Self-Affirmation for Healthy Self-Love

Synopsis: The huge and often poorly dealt with problem of self ‘dis’-affirmation is first presented; followed by why affirmation from others is not enough; and then how to do healthy, strong self-affirmation complete with a 10 Point Program for helping you grow your own healthy self-love through self-affirmation exercises.

The Huge Problem of Self Dis-Affirmation

Chelsea, everybody agreed, was gorgeous but in her own evaluation Chelsea was sure she was, at best, average looking.  Everybody agreed Chelsea was quite sweet but she believed she was far too often very mean.  Chelsea made high grades in college but secretly believed she was below average in intelligence.

Worst of all, Chelsea was convinced she was so basically inferior she was unlovable and, therefore, destined for a life of loneliness.  Her self dis-affirmation caused her a lot of self defeat and as those defeats mounted she became increasingly depressed and eventually suicidal.

Then a loving friend trying hard to break through to her, forced a puppy on her.  Her parents had never allowed pets.  The unconditional love this dog seemed to have for her began to put sparks of color into her formerly gray life.  Later that same friend, along with another, cajoled her into seeing a very loving therapist.

She soon was aware of the very negative way she was brought up that programmed her to think of herself as sinful, selfish, inadequate and unworthy.  With good therapy she fought back, beginning to re-program her inner thinking about herself.  One of the tools that helped the most was learning self-affirmation for growing her own healthy self-love.

Chelsea is not alone.  There literally are millions of people who as they grew up heard and incorporated far too many negative messages and far too few positive messages about themselves.  Too many positive messages without counterbalancing with accurate critiquing of what does need improvement can be a big problem too. However, subconsciously incorporating copious negatives seems to be much more common in many parts of the world.

There also is the problem of indifference where a child hears neither negative nor positive messages about themselves.  That can be almost as bad as the problem of too many negatives and not enough accurate, realistic positives.  If the negatives are accompanied by a lack of other behaviors that convey love, serious depression and other forms of mental and emotional illness problems seem very likely to develop.  Escaping the ‘inner voices of self-criticism’ through destructive substance addiction is thought to be especially common for those with high negative message backgrounds.

Why Affirmation from Others Is Not Enough

Chelsea, and many like her, later did get praise, compliments, thanks and many other positive messages about herself but she never believed them.  Each positive statement was blocked from doing any good by her earlier training that told her things like “other people don’t really mean what they’re saying, they are just being nice”, “they are after something and trying to manipulate you, so watch out” and “if you let yourself be praised, complimented, etc. you will become egotistical and then for sure no one will want you” and “you’re in danger of being led astray by flattery and false praise.” Not to mention “Thinking well of yourself is the road to destruction and damnation”.  Thus, all positives coming into Chelsea were poisoned as they often are for so many.

Once a person has been taught to thoroughly dis-affirm themselves, other people’s positive messages about them often are nearly useless.  However, if they are lead to look at the actual evidence of what is truly good about themselves, improvement sometimes can begin.  There always are a lot of good or positives which have been hidden from their awareness.  The process of learning self-affirmation for the development of self-love can greatly hurry the achievement of healthy, accurate self opinion.
Once the natural process of growing healthy self-love gets started or re-started, it can accelerate.  When that happens the wonders of healthy self-love can be achieved and everybody benefits.

How to Self Affirm for Healthy, Self-Love Development

There are many good programs for self-affirmation.  Here is an outline that has worked well for a large number of my clients who’ve needed self-affirmation.

Usually I adapted it somewhat to fit the individual, so feel free to do the same for yourself.  You also can weave it into other self-affirmation systems.

SELF AFFIRMING FOR HEALTHY SELF-LOVING, A 10 POINT PROGRAM

1.    Start talking back to whatever part of you tells you not to try this program.  If in your head you hear things like “this is silly, stupid, how can this really help?, its phony, shallow, don’t ever try because you can’t do anything right and besides you’re hopeless, or put it off, you will do it someday but not now – talk back.  Tell that self-defeating part of you to shut up, and say it with vigor and determination!  You also might say to the naysayer within “what you’re doing doesn’t help even if it is meant to, so learn to do something else better, more positive.”  Internal naysayers can become yea-sayers.

2.    Decide to do the following practices wholeheartedly.  After all, the negative messages in your head probably got there with energy and emotion being expressed, so countering them will need the same – energy and emotion.  It is okay not to believe this will work but it is not so okay to believe it will certainly fail.  Be open-minded to help your experiment not be self sabotaged by your negative programming.  Doubt and skepticism are okay later after you really have done the exercises recommended here.  It is like physical exercise, you do not have to believe in it, you just have to do it.

