Introduction
I never realised how complicated LOVE could be. What I wanted to write here, our childhood forms us, and our parents childhood forms them, and then it passed down to us. Our aim in life is to have well adjusted children, that can be children and not grow up to fast. Children that grow up to be well adjusted adults. Its a cycle that can be very cruel. Love is taught to us, like so many other things. Having just one person that loves us, makes a big difference.
That one person love, teaches us to love, but we must be open to this love. How can we teach love when we never let go the hurt from the past. We can't. We need to let go and forgive our parents, others and ourselves. We can love others if we don't love ourselves, but its not an ideal situation. We need to love ourselves, in order not to to be so harsh on ourselves. Love does not just happen, we choose to love, and it requires a ton of work just to keep it going.
Topics
Growing up
How Your Childhood Is Messing Up Your Love Life
Family breakdown and its impact on children
Are we taught to LOVE?
Can we love others if we cannot love ourselves?
Can we love without forgiveness?
Parents are People, they make mistakes
Life is not a fairy tale
Love is for all
How we are molded as children
Depression and Love
Narcissistic
WHAT IS LOVE?
Why is it so hard to Love Ourselves?
How do we know if we love someone?
Love Relationship Issues
Do you want to go back to loving your husband or wife or any other person?
Growing up
How Your Childhood Is Messing Up Your Love Life
Growing up, you were completely at the will of your parents.
Depending on how much love, time, and attention your parents gave you, their involvement in your life undoubtedly affected how you show up in your romantic relationships.
If they were there for you, never there for you, or too there for you, you will be drawn to different kinds of partners for your romantic relationships.
We are at our most vulnerable within the context of our familial and our intimate relationships. So naturally, our unresolved emotional issues from one (familial) bleeds in to the other (intimacy).
From an early age, you learned to be a counterbalance to the other people in your immediate family. Whatever the family unit needed you to be, you became.
If your parent/s neglected you, you may be prone to attracting similarly distant partners in your relationships.
If a parent was quick to anger, you learned to walk lightly and be so self-sufficient that you didn’t need any parenting.
If one of your parents periodically abandoned you, you may be attracted to partners in the future whose love you have to “earn”, as opposed to being attracted to people that already love you.
Since you are so used to being in a certain role within your family, you find partners that keep you stuck in that role (without a lot of self-awareness/self-development or talk-based therapy to intervene in your unconscious patterns). So unless you become aware of, and shift your patterns, you will continue to live out the same emotional trauma that you experienced as a young child.
So how do you become aware of how your childhood affects your current emotional patterns and love life? Read on and see if you recognize any (or several) of the following common issues that I see in my coaching clients.
Specific Childhood Issues Playing Out In Your Love Life
1. Abandonment (Fear Of Loss Or Rejection)
Did you have neglectful parents? Did they abandon you once or frequently, either by physically leaving or by being emotionally unavailable due to their own issues? Did you rarely have a parental figure you felt like you could lean on?
You may cling to potential partners because you’re afraid of being left and you have been conditioned to have an underlying belief that the relationships that you need most deeply will not work out in the long run. While you desperately want love and affection more than anything else, you are also terrified of letting others in to love you deeply.
2. Defectiveness (Fear Of Being Unlovable)
Defectiveness is the feeling that you are unworthy or undeserving of being loved. The feeling that you are somehow defective as a person (also known as shame-based thinking).
A sense of defectiveness often comes from a mean or dismissive parent. Especially if you were a more sensitive or introverted child, a cruel familial relationship would weigh heavily on your self-esteem for many years to come.
Sit with this feeling and follow it down. If you feel that unique sense of shame when your heart feels rubbed the wrong way… listen to what your heart is telling you. What kinds of thoughts come up for you? And when you feel this way, what defense mechanisms do you employ? Do you keep people at arms distance emotionally? Do you shut down and become passive in your communication?
Your coping mechanism for not feeling worthy of being loved would be to distance yourself from loving relationships of any sort. You might be reluctant to let anyone see you for who you are because “who you are” doesn’t feel good enough to be loved.
It can be a scary endeavour to start to shift your behaviour, but small steps will start you on your journey. You don’t have to swing the pendulum from the mindset of “I’m not worthy of love and belonging” to walking around and being an open, vulnerable, exposed wound of a person. Who you choose to let in to your personal space (thoughts, feelings, etc.) is always up to you. And you can take it at your own pace.
3. Subjugation (People Pleasing)
Subjugators are passive people-pleasers in their relationships. The unconscious process being “If I’m extra nice to you and make you feel amazing with every bit of my being, then you will have to stay and love me. You won’t reject me like the people in my past did.”
By making yourself subservient to your partner and prioritizing their needs over yours, you might think you are doing them a favour by adding value to their life. But in reality, you are setting up a lose-lose dynamic that hurts both of you. You don’t get your emotional needs met, and your partner often feels like they bear the weight of being responsible for your mood (since your mood is so dependent on how they feel moment to moment).
