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Showing posts with label communication. Show all posts
Showing posts with label communication. Show all posts

Blame Attacks Love

Synopsis: 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.


Important Questions

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?

10 Things to Ponder about Blame

Do you agree or disagree with the following:
•    Much blame involves an attempt to feel better by making someone else feel worse.
•    Much blame involves an attempt to impose your value system on another.
•    Much blame is based in persecuting another by playing victim.
•    Much blame is a dodge and avoidance of taking responsibility for handling something poorly.
•    Much blame is an attempt to not feel inadequate, at fault, guilty, wrong, etc.
•    Much blame is an attempt to be blind to one’s own self.
•    Much blame as an attempt to feel superior.
•    Much blame as an attempt to get control of someone else and manipulate them to one’s own advantage.
•    Much blame is an attempt to feel righteous, right, virtuous, sinless, guilt free, etc. without having to do anything curative or constructive.
•    Much blame is an attempt to give oneself permission to be destructively judgmental.
In a love relationship whenever any of the above statements are true they probably are destructive to the love relationships involved!

How do you talk about something being wrong without blame?

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.

Whenever one person in a love relationship is de-powered the love relationship (team) is de-powered.
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?

What about Self Blame?

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.

What To Do When You Are Blamed

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.

What To Do When You Think You Just Have To Blame a Loved One?

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.

What To Do When You Think You Are Blamed, and Maybe You Are Not

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.

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.

As always, Go and Grow in Love

Dr. J Richard Cookerly


Love Success Question Are you really willing to examine your own blaming tendencies, and do it lovingly as well as accurately?


Listening With Love and IN and OUT Brain Functions

Synopsis: 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.


A Super Common, Communication, Love Problem

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?”

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.

How the “Out” Part of the Process Works

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.

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.

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.

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.
Consequently, we feel better and after some recovery we think better.

Vent Assistance and Interference

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.

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.

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 to you their longer-range benefits are not so likely.

How The “In” Part Works

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.

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.

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.

Some of What To Do and Not To Do

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.

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.

Sufficient venting and healing has to occur before your loved one can hear and maybe use a cognitively helpful idea.  Therefore, do love actions first and lots and then if needed do the thinking together.  Know that sometimes the loving listening is enough 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.

As always – Go and Grow with Love

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly


Love Success Question
How good are you at giving active, silent love to a hurting and venting loved one?


How Receiving Love Well Gives Love Better



Synopsis: 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.


Ongoing Love Is a Game of Pitch, Catch and Throw Back

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.

Good and Bad Love Reception

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.

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.

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 “A Behavioral (Operational) Definition of Love” 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.

How to Receive Love Well: Part One

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.

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.

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.

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.

Love Mindfulness

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”.

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.

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.

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.

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.

How to Receive Love Well: Part Two

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.

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.

Love Behaviors That Give Love Back

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.

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.

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.
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.

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.

More to Learn

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, Recovering Love, 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 Receiving Love which covers quite a few, in depth factors often involved in this very important topic.

As always – Go and Grow in Love

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly


Love Success Question 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?


Behaviors That Give Love - The Basic Core Four

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.


How to Give Healthy, Real Love and Then Get It

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.

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.

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.

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 the eight major categories of behavior 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.

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.

Introducing The Basic, Core Four

1.  Touch Love
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.

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!

Take a look at the following list of words expressing how many different ways loving touch may be done.

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.

Why not get good at all of them?

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.

2.  Expressional Love
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.

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.

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.

3.  Verbal Love
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.

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.

4.  Gift Love
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 tangible gifts like things attractively wrapped in boxes but also including resources like finances; and the other form of experience gifts 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.
What is important is to enjoy the giving 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.

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.
To really learn and get into all eight of the major ways of directly giving healthy, real love I, perhaps egotistically, strongly recommend you read my book, Recovering Love, available through amazon.com, iuniverse.com, and others.

As always – Go and Grow in Love

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly


Love Success Question
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?


Upbeat Emotions & Learning for Love

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.


It was told of old that the ancient elves taught:
“The smart learn from their hurts, agonies, disappointments and despair.

The wise learn from their joys, ecstasies, contentments, and elations,
while sadly – the rest learn not from their feelings at all.”
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.

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 with our emotions because that gives us the very best guidance our incredible brains can produce.