3.    Start making a list of 100 Good Things About Yourself. Yes, you have at least 100.  Small, medium and large, they all count.  Most everything about you can be made good use of.  If you are short, you can get to the stuff down low.  If you are tall, you can get the stuff up high.  If you have been programmed to ‘not notice’ this kind of positive (and lots of other positive things) that are true about yourself, when you ‘do notice’, you then probably will devalue it automatically.  Whatever is true, or at least a bit true, counts so put them on your 100 positives list.  If you have a good heart (kind, caring, empathetic, etc.) that truly is of value.  0ur planet needs more people like you.  Got a nice smile?  That counts too.  It is okay to ask friends, family or whoever for some input on this, but remember, it is about ‘your’ positives, nothing else.

There are two categories of personal value, ‘who you are’ and ‘what you do’, also known as your ‘intrinsic value’ and your ‘extrinsic or production value”.  Many people have been programmed to only count their production value, i.e. what they can accomplish, produce, etc..  As you grow elderly or if you become disabled, your production value may lessen.  So long as you are alive, your intrinsic value remains.  Perhaps you can get a sense of that by meditating on the statement “all babies are born important”.  “I was born important”.  “I am of value”.  Then try to ‘feel loving and to feel loved’ toward yourself, showing yourself you are of (intrinsic) worth.  Then, if you want to, ‘do’ (produce) something with those feelings, all the better.

4.    Go somewhere pleasant, private, and fairly quiet as soon as you have at least five things on your list of 100 Good Things About Yourself.  It is okay if there is pleasant but not distracting music in the background.  Then just be there for a few minutes, doing nothing but breathing.

5.    Slowly stretch, twist and pleasantly bend your body every way you can.  Then sit down and begin to breathe slowly and deeper, at least three times.  Think “I will do this exercise to the best of my ability”, with each breath.  Continue breathing slowly and deeply, (to your own comfort level) repeating that statement.  Then say to yourself  “I am doing this exercise to the best of my ability” with each repetition take more deep, slow breaths.  With firmness, you may need to command “silence” to any and all other, interfering, or negative thoughts which might creep in.  You also can add “naysayer within, I will listen to and deal with your thoughts later but not now.  Repeat as needed.

6.    Look at your list of five or more good things about yourself and pick one.  It is best if it is a short, specific statement.  “I can intensely enjoy beautiful sunsets” would be an example.  (Anything you know how to truly appreciate is a valuable attribute, so ‘own’ it as a part of yourself!).  “I enjoy puns and that is no joke, and it’s a good thing about me” would be another example.
7.    Now, from your list, say these good things about yourself, out loud, beginning with a firm “I am…  “followed by the good thing from your list.

Something to know, motions help change emotions.  Therefore, begin to move your arms in ways that express how you want to feel about what you have just said.  If you strongly said “I am smart”, putting a finger on your head with a bold gesture would be an example.  Whatever ‘negative’ got in your head, probably was expressed and received with certain tones of voice, facial expressions, body posture and perhaps hand and arm gestures.

If someone scowled at you, pointed a finger at you and in mocking tones said “you’re so stupid”, it isn’t just the words that stuck in your head.  It is the whole picture, with sound.  So it will work best, if while you’re implanting a counterbalancing positive in your head, you are doing it with vigorous, strong movement and sound.  Looking in the mirror while doing this can get to the facial expression part.  If you were scowled at, smile as you affirm yourself.

Talk simply and in the present tense.  Declare the positive about yourself. Sometimes it helps to add a short bit of evidence.  “I’m smart!  My good grades give me strong evidence that is a truth about me”, is an example.  Each out-loud statement, done with motion, may counterbalance or erase as many as seven negatives that came your way, some experts suggest.  It is okay to pound your fist, shout, get up and march around, dance, jump, or anything else that helps you intensely live your affirmation of yourself.  Remember to command the naysayer within, who may be trying to tell you this is stupid, silly, etc. to be silent.

8.    Now pick another item from your growing list of 100 Good Things About Yourself and do the procedures just described.  As your list grows to 100, keep repeating this process with new items from the list.  Doing this exercise once a day and at the very least once a week until you have done this exercise with at least 30 of the self affirmations on your list, is strongly recommended for getting good results.  Many concentrate on one a day for 100 days.  It is good to repeat the ones most important to you.  Also suggested, is drawing a little:-) on a calendar for each day you do this, and not being down on yourself if you miss a day.  Just pick one tomorrow and keep going.

9.    Each time, after you have done the out-loud and strong movement part of this exercise, sit quietly for a bit.  Then read this statement to yourself.  “I am doing these exercises as acts of healthy self-love because I am important to myself, I am worthy of my own love and, therefore, feeling good and being positive about myself, to myself, is a worthy exercise.  I am in the process of ‘owning’ all that is good and miraculous in me.  By doing these things, I am becoming thankfully happy about who I am, and how I am me.  I will strengthen and improve myself with these truths about me.”  Then close your eyes, breathe deeply and slowly again, and meditate on what you have just read for at least two or more minutes.