When self-sacrificing subjugators do start to prioritize their emotional needs in the context of relationships, their mind resists it and they often feel guilty for giving themselves any time or attention.
4. Dependency (Being Overly Reliant On Others)
Were your parents overbearing? Did they make every little decision for you? Were you made to feel apprehensive about making decisions for yourself?
It’s natural that your parents would be making the majority of your decisions for you when you were very young (what you ate, what you spent your time doing), but after a certain age if you weren’t allowed or trusted to make choices for yourself then you will be often attracted to partners that make the majority of your decisions as well.
You might think it’s a good thing to let your partner choose every movie you see together or where you go for a vacation or how much you spend or save, but in reality, you will end up feeling resentful of having little choice, and your partner will not respect your lack of interest. In addition, over time your self-esteem will be eroded, and you may feel unable to leave an unhealthy relationship if you are overly dependent on your partner. In healthy adult partnerships, both people are comfortable expressing their desires, and they make decisions together.
5. Entitlement (Inflexible And Unrealistic Expectations)
If you were raised with parents who had weak personal boundaries (i.e. they found it difficult to say “no” to you) then you are at a higher risk of developing a sense of entitlement about the world and an unrealistic set of expectations for your intimate relationships.
As previously mentioned in this article, whatever role your family unit required you to fulfill, you learned to fill it. If your parents didn’t give you any structure growing up, you would push them further to see where their boundaries were. You would ask yourself “How much can I get away with? How many toys/vacations/gifts can I guilt out of them?”
Children need boundaries and they thrive when they have parents that have the ability to say no to them. Without these boundaries growing up, you will tend towards finding partners that are similarly passive and who have a difficult time saying no to you. When someone does have healthy boundaries, it may frustrate or repel you, because you can’t get what you want from them like you could from your parents. You may feel that they need to do what you want in order to prove their love, but this is a very unhealthy view of what love is.
What To Do About It?
Understand that everything your parents did for you they did from one of two places: their love for you, or their unconscious patterns that their parents put into them.
Even if the loving intention isn’t immediately apparent, dig for it. Think “how could their behaviour possibly have come from a place of love? I’ve had clients whose parents were incessantly challenging towards them because they recognized their child’s “weakness” or softness that they saw in themselves and they wanted to keep pushing their child to harden up so as to not let the world hurt them as much. They did it as a protective mechanism that they thought would benefit their child.
Another client told me her father was an alcoholic who was emotionally distant. Her father had the same relationship with his own father, so had thought it best to keep children at arms distance rather than “poison” them with his presence, or have his behaviour rub off on them.
If you keep digging far enough, you will find their actions rooted in love. If I can help shed some light on issues that keep you from finding healthy relationships.
Family breakdown and its impact on children
On a range of outcomes including educational achievement, behaviour, mental
health, self concept,social competence and long-term health, there are significant
differences between children who experience parental separation compared with
children from intact families.Although the difference between the two groups is
generally statistically significant, effect sizes are nevertheless small, reflecting the
fact that within both groups, children vary widely in their experiences. Children from
intact families can experience circumstances known to increase the risk of poor
outcomes such as poverty, parental conflict, violence and poor parenting, whilst
children whose parents separate may not experience these or can cope well, with
the result that many children experiencing family breakdown will function as well as,
or even better than, children from intact families.
While family transitions place children at an increased risk of negative outcomes,
the evidence shows that relatively few children and adolescents experience enduring problems,and some children can actually benefit when it brings to an end a ‘harmful’
family situation, for example where there are high levels of parental conflict, including violence. Long-term effects in adults, who as children have experienced family
breakdown, include problems with mental health and well-being, alcohol use, lower educational attainment and problems with relationships.
There are significant differences within and across family types, and simple
comparisons between different family types can mask much of the variation that exists.
Stepfamilies, for example, vary enormously and living in a more complex
stepfamily, where both parent and stepparent have brought children into the ‘new’
family has been associated with more adjustment problems than in a stepfamily
where all the children are related to the mother. In terms of outcomes, the
differences between children within family types can be greater than across family types. This suggests that family functioning, and not family type, is of greater significance.
Explanatory mechanisms
Family breakdown is not a single event, but a process that involves a number of
risk and protective factors that interact in complex ways both before and after
parental separation or divorce to increase or limit the risk of the adverse outcomes associated with family breakdown. These inter-related factors include parental
conflict; the quality of parenting and of parent-child relationships; maternal mental
health; financial hardship; and repeated changes in living arrangements, including family structure.
Parental conflict is a key variable associated with negative outcomes in children
from both intact and non-intact families. Research in this area clearly shows that
family functioning has a greater impact on outcomes than family structure. High
levels of conflict, stress resulting from the separation and/or resulting poverty can
all negatively affect maternal mental health.
Poor mental health affects the ability of parents, whether married, separated or
divorced, to parent effectively, which in turn impacts on children’s well-being.
