What is LOVE, Dr. Cookerly?

Can Love at First Sight Be Real Love?

People often ask me “Dr. Cookerly, can love at first sight be the real thing”? The answer according to most of the research I’m aware of and the knowledgeable thinking on this question is “No, love at first sight probably does not and can not involve real love”. “What is it then?” is usually the next question. Love at first sight most often is a case of Imprint Mating. Here is how Imprint Mating and the whole love at first sight thing is thought to usually work.

It seems that in early childhood we go through critical periods where we are naturally open to things having really strong effects upon us. In some of these critical periods we become highly susceptible to certain images that have to do with love sources being powerfully imprinted into our deep non-conscious brain. These images are of people who give us love or from whom we want our love to come during those critical periods.

Much later we encounter people who look, act, smell and perhaps sound like those images we imprinted. When that happens we automatically project onto these people a false recognition response. We subconsciously sense we are encountering someone to love, and to be loved by and to whom we already are love connected. This often causes excitement and positive feelings similar to reconnecting with a long-lost, very important loved one.

Most commonly it is thought our imprinted images come from how we perceived and experienced our mother, or father (or an integration of both parents) before our fifth birthday. Usually that means in our subconscious we are seeing a person similar to how one or both parents looked, sounded, acted, etc. when they were younger adults. Sometimes it is not our parents but an aunt or uncle, or someone else who was a possible source of love which we imprinted at a highly impressionable critical period.

Once we project onto another person and ‘see’ in them our imprinted image, it triggers our deep built in ‘mating drive’ which makes us want to ‘mate’ with that person we feel ‘love at first sight’ with. It’s kind of like, at that moment, that person is a screen onto whom we are putting our projected image. Therefore, we are falsely seeing who we want to see, and are basically blind to who is really there, at least for awhile. Mating, by the way, means much more than just having sex. Our built in mating drive frequently pushes us to much more totally ‘mate’ with that person usually for at least several months.

Another fact quite vital to understanding the love at first sight phenomenon is to know that attraction and love are two very different things. We can be attracted strongly and quite quickly to people we will never love. We also can deeply and powerfully love people we do not find necessarily attractive.

Most love at first sight relationships don’t last very long. Unfortunately some people who strongly rely on first sight love discover those relationships sometimes end in life damaging disappointment and heartbreak. Others keep missing out on real love because they continue looking for the love at first sight false thing mistakenly thinking it is the real thing. Still others just give up on romantic love entirely.

Does all this mean that ‘love at first sight’ never leads to a lasting, healthy, real mate-type love relationship? No, not at all. There are those who grow a real love relationship after getting their relationship started with Imprint Mating. That’s probably what keeps people believing in love at first sight; there are just enough people succeeding with a love at first sight start-up to keep people believing in it. Also, it is a very pretty romantic myth, even though it probably causes more hurt and harm than it causes good. Thus, love at first sight is best regarded as a form of false love which, nonetheless, could (but probably won’t) lead to a lasting, good love relationship.

What is the best thing to do if you feel like you have a love at first sight experience? I like to suggest that the best thing to do is to operate from the Apostle Paul’s declaration, “love is patient”. Therefore, taking lots of time to get to know who is really there usually works best. Look long and hard for what is behind your projections and beneath your first impressions. If real love is going to happen and grow, it will show itself to be real in time. So, give it enough time. Most forms of false love die out within a year. Some can last a lot longer but usually don’t. Proceed cautiously but also enjoy all the adventure and excitement of a first sight love experience, while getting to know the real person who is there over time.

Real love may develop but it will take exploration, experience and time to know if that is what’s happening. If and when a first sight relationship ends you may know that you have had a good, and hopefully growthful love related experience. Now, with this forewarning and knowledge you will know not to count on it too much, and hopefully you will avoid most of the hurt and all of the harm potential in a love at first sight experience. Good luck!

As always – Grow in Love

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly

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Image credits: “The Binocular Bunch” by Flickr user Supagroova.
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Isolated and Doing Love Anyway

Mini-Love-Lesson #268

Synopsis: Here we first are helped to realize the extent of how love needs are increasingly going unmet, and the dangers that brings to us due to worldwide safety needs and resulting isolation caused by the pandemic. Then we are showed the different, counterbalancing and creative ways we can diminish the dangers and do our love anyway.

