Three simple words. Eight letters. Spoken billions of times each day across the globe. “I love you” – perhaps the most powerful phrase in any language, yet so often misunderstood.

After nearly two decades exploring the mysteries of the heart, I’ve witnessed something both fascinating and troubling: we all hunger for love with every fiber of our being, yet most of us have no idea what we’re truly asking for when we say, “I want to be loved.” So this week, I'd like to invite you to consider a question that might initially seem strange:

Are you sure you want the experience of loving someone and being loved in return?

I ask this because what passes for “love” in our world often has almost nothing to do with genuine love. It might dress in love’s clothing, perform love’s gestures, speak love’s language – but it remains worlds apart from the love your heart is truly designed to experience.

What “I Love You” Really Means: Understanding the 3 Consciousness Levels of Love

When “Love” Turns into Hate

Let me share a story that illustrates this perfectly. Recently, a friend told me about her son who had broken up with his girlfriend, telling her he no longer loved her. This young woman, who believed herself deeply in love, responded with the words: “You’re going to regret this.” Within days, her proclaimed love had transformed into vindictive hatred, and she was taking him to court with allegations of abuse.

How does someone move from love to hate so quickly? Was it ever truly love? Or was it something else entirely?

Real love isn’t neediness, attachment, infatuation, obsession, or even intense desire. These are counterfeits that dissolve the moment our expectations aren’t met. True love manifests as appreciation, gratitude, warmth, trust, nurturing presence, tenderness, joy, and a sense of safety – qualities that remain stable even during difficult times.

Real love doesn’t deplete – it nourishes. It doesn’t demand – it offers. It doesn’t diminish – it expands.

The Poverty of Language

Of all Western languages, English is by far the poorest when describing the richest, most profound, multi-dimensional force driving human existence. This linguistic limitation creates real-world consequences.

In Sanskrit, there are 96 words used to describe different kinds of love. Ancient Persian has 80. Even Greek has three distinct terms – eros (passionate love), philia (deep friendship), and agape (unconditional love).

Yet in English, we use the same word “love” to express everything from “I love pizza” to “I love you enough to die for you.” This poverty of language doesn’t just limit expression – it confuses our understanding of what love actually is.

Think about how differently we use this single word:

• “I love my child unconditionally.”
• “I love my partner deeply.”
• “I love chocolate cake after a long day.”
• “I love that feeling when the rain starts.”

This linguistic limitation mirrors a deeper reality: what we call “love” is experienced at three different levels of consciousness. Understanding these levels can transform your entire experience of both giving and receiving love.

The Three Consciousness Levels of Love

Level 1: Having – “I Want to Have You” Love

At this level, love is primarily about possession and fulfilling personal needs. When someone at this level says “I love you,” what they often mean is:

• “I want you to belong to me.”
• “I need you to make me feel complete.”
• “You fill an emptiness inside me.”
• “I’m afraid of losing you to someone else.”

This is the most common form of what we call love, but it’s also the most unstable. When expectations aren’t met, this “love” quickly transforms into resentment, jealousy, or even hatred – exactly what happened in the story of my friend’s son.

A client once told me: “I realized I didn’t actually love my partner when I examined my thoughts. Every loving gesture came with an expectation of something in return. I was keeping score without even knowing it.”

Level 2: Doing – “I Want to Do Things With You” Love

At the second level, love evolves from mere possession to shared experience and mutual growth. When someone at this level says “I love you,” they mean:

• “I want to build a life with you.”
• “I’m excited about our journey together.””
• We make a great team in facing life’s challenges.”
• “Your goals and dreams matter to me alongside my own.”

This love is more resilient because it’s rooted in partnership rather than possession. A couple I worked with embodied this beautifully when they said: “After twenty years, what keeps us together isn’t passion or neediness – it’s the life we’ve created and continue to create together.”

Level 3: Being – “I Want to Be With You” Love

The highest form of love transcends both having and doing – it’s simply about being. When someone at this level says “I love you,” they truly mean:

• “I love who I am in your presence.”
• “Your existence is enough for me to feel joy.”
• “I see and honor your essence beyond all external qualities.”
• “My love doesn’t depend on what you do or don’t do.”

This love remains stable regardless of circumstances because it’s not attached to outcomes or expectations. It’s the love that can say, as one spiritual teacher shared with me: “I love you because I choose to love you. Nothing more is needed.”