Financial hardship and the stress it induces can both contribute to family
breakdown and is often a consequence of it. When compared with their peers
from more advantaged backgrounds, children from poorer backgrounds, whether
from intact or non-intact families,generally do less well across a number of
measures, such as health and educational attainment. Compared with two parent
families, lone parent families tend to be significantly worse off financially. Financial
hardship increases the likelihood of other variables associated with negative
outcomes, such as poor housing, health problems, poor nutrition and fewer material resources for nurturing children.
Parental separation and divorce can lead to repeated changes in family structure
from a two biological parent family, to lone parent, to stepfamily status, and repeated
family transitions increase the risk of negative child outcomes. Family transitions
are also linked with a number of other changes including moving house, school and/or neighbourhood and it is these multiple changes that negatively impact upon children.
Optimising positive outcomes
There is wide variation in children’s experiences of family breakdown due to
individual differences and family factors, although there is considerable agreement
on what matters to children when their parents separate. Children want to be told
what is happening, though are often kept in the dark, and some want to be involved
in decisions about living arrangements.
All children experience change and transition in their lives. How well they cope
depends on the management, timing and pace of change and the extent to which
children are prepared.
A number of factors are associated with children’s positive adjustment to family
breakdown, including competent and warm parenting, parents’ good mental health,
low parental conflict, cooperative parenting post separation and social support.
In general, children have fewer adjustment problems when the resident parent,
usually the mother, does not have mental health problems and the quality of their
parenting is not disrupted.
Fewer adjustment problems and improved academic achievement are also
associated with having good relationships with the non-resident parent, usually
the father. Although the quality of the relationship appears more important than
frequency of contact with the non-resident parent, frequent contact is likely to
sustain good relationships, and vice versa.
Children do not benefit from contact with a non-resident parent when they do not
have a good relationship with that parent, where the contact is against their wishes,
or where there is abuse or poor parenting.
Low levels of parental conflict have been found to act as a protective factor against
adverse outcomes. When parental conflict is high, a good relationship with at least
one parent is beneficial. Having grandparents and friends to whom children can turn
to for support is also associated with positive outcomes.
A range of services and interventions have developed aimed at facilitating
communication; helping children manage transitions; facilitating support networks;
conflict management and reduction; and parenting support to encourage ‘good’
parenting. However there has been little evaluation of these services in terms of their effectiveness on child outcomes. There is some evidence to suggest that interventions designed to reduce maternal depression can be effective, and that school based
support programmes are beneficial for children, although not all children are
comfortable in talking about their family situation in school.
There is some evidence that divorce education programmes and custody mediation
can be effective; for example in raising awareness of children’s needs, reducing
behaviours where children are put in the middle of disputes, and improved
communication between parents.
This evidence is from the USA where such programmes are often compulsory.
However,pilot programmes in the UK have met with mixed results in terms of
effectiveness in conflict resolution and improving parental relationships.
Conclusions
The review has drawn together the evidence on family breakdown which shows that
although children are at increased risk of adverse outcomes following family
breakdown and that negative outcomes can persist into adulthood, the difference
between children from intact and non-intact families is a small one, and the majority
of children will not be adversely affected in the long-term.
Reducing the risk of a negative impact on child outcomes necessitates
understanding the mechanisms involved in the process of family breakdown and
how they impact on child outcomes. The evidence shows that high levels of parental
conflict, the quality of parenting and of parent-child relationships, poor maternal mental health and financial hardship interact in complex ways before, during and after parental separation, and impact on child outcomes.
The multiple transitions that children can experience following parental separation
are also a significant explanatory factor. It is clear from the evidence that how the
family functions, rather than family type, is more relevant to understanding the impacts associated with family breakdown.
It is a feature of today’s society that many children will experience family breakdown
and that family structure will continue to be diverse. Policies which focus on supporting maternal mental health, facilitating cooperative parenting between parents, and communication between parents and their children, reducing and managing
parental conflict, encouraging good parent-child relationships, and strategies for
reducing financial hardship are just some of the areas that may help to maximise
positive child outcomes following parental separation.
Changes and transitions of different sorts feature in all children’s lives. Helping
children to manage changes and transitions through, for example, improving their
coping skills and resilience, is likely to benefit all children, some of whom may have experienced, or will in the future experience, parental separation.
Are we taught to LOVE?
You learn to stop loving. When our eyes start to focus on the other person’s negative points, everything she does that’s hateful, everything she doesn’t do that you would like her to do, the result is the loss of love.
But love is also something that can you learn, doing the opposite. The problem is that people think that they don’t have control over what they feel. They think that if they feel hate, it’s not their fault, and there’s nothing they can do about it. And if they feel love, it’s also something natural, divine, magical, involuntary; a beautiful sentiment they have no power over.
Mandela was right. No one is born hating or loving. You learn to love and hate. Intelligent love learns to love.
