Elder Love

Synopsis: This love success lesson focuses on – plan ahead questions; love for health and spirited living; mindset issues; elder self-love; don’t retire instead encore; age segregation; with love older better sex.

Plan Ahead Questions

As you grow older what are you going to do about love?  As you grow older what are you going to do about getting loved and giving love?  All kinds of love are to be considered here.  So, as you grow older, and then even more old what do you know about elder romantic love, sexual love, family love, friendship love, spiritual love, love of life, healthy self-love and all the other possible ‘loves’?

Whatever your age, what are you doing about loving those around you who are or may soon be classified as ‘seniors’?  What do you want others to do about you and love?  The sooner you have well-informed answers for these types of questions the better you can build toward a love rich, elder years life.

Here is another important question.  Is there something inside you that has sort of been telling you that as you become ‘elder’ you have to give up on love?  That is a sort of subtle, societal, subconscious programming that gets into the heads of a lot of people as they grow older.  A variation of that programming tells us we have to give up on certain kinds of love.  Many have been taught that it is not socially proper for elders to be interested or active in certain kinds of love or love with certain people.  Especially is that true if anything sexual might be involved.  Gerontology research mostly says – WRONG!  It is not healthy to think this way or abide by this type of thinking.

Love For Health and Spirited Living

The more healthy, real love older people get and give the longer they live and the healthier they stay; also the more spirited is their life.  One recent study showed that lonely, less loved, older adults were 45% more likely to die in any given year than were seniors who felt meaningfully connected in love relationships with others.

Being older with one or more meaningful love relationships and having an active social involvement is related to biological processes that increase health, improve and keep our physiological systems functioning, decrease inflammatory difficulties and help people avoid stress-related, unhealthy hormone development with its resulting physiological damage.  That summarizes the findings to date of an extensive, on-going, major English research project being conducted in epidemiology.

In the US it has been found that well loved, meaningful relationships significantly assist elders to normalize blood pressure and avoid all the difficulties that go with it.  Furthermore, meaningful, positive love relationships reduce the development of destructive chemical compounds in the human body that seem to occur more commonly in the lonely and less loved.  Other findings show that more spirited, zestful, energetic living occurs with more loving.  The ‘loveless’ live much more dispirited and the well loved and loving live much more ‘inspirited’ and ‘inspired’.

So, the message is clear.  If – or – when you’re an elder and you want to live healthy and lively keep putting lots of loving into your life.  To do that you will probably have to examine closely what your mindset is about age and aging.

Mindset Issues

You may have grown up in a family, or a neighborhood or a town in which it was common to think certain ways about older people.  In some parts of the world this is very positive and older people are honored for their wisdom, maturity and the good things they have offer those younger than themselves.  In other areas the general attitude is disdainful, disparaging, demeaning or even denigrating toward elders.  Possibly you grew up around people who were just neutral, vague, unconcerned, disinterested and dispassionate about older folks.  Whatever the case, what you grew up around may have given you a mindset toward your own aging that is not of your own choosing.

Especially important is examining to see if you were programmed to have negative images and stereotypes about being older because that can have a ‘self-fulfilling prophecy’ effect on your own life as an elder.  It also can greatly affect how you treat older people and how you may block yourself from receiving their enrichments.  Your mindset can have powerful negative or positive effects on your health and lifestyle.  If your mindset is positive it can assist you to an old-age that is lively, strong, agile, spirited, healthy and well loved.  Especially important are the following mindset areas.

Elder Self-Love

Coming out of his United Presbyterian Church Etheridge greeted and in a quite chipper mood conversed with a surprisingly large number of people.  He bragged unabashedly about a painting he had completed and he unashamedly flirted with females.  To the close friend who had driven him to church that day he said he was going to walk home because it was such a beautiful day.  He declined a dinner invitation because he had a speech to prepare and because he had a ‘hot date’ to get ready for that night.  Then he zestfully set off walking home which was about half a mile away.  Etheridge was 101 years old.

There is an almost endemic problem with elders living in overly youth-oriented cultures.  It is that in such cultures elderly people begin to lose healthy, self-love and with it self esteem, self-confidence, self-respect and a sense of self-worth.  In societies that revere and do well at loving, the older one gets the prouder and more healthfully self loving one may become.  When self-love diminishes there often is a diminishment of self-care, acceptance of assistance, increased social isolation, increased sense of inadequacy and increasing feelings of not being lovable or worthy of love.  As noted, when this happens biological health is negatively affected and illness and accident proneness also tend to increase.

Those elderly people who ‘own’ a healthy self-love tend not to experience negative biological effects nearly as strongly as do others.  Their psychological state tends to continue growing, remain strong, and be what some call healthfully ‘youthful’.  So, if you grow older rejecting any and all societal negative interpretations of your aging self you probably are doing yourself a big, biological and psychological flavor.

Don’t Retire – Encore

Another big mindset issue has to do with work and more exactly retirement.  It’s a sad fact that many people after retirement rapidly deteriorate and die much earlier than they might have.  Retirement seems to trigger a subconscious process in which people’s thinking about who they are triggers their biological functioning into dysfunction.  Retirement for all too many means starting to think things like “I’m no longer productive, contributing, proficient, influential, helpful, important or significant”.  Many try a lot of recreational activities and superficial socializing, and that helps for a while, but because it’s not seen as of substantial worth its helpful effect often diminishes after a while.

