Self-Affirmation for Healthy Self-Love

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

The Huge Problem of Self Dis-Affirmation

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why Affirmation from Others Is Not Enough

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

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

How to Self Affirm for Healthy, Self-Love Development

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

As always – Go and Grow with Love

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly

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

Related posts:

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

Success At Life & Your Diet Of Life And Love

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

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

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

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

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

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

Balanced Living

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

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

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

What Is and Is Not Successful Living

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

Where Did Your Ideas about Success Come From?

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

Do You Need a Success Ideas Overhaul?

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

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

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

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

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

As always – Go and Grow with Love

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly

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

Related posts:

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

Wellbeing Oriented Love And Its Many Rich Rewards

 Mini-Love-Lesson #288

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

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

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

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

Those Who Help

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

As always – Grow and Go with Love

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly

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

Falling Out of Love - Or Was It False Love?

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

An Emotion You May Not Know?

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

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

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

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

Is Real Love Something You Can Fall out of ?

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

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

Exes Who Keep Loving Each Other

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

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

Research Explorations

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

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

What Does Religion Have to Do with It?

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

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

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

Falling In and Out of Love Versus Growing in Love

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

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

As always – Go and Grow with Love

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly

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

Related posts:

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

Intimacy Fears and Love As the Cure

Synopsis: This mini-love-lessons starts by discussing fears and confusion regarding intimacy; and then gets into the question of why intimacy; the yea’s and nay’s of psychological intimacy; and the importance challenge of studying intimacy further for growing great love; more.

Fears and Confusion

“Let’s be intimate!”  Does that statement scare you?  Does it confuse you?  Does it excite you?  Do you wonder if the word intimate means you are being asked to do something sexual, or something emotional, or both?  If someone were to say to you “I feel so intimate with you” would you hope or fear that person wanted to have sex with you, make love with you, or were experiencing emotions of closeness and personal connection focused on you.

When you use or hear the word ‘intimacy’ are you puzzled or quite sure about what is meant?  Are your emotions usually more apprehensive or more positive.  Or perhaps you are just neutral or confused.  ‘Intimacy’ can be just another polite euphemism for being sexual or it can have to do with becoming especially emotionally close and connected with someone.  Many fear that it means they will be asked or required to make themselves vulnerable and exposed, and they fear they will either do that poorly or they will self reveal things that will get them hurt and rejected.

For you, is intimacy about sexuality, or emotional closeness or both, or is it something else entirely.  Whichever way it is for you, is it more of a positive or a negative?  For many people it is one of the most wonderful parts of a love relationship.  For others it is very threatening and to be avoided if at all possible, sometimes both sexually and emotionally.

Many love relationships grow strong and healthy largely by way of intimacy.  Many other relationships fail to thrive because of too little intimacy.  Still other relationships are wounded or ended by way of intimacy poorly dealt with.  All this means that if you want a successful love relationship, understanding and being able to operate well intimately may prove essential.

Why Intimacy?

It is by intimacy that we more fully give the gift of ourselves to those we love.  It is by intimacy that we more fully receive the gift of much more completely knowing another.  It is by intimacy from and with those we love that we more fully experience the joys possible with them.  It is then through intimacy that we can better give those we love, love’s precious acceptance, tolerance, affirmation and the special joys of shared, intimate love.

It is by intimacy that we let others more fully know us and open those more private parts of ourselves to their love.  It is by intimacy that we much more fully and richly experience each other.  It also is by risking intimacy that we show we are brave and strong enough to let ourselves be loved where we fear we may not be lovable.  That is the ‘why’ of intimate love.  It also is why it is best that we strive to overcome our fears of intimacy.

The Yea’s and Nay’s of Psychological Intimacy

Psychological intimacy has to do with close association and personal connection, usually mixed with affection and love.  It implies both a deep and broad knowledge of someone and letting oneself be known deeply and broadly.  Becoming emotionally intimate with another means relating to that person’s essence and core being, and letting them do likewise with you.  If things go well, it can mean developing a sort of close harmony with another’s inner character and most genuine, innermost, true self.  When deep intimacy is joined with love there can be a sense of the fusion of souls connected in profound and wondrous, love-filled, abiding serenity and joy.

If in attempting intimacy things do not go well, it can mean feeling pains of rejection, inadequacy, negative judgment, criticism, disapproval, exclusion, loneliness, emptiness, failure, condemnation and feeling threatened.  Intimacy in friendship love usually includes feeling a very warm, personal attitude toward someone who is feeling a very similar way toward you.  When that occurs a sense of cherished unity with another can occur.  Feelings of intimacy in a couple’s relationship often brings on an amazing, combined, simultaneous sense of serenity and elation.  Feelings of intimacy in a family may include the above and be accompanied by a sense of happy familiarity and safety.

The Role of Risk

Intimacy is feared mostly because usually it requires the risk of self-disclosure.  With self-disclosure one’s inadequacy, insufficiency, ugly parts, failings, areas of ignorance and all other ‘not okay’ factors may be seen and known by another.  With that could come being shamed, demeaned, rejected and abandoned to live a loveless life.  To the contrary, one could also meet with loving acceptance, understanding, inclusion and the joys of intimacy.  Psychological Intimacy often requires considerable and repeated risk-taking.

Are you strong enough and okay enough with yourself to handle attempts at intimacy not turning out well.  If you have sufficient, healthy self-love, risking self-disclosure and being more real and exposed to another can be okay even if it does not go well.  If you are sufficiently, healthfully self-loving, and you ‘own’ it so it can not be taken away from you, taking the risk of self-disclosure can be easier.  Nevertheless, intimacy still can lead to you getting severely hurt emotionally but hopefully not irreparably.