Contrary to popular belief, love is fruit of intelligence, and not of the heart. You can control your feelings and even change them by the things that you think and do.
“No one is born hating another person
because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People
must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love,
for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.” Nelson
Mandela
This raises many topics. Can we love others if we cannot love
ourselves? Can we love without forgiveness?
Can we love others if we cannot love ourselves?
Yes we can love others, without loving yourselves. As we receive love, we learn that we are lovable. As
we love others, we learn to love ourselves. The reason why we don't love ourselves, one, is that
we never taught how .... Blood is thicker than water, yes this is how it should
be. Mothers don't automatically love the children they carried for nine
months. Bonding needs to happen between mother and child. This does
not always happen. Not all pregnancy are planned. Not all pregnancy
occur between two people that love each other. Issues between parents and
children, that causes rifts. Forgiveness is essential part of this. Forgiveness to our parents, they are only people and make mistakes,
forgiveness for ourselves....... Its so very easy to cling to the bad and
forget about the good. The mind is fragile and some times never heals.
© Carlisa P. Branch
Published on February 2006
A Love Letter To My Unborn Child
I write this letter to my unborn
child from the depths of my soul.
You've entered my womb and made my
life complete and whole.
I never thought I would be chosen for
such an awesome task.
It is a greater blessing than what I
ever could ask.
I can almost imagine you in my mind.
Beautiful, happy, bouncing, flashing
a smile so kind.
Feeling you flutter is a sensation
like no other.
It does wonders for the joy of this
soon-to-be-mother!
You create a glow in me I never knew
I would see.
It is true happiness that sets me on
cloud nine manifested deep inside of me!
You're my baby, my child, my heart,
and my wonder.
I pray we create a bond that no one
can put asunder.
You're a designer's original! A
creation from the King!
I can hardly wait for you to enter
the world and see the joy you bring.
Sweet baby of mine, you're a
magnificent gift from above.
Living proof of how your father and I
have shared our love.
I hope you have your father's eyes
Then you will go into the world able
to look at all things wise.
I hope you inherit my ability to
plan.
With that you will be able to face
all things in life as a strong woman or man.
I hope you receive from your father
his selfless ways.
For this the Heavenly Father will
bless you, as he did him, all of your days.
I hope you learn from my spirit and
let no one take it.
Believe me, you will need it in life,
and many will try to break it.
But with that spirit you must have
your father's center.
With that you will be cautious of any
door you enter.
I want you to have my curiosity.
There's nothing wrong with questions
you may blurt!
But receive your father's
discernment,
so you'll know when to let go before
getting hurt.
Have my big heart; know what emotions
are and how to be real.
Share your father's strength so you
can handle what you feel.
Share my sense of humor! Laugh a lot;
it helps you through life.
Share your father's sense of duty.
Know how to be serious and take strife.
I'm emotional, so I tell you it's
okay to blubber once and a while like your Mom.
But learn to develop what your father
has; an excellent sense of calm.
But most of all the things I wish for
your father and I to share.
I wish we teach you to love, respect,
strength of mind, and to care.
These are my feelings, wishes and
hopes for you.
You make my heart and soul sing!
I welcome you to the world and thank
you for the joy,
my little queen or king.
Can we love without forgiveness?
There comes a time in everyone life when we take over the reigns and
live our own life. We don't need to be a certain age to do this. We
decide which path to travel. It took me a very long time to realise that
forgiveness is very essential to moving on. For my parents, for myself. The cycle that repeats
its self from generation to generation, has to be halted. It must be
stopped at all cost. Our children are not to blame for what our parents
did, or did not do. We must be careful not to load unnecessary baggage on
our children. If there is problems between ourselves and our children we
must fix it as quickly as possible. If there are problems between
ourselves and our parents, the same applies, we need communication to settle
the difference.
“Children begin by loving their parents; as they grow older they judge
them; sometimes they forgive them.” ~Oscar Wilde
Parents are People, they make mistakes
Parents are not all knowing, sometimes it has to be pointed out and
explained, we don't wear our feelings on our sleeves, when we get hurt, it does
not mean that others are aware of it, even if we think that they went out their
way to do it. Kids think that parents must know everything. I know
this with my own daughters, if I did not pick up that something was wrong, they
got resentful and would held it against me. I always had to look out for
signs from them, indicating that all was not right with them. Then the
trick was to get them to tell me. Having someone that is prepared to
listen, makes the load much lighter.
© Wanda Oleson
Published on February 2006
Ticket For Life
Bandage scraped knees. Kiss away fears.
Watch their heartbreak and dry their tears.
Teach them to know what's right and what's wrong.
Show them how to be gentle and when to be strong.
Tell them you love them, and then let it show.
That's the easiest part of helping them grow.
There needs to be discipline, but don't over do it.
Praise and encouragement strengthens their spirit.
Show them respect for their feelings and thoughts.
They should know their important, self worth can't be bought.
Show them some patience and always be kind.
