Metaphysical Love

Mini-Love-Lesson # 289

Synopsis: Here we work to understand and make practical sense of metaphysical/spiritual love and how it may work along with how it can productively be used.  What science is discovering, modern and ancient religious suppositions, philosophical offerings and what people all over the world are doing with metaphysical/spiritual love actions are included in clear, straight forward language.

Is love itself metaphysical?  Is love the greatest of all things, as spiritual masters have proclaimed down through the ages?  Does spiritual love rely on the existence of a mind-spirit connection?  Scientific evidence supports that love heals, love connects, love protects, love nurtures, love reinforces and rewards us.  And how does it do all those things – energy forces, bio-electrically, psychically, deity intercession, … ?  It has been suspected that the collective unconscious, group intelligence, spontaneous mood emergence, superorganism cooperation and metaphysical mass influences might have something to do with metaphysical love.  The mysteries abound.    

Do We All Love - Metaphysically?

When it comes to love, almost everyone, sooner or later, behaves metaphysically.  If a loved one is critically ill and we call on a mystical source to heal them, we are behaving from love - metaphysically.  If we pray for spiritual guidance when we are in the throes of despair - we are acting metaphysically.  If we go to the grave of a loved one and talk to the loved one’s spirit - we are love-relating metaphysically.  If we send our children off to school and imagine protective love energy surrounding them - we are acting metaphysically to safeguard them.  If we fantasize sending our love energy to a distant loved one - we are projecting metaphysical love.  If we are alone and feel a love-filled presence - we may be experiencing a metaphysical love event.  It seems there are many ways metaphysical love may manifest itself and be experienced.

We need not believe in metaphysical love to do it, or at least to attempt it.  We only need to have real love in our hearts and a willingness to experiment with metaphysical love behaviors.  Exploring these manifestations of metaphysical love may lead to surprising experiences and astonishing outcomes.  

When there is nothing more we are able to do in a difficult situation, we might attempt a metaphysical love behavior.  Behaving with and from metaphysical love often can be considerably beneficial to us and to those we love.  Metaphysical love can lead to a sense of spiritual serenity and heart-filled awe.  It also might guide us to appreciate the many apparent cosmic miracles that surround and fill our existence.  Psycho-physiologically, metaphysical love participation in rituals and ceremonies can bring stress reduction, metabolic balance and feelings of energized empowerment.

Research into the healing effectiveness of metaphysical love behaviors, shows intriguing results.  When metaphysical-related actions were taken on patients’ behalf, they tended to get better more often and faster even if they were not consciously aware of the action or even if they did not believe in it.  The experimental, matched, control groups did not get metaphysical treatment and did not show similar improvement.  Some of the experiments included praying for the patient, lighting candles, doing ceremonial actions and repeating ritual words.  It was found that the mindset and emotion demeanor (serene, loving, focused) of the person carrying out a metaphysical treatment influenced the results to some degree.  It also was found that benefit accrued to the doer as well as the receiver of metaphysical actions.

Interestingly, other patients also showed significant improvements even though they were not aware of volunteers, at a considerable distance, spiritually and metaphysically acting on their behalf,.  Unrevealed, distance healing is hard to explain in other than metaphysical ways.  

Some may not want to call what we are talking about metaphysical, but rather call it by some other term like spiritual or transcendental. That’s fine! The point we want to make is that whatever it is termed, this is a class or type of love behavior which is very common worldwide. Furthermore, archaeological and anthropological evidence shows this kind of behavior presumably has been going on since very early in the development of our human species.

Right now, this very moment, out of love, millions of people are doing metaphysical, or if you prefer, spiritual practices designed to have a positive influence on the well-being of those they love. Such actions are demonstrations of real, compassionate and caring love and they deserve respect and honoring for being so.  Respect also is due for those who rigorously and methodically are searching into the many complexities and conundrums of metaphysics within the realm of love.

What Is Metaphysical Love?