What to do about this?  Start an encore career or involvement.  Those who move on to encore actions tend not to deteriorate, tend to live longer, and tend to feel really good about their lives, perhaps even better than ever.  Those who have a purpose, donate themselves to a worthy endeavor, get intrigued with new learning or working on a challenge, a major pet project, or a cause do far better than the rest.  Many do this as volunteers giving time and energy to worthy endeavors.  Some do it to bring to life and nurture their long, dormant talents in the arts.  Some join writer’s workshops and begin writing ‘their book’, articles or blogs.

Still others get into consulting, advising and teaching in an area they already know.  Another group keep their careers going and never retire because they really love what they’ve been doing for many years.  They may cut down on the amount of work time or specialize in the most fun part of whatever their career was and leave the rest alone.  All this can be seen as an aspect of healthy, self-love but it also can involve a person’s love of life.

So, what is your encore involvement going to be?  It’s never too late to start an encore involvement, and probably it’s never too early to start thinking and planning what it will be.

Age Segregation

When older people allow or cause themselves to be age segregated they may live too limited and not in ways that are good for them.  There is a teaching in the East that translates something like “to become mature and wise, associate with your elders.  To retain youthfulness, associate with youth.  But to live best, associate with people of all ages”.

Some social scientists and certain public health theoreticians suggest being segregated by age groups is anti-natural, quite artificial and probably a big societal mistake.  Learning to be comfortable around and be enriched by people of all ages is a problem for those who mostly have been age segregated most of their lives.  Those who went to the type of school that practiced having no age grouped classes, and move ahead at your own speed education are thought to do better with age integration.  Do you agree that love can flow to and from people of any age and to live that way is a highly desirable blessing?  Do you agree that to live too age segregated may seem comfortable but it actually may be too life limiting?  Are you going to be sure not to live too age segregated?

With Love – Older Sex, Better Sex

Lots of older men and women think they have to give up on sexuality, so they do.  Certainly changes often are in order as one gets older but giving up on sex is totally uncalled for and decidedly not the healthiest way to go.  You see, sex is really good for you and maybe even better for you as you get older if you go about it in an age workable way.  What do you consider to be sexually normal and desirable for people of an older age?  Are you using standards that are too much the norms of youth or even middle age?  If what you consider to be sexually normal or desirable actually is more appropriate only for youth, you’re likely not to do so well.

Men in particular who have been societally programmed to believe sex is all about ‘penis in vagina’ intercourse and about climaxing have a particularly hard time adjusting to the rather different, best sexuality possible for elders.  When males learn ‘whole body sex’ and ‘love centered sex’ they do far better. (See category: Sex and Love )  Both men and women who think their body has become too unattractive or too ‘ugly’ could best start doing their sexuality in darker places or with more sexy clothing.

Women who think they can not lubricate sufficiently don’t need to believe their sexuality or femininity is lost but rather is usually just in need of more and longer erotic actions, plus the use of lubricants.  Erotic fantasy sharing, movie watching, reading, learning to think and act in ‘no pressure to perform or succeed’ ways, and to have an ‘everything can be enjoyably and okay’ mindset, plus the mindset of ‘there’s lots to enjoy in addition to, along with, and besides intercourse and orgasm’ – all or some of these often help people learn new and better ways of how older people can go about sexuality.

There are cultures in which older people seem to have great sex lives and very few sex problems.  Both men and women who engage in the sacred sex practices of two of the Hindu religion’s major divisions, the Tantric and the Shakta, tend to keep their bodies mostly healthy and their sexually functioning quite well every year of life, no matter how long they live.  You might want to investigate those.

Here’s another aspect of elder love with sex which shocks some, angers quite a few and delights others.  I know a small group of mostly females mostly in their 20s, 30s and 40s who especially like and seek sexual experiences with considerably older men and women.  People in that group say things like “older sex partners are more total and complete, and know a lot more about being loving”, “the mature know what they’re doing and the rest are just kids – cute but awkward, clumsy, unsophisticated, ignorant, sometimes stupid and sometimes dismally arrogant.  Who needs that”!  A 23-year-old I know bragged about spending weekends with a couple in their 70s saying it was the best sexuality and the most loving experience of her life.  She also told that the next week she was traveling with a professor of philosophy in his 80s and she can’t wait to get him in bed and then to talk and talk and talk.

For older participants who are ‘mixing it up’ with younger adults, the evidence seems to show outstanding results can occur.  Older men and women having sex with people 20 or more years their junior seem to get younger physically as well as mentally. (See Does "Cougar" Love Work?)  The younger participants often get more maturity and wisdom, and often some finer life experiences, so everyone usually benefits.

Sex and love go together and sometimes bring about what is called a May/ December romance and even enduring, healthy marriages.  Historically for hundreds of years this used to be the norm.  He was anywhere from 30 to 85 and his bride was anywhere from 13 to 27.  Less of an age difference was seen as shockingly unseemly.

Nowadays, in certain circles, couples who have much of an age difference are disapproved of or even rejected.  However, the evidence shows in many relationships, of the romantic type, where healthy, real love is a major component, age similarity is not needed.  The more democratic approach of letting people choose their own love-mates, irrespective of prejudicial categories of all types, seems to be more in alignment with nature and what is healthful.

Still another elder love/sex practice not talked about in many circles is the ancient, even biblical custom of what is sometimes called partner sharing.  Martha makes love, not just has sex, with both her retired husband and his also retired widower brother.  Sometimes all three go on vacations together.  They’re thinking about sharing a house and expenses together too.  Sarah was so thankful to be taken in by her elder sister and sister’s husband after her own husband passed away from a long illness.  At first they all just cuddled into the night, but that lead to other things which have been working out quite well for all of them for quite a few years.