Developing minds make mistakes time to time.
Teach them to be the best they can be.
When they're happy within,
WHAT A RIDE LIFE CAN BE!
Life is not a fairy tale
Where is this all going? Life is so complicated and not straight
forward. Things that have any meaning or value are never easy. We
not living a fairy tale, where we meet "the one" and live happy ever
after. It requires a lot of work, constantly .........
Life is not a fairy tale or a bed of roses. LIFE is just LIFE . Plain,
simple and straight forward. In real life there are no Cinderella romances and
grand ball room dances. There are no Romeos and Juliets and no frogs turning
into prince charming. No matter how much we talk about love but in the end of
it all you need that one person in your life who is utterly honest and loyal.
Someone who can stand by you and hold on to you firmly when life gets tough.
Someone whom you can trust blindly when the world goes crazy around you. . It
zeroes down to having someone who respects you and loves you just the way you
are and is proud to have you in his life. In life you don’t need glamour and
grandeur you just need to be loved soulfully to the core…. Aarti Khurana
Love is for all
Just something else, with love, love is never the same, love between
parent and child, love between friends, love between sisters or brothers, love
between soul mates, the ultimate love, we all crave for. Love growths, it
gets more powerful as time goes by. Or sadly it does not, and just
fizzles out and dies. Then there is love, which is never returned. Love
requires a lot of hard work, tolerance and forgiveness. When we love, we
always put the other before yourselves, that how it works. Love which is
not returned, is the hardest, but the most honest, its done for no rewards.
Love is never lost. If not reciprocated, it
will flow back and soften and purify the heart.
Washington Irving
How we are molded as children
How we are shaped as children is very important, it effects the way we
grow up, it effects the way we see things, how we cope in life, if we are more
open to being loved and giving love, all this has its tolls. It makes us
the adults we are today. I been hurt so much by people saying, you can't
love someone else if you can't love yourself. That is very untrue, as
long as one can feel, one's capabilities for love is endless. There’s no rule against loving. Let’s put away these
hurtful, pithy phrases that tell us otherwise. For those that are not connected to their true
feelings, have more difficulties in loving and receiving love.
Depression and Love
Depression may sometimes make it difficult to love
with all of the fullness and energy that a perfectly healthy person can spare.
Some days I barely have the energy to shower, which makes it hard for me to
show acts of love that require me to get out of bed. But I don’t have to be
healed from depression before I’m allowed to love. I can love others even on
days when I hate myself. Sometimes, that’s what keeps me going. I am working
very hard on this depression, its hard work.
Narcissistic
Lets not forget those that love themselves so much, it becomes a problem
for themselves and others, its called narcissistic. This runs the
risk of relationships never meeting expectations.
Meaning of narcissistic. Narcissistic personality disorder is a mental
disorder in which people have an inflated sense of their own importance, a deep
need for admiration and a lack of empathy for others. But behind this mask of
ultra confidence lies a fragile self-esteem that's vulnerable to the slightest
criticism.
A narcissistic personality disorder causes problems in many areas of
life, such as relationships, work, school or financial affairs. You may be
generally unhappy and disappointed when you're not given the special favors or
admiration you believe you deserve. Others may not enjoy being around you, and
you may find your relationships unfulfilling.
“I am in love with you', I responded.
He laughed the most beguiling and gentle laugh.
'Of course you are,' he replied. 'I understand
perfectly because I'm in love with myself. The fact that I'm not transfixed in
front of the nearest mirror takes a great deal of self-control.'
It was my turn to laugh.”
WHAT IS LOVE?
We have strong feelings for each other which are different according to
the people and circumstances, but there is only one word to describe them all –
LOVE. Whether we are talking about our love for a partner,
friend, a colleague, a child, a stranger on a train or humanity itself, there
is just one main word in English – LOVE.
It wasn’t always so. The Ancient Greeks had around 30 words to
describe love in all its shades and complexities. The Southbank’s
Festival of Love exhibition has chosen 7 of the most powerful of these words:
Agape;
Storge;
Philautia;
Philia;
Pragma;
Eros;
Ludus
These guides us towards a greater understanding of the emotion which makes the
world go round. Due to a number of different kinds of love, there are
many ways in which we can give and receive love. This also gives a number
of different answer to that eternal question – WHAT IS LOVE?
We all have our own version of what Love is and there is abundant supply of it
in all different form even when – perhaps mostly when – there seem to be none
at all.
1) PHILAUTIA – SELF LOVE / SELF RESPECT
The writer Maya Angelou said – “I do not trust people who don’t
love themselves, and yet tell me, I love you. There is an African saying
which is: Be careful when a naked person offers you a shirt”.
Philautia is the love we give to ourselves. This is not vanity,
like narcissism, but our joy in having self-respect and being true to our own
values. If we have the strength to care for ourselves, we can in turn
care for others.
