The Do Good Team Podcast

Episode 8 - A Retrospective on the Definitions of Love for 2023

• David & Nora as The Do Good Team LLC

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What does love mean to you? As we bid farewell to 2023, we bring together the vibrant palette of reflections on what love means to each of our guests over the past year. This special episode promises to redefine love and its elements, with a focus on compassion, empathetic understanding, and the power of giving undivided attention. Our conversations highlight the notion of sacrificial love, showcasing numerous acts of kindness and service, which truly form the backbone of our communities.

Tune in as we unpack the profound impact of these unique definitions of love on our lives, and how they shape our shared human experience.

David:

Hi, this is David at the Duke Good Team podcast. You can be an active part of the Duke Good team by sharing episodes with at least one other person to help raise awareness of the amazing nonprofits and organizations we highlight. Leaving a five-star review and interacting with us on social media is great, but if you do just one thing, please share an episode with at least one other person. Thank you, and on to our episode.

Nora:

You're listening to episode 8 of the Duke Good Team podcast a collection of 2023's definitions of love.

David:

Hello Duke Gooders out there and thank you so much for listening to another episode of the Duke Good Team a podcast where we highlight nonprofits and charitable causes with the goal of improving your life and those around you through inspiration and creating meaningful connections. I am one of your hosts, david.

Nora:

Hello everyone, and I am your co-host, nora.

David:

And we are closing out 2023. What a really great year it's been. It's our first year with this podcast. It's grown, it's been an amazing adventure between Nora and I. It's been really fun and it's been really fun interacting with you all. So thank you so much to everybody who's left a review, shout us an email or interact with us on social media. We really really appreciate it.

Nora:

Yes, Thank you so much everybody. We are super excited about this episode. This is a very special episode where we have had the opportunity to compile the definitions of love from the entire year. We are very excited to be closing out 2023 with the wonderful words of our invited guests. These words are full of positivity and get the world thinking about how we can go into 2024 with a heart full of love and thinking and serving others.

David:

I couldn't have said it better myself, nora. So we're not going to have an outro to this episode today. We're just going to close out with the words of love and inspiration from all of our guests. So I'm just going to let you know right now that if you want to send us an email, shoot us an email at thedogoodteam at gmailcom. You can find us on social media. And, additionally, if you do one thing and I said it at the top of the episode again if you do just one thing, please share this episode or this podcast with just one other person. You never know who needs to hear these words of inspiration and love. It can really make a meaningful change in somebody's life. Before we head off to the inspiration of love. Did I miss anything? Love?

Nora:

I don't think that you have. Just we want to remind you to catch us in our first episode in January and see you in the new year.

David:

See you in the new year, everybody, and don't forget to do some good and spread some love out there and juntos somos un buen equipo. Together we're a good team. Take care.

Michelle Lavigeuer:

My definition, gosh, I just I think of compassion and empathy. When you said that, just loving others the way we want to be loved, active listening, god does command us to love Him and love others. So to me, it's not just something that we do, it's something we're commanded to do and I think oftentimes, when we've been through struggles and trials, you know, we do develop that deeper empathy for other people. And for me personally, I feel like that's happened in my life and so, yeah, I just think, listening, active listening to people, hearing about them, having compassion, having empathy, seeing them. People want to be seen and heard and known, and so I think that's all part of it, part of loving someone.

Paul Armstrong:

Well, yeah, I think it do. Obviously we are. I'm a person of faith, and so my definition of love does get defined by my faith and very specifically in my, in my relationship with Jesus. So I'm a follower of His and His example. So one of His quotes is there's no greater love has someone, then, when they lay down their life for a friend? And so the fact of that sacrificial, that willingness to go hey, you know what I've been invited to give sacrificially, in a way that demonstrates what God has done in my own life, knowing that God made the ultimate sacrifice and did the ultimate work, I am then invited to follow in His footsteps, and the more I follow in His footsteps, the better able I am to show love.

Julie Lopicolo:

For me, if I can help a family not have to experience the loss of that love, that is an act of love, in a way that I can keep His love inside me, since I can't physically be with Him anymore. So for me it's, you know, the love I have for my children and the way that they make us better, even if we don't experience loss, the way that our children make us see the world differently and be better people. It's such a gift.

Hector Cervantes:

Oh man, that's a good question. You know, if I had to put words to it, I would say just caring and showing up, you know, and doing for the benefit of others, for collective well-being. You know, in this case I'm doing it for a specific student population, but for individuals in your life, for society, for showing up and doing for the benefit of others is love, and for yourself too.

Nora:

Thank you, that was beautiful, hector.