Isolated Alone or Together

In this time of pandemic dangers, our ways of doing our love often are being severely challenged. This especially is so for the millions of people living isolated, sheltering in place and living physically disconnected for safety’s sake. Not only that, but around the world hundreds of thousands of people are losing those who have been both major sources and recipients of their love. That has greatly adding to the problems of isolation.

Millions are quarantined from having direct contact with those most dear to them. Furthermore, they also are isolated from the others with which they share friendships and other caring relationships . Worldwide our safety needs are blocking us from our love needs being met and from fully meeting the love needs of others. Children are going without being lovingly kissed, hugged and tucked in at night by their parents who serve on the front lines of the fight against this deadly disease. Grandparents are not being blessed with the joys of grandchildren, the spouses of healthcare workers are living largely disconnected and apart from their most beloved, and dearest friends are not receiving comforting and reassuring hugs from one another. Some who have violated the stay apart guidelines are now alone, grieving and guilty for having possibly infected a loved one who is now gone due to the virus.

For all those cut off from love sources, the danger is growing. Having less love interaction can mean becoming increasingly stressed, depressed and susceptible to depression and eventually even suicidal episodes, substance abuse and/or relapse, hypertension, heart attacks and strokes. In so many places, love is being enacted less and needed more. So, what are we to do? Can we change to new ways of showing our love enough, in time and with sufficient potency? Yes, I think we can! (See “Could You Be a LAT Lover and Succeed at It?”).

How To Love Well in the Time of Pandemic Isolation

To meet the love challenges of our time, here are some suggestions. First of all, please follow the scientific and medical people as your best guides for safety and not risking the spreading of this highly infectious and deadly disease.

Next, admit to yourself that you have psychological needs including love needs which may need your attention along with some changed and new behaviors. Any uncomfortable or bad feelings you are having may be trying to tell you that. If you are living more isolated from those you love and those you have been befriended by, you are or will be negatively effected. How much and how well you respond is up to you. Do know that when love is reduced or absent from a person’s life it affects brain and body health negatively. For those you love and for healthy self-love, you can search out and practice more taking care of your own love needs along with doing what you can about other’s love needs in this time of isolation. Here are some “how to’s”.

Increase your in-person phone contacts, even if you are more comfortable with texting. You see, it is not just the words spoken, it is the tones of voice and other vocal variables that get love nurturing, love care and love connecting done. In fact, in personal communication research the data shows the words can be as little as 7% of the meaning communicated. In personal auditory communication, vocal variables carried the majority of the message impact received.

Use video connecting a lot. Skype, Zoom and other e-video services make it possible to see and hear your loved ones in real-time. Video interaction can increase the personal/emotional meaningfulness of a personal communication event by over 50% according to some communication researchers.

Make contact efforts with everybody you care about, even a little. You even can include almost everyone you ever cared about in the past. If you are worried about what to say before you phone or video contact someone, try this. Think of three or so questions to ask and three or so bits of information about your own life to share. Remember, it is not important to say important things, it is important just to personally connect. Saying just about anything, sounding friendly and/or caring, along with listening well is what makes valuable connecting happen (see “Communicating Better with Love: Mini-Lessons” and “Listening With Love”).

Surprise connecting calls are great. “I thought about you and just decided I would call to connect and see how you are” is all you need to say as a reason for calling. Reconnecting with those you haven’t talked to in ages usually works for old friends and old acquaintances who might become current friends. Remember to ask about their feelings concerning the pandemic and how they are handling it, as well as relating some of your own feelings.

Connect with strangers. You sometimes can make new friends by talking to strangers in Internet chat rooms, call-in shows, and on podcasts and other network services. If you are depressed or otherwise distressed help lines are available and often do wonders. It is an act of healthy self-love to make contact, and people to do that with are available, welcoming and usually interesting as well as interested. Know that by making the effort to contact them, you may do them as much, or more, good as they do you. Enjoy that!

