In contrast to seeking "romantic love" (as I discuss in this blog: Understanding the Psychology of Romantic Love - Part I) I am dedicated to keeping my heart and soul grounded in the real world of ordinary human beings who have more or less ordinary love needs that can only be satisfied by rather simple and ordinary loving. One has to wonder though, if it were so simple to love this way that any ordinary human being could do it, then why is it so few of us actually do?
My current understanding is that our "ego 'I's" tend to get in the way - they want to be "special," or they want to see their love interest as "special". It may be that people are seeking the "unconditional love" they did not receive as a child, something I address in my TEDx talk here: Get Ready - The World is Waiting. Where there is a biochemical pattern to "Instant Intimacy", we can get psychologically and physiologically addicted to it, so we move from one "Instantly Intimate" relationship to another. Being addicted in this way, we tend to look for "drama" in all of our experiencing in relationship (both positive and negative), and "ordinary loving" just doesn't measure up.
In effect, the "ego 'I'" distracts itself from real loving by pursuing the much more dramatic, Romantic Illusion of Love. And, as fairly recent experience has taught me, it seems as soon as the relationship actually starts to be about Love Itself, and not merely about "ego-gratification", then egoically possessed people will walk (or run) away from those relationships, seeking instead to repeat the dysfunctional/dramatic/romantic, pseudo-loving, relationships with which they are already familiar, and to which they are (mostly unconsciously) addicted.
So what's involved in Real Loving - human to human? Here is something I've read in "Getting Love Right: Learning the Choices of Healthy Intimacy" by Terrence (Terry) Gorski: It's called "The Relationship Bill of Rights" and it goes like this:
1. I have the right to be treated with dignity and respect.
2. I have the right to be free from psychological or physical abuse.
3. I have the right to proper notice and negotiation prior to the relationship being terminated.
4. I have the right to experience my own thoughts and feelings.
5. I have the right to tell my partner honestly and responsibly what I am thinking and feeling - even if my partner does not agree - without being condemned for it.
6. I have the right to have my own life outside of the relationship.
7. I have the right to continue to learn and to grow.
8. I have the right to talk openly about and seek to resolve relationship problems.
9. I have the right to end the relationship if it is not meeting my needs.
10. I recognize that my partner has the same rights I do. (Pages 334 and 335.)
(Why do I think these seem like potential lyrics for a rap song? : ))
Although the focus of Gorski's book is on intimate relationships, I think many of these "rights" are just as important in other types of relationships, with different levels of intimacy. In other words, these are Fundamental to healthy, functional relationships where there is a commitment to mutual love and respect that takes priority over mere ego-gratification.
If I look back at my relationship with my mother (my first example/experience of a "loving relationship"), I'd have to say there were many of the fundamental rights listed above that she violated. Granted she was mentally ill, but that did not change the impact of her actions on me especially as a young child. I strongly suspect now that, just like physical abuse, her emotional/psychological patterning with me predisposed me to allow others to violate those same rights in my adult life in other (supposedly) "loving" relationships. However, in one particular relationship I experienced shortly after reading Gorski's book, I did find the courage and justification to stand up for myself especially with respect to Right Number 5 from the list above. And, ultimately I ended the relationship (exercising Right Number 9) when the other party was not willing to recognize or end those violations.
Since then I have also learned to be much more discerning about what it Feels like to be loved - in effect, to have these basic rights recognized and honored in my relationships with others. I am also taking even more conscious responsibility for how I relate to others with respect to these rights as they apply to them. Although I had some intuition of the importance of these rights before reading Gorski's book, reading it definitely served to solidify and reawaken my awareness relative to these issues, and I feel much more capable now of not only standing up for my own rights, but also respecting these rights in my relationships with others.
I hope this offers the same insight and encouragement to others who read this blog. : )
Offering unconventional perspectives on love and relating as well as deeper considerations of where some of our most strongly held beliefs about God and spirituality may originate; i.e from our globally shared human/biological developmental processes.
