Talking to Feelings First, Then Topics - A Love Skill

Synopsis: This mini-love lesson explores the rule ‘heart before head’; then goes into ‘here and now’ versus ‘there and then’ talking; gender differences; talking to your loved one’s bad feelings; talking to bad feelings aimed at you by your loved ones; self-care while learning this love skill; and more.

Heart Before Head

When meeting her group of friends, with joy in her voice and with a great big smile Felicia proclaimed, “I’m so happy!  I got the job!  Now I’ve got to go shopping for the right clothes and brush up on my worker skills.”

Norman in rather ordinary tones replied, “Yeh, you better start practicing your work skills.  You’re probably really rusty”.  Josh blandly responded with, “I bet you already have clothes for the first week at least”.  Frank with a bright look on his face and an upbeat tone said, “You really look happy and I’m really glad for you”.  A couple weeks later Frank and Felicia became a couple and Norman and Josh wondered what he was doing right that they were not.

Frank had a very important love skill.  He knew that for helping a love relationship get started, or be maintained and grow, it was important to focus first and most on the feelings being felt and, if possible, to attend to those emotions before the topic being brought up is discussed.  He followed the lover’s rule ‘talk to your loved one’s feelings before you talk to your loved one’s topics’.

Felicia’s voice tones, face and words all spoke of her happiness.  Speaking to and sharing her happiness is speaking to her internal, personal self.  Speaking to her clothing and skills topics is okay but less personal.  Emotionally joining with Felicia in her feelings of happiness and success also conveys a pleasant, positive, personal connection with her and demonstrates the love skill of sharing heartfelt emotions.  Talking to a person’s topics without sufficiently speaking to their emotions may convey that the person is less important to you, and maybe that you are not very able to be personally, emotionally with them.  In a small, subtle way by talking to Felicia’s feeling of happiness Frank displayed a clue showing that perhaps he was able to do ‘emotional intercourse’.  Emotional intercourse so often is a major basis for romantic, healthy, real love development.

‘Here and Now’ Versus ‘There and Then’ Talking

By talking to Felicia’s happiness Frank showed he was emotionally with her in the ‘here and now’.  Talking about brushing up her skills and shopping topics left the emotional ‘here and now’ and went to the future, only addressing the pragmatic.  When we talk about what’s being felt in the here and now, instead of talking about the future and/or about practical matters, it gives more of a sense of emotional togetherness.  When we talk the topics first, after strong emotions have been expressed by a loved one, they may feel unattended to or develop a vague sense of being emotionally abandoned.  It may sort of indicate to them that their emotions are not important to you and only practical matters count with you.  Loving closeness is not likely to grow out of that perception.

Talking about the past can work if there is sufficient focus on the emotions that occurred in that past situation, or about the emotions that one now has about the past.  Without sufficient focus on the feelings connected to the past your loved one may develop a sense of being impersonally and non-intimately dealt with.  This is true whether you’re talking about your own feelings or the feelings of your loved one. And this feelings-absent talk is highly unlikely to help a love relationship.

Generally when a loved one is having strong feelings ‘in the present’, talking in the present tense is more powerful and more loving.  Talking in the future tense or the past tense without focusing sufficiently on the emotions involved in both may create more emotional distance than closeness.

Gender Differences

In many cultures men more than women seem to have trouble talking to their loved ones about emotions.  Some researchers think this is genetic but in some cultures men overcome this perhaps ‘genetic predisposition’ by good societal, communications training.  A major complaint from many women is about men not being able to talk to a woman about either his emotions or her emotions.  That in turn is seen as a major deterrent to healthy, love relationship development.  Interestingly women, while being better at empathetically talking to a loved one’s emotions, usually don’t know how to teach men how to do that form of much desired, personal communication.

Basic Instructions

To talk to a loved one’s emotions here is a simple procedure you might want to follow.
Step 1.  While your loved one is talking think “what emotion is my loved one feeling right now?”.  If you’re not sure, ask.  Asking shows you want to be with your loved one in what they’re feeling and, therefore, asking helps you to do that.  To ask simply say, “What are you feeling?” or “What are you feeling right now?” or “You’re feeling …(glad, sad, worried, upset, eager, etc.?”  Or just make a guess.  Guessing conveys you are trying and that counts too.  Remember, feelings usually can be ‘labeled’ and said with ‘one word’ each.  You can feel affectionate, fearful, excited, mad, serene, etc., there are hundreds of good labels for our emotions.  If your ‘emotions labeling skills’ are weak you might want to make a list.  Here’s a hint: There are emotion labels starting with every letter of the alphabet.  This is a homework exercise I often assign to those wanting to improve communications and learn to emotionally love a loved one better.

Step 2.  When you think you may know the emotion a loved one is feeling say that feeling label word.  “You’re happy”.  “You’re worried”.  “You’re upset”.  “You’re pleased”.  “You’re feeling eager” are some examples.  You can say these things with a sort of questioning sound or if you’re expressing it in written form you can put in a question mark.  This shows you are trying to get it right.  Remember, you don’t have to be right you just have to show your really trying to connect emotionally.