Intimacy Betrayal

When you have an intimate relation with someone they get to know all sorts of things about you.  You may give them intimate knowledge about your secrets, your areas of weakness, your vulnerabilities, your misdeeds, your private ways, along with your peculiarities and your idiosyncrasies.  You also may reveal your secret riches, your private joys and the taboos you relish.  All this they can tell to others who may use this knowledge against you.  Perhaps even worse, they themselves may use this knowledge against you.  Embarrassment, shame, disadvantage, various types of loss, personal defeat, blocking of opportunity and a great deal of emotional hurt might result.  Thus, it behooves you to be very careful about who you become psychologically intimate with.

Cherishing Intimacy

In a love relationship when someone lets you know them intimately, it is very important that you cherish your intimate knowledge and experiences with them.  Cherish means to appreciate, honor and hold special and private whatever has been intimately shared with you.  Unless you are given specific permission to share an intimacy – don’t!

No small number of friendships, romances and family relationships have been irreparably ruined by someone revealing and exposing instead of holding private someone else’s intimate secret.  Sometimes it is because the revealer thinks it won’t do any harm, or it might do some good, or it is just too funny not to reveal.  I know of at least one case in which such a betrayal of intimacy got the revealer shot and another in which a person was jailed, not to mention a passel of breakups and divorce actions.  The unintended negative consequences of revealing private and personal intimacy facts can be enormous.

Cherishing intimacy well often leads to someone becoming much more emotionally close, growing trust, sharing very special joint joy, and feeling preciously and especially uniquely, strongly, personally connected.  Those feelings can be so powerful and wonderful it makes the dangers of psychological intimacy well worth the risk.

Tiny Intimacy

A lot of love’s intimacy gets achieved by tiny actions.  A certain kind of glance, a wink, an ordinary word said in a special tone, a slightly sexual touch quickly done, a word or term with special private meaning, a facial expression that says “I understand and care”, a whispered private nickname, all these and many more tiny acts of intimacy are often used by highly successful couples, friends and family members to achieve and sustain intimate connection.

Sexual Intimacy

Really good and full ranging sexual intimacy involves emotional intimacy.  This may include letting someone explore both visually and by touch every reachable inch of you while you do the same with them.  It also may involve letting yourself be seen as you experience a vast array of uninhibited, different physical and emotional feelings while you appreciatively and intensely do the same with them.

Intimate sexuality may involve tiny, little, extraordinarily precious and awesomely tender movements and moments.  Intimacy in sex also may include amazingly strong and powerful sensations arrived at through wild abandonment resulting in oceanic ecstasy and a sense of cosmic, spiritual connection.  Sometimes for some people the loss of inhibitions and the enacting of actions they have been taught are forbidden, naughty, nasty, filthy, wrong and sinful, etc. are what opens the door to joint, incredible intimacy.  For others sharing actions that are extremely loving, preciously pleasuring, and delicately tender brings forth a sense of miraculous intimacy which is for them magnificently and enormously love-filled.

Sexual intimacy also can be achieved in simpler ways, like just doing a few easy actions of what a love partner wants and seeing that has brought your loved one pleasure.  Once sexual partners know each other well, lots of sexual intimacy is achieved by using that knowledge in simple pleasure-giving and receiving.  This is sometimes done with a kind of sexual laziness and easy-going familiarity resulting in a more serene, further love-filled, intimate bonding.

Curing Intimacy Fears with Love

If you have healthy self-love and a healthy real love of another, or of friends and family, you can use that love to work past your intimacy fears.  To do so, focus on the fact that love can make you brave and, therefore, able to take the risks involved in going psychologically naked, or very self-disclosure-prone with those you want to do love with.  Yes, it will cost you maybe embarrassment, awkwardness and making some blundering mistakes, but remind yourself for growing bigger, better, stronger love it is likely to be worth it.  Just with someone you love, you can say things like “I feel ashamed to tell you this but…?, and “Doing what you want is so utterly embarrassing, let’s go ahead and do it”.

Can you show that you are not good at something yet with someone you love?  Are you brave enough to act and look silly?  Are you strong enough to reveal your weaknesses?  Will you let your real flaws and foibles be seen?  Will you let yourself experience your emotions, and both talk and show them fully.  Doing so often is the price that must be paid for intimate love to occur and grow.

If you center yourself in love, come from love on purpose, and do what you are afraid to do you might be able to reveal yourself to a loved one and then love’s intimacy may result.  With inner, loving, self talk you can tell and show your fears and by doing so move forward, perhaps carefully into greater self-disclosure and the intimacy it can bring.  If you let your fears stop you, you probably will not.  Keep reminding yourself, LOVE CAN DEFEAT FEAR.  Remember also that you can ask those you love for loving tolerance and acceptance as you go.

Study Intimacy

Like most things, the more you study intimacy the more you may do it well.  This mini-love-lesson is designed to help you move at least a bit forward in improving your love relationships via intimacy.  The hope is to get you to consider, and study, and then experimentally practice what you have learned about intimacy.  Those who do well with intimacy tend to extend and strengthen their love relationships.  So can you?  Therefore, it is recommended that you talk with your loved ones about what intimacy is, read about it, carefully experiment and explore, and then discover intimacy more fully and experience its many outstanding marvels and wonders as you go.  Recommended reading Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway by Dr. Susan Jeffers.

As always – Go and Grow with Love

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly

♥ Love Success Question
If you were going to go to a loved one, and do something or say something rather intimate right now, or very soon, what would it be?

Related posts:

1. Intimacy Creation – A Love Skill
2. Sex Fears Mastered with Love
3. Intimate Love
4. Willing and Ready for Love?
5. Growing Closeness – A Love Skill