Pet Love

Synopsis: Pets who teach love; Healing with pet love; the super importance of pet love; the social good pets do; the importance of pets as love receivers; lifesaver pets; and pets showing us that to give is to receive.

Love Teachers

The fire in the middle cast a warm, friendly glow all around the tepee and on the people in it.  All were silent as the elder wise-woman in her beautiful, white, beaded, deerskin dress intoned an ancient chant.  Then she told her clan’s story of the first time the Great Spirit love-bonded wolf cubs with their ancient people.  It seems that humans did not know enough about how to love so the Great Spirit put what would become dogs into the world to teach us how to love.

As every tribe member knew, dogs know how love better than all other creatures.  So it was that dogs taught us to nuzzle, and cuddle, and caress, and do love-play, and share food and shelter, and to be patient, and to protect, and to bond, and to lick wounds for healing, and to work together for common good, and to feel joy in uniting and sadness at parting, and relief in reconnecting, and even in times of great peril how to lay down our lives for one another.  Yes, the Great Spirit put dogs into the world to teach us to love and to love well.  The wisdom teacher of the tribe went on to explain that all animals have things to teach us and most important are the lessons of the dogs.

I was only 17 when one summer through a scouting program I went to stay a couple weeks with Native American people and heard this tribal-teaching-story.  Ever since I’ve had at least one dog – sometimes five plus puppies, from time to time cats and kittens, and once a horse.  Then there was a blind squirrel, a rescued armadillo, a recovering raccoon, along with assorted small, injured birds, a clever crow, lizards, turtles, salamanders, skinks, newts and a few small, brightly colored snakes – all released when recovered.  Is it any wonder that the most beloved woman of my heart was the large-mammal-docent at our local zoo, and at her instigation we road a highly valued and well-cared-for elephant through mountain terrain in Thailand.  She is quite the love-teacher also.

Healing Pet Love

Many years later the Native American, wise woman’s story rushed back into my awareness when I was in England doing research on how love is dealt with in psychotherapy there.  That was when the English were introducing dogs into hospital, surgical, recovery wards.  They had discovered that surgery patients healed faster with fewer complications when the patients had a dog to love and be loved by.

In my own practice I often work with very lonely people.  Some have been hurt in relationships and consequently are protectively reluctant to mix with other people.  I frequently recommend getting one or more mammal-type pets.  We talk about how to find an appropriate and good animal-match.  Almost always the ones who follow through on my recommendation start rapidly improving shortly after acquiring a dog, or cat or another mammal.  Perhaps I’m prejudiced but dogs seem to get the best results in these cases but it somewhat depends on the ‘personality’ traits of the animal.  However, people with all sorts of dire conditions start getting better with various pets.  Miracles of recovery and stunning improvement from serious physical and emotional maladies especially seem to occur with horses in the picture.

In my area of Texas, and elsewhere, there are equine therapy clinic stables with patient rehabilitation riding and caring for the horses programs that get outstanding results.  Children, teens and adults, as well as the elderly, who suffer depression along with other debilitating and even deadly physical diseases and conditions are known to make surprising improvements once they bond with a loving pet.  Even criminals have less recidivism when given dogs to raise, train and love.  Good results also are attained with the smarter birds like parrots, crows and cockatoos.  As many a healer knows, love heals and the species the love comes from doesn’t seem to matter a great deal, though higher order mammals usually are the most successful.

The Super Importance of Pet Love

The importance of a pet in some people’s lives cannot be over-stated.  Repeatedly I have heard from patients, often with tears in their eyes, “Getting a pet saved my life”.  I have seen loving pets make crippled children smile for the first time in months, cause angry morose teenagers to start to be kind, the brokenhearted and isolated begin to socialize again, and the severely mentally ill start back toward reality.

The Social Good

Considerable evidence suggests people who have a close, truly loving relationship with a pet are much less likely to commit suicide, murder, violent crime, and much less likely to be destroyed by drug addiction.  Pet lovers tend to live longer and healthier, and rate themselves as happier in life than do others.  Evidence also suggests children, raised loving and being loved by pets, as adults do better at love relationships of all types.  They also tend to be much better at giving and receiving physical affection than is the general norm.

Couples who are active in loving pets together seem to have better relationships with one another and their children.  There is no doubt that pets help improve the mobility of the elderly and also the evidence suggests elderly pet owners heal faster from injuries, experience less infections, and report more joy in life than others of similar age.

The Importance of Love Receivers

Cat owners often speak of their feline pets modeling independence for them.  Of course, cats also do a good job of getting themselves petted, picked up, cuddled and otherwise loved on.  In the process they show the ‘reception of loving behavior pleasure’ by purring and often rubbing against and playing with their humans in what seems like return gestures of love.

De-scented skunks, rabbits, goats, sheep, ponies, monkeys and a host of other higher order animals have been known to do things that pretty much seem like receiving and giving behaviors of love.  The neurosciences have shown that similar areas of the brain activate, in both mammalian pets and humans, when giving and receiving love actions.  Also there is evidence to suggest ‘love-conveying actions’ in humans, mammals and certain birds, result in very similar, healthy, brain chemistry changes.  Thus, the natural, powerful process we call ‘love’ is evidenced as occurring in a good many species besides humans.  Yes, the data points to our pets being ‘creatures of love’ just like we are.