10.    After doing the above exercise with 10 of the items on your list of 100 Good Things About Yourself, add this statement to your meditation reading.  “I will love others better as I love myself better”.  Then close your eyes and meditate on how you will make that true.

Now, go and do some of this and start noticing how it helps you feel about yourself, as you keep doing it.

As always – Go and Grow with Love

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly

♥ Love Success Question:
Do you know and live by the truth that you have to ‘do’ different, again and again, to ‘become’ different?

Related posts:

1. Self-Love and Its Five Healthy Functions
2. Forgiveness in Healthy Self-Love
3. It Might Be Healthy, Real Love …
4. Healthy Self-Love and Not Giving Your Power Away
5. Getting Healthy, Real Love in Your Life 

Success At Life & Your Diet Of Life And Love

Synopsis: The three main things to succeed at, introduces our mini-love-lesson; followed by a look at balanced living; and then what is and is not successful living, including where you got your ideas from; and where you are headed.

Is It True That to Succeed at Life You Need to Succeed at Three Big Things?

Quite some time ago, after a lot of study and research into the human condition, different groups of scholars came to the same conclusion.  Several times later, others also came to that same conclusion.  They concluded that to have success at life one must succeed at three big things.  Do you know what they are?  Before we go on to tell you what they are, can you guess?

Put simply, to succeed in life you must succeed at love, work and play.  If you succeed at only one or two of these, by that way of looking at it, you are not succeeding at life.  There are lots of types of love, many kinds of work and a whole lot of ways to play that a person may need to learn how to succeed at.  There is love of a child, parents, family, a spouse or love mate, very close friends, pets, self, country, causes, deity, life itself and a whole lot more to think about in the love category.  In the work category, there is work for survival, money, fulfillment, education, health, relationship, lifestyle, home, self discovery and self development, not to mention cleaning, housework, yard work, kitchen work, plus a lot more.

Before we talk about play, we have to mention play and its other word ‘recreation’ which used to be thought of as frivolous, unneeded, a luxury, childish, at best a fringe benefit and at worst a corrupting influence.  In fact, many people still teach and preach that this is true.  However, the truth about play is in that other word for play, recreation or ‘re-creation’.  It turns out that largely through play we often are psychologically re-created.  This is true not only for individuals but for couples, families, friendships and a host of other interacting networks of people.

It is through play that children learn about the world, and themselves and why it is often said ‘play is the work of children’.  Not only is play re-creational, it often is what precedes the best of creative effort.  Play at its highest level leads us into the art forms and their enjoyment, travel and its many enrichments, sports and a host of other ways that people become more than they were.  Play also is something that many people find integrates well with many forms of work.  Of course play often is usefully wonderful when it is intertwined with love.  Play also can be tremendous for health.  Spirited physical play for exercise, relaxing play for stress relief, intelligent play for mental acuity and distracting play for cognitive clarity – all help us be more healthful.

Balanced Living

For healthy self-love, healthy couples love and healthy family love, it is best to shape your life-styling toward a balance of love, work and play, such as you might create a healthful, balanced diet.  That is what the research recommends.  We all know that when the work does not get done, successful living is  not likely.  That also turns out to be true for love and play.  Deficient, reduced or nonexistent actions and expressions conveying and receiving love, turn out to be the number one reason for love relationship failures according to some research.

This especially is subtly destructive because it involves non-action which is so much harder to notice than things like blatant abuse, or demeaning and devaluing words and acts.  Those negative actions, by the way, are the number two reason for love relationship failure.  Concerning play, the continual re-creation effect of play brings health, happiness and the spirit maintenance we all need.  For couples, the axiom “date your mate or lose your mate” applies (see mini-love-lesson “Date Your Mate – Always!”).  Couples who do not have enough recreational time together tend to become much more irritable, displeased, stressed, drained, combative and unhappy.  This same thing also tends to be true for a great many families.

From this understanding, successful living is living a life diet balanced between love, work and play.  If every day you have at least a little of each, you are likely to do well at life.  If you are a couple or a family and every week you manage to do a dose of love, work and play together, you are likely to do well.  In our busy lives this often is hard to achieve.  Things come along and make us live ‘out of balance’ for a time but then the job is to get back to the balance.

What Is and Is Not Successful Living

What is your idea of success?  Is it mostly about how much money you pile up?  Is it about beating everybody you know in the status achievement game?  Could it be about having more enviable toys or just more envy producing stuff.  Might it have something to do with raising fine children?  Has it been about popularity or fame?  Does it have to do with how many you have bedded?  Could it be about trophies and honors?  Maybe it is about how much fun you had.  Then again, maybe it is about how much love you have given and received, how much good you have done, and how well you enjoyed your journey of life.