You also could make contact the old-fashioned way by writing letters. Handwritten letters especially are becoming rather rare but increasingly precious and cherished. Texting is good too but usually lacks having deeper emotional impact which is, of course, why some people prefer it.

The Importance of Healthy, Self-Love Actions

You can be your own source of love if you learn the “how-to’s of healthy self-love and practice them. In our current isolation and safe distancing life situations, healthy real self-love actions may be more important than ever. That also is true for people you may be isolated with (see “Loving Others “As” You Love Yourself???” and “Self-Love – What Is It?”).

Take charge of keeping your mind active and interested. You can do this by learning new things, relearning old ones, exploring strange topics, engaging in hobbies further than you have before, getting involved or more involved with simple arts and crafts, doing new and different things with food and delving into all sorts of subjects you don’t know much about.

Take charge of your body and making it healthier and more fit. Look for fun new ways to exercise, dance and play one person athletic games with yourself. If you are the least bit ambidextrous you can play right-hand versus left-hand games. If you are isolated with others play wrestling, arm wrestling and even thumb wrestling, compete with throw or bounce ball, play hop-scotch and many other games are some of the options open to you.

Do more love and play with dog(s) or other pets if you have a good, loving, playful dog or two. There is an old legend that says dogs were put in the world to teach us love. They probably are better at it than humans sometimes, so let us learn from our betters. Cats, parrots, horses, ferrets and lots of other animals might be available for play too.

Go outside even if it is only on a balcony or in a tiny backyard. It is better if it is a park, a woods, a field or whatever’s available (follow safety guidelines). Go there and look until you really see and perhaps even feel your love connecting with nature. The studies are conclusive. A loving, appreciative involvement with nature is nurturing and surprisingly healthful. Let nature love you and love it back, and love life at the same time.

Schedule your life. Without a schedule, lots of people just do not do what they hoped to do or planned to do. You can schedule just about everything, even your efforts at love and love connecting. It also helps to reward yourself in various ways for keeping to your schedule but it does not work if you skimp or cheat.

Projects are another way to do your love. Make something for a loved one. With and for self-love, make something for yourself. You could write a love note to everyone you love. You might put together a special recording of favored music or create a scrapbook of all those unorganized photos stored away someplace. For a loved child, you might make up a story and even illustrate it with sketched or cut out pictures. For family, you could do some family history collection and record it. For your most intimate loved one(s), creating the first half of a romantic sexy story for them to finish is a titillating yet loving possibility. Painting pictures, making collages, pottery and sculpting also are gifts of love you might now have time for.

Here is a special project for you to consider. Short messages and sayings about love rendered in artful calligraphy, modernized printing or in rustic form on special paper or canvas, or on boards and/or perhaps framed can make precious and cherished love gifts for presentation after we are all done with isolation.

Counterbalance the negatives coming your way. Paying too much attention to the world’s negatives and not enough attention to the positive can be toxic. It is important to stay current on what is bad, wrong, dangerous and depressing for lots of reasons. It also is important not to overdose on it. So for healthy living, counterbalancing the negatives by paying attention to and searching out and experiencing positives can be very important to your mental health. That also applies to the more negative people in your life. Too much experiencing of nay-sayers, constant complainers and the doom-and-gloom folks can be unhealthy. However, totally excluding them can have its drawbacks too. So, search out and often contact positive people, especially happy loving people.

Here are a few suggestions for how to start counterbalancing. Google the Good News Network and/or pick from the other positive information services under the good news entry which contains lots of today’s upbeat, positive stories, events, etc. Then for your more in-depth factual reading I suggest looking into the newer behavioral science field of positive psychology. Positive psychology has some pretty interesting, well-written books which have come out of this factual, uplifting, research science. If you would like to know and be amazed by how far we have come in human progress, let me turn your attention to Steven Pinker’s The Better Angels of Our Nature. It is a book well-written, rich in facts, and it includes a great deal of the “good stuff”, often left out of standard history lessons.