Lifesaver Pets and Others

Pets save lives.  There are countless, true stories of pets saving human lives.  Whether it’s waking the family when the house is on fire, or dragging the baby out from under a collapsed structure, or attacking the bear who is mauling its master, or finding the child lost in the woods, or swimming under and supporting a drowning man, or going for help when finding its mistress unconscious on the floor, or … well, you get the idea.  Arguably they do this out of love just as loving humans do.

Animals have been known to repeatedly experience severe, excruciating pain or physical deprivation, even unto death, in an attempt to save people who, it can be said, they are love-bonded with.  A pet dog that continues to be maimed by a lion as it stands between its wounded master and a hungry pride is but one of the many examples of this.  Skeptics say this just is instinct but is not love born of instinct?   There even are examples of animals saving strangers (consider the report of dolphins that support and push a drowning human to shore) is this ‘agape’ love or altruistic love?

To Give Is to Receive

I heard a severe, chronic pain patient say, “I’m alive today not because of all the medicine and therapy I got but because they gave me a blind cat to take care of.  The medicine and therapy helped but it was having a cat to love, and later be loved by, that made the difference as to whether I would stay alive or not.  Now I have a bunch of cats and other pets to love and be loved by.  My life is joy in spite of the pain”.  Receiving love well is ‘giving back the gift of love’.

Researchers were surprised to discover that when people give love to others the givers get healthier.  Of course, the givers need receivers, preferably appreciative receivers.  Many a pet fulfills this role quite well.  Also our pet animals need receivers too and humans can fulfill that role.  By the way, do you know about the great ape they taught sign language, when asked “what do you want” requested a kitten.  The smart, loving ape turned out to take excellent, loving care of the kitten feeding, petting, protecting and gently playing with it daily.  So it seems it is not only humans that benefit from giving and receiving pet love.

I think there must be at least a thousand other things that would be good to say about pet love and the good that it provides us.  Certainly there are at least 10,000 other wonderful and inspiring true stories exemplifying pet love and its marvels.  Space prohibits, but let me add one thought.  Take a little time to give serious attention to pet love and its importance.  Then, if you want to add more love and its benefits to your life, if you don’t already have one, get a pet.  In fact, get two so they have each other when you’re away.  If you do have a pet, go on, love it as soon as you can and over and over again – you both will benefit!

As always – Go and Grow in Love

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly

♥ Love Success Question What actions might you take to make pet love a bit more of a joy in your life than it is now?

Listening with Love

Synopsis: This is both a mini-love-lesson and a Rating Test which aims to get you to attend to 12 important points concerning becoming a really good at listening with love; and you can use it to rate yourself, as to your love listening skills.

Rate Yourself

Listening well to those you love is one of the best ways to demonstrate that you love, care and value them.  Sometimes one of the most important ways to feel that you are loved is to experience someone who loves you doing a really good job of listening to you.  But what really constitutes good, love-filled listening?  To find out take this 12 item test, rating yourself as you go.  Each item will help you know a major way you can nourish and help improve any and all love relationships through being good at listening with loving.

Test Instructions

Carefully read each of the following tests questions.  Each question mentions one of the factors associated with quality listening with love.  As you read try seriously to think about how well you do what the test statement refers to when you are talking face-to-face with someone you love.  Then with each question look at answers A through F, and pick the one that comes closest to what you think accurately rates you on how well you listen.  Record each of your answers so you can come back later and tally your score.  Instructions for tallying your score will be given at the end of the test, along with interpretations.

Listening With Love – A Test

1. When talking with a loved one, you say fewer words than they do.
(A) Almost always (B) Frequently ( C ) Half the time (D) Seldom (E) Almost never (F) Don’t know

2. When listening to a loved one, you silence your own mind and what it is telling you to say next, so that you can attend to what they are saying more fully.

(A) Almost always  (B) Frequently  ( C ) Half the time  (D) Seldom (E) Almost never (F) Don’t know

3. You can repeat back to a loved one what they have just said, close to verbatim.
(A) Almost always  (B) Frequently  ( C ) Half the time  (D) Seldom  (E) Almost never  (F) Don’t know

4. When a loved one is talking, you repeatedly identify in your mind what the emotions your loved one is experiencing as they talk.
(A) Almost always  (B) Frequently  ( C ) Half the time  (D) Seldom  (E) Almost never  (F) Don’t know

5. When talking with a loved one you ask what they are feeling, so as to be sure you are in tune with their emotions, and to check out your own perceptions of their emotions.
(A) Almost always  (B) Frequently  ( C ) Half the time  (D) Seldom  (E) Almost never  (F) Don’t know

6. When talking with the loved one you have and convey empathetic, corresponding emotions i.e. you hurt when they hurt, you’re happy when they’re happy, etc.
(A) Almost always  (B) Frequently  ( C ) Half the time  (D) Seldom  (E) Almost never  (F) Don’t know

