Angie realized that she and her husband, Harlan, were getting into
the same, old, familiar fight they had had a hundred times before. They
both were blaming each other for what was wrong and both were defending
themselves in very offensive ways – like they always did.
The subject
matter changed but the pattern of the fights remained the same, except
the fights were getting worse and worse. It took days to recover and
their marriage was damaged a little bit more each time.
But wait. Angie remembered a new ‘technique’ she had recently
learned at a Healthy Love Workshop that she might be able to use instead
of fighting. She told Harlan she had to go to the bathroom and
abruptly left the scene of their often repeated, old, marital battle.
In the bathroom she worked at remembering and reminding herself of the
major aspects of what the workshop leader had called The Love Centering
Technique. Then silently she practiced the breathing, movement and
meditation behaviors she had learned at the workshop. She did this for
just three minutes. She noticed she felt calmer and more powerful, and
she was thinking differently – perhaps more clearly and far less
defensively.
She then went back to Harlan who was even more angry than when she
left. She heard somehow differently what he was furiously saying. She,
herself, said far less than before and she spoke in much kinder yet
firm tones of voice. She also noticed her face was more relaxed and
thought probably her facial expressions were less severe than before,
perhaps occasionally she even looked softer. When evaluating this she
managed a brief, small smile. The smile seemed to confuse Harlan and
slow him down. Then Angie became aware that, while she still felt quite
firm, she was no longer angry and, even better, she was no longer
feeling so hurt and vulnerable with what Harlan had been derogatorily
screaming at her. She was thinking more clearly and wanted to come up
with ideas that might help to go in a positive direction.
Angie subtly continued to do the breathing, movement and calm
thinking she had learned and she realized she was seeing and hearing the
frustration and hurt behind her husband’s angry words, and it dawned on
Angie that she was starting to feel a distinct sense of love for her
husband. Feeling sorry for him came next. She could see he was caught
up in an agonizing pattern of their terrible fight habits. However,
this time she was not. Angie began to speak to Harlan in very kind
tones of voice saying she understood he was hurting and she cared.
Harlan became befuddled and he could not quite maintain the intensity of
his accusations and blaming statements, though he continued to try.
After a while Harlan was expressing only his hurt and Angie, while
accepting no blame, showed that she truly was sad that they both were
often deeply hurt by this way of dealing with each other. She reached
out and softly touched Harlan and he looked even more bewildered, but
then he began to be less awful and just a bit more kind. Slowly their
‘argument’ turned into a ‘talk’ and finally in silence they held hands
not knowing what else to do. Soon they hugged and went about doing
regular things, both in a much better place.
Nothing was verbally resolved, no decisions made, and no apologies
delivered yet Angie and Harlan had started treating each other in a
cautiously, yet distinctly, more loving way. This change happened right
in the midst of Angie and Harlan’s marital difficulties and that had
never happened before. Could this be the start of something new and
better, and could Angie be the catalyst for repeat performances of this
new way of dealing with each other?
According to Angie’s description, by love centering herself before
re-engaging her husband she had triggered both of them into a new way of
responding to each another. She repeated this love centering technique
each time she and Harlan began to have difficulties with each other.
It didn’t always work perfectly but it worked far better than the old
habit patterns that were destroying them as a couple. Angie’s
understanding is that sometimes one person, intelligently and
purposefully, can use the power of love to change a couple’s destructive
dynamics and do something constructive instead. It is even better and
faster when both people are working to make that change but, yes, one
person can make a difference.
Angie and Harlan have since both learned ‘love centering’ and used it
in a number of other situations. Angie used it before having “the sex
education talk” with her daughter. Harlan used it before going into a
contentious, dispute resolution conference at work. You see, love
centering is an act of self love too; it physiologically,
psychologically and emotionally helps one to center in a calmer,
stronger, healthier place in order to act more positively and
beneficially in most situations. Angie and Harlan together used love
centering as part of a drug intervention experience with a family
member.