Step 3.  Really hear the response your loved one makes to what you have said.  Your loved one might say “No, that’s not quite what I’m feeling, it’s more like …(this other feeling)”.  Then again you might hear something like “you really understand, you’re wonderful”.

Step 4.  Now, ask yourself what you are feeling having heard your loved one is feeling and whatever thoughts they may have added.  Are you happy with your loved one’s expressed feeling, or angry, or upset, or proud, or threatened, or what?  Remember, ‘thoughts and feelings are very different from each other’.  A thought usually takes a sentence to identify and a feeling usually takes only a single word label.

Step 5.  Share the labeling word that expresses the feeling you’re experiencing having heard what your loved one feels. You may want to elaborate on it a bit.  Examples might be “joy, I am feeling joy hearing what you just told me”, or “my insecurity is going up and down”, or “now I’m feeling closer to you”, or “I’m getting angry but let’s talk about this”, or “after hearing what you said I feel a little more comforted”, or “I’m noticing I’m starting to feel more nervous thinking about what you just said”, or “I’m beginning to care more about how you feel and maybe understand you better”.  Yes, sometimes you will have to deal with their bad feelings or yours but usually that’s better than letting them fester.

As people practice this ‘talking to feelings love skill’ they can and usually do create improving emotional intercourse.  Then they usually start getting its many benefits.

Talking to Bad Feelings

When you’re beloved says, “I feel bad, mad, upset, scared” or anything we might call a bad feeling the usual best response is to care.  Therefore, quite often the best thing to say is “I care”.  You might include the feeling you heard them say and then “I care.” for example, “I care that you’re hurt”, or “you’re really feeling bad and I care about that a lot”, or “you’re feeling angry and that’s hard to hear but I love you so I care about how you’re feeling”, etc. are a few of the many ways you might lovingly demonstrate that.  When a loved one expresses bad feelings what’s usually best is a lot of really attentive, good listening which usually helps them get all their feelings out while your care comes into them.  That’s sort of like getting the poison out and the medicine in.

Common Mistakes

The biggest, most common mistake is to jump in, talking from your head instead of from your heart.  Analyzing, explaining, instructing, teaching, talking in a way that tries to ‘fix’ what caused the feelings, or in any other way tries to deal with the topics involved, before talking to your loved one’s emotions, usually doesn’t work.  In fact, sometimes it makes things far worse.  Once you talk to a loved one’s feelings there may be no need to do any of the explaining, fixing, etc. because what often ‘fixes’ the problem is being a really good listener.  When your loved ones expressing feeling bad, what they often need is well expressed, loving care.  Heart-felt messages do far more good than anything your intelligence is likely to come up with, no matter how bright it is.  Again, “heart before head” is the short way to say this.

Lots of people, especially guys, try to express their care through talking about how to fix, solve, mend, correct or cognitively understand the problem that’s causing a person’s feelings.  None of that directly deals with the feelings. That’s especially true for bad feelings.  Thus, “head talk” misses the ‘first point to be attended to’ – the emotions themselves.  After the emotions are brought into awareness and talked about, those other topics may, or may not, be relevant or need discussion.
It does not hurt to ask a person if your analysis or advice, etc. is desired and if it not, don’t give it.  Remember the adage, “don’t teach a course for which no one has signed up”.

Talking to Bad Feelings Aimed at You

“I’m so upset with you”, “I’m very angry at you”, “How could you hurt me like that”, and many other bad feeling statements may come your way from your loved ones.  What are you to do?  First, examine your habits.  Maybe your habit is to interpret such remarks as you are being attacked, judged, blamed, punished, unfairly picked on, threatened or even damaged.  If so, that probably triggers your primitive ‘fight or flee’ feelings.  If you think you’re under attack you may desire to defend yourself, perhaps with lengthy reasons and explanations, or with a powerful counterattack.

Then again, your habit might be to feel guilty, inadequate and get depressed.  Later you might decide you need revenge and to get even, so you may aggressively or passive-aggressively ambush and sabotage a loved one so they feel as bad as you feel, or worse.  Maybe it’s your habit to beg forgiveness, or fake sorrow and manipulate for forgiveness.  If you do any of these things you probably have learned that none of these habits do much good to change the dynamics of the interaction nor do they usually feel very good to do.  Mostly love relationships can be damaged by the habits just described because they are quite anti-loving.

What really is happening is probably markedly different than what you think is happening or interpret is happening.  A likely, more accurate, interpretation of your loved one’s statement usually goes like this.  My beloved is hurt or somehow upset, and needs to express it, and needs to experience my care coming in as their bad feelings flow out.  Again, it’s a case of ‘poison out, medicine in’.  To deliver the medicine my beloved also may need to be reassured that they are truly, deeply loved and are extremely important to me.  Furthermore, my beloved also may need to experience that I am really listening to how they feel and what they want, plus that I am sincerely willing to look at ways to make improvements and, if I agree, that I am willing to implement those improvements.