7. You listen attentively for a loved one to fully vent, express themselves, discover and think-out their own issues, solutions, concepts and feelings before offering your own thoughts, advice, possible solutions, etc.
(A) Almost always  (B) Frequently  ( C ) Half the time  (D) Seldom  (E) Almost never  (F) Don’t know

8. Your facial expressions, head movements, voice tones, gestures and posture changes consistently and repeatedly show interest, attentiveness, care and other appropriate corresponding feelings to your loved ones when they are talking.
(A) Almost always  (B) Frequently  ( C ) Half the time  (D) Seldom  (E) Almost never  (F) Don’t know

9. When talking with a loved one you physically touch them appropriately showing care, support, celebration, affection, etc.
(A) Almost always  (B) Frequently  ( C ) Half the time  (D) Seldom  (E) Almost never  (F) Don’t know

10. When listening to a loved one you avoid listening primarily for their pauses so you can start saying what you want to say next, and while they’re talking you avoid rehearsing in your mind what you’re going to say next, plus you do not let yourself be otherwise easily distracted from giving them your full and close attention.
(A) Almost always  (B) Frequently  ( C ) Half the time  (D) Seldom  (E) Almost never  (F) Don’t know

11. When talking with someone you love do you do a good job of listening with your eyes, i.e. closely watching your loved one’s face and movements in order to see your loved one’s indicators of emotion, so you can be emotionally in tune with them and respond accordingly?
(A) Almost always  (B) Frequently  ( C ) Half the time  (D) Seldom  (E) Almost never  (F) Don’t know

12. When talking with a loved one do you stay aware that listening well can help your loved one feel affirmed, valued and cared about, and not listening well can result in your loved one feeling devalued and less than well loved?
(A) Almost always  (B) Frequently  ( C ) Half the time  (D) Seldom  (E) Almost never  (F) Don’t know

Scoring

Score 5 points for each (A), 4 points for each (B), 3 points for each ( C ), 2 points for each (D), 1 point for each (E) and zero points for each (F) – Don’t know response.

Interpretation

Scores  49 – 60  suggests someone who is a great loving listener, or someone who is overrating.
39 – 48  suggests someone who is a good loving listener who can still improve.
25 – 36  suggests someone who is a fair loving listener who can do quite a bit better with learning and practicing.
13 – 24  suggests someone who is rather poor at loving listening and probably is in need of a fair amount of improvement.
0 – 12  suggests that a very poor loving listening performance is frequently occurring and considerable work at improvement is recommended.
4, or more, zero (Don’t know) responses suggests considerable study of loving listening skills is probably highly desirable.

If you wish to rate another person on their loving listening skills you will need to alter the questions a little so they read in a way that indicates a loved one listening to you.  Then record the responses (A – F) that best indicates how you think they behave on each item.  Then tally the scores as before.
To learn more about this important skill go to the mini-love-lesson look in the index above for more posts under "Listening with Love".  You might use those entries to talk about listening skills with a loved one.

As always – Go and Grow with Love.

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly

♥ Love Success Question
Who listens to you with love the best, and have you sufficiently thanked them for that?

Related posts:

1. Listening with Love
2. Listening With Love and IN and OUT Brain Functions
3. How Smart Is Your Love? – A Test
4. Alphabet Love Test
5. Intimacy Creation – A Love Skill 

Trust and Mistrust in Love

Synopsis: The case of the nude photos and what’s best to learn from it; a terrible, fascinating truth about romantic-love trust; and a self-strengthening approach to building great, dependable, love trust; more.

The Case of the Nude Photos

“I’m in shock and don’t know which way to turn.  I just discovered nude photos of my teenage daughter on a phone I didn’t know my husband had.

 “Horrible scenarios are running through my head.  Are my husband and daughter involved in incest?  I can’t bear to think about it.  Should I call the police, see a lawyer, file for divorce?  Can I have both of them committed to a psych ward?  Is my husband a sex addict, or is my daughter?  Is everything I believed about my marriage a lie?  Am I one of those parents who doesn’t know what’s really going on with their kids?   I don’t trust anybody or anything any more.  Am I going crazy?  Is nothing the way I thought it was?  Is there anything or anyone I can trust?  Will I ever trust anybody again?”

As you can see Helen was having a huge ‘trust crisis’.  Up to the discovery of a strange iPhone in her husband’s briefcase, life had seemed pretty much normal and OK.  Her adolescent daughter had been a little rebellious but nothing serious seemed to be going on, until now.  Lately her husband had been kind of distant emotionally but also lately his business work-load had been extra heavy.  She, herself, had been stressed with projects demanding overtime at her office but about that there was ‘light at the end of the tunnel’.  Since her horrified discovery life was all panic and gut-wrenching disaster.  Her whole family seemed to be descending into nightmarish chaos – or so it seemed.

Helen said she couldn’t face all this alone so with some help she quickly was able to arrange for her husband and daughter to meet with her and a talented therapist intern of mine that evening in an emergency family counseling session.  She came in looking pale and shaking and her husband and daughter entered looking quite worried.  With fear and trepidation Helen confronted them with the sequence of events that had lead her to the discovery of the nude photos.  She got excellent support, clarification, interpretation, and help with sufficiency and accuracy from my intern.