Keramet Reiter:

I often think of it as just treating others the way I would want to be treated with as much compassion as possible. But I also think of doing this work as creating the space for other people to be able to do that too, right. I mean, I think often just there's not the emotional space or resources for so many people who've been so failed by the systems over and over again. And sometimes I think of this work as just making, making room for other people to be able to love or celebrate or care for their communities, giving kind of giving the space and resources to make that even imaginable and possible.

Darnesha Weary:

Well, you know, my middle name is actually love. It's my name is. My full name is Darnisha Love-Weary, I know, and so my definition of love is empathy. It's seeing people for people first, first seeing a human as a human that is layered, complex, sometimes chaotic, sometimes not, but everyone has their own story, everyone brings their own stuff and we just love everyone. Because you are existing and because you're here and because you woke up today, we know you have purpose and we hope that you know you have purpose. And I see you as a person first, regardless of how you act, regardless of the hate that you spew, regardless of how you may or may not show up, I see you as a person first and I believe that that's love and that's what we need more of in our community is the empathy, and that we see people as people.

Darnesha Weary:

I make mistakes every single day. I may not show up when I'm stressed. Everybody thinks you're going to see it, everyone around me is going to know it when I'm stressed, and so I may not show up all the time. You know on, you know ten and always in it, but I want people to see me the same, that I'm a person.

Darnesha Weary:

I'm complex and maybe I'm gone through something you know, and I want that to be, and that's my definition of love is that we see people as people and we love them. We love them through it and I will never. I love when people say to me like I know you've got our back, like I know Black Coffee has my back, I know you guys got our back, and that just lets me know that they feel the love and that they see us. And even though these kids might one day, I just want to like put everybody out and be like look, y'all are wild out today, like there is a lot going on, but I'll never, never let them go and I will never not be there to support them, and that's what love means to me.

Barbara Fobian:

Okay, I thought about this. I don't know if it's really a definition, but I did write it down so I'm gonna read it. I always God shows me unconditional love, accepting all of my faults and failings. In turn, I show unconditional love to my family and friends. But Jesus teaches us love is also shown through kindness and helping others. This is the type of love the assistance league and I try to show with Operation School Bell Program.

Lindsay Wood:

My definition of love. It's such a great question and I know we chatted once before and I was surprised and kind of pleased by that question. And the reason is because that is a question that I asked myself frequently, and here's kind of the background there. I have a very dear mentor in this field. Her name is Dr Susan Friedman, and a couple of years ago I was stomping my feet about some behavioral thing and something that I, as a behaviorist, I wanted my dog to love some problem stimulus, some problem event, right, I was really focused on my dog at the time. She needed to love it and Dr Friedman looked at me and she said me too, what does love look like? And it has stuck with me almost every day and in a variety of ways I think about this question. I'm a mom of two little girls and there are many times where I ask myself, okay, what does love look like and what can I do to teach them what love looks like? And I'm a behaviorist, right. So love is this ambiguous term and it's really hard to define. But as a behaviorist and with my mentor's help, what I have figured out is that for me, with my behavior lens, love looks like observable behaviors, and some of those observable behaviors I can really reinforce with positive reinforcement, whether it's my dog or it's my child. And, for example, when one daughter stubs her toe right or falls off her bike which happened recently the other one is running to get an ice pack for the first aid kit, right, that's what love looks like in that condition between my two little girls. I think with my dog, right, love might look like, you know, I'm in it, he's not feeling well right now, and love looks like we're just sitting outside together and I, you know, we're watching the squirrels and maybe I'm offering him some food and maybe I'm not, if he doesn't feel like eating, you know. So this question is something I think about often.

Lindsay Wood:

I remember when the pandemic hit and my oldest daughter then she was only in second grade and suddenly she couldn't see her friends anymore, and so we'd go out here into our front yard we'd live in the suburbs and her friends would come by and they'd stand in the street so they could wave to each other. And I remember looking at her. She was confused and I said honey, this is what love looks like right now, this is what love looks like today. So that's in a very long-winded way, my trying to say that I think my definition of love looks like observable behaviors that are reinforcing to the other person and reinforcing to that person. It's ways that we, you know, behaviors that we perform, that help and that we find positively reinforcing.

Lindsay Wood:

That's probably what I love about pets. For vets so much Right is. I think that that is a big part of what Clarissa has developed in what I see here. It's the what is this dog? Who is this dog? What do they have to offer? And this veteran what do they need? What does love look like to the veteran in that moment? Does he need the dog who is going to snuggle up against him? That what love looks like for this veteran? It might be, or is it? Love looks like we go on long walks together, right? So what does it look like in terms of behaviors?