Similarly, if you know what makes you happy, then you will be in a
stronger position to find a way of extending that happiness to those around
you. If on the other hand, you are uncomfortable with who you are, or
harbour some self-loathing, then you will have little love to offer others.
2) STORGE – Family Love.
Family; Rainbow Friendship; Loving beyond the Stars; Magnificent
Togetherness; Union
Storge is the love members of a family have for each other. It’s
the love a parent has for a child, or a child has for a favourite aunty or
uncle, the love a foster parent feels for the grandchildren in her care, and
the love a grandparent feels for the child adopted by his son and
daughter-in-law.
3) PHILIA – Shared Experience / Empathy Love
Friendship; Blossoms Blooming; Hands Holding Together; Connected like
stars in the sky; Caring
Philia refers to the love which comes from shared experience. It’s
the love we feel for the people we strive with to achieve a shared goal – our
co-workers, the players in a football or netball team, and the soldiers in the
army.
4) AGAPE – Humanity Love
Big Heart; Celebration; Here we are for you Friend; Leaving a Shared
Situation; World Love
Agape is the love of humanity. It is the kind of love which makes
us sorrowful when we hear of a crisis in another country (or our own), makes us
give our time or money to charity and makes us feel connected to people we
don’t know simply on the basis of our shared experience as human beings.
Agape was later translated into the Latin caritas, which is the basis
for our word – “Charity”. (Roman Krznaric).
5) LUDUS – Flirting, playful affection
Ludus; Mad marmosets; Smirking; Grinning; Giggling; Like flies buzzing
all around me; Fun Love
Ludus means flirting or playful affection. It’s the feeling we have when
we test out what it may be like to be in love with someone – the fluttering
heart and feelings of euphoria, the slightly dangerous feeling.
6) EROS - Romantic and Erotic Love
Eros; Black roses raised; Infinite light, then dark; A necessary war
with hope; Wow! Love
Eros means romantic and erotic love. This one is based on sex and
powerful magnetism. It’s the one which can get us into the most
trouble. It can turn into other kinds of love – like PRAGMA. But it
starts as romance and attraction.
7) PRAGMA – Enduring Love
Marriage; Floorboards linking; Magnets to each other; Peace is their
strength. Love is their glue; Connect
PRAGMA is the love which endured. It is the love between a married
couple which develops over a long period, the love which endures in sickness
and in health. It’s the care a child gives to a sick parent and the love
which makes a friend care for her old school friend who has become vulnerable
in later life.
For Roman Krznaric’s The Wonderbox:
“PRAGMA is about making a relationship work over time, compromising when
necessary, showing patience and tolerance, and being realistic about what you
should expect from your partner. It involves being supportive of each
other’s differing needs, and maintaining domestic stability so that your
children have a nurturing environment in which to grow up and the family’s
financial affairs are secure.
Above all, PRAGMA is about being committed to the other person and
making an effort in your relationship on their behalf, turning love into an act
of mutual reciprocity.
In the 1950’s the psychologist – Erich Fromm, made a distinction between
too much energy on ‘falling in love’ and ‘standing in love’. He said we
expend too much energy on falling and should focus more on the standing, which
is primarily about giving love rather than receiving it.
PRAGMA is at the core of this idea of standing in love”.
The writer, Nathanial Hawthorne said – “What a happy and holy
fashion it is that those who love one another should rest on the same pillow!”
How do we know if we love someone?
We
get an overwhelming sensation.
It
hits us like a bag of bricks. Or a strong arrow.
When
we know, we know. Right?
It depends how you see LOVE, if you given up believing in it.
Love
is a series of choices. The first choice is based on many many factors,
including chemistry, principles, logic, humor, intelligence, body type, where
we are in our lives, what we want/need…
The
list goes on and on and the weight of each factor varies depending on the
individual. Based on these factors, we either choose to begin the process to
love or not. If we decide to enter this process, the action of loving can bring
“light switch” moments. The way he looks at us. How hard she makes us laugh.
The notes he hides in our purse. The way she makes us feel when we don’t feel anything.
But
like an airplane flight, there is turbulence. The fights. The disagreements.
The little things that bother us. His socks. Her shopping. We start wondering
if we’ve made the right choice.
Once
we are in doubt, we have to make another choice: to continue to fly with this
person or jump out of the plane. This choice is based on a thousand other
factors, again depending on the individual and where they are in their journey.
If
we decide to jump, the scary free fall will either make us stronger (grow) or
miserable (depressed). But sooner or later, we’ll find ourself back at the
airport waiting to board another plane. Then we hit turbulence. Or maybe there
is no turbulence. Maybe we’ve changed our mind about the destination. Either
way, another choice: Fly or jump?
It’s
that simple. Either to continue the process or not. We fall in and out of love.
Even in relationships, especially in relationships. This doesn’t mean we don’t
love the person. It means we are left with a choice. There is a difference
between feeling love for someone (caring about a person) and loving someone
(choosing to love that person). We may have love for someone forever, but that
doesn’t mean we choose to love that person forever. The choice to love is not a
feeling; it is an action.