Self-Care

Remember the ancient admonition is to love others AS you love yourself.  Taking good care of yourself as you learn to practice this love skill is part of what is needed.  The way you do that is to ‘own your own okayness’ and remind yourself that any skill is learned by repeated practice.  If it were easy it probably wouldn’t be called a skill.  You also may need to remind yourself that usually the best defense is no defense.  That’s because your loved one’s ‘at you talk’ probably will turn into ‘with you talk’ as soon as hurt, or fear, or both are adequately expressed and enough of your loving care has come into them.  Staying emotionally OK while you do loving listening and perhaps do comforting behavior, is for most of us a pretty tall order in highly emotional times.

Surprisingly it’s even hard for many of us who were not well trained, by the families we grew up in, to talk to feelings that are happy and upbeat.  Talking any feelings may be hard for some people no matter what kind of feelings they are.  Nevertheless, working to develop any love skill pays off handsomely and, therefore, is an act of healthy self-love.  So, get busy and meet the challenge of developing this love skill.  See how it saves everybody a great deal of misery and brings a great deal of good-feeling closeness to you and your loved ones once you get the hang of it.

This love skill can be used in all kinds of relationships – with parents, children, family, friends, acquaintances, fellow workers, even with people you don’t know well.  If emotions are involved it’s best to attend to them first, then attend to the topic.

As always – Go and Grow with Love

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly

♥ Love Success Question
If you learn and practice this love skill of ‘talking to feelings before topics’ and do it well, do you think your relations with love ones will get vastly improved, substantially improved, moderately improved, mildly improved, or not at all improved?  Now ask your loved ones what they think.

Related posts:

1. Many Good Feelings Brought on by Love
2. Checking It Out – As a Love Skill
3. Communicating Better With Love: Mini Lessons
4. Other Ways to Say I Love You 

Quotable Love Quotes

With our "Quotable Love Quotes" we present questions about love to intrigue and fascinate you!  Questions to help you hone your thinking and doing about love!   Questions about love and its many incredible aspects so you, and yours, can better co-discoverer your own love truths!  Questions about love’s mysteries to quote and talk over with others in ways that may become delightful and bonding!   Questions about love that can help you discover, learn and know more of the many marvelous ways of healthy, real love!  And lots more!

Here's how it works.  At the end of many of our mini-love-lessons you will find a quotable love question.  Enjoy pondering it and exploring what pops up in your own thoughts and possible answers to the question.  Then, we suggest you go quote the question to one or more others (a spouse, lover, friend, family member, your bright offspring, etc.).  Ask for the other person's input and share your own thoughts and feelings jointly while discussing whatever comes up.  See where that leads and what happens next.  Keep it friendly, after all it is about love.  Strive together to make it all enriching, refreshing, clarifying and definitely helpful to your own ways of love relating.

Quotable Love Questions irregularly will be alternated with the Love Success Questions featured at the end of each mini-love-lesson.

Attraction or Love or What?

Synopsis: Attraction/love confusion problems; understanding attraction systems; nature’s way; sexuality attracts but love bonds; insecurity issues; sharing attraction system pleasures.

Attraction/Love Confusion Problems

“Where can I go to live, where I’d like to live and where there are no redheads?  I know it sounds crazy but, you see, I fall in love with just about every redhead I meet.  I’ll never be able to settle down and stay faithful because the next redhead will come along and I won’t be able to resist this ‘falling in love thing’ I do with redheads.”

Does this person really have a ‘fall in love’ with redheads problem?  No, not really.  This person appears to have a ‘fall in’ multiple, perhaps serial, attraction issue which they are confusing with real love.  I suspect this person hasn’t gotten even close to having anything like a true ‘love’ problem.  It would seem they, like many, may not have learned to clearly perceive, understand, and think about the big differences between love (the healthy, real kind) and mere attraction.

There are lots of other ways that the love/attraction confusion causes problems.  To really see that, read a few more quotes.  “I’m getting wrinkles, getting gray hair and looking older.  I’m really afraid my husband will quit loving me when I look old, and then he will fall in love with someone who looks like I did when I was 20, and he will leave me for her.”  The woman who said that did not understand that it is not looks, but love, that best holds couples together over time.

“My wife has recently developed this thing for young men with swimmer’s bodies, you know, the long, lean, smooth-stretched muscle types.  I don’t look anything like that, so does this mean she doesn’t love me anymore and she’s really looking for somebody else?  The answer to this man’s question is “probably not”.  It just likely means that her attraction dynamics direct her toward having some enjoyment and maybe mild, fantasy fun thinking about ‘swimmer’ types, but probably she loves her husband dearly.  Her love of her husband is far more important than any simple, physical attraction dynamics, and maybe some reassurance of that fact is in order.

“My guy can’t stop staring at other women, and looking at pictures of naked females and stuff like that.  Does this mean he doesn’t really love me?  He swears he would never cheat on me, and it’s just the way he’s wired.  I want to believe him but my girlfriends tell me not to trust him”.  Usually this sort of statement suggests that the woman saying it is insecure about her own attraction power, and she is confusing her man’s ‘natural attraction dynamics system’ with his couple-type love for her.  She also may have been conditioned by society, and/or her family, to incorrectly think love always alters a person’s attraction habits.  Who we are naturally attracted to, and who we love can be two very different things.

