Customer Reviews

Loving People: How to Love and Be Loved

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The three most powerful words ever spoken are still "I love you!" They have the ability to transform relationships, families and communities. When real love is expressed, people naturally come alive, heal and become who they were created to be. In LOVING PEOPLE, Dr. John Townsend explores the important role love plays in personal growth and relationships. Apart from love, we simply cannot grow spiritually, emotionally or personally.

Townsend launches by defining love as simply "seeking and doing the best for another." This definition holds up throughout the book as he reminds readers time and time again to pay attention to the other person's best interest.

Loving and being loved go hand in hand. They allow you to become the loving person you were designed to be. Learning to love has countless benefits. It will naturally help you develop better and healthier relationships. Learning to love also increases your capacity for intimacy. You can love at a deeper level. Whenever you're facing trials, stress or struggles, love empowers you to get through. And loving goes hand in hand with joy and happiness. As you learn to love and be loved, you can't help but experience success and achieve some of your dreams. In the process, you'll develop leadership abilities and help others.

Townsend believes there are five key aspects of love. The first is connecting --- making a deep emotional bond with someone. Connecting is essential to meaningful friendships and allows you to talk about issues that you don't tend to discuss with others. The second is truth-telling --- having the courage to speak the truth in love. Whenever you're truth-telling you naturally have the other person's best interests at heart and express the truth in a way that makes them understand and want to respond. The third is healing. Some readers may wonder why this is included, but this chapter examines the fact that we are all broken and in need of healing. When we truly love and learn to be loved, we bring healing to people's lives, hearts and souls that can't be measured. The fourth is simply letting go and recognizing when it's time to move on. Romancing is the final aspect of loving and being loved, and it is the unique love experienced in a marriage.

Throughout each chapter, Townsend provides time-tested, easy-to understand advice. He warns of the emotional and physical damage that isolation can cause and invites readers to reach out and connect with others --- including the unlovable. Writes Townsend:

"One of the most important realities of the nature of love is that the `lovability' of the other person is ultimately irrelevant. Said another way, the more we require the other person to be lovable in order to care, the less loving we are. The converse is also true: the less we require the other person to be lovable, the more loving we are."

Insights and thought-provoking statements like these line the pages. The result is a book that everyone can benefit from. By the time you finish reading it, you'll discover that "I love you" means a whole lot more than you thought it did and looking for ways to express and experience those words in attitude and action.

--- Reviewed by Margaret Oines

So often we find ourselves in the middle of stress and anxiety and wanting to run away from it all. There are two sides to being in that situation. We are either the ones trying to heal from wounds or we are the ones trying to help another heal from their wounds. Either side can bring on feelings that block the love and peace that is so important for us to feel and experience daily. Dr. John Townsend really shows in this book, Loving People, the need of healthy and deep connections with others in order to heal from pain in our own lives. If you've ever wanted to become emotionally healthy or to treat people better in your life, this book can help you get there. Townsend shows the importance of dealing with your own issues and gives great advice on how to do that. He then shows how to pass the love on. I believe so many people think they know how to love one another but fall short because of not truly connecting with others and taking time to understand someone else. This often is because they are still in a circle of pain themselves. Dr. John Townsend lays out the foundation you need in order to stop running from issues in your life, deal with pain in a very healthy manner, and then experience the gratification of passing that love on. This book is an excellent resource in learning 'How to Love & Be Loved' so you can start 'Loving People'. This is a great book!

I love this book and my husband loves this book. It breaks down what is so basic to those of us brought up in strong families, but what a lot of people don't understand love to be: putting another before yourself. It's such a practical book really breaking down the process of "love" into steps. So if someone you know doesn't really get what it means to love, I highly recommend this book.

Of, if you've been taught that true happiness is found in a new flat screen, a fabulous car and the next great trend, remind yourself what our ancestors knew, great relationships are the only thing worth caring for. The book should be subtitled, "How to have more than ten people at your funeral."

Practical, insightful. I was so impressed by this book that I decided to use it as the basis of the "40-Days of Love" series we had at our church. Over a period of six weeks, people read the book and then met in small discussion groups. Parts of it are "deceptively simple," i.e., what he writes sounds obvious, but when we got into how it applies to our personal lives and how we would change our behaviors we realized the depth and importance of what Townsend was writing.

In my opinion this book touches on topics that have not been discussed before when discussing the complexities of love. I am not finished the book, but have already been impacted by the knowledge that has been so eloquently displayed. The light bulb moment for me was when he explained co-dependency. I am still working through this book and am sure to go back to various chapters as I go on in life and love.

The information in this book is life changing.

Henry Cloud and John Townsend's books (e.g. Boundaries) are usually loaded with gold. This one, by Townsend alone, is no exception. As in their other books, here he reveal issues from angles I had never seen them from before, and he does it with such clarity I am truly grateful.

The book is overflowing with illuminating insights about what works and doesn't work in our interactions with those we purport to love.

P. 30: "Love is at its best, and you are at your best, when you care about people who are not very lovable. ...Unlovable people, like all people, need to be sought, not tolerated. ...No one deserves love, but everyone needs love."

Pages 51-55 alone are worth the price of admission. "Connecting People are Connected People." Townsend shows how Kyle grows when he learns something new that he didn't learn at home: how to connect emotionally by getting his partner to share with him what she is feeling. Kyle learned to experience the world through her eyes--and her heart.

Highly recommended.

This book is very helpful in teaching me how to be more loving. Having been raised in a dysfunctional family, I am learning a lot from it that I did not know before. Since the first great commandment (Matthew 22:36-40) is to love God, and the second is to love people, I would like to grow in this area. Love is not so much an emotion as an intention. I appreciate anything by this author, as his books always help me grow.

Dr Townsend really nailed our issues. This book allowed me to know I wasn't crazy and validated feelings that I had for a long time. It showed me why I do the things I do too.
It gave me a place to start and get some help. Very insightful and really helped me to let go.

Before reading this book, I wasn't sure if I would learn and be changed by it's words, but boy, was I wrong!
There are a ton of different things that the author goes through, from how you live to what you do that can affect your relational life with others. Many topics get touched upon and delved into very deeply, with anecdotes and research to back up the author's claims. If you are a Christian, he also supplements his advice through Scripture, as well.
Regardless of where you come from, if you have a desire to become a more loving person and to become a person who can receive love, this book is a definite buy!

I am really enjoying this book. It is helpful in understanding the dynamics of loving others from a biblical perspective and provides practical steps for making positive changes in one's life.