Alfred (Lord) TennysonAlfred (Lord) Tennyson quote #15
  2. O lift me from the grass! I die! I faint! I fail! Let thy love in kisses rain On my lips and eyelids pale. My cheek is cold and white, alas! My heart beats lou…

    Percy Bysshe ShelleyPercy Bysshe Shelley quote #30
  3. Next time... we will laugh more, we'll love more; we just won't be so afraid.

    Queen LatifahQueen Latifah quote #1