Unselfish Self-Love

Synopsis: Three contrarian questions lead off our mini-love-lesson; which then goes to eye-opening answers to those questions; some knowledge about the benefits of unselfish self love; more.

Three Contrarian Questions

Who do you think does more good in the world, the highly self caring or those who are frequently self-sacrificing?

Who do you think are more giving and helpful to others, those who are highly self-critical or those who like and love themselves a lot?  Who do you think attends more to the less able and less fortunate, those who are low or those who are high in active self-love?

Eye-Opening Answers

The research data shows, contrary to what many have been taught to think, the healthfully self loving are more effective and more frequently active in doing kind and compassionate love behaviors and working for the benefit of others than those in various other comparison groups.  It appears the self-sacrificing are not viewed as very good at self care.  Therefore, they are thought to grow depleted and less able to help others over time.

The self-critical often are seen to be too busy giving themselves negative attention to do all that much for others and are considered to have a lack of sufficient self-confidence which slows them down.  The emotionally needy and low in self-love put much more of their energy into confused attempts to get their own needs met, so they too often do not have much to give others.  The timid and guilty fear to act because they might do something wrong and they also are believed to back away from criticism, resistance and disagreements that arise in trying to benefit others.

Those who are healthfully self loving turn out to be the more unselfish, compassionate to others as well as to themselves.  They also are more likely to act altruistically, charitably and champion humanitarian causes, plus be more steadfast in encountering resistance and they are far less likely to surrender to criticism or opposition.  At least that is what a growing body of research points to.

There are other groups that are largely unselfish but it seems that without sufficient, healthy self-love and the self-care and self compassion healthy self-love brings them, for various reasons, don’t do as well.  There are those who think they have never done enough but the self-negativity that brings can be de-energizing and counterproductive.  There are those who have been taught that all pride is a sin, feeling good about yourself is egotistical and blinding to one’s own flaws, and all types of self-love lead to being self-centered, self-indulgent, self-seeking, smug, complacent to the detriment and expense of others.

So far at least, research does not support the contention that people who believe this way are better at being beneficial to others than are those who have strong, healthy self-love. Quite the contrary in fact.  There is evidence that points to the self compassionate and self caring being the most compassionate and caring to and for others.  Thus, they more than others, actually best fulfill the ancient admonition “Love others as you love yourself”.

Are the Selfish the Least Self Loving?

It can be argued that the highly selfish, egocentric, braggadocios, egomaniacal, etc. are just misguided and mistaken, and are attempting to make up for their own considerable lack of real and healthy self-love.  In essence the selfish are seen as trying hard to be self loving but they are trying in the wrong ways.  From this point of view they are doomed to real, self love failure.  Their’s, in fact, is seen as fake self-love.

The healthfully self loving are thought to more likely have a large sense of mysterious awe concerning their own nature, a great sense of gratitude for all that contributed to their own, unique selfhood, plus a tendency toward humorously accepting their own flaws and fumbles.  These are not characteristics thought to be easily found in the strongly selfish.  It is the unkind, uncharitable, unforgiving, un-thoughtful and insensitive to others who are deficient in self-love.

Those who are healthfully self loving are more likely to have what can be called ‘a full cup’ and, therefore, have a lot more they can give to others than those who are desperately trying to fill their very empty and leaking cup, so to speak.  The healthfully self-loving do not need to be egotistical because their cup not only ‘runneth over’ but does not leak.

Narcissism Versus Healthy Self-Love

Narcissism often is defined with the term self-love.  In light of a growing body of evidence concerning healthy, real love, it would seem appropriate to re-think narcissism.  Narcissism is understood to be a condition which blocks or at least lessens love for others.  More and more available evidence shows healthy self-love to enable and promote the love of others.  In fact, narcissism most accurately may be seen as a form of false self-love.  Perhaps it was not self-love that Narcissus experienced when he saw his image in the pool of water and fell in love with himself, but rather just a romantic infatuation, crush, or some other form of false love like love/lust confusion (see the entry) or even a case of time-limited limerence (see the entry).

One of the characteristics of the healthfully self loving is self compassion, well mixed with empathetic compassion for others in suffering and misfortune.  Narcissism is understood as making people so enamored of themselves that they do not notice or care about the suffering and misfortune of others.  Clearly healthy self-love and narcissism appear to be two very different things.