Metaphysical love may seems magical, mystical, mysterious, perhaps mythical and often quite hard to fathom. This kind of love is what many people turn to in times of love troubles. Metaphysical love also is known as the love that is spiritual, transcendental, supernatural, ethereal, celestial and preternatural.

We put metaphysical and spiritual together for several reasons. One is that, behaviorally, metaphysical and spiritual love are accomplished by similar actions. Another is that both seem to operate in much the same way and obtain rather similar results. There are those who study metaphysical and spiritual phenomena and suspect they are two views of the same thing. There also are those who vehemently oppose that concept. 

We operationally define metaphysical love as a love which people attempt to access, express and communicate through the behaviors associated with the metaphysical. To love metaphysically, means to have and feel a love that seems beyond this world’s reality. It also means to transcendentally or spiritually feel a connection with who and what we love.  For example, when long-distance lovers plan to gaze at the moon on the same night at the same hour; just by knowing they are sharing the same experience, they can feel metaphysically connected.  To metaphysically love means to try to transmit our love in a way that connects with another and beneficially effects them. Metaphysical love sometimes is explained as a special form of energy that exists in and travels through the ether of the universe.  

Doing metaphysical/spiritual love is enormously popular, common and esteemed all over the world. It does have its skeptics, disbelievers and naysayers, and conversely its ardent practitioners, promoters and believers   Metaphysical and spiritual love are the focus of a great deal of research, much of which supports that it is a useful and rewarding way to do love.

Framed in this world’s reality, metaphysical love sometimes is thought of as a bioelectrical or neuro-electrical phenomenon.  It is suspected to exist in and be transmitted from the brain’s limbic system components which are associated with love. Sometimes that love transmission is conveyed through touch and sometimes may be broadcast across space much like a radio wave transmission. Some research data has been analyzed as supporting this understanding.  A great deal more investigating is required to enlighten our understanding of these suppositions.

An ecumenical, somewhat theologically grounded and spiritually focused explanation exists and roughly goes like this. There is a deity force in the universe.  This metaphysical energy is pure love. This love energy can be accessed through spiritual and religious practices and, thereby, brought to bear on the living creatures and conditions of this world. Thus, metaphysical love is the spiritual love of the deity force which can be tapped into and channeled through us to our loved ones. Probably, clerics of every religion would want to alter this explanation, one way or another. In no way is it to be considered doctrinaire.

Philosophically, metaphysical love might be said to be the love that comes through “Meta-Ta-Physika”, Greek for the reality beyond the reach of objective study but able to be, at least partially, comprehended with the help of ontology, cosmology and epistemology. Did we say metaphysical love is complicated and hard to fathom?

Hopefully, these concepts have given our readers some sense of what metaphysical love is and may be, as well as how it might be done.

A couple other mini-love-lessons to explore at this site: “Transcendental Love: Mysteries and Wonders for Your Future” and “To Win at Love, Study Love”.   

One other thing - We think this mini-love-lesson is a practical, good one to discuss with others who like to talk ideas and use them and grow with.  See if you agree.

As always – Go and Grow with Love

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly

♥ Love Success Question: If, right now or before day’s end, you were going to do a set of metaphysical/spiritual actions on behalf of someone you love, what actual behaviors might you do?

Love Centered Ethics

Synopsis: An ‘ethic’ to contemplate; what pilots your life?; personal questions; what’s an ethic?; what’s love?; ascendant life?; who are the who?; the ‘siblinghood’ of life; a very long look; anti-love ethics; and what’s it all got to do with your life?

The Ethic:
All those who love, can love, or may love are worth treating with love!

What Pilots Your Life?

Do you have major guiding principles or ethics by which you steer your life?  If you do, does love have a major role to play in your principles and the way you pilot your life?  A growing body of research results point to those people who live by one or more major love ethics doing better at just about everything having to do with happiness, health, well-being and general life success.

Especially are those who live by a major love ethic likely to do well in all sorts of relationships including the one they have with themselves.  With that in mind, let me suggest you consider that the above ethic, and similar love teachings and tenets become prime guiding principles of your life.  Let me also suggest that the more you live by a ‘prime love ethic’ the more you are likely to experience life ascendancy.