That
is why it is so difficult. It requires us to do something, and I’m not just
talking about buying flowers. It might mean putting our wants aside. Also, like
chemistry, the ability to love is not a constant: It is a variable. It
fluctuates, depending on where we’re at in our life and what we’re struggling
with.
Sometimes
it is easy to love. Sometimes it is extremely difficult. But at the end of
the day, it’s always a choice.
Although love varies, it also deepens. This
means the longer we stay on that flight and embark on the journey together, the
more fruit the process will bear. Our investment pays off. Our choices become
easier. We not only become stronger as a couple, but also as individuals,
assuming the love process is healthy—which means we are both doing work. The
choice to love creates opportunity to hit notes in life that we could never hit
alone, and this is what makes
our choice worth it.
So,
how do you know if it’s love? That is not the question to ask. The question is:
Do you choose to love this person or not? Right now. Not tomorrow. Today. Make
a choice. Yes or no. If the answer is yes, love as hard as you can. Love with
everything you’ve got (your capacity right now at this point in your life). If
the answer is no, promise me one thing.
Why is it so hard to Love Ourselves?
Why is it so hard? I’ve given a lot of thought to this
question over the years, because the number one issue I see in my psychology
practice is a struggle with self-worth. People may come in for help
with depression, anxiety,relationships, or parenting, but underlying these challenges is
almost always “low self-esteem,” a struggle to love oneself.
I’ve read, studied, and watched my clients, friends, family–and yes,
myself–struggle to feel self-worth–to truly embrace, believe, and feel it, deep
in our bones. I’ve written about how self-esteem is a myth and how we must
instead dig down and discover our true, inherent worth. I’ve even
developed a model for discovering self-worth, and I’m currently writing a book
on self-esteem after a breakup, with more books to come on this important
topic.
But it still makes me cringe each time I hear someone say, “I don’t know
how to love myself,” or “I try to believe it, but deep down, I don’t feel my
self-worth.” I cringe a lot.
So, why is it so hard to love ourselves? Why can’t we
just believe the books, experts, and centuries-old wisdom that tells us we are
so much more than we feel we are? Why can’t we accept our strengths and our weaknesses? Why can’t we
simply love ourselves and let love in? I don’t have all the answers
for why discovering self-worth and practicing self-love are so hard, but I do
have some ideas:
1) Our experiences don’t match what we’re told or shown in the world. We hear, “You
are of worth,” “Each soul has infinite value,” “We are all beautiful, talented,
amazing, in our own way,” and we may even believe it–for a while. Then, we go
out into the harsh world where our beauty and talent are compared to others,
where we are judged, and where we learn to judge ourselves. Suddenly, our self-worthy
thoughts have vanished. Our own parents or family are often part of this
self-doubt system. They may, knowingly or unknowingly, instill in us a struggle
with self-worth, through years of criticism, mixed messages, or withheld love.
Unfortunately, some live a whole life never hearing a kind word, never feeling
the power of true, unconditional love. How can we believe we are worthy of love
if we never experience love in its purest form? Even if our parents were loving
and taught us self-worth, teachers, friends, and others around us can tarnish
our sense of self-worth, if we buy into their lies. Media also contributes, for
sure. Images of those who are slimmer, smarter, richer, faster, more creative,
more successful, or more beautiful plaster the world outside, create doubt in
our world within.
2) We tend to pay more attention to negative experiences than positive
ones. In psychology this is called “The Negativity Bias,” and it means that we
humans are much more likely to remember and hold to the negatives of life than
the positives. We’re also more likely to let the negatives influence our future
behavior. They stick to us like glue. We’ll never forget the time our teacher
said we were stupid or that cute high school boy said we were ugly, yet we
ignore the dozens of things the people who know and love us see and say about
how beautiful and intelligent we are. We ignore all the positive evidence of
our beauty and worth, opting instead to cling to the negatives.
3) We don’t trust ourselves. Bottom line. We might feel an
inkling, or wonder, “Could it be I really AM amazing?” but we don’t
believe ourselves. We discount what is already whispering of our worth within,
in favor of the loud messages of doubt without. We then go looking for ways to
build our “esteem” in the world–to feel better about ourselves by being better
than someone else, or finding the right person to build us up, or becoming a
perfectionist so we feel worthy of love. But all of these paths to
“self-esteem” will ultimately fail, for they are each built on a system of
self-doubt. Instead, we must learn to trust ourselves, to listen for and hear
and trust the whispers within that show us our true value and worth, to let go
of the opinion and voices of others and trust a greater Source.
Discovering Self-Worth
To me, this is the answer for self-esteem problems: learn to
tap into the truth within, to hear and feel it. Learning to create experiences
outside that match those truths, learning to see the positive
evidence around us and believe it–learning to trust, accept, and love
ourselves. It cansound very easy, I know. Yet, I also know
it’s not–otherwise we would all feel so much self-worth I wouldn’t be writing
this. It’s simple, yes. But it’s not easy.
