The Power of Love

Love, in its truest form, is not just a feeling. It is a force. It shapes our bodies, steadies our minds, and quietly reorganizes our sense of what is possible.

The quote often misattributed to Lao Tzu that is actually from a poem by Ester Huerteas -“To be deeply loved by someone gives you strength, but to love someone deeply gives you courage” - captures a truth that is both poetic and profoundly practical. Regardless of the attribution, the insight stands on its own. Strength and courage are not just heroic traits reserved for battlefields or epic stories. They are the everyday gifts of love.

And love, it turns out, is biological, not just mental.

The Body Knows When It Is Loved

When someone truly cares for you - when you feel safe, valued, and seen - your nervous system responds immediately. Your body begins to shift out of survival mode. Levels of cortisol, the stress hormone, begin to fall. Your heart rate slows. Your breathing deepens. Your muscles release tension you didn’t even realize you were carrying.

At the same time, your brain releases oxytocin, sometimes called the “bonding hormone.” Oxytocin promotes trust, relaxation, and social connection. It lowers blood pressure, supports immune function, and even helps reduce physical pain.

In simple terms: love makes the body feel safe enough to heal.

This is part of the strength the quote speaks of. When you are deeply loved, your body stops bracing for impact. It stops scanning constantly for danger. It remembers what it feels like to rest.

Strength, in this sense, is not hardness or toughness. It is stability and resilience. It is the quiet, steady power that comes from knowing you don’t have to face the world alone.

Courage Lives on the Other Side

But the second half of the quote points to something more demanding.

“To love someone deeply gives you courage.”

Loving someone is not the passive experience of being held. It is an active choice. It means opening your heart without guarantees. It means caring about someone else’s joy, pain, and well-being. It means allowing your life to be affected by theirs.

That is not safe, controlled, or predictable.

To love is to risk disappointment, rejection, misunderstanding, or loss. It is to admit, silently or out loud, “You matter to me.” And that statement is one of the bravest things a person can admit to themselves and say out loud.

Psychologically, love stretches us. It pushes us beyond our carefully constructed emotional defenses. It invites us to be vulnerable, to communicate honestly, to forgive, to compromise, and sometimes to grow in ways we never intended.

Courage, in this sense, is not about dramatic gestures. It is about daily openness. It is about choosing connection over self-protection, again and again.

The Forgotten Power of Friendship

When people talk about love, they often mean romantic love. Songs, movies, and stories all reinforce the same message: the most important love in your life is the one with your partner.

But that is a very narrow understanding of love.

The love of friends - true, committed, respectful friendship - can be just as powerful. Sometimes more so.

A friend who listens without judgment.
A friend who shows up when you’re struggling.
A friend who celebrates your victories like they’re their own.
A friend who remembers who you are when you’ve forgotten.

These relationships also trigger the same biological responses. Your body does not distinguish between romantic love and platonic love in the way culture does. The nervous system responds to safety, trust, and connection, regardless of the label.

A deep friendship can lower stress and strengthen immune response. It can reduce feelings of loneliness and depression. It can extend life expectancy.

Psychologically, friends provide something uniquely stabilizing. Romantic relationships often carry expectations about roles, exclusivity, or future plans. Friendships, when treated with the same respect and intentionality, can be freer, more flexible, and more enduring.

But only if we value them.

Too often, friendships are treated as optional, secondary, or disposable - something to squeeze in around work and romance. We cancel on friends more easily. We forget to check in. We assume they will always be there.

Yet many people can trace their deepest strength not to a romantic partner, but to a friend who stood beside them during a difficult time. When we give friendships the same respect, honesty, and care that we give romantic relationships, they become powerful sources of both strength and courage.

Strength and Courage, in a Circle

The beauty of the quote is that it describes a cycle.

When you are deeply loved, you gain strength.
That strength makes it easier to love others.
When you love others, you practice courage.
That courage deepens your connections.
And those connections become new sources of strength.

Love is not a one-way street. It is a loop. A feedback system. A living network of energy flowing between people.

You do not have to wait for romantic love to experience it. You can find it in friendships, families, communities, and even in the quiet bond between people who simply choose to care for one another.

Every time you let someone matter to you, you practice courage.
Every time you allow someone to care for you, you receive strength.

And over time, that exchange becomes the foundation of a life that is not just survived but deeply, courageously lived.

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