But beware.  Let me warn you that just thinking about this and similar love-centered tenets having to do with healthy, real love might just change your life in large and unexpected ways.  Furthermore, talking about this with those dearest to you has occasionally been known to totally change the direction relationships take so, yes indeed, do beware.

Personal Questions

Now for a few personal questions.  Suppose you seriously and deeply consider the above love ethic, what might that actually lead to in your life?  By extension, what might you seriously considering the above love ethic do for those who inhabit your life?  Would living by this love ethic cause you to change the way you treat other people in your work?  Could you use this ethic to improve and enrich the way you relate to people in your personal life?  How about your fun, recreation and play life?  To help think about that let’s define a few terms.

What is an ‘Ethic?

An ethic, as used here, is a concept of a ‘goodness’.  It has to do with what is considered to be a moral principle, a value, something to guide your life by, a part of a theory of desirable behavior, a tenet of what is understood and conceived of as ‘right’ as opposed to ‘wrong’ in the general societal ethos of humanity or for humanity.

What is Love?

We are using our standard, working definition of love discussed at length in the definition of love section on this site.  In short form our working definition of love goes like this:

“Healthy real love is
A powerful, vital, natural process of
Highly valuing, desiring for,
Often acting for, and taking pleasure in
The well being of the loved.”

Included in what we mean by love are the five functions of love (see “A Functional Definition of Love”) and the eight major groups of direct behaviors which have been found to convey love along with the four larger general categories of love action (see “A Behavioral (Operational) Definition of Love”) .  These are discussed at length in The Definition of Love Series elsewhere on this site.  As a reminder the major functions of love, in brief form, are: To Connect Us, To Nurture Us, To Protect Us, To Heal Us and To Reward Us with Joys.  The eight groups of behavior that convey love are titled: Tactile Love, Verbal Love, Expressional Love, Gifting Love, Affirmation Love, Self-disclosure Love, Tolerational Love, and Receptional Love.

What Is Ascendant Life?

Ascendant life means a life that is getting better, becoming elevated and uplifted, going from lesser to greater, proceeding to a higher state of development, and a life becoming more enriched.  It also refers to a life in which obstacles are being overcome, difficulties surmounted, healing and health is occurring, and healthy life goals are being attained.

Who Are the ‘Who’?

Who loves, can love and may love probably includes everyone you encounter, have anything to do with or may influence.  It also includes YOU.  You may wish to become freshly aware of the ancient, timeless teachings about love, teachings such as: “Love your neighbor, and others, as you love yourself”, “Love your enemy”, “Have compassionate love for all life”, “Family love and fealty are essential”, “Love life and the life force that permeates us all”, “The broader your reach of love the higher your standing with that which loves us all”, “Without love we are as nothing” and “Faith, hope and love abide as the greatest ways of life, but the greatest of these is love”.  There are many more that have come down to us through the ages from the religions and philosophies of the world.  Don’t they all point to the ‘who to love?’ answer being – EVERYONE.

The ‘Siblinghood’ of Life

In addition to all people you have anything to do with or may influence, you may want to add the other creatures who do love, can love and may love.  The available scientific evidence says those likely include all large primates (perhaps all primates), dogs who give love best of all species, according to some, horses, elephants, dolphins, whales and actually maybe all mammals, or even all higher order animals including birds.  Then there are those who postulate that all animal, and perhaps even all life forms, are in one way or another love active and love activated.

A Very Long Look

We humans are a relatively new species on this planet.  We human types have been around maybe 2 million years or so.  Our particular kind of humans may be only an infantile 200,000 years old.  By comparison horseshoe crabs have been here 450 million years, give or take a few million.  Dinosaurs were the dominant species for 160 million years.  Not only that, but some think we humans have been actually talking to each other only for the last 30,000 years, so if that’s true it’s understandable that we are not yet very good at communication.  Then there is the fact that we’ve been doing this thing we call civilization for the mere 5 to 10 thousand years at the very most, although some think it could be a bit longer depending on what you call civilized.