Thursday, June 7, 2012
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
Relational Revelations from My Study of Electronics
I read recently via Facebook that it is now becoming better understood that the physical human heart is "the strongest generator of electrical and magnetic fields in the body".
Got me thinking about this blog I posted several years ago on MySpace. Thought it would be another good one to share here. For the record, this came out of a Very Heated debate on the Dr. Phil site over one program that involved a man who was engaging in what he called "polyfidelity": open, and mutually agreed upon intimate relations with both his wife and another woman. The people who engaged in the debate on-line were both monogamists and active polyamorists. You think "gay marriage" is an issue? Well, wait until someone really challenges our orientation toward the "cult of pairs"! The husband of Dr. Phil's show did and the backlash was incredible...and interesting as well given the information and life experiences shared by the polyamorists.
Anyway, here are some of my related thoughts...
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
There are two major ways to connect energy in a circuit, one is in series and one is in parallel. In a series circuit, if one component fails, then energy will be cut off to all other components in that circuit. When components are connected in parallel, one component can fail, and the others will still receive energy from the source.
It is my observation that most people living today think they are "disconnected" from The Source; i.e. God or Divine Consciousness, or however they label It. In fact much of religious practice is oriented towards "bridging the gap", with all kinds of different ways to go about doing that. Furthermore, since so many of us think we are "disconnected" from that Main Power Source, we are much more likely to engage in relationships where we become reliant on one another to receive the "love energy" that we feel we need.
But what if that's really not the case? What if in truth, we are all connected to that Source, it's just that, for all kinds of reasons, we tend to think and act otherwise, or we "resist" It's Direct Influence, the movement of that Love Energy down into and through our lives?
Because of this resistance, we tend to orient ourselves "in series" with one another. Each person, each component, relying on the flow of energy through the other to get our needs for Love Energy met. With that thinking, a "break" in the circuit means "no more flow" of energy. No more love. No more happiness.
What I have observed is that within any close relationship it is actually quite a challenge to maintain one's Individual Connection to THE SOURCE; especially because it is a spiritual rather than physical connection. Instead, people tend to start "hooking-up" and "thinking" in "series", becoming reliant on the flow of energy through one person as the source of energy for themselves and being distracted from their Primary Source connection.
Nevertheless, there is another way to "couple". : )) And that is to have two components, hooked up in parallel to THE SOURCE and side by side. In this way the energy moving through one, indirectly affects the energy flowing through the other by what is called "induction" or "inductive coupling". Consequently, both individuals stay "connected" directly to THE SOURCE and indirectly with each other, but in a way that they can still actually "feel" each other's energy.
But keep in mind, what they will actually be feeling is the Energy of Love, the Energy of Divine Consciousness Itself being radiated or manifested or Realized (made real) through each of them. And even if one "component" should leave the "circuit", the other will still be able to feel Love and Energy, because they are still connected to THE SOURCE. Their experience of "inductive coupling" with their partner may have a certain unique quality to it because of the unique quality of each person (each component) involved, but should one person leave the relationship, it will not be as if Love Itself has left, but only one of Its Many Forms, while THE SOURCE remains constant.
I think this analogy may be of importance when considering the underlying issues between "monogamists" and "polyamorists". Where monogamists think that there is one circuit, with the energy to be shared between only two people, or members of the immediate family unit, and "breaking the circuit" cuts off the energy flow for everyone; the polyamorists are working more "in parallel" with each other, where the current still flows in each as they move in and out of close relationship, or intimate association with one another. Not necessarily something I'm in a position to "prove" right now, but it does fit pretty well into the overall analogy.
I think once someone really recognizes or becomes re-identified with the Truth of their own Lightness of Being, then that opens the door that much wider for Love and Caring to flow freely. Why hold back? Why "separate"? Except that it is a pretty "hard habit to break". : )) So, it just takes "practice". Feeling the ego resisting and pulling back, and then exercising the heart muscles by drawing on The Source to Love Beyond and Through that resistance.
