tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9218282841865198852024-03-13T12:23:36.827-05:00What is LOVE, Dr. Cookerly?This website is all about healthy real love: the strong, powerful and effective kind. The kind that changes and improves almost everything. The kind of love that heals, inspires, empowers, elevates, ennobles, and makes life worth living. The healthy real love that fixes life’s problems, drives relationships forward and makes the human condition brighter and better. It is not about the sappy, weak, foolish little things sometimes called love or “just sex”.drcookerlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09047208304726023746noreply@blogger.comBlogger350125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-921828284186519885.post-57019299604690905802024-03-10T14:30:00.000-05:002024-03-10T21:55:50.890-05:00Behaviors That Make And Grow Friendship Love<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Ry1MDvOkjSs/WmlNCab9gII/AAAAAAAAANE/XsSWhlM6L-goawN0DLXfgwZKJPonC1zdQCLcBGAs/s1600/behaviors-that-make350.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="380" data-original-width="350" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Ry1MDvOkjSs/WmlNCab9gII/AAAAAAAAANE/XsSWhlM6L-goawN0DLXfgwZKJPonC1zdQCLcBGAs/s320/behaviors-that-make350.jpg" width="294" /></a></div>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
Mini-Love-Lesson # 204</h3>
<h6>
One of over 300 <strong>FREE</strong> mini-love-lessons touching the lives of thousands in over 190 countries -worldwide!</h6>
<h4>
<span style="color: #38761d;"><strong>Synopsis:</strong> Discover Core, Critical, and Cardinal
types of behavior which make friendship happen at all levels from mild
to profound. Then explore the extremely important and highly useful
research revealed 12 major subcategories of friendship actions. A
recommendation for usage and furthering your friendship life, plus a few
resources for learning more are also given.</span></h4>
<div>
<br /></div>
<h3>
Without Action Nothing Happens</h3>
Friendships, like love, require actions backed by emotions and
thought. Without certain kinds of behavior occurring, friendships
cannot be started, grown, maintained, re-established or repaired.
Thanks mostly to research in social psychology and what is starting to
be known as loveology “<a href="https://www.whatislovedrcookerly.com/2018/02/is-there-really-new-field-called.html" target="_blank"><strong>Is There Really A New Field Called Loveology?</strong></a>”,
we know a fair amount about what those behaviors are. Interestingly,
they turn out to be rather similar to the behaviors associated with the
getting and giving of healthy, real love. What follows is a
summarization of the behaviors that make friendship happen stemming from
some of that growing body of research.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Understanding Friendship at Three Levels</h3>
Friendship can be seen to occur at different levels. Some
researchers use the three categories scale starting with mild or light
or just beginning friendship, then go to medium but significant
friendship, and then on to deep and/or profound friendship love “<a href="https://www.whatislovedrcookerly.com/2018/02/understanding-friendship-from-mild.html" target="_blank"><strong>Understanding Friendship, From Mild Geniality to Profound Love</strong></a>”.<br />
<br />
It is suggested that the behaviors that bring about each level are
best viewed and understood in ways that are rather different in each of
the three levels. Keeping this in mind helps to understand friendship
and friendship actions more fully, accurately and more than
superficially. Like love, friendship does not turn out to be simple.
However, with a little concentrated work, clarity, usefulness and ways
to make abundant friendship improvements can become easily evident. So,
to gain the valuable benefits of Friendship and Friendship Love and
reap those rewards, we suggest you may want to apply yourself to what
follows.<br />
<br />
<h3>
The Three Major Groups of Friendship Behavior</h3>
Friendship behaviors have been classified in three major groups. Here they are called<br />
Group I, <em>The Core Behaviors of Friendship</em><br />
Group II, T<em>he Crucial Behaviors of Friendship</em><br />
Group III, T<em>he Cardinal Behaviors of Friendship</em><br />
All three groups contain four more exact and highly important
subcategories. These subcategories are quite similar to a research
approach used for categorizing the many behaviors that have been seen to
convey and result in healthy real, love and improved love
relationships.<br />
<br />
<strong>I. CORE BEHAVIORS OF FRIENDSHIP</strong><br />
These are the behaviors best focused on for starting friendships,
maintaining mild or light friendships and for generally being friendly
and available for forming new friendships. These behaviors continue to
be important in categories II and III and in the subcategories of more
comprehensive and advanced friendship behaviors.<br />
<br />
<strong>1. Expressional Friendliness</strong> Includes: Facial
Expression (smiles, looks of interest, caring attentiveness, etc.),
Voice Expression (tone, speed, upbeat, volume, positiveness, etc.),
Gestural Expression (open arms, waving, thumbs up, etc.), Postural and
Stance Expression (moving toward, standing beside, leaning toward,
etc.). Note that all forms of expression by motion, (face, body, etc.)
have been found to manifest about 55% of the communication value in
informal, personal conversations. Voice expression carries about 35% of
the communication value (words only 7%).<br />
<br />
<strong>2. Tactile (Touch) Friendliness</strong> Includes tap
touches (especially good in beginning friendships), pats, buddy hugs,
hand holding, upper body hugs and later full body hugs, etc.). Such
touches are best begun mildly, lightly, quickly, non-invasively,
non-romantically and non-sexually and have been known to frequently and
rapidly accelerate the development of friendship.<br />
<br />
<strong>3. Verbal Friendliness</strong> Includes using friendly,
positive words like “good, fine, okay, yes”, polite words like “thank
you, you’re welcome, first names”, asking friendly questions, assistive
statements like “can I help, can I assist you with that”, supportive
words like “I agree”, I am so glad you told me that, I see it that way
too” etc. Note: Do not be phony but do go out of your way to look for
sincere reasons to say such things. Words, by the way, have been found
to be only about 7% of the communication value in typical, informal,
personal interactions.<br />
<br />
<strong>4. Gifting Friendliness</strong> Giving both <em>object gifts</em> and <em>experience gifts</em>
can be quite helpful in friendship development so long as the gifting
is not overdone, overly expensive, overly frequent or, at first, overly
personal. Giving someone a book is an object gift and taking someone to
a movie they want to see is an experience gift. Experience gifts and
symbolic object gifts usually are more impactful than practical gifts.<br />
<br />
<strong>II. CRUCIAL BEHAVIORS OF FRIENDSHIP</strong><br />
Here you find the behaviors to focus on for having deeper and more
significant friendships. These behaviors are seen as crucial for
growing a friendship from mild to significant and with lasting
meaningfulness.<br />
<br />
<strong>1. Affirmational Friendship</strong> Included here are
honest praises, compliments, statements of personal appreciation,
approval, respect and validation along with actions like sharing
emotional experiences together, taking a friend’s side in a dispute,
coming to a friend’s aid, just being there ready to help, celebrating a
friend’s victories and special occasions, etc. and any other action
which affirms the worth and importance of an individual to you
personally.<br />
<br />
<strong> 2. Self-Disclosure Friendship</strong> Included here is
revealing, by both word and action, your personal and more private
idiosyncrasies, foibles, preferences, personal problems, failures,
victories, peculiarities, embarrassments, enjoyments, items of pride and
joy, and anything else that lets yourself be both more intimately known
and vulnerable. Also included is the willingness to empathetically and
nonjudgmentally hear the same kind of disclosures from another. It is
by this process that friendship becomes intimate and usually more
powerfully bonded.<br />
<br />
<strong>3. Tolerational Friendship</strong> As friendships continue
and grow, friends run into each other’s less than pleasant aspects.
That is where friendships encounter the challenge of toleration.
However, some things are not to be tolerated or tolerated only
temporarily. For many, anything which is demonstrably harmful or
destructive to anyone’s life, health or well-being fits in this
category. <br />
<br />
Notwithstanding that caution, issues of fairness, freedom,
truth, compassion, altruism and love also are to be considered here.
Lesser issues of intolerance especially for minor irritations,
aggravations and annoyances suggest the possibility of a kind of mental
self torturing occurring that correlates with secret or subconscious low
self love on the part of the one who feels intolerance for these
things.<br />
<br />
<strong>4. Receptional Friendship</strong> It is a gift of
friendship, and possibly of love, to receive well the actions of
friendship and love which come from others. It is receptionally loving
to sincerely focus on those actions and who they come from, to
purposefully appreciate them and then, more than perfunctorily, show
that appreciation. It is important to spend time truly appreciating the
friendly and positive treatment you get from others, and not fake it.
When you fake it or pass it off too quickly, you do not really receive
it or let it do you good. That, in turn, reduces real friendship
connecting.<br />
<br />
<strong>III. CARDINAL BEHAVIORS OF FRIENDSHIP<br />
</strong>For growing deep, profound and lasting friendship love, the
following subcategories are best focused on because they are seen to be
of Cardinal Importance in this more profound process. They encompass
and are supported by the two groups and eight subcategories of behavior
already described, plus they go deeper, broader and higher in their
focus. Thus, they yield a substantially deeper, broader and higher
experience, more comprehension and sensing of friendship and the actions
involved in creating profound friendship.<br />
<br />
<strong>1. Nurturing Friendship</strong> Included here are all the
behaviors that help people grow and become more than they were.
Nurturing friendship actions are supportive, encouraging, challenging,
comforting, difficult truth telling, rewarding, understanding, valuing,
sharing, honoring, appreciating, affirming and everything else which
helps a person become more of the good things they can become. Also
included are the actions which help someone find and develop their own
potentials, better meet their own challenges and better fulfill their
own aspirations.<br />
<br />
Nurturing means to assist in ways that strengthen, assists in making
more effective, more complete, more accurately self honoring and more
healthfully self loving. It also means to do nurturing in ways that are
in accord with another’s nature and ways of being their own unique
self. Some examples might be helping someone fulfill a lifelong dream,
discover and actualize a hidden talent, improve general life skills and
coping abilities, win at love or find ways to enjoy life more fully.<br />
<br />
<strong> 2. Protectional Friendship</strong> Real friends and true
comrades are protective of each other’s safety and well-being and that
protection often extends to their friends, family and important others.
Such friends stand together in facing adversity, are allies against
enemies and in overcoming destructive occurrences. They are often on
the alert to warn of approaching damage, hurt and harm and are sensitive
to and on guard about not being overprotective. The phrase “I’ve got
your back” typifies this aspect of friendship and the behaviors it
brings forth.<br />
<br />
<strong> 3. Healing Friendship</strong> The research shows that
friendships are very helpful in healing many maladies and injuries. If
someone you are close to in friendship is injured or ill you tend to act
in whatever ways you can to help them get better. In doing that, your
assistive healing influence is practical and obvious. But just being
there with them or even close by, has been discovered to often have a
surprising and mysterious healing and healthful effect.<br />
<br />
This is true
among the physically sick, injured and debilitated and even those
undergoing various normal medical procedures like pregnancy and birth.
This is even more true among those psychologically in need of healing.
Just going through a difficulty knowing someone who cares is there for
you has a more than is completely understood, healthful effect on many.
In the area of relationship healing, such friendship has been known to
save lives, children’s mental health and whole family’s existence.<br />
<br />
<strong> 4. Metaphysical Friendship</strong> Praying for a friend
is the most common metaphysical behavior of friendship but around the
world there are many others done in various cultures and societies.
Lighting a candle at an altar, flying a prayer flag, creating a
blessing-type sand painting, doing liturgical dancing for spiritually
honoring of a loved one or deep friend, the reverential reading of
sacred texts, spiritual chanting, singing spirituals, envisioning white
and gold light exercises, ritual washing and baptizing and a host of
greatly varying religious and spiritual rituals, all constitute
metaphysical behaviors that are sometimes done by friends on behalf of
friends.<br />
<br />
It is hard to prove scientifically but there are well conducted
studies showing surprisingly positive and supporting results for doing
all of these kinds of metaphysical behaviors. For certain, they often
are beneficial to those who do the behaviors and for the target people
who are aware of the behaviors being done on their behalf. But what
about those in deep unconscious states, those unaware that such actions
are being conducted and aimed at them, those geographically far away and
especially what about the loved dogs, horses, cows and other animals
for which such metaphysical actions seem to benefit. One of the things
we do know is that metaphysical, or spiritual if you will, behaviors are
enacted often with intense emotional energy, great sincerity and
profound love by and for friends. They, therefore, constitute this
separate category of Cardinal Friendship behavior.<br />
<br />
<strong>Recommendation:</strong> To improve your life’s friendship
situation, give special attention to the 12 subcategories above and
choose which ones you want to make improvements in. Then set to work on
doing so, as you also work to do so from deep inside your <strong><em>heart self</em></strong>.<br />
<br />
For further friendship understanding link to mini-love-lessons <strong>“<a href="https://www.whatislovedrcookerly.com/2018/02/friendship-love-and-its-extraordinary_4.html" target="_blank">Friendship and Its Extraordinary Importance</a>”</strong>, <strong>“<a href="https://www.whatislovedrcookerly.com/2018/02/friendship-like-to-friendship-love.html" target="_blank">Friendship ‘Like’ to Friendship ‘Love’</a>”,</strong> and <strong>“<a href="https://www.whatislovedrcookerly.com/2018/02/understanding-friendship-from-mild.html" target="_blank">Understanding Friendship, From Mild Geniality to Profound Love</a>”</strong>.<br />
<br />
Some books you might want to read: <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/067167336X/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=067167336X&linkCode=as2&tag=movmacnew-20&linkId=6bc10d1004ab3ca25538a25b5b98cb56"><strong><u>Love and Friendship</u></strong></a> by Allan Bloom, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0807027251/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0807027251&linkCode=as2&tag=movmacnew-20&linkId=R25G6GDYIDJBUSIS"><strong><u>Friends As Family</u></strong></a> by Karen Lindsey, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0025117602/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0025117602&linkCode=as2&tag=movmacnew-20&linkId=2YYDVF6354365OBH"><strong><u>Friendship: How to Give It, How to Get It</u></strong></a> by Dr. Joel D. Block, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0806635711/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0806635711&linkCode=as2&tag=movmacnew-20&linkId=24a0d84b8f4ce6784e09752bf75d8ac2"><strong><u>The Friendship Factor</u></strong></a> by Alan Loy McGinnis, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0895050536/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0895050536&linkCode=as2&tag=movmacnew-20&linkId=9728214da2b699d4646c75003ce8cf92"><strong><u>Friendship</u></strong></a> by Martin E. Marty, <u>The <strong>Meaning of Friendship</strong></u> by Dr. & Sufi Master Nurbakhsh and <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1507726392/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1507726392&linkCode=as2&tag=movmacnew-20&linkId=685df668b744f0b86eb655f4d3fdce9f"><strong><u>How to Make Friends As an Introvert</u></strong></a> by Nate Nicholson.<br />
<br />
As always – Go and Grow with love<br />
<br />
<h4>
<span style="color: #38761d;">Dr. J. Richard Cookerly</span></h4>
<div>
<br /></div>
<em>PS: Help spread love knowledge. Tell somebody about this site – okay?</em><br />
<em><br /></em>
<strong><span style="color: red;">♥</span> Love Success Question:</strong>
Are you going to evaluate your own friendship actions using the 12
kinds of behavior described above? (By the way, with just a few
adaptations you also can use the same 12 behaviors for evaluating your
love behaviors in each type of love relationship – parent, mate, self,
etc.).<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="yarpp-related">
Related posts:<br />
<ol>
<li><a href="https://www.whatislovedrcookerly.com/2018/02/friendship-like-to-friendship-love.html" rel="bookmark" target="_blank" title="Friendship “Like” to Friendship “Love”">Friendship “Like” to Friendship “Love” </a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.whatislovedrcookerly.com/2018/02/friendship-love-and-its-extraordinary_4.html" rel="bookmark" target="_blank" title="Friendship Love And Its Extraordinary Importance">Friendship Love And Its Extraordinary Importance </a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.whatislovedrcookerly.com/2018/02/understanding-friendship-from-mild.html" rel="bookmark" target="_blank" title="Understanding Friendship: From Mild Geniality to Profound Love">Understanding Friendship: From Mild Geniality to Profound Love </a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.whatislovedrcookerly.com/2018/01/behaviors-that-give-love-basic-core-four.html" rel="bookmark" target="_blank" title="Behaviors That Give Love – The Basic Core Four">Behaviors That Give Love – The Basic Core Four </a></li>
<li><a href="http://whatislovedrcookerly.com/711/dealing-with-love-hurts-a-dozen-love-hurts-to-know-and-grow-from/" rel="bookmark" target="_blank" title="Dealing with Love Hurts: A Dozen Love Hurts to Know and Grow From">Dealing with Love Hurts: A Dozen Love Hurts to Know and Grow From </a></li>
</ol>
</div>
drcookerlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09047208304726023746noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-921828284186519885.post-65257576918698390392024-03-03T02:30:00.000-06:002024-03-03T15:58:54.467-06:00Re-Sparking Your Love<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8SP5l9TOqlU/WoOEoMSDGzI/AAAAAAAAAyg/aRKaCSE3YJEDKz66LnNa7tT9dORQ_LDhACLcBGAs/s1600/re-sparking-your-love350.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="336" data-original-width="350" height="306" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8SP5l9TOqlU/WoOEoMSDGzI/AAAAAAAAAyg/aRKaCSE3YJEDKz66LnNa7tT9dORQ_LDhACLcBGAs/s320/re-sparking-your-love350.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<h4>
<span style="color: #38761d;">Synopsis: ‘Sparking’ is first explained, then ascending, leveling
off and sinking love relationships; and those in need of re-sparking are
discussed; and finally 10 not so usual how-to’s for re-sparking a love
relationship </span></h4>
<div>
<br /></div>
<h3>
Sparking</h3>
In years gone by couples talked about sparking, or sparking up their
romantic or love-mated relationships.<br />
<br />
Sparking could be anything from
suggestive flirting to writing and reading love poems, to passionate
kissing and erotic fondling. Sparking up could be returning to dating
actions, dancing, being seductive and engaging in more than usual sexual
action. All this was aimed at causing “sparky” or enlivened, desirable
feelings together. Today in our busy world lots of couples could use
some sparking or re-sparking.<br />
<h3>
Ascending, Leveling off or Sinking?</h3>
What do you think of the idea that says ‘if you’re love life isn’t
growing’ its dying’? A great many couples don’t consciously know it but
they have been subconsciously programmed to think that in the early
stages of a love relationship it’s all exciting and automatically
growing, but then it levels off, and if all goes well it just stays
leveled off and ongoing. Sort of like a mesa (a flat top mountain),
there’s the climbing up, and you reach the flat place, and you walk on
the flat place from then on, until the end and you fall off or have to
climb down. Others think that at least some romantic relationships are
more like a another type of mountain, one you can keep going higher and
higher on.<br />
<br />
Then of course there are those who think of romantic relationships
more like a swamp, but we will not deal with that right now. In your
love relationships, not only with a romantic love partner, but with
children and family, with friends, etc. do you think you are going about
it in a way that is ascending, i.e. getting better and better, or
leveling off, or slowly perhaps, sinking?<br />
<br />
Some think there is no such
thing as leveling off, there is only very slow deterioration or
declining slope. That is the ‘you are growing, or you are dying’ point
of view. It is true that lots of spouse-type love relationships do level
off and become dull, emotionally flat or bland, and that can lead to
stagnation and deterioration without people noticing it soon enough.
That is when ‘re-sparking’ your love relationship is likely to help in
more ways than you might imagine.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Re-Sparking How to’s and Science</h3>
Here are some suggestions, backed up by some scientific evidence as to what they might accomplish:<br />
1. <em><strong>Kiss more, longer and with more variety.</strong></em>
Studies at Arizona State University found that couples instructed to
kiss more often, reduce their stress hormones and cholesterol levels,
along with increasing their happiness.<br />
<br />
2. <em><strong>Touch more, especially more lovingly and intimately.</strong></em>
Don’t just have perfunctory sex, or if sex has become difficult, do
much more caressing, intimate cuddling, and tender erotic and
affectionate stroking.<br />
<br />
3. <em><strong>Look with love.</strong></em> While mentally focusing on
how you love each other, look lengthily into each other’s eyes when
talking, don’t just glance, really look with appreciation. The
University of California researchers discovered that couples who have
good eye contact, and especially with affectionate touching, were a lot
happier and felt a lot more appreciated than others.<br />
<br />
4. <em><strong>Talk nice.</strong></em> Remember your voice tones can
send very different messages than the words you say. Also remember ‘The
5to1 Ratio’. Replicated research at several institutions has shown that
couples who average ‘five positive, affirming comments’ to ‘every
negative remark’ do the best in happiness and successful, lasting love
relating. So praise, compliment and voice thanks frequently. Couples who
get ‘5 negatives’ to ‘every positive’ end, or go on in misery
endlessly.<br />
<br />
5. <em><strong>Sleep close.</strong></em> In Britain researchers
discovered that couples who touch as they go to sleep, while they sleep,
and when they wake up, and couples who snuggle a lot, and are usually
within an inch or less of each other at night are happiest. It seems
‘the further apart physically, the further apart emotionally’. If there
are medical reasons not to sleep together, cuddle more before and after
sleep.<br />
<br />
6. <em><strong>Do new things together.</strong></em> Go new places, take
a class together, volunteer, work together for a cause you both are
for, learn a new kind of dancing and meet new people. If you want to add
new sparks to your heart-life, do new things together that require some
learning together. That comes from studies done at the Marital Studies
Lab, University of North Carolina.<br />
<br />
7. <em><strong>Play with sex toys together.</strong></em> Research done
at Indiana University revealed that both males and females who play with
sex toys together, and especially vibrators are sexually more
satisfied, and interestingly enough they more frequently get regular
medical checkups and do better self exams physically.<br />
<br />
8. <em><strong>Use visual reminders.</strong></em> Couples who put up
pictures from their previous years together, and have mementos around,
and have other visual reminders of vacations and other good times
together, help to reconnect and inspire them, or in other words
‘re-spark’ their relationship better and more often, plus they plan more
good events to put in their life together. That comes from the Couples
Lab at the University of Wisconsin.<br />
<br />
9. <em><strong>Co-write your love story.</strong></em> According to the
University of Pennsylvania, Center for Couples and Adult Families, it
will do you and yours a lot of good to write the narrative history of
your love relationship. That can start you talking about future hopes
and dreams, and help you feel more bonded together and generally
‘re-sparked’.<br />
<br />
10. <em><strong>Study Love and It’s How to’s.</strong></em> Clinical
evidence points to the couples who really, consciously work to learn
more about how to show, receive, grow and make healthy their expressions
of healthy, real love do far better than those who do not, and they do
better than those who only do this kind of study in a more minor way.<br />
<br />
Thanks to AARP for research guidance on these studies.<br />
<br />
As always – Go and Grow with Love<br />
<br />
<h4>
<span style="color: #38761d;">Dr. J. Richard Cookerly</span></h4>
<div>
<br /></div>
<br />
<span style="color: red;">♥</span> Love Success Question: Are there signs that your major love relationship(s) could use some re-sparking?drcookerlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09047208304726023746noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-921828284186519885.post-13488843643707353262024-02-25T14:30:00.000-06:002024-02-25T18:44:04.122-06:00Transcendental Love: Mysteries and Wonders for Your Future?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">FREE Love Lesson #176</span></h3>
<div>
<br /></div>
<h4>
<span style="color: #38761d;">Synopsis: Pondering the many, yet rare, profound experiences of
transcendental love (TL) introduces this mini-love-lesson; what Russian Loveology tells us about TL; and then what you and
yours might do to experience the wonders and marvels of TL; more.</span></h4>
<div>
<br /></div>
<h3>
<strong>What Do You Know about Transcendental Love?</strong></h3>
Do you know that there are several million people who deeply and
sincerely tell of transcendental love (TL) experiences mysteriously and
wonderfully changing their lives?<br />
<br />
Sometimes they speak of the
experience making their lives marvelously more meaningful, giving them
new and better life purpose and a fresh life path, and also TL deeply
bonding them with others in ways seemingly beyond explanation? Others
tell of those experiences giving them great comfort, astounding
inspiration, a sense of cosmic understanding and that they were the very
most important experiences of their lives.<br />
<br />
Have you heard of the couples who report awesome, intimate connecting
and uniting experiences by way of what can be well categorized as a
transcendental love events? Then there are the almost mystical
incidences which have momentous, positive effect on whole families, deep
friendships and strong comrade alliances. Upon inspection these too
may be legitimately described as transcendental love happenings.<br />
<br />
Are you aware that many civilization’s best contributors and progress
creators had what can be seen as a profound, transcendental love
experience prior to producing the influence they came to be known for?<br />
<br />
<h3>
<strong>Common, Uncommon Transcendental Love Experiences</strong></h3>
You are awake and alert in the middle of the night. For unknown
reasons you take a long, lingering look at someone you dearly love who
is laying nearby in a deep, peaceful sleep. It could be your spouse,
child, new baby, dearly beloved grandparent or anyone you have strong
love for. Suddenly you feel a most profound and abiding surge of
magnificent, intimate and abiding love for that person. Your sense of
awesome love is so great it is almost painful. You experience your love
of, for and with that person in a way that transcends anything you have
ever known before.<br />
<br />
It is beyond comprehension, beyond explanation and far beyond your
normal ways of perceiving reality. Somehow you feel more intimately
united, not only with this sleeping beloved but simultaneously with the
life force itself and with the whole universe. You weep quietly, and
then an amazing sense of you know not what gives you a serene feeling of
great, personal peace.<br />
Something akin to that description has been given by countless
others; it perhaps can be classified as the most common type of
transcendental love experience by different people all around the world,
although this experience cannot be called ‘common’ at all.<br />
<br />
<h3>
<strong>Other Ways of Transcendental Love<br />
</strong></h3>
A very loving couple was sexually making love. Suddenly they
simultaneously were inundated by an ecstasy-filled sense of oceanic,
spiritual connectedness. This feeling of union was not only with each
other but also with what they identify as a universal, loving deity.
This was far beyond their previous, climactic experiences. Later they
describe an awareness of the exploding and mingling of their spirits
with all that is good and holy in existence. Slowly, as they related
it, their scattered, atoms of spirit seemed to drift back together and
they became joyously rejoined. When they left that altered state and
reentered common reality they had a sense that they were now strangely
changed and mysteriously linked.<br />
<br />
Now, ponder this statement. “I suddenly became intensely aware of
something being wrong with my twin sister who was miles away. She and I
are so close and so heart connected we often intuit things about each
another. I immediately tried to call her and got no answer. In a near
panic I drove to her house and found her unconscious and bleeding from a
fall she had taken in a home accident. The ambulance got there in time
but had I not sensed her emergency need she would have died. I only
can conclude our love bond transcends space, and maybe time too, and
that is what saved her life.”<br />
Now, contemplate this. Someone, with a sense of serenity, sacrifices
their own life for someone they dearly love transcending their own
survival instinct and the evolutionary imperatives of genetic
continuance. It is thought that somewhere in the world this kind of
love-motivated action happens almost everyday.<br />
<br />
A prayer circle of loving family and friends gathers around a deathly
ill loved one. The circle offers prayers, perhaps chants, sways and
makes ritualistic gestures while going into a mutual, deeply meditative
state. From that moment on the observable symptoms of the deadly
disease begin to alleviate. Later evidence of the disease can no longer
be found in the loved one’s body.<br />
<br />
Countless, well-documented examples like these exist around the world
and have existed throughout history. Are these also examples of
transcendental love at work?<br />
<br />
<h3>
<strong>What Is Transcendental Love?</strong></h3>
First, let us be sure we are understanding the words ‘transcendent’
and ‘transcendental’. Both simply mean and refer to that which is
happening beyond the range of normal or merely physical, human
experience and that which surpasses ordinary, usual comprehension.