The Benefits of Unselfish Self-Love

It is very self-serving to be unselfish.  A bunch of surprising research results, show that when you act from altruism for the benefit of others you get all sorts of health benefits like improved immunity mechanism functioning, lowered bad cholesterol, better blood pressure and a number of other very, healthy things.  When you show compassion for the suffering of others, but also when you show compassion for yourself at the same time, or soon after, the likelihood of feeling depleted from giving to and caring for others is much less.  Likewise, if you show empathetic responses tor others, they are much more likely to show the same back toward you.

So, if you want to be good to yourself be good to others.  Once again, the amazing wisdom hidden in the simple words “Love others AS you love yourself” is being shown to have biological validity.

As always – Go and Grow with Love

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly

♥ Love Success Question Have you ever decided to make yourself feel good by going to do some kind of good for another?  If not, how about starting now?

Related posts:

1. Compassionate Love, A Big Sign of True Love?
2. Thinking Love to Improve Love
3. Forgiveness in Healthy Self-Love
4. Self-Love – What Is It? 

A Romantic Myth That Kills Love

Synopsis: This mini-love–lesson first focuses on your danger; gives examples of the problem; looks at the sabotaging myth’s dynamics; views the “pretty poison fairytale”; touches on the problem of conflicting gender training; and gets you to the avoidance answers which usually work.

Are You in Danger?

Is a romantic myth hurting your chances at a happier and healthier relationship life, full of real love, and you don’t even know it?  That is what seems to happen to millions, sometimes even to the point of destroying an otherwise possibly good, love relationship.  Romantic myths can be so lovely and at the same time so “anti-love” in their effects.  How does that happen?

Romantic myths get into our subconscious as we grow up, and then they may guide us later in life without us consciously knowing it.  Sometimes they guide us into relationship disaster.  More times they just steal chances for happiness and make for a lot of difficult and miserable relational experiences.

Four Examples, One Problem

Abbey angrily said, “If I have to tell him what I want, that spoils it.  If he really loved me he would know, wouldn’t he?  When I told him exactly that, we had the worst fight ever!  I don’t know if it’s worth it for us to go on.”

In considerable frustration Fred related, “My lover plays this stupid guessing game, making me figure out what I’m supposed to do next, to show love I guess.  I almost never get it right and then I get punished with cold rejection.  But what I don’t get, and really need, is information about what exactly is wanted.  Once in a while I get some vague clues but even if I figure them out it doesn’t help for the next time it happens.  I’m at such a loss.  I’m about to give up trying it’s so frustrating.

In despair Jessica told of her guy breaking up with her, after she, as gently as possible, had told him he had gotten her the wrong birthday present, and not only that, but he had given it to her in the most unromantic way, and at the worst time and place.  How could he have gotten it so wrong?  And she lamented, “By now I would’ve thought he knew me well enough to know how to love me without me having to tell him”.

After a disappointing sexual episode Harvey reported he had asked Misty what exactly she wanted, and what was the right way to make love to her.  Misty then haughtily proclaimed that telling him answers to questions like that was such a total turn off.  Furthermore, telling him things he was supposed to already know made her feel unfeminine and like she was forcing him, and that would never work. It was then that Harvey decided to go back to his old flame, Sarah Jean, because there was no guesswork there, and they had the best sex together ever anyway.

As you can see, this myth can kill many special moments of love, make people feel pressure instead of love, spoil loving occurrences, and entrap people in love-dysfunctional assumptions and expectations.

The Sabotaging Myth

In each of the above cases the underlying, destructive myth goes something like this.  If you have to tell or ask for what you want from someone, who is supposed to love you, it spoils the giving and receiving of that love.  And your lover should know what to do without communication just because they love you.  After all, your mother knew what to do when you were an infant and unable to ask.  Doesn’t that prove that love just knows?”  This myth also teaches that ‘clearly asked for love actions’ are to be discounted and rejected.  It implies that true love gives the right knowledge and if you truly love me you’ll know what to do without me asking you, informing you, or Lord forbid, teaching you how and what works best for me.  However, sometimes I can give you a little glimpse of a clue.  But that’s all.  Thus, dream and crystal ball gazing are required.

So many couples in my couples counseling get immensely happier and far more functional as a couple when they give up that myth and start asking clearly for what they want from each other.  Some are unhappy about giving up the myth but they get so much more when asking that it ends up not mattering after all.  Others are unhappy because they have to go to the trouble to actually identify what they themselves do want and then communicate it clearly.  But that too is the adult way that actually works, as I see it.

