How can I tell my consciousness that people show love in different ways? The love shown on TV — the hugs, the kisses — isn’t the only form of love.

An act of love. Can I make my consciousness become aware that small acts of love are the love a person shows towards you?

This isn’t about using people. It isn’t about taking them for granted. It’s a way to see that a person shows affection through an act — quietly, without ceremony.

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My child self wasn’t aware of what love is. She carried a trauma built around a single image: a mother should hug her child, kiss her child — and that is what love looks like. She created that definition and held onto it tightly. She misunderstood. The small acts of love my mother did — keeping me healthy, keeping me safe — that was her way of showing love and care towards me. But my child self couldn’t see it.

The middle-aged Ishika still relives the child Ishika’s traumas and misunderstandings.

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In meditation today, I asked myself: What is my definition of love — as I have seen it?

The thought that came was this: what is fresh and new — that is what love is to me. It’s my definition. My own thought. My own way to look at life. Not through the lens of past moments, but through the current Ishika experiencing something new and fresh.

So I turned the question toward her — the current, middle-aged Ishika. What is new and fresh in this moment that she feels excited for?

She concludes that it is nothing.

Can she live with that disappointment? Does it need to be exciting every moment?

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Oh, Ishika. What are you missing?

Is the expectation that things should be exciting in life — and that excitement is love? Or is the reality that expectations destroy love? Do conclusions destroy love?

And so I am left with a new question, after gaining some clarity:

What is love?