Where Did Your Ideas about Success Come From?

It is a good idea to look at where your ideas of success came from.  Many of them may have originated in your social, cultural and certainly in your earlier family environments.  A lot of people get new ideas about success in college or in early career settings.  It has been found that lots of people’s ‘model’ for  success and successful living comes from people who have had an especially strong impression on them.  That turns out quite well for some, useless for others, and disastrous for still others.

Do You Need a Success Ideas Overhaul?

Will your ideas about success cause you to fail at life?  Do your ideas about success need an overhaul?  Do you need to add some new ideas or standards?  There are a lot of people who have succeeded, perhaps even greatly succeeded in one way or another, but who actually have failed at life.  There are a surprising number of rich and famous people, and others regarded as highly successful, who are living miserable, tortured lives because their success is not balanced.

Usually their diet of life not only is out of balance but it also is toxic.  Maybe they are at the top in their work but they are driven and have little fun, and they are not by any means well loved.  There also are those who are great at playing, having fun, recreation, etc. but fail at work and love.  And there are those who love and are well loved but whose work and play life leaves much to be desired.  Can you say “I truly love my work, I love the many ways I know how to enjoy playful living, and I love well and am well loved”?  If you can, wow, you’re doing great!

According to the way we are looking at it in this mini-love-lesson, your success in life has to include success having to do with love, work and play.  After each birthday or New Year, you might want to ask yourself these questions.  Have I worked well, loved well and played well in this last year?  Are you doing so now?  A life without meaningful, productive work (which includes volunteering, unpaid contribution work, serious avocations, etc.), perhaps of several kinds, would not be considered successful.

A life without love, probably of several kinds, also would not be successful.  A life without experiencing many different enjoyments that can occur while recreationally involved, also can be seen as less than fully successful, no matter what one’s other successes are.  A life without mixing your love, work and play together also might be seen as less than fully successful.

So, now what do you think?  And what might you be going to do about what you think?

As always – Go and Grow with Love

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly

♥ Love Success Question
What do you succeed at most – work, play or love and the many forms of each?

Related posts:

1. Love Success Questions – What Are They?
2. Getting Healthy, Real Love in Your Life
3. Quality Love, Quality Life?
4. Does “Cougar” Love Work?
5. Work With and Without Love 

Wellbeing Oriented Love And Its Many Rich Rewards

 Mini-Love-Lesson #288

Synopsis: How to understand, activate, use, develop and greatly benefit from our probably inborn drive for doing wellbeing oriented love is well presented here.  Everything from  comforting a crying baby to striving for world peace is included by this type of love for others. It is evidenced as evolving not only in our own species but perhaps in others too as we move to the hope of the future.  Treat yourself to the joys of this positive psychology filled, love force.

Around the world, there are millions of people who see suffering and feel a powerful, internal drive to ameliorate that suffering.  Millions of others observe a social problem and aspire to do something about it.  Still others perceive injustice, inequality, victimization, bigotry, persecution, prejudice, neglect, abuse or maltreatment.  Then they empathetically respond and wish to save their fellow humans from those tortures.  Furthermore, there are those who look upon the ordinary, the normal and the average and are sure “We can do better”.  There are also millions who compassionately strive to find or apply healing to the world’s ills and woes of every type.

All these people can be said to be naturally impelled to action out of a drive for Wellbeing oriented Love.  Whether it is comforting a crying baby, working to treat the sick and wounded, rescuing the savaged or bringing peace to the war weary, these efforts are beautiful manifestations of healthy, real love.  Love promoted well-being sometimes is labeled as healing love, altruistic love, humanistic love, godly love or even do-gooder love.  Whether love is focused on a single, loved person in distress or on a cosmic concern its power can be amazing.  Whatever its incarnation, this type of love exists to fix what is broken or damaged and make things better.

Love does not always appear to be gentle loving.  While the major emotions of love are those of empathy and compassion, it also can involve an intense and adamant sense of dedication.  That dedication pushes us to strive against the negatives and go all-out for the positives of life.  In this adamancy there can be anger, rage and even a hate for whatever is causing the problem in need of healing or fixing.  Nurses and doctors might be heard to voice a hatred of cancer.  Anti-poverty workers have been known to voice animosity for the greed mongers of the world.  Some climatologists cathartically may rant and rave against polluters.  Ecologists and animal protectionists have been known to exhibit extreme antagonism toward the cruel and the indifferent.  Many progressive political activists seethe with fury concerning regressive politics and avarice addicted, power-for-power’s-sake politicos.  Nevertheless, the underlying motivation of these people who work on behalf of beneficial causes can be identified as love for health, repair, recovery, improvement and growth.