I like to suggest, and perhaps you’ve heard me say before, love and restaurants work the same.  No matter how great they are, they both require people to do a clear job of asking for what they want.  Try going to a nice restaurant and do not ask for what you want, then see what happens.  About the same thing that happens with many couples who don’t ask– not much.

A Very Pretty Poison

This lovely, poisonous myth started getting into our heads when we were little children by way of fairytales.  Consider the fairytale scenario.  Prince Charming always, and usually immediately, does exactly the right thing without having to ask the advice of a wizard, wise elf or anyone else.  Nor does he go get a consultation from a White Witch, ask other princes what they did, or find a magic manuscript that will tell him what to do.  He just knows and he knows instantaneously.  In Snow White, he suddenly opens Snow’s casket and kisses her dead body, and lo and behold, she pops to life.  Love’s magic know how got him to do that.

It is pretty much the same story in Sleeping Beauty except for the adult version where she needs a spanking to wake up in a fit of pleasure – pain ecstasy?  In Rapunzel the right prince is the only one that figures out to tell her to let down her extremely long hair so he can climb up and save her.  So, we learn that true love means you will do exactly the right thing when you need to.  If you don’t, it either means your love is not real, or you are too ignorant, or you are being mean.

Jump to modern romance novels where the main hero automatically knows just how to romance and make love to the main heroine without her having to tell him anything about what she likes.  It must be real love because he is the one who knows.  No talking is necessary.  Sometimes in the modern versions it is the gal who automatically does the right romantic thing.

You might ask, why does this work in fiction and not in real life?  The answer is that in the ‘love and romance stories’ one brain, the author’s, writes all the scenarios.  In real life relationships two brains are involved and that necessitates communication because no two brains think all that much alike.  With years of knowing each other, better guesses can be made, but even there changes and surprises sometimes occur.

Our Conflicting Gender Training

Part of the problem is our conflicting gender training.  For ages, as kids, most of us guys avoided the romantic scenes while many of you gals were paying rapt attention.  You learned what romance was supposed to look like, and we did too to some extent, but mostly we were interested in things like football and making gadgets work.  Culture is changing now but the changes are nowhere near complete.  About sex, love and romance the guys and gals still are not learning the same stuff and the old romantic myths still have a lot of power.  That sets us up for many disappointments, brings on much misunderstanding, and results in a lot of couples being unhappy and sometimes breaking up.

Where Do We Get the Right Know-How?

The often unseen or avoided answer to this question is – from each other!  It can start with using the adult viewpoint that tells us to take responsibility for learning and identifying what we ourselves want, then clearly ask for it.  Know that you ‘own’ your desires because they are in you and, therefore, it is your responsibility to do your part about satisfying them which is also the adult way, is it not?  If you want a soft, tender kiss or a big, passionate bear hug, make it simple and ask for it directly.  That is the most likely, successful thing you can do in most relationships.  And then, of course, enjoy it fully.

What If Asking Still Spoils It for Me?

In simple terms the answer is, work at getting over it and giving it up.  Work on learning to enjoy the marvels of getting more exactly what you want, more often and sooner because that is what usually starts to happen in the good, functional, couple’s life where people identify and ask for what they want.  If it does not happen that way, then it is time for a bunch more communicating.  Remember, to also ask with love.  That means with loving words, loving tones of voice, maybe a loving touch, and any other way you can make your request an act of love itself.  Be sure you are not ‘anti-love’ asking, like “You never hug me anymore, never take me anywhere, don’t fix my favorite meal”, etc.  Those are gripes, not requests.  It is surprising how many people don’t seem to know the difference, and the different effects they may bring.

Clearly ask for what you want and you just may get it.  Don’t let this old, love-destroying, romantic myth kill your relationship.

As always – Go and Grow in Love

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly

♥ Love Success Question
Have you ever examined what you take for granted (? subconscious programs maybe?) regarding the way love, sex, romance and marriage are supposed to go?

Is a False Love Divorce A Good Thing?

Synopsis: We start with a case of happiness guilt; go on to the many differing ways marriage, breakups and divorce are seen; religious issues; and end with the quest for real love and its great importance.

A Case of Happiness Guilt

Lorenz and Selah both felt a bit guilty and wondered if they should feel a lot worse than they did.  Both felt relief and a wonderful sense of relaxed freedom they had not felt for the three years of their unsuccessful marriage.