Angie found it extremely useful before going to comfort a
friend who had just lost a spouse to cancer. Harlan and Angie say that
each time they have used love centering it has helped them do a hard
thing better. Angie knows that love centering probably is a technique
that will not work for everyone and that some people would find it far
harder to learn and practice than others. Nevertheless, she, and now
Harlan too, are strong advocates of the love centering technique and
they urge everyone to give it at least some study and consideration.
If you are interested in this technique and if you work at it you may
be able to teach yourself love centering. This technique seems to be
most easily learned by those who are good with affirmations, meditation
and introspection practices, and those trained in certain Eastern
philosophies and disciplines. However, a wide spectrum of people have
learned and found love centering well worth their while.
The love centering technique itself is a quick, simple procedure that
may make you healthier, happier and more generally effective in your
interactions with others. Love centering also may make all your love
relationships go better and may make your dealings with difficult people
go smoother. And love centering has been known to be profoundly
effective in helping people improve their relationship with themselves.
Even if you lose an altercation if you go into it love centered, and
maintain that attitude, you are likely to lose less and come out much
better.
Essentially
love centering is a brief, meditation
affirmation technique. It also can be done prayerfully as a simple,
short spiritual practice. Love centering counters being ‘centered’ in
self-defeating, negative emotions. If you let yourself become centered
in fear, anger, money lust, status, etc. you are likely to be sabotaging
your own psychological health even when you are outwardly victorious in
regard to the subject. Love centering also has been a great help to a
number of individuals seeking to bring forth their best and most able
selves.
If you wish to maximize your competency, release your
constructive and creative powers, and generally do life better, love
centering may provide you with a very useful tool. Love centering is
suspected of being physically healthful especially when facing
difficult, high pressure situations. It appears to help deal with
stressors, counters stress reactions and helps the brain produce
healthful neurochemistry. It also may influence longevity.
There are several approaches to love centering. One works like
this. To do a full, class ‘A’, love centering exercise it is best to
start by getting off to yourself so you can remain isolated from others
for six minutes at the very least. Once you are alone sit down in a
straight and symmetrical posture with your arms hanging down at your
sides or placed comfortably in your lap, with both feet on the ground,
with your head up and looking straight forward. Putting a sense of
energy or intensity into it, slowly think silently to yourself, “I am
now going to center myself in love”, then pause and take in and exhale a
deep, slow breath. Then think, “I am centering myself in love.” Pause
and take another deep, slow breath. Now think, “I am centered in
love”.
Take a third deep, slow breath and exhale it slowly. You can repeat
this three times or more to help you get into a feeling of being
centered in love if needed. If you prefer you also can say these words
out loud, but remember, do everything quite slowly. As you do this,
imagine that love and its awesome, universal strength is flowing all
over and through your body, from the universe toward your heart.
Imagine your heart filling up with amazingly powerful, wondrous and
serene love. As you do this continue to breathe deeply and slowly,
relax your arms, open your hands and slowly raise your arms over your
head. At this point you might think, “I raise my arms to the universe
to symbolically connect with a great love force in the universe. I open
myself to that love and let it flow into me.” Then symbolically you
might scoop a big handful of that love and slowly bring your hands to
the center of your chest while you think, “I bring that love into my
heart” as you gently press the palms of your hands to the center of your
chest.
Continue to breathe deeply and slowly and imagine your heart filling
with exquisite, powerful love. Then you can think, “I center myself in
love and only love”. Repeat this three times. Let your arms relax and
go back to hanging at your sides or placed in your lap. Repeat this
entire sequence of movements and thoughts three times or more while
remembering to breathe slowly and deeply.
An important next step is to bring your hands to your heart center
and meditatively and purposefully say to yourself, “I center myself in
love, not in fear, or anger, or worry or anything else besides love.