Learn More about Love

Whether you are quarantined all alone or with a spouse, family members or a another loved one, you can use this time of isolation for making a big, life improvement. In the process you also can reduce your growing cabin fever, listlessness, feelings of aggravation, annoyance, irritability, boredom, purposelessness or whatever other feelings you might want to reduce. You can do this by learning more about the amazing knowledge of healthy, real love newly available. As you do this, you then may get happy and excited working on how to make ever improving use that knowledge in your own life.

One way to do this you already are working on by reading this mini-love-lesson. You can continue that by studying more of our mini-love-lessons on love found at this site which, of course, we encourage. You also can send for and read books about the new findings, new thinking, old re-discovered findings and thinking, research discoveries, efforts and trends – all having to do with love and love related topics. Most of those reveal the subject of love to be more immense, amazing, incredible, learnable and healthfully usable, not to mention empirically discoverable than anyone ever guessed.

You also can look up a lot of love topics on the Internet but be careful there. There is a lot of misleading and mistaken, along with just out-and-out wrong, harmful and absurd things written as the truth about love on the Internet. Some books also are pretty poor or just not really about love though love is in the title.

Everything you learn about love can be talked about with those you connect with via phone, video or however. Isolated alone or together, you can find ways to take care of your love needs, your love relationships and your ways of doing your love.

As always – Go and Grow with Love

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly

♥ Love Success Question: Who have you not yet learned much from concerning love – ancient sages, philosophers, theologians and great religious teachers of more than one major faith, psychoanalysts, cultural anthropologists, sociologists, animal experimental psychologists, social psychologists, linguistic psychologists, neuropsychologists, marriage and family researchers and counselors, psychotherapists, various brain scientists, physicians and medical researchers, other behavioral and social scientists, or ??? All these have a lot of worthwhile things to say about love you might be intrigued with and enriched by.

Emotional Intercourse

“What do women want?” is supposed to be a question that has baffled the wise for centuries. Even Sigmund Freud said he didn’t figure it out. Let me suggest that perhaps the answer is – emotional intercourse. Time and time again when I use this term in couple’s counseling the women smile and nod while the men look quite puzzled.

Frequently a woman will say something like, “Of course” or “How true” or “That sums it up”. The men will usually remark, “What the heck is emotional intercourse?”. I think the truth is that males also want emotional intercourse at a deep instinctive level but are not so likely to be consciously aware of having this natural and needed desire. When both men and women get, and know they have gotten, good emotional intercourse they express that it has enriched their relationship as well as their lives in general.

Emotional intercourse is an extremely important part of intimate, romantic, real love. It seems emotional intercourse is one of the main things that keeps intimate love fueled and running. To keep a healthy romantic-type love alive and growing emotional intercourse is probably a very vital, necessary requirement.

What is emotional intercourse? Emotional intercourse is the frequently satisfying and often passionate giving and receiving of each other’s many and varied emotions. Much like sexual intercourse it is best done naked – that is, emotionally naked. Going emotionally naked engenders very real, without disguise or deception communication. Emotional intercourse also is best done up-close and quite personal, and it’s best when it involves the whole person (facial expressions, voice tones, body postures, etc.) of each of the participants.

How is positive emotional intercourse done? Emotional intercourse is accomplished by the speaking and showing of emotions, and by closely attending to the emotional expressions of another person while having and showing corresponding, empathetic feelings. If your lover is sad be sad for their sadness and show it. If your lover is glad be glad for their gladness and show it. With each feeling your lover has you can harmonize with that feeling, and feel it and then show you feel it.

Emotional intercourse also can be accomplished by showing corresponding, empathetic caring when your lover hurts, empathetic anger when your lover is angry about something in their life, and empathetic concern when your lover is afraid. These empathetic feelings are to be felt and shown whether or not you cognitively believe the feeling they are having is justified, rational, or right. Remember, emotions are facts. When you have one it is a reality, whether it makes sense to anyone or not. Emotional intercourse involves intimately being with your lover’s psychological heart, gut and genitals as they feel the feelings that emanate from each of those symbolic centers.

To be good at emotional intercourse takes showing your own emotions. That is done with varying facial expressions, tones of voice, gestures, posture changes and touch. Of course, the more you can identify, label and give voice to your emotions with words the better.