In couples counseling they jointly had come to the conclusion that their relationship could not work, that they were in no way right for each other, and that they should give up trying to make something that was harming both them and their two-year-old daughter.  After searching deeply and broadly, they came to the conclusion that the underlying problem was they did not have a real love for one another.

What they did have was two forms of false love.  Examining major forms of false love, Selah saw that she had been fooled and trapped in the False Love Syndrome known as an IFD Pattern. Before she discovered this, the false love marriage nearly had ruined her life.

Lorenz knew as soon as he read a paragraph describing the False Love Syndrome called Spouse Acquirement Syndrome that this indeed was exactly what he had done and he had fooled him into believing that he really was in love with Selah.  He saw he wanted to believe it was real love but in truth subconsciously he knew he had to acquire a spouse because that is what men in high success careers are supposed to do.  He admitted to himself that success was all that mattered to him at that time and so he found an acceptable woman and did what it took to ‘catch’ her, then he married her.

This couple decided that ending a falsehood actually felt good and in doing so they were giving themselves a chance to find new, real love.  They were quite relieved because this decision ended their incompatibility fights, their mutual growing sense of hopelessness, and all their fake and phony efforts to pretend they had real spouse-type love for each other.  In the process they became much better, cooperating parents.  They then were relieved to see that their daughter was growing happier now that they were happier.

They both came to suspect that maybe their marriage had done what it was meant to do –  produce a marvelous child and maybe help them grow up and better understand love itself.  They came to think that they never really had a real marriage because they had never been in real love with anything like a loving psychological and spiritual unity.  Divorcing, they put their energies and time to better use not only for their daughter but for themselves and other family and friends also.

For Lorenz and Selah getting a divorce basically was correcting a serious, life path mistake giving them the opportunity to find a more real and healthful path.  As this understanding soaked in, their guilt faded and both felt the relief of stress and strife from not having to live a lie anymore.

How Others Saw It

The friends and families of this couple had a great many, contradictory things to tell them about their divorce decision.  Together they made a summary of what they heard.

“Marriages are made in heaven and, therefore, it’s wrong to divorce!”

“Marriages are made in legal proceedings, and end in legal proceedings, and the rest of marriage is whatever you think it is.”

“Real marriage is made by two people who have real love for each other and are psychologically and spiritually bonded together by their real love.”

“The legal part is just a formality and paperwork, and the religious part is just a social ceremony dressed up in religion.”

“Marriage is a cultural contrivance we all have been brainwashed to go along with so society can be organized, stabilized and controlled.”

“Divorce always hurts the children.”

“Marriage is a gift of God and a contract between two people with God.  It starts on earth but goes on for eternity.  Therefore, all divorce is  breaking a covenant with the divine and you will be punished for that.”

“Love and marriage are just fairy tales we try to make real, and they were invented to keep people together while they start a kid and that’s all they really are.”

“I suspect both marriage and divorce today are just commercial devices designed to help sell more stuff because with both marriage and divorce a lot of money changes hands.”

“Divorce is a good thing because it helps mix the gene pool, and besides that nature didn’t intend us to be with just one partner for all our life.”

As you can see from their summary, they were barraged with many views, at odds with each other, about these subjects.  So, what is your view?  Also is your view based in what you have been trained to think or is it something you have come to on your own?

Religious Issues

In my marriage and family counseling work as a relational psychotherapist, I have on a number of occasions been asked to do Catholic Marriage Tribunal evaluations for people seeking an annulment.  This was so they could have a new church-sanctioned and blessed marriage in a Catholic Church with a new love of their life.  A basic question to be answered is “Was the former marriage a real marriage?”  One of the several concepts used to assess that question is to ask “Was the marriage based in a real love, a false love or something else?”

A corollary question has to do with whether or not there was a psychological condition, problem or illness involved which impeded the marriage from becoming a real marriage?  The identified False Love Syndromes help to answer this question.  Each major pattern of probable, or possible, false love indeed can be seen as evidencing a psychological problem, condition, or be related to a psychological illness which is especially obvious in a case of Fatal Attraction Syndrome.

It especially has been pleasing to me to see various prelates of the church take the question of real and false love into consideration in their deliberations.  It also is gratifying to have various ministers of several faiths use real love and false love concepts as they grapple with various issues of marriage and divorce.

There is growing evidence that changes are occurring in various religious bodies regarding love, marriage and divorce.  Those changes show greater flexibility and more loving forgiveness, as well as greater understanding occurring in these often problematic arenas.