Transcendental often carries with it the connotation of being ‘higher’,
more profound, greater, deeper, wider, more magnificent, universal and
cosmically connected. Transcendent can refer to that which passes
beyond our understanding of space, time and the physical universe.<br />
<br />
Words and concepts sometimes associated with transcendental are
metaphysical, mystical, beyond human understanding, miraculous, extra
sensorial, cosmic, poly-dimensional, infinite, eternal, spiritual,
omnipresent, indescribable and ethereal.<br />
<br />
Transcendental love is a term referring to a love or love experience
that is so strong and/or so awesome that it goes well beyond the range
of usual and normal, human experience, comprehension or control. This
love also is described with all the words that apply to ‘transcendental
or transcendent’<br />
<br />
<h3>
<strong>What Russian Loveology Tells Us</strong></h3>
In 2013 Russian scientists began officially establishing “loveology”
as a separate, independent branch of the natural sciences. As published
in the European Journal Of Natural History (No2) they proffered three
major areas of focus for the study of love. One was biological love
phenomena (includes physiological, brain science, physical medicine,
etc.) another was what they called social-philosophic love phenomena
(includes philosophy, psychology, sociology, cultural anthropology,
etc.) and the third was “transcendent” love phenomena (includes,
metaphysical, historical, theological, spiritual, esoteric, etc.) and
their interrelationship with one another.<br />
<br />
They reasoned there was plenty of research evidence in all three
areas concerning love, and that combined with the accumulation of
science-based research led to the conclusionary pronouncement “We think
that the time for loveology has come!”, including its emphasis on
transcendent love. Since then, more research projects into love have
been launched and conducted, and a good many more are on the way
including those into transcendental love phenomena.<br />
<br />
<h3>
<strong>Can You Have (Experience) Transcendental Love?<br />
</strong></h3>
The simple answer is yes. However, the statistical answer is
probably not. That is because, it appears, that the majority of people
do not ever experience transcendental love, or if they do experience it
at all, it only is minor episodes of it. You, however, can do things to
enhance your chances of having what many consider to be the most
wonderful and miraculous form of love experience possible – that of
transcendental love.<br />
<br />
Here are some things you can do. For an ongoing time, inundate
yourself with the study of the transcendental experience and its
tenants. While doing so, engage in deep introspection, cosmic
extraspection, and both seeing and connecting with others at their core,
heart level. For couples, creating and engaging in intimate, joint,
spiritual practices has been known to be a very good way to seek the
transcendental love experience.<br />
<br />
Transcendental and other types of meditation, going on a vision
quest, doing yoga mind, body and heart exercises, engaging in Sufi
whirling dancing and chanting, following Hindu, Buddhist, Zen, Sufi
Islamic, Taoist, Tantric, Judaic or esoteric Christian teachings and
practices, along with any other spiritual/religious approach involving
the transcendental, going to humanistic and positivistic psychology
experiential workshops, retreats and classes, and doing the vast host of
things similar to those just listed.<br />
<br />
Also, inundating yourself with the study of love and continuously
practicing what you learn as best you can tends to strengthen one’s
transcendental love potential. Also known to be helpful is immersing
yourself in nature and its beauty-filled wonders, doing selfless
altruistic service, doing personal growth therapy, doing pilgrimages to
the shrines and places you personally find important and inspiring, and
frequently engaging in deep meditation and prayer. Couples, families
and friends sometimes can do these things together and that, indeed, may
enhance the transcendent love experience when and if it happens.<br />
<br />
The message here is, for the transcendental love to happen, you may
have to do love-oriented or love-possible things earnestly and with some
expenditure of time and energy. It probably will not work to just play
around or toy with these endeavors. However, the transcendental love
experience may surprisingly just come to you one day for no known reason
because that also is what is frequently reported. The transcendental
love experience is seen to be profoundly deep, astonishingly high and
wondrously wide but not at all guaranteed or certain.<br />
<br />
As always – Go and Grow with Love<br />
<br />
<h4>
<span style="color: #38761d;">Dr. J. Richard Cookerly</span></h4>
<div>
<br /></div>
<br />
<strong><span style="color: red;">♥</span> Love Success Question:</strong> Will you actually and actively explore one pathway or another toward transcendental love?drcookerlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09047208304726023746noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-921828284186519885.post-8402668937564802002024-02-18T14:30:00.000-06:002024-02-18T19:24:43.761-06:00 Where Does Love Rank in Your Life – Today?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SvLnqJHyrG4/XznNipi3XTI/AAAAAAAABcY/rNRHX9NRQ8AmDTQLSUrThV-lX4w4tZ1kwCLcBGAsYHQ/s428/where-does-love-rank350.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="428" data-original-width="350" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SvLnqJHyrG4/XznNipi3XTI/AAAAAAAABcY/rNRHX9NRQ8AmDTQLSUrThV-lX4w4tZ1kwCLcBGAsYHQ/s0/where-does-love-rank350.jpg" /></a></div><p><br /></p><h3 style="text-align: left;">Mini-Love-Lesson # 273</h3><div><br /></div><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #38761d;">Synopsis: This mini-love-lesson is about exploring where love ranks in your life with a number of different, intriguing questions and the significance of those explorations being more valuable than the answers you arrive at, although they are good too.</span></h3><div><span style="color: #38761d;"><br /></span></div><h3 style="text-align: left;">Why Care About How You Rank Love?</h3><p>Let me suggested that exploring questions about yourself and love is likely to help you get more love balanced, love satisfied and love potent even if you do not get final answers to the questions. Once it was said that “the unexamined life is not worth living”. While that may be a bit extreme, the concept applies to love and to yourself. One of the best ways to explore yourself and a topic is with the use of relevant questions. So, let’s play around with some self-exploration questions concerning love and you (see “<b><a href="http://whatislovedrcookerly.com/1826/thinking-love-to-improve-love/" target="_blank">Thinking Love to Improve Love</a></b>”).</p><h3 style="text-align: left;">How Can You Tell What’s Most Important?</h3><p>Most people agree that love is important but how important? Is it identified and measured by what you spend the most time on or apply the most energy into? For lots of people that would mean something like work, business, making money, wealth, economic power, and that sort of thing, would be the most important thing in their life. Another standard that we use for what is important is what makes you happy? For some it could be making others envious, status, popularity, fame and the like. For still others it might be sports, art, music, nature, etc.</p><p>Then there are those who value most being productive, creative, or contributory. For many, ranking highest in importance are a heartmate, their family, their children and/or their deeply loved friends. Doing good, justice, democracy, peace, freedom, equality, ecology, and universal well-being all rank extremely high. Then there is love itself. In relation to all these things just mentioned where does love rank with you? (see “<b><a href="http://whatislovedrcookerly.com/2877/thinking-about-love/" target="_blank">Thinking about Love, How Good Can Yours Get?</a></b>”).</p><p>Some think that the real measure of what is important to you is what will hurt the most to lose. Others think that it is not until you start to lose that which is most important that you, that you begin to value it much more highly. Health or a dearly beloved one are examples. Lately, a vast number of people the world over have been re-evaluating what actually is important. That is because they have lost, or nearly lost, someone due to the pandemic. Whatever they were putting their life energy into has become ranked rather lower than it was before the virus. Lots of those now see love and love relationships ranking quite a bit higher. Link “<b><a href="http://whatislovedrcookerly.com/810/is-love-the-most-important-thing-in-the-universe/" target="_blank">Is Love the Most Important Thing in the Universe?</a></b>”</p><h3 style="text-align: left;">Lip Service Love</h3><p>In several philosophies, quite a few religions and a number of approaches to mental health, the high importance of love is stressed. Unfortunately, no small number of those disciplines do not seem to accurately have much to say or do concerning the actual how-to’s of love. They seem only to give it a fair amount of <i>lip service</i>. I have often wondered why seminaries have so much to teach about faith and so little to teach about love. That also is true of most of the behavioral sciences even though really good research is mounting concerning love. I am heartened to say that Russia, somewhat surprisingly, is now the only country I know of in which some of the universities have degree programs in Loveology (see “<b><a href="http://whatislovedrcookerly.com/2445/a-new-field-called-loveology/" target="_blank">Is There Really a New Field Call Loveology?</a></b>”).</p><p>There are organizations providing courses, seminars and workshops focusing on love. However, many are not relying on the new, well researched, wonderful and exciting knowledge about love. They are often really about sex, or just improving bad communications or parroting the same old same old myths and hunches about love, and/or are just giving love lip service. However, there are others that are quite good.</p><p>So, now please ask yourself this question. Do you give the importance of love lip service and not too much else? I suspect because you are reading this, the answer is no. You are really delving into the subject of love by reading this and perhaps by reading other mini-love-lesson at this site. If I am right – good for you!</p><h3 style="text-align: left;">Ranking the Kinds of Importance...</h3><p>There are different kinds of importance. There is immediate importance, pervasive importance, circumstantial importance and others. Different things rise and sink in importance as life goes on. For many people, if love is important at all, it is in the pervasive category that is taking somewhat of a backseat to the things of immediate importance. It becomes of immediate and even extreme importance only when something goes very wrong in a love relationship. Unfortunately for many, then it is too late.</p><p>Love disasters and catastrophes are best handled like other emergencies before they arise. Those who learn a lot about the how-to’s of doing love healthfully tend to be the ones who best avoid the love tragedies that afflict so many couples, families, parent/child relationships, friendships and the positive relationship with oneself.</p><p>For you personally, is it more important to love or be loved? Is love something you hope to get around to later, after you handle X, Y or Z? For you, does love have a spiritual importance? Who or what do you love that might be important enough to give your life for? Who or what is important enough to spend your life loving them or it? Are you important enough to yourself to spend your life loving yourself <i>as</i> you love others? Is it important to you to not only love but to love well? For you and your life – which kinds of importance are involved in each of those questions?</p><h3 style="text-align: left;">Are Some Aspects of Love More Important to You Than Others?</h3><p>Which aspects of love are most important to you is another question worth considering. Is feeling love, lovable or loving the more important aspect to you? Is doing love or feeling love of more major importance? In your life, what do you think is the significance of this statement, “Feeling love comes to us naturally. Doing love takes learning, practicing and then learning some more – always.”. How about this statement, “Love is not an emotion but it can cause at least 100 different emotions. Do you know them?”</p><p>Here is a big question. Are you really ranking love important enough to learn how to do love well, practicing it to constantly improve and strengthen it, so as to take care of life’s big love challenges when they arrive in your life?</p><p>Well, there are a bunch of the questions you can explore and work with to understand where you are with love in your life and then, perhaps, even re-explore. I suggest, it is the exploring that likely does you more good than finding the answers.</p><h3 style="text-align: left;">One More Thing</h3><p>Who might you ask these questions to and talk them over with? Doing that sort of thing can lead to amazing mutual explorations. Discussion may add quite a bit to what you understand, can use and also enjoy talking about. If you do that with one or more others, please mention this site and its many mini-love-lessons. Thank you.</p><p>As always – Go and Grow with Love</p><p><b><span style="color: #38761d;">Dr. J. Richard Cookerly</span></b></p><p><span style="color: red;">♥</span> <b>Love Success Question:</b> Are you having fun pondering the many puzzlements of love?</p>drcookerlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09047208304726023746noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-921828284186519885.post-49763667904597835272024-02-11T14:30:00.000-06:002024-02-11T19:41:21.995-06:00Fatal Attraction Syndrome - A False Form of Love<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-jBv7vcuMicM/WnPhUHRYnmI/AAAAAAAAAcE/ReSB1Y8t_lQtEx_MyxOU0IVoAH0g8yM5wCLcBGAs/s1600/false-love-fatal-attractio.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="444" data-original-width="350" height="320" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-jBv7vcuMicM/WnPhUHRYnmI/AAAAAAAAAcE/ReSB1Y8t_lQtEx_MyxOU0IVoAH0g8yM5wCLcBGAs/s320/false-love-fatal-attractio.jpg" width="252" /></a></div>
<h4>
<span style="color: #38761d;">Synopsis: This mini love lesson first explorers a real life example
of this false form of love’s deadly attack possibility; then answers
what is a fatal attraction; and what is a fatal attraction syndrome; is there a difference between men and women with this
syndrome; and what can be done.</span></h4>
<div>
<br /></div>
<h3>
A Deadly Attack</h3>
<strong></strong>Dark was just falling and she slowly pulled her car
deep into the shadows of the overhanging trees, across the street from
her lover’s house. She looked into a large bay window where his dining
table was set for the evening meal. Her furor grew as she watched her
lover and his wife and their three children laugh and cheerfully sit
down to enjoy a time of family love together. She kept thinking “kill
the mother, kill children and he will have to turn to me.”<br />
<br />
When she saw her lover reach over and kiss his wife on the cheek she
put the car in forward gear. His wife kissed him back and he obviously
enjoyed it. Her foot stamped down on the accelerator and she took aim
with the car. Then at full power and with insane rage she raced full
speed at the bay window. Her last thought was “Even if I kill all of us,
I will have him with me in eternity”. This is what she later related
sitting in a women’s prison convicted of attempted murder.<br />
<br />
Due to very good house construction no one died but all sustained
serious injuries , one child crippled for life. More than a year of
family, individual and couple’s counseling brought the family through
the ordeal that followed. Expert testimony presented the perpetrator of
this tragedy as suffering from the most dangerous of all ‘false forms
of love’, that of the Fatal Attraction Syndrome. That diagnosis,
however, did not qualify her for an ‘innocent by reason of insanity
verdict’ as her lawyer’s psychiatrists recommended.<br />
<br />
This is but one of a number of traumatic and tragic fatal attraction
cases I have dealt with in my work with the families of murdered
victims, and as an expert witness. Let me say that I also have worked
with a number of people trying to escape from being the victim of a
fatal attraction syndrome and with those suffering this affliction, and
with that perspective I can tell you – it is not easy work.<br />
<br />
<h3>
What Is A Fatal Attraction?</h3>
<strong></strong>A fatal attraction is simply defined as an attraction that can and sometimes does lead to death. Think ‘moth to candle flame’.<br />
<br />
The fatality may be of the one who is attracted, as in the case of
the moth. The targets of the attraction also are in danger of dying via
murder when the full, fatal attraction syndrome is at work. Sometimes
both die, as all too often happens in a murder-suicide termination of a
fatal attraction relationship. Whoever stands in the way of a person
suffering a fatal attraction syndrome, and various innocent bystanders,
also can be in serious danger of being the victims of fatal attraction
syndrome dynamics. In other words, no one dealing with a person in a
severe fatal attraction syndrome dynamic should consider themselves
safe.<br />
<br />
<h3>
What Is a Fatal Attraction Syndrome?</h3>
<strong></strong>A fatal attraction syndrome is a fairly complicated,
false love phenomenon involving a very destructive, obsessive and
compulsive pattern of relational behavior. It begins when a person
first finds themselves, sometimes suddenly, very strongly psychosexually
attracted to another person.<br />
Quite commonly there grows up a delusional, fantasy conviction that
the target of their attraction is, or certainly will become equally
attracted to them. The person afflicted with this syndrome then becomes
increasingly, sometimes rapidly obsessed with seeking a possessive,
controlling, intimate, exclusive, love-getting relationship with the
targeted person.<br />
<br />
Increasingly little or nothing else matters but the growing,
consuming drive to have the targeted person become and be constantly
available, and when that person is present for them to be fully focused
on satisfying the desires of the one suffering this affliction.<br />
<br />
This consuming drive eventually obliterates healthful, normal,
interpersonal functioning though sometimes a semblance of outward
normality superficially can be maintained. In one fashion or another
the behavior becomes more and more abnormal and extreme, and the
emotional needs of the person experiencing the syndrome become
increasingly impossible to satisfy. When that happens truly crazy
thinking mixed with horrible to experience emotions dominate and all too
frequently lead to deadly behavior.<br />
<br />
This syndrome is a form of False Love because it is not motivated by a
desire and drive for the well being of the loved one, as is healthy,
real love. Instead, it is motivated only by a desire to get love.
People afflicted by this syndrome easily move toward harming the
supposed loved one while real love is healthfully protective of the
loved one (See “<a href="http://whatislovedrcookerly.com/definition-of-love-series/"><strong>The Definition of Love</strong></a>” at this site).<br />
<br />
<h3>
How Does A Fatal Attraction Syndrome Work?</h3>
<strong></strong>No one knows for sure how fatal attraction syndrome
works because doing research on it, as you might imagine, is quite
difficult. Psycho-dynamically the thinking goes something like this. A
person encounters someone who sub-consciously reminds them very
strongly of the mother they had when they were an infant, or father they
had as a young child.<br />
<br />
This sets off an infantile need to obtain the targeted person’s
caring attention, focused nurturance and other behaviors indicative of
love. This grows into a regressive drive to have all needs satisfied by
this one other person, which of course is impossible. Thus, this
insatiable drive becomes infuriatingly frustrated, which in turn
triggers infantile rage. Sometimes in uncontrolled fits of anger, and
sometimes in diabolical well-planned and carried out actions destruction
results.<br />
<br />
Another theory is that there is a neuro-physiological or
neuro-chemical maladaptive occurrence in the brain which is triggered
into malfunctioning when psychosexual attraction mechanisms are
activated. It is hypothesized that this brain process may be a
primitive mechanism going slowly out of existence but once was helpful
in acquiring and retaining mating partners.<br />
<br />
Since it so commonly is unsuccessful and so frequently results in the
death of those who cannot escape it and in the death or incarceration
of those who perpetrate this syndrome, it is speculated by some that it
could be a way to wipe out the weak. Thus, it would represent a
‘survival of the fittest’, evolution mechanism favoring those who go
about love in a more loving, adult way.<br />
<br />
Still others think that if ‘obsessive/compulsive disorder’ brain
chemistry and ‘mate attraction’ brain chemistry mix with each other they
may make a monstrous neuro-chemical mess in a person’s brain causing
this syndrome. This especially is likely if there is the added
complication of severe ‘parent/child attachment insecurity’ in the
background of the afflicted person. All these explanations are
hypothetical, educated guesses; no one knows for sure.<br />
<br />
<h3>
What About Sexuality in a Fatal Attraction Syndrome?</h3>
<strong></strong>Sexuality usually plays a big role in this syndrome,
but not always. Quite frequently the sexual desires of the one
experiencing the syndrome are part of the ‘need package’ they want
satisfied by the person they have fixated on. It frequently seems that
the sex desires of the afflicted grow more peculiar, then bizarre and
extreme, and finally dangerous. When the sex desires get to a level
where they cannot be satiated, violent sexuality may result. This is
where death sometimes occurs.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Does Loving a Person with This Syndrome Make a Difference?</h3>
<strong></strong>So far the evidence available would suggest that in
the long run, even with lots of healthy, real love being showered on the
fixated person, it probably won’t have a sufficient, curative effect.
Certainly there may be cases where love has made a sufficient
difference, and that probably especially is true in the early stages of
this difficulty.<br />
<br />
Some people who suffer from this syndrome become stalkers and in
other ways keep invading the privacy and personal lives of their
targets. They never get close enough to be loved but in the process
they can cause lots of fear and misery in their target. The love of
family and friends may help somewhat. Also putting stalkers, privacy
invaders, etc. (especially the scary, threatening ones) in prison long
enough that they may mature, seems to help some.<br />
<br />
With other people the syndrome seems to start after a relationship
has been going for awhile, and they indeed could be loved by the one who
becomes their obsessional target. Once the syndrome takes hold, the
love given to the obsessed person becomes ‘never good enough’, ‘big
enough’ or ‘right enough’, or so it seems.<br />
<br />
I consulted on a case that involved what seemed like a quite romantic
and erotic relationship, that was doing well for more than a year.
However, when she wanted a little more time to herself he became
compulsively domineering, insisting that her career be put aside along
with her family and her friends, and that he be the only person in her
life.<br />
<br />
This led to a violent breakup. He then followed her, bugged her
house and all sorts of similar invasive things. Physically violent
fights erupted in public. Restraining orders, and injunctions, arrests
and other legal and police actions only seemed to make it worse. It
ended when he smashed down her front door with an ax, and then smashed
through the bathroom in which she was hiding, and at the last possible
second she brought out the gun the police had advised her to carry, and
when he still raised the ax and advanced on her she shot him through the
heart, killing him instantly.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Is There a Difference between Men and Women with This Syndrome?</h3>
<strong></strong>No, there doesn’t seem to be much of a difference.
Both men and women are susceptible to becoming dominated by fatal
attraction syndrome. Some people think that females who had more
difficulty being loved by their fathers and males by their mothers
experience this syndrome, but no one knows that I’m aware of. One group
that some people think is less susceptible to being afflicted by this
syndrome are those who seem to be fairly strongly bisexual. Another
resistant group is made up of both the men and women who become
strongly, healthfully self-loving.<br />
<br />
<h3>
What can be done?</h3>
<strong></strong>For those men and women who suspect they may be in
the destructive throes of this syndrome, seek therapy with a
psychotherapist who is experienced and works deeply and powerfully. If
medicines are prescribed, take them. If hospitalization is recommended,
go. This is a serious condition that all too often only gets worse
without help.<br />
<br />
For the friends and family of people they think might be caught up in
a Fatal Attraction Syndrome get them to therapy. If they are violently
acting out already, get the police involved. Then love them a lot, and
if requested to go to family therapy to help also.<br />
<br />
For those who are targeted, if you are being stalked or if you are
experiencing other invasions like your computer being hacked or phone
being tapped, seek the aid of police and possibly an attorney, then go
to counseling for yourself. Also take lots of safety precautions like
double locking doors and windows and obtaining a good burglar alarm. As
much as possible be with people who can protect you.<br />
<br />
If things are going from bad to worse, in spite of those safety
actions, I’m sorry to advise doing what so many end up having to do to
save their lives. That is disappear. Many people only have survived
this severe syndrome by moving to another city, out-of-state or even out
of the country.<br />
A fatal attraction syndrome can involve incredibly powerful
obsessions and compulsions, and in an especially bright person can be
extremely difficult to escape.<br />
<br />
I’m aware of a case in which he searched
for her for three years and found her in another nation, forced her to
put on scuba equipment, took her down deep in a lake, tied her to a
sunken log, cut off her air supply, tied himself to a log and cut his
own throat, so they died together in the only peaceful place he had ever
known.<br />
I’m also aware of a woman who after eight years found her targeted
person and managed to secretly poison him, though he did survive and
she’s in prison now, still writing him passionate letters. The extremes
to which fatal attraction syndrome afflicted people sometimes go can be
both intensely frightening and quite astonishing.<br />
<br />
For everyone else, watch out for people who are overtly domineering,
perfectionistic and controlling, covertly needy and insecure,
obsessional, compulsive, idealistic about romance, have few or no true
close friends, are sometimes violent and have outbreaks of rage, who are
actively substance addicted, false love addicted, are easily jealous,
can’t hear criticism or negatives about themselves, and who were likely
either ignored a lot or suffocatingly parented.<br />
<br />
Again, arming yourself with real, love knowledge in order to identify
false love behaviors and syndromes is self-loving protection and could
save your life. Good luck and beware.<br />
<br />
As always – Go and Grow in Love<br />
<br />
<h4>
<span style="color: #38761d;"><i>Dr. J. Richard Cookerly</i></span></h4>
<div>
<br /></div>
<strong><span style="color: red;">♥</span> Love Success Question </strong>Do you love yourself
enough to stay away from a person who might seem to be prone to fatal
attraction syndrome, even though otherwise they seem to offer you
everything you ever wanted in a love relationship? If you suspect you
may be afflicted with this syndrome do you love yourself enough to
immediately go get deep, strong help from a loving but powerful
therapist?<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="yarpp-related">
Related posts:<br />
<ol>
<li><a href="https://www.whatislovedrcookerly.com/2018/02/false-forms-of-love-unresolved-conflict.html" rel="bookmark" target="_blank" title="False Forms of Love: Unresolved Conflict Attraction Syndrome">False Forms of Love: Unresolved Conflict Attraction Syndrome </a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.whatislovedrcookerly.com/2018/02/false-forms-of-love-imprint-mating.html" rel="bookmark" target="_blank" title="False Forms of Love – Imprint Mating Syndrome">False Forms of Love – Imprint Mating Syndrome </a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.whatislovedrcookerly.com/2018/02/false-forms-of-love-devastating-ifd.html" rel="bookmark" target="_blank" title="False Forms of Love: The Devastating IFD Syndrome">False Forms of Love: The Devastating IFD Syndrome </a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.whatislovedrcookerly.com/2018/02/false-forms-of-love-spouse-acquirement.html" rel="bookmark" target="_blank" title="False Forms of Love – Spouse Acquirement Syndrome">False Forms of Love – Spouse Acquirement Syndrome </a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.whatislovedrcookerly.com/2018/01/attraction-or-love-or-what.html" rel="bookmark" target="_blank" title="Attraction or Love or What?">Attraction or Love or What? </a></li>
</ol>
</div>
drcookerlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09047208304726023746noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-921828284186519885.post-68789692881902443022024-02-04T14:30:00.000-06:002024-02-04T19:24:51.663-06:00Blame Attacks Love<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-AtmamJ3z8Tc/WmlP-sbEDuI/AAAAAAAAANY/UiFdSyxrNYkI0g9BD6TJiGJSOiC3f8luACLcBGAs/s1600/blame-attacks-love350.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="368" data-original-width="350" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-AtmamJ3z8Tc/WmlP-sbEDuI/AAAAAAAAANY/UiFdSyxrNYkI0g9BD6TJiGJSOiC3f8luACLcBGAs/s320/blame-attacks-love350.jpg" width="304" /></a></div>
<h4>
<span style="color: #38761d;"><strong>Synopsis:</strong> This mini-love-lesson starts with some
important questions, goes on to 10 things to ponder about blame and then
follows up with ways to reduce blame destructiveness in love
relationships.</span></h4>
<div>
<br /></div>
<h3>
Important Questions<strong></strong></h3>
Do you get blamed a lot by people you love? Are you a ‘blamer’ of
those you love? If blamed do you ‘counter-blame’? Do you do a lot of
self-blaming? Were you brought up in a blaming environment? What do
you think blaming does to love relationships? How do you feel when
someone blames you – guilty, defensive, inadequate, angry, compliant,
submissive, hopeless, indifferent, or what? How often does blame lead
to constructive action in your life? Have you been in a situation where
blame helped a love relationship get better?<br />
<br />
<h3>
10 Things to Ponder about Blame</h3>
Do you agree or disagree with the following: <br />
• Much blame involves an attempt to feel better by making someone else feel worse. <br />
• Much blame involves an attempt to impose your value system on another. <br />
• Much blame is based in persecuting another by playing victim. <br />
• Much blame is a dodge and avoidance of taking responsibility for handling something poorly. <br />
• Much blame is an attempt to not feel inadequate, at fault, guilty, wrong, etc. <br />
• Much blame is an attempt to be blind to one’s own self. <br />
• Much blame as an attempt to feel superior. <br />
• Much blame as an attempt to get control of someone else and manipulate them to one’s own advantage. <br />
•
Much blame is an attempt to feel righteous, right, virtuous, sinless,
guilt free, etc. without having to do anything curative or constructive.
<br />
• Much blame is an attempt to give oneself permission to be destructively judgmental.<br />
In a love relationship whenever any of the above statements are true
they probably are destructive to the love relationships involved!<br />
<br />
<h3>
How do you talk about something being wrong without blame?</h3>
Look at these different sample statements. “That’s all your fault!”
versus “I think we have to make an improvement.” They both can be
addressing the same issue but one tends to trigger defensiveness and the
other may trigger corrective action. Look at these two statements.
“You stupid idiot, how could you have done such an asinine thing!”
versus “I think we have a problem that it would be good to do something
about. What do you think?” Actually, just about everything can be said
in a non-blaming way. Blaming tends to distance people, or help them
want to resist or escape from you. If the blame is accepted the person
accepting it usually is more de-powered than empowered.<br />
<br />
Whenever one
person in a love relationship is de-powered the love relationship (team)
is de-powered.<br />
In a love relationship if someone is de-powered the chances are
emotional distancing from each other will escalate. Also blame can
trigger fighting which can harm the love relationship. Wouldn’t it be
better to work at teaching yourself how to talk more lovingly and
cooperatively, without blame corrupting your love relationship
interactions? There are times when blame may have usefulness, but in
your love relationships isn’t it usually much more destructive than
constructive?<br />
<br />
<h3>
What about Self Blame?</h3>
Self-blame tends to attack your confidence and bring you down.
Healthy self-love tends to do the opposite. You can admit a mistake or
see that you might make an improvement without a lot of self blame.<br />
<br />
<h3>
What To Do When You Are Blamed</h3>
One thing you might try is to say something like, “I hear blame” or
better yet, “Honey, I think I hear I’m being blamed, is that right?”
Not always do people talk more constructively and lovingly after hearing
that question, but often they do. Notice, talking this way avoids
blaming someone for blaming you. Sometimes two people in a love
relationship make a contract with one another to work on taking
‘destructive blame’ out of their interactions. Often that helps a lot.<br />
<br />
<h3>
What To Do When You Think You Just Have To Blame a Loved One?</h3>
You might try saying something like, “A part of me feels I just have
to blame you for … . So, please, hear me out, and work with me on this
so we both can get past it.” Or you might say something like, “Let me
bitch, and complain and blame you for a while so I get it out of my
system. Then love me anyway, if you can, and I’ll show you love too”.
This style shows you know you are blaming, and you take responsibility
for it and want to move on to a more loving interaction.<br />
<br />
<h3>
What To Do When You Think You Are Blamed, and Maybe You Are Not</h3>
<strong></strong>Some people heard so much blame growing up they hear
it all the time now, even though that is not what is coming at them.
When you think you are blamed you might want to ask yourself, “Am I
really being blamed, or is that just a complaint or is it identifying an
issue and it’s not meant for me personally”. Then after you’ve asked
yourself, ask the same question of the person you think is blaming you.<br />
<br />
Remember, how we treat others, lovingly or unlovingly, often says
more about us than them. Also, loving teamwork, done in constructive
ways, usually can solve problems big and small.<br />
<br />
As always, Go and Grow in Love<br />
<br />
<h4>
<span style="color: #38761d;">Dr. J Richard Cookerly</span></h4>
<div>
<br /></div>
<strong><span style="color: red;">♥</span> Love Success Question </strong>Are you really willing to examine your own blaming tendencies, and do it lovingly as well as accurately?<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="yarpp-related">
Related posts:<br />
<ol>
<li><a href="http://www.whatislovedrcookerly.com/2018/02/love-against-blame-and-its-hidden-harm.html" rel="bookmark" target="_blank" title="Love Against Blame And It’s Hidden Harm">Love Against Blame And It’s Hidden Harm </a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.whatislovedrcookerly.com/2018/02/love-complaints-versus-love-requests.html" rel="bookmark" target="_blank" title="Love Complaints Versus Love Requests">Love Complaints Versus Love Requests </a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.whatislovedrcookerly.com/2018/01/dealing-with-love-hurts-first-aid-tips.html" rel="bookmark" target="_blank" title="Dealing With Love Hurts: First Aid Tips">Dealing With Love Hurts: First Aid Tips </a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.whatislovedrcookerly.com/2018/02/listening-with-love-and-in-and-out.html" rel="bookmark" target="_blank" title="Listening With Love and IN and OUT Brain Functions">Listening With Love and IN and OUT Brain Functions </a></li>
</ol>
</div>
drcookerlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09047208304726023746noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-921828284186519885.post-53315379427640250862024-01-28T14:00:00.000-06:002024-01-28T19:37:59.471-06:00Couples Love and Relationship Education Succeeds<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-akEkRunc9qw/WmqqPWWLdcI/AAAAAAAAARc/N8QHMAtnRjok5BL-ZPv_ZFhwjmCBwBU7gCLcBGAs/s1600/couples-love-relationship-.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="179" data-original-width="350" height="163" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-akEkRunc9qw/WmqqPWWLdcI/AAAAAAAAARc/N8QHMAtnRjok5BL-ZPv_ZFhwjmCBwBU7gCLcBGAs/s320/couples-love-relationship-.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<h4>
<span style="color: #38761d;">Synopsis: Joining the trend?; who’s helped by love and relationship
education; what is helped; the many ways to learn about succeeding at
couple’s love; the growing popularity of love and relationship
education; what to do and not do in choosing love education programs.</span></h4>
<div>
<br /></div>
<span class="dropcap">A</span>re you part of the growing trend of
people getting into love education? Are you and a beloved working
together to learn all the incredibly useful things being discovered that
can make couple’s relationships grow and become awesome? Are you
learning with another to practice the practical ‘how to’s’ of successful
couplehood?<br />
<br />
<h3>
Who is Helped</h3>
<strong></strong>Love education works! Couples succeed more with
relationship education! Couple’s relationship, education research shows
it works for all sorts of different kinds of couples who are in all
sorts of different kinds of life situations and who come from all sorts
of very different backgrounds. Everyone from affluent Kuwaiti couples
in a one hour workshop learning about love and communication to a 42
hour class for low income, Oklahoma couples being taught relationship
success techniques — the research shows <span style="text-decoration-line: underline;">couples do better with relationship education</span>.<br />
<br />
Well designed and well executed studies of both distressed and not
distressed married couples, not married co-habiting couples, couples of
multiple socio-economic status levels, couples of different races,
ethnicities, religions, nationalities, etc., couples in which one has
cancer, couples who have lost a child, couples about to have a child and
couples who just had a child, military couples, same-sex couples,
couples dealing with addictions, pre-release prisoners and spouses,
court ordered parents — they all show improvement when they are involved
in love and relationship education programs.<br />
<br />
A great variety of
different kinds of improvement have been discovered to occur with these
couples, and the degree of benefit varies depending on the exact nature
of the program the couples are engaged in, and not everyone shows
improvement. However, the data demonstrates that all-in-all
improvements occur for all kinds of couples, in all kinds of situations
and with all kinds of different life factors <span style="text-decoration-line: underline;">when couples engage in love and relationship education programs</span>.