If we had different words for these different experiences – as many languages do – perhaps we’d be less confused about what we’re actually feeling, expecting, and expressing when we say those three powerful words: “I love you.”

What “I Love You” Truly Means

What if “I love you” means “I love how I feel when I’m with you”?

Wouldn’t that make love an inside job?

Let that sink in.

At every level, when we say “I love you,” we’re really describing an internal experience:

At Level 1: “I love the way you make me feel desired and complete.”

At Level 2: “I love the life and experiences we create together.”

At Level 3: “I love who I become in the space of our connection.”

Try this: The next time you feel the urge to say “I love you” to someone, pause and ask yourself: “What am I really trying to express here? What level am I operating from?” This simple awareness can transform your relationships.

And if love is an inside job, what if it was also a choice? A choice as in, “I love you because I choose to love you,” or “because I want to love you,” or as Pablo Neruda would say, “because I know no other way.”

Elevating Your Experience of Love

If love truly begins within us – if it’s generated from the inside out rather than captured from the outside in – then we can consciously evolve how we experience love. Here are four practical steps to elevate your relationship with love:

1. Recognize Your Current Level

Without judgment, honestly assess which level of love dominates your relationships:

• Do you feel anxious when your loved one doesn’t respond the way you want?
• Do you keep score of what you give versus what you receive?
• Does your love depend on specific outcomes or behaviors?

A client once shared: “I was shocked to realize my so-called love was really just an elaborate need system. No wonder I felt constantly dissatisfied.”

2. Practice Self-Love as Foundation

What if today you choose to love yourself?

What if today you choose to accept yourself as you are and where you are and stop seeing yourself as imperfect, broken, or wrong?

What if today you face the mirror and say to yourself, “I love you, I care about you, and I will do my best to keep loving you throughout the day… through this difficult situation…through this transition”?

This isn’t selfish – it’s necessary. Like the flight attendant’s instruction to secure your own oxygen mask before helping others, self-love creates the reservoir from which authentic love for others can flow.

Try this: Each morning for one week, place your hand on your heart, take three deep breaths, and say: “I choose to love myself today, exactly as I am.” Notice how this simple practice shifts your capacity to love others.

3. Release Expectations

The journey from Level 1 to Level 3 love requires progressively releasing your attachments and expectations. Love that comes with conditions isn’t true love – it’s transactional love.

Practice loving without demands by:

• Giving without keeping score
• Appreciating without expecting reciprocation
• Accepting without trying to change
• Being present without anticipating outcomes

4. Connect to the Source Within

What if today you could choose to open to the possibility that the greatest love there is, is the one you feel when you fully connect to the essential part of you that lives deep within your heart?

And that each time you share this love with others, it comes back to you because your heart is the source of that love.

The Deepest Truth About Love

The ancient mystics and spiritual traditions have always pointed to this truth: love isn’t primarily something that happens to us – it’s something that happens through us. They understood that what we call “love” is actually a spectrum of experience that evolves as our consciousness expands.

The heart doesn’t just receive love; it generates it. It doesn’t just recognize love; it is love itself.

When we truly understand this, “I love you” transforms from a statement of need or attachment into a declaration of recognition:

At Level 1, it means: “I need you in my life.”

At Level 2, it means: “I choose to build a life with you.”

At Level 3, it means: “I recognize the divine in you. I see your essential nature. I honor the light within you that is also within me.”

Final Thoughts

Recently, I witnessed a powerful example of Level 3 love. An elderly man caring for his wife with advanced dementia told me: “People ask if it’s hard to love someone who doesn’t recognize me anymore. But that’s just it – my love isn’t based on being recognized. It’s based on recognizing her, the eternal her, beyond memory or circumstance. And in that recognition, I find that I am loving Love itself.”

Perhaps this is why, when we experience moments of genuine love, we often feel a profound sense of coming home – because we’re reconnecting with the ultimate truth of who we are.

So the next time you say “I love you” to someone, pause for a moment. Feel those words emerging from the center of your being. Notice what level you’re speaking from. And remember that in that moment, you’re not just expressing an emotion – you’re revealing the deepest truth that lives within you feeling heart.

From my heart to yours,

—Gabriel

PS. When you're ready, here are several ways I can support you on your journey.
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