Many of the world’s religions, or at least branches within those religions, are quite accepting of divorce and divorcees, but many are not.  The evidence I am aware of suggests that in many parts of the world, religious institutions of many kinds are taking a less condemning, less judgmental and less rejecting approach to these issues, than they have in the past, and toward the people struggling with them.  From this mental health professional’s viewpoint, that is a very good thing.  However, no small number of others disagree with me on that.

The Quest for Real Love

More and more people around our planet want to live in an ongoing, spouse-type, partnership relationship based in real and lasting love.  Sure, there are lots of other reasons people become couples or get married.  It can be for sex, safety, status, propriety, money, custom, to feel okay about themselves, and a host of other things.  But even in those unions there usually is some hope that the relationship will grow a real and lasting love.

The unseen problem for so many is that a false love might ensnare large numbers and lead them astray into what often turns out to be a life-harming disaster.  When a breakup or a divorce happens because people were in a false love and an ongoing catastrophe, is a divorce primarily a bad thing or a good thing?  Is it the correction of a mistake or just another additional mistake?

So many have been taught that all divorce is bad, wrong, sinful, etc. but the world seems to be changing in regard to that.  Some think the importance of real love is in ascendancy over the importance of marriage.  No small number of pundits bemoan the high divorce rate in many lands, and also consider couples who breakup after living together to be equally bad.  But if the healthiest way to live is in a real love relationship, as much research points to, isn’t ending a false love in order to set people free to find real love, more positive than negative?

There are those that think there is no such thing as real love, but more and more studies in the brain sciences and in a host of other research fields indicate otherwise.  Of course, in many cases there are all sorts of other, intervening variables which affect the outcome of both a marriage and a divorce.  But all-in-all the quest for a real love relationship is being shown to have greater and greater importance.  Sometimes the quest seems to necessitate going through a breakup or divorce, and getting to the other side where real love can happen.  What do you think?

As always – Go and Grow with Love

Dr. J Richard Cookerly

♥ Love Success Question: Do you know enough about what constitutes healthy, real love and what the signs and symptoms are for false love?

Related posts:

1. Adultery And No Divorce Love
2. False Love Awareness
3. Murder and False Love
4. Are Love and Marriage Getting a Divorce?
5. False Forms of Love: Thrill and Threat Bonding 

What is a Love Hearing and Why Hold One?

Synopsis: This mini-love-lesson tells of a couple’s relationship saved by holding love hearings; explains what love hearings are; describes putting ‘the love part’ in; gives the job of the listeners; and ends with a suggestion.

A Couple Saved

With tears of joy in her eyes, Jessica declared, “Holding love hearings saved us!

 “Before we learned how to do the love hearing thing, Jeff and I just ended up having fight after horrible fight.  We would get so mad we both would be yelling trying to get the other one to listen to us, we’d be talking over each other, shouting and screaming, and filled with desperate frustration because the other one wouldn’t ever really hear what either of us was trying to get across.  Neither of us were listening, we were just spewing and trying to get heard.  It wasn’t any wonder that our kids started doing the same thing with each other and then with us too!  Thank goodness we learned about holding love hearings before it was too late for us.”

Jeff then emphatically added, “It took us quite a while to get the hang of doing love hearings well but right from the start it helped a little, and then more and more as we practiced it.  I was very skeptical that anything could help at first but anxious to try anything that might conceivably get us out of our downward spiral.  Love hearings are probably not for everyone but for us learning about love hearings tipped the balance in our relationship back to the positive.  Love hearings don’t cover all the bases but the ones it does cover are major or at least that was true for us.”

What is a Love Hearing Exactly?

The idea for holding a love hearing comes from the field of political science and especially the study of democracy.  Whenever there is an issue, problem, concern or idea for an improvement, and before proposals for solutions or fixes, and definitely before any actions are decided on, “hearings” are held.  Hearings are supposed to be just that – a hearing of what anyone concerned wants to say on a topic and related issues.

Questions for clarification and requests for additional information can be asked, especially at the end of a hearing.  No disagreement, debate, explanation or attempts to fix things are allowed. In the ‘love hearing’ way of doing things.  Brief statements of emotional support to the person speaking can be made but that is about all.  Even if someone feels that they are being accused of something and have an impulse to defend themselves, that is not to be done in this sort of “hearing” situation.