It is to be noted that ‘partner sharing’ among older people mostly is done very quietly and secretly.  It seems to be much more common among social liberals, often ex-hippies, than among conservatives and traditionalists.  As mentioned, partner sharing is an old custom with early biblical references.  It was for ages a primary way to take care of the problem of widows and widowers, those who had been abandoned, the disabled, the infirm and also destitute relatives.

In patriarchal cultures it was recommended as virtuous for keeping alive family bloodlines because every female taken in was expected to bear the prime males of the house at least one child if possible.  In today’s world the practice of partner sharing, especially including romantic love and sex, seems to benefit a certain number of energetic, lively elder people who have lost their spouses.  Some social scientists think this partner sharing among lively, older people is likely to slowly keep growing in popularity because with the help of the health sciences there are more and more lively elders.

To wrap up then, the importance of lots of love in your life, all types with lots of different people is vital, healthy and enriching – no matter how old you are!

As always – Go and Grow with Love

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly

♥ Love Success Question Is your picture of your own life as an elder full of ‘vim and vigor’, zest, joy, sexiness, productivity and delight – or more the opposite?

Validation Love Stamp Giveaways

Synopsis: Your stamp explained; who controlled your validation; who owns it; okayness elections; self love stamping; your giveaways and get backs; owning and self validating as an adult.

It’s like there is this stamp that validates you as OK, as loved, as good enough or maybe even as better.

When you were growing up your parents, or whoever was raising you day by day, either ‘stamped you’ as OK or not OK.  According to how you got stamped you were either lovable or not lovable, wanted or not wanted, accepted or rejected, worthy or unworthy, good or bad, etc.  Then maybe when you got to be a teenager Mother Nature influenced you to turn the stamp over to your peers, age mates, or to older teens, etc.

It could be that somewhere along the way you thought you ‘fell in love’ and you turned your okayness and love-ability validation stamp over to your boyfriend or girlfriend, along with the stamp pad and all the ink.  In a new, huge way your lover was your validator of whether you were lovable and OK, or not.  You might have been taking the beginning steps on the road to getting good at self validation – until you felt you fell in love, and then that special other person’s validation trumped your own and everybody else’s.

Then again, maybe you were one of those people who only could get okayness from those with some kind of higher or special status.  Consequently, you might have done everything you could to conform to their ‘popularity standards’ no matter whether or not those reference points were full of pressure, peculiarity or even perversity.  Maybe like so many you got stuck at one of these levels where the opinions of others count way more than your independent, self derived opinion of yourself counts.  If so, that makes you what is called outer-dependent and other-dependent instead of inner-dependent and self-dependent.  The problem with outer-dependency is that it counters healthy self-love development.  Arrested development of healthy self-love gets in the way of healthy love relationship development which is enriched by co-equality, mutuality and democratic partnership –  in other words, development of the best kind, according to many specialists in this field.

I like to go back to the great, ancient, marvelously encompassing, superbly enlightening, incredibly comprehensive, three or more thousand-year-old admonition which simply instructs us to “Love Others as You Love Yourself”.  No wonder the one we call Jesus chose that and proclaimed it to be one of his only two great commandments.  It covers and explains so very much.  I suggest loving others as you love yourself is the secret key (hidden in plain sight) to the success of love relationships in general.

This admonition strongly relates to the idea of ‘validation love stamps’.  You see, if as an adult you give away your validation stamp to others for them to certify you as OK or not OK, as lovable or not, etc. you probably are not doing a very good job of the “As You Love Yourself” part of that extremely important and applicable, wisdom teaching.

Let’s look at one way of understanding the validation stamp process.  In childhood your okayness and love-ability validation comes from your parents and those who raise you.  For your survival you are dependent on them and their validation.  As adolescence is approached your okayness and love-ability, along with acceptability for inclusion, validation begins to come from your peers.  This inclusion desire sometimes seems to become of supreme importance.  However, when achieving true adulthood your primary validation comes from yourself.  Another way to say this is to say that as a true adult you get 51% (or more) of the vote on your own okayness.  If all the world votes you as OK, and you do not, you win.  Likewise, if all the world votes you as not OK, but you vote the opposite, you win the vote but not okayness.  This is only true if you have become primarily self validating.  If you stamp yourself as OK, you are, and you feel it and you act that way.  This does not mean that you ignore the rest of the world.  A wise person takes in counsel, viewpoints, etc. of others but doesn’t give them a personal stamp of primary approval.

The history of the great contributors to the world is a history of those who retained their stamp of self approval even when it seemed like most of the world was trying to take it away from them.  Certainly your most beloved and dear family members, and your closest, trusted friends, and maybe occasionally even your enemies should get votes in your okayness election which, by the way, happens everyday.  However, in most situations it’s best if your own, independent vote on yourself out-votes everybody else’s.

This means, in regard to validation, it not only is okay for you to get back what you perhaps gave away but it’s essential to your health and well-being to be the keeper of your own validation stamp.  Every validation ‘giveaway’ can become a ‘get back’.  Those who really love you want you to have the ability to validate yourself.  Their praises and compliments, etc. often help but your self-validation will count more.  That doesn’t make you egotistical, stuck up or a snob.  It just will make you self-accurate and able to more freely do your love from a self-dependent, co-equal stance.