If we humans earn the right to stay around as long as a good many other species we will probably need to get the hang of doing this thing we call love a lot better.  Some species don’t seem to be as bad at love and living with each other as we humans are, although our cousins, the Bonobo apes, have really got this love thing down good, not to mention doing great at sex.  As a young species we can be pleased that, at least in some parts of the world, we are doing pretty well at getting along better than we used to.  As an example, more countries bordering each other are at peace with one another than ever before.

Then there’s the fact that a smaller percentage of the Earth’s population is starving to death than used to be the case, several deadly diseases have been wiped out benefitting large numbers of people, and more people are living longer than ever before which increases their opportunity to develop quality living.  Just possibly, if you and I and enough others learn to do love well and maybe if we spread the word, teach others and lobby for love-centered ethics to prevail we may do as well as other species have, or maybe better.

By the way, did you know that there is growing evidence showing that at least some dinosaurs got and gave love.  Discoveries show that dinosaurs lived in ‘love’ connected family groups, nurtured their young and were protective of one another, even sacrificing their lives for one another – all evidence pointing at love existing way back to 200 million years ago.  I wonder if it was love that kept them surviving for so many millennia?

Anti-Love Ethics

Perhaps you have been taught one of these three other ‘ethics’ to live by, or something like them:
1.  Survival of the fittest is the law to live by, and it gives you permission to do whatever it takes, including the destruction of others.

2.  The ends justify the means which means you can do any evil to achieve what you see to be, or can call, a worthy outcome.

3.  Winning isn’t the most important thing, it’s the only thing which is used to justify any and all cheating, destructive manipulation, rule and law breaking, deception, dishonesty, neglecting and harming others, taking advantage of the weak and vulnerable, etc.

A problem with these kinds of ‘ethics’, or life guidance messages, is that they tend to create anti-healthful neurochemical and biochemical responses in people.  Adversarial, oppositional and aggressive (as differentiated from assertive) life stances and perpetrator predation dynamics tend to produce stress hormones which operate against the physical health of the person using these tactics.

They also work against the person’s psycho-emotional health, as does most pessimistic, cynical, fault-finding and negativistic cognition.  Such thinking seems to reduce pleasure, and interfere with the neurochemicals in the brain that have to do with feeling good, thinking clearly, and experiencing life in a positive manner.  Such thinking also tends to have an anti-love effect which negatively influences all types of love relationships.

Your Life

Suppose you decide to live, more than you previously have, by the ethic of treating all who do, can and may love, as worthy of your love.  How do you suppose this might impact your life?  If you switch to, or start including, or increase love centered ethics as guidelines for your life, what do you suppose may happen to your health, your relationships, your emotional life, your future and your core being?  What might be the worst-case scenario, and what might be the best.   Of course pessimists and optimists will differ, but would you like to give this suggested ethic and related ideas some thought, and maybe talk a little with those dear to you and see what happens?

As always – Go and Grow with Love

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly

♥ Love Success Question
For you, honestly rank the following dozen forms of ‘power’ from most to least important to you personally: Money, Influence, Status, Popularity, Attractiveness, Physical strength, Security, Social acceptance, Privilege, Social recognition, Achievement and Accomplishment, Love?

Related posts:

1. Difficult Topics: A Love-Centered Way to Approach and Broach Them All 

Friendship Love’s New Significance

Mini-Love-Lesson  #235

Synopsis: Good and better friendship and its new importance for how you identify yourself, feel about yourself, attain better happiness, health and longevity, along with the love guidance of your own answers to important questions are intriguingly presented here.

What You Do and Personal Importance?

Who are you and what do you do?  Isn’t that what everybody asks about when they first meet someone new?  Well, not everyone but those are the questions many people try to answer first just about everywhere in the modern. middle class, Western world.  This is especially true for males and for those whose occupation is their primary identity.  It is a bit less true for those who hold lesser status jobs and those who travel in old wealth circles.  For many millions their occupation is there foremost identifying factor.  Usually tied to that is a sense of their identity, personal worth, societal value and peer group importance.