Of even greater benefit is when two or more people in a love relationship share in a simple, ‘four step process’.  First comes sharing their emotions, second is searching for and discovering the guidance messages in their emotions and sharing them with one another, third comes sharing and synthesizing their thinking about the feelings and the guidance message, and finally comes acting in teamwork 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.

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’.

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.

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.

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 “Date Your Mate – Always!”).  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.

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 all feelings are good 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.

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.

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.

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.

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 “Dealing with Love Hurts #1 – Pain’s Crucial Guidance”)  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?

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.

1. Emotion: Serenity: 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.

2.  Emotion: Joyful Anticipation: 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.

3.  Emotion: Tenderness: 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.

4.  Emotion: Affection:  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.

5. Emotion: Pride: 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).

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

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”.

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.

As always –Go and Grow with Love

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly


Love Success Question
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?


Love Complaints Versus Love Requests

“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”.

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.

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. 

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?”

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.

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.

Rachel and Andrew created their own version of some simple but very helpful rules to follow:

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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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”.
 
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.
 
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.

I find most couples can benefit from these seven ‘rules’ and I hope you find them useful.

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.

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.

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.

As always, Go and Grow with Love

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly


Love Success Question
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?


Checking It Out - As a Love Skill

Synopsis: The cheating lover; conclusions are your enemy; is your reality real?; self-fulfilling prophecies; learning to know you cannot know; what’s the loving way?; assumption mistakes; loving checkouts use love; how to receive check out questions.


The Cheating Lover

The love skill of ‘checking it out’ is super-important.  Here’s an example.  She suspected her lover of cheating and secretly followed him to the train station.  She saw him greet with a hug and kiss a very pretty, young female that she did not know.  Her suspicion was mounting.  Unnoticed she followed them to a small, romantic looking, Italian restaurant and through the window she saw how they laughed together, held hands across the table and acted in little ways that could only be called personal.  She could feel her anger mounting.  Then she followed them to his house where she hid all night furiously imagining what they were doing.

The young woman and her lover did not emerge until late the next morning.  They came out smiling with his arm around her.  In an overwhelming, jealous rage she pulled out a small pistol from her purse and shot her cheating lover dead.  Then she shot but only wounded the female.  She was confused to see other people run out from his house, and with others on the street they captured her.  Soon she was in custody.  It was only then she learned a terrible truth.  The attractive, young girl was her lover’s niece just returned from college in Europe, and the people who emerged from her lover’s house were the niece’s parents who had arrived at the house earlier the day before.

This is the worst example I know of a person not checking out their conclusions and as a result causing agony and tragedy.  Most other bad outcomes are not nearly that serious but, nevertheless, they are important and often hurtful.  This lack of ‘checking it out’ causes countless mini-tragedies, not to mention ever so many hours spent on clearing up misinterpretations, misunderstandings, misperceptions, miscommunications and relationship misses of all types.

Conclusions Are Your Enemy

“I know what you’re thinking.  You’re thinking I’m not good enough for you; I know that because I can tell it by the look on your face.  Don’t deny it”.  The reply was “No, honestly I was wondering how we can get past this problem with my parents and worrying that I’m going to be late for work.”.  The retort to that reply was “You’re a liar.  I’m through with you.  I can’t trust you to tell me the truth so I don’t ever want to see you again.  I can’t stand liars and this just proves you are a damn liar!”.  This sort of dialogue is all too common in the lives of many couples, and families and even some friendships.  It makes relationships deteriorate and sometimes even die.  When I give this kind of example at workshops and seminars I often hear the question, “Dr. Cookerly, what makes this sort of interaction happen and what can be done about it?”

Is Your Reality Real?

So much of so many people’s ‘reality’ is created by their fears or their desires. Let’s look at an example.  She perceived he was leering at her, day after day at work, until finally she felt so uncomfortable she officially complained that he was sexually harassing her.  Then she learned he was so nearsighted he was nearly legally blind.  It turned out he also had a gay lover.  Later in counseling, she confessed to herself that she both feared and secretly wanted him to lust for her.  Both her desire and her fear combined together to give her an interpretation of her perceptions that was totally mistaken.  Repeating her mistaken interpretation day after day made it seem absolutely, without a doubt, true because it happened over and over everyday.