Slowly the truth emerged and something resembling normalcy began to return.  It was revealed that Kendra, Helen’s teenage daughter, had been taking sexy, nude photos of herself and had been sending them to her boyfriend and her closest girlfriends, who were doing the same thing, like so many other kids at her school.  She explained it was quite a fad.  Bill, Helen’s husband, caught Kendra doing this and confiscated her phone.  He said he didn’t want to tell Helen about this until Helen’s big project at work was over.

Furthermore, Kendra had gotten him to promise that he and she would handle it because they thought Helen tended to over-react.  Kendra admitted she’d sort of manipulated her father into that promise.  Kendra also said she wouldn’t be doing any of this again, especially because her best girlfriend had gotten into really big trouble over this and was being sent away somewhere and she didn’t want that to happen to her.

After a lot of anguished bewilderment, confusion, anger mixed with relief and disappointment this family began to show each other love.  Soon they were able to agree that they should and could be a lot more self-disclosing to one another.  Helen agreed to work on not being so prone to panic, and Bill and Kendra agreed not to keep secrets from Helen.  They all agreed they would aspire to greater, loving communication of their important truths to each other, no matter what it was about, and they set out to do just that.  They made a ‘no big secrets contact’ with each other and that seemed to help a lot.  They further agreed that trust was built on ‘truth mixed with love’ and they made that their family goal.

What do you suppose you would do if you made a discovery similar to Helen’s?  Would your trust in your loved ones be shaken?  Would you lose trust in your own judgment?  Would you do as well as they did in patching things up and recovering from this episode?

Let me suggest the best thing to learn from this example is when experiencing strong mistrust do not jump to conclusions.  Quick conclusions are your enemy.  I can’t tell you how many love relationship problems I have helped people get through that were started by, or made much worse by, people drawing premature, erroneous conclusions.  Related to this is a second, huge, common, trust issue problem.  It’s the problem of keeping secrets.  So many mistrust calamities could have been avoided had the people involved been able to get their truth out in the open and discuss it, even if it hurt.  In successful, love relationships it takes sharing truth and that builds trust.  Hiding, avoiding, denial, distortions and mis-representations of the truth, more often than not, work against ‘trust building’ even when they are done for well-meaning reasons.

Trust Issues and Their Surprising Complications

Trust and mistrust issues are among the biggest problems in love relationships.  Do I trust you to be faithful?  Do I trust myself to remain faithful?  Can I love you and not trust you?  If I forgive you does it mean I have to trust you?  Do I trust myself to keep being loving no matter what?  Do I trust myself to have enough ‘attraction power’ to hold you or should I secretly spy and pry into your life to make sure you’re not betraying me?  Do I trust you not to turn into my mother, or my father?  Do I trust us enough to make a go of it?  Do I trust that our love can be strong enough to hold us together and survive what the world throws at us?   Do I trust in trusting?  Yes, there are great many trust issues that many people give no thought to until they have occasion to experience very upsetting mistrust.

It’s not only with lovers and spouses that we have trust issues.  Shall I trust my kids do what I have taught them?  Should I trust myself to be a good parent?  Can I trust that my family will support me in a crisis?  Will my avowed, true friends be there for me when I need them?  Will I come through for them when they call on me in crisis?  With every love relationship there can be heavy-duty trust challenges.  So, let’s ask this question.  How does healthy, real love guide us in facing all these trust issues?

Understanding Trust Itself

To answer the above questions let’s first look at a few ways trust is understood to work. Here’s a concept about how trust operates considered to be a little radical.  It goes like this:
All smart trust is really self-trust.  There’s no such thing as trusting other people.  There’s only trusting yourself to handle what others may send your way.  If you do not unconsciously, sufficiently trust your own ability to handle what someone else may bring to your life then you consciously will not trust them.  All trust and mistrust is projected self-trust or the lack there of.  The highly self-trusting find it easier to forgive and try again, while those who have low self-trust don’t.  It’s hard for them to forgive because they secretly know they can’t handle what might be done to them, or so goes this understanding of trust dynamics.  There is some research to support this kind of thinking.

Those who come to re-trust a person after betrayal tend to trust their own ability to handle things well even if they are betrayed again. The more ego-weak a person is the less they trust in others.  This apparently is true of many people, but not all.  Those who have a high self-trust tend to either easily choose to trust or not trust, but they seldom spend much time in uneasy, anxious mistrust of others.  There also is some research which suggests that the most highly mistrusting people are not to be trusted.  The naïve and innocent also give trust too easily.  And the frequently traumatized, abused and misused tend to place little trust in anyone.

Another viewpoint on trust goes like this.  All trust is a gamble and should be seen as such.  In love when we trust someone we are gambling on the person we love and on the love in the relationship.  Intelligent people know that some of these love-gambles will pay off and some will not.  Some people gamble on love and win enormously and some lose enormously.  In gambling the saying goes “if you can’t afford to lose, don’t bet”.  However, in love and other great life experiences the truth is "you can’t afford not to gamble".  Consider the old wisdom teaching “it is better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all”.  For most people that’s probably true.