Literally hundreds, maybe thousands of times in my couples and family counseling practice I have heard people say, “I just want to be heard”.  So often that was followed by another person in the session immediately talking over the one who had just made that plea.  Then of course dysfunction ensued until therapeutic intervention managed a difference.  Love hearings are a sort of semi-formalized way of avoiding that sort of dysfunction and allowing everyone concerned to be heard, hopefully with love.

The Love Part

A Love hearing usually is started by someone who says they want not just a hearing but a “love” hearing.  Couples, families, close friendship groups and others in love relationships can use the love hearing system to avoid conflict.  Frequently at first it is good if everyone be reminded that everything can be said with love and everything can be heard with love, and it is best for all involved to aim for that.

It also is good for people to focus on ‘centering themselves’ in their love for whoever is going to be the speaker before the hearing starts.  A start time and end time (very important) are agreed upon, and a place to hold the love hearing, preferably fairly comfortable and not likely to be interrupted during the time allotted are also chosen. This may help to slow down the dissension in an argument that may have just started and also may help interrupt escalating negative emotions.

The person who wants to be heard starts by saying whatever it is they want to say, usually with expressions of emotion included.  Usually the speaker is the only one who can allow an interruption.  It is best if everyone present (even if it is only one person, or a small family, or a larger extended family or a friendship group) does not try to interrupt, no matter what they are thinking or feeling. In a love ‘hearing’ everyone does their best to listen to the speaker and hear the words and feelings being conveyed.

Expressions of care and concern for hurt feelings can be made if they are brief and are empathetic.  That is where the love comes in.  It usually is important that the listener keeps good eye contact with the speaker and, from time to time, has very caring looks on their face and hopefully very caring feelings in their heart.  The concepts of ‘active listening’ and the idea of really listening to the person and not just to the meaning of their words is encouraged.  For more on that, see the entries in the mini-love-lesson’s Subject Index under Communication.

The Job of the Listeners

The job of the listener is to really hear the heart and gut messages of the person speaking as well as their thought process to, in effect, look through the speakers eye’s, feel their feelings emotionally as well as mentally, understand where they are coming from and what they are going through.  Then give them expressions of love and care, possibly at the end. No advice giving, alternate fact presentation, instruction and especially no defensiveness or argument is a part of this love hearing process when it is done well (Note: this may be difficult with the thoughts and emotions the listener is having but know it is possible.  Remember, the listener also gets to be the speaker in a love hearing later if they want).

In this loving process the listener, in effect, is allowed to visit in the mind, heart and gut of another and see how things are there, but it is not a time to try to change anything but rather just to understand and care.  If something is to be decided, a second meeting for that discussion or debate is to be set.  If another listener feels they have a lot to say in response to what they have just heard, they too can ask for a love hearing at a different time (if emotions have calmed, that time may even closely follow the first love hearing but remember to set the time and place again so as to change gears for an alternate love hearing).

Patience is to be shown, plus pauses and time outs (especially when children are the speakers) if they are having a hard time finding words to express their thoughts and feelings.  Children, by the way, as well as adults do well with praise and thanks for self disclosing their views and feelings.  Various couples, families, etc. add other guidelines.  Some people formalize the process with more exact rules but many do this process more informally or semi formally following the guidelines given here.

If you are having trouble and arguments like Jessica and Jeff or anything similar, why not try holding a love hearing?  It may be a little awkward at first but those who work at it seem to get good results.  Children especially often like this process and adults find it much much better than fighting.

As always – Go and Grow with Love

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly

♥ Love Success Question
What do you think about the statement which says “really good listeners can repeat-back whatever has just been said to them, pretty much verbatim, and also can tell you the emotions of the one who did the speaking”?  Does that description fit you?

Why Love Problems Hurt So Bad

Synopsis: This mini-love-lesson starts with a discussion of before, during and after love problem hurt; tells how love problem hurt works; what all the hurt is for; what to do about the hurt; and how not to misinterpret hurt’s very important guidance messages.

Before, During and After Love Problem Pain

Breakups, divorce, rejection, betrayal, abandonment, indifference, repulsion, omission, demeaning, repudiation, intolerance, banishment, disavowal, dis-affirmation, spurning, loathing, and a host of lesser, negative treatments coming from someone you hope loves you can all really badly hurt.

In fact they can hurt so badly and for so long that the hurt can sometimes drive people into a deep depression and then to suicide just to escape the pain.  But why?  Before whatever it was that brought on the pain, we were probably doing okay, maybe even good.  Unless there was physical abuse, we are not bleeding or even bruised.  We are still the same person who is just as physically okay as we were before the breakup or whatever it was – aren’t we?  Why should this hurt so much?  Why can’t we just shake it off and go on as we were before?