Self-Fulfilling Prophecies

He noticed that every time his wife came into the bedroom she seemed to have a frown on her face.  He interpreted this as meaning ‘no sex tonight’.  He silently got increasingly bitter and subtly hostile.  She noticed that every time she came into their dark, shadow-filled bedroom he seemed to act irritated and looked stoney.  This she silently interpreted as him rejecting and not wanting her sexually or any other way.  She concluded that he was no longer attracted to her, and suspected he no longer loved her, and with that she became depressed.

Finally with a counselor’s help to stop the rapidly deteriorating relationship situation they had accidentally created, they found out the truth.  It turned out she came into the bedroom frowning trying to see what was happening in its darkness especially trying to see his facial expression revealing his emotions.  He secretly feared he was becoming sexually inadequate and she didn’t want to make love with him anymore.  He saw his fear as his reality.  He did not check it out.

She feared she was unlovable, unattractive, unwanted and that became her reality.  She did not check it out.  Thus, in a sort of ‘accidental teamwork’ they prophesied what they feared and almost made it come true.  Had they not sought help through couples counseling they might never have discovered the truth which saved their relationship.

Learning to Know That You Can’t Know

Have you ever said or heard someone say “don’t tell me what I think”.  More elaborately some people have heard “don’t tell me what I feel, don’t tell me what you’re sure  I did, and absolutely don’t tell me what you’re sure I’m going to do.  You can suspect it, propose it, hypothesize it, recommend it, or warn me about its possibility, but don’t be arrogantly sure and act like you know it, or like you totally know me”.  The truth is all perceptions are misperceptions, at least a little.

Consider this lover’s statement.  “If you tell me the thoughts you know I’m having, or the emotions you’re positive I’m experiencing, you dishonor me as an independent-equal-other.  I have the democratic, human freedom to change, surprise and live in many different ways.  None of us knows the future, and the best any of us can do is make educated and lucky guesses.  People are infinitely variable.  Know that you cannot fully know who I am today, and know that our knowledge of each other is constantly going out of date.  Therefore, our knowledge of one another is repeatedly in need of refreshment.  That’s part of what makes a good love relationship loving.

We always must be checking to see what the new variations are, always be alert to the surprises both large and small, positive and negative.  Let us always be exploring each other, and always checking out what we think the other one is doing, thinking, feeling, hoping for, fearing, dreaming and everything else.  In that way we can be forever new to one another.  So, my lover, never ‘know for sure’ that you know who I am today, and please always be interested to find that out, just as I am curious to discover you.”

“You’re mad at me” is better said “Are you mad at me” or “What are you feeling right now”.  “You’re depressed” might better be said “Maybe you’re depressed”.  “You’re horny” might better be expressed  “I think I’m seeing signs of you being horny, and I  sure want to be right about that” or just “ I hope what I’m seeing means you’re horny”.

Learning to talk with checkout statements instead of pronouncements and declarations is a love skill that many people have to work at because they didn’t grow up around people talking that way.  Talking from conclusions, that never get checked out, often is heard as rude, as an attempt at being controlling and quite disrespectful, although it only may be a speech habit someone grew up with.  We all can learn how to say things better with love.

What’s the Loving Way?

Basically the more loving way goes like this.  You perceive that a person you love is feeling , thinking or doing something.  Do not conclude that you perceive accurately.  As almost any perceptual psychologist will tell you, no two people looking at the same thing, hearing the same thing, or in any other way perceiving the same thing will have the exact same interpretation of what they have perceived.  It’s amazing how different it is ‘over there’ in the minds of other people, even those you know well and love well.

When the loving way is used well it helps relationships be ever more interesting.  Once you have your perception, understand it is best conceived of like a scientist with the hypothesis, yet to be proved, or disproved and replaced with a better hypothesis.  So, what you say to a loved one is a checkout statement.  Checkout statements can go something like this:  “Whatcha feeling, Honey?  Your looks suggest that you’re feeling something.  What is it?, I am getting the impression that you’d like something but I’m not quite sure what it is.  Could you tell me, Sweetheart, so I don’t have to guess and maybe get it wrong.  Would it be okay if you tell me what’s going on with you?”, “I’m suspecting that you’re depressed, or maybe angry, or something.  What are you feeling right now; I want to help if I can”.