Those Who Help

There are people who just seem to be natural born helpers, healers and fixers.  Their caring love urges them to gravitate toward people in need, to intervene in dire situations and even to choose careers that require serious, assistive skills.  Wherever there are ailments, afflictions, maladies or maltreatment of any sort, many people feel an impulse to do something to make things better.  We think these benevolent drives come from what we identify as wellbeing oriented love. We can find these exceptional people in the helping and healing professions; they are likely to become nurses, physicians, social workers, therapists, NGO aid workers and so forth.  Others go into work at charitable agencies, service organizations, rescue work, educational guidance or any vocation or avocation where the reparative part of wellbeing love is a major, ongoing motivation.

There are other people who live to advance wellbeing.  They tend to go into fields like education, science, progressive politics, human service businesses and the like.  These movers and shakers can be instrumental in propelling human progress and advancing civilization.   

Helpers, when asked why they do what they do, often reply, “I just had to try to make a difference” or “It was just in me to do it”.  Some will say things like “I saw someone I love suffer and my purpose in life became to fight against that evil”.

There is another group who go into research to find cures for threats to those they love or to develop instruments that aid humanity.  One subgroup of people who help are political activists who go into politics to work for human betterment and fight politicos who are only there for their own gain or a regressive agenda.  Many other helpers spend their time and energy volunteering for worthy causes which right a wrong, provide for an insufficiency or tackle a problem.  Wellbeing oriented love exists in all of these.

Many who do not seem to have an abundance of love within them, find it hard to understand why some people spend so much of their lives doing so much for the less fortunate, the downtrodden, the less able, the disadvantaged, the defeated and the victims of life’s tragedies.  In fact, many of those who help don’t fully understand it themselves.  Some will testify that it is their religion or that their God called them to service.  Others will trace it back to a time in which they were in despair or crisis and a helper came to their rescue; so, they want to provide a similar service to others.  For some, it is because they were not rescued and do not want others to suffer like they did.  In addition to those good reasons, we posit that a deep down reason is a strong, internal love drive.  Wellbeing oriented love, for whatever reason, powerfully surges in the spirits of many and they continuously strive to actualize it.

Alert!  Beware of fake helpers!  There are people who look like they are doing good but they have a hidden, self-serving agenda.  Research has revealed most people feel good from doing good but sociopathic-leaning people usually only feel good from selfish benefit.  It seems they don’t feel good when they do good.

A reinforcing reason for doing wellbeing-oriented love is that our brain is built to reinforce us with good feelings once we start to actualize love’s impetus.  Research backs this up and shows that there are significant other benefits to enacting love oriented for wellbeing, besides just feeling good.  A number of studies have confirmed that acting from altruistic motivation is a considerable benefit to the giver of those actions as well as to the receiver.  The wellbeing and happiness of both tend to improve regardless of the difficulty being faced.  Frequently, so does their social and relationship life, along with their longevity.  A deep, private sense of confident self-worth can result along with a solid owning of the knowledge that one has made a worthy contribution. 

One More Thing: might you enjoy talking the ideas of Well-Being Love over with someone? If you do please mention our website and its many brief lessons on not just feeling love but doing love well.  Thank you

As always – Grow and Go with Love

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly

Quotable Question: are you a happy, hopeful, proud do-gooder riding on the wellbeing love bandwagon, or what?

Falling Out of Love - Or Was It False Love?

Synopsis: First we introduce you to an emotion you may not know; followed by the question “Is real love something you can fall out of?”; then the topics: exes who keep loving each other; research explorations into falling out of love; what’s religion got to do with it; and we end with looking at falling in and out of love versus growing in love.

An Emotion You May Not Know?

Have you ever thought you were really in love with someone only later to have strange feelings telling you had fallen out of love with that person?  Can you look at past ‘in love’ experiences in which your feelings changed to a ‘not in love’ feeling or awareness?  If you are in a current, spousal type, love relationship, are either or both of you getting feelings of the love starting to lessen?

Do you know that people in certain language groups are aware of different emotions than are those in other language groups?  The Russian language has a word for the emotion a person feels which tells them they are or have fallen out of love with someone.  That word is “razliubit”.  Some have described it as a bittersweet emotion, a bit akin to the emotion called nostalgia plus a sense of something as finished or finishing, and it is time to look toward something new and unknown.

Sometimes it is interpreted as telling a person they were not in a real love but just in an infatuation or some other form of false love which could never last.  It apparently can have both glad and sad parts and maybe a sense of relief or freeing.

