safety

The Question Beneath the Question

by Julie Githiri

I was recently sitting with a dear friend, discussing the existence of big love, great love.

He spoke about it with such passion that I could almost feel it myself. The memory of it left his heart fluttering, his skin tingling, goosebumps rising on his arms. His breath became deeper, more deliberate, as though the very act of remembering brought him back into its presence.

Listening to him describe an experience that seemed to transcend all rational thought, I found myself wondering whether this is the love we are all searching for. The kind of love where oxytocin checks in and logic quietly leaves the chat. The kind that rearranges your inner landscape without permission.

But is that what makes a love great?

Is it the intensity of feeling? The all-consuming desire? The inability to think clearly in the presence of another?

Or is it something altogether different?

Perhaps great love is not simply about being known, but about being felt. Not only in the physical sense, but emotionally. A meeting of minds, hearts, histories and hopes. A place where two people recognise something familiar in one another and choose to stay curious about what they find.

For centuries we have attempted to define love. The Greeks gave us Eros, the passionate and erotic; Agape, the selfless and unconditional; Ludus, the playful and flirtatious; Pragma, the enduring love that grows through commitment and shared experience.

Yet perhaps, like life itself, love refuses to remain fixed.

Love evolves.

The intoxicating rush of Eros may soften into the steady reassurance of Pragma. Playfulness may deepen into devotion. Desire may ebb and flow, whilst intimacy grows roots beneath it. The love we experience at twenty is rarely the same love we seek at fifty.

And perhaps that is the question worth asking.

Is great love the one that takes our breath away?

Or is it the one that teaches us how to breathe more deeply?

When someone enters my consulting room, more often than not, this is the question hiding beneath the question.

Not “How do I fix my relationship?” or “Why did they leave?” or even “Do they love me?”

The question is simpler, and infinitely more complex:

Am I loved?

If our eyes are the windows to the soul, and the soul is the keeper of the heart, then surely the health of that heart matters. Not simply the organ beating faithfully within our chest, but the emotional heart, the one that longs, grieves, hopes, and connects.

Surely a heart that feels at peace, seen, and secure stands a better chance of flourishing?

It sounds like simple mathematics.

Yet human beings have never been particularly rational when it comes to love.

Interestingly, this same question follows me beyond the consulting room. Whether professionally or socially, conversations about love seem to emerge with remarkable ease. Friends, strangers, clients all circling the same curiosity. I appear to have a knack for creating spaces where such conversations unfold.

And perhaps that is because love sits at the centre of so much of what it means to be human.

Across centuries and cultures, we have been captivated by it.

Romeo and Juliet became the enduring symbol of passionate, tragic devotion. Emperor Shah Jahan built the Taj Mahal in memory of Mumtaz Mahal, creating one of the world’s greatest monuments to love and loss. Even our sacred texts are filled with stories of longing, desire, betrayal, sacrifice, and devotion. Samson and Delilah remind us that love can both strengthen and deceive.

Songs have been written about it.
Poems have worshipped it.
Artists have painted it.
Writers have chased it across generations.

Love has inspired wars, reconciliations, migrations, and revolutions of the heart.

In many ways, love may well be the greatest currency on the planet.

Not because it can be bought or sold, but because nearly every human decision is influenced by our pursuit of it, our experience of it, or our recovery from its absence.

Which brings me back to the original question.

Is love what makes the world go round?

Or is it the hope of being loved that keeps us moving?

Warmly 

Jules

Before We Knew Love, We Felt It

by Julie Githiri

Parental relationships must be some of the most frequently explored familial dynamics in therapy. There is a need for deeper interrogation, not only of the love that was present, but of the care that was absent, inconsistent, or withheld.

As a baby, one of the first forms of communication is through tears. You arrive into the world crying, and more often than not, you are met with relief, love, gratitude, even awe. You are gathered into arms, held close to the bosom, encouraged to suckle and so begins your first relationship with the adults who will become your parents.

Touch becomes your earliest language.