Consider this concept.  The adventures of love bring people their biggest and most meaningful life experiences, even when they don’t win at love.  Some think nothing defines or develops a person so much as their love relationships.  However, those love relationships take great gambles of trust, or they are far too limited.  Whether it be love of a spouse, a child, a family, a people, a nation, a cause or a deity, to win big takes gambling on trust big.

There are important problems and exceptions to the above thinking.  Quite sadly there are far too many people who make the gamble of love with someone who will literally destroy them one way or another.  So many murders and terrible abuse tragedies are stories of love gone wrong.  So many people who die of a substance addiction were started on that addiction path by way of a poor or false-love relationship.  So many suicides, heart attacks, strokes and other sudden health failures occur after the loss of a love.

All too frequently the trust-gamble of love poorly chosen results in tragedy.  The good news is that people who learn about love and its workings make much better gambles of trust.  They, therefore, win at love more often and far bigger.  Another good news factor is that the vast majority of people win more than they lose when they gamble on love.

Romantic love, or mate or spouse love probably is the most problematic when it comes to trust issues.  Pet love and grandparent’s love of grandchildren probably are the types of love with the fewest, trust foul-ups and the most, trust related, good results.  Still every kind of love relationship can have trust problems.  Therefore, every love relationship deserves some thinking and probably talking about trust issues.

Mistrust In Love

One view of mistrust holds that the more untrustworthy you are the more you will not trust the people you love and who you hope love you.  If you are highly prone to deception you will suspect others are likewise deceptive.  Suspicion and mistrust can ruin an otherwise good love relationship.  Here’s what Marcia said, “You tapped my phone, secretly went through my things, had me followed, read my diary when I ask you not to, and now you’re asking me to trust you.  Not a chance!  I thought we had a good thing going.  Now I see how sneaky you are.  If you can’t trust me I don’t want to have anything more to do with you.  We are through, and that’s final!”  Love often demands that we gamble ‘trust in another’ and if instead we rely too much on mistrust, and the behaviors that mistrust leads to, a love relationship can become poisoned.

Romantic Love and Trust

In romantic love there is a terrible, fascinating truth.  The more we don’t trust our own worth, value, love-ability and attraction power the more we can become insecure.  The more we are insecure the more we subconsciously believe someone better than ourselves will come along and be more desirable than we are.  That "more desirable person" will steal our loved-one away from us and we will be abandoned, alone and unloved.  Therefore, we must mistrust and guard against our loved-one looking at other attractive people, talking to them, being around them without our supervision, looking at images of attractive sexy others, etc. and generally we must keep our loved-ones ‘on a short leash’ to keep them to ourselves.

That indicates we might feel like our loved-ones are our property like a dog, or a slave, who is going to run away.  With this kind of thinking any suspicious involvement with another must be punished severely and the leash shortened.  Usually the final result of the ‘short leash approach’ is to drive our loved ones away and possibly into the arms of someone better than us.  Mistrust frequently is, in effect, a self-fulfilling prophecy.

A Self-Strengthening Approach to Building Love Trust

The best way to build trust is to become ‘psychologically big and strong’ enough to handle being very truthful in a loving way.  To be big in healthy self-love so as to be able to own up to one’s mistakes and problematic behavior is a highly desirable part of the trust-building process.  It also is important to become big and strong enough psychologically, and especially emotionally, so as not to be destroyed or irreparably harmed when a loved one disappoints, betrays or otherwise dishonestly deals with you.

Furthermore, it is quite important to grow big enough to maturely and magnanimously handle the truth when it comes your way, no matter how much it hurts, bothers or scares you.  Trust is built on truth-telling, truth-hearing, truth-sharing and generally dealing from strength.  Mistrust is built on weakness, deception, inability to accept and compassionately, lovingly deal with truth.  So, build your psychological strengths, especially those having to do with love and you will be able to handle your trust challenges far better.

As always – Go and Grow in Love

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly

♥ ♥ Love Success Question Are you as love trustworthy as you want the people you love to be?

Talking to Feelings First, Then Topics - A Love Skill

Synopsis: This mini-love lesson explores the rule ‘heart before head’; then goes into ‘here and now’ versus ‘there and then’ talking; gender differences; talking to your loved one’s bad feelings; talking to bad feelings aimed at you by your loved ones; self-care while learning this love skill; and more.

Heart Before Head

When meeting her group of friends, with joy in her voice and with a great big smile Felicia proclaimed, “I’m so happy!  I got the job!  Now I’ve got to go shopping for the right clothes and brush up on my worker skills.”

Norman in rather ordinary tones replied, “Yeh, you better start practicing your work skills.  You’re probably really rusty”.  Josh blandly responded with, “I bet you already have clothes for the first week at least”.  Frank with a bright look on his face and an upbeat tone said, “You really look happy and I’m really glad for you”.  A couple weeks later Frank and Felicia became a couple and Norman and Josh wondered what he was doing right that they were not.

Frank had a very important love skill.  He knew that for helping a love relationship get started, or be maintained and grow, it was important to focus first and most on the feelings being felt and, if possible, to attend to those emotions before the topic being brought up is discussed.  He followed the lover’s rule ‘talk to your loved one’s feelings before you talk to your loved one’s topics’.