So, if your occupation is abolished and that work is accomplished using algorithms and creating machines to do your job, who are you and what will you become?  Will you have importance, purpose, worth and significance or will you be and feel useless and without value?  This actually is what is beginning to happen to more and more people as high-tech improvements continue to replace people in all kinds of work.  With a sense of uselessness often comes anxiety, depression, addictions, suicide and other forms of life failure.

However, this does not happen to everyone who loses their work life identity.  Some have been raised to feel important and of worth because of being born into or married into a higher status family, class, caste, race or otherwise more advantaged group.  Then there are a good number who feel good about themselves so long as enough people feel good about them, but if their popularity wanes they may crash.  In the modern Western world, some few others are lucky enough to have been raised in families that understood and taught having a sense of intrinsic worth and healthy self-love (or they learned this on their own through reading, attending courses or being around people who project a love of self and love of others).  Those who have intrinsic self worth have little need of external self valuing factors to feel good about themselves.  Unfortunately, they are a minority.  Some cultures do better at helping people develop a sense of self worth and self love, as do some therapists and counselors.

In many parts of the modern world, the majority of people seem to need an external way of sufficiently feeling good about themselves.  Vast numbers primarily have accomplished this via their work identity.  Take that away and what’s left?

Will Occupational Identity and Its Personal Significance Fade?

Some studies in behavioral economics predict that about 47% of all current occupations are expected to become human free by mid century.

This could grow to 92% by the end of the century according to some experts.  Humans already are increasingly being replaced by smart machines, algorithms, high-tech advances and the like.

So, if this happens to you what is going to happen to your sense of significance, self-esteem, and most importantly how will it affect your healthy self-love (see “Self-Love and 12 Reasons to Develop It”)?  A future looking historian pessimistically warns we are going to have a lot of occupationally useless people around and a great many social and political problems occurring because of that.  So, what is to be done?

Significance Through Love

Can you guess who the people are who suffer least when their occupational or professional identity and its personal validation importance goes away?  The research shows it is the people who have healthy, strong and deep love relationships.  Mainly that means strong, ongoing friendships where healthy, real, sibling-like love exists.  Healthy, loving families and love mates count too.  Perhaps that is because their ways of doing love are very similar to the ways of real, friendship love (see “Understanding Friendship: From Mild Geniality to Profound Love”).  Note: If somebody says “My spouse is my best friend” a healthful mix of love-mate love and friendship love may be occurring. 

Now, let us suppose you met someone new and asked them what they did?  Further suppose that the answer you got was something like this.  “I’m a really good friend and that’s my chief significance”.  Even further suppose that this sort of answer became common and it indicated a primary way to feel good about your own purpose and significance in life.  Suppose also that it became common knowledge that having deep, real, love friendships lengthens life, reduces susceptibility to illness, magnifies general happiness and improves quality living just about every way one can measure it.  All of which is true.  Most of all suppose that nearly everybody’s primary sense of self worth was largely linked to how well they did love relationships and especially friendship love.  Suspect that more friendship love in the world might lead to more altruistic love, family love, healthy self-love and, of course, mate-love along with all the other healthful forms of love (see “Friendship Love and Its Extraordinary Importance”).

What to Do with This?

With the above ideas in mind, let’s look at some very important wide-ranging questions.  If your occupation was abolished and you were replaced by a machine, would your self-concept and self-esteem suffer?  What about your sense of life purpose?  Do you work at improving your friendship skills?  Are you doing things to improve the friendships you have?  How much could pride of being good at friendship love skills help you with your sense of being a person of worth and significance?  By way of healthy self-love, do you give yourself the gift of good friendships?  Do you need to learn more about the how to’s of good friendship and friendship love?  Do you think it might be good for you to make your sense of self worth less work-dependent?  Are you aware that having a few high-quality friends is much more important and healthful than having a high number of acquaintance-level friends?  Are you someone’s good friend?  If so, are you positive about yourself for being a good friend?  Are you in fact your own really good friend?  In healthy self-love could you be your own better friend?