You are bathed, soothed, winded, changed. Each act carries the possibility of tenderness: a soft voice, a gentle caress, the rhythm of reassurance. A kind of closeness that does not need to be earned. A connection that exists without transaction.

But not all touch is experienced in the same way.

For some, it is warm, attuned, and consistent a foundation upon which safety is built. For others, it may be hurried, inconsistent, or absent altogether. And in some cases, touch itself becomes confusing something that does not quite match the emotional need beneath it.

These early exchanges so ordinary, so easily overlooked begin to shape something profound.

They inform how we come to understand safety, closeness, love, and ultimately, ourselves.

Because before we had language, we had sensation. Before we had meaning, we had experience. And we had our bodies, long before the mind begins to remember what it means to be held, or not.

And it is this body that grows up.

This same body enters adulthood carrying an internal blueprint of intimacy one that is rarely conscious, yet deeply influential. When we begin to form romantic and sexual relationships, we are not starting from a blank slate. We are, in many ways, returning to something familiar.

But familiarity is not only personal. It is also cultural.

Across many African households, love has often been expressed through provision, responsibility, and sacrifice, rather than overt emotional or physical tenderness. A parent’s love may be unquestionable, yet not always verbally affirmed or physically demonstrated beyond what was necessary. Strength, respect, and endurance are prioritised sometimes at the expense of softer expressions of care.

In British contexts, there may be a different tension. Emotional expression may be more permitted, yet still shaped by restraint, independence, and an unspoken expectation to “hold oneself together.” Affection exists, but often within quiet boundaries.

For many of us living between cultures, these messages intertwine.

We may have been deeply loved but not always held in ways that our bodies could easily recognise as soothing or safe. Touch may have been functional rather than affectionate. Emotional needs may have been met with practicality rather than attunement.

And so, as adults, we carry not only our personal histories but cultural inheritances of love.

This is where intimacy becomes layered.

Some may long for closeness yet feel uncertain when it arrives.
Some may equate love with sacrifice rather than emotional presence.
Some may struggle to receive tenderness without questioning its permanence.

And in sexual relationships, these patterns often deepen.

Because sex is one of the few spaces where touch becomes intentional, prolonged, and emotionally charged. It asks the body to soften, to receive, to be seen not just physically, but psychologically.

Yet if the body has not learned that closeness is consistently safe, it may:

Tense instead of soften

Disconnect instead of remain present

Seek reassurance while simultaneously fearing dependence

This is not contradiction. It is conditioning.

In therapy, we begin to understand that many of our adult relational patterns are not simply about the present partner, but about the intersection between early attachment and cultural messaging.

The woman who struggles to ask for emotional needs may have been raised to value strength over vulnerability.
The man who withdraws from intimacy may have learned that emotional expression is a risk rather than a resource.
The couple who love deeply yet struggle to settle may both be navigating inherited ideas about what love should look like.

To be intimate, then, is not only to meet another person.

It is to meet
your history,
your body,
your culture,
and the quiet, inherited rules you may never have consciously chosen.

This is why intimacy can feel so powerful why it can soothe, undo, and awaken in equal measure.

And why, at times, it can leave you feeling exposed in ways you cannot quite name.

Because somewhere within the adult body lives the memory of the child
the one who learned what love felt like,
or what it did not.

The one who learned whether closeness was safe,
whether touch could be trusted,
whether presence would stay.

So when you find yourself leaning in…
or pulling away…
softening… or bracing…

perhaps it is not confusion.

Perhaps it is memory.

Not always conscious.
Not always clear.
But present, nonetheless.

And so the invitation is gentle.

To become curious, rather than critical.
To notice, rather than judge.
To listen not only to the mind, but to the body that has been speaking all along.

Because intimacy is not something we simply learn once.

It is something we unlearn, return to, and reshape again and again.

And maybe, just maybe,
love in adulthood is not about getting it right…

but about learning how to stay
soft enough to feel,
steady enough to remain,
and open enough to experience love
in a way that is no longer bound only by where we began.

Warmly

Jules