Metaphysical Love

Mini-Love-Lesson # 289

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

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

Do We All Love - Metaphysically?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What Is Metaphysical Love?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

As always – Go and Grow with Love

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly

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

Small Love for Lasting Love

Synopsis: Big impression romantic actions and their significance starts our mini-love-lesson; which then goes on to explore love action vacuums; love like food; and more.

Grand Love Gestures and Big Love Impressions

Joe was really good at making grand, romantic gestures and big, extravagant impressions on women.  He sent a stretch-limousine for his first date to pick up his first wife, a helicopter for his first date with his second wife, and before he went bankrupt he sent a large yacht for his first date with his third wife.    Obviously Joe was great with big, romantic, impression-making but not so good at lasting, real love: he was good at catching but not keeping.

Lover’s myths, stories, and histories abound with tales of grand gestures and outlandish actions which made huge impressions.  They were done for launching, conveying, solidifying or repairing love, or at least so we are told.  These giant gestures create astounding memories but, alas, they are not the stuff of which lasting love is mostly and best made.  No, the research shows lasting, healthy, real love comes from small love-conveying behaviors enacted day after day, after day.

A tender touch, a special smile, a tiny nod, some words of praise or thanks, a special little favor, a thoughtful remembrance, an extra embrace, a sweetness in the voice, or any other of thousands of different kinds of acts that can convey love – these are the things that make love lasting.  Those who give and receive love daily, through small acts meant to show love, create a kind of love cycling (see the “Cycling Love for Lasting Love” mini-love-lesson) that keeps a love relationship going on, and on and on.  This is what field, laboratory and clinical research reveals. (Check out the latest findings from the Gottman Institute).

The Love Action Vacuum

Clinical research of which I have been involved points to the most relationship-destroying factor: a deficiency in the demonstration of love in an ongoing way. This was hard to discover because discovering ‘something that is not there’, or is absent is a lot harder than discovering something that is there.  Probably that accounts for the fact that, until now, laboratory type research pointed to ‘the presence’ of derogatory and demeaning words and actions as being the most common relationship-destroying behavior.  Both are very important.

If there is an absence of regularly demonstrated love or an absence of good love reception, a love relationship is likely to wither and die.  Some relationships do live on with very sparsely shown love but they are not thought to thrive like they could.  If there is both the absence of daily actions showing love and the presence of demeaning words and actions, a really close, enriching love relationship is not likely to develop and most likely will die.

Love relationships which are not so close, like those of distant friends and family members, can do well with only occasional actions conveying love.  Also those who have previously done really well at showing each other love, but no longer have much contact, can sort of pick up where they left off to re-contact.  The participants know that their love relationship continues though it seems at times dormant.

Love As Food

Love is a psychological food.  In fact, it is probably the healthiest and most energizing psychological food there is.  Like with physical food, it helps to have daily meals.  So, with your closest loved ones, it is best to be sure you regularly feed them, preferably multiple times every day.  Also, don’t forget yourself.  Healthy self-love also nourishes best when it is done regularly.

A lack of small, daily showings of love leads to love malnutrition and love starvation (see the mini-love-lesson “Is Depression Love Starvation”).  So, don’t starve those you love – spouse, children, closest friends, or yourself.

Learn & Practice the Eight, Major, Direct Ways to Show Love

Massive, well conducted research in social psychology led to the discovery of the major ways that people show each other love.  There are eight groups of behavior that do this according to that research.  Each of these behavior categories has been found to result in different benefits.  You can learn and practice small, easily done behaviors in each category.  It is all covered in our books Recovering Love and Real Love False Love.  You also can start learning about them with the mini-love-lesson titled “Behaviors That Give Love – The Basic Core Four”.  There also are indirect ways that convey love but those are for another day.

Big and False, Small, Regular and Real

Sometimes the grand gesture comes from someone who is in one form or another of false love.  Maybe they just want to make really big impressions for boosting their own ego or something like that.  One of the signs of healthy, real love is the consistency of love actions.  This is done a little bit, but not too much, regularly and fairly frequently, but not too frequently.  Overdoing it can be just a symptom of insecurity.  That does not mean that the grand gesture or big production can not occasionally happen.  It just has to be mixed with the regular, more frequent and smaller love-conveying behaviors.

Even if the great big, amazing, romantic things never happen, be sure to count the little ones you do get from those who love you.  There are too many people who don’t notice or really receive the smaller love messages coming their way.  So, remember that receiving love well is a major way to give love.  Also regarding the occasional big gestures, remember, it is your job to ask for what you want if you are not getting it.

As always – Go and Grow with Love

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly

♥ Love Success Question: Who could you go show a little love to today, and what about tomorrow, and the day after that?

Related posts:

1. Lasting Sex and Lasting Love
2. Cycling Love for Lasting Love
3. Behaviors That Give Love – The Basic Core Four
4. Other Ways to Say I Love You
5. Love in the Fridge 

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?