With each of those questions, think of the answers you gave yourself and turn them into guidance messages.  Then, of course, seriously consider following the guidance you presenting to yourself.

One More Little Thing

How about talking all this over with a friend, or potential friend.  If you do that, please mention this website.  By doing so, you will do us and them a friendly, good turn.  Thanks.

As always – Go and Grow with Love
Dr. J. Richard Cookerly

Quotable Question: Who loves you best – a friend that tells you what you want to hear, one who tells you what you don’t want to hear but need to, one who tells you both or one who tells you little but very lovingly really listens to you?

Work With and Without Love

Synopsis: Intriguing concepts; Successful failure; Sacrifice and imbalance, Four factors most don’t know to think about; Healthy self-love; and Asking good questions for happy, healthy, work success via love.

How do these ideas strike you? 1.  Work is to serve life, not life to serve work.
2.  To love your work and work your love is to make much of life ‘play’.
3.  The best work is ‘love made manifest’.
4.  One of the healthiest acts of self-love is to find work that you would pay to do if someone wasn’t paying you to do it.
5.  With work, love and play in balance we succeed at life.  Without all three in balance we fail at life.

Harlan told me his story which, sad to say, I’d often heard before.  His version went like this.  “I did what my upbringing taught me to do.  I put almost all my time and effort into succeeding in business.  To accomplish this success I put my wife and kids ‘on the shelf’, so to speak.  I thought I would get back to them once I had climbed high enough on the ladder of success and made enough money.  I lied to myself saying I was doing it all for my loved ones.  The trouble was my loved ones did not stay on the shelf.  "My wife ran off with a guy who doesn’t even make half of what I do.  My kids treat me like the stranger I am to them, and I only have business friends or, in other words, no real friends at all.  I enjoyed my business success so much I neglected learning how to enjoy the rest of life.  Now I am rich in money and status but concerning love and joy I live in poverty.  Please help me.” 

Well of course, I and those who work with me went to work helping Harlan learn to help himself in all his neglected areas.  After some rather intense therapy and a lot of ‘practice work’ putting concepts and realizations into healthy actions I’m pleased to say Harlan now lives a much more balanced and far happier life.

Work is such an enormous part of most people’s life.  Work is also an enormously important factor influencing how well one does healthy self-love and healthy relational love.  Yet many people do not give these aspects of their work-life much thought.  There are those who sacrifice their emotional and their relational life for work.  There also are those who sacrifice their physical health for their work.  Some people actually do work themselves to death.  Like Harlan there are many people who, perhaps unknowingly, sacrifice their love relationships for success, money, status and other work related goals.  There also are work related problems that sabotage love which hardly anyone thinks about.

Here are just four:
*    Succeeding at the wrong thing Here are some examples:  Dean is a very well-off, successful, corporate attorney but he longs to be a camp director – he loved scouting as a boy.  He dreams of this almost nightly and his anti-depression medicine seems to be working less and less.  Janet just wants to raise her kids which is what she both loves and is super good at.  However, being a high dollar, traveling, medical equipment rep just has too many payoffs, even though it takes her away from her family for weeks at a time.  Next year John swears he’s going to stop selling real estate and start back to school to become a veterinarian, but will he?  This is the fourth year he has made this proclamation.

Sarah is a rising project manager in an upscale, big-city, healthcare company but her doodles and daydreams are all about being back on a Navajo reservation working with children where her life felt most fulfilled.  Each of these people do not love their work even though they are good at it.  Sadly, they are more likely than the average person to develop stress related illnesses, damaging alcohol or prescription drug abuse, love relationship deterioration, and an existential crisis resulting in what most people call a complete breakdown.  Hopefully none of those will happen.  Each of these people just may live unfulfilled, unhappy lives being successful at the wrong occupation.