A few words of caution are in order.  Sometimes it is ‘the internal voter who was programmed into our head’ from our past who we give our validation stamp away to.  If we’re thinking “what would they think, or say” and none of them are in our life anymore, it’s time for an ‘inner election system redistricting’.  Concern about peer approval subconsciously may relate back to the in-group of kids from your seventh grade.  By-the-way, we still can honor and value our parents, grandparents and everybody else in family and friendship networks without giving them too many votes in our okayness and love-ability elections.

In olden times if the king, or some other ‘royal’, stamped you okay, you were.  If a royal stamped you not OK, you weren’t; and there wasn’t much you could do about it.  That sort of thing is what motivated a lot of people to come to the New World and get with this idea we call democracy.  Today you may give away your validation stamp of approval, okayness and love-ability to all sorts of groups who will be glad to take it in order to control you, get money, sex or other valuables from you, and even make you one of their minions.  This can happen in business, religion, politics, status seeking, money, the arts, sports, fashion, the professions and in just about any group you can think of.

Remember, you don’t have to let them possess your stamp or control your sense of inner self-validation.  Until quite recently, and still in many circles, being married was a validating stamp for women.  For men validation was, and still is, mostly about power and status symbols of some kind or another.  Classifications and symbols can be nice but they may not tell you much about substance.

So now, the challenge is to think this over and examine yourself as to whether or not you are unnecessarily and unhealthfully giving away your validating love stamp to others to make you OK or not OK.  Perhaps you are doing a good job of internal self-validation, in which case, what you just read will be a good reinforcement for that.  If not, I suggest you start asking yourself who you give away your stamp to, and what are you going to do about that?

As always – Go and Grow in Love

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly

♥ Love Success Question
With those you love are you influencing them to ‘own’ and ‘practice’ their own self-validating?

Connection Matching - A Love Skill

Synopsis: This mini-love-lesson teaches you about love matchers at work; ‘head’ matching; ‘gut’ matching; ‘genital’ matching; ‘heart’ matching; and jointly growing your connection matching.

Love Matchers At Work

Imagine that you are at a college sponsored weekend workshop for people who want to learn how to improve their love connection matching.  You’re in a small group discussion and you hear the following things:

‘Head’ Matching

Sophia says, “I thought he was just right for me. He was super sexy, oh so sweet and kind, and amaze!, amaze! he showed his emotions very easily and well for a guy.  The problem emerged later.  I hate to say it but he just wasn’t smart enough, and the love that I thought would follow the infatuation just didn’t show up.  We couldn’t really talk except in very simple ways.  I discovered that a love-mate I might spend the rest of my life with has to be bright and relish the exuberance of intelligent discourse, or at least be interested in learning to do that . I need that kind of stimulation; it’s just who I am.”

Learn from Sophia.  Are you in need of a good intellectual or mental match for making a good, lasting love connection?  For a mate, a good friend, or a good close family member you really ‘click’ with, will you do best with a good ‘head’ match to go along with a good ‘heart’ match?  If your mental matching isn’t right or compatible enough what will that mean for your relationship?

‘Gut’ Matching

Jacob remarked, “Regretfully, I broke it off with Ava although in many ways, at least on the surface, she seemed perfect.  Ava was bright, and wonderfully educated and we could intellectually talk for hours.  Also Ava was super-sexual, even more than me.  Besides those attributes she was fairly affectionate, rather thoughtful, forgiving and understanding, and I guess you could say kind of loving.  Sounds perfect, doesn’t it?

“Well, unfortunately Ava had no guts.  She was a coward about everything, except maybe sex.  Also her range of emotions seemed kind of narrow.  Besides getting scared about all sorts of things, and being sort of sweet or sexy, she was emotionally mostly flat.  She just didn’t get passionate or emotionally involved about much of anything, and wasn’t willing to ‘step out of her comfort zone’.  That’s the reverse of me.  I get excited about all sorts of things.  So our time together got to be rather boring.  Ava helped me realize I need my love-mate to have and show lots of strong feelings and get emotional about all the big, important things in life.  Otherwise, life just passes you by, and I refuse to live that way.”

Learn from Jacob.  Are you in need of a love-mate who, at the psychological ‘gut’ level, shows lots of spirit, knows and shows their emotions well, is somebody who can feel deeply and maybe also quite bravely explore life?  Or maybe you need a person with a milder ‘gut’ makeup.  Being well matched at the ‘gut’ or emotions level as well as at the ‘heart’ love level can be ever so important.

‘Genital’ Matching

Olivia commented, “I broke it off with Mason because, truth be told, sex is a lot more important to me than is was to him.  Until I admitted that to myself, I thought I was going to marry Mason.  I kept thinking sex would get better and become more essential in his life too.  We talked it over and I let him know I wanted more powerful intimacy, lots of variety, and big sexual adventures.

“He said all the right things but his actions didn’t change much.  It was like our parts just didn’t match.  I think my heart knew all along, because I never felt like we really connected at the core heart level either but I kept thinking we would. . I guess I was fooling myself because so many outside parts did seem to match up pretty well.  We were from the same background and both my mother and my friends liked him.  But this big, important, very personal side of me just didn’t fit with that  part of him.”

Learn from Olivia.  How well matched can you and your love-mate get to be erotically?  Poor matching at the psychological, ‘genital’ level can and often does lead later to ‘cheating’, affairs, bringing home an STD, and a growing vulnerability to other seductions.  It also can lead to repeated fights or passive/aggressive friction, and abrasive draining ways of relating.