These improvements are well beyond anything occurring in comparison and
control group couples who are not involved in these types of programs.<br />
<br />
<h3>
What is Helped</h3>
<strong></strong>Love, giving love, receiving love, feeling love,
feeling loved, growing love, empowering with love, love strengthening,
love healing, lasting love, sexual loving and every other aspect of
healthy, real love can be expected to improve in a good couple’s love
education program. But that’s not all. The research shows a tremendous
variety of different benefits accrue to those involved in couple’s
relationship education. Such couples significantly increase their
chances of having healthy, happy and stable, lasting, bonded
relationships.<br />
<br />
These fantastic results are put forth in a survey of ‘30 recent
research studies’ conducted by various universities, by various state
and federal agencies in several countries, and by the U.S. Army and Air
Force.<br />
<br />
The aforementioned research endeavors showed couples achieving
improvements significantly over control groups in factor areas like
these: general relationship quality, relationship length, conflict
control, relationship knowledge, relational happiness, lowered divorce
rates, communication, decreased postpartum depression, decreased
relational dissatisfaction, increased positive interaction, decreased
negative interaction, decreased incidence of fighting and arguing and
related conflict, better parenting, better relating in front of
children, increased relationship commitment, relational satisfaction,
resolution of differences in conflict, self-regulation, relational
adjustments, co-parenting teamwork, parent/child functionality, the
elimination of loneliness, greater spousal sense of friendship,
dedication, relational confidence, empathetic interaction, intimacy,
motivation to improve, acceptance, reduction of distress, coping with
stress, mindfulness, relaxation, optimism, autonomy, decreased physical
assault, aggression, anxiety, depression, psychological dysfunction and
much improved sexuality.<br />
<br />
Some follow-up studies of improvements show them still to be in
existence as much as two years later. There also were improvements in
physical health. Blood pressure improvements, decreased medical
symptomatology in cancer patients, enhanced salivary oxytocin (a love
bonding, neurochemical processor), reduced alpha amylase (a measure of
negative physical reaction to stressors and a digestion aid), increased
immunity functioning and general healthfulness all improved over that of
the control groups studied. WOW, WOW, WOW!<br />
<br />
<h3>
Lots of Ways to Learn Love</h3>
<strong></strong>Love and couple’s relationship programs come in many
forms and many of them only are beginning to be well researched. There
are programs on the Internet, manuals and workbook usage approaches,
classroom lectures, group discussion approaches, programs using home
visits, dream sharing, guided meditation and mindfulness training,
programs using follow-up booster sessions, and more. Retreat, workshop
and seminar formats are common. The research referred to studied a fair
number of those various approaches and found all types of programs
produced improvements and could be useful. <br />
<br />
The population sizes in
those research efforts also varied greatly. The smallest was 14 couples
in which one spouse of each couple had breast cancer. The largest
study had 5102 new parent couples in eight locations across the US. The
research also has shown that improvements can occur irrespective of
race, gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, nationality and many
other sometimes differentiating characteristics.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Growing Popularity</h3>
<strong></strong>‘Love relationship education programs’ are becoming
so popular that the New York Times recently featured a review of a book
on this subject. <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1439168229/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=movmacnew-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1439168229"><em><strong>No Cheating, No Dying</strong></em></a>
chronicles a couple’s journey into the world of relationship
improvement education. They describe themselves as having a good
marriage when they decide to improve it further by sampling different
couple’s love improvement approaches. First, they try a published
manual’s five-step, at-home program for re-romanticizing their
marriage. However, they quit after step two. Then they get into a
psychoanalytic, couples therapist’s program who wants them only to focus
on disagreements, difficulties, what’s wrong, sick, etc.<br />
<br />
This makes things much worse in this couple’s previously well
functioning marriage. Undaunted they quit that and get into a positive
psychology focus by taking a course on “Mastering the Mysteries of
Love”. That, actually, brings lots of improvements especially in
helping them with empathy and sharing. Later they add a sexuality
improvement effort and their erotic life excels. This book makes it
clear that not all couple’s relationship education efforts are going to
get good results and a certain amount of carefulness is needed in
selecting what is right for you.<br />
<br />
<h3>
What to Do and Not Do</h3>
<strong></strong>If you want to take your couple’s love relationship
to new heights, strengthen and grow your love, and discover the best of
love relating I suggest you start getting deeply into learning the ‘how
to’s’ of healthy, real, couple’s love. Also if you want to add to or
enhance the mending and healing of a damaged, wounded, or less than
fully functional love relationship, do the same thing. Perhaps you’re
already doing that since you’re reading this. Therefore, keep doing
what your doing, maybe even more. Then you might search for and review
various programs available through churches, synagogues, temples,
mosques, etc. along with college non-credit education classes and online
programs.<br />
<br />
Beware of programs that are more focused on what I call “pulling your
weeds” and not focused enough on “growing your flowers”. Some efforts
seem only to want to talk about what can go wrong, or does go wrong, or
what is wrong with you, or in other words “the weeds”. Programs that
offer ‘skills training and development’ demonstrating how to make
advancements in the positive aspects of love relationships tend to be
better than those that only are focused on problem solving.<br />
<br />
Frequently problem solving is better handled in couples counseling
while advancement and achievement often is better done through courses,
workshops, seminars, online programs, etc.. Also be aware that some
couple’s education programs are too simplistic, some are too mild and
saccharin, some just wrong or stupid, and some flat-out crazy. Most,
however, have something really good to offer, so just be a little
careful in your selection.<br />
<br />
As I see it, the best ones are the ones that focus on how to give and
get love as a couple, really communicating and relating with love,
growing your ability to relate with love actions, solving difficulties
with love approaches, and generally just doing love well. If love is
not a major element of a couple’s relationship education effort you
might want to avoid it. If love is mentioned but treated in an overly
romanticized, vague or impractical manner, or confused with sex you
might want to avoid it. If, however, love is well emphasized,
behaviorally related, more clearly defined, and treated as a natural,
healthful phenomenon you may have found a good thing.<br />
<br />
If you have a loved one who is resistant to, critical of, or
disinterested in ‘love education’ you might want to share this entry and
the benefits herein – of course, it is best to approach them in a
love-filled way.<br />
<br />
As always – Go and Grow with Love<br />
<br />
<h4>
<span style="color: #38761d;">Dr. J. Richard Cookerly</span></h4>
<div>
<br /></div>
<br />
<strong><span style="color: red;">♥</span> Love Success Question<br />
</strong>Can you identify and tell a beloved person in your life at
least three specific things you want both of you to learn about giving
and receiving love?drcookerlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09047208304726023746noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-921828284186519885.post-57950712779396986812024-01-21T14:00:00.000-06:002024-01-21T20:48:55.621-06:00False Forms of Love: The Devastating IFD Syndrome<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fZedfnCMaFA/WnPa2n0s3iI/AAAAAAAAAbA/KZOoiBOUAV0QHnl6No5IP8nsa19jgOhtgCLcBGAs/s1600/false-love-ifd_mod.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="478" data-original-width="313" height="320" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fZedfnCMaFA/WnPa2n0s3iI/AAAAAAAAAbA/KZOoiBOUAV0QHnl6No5IP8nsa19jgOhtgCLcBGAs/s320/false-love-ifd_mod.jpg" width="209" /></a></div>
<div class="content">
<span class="dropcap">S</span>trong, tall,
handsome Trent came into my office with tears streaming down his rugged
cheeks. In a groaning, deep tone voice he almost whispered, “I have
lost my reason to live. I lost her – my one, true love. She was so
perfect and I drove her off. I tried and tried and I can’t get her
back. How am I going to go on?<br />
<br />
She won’t have anything more to do with
me. My life is ruined. It hurts so bad”. Then he spilled out the
story of their relationship.<br />
It was a familiar tale. Like so many before him
Trent had become a victim of one of the big, romantic love killers, the
sometimes even fatal IFD Syndrome.<br />
<br />
Trent had met and come quickly to
think of Tricia as ‘perfect’ in every way. Things went quite well for
them until one day she cut short her long, flowing, gorgeous, locks
which had been just right as Trent had seen her lovely hair. Ever so
carefully Trent told Tricia how her hair had looked ideal long and
flowing. He gently insisted she grow it back and never cut it again,
plus he sort of pontificated that this was how females should look.
Soon after Tricia started wearing rather short skirts with low
necklines.<br />
<br />
With some frustration Trent told Tricia it was no
longer appropriate for her to wear her clothes like that since they were
now in a committed relationship with one another and that type of look
was just for attracting men. Soon thereafter Tricia’s skirts became
even shorter and her necklines lower, plus she became rather flirtatious
with other men at various gatherings. As Trent saw it her femininity
also was marred by her increasingly risqué talk. Trent decided he must
correct her ways and get her back to acting like she did when he met
her. He tried reason, guilt trips, cajoling, anger and everything else
he could think of to get her to conform to the ideal girl he had
perceived her to be at the beginning of their relationship. The more he
tried and failed the more frustrated he got. Then Trent and Tricia
began to fight about all sorts of stupid, little things.<br />
<br />
That went on
for quite a while and kept getting worse. The end came one day when
Trent, in a state of extreme frustration, risked saying “You’re just not
the girl I fell in love with and if you don’t go back to being her we
are done!”. Trisha replied, “I am the same girl I always was and if you
really loved the real me you would love me as I experiment with new,
innocent stuff, go through ordinary changes and find little ways to be
more me. I haven’t done anything I’m ashamed of and you don’t have a
right to censor me. The core, real me is the same. I don’t think you
ever saw the core me and I don’t think you love the real me either.
You’re just in love with your image of me, so, yes, we are done”. And
done they were, leaving Trent defeated, demoralized, dejected and nearly
suicidally depressed, trapped in the devastating “D” phase of a strong
IFD false love syndrome.<br />
<br />
Way back in 1946 a rather then famous linguistic
psychologist, Dr. Wendell Johnson, published a book describing the IFD
Syndrome and telling of how it negatively effects almost everyone sooner
or later. He called it a “disease” that is particularly common and
devastating among university students, sending many into breakdowns and
mental hospitals. Unfortunately mental-health professionals mostly do
not read linguistic psychology publications and so this phenomenon went
largely unnoticed in the therapeutic community, although it was fairly
well received in social psychology and for a time by the lay public.<br />
<br />
An
experimental psychologist introduced the IFD Syndrome to me when I was
in my residency at a psychiatric hospital and we did an in-house study
concerning IFD and suicide. Our results showed that a significant 28%
of our most seriously suicide attempting, young, adult patients made
their serious suicide attempts in the “D” phase of an IFD Syndrome. It
appeared Dr. Johnson was right about the commonness and severity of this
form of false love. This pattern also showed up in other age ranges to
a significant but somewhat lesser degree.<br />
<br />
The IFD false love syndrome is thought to work like
this. First, in your childhood and youth you subconsciously begin to
get ideas of what your ideal love mate will be like. This grows into an
idealized image of what ‘Mr’ or ‘Ms’ ‘Just Right For You’ will look,
sound, act and be like. Then one day you meet someone who seems to be
rather like that idealized, just right, one and only love mate for you.
Your subconscious then projects your idealized image onto that person,
blinding you from seeing who’s really there. Just as you do not see the
screen at the movies you only see what’s projected onto it, so too you
only see your idealized, projected image and not the real person who is
there. The letter “I” in the IFD syndrome stands for “idealized image”
or just “idealization”.<br />
<br />
In time you begin to get glimpses of who is really
there and you don’t like it because it’s different than your ideal
image. This can be said always to occur because people are dynamic,
changing, growing, altering, maturing, etc. and because people are more
complex than idealized images. So even if a person stays pretty much
the same for a time the person doing the projecting will start to see
more than was seen at first and that will be unexpected, disconcerting
and frustrating. Of course for a time the person you project your
idealized image onto may artificially act in accord with what you desire
as a way to relate to you.<br />
<br />
Eventually new and differing aspects of the
‘real person’ will emerge into your awareness and that will be more
troubling to you. Another way to think about this is that since no two
things can be exactly alike your idealized image and a real person
cannot be the same, and with time that will be discovered and become
disturbing.<br />
<br />
What comes next is growing frustration. As you try
to get your lover back up on your ‘idealization pedestal’ and try to get
them to ‘act right’ they keep stepping down off your pedestal and being
themselves. After all, pedestals are very narrow, dull places on which
to live even if, at first, they seem flattering and safe. People who
live on a pedestal come to feel unloved because in truth they are not
loved but only idealized. Healthy, real love accepts change, supports
growth and understands the need for maturation and variety.<br />
<br />
For a time in the “F” phase things progress in a
troubled way. As you observe more discrepancies between your static,
idealized image and the dynamic reality of the person you are with,
often you compulsively and sometimes even desperately attempt to get
your lover to regress to what you first saw them to be. Frequently that
person resists overtly or covertly, and you become ever more
frustrated, often angry and perhaps even violent. [It is important to
note that the one you think you love must exist as their real self to be
healthy, because if they are forced or submit to other than who they
really are they often may deteriorate into depression or some other
illness.] But, as you see it, any change is “for the worse” not change
for the better.<br />
<br />
Usually the relationship becomes increasingly
conflicted, difficult and full of more frustration, along with fewer and
fewer demonstrations of love. Unloved people subconsciously, if not
consciously, go looking for love and this can lead to cheating and all
the frustrations that go with that. Escape into some form of
destructive, self abuse or addiction also may occur to either person if
the “F” phase of an IFD Syndrome is prolonged. The “F” in the IFD
stands for “Frustration” and the fight for and against getting the
idealized lover to return to the projected ideal.<br />
<br />
After living in the “F” stage of an IFD Syndrome
finally, by one means or another, the relationship fails completely.
Then the person who did the idealizing (Trent, in the example above)
enters the “D” phase of the syndrome. This happens when the idealizer
realizes they’re not going to get their ideal lover, that person is
lost, unattainable, and the ideal they had fixated on is likely never to
be realized. If that happens to you in a love relationship you enter a
phase of feeling devastated, demoralized, dejected, defeated and all
too often temporarily, clinically depressed, even sometimes to the point
of being suicidal for a time. The “D” in the IFD Syndrome stands for
those “D” words in the sentence above: demoralized, depressed, etc..
The clinical depression can happen because love situations effect the
neurochemical processes of your brain, sometimes quite positively and
sometimes quite negatively.<br />
<br />
By the way, know that IFD dynamics can occur with
lots of different human endeavors. Some people idealize their parents,
or their children, or their spiritual leader, or religion, or political
philosophy, or their country, etc.. The results of strong idealization
are inevitably the same. After idealizing someone or something the one
doing the idealizing becomes frustrated when he or she sees that which
they idealized is falling short or differing from the ideal. Then the
idealizer becomes demoralized when he or she realizes ideals exist only
in the mind and not in reality, and the ideal, therefore, is
unobtainable and impossible. However, love and romance-related
idealizations often are the worst type to experience when they enter the
“D” phase.<br />
<br />
Trent, who was quite bright, was helped enormously
by learning of the IFD dynamics and how they worked. He also was helped
quite a lot by spending time in a therapy group where others told him
of having gone through the IFD Syndrome and come out just fine, often in
a surprisingly shorter time than predicted by their mental health
professional. Some mild, mood stabilizing medications which blocked
Trent from sinking too low in his depression also had short-term
usefulness. A word of caution here. Those who have suffered from IFD
Syndromes sometimes are thought to have been confused with much more
long-lasting mental illness conditions and, thereby, may have been
over-medicated and otherwise improperly treated.<br />
<br />
For those who get seriously depressed in an IFD pattern just staying
alive for 6 to 12 weeks seems to get them over a hump. That’s because
by then for most people the brain adjusts and produces healthier brain
chemistry that helps the sufferer to better process the whole
relationship dynamic they have been through. Most unfortunately a
number of people in the “D” phase of an IFD pattern are thought to have
successfully committed suicide before that amount of time has passed and
they could feel better and see clearer.<br />
<br />
So, if you think someone is in
a serious “D” phase of an IFD Syndrome try to get them to a good
therapist who can help them through this sometimes dangerous phase and
on to healthier love relating. It also is important to know that some
people get stuck in repeating the IFD Syndrome with a whole string of
lovers. Others get married in the “I” or “F” phase and then divorce in
the “D” phase. Some do this over and over.<br />
<br />
The good news is most people who go through an IFD
Syndrome come out of it and go looking for new and better understandings
of how healthy, real love works. They have a good chance of developing
the real thing. Again, a good love-knowledgeable counselor or
therapist can help make that outcome happen a lot more likely, more
quickly and much more completely.<br />
<br />
Trent recovered fully and went on to a healthy, real love that worked
well. Later he got to know Trisha again in a much different
situation. His final comment about her in a counseling session was,
“Trisha is OK but frankly I don’t know what I saw in her that I was so
passionate about. She seems nice but she’s not someone I’d want to
spend a lot of time with”. His closure statement is representative of
most of the final IFD Syndrome outcomes.<br />
<br />
As always – Go and Grow with Love<br />
<br />
<h4>
Dr. J. Richard Cookerly</h4>
<div>
<br /></div>
<strong><span style="color: red;">♥</span> Love Success Question<br />
</strong>Do you have an ideal love mate in your mind, against which you
unrealistically compare all real people? If so what are you going to do
about that?<br />
<strong><br /></strong>
<strong>False Forms of Love Series</strong></div>
<div id="wp_post_footer">
<strong><a href="https://www.whatislovedrcookerly.com/2018/02/false-forms-of-love-limerence-and-its.html" target="_blank">False Forms of Love: Limerence and Its Alluring Lies</a></strong><br /><strong><a href="https://www.whatislovedrcookerly.com/2018/02/false-forms-of-love-meta-lust.html" target="_blank">False Forms of Love: Meta Lust</a></strong><br /><strong><a href="https://www.whatislovedrcookerly.com/2018/02/false-forms-of-love-shadow-side.html" target="_blank">False Forms of Love: Shadow Side Attachments</a></strong><br /><strong><a href="https://www.whatislovedrcookerly.com/2018/02/false-forms-of-love-devastating-ifd.html" target="_blank">False Forms of Love: The Devastating IFD Syndrome</a></strong><br /><strong><a href="https://www.whatislovedrcookerly.com/2018/02/false-forms-of-love-unresolved-conflict.html" target="_blank">False Forms of Love: Unresolved Conflict Attraction Syndrome</a></strong></div>
drcookerlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09047208304726023746noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-921828284186519885.post-56897748383076414372024-01-14T14:00:00.000-06:002024-01-14T20:03:27.211-06:00It Might Be Healthy, Real Love ...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-NVXasGSlgQ4/Wny1NYoBwZI/AAAAAAAAAmM/a7ykTopSiewOdLnfOMiAod209eQrvs9AACLcBGAs/s1600/it-might-be-healthy-real-love-if350.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="442" data-original-width="350" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-NVXasGSlgQ4/Wny1NYoBwZI/AAAAAAAAAmM/a7ykTopSiewOdLnfOMiAod209eQrvs9AACLcBGAs/s320/it-might-be-healthy-real-love-if350.jpg" width="253" /></a></div>
1. It might be healthy, real love if your love partner is kind to you in small, medium and large ways.<br />
<br />
2. It might be healthy, real love if your love partner praises and compliments you frequently and honestly.<br />
<br />
3. It might be healthy, real love it your love partner doesn’t put
you down or make demeaning, degrading or devaluing statements about you
to you or to others.<br />
<br />
4. It might be healthy, real love if your love partner is protective of you but not overprotective.<br />
<br />
5. It might be healthy, real love if your love partner strongly
supports your growth, development and advancement, and does not act to
hold you back, suppress or repress you.<br />
<br />
6. It might be healthy, real love if your love partner is
understanding and tolerant of your mistakes, foibles and unsuccessful
efforts.<br />
<br />
7. It might be healthy, real love if your love partner supports your efforts to love the people you love.<br />
<br />
8. It might be healthy, real love if your love partner enjoys seeing you enjoy life.<br />
<br />
9. It might be healthy, real love if your love partner actively helps
you with your interests and nurtures your cherished involvements.<br />
<br />
10. It might be healthy, real love if your love partner lovingly touches you back when you give a loving touch.<br />
<br />
11. It might be healthy, real love if what is important to you is
important to your love partner just because it’s important to you.<br />
<br />
12. It might be healthy, real love if your love partner shares their emotions with you and wants the same from you.<br />
<br />
13. It might be healthy, real love if your love partner treats you democratically and as an equal.<br />
<br />
14. It might be healthy, real love if your love partner treats you with honesty even when it might lead to difficulty.<br />
<br />
15. It might be healthy, real love if your love partner frequently is joyous about loving you and being loved by you.<br />
<br />
16. It might be healthy, real love if your love partner keeps
desiring to know all about you – your current thoughts, feelings,
actions, hopes, plans, dreams, preferences and all that’s special about
you.<br />
<br />
17. It might be healthy, real love if your love partner enjoys having
‘emotional intercourse’ as well as sexual intercourse with you.<br />
<br />
18. It might be healthy, real love if your love partner wants to help
you achieve your wants as much as they want to achieve theirs.<br />
<br />
19. It might be healthy, real love if your love partner is not sexually selfish.<br />
<br />
20. It might be healthy, real love if your love partner is seldom indifferent to you.<br />
<br />
21. It be healthy, real love if when ‘making love’ mutual pleasuring is more important than performance.<br />
<br />
22. It might be healthy, real love if you and your love partner
clearly and easily ask each ask each other for what is wanted, instead
of relying on hints, ‘mind reading’, or the false idea that love gives
magic, automatic knowledge.<br />
<br />
As Always, Go and Grow with Love<br />
<br />
<h4>
<span style="color: #38761d;">Dr. J. Richard Cookerly</span></h4>
<div>
<br /></div>
<span style="color: red;"><strong>♥</strong></span> <strong>Love Success Question</strong><br />
Which of these statements grab your attention the most; and what do you suppose that is telling you?<br />
<br />
<em><br /></em>
<br />
<div class="yarpp-related">
Related posts:<br />
<ol>
<li><a href="https://www.whatislovedrcookerly.com/2018/02/getting-healthy-real-love-in-your-life.html" rel="bookmark" target="_blank" title="Getting Healthy, Real Love in Your Life">Getting Healthy, Real Love in Your Life </a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.whatislovedrcookerly.com/2018/02/self-love-and-its-five-healthy-functions.html" rel="bookmark" target="_blank" title="Self-Love and Its Five Healthy Functions">Self-Love and Its Five Healthy Functions </a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.whatislovedrcookerly.com/2018/02/forgiveness-in-healthy-self-love.html" rel="bookmark" target="_blank" title="Forgiveness in Healthy Self-Love">Forgiveness in Healthy Self-Love </a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.whatislovedrcookerly.com/2018/02/healthy-self-love-and-not-giving-your.html" rel="bookmark" target="_blank" title="Healthy Self-Love and Not Giving Your Power Away">Healthy Self-Love and Not Giving Your Power Away </a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.whatislovedrcookerly.com/2018/02/is-i-cant-live-without-you-real-love.html/" rel="bookmark" target="_blank" title="Is “I Can’t Live without You” Real Love?">Is “I Can’t Live without You” Real Love? </a></li>
</ol>
</div>
drcookerlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09047208304726023746noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-921828284186519885.post-20737655845037867382024-01-07T14:00:00.000-06:002024-01-07T17:27:14.728-06:00Do You Love with Laughter?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-n7pEu8HzMU4/Wm58SG-xKAI/AAAAAAAAAUQ/Xn5a3FZ_80EwlX8DZfcbJV3c2TsecAFigCLcBGAs/s1600/flickr_jelene_heart-faces.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="354" data-original-width="350" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-n7pEu8HzMU4/Wm58SG-xKAI/AAAAAAAAAUQ/Xn5a3FZ_80EwlX8DZfcbJV3c2TsecAFigCLcBGAs/s320/flickr_jelene_heart-faces.jpg" width="316" /></a></div>
Do you know you can love someone by helping them
laugh? You also can love them by laughing with them (not at them).
Laughing together helps the love connecting process grow stronger.
Smiling, saying something funny, witty, humorous, etc. is a real plus
for all sorts of love relationships.<br />
<br />
This especially applies to
friendship love, parent/child love, mate love, and comrade love, plus it
is very likely to be constructive in a good many other types of love
relationships.<br />
<br />
Loving with laughter sometimes is especially good for helping people
under stress ‘lighten their load’, panicked people ‘get a grip’, and
angry people not take things so seriously. Loving with laughter can
give needed relief by assisting people be, at least temporarily,
distracted from physical and emotional pain, fear, anxiety, other bad
feelings, and also from life’s problems and difficult situations. A
good loving ‘laughter break’ often helps people approach a difficulty
from a new and better angle seeing solutions they were blinded to
previously.<br />
<br />
Not only does loving with laughter help your loved
one but it helps you too. Besides creating a positive, happy
environment for both of you, hearty laughter releases healthy, feel
good, beneficial chemicals in your body. The bio-sciences have produced
many reports indicating laughter can reduce stress, promote relaxation
and strengthen our immune system. So, do yourself a favor and laugh
with your loved ones often.<br />
<br />
Loving with laughter is especially helpful in
romantic and mate type love development. It helps lovers reduce
tension, feel more at ease, feel more connected, sometimes be more self
disclosing and want to be around each other more. It is no wonder that
the most common thing women say that attracted them to a lover was “He
made me laugh”. A human love relationship without laughter can be too
heavy, too serious and too draining.<br />
<br />
There are a couple of things to be careful about.
One is ‘put down’ humor. Putdown humor occurs when the humor depends on
someone being demeaned, criticized, the butt of a joke, etc.. It may
work in some friendships but it is seldom a plus in mate or romantic
type love. Put down humor can grow especially toxic when the putdowns
are being aimed at the one you love. Frequently the person being put
down comes to feel degraded and disrespected instead of enjoyed. The
trick is to not ‘make fun of’ but rather have fun with those you love.
Whenever you help a loved one feel like they are being made fun of,
secret or subconscious resentments tend to grow, a fight or even a
breakup may ensue.<br />
<br />
No matter how funny you may think demeaning humor, clever putdowns,
critical joking, and discounting satire are they all can be quite
detrimental to a love relationship. This can be true no matter who or
what the target of the negative humor is. Humor that depends on any
form of prejudice also may be quite destructive to a love relationship.
Another thing to watch out for is too much laughing at yourself.
Self-effacing humor, even though it causes laughter, may subtly teach
another person to think more poorly of you.<br />
<br />
Cruelty-based or dependent
laughter of any kind promotes cruelty which may eventually be turned on
everyone and anyone in a relationship network. Also to be avoided in
doing healthy real love is falsely laughing at someone else’s jokes,
witticism, satire, etc.. Falsely laughing practices and promotes being
deceptive, giving false information about what you like or find funny,
and it reinforces the increase of a behavior you don’t want to see more
of.<br />
<br />
The best love laughter probably occurs with positive
surprises. An unexpected compliment, the unusual rewarding event, and
the unforeseen affirming action are examples. Consider a surprise
birthday party, an affirmation-filled singing message, the discovered
upbeat love note, flowers for no special occasion or a puppy gift. All
are likely to produce smiles and laughter in a way that also can convey
and promote healthy real love. Strange
and odd ways of seeing things, saying things and doing things can
provide not only laughter but an intimate sharing of one’s unique
special self. That is almost always good for growing a close, endearing
love relationship.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-T7zeJhcxJ8U/Wm589IXevDI/AAAAAAAAAUc/7-lLRERcz-YOJmPZwlqXb87usGY9niT8ACLcBGAs/s1600/flickr_jelene_heart-faces_single.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="184" data-original-width="205" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-T7zeJhcxJ8U/Wm589IXevDI/AAAAAAAAAUc/7-lLRERcz-YOJmPZwlqXb87usGY9niT8ACLcBGAs/s1600/flickr_jelene_heart-faces_single.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
Also important is being silly together.