*    Loving only work It’s wonderfully healthful to love your work, enjoy your labors, revel in succeeding, be passionate about the challenges and so forth but only if you balance it with other things to love like healthy self-love, healthy relationship love, healthy love of life, healthy spiritual love, etc..  There is much more to life than work, even highly meaningful work.  People working for important causes, people manifesting their talents in the arts, professions, etc., people doing fascinating research into the great mysteries, and people just enjoying doing a really good job at something they are good at — all can be in danger of imbalanced living because their work is so rewarding and enjoyable.

*    Only tolerating your work Do you ‘love’ your work?  If you don’t do you suspect you ever will?  Many people will leave a job or occupation they hate but will stay in a vocational situation they only can tolerate.  This often is referred to as being “stuck in a dead-end job”.  It is true that a great many people’s life situation does not provide for much more than a vocational situation which is merely tolerable.  However, as an act of healthy self-love searching for better than that and risking a change can mean you will have a longer and happier life, and everybody you love and care about probably will enjoy you more.

It’s always a joy when I get to help a person find the kind of work for which they can get decent pay and be passionate about.  It’s surprising how often this leads to improved financial success.  I once helped a couple who had been saving for years to change occupations from being well-paid engineers to metal sculptors but they just were not brave enough to make the transition.  Finally they worked up their courage to go ahead and become ‘starving artists’ devoted to their passion.  However, it didn’t pan out that way because in their second year they were making twice as much money with their art as they ever had in engineering.  Sometimes it works out like this and sometimes not, but usually the life happiness level is greatly improved.

*    Poor self-love makes for a lousy work life Let me suggest that people who are high in healthy self-love tend to manifest that self-love partly by going after work that actualizes their talents and in which they find enjoyment or even great enjoyment.  Conversely, people with poor self-love and its accompanying low self-esteem and low self-confidence often put up with low satisfaction types of work and less than desirable work settings.

People with high, healthy self-love know they are worthy of good treatment and they won’t tolerate for long people or conditions that are too negative for them.  Those who grow a healthier self love seem, almost invariably, to keep making work-life improvements of one kind or another.  People weak in self-love are seldom proud of the work they do even when they do a pretty good or better job at it and often they don’t go after promotions or improved placement.  At least that is my experience with the many people I have counseled concerning these issues.

Let’s look at some questions concerning love and work.  For you, are love and work two different things or are they integrated?  Do you put love into your work?  Do you love yourself through your work?  Do you love the people you work with?  Does the way you go about work influence the way you go about love away from work?  Does the way you go about love influence the way you go about work?

Now look at a bigger question.  Are you succeeding at the big three i.e. Work, Love and Play?    Are you keeping the big three in a fair amount of balance with each other?  Will it be good for you to give some thought to your work and its influence on your healthy self-love and on your love relationships?  Hopefully this will help you examine the enormous part of life we call work.

As always – Grow and Go in Love

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly

♥ Love Success Question Does the word ‘work’ elicit an emotion in you that you like to feel, or an emotion you don’t like to feel, or a neutral feeling, and what do you suppose that means about you?

Related posts:

1. Does “Cougar” Love Work? 

Do You Start and Part with Love?

How do you do ‘Hi’s’ and ‘Bye’s’ with those you love?   To keep a love relationship healthy it is best if every (yes every) ‘Hello’ and ‘Goodbye’ experience includes at least a brief love connecting and sharing experience.  Every “Hello, I’m home” event is best done with a hug, a pat, a caress, a nuzzle or a kiss.  Going past each other to whatever you want to get to next without any expression of connecting love can be detrimental to your love relationships.  Likewise, every “So long” is better done with similar brief expressions of love.

In some relationships the lack of such love when parting can lead to hours of vague anxiety, worrying “is anything wrong”.  Starting off time together with a little demonstration of love means that the following time is more likely to go well.  Ending a time together with expressed and received love actions makes your next encounter more likely to be a bit sooner, a bit better and a bit more wanted.  People who start and part with love are seen as having better attitudes, better cooperation likelihood, less stress and a host of other small but significant benefits.