‘Heart’ Matching

Noah smiled and said, “You all are really helping me think Isabella and I may be really right for each other.  We connect well at all four levels.  Head-wise we talk about all sorts of things and seem to be a really good, intellectual match for each other.  Gut-wise, we cry and laugh and really share our feelings – pretty much all the time.  She’s better at it than I am, but I’m opening up more and more.  And what you’re calling the genital level, well, we are a little naïve there but were excited about exploring all sorts of erotica together.

Best of all is how we are at the heart level.  I’ve never felt so much connection and deep respect for anyone like I do with Isabella.  I see how wonderful she is and I’ve never felt so many good emotions as when we’re together.  We’re so much more alive than we were before we met.  We even differ with each other well.  We both want to learn how to love each other in the best ways, and we’re working at that like by being at this workshop.”

Learn from Noah.  Are you working at and getting good at connecting at the heart level?  It’s important to connect at all four of the levels talked about here, but most important of all is connecting really well at the heart level.

Growing Your Connection Matching

Hear what Emma had to say.  “When William and I first met he was all about what you are calling ‘head’ stuff.  He was Mr. High IQ.  But he did it in a fun and interesting way. He got me into reading all sorts things I’d never even heard of, and got me excited about ‘the world’.  Then I discovered he had another well-developed part.  He opened me up to wild, crazy sex and what a scary, wonderful universe that turned out to be.  Then it was my turn.

“Sort of by using sexuality, I led him into getting into his emotions and sharing all our intimate feelings together.  Then intellectually and emotionally we started studying love because we knew we were ‘falling into it’ with each other.  So, I guess you could say William got me into the head and genital stuff and I got him into the heart and gut stuff.  I think it often works that way with men and women”.

Learn from Emma.  Are you good at opening yourself up to what a love-mate, or for that matter a friend might be able to introduce you to, and can you recognize what your own inner, psychological ‘head’, ‘heart’, ‘gut’ or ‘genital’ levels have to offer?  In a love relationship are you willing to work at connecting with another at all four levels?  One of the many, beautiful benefits of becoming a loving couple is how both people can open up new worlds to one another.

Know that most couples don’t match exactly, but rather have high, medium or low connection matching in the four areas we are exploring here. What predicates the development of a really good, healthy, love relationship is the willingness and ability to develop and expand areas that might need some improvement for better connection matching.   In choosing a love-mate it usually is so helpful to consider how good your connection matching is or what the distance between you might be in all of the four areas.

Know that there are many lasting, excellent, love unions where people only connect at the heart level and possibly the genital level too.  In those situations other connection matches can be made with deep, good friendships which satisfy needs at other levels.  Know also that when two people in a love relationship decide to work at exploring and developing their connection matching at all levels they can do it.  And in doing so they can greatly expand the world they get to live in together.

As always – Go and Grow with Love

Dr. J Richard Cookerly

♥ Love Success Question
When thinking about psychological connecting in a relationship at the ‘head’, ‘heart’, ‘gut’ and ‘genital’ levels, which do you think you’re best at and which might you most need to develop further?

Related posts:

1. Talking to Feelings First, Then Topics – A Love Skill
2. Checking It Out – As a Love Skill
3. Intercourse Absent Lovemaking – a Love Skill 

Yourself As a Great Source of Love Gifts

Mini-Love-Lesson  #261

Synopsis: You may be your own best source of behavioral love gifting; what the idea of love gifting yourself to others is all about; and how your love gifts are important to love relating are aptly dealt with here.

Your Most Personal Gift of Love?

Do you agree that the more personal the gift the better is the gift’s love effect?  Do you know that among the most personal of gifts can be the gifts of yourself?  Are you aware that especially this can be true for growing healthy, real, love relationships?

Your finest love gift can be yourself, along with your real self, your growing and improving self and your best self.  Those things can be true because the more you give of yourself to someone who loves you, in a sense, the more they have of you, know about you and the more they can experience love with you.  Also, the more you give of the personal, real you the greater the growth of closeness and heart-felt bonding can occur with you.  Conversely, the more you do not give of yourself the more likely there will be an emotional distancing and disconnection.  So with that in mind, let’s ask two questions.  Do you know much about giving of yourself and do you know what the real you has to offer?

The Real You and Your Many Fine Gifts

Those who would do love with you want to know the real you and experience the real you so they can do real love relating with the real you.  Therefore, if you love someone, the challenge is twofold.  First, is to  be real and not fake.  Second, is to work to become your best self and, as you do that, keep giving of yourself to whomever you would love.

So long as you are truthful and sincere, your words and actions reveal and consequently give of yourself.  Conversely, if you are untruthful and insincere, your words and actions likely will manifest only fake love and make real love less likely.  If this effort to hide the real you is discovered, only a phony you will be revealed.

The many fine gifts you have to offer are accomplished by doing behaviors.  They are done through the behaviors of truthful talking and sincere and/or experimental action-taking.  You are capable of making a lot of different love-giving, truthful statements plus doing a great variety of sincere and experimental loving actions.  This enables you to do a lot of different kinds of love gifting.  So, let’s take a brief look at just five of the less thought about gifts of love you have to offer (see “Love Active Enough?”).

The Gift of Affirmation

You give this gift by first looking for what you can honestly see as worthy, of value and/or positive in another.  Then spend a little time appreciating what you have observed and time to find the words you can use to speak of it.  Then with those words you can give honest praise, compliments and perhaps thankful statements to the person you are gifting with your affirmational love.  This can be done privately, or in front of others or in the form of a possible keepsake type note.