Attraction can lead to a relationship getting started but then, in the long run, love has to take over to keep it going.  Once love is strong enough it keeps couples together into old age.  But often a couple’s attraction habits, which were established before the couple met, remain the same and operate independently.  A couple who can share what they are in the habit of being attracted to usually are a much stronger couple than those who can’t share because they fear triggering insecurity and jealousy in their mate.  One more thing.  Listening to friends advising mistrust really just may be listening to fear-based, mistaken perceptions.

“My wife keeps wanting me to watch romantic porn with her, and then role-play being the guy we just watched while she plays the female.  She tells me it’s all just sexy, fantasy fun, but I can’t help wondering if this means she is on her way to searching for love with somebody else”.  This quote suggests a man who would do well to study what love really is as opposed to attraction.  It also may point to a man who could use a little more healthy, self love and/or a little more reassurance from his wife that he is the one she really wants to love and play with, and the rest is just a way to do that.

Understanding Attraction Systems

The above examples just are a small sample of the many ways that confusion between ‘love’ and ‘attraction’ helps mess up relationships.  Here’s what research suggests explains our attractions systems and the way they operate.

A large percentage of males, and a smaller but still significant percentage of females are genetically ‘hard wired’ to be attracted primarily by sexy, visual stimuli.  A large percentage of females, and a smaller but still significant percentage of males are genetically ‘hard wired’ to be attracted primarily by sexy, verbal/auditory stimuli.  That is why men’s porn is largely pictorial and women’s verbal or written.  Other people’s attraction systems may be primarily tactile, kinetic, olfactory or a variety of balanced combinations of the above.  Of course, there are those whose attraction systems are primarily oriented to anyone, and everyone, who are in some way quite powerful, intensely feminine or masculine, highly sociable, high in status or popularity, or attracted to personal characteristics like intelligence, kindness, being humorous, artistically talented, individualistic, stable, protective, sexy, etc.

The existence of love in a relationship doesn’t necessarily change a person’s attraction system, especially if it is quite strong.  If you are strongly attracted visually or auditorily only, or in any other way, you likely will stay that way, whether or not you deeply, romantically love someone or not.  Therefore, when you encounter someone who activates your natural, inbuilt attraction system you will observe and enjoy observing what you are attracted by.  The enjoyment comes from your brain making neurochemical compounds that cause pleasure sensations when your attraction system is activated.  This is not love.  It is your attraction system at work, doing what it’s supposed to do.

Nature’s Way

Humans are built by nature to have many attraction experiences.  This seems especially true for humans with various ‘strengths’.  By strengths we mean those who have strong attributes or desirable qualities like leadership, assertiveness, the tendency to ascend and succeed, all sorts of different talents, sociability and of course ‘baby making and bearing’ potential.  We are built by nature to enjoy both being attracted to others and being attractive to others.  The enjoyment reinforces the attraction system and its operations.

Long ago when there were far fewer of us this system helped especially strong males plant their ‘seed’ in a lots of different females, and helped especially desirable females get ‘seed’ planted in them from men with lots of varying, strong qualities.  That helped mix the gene pool and create more and more humans with various strengths.  That, in turn, assisted humans in becoming the dominant species on the planet, so the system worked quite well.

Our love systems also were incredibly important for helping us to survive, cooperate, protect and nurture one another, plus a lot more.
Healthy, real love can develop after attraction brings people into contact but there are lots of times when it does not.  This is one of the ways we know that ‘attraction’ and ‘love’ are different.  Love can influence attraction to a loved one to grow, broaden, deepen and keep happening.

Sexuality Attracts, Love Bonds

Attraction can be partially defined as that which draws people or things together, or pulls toward it that which is ready and free to be attracted.  Attraction brings things together so they have a chance to form a connection but attraction is not the connection itself.  It takes healthy, real love to hold a couple together once they have made a love connection.  Mutual attraction helps people go ‘psychologically toward’ each other and want to keep going toward each other.  If healthy, real love develops a couple may become love-bonded and stay together but if healthy, real love does not develop they will, in time, likely split up.

Those who worry about losing their mates because they have ‘lost their good looks’ would do better to worry about how well they are doing love.  Those who jointly love well tend to stay together and those who don’t – mostly don’t stay together.  There is nothing wrong in doing what can be done to stay physically , sexually, or in any other way attractive, unless it detracts from the more important issue of giving and receiving of healthy, real love.  Of course, there are unions in which things, other than love, are of paramount importance.  Sex object wives, success object husbands, trophy wives, sugar daddy lovers and husbands, and status entry spouses are classical examples of other reasons people join together.