Lighthearted, shared, silly actions, words, looks, gestures, etc. all
can be super constructive in many kinds of love relating. This can be
doubly important in sexual love. Silly sex is one of the best types of
sex according to many couples. The fun-filled, naked pillow fight, the
giggle-filled secret sex in a public place, and the laughter inducing
wearing of absurdly sexy attire are examples. Lovingly laughing
together at sexually involved awkward moments, clumsy maneuvers, botched
attempts, and fizzled finesse, along with larger sexual misadventures
is often crucial.<br />
<br />
Shared loving laughter can help you not to get stuck,
stopped or in a rut concerning sex. Laughing together can make even
upsetting sex-related misdeeds, indiscretions and disasters into
precious, funny, shared love memories such as “Remember the time we set
the pillow on fire”, “the minister arrived at our house unexpectedly and
we had to scramble for our clothes”, and “how Auntie Matilda responded
to the elephant’s erection”.<br />
<br />
Loving smiles and laughter also can come from using
precious, funny, little nicknames: Diddlesitlittle, Poofuddle , Sugams,
and Dimpleduster to name a few I’ve heard. Using special oddball terms
for the ordinary like “At their house lovers eat dinnuch at 4:30 P.M.”
helps with laughter and closeness. Giving loved ones a loving wink,
nudge, thumbs-up gesture, V for victory salute, etc. all done with
little laughs and smiles are also precious.<br />
<br />
Laughing while talking with
sexy innuendos for example “Do you want some”, “Last night did you get
some”, “Are you going to give him (or her), or both some tonight”, “Give
me some right now and I’ll make sure you get some right along with
mine” ad infinitum. This shared sexiness with a little fun helps many
love relationships to be intimate and special. Best of all can be
simple laughter itself, for no other reason than just being happy in
love.<br />
<br />
<strong>S</strong>o, I want you to ask yourself, “How are you doing at loving with laughter?”<br />
<br />
As always –grow in love! And laugh often.<br />
<br />
<b><i><span style="color: #38761d;">Dr. J. Richard Cookerly</span></i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b>
<br />
—<br />
<em>Image credits: “heart faces background” by Flickr user <a href="http://www.flickr.com/people/jelene/">jelene</a> (Jelene Morris).</em><br />
—drcookerlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09047208304726023746noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-921828284186519885.post-25781845739120027562023-12-31T09:00:00.000-06:002023-12-31T14:53:05.549-06:00Want New and Better Love in the Next Year? <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-66y2LKZKC3Y/Xgozbe5PmBI/AAAAAAAABVY/xw5j_jWAoKw7sggDbB3K-2cK5jwgUW0ewCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/want-new-or-better-love-in-new-year350.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="291" data-original-width="350" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-66y2LKZKC3Y/Xgozbe5PmBI/AAAAAAAABVY/xw5j_jWAoKw7sggDbB3K-2cK5jwgUW0ewCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/want-new-or-better-love-in-new-year350.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
Mini-Love-Lesson #262</h3>
<br />
<h3>
<span style="color: #38761d;">Synopsis: Love can be felt and love can be done. This mini-love-lesson focuses on the getting it done part, and doing love ever better in spite of some dangers. There is a simple, quick love rating scale to help you evaluate where you are in your love relating world; followed by how to analyze its results and use them for growing ever better love in the coming year, no matter how good or bad love was for you last year.</span></h3>
<br />
<h3>
Ever Better Love</h3>
Love is one of those things that always can be done even better than it was before, no matter how good it was – or wasn’t. Love feelings come naturally but doing love takes active participation in<i> the doing part</i>. That, of course, takes figuring out and learning what to do. This means, if you want your next year of love relating to go better than the last, you probably will have to do some learning and thinking about doing love. This mini-love-lesson is aimed at helping you do just that. It begins with a simple evaluation exercise to help you see where you might want to focus your improvement efforts.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Caution – Danger – Don’t Do’s</h3>
Let’s look at something you may be non-consciously programmed to do which many of us relationship researchers, coaches, counselors and therapists tend to see as common and, more often than not, destructive and frequently even disastrous. It has to do with trying to do love with only part of yourself instead of with your whole self. We tend to succeed at love better when all our major parts get involved. One part many are subconsciously programmed to leave out is our <i>conscious thinking self</i>. This kind of program may read something like this.<br />
<br />
“For doing love you can only rely on your intuition and your love luck. After all, love is done by unknowable magic, or maybe done by how your parents treated you when you were an infant and, in any case, you can’t do anything about either, so don’t try. In fact, trying gets in the way. You only can hope and maybe pray. Otherwise, how you do love and love relating only can be carried out by your intuitive impulses, governed by your luck at love.”<br />
<br />
Your personal program may read rather differently or similarly to that. However, if it is in any way like that, know that it is antithetical to the knowledge and teachings of a great many of our time-honored sages, wisdom masters and spiritual leaders of old, plus it is in opposition to a lot of recent research, all of whom have a lot to say about how to do love and do it well.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Quick Rate Your Love Relationships</h3>
First, look over the following list of a dozen forms of love relationship and pick out the ones you want to give a rating to then give them a check mark. Next using a scale of 0 to 10 (zero meaning the worst and 10 meaning the best) quickly rate how well you estimate you are doing at love relating in each those relationships you have checked. Don’t <i>over think</i> any of them. You can do that later if you wish. Just use a quick first impression approach.<br />
<br />
<b>Forms of Love Relating to Rate.</b> (Using 0 – 10 or NA for not applicable)<br />
1. Pet love ____, 2. Friendship love ____, 3. Family love ____, 4. Love of children ____,<br />
5. Love of Parent Figures ____, 6. Love of special heartmate (spouse etc.) ____,<br />
7. Healthy Real Level of Self ____, 8. Spiritual Love ____, 9. Love of Life ____,<br />
10. Love of others, people, etc. _____, 11. Love of nature _____,<br />
12. love of a special cause, endeavor, involvement, group or population ____.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Evaluation and Analysis</h3>
Now, examine your highest ratings and ask yourself how might you do even better in those higher rated, important areas? Maybe make some notes or start a file. Then, examine your low scores asking yourself if you really want to make any improvements in those lower scored relationships? If so, you might circle them. Now, look closely at the middle-range-ratings asking yourself if those relationship areas might merit further focus and exploration? Finally, look at the forms of love relating you did not rate asking yourself what you might want to do so that you could easily and quickly have a rate to give in those areas?<br />
<br />
Now you can choose to go back and give longer, more full thought to any of the forms of love relating you might want to examine more deeply how you think and feel about them – or not. Again, maybe making some notes? I recommend you also give yourself an overall, not too critical or praising, tentative, general analysis statement about what this is telling you about you and your world of love relationships. Put that into exact words, as best you can, and keep it wherever you might want to. Then take it out tomorrow and review it again adding or subtracting from it, and do it again in a week.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Improvement Usage</h3>
Now, I suggest you start toward making your plans for love improvements in the next year. This is sort of like making New Year’s Resolutions. To make them work, you probably have to check up on doing them in some regular way, like once a week, once a month, every six weeks, etc. using a calendar and/or reminder system.<br />
<br />
Making a <i>doing love better plan</i> is usually best done with specifics like who or what is exactly the target of your efforts, what exact behaviors will you do (give a particular compliment, kiss, hug, favor, dozen smiles, an hour of undivided attention, take to a movie they want to see, etc., etc. etc.). Also specifics on what day and time will this action be taken, when and how you will record and evaluate afterwards and plan a next action. You can include generalities like I will be kinder, happier toward them, attentive, affirmative, etc. but unless you add more <i>behaviorally specific</i> actions, it is not likely much actually will happen often enough.<br />
<br />
If your love improvement plan also includes things you want <i>not to do</i> like stop getting mad so easily, talk over others when they are talking, immediately bringing up problems and negative issues when first encountering loved ones, etc. that is half a success-oriented plan. It also is important to add <i>what you will do instead</i> of the action you wish to stop or limit. Without the instead action, old action habits tend to prevail.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Now for New Learning</h3>
To do new and better thinking about anything, usually requires new and hopefully enjoyable learning. Here is my suggestion for that. At this site, go to the two indexes of the mini-love-lessons. In the Title Index, scan down the titles once a week, on the same day of the week, preferably for the next 52 weeks. Every time you do this, pick a title that gets your attention for whatever reason and read it, think about it, make a note or two about it and see if there is a way to use it for doing love better love in your next week. After you have some notes written, review some of them each time you write new notes When you miss a week, do two the next week.<br />
<br />
<b>AND/OR</b><br />
<br />
Using the Subject Index, find a Large Topic Area that for whatever reason seems to interest you a bit more than the others. Then scan the mini-love-lesson titles listed in that topic area and once a week read one of them, following the same instructions as above. Do this until you want to change to another Large Topic Area. Then do so. Keep doing this until you have read, thought about and made some notes, plus reviewed some of your past notes hopefully for 52 weeks. Each time you do this, record or draw a :-) on your calendar or on your way of keeping your record of love actions taken.<br />
<br />
By doing this, you very likely will teach yourself how to make your ways of love relating and doing love better, and better, plus making it a habit to do love actions more regularly.<br />
<br />
<h3>
One More Thing</h3>
Discussing what you have just read with others tends to help you more diversely expand and develop your thinking about what you have read, plus it often leads to other stimulating topics. That is thought to be because discussing ideas uses different and additional parts of your brain than does thinking silently by yourself – which does have its own advantages. If you do discuss this mini-love-lesson with others, please mention this site and its many love lessons aimed at helping all people to love more and better.<br />
<br />
As always – Go and Grow with Love<br />
<br />
<b><span style="color: #38761d;">Dr. J. Richard Cookerly</span></b><br />
<br />
<span style="color: red;">♥</span> <b>Love Success Question</b>: If knowledge is power as they say, won’t new love knowledge empower you to do love more and better love as long as you keep acquiring new love knowledge?<br />
<br />drcookerlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09047208304726023746noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-921828284186519885.post-85422026251473711592023-12-24T13:00:00.000-06:002023-12-24T19:30:58.391-06:00Does Giving Love, Get Love?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rYwt--ywV9c/Xt1-9iZTJhI/AAAAAAAABaI/mNcEbchcUysJNrnkeuV9sP-abBIM-oiEgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/does-giving-love-get-love350.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="383" data-original-width="350" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rYwt--ywV9c/Xt1-9iZTJhI/AAAAAAAABaI/mNcEbchcUysJNrnkeuV9sP-abBIM-oiEgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/does-giving-love-get-love350.jpg" /></a></div>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
Mini-Love-Lesson # 270</h3>
<br />
<h3>
<span style="color: #38761d;">Synopsis: This mini-love-lesson answers the title question in the affirmative; gives a number of caveats and complications; explains giving love; reviews a much missed love truth; and reviews when giving love does and does not get love in return.</span></h3>
<br />
<h3>
The Answer</h3>
The Answer to the title question is mostly yes with some highly important caveats and complications.<br />
<br />
The good news is there are abundant examples of a loving person giving lots of love to another person and, in time, love starting to flow back to the original giver. It happens with lovers, stepchildren, friendships, marriages, comrades, acquaintances and every other kind of relationship which has reciprocal love potential. The more often and the more well you act to send someone love the more it increases the likelihood, but not the certainty, they will return love to you.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Caveats and Complications</h3>
Not giving love very often or very well is a good way to not get it, or not to keep getting love once you have it. Giving indifference and/or love destructive actions more than you give healthy, real love can block the love flowing your way. Love might be starting to grow in someone’s heart but the showing of love can get turned off for sundry, self-protective reasons.<br />
<br />
Trying to give love on purpose just to get it, does not seem to work very well probably because the love given is not likely to be genuine, healthy, real love. Fake love tends to fall apart after a time. Likewise, acting from one of the <i>false love syndromes</i> tends to fail unless real love can replace it (see <b><a href="http://whatislovedrcookerly.blogspot.com/p/our-ebook-real-love-false-love-which-is.html">Real Love False Love</a></b>).<br />
<br />
Giving even genuine love to very unloving people tends to work poorly, at best. Attempting to love those people who put a very low value on love or those who value other things much more highly than love (like money, status, power etc.) regrettably is very problematic.<br />
<br />
Trying to love active substance and behavioral addicts (with addictions like gambling, sex, relational dependency, etc.) can be torturous and sometimes dangerous. With help (Twelve-Step programs and couples & family counseling) it can be done successfully but mostly only when the addict is getting appropriate help (AA, NA, etc.) (see <b><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0595196233/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0595196233&linkCode=as2&tag=movmacnew-20">Recovering Love</a></b>).<br />
<br />
Usually worst of all is trying to love a psychopath or a sociopath because they can be quite good at faking love for a time. Brain studies suggest they may be suffering from malfunctioning, neurological abnormalities making healthy, real love an impossibility.<br />
<br />
Lacking sufficient healthy self-love can sabotage getting love from others. Not having adequate healthy, real self-love tends to limit trusting that one is loved when it comes, as well as limit trusting that one’s ways of giving love are really wanted or are of sufficient quality (see “<b><a href="https://www.whatislovedrcookerly.com/2018/02/from-self-love-to-other-love-and-back.html" target="_blank">From Self-Love to Other Love and Back Again</a></b>”).<br />
<br />
Love works best as a free gift. When love is unconditionally given without regard to what can be gotten in return, love can flow most freely. It is a bit of a paradox that doing free-gift-love is one of the most likely ways to get a lot of love in return. It seems like it should be quite evident that people want to love loving people. So, if you already are not a loving well person, you might want to become one.<br />
<br />
These are but some of the caveats and complications encountered with getting love by giving love.<br />
<br />
<h3>
What Does Love Giving Love Actually Mean?</h3>
It is not enough to just feel love. Love has to be done, sent or given for it to have any effect. How well love is done, sent or given is of great significance to the success, or failure, of love relationships. Put simply, love is given by doing the actions or behaviors that convey love, show love and demonstrate love (see “<b><a href="https://www.whatislovedrcookerly.com/2018/02/getting-healthy-real-love-in-your-life.html" target="_blank">Getting Healthy Real Love in Your Life</a></b>”). Without love conveying actions, most of the many wonders and marvels of love go unrealized. So do most desires for love relating. Sadly, a lot of people under-do their actions showing love and, consequently, they miss-out on the full potential of love relating. It is by the frequent and well-carried-out acts of love that love grows, spreads, becomes strong and is hugely enriching.<br />
<br />
<h3>
A Much Missed, Fundamental Love Truth</h3>
Feeling love is natural. Doing love is learned. Is it not reasonable to think that those who learn and practice the how-to’s of doing love well, tend to be the ones who get the most and best love. There slowly is growing, research evidence suggesting the better and more skillfully one can give love, the more one is likely to be the recipient of excellent and abundant, healthy, real love.<br />
<br />
Love sometimes is attempted as a trade, or a quid pro quo, or even as a manipulation. Those attempts have very limited or lasting success. The more love can be done as a well-crafted, free gift, the more powerful it is likely to be and the better the results are likely to be over time.<br />
<br />
Long-lasting, happy love especially is dependent on love being done well. Doing love well comes from learning to do love well and not relying on love feelings alone. Ovid, the great Roman poet in the year 1, taught “for love to be lasting, it must be done skillfully”. It also helps for love to be given frequently and much.<br />
<br />
<h3>
When Giving Love Does and Doesn’t, Get Love</h3>
Arguably, many, perhaps most, failures at love relating are not because people did not feel love for one another but because love was not given and done often enough and/or well enough. Of course, another reason has to do with the various syndromes of false love. Likewise, most great, love relating successes happen not just because the participants feel great love but because the participants learn to do love often and well, together in teamwork. Great love relationships are a teamwork endeavor requiring learning and practice at giving and receiving in a coordinated, conjoint, cycling of love behaviors.<br />
<br />
It is important to note that it is not really learned until it is practiced. Performing love is much like the performance arts and sports (see “<b><a href="https://www.whatislovedrcookerly.com/2019/10/love-is-performance-art.html" target="_blank">Love Is a Performance Art</a></b>”). It takes ongoing learning and practicing love-conveying actions and the knowledge of the do’s and don’ts of love. To learn we must study, then jointly apply what’s learned, jointly practice, jointly evaluate, jointly work to improve and then study some more. Love feelings just get you started.<br />
<br />
<b>One More Thing</b><br />
Teaching and talking is a great help to learning. So, who are you going to talk to about what you’ve just read? Whoever it is, please mention this site and its many mini-love-lessons on the how-to’s of love. Thanks!<br />
<br />
As always – Go and Grow with Love<br />
<br />
<b><span style="color: #38761d;">Dr. J. Richard Cookerly</span></b><br />
<br />
<b>Love Success Question:</b> Are you making learning about love fun, if not please do.drcookerlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09047208304726023746noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-921828284186519885.post-54025204444763248992023-12-10T13:00:00.000-06:002023-12-10T18:16:45.403-06:00Listening With Love and IN and OUT Brain Functions<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Rvhx2R_Avdk/WoCy4xaEwZI/AAAAAAAAAoA/3cup6uUgUgEccWfCMOdbiNdHgKJwn0EQgCEwYBhgL/s1600/pd_rabbit1.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="267" data-original-width="250" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Rvhx2R_Avdk/WoCy4xaEwZI/AAAAAAAAAoA/3cup6uUgUgEccWfCMOdbiNdHgKJwn0EQgCEwYBhgL/s1600/pd_rabbit1.jpg" /></a></div>
<h4>
<span style="color: #38761d;"><strong>Synopsis:</strong> This mini-love-lesson presents a super
common, communication, love problem; and then goes on to explain how the
OUT part of the process works; vent assistance and interference; how
the IN part works; and some of what to do and not to do.</span></h4>
<div>
<br /></div>
<h3>
A Super Common, Communication, Love Problem</h3>
See if you can figure out what these common questions have to do with
each other. “Why do I feel shut down when my lover wants to fix my
problem instead of listening to me?” “How come it helps me more to vent
to a person who shows care than to just vent and blow off steam when
I’m alone?” “Since venting, even with someone who shows love, doesn’t
really change anything or solve any problems why do so many people want
to do it?” “How is it that just about every time I try to advise or
analyze my lover’s problems it starts an argument and we both end up
feeling bad?”<br />
<br />
Couples, parents with upset children, family members, friends and
others in love relationships of one type or another very frequently get
into dysfunctionality in ways that lead to these types of questions.
Often worsening feelings, emotional distancing, estrangement and even
breakups occur because people don’t understand the In and Out brain
process involved. With that understanding all this trouble usually can
be avoided.<br />
<br />
<h3>
How the “Out” Part of the Process Works</h3>
One person starts talking about a difficulty or bad experience
they’ve had, and as they do they begin to vent their bad feelings. The
bad or negative emotions they have experienced are, in essence, stored
up inside them causing increased muscular tension, strained ligaments
and tendons, digestive fluid imbalance, blood pressure difficulty,
stress hormone production and a number of brain chemistry imbalances,
along with various unhealthy malfunctions, all of which they are not
consciously aware of.<br />
<br />
Several forms of toxicity are occurring in several biological
systems, and will continue unless a venting process is engaged in.
Expulsive and cathartic talking with a fair amount of well demonstrated,
unhappy emotions being expressed through tone of voice, facial
expression, posture and movements, along with certain kinds of verbiage
like complaining, cussing, blaming, griping and generally bemoaning,
etc. start and facilitate the venting process.<br />
<br />
The venting process then releases, relaxes, relieves, reverses and
re-balances the neurochemical and biological, unhealthy processes
mentioned above. When that occurs we feel better, or at least much less
bad, because we are neurobiologically better after venting than before
venting. So long as nothing destructive occurs while venting, it is a
healthful process.<br />
<br />
It is the limbic system of our brain that primarily processes our
emotions. Venting is an appropriate word neurobiologically. That’s
because it is thought that our limbic system operates in a way to
trigger the removal of the toxicity and harmful hormones which occur
with bad feelings, and assists sending them on to our waste removal
system when we are venting. As we get clear of the toxicity and harmful
neurochemistry our brain chemistry re-balances and begins to function
better.<br />
Consequently, we feel better and after some recovery we think
better.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Vent Assistance and Interference</h3>
My very Irish uncle once said, this is what the elves taught him.
“Presenting your concepts to someone having a crying jag or temper fit
is like serving a meal to a vomiting man. Both will give you results no
one wants”. I think he was right. Trying to teach, advise, reason,
analyze or do anything very cognitive with a strongly venting person
usually can be experienced by that person as selfish, inappropriate
interference. Until that person’s neurochemical system has had
cathartic release, then cleared, followed by recovery and re-balancing
their cognition system may not be ready to operate well. Thus, their
thinking about what you’re trying to tell them just won’t happen, or
won’t happen very well.<br />
<br />
When someone you love needs to vent it’s usually best to let them
vent! You might say things like, “Go ahead, let it all out”, “Tell me
all about it”, “I want to hear all your feelings”, and “My heart and gut
are right here with you”. Things usually not very good to say are,
“Don’t cry”, “Stop being mad”,”You’re making too much of this, be
reasonable”, “If you would just stop and think it wouldn’t seem so bad”,
“I told you that wouldn’t work” or any ‘fix-it’ talk, unless the person
venting specifically and maybe repeatedly asks for help with their
problem.<br />
<br />
Caring statements said in soft, loving tones may do some good, but
it’s the tones not the words that usually bring about the benefit. None
of the above ‘fix it’ or ‘teaching’ statements emotionally join with a
person, or assist them in venting, and though they may have some
immediate benefit <span style="text-decoration-line: underline;">to you</span> their longer-range benefits are not so likely.<br />
<br />
<h3>
How The “In” Part Works</h3>
If, as a loved one vents their bad feelings, you look at them with
caring eyes, you speak to them with loving tones, your facial expression
shows earnest caring love, your gestures are open to them, and your
posture leans toward them in a friendly manner, then you are helping to
pour your healing love into them, replacing the emotional poison pouring
out of them.<br />
<br />
If you do not contaminate their outpouring by feeding them too many
words or concepts, but just show care in these or similar ways you may
see your efforts bring about healing and facilitate recovery from what
was a toxic event for them. Adding a few words showing emotional
understanding also may help.<br />
<br />
In ‘brain functioning terms’ this pretty much is what happens. Your
looks and sounds of love, perhaps coupled with loving touch triggers the
wounded loved one’s brain to start making healing, neurochemical
compounds that then are carried to many parts of the brain and
throughout the body. Everywhere they go, healing and re-balancing
occurs. Your loved one then may report that your loving listening has
made them feel so much better. You see, emotional poison or toxicity is
pouring out and being replaced by healthful neurochemistry which
results from receiving behaviors that convey love.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Some of What To Do and Not To Do</h3>
If your loved one is hurting, angry, afraid or experiencing any other
strong, ‘bad’ feeling, those feelings are being processed in their
brain’s limbic system. To help them you must do things that stimulate
the limbic system, more than the prefrontal cortex, cognition (thinking)
system. Loving facial expressions, tones of voice, gestures, friendly
posture changes and loving touch can stimulate a person’s limbic system
into doing healthful things. Logic, reason, facts, analysis, etc. will
more likely only do good after the limbic system has processed emotions
sufficiently.<br />
<br />
Softly saying things like “I care” with a loving look usually does
far more good than an intellectually, brilliant solution to your loved
one’s problem, which might better be said after their emotions are
sufficiently and thoroughly expressed. The emotional wounds first must
be in greater repair before that brilliant solution is offered.<br />
<br />
Sufficient venting and healing has to occur before your loved one can
hear and maybe use a cognitively helpful idea. Therefore, do love
actions <span style="text-decoration-line: underline;">first and lots</span> and then if needed do the thinking <span style="text-decoration-line: underline;">together</span>. Know that sometimes the <span style="text-decoration-line: underline;">loving listening is enough</span>
and the person who was venting will feel like you filled-up their
heart’s gas tank, and they will run on that and do the solution part on
their own. Remember, we all must work with our brain’s way of
functioning, not against it.<br />
<br />
As always – Go and Grow with Love<br />
<br />
<h4>
<span style="color: #38761d;">Dr. J. Richard Cookerly</span></h4>
<div>
<br /></div>
<strong><span style="color: red;">♥</span> Love Success Question<br />
</strong>How good are you at giving active, silent love to a hurting and venting loved one?<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="yarpp-related">
Related posts:<br />
<ol>
<li><a href="https://www.whatislovedrcookerly.com/2018/02/talking-to-feelings-first-then-topics.html" rel="bookmark" target="_blank" title="Talking to Feelings First, Then Topics – A Love Skill">Talking to Feelings First, Then Topics – A Love Skill </a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.whatislovedrcookerly.com/2018/01/dealing-with-love-hurts-shared-and.html" rel="bookmark" target="_blank" title="Dealing With Love Hurts: Shared And Unshared Pain">Dealing With Love Hurts: Shared And Unshared Pain </a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.whatislovedrcookerly.com/2018/01/behaviors-that-give-love-basic-core-four.html" rel="bookmark" target="_blank" title="Behaviors That Give Love – The Basic Core Four">Behaviors That Give Love – The Basic Core Four </a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.whatislovedrcookerly.com/2018/01/dealing-with-love-hurts-first-aid-tips.html" rel="bookmark" target="_blank" title="Dealing With Love Hurts: First Aid Tips">Dealing With Love Hurts: First Aid Tips </a></li>
</ol>
</div>
drcookerlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09047208304726023746noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-921828284186519885.post-74184808554525403802023-12-03T14:00:00.000-06:002023-12-03T17:19:56.632-06:00Love’s Wrong Definition in Your Head???<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-S9J0ckF7Lzg/XxSMUtrnsZI/AAAAAAAABbo/WUqjbFyPF7AnIiBxK_jbNEJACZkCyn_2wCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/loves-wrong-definition350.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="376" data-original-width="350" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-S9J0ckF7Lzg/XxSMUtrnsZI/AAAAAAAABbo/WUqjbFyPF7AnIiBxK_jbNEJACZkCyn_2wCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/loves-wrong-definition350.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
<h4>
Mini-Love-Lesson #272 </h4>
<br />
<h3>
<span style="color: #38761d;">Synopsis: Explore love in your unconscious; a popular mistaken definition of love that may reside there; deficiency in dictionary definitions of love; what the Rabbi said; feeling love and doing love or not; warnings about attraction, romance and sexual passion; and a definition of love called brilliant by some; along with a bit about love’s five major functions.</span></h3>
<br />
<h3>
Our Unconscious Beliefs About Love</h3>
Our culture gets into our head and we do not even know it. We get subconsciously programmed to do and not do many things, see and understand reality in certain restrictive ways and operate from beliefs we consciously do not know we hold. We all have non-conscious and semi-conscious biases, prejudices, habit patterns and warped opinionated perceptions. That is what consciousness raising is all about – raising into conscious awareness, what is going on in our non-conscious minds. Brain and mind research shows there is quite a lot of that in everybody. Some very important parts of that non-conscious content has to do with love.<br />
<br />
If we are influenced by mistaken, distorted wrong definitions and understandings about love, they may lead us astray, blind us to other needed truths and even cause us to make hurtful and harmful decisions concerning love. There is ample evidence that this is how it works with love’s most usual and popular way of being understood.<br />
<br />
<h3>
The Most Popular Wrong Definition of Love</h3>
More and more serious researchers and scholars who are looking into the phenomenon of love are arriving at the same conclusion. Concerning love, we got it wrong! We commonly teach and push a very distorted, deficient idea about what love is and what it is not. Not only that, but this mistaken teaching may be leading lots of people into inadequate, defective and destructive ways of love relating.<br />
<br />
Different learned thinkers in different fields put this mistake in different ways. Some simply say this error is in teaching that love is all about feelings and little else. Others say that love is just an emotion and still others say that we know love when we feel it and that’s all we need to really know about love. A good many other scholars and researchers emphasize that the problem has to do with what we leave out and what we need to include in our definitive understanding of love (see “<b><a href="https://www.whatislovedrcookerly.com/2018/02/is-there-really-new-field-called.html" target="_blank">Is There Really a New Field Called Loveology?</a></b>”).<br />
<br />
To understand the major part missing, let’s look at what just one of our modern sages said about love. He is Rabbi David Wolpe, identified by the Jerusalem Post as one of the 50 most important and influential Jews in the world. He wrote a TIME published, short essay entitled <i><b><a href="https://time.com/4225777/meaning-of-love/" target="_blank">Why Are We Defining Love the Wrong Way?</a></b></i> He, along with a growing number of advanced love scholars, observes our commonly published and pushed definitions of love leaves out a much needed emphasis on the major thing love is really all about. That is the <i>doing</i> of love. Rabbi Wolpe holds that love, to be defined accurately, must include love as the enactment of the feelings of lovingness. Those are thought to include kindness, affection, empathy, caring, compassion, connectedness, nurturing, protectiveness, championing, positive passion and a good number of other constructive, loving emotions.<br />
<br />
Brain researchers can add the brain processes of love are those that lead us to feel these emotions and then to behave in ways that are motivated by these positive and constructive feelings. Psychologists and animal comparative researchers, along with brain scientists, can add scientific support to this action-oriented understanding of love. Much of their research shows that both the behaviors and corresponding brain chemistry/processes motivate very similar, loving actions in a wide range of higher-order species, including humans. Thus, love must be at least partially defined as a natural phenomenon.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Dictionary Deficiencies</h3>
Dictionary type definitions commonly include statements like “love is an intense feeling of deep affection for another” or“love is an emotion of bonding with another or a desire to bond with another” and “love is a complex integration of emotions comprised of feeling pleasurable sensations in the presence of the love object including sexuality, attachment, dependency, nurturing and companionship” (see <b><a href="http://www.whatislovedrcookerly.com/p/definition-of-love-series_19.html" target="_blank">Definition of Love Series</a>).</b><br />
<br />
Especially egregious are understandings of love that primarily are sexuality focused and those that include jealousy, possessiveness, motivations for violence and also those that see love as the opposite side of hate. Those we suggest, along with love as lust, are more appropriately components of various forms of false love or manifestation of deficiencies of healthy self-love.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Feeling Love Without Doing Love</h3>
A person may say and truly believe they love or are in love with someone but if their actions are too indifferent, overly selfish, abusive or otherwise harmful and destructive, it probably is not real love according to this action-oriented understanding.<br />
<br />
It is true some people are in circumstances where they can do little or nothing for some of those they love. That does not stop them from wanting to act for the well-being of those they love. It also often does not stop them from trying. When circumstances prevent love action from occurring, there usually is a resulting sadness and frustration. This also can be true for those who have lost loved ones. This is why it is good for those who can not act on behalf of those they love, to talk to their spirits, pray for them, write them love letters, light candles on their behalf and perform other communicative acts. Especially helpful can be <i>two chair</i> gestalt therapy, psychodrama or hypnotherapy exercises designed especially for this situation (see “<b><a href="http://whatislovedrcookerly.com/1826/thinking-love-to-improve-love/" target="_blank">Thinking Love to Improve Love</a></b>”).<br />
<br />
<h3>
What about Feeling Attraction, Romantic and Sexual Passion?</h3>
All of these feelings may and may not have to do with real love occurring. Sometimes these feelings precede real love developing but they frequently can represent only infatuation, lust, limerence and other forms of false love, etc (see <b><a href="http://whatislovedrcookerly.blogspot.com/p/our-ebook-real-love-false-love-which-is.html" target="_blank">Real Love, False Love</a>). </b>That is one of the reasons that feelings, or emotions only, based definitions of love are inadequate. Feelings alone are not adequate indicators of real love, no matter how strong they seem. It is only when the love feelings are accompanied by loving actions, done for the well-being and happiness of the loved, that we can even begin to reasonably think real and healthy love could be in evidence. Attraction especially is not to be confused with love. Likewise, <i>falling in love at first sight</i> only occasionally turns into the real thing. Therefore, it is wise to abide by the ancient statement <i>love is patient</i> and wait for the repeated evidence of love’s actions (see “<b><a href="http://whatislovedrcookerly.com/108/7-other-definitions-of-real-love-worth-considering/" target="_blank">7 Other Definitions of Real Love Worth Considering</a></b>”).<br />
<br />
<h3>
Our Definition of Love</h3>
Healthy real love is a powerful, vital, natural process of highly valuing, desiring for, often <i>acting for</i> and taking pleasure in the well-being of the loved.<br />
<br />
Please take special notice of the words powerful (of great strength), vital (life assisting and necessary) and natural (from, of and in nature).<br />
<br />
<h3>
Feelings with Actions</h3>
Love is not an emotion but a natural phenomenon in life that for humans is probably brain based and/or to be considered a bio-psycho-social phenomenon which produces loving feelings and motivates loving actions. These actions tend to be highly positive, beneficial and constructive to and for the loved and to and for the love giver.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Loves Functions</h3>
The functional definition of love posits that love can be understood by its functions which are seen to be:<br />
1. To connect us, 2. To safeguard us, 3. To nurture and improve us, 4. To heal us when needed and 5. To reward our actions of love with joy and happiness (see “<b><a href="http://whatislovedrcookerly.com/117/a-functional-definition-of-love/" target="_blank">A Functional Definition Of Love</a></b>”).<br />
<br />
So, if you highly value, desire for, often act for and take pleasure in the well-being of a beloved and you function to connect, safeguard, nurture, act to heal when needed, and enjoy the doing of these actions, for and with those you love, you may be experiencing healthy, real love.<br />
<br />
You can learn a lot more about all this by consulting the other, dare I say, fascinating and extremely informative Mini-Love-Lessons concerning love’s definition found at this site (see “<b><a href="http://whatislovedrcookerly.com/121/7-a-dozen-things-love-is-and-a-dozen-things-love-is-not/" target="_blank">A Dozen Things Love is and A Dozen Things Love is Not</a></b>”).<br />
<br />
One more little thing. Might you get quite a lot out of discussing with others all that you have just read? If you do that, please mention this site and its wide-ranging trove of mini-lessons about love. Much thanks!<br />
<br />
As always – Go and Grow with Love<br />
<br />
<b><span style="color: #38761d;">Dr. J. Richard Cookerly</span></b><br />
<br />
<b>Love Success Question:</b> In love relating, if you attend mostly to things having to do with feeling love and not so much to <i>doing love</i>, what will be the result?drcookerlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09047208304726023746noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-921828284186519885.post-86240307045100229512023-11-26T14:00:00.000-06:002023-11-26T20:57:27.777-06:00Exes And Love<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-bP5zpS7SxSw/WnFJiuuTHWI/AAAAAAAAAXk/NMLxd2Tvnk8q4msqCGqueRHz1yWeWUGGgCLcBGAs/s1600/exes-love350.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="211" data-original-width="350" height="192" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-bP5zpS7SxSw/WnFJiuuTHWI/AAAAAAAAAXk/NMLxd2Tvnk8q4msqCGqueRHz1yWeWUGGgCLcBGAs/s320/exes-love350.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<h4>
<span style="color: #38761d;">Synopsis: This mini-love-lesson explores exes who continue to love
each other after a breakup or divorce; sibling type exes’ love; new
loves and ex loves; what to do about your love mate’s love of an ex;
divorcing marriage but not each other; enemies of exes love; and ends
with a discussion of a basic law of love which may apply to exes.</span></h4>
<div>
<br /></div>
<h3>
Exes Who Continue Loving Each Other</h3>
What do you think about exes (ex-spouse, ex-mate, etc.) who actively
love one another after they have divorced or broken up? Here are a few
quotes to consider. “My ex and her new guy are going on a double date
with me and my new wife”. Can that double date go well? “I’m inviting
both of my former husbands to my family Christmas dinner. It just
wouldn’t seem right not to.” What might be the best and worst of that
dinner, as you see it? Now, think about this one, “my ex-wife and I
still date each other but also date others. We have sex, we also go on
short trips together, sometimes with the kids. We love each other a lot
but we know we cannot be married to one another. We tried that twice.