Note that when we have a label for an emotion and use it, we much better can identify it, think about it, talk about it and understand its guidance message.  By labeling this ‘falling out of love emotion’ Russian speakers can deal with it apparently quicker and better, and act on it sooner and better than those without this label in their conscious awareness.

Is Real Love Something You Can Fall out of ?

Some theoreticians think once you have real love for someone it is forever.  They suspect that it is only various forms of false love that can actually end.  There are many who say they could never stop loving their children, or their parents, or their brothers and sisters, or their best friends – no matter what.

There also are a lot of people who say they still have a love for someone they used to be married to, but it has changed some, or is in a sort of ‘inactive’ status, however, it is still there in their heart.  Some people say things like, “I still love all my exes”, “My ex is just like a brother or sister who I dearly love”, “Certainly I love my alcoholic spouse but I dare not do anything with that love because it would destroy me, as it nearly did” and “It’s sad we were so wrong for each other but we still love each other a lot, even though we hardly ever have anything to do with each other anymore”.

Exes Who Keep Loving Each Other

There is a lot of clinical evidence in case histories that points to couples who have broken up or divorced, who actively keep loving each other.  Many family counselors commonly hear things like, “My ex and my new husband get along just fine.  That’s good because I love them both”.  “Yes, I love my new wife tremendously but in a different way.  I still love the mother of my children just as much and I will always love her.  I couldn’t stop if I tried”, and “In our family our ex-mates and even some of our ex- lovers still are family members. They all show up for birthdays and Christmas, and everybody still loves everybody.  Newcomers have to accept that”.

Often times post-breakup or divorced exes who keep loving an ex cause a lot of trouble, especially for new spouses.  It is not uncommon for a new spouse to feel very threatened by their mate’s continuing love for an ex-spouse.  The mindset or schema for how divorce is supposed to work in a lot of people’s heads, does not include room for love of an ex.  For them, once you divorce you are supposed to stop loving, or are supposed to have fallen out of love and even perhaps made an enemy of your ex.  In other’s schema or mind pictures, it is okay to love whoever you love, but how you do it changes in various ways when a new spouse comes along.

Research Explorations

Fairly recently research into falling out of love has begun and its findings, though somewhat meager, are quite intriguing and certainly pioneering.  Evidence points to ongoing, successful couples fading out of romantic love and that romantic love being replaced by a more solid sense of deep, abiding love which is longer lasting.  Other couples also experience the waning of romantic love and with that dimishment often comes the dissolution of their relationship.  It seems some romantic love relationships are killed by repeated emotional abuse and neglect.

The falling out of love experience seems to go with couples in which one or the other, or both, markedly reduce their acting with the behaviors that are known to convey love (see mini-love-lessons on the Behaviors That Give Love – The Basic Core Four).  Deceit, loss of trust, sometimes sexual issues, feelings of repeatedly being undervalued and too frequently being lovingly undealt with seem to often precede the falling out of love experience.  There is confusion as to whether one falls out of love or the love is killed by anti-loving behaviors and neglect.

What Does Religion Have to Do with It?

It is thought that the popular concept “real love is forever” came from various religious teachings which interestingly are found in a wide number of the world’s religions and theological writings.  Perhaps it was traveling monks, along with troubadours, who spread the stories and myths that love is a forever thing.

The concept that love never ends is distinctly and clearly scriptural in Christianity.  However, certain religionists have made an exception for carnal love, even for those married.  Any love, even if it is quite real, is seen as sinful and corrupting by any pleasurable sex according to those religionists.  However, a growing number of theologians, more love-focused than only strictly faith-based, strongly disagree and support the idea that all forms of real love may be forever.

Especially in certain Hindu, Buddhist and Islamic traditions there are teachings promoting the idea that all love, even passionate and sexual love, is of divine origin and, thus, is everlasting.  Similar thoughts can be found in the Scriptures and theology of Judaism, Taoism and a good many other smaller religions.  Thus, the thesis that one does not fall out of true love but only falls out of false love is quite arguable from a wide range of religious perspectives.

Falling In and Out of Love Versus Growing in Love

Here is a concept to consider.  Couples who ‘fall in love’ can also ‘fall out of love’, but couples who ‘grow in love’ cannot.  That is because falling in love may be more a symptom of infatuation or some other form of false love, like the one called limerence.  Some couples, perhaps many, may start their relationship by having a ‘falling in love’ experience but then grow a different, more real love that is lasting.  Still others experience the falling out of love phenomenon because it is a false love and not lasting.  Couples growing a real love through loving effort and loving actions, plus some time, are thought to do much better and be much more long-lasting than those who rely on the falling in love experience.

Much has yet to be learned about all aspects of love, including the falling out of love phenomenon.  Hopefully this mini-love-lesson discussion will assist you in pondering your developing understandings of love.