The truth is, we are not the same physically.  After we have experienced an intense love problem related hurt, parts of our brain become micro-damaged messing up our brain chemistry and our neural-electric functioning.  This can happen whenever we have love relationship problems.  Love loss problems can cause serious neurological dysfunction which we feel as emotional pain. This in turn negatively affects our thinking and then our behavior.  Any problem involving love disconnection or reduction of nurturing and nourishing love experiences can set off several kinds of brain malfunctions.  Whatever affects our emotions is affecting our brain, our thinking and how we subsequently behave.

This means our brains are physically not operating the same as they did before the hurt.  For many people the hurt caused by these love/brain problems are much greater than any physical pain they have ever experienced.

The good news is as we heal emotionally we also heal physically.  The return of love coming our way from the person or people related to the problem can do worlds of good in the healing process.  New love pouring in from old or new sources, and healthy self-love also can do wonders.  ‘Time’ by itself doesn’t really heal much. It is very slow but time in which you do healthy self-love can be very curative.  Spiritual love involvement also can be outstandingly helpful.  Interestingly, pouring your own love into others who need love or help of some kind, such as a worthy cause, a creative endeavor, important productive projects or a major new love interest also works to be very therapeutic for healing from love problems of all sorts.

How It Works

When we experience love problems, especially those that affect or threaten our important psychosexual connections (i.e. love relationships) our neural circuits misfire the same way they do when they are processing physical pain.  The parts of the brain called the Insula and the Anterior Cingulate Cortex, along with the Somatosensory Cortex, try to process the love-related pain just as they do with physically caused pain. For love problem pain, though, there is evidence that it is sometimes harder and takes longer for these parts of our brain to do this processing.

We sense this processing problem as increased emotional pain.  This frequently is called “heartbreak”.  Strong hurt emotions connected to a love problem result in us having a “ broken heart”.  There is evidence that actual physical heart damage may be possible in some people when this happens.  This actually may occur in everyone to some small degree at least.  Then if the love problem and it’s hurt continues, our biological body starts to have other malfunctions which can result in the cascade effect of crashing our immune mechanisms and bringing on stress induced illnesses, including strokes and, yes, even heart attacks.

Our Cerebral Cortex can get affected and then we don’t think as efficiently or effectively.  Before long our metabolism may malfunction and our energy reserves may become severely drained. That is only some of what can go wrong when there is too much love problem hurt for too long.

Since the Neural Pain Matrix of our brain handles both physical and psychological pain in pretty much in the same way, both psychological and physical health problems can develop.  Therefore, both physical and mental health issues need to be addressed, along with love relationship problems themselves whenever there is severe or long lasting love relationship pain.

What Is All The Hurt For ?

Basically, our hurt is a natural system attempting to protect us from harm.  Our pain gives us guidance messages, telling us to change something so that we can avoid being harmed.  The trouble is our pain system can overdo it, as well as under do it, and mis-do it.  It is just like all our other natural systems in that respect.  Our love problem hurt may be interpreted as telling us go make up, patch up and reunite with whoever is involved in the love problem.  Then again it can be, in the case of severe and repeated pain, telling us to escape whoever is involved in the love problem.  Love problem hurt can also be interpreted as telling us to change the way we go about a love relationship.

We can learn to do love in some new way that is much better and much more healthful.  Another interpretation is to go search for someone with whom we can develop a better love relationship.  Another worthy interpretation for many people has to do with reconnecting with other love sources like friends and family members we have been out of touch with.  A frequent, more broadly useful interpretation may be to learn to love ourselves a lot better, and not get into another false love, high agony relationship again; and instead learn to identify and search for healthy, real love.

All those can be a part of the healthful messages coming from our love problem miseries.  The trick is to learn to listen to what the guidance message is, and then do something in accordance with the guidance.  There are other mini-love-lessons at this site which focus on understanding love problem pain (“Dealing with Love Hurt: Diagnosing Love Hurt Accurately”, “Dealing with Love Hurts: Pain’s Crucial Guidance”).