This works far better.” The people who said these things live in the
belief that post-divorce love can be quite real, successful and
ongoing. So, what do you suppose it takes to accomplish that? Here are
some things to look at.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Sibling Exes’ Love</h3>
Some who married discover they have grown to have a love for each
other more like close siblings or cousins, instead of like spouses.
When this happens they may compatibly end the legal marriage, and revamp
their relationship into looking a lot like adult brothers and sisters
who go through life lovingly, being a part of each other’s life. They
usually see and treat their exes as part of their ongoing established
family. This, of course, is especially good if children are involved.
This is not such an unusual outcome for couples who have conjoint, well
counseled divorces. If their ex gets married they usually gladly attend
the marriage and get to know their exe’s new spouse, just like a
sibling might.<br />
<br />
<h3>
New Loves and Ex Loves ?</h3>
What’s the best thing for you to do with a new love and an ex? New
love partners, of course, may feel very threatened by an ex. That can
be especially true if a new love partner has low, healthy self-love, or
if they have a habit of seeing others as their enemy or rival. In that
case giving lots of reassurance can be very helpful. If there is really
bad jealousy, resentfulness, etc., going to good couples counseling
together can help fix the problem. There is a general rule to
consider. Usually it’s a good idea for two people in a new love
relationship to try to love, or at least like, each other’s loved and
liked family and friends. That can include exes. Certainly, that is
especially useful when there are children involved.<br />
<br />
<h3>
What About Your Wife/Husband/Love Mate’s Love Of An Ex?</h3>
Hear Larry’s lament. “My wife told me she still loves her ex, though
she loves me more and in a very different way than she loves him. What
am I to do with that? Should I insist she never see or talk to him
again? Should I threaten to break up with my wife and destroy our
family? Should I hate him and try to drive him off; or tell him to
never have anything to do with her? Or should I accept him and try to
make friends with him? If I do that I’ll probably need a lot of
reassurance from my wife that she will not go back to him? And we will
need to work to make sure my wife and I have such a strong, good love
that there’s no chance of there being any real threat? Or should I just
ignore the whole thing?”<br />
<br />
All these reactions are what some people do
when faced with this kind of issue. Generally the more loving and
inclusive the response, the better the results. It is true that some
exes do indeed try to get a former love mate back. Openly talking about
that with your love mate, and jointly deciding on how to handle it can
be very important. With a joint couples approach to what is perceived
as a threat by one, usually gets the best results for all.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Divorcing Marriage, But Not Each Other</h3>
There are a surprising number of people who discover they have an
incompatibility with marriage itself. Joni and Johnny put it this way,
“We lived together for three years doing great, and then we got legally
married and everything went off the cliff and we crashed. It’s like
both of us stepped on a landmine together the day we got married and it
blew us apart.” On examination, both discovered that because of the way
they saw their parents do marriage with anger, frustration, depression,
constant conflict, agony and much suffering, getting legally married
triggered subconscious programs in both their heads causing them to do
marriage just like their parents did. Legal divorce cured that, and
made successfully living together possible again.<br />
<br />
For most couples with this kind of problem it is not nearly as
dramatic and clear-cut as it was for Joni and Johnny. A lot of couples
slowly drift into a destructive pattern, triggered by getting married or
living married. Some, with the help of good couples counselors, manage
to re-program their way of reacting to marriage itself and do much
better. For others divorce seems to be necessary.<br />
<br />
Then there are those people who just do not do well living a married
lifestyle, but they don’t want to lose the person they have strong,
spouse-type love for. Some of these couples have been known to remarry
each other several times trying to make standard marriage work. Others
arrive at a ‘custom tailored, alternate lifestyle’ allowing them to keep
relating to one another in an ongoing, love-filled way but it doesn’t
look like standard marriage. This often involves a divorce and at least
a portion of their life being lived more like a single person.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Enemies of Exes Love</h3>
In a healthy divorce workshop I once led, I asked the participants
who they thought were the biggest enemies of healthy post-divorce
relating between exes. The overwhelming response was, “lawyers”, or
more exactly “divorce lawyers”. In our adversarial-oriented justice
system, the focus is often on ‘win’ and ‘defeat the other side’, no
matter what. If that is the mindset, it can mean lifelong psychological
and relational damage to all concerned, except of course for the
lawyers. Divorce lawyers don’t have to live with the after effects of
embattled divorce. There are a growing number of family practice
attorneys who work for cooperative, mutually healthy outcomes. They
often assist mediation and collaborative processes in order to avoid
the all-too-common destructiveness which can occur in the best of
adversarial divorce processes.<br />
<br />
For a long time our culture has seemed to teach that divorce means
you have to become enemies, or at least strangers to someone you may
still have love for. A common advice given to the divorcing goes
something like this: “When you divorce you have to divorce your spouse’s
family, and then divide your friends, and cut off contact with all
those more connected to your ex spouse.” However, there are a great
many people who rebel against that teaching. More and more of them are
succeeding in keeping alive their love relationship with all family and
friends, as well as their ex-spouse.<br />
<br />
Do you think this idea might be true? There are those that say it is
mostly the people who don’t have real love for each other who have bad
divorces. It does seem to be true that if you want good post-divorce
relating with your ex, try to start with a compatible divorce. However,
if you have a terrible divorce that does not mean you can’t work to
‘mend bridges’ and heal wounds after the divorce. Post-divorce
counseling, especially when children are involved, and co-parent
guidance counseling can be especially helpful.<br />
<br />
Be wary of friends and family, acquaintances too, who want to see
divorced people at war with each other. Some people are very against
exes getting along, perhaps because they don’t get along well with their
own ex, or they fear people succeeding at divorced living, so they
subtly play a sort of ‘divide and conquer’ game.<br />
<br />
<h3>
A Basic Law of Love?</h3>
Do you think that when you have strong, real love for someone, you
can shut it off because there is a breakup or divorce? Do you think
that because of the conflicts and agony that lead up to a breakup or
divorce, you can really come to hate, or act to harm the ex you were so
sure you really loved? Or can you become truly indifferent about a
person you had real love for? Can the love that you have for someone
which motivated you to aid, nurture and protect them change, motivating
you to want to harm, deprive and destroy them? Can healthy, real love
work that way? Some think it can, but most of those who study love
deeply disagree. What do you think?<br />
<br />
Sometimes we have to become
inactive or separate to a person we have love for. However, that does
not mean that ‘way down to the depths of our heart’ we don’t still have
love for them. If it becomes dangerous, destructive or otherwise
unworkable to actively relate with an ex, your love may best become
dormant but still present in your heart. You may occasionally
meditatively tap into that love but not let it lead to any overt
action. Inwardly, you may hope and pray for their well-being but that’s
about all.<br />
<br />
The Scriptures of several religions which proclaim and promote love,
teach that real love is forever. They put forward the concept that once
you truly love someone you will have love for them throughout your
life, and perhaps beyond. That ‘love never ceases’ is a law of love
according to many great, spiritual teachers. What do you think?<br />
<br />
As always – Go and Grow with Love<br />
<br />
<h4>
<span style="color: #38761d;"><i>Dr. J. Richard Cookerly</i></span></h4>
<div>
<br /></div>
<br />
<span style="color: red;">♥</span> Love Success Question<br />
If you felt seriously rejected or betrayed by someone you love, could
you (with healthy self-love) protect yourself from further destructive
hurt, but still have love for that person?drcookerlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09047208304726023746noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-921828284186519885.post-5953925531058764372023-11-19T14:00:00.000-06:002023-11-19T18:53:40.139-06:00A Best Gift of Love?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1_KHVBWXmBw/Xm7pGqPHF_I/AAAAAAAABXI/Gt2ZY9SKIFgTzmyvcevFJWJ6EXbJ6OvXACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/a-best-gift-of-love.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="334" data-original-width="350" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1_KHVBWXmBw/Xm7pGqPHF_I/AAAAAAAABXI/Gt2ZY9SKIFgTzmyvcevFJWJ6EXbJ6OvXACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/a-best-gift-of-love.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
<h4>
Mini-Love-Lesson #266</h4>
<h3>
<span style="color: #38761d;">Synopsis: A wonderfully powerful and useful way to go about enacting healthy, real love via learning and practicing a venerable, Eastern mindset which can be of great benefit to love relationships of all kinds is presented and discussed here, with clear how-to’s given.</span></h3>
<br />
<h3>
Could This Be Your Very Best Gift of Love?</h3>
Here is a gift of love that can make every day better than it otherwise would have been. It is a gift everyone can afford yet it is far too rarely given. This is a gift the giver often benefits from giving as much, or more than the receiver. Furthermore, it is one of those few gifts that tends to grow bigger and better every time you give it. This is a gift which is inclined to brighten dull days, spark up the mundane and make the ordinary just a bit extraordinary. It is good on happy days, bad days, extraordinary days but especially is it good for blah and boring days.<br />
<br />
This gift of love does take some work, some regular and repeated practice, occasional tolerance when there is poor reception, honing and perfecting skills and some perseverance. There are far more spectacular gifts but very few that can do as much good for making love relationships of all kinds stronger, happier and healthier. If this gift is not the very best gift you can give, it definitely is in the top five.<br />
<br />
What is this gift? It is the amazing gift of what is known in the East as “Mudita” love! (Spellings vary)<br />
<br />
<h3>
Mudita Love – A Best Practice of Love</h3>
Mudita love here means to choose to be happy, joyous and positive on purpose and then give or share that happiness with those you love and care about every day you can, day after day after day. On days of difficulty you may switch to “Metta” love which essentially refers to loving kindness and/or to “Karuna” love which basically means compassionate love, and on days of conflict to “Upeksha” love according to the Buddhist and Hindu teachings about these forms of love. The four together are known as the Bramavihara, or four immeasurables of love (other similar titles exist as do ancient Sanskrit and Pali translations).<br />
<br />
On most ordinary days, regular days, usual days and so-so days, Mudita love would have you choose to be genuinely happy with a countenance of upbeat joy which you repeatedly present to your loved ones and others of your choice. This can include everyone you meet and, of course, you also can give this gift to yourself thereby making every day at least a bit better than it might have been. Thus, this becomes a great way to love others as you love yourself.<br />
<br />
<h3>
A Mudita Love Prerequisite</h3>
Mudita love also means doing one other thing that is quite hard for a lot of people to do. It is an extremely good thing to do but it goes against a very common, Western world, cultural training. Mudita love requires that you disavow and reject the thinking that we need an outside something or someone to make or cause us to be happy. That is so difficult for many people because the teaching that happiness is dependent on something or someone outside ourselves has to come along to make or cause our happiness is so prevalent.<br />
<br />
Mudita love teaches us we can often be happy just because we choose to be happy. In fact, we can come to habitually and authentically have a happy, loving positivity as our most regular daily countenance. At the same time, we still can be happy about good things that come along and special people too. Likewise, we can be unhappy or upset when appropriate and functionally useful.<br />
<br />
<h3>
How to Learn to Do Mudita Love</h3>
There are many ways to learn and do Mudita love. Here is one.<br />
<br />
Start by choosing to act happy whether you feel that way or not. Remember, <i>often motions lead emotions</i>. So, smile, say something in happy tones, sing, whistle or hum a happy tune, stride not just walk, and make open arm gestures while standing tall or dancing energetically. Don't let any nay-saying in your head stop you. Next, put your focus on things to be happy about. You are alive, you are breathing, you probably are able to see color, hear music and smell nice scents, read interesting stuff, and so forth. Yes, all those are quite ordinary and ordinary is to be quite happy about. Bear in mind, there are lots of people in the world who would be glad to trade what they have for your <i>ordinary</i>. As you focus on the good stuff more, it also is good to focus on the bad stuff, worrisome stuff, etc. a bit less. Where you put your focus the most has a lot to do with your healthy happiness. We need to focus on some of the bad stuff a certain amount so as to understand it and be motivated to do something about it. However, many over-do that and under-do the positive focusing.<br />
<br />
There is evidence that as you do regular and repeated, positive focusing you are causing your brain to regularly and repeatedly make more happiness producing and processing neurochemicals. In time, that can become your brain’s habitual level of healthful production. This, in turn, is thought probably to contribute to a sort of habitual tendency toward happiness in many people. If you are not already, how about becoming one of them?<br />
<br />
Next, start practicing giving or sharing your countenance of happiness with those you love and anybody else you choose. Go do happiness at and around those you love and like. Later you can try strangers and even enemies. Keep doing that especially to those who act with indifference or some form of negativity while you practice not letting their lack of positive response steal your happiness from you.<br />
<br />
Finally, start leaving out the focus on things that can help you be happy and, instead, just start relying on your choice to be happy. Keep choosing happiness because it will help you increasingly own that ability. Remember to keep taking your happiness to your loved ones and others, and doing happiness toward and around them.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Being Happy At !!!</h3>
Happiness done toward and around those you love can help them to feel glad, elated, more energized, positive about life, good about themselves and more love-bonded with you. Likely, it also will help them want you around more, be more positively disposed to your ways and wants, and be more upbeat-cooperative with you.<br />
<br />
Being happy toward someone you love or like is very healthy for you and them. For both of you, Mudita type love likely will reduce destructive hormone production as it lowers stress and stress reaction while also improving immunity functioning and contribute to general well-being and longevity. Mudita love definitely is a high quality gift of love to give those you love again and again, day after day, plus it is really great for love relationships of every type. It also is often a fine way to simultaneously love others as you love yourself.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Are There Drawbacks?</h3>
There is some evidence that in adulthood many people make themselves about as happy and unhappy as they were programmed to do in childhood, irrespective of what is going on in their adult life. If that is true, it means you might have a subconscious program for habitual unhappiness that you will have to <i>unlearn</i> as you learn the ways of Mudita love. Your anti-happiness program may come on stronger as you work to change to the ways of Mudita love.<br />
<br />
Sometimes the way others see you starts to change as you grow with happy, Mudita love. Usually that is good but not always. Some may envy you and not handle their envy very well. Worse, others may be jealous of you and try to sabotage your countenance of happiness. Keep in mind, the envious only want something <i>like what you have</i> but the jealous do not want you to have it at all. You can show the envious how to get their own Mudita love and, hopefully, spot and dodge the jealous who might try to take it from you.<br />
<br />
<h3>
The Four Immeasurable Ways of Love</h3>
Mudita love has a lot of other aspects and facets to learn about, as do the other Buddhist and Hindu "Immeasurable Ways of Love". What you have here in this mini-love-lesson is just a small starter lesson on the marvelous wealth of useful information about love found in Eastern teachings. To learn more you might want to do some reading in Buddhist psychology or at the online site of the Brahma Vihara Foundation, perhaps followed by the Teachings of Love, a book by the world acclaimed Buddhist teacher, Thich Nhat Hahn. (Spellings very)<br />
<br />
<h3>
One More Thing</h3>
Mudita love is a great thing to tell somebody about and see what they think. If you do that, please mention this site and its many mini-love-lessons and, hopefully thereby, spread some needed love knowledge around. As Thich has said, "To love without knowing how to love wounds those we love." (Translations vary a bit)<br />
<br />
As always – Go and Grow with Love<br />
<br />
<b><span style="color: #38761d;">Dr. J. Richard Cookerly</span></b><br />
<br />
<b>Quotable question:</b> Can what you do not know about love be harming your love relationships?drcookerlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09047208304726023746noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-921828284186519885.post-30308045916341586872023-11-12T14:00:00.000-06:002023-11-12T19:47:03.419-06:00How Receiving Love Well Gives Love Better<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-nm0gBXwJUAs/WnpIFIv3tEI/AAAAAAAAAh4/IEjRCglP-vcaJM61TU3uREJZg9_pQ-s8QCLcBGAs/s1600/how-receiving-love-well-gives-lov.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=921828284186519885" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><img border="0" data-original-height="378" data-original-width="350" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-nm0gBXwJUAs/WnpIFIv3tEI/AAAAAAAAAh4/IEjRCglP-vcaJM61TU3uREJZg9_pQ-s8QCLcBGAs/s320/how-receiving-love-well-gives-lov.jpg" width="296" /></div>
<br />
<h4>
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=921828284186519885" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><span style="color: #38761d;"><strong>Synopsis:</strong> A note on ongoing love; then getting a
grasp of what is good and bad love reception starts our
mini-love-lesson; leading to how to really receive love – part one
having to do love mindfulness and really getting it, which is followed
by part two on how to give love back by showing you truly got it.</span></h4>
<div>
<br /></div>
<h3>
<strong>Ongoing Love Is a Game of Pitch, Catch and Throw Back</strong></h3>
First you have to notice love is coming your way, then you have to
react to really catch it well and not let it go by or drop it, then you
have to accomplish a good return pitch.<br />
<br />
<h3>
<strong>Good and Bad Love Reception</strong></h3>
When love comes your way, do you do a good job of receiving it? Some
people are so bad at receiving love they unknowingly get themselves
love-starved. They also unknowingly may be turning off people from
trying to love them. That can ruin a love relationship. Those who are
really good at love reception are better nourished and more energized by
the love they receive. In the act of good love reception, someone good
at love reception sends love back to the previous love sender. This
greatly helps to form and maintain a love-generating, love-bonding, and
love-cycling love relationship.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=921828284186519885" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a>Poor receivers dishearten and disappoint the people they love, and
even may cause them to feel rejected and futile in their attempts to
give love. Poor receivers also model and, therefore, program or
unintentionally may teach their children to become poor receivers. Good
receivers do exactly the opposite. Those who are good at love
reception generally are much more liked, befriended, included and
assisted than are those who are poor at love reception.<br />
<br />
It turns out that receiving love well is an excellent way to actually
send love to someone. It is one of the eight major types of behavior
by which a person can directly help another person thrive on love. (See
“<b><a href="https://whatislovedrcookerly.blogspot.com/2018/01/a-behavioral-operational-definition-of.html" target="_blank">A Behavioral (Operational) Definition of Love</a></b>”
mini-love-lessons at this site). It is for that reason that it can be
called Receptional Love and can be listed along with the other seven
major types of behavior that convey love discovered by the massive
research efforts in social psychology to understand love started by the
eminent Dr. Clifford Swensen.<br />
<br />
<h3>
<strong>How to Receive Love Well: Part One<br />
</strong></h3>
If someone sends you a statement of love, a gift of love, a loving
touch, a loving look or any of the other ways that show and convey love,
what do you do with it? First, of course, you have to notice it.
Sadly many people are very poor at noticing the love that is coming
their way. They have been programmed, even self-trained to be so
focused on a great many other things that they totally miss the love
that actually is there for them. Next, they have to count it. Once a
love action is noticed it is important to value it.<br />
<br />
Here is an example. A child, in an act of love toward a parent, goes
to the trouble of making a picture. Maybe they go to a lot of trouble
making the picture, really taking time with it. Then they present it to
their parent as a gift of love. If the parent is busy with something
else, like talking to someone, and the parent takes the picture but does
not look at it and instead places it aside on a pile of other papers,
where soon it will be buried by other papers; this parent has sent a
message which says to the child, your gift of love is of no value.<br />
<br />
If that or similar things happen at crucial times, and far too often,
the child may learn not to behave with love. This child also may learn
to feel unworthy, insignificant and even unlovable since loving
behavior did not came back. Someday the parent may be asking, why don’t
my children want to visit me, contact me, or show any signs that they
love me? The parent also may wonder why their children have so much
trouble with their own love relationships.<br />
<br />
All was not lost. If the parent later were to come back to the child
holding the picture, and with warm tones of voice and a smile say they
have been looking at the picture, and soaking up what a fine gift of
love the picture is, and how they will cherish it, and give it a place
of honor in a scrapbook, they may have amended sufficiently their former
poor love reception, and turned it into an act of good receptional
love.<br />
<br />
<h3>
<strong>Love Mindfulness</strong></h3>
It is the same with adults, only with complications. First notice,
then take time to value or ‘count’ the demonstrations of love coming
your way. Maybe you say to yourself, “He (or she) is holding my hand
and that’s showing me some love, so I will let myself fully notice it
and value it”. The next step is to let yourself more fully feel it.
Don’t let your mind go off somewhere else. Stick with the fact that
your hand is being held and that means some love can come in. Maybe you
tell yourself, with a bit of a deeper breath, “I feel it; I’m being
loved and I feel it, I am letting myself fully feel that this person
holding my hand is loving me right now; I digest it; I absorb it and I
let it nourish me”.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=921828284186519885" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a>I have heard people who are learning this mindfulness technique say,
“I don’t have time for all that”. Sometimes I reply, “You don’t have
maybe 15 seconds, even the 20 or 30 seconds it will take to do that?
You don’t have time to feel loved? What will that do to you in the long
run”? Usually they then begin to try what I’m suggesting they do, to
absorb and digest the love that comes their way. You can do the same.
Bear in mind, it does take practice and repetition to do it well.<br />
<br />
Lots of love comes to us through statements. Those statements of
love often are accompanied by loving looks and loving tones of voice.
There may be a loving gesture or posture change (known as expressional
love) like opening arms to us or leaning forward toward us. It is
important we become mindful of all that, along with the words. In this
way you get the whole behavioral love gift and not just part of it. If
your beloved says “I love you” and all you do is snap back with “I love
you too”, that is nice but usually it is not deep or nearly all you
could be experiencing. If you take a couple of seconds to look into
your beloved’s face and say to yourself something like “I’m being told
‘you’ ‘love’ ‘me’, and that’s important. I am taking it in, and I am
absorbing it,. I am letting myself fully feel it and know it”. It is
when we learn to do things like that, that we can much more fully
receive love in a deep way and really be nourished by it.<br />
<br />
Sometimes love comes to us through much bigger actions which take
longer than a simple statement or an act like holding your hand. It is
appropriate to take a lot longer to focus on, strongly value, and more
deeply absorb those demonstrations of love. To feel precious and
cherished by ongoing actions of love, to let ourselves feel honored by
the day-to-day ways we are loved, to let ourselves feel highly valued by
loving thoughtfulness, kindness, assistance, support and the many other
ways we are loved also is highly important. By doing so, we help our
loved ones succeed at loving us. Healthy, real love partly comes our
way from those who truly love us, so that love accomplishes its goal of
benefiting us, because this is what love does. Letting love do exactly
that by absorbing it well, lets those who love us achieve one of love’s
great goals. Anything that depletes good, full reception, helps inhibit
love.<br />
<br />
Training your mind not to let anything interfere with taking some
time to really feel and absorb the love coming of your way helps. You
can train yourself to do a good job of part one of receptional love. At
first it may take more practice that you might think but like anything
if you keep practicing you get better at it, and you begin to notice the
good feelings and many other benefits that result. It may feel odd,
strange, or unusual if you have not been doing this sort of thing. With
repeated work, you can join the happy people who know how to receive
love well and let it nourish them.<br />
<br />
<h3>
<strong>How to Receive Love Well: Part Two<br />
</strong></h3>
Now, as you work on really noticing, valuing, absorbing, and
therefore, letting yourself fully feel loved, there is another big,
important thing to do. This is to do a good job of showing that you are
getting the love being sent your way. If somebody hands you a ‘love
gift’ and you just say “thanks”, and put it down, and you don’t do much
more, that is not very good reception. If you take it for granted, that
shows you do not sincerely and honestly notice, value and absorb it
which may also show that you are not giving back the gift of good
receiving.<br />
<br />
If someone says words of love to you and you act as if nothing
happened, or you only return some perfunctory politeness, that probably
will not do the job of good love reception either. Being truthful also
is important. The truth best be that you have really noticed with
appreciation (valued) and felt (absorbed) the love demonstration that
came your way. Even if the ‘love action’ coming your way is not really
‘your thing’, you can appreciate the loving gesture behind it and absorb
the love itself that is being delivered.<br />
<br />
<h3>
<strong>Love Behaviors That Give Love Back</strong></h3>
If you are with someone who loves you, and they say or do something
loving towards you, and you absorb it, your expressional reaction
immediately can give love back. Expressional love is given by your
facial expression – usually a smile, your tonal expression – usually
warm and happy tones of voice, a gestural expression – maybe open arms,
and a postural expression – leaning in or moving toward the person. In
some situations these may be done in minimal ways like a small nod of
the head with just a tiny momentary grin, but usually it is better if
the expressional behavior is bigger and more robust.<br />
<br />
Tactile behavior such as hugs and kisses, hand and arm squeezes, pats
on legs, arms, backs, etc., all can be added to the expressional
reaction and all can show you really noticed, value and have absorbed
with appreciation the other person’s love action.<br />
<br />
Words of thanks and appreciation are great ways to show you got the
love sent, and you are sending love back. There are many love getting
and giving situations that can be well done with words, both verbally
and in written form. But be careful not to sound like you are being
only dutifully polite.<br />
Gifting, both tangible gifts and experiential gifts, also can be
terrifically good in showing someone you truly got their gift of love.