And maybe, at some point along the way, there is no longer any identification with separateness, there is no resistance, The Energy and the Component become One and there is Only Light.
Got me thinking about this blog I posted several years ago on MySpace. Thought it would be another good one to share here. For the record, this came out of a Very Heated debate on the Dr. Phil site over one program that involved a man who was engaging in what he called "polyfidelity": open, and mutually agreed upon intimate relations with both his wife and another woman. The people who engaged in the debate on-line were both monogamists and active polyamorists. You think "gay marriage" is an issue? Well, wait until someone really challenges our orientation toward the "cult of pairs"! The husband of Dr. Phil's show did and the backlash was incredible...and interesting as well given the information and life experiences shared by the polyamorists.
Anyway, here are some of my related thoughts...
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
There are two major ways to connect energy in a circuit, one is in series and one is in parallel. In a series circuit, if one component fails, then energy will be cut off to all other components in that circuit. When components are connected in parallel, one component can fail, and the others will still receive energy from the source.
It is my observation that most people living today think they are "disconnected" from The Source; i.e. God or Divine Consciousness, or however they label It. In fact much of religious practice is oriented towards "bridging the gap", with all kinds of different ways to go about doing that. Furthermore, since so many of us think we are "disconnected" from that Main Power Source, we are much more likely to engage in relationships where we become reliant on one another to receive the "love energy" that we feel we need.
But what if that's really not the case? What if in truth, we are all connected to that Source, it's just that, for all kinds of reasons, we tend to think and act otherwise, or we "resist" It's Direct Influence, the movement of that Love Energy down into and through our lives?
Because of this resistance, we tend to orient ourselves "in series" with one another. Each person, each component, relying on the flow of energy through the other to get our needs for Love Energy met. With that thinking, a "break" in the circuit means "no more flow" of energy. No more love. No more happiness.
What I have observed is that within any close relationship it is actually quite a challenge to maintain one's Individual Connection to THE SOURCE; especially because it is a spiritual rather than physical connection. Instead, people tend to start "hooking-up" and "thinking" in "series", becoming reliant on the flow of energy through one person as the source of energy for themselves and being distracted from their Primary Source connection.
Nevertheless, there is another way to "couple". : )) And that is to have two components, hooked up in parallel to THE SOURCE and side by side. In this way the energy moving through one, indirectly affects the energy flowing through the other by what is called "induction" or "inductive coupling". Consequently, both individuals stay "connected" directly to THE SOURCE and indirectly with each other, but in a way that they can still actually "feel" each other's energy.
But keep in mind, what they will actually be feeling is the Energy of Love, the Energy of Divine Consciousness Itself being radiated or manifested or Realized (made real) through each of them. And even if one "component" should leave the "circuit", the other will still be able to feel Love and Energy, because they are still connected to THE SOURCE. Their experience of "inductive coupling" with their partner may have a certain unique quality to it because of the unique quality of each person (each component) involved, but should one person leave the relationship, it will not be as if Love Itself has left, but only one of Its Many Forms, while THE SOURCE remains constant.
I think this analogy may be of importance when considering the underlying issues between "monogamists" and "polyamorists". Where monogamists think that there is one circuit, with the energy to be shared between only two people, or members of the immediate family unit, and "breaking the circuit" cuts off the energy flow for everyone; the polyamorists are working more "in parallel" with each other, where the current still flows in each as they move in and out of close relationship, or intimate association with one another. Not necessarily something I'm in a position to "prove" right now, but it does fit pretty well into the overall analogy.
I think once someone really recognizes or becomes re-identified with the Truth of their own Lightness of Being, then that opens the door that much wider for Love and Caring to flow freely. Why hold back? Why "separate"? Except that it is a pretty "hard habit to break". : )) So, it just takes "practice". Feeling the ego resisting and pulling back, and then exercising the heart muscles by drawing on The Source to Love Beyond and Through that resistance.