Felicia’s voice tones, face and words all spoke of her happiness.  Speaking to and sharing her happiness is speaking to her internal, personal self.  Speaking to her clothing and skills topics is okay but less personal.  Emotionally joining with Felicia in her feelings of happiness and success also conveys a pleasant, positive, personal connection with her and demonstrates the love skill of sharing heartfelt emotions.  Talking to a person’s topics without sufficiently speaking to their emotions may convey that the person is less important to you, and maybe that you are not very able to be personally, emotionally with them.  In a small, subtle way by talking to Felicia’s feeling of happiness Frank displayed a clue showing that perhaps he was able to do ‘emotional intercourse’.  Emotional intercourse so often is a major basis for romantic, healthy, real love development.

‘Here and Now’ Versus ‘There and Then’ Talking

By talking to Felicia’s happiness Frank showed he was emotionally with her in the ‘here and now’.  Talking about brushing up her skills and shopping topics left the emotional ‘here and now’ and went to the future, only addressing the pragmatic.  When we talk about what’s being felt in the here and now, instead of talking about the future and/or about practical matters, it gives more of a sense of emotional togetherness.  When we talk the topics first, after strong emotions have been expressed by a loved one, they may feel unattended to or develop a vague sense of being emotionally abandoned.  It may sort of indicate to them that their emotions are not important to you and only practical matters count with you.  Loving closeness is not likely to grow out of that perception.

Talking about the past can work if there is sufficient focus on the emotions that occurred in that past situation, or about the emotions that one now has about the past.  Without sufficient focus on the feelings connected to the past your loved one may develop a sense of being impersonally and non-intimately dealt with.  This is true whether you’re talking about your own feelings or the feelings of your loved one. And this feelings-absent talk is highly unlikely to help a love relationship.

Generally when a loved one is having strong feelings ‘in the present’, talking in the present tense is more powerful and more loving.  Talking in the future tense or the past tense without focusing sufficiently on the emotions involved in both may create more emotional distance than closeness.

Gender Differences

In many cultures men more than women seem to have trouble talking to their loved ones about emotions.  Some researchers think this is genetic but in some cultures men overcome this perhaps ‘genetic predisposition’ by good societal, communications training.  A major complaint from many women is about men not being able to talk to a woman about either his emotions or her emotions.  That in turn is seen as a major deterrent to healthy, love relationship development.  Interestingly women, while being better at empathetically talking to a loved one’s emotions, usually don’t know how to teach men how to do that form of much desired, personal communication.

Basic Instructions

To talk to a loved one’s emotions here is a simple procedure you might want to follow.
Step 1.  While your loved one is talking think “what emotion is my loved one feeling right now?”.  If you’re not sure, ask.  Asking shows you want to be with your loved one in what they’re feeling and, therefore, asking helps you to do that.  To ask simply say, “What are you feeling?” or “What are you feeling right now?” or “You’re feeling …(glad, sad, worried, upset, eager, etc.?”  Or just make a guess.  Guessing conveys you are trying and that counts too.  Remember, feelings usually can be ‘labeled’ and said with ‘one word’ each.  You can feel affectionate, fearful, excited, mad, serene, etc., there are hundreds of good labels for our emotions.  If your ‘emotions labeling skills’ are weak you might want to make a list.  Here’s a hint: There are emotion labels starting with every letter of the alphabet.  This is a homework exercise I often assign to those wanting to improve communications and learn to emotionally love a loved one better.

Step 2.  When you think you may know the emotion a loved one is feeling say that feeling label word.  “You’re happy”.  “You’re worried”.  “You’re upset”.  “You’re pleased”.  “You’re feeling eager” are some examples.  You can say these things with a sort of questioning sound or if you’re expressing it in written form you can put in a question mark.  This shows you are trying to get it right.  Remember, you don’t have to be right you just have to show your really trying to connect emotionally.

Step 3.  Really hear the response your loved one makes to what you have said.  Your loved one might say “No, that’s not quite what I’m feeling, it’s more like …(this other feeling)”.  Then again you might hear something like “you really understand, you’re wonderful”.

Step 4.  Now, ask yourself what you are feeling having heard your loved one is feeling and whatever thoughts they may have added.  Are you happy with your loved one’s expressed feeling, or angry, or upset, or proud, or threatened, or what?  Remember, ‘thoughts and feelings are very different from each other’.  A thought usually takes a sentence to identify and a feeling usually takes only a single word label.

Step 5.  Share the labeling word that expresses the feeling you’re experiencing having heard what your loved one feels. You may want to elaborate on it a bit.  Examples might be “joy, I am feeling joy hearing what you just told me”, or “my insecurity is going up and down”, or “now I’m feeling closer to you”, or “I’m getting angry but let’s talk about this”, or “after hearing what you said I feel a little more comforted”, or “I’m noticing I’m starting to feel more nervous thinking about what you just said”, or “I’m beginning to care more about how you feel and maybe understand you better”.  Yes, sometimes you will have to deal with their bad feelings or yours but usually that’s better than letting them fester.