Assumption Mistakes

I trust you know the old adage that says “to assume makes an ass out of you and me.  So often assumptions set us up for relationship chaos, or worse. Here’s such an example.  He assumed that the cake on the table was for him and the rest of the family so he ate some of it, and oh did he get screeched at for not checking it out because that cake was for her club’s party that night.  However, she soon figured out she had assumed everyone would know that, and would leave the cake alone. Another example: he assumed all women like love making soft and tender.  She assumed real he-men like it rough and tough, just the way she does.  Both were very disappointed until they were able to check out their assumptions and find out the real truth.  After that, things got better.

Sometimes it’s hard to know that your operating on an assumption because they’re sort of automatic.  People who love each other can help each other discover their own, and each other’s assumptions; that can be part of the loving ways to check each other out.

Loving Checkouts Use Love

As an act of love, it’s good to check out just about everything that might be important.  As an act of love, bear in mind that what you remember is always different than what another remembers.  It’s sad that so many arguments are about whose memory is the correct one.  It would take a time machine or somebody video and audio recording an event for us to really know.

Memory research tell us ‘all memories are distorted and slowly undergoing change’.  So, regarding memories, check out what your loved one remembers and don’t fight about it if it is different than what you remember.  You might want to say something like “Darling, it’s my memory that X, Y, Z happened.  Is that your memory?”  If it’s not very similar to yours see if you can operate from both.  It’s surprising how often that can be lovingly  accomplished.  When you are checking things out the basic idea is to sound and look loving, and maybe use terms of endearment, and also some loving touch.  This gives a checkout a good chance of being a love-filled experience for both of you.

How to Receive Checkout Questions

It’s important to be lovingly nice when a loved one asks you checkout questions.  Sometimes that’s hard to do because sometimes the request comes at an interrupting time.  Angrily replying “Can’t you see your interrupting me”, or huffing and puffing to nonverbally send the same message, likely will sabotage the next hour or more of your precious time.  Almost always, love is more important than whatever else you’re doing, so be loving.  Remember, all things can be said with love and in a love relationship that’s a goal to aim at.

Sometimes checkout questions come across pretty awful.  Here’s an example.  In fear and anger she said, “I know you’re just going to the gym so you can ogle those sexy sluts that go there.  I’m sure you’d rather take one of them to bed than me.  I know I’m right, so don’t deny it.  It’s true isn’t it?”

Well, in a very poor way, that at least is an effort to check something out, but it’s not exactly love-filled, however, his reply was.  He responded with, “Sweetie,  I suspect you’re feeling pretty insecure and could use some reassurance right now.  I really love you and would never get involved with anyone else because you and I are so very bonded in love together, and those girls are just part of the passing parade”.  She sort of whimpered and moved closer to him as he held out his arms to embrace her.  She more softly said, “You do like looking at those girls though don’t you?”

He replied, “Yes I do and probably always will, but looking is the extent of it.  You are the only one I’m ever going to put my time and love-energy into.  The rest is just eye candy, and I’m already well fed.  None of them can hold a candle to you in anything that really counts, so be reassured”  They hugged and things were good between them.

It is important to see that when someone negatively suspects something of you, and it’s true, you best agree and share it truthfully, but with lots of love.  That too is part of the love skills involved here.
So, check it out – often and with love.

As always – Go and Grow with Love

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly



Love Success Question
How would you rate yourself on “checking it out” instead of making concrete conclusions about what your loved ones are thinking, feeling or otherwise doing?  Are you superior, rather good, fairly okay, poor, or inferior? (Whatever you are, you can improve if you want to and work at it).

Growing Closeness - A Love Skill

Synopsis: This love skill lesson starts with comments on growing close love; and goes on to understanding closeness; the emotional guidance messages in closeness; sexual closeness; trouble, communication and closeness; and ends with other closeness helpers.

Growing Close Love

“I feel so close to you.”  “I feel we are growing apart.”  “We used to be so close but now it seems we’re distant.”  “How do we get close again?”  In love relationships feeling close usually is very desirable and very important.  Feeling distant usually is seen as hurtful and harmful in a love relationship.  Growing a love relationship that is full of closeness helps the relationship grow stronger and last longer.  But how is it that people actually get to feel close and what happens to make them feel distant from one another?