Affirmation is one of the most important ways to love a great many people especially if they could use some increase in self-valuing.  By the way, whatever you find to appreciate in another reveals a certain amount of your own, inner workings and so that is a gift of yourself (see the “Affirmation Love” chapter in Recovering Love).

The Gift of Listening with Love

Have you heard the old saying that proclaims we were given two ears and only one mouth because listening is twice as important as talking?  This especially has relevance when a loved one seems to need or want to tell us something, share their emotions or just know by experiencing it that they are being heard.

It is very important to know loving listening can not be done just mentally.  It must have heart in it.  This heart-full quality must be well and often expressed via quiet but very active expressional love behaviors, via facial expressions, gestures posture changes, voice tones, etc.  Passive, inactive, blank and stone face listening can be quite anti-loving.  Link “Listening with Love”  Link “Listening With Love and IN and OUT Brain Functions”

The Gift of Loving Touch

Whether it is a gentle, soft caressing or a good solid, full-body hug, a simple comforting hand holding, a one arm buddy hug or a loving full body massage – love via touch is known to change our body and brain chemistry for the better.  Loving touch brings closeness, relational love bonding and is very assistive in both physical and emotional healing processes.  When loving touch is done well and often, the research shows it to be quite assistive in life lengthening (see “50 Varieties of Love Touch” and “Touching With and For Love – A Super Important Love Skill”).

The Gift of Receiving Love Well

It is a gift to receive a gift of love well.  This means focusing on it, appreciating it and what went into it to come into your life, as well as the thoughts and feelings behind it.  Gifts come in several categories.  Object gifts basically are things, experience gifts are like a surprise birthday party, favors and assistance gifts are like someone paying off your student debt, and gifts of yourself are like what we are focusing on here.  It is important for the health of love relationships to notice, sincerely appreciate and actively receive them all.  This is the gift of good reception (“How Receiving Love Well Gives Love Better”, “Removing Your Hidden Blocks to Receiving Love Fully” and the “Receptional Love” chapter in Recovering Love ).

The Gift of Self Disclosure

Letting someone you love know you in personal, intimate ways is one of the finest of love gifts.  It is essential for growing closeness and for creating some of the deepest of love experiences, plus it often comes with a very sweet joyfulness.  Letting someone know your private, personal, not usually shared thoughts, feelings, behaviors, know the positives and negatives of your past, present and possible future and every other little and large thing about you is some of what is giving the gift of self-disclosure for love.  Of course, it is important that you receive with love the self-disclosures of those you would do love with.

If you have been taught to think poorly of yourself and what you have to offer, or you just have not discovered what a bundle of miracles you are, you may not realize how much you have to offer and how much it is needed and wanted.  Perhaps the want and need for what you have to offer is in other circles than the ones you are traveling in now (see “Intimate Love”, “Intimate Love, What Everyone Needs to Know”, “Growing Closeness – A Love Skill” and the “Self-Disclosure Love” chapter in Recovering Love).

Manifesting Yourself Where and With Whom?

If those you focus on now do not seem to care much about you or what you have to offer, you have some choices to consider.  You can try to get through to them in new, bigger, more powerful ways.  You can go looking for others who will want to see and relate to you in deeper ways, value you, and grow to love you as you do love with them better.  You can learn to love yourself better and in more self-dependent ways if needed.  You also can do all three of these, or any two.  It is also important that you self-disclose to yourself the many miracles that make you up and the many ways you can experience the good of yourself, along with the many fine ways you can come to be.  The better you do this the better you can do well with others and the better they are likely to do with you.

One More Little Thing

You might want to go looking for compatible others to talk over what you have just read.  That may take some searching in new and different places, or perhaps not.  In any case, if you do talk this over with others please mention this site and its many mini-love-lessons.  We are grateful and thank you for that.

As always – Go and Grow with Love

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly


Quotable Question: If you don’t give of yourself to others you love, how much are they likely to give of themselves to you?

Destroyers of Love - The 7 Big "Ds" Most Likely to Ruin Your Love Relationships

Synopsis: This mini love lesson starts with a thought about how to use this extremely important information; then describes each of the seven most destructive kinds of behavior that can ruin any and all kinds of love relationships; and ends with a note on knowledge as protection power.

Using This Info

This information has proven extremely valuable in assisting people in various kinds of love relationships to avoid failure, maintain stability and recover from love relationship difficulty and dysfunction.  It comes from love-related research showing seven major types, or categories of behavior which destroy love relationships of all kinds including romantic love, mate love, family love, friendship love, parent/child love and healthy self-love.

Working to understand and then reduce and eliminate these seven destroyers gives any love relationship a far better chance of surviving.  Keeping away from these behaviors can set free a love relationship to grow strong and marvelous.  I suggest you study it closely and help your loved ones to do likewise.

T H E   7  D’s

1.    Deficient Demonstrations of Love

The number one destroyer of love relationships is not demonstrating love enough.  This includes not demonstrating love frequently enough, effectively enough, with enough vitality, with enough variety and just plain not demonstrating love enough at love critical times.  When love is not sufficiently demonstrated or given, love relationships can and do wither, loved ones can become love-malnourished and general relational health often will quietly, subtly and dangerously diminish until it dies.  Furthermore, this destroyer sets up vulnerability to other destroyer difficulties occurring which, at best, can lead to very unsatisfying relationships and, at worst, can lead to the very painful end of a love relationship.