In order to enhance the speaking of your emotions here is a little learning exercise. Make a list of emotions. Come up with one or more names for emotions which start with each letter of the alphabet. Yes, there are words that label emotions starting with each letter of the alphabet. Aim for your list to have more pleasurable emotions than dis-pleasurable ones. After you make your list think about when you have felt each of these emotions. Pick out several and share these feelings, and the events that went with them, with someone you love.

After that ask your loved one when they have had the same emotions. Pay really close, loving attention to what they say and how they say it. Then show that you are doing this. Usually making good eye contact, being able to elucidate on the emotion you think they are experiencing, and being able to empathetically reflect back to them what they just said usually accomplishes this. In doing this exercise perhaps you will start toward experiencing deeply satisfying emotional intercourse in a somewhat new and different way.

Sexual intercourse has a strong relationship with emotional intercourse in lasting relationships. To have ongoing, healthy sexual intercourse with someone it almost always requires good, ongoing emotional intercourse. Yes, people can have short-term, enjoyable sex without having much emotional intercourse with a sex partner. However, to have a lasting and good sex life with a particular person, good and repeated emotional intercourse seems to be necessary. If you get really good at emotional intercourse you probably will be getting good at one of the most important skills for growing lasting and highly satisfying, intimate, romantic love.

As always – Grow in love.

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly

♥ Love Success Question
What are three emotions you have felt so far today? Who might you share them with and, thereby, probably feel a little closer to?

Scam Love

Synopsis: This mini-love-lesson begins by talking about vulnerability to scam love; how it is different from Spouse Acquirement Syndrome; and ends with ideas about how you can protect yourself from scam love; more.

Vulnerability

“I was incredibly hungry to feel loved, valued, wanted and not alone in a relationship. That hunger blinded me to all the warning signs I should have paid attention to. Consequently, I easily got seduced into thinking I had a new, real love. Then I got conned out of a ton of money and in return all I got was broken hearted and ashamed of what a fool I was!”

Could that be you? Unfortunately it is the sentiment of a great many people who have been scammed into thinking and feeling they were being loved, when actually they were being conned, used and manipulated by those who use affectionate, romantic, erotic and other love connected behaviors to fool you and harm you for their own personal gain.

Scam love occurs for a variety of reasons besides money. Almost everyone is familiar with the people who say “I love you” to help others convince themselves it is okay to have sex with them. To give themselves permission to have sex with someone, a lot of people ‘scam themselves’ temporarily thinking they love and are loved when at a deeper level they know better. Sometimes the reasons are not entirely selfish. Listen to Eric who said, “I just had to have a mother for my infant son. My wife had abandoned both of us and there wasn’t any way I could make my life work trying to raise him by myself. So, I convinced the first acceptable girl that came along that I really loved her so she would marry me and pick up where my former wife left off. That worked for a while but now I’m trapped in this marriage I don’t want and I’m having affairs I don’t really want either.”

Then there’s Pauline who commented, “My family would have disowned me if I hadn’t hooked up with a guy. They were on the verge of deciding I was a lesbian, which I am, so I did what it took to convince a guy I was in love with him. I know it was wrong and when he finds out it’s going to break his heart. He’s such a nice guy but I have to hold onto him until my sick and fragile father passes away. So, I guess I’m going to be living this lie a while longer because it would destroy my ailing father to know I can only fall in love with girls. If I hurt my father, at the last of his life, my family will hate me forever”.

Many a child molester has scammed many a child or adolescent into being convinced the child molester really loved them. Sometimes the child molester convinces the child or adolescent’s parents that they have a pure, filial love for their targeted youth. Sometimes children and other youth are love-scammed as part of a larger scam directed at gaining status, security, wealth, etc. from the parents of the love-scammed youth.

Some people do scam-love to attain status, social position and more luxurious living. Some people do scam-love to attain stability, safety and security. Some people do scam-love because they don’t believe in real love or its value but also see the advantages it might bring. Some people do scam-love to escape misery, abuse, poverty and sometimes just a boring, ordinary life. Others do scam love in order to attain power and various other advantages over others. Cults do scam-love to obtain control over members.