Insecurity issues

Do you have self-security and love relationship security?  These two things go together quite nicely.  Are you insecure about your desirability or your ability to give and get healthy, real love?  Let me suggest security in couple’s love is best attained by love not by looks or anything else.  Therefore, the self-secure, healthfully self loving individual has a great advantage over the insecure and the less love-able.  The self-secure tend to avoid damaging their love-mate relationships with fear-based actions, like trying to keep a spouse from looking at attractive others, enjoy flirting with others, having fun with wide ranging sexiness, being around other attractive people, having jealous fits and practicing restrictive control via religiosity, shaming or guilt tripping.  Most of those attempted restrictions usually backfire and make your chances of losing somebody larger, not smaller.

Sharing Attraction System Pleasures

In a solid, healthy, love-based relationship people can share the joys of their own and their love mate’s attraction systems.  Here’s an example.  Harriet said, “I so enjoy pointing out sexy women to my husband and teasing him about what excites him.  He is so cute when he’s both embarrassed and turned on.  I’m not threatened by other females because I know our love is strong, and sharing what excites us makes for intimate, special fun that draws us even closer together.  I really like my man being a real man.  Real men are turned on by lots of women, just like us real women can let ourselves be turned on by different guys.  It’s all just harmless, naughty fun.  Both of us get off on sharing each other’s lusting and just appreciating how others are attractive.  It makes us closer and never afraid because we create our security by sharing everything.”

Well, dear reader have you given much thought to understanding the differences between love and attraction?  Have you been getting the two of them mixed up with each other?  Have people been attracted to you and thought it was love?  Have you been flattered by someone finding you attractive or have you had your ego boosted and then thought they were in love with you, or began to wonder if you could love the person being attracted to you?  There’s lots here that you might want to consider.

As always – Go and Grow with Love

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly

♥ Love Success Question What are you going to do the next time you are rather strongly, sexually attracted to a new somebody.  Are you going to do guilt and confess it, enjoy it, fantasize it, deny it, hide it, ignore it, share it, or go after it?

Related posts:

1. False Forms of Love: Unresolved Conflict Attraction Syndrome 

Trust and Mistrust in Love

Synopsis: The case of the nude photos and what’s best to learn from it; a terrible, fascinating truth about romantic-love trust; and a self-strengthening approach to building great, dependable, love trust; more.

The Case of the Nude Photos

“I’m in shock and don’t know which way to turn.  I just discovered nude photos of my teenage daughter on a phone I didn’t know my husband had.

 “Horrible scenarios are running through my head.  Are my husband and daughter involved in incest?  I can’t bear to think about it.  Should I call the police, see a lawyer, file for divorce?  Can I have both of them committed to a psych ward?  Is my husband a sex addict, or is my daughter?  Is everything I believed about my marriage a lie?  Am I one of those parents who doesn’t know what’s really going on with their kids?   I don’t trust anybody or anything any more.  Am I going crazy?  Is nothing the way I thought it was?  Is there anything or anyone I can trust?  Will I ever trust anybody again?”

As you can see Helen was having a huge ‘trust crisis’.  Up to the discovery of a strange iPhone in her husband’s briefcase, life had seemed pretty much normal and OK.  Her adolescent daughter had been a little rebellious but nothing serious seemed to be going on, until now.  Lately her husband had been kind of distant emotionally but also lately his business work-load had been extra heavy.  She, herself, had been stressed with projects demanding overtime at her office but about that there was ‘light at the end of the tunnel’.  Since her horrified discovery life was all panic and gut-wrenching disaster.  Her whole family seemed to be descending into nightmarish chaos – or so it seemed.

Helen said she couldn’t face all this alone so with some help she quickly was able to arrange for her husband and daughter to meet with her and a talented therapist intern of mine that evening in an emergency family counseling session.  She came in looking pale and shaking and her husband and daughter entered looking quite worried.  With fear and trepidation Helen confronted them with the sequence of events that had lead her to the discovery of the nude photos.  She got excellent support, clarification, interpretation, and help with sufficiency and accuracy from my intern.

Slowly the truth emerged and something resembling normalcy began to return.  It was revealed that Kendra, Helen’s teenage daughter, had been taking sexy, nude photos of herself and had been sending them to her boyfriend and her closest girlfriends, who were doing the same thing, like so many other kids at her school.  She explained it was quite a fad.  Bill, Helen’s husband, caught Kendra doing this and confiscated her phone.  He said he didn’t want to tell Helen about this until Helen’s big project at work was over.

Furthermore, Kendra had gotten him to promise that he and she would handle it because they thought Helen tended to over-react.  Kendra admitted she’d sort of manipulated her father into that promise.  Kendra also said she wouldn’t be doing any of this again, especially because her best girlfriend had gotten into really big trouble over this and was being sent away somewhere and she didn’t want that to happen to her.

After a lot of anguished bewilderment, confusion, anger mixed with relief and disappointment this family began to show each other love.  Soon they were able to agree that they should and could be a lot more self-disclosing to one another.  Helen agreed to work on not being so prone to panic, and Bill and Kendra agreed not to keep secrets from Helen.  They all agreed they would aspire to greater, loving communication of their important truths to each other, no matter what it was about, and they set out to do just that.  They made a ‘no big secrets contact’ with each other and that seemed to help a lot.  They further agreed that trust was built on ‘truth mixed with love’ and they made that their family goal.