As people practice this ‘talking to feelings love skill’ they can and usually do create improving emotional intercourse.  Then they usually start getting its many benefits.

Talking to Bad Feelings

When you’re beloved says, “I feel bad, mad, upset, scared” or anything we might call a bad feeling the usual best response is to care.  Therefore, quite often the best thing to say is “I care”.  You might include the feeling you heard them say and then “I care.” for example, “I care that you’re hurt”, or “you’re really feeling bad and I care about that a lot”, or “you’re feeling angry and that’s hard to hear but I love you so I care about how you’re feeling”, etc. are a few of the many ways you might lovingly demonstrate that.  When a loved one expresses bad feelings what’s usually best is a lot of really attentive, good listening which usually helps them get all their feelings out while your care comes into them.  That’s sort of like getting the poison out and the medicine in.

Common Mistakes

The biggest, most common mistake is to jump in, talking from your head instead of from your heart.  Analyzing, explaining, instructing, teaching, talking in a way that tries to ‘fix’ what caused the feelings, or in any other way tries to deal with the topics involved, before talking to your loved one’s emotions, usually doesn’t work.  In fact, sometimes it makes things far worse.  Once you talk to a loved one’s feelings there may be no need to do any of the explaining, fixing, etc. because what often ‘fixes’ the problem is being a really good listener.  When your loved ones expressing feeling bad, what they often need is well expressed, loving care.  Heart-felt messages do far more good than anything your intelligence is likely to come up with, no matter how bright it is.  Again, “heart before head” is the short way to say this.

Lots of people, especially guys, try to express their care through talking about how to fix, solve, mend, correct or cognitively understand the problem that’s causing a person’s feelings.  None of that directly deals with the feelings. That’s especially true for bad feelings.  Thus, “head talk” misses the ‘first point to be attended to’ – the emotions themselves.  After the emotions are brought into awareness and talked about, those other topics may, or may not, be relevant or need discussion.
It does not hurt to ask a person if your analysis or advice, etc. is desired and if it not, don’t give it.  Remember the adage, “don’t teach a course for which no one has signed up”.

Talking to Bad Feelings Aimed at You

“I’m so upset with you”, “I’m very angry at you”, “How could you hurt me like that”, and many other bad feeling statements may come your way from your loved ones.  What are you to do?  First, examine your habits.  Maybe your habit is to interpret such remarks as you are being attacked, judged, blamed, punished, unfairly picked on, threatened or even damaged.  If so, that probably triggers your primitive ‘fight or flee’ feelings.  If you think you’re under attack you may desire to defend yourself, perhaps with lengthy reasons and explanations, or with a powerful counterattack.

Then again, your habit might be to feel guilty, inadequate and get depressed.  Later you might decide you need revenge and to get even, so you may aggressively or passive-aggressively ambush and sabotage a loved one so they feel as bad as you feel, or worse.  Maybe it’s your habit to beg forgiveness, or fake sorrow and manipulate for forgiveness.  If you do any of these things you probably have learned that none of these habits do much good to change the dynamics of the interaction nor do they usually feel very good to do.  Mostly love relationships can be damaged by the habits just described because they are quite anti-loving.

What really is happening is probably markedly different than what you think is happening or interpret is happening.  A likely, more accurate, interpretation of your loved one’s statement usually goes like this.  My beloved is hurt or somehow upset, and needs to express it, and needs to experience my care coming in as their bad feelings flow out.  Again, it’s a case of ‘poison out, medicine in’.  To deliver the medicine my beloved also may need to be reassured that they are truly, deeply loved and are extremely important to me.  Furthermore, my beloved also may need to experience that I am really listening to how they feel and what they want, plus that I am sincerely willing to look at ways to make improvements and, if I agree, that I am willing to implement those improvements.

Self-Care

Remember the ancient admonition is to love others AS you love yourself.  Taking good care of yourself as you learn to practice this love skill is part of what is needed.  The way you do that is to ‘own your own okayness’ and remind yourself that any skill is learned by repeated practice.  If it were easy it probably wouldn’t be called a skill.  You also may need to remind yourself that usually the best defense is no defense.  That’s because your loved one’s ‘at you talk’ probably will turn into ‘with you talk’ as soon as hurt, or fear, or both are adequately expressed and enough of your loving care has come into them.  Staying emotionally OK while you do loving listening and perhaps do comforting behavior, is for most of us a pretty tall order in highly emotional times.

Surprisingly it’s even hard for many of us who were not well trained, by the families we grew up in, to talk to feelings that are happy and upbeat.  Talking any feelings may be hard for some people no matter what kind of feelings they are.  Nevertheless, working to develop any love skill pays off handsomely and, therefore, is an act of healthy self-love.  So, get busy and meet the challenge of developing this love skill.  See how it saves everybody a great deal of misery and brings a great deal of good-feeling closeness to you and your loved ones once you get the hang of it.

This love skill can be used in all kinds of relationships – with parents, children, family, friends, acquaintances, fellow workers, even with people you don’t know well.  If emotions are involved it’s best to attend to them first, then attend to the topic.