Scam-Love Explained

Scam-love occurs when a person sets out to purposefully deceive another into thinking that they are loved by the scammer. It usually involves deceitful manipulation of the target person into believing that they love the scammer also. Once this is achieved the scammer then sets out to obtain some hidden agenda goal from the target person. Often this ends up being very harmful to the targeted person.

Here are two brief examples. Jessica said she followed her mother’s training and examples by marrying the richest man she could find, artificially giving him everything he wanted in a woman and then divorcing him for a considerable amount of money, and then going on to an even richer man to do the same thing. Bernard targeted Beatrice because she came from a high status, old money family and he was from a low, blue-collar background; Bernard very much wanted entry into the elite and exclusive levels of society. As soon as he was established there by way of his wife, Beatrice, and her family he took a mistress and later divorced Beatrice.

An All Ages Phenomenon

It isn’t just the young and immature who get love-scammed. Older people are a particular target of love-scammers. They know that retired people who have lost their spouse are often particularly easy targets for love-scam manipulation. Some older, retired couples also are easily conned into thinking they had just made a new loving, and ever so helpful friend who just happens later to suddenly and desperately need a bunch of money quickly. AARP, the American Association of Retired Persons, has a fraud fighter hotline (800-646-2283) which provides counseling, education and victim advocacy for cases of their members who have been love-scammed and for other more senior citizens.

Love-Scams and Spouse Acquirement Syndrome

Romantic love-scams are similar to the false love pattern called Spouse Acquirement Syndrome, but are also different in some ways. (See the mini-love-lesson, Spouse Acquirement Syndrome, at this site) Usually in an acquirement syndrome a person either unconsciously or semiconsciously talks themselves into believing they really are in love with who they are marrying. Sometimes they see this as the way marriage is done, by deceptive acquirement rather than truthful love. In that case they may have been culturally programmed for this acquirement behavior. In the scam-love situation there is premeditated, purposeful and planned, selfish deception with a hidden agenda and goal. The love scammer is fully aware they do not love the person they are scamming. Their actions demonstrating love are all false and manipulative and will cease once their hidden agenda goal is attained.

How Can You Protect Yourself?

To protect yourself ask yourself these questions. What do you have that someone might want other than love? How are you useful to someone who is supposedly professing love for you? Does it seem like you are being rushed toward a committed relationship or anything else by a person who supposedly is a love source? What do you really know about this person and their previous love involvements that didn’t come from them? Do you know others that can tell you things about this person? Are you going to be patient enough in this relationship to be sure that things really are as they seem? Are you finding that some of the things your supposed lover tells you do not seem to quite be true? Are you prone to be a rescuer, helper, fixer, etc. in relationships?

If you are getting answers you don’t really like it doesn’t mean that you’re being scammed but it does mean you might be. Take more time, look deeper, don’t be afraid ask probing questions, and check up on answers you get. Remember, protecting yourself is part of good, healthy self-love.

As always – Go and Grow with Love

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly

♥ Love Success Question
How questioning and honest are you with yourself about what’s really going on when you are in a romantic love situation?

Gratitude - As a Love Skill

Synopsis: This mini-love-skill lesson starts with important questions about thankfulness; goes on to gratitude awareness, gratitude confusion, gratitude insensitivity, the self enrichment of gratitude, gratitude expression and ends with a thankfulness and gratitude challenge.

Thankful?

Are you good at being thankful? Are you good at noticing what you have to be thankful for? Are you good at identifying who you have to be thankful to? Are you good at experiencing a sense of gratitude? Are you good at showing your thankfulness and gratitude to those you love and those you would or might come to love? Are you good at finding different ways to state your gratitude? Being sincerely thankful and finding ways to convey your thankfulness or gratitude can be a very useful and constructive part of doing ‘affirmation love’, see entry “A Behavioral (Operational) Definition of Love”. Are you aware that without gratitude sufficiently felt and thankfulness sufficiently expressed love relationships are likely to be diminished and often seriously damaged.

Gratitude Awareness

Do you agree with this statement? Every positive and pleasurable experience of your life, and everything you achieve or accomplish, and every one of your victories, comforts and acquirements are things you have been helped to have and did not achieve all on your own. Someone else did a lot of work with almost everything you eat before you eat it. Someone else built the roads you travel on and the domiciles you live in as well as the structures you function in.