As always – Go and Grow with Love

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly

♥ Love Success Question
Do you still love all the people you have ever loved?

Related posts:

1. Ever Think Seriously about Real and False Love?
2. False Forms of Love: Unresolved Conflict Attraction Syndrome
3. False Forms of Love – Spouse Acquirement Syndrome
4. False Forms of Love: Thrill and Threat Bonding 

Love Bids and Their Astounding Importance

Synopsis: How pitching and catching love bids makes an enormous difference starts our discussion; followed by what love bids are; and finally ending with the super significance of well caught and well returned bids; more.

Pitching and Catching Love Bids Makes All the Difference

Across the crowded room Michael glanced at Grace, then briefly smiled and nodded ever so slightly in her direction.  Grace coyly smiled back as she gave a slow subtle return nod.  Such a small, quick interaction but it made both Michael and Grace feel slightly elated and a bit more emotionally connected.  Both thought about how good their love relationship was and how glad they were to have it all these many years.

They both then moved through the gathering toward each other and went happily home earlier than they had planned, enjoying each other all the way.  Because Michael had ‘pitched’ Grace a little behavioral “bid” for love connecting and Grace ‘caught’ it well and pitched one back, this couple had one of their many, excellent, loving evenings together, feeling close and intimately connected.
Nan and Buck did not fare nearly as well.  Buck was eating an early lunch at work when Nan called and said, “Let’s go to lunch together”.

Buck, lost in his work, said a rather abrupt, “No, I’m already eating here at my desk.  Is there anything else?”.  Nan feeling discounted and rebuffed mumbled a goodbye and ended the call.  After work, Nan decided to get a drink with some of her fellow workers and went on to spend the evening flirting and dancing, and then got home rather late.  Waiting at home, Buck felt lonely, a bit worried and then a bit angry.

When Nan came in he greeted her with a very critical, parent-like, “Where have you been. You should have called if you were going to be late”.  Feeling criticized like a child, she lied saying she had to work late and she was going to bed because she was really “wiped out”.  Now both of them felt lonely and rebuffed.

Had Nan pitched her bid for love connecting in a much more clear fashion like, “I really want a little personal, close, ‘us’ time together.  Let’s use today’s lunch time for that.  Okay?”.  Had Buck been more aware and ‘caught’ and understood Nan’s ‘love bid’ for what it was, a chance for a love connection experience, they might have done as well as Michael and Grace but sadly they didn’t.
Research is showing that the ‘pitching and catching’ of love bids may be crucial to the success or failure of many love relationships.  This is true not only for couples but also parents and children, family relationships, deep close friends and even with pets.  There even is evidence that love bidding also may occur in the animal world, especially among mammals.

What Are Love Bids?

Simply put, a love bid is any action aimed at initiating an experience of mutual love connection.  It can be as simple as a wink, an intimate tone of voice, a tender touch, a welcoming gesture or an inviting smile.  It can be a bid for love connecting by way of showing and sharing humor, ideas, affection, excitement, fun, silliness, conversation, empathy, affirmation, self-disclosure, caring, support, catharsis or just time together.

Love bids often are subtle but they also can be quite clear and obvious.  They are accomplished by both verbal and expressional (non-verbal) behaviors.  They help fill one of love’s major purposes, that of healthful connection (see mini-love-lessons “A Functional Definition of Love”).  Love bids, well pitched and well caught, and then returned again help us come together, get happy together and help bring about the best and most important of love nurturing and emotionally nourishing experiences.

Love Bids and Love Success

There is research from the pioneering and famed Gottman Institute that shows successful couples tend to connect and interact 86% or more of the time when one partner or the other makes a bid for love relationship connection; success here is defined as a couple being together six or more years.  Failing couples, those who break up or divorce in less than six years, connect after a bid for connection is made, on average, only 33% of the time or less.  That is only one of an increasing number of findings from a growing body of large-scale, long-range, ongoing research efforts in a wide number of fields working to discover what succeeds in love relationships.

A considerable amount of growing evidence points to this conclusion.  Love bids and love connecting experiences are vital for maintaining and growing healthy, real love relationships.  The maintenance of ongoing relationships, the healing of damaged relationships and living balanced and healthfully in active relationships is crucially affected by how well people in these relationships ‘pitch and catch’ their bids for love connecting.

Subtle Bids for Love Connecting

Jennifer looked up and in whispered tones said, “Aren’t the clouds beautiful”?  She was making a small, subtle bid for her husband to briefly connect with her in a sharing appreciation, love experience.  She was purposefully making it small and subtle because, to her, it seemed more intimate and romantic that way.  Perhaps it also seemed safer protecting her from being obviously rejected if he didn’t catch it or reacted somehow negatively.