2.    Demeaning

Demeaning behaviors are those which work to lower a person’s healthy self-love by devaluing, degrading and debasing their personal worth.  Demeaning has two major subcategories called (A) Derisiveness and (B) Disdain.  Demeaning behaviors are the number two destroyers of love relationships.  They often result in increasing conflict, relational dissonance, aggressive and passive aggressive retaliations, rebellion, and the demise of positive demonstrations of love – thus, destroying the love relationship.  They especially are destructive when they occur via frequent displays of anger, expressions of contempt and verbal aggressiveness.

(A)  Derisive behaviors include criticism of all types, shaming, blaming, mocking, ridiculing, scornfulness, belittling, discounting, fault-finding, using putdowns, humiliation, condescension, disparagement, castigation, being insulting, disapproving, impugning, denouncing, repudiating, dis-affirming, degrading and making personal attacks of any kind.  Most of these destroyers are carried out verbally but also often accompanied by negative expressional communications including very negative facial expressions and highly negative tones of voice.

(B)  Disdainful behaviors include showing contempt, disregard, disrespect, indifference, indignation, slighting, snubbing, sneering, spurning, making slurs, discounting, treating as trivial, insignificant, inferior or inadequate, being insolent, patronizing, paternalistic, condescending, arrogant, rude, and being non-attentive to another’s essence and efforts.

3.    Defensiveness

Defensiveness starts by too easily feeling attacked, blamed, controlled, manipulated, victimized and unfairly or unlovingly dealt with usually when a loved one brings up a problem, dissatisfaction or difficulty.  Then dysfunctional reactions commonly begin which include rationalized explanations, counter-proving, counterattacking, becoming dogmatic and dictatorial, negative ‘mind reading’, denial, ‘yes-but-ing’, dodging, excuse making, rejecting responsibility and co-responsibility, becoming threatened, and any other behavior which ‘defends’ the person feeling attacked.

These behaviors, in effect, avoid recognizing that a loved one has had difficulty, is experiencing hurt and distress, wants caring love, can use help in catharsis and/or examining a negative experience, and probably wants to be empathetically treated.  Being defensive avoids showing love during a possible critical incident when loving treatment (not to be confused with surrendering or false agreement) is most useful.  Healthy self-love usually is needed to allow a person to see that giving love, instead of feeling attacked and getting defensive is a far better response.

4.    Distancing and Blocking

Distancing and blocking are two related phenomena with the same end-result.  Distancing refers to behaviors which cause emotional distance between people in a relationship.  It often results in people feeling alone, unwanted, lonely, rejected and considerably unloved. Blocking has to do with excluding someone previously included or someone who hopes for or expects some type of inclusion behavior to be shown to them.  Experiencing distancing and blocking helps people feel both rejected and devalued.

Perceiving being ‘tuned out’, having a ‘cold shoulder’ experience, getting postponed or having a loved one ‘escape or run away’ and be unavailable are common forms of blocking.  Also Involved here are actions which diminish or block a loved one from participation in sharing, having meaningful interaction, feeling included, wanted, desired and in partnership with the person practicing these destroyers of love.

Blocking also prohibits a person from working jointly on relationship issues and inhibits emotional intercourse and intimacy in love relating.  The end result of both distancing and blocking is to divide people in a love relationship from one another, either temporarily or eventually permanently.

5.    Dependency Enhancement

Anything that causes a person to become more dependent on another and, thus, lessens their self-dependence can be included here.  When this occurs a person has less to offer the love relationship and, therefore, the combined strength and teamwork of the people in love relationship is diminished.  Two subcategories of this destroyer of love are:

(A) Dependency Submission which has to do with actions allowing and assisting in one’s own subjugation and resulting in destructive, emotional dependency in a relationship.

Actions of unnecessary sacrifice, giving in, surrendering, postponing one’s own needs, self suppression, giving away one’s power, accepting low self-worth descriptions and definitions, avoiding self-growth challenges, accepting dictatorial authority, remaining undeveloped, cooperating with demeaning treatment, becoming self-demeaning, escaping into de-powering addictions, disallowing one’s own essential democratic equality, dodging maturation and it’s incumbent strengthening, becoming co-dependent, and letting one’s self be manipulated by guilt and shame are included here.

Not disclosing one’s own wants and needs, unrevealed dissatisfactions, repeatedly avoiding conflict to ‘keep the peace’, etc. and consciously or subconsciously being in denial of difficulty and dysfunction eventually backfires into either a breakup or a breakdown.

(B)  Dependency Subjugation has to do with actions which attempt to make or enhance another person’s dependency and limit their healthy self-dependency.  Involved here are words and actions which assist a person devalue themselves, feel and act less adequate, confident or self-reliant, overprotection, promoting ‘learned helplessness’, conveying to a loved one that they are weak, helpless, fragile, delicate, incompetent, incapable, unable to improve or be adequate are all common here.

Enabling destructive addictions, assisting someone avoid responsibility, doing for them when doing for themselves would be more beneficial, needless rescuing, babying, promoting the avoidance of challenge, hard tasks or opportunities are all frequent in this subcategory.  In the extreme, very degrading and debasing behavior may occur.  Generally anything that works to undermine a person’s development of their own potentials or maturation fits into this subcategory.  Not to be included in this category are doing favors, providing assistance, showing kindness, giving surprising unexpected help, etc. unless those things are done in such a way as they operate to undermine confidence development, self-reliance and healthy self-love.