Love problem pain can drive us into withdrawal and isolation which if handled well is like going into our cave after being wounded.  This allows us time to heal and get it all figured out as we do some healthy self-love.  The issue here is not to stay too long in that isolation.  Love can also drive us toward reconnection or to new connections where fresh, healthy love can heal and nurture us.  We are a gregarious species and do best when we are love-connected with loving others.  More and more recent research shows us we humans are built to live in love-connection with one another.  Often it is the pain of love loneliness that gets us to go back to attempting love connection repeatedly.  Not many of us, if any, can do well living like loveless hermits.

Some clinicians and theoreticians think that love problem pain may get more intense or last longer as a way to get your attention if we are ignoring, dodging or denying it.  It also can be a guidance message saying that you are not getting the full message it is trying to send you.  It may keep coming to you, in essence, telling you that you have more to learn from this pain and it won’t let you alone until you have learned what you need to learn.  The unconscious or subconscious can be pretty clever in the ways it tries to help you.

It is interesting that for many people I have counseled, as soon as they get an interpretation of what their love hurt is trying to tell them, that feels right to them, their pain begins to alleviate.  Then, of course, they have to act in accord with the message or the pain returns.  However, when they act on the message that pain seems to be trying to give them, they tend to improve more rapidly and more completely.  I must admit that this works very well for me too!

What to Do!

I like to suggest that the first thing to do, when you are hurting a lot from some kind of love problem, might be to give yourself a hug and tell your inner-self that you are going to figure out what to do– that you are going to do it.  Then you have to go in search of what your inner love problem pain, guidance message is.  People use lots of different techniques to accomplish that searching.  Sentence completion exercises, meditation, self hypnosis, impulse writing, journaling, prayer and of course just talking it over with a good listener-friend often works quite well.

Good counselors and therapists usually have several different, potent techniques to help you look inside yourself and find out your own inner answers.  Remember that once you get the love problem hurt’s message you probably have to follow its guidance and act on it.  If you can’t seem to get just one message, gamble on one and go with it.  I like to suggest you start doing a lot of healthy, self-love behaviors as you begin this process.

Interpretations To Be Avoided

Love problems related pain are often destructively interpreted as telling us we just have not found the right person.  That may have some truth in it but don’t stop with that.  Also likely is the interpretation that says we have to learn more about love, and we have to improve ourselves and improve the way we are going about love relating – maybe a lot.  Another fairly common misinterpretation is to give up on love entirely, or at least give up on human love and live without it.  Many who try that become so love hungry they jump at the first relationship chance that comes along and, therefore, having not learned anything new, they make the same mistakes they made before. Those that do live without love of some type or another often suffer some serious malfunction eventually.

Some actually do quite well with multiple love relationships which can include several lovers and, of course, friends, family, pets, causes and a higher power love relationship.  Escaping the love problem pain by getting into various forms of life-ruining addictions, relapsing, etc. is also a very poor understanding of the natural, healthy message love problem hurt is trying to tell us.  Guidance messages that tell you to hold it all inside, act like you are fine, just be tough, etc. are not healthy and do not allow for healthful catharsis (i.e. crying it out, non-harmfully acting it out, blowing off steam, getting it off your chest, etc.).

Love problem pain’s worst misinterpretation is to kill yourself or your lover or somebody else.  If you hear a message in your head like “just die and you won’t hurt anymore” or “I can’t live without him or her” that is a child level or child-self interpretation which needs adult level reinterpretation.  The usual adult-self interpretation is something like this: “kill off the way you are going about a relationship” or “going about a part of life, and give birth to a new way”.

Any interpretation which is unhealthy for anyone is probably an unhealthy interpretation for you too.  Therefore, interpretations guiding you toward revenge, destructiveness, harm to self or others, retribution, ‘getting even’, attacking somebody or something, etc. are best regarded as not coming from your drives for health and well-being, or from the best in you and for you.  More likely, they may be coming from a self-sabotaging something in your subconscious.  Remember, healthy, real love is constructive, not destructive.  That is true of healthy, real self-love as well as love for others.

As always – Go and Grow with Love

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly

♥ Love Success Question
If you have unresolved pain stemming from a love relationship problem, are you going to actually work with the ideas presented above to see if you can get to a better place?

Related posts:

1. Dealing with Love Hurt: Diagnosing Love Hurt Accurately
2. Dealing With Love Hurts: Pain’s Crucial Guidance
3. Returning to a Bad Lover? – A Blocking Technique
4. Dealing with Love Hurts: A Dozen Love Hurts to Know and Grow From
5. Dealing With Love Hurts: Shared And Unshared Pain