If Jennifer’s husband made absolutely no response to her bid she might see him as being insensitive, not valuing her, perhaps upset with her, or even evidence of him not loving her.  If Jennifer’s husband responded with something like, “No, I actually don’t like those clouds, they look like a storm is brewing and that’s going to ruin our barbecue plans for tonight”.  That would have been better than no response at all.  Even though it presents disagreement, it involves replying and interacting with her about what she said, and that is more of a love connecting than not responding at all.

If he added to his disagreement statement, terms of endearment like Sweetheart or Darling, along with pleasant tones of voice, it could be considered quite loving.  That might have met Jennifer’s desire to be dealt with, and connected with, as someone who is loved by her husband.  It, therefore, would have been a love nourishment and bonding experience, better by far than silence.

If Jennifer’s husband responded by putting an arm around her, and pulled her closer as he also looked at the clouds and then kissed her on the cheek, that would have given her the love connection that her bid actually was aimed at producing.  If he had added words like, “I feel so close to you when we see beautiful things together”, that might have made for an intimate moment of superb, love connection.
The pitching and catching of subtle love bids sometimes can be something of an art form.  It may involve all sorts of intriguing, enjoyable, enticing and surprising, artfully delivered, variations.  It also can be quite spontaneous and even unconsciously done.  Without even knowing it, a sad look can be a bid for supportive, caring, love connecting.

Obvious Bids for Love Connection

While subtle bids for love connection are considered more romantic and safer from embarrassment, obvious bids are much more likely to be clearly understood and successfully enacted.  However, when they are lovelessly rejected, the ‘ouch’ factor usually is much stronger.  So, unless your self-love is quite strong, having your obvious bids for love connection turned down may result in you feeling really hurt.  The healthfully, sufficiently self loving can sincerely think “their loss” and go on feeling okay.  Others, not so much.

Obvious bids usually are accomplished through the use of words requesting specific behaviors.  “Let’s cuddle on the couch for the next half-hour and just be close, okay?” is an example of an obvious bid for love connection.  A well pitched, obvious love bid includes four elements: (1) the behavior desired –  to cuddle, (2) the desired place where the behavior is to occur – on the couch, (3) the desired time – the next half-hour, and (4) the desired emotional mood – closeness.  A good, obvious love bid usually is stated in loving tones of voice with loving facial expressions, gestures and perhaps some loving touch.  If delivered in written form, it usually is good to add some additional words expressing love directly.

It also is good to be careful about making a clear difference between a bid for sex and a bid for love, or a bid for both together.  It is important that you and your intimate love partner both be sure you have the same understanding.  If you say, “I want to hug” and it means “let’s have a raunchy, good time together, miscommunication problems are highly likely.

Well Caught and Returned Love Bids

Responding to love bids is crucial for having ongoing, love success.  When couples, or families, or friends reduce their pitching, catching and return pitching of their bids for love connecting, as one might expect, connection reduces.  Reduced love connecting sets up a love relationship for all manner of problems.  Love malnutrition and love starvation may occur.  This especially is dangerous for the health and well-being of young children.

Vulnerability to couples having affair problems becomes greater.  Friends and family members can grow distant with reductions of love bids.  And all sorts of other maladies become more likely when bids for love connection are markedly reduced or absent.
Frequently and, if possible, artfully pitching your bids for love connection, receiving other’s bids, and responding with a return pitching leads to love cycling.  This in turn tends to grow love and make it stronger, as well as healthier, not to mention more enjoyable.

To do all that requires several things.  It is just like the game called “catch” when the ball is thrown back and forth.  (Notice the game is not called “throw”).  First you have to be aware that something is being thrown or pitched to you.  Otherwise, what is pitched may fly right by you.  Once you notice what is coming, you have to try to catch it.  This requires some understanding of what it really is, or might be, and a receiving response, followed by an awareness of whether you got it or not.

Misinterpreting or misunderstanding is like fumbling the ball.  Next you have to come up with how you are going to make a return pitch, followed by aiming and sending it.  Each of these steps can be handled artfully with practice, clumsily, or not at all.  The research suggests everybody totally misses some of the time, fumbles at other times, but with practice, sometimes with coaching, they can get better and better at this astonishingly important love skill.  So, the more you study and practice both your pitching love bids and catching your loved one’s bids for love connection, the better the relationship likely will be.

As always – Go and Grow with Love

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly

♥ Love Success Question
What kind of bids for love connecting are you good at making, and what kinds are you likely to miss or misunderstand?

Related posts:

1. Lying to Protect Those You Love ???
2. Connection Matching – A Love Skill
3. Wall and Catapult Love Destruction & How To Avoid It
4. Anti-Love, Non-Love & Real Love
5. Cycling Love for Lasting Love