What do you suppose you would do if you made a discovery similar to Helen’s?  Would your trust in your loved ones be shaken?  Would you lose trust in your own judgment?  Would you do as well as they did in patching things up and recovering from this episode?

Let me suggest the best thing to learn from this example is when experiencing strong mistrust do not jump to conclusions.  Quick conclusions are your enemy.  I can’t tell you how many love relationship problems I have helped people get through that were started by, or made much worse by, people drawing premature, erroneous conclusions.  Related to this is a second, huge, common, trust issue problem.  It’s the problem of keeping secrets.  So many mistrust calamities could have been avoided had the people involved been able to get their truth out in the open and discuss it, even if it hurt.  In successful, love relationships it takes sharing truth and that builds trust.  Hiding, avoiding, denial, distortions and mis-representations of the truth, more often than not, work against ‘trust building’ even when they are done for well-meaning reasons.

Trust Issues and Their Surprising Complications

Trust and mistrust issues are among the biggest problems in love relationships.  Do I trust you to be faithful?  Do I trust myself to remain faithful?  Can I love you and not trust you?  If I forgive you does it mean I have to trust you?  Do I trust myself to keep being loving no matter what?  Do I trust myself to have enough ‘attraction power’ to hold you or should I secretly spy and pry into your life to make sure you’re not betraying me?  Do I trust you not to turn into my mother, or my father?  Do I trust us enough to make a go of it?  Do I trust that our love can be strong enough to hold us together and survive what the world throws at us?   Do I trust in trusting?  Yes, there are great many trust issues that many people give no thought to until they have occasion to experience very upsetting mistrust.

It’s not only with lovers and spouses that we have trust issues.  Shall I trust my kids do what I have taught them?  Should I trust myself to be a good parent?  Can I trust that my family will support me in a crisis?  Will my avowed, true friends be there for me when I need them?  Will I come through for them when they call on me in crisis?  With every love relationship there can be heavy-duty trust challenges.  So, let’s ask this question.  How does healthy, real love guide us in facing all these trust issues?

Understanding Trust Itself

To answer the above questions let’s first look at a few ways trust is understood to work. Here’s a concept about how trust operates considered to be a little radical.  It goes like this:
All smart trust is really self-trust.  There’s no such thing as trusting other people.  There’s only trusting yourself to handle what others may send your way.  If you do not unconsciously, sufficiently trust your own ability to handle what someone else may bring to your life then you consciously will not trust them.  All trust and mistrust is projected self-trust or the lack there of.  The highly self-trusting find it easier to forgive and try again, while those who have low self-trust don’t.  It’s hard for them to forgive because they secretly know they can’t handle what might be done to them, or so goes this understanding of trust dynamics.  There is some research to support this kind of thinking.

Those who come to re-trust a person after betrayal tend to trust their own ability to handle things well even if they are betrayed again. The more ego-weak a person is the less they trust in others.  This apparently is true of many people, but not all.  Those who have a high self-trust tend to either easily choose to trust or not trust, but they seldom spend much time in uneasy, anxious mistrust of others.  There also is some research which suggests that the most highly mistrusting people are not to be trusted.  The naïve and innocent also give trust too easily.  And the frequently traumatized, abused and misused tend to place little trust in anyone.

Another viewpoint on trust goes like this.  All trust is a gamble and should be seen as such.  In love when we trust someone we are gambling on the person we love and on the love in the relationship.  Intelligent people know that some of these love-gambles will pay off and some will not.  Some people gamble on love and win enormously and some lose enormously.  In gambling the saying goes “if you can’t afford to lose, don’t bet”.  However, in love and other great life experiences the truth is "you can’t afford not to gamble".  Consider the old wisdom teaching “it is better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all”.  For most people that’s probably true.

Consider this concept.  The adventures of love bring people their biggest and most meaningful life experiences, even when they don’t win at love.  Some think nothing defines or develops a person so much as their love relationships.  However, those love relationships take great gambles of trust, or they are far too limited.  Whether it be love of a spouse, a child, a family, a people, a nation, a cause or a deity, to win big takes gambling on trust big.

There are important problems and exceptions to the above thinking.  Quite sadly there are far too many people who make the gamble of love with someone who will literally destroy them one way or another.  So many murders and terrible abuse tragedies are stories of love gone wrong.  So many people who die of a substance addiction were started on that addiction path by way of a poor or false-love relationship.  So many suicides, heart attacks, strokes and other sudden health failures occur after the loss of a love.

All too frequently the trust-gamble of love poorly chosen results in tragedy.  The good news is that people who learn about love and its workings make much better gambles of trust.  They, therefore, win at love more often and far bigger.  Another good news factor is that the vast majority of people win more than they lose when they gamble on love.