Understanding Closeness

It is important to note closeness is a feeling or, more accurately, an emotional state.  When we feel the emotion called ‘close’ we also tend to feel good, safe, satisfied, connected and quite likely we have a sense of wellness.  When we feel distant we tend to feel the opposite of all that – more alone, isolated, unsatisfied, unsafe, apprehensive and if it goes on too long depressed. Feeling close to someone we love and who loves us is very healthy and generally quite good for us, as well as for whoever we are feeling close to.  Closeness tends to relieve stress, improve a number of biological functions, and can result in a sense of love-filled serenity.

Emotional Guidance

Our emotions give us guidance.  The guidance message we get from closeness tells us we are with someone who it is good for us to be with.  Feeling close with a person we love guides us into feeling increasingly nurtured and safe.  Sometimes that can be false or a mistake, but generally not.  Feeling emotionally distant directs us into thinking something is not right and we would do well to strive for increased closeness one way or another.

Compatibility and Closeness

The more people experience that they are compatible with each other, the more they are likely to grow a sense of closeness with each other.  Agreeableness and having similar experiences, backgrounds, interests, tastes and preferences can facilitate the growth of closeness. Compatibility tends to grow when people are willing to experiment with each other’s ways and be open to each other’s ideas, wishes, views and ways of being.  Being able to convey your own ways and be ok about someone else’s ways of being themselves is a tremendous help in compatibility and closeness-creation.

Since all humans and most mammals seem to experience emotions in very similar ways, there can be sufficient, natural compatibility for fostering at least some closeness with anyone and with many of our cousins in the animal world.  Thus, it is that loving closeness often is felt by pet owners and apparently by the pets they relate to.

Closeness Starters

Love-based, emotional closeness frequently starts and grows with the showing and sharing of one’s more personal self.  This especially is true with the sharing of a person’s more private and intimate emotions.  Sharing implies a two or more person process.  In this process one person lets some of their feelings be seen.  This is done by facial expressions, tones of voice, gestures, posture changes and the spoken word.  It can be done by the written word but that’s much trickier.  Then the person hearing or seeing another person’s demonstrations of what they are feeling responds in a receptive and understanding manner.  They may have a sympathetic look on their face, kind tones of voice, or say words that indicate emotional understanding.  From that, emotional closeness often starts and/or grows.

Two or more people can demonstrate emotional understanding to each other and a sort of core appreciation.  They can show respect and empathy for each other.  And if they don’t let a number of other things get in the way like judgmentalism, or giving too much advice, or being diverted to other matters then closeness becomes much more likely.

Smiles, caring looks and other positive facial expressions, pleasant tones of voice, affectionate touch, demonstrating patience, thoughtfulness and tolerance, along with showing someone how they are highly valued and special to you are all very important in starting, maintaining and growing closeness-filled love.

Sharing experiences together in which feelings show and are freely expressed also is a big help in starting and keeping closeness growing.  Any experience shared together which generates ‘different than usual’ or strong feelings may bring about a sense of closeness growing.  Talking about previous, individual experiences and joint experiences also can be helpful if the emotions and sometimes the physical feelings involved are voiced with emotional expression.

Being earnest and honest in situations where others might be more closed or guarded is sometimes a huge help for people starting to feel real with and close to each other.  Receiving sincere, honest expressions from another needs to be met with acceptance, respect, tolerance, and kindness for closeness to have a chance to grow.  Judgmentalism, personal disapproval, demeaning, discounting and other negating communications are best to be absent.

Closeness and Two Kinds of Love

The type of love behavior known as ‘Self-disclosure love’ [see entry “A Behavioral (Operational) Definition of Love” at this link] and the type of love behavior known as ‘Affirmational love’ [see entry “A Behavioral (Operational) Definition of Love” at this link] are very much involved in growing a close love.  Disclosing one’s real self and going “psychologically naked” with a loved one often is felt as very risky but perhaps essential for growing great closeness.  When a person does this with you, responding with affirmational love words and actions which show care, understanding and respect affirms their most intimate nature.

Generally affirming the person brave enough to reveal their real self to you, makes for powerful closeness.  Of course, then you also best go psychologically naked in return for the cycle to be completed and for both of you to be close to each other.

Some people managed to do all this behaviorally and pretty much without words, but words that indicate self-disclosure love and affirmational love usually speed and greatly aid this two-part process.