Thank you cards, flowers, and other tangible gifts are great. Doing
someone a return favor, or surprising them in some happy-making way is
often the experiential gift that shows you really got and appreciated
their gift of love.<br />
<br />
Sometimes opening up to a person who has shown you love, returns the
love by your self disclosure. Various ways to show affirmation of a
person’s value in your life is especially good for demonstrating
receptional love. Even tolerational love can be tied in with reception
love.<br />
<br />
<h3>
<strong>More to Learn<br />
</strong></h3>
This mini-love-lesson is aimed at getting you started toward new and
better receptional love behaviors. There is more to learn about
reception love, and especially about how it is key to maintaining
lasting love relationships. To do that learning, you may wish to read
other mini-love-lessons at this site having to do with the behaviors of
love. You also can read the section on Receptional Love in my book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0595196233/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0595196233&linkCode=as2&tag=movmacnew-20" target="_blank"><strong><em>Recovering Love</em></strong></a>,
which I am proud to say has especially helped a lot of people with this
and related issues. Another good source is Dr. Harville Hendrix and
Dr. Helen LaKelly Hunt’s book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0743483707/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0743483707&linkCode=as2&tag=wildc-posts-20&linkId=DYHJWQLNGW52TNTE" target="_blank"><strong><em>Receiving Love</em></strong></a> which covers quite a few, in depth factors often involved in this very important topic.<br />
<br />
As always – Go and Grow in Love<br />
<br />
<h4>
Dr. J. Richard Cookerly</h4>
<div>
<br /></div>
<strong><span style="color: red;">♥</span> Love Success Question</strong>
On a scale of 1 to 10, ten being best, how do you rate yourself on
being a good receiver of love, and what are you going to do to help
yourself have an even higher score?<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="yarpp-related">
Related posts:<br />
<ol>
<li><a href="https://www.whatislovedrcookerly.com/2018/02/here-and-now-love.html" rel="bookmark" target="_blank" title="Here And Now Love">Here And Now Love </a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.whatislovedrcookerly.com/2018/01/behaviors-that-give-love-basic-core-four.html" rel="bookmark" target="_blank" title="Behaviors That Give Love – The Basic Core Four">Behaviors That Give Love – The Basic Core Four </a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.whatislovedrcookerly.com/2018/02/listening-with-love-are-you-good-at-it_11.html" rel="bookmark" target="_blank" title="Listening With Love – Are You Good At It?">Listening With Love – Are You Good At It? </a></li>
</ol>
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
drcookerlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09047208304726023746noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-921828284186519885.post-72191743949762547842023-11-05T14:00:00.000-06:002023-11-05T17:56:58.646-06:00Behaviors That Give Love - The Basic Core Four<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-uno6bVJzjyQ/WmlMBkOxcfI/AAAAAAAAAM4/GZi7wHwEUAAUQNJD4Ab71fKpuGZMpnL9ACLcBGAs/s1600/behaviors-that-give-love350.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="350" data-original-width="350" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-uno6bVJzjyQ/WmlMBkOxcfI/AAAAAAAAAM4/GZi7wHwEUAAUQNJD4Ab71fKpuGZMpnL9ACLcBGAs/s320/behaviors-that-give-love350.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<h4>
<span style="color: #38761d;">Synopsis: This mini love lesson gets you started on how to give
healthy, real love as a useful step toward also being able to get it;
then goes into the four most basic, core types of behavior discovered by
research which convey healthy, real love.</span></h4>
<div>
<span style="color: #38761d;"><br /></span></div>
<h3>
How to Give Healthy, Real Love and Then Get It</h3>
<strong></strong>To get love, learn to give it. How do you do that,
you ask. A wonderful answer has been given to us by massive, expansive,
long-range, wonderfully well done research conducted in social
psychology.<br />
<br />
That research has discovered 383 distinctive behaviors
likely for stimulating feeling loved by the recipients of those
behaviors. Luckily, advanced, astonishing, ‘magical’, statistical
analysis techniques now have boiled down all that to just eight simple
groups of behavior, which you can learn . In addition to that, clinical
and field work by practitioners of relationship therapy have added all
sorts of important goodies to this knowledge.<br />
<br />
If you learn, practice and get good at the major ways of sending your
love to others, all sorts of improvements in your life become likely. A
ton of research supports that contention.<br />
<br />
Many people come to me asking how they can fall in love, become
loved, find love, get love, be lovable, etc.. The first thing to do, I
suggest, is concentrate and learn how to give healthy, real love. Then
practice and get really good at it. At this site you can study what
healthy, real love truly is and about <span style="text-decoration-line: underline;">the eight major categories of behavior</span>
that social psychologists and others have discovered which send,
demonstrate, deliver and give healthy, real love directly to others.
Plus there are four more larger, wide-ranging categories of how love is
given, but first get the basics.<br />
<br />
Presented here are the basic, core, four major ways to directly give
love which lay down a groundwork for learning the rest. Each of these
can be applied to romantic love, spouse love, love of a child,
friendship love, and many other types of love, including healthy
self-love.<br />
<br />
<h3 align="center">
Introducing The Basic, Core Four</h3>
<strong>1. Touch Love</strong><br />
Touch, or tactile love, is defined as physical contact which
demonstrates loving affection, support, caring, comforting and also
sensual and sexual loving, plus the special category of healing touch.
Touching with love perhaps is the most basic and oldest form of
demonstrating love. It probably is the first form of love people
experience, usually beginning in the womb and very soon after birth.
Babies who do not receive loving touch die of ‘failure to thrive’
illnesses like marasmus even though they are otherwise well taken care
of.<br />
<br />
Before loving, holding, cuddling and stroking became part of the care
program given to infant orphans, 99.9% of them died before reaching the
age of two in the orphanages studied in North America and Europe. It
is feared that older people in various care facilities also may die
sooner without loving touch. There also is evidence to suggest that
between those two age groups those who go without loving touch are far
more likely to experience all kinds of serious, psychological disorders
and perhaps physical ones also. So, learn to do loving touch – a lot!<br />
<br />
Take a look at the following list of words expressing how many different ways loving touch may be done.<br />
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
Holding, hand holding, petting, stroking,
caressing, cuddling, hugging, kissing, embracing, clasping, nuzzling,
foot rubbing, snuggling, fondling, squeezing, tapping, light tickling,
full body pressing, lap dancing , tease pinching, cupping and at least a
dozen others for the sensual and erotic, love expressive, touch
actions.</div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<br /></div>
Why not get good at all of them?<br />
<br />
Another category of tactile love involves healing touch. To be
lovingly touched when ill or injured, distressed, or in any way
dysfunctional is known to be surprisingly healing, including at the
physical level. Wounded areas lovingly touched by someone loving you
heal faster and better according to no small number of studies.<br />
<br />
<strong>2. Expressional Love<br />
</strong>Expressional love probably is the second oldest and also is a
very basic, quickly delivered form of showing love. Expressional love
is accomplished by loving expressions in your tones of voice, loving
facial expressions, loving gestures and love communicated by posture
movements. If someone you love comes in the room and you stand up
(posture movement expression), hold open your arms in welcoming (gesture
expression), smile (facial expression) and say “aahh” in a most loving
tone of voice (tonal expression) you probably have done a really good
job of sending several bits of expressional love.<br />
<br />
Most people are surprised to learn that in direct, personal,
face-to-face communication only 7% of the communication is carried by
the words being spoken. Tonal expression conveys about 35% of the
message and facial, gesture and body motion can convey 55% of the total
message. So, get good at studying what your tones, face, gesture and
whole body movements are saying and help them speak of your love to
those you love.<br />
<br />
Become good at the looks and sounds of love and then it is more
likely that those will flow back to you in greater abundance. When you
do this love-bonding becomes far more likely and love relationship
health is nourished. However, don’t do it for those reasons because the
mere giving of love action does wonders for you whether you get
anything in return from others or not. Remember, real love is a free
gift.<br />
<br />
<strong>3. Verbal Love<br />
</strong>The words that convey love can add all sorts of power,
intricacy, elaboration, understanding and magnificence to the way you
deliver your love to another. Verbal love includes words spoken and
words written. Verbal love simply is defined as the behavior of using
words to convey and express love.<br />
<br />
The simple “I love you” statements are perhaps the most common form
of verbal love. Pet names, nicknames, terms of endearment like
sweetheart, darling, honey, etc., words expressing the many and varied,
different emotions caused by love (remember, love itself is not an
emotion but a powerful natural process), special made-up words shared
only by intimately connecting lovers, words of passion when love is part
of the passion, poetic and artful phraseology, positive humorous terms,
double meanings, and other very personally expressive and descriptive
word-craft all count here in the verbal expressions of love.<br />
<br />
<strong>4. Gift Love<br />
</strong>Gift love is defined as presenting to a loved one tangible
objects, resources, opportunities or experiences aimed at conveying
love, and having no component of expecting a return action or object
being sought. Gift love is generally thought of in two major forms:
those that are more <span style="text-decoration-line: underline;">tangible gifts</span> like things attractively wrapped in boxes but also including resources like finances; and the other form of <span style="text-decoration-line: underline;">experience gifts</span>
like surprise birthday parties or a picnic date, offering opportunities
counts here too like letting someone use your place for the party they
are giving.<br />
What is important is to <span style="text-decoration-line: underline;">enjoy the giving</span>
of the gift and let that be enough. If the recipient of you gift
enjoys it, says thanks, gives you something in return, or shows off your
gift or makes laudatory statements to others on your behalf that’s all
extra. ‘Giving to get something back’ is not a gift, it’s a
manipulation.<br />
<br />
Experience gifts like taking someone to an event they really want to
go to, playing music they really like to hear, or providing an
opportunity for them to do something adventuresome, beautiful or
extraordinary can be among the best of gifts. For conveying intimate
love sometimes unexpected, small gifts like a single rose can be more
important than larger gifts like a whole bouquet when presented just
right. Gift love is best considered an ‘art form’ well worth learning
and practicing.<br />
To really learn and get into <span style="text-decoration-line: underline;">all eight of the major ways of directly giving healthy, real love</span> I, perhaps egotistically, strongly recommend you read my book, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0595196233/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0595196233&linkCode=as2&tag=movmacnew-20" target="_blank"><strong><em>Recovering Love</em></strong></a>, available through amazon.com, iuniverse.com, and others.<br />
<br />
As always – Go and Grow in Love<br />
<br />
<h4>
<span style="color: #38761d;">Dr. J. Richard Cookerly</span></h4>
<div>
<br /></div>
<strong><span style="color: red;">♥</span> Love Success Question<br />
</strong>Of the above, basic, core, four ways to give love which are you best at and how are you going to get even better at it?<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="yarpp-related">
Related posts:<br />
<ol>
<li><a href="https://www.whatislovedrcookerly.com/2018/02/other-ways-to-say-i-love-you.html" rel="bookmark" target="_blank" title="Other Ways to Say I Love You">Other Ways to Say I Love You </a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.whatislovedrcookerly.com/2018/02/talking-to-feelings-first-then-topics.html" rel="bookmark" target="_blank" title="Talking to Feelings First, Then Topics – A Love Skill">Talking to Feelings First, Then Topics – A Love Skill </a></li>
</ol>
</div>
drcookerlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09047208304726023746noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-921828284186519885.post-78365397744621268872023-10-29T13:00:00.000-05:002023-10-29T20:24:09.687-05:00Poly Love<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-woJD_PArKRg/WoJncGqEEpI/AAAAAAAAAw8/oeP1WXX1s7UZ5e40LuCdAucpy-HnDo3rQCLcBGAs/s1600/poly-love250w.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="624" data-original-width="250" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-woJD_PArKRg/WoJncGqEEpI/AAAAAAAAAw8/oeP1WXX1s7UZ5e40LuCdAucpy-HnDo3rQCLcBGAs/s320/poly-love250w.jpg" width="128" /></a></div>
<h4>
<span style="color: #38761d;"><strong>Synopsis:</strong> Uncle Charlie’s introduction to a love
weirdness; The Poly Advantage; Questions and Quandaries; Personal
Questions; and the Worldwide Scene.</span></h4>
<div>
<br /></div>
<h3>
<strong>Uncle Charlie’s Introduction to a Love ‘Weirdness’</strong></h3>
Jackie opened the door and said, “Hi Mom, Dad, Uncle Charlie. Come
on in and meet two of the guys I’m considering marrying or at least
someday living with”.<br />
<br />
Dad and Mom looked at her a bit sheepishly and
Uncle Charlie looked happily confused but interested. Uncle Charlie
said, “So what are you going to do with the husband you already have”?
“I’ll keep him too of course,” Jackie replied. “All three at the same
time?”, Charlie asked, acting like he was sort of going along with a
joke. “Yes, all three, at least some of them at the same time,” Jackie
replied in a serious, contemplative tone of voice.<br />
<br />
Uncle Charlie looked more puzzled. “Ah hah,” said Jackie turning to
her mother and father. “You haven’t told him I’m a Poly, have you?”
Jackie’s father spoke up saying, “ I would just get him confused trying
to explain it, because I haven’t quite figured it out yet myself”.
Jackie then replied, “Come on in to dinner and I’ll see if I can explain
it to you without too much confusion and maybe even without too much
embarrassment.” More people arrived and were introduced as friends and
part of Jackie’s “poly” network. At dinner Jackie explained. “Poly
love, or more officially Polyamory, is about two or more people openly
loving each other, usually in an ongoing relationship, while acting
supportive of their lover’s other love relationships.<br />
<br />
“Here’s a basic concept. If you love somebody you want the one you
love to have what they want and need. Many of us want and need more
than one romantic or mate-like relationship. Therefore, if someone we
love intimately wants or needs others we want them to have those
relationships. Since you can love two or more parents, two or more
siblings, two or more children, two or more friends at the same time
why not two or more lovers or love mates?<br />
<br />
“There are different societies around the world who have lived this
love style for hundreds even thousands of years. More accurately poly
love styles, in a variety of different ways, but none of them make for
exclusive one-on-one living or for being dishonest about it. Polys tend
to argue that our culture’s way is ‘phony monogamy’ but actually it’s
serial polygamy or polyandry with lots of dishonesty. Affairs,
adultery, unfaithfulness, cheating and the like, occur in over half the
marriages pretending to be monogamous. So much doesn’t get shared that
deep sharing realness and real intimacy of the heart hardly have a
chance.”<br />
<br />
Uncle Charlie, an open-minded and bold sort of fella said, “So, let
me ask the big question in my mind. What about sex ? I can’t help but
suspect all this Polyamory stuff is all just a mask for a form of
‘swinging’?” Jackie laughed openly and everyone else giggled or blushed
a bit. “Sex is usually included but not always. With some, Poly love
is done more like long-lasting, deep friendship while relationships in
the swinging world tend to be more shallow and brief, though that’s not
always true. But with us Polys it’s really not primarily about sex.
That’s more for ordinary singles, swingers and of course cheaters. We
Poly people are about the people we love having what they need and want,
and that can include lots of sex with lots of people, though it usually
is confined to a much smaller number of very special people”.<br />
<br />
Uncle
Charlie looking a bit devilish said, “Again let me ask, altogether at
once?” Jackie responded, “That can happen and does with some Polys.
For other Polys sex is a more private, one-on-one sort of thing. Again
it’s much more about healthy, real love that’s open and honest”.<br />
<br />
<h3>
<strong>The Poly Advantage</strong></h3>
One of the other dinner guests then spoke up, “The Poly way has a
great big advantage. It is non-deceitful, non-possessive,
non-controlling, non-restrictive and non-exclusive. When you lust or
feel love for another, which I think every spirited, really alive person
does, you don’t have to hide it from those closest and dearest to you.”<br />
<br />
Another guest at the table who had been quietly listening said, “The
Poly way saves us from cheating and all the lies that go with it. If
you have a forbidden desire you get to talk about it instead of hiding
and feeling bad about yourself about having the desire. It also means
having a whole lot more love in your life, and with it a whole lot more
joy – at least that’s the way I experience it”.<br />
<br />
Then Sandra shyly spoke up saying, “Let me tell you my experience.
Before I became a Poly I was always afraid of losing whatever love I
had, so I always had to secretly have a second lover on the side. Time
and again that meant someone found out what I was secretly doing on the
side and there were horrible fights and a horrible breakup and a whole
lot of time spent suffering and also in recovery. Then the whole thing
would start again. That nearly killed me. I mean literally. I nearly
suicided twice.<br />
<br />
“Then I got introduced to the Poly thing. I learned I really have
what it takes to love and be loved a lot. It just seems natural to me.
What was messing it up was dishonesty and a value system which made
sexual fidelity and monogamy more important than what I think of as
natural, real love or truth. When monogamy or sexual singularity are
more important than love it can destroy love. I’ve heard it said that
whatever we make more important than love ruins love, and I think that’s
true for me at least. Now I see that anyone dumb or insecure enough to
want to abandon me over who else I love probably isn’t right for me
anyway. Breaking up would hurt some but see I have deep and abiding
love with the most wonderful set of other people, so I know I’m not
going to be unloved. It’s more like the family you can count on, and I
wouldn’t trade anything for it. I know it’s not for everyone but it
works way better for me than what I was doing before”.<br />
<br />
<h3>
<strong>Questions and Quandaries</strong></h3>
Well, the evening went on with lots of humor, occasional tender,
caring feelings and a surprising amount of frank, open honesty. Some
talked of their failures at being Poly and the failures of others they
had known who tried it and found it wanting. There was quite a lot of
talk going on about children with some parents strongly testifying how
much seeing their parents go Poly had done for them. Others, of course,
were very dubious about that part.<br />
<br />
A lot of the other ways that a Poly lifestyle can be lived also got
mentioned. Handling jealousy and insecurity, plus the role of healthy
self-love in doing so was focused on for a time. How a Poly love
lifestyle was being a great benefit to bisexuals in the Poly community
was generally agreed on. The question of “is Poly love real love?”
resulted in people saying “sometimes yes and sometimes no”. All
acknowledged that false forms of love could happen in Poly relationships
just like in monogamous relationships. Also everybody agreed Poly love
took just as much or more work as any other kind of relationship.
While it seemed like a sort of salvation for some, it was seldom easy,
especially at first.<br />
<br />
Some put forth the idea that it’s the English-speaking peoples that
have the most trouble with Poly lifestyles, while maybe northern
Europeans, the French, Polynesians and certain special indigenous people
in China were more likely to do well with it. Jackie’s parents
testified to the fact that their daughter was happier this way than she
ever had been before and that was what mattered to them. Uncle Charlie
said this dinner party had been the best conversational circus he had
ever gone to, and he had never experienced so many surprising thoughts
that he would have to think about a lot more and he was going to do just
that.<br />
<br />
<h3>
<strong>Personal Questions And the Worldwide Scene</strong></h3>
So, dear reader, how do you think you would go home from a dinner
party like that one? What might your personal questions be? If some of
your close friends or family were to be revealed living a Poly lifestyle
what would that mean to you? Since all polls and other indicators show
the Poly lifestyle to be growing with Poly clubs in every major city
and many minor ones, Poly national and international conventions popping
up all over the Western world, parts of the Far East , South America
and especially North America, seminars talks, group discussions,
Internet sites, online magazines and lots more, it seems likely you are
going to run into it sooner or later personally.<br />
<br />
Perhaps you already have. It seems like a lot of people keep their
Poly involvement kind of quiet because, after all, it is a rather
personal thing. As to love and lifestyles, the world seems to be
changing one relationship at a time. Concerning yourself, those closest
to you, family, children, neighbors, etc. if any of them want you to
come with them to the gathering of the Polys what you think you are
likely to do if you haven’t already?<br />
<br />
As always – Go and Grow with Love<br />
<br />
<h4>
<span style="color: #38761d;">Dr. J. Richard Cookerly</span></h4>
<div>
<br /></div>
<strong><span style="color: red;">♥</span> Love Success Question<br />
</strong>Are you more puzzled, threatened, dismissive, angered, worried,
curious, amused, conflicted, inspired, excited, encouraged or just
don’t know what to think by the Poly lifestyle?<br />
<br />
<strong>Special note:</strong> Thanks to the several people who have
requested this topic be addressed. Sorry we didn’t get to it sooner.
For those new to the topic you might want to Google “Polyamory”, there’s
lots of information at lots of different sites. Yes, there is likely to
be more on this topic from time to time, along with information about
other “alternative” lifestyles and how love is being carried out in
those lifestyles, along with the “traditional”.drcookerlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09047208304726023746noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-921828284186519885.post-40666052987293693582023-10-22T14:00:00.000-05:002023-10-22T19:15:49.570-05:00Can You Talk about Sex - with Love?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-hmHjw15fRXI/WmqE5uykmXI/AAAAAAAAAO0/qO87dKtJA3Yx19mzUbxVK6xeBdFQeiivgCLcBGAs/s1600/can-we-talk-about-sex_200.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="371" data-original-width="200" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-hmHjw15fRXI/WmqE5uykmXI/AAAAAAAAAO0/qO87dKtJA3Yx19mzUbxVK6xeBdFQeiivgCLcBGAs/s320/can-we-talk-about-sex_200.jpg" width="172" /></a></div>
Talking about sex with love is known to work wonders
for both the sex lives and love lives of many people. Unfortunately
there still are many others who don’t know how to do this very well. In
fact there are quite a few who don’t seem to be able to do this at all.<br />
<br />
Some people can talk with love about sex to a close,
intimate friend but not to a spouse or lover. Many parents trying to
instruct their children about sex do it in very loveless ways. For
others talking to a teenager concerning sex in ways that are love-filled
is almost impossible. Many people can’t talk to their family members
about sex at all, let alone in ways that convey love. Many people long
to have more love in their sex lives but they don’t know how to talk
about or ask for that very well.<br />
<br />
Others want more sex in their love
lives but they sure don’t know how to lovingly converse about that. And
then there are some who are vaguely aware that something is missing,
which if they talked about it would probably turn out to be
communications of love that are missing. Sadly they don’t know how to
talk about that so this important missing element is never discovered or
dealt with.<br />
<br />
For so many people learning how to talk about ways
to grow and mix healthy real love with sexuality would lead to
satisfying unmet desires and greatly, even profoundly, enrich their
lives. Regrettably that is something they mostly are unaware of so that
way of talking probably won’t happen. You may ask, how did these
blocks or inabilities come to be? Let’s look and see if one or more of
these causes and initiating factors happened to you.<br />
<br />
Lots of people grew up in homes where no one talked
about sex. If that happened to you you were probably being
subconsciously programmed not to talk about sex at all or to have a very
hard time talking about it. Other people grew up in families that
talked about sex only in negative ways of one type or another. If in
your family sex was talked about with heavy emotional tones of guilt,
disgust, revulsion, judgmentalism, fear, nastiness or any other negative
mood or mindset you could have been programmed to talk about sex in
similar negative ways and perhaps not even realize it.<br />
<br />
Some of us were raised in homes where adults talked
about sex in flat, matter-of-fact ways or in puzzling, unclear ways.
When sex is mentioned today we may talk in that same matter-of-fact or
puzzling, unclear way. For a great many others any mention of sex was
embarrassing, shameful, sinful, and something God was against; and as
adults it still is. There is another group when growing up perceived
talking about sex as a naughty pleasure. Everything referring to sex
resulted in a delicious tasting of forbidden fruit. Thus, sex talk was
fun but love was not a part of it. Love, therefore, still may be absent
or minimal when communicating about sex for people raised this way.<br />
<br />
Another common background for many has to do with a
conflicted subconscious programming. Parents taught talking about sex
was “bad” but siblings and friends taught sex talk was “good” in that it
was exciting, powerful, independent, and more adult. This especially
seemed true if sex talk was sufficiently shocking, nasty, dirty,
raunchy, filthy, salacious, etc.. Such talk was ‘socially forbidden’,
therefore, it was filled with the raptures of secret rebellion. This too
had a subconscious programming effect which lingers in the minds of
many adults today. All this means that <span style="text-decoration-line: underline;">too few</span>
of today’s adults who were raised in the Western world (and in some
other parts of the world) grew up hearing sex talked about with loving
words and tones of voice, coupled with loving looks and a general
atmosphere of simple, loving okayness. Love and sex effectively often
have been uncoupled, divided and set apart from each other, at least as
far as talk is concerned.<br />
<br />
Let’s look at what to do to make this better. <br />
<br />
Ask yourself these three questions. Can you
converse about sex with a mate, lover, friends, family members, a child
you’re raising, a teenager or even with yourself with love? Do you talk
or avoid talking about sex in a way that avoids being loving? Can you
do a good job of mixing the words, sounds and looks of love with the
words, sounds and looks of sexuality and the erotic? If you can, be
proud and happy, but also know that some of those you talk to in more
personal ways may need some help in learning to do the same.<br />
<br />
To talk about sex with love consider these words which sometimes are used to describe talking with love:<br />
<br />
>>>Kind,
caring, sweet, happy, tender, joyful, intimate, fun, affirming,
praising, thankful, nonjudgmental, accepting, gentle, reassuring,
challenging, honest, appreciative, celebratory, laudatory, passionate,
reverent, zestful, precious, heartfelt, inspiring, adoring, close,
delightful<<<<br />
<br />
Can you talk about sex with yourself and others you
love in the moods indicated by each of the above words? If not, it
might be good for you, and maybe for those who are closest to you, to
work on learning how to speak about sex, sexiness and the erotic in at
least a few of those loving moods.<br />
<br />
Remember, doing a good job of talking together is
not just about the words we use. It also is about how well we listen
and about the manner in which we receive and deliver messages. A wink, a
subtle smile, a whisper, a tonal change, the use of an innuendo and a
great many other behaviors can <span style="text-decoration-line: underline;">empower</span> or <span style="text-decoration-line: underline;">de-power</span>
our message, shape interpretation, convey emotions and deliver the
‘between the lines’ message. All this especially is important when
talking together about sex with someone you love.<br />
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<br />
The
mood or manner in which we talk about sexuality often is far more
important than the words spoken. Mixing highly seductive intonations
and strongly suggestive looks, postures and gestures with the sounds,
looks and words of love can be enormously impactful in a personal
relationship. Happily and lovingly explaining sex to a child mixed with
a certain amount of matter-of-factness can have a very positive effect
in guiding a child toward a healthy, happy understanding of sexuality.
Being kind and caring while discussing a sexual difficulty may be
crucial to overcoming the difficulty. Being enthusiastically sexual
with loving overtones can produce more superb, erotic love experiences.
Speaking intimately naughty but ever so lovingly friendly is another
way to shape mood and manner in a positive fashion.<br />
<br />
Sex talk with loving laughter, smiles and caresses
can work to attain an atmosphere of intimate, relaxed, happy eroticism
in which love with sex easily flows. For many the success or failure of
asking a love mate to try something new sexually depends on how
lovingly the request is made. Sweet, tender, gentle, reassuring, and
above all else love-filled talk about a sex conflict often is essential
for the conflict’s resolution. Heading into a new sex adventure
together is frequently best started with strong, solid expressions of
love for one another.<br />
<br />
Another way to make talking about sex a love
experience has to do with stating appreciation, thankfulness, praise,
compliments and generally speaking in a laudatory fashion to and about
your love mate. Likewise, talking about sex and listening to someone
else talk about sex with tolerance, open-mindedness, affirmation and
kindness also can help make the talk a love-filled event. And, of
course, using terms of loving endearment like sweetheart, darling,
honey, etc. can add quite a lot of love to sex talk.<br />
<br />
For most couples doing well at talking about sex
with one another is very important. It may determine not only how well
their sex life goes but influence a great deal more in their all over
relationship. How generally open, honest, intimate and real people can
come to be with each other is frequently guided by how well they
lovingly talk about sex with one another. This can be true not only for
couples but for close, intimate friends as well. How lovingly people
treat their love mate’s sex questions, requests and desires often
determines how honest and self disclosing a person feels they can be in a
relationship.<br />
<br />
So crucial to a couple’s sexual development is the
ability to hear ‘with love’ what turns on a love mate, what sex
fantasies are imagined, what taboo explorations are secretly hoped for,
what’s hard to talk about and, most of all, what’s desired. Without
demonstrations and expressions of love mixed into a couple’s sex
communications there is a likelihood that censorship, inhibition,
deception, intolerance, judgmentalism, boredom, emotional distancing and
simple discomfort will grow.<br />
<br />
Another part of mixing love and sex together in talk
has to do with your healthy self-love and how you talk to yourself
about your own sexuality. In your internal dialogue can you speak with
love to yourself about the erotic you? Can you affirm the natural
goodness and healthfulness of the sexuality you were born to
experience? Are you able to praise and give thanks for your sexual
system and all the many good feelings it gives you? Have you freed
yourself of the unhealthy, anti-sexual and anti-self-loving influences
that may have impacted you? Are you able to love your own sexuality as a
precious part of the bundle of miracles that you are? Is your self
talk increasingly loving and positive when it comes to your own
sexuality?<br />
<br />
It takes a bit of doing to overcome our subconscious programs from childhood that influence how we <span style="text-decoration-line: underline;">speak</span> and <span style="text-decoration-line: underline;">don’t speak</span>
about love and sex. To get a sense of this difficulty imagine you are
talking, teaching and answering the questions of teen boys and girls
concerning erections, vaginal lubrication, sexual intercourse, menstrual
cramps, ejaculate, yeast infections, masturbation, orgasm, the G spot,
birth control, STD’s, foreplay, condoms, oral sex, bi-sexuality
homosexuality, hypo- and hyper-sexuality and polygamous sex; and imagine
you are doing it in a way that connects it all with reassuring love.
This is the challenge facing parents who have decided to do a thorough
job of sexually educating their offspring. Many would have some
problems talking about these things coupled with love to their closest
adult friends because of their childhood programs to be embarrassed,
ashamed, etc. Yet, the better we frankly can talk with love the better
we can solve problems, avoid difficulties, achieve advancement and make
growth occur in being <span style="text-decoration-line: underline;">lovingly sexual</span> and <span style="text-decoration-line: underline;">sexually loving</span>.<br />
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<br />
To
overcome our subconscious programs that work against talking in a sex
with love way often takes dedication and perseverance. Those who
practice it find the effort highly worthwhile.<br />
Communicating with love and sex mixed together may
be a primary way most couples build a sense of deep connectedness.