We’re going to work on it.
Love Relationship
Issues
Relationships are an essential part of life. From the day your are born
and throughout life, you form relationships with your family, friends, and
significant others. It is important to maintain healthy relationships through
open communication and respect for the other person.
In a healthy love relationship, each partner enjoys both safety and
passion. Shared values, goals, and lifestyle preferences are the core of the
relationship. Sharing these things creates a sense of mutual respect. Trust and
security are also keys to a healthy relationship.
How to Begin a
Healthy Relationship:
The first step in initiating a relationship is to find out what you want
from the relationship. Love, happiness, respect, commitment, and fulfillment
may all be possibilities of what you need and want from a relationship.
- Know
what you want.
- Use
effective communication skills.
- Be
aware of how unresolved childhood and family issues can affect your role
in a relationship.
- Work
through conflict; do not become discouraged by it.
- Make
agreements about your relationship. You should agree to:
- Be
honest with one another.
- Discuss
your feelings openly; do not hide them.
- Talk
openly about sex if it becomes an issue.
- Confront
any issues that are bothering you right away.
- You
should also make agreements on any other issues that you feel are
important.
Vital Components
for Maintaining a Healthy Relationship:
- Communication.
Honest communication is the foundation of a healthy relationship.
Communication involves sharing your thoughts, opinions, and emotions
honestly and openly with your partner.
- Expectations.
You expect certain things of your partner; in turn your partner has
certain expectations of you. The key to expectations is making them
realistic. When expectations are realistic, they are more likely to be met
leaving both partners satisfied and happy.
- Gratification.
There are two types of gratification--physical (safety, sensual, and
sexual) and emotional (love, caring, and affection). In a healthy
relationship, both partners are honest about what their needs are, and
both partners are willing and able to meet the other partner's needs on a
long-term basis.
- Influence.
Influence deals with who leads and is in control. Healthy relationships
thrive on each partner's ability to work together and compromise when
conflicts arise. Neither partner feels the need to dominate; instead, each
person supports the other's strengths and knows that the conflict will be
resolved to meet the needs of both people.
- Trust.
Rational trust is supported by the fact that your partner is trustworthy
and you feel confident and safe with his or her honesty, character,
ability, and strength. To develop this trust you must communicate openly
about who you are and what is important to you. As the relationship
progresses so should the trust between you and your partner.
- Boundaries
and Sociability. Each partner has a need to be autonomous and keep a sense
of self otherwise he or she will become consumed by the relationship.
Boundaries establish where one person begins and the other person ends.
Me, you, and us need to be defined as separate entities. This also holds
true for the social aspect of building relationships and making friends.
There need to be boundaries for your friends, my friends, and our friends,
to create a balanced social network.
Stages of a
Relationship*:
Every relationship goes through an endless cycle of stages that either
strengthen or end the relationship.
- Attraction.
You are attracted to a person for some reason and want to know more about
them.
- The
"first date." This stage involves asking that person to a movie,
out for coffee, or a lunch date. This step takes the most courage and can
be the most rewarding.
- The
"testing" stage. During this stage the two of you will spend a
lot of time together and begin disclosing more personal information about
yourselves to each other. This stage is a test because it determines
whether you progress to the next level, decide to remain friends, or end
the relationship completely.
- Conflict.
Conflict is a constant part of life and it is also a major part of
relationships. Conflict is another test of the relationship. It can end in
one of two ways.
- If
the two of you overcome the conflict, it strengthens the relationship and
brings you closer together. You now realize that you can work through
tough times and you become more trusting of the other person. Or.
- The
conflict does not get resolved, and the relationship reaches a plateau or
ends completely.
This cycle is valid for every relationship whether it is with a friend,
family member, teacher, or love interest. Each stage is repeated and the
relationship is continually tested. If a positive outcome is reached, the
relationship is continually strengthened by each conflict.
A relationship should leave you and your partner with feelings of
contentment, self-worth, and fulfillment. If this is not the case, you and your
partner should seek help through counseling or therapy in order to sort through
the conflicts before they become irreparable.
A healthy relationship requires constant work and nurturing. Like a
plant, if it is not constantly looked after, it will die. Relationships take
time, energy, and effort, but in the end the benefits of a successful
relationship outweighs the costs.
Do you want to go back to loving your husband or wife or any other person?
Try to understand their point of view
Stop looking for flaws and focusing on them
Stop watching the horror film of bad things that happened between the two of you; look forward
Remember regularly what attracted you in the first place
Do the things you did for him(her) in the beginning, even if you don’t feel like it at first
Stop listening to people who criticize your partner
Educate yourself on how intelligent love works — re-educate yourself emotionally
Forgive
Ask God to restore the love you had for him(her)
Start back at number 1 until love comes back. Be sure that it will come back