Sexual Closeness

Many couples grow their sense of closeness with each other by way of their shared, intimate sexuality.  Sharing their bodies, their sexual desires, their ways of pleasuring, their turn-ons, idiosyncrasies, erotic fantasies, intimate and unique preferences, thoughts, feelings and ways of sexually expressing themselves is involved here.  The self-disclosure of letting themselves be known sexually and letting themselves sexually know another while responding with affirmation type love can make for incredible love-filled closeness.  It takes people responding to each other in these ways to grow that special closeness and it takes not letting fears and anti-sexual programming get in the way.

Trouble, Communication and Closeness

Letting and helping a person tell you whatever is in them to tell you is a great way to enhance closeness.  Lovingly hearing and expressing realness in the ways you and a loved one relate often is vital to the continuation of closeness.  Whenever there is dissonance or disagreement, communicating in loving ways can help the closeness continue in spite of the difficulties being encountered.  To be able to convey that you continue to value a person, though you may not like some of their behaviors, is important for the continuance of closeness when trouble is afflicting a love relationship.  Learning to talk without blame, personal disapproval, putdowns, guilt trips and offense defensiveness (see entry Non-defensiveness – A Love Skill) is also very important to the continuation of closeness.

Other Closeness Helpers

Closeness implies both emotional and physical proximity.  Getting physically and intimately close to someone, when they are receptive, helps closeness grow.  Being intimately close also allows for intimate loving touch which also is a great help to many people’s closeness feelings. Loving touch can begin with simple short tap-touching, then move to brief pause touches, followed by friendship hugs, and later cuddling and caressing.  In this process it’s important to back off if any discomfort is indicated by the response.  Laughing together, acting silly together and being helpful to one another also can enhance the start and growth of closeness feelings between people.
As always – Go and Grow with Love

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly


Love Success Question
Who would you like to feel closer to, and what will you do about that?


Anti-Love Myth # 1: True Love Means You'll Know What to Do

Synopsis: Our sweet, pretty, horribly destructive, super common, love-ruining myth in example; A group’s help; Care and cure effort; Two answers for why we keep perpetuating the myth; The triggering of useless self attack; Ruining your children’s romantic future; The two brains improvement you can make; and Restaurant behavior & love relating.


With an anguished look Francine moaned, “If I have to tell him what I want that spoils it.  If he truly loves me, he just will know what to do and he’ll do it.  Won’t he?  That’s the way real love works, doesn’t it?”

Upon hearing this the other seven members of Francine’s counseling group all groaned in unison.  My trainee assistant therapist then said, “How has thinking that way been working for you so far, Francine?”  Quizzically she replied, “Maybe not so well, but perhaps I just haven’t found the right guy who really loves me yet.”  Again members of the group groaned.  Cheri, said, “I have an ex who relied on that myth and all it ever did was cause a lot of trouble and fights.  I always was having to guess and usually I guessed wrong.”  Jake spoke up and added, “Yeh, I get so frustrated with my wife never telling me what she really wants.  I really love her but she doesn’t give me a clear message that I can work with.  She expects me to ‘read her mind’ and I never can.  This could lead us to the breaking point if we don’t do something about it.”

I then asked, “Francine, what do you think the word communication means when we say we all have to learn how to really communicate with the ones we love?”  Francine replied, “I don’t know, I never really thought about it.”  I replied, “Could it mean you and your lover have to take a lot of the guesswork out of your relationship?  Maybe it means we all have to tell each other what we secretly hope for, dream about, and directly ask for what we need and want.”  With some energy Francine strongly said, “I think I get it and I’m going to work on that.”  So she did and with good results over time.

Loretta who just had been listening then made this comment, “Without asking for what I wanted, when my husband didn’t say or do just the right, loving thing I thought it meant I had done something wrong, or he was mad at me, or maybe he didn’t care or he was just being cruel.  When what I wanted didn’t come my way I’d feel guilty and try to figure out what I had done wrong and why he was punishing me.  I’m sure I seemed pathetic and whiny.  I see now I was not sending any clear message at all, just hoping he’d magically know or guess how to be nice to me.  When he ‘failed’ to come through for me I would get pouty.  When I acted like that he would get mad at me and I would feel too afraid to even talk to him, let alone tell him what I needed or wanted, so I guess he never really knew.  It never crossed my mind that he had no idea what I wanted — that he actually couldn’t know.  What a mess not asking for what I really wanted made.  It would have been so simple and I think we’d still be together today if I’d known that.”