Without the love included a more limited, more narrow, more reserved and
more distancing way of relating may be the result. Experiencing the
love your love mate has in their heart for you makes everything you do
sexually together better. It is the love that empowers sex to be dealt
with in ways that enable sexual explorations, adventures, advancements,
creativity, freedom, abandonment of inhibitions, and mutual attainment
of erotic spiritual heights. When love and sex are mixed together and
well communicated awesome, oceanic, transcendental experiences of Eros
may result. Traveling together toward such incredible shared ecstasy
can begin with developing your ability to talk about sex with love.<br />
<br />
As always, grow in love<br />
<br />
<em><strong><span style="color: #38761d;">Dr. J. Richard Cookerly</span></strong></em><br />
<em><strong><br /></strong></em>
<strong>♥ Love Success Question </strong>With whom are you
actually going to talk to about mixing love and sex and the ideas in
this blog entry; and how might that be for you?<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="yarpp-related">
Related posts:<br />
<ol>
<li><a href="https://www.whatislovedrcookerly.com/2018/02/how-to-talk-love-without-words.html" rel="bookmark" target="_blank" title="How to Talk Love Without Words">How to Talk Love Without Words </a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.whatislovedrcookerly.com/2018/02/lasting-sex-and-lasting-love.html" rel="bookmark" target="_blank" title="Lasting Sex and Lasting Love">Lasting Sex and Lasting Love </a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.whatislovedrcookerly.com/2018/02/sexual-love-laces_14.html" rel="bookmark" target="_blank" title="Sexual Love Laces">Sexual Love Laces </a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.whatislovedrcookerly.com/2018/01/emotional-intercourse.html" rel="bookmark" target="_blank" title="Emotional Intercourse">Emotional Intercourse </a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.whatislovedrcookerly.com/2020/10/is-your-affirmational-love-enough.html" rel="bookmark" target="_blank" title="Are You Talking About Love Enough?">Are You Talking About Love Enough? </a></li>
</ol>
</div>
drcookerlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09047208304726023746noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-921828284186519885.post-76319368920027236492023-10-15T14:00:00.000-05:002023-10-15T20:38:17.209-05:00Upbeat Emotions & Learning for Love<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<h4>
<span style="color: #38761d;">Synopsis: An Elven teaching about a difference between “smart” and
“wise”, finding the guidance messages for upbeat love emotions, the
grand importance of sharing emotions, 7 upbeat emotions to share and use
for practice in getting your personal guidance messages and more.</span></h4>
<div>
<br /></div>
It was told of old that the ancient elves taught:<br />
“The smart learn from their hurts, agonies, disappointments and despair.<br />
<br />
The wise learn from their joys, ecstasies, contentments, and elations,<br />
while sadly – the rest learn not from their feelings at all.”<br />
Natural, good feeling emotions can give us great guidance. Natural,
good feeling emotions tell us that we are doing something probably
healthful and right for us to do. Shared natural, good feeling emotions
guide us toward more and better bonding together in love
relationships. Natural, good feeling emotions can teach us a great deal
about ourselves, our relationships and how to make both stronger and
more successful. It is our job to learn how to get the guidance
messages of our natural, good feeling emotions and use them for higher,
greater and more wonderful love.<br />
<br />
Feelings, both physical and emotional, are ancient, natural guidance
systems working for our safety, survival and advancement. They are far
older than are reasoning and conscious thought. In relationships and
especially love relationships our emotional system of feelings often
gives far wiser guidance than do reason or contemplation. However, it
is even more advantageous when we use our thinking and reasoning
abilities <span style="text-decoration-line: underline;">with</span> our emotions because that gives us the very best guidance our incredible brains can produce.<br />
<br />
Of even greater benefit is when two or more people in a love relationship share in a simple, ‘four step process’. First comes <span style="text-decoration-line: underline;">sharing their emotions</span>, second is searching for and <span style="text-decoration-line: underline;">discovering the guidance messages in their emotions and sharing them</span> with one another, third comes sharing and <span style="text-decoration-line: underline;">synthesizing their thinking about the feelings and the guidance message</span>, and finally comes <span style="text-decoration-line: underline;">acting in teamwork</span>
with one another from what they have discovered from sharing and
synthesizing. Synthesizing means to interweave together the guidance
messages of the emotions and actions stemming from those guidance
messages.<br />
<br />
Here’s a simple example. Harriet feels cold and understands her
feeling guidance message is to “warm up”. Charlie feels hot and
understands his guidance message is to “cool down”. Instead of arguing
about whether or not they’re going to turn up or turn down the
thermostat they synthesize their guidance messages, so Charlie takes off
his shirt and hands it to Harriet who puts it on. Charlie is cooler,
Harriet is warmer, and both are happier in their harmony together via
sharing feelings and their guidance messages and arriving at
‘synthesis’.<br />
<br />
There are a number of good things that come from sharing emotions and
together discovering the guidance that those emotions give. Here’s the
biggest and most wonderful part of that. Sharing emotions together may
result in the most significant relationship experiences people have
together. By lovingly sharing both the emotions we call “good” and the
ones we call “bad” continued emotional connecting and bonding tends to
become ongoing. Without that sharing, emotional connection can fade and
love relationships may die.<br />
<br />
Sharing the emotions of good times and bad
times, but especially the upbeat, good times tends to strengthen a
couple, or a family, or friendship, or any other human unit. Sharing
upbeat feelings is more easily enriching to humans who love each other,
but sometimes through sharing hurts there is deep connectedness also.
Without the sharing of good, happy, upbeat emotions the continued
strengthening and enrichment of a love relationship is very hard to
achieve.<br />
<br />
Many people do not know that sharing good or upbeat emotions is just
as important, if not more important, than sharing the ‘downer’ emotions
of pain and displeasure. While sharing pain tends to lessen the pain,
sharing good feelings provides motivation to be together, stay together
and move forward together. Sharing good or upbeat feelings also
provides knowledge, for those who know to learn from it, for how to
repeatedly achieve good feelings and the enrichments, health and
well-being that natural, good feelings bring. Consider the statement
“Date your mate or lose your mate” (see blog entry “<span style="text-decoration-line: underline;"><a href="https://www.whatislovedrcookerly.com/2018/01/date-your-mate-always.html" target="_blank"><strong>Date Your Mate – Always!</strong></a></span>”).
It is in the shared joys of recreation that couples, families, and
others are re-created as the word recreation indicates. Therefore,
dates, vacations and other ‘upbeat’ emotional experiences are vital to
the healthful continuance of love relationships.<br />
<br />
Of course it is really best and highly important to share both the
feelings we call “good” and the feelings we call “bad” which enable us
to better get the guidance messages of them all. In a sense <span style="text-decoration-line: underline;">all feelings are good</span>
because all feelings give guidance. The ‘team’ we call a couple, or a
family, or a friendship, like any team, needs shared guidance.
Otherwise one part of the team doesn’t know what the other part of the
team is all about and, thus, teamwork fails. It is a simple truth that
within a team shared guidance works far better than un-shared guidance
and that’s why it is important that all the team members join in sharing
their feelings with each other. Only then can all share in the
guidance those feelings can give.<br />
<br />
Here is an example. His strong emotions were pushing him toward
adventure. Her strong feelings were for safety. With love they shared
their emotions, and with wisdom they synthesized the guidance messages
they got from their feelings. Mountain climbing, starting with a modest
mountain, became the most exciting thing they had ever done together
and the shared excitement, shared adventure and the shared awe of grand
vistas bonded them together like little else could.<br />
<br />
She was so thankful
for his spirit and desire for adventure because it brought her worlds
she never knew and ecstasy she never imagined experiencing. Her own
emotions of fear, anxiety and foreboding motivated her request that they
start with a not too difficult ascent and also that she bring an extra
well-equipped first-aid kit, which contained the necessary items that
saved his life when a rattlesnake bit him as they were descending the
mountain. He was so thankful that her emotions guided her to the
safeguarding actions that saved his life.<br />
<br />
Shared fears and desires lead to following the guidance messages that
lead to both of them surviving adversity and to a grand and enriching
shared adventure. It also brought them closer together and strengthened
their mutual love experience. He at first had thought her safety
concerns were a bit excessive. She quite definitely thought his
adventure desires were excessive but with love, hope and certain
safeguarding actions she went forward with him. Both came to feel very
glad for being able to understand the guidance their emotions gave them.<br />
<br />
So, are you learning the guidance messages and teachings hidden in
the wisdom of your emotions? (For more information about the guidance
messages of emotions see the entry “<span style="text-decoration-line: underline;"><a href="https://www.whatislovedrcookerly.com/2018/01/dealing-with-love-hurts-pains-crucial.html" target="_blank"><strong>Dealing with Love Hurts #1 – Pain’s Crucial Guidance</strong></a></span>”)
Are you especially learning from your upbeat, happy emotions? With a
loved one, together are you sharing those emotions, jointly learning
their guidance messages, and weaving together what you learn? Do you
actively seek to learn the feelings of those you love and ascertain the
guidance messages and teachings in the feelings of your loved ones? Are
you good at synthesizing yours and your loved one’s emotional guidance
messages?<br />
<br />
To help you toward doing these things here are five types of ‘good’
or pleasant to experience emotions, and typical learnings or guidance
messages ‘wise people’ — or elves — sometimes get from these good feelings.<br />
<br />
1. <span style="color: #339966;"> <span style="color: black;">Emotion</span>:</span> <strong>Serenity</strong>:
Possible Guidance Message: Here is restoration, so linger with it and
soak it up. Whenever you’re stressed, hassled, anguished or just
drained learning from your serenity could help you remember what you
did, and how you behaved, and where you went that got you to serenity
and to its highly restorative enrichment so that you might do it again.
If you share your feelings of serenity with a loved one they may also
feel some serenity or feel more connected with you and your current
serene countenance, plus they could learn the same thing you’re learning
from that feeling. A loved one might also notice and remind you when
you need to do those things that lead to your restorative serenity.<br />
<br />
2. Emotion: <strong>Joyful Anticipation</strong>: Possible Guidance
Message: Go forward, let yourself get into the anticipated experience
fully, soak it up and be enriched by it. Sharing it with a loved one
may help them have a good feeling of joyful anticipation also, and that
may double both your pleasures, helping to connect you with your loved
one more fully.<br />
<br />
3. Emotion: <strong>Tenderness</strong>: Possible Guidance Message:
Feeling tender toward someone can guide you to show and share your
feeling softly, delicately, slowly and somewhat carefully. The guidance
coming from tenderness can lead you toward a more intimate connection
with someone you love. <br />
<br />
4. Emotion: <strong>Affection</strong>: Possible Guidance Message:
feeling affectionate can guide us to lovingly touch, say words of
affection, give and act with affectionate affirmation, and actually be
far more in touch with experiencing what is wonderful about a loved
one. Done well, expressed affectionate feelings are often highly
rewarding to both the lover and the loved. Received well, affection is
often energizing, thus, boosting a person’s experience of you,
themselves and life.<br />
<br />
5. Emotion: <strong>Pride</strong>: Possible Guidance Message:
Feeling pride guides you to be more confident in either ‘your being’ or
‘your doing’ accomplishments. It also may get you to store up that
confidence so that you can accomplish more. Pride may help you honor
yourself which will tend to strengthen your self-esteem, your sense of
worth, and be more motivated ‘to own’ your okayness and, therefore,
attempt more in your life. Accurate pride also may counter low self
esteem, poor self concept, and a general sense of inadequacy, along with
encouraging independence and self-assertion. (Note: Accurate pride in
yourself is always the enemy of that which is dictatorial and
controlling).<br />
<br />
Pride in a loved one, or in your coupleness, in your family, in a
friendship or anything else you’re a part of is great for feeling united
and inspired. Furthermore, accurate pride can guide us toward having a
greater sense of empowered security because of a solidarity with
ourselves and others. Pride in others is best when it is shared, which
rewards other’s actions and helps with feeling connected. Sharing pride
in yourself with a good, self respecting loved one, so long as it is
not overdone and is accurate, usually garners respect and greater
relaxation together. Do note, there are those who may have trouble with
you being proud, for example, the envious, the jealous, the inadequate
and those who have been taught that pride is a sin<br />
<br />
It is important that everyone work to get their own guidance messages
from their own emotions because the guidance messages can vary to a
fair degree from person to person. Generally the guidance message in
all so-called “good” feeling emotions is to keep doing the actions or
thoughts that brought the feelings, until boredom comes along to tell
you to do something else. The general guidance message in most emotions
known as “bad” feelings is to do something different, usually right
away. But as you can see from the above examples of upbeat emotions
there is a lot more ‘wisdom’ to be learned and lived by in the “guidance
messages for the wise”.<br />
<br />
You and a loved one might want to talk about what you think the
guidance messages could be for both of you together when experiencing
the following ‘upbeat’ emotions: 1. Awe, 2. Joy, 3. Sweetness, 4.
Closeness, 5. Tickled , 6. Ecstasy & 7. Respect.<br />
<br />
As always –Go and Grow with Love<br />
<br />
<h4>
<span style="color: #38761d;">Dr. J. Richard Cookerly</span></h4>
<div>
<br /></div>
<strong><span style="color: red;">♥</span> Love Success Question<br />
</strong>Will you identify and share with a loved one the strongest two
emotions you have felt so far today, and together see if you can discern
what the guidance messages in those feelings might be?<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="yarpp-related">
Related posts:<br />
<ol>
<li><a href="https://www.whatislovedrcookerly.com/2018/01/dealing-with-love-hurts-shared-and.html" rel="bookmark" target="_blank" title="Dealing With Love Hurts: Shared And Unshared Pain">Dealing With Love Hurts: Shared And Unshared Pain </a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.whatislovedrcookerly.com/2018/01/emotional-intercourse.html" rel="bookmark" target="_blank" title="Emotional Intercourse">Emotional Intercourse </a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.whatislovedrcookerly.com/2018/02/listening-with-love.html" rel="bookmark" target="_blank" title="Listening with Love">Listening with Love </a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.whatislovedrcookerly.com/2018/02/growing-closeness-love-skill.html" rel="bookmark" target="_blank" title="Growing Closeness – A Love Skill">Growing Closeness – A Love Skill </a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.whatislovedrcookerly.com/2018/02/say-it-with-love.html" rel="bookmark" target="_blank" title="Say It With Love">Say It With Love </a></li>
</ol>
</div>
drcookerlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09047208304726023746noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-921828284186519885.post-13584522055400696452023-10-08T14:00:00.000-05:002023-10-08T21:59:06.420-05:00What Your Brain Does with Love - Put Simply<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-9nmBemzPc20/Woes-KpB9OI/AAAAAAAAA-M/iRfwXqvM0TEg6ed6PmaGnff-BU_ft49HQCLcBGAs/s1600/what-your-brain-does-with-love3.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="330" data-original-width="350" height="301" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-9nmBemzPc20/Woes-KpB9OI/AAAAAAAAA-M/iRfwXqvM0TEg6ed6PmaGnff-BU_ft49HQCLcBGAs/s320/what-your-brain-does-with-love3.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
Mini-Love-Lesson #208</h3><br />
<h4>
<span style="color: #38761d;"><strong>Synopsis:</strong> Where your heart resides in your brain
and what that has to do with the many emotions triggered by love; how feeding your brain love
makes you healthy are all presented and surveyed in this
mini-love-lesson; more.</span></h4>
<br />
<h3>
The Heart in Your Brain</h3>
First, in cherished tones, you hear the words “I love you”, or
perhaps you feel a tender loving touch, or maybe you see a precious
sweet smile on the face of a beloved one, or it could be any of the 383
other loving behaviors (so far discovered, <em>Swenson</em>) which can
activate your sensory systems to help you experience love. Next, as
your nerves are stimulated by a love input they send electrical messages
to centers and circuits of your deeper, ancient, non-conscious brain
designed for receiving and processing love.<br />
<br />
That deeper part of your
brain primarily is where your psychological heart resides. It is where
you process love, being loved and loving. It also is the part of that
sends out electrical and chemical messages to other parts of your brain
and to many parts of your body activating them to function more
healthfully, and generally to beneficially guide you. Then those
messages stimulate your brain to make a variety of neurochemical
compounds which in turn help to make you conscious of starting to feel
the many, various, good, emotional and physical feelings of love.<br />
<br />
All of that happens mostly quite naturally, automatically and also
largely non-consciously at first. But your subconscious knows and is
responding. When it comes to love, it seems that the conscious, aware
and thinking mind, to a large extent, gets bypassed at first. Some have
postulated that perhaps nature does not really trust the conscious mind
to handle anything as important as love, other than to be aware of
feeling it after it is up and running. Notice, people tend more often
to say things like “I realized I love him (or her)”, or “suddenly I just
knew I loved (so-and-so)” rather than saying things like “I can tell I
love that person a little bit and maybe that love is growing”. That
occasionally does happen. Perhaps also that is why you can not feel
your love for someone all the time but it is there all the time where
you can draw on it when it is called for.<br />
<br />
You purposely can come to
sense love when it exists in you and, thus, know you love someone, but
this is just the awareness of love and not the love itself. Because
love neurologically is not an emotion but rather a natural, complicated,
internal, deep brain process which you sometimes feel or sense. It
also is a process which can give you a great many different emotions,
among which are feeling loving, feeling loved and feeling lovable.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Love and Its Accompanying Emotions</h3>
While love happens, you frequently do become consciously aware of the
feelings of being loved, and/or loving, or just a sense of love
itself. You also may get a wide range of other, accompanying, positive
feelings which the experience of love triggers or sets off in your
brain. When love is being experienced, there can be accompanying
positive feelings of tenderness, intimacy, ecstasy, serenity, passion,
emotional closeness and connection, compassion, ebullience,
preciousness, empathetic care, oceanic awareness and a great many other
fantastic feelings.<br />
<br />
Identifying love as only an emotion is grossly inaccurate and can
lead to mis-judging its emotional richness, nature, power, importance
and functional dynamics. In turn, that can lead to a great many missed
opportunities, misunderstandings and relational mistakes concerning
love. Some of those can be quite tragic. Remember, feeling love is
natural but love relating is learned.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Blocked and Anti-Love Interference</h3>
The whole love process described above can be blocked, confounded and
in essence sabotaged by other things that go on both in your brain and
in your life. For instance, a former love relationship that was too
often or too severely painful can cause you to be extra reluctant and
cautious about entering a new love involvement. If you have been
trained or subconsciously programmed to be more oriented to one, or
more, of the false forms of love you may greatly misinterpret or
overlook a current, real love opportunity.<br />
<br />
Too much emphasis on
sexuality, romance, marriage or strong personal insecurity also can get
in the way of healthy, real love development. Substance addictions,
compulsive avarice and status desires, plus simply plain ignorance about
love also provides lots of dangers. These are but some of the many
things that can block or interfere with processing love healthfully and
doing love-relating successfully.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Love and Your Brain for the More Anatomically Fascinated</h3>
You could skip this section if you are not intrigued about knowing
some of the brain/body details of love’s psychoneurophysiology and
neurochemistry.<br />
<br />
There is a lot we don’t know yet and what we do know is like
everything else about the brain – complicated. Nevertheless, here is a
little bit of more technical brain knowledge concerning what your brain
does with love. These <em>knowledge bits</em> can be used to lookup much more complete information than is given here.<br />
<br />
First of all, the preponderance of research evidence shows love not
to be an emotion like it is so often misidentified. Rather, love, at
least in part, is seen as a natural, very healthy, systemic, brain
process involving many emotions and a whole lot more than that.
Brain-wise the process of love is more similar to the biological process
of turning food into energy or your body’s systems and for keeping you
free from infections than it is to being just a simple emotional
feeling. Unlike an emotion, real love is not a temporary, or frequently
fleeting feeling. Rather, once real love is established it likely is
going to be with you from then on, and some postulate even after death.
A relationship may end but if there was real love that will remain even
though there might be many contravening variables about other aspects
of the relationship.<br />
<br />
Your psychological heart mostly is in your brain’s limbic system.
Love processing involves a good many of your limbic system’s component
parts. Thought to be included are your insula, anterior cingulate
cortex, caudate nucleus and putamen, all of which show heightened
activation when you come in contact with someone you feel love with or
for. Lower activation also occurs in the amygdala, posterior cingulate,
and the frontal, parietal, and temporal cortices in the right
hemisphere of your brain. Those changes in brain activity show love to
be at least a twofold process. One, increases good or positive feelings
and the other decreases your negative or bad feelings. Among those are
a lowered sense of fear and a heightened sense of safety. Changes in
the activation rate of those brain parts also mean you become less outer
environmentally aware and more internally and emotionally aware as the
love process happens. Worry decreases and as love-induced endorphins
and dopamine levels increase so does your all-over sense of happiness
and well-being.<br />
<br />
Also thought to be probably involved with the love process in your
brain are your hippocampus, parahippocampal gyrus, temporal lobe,
orbitofrontal cortex, septal area, corpus callosum, frontal lobe,
fornex, mammillary bodies and limbic cortex. Each of those may have to
do with different aspects and factors of the love process.<br />
<br />
When referring to a couple, some may say “they have chemistry” that
certainly is true. Love makes a host of neurochemical things happen.
Chemical changes in your brain and body frequently include changes in
androgen, testosterone, pheromones, serotonin, dopamine, oxytocin,
vasopressin, epinephrine, norepinephrine and phenylethylamine, and that
is just what researchers have discovered, it seems so far that I know
about. Each of those helps you process different aspects of loves
dynamics. For instance, oxytocin helps you with feeling love connected
and bonded with another. <strong>Please note, these are natural, good chemicals that are produced by our bodies when love occurs.</strong>
So, those who get lots of love in their lives don’t need similar kinds
of pharmaceuticals or street drugs with potential toxic side effects.<br />
<br />
<h3>
From Your Brain to Your Body</h3>
The chemicals your brain makes when it is processing love go into
your blood and flow through not only your brain but also through the
rest of your body. Everywhere they go they work to have a great variety
of beneficial and healthful effects. It seems that each of the three
tiers and 12 major categories of loving behavior [see <strong>“<a href="https://whatislovedrcookerly.blogspot.com/2018/01/a-behavioral-operational-definition-of.html" target="_blank">A Behavioral (Operational) Definition of Love</a>”</strong>]
may trigger different, healthful benefits. Some are quite
invigorating, energizing and mobilizing for action. Others are calming,
soothing and make for antidepressant serenity. Quite a few have
various kinds of physical healing effects. Others are more healing in a
psychological sense.<br />
<br />
Feeling loved from any source can sort of work
like food giving you energy, sometimes a great deal of energy. Feeling
serenely loved especially is good for lowering stress and the body’s
reactions to stress. <em><strong>Feeling loving</strong></em> toward others brings on one set of physically healthful effects, while <em><strong>acting loving</strong></em> toward others adds another set of physically healthful, biophysical reactions.<br />
<br />
Getting and giving different behaviors that convey love has a
positive effect on your immune system’s functioning, can lower your bad
cholesterol and can help your T cells fight cancer. The health benefits
go on and on, with research discovering more all the time.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Feeding Your Brain Love Makes You Healthy</h3>
Your psychological mind and your psychological heart are in your
brain. The brain is in your body and they are all linked together
affecting each other. Experiencing healthy, real love works like a
vital health food and a rather miraculous medicine. The more you
interact with people you love, and are loved by the more your brain
produces helpful responses that affect your entire body’s health. This
also seems true for those you like and those you are liked by. <strong>More love equals more health</strong>. That is what more and more research is showing.<br />
<br />
The more you are absent from healthy, real love input, the more you
are psycho-physically malnourished or even starved and the more likely
you are to have a physical and/or psychological health malfunction.
Mixing a lot with people doing <em>false</em> love is like eating
non-nourishing, junk food. Even worse, is to be around and interact
with negative, anti-love acting people. That is akin to eating toxic
and poisonous food. Also bad for your health is a lack of healthy
self-love, and self-hate and self negation are even worse.<br />
<br />
If at your work, or somewhere else you spend time, involves a lot of
contact with non-loving, false love or anti-loving people, you had best
counterbalance that with healthy self-love and with others who love
well. Remember, it is very important to “<strong>love others as you love yourself</strong>”. It is likely your health depends on it!<br />
<br />
<h3>
One More Thing</h3>
How about sharing and talking over this mini-love-lesson with a
friend or two and, thus, spread some love knowledge into our rather love
ignorant world.<br />
As always – Go and Grow with Love<br />
<br />
<h4>
<span style="color: #38761d;">Dr. J. Richard Cookerly</span></h4>
<br />
<strong><span style="color: red;">♥</span> Love Success Question:</strong> How much real healthy love, shown physically and psychologically, have you been feeding your brain lately?<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="yarpp-related">
Related posts:<br />
<ol>
<li><a href="https://www.whatislovedrcookerly.com/2018/02/listening-with-love-and-in-and-out.html" rel="bookmark" target="_blank" title="Listening With Love and IN and OUT Brain Functions">Listening With Love and IN and OUT Brain Functions </a></li>
<li><a href="https://whatislovedrcookerly.blogspot.com/2018/01/a-functional-definition-of-love.html" rel="bookmark" target="_blank" title="A Functional Definition Of Love">A Functional Definition Of Love </a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.whatislovedrcookerly.com/2018/02/love-in-fridge.html" rel="bookmark" target="_blank" title="Love in the Fridge">Love in the Fridge </a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.whatislovedrcookerly.com/2018/01/dog-love-is-real-love.html" rel="bookmark" target="_blank" title="Dog Love Is Real Love !">Dog Love Is Real Love ! </a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.whatislovedrcookerly.com/2018/02/self-love-what-is-it.html" rel="bookmark" target="_blank" title="Self-Love – What Is It?">Self-Love – What Is It? </a></li>
</ol>
</div>
drcookerlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09047208304726023746noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-921828284186519885.post-5676034205089647032023-10-01T14:00:00.000-05:002023-10-01T20:19:32.906-05:00Adultery And No Divorce Love<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-8IP1hCwipxQ/WmkjzT7WlBI/AAAAAAAAAJs/sNG2naZBfTkpzk8NfXf98u22yZXOhdR0gCLcBGAs/s1600/adultery-no-divorcelove350.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="460" data-original-width="350" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-8IP1hCwipxQ/WmkjzT7WlBI/AAAAAAAAAJs/sNG2naZBfTkpzk8NfXf98u22yZXOhdR0gCLcBGAs/s320/adultery-no-divorcelove350.jpg" width="243" /></a></div>
<h4>
<span style="color: #38761d;">Synopsis: Bennett’s dilemma, What most couples are not doing about
adultery, Adultery’s bigger definition, Bennett’s relief, Adultery
commonality, Three major questions to grapple with, Accepting multiple
causation, Changing mindsets, Adultery of the heart, Agony, struggling
and no divorce love.</span></h4>
<div>
<span style="color: #38761d;"><br /></span></div>
<span class="dropcap">Q</span>uote: "Everybody’s telling me I should
divorce my wife because she’s been having sex with somebody besides me.
Even my priest has said my wife is an adulterer and that provides me
with perfectly acceptable grounds for an annulment in our church. He
even offered to help me with the paperwork. Both my brothers and my
sister say “divorce her” and that’s what they would do. I know she’s
committing adultery but I just can’t bring myself to divorce. I love
her way too much to end it.” Bennett lamented all this in a very
anguished individual counseling session late one evening. I replied,
“Perhaps not going toward divorce is going to turn out to be a good
thing.<br />
<br />
You see most of the people who don’t divorce after adultery are
glad they stayed married. Not only that, but most of the people who do
divorce because of adultery a year later are not at all sure they did
the right thing. Many wish they had stayed and worked on their marriage
a lot more than they did. At least that’s what I see in my practice,
and there’s also pretty good research that largely backs me up on this.
It seems that more and more people don’t think adultery is worth
getting a divorce over, even though adultery is usually an enormous,
hurt-filled problem”.<br />
<br />
As used here, the word adultery means having secret, sexual or
powerfully romantic, emotional relations with someone other than your
spouse in a way that involves betrayal, lies, deceptions, a lack of self
disclosure and honest sharing, usually accompanied by the creation and
maintenance of false and incomplete understandings.<br />
<br />
Bennett said, “I’m so glad to hear something different than what I
have been hearing. I want us to be one of those couples that didn’t let
adultery break them up. I am going to go home and ask my wife to come
to couple’s counseling, and tell her I am willing to do everything I can
to help us get past this issue if she will just give it a try with
me.” To make a long story short, he did just that and they came to
couples counseling together, and now after some pretty hard work they’re
doing great. In fact they both suspect they are probably doing better
than they ever would have had they not learned to handle their adultery
problem with lots of new and better ways to do healing love, and
re-start their love relationship in bigger and better ways.<br />
<br />
Are you aware that the majority of marriages in the Western world,
and especially in the USA, go through at least one major event involving
adultery (cheating, affair, unfaithful, etc.) and most do not divorce
over it. Of course, for many couples it is immensely difficult and
there is a great deal of agony, struggle and recovery work to do. (See
the entries under<span style="background-color: white;"> </span><span style="background-color: yellow;">“<a href="http://whatislovedrcookerly.com/711/dealing-with-love-hurts-a-dozen-love-hurts-to-know-and-grow-from/"><strong>Dealing with Love Hurts</strong></a>”)</span><span style="background-color: white;">.</span>
The good news is many couples do the work it takes, and though it is a
hard way to get there, their marriage becomes stronger and better than
it ever was before.<br />
<br />
If you’re facing an issue like the one Bennett was facing here are
three hard but important questions to ask yourself. Is your love
greater than your hurt? (Great love conquers great hurt!). Is the love
you have with your spouse more powerful than what you have been taught
to think, feel and do about adultery? (What you have been trained to
think, feel and do may defeat love if you let it!). How did you help
your spouse go toward adultery? (possibly by demonstrating your love
for your mate too poorly, too narrowly, too infrequently, or possibly by
behaving with very anti-love actions?). Notice in this last question
we have said “help” not cause. Primary causal responsibility rests with
the primary actor, but other people and assisting factors are to be
considered for a full understanding.<br />
<br />
Seldom is it wise to see one spouse as 100% victim and the other as
100% perpetrator when it comes to why someone commits adultery. In
couples group therapy Jerry said it quite well when he remarked, “I
stopped getting her flowers, writing her love notes, telling her how
much she meant to me, taking her where she wanted to go on dates, and in
just about every way I no longer showed her the love I felt for her.