Many couples and many families I see in counseling for reasons of deteriorating relationships have not been greeting each other or saying goodbye to each other with any love at all.  Sometimes there is no greeting or saying goodbye what so ever.  Often when I get them to experiment with a little ‘start and part’ love action improvement begins.  This is one of the simplest and quickest ways to start toward the repair, or enhancement, of a love relationship.  Notice that this is the way most pet dogs (who were put in the world to teach us love according to an old Indian legend) do it.  Actually many apparently love- connected mammals greet and part with what looks like shows of affection.  So maybe love starting and parting is natural.

It is not only failing love relationships that often lack this love expression ‘start and part’ behavior. ‘Blah’ and ‘in a rut’ stagnant, and semi-functional relationships frequently exhibit this lack of love ‘start and part’ way of doing things.  So, I would like to suggest you check out how well your love shows in ‘start and part’ situations.  Might you do well to greet your spouse, children, friends, and maybe even yourself with an improved, more love demonstrative ‘start and part’ set of actions?  Would you like to dedicate yourself to starting every encounter with a brief but sincere show of love?

Be sure to do that before you try to take care of anything else each time you encounter a loved one even if you have been away from them only for a brief amount of time.  When coming together after work, going to the store , visiting with others, etc. making some action to lovingly touch, saying words of love followed by asking “How are you feeling” delivered with a loving tone of voice and loving facial expressions are usual ways to create a pleasant and caring environment.

Coming in from outside while saying a term of endearment like “Hello, Sweetheart”, giving a good morning kiss upon waking, smiling at first sight of one another, and adding a caress or pat are also quite helpful.  Departing with similar sentiments and behaviors works in much the same way.  If you already do these sort of things ask yourself how can you improve?  If you don’t already do this sort of ‘start and part’ love might you want to dedicate yourself to making a plan to do so, and enacting it?

If when coming together you usually begin with some sort of practical ‘what’s to be done’ talk, or ‘what has been done’ inquiry a sense of low grade aggravation is likely to grow.  If the last thing said on departure is something like “Remember to mail the letter, pickup the cleaning, do your homework”, etc. that person’s return to you is less likely to be happy.

If the last thing said is a message of love the reverse is true.  Get the practical messages said but end with an expression of love.  If the first thing said upon coming together is “Did you remember to pay the bills, do your assignment, call so-and-so”, etc. a small dose of subconscious emotional abrasion may occur.  That abrasion experience could later lead to growing difficulty, or at least to fairly strong disappointment.  If instead a happy “Hello, darling, it’s so good to be with you”, or something like that, starts a new encounter with each other it is much more likely to go smoothly.  Usually it only takes 20 seconds or less to start or part lovingly.  The return on your loving effort can yield hours of happier time together.  Of course you can take longer than 20 seconds and do it even better if you want to.

If you are the recipient of loving ‘start and part’ behaviors do you soak them up, reciprocate in kind, and cycle the love being offered?  Ignoring, or quickly moving away from such tokens of love deprives yourself and your loved one from the healthy, positive effects of these small important actions.  Unfortunately, in our fast paced, often goal oriented and impersonal daily lives there is an insufficiency of loving behaviors, so savoring those love actions that do come your way can enrich your life.

A good love relationship takes good love teamwork.  Good teamwork love takes good sending and good receiving.  Being a good receiver and an equal participant when a loved one initiates a ‘start or part’ love action helps the process of good teamwork love quite a lot.  So, if a love ‘start or part’ action comes your way take it in and send some back.

People sometimes say to me things like, “Dr. Cookerly, doesn’t starting and parting with love get to be an empty habit or meaningless activity”?  It can if you let it but it doesn’t have to.  Be creative!  Also all around the world friendly, affectionate greeting and parting rituals make life work better.  It’s healthy for those in all loving relationships to develop their own, informal love rituals.  If you get a sense that your rituals are beginning to feel empty or meaningless that might be a message from your inner wisdom-filled subconscious to do them better.

So, here’s a simple challenge.  Make an experimental ‘start and part’ with more behaviors of love action plan, and carry it out.  Then see if you and those you care about like the results.

As always – grow in love!

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly

Related posts:

1. Listening with Love