As always – Go and Grow with Love

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly

♥ Love Success Question
If you learn and practice this love skill of ‘talking to feelings before topics’ and do it well, do you think your relations with love ones will get vastly improved, substantially improved, moderately improved, mildly improved, or not at all improved?  Now ask your loved ones what they think.

Related posts:

1. Many Good Feelings Brought on by Love
2. Checking It Out – As a Love Skill
3. Communicating Better With Love: Mini Lessons
4. Other Ways to Say I Love You 

Self-Love the Enemy of Egotism

Synopsis: This mini-love-lesson addresses self-love and egotism as the same or different; good or bad; definitions shallow and deep; the full and leaky bucket concept; locus and focus issues; effects on others; and self-love as defeat of egotism.

Aren’t They Both the Same Thing and Bad?

From time to time people come to me saying things like, “Dr. Cookerly, I was taught self-love is a bad thing, or a sick thing, and it’s the same thing as being egotistical, narcissistic, arrogant, stuck up, conceded and very selfish.  So, if you have self-love you’ll be these things, and no one will like you.  Isn’t that true?”

My answer is an emphatic NO!  Healthy, real self-love actually is the enemy of being egotistical, conceded, etc.  Healthy, real self-love also leads away from selfishness to a greater giving, altruistic love.  It is really the lack of self-love that leads to heightened, and especially destructive selfish behavior.  If I say something more or less like that, then I usually hear something like, “Dr. Cookerly, please explain how that works”?  To do that, let’s define egotism and self-love.

Definitions Shallow and Deep

Egotism can be defined this way:
Egotism is excessively and over-positively talking, acting, and thinking about oneself so as to cause oneself and/or others to think of oneself as having high importance and significance.  Others and I posit that covertly and subconsciously, egotistical acts and thoughts are because of a secret fear and self view of oneself as being insignificant and unimportant and, therefore, unloved and unlovable.  Egotism can best be understood as belonging with the once popular, and still accurate framework of a ‘superiority complex’ which, of course, is always covertly a masked inferiority complex.

No small number of dictionary definitions of egotism omit this underlying dynamic.  In effect, the egotistical, conceited, etc. are seen to have hidden low self-esteem, are lacking in self-love and self approval at a deeper level, and they just happen to be trying hard to fix or make up for that, but are doing it in ways that don’t really work.  There is the secret hope that if others see and treat them as significant and important, that will cure the problem, and they will feel okay with themselves and finally be loved.  The problem is it never works.

Healthy, real self-love can be defined this way:
Self-Love is a healthy, real, powerful, natural process of highly valuing, desiring for, often acting for, and taking pleasure in the well-being of the self.

The Full and the Leaky Bucket

Sufficient, healthy self-love sets one free to be more loving to others.  There is not a need for others to see the self as significant or important because that need is largely met by the self via sufficient self-love and its natural components of self-respect and self honoring.  With sufficient self-love there is a kind of ‘owning’ that one is of value and, therefore, one’s essential self is consistently and sufficiently okay.  Thus, there is little need to keep proving it, or striving for outside validation from others.  If laudatory praise, admiration, compliments, etc. come from others, they can be greatly enjoyed but they are not needed.  With self-love, one’s bucket of value and okayness is sufficiently full, and tends to stay that way with extra available to give to others.  With egotism the bucket has a hole (or several holes) thus, it is continuously in need of replenishment.

Locus and Focus

With self-love, the locus of control is internal, and focused on the valuing one’s self.  With egotism, the locus of control is external and focused on the valuing by others.  With healthy self-love there can be a sort of humble awe and thankfulness about one’s own nature and adequacy.  With egotism there is the hidden fear that one either is or will soon be proven and judged as inadequate.  With healthy self-love there is a sufficiency, and from that grows an ability to appreciate many other things outside the self and value others more.

With egotism, there is a secret sense of insufficiency constantly demanding attention.  That often deprives people of the ability to appreciate others and the world about them.  With healthy self-love, bragging is brief, and attention to others and other matters is seen as worthwhile and important.  With egotism, bragging tends to be excessive in the opinion of others, and other matters are less important and less attended to.

Effects on Others

Because genuinely healthy, self-loving people are also the people who often are very good at loving others, and at projecting a confident, okay demeanor, people tend to be drawn to them.  Sometimes the envious and jealous are not.  Egotistical people tend to be avoided by others-- especially those who see deeper into people often move away from them.

Self-Love Defeats Egotism

As people grow their healthy self-love they become less egotistical.  False pride and its accompanying showy  arrogance, fades and an inner gladness for who one is and has become grows.  As that happens egotism and self-aggrandizement is defeated and is usually replaced with a more generous and loving spirit.  The ancient words “love others as you love yourself” thus become much more able to be acted upon.  To study healthy self-love more, at this site see the mini-love-lessons titled “Self-Love – What Is It?”; “Self-Love and 12 Reasons to Develop It”; and “Self-Love and Its Five Healthy Functions”.

As Always – Go and Grow with Love

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly

♥ Love Success Question
    How good a job are you really doing at healthy self-love – today?

Related posts:

1. Self-Love – What Is It?