Romantic love, or mate or spouse love probably is the most problematic when it comes to trust issues.  Pet love and grandparent’s love of grandchildren probably are the types of love with the fewest, trust foul-ups and the most, trust related, good results.  Still every kind of love relationship can have trust problems.  Therefore, every love relationship deserves some thinking and probably talking about trust issues.

Mistrust In Love

One view of mistrust holds that the more untrustworthy you are the more you will not trust the people you love and who you hope love you.  If you are highly prone to deception you will suspect others are likewise deceptive.  Suspicion and mistrust can ruin an otherwise good love relationship.  Here’s what Marcia said, “You tapped my phone, secretly went through my things, had me followed, read my diary when I ask you not to, and now you’re asking me to trust you.  Not a chance!  I thought we had a good thing going.  Now I see how sneaky you are.  If you can’t trust me I don’t want to have anything more to do with you.  We are through, and that’s final!”  Love often demands that we gamble ‘trust in another’ and if instead we rely too much on mistrust, and the behaviors that mistrust leads to, a love relationship can become poisoned.

Romantic Love and Trust

In romantic love there is a terrible, fascinating truth.  The more we don’t trust our own worth, value, love-ability and attraction power the more we can become insecure.  The more we are insecure the more we subconsciously believe someone better than ourselves will come along and be more desirable than we are.  That "more desirable person" will steal our loved-one away from us and we will be abandoned, alone and unloved.  Therefore, we must mistrust and guard against our loved-one looking at other attractive people, talking to them, being around them without our supervision, looking at images of attractive sexy others, etc. and generally we must keep our loved-ones ‘on a short leash’ to keep them to ourselves.

That indicates we might feel like our loved-ones are our property like a dog, or a slave, who is going to run away.  With this kind of thinking any suspicious involvement with another must be punished severely and the leash shortened.  Usually the final result of the ‘short leash approach’ is to drive our loved ones away and possibly into the arms of someone better than us.  Mistrust frequently is, in effect, a self-fulfilling prophecy.

A Self-Strengthening Approach to Building Love Trust

The best way to build trust is to become ‘psychologically big and strong’ enough to handle being very truthful in a loving way.  To be big in healthy self-love so as to be able to own up to one’s mistakes and problematic behavior is a highly desirable part of the trust-building process.  It also is important to become big and strong enough psychologically, and especially emotionally, so as not to be destroyed or irreparably harmed when a loved one disappoints, betrays or otherwise dishonestly deals with you.

Furthermore, it is quite important to grow big enough to maturely and magnanimously handle the truth when it comes your way, no matter how much it hurts, bothers or scares you.  Trust is built on truth-telling, truth-hearing, truth-sharing and generally dealing from strength.  Mistrust is built on weakness, deception, inability to accept and compassionately, lovingly deal with truth.  So, build your psychological strengths, especially those having to do with love and you will be able to handle your trust challenges far better.

As always – Go and Grow in Love

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly

♥ Love Success Question Are you as love trustworthy as you want the people you love to be?

Gratitude As a Love Skill

Synopsis: Are you a “thanking” person, good at the love skill of gratitude?; how to develop gratitude awareness; how gratitude improves your physical, mental and relationship health; how to grow your gratitude love skill, and healthy, real love via gratitude.

Are You a ‘Thanking’ Person?

A month after our most loving and appreciative guests left we were still finding little Post-it notes secreted away in different hiding places telling us about different things our guests were grateful for during their stay with us.  Each note came as a tangible, little, friendship-love surprise gently touching our hearts.  It endeared them to us even more than they already were.

This is an example of highly love-skilled people who found a special way to express their gratitude.  True thankfulness grows out of gratitude.  Gratitude, let me suggest, is a highly worthy sub-classification of love behaviors related to the larger major category of ‘affirmational love’.  To have gratitude one must have awareness of what one can be grateful about.  This takes a mind-set focused on the good things coming one’s way.  Then one must have at least a minimum amount of healthy self-love and confidence to risk showing appreciation.

It is amazing how many people fear that if they show their gratitude it will be unwanted, or they fear they will do an inadequate job of showing gratitude.  Some fear their way of showing gratitude will be regarded as silly or somehow inferior and, therefore, they stop themselves from the full expression of their gratitude.  Some people think that their show of gratitude must be done in some large and impressive way and if that can’t be accomplished they don’t show it at all.  Notice in the above example of the Post-it notes the people doing this could have thought such notes might be annoying or regarded as cheap or insignificant.  I suppose people poor at ‘receptional love’ indeed might be so inclined.  I hope you’re not among them, but if you are remember help is available here and at other love-focused places.

Gratitude Awareness

Let me suggest you have more to be grateful for than you will ever be able to be aware of, let alone give thanks for.  To start with, you were born as a great, amazing bundle of miracles.  Even a rock is miraculous but you are so incredibly more than a rock.  Be grateful!  When you were born you were loved enough to keep you alive.  Many are not and they die of marasmus and other ‘failure to thrive’ diseases of infancy.  Be grateful!  Then you began the incredible, miraculous process of maturing and discovering the incredibly miraculous world you were born into.  Some who are born cannot do that, so be grateful!  You were at least minimally loved, laughed with, played with, and taught something of the world.  Be grateful!  You also were able to learn on your own and that learning ability was a gift some do not have.  Be grateful!