Someone else researched and developed the medicines you take and the tools you work with. Most of your learning opportunities come from the endeavors of others. Perhaps most important of all, someone loved you enough to keep you sufficiently thriving in infancy and childhood so that you stayed alive and are now able to be reading this mini-love-lesson about gratitude. So, are you grateful for all that?

Perhaps today someone will smile at you. Perhaps today someone will treat you nicely. Perhaps today someone will do you a favor. Perhaps today someone will give you a loving touch. Perhaps today someone will make your life just a bit easier. Perhaps today someone will say words indicating that you are loved. Will you experience the pleasure of gratitude as these things happen? Hopefully your gratitude awareness will be keen. If not, work on it and be grateful to yourself for doing so.

Gratitude Confusion

Gratitude is not to be confused with guilt, obligation, sense of duty, owing somebody something in return, or anything else that might be felt as a negative. Sadly, many people have been trained, or in essence subconsciously programmed, to cancel the joy of gratitude with one negative set of feelings or another. Gratitude as an emotion just means you get to feel good that something good has come your way and you can have a sense of being grateful about that. By itself gratitude does not mean that you have to, or should, or ought to do anything except have the positive experience gratitude provides.

Gratitude Insensitivity

Lots of people take for granted so many of the positive things they might otherwise be grateful for. Many others take for granted not only the actions of, but also the people who are providing love and other strong positives in their life. Many of the people I have dealt with in therapy stopped taking things and people for granted and became grateful only after they lost or were in danger of losing the most important people in their lives. So many people are focused on some other aspect of life that they are blind to the things and people they could be grateful for. Many others are insufficiently aware and grateful for the bundle of miracles they themselves are. Did you know you are a bundle of miracles? Everything about you and all your natural processes (biologically, psychologically and socially) can be seen as wondrous. Dare you be grateful?

The Self Enrichment of Gratitude

Do you know that it does you good to be grateful? First, gratefulness starts with awareness of something you appreciate and appreciation is a form of pleasure, therefore, you pleasure yourself when you experience being in a state of appreciating. Second, gratefulness for something or someone puts you in a state of sensing a positive connection with that something or someone. Third, both the pleasuring and the connecting senses tend to stimulate several healthful neurochemical events in your brain which are rather good for you biologically and psychologically. Gratitude also frequently can give you something to enjoyably share with another person.

Gratitude Expressed

Gratitude shared with someone you love often increases the love and the occurrence of ‘love giving actions’ going back and forth between people who have a love relationship with each another. Because of gratitude’s positive nature, gratitude shared can help you have or make a positive interaction and strengthen a bond with another person. Telling someone you love that you are thankful they are in your life and that various actions that they do to express their love toward you is appreciated is best done as a free gift without any expectation of a return. If there is an expectation of return when expressing gratitude that can be a disguised, selfish manipulation instead of just a true gift of love. Saying thank you, if done in a perfunctory way without a true sense of gratitude behind it, may make the expression weak and nearly meaningless.

Overdoing it also has its problems. Going on and on about something you are grateful for may produce embarrassment, awkwardness, suspicion and annoyance. Usually the best verbal expressions of loving gratefulness are delivered clearly, strongly and shortly. However, in intimate situations longer and more detailed, love-filled statements can work quite well. Gifts, cards, notes and special experience gifts which express thankfulness to someone you love often are excellent ways to demonstrate love. One of the best things about expressing your thanks to a loved one is that it can be fun. It can be done as a surprise, a special, intimate event or as a social, laudatory and celebratory occurrence.

The gratitude challenge

Let me dare you to be grateful and from that actively thankful for things small, medium and large which others do for you, do on your behalf or do in your direction. Let me dare you to express your thankfulness with a little more intensity than perhaps you usually do. Let me dare you to express your thankfulness a little more frequently than is usual for you, and let me dare you to start today!

As always – Go and Grow with Love

Dr. J Richard Cookerly

♥ Love Success Question
Right this minute, what will you be thankful for about yourself ?

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