6.    Deception

Lying, falsely representing oneself, hiding significant aspects of one’s self or one’s actions, denial of important truths, pretense, betrayal, hypocrisy, insincerity, duplicity, fraudulent actions, providing dis-information, going back on one’s word, deliberate misrepresentation, keeping secrets, presenting a false image, deceptive manipulation, circumnavigating around truth, non-disclosure of relevant material, cheating, and any other way that prevents the truth of one’s actual self and life to accurately be known is involved here.  If an aspect of deception is involved real love has difficulty reaching a person.

‘Receptional love’ is blocked when the deceived person knows the love coming to them may be for a false persona and, therefore, not for their real self.  The deceived person often vaguely senses something is wrong and feels at least somewhat unsure of the love in the relationship.  Upon discovering significant deception, feelings of betrayal, abandonment, desertion, destabilization and not really being loved become common.  Even minor, discovered deceptions can lead to growing mistrust, decreased cooperation, increased ‘checking up on’, guardedness and excess anxiety all of which tends to erode a love relationship.

7.    Depredation

Depredation has to do actions which harm, decrease, destroy, violate and lay waste to another person’s well-being, or which extract from a loved one that which is or may be highly valuable and important to them for selfish gain or advantage.  While these acts are less common in true love relationships (they may be an indication that a relationship might be founded on something other than love) they are among the most destructive of all relational behaviors.

Depredation behaviors include doing overt physical harm to a loved one, destruction of possessions, attempts to ruin a loved one’s other important relationships, wasting or plundering another’s resources, invading, stalking, sabotaging a loved one’s desired opportunities, goals and achievements, invading privacy, destructively using another’s belongings, dissipating another’s assets, theft , larceny, forced sexuality, and any other behavior which tends to harm a supposedly loved one’s life especially for the perpetrator’s own purposes.

In pronounced situations this can include marked psychological abuse, physical violence, rape, ransacking property, looting possessions, harming another’s family or friends, markedly interfering with another’s work, acting to physically hurt, over power, control or imprison, maiming and even murder.  In lesser, but still important, situations depredation may include spying, spreading negative rumors or propaganda, getting someone in trouble with the authorities, and any act which misuses, spoils or wastes important aspects of another’s life.

Minor levels and sometimes beginning levels of depredation can include smaller acts of revenge, purposeful infliction of unwanted pain, acts which are destructively thoughtless, cruel and punishing, acting spitefully, repeatedly wasting or misusing another’s resources, and taking pleasure in treating a supposedly loved one in selfish, harsh and malicious ways to their detriment.  Depredation behavior usually means that real and healthy love, on the part of one doing these acts of depredation, is corrupted, weak or nonexistent.  Remember, that healthy, real and sufficient love tends to compel a person toward acting in ways that promote the well-being of the loved one and, therefore, avoids acts of depredation (See “The Definition of Love” and “A Functional Definition of Love” at this site).

Knowledge as Protection Power

Knowledge is power and in this case power to protect you from the 7 D’s.  Using this important knowledge can help you navigate around traps that ruin many love relationships.  Remember, one of the functions of healthy, real love is protection.  So, I suggest you study the 7 D’s closely and then go forward better protected.  Talking about the 7 D’s with loved ones might double your protection and help you go on to much safer and freer love.

As always – Go and Grow in Love

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly

♥ Love Success Question
Do you see any of your own ways of acting in a love relationship as the 7 D’s and, if so, what are you going to do about it?

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frank

February 15th, 2016 at 18:41 | #1

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admin

March 7th, 2016 at 12:01 | #2

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What is Love Dr. Cookerly does not have an email newsletter at this time, but may in the near future. By all means do follow us via RSS if you wish, though.

Mike
July 30th, 2016 at 02:33 | #3
True. Complicated. Useful? The “7 d’s” arise from the great destroyer of relationships: indignation. Jesus said “offenses will come”, one of the least appreciated things He ever said, and most certainly one of the most profound. It was a warning – ‘offences will come, how will you respond?’ indignantly?. He was the ultimate proponent of responding in love vs responding indignantly. The truth of the matter is that indignation as a INTERNAL response is utterly avoidable. Yet to RESPOND indignantly OUTWARDLY destroys relationships. For relationships to ‘work’ forbearance and forgiveness, rather, are the indispensable tools needed. Only people who are sound, grounded and ‘whole’ can avoid the indignant sorts of responses (the “7d’s”) that tear relationships apart and instead respond with forbearance and forgiveness and thereby contiguring to the soundness and success of a relationship. “Sound, grounded and whole” ?? and just who is “sound, grounded me whole”? …. precious few it would seem. Yet when once we find ourselves having done the “7-d’s” and thereby having contributed to the denigration of a relationship can we ‘fix’ relational mess we have created by learning a long list of ‘don’t do this and do do that’? Doubtful, because such an approach does not create the underlying wholeness and soundness needed to enable us to respond with forbearance and forgiveness. Trying to follow rules without first being whole and sound is like trying to enter into a car race without gas in the tank – you cannot ‘run’ on empty. When once we have found ourselves having contributed to the demise of relationships the key to ‘fixing’ it is first getting whole and sound – a ‘tall order’ to be sure BUT indispensable to true, thriving and lasting relationships. Getting whole and sound is a lengthy process, to be sure, and seemingly impossible at times, yet even tiny strides in that direction yield good fruit and many tiny strides ultimately make for large gains. Don’t ignore ‘rules’ but don’t make the mistake of trying to follow rules without getting yourself made sound me whole as well.