So, of course, she had an affair. What else could I expect?” Linda
said, “I did worse than that. I kept putting my husband down,
criticizing him, not acknowledging his achievements, taking him for
granted, I didn’t really listen to him and sometimes I purposefully
frustrated him about sex, and was way to prudish. I did almost every
single thing you call anti-love behavior. The other woman did the
opposite of all that, so guess what, he committed adultery with her. I
might have done the same thing if I were in his place.”<br />
<br />
There are lots
of other important question/positions, but I suggest starting with these
three: If you’re love can be bigger than your hurt that’s a fairly good
indicator that you both may be able to recover together. If you
develop your own thoughts and chosen actions beyond what you were taught
to do, adultery can be responded to in all sorts of new, different and
healthier ways. If you can discover and ‘own up to’ how your actions
probably helped adultery happen, and then improve, there’s lots of
hope. These questions are not usually easily or quickly answered, and
each leads to other questions you may need to struggle with. But they
often help people move toward the love healing needed.<br />
<br />
People’s mindsets are changing in regard to the magnitude of
difficulty having sex outside of marriage represents. Gloria said,
“When I found out he had sex with someone he met at work I thought it
meant he didn’t love me anymore, and that he wanted to replace me with
her. That was devastating and terrifying to me. Eventually I
discovered he just wanted to see what sex was like with a woman
different than me. That was disturbing but not nearly as horrifying as
what I had first thought. Now we are working it through, and I think
we’re going to make it”.<br />
<br />
I got asked a sort of peculiar question at a weekend retreat workshop
I was conducting on love relationships. A participant asked, “Just
what is the importance of one penis in one vagina as opposed to multiple
penis’s in multiple vaginas”? How would you answer that? Follow up
questions in that discussion were, “Do we give too much importance to
penises in vaginas or other sex acts”, and “How is it that in some parts
of the world people enjoy their spouse having sex with others, while
elsewhere others can’t even stand the idea of that happening”. Perhaps
those are questions you might do well to ponder. It is true that in
some cultures and at various periods in history adultery has had almost
no importance at all, while at other times and places it has had
enormous significance. There are even societies in which there is no
word for adultery in their language, while in others there is a whole
vocabulary indicating widespread importance.<br />
<br />
If you are struggling with an adultery issue in your life, a great
big thing to examine is the influence of your societal, subconscious
programming or conditioning concerning the subject of adultery. You
see, your feelings and many of your thoughts may have been
pre-programmed into you, and in a sense may not even be your own, true,
self-derived thoughts and feelings. Likewise, what is your training and
your subconscious programming concerning love and loving forgiveness?
Do you find yourself more in the “love can conquer all and, therefore,
forgive all” category, or are you in the “adultery is marriage’s
unforgivable sin” category? Which of those do you really choose to be
in and which is the most healthful for you?<br />
<br />
Let’s look at ‘background’. There are those who think that in olden
times the only real reason adultery became the singular, allowable
reason for divorce was because the ancient religious elders who made the
rules were sexually insecure, immature and quite possibly sexually
inadequate. If that’s true they quite easily were threatened and,
thereby, motivated to make big, strong rules protecting themselves.
Naturally, to reinforce their defense they said it was God’s will, and
they were but the messengers. Others point out that patrilineal
societies tend to have much stricter prohibitions and punishments for
adultery than do matrilineal societies. Then there are the cultures in
which not having sex with guests, visitors and the like, outside of the
pair bond is grounds for divorce. Also consider the societal groups in
which everyone is expected to be having extra pair bond sex, and those
in which a woman having children by different men is held in higher
esteem than a woman having children by only one man.<br />
<br />
Here in modern times and places there is a growth in finding
‘adultery of the heart’ to be far more grievous than ‘adultery of the
body’. Marla said, “Just so long as he doesn’t bring home a disease I
don’t care who he does what with, except he better not fall in love with
her because that’s totally forbidden in our relationship”. Thomas
remarked, “My wife and I can have sex with somebody else but three times
is the limit. After that it might get too emotional and neither of us
wants that. We love each other tremendously and want each other to have
all sorts of pleasures, and at the same time we want to safeguard our
love because it’s so precious.” People who think like this in the
Western world are a minority, but be not mistaken it’s a growing
minority.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-EpVMq8_cR2c/WmklE_dOGeI/AAAAAAAAAJ0/zprRycal5Q0F9b3x4Z4OKI6PSw3TjiAAACLcBGAs/s1600/adultery-no-divorcelove-detail200.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="200" data-original-width="200" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-EpVMq8_cR2c/WmklE_dOGeI/AAAAAAAAAJ0/zprRycal5Q0F9b3x4Z4OKI6PSw3TjiAAACLcBGAs/s1600/adultery-no-divorcelove-detail200.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
There also are a growing number of couples who tell of their love of each other
being far more significant than mere sex with others. “Adultery is a
forgivable sin if you really love somebody, so that’s what I’ll work
at,” said Jonathan who was struggling with this issue in his marriage.
“Adultery is just not worth getting a divorce over,” said Sondra who was
also battling to save her marriage. “When you have kids getting a
divorce because of adultery is just plain selfish and shortsighted. If
you really love them and your mate see if you can stick it out and make
something better happen,” remarked Brenda whose marriage was coming back
together. Charles proclaimed, “We have a great deal of love for each
other so we’re not going to let adultery defeat our love, and that’s all
there is to it”. So, you can see many couples have a strong “no
divorce love”, or at least a no divorce over adultery love relationship,
which wins the day for them.<br />
<br />
Why explore other times, other cultures and other people’s ways of
doing love and sex? Because it is one way we are more likely to make
informed choices in our own love relationships instead of reacting out
of subconscious programmed determined ways.<br />
<br />
You may be finding it hard to wrap your mind around these ideas, and
your heart may be aching, and your gut churning, because for most people
grappling with adultery issues is one of the hardest things they ever
do. Adulterous behavior for many leads to almost unbearable agony,
great fear, and a great sickening of the heart. Even so, the message
here is take heart. While most couples will face a real-life challenge
in this area most will, with love and hard work, get past it and many
will end up in a better functioning love relationship than they started
with. My bias is the smart, the practical, and the most loving seek out
the help of a love knowledgeable, nonjudgmental couple’s therapist and
get past the difficulties together with help and insight. With
competent couple’s counseling they do this far faster, more thoroughly,
and with less pain than they otherwise would have.<br />
<br />
Also very important
is the fact that by way of counseling they do it with far less
destructiveness for all concerned. Even though adultery can be terribly
painful to a couple, divorce or breaking up is quite frequently not the
best answer. Of course, if there is little true, healthy love, lots of
emotional and/or other abuse, repeated lies, betrayal and deception,
and an unwillingness to truly work for improvement a couple may be
psychologically divorced already. However, adultery’s effects so very
often can be overcome by a strong ‘no divorce’ committed love when two
people keep working to grow their healthy, real love.<br />
<br />
In regard to adultery a ‘no divorce love’ is one that makes an
established, shared love more important than relations outside that
established shared love, more important than fear, more important than
hurt (but not more important than harm), and more important than social
pressure and past teachings. It also must be one in which those in the
established, shared love are willing and able to mutually work on the
improvement of their love relationship giving it extremely high priority
in their lives.<br />
It is my sincere hope that these thoughts will be helpful to you and those you share these thoughts with.<br />
<br />
As always – Go and Grow with Love<br />
<br />
<h4>
<span style="color: #38761d;">Dr. J. Richard Cookerly</span></h4>
<div>
<span style="color: #38761d;"><br /></span></div>
<strong><span style="color: red;">♥</span> Love Success Question </strong>Are you, or will you
be working for your love (spouse type) to grow so strong that it can,
if necessary, survive an adultery challenge?<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="yarpp-related">
Related posts:<br />
<ol>
<li><a href="http://whatislovedrcookerly.com/2359/is-a-false-love-divorce-a-good-thing/" rel="bookmark" title="Is a False Love Divorce A Good Thing?">Is a False Love Divorce A Good Thing? </a></li>
<li><a href="http://whatislovedrcookerly.com/667/are-love-and-marriage-getting-a-divorce/" rel="bookmark" title="Are Love and Marriage Getting a Divorce?">Are Love and Marriage Getting a Divorce? </a></li>
<li><a href="http://whatislovedrcookerly.com/2107/exes-and-love/" rel="bookmark" title="Exes And Love">Exes And Love </a></li>
<li><a href="http://whatislovedrcookerly.com/791/multiple-sex-partners-and-love/" rel="bookmark" title="Multiple Sex Partners and Love">Multiple Sex Partners and Love </a></li>
<li><a href="http://whatislovedrcookerly.com/2385/monogamy-for-love-monogamy-for-sex/" rel="bookmark" title="Monogamy for Love & Monogamy for Sex">Monogamy for Love & Monogamy for Sex </a></li>
</ol>
</div>
drcookerlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09047208304726023746noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-921828284186519885.post-91845205531635316772023-09-24T14:00:00.000-05:002023-09-24T18:17:10.965-05:00Love Complaints Versus Love Requests<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Dx-wwfsHYg0/WoHsNfzhUOI/AAAAAAAAAqQ/GF6VZ0aMRlYje1JMExL-ZP1ANOb6l0xHACLcBGAs/s1600/love-complaints-versus325.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="258" data-original-width="325" height="254" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Dx-wwfsHYg0/WoHsNfzhUOI/AAAAAAAAAqQ/GF6VZ0aMRlYje1JMExL-ZP1ANOb6l0xHACLcBGAs/s320/love-complaints-versus325.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
“She’s always griping, complaining and blaming me
for everything! I’ve had it with her endless moaning and groaning. I’m
through listening to her bitching. If it doesn’t stop I’m going where I
won’t ever have to defend myself against her stupid accusations again.
I will leave and get a divorce”.<br />
<br />
So said Andrew in a couple’s
counseling session. Rachel, his wife, angrily shouted, “You don’t ever
listen to me. You just wall up and ignore what I need. You don’t
really love me or you’d listen to me and give me the love I need”. “See
what I mean” was Andrew’s reply.<br />
<br />
With some work it became clear to both Andrew and
Rachel that she actually was attempting to get what she felt she needed
and what she very much wanted, not by asking for it but by complaining
and blaming about what she wasn’t getting. It also became clear that
Andrew had come to hear just about every thing she said as a complaint,
gripe or a personal attack to which he got angrily and offensively
defensive. <br />
<br />
With some more couple’s counseling things began to change
for the better. “You’re always yelling at me” became “sweetheart, could
you say that in a softer tone please?” “You never listen to me” was
replaced with “Honey, I would like you to really hear me very carefully
for the next few minutes. Would that be okay?” “We never go anywhere
and you never take me out” turned into “Darling, I would really like us
to go on a date this weekend, just you and me with real positive,
romantic attitudes, OK?” “You’re a damned sex addict” and “You sexless
prude” turned into “Let’s make some time for just love, and then some
time for love and sex together.” “That sounds great. How about Friday
night for one and Saturday night for the other?”. “You don’t love me
anymore” became “I’m really hungry for your special love so could we
cuddle and hug a lot tonight?”<br />
<br />
Rachel and Andrew learned that requests are not
easily heard when they sound like complaints. Desires expressed as
gripes and longing framed as blame don’t work. Nor is anger easily
understood as the hurt and frustration that usually underlies it.
Frowns are more likely to be seen as disapproval than worry, and
agitation often is not viewed as the fear and anxiety it often stems
from.<br />
<br />
With help Andrew and Rachel learned, practiced and
built new, far more loving ways to go after what they wanted and help
each other obtain their desires. They discovered that loving requests
are usually not heard as attacks to defend against, desires well stated
are not interpreted as criticism, and well expressed wants are not to be
interpreted as demands or control efforts to be rebelled against.<br />
<br />
Rachel and Andrew created their own version of some simple but very helpful rules to follow:<br />
<br />
1. Talking about what’s wrong seldom leads to
creating what can become right. Therefore, talk about what ‘right’
would look like to both of you. Then synthesize your two views if
possible.<br />
<br />2. Talking about what went wrong
doesn’t automatically lead to how you can make something go well.
Therefore, talk about how you want something to go rather than how it
went.<br />
<br />3. Talking about a past event that felt
bad seldom gets a couple to a future event that feels good. Go directly
after ‘feel good’ future events and keep talking in the future tense
not in the past tense when you want something to improve.<br />
<br />4.
Talking about who’s to blame seldom leads to who’s going to make an
improvement or how to make a joint improvement. Talk about what is to
be done in the future and who’s going to do it and when it will be done.<br />
<br />5. Talking with words that are demeaning
(stupid, feather-brain, idiot, brute, etc.) destroys teamwork. Honestly
praise and compliment your partner frequently (yes, there usually is
something to praise, however small) and use many terms of endearment.
It’s OK to say “Lover, right now I am very mad at you” but not “You
ignorant bastard”.<br />
<br />6. Talking in unclear,
imprecise, vague terms seldom gets you what you want or what is needed.
Identify what you desire clearly and then ask for it in behavioral
terms. Then add when you want what you desire. For example “You’re not
affectionate” can become “I want a hug”, or cuddle, or to make love, or
a compliment, or a date, or for you to look lovingly into my eyes,
etc.. Remember to identify the time frame you want it in.<br />
<br />7.
Talking with a bad or negativistic attitude, or a bland blah neutral
attitude is divisive and de-motivating, and will not lead to happy
togetherness. Therefore, talk with a loving and whenever appropriate
upbeat attitude, and lovingly request the same of your partner. To do
that, first purposefully center yourself in love not in anger, hurt,
power, manipulation, etc.<br />
<br />
I find most couples can benefit from these seven ‘rules’ and I hope you find them useful.<br />
<br />
If you lovingly talk in the future tense where
improvements can happen you may get to a love-filled future. If you
talk in the past tense it will likely take you to the past and all you
will do is repeat it. It can be OK to talk the negative, painful past
if the talk can be devoid of blame, and does not re-create the bad
feelings of the past, and also is accomplished with well demonstrated,
two way loving empathy. Otherwise, avoid it. Attempting to get
agreement on the past is often an unattainable and unnecessary
endeavor. Focus on what is ‘now’ and ‘next’ instead.<br />
<br />
Most of all learn to make truthful, accurate, clear
behavioral requests with a loving attitude and do it frequently. Then,
of course, work hard to really hear your loved one’s requests from a
love-centeredness. We often make a mistake so common in our culture.
It is the mistake of trying to make improvements in a relationship by
talking in the negative i.e. griping, complaining, blaming, criticizing,
etc.<br />
<br />
Relationship related complaints are often founded in love hunger
and an appropriate desire to be better treated, or are founded in some
hurtful experience to which well expressed love will be the cure. The
trouble with talking in emotional negatives is that it usually doesn’t
get you to go toward emotional positives or anywhere else you want to
go. Even if your complaint is well-based in something love related, it
is only the exceptional, highly love able people who are likely to hear
it that way. If you want to be well loved speak in strong, assertive,
love filled ways, asking for what you want clearly. Then do a really
good job of listening to what is wanted by those you love.<br />
<br />
As always, Go and Grow with Love<br />
<br />
<h4>
<strong><span style="color: #38761d;">Dr. J. Richard Cookerly </span></strong></h4>
<div>
<strong><br /></strong></div>
<b><span style="color: red;">♥</span> Love Success Question </b><br />When you were
growing up did the people around you communicate with unhappy sounding
gripes, complaints, blame and criticism, or with loving requests? Do
you talk the same, better or worse now?<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="yarpp-related">
Related posts:<br />
<ol>
<li><a href="https://www.whatislovedrcookerly.com/2018/01/blame-attacks-love.html" rel="bookmark" target="_blank" title="Blame Attacks Love">Blame Attacks Love </a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.whatislovedrcookerly.com/2018/01/dealing-with-love-hurts-first-aid-tips.html" rel="bookmark" target="_blank" title="Dealing With Love Hurts: First Aid Tips">Dealing With Love Hurts: First Aid Tips </a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.whatislovedrcookerly.com/2018/02/love-against-blame-and-its-hidden-harm.html" rel="bookmark" target="_blank" title="Love Against Blame And It’s Hidden Harm">Love Against Blame And It’s Hidden Harm </a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.whatislovedrcookerly.com/2018/01/critiquing-without-criticizing.html" rel="bookmark" target="_blank" title="Critiquing without Criticizing">Critiquing without Criticizing </a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.whatislovedrcookerly.com/2018/01/difficult-topics-love-centered-way-to.html" rel="bookmark" target="_blank" title="Difficult Topics: A Love-Centered Way to Approach and Broach Them All">Difficult Topics: A Love-Centered Way to Approach and Broach Them All </a></li>
</ol>
</div>
drcookerlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09047208304726023746noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-921828284186519885.post-6857967147984143402023-09-17T14:00:00.000-05:002023-09-17T20:41:39.423-05:00Breakup Survival, Then - Love & Life Thriving<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XarXzJaE8OI/W15HLXTMU9I/AAAAAAAABFs/UU7Ew1jf0YUkYxUTnQHqGXJTeKFJcLbXgCLcBGAs/s1600/breakup-survival360.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="280" data-original-width="350" height="256" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XarXzJaE8OI/W15HLXTMU9I/AAAAAAAABFs/UU7Ew1jf0YUkYxUTnQHqGXJTeKFJcLbXgCLcBGAs/s320/breakup-survival360.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
Mini-Love-Lesson #226</h3><br />
<h3>
<span style="color: #38761d;">Synopsis: Fresh approaches and powerful ways to survive a major breakup and go on to a full, thriving love life are introduced, along with some practical how-to’s and go-to’s.</span></h3>
<br />
<h3>
From Hell to Heaven</h3>
Breakups and their aftermath can be so incredibly painful, tragic, draining and disastrous but then, if you survive, such a helpful and good thing! Handled well, breakups can lead to love and life thriving better than ever before. There are three reasons I know this. The first reason is I survived more than my fair share of agonized breakups. The first one literally nearly killed me. After that, they were less and less bad as I moved up to better and better, and finally to my now 40+ years with Kathleen and being the best loved guy you will ever meet (see “<b><a href="https://www.whatislovedrcookerly.com/2018/02/why-love-problems-hurt-so-bad.html" target="_blank">Why Love Problems Hurt so Bad</a></b>”).<br />
<br />
The second reason I know you can go from relationship hell to heaven is that I have assisted several hundreds of people to survive and then thrive after breakups, divorces and other love loss situations, plus I have taught and supervised a fair number of other relational counselors and therapists to know how to do the same. That is part of the good news. There, however, is bad news.<br />
<br />
It is a sad truth that not everyone survives a breakup even with good, breakup, recovery help. Breakups precede quite a few suicides, no small number of murders along with a much larger number of often injurious, unsuccessful attempts at each. Falling into or relapsing into addictions of one type or another, starting to have serious health problems, getting in trouble with the law, losing one’s job, dropping out of school and literally dying of a heart attack also are much more likely to occur in the aftermath of a love relationship breakup.<br />
<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><br />
You do not have to do any of those things. The third reason tells us why. It has to do with what research tells us. Breakup recovery is getting better and better as we learn more about what breakup survival and recovery takes. That research tells us most people do survive breakups. This appears to be true for both real love and false love patterns of romantic relating. It often is tough going at first and it can be quite dangerous for both mental and physical health. But the research shows that even with severely agonizing breakups, if you get through the first 12 weeks of post-breakup suffering, you are very likely to get mostly okay enough in 20 weeks. Then with more good therapeutic work, you can get to where you are living and loving happily within a year or two of even the severest breakup.<br />
<br />
These time periods can be shortened. I once was part of a in-house, psychiatric hospital, pilot, research effort investigating patient recovery from serious suicide attempts after romantic breakups. This involved even patients suffering from severe IFD (see “<b><a href="https://www.whatislovedrcookerly.com/2018/02/false-forms-of-love-devastating-ifd.html" target="_blank">False, Forms of Love: The Devastating IFD Syndrome</a></b>”) and Limerance (see “<b><a href="https://www.whatislovedrcookerly.com/2018/02/false-forms-of-love-limerence-and-its.html" target="_blank">False Forms of Love: Limerence and Its Alluring Lies</a></b>”) -- false love syndromes which were thought to be especially difficult to recovery from. We found that with a healthy love, and self-love treatment focus, our less severe outpatients, as well as our more severe hospitalized (at first) patients, substantially recovered in about six weeks. They then all became quite glad they had not suicided. At a sister facility, somewhat similar patients receiving treatment for only depression required 12 to 30 weeks to approximate the same level of recovery.<br />
<br />
<h3>
First Survive</h3>
In the aftermath of a severe breakup, the first thing to do is just stay alive. In about 12 to 16 weeks you will be very likely be glad you did. You probably can shorten that time estimate by quite a bit by engaging in certain therapeutic actions.<br />
<br />
How to survive? Well, first know that you may have to lay around and then thrash around for a while in all sorts of terrible feeling emotions. For a time, it is kind of like suffering a prolonged hangover with a bad, full body sunburn, while being repeatedly water boarded and bitten by a vicious pit bull. Later there often is rage which can sort of help with depression. Catharsis (getting it out of your system) can help so long as you do not harm anyone or anything important including yourself. Using a punching bag, chopping wood, stomping around cussing the cosmos, breaking up cheap stuff, etc. all are ways to get some needed exercise and emotion releasing relief. My favorite is to go outside and for 20 minutes throw ice cubes at a brick wall or at a chalk outline on the driveway of whoever you want to hate for a while. Ice shatters nicely and cleans itself up. Know that too much inactivity is not your friend but a lot of sleep may be for a while.<br />
<br />
At some point, you have to start forcing yourself out into the world briefly doing ordinary stuff. Then lengthen the time doing that. It will not feel good at first but rather kind of dead like. Then there will come maybe only a 10 second bit of mildly positive emotion where you may grin or even smile. Keep going and 10 second events will stretch to 30 seconds and maybe even contain some laughter. Eventually you will get to feel positive for 10 minutes and then, at long last, 10 hours or more. Downtimes will likely get shorter and shorter, and further and further apart but when they happen you may be pretty far down for a bit. Uptimes will get longer, and higher and higher in an erratic pattern. You can help that along by listening to upbeat music, going to see funny or exciting movies and doing all activities that distract you and that are not dangerous or downers emotionally. Being around people and pets who care about you, and then forcing yourself to briefly start doing new things and meeting new people, all slowly will make your recovery a reality. Avoiding doing these things will just make it all take longer (see “<b><a href="https://www.whatislovedrcookerly.com/2018/02/heartbreak-mending-and-deep-multi-love.html" target="_blank">Heartbreak Mending and the Deep, Multi-Love Remedy</a></b>”). Of course, everyone is different so just use this as a guide to an average recovery but one to aim for.<br />
<br />
Eventually, you will get to new romance if you want to. New romance is dangerous but usually not as much as the old romance. That also is true for new and past sex partner involvement. I usually recommend working at a new “romance light – playing the field” approach at first. To do that, work toward including at least two, maybe three, no more than five mild, romantic involvements. Be open and honest with them all about the existence of the others. Then weed out the ones who will not or can not handle sharing you. Suspect they probably would turn out to be insufficiently self loving, be too possessive and too insecure. In this way, you let the best ones rise from the pack and you do not let yourself settle for less, while also going more slowly, safely and constructively forward.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Get Busy but Not Frantic</h3>
Diving into work, school, projects, voluntary efforts or anything helpful to others, productive and highly distracting is part of the cure for many. If you compulsively think often and hurtfully about your ex, the past and what went wrong, consider doing it this way. Suspect that a part of your subconscious is trying to tell you that you have more to learn from that expired relationship than you have so far. So, plan and schedule an hour or so to concentrate on that every day for a while. During that time, do concentrated study, especially focusing on ideas of what to do new, better and different in a next relationship. Also look at your other relationships going back to the ones you had when you are a child. Look for patterns. Study to see if your most recent romantic involvements show a pattern of each one being better than the last. If so, that is a very good sign. If they all are about the same or getting worse, radical change may be in order and a good love knowledgeable therapist can help.<br />
<br />
Plan the ending time for that concentrated study and plan what you are going to definitely do right afterwards. Keep notes or a journal. Consider pretending to talk to your broken heart as if it was another person and ask it questions. Then pretend to be your broken heart giving you the answers which you can make up even if they’re silly. Very likely, some of them will be surprisingly fresh and spot on. Gamble on the idea that your subconscious can tell you good answers your conscious does not yet know. When the hour ends, get up and actively go do more of your regular or new life. Get and stay busy enough to be distracted from thinking about your old life and relationship. Gamble on the idea that your subconscious will let you alone after you have learned enough from the old relationship.<br />
<br />
<h3>
On to Life and Love Thriving</h3>
At some point along your path of surviving, you also can start toward thriving. Thriving means doing really well and living and loving enriched, fulfilled and in profoundly satisfying ways that include lots of healthy, real love. Remember, a lot of others have suffered through the same sort of things you are going through and then they have gone on to thriving so you probably can do this too. There is a lot of wisdom in the idea that if you can survive you can thrive. Gamble on that idea.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Grow Your Use of Love Sources</h3>
With healthy self-love you can be your own source of healing, strength and even joyous love. Decide you definitely are important enough to yourself to learn and practice lots of healthy self-love (see “<b><a href="https://www.whatislovedrcookerly.com/2018/02/self-love-and-its-five-healthy-functions.html" target="_blank">Self-Love and Its Five Healthy Functions</a></b>” and “<b><a href="https://www.whatislovedrcookerly.com/2018/02/from-self-love-to-other-love-and-back.html" target="_blank">From Self-Love to Other Love and Back Again</a></b>”). Gamble on the idea that the better you love yourself the better others will also. Spiritual love also has been known to do wonders for people of all faiths, and even those of no faith who attempt to tap into it as an unknown source or one they do not believe in but are willing to experiment with. Link “Spirituality and Love Great and Grand”<br />
<br />
Of course, love from okay others is highly desirable. I often have gotten good results by suggesting to those who are alone, isolated and lonely, to start with a loving pet. Then go around new people (see “<b><a href="https://www.whatislovedrcookerly.com/2018/01/a-dozen-kinds-of-love-to-have-in-your.html" target="_blank">A Dozen Kinds of Love to Have in Your Life</a></b>”).<br />
<br />
If you do not have okay others in your life, friends, family and the like, gamble on the idea there are okay others searching for you right now. Your job is to make it easy for them to find you and you to find them. Yes, you could get hurt or hurt again but with lots of healthy self-love, pet love, maybe some new friend love, plus powerful new love knowledge you likely will not hurt nearly as much, as long, or as deep as before (see “<b><a href="https://www.whatislovedrcookerly.com/2018/02/living-well-via-loving-well.html" target="_blank">Living Well via Loving Well</a></b>”).<br />
<br />
Keep carefully adventuring forward in love and love relationships as you grow your love skills, and great and good things can happen. Remember – Do only old actions, you’ll get only old results. Do not much, and probably get not much.<br />
<br />
<h3>
To Break All Ties or Not?</h3>
Love breakups, especially those involving false love syndromes, distort nature in ways that are similar to substance addictions. This happens neurochemically in your brain. Every time you re-encounter an addictive substance, or trigger, you are in danger of restarting a brain-made addiction process. That can lead you back into a bad relationship or just cause you a lot of fresh hurt. Safest is to not have anything to do with the ex lover for at least two years. That is not at all possible in lots of life situations like if you work together or share children. Try practicing a few coping tricks to help you get through times of temptation and re-triggered suffering. Here’s one.<br />
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Think of 3 to 5 of the worst experiences you ever had with your ex. Give each of those experiences a movie or book type title, and write those titles on a card you carry with you. Before each encounter with your ex, read the titles. With each title, ask yourself do you want to re-live another version of that experience again? Then after that encounter, reread each title, emphatically choosing not to put yourself through that again.<br />
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Afterward, do a really good job of loving yourself and, if possible, letting a special, dear other person or persons do the same with you. Pre-arrange for that. Then celebrate your escape.<br />
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Thriving usually happens as you learn and develop your love skills. So, how are your skills for loving life, yourself, your spiritual source, others, a super special other and the joy of living a fulfilled life. For thriving, learn about and develop each of those skill-sets further.<br />
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<h3>
Positivity Feeds Thriving</h3>
The results are in. Realistic positivity works better than anything else. Realistic positivity means (1.) With a spirited approach, planning and working to maximize the benefits, joys and other positives of any endeavor or situation while (2.) Taking in to account and planning how to’s for converting or surmounting the likely trials, tribulations, torments and other negatives of any endeavor or situation and (3.) With some adaptability, not surrendering, giving up or giving in easily. The old scout law had a phrase “and defeat does not down him”. Taken to heart, that phrase has made the difference between victory and defeat for many an old scout, including this one. It can for you too.<br />
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Positivity is not to be confused with being Pollyanna. The Pollyanna approach tends to ignore the negatives while positivity aims to embrace and convert or surmount them.<br />
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The newer field of positive psychology and, with it, the newer profession of Life Coaching are adding much to the older approaches of focusing mostly on either psychopathology or mere normalcy. With positivity, you can aim to go above normal in life and love. So, let me recommend the book Positivity by Dr. Barbara L Fredrickson who heads up the Positive Emotions and Psychophysiology (PEP) laboratory at Chapel Hill’s University of North Carolina.<br />
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Are You Growing Your Lovability?<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span></h3>
This question has two meanings and we mean both of them. In the first meaning, Lovability works like magnetism, it attracts people to you. To be well loved, become more lovable. That was the Roman poet Ovid’s advice 2000 years ago. Assertively lovable people get more love. The assertive part comes from their strong, healthy self-love and the lovable part from their strong, healthy and well practiced love skills. Link “<b><a href="https://www.whatislovedrcookerly.com/2018/03/becoming-well-loved-and-more-loved.html" target="_blank">Becoming Well Loved and More Loved – Three Main Ways</a></b>” This leads to the second meaning.<br />
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Lovability also means your ability to love. The more you do to learn and practice your ability to give, get, and receive healthy, real love the more you are likely to receive, get and give the same.<br />
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For all this and more, I recommend you read the book <b><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/140194163X/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=140194163X&linkCode=as2&tag=movmacnew-20&linkId=4a590aa1bb70770e23b44cb9c1003578" target="_blank">Lovability</a></b> by Dr. Robert Holden, director of the love education effort known as The Lovability Program.<br />
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Going Further</h3>
For going further with all this, I suggest you consider, if you have not already, subscribing to automatically getting our totally free, mini-love-lessons every week and then, of course, studying them and applying everything you can to your life. You also might mention this site to others, talk over some of these ideas with them and, thus, help spread some much-needed, useful knowledge about love to our love-hungry world.<br />
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As always – Go and Grow with Love<br />
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<b><span style="color: #38761d;">Dr. J. Richard Cookerly</span></b><br />
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Quotable question: If you hope that someone will come along and wonderfully love you into a new and better life, could it be that that someone best might be - you?drcookerlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09047208304726023746noreply@blogger.com0