Brandon then brought up the question “Why do so many people believe that awful myth which says ‘If you love someone you’ll know what to do, and you’ll do it, and it will turn out to be the right thing?  Why do we rely on a false myth that love makes us ‘mind readers’ when it causes a lot of pain and misery, and no doubt a lot of breakups?”

Understanding how many people come to believe this ‘love myth’ which turns out to have such an anti-love effect can help us guard against it.  There are two parts to the thinking about that.  The first part applies to when you are a baby your parents are repeatedly figuring out what you need and want, and give it to you without you asking for it because, as an infant, you can’t.  You may look distressed, or cry or look unhappy, then someone feeds you or changes your diaper or because they love you they make you feel better one way or another.  Therefore, you grow up being conditioned to think that those who love you automatically will know or figure out what you need and give it to you without you having to learn how to identify it, ask for it, or accurately inform anyone about how you feel.

All you have to do is look or sound a little unhappy and those loving people will sweep in and take care of you in a way that satisfies.  When you are a child that works because your wants and needs are mostly simple.  Adulthood is much more complicated and individualistic, so we have to learn to communicate our wants very clearly or we don’t have much of a chance of getting what we need or desire.  The dependence on loved ones being mind readers, therefore, basically is a childish way of operating and it often does enormous damage to adult love relationships.

The second part is that we in the Western world have been conditioned, at least somewhat, by childhood fairy tales.  In the fairy tales Prince and/or Princess Charming always automatically does the right thing which always leads to "happily ever after" without anyone having to really communicate.  Think of Snow White.  She is laying there in her coffin and the prince comes along and automatically does the one correct thing that brings her back to life.  He kisses her and she pops up full of hugs and kisses for him.  How did he know to do that?

It’s inferred that love gave him the immediate, perfect knowledge of what to do.  He didn’t have to research it, consult wise men or white witches, study old scrolls, remember what some wizard once said, or form a committee to study the matter.  He just immediately, automatically knew what to do and did it because that is ‘the magic of love’ according to the story.  To a large extent our romance mythology is built on this kind of understanding of how love is supposed to work.  We keep teaching this destructive myth to the detriment and destruction of many love relationships that otherwise might work out fine.

Think about it.  Notice that this way of operating can work in fairy tales and romance stories because only one brain is involved in scripting all the roles.  In real life you have at least two individual brains thinking individualistically.  For there to be joint, cooperative, successful action those two brains have to communicate with one another.  Only occasionally will both brains think enough in similar fashion for people to have pretty much the same thought simultaneously.  That phenomenon can be enjoyed but not relied upon.  Therefore, mutually communicating your feelings and especially your desires, then jointly working out what to do next is the way to go – if you want frequent cooperative success.

By the way, you might want to give some thought about whether or not you are perpetuating the "love gives magical, automatic knowledge" myth to your children and, thus, perhaps assisting them toward future romantic agonies and maybe failure.

Here’s the dilemma. You either can hold on to the sweet, pretty but false romantic myth that love magically can guide those who love you to take care of you ‘just right’, or you can go to the trouble to learn to clearly communicate your thoughts, feelings and especially your desires.  If you accurately communicate what you want you at least have a chance of getting what you want, of course, there is no guarantee.  Furthermore, if you are a decent listener you actually may come to understand what your beloved really wants or at least realize what questions to ask to find out.  If you hold on to and depend upon the myth – well, you can guess what you’re odds are of getting what you need and want.

Many of my patients have heard my analogy of restaurant behavior and love relating.  If you go to a restaurant and don’t ask for what you want, you are highly unlikely to get it.  The wait-person can’t read your mind.  If instead you say, “I’d like a steak, medium rare, with mushrooms on the side and a baked potato with sour cream and chives, and broccoli also” you have a far better chance of getting more exactly what you want.  Likewise, in a love relationship if you come home tired and worried, and just plop down and hang your head, you might not get the hug and attentive listening that you really want.  All your mate can do is guess what to do and they may guess you want to be left alone.  But if you say, “I’ve really had a rough day and I’m worried about tomorrow.  Will you give me a big hug and listen to me with love for about 5 minutes?  I think that will help us have a much nicer evening together” the chances are much better that your mate will understand what you want and hopefully help you with that.

As always – Grow and Go with Love

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly


Love Success Question Are you in any way afraid to ask someone you love for what you want, and if so how are you going to get past that?