I
fill my heart with love and its awesome power. I will let love radiate
out from my heart to my whole being and to everyone I am soon to
encounter”. Repeat this two to five times. Then with hands remaining
at your heart, and remembering to breathe slowly, resolutely say to
yourself, “I center myself in love and I will powerfully and effectively
come from love for the people (or person) I am about to deal with and
toward myself.
I will let love empower and inform all that I’m about to do.” Slowly repeat that two to five times.
After doing this meditative affirmational exercise take one last deep
breath and notice how you feel. If you feel love empowered, loving and
lovable, calm and confident then go forward toward what you have set
yourself to do. If you do not feel sufficiently empowered repeat the
exercise again. After that if you still do not feel sufficiently love
filled and love centered to be able to act with and from love you might
do one of two things.
You can admit you are not now making this
exercise work for you and so it may be best to go on to something else
and maybe try again later, or you could blame the exercise and say it
doesn’t work and never try it again. Do remember that nothing works for
everyone and nothing works every time. If it’s not working for you, or
at least not working yet, don’t be negative to yourself about that,
don’t ‘beat up’ on yourself because that would be de-powering, poor
self-love, inaccurate and inappropriate.
After love centering yourself and doing whatever you have set out to
do you may wish to evaluate how loving and how successful you were in
your post-love centering endeavor. In my experience a good number of
people find the more they do love centering the better it works for
them. However, that is not everyone’s experience. As we have noted
before it is not expected that this sort of technique will work for
everybody. Meditative, affirmational and inner, self oriented
approaches are highly useful for some, but not for all.
Becoming good at love centering usually decreases the amount of time
it takes to get there and the more powerful it becomes. It’s like
exercising a muscle, use your ‘love muscle’ often and it will be there
quickly and strongly when you need it.
There are many possible alterations, adaptations and differing
applications to love centered approaches. For instance Luke uses love
centering in his work as a labor relations contract negotiator. He says
it helps him keep the parties involved from getting angry at each other
which sabotages the negotiations. Laura uses it as a hospice nurse
dealing with grieving relatives. Riley has found it helpful in certain
difficult situations he faces as a policeman. Suzanne and Sheila say it
was love centering that got them past their decade’s old, sibling
rivalry problem.
Lots of people alter the words used and that’s good because when you
are saying your own words it’s often more effective. After practicing
this technique often the words can be shortened. Jesse said all he
needs to say to himself is, “I center myself in love and its great
strength, and with love I will remain calm, compassionate, carrying and
able to reason” before he goes in to preside over the next family court
session as a judge.
Some people minimize the motions and behaviors involved in love
centering. In the midst of an argumentative difficulty Tonya takes a
slightly deeper breath, and discreetly raises one hand to the middle of
her heart area silently saying to herself, “I am centering myself in
love now” and then carries on with her work at a complaints desk in a
large corporation.
To see if love centering can work for you I suggest you ‘try it on
for size’ about five times in its full form. It usually takes that to
get a sufficient feel for it. If it’s not working by then it’s likely
not a practice that fits you sufficiently. Of course it has to be tried
sincerely and with some energy. If you think your skeptical, doubtful
mind will be a difficulty as you try to do this you may be in a sort of
resistant or self defeat mode and not able to experiment with this
technique at this time. That’s okay, there are lots of other things to
do.
However, your skeptical mind need not fully believe in this kind of
technique because it is accomplished by ‘doing’ rather than
‘believing’. Of course, deciding it won’t work for you before you have
really tried it probably will result in it not working for you because
of the dynamics of self-fulfilling prophecies. It is my suggestion that
you consider it, experiment with it, and discover if you can make your
life
a more love empower life by using this tool called The Love Centering Technique.
As always, Go and Grow with Love
Dr. J. Richard Cookerly
♥ Love Success Question
Do you have people in your life who often seem to be coming
from love toward you and toward almost everyone else? If you do are you
studying and to some degree copying them?