Then there were the people of your life, some of whom were not so great.  Others, however, probably influenced and guided you better than you are aware of.  If they had not you never would have learned to read what you are reading now, nor would you be able to think about it as well as you can, and probably you wouldn’t be able to grow from what you’re thinking as well as you can.  Be grateful!

Gratitude Improves Your Health

Recent research shows that those people who actively feel and show gratitude improve their physical health in a number of ways as they do so.  Mental health also is advanced by loving gratitude which triggers neurochemical improvements in our brains.  Longevity also has been linked to gratitude and, as might be expected, those who are good at gratitude are measured as having significantly better interpersonal relationships.  Those who are poor at gratitude are measured as less physically, mentally, emotionally and relationally healthy and they live shorter lives on average.

Undervalued Gratitude

There are dangers to not feeling, showing and receiving expressions of gratitude.  Some people shrug off showing gratitude as a waste of time and an unnecessary action.  There are those who are embarrassed when gratitude or thanks is shown to them.  Sometimes that’s because they don’t quite know how to receive it or reply but that can be learned.  Then there are the people who have been trained to quickly dismiss expressions of gratitude so as not to seem egotistical.  This may discount the gratitude-giver which might harm the relationship with that person.

There are those who don’t show gratitude for egocentric reasons, believing themselves to be somehow superior rather than just different from others.  Some overly power-oriented people think showing gratitude demonstrates weakness.  That can lead to fear and away from love.  Then there are those who are suspicious of gratitude, thinking it is merely a manipulation setting them up for some sort of misuse.  All of these people who undervalue gratitude miss out on the health benefits mentioned above and on the very real joy that results from truly being grateful.

One of the more interesting findings in gratitude research has to do with people becoming thankful for something, and then showing that gratitude which then appeared to open the door to solving a life problem they were having.  Research also has shown people good at gratitude get through hard times easier than others.

Did you know that Gratitude Groups are being experimented with in some prisons, nursing homes and certain schools.  Groups discussing what they have gratitude for and how they will demonstrate that gratitude are producing a variety of surprising, positive results.  Gratitude exercises in couple’s love education classes and workshops are resulting in couples more deeply bonding with each other.  Guided gratitude facilitation in family love education retreats and seminars show similar results for whole families.

How to Grow Your Gratitude

Of the people who have influenced your life who are you most grateful for?  For each decade you have lived can you think of some people you can genuinely say you were quite fortunate to have had in your life?  Of the people who are in your life now who most merits you showing gratitude to.  Are there people in your past who have passed away to whom you wish you had shown more gratitude?  Who are the people you would most enjoy showing gratitude to?  Who are the people who would be most surprised by you showing gratitude to them?  Perhaps you will want to spend some time thinking about these questions and you may want to make some lists.

Suppose you were to give some of the people you just thought of a call, or send them a note, or visit them expressing your gratitude for what they have meant in your life.  Then again you might do it in an anonymous way.  It is good to feel gratitude and that does you healthful good but expressing it may be even better.  The more you focus on and feel gratitude and then express it the more you are likely to grow your gratitude-giving competence as one of your love skills.

Love Via Gratitude

How soon can you genuinely thank somebody for something?  The sooner the better.  How soon will you pay attention to something someone has done for you, or that benefits someone you care about, and lovingly tell them of your gratitude?  As you encounter people today and tomorrow will you make yourself aware of at least some small thing they do that you can appreciate.  Will you then be at least a little grateful.  Some think our world leads us to notice the things we don’t like more than the things we can like.  Many people’s families or a sub-society they grew up in taught them mostly about griping, complaining, whining and being ungrateful.  This anti-gratitude way of going about one’s life approach now is seen to be surprisingly stressful and to shorten life.  Train yourself in appreciation-awareness and to feel and give gratitude as part of ‘affirmational love’ giving and your life will be a happier, healthier place to live in.

Large numbers of people just don’t have much of an awareness of gratitude and the good it does.  Especially our love relationships can be benefitted by people who feel and frequently show genuine gratitude for the love acts of others.  So today and tomorrow and the next day too, I want to dare you to be grateful for something you would not have otherwise been grateful for and then show your gratitude in one fashion or another.

Gratitude can be shown with a pat on the back, a hug, a smile, just a few words of thanks, a note, a gift, doing a favor for, public bragging on another person and in a host of other ways.  I want to challenge you to challenge yourself to make yourself good at the love skill called gratitude.  Hopefully this little love lesson will assist you in that endeavor.

As always – Go and Grow in Love

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly

♥ Love Success Question The concepts of healthy self-love suggest that you give gratitude to yourself for having helped yourself live as well as you have.  So, are you doing that?

Related posts:

1. Gratitude – As a Love Skill
2. Dining with Heart – A Love Skill
3. Checking It Out – As a Love Skill
4. Intimacy Creation – A Love Skill
5. Respect – As a Love Skill