And maybe, at some point along the way, there is no longer any identification with separateness, there is no resistance, The Energy and the Component become One and there is Only Light.
Monday, March 5, 2012
On Sharing What is Most Meaningful
In my previous blog, Overcoming My Addiction to "Falling In Love" I touched briefly on the idea that part of my attraction to young "Joe" was the way he responded to the books I shared with him. He found them "meaningful" in much the same way that I had found them "meaningful." In the case of those particular books, that had been a rare experience for me; i.e. for someone else to find them as meaningful as I did.
And even though the relationship did not become more serious, for all kinds of other reasons, I learned something important about relating in general as a consequence of having this opportunity to "share something meaningful." In fact, I have come to the conclusion now that part of the "glue" that holds relationships together is this mutuality of "shared meaning."
However, in order to recognize how the sharing of meaning might play out in your own relationships, you first have to recognize what it is that is actually meaningful in your own life, and more importantly, to figure out what is Most Meaningful. In other words, you have to do what I like to call your "home work" - taking the time to get to know yourself better, before trying to integrate that "self" into a relationship with another person. If you don't know what is Most Meaningful to you, then a) How will you be able to talk about that with another person, and b) How will you be able to assess if there is any alignment between what you find meaningful and what the other person finds meaningful? Granted, there may not be mutual sharing of All that is meaningful between two people, but I dare say the degree to which people do share what is most meaningful, will have an impact on how long-term the relationship proves to be.
Does what is meaningful to you change over time? I suspect it does, and, in fact, as each of us grows what is Most Meaningful at any given time may vary quite a lot. This may also end up being why relationships end; i.e. one person grows towards something different that becomes particularly meaningful to them, while the other person in the relationship either grows in a direction of their own, or, for whatever reasons, has stopped growing at all. When relationships stagnate, or lose their passion, again, the loss of the Meaningfulness of the relationship, or even of each person's own life, may be the underlying cause.
At this point, I don't think many people are very conscious of what is Most Meaningful to them. In those relationships where shared meaning exists and persists, it probably does more by chance than by conscious recognition. That's why the "revelation" I experienced in my relating with Joe was so profound. It was not something I had ever recalled being directly addressed anywhere else.
I have since, however, become more and more sensitive to the experience of Shared Meaning and how wonderful it can truly be when it Is Shared. The Sharing of Meaning becomes Meaningful in Itself, and it seems being conscious of it only adds more to the experience. I am a bit sorry for having come to this conscious recognition somewhat later in life, but I am Grateful for it now and for the opportunities I have now, and ahead of me, to continue to consciously Share What Is Meaningful and to share what is Most Meaningful with others.
And even though the relationship did not become more serious, for all kinds of other reasons, I learned something important about relating in general as a consequence of having this opportunity to "share something meaningful." In fact, I have come to the conclusion now that part of the "glue" that holds relationships together is this mutuality of "shared meaning."
However, in order to recognize how the sharing of meaning might play out in your own relationships, you first have to recognize what it is that is actually meaningful in your own life, and more importantly, to figure out what is Most Meaningful. In other words, you have to do what I like to call your "home work" - taking the time to get to know yourself better, before trying to integrate that "self" into a relationship with another person. If you don't know what is Most Meaningful to you, then a) How will you be able to talk about that with another person, and b) How will you be able to assess if there is any alignment between what you find meaningful and what the other person finds meaningful? Granted, there may not be mutual sharing of All that is meaningful between two people, but I dare say the degree to which people do share what is most meaningful, will have an impact on how long-term the relationship proves to be.
Does what is meaningful to you change over time? I suspect it does, and, in fact, as each of us grows what is Most Meaningful at any given time may vary quite a lot. This may also end up being why relationships end; i.e. one person grows towards something different that becomes particularly meaningful to them, while the other person in the relationship either grows in a direction of their own, or, for whatever reasons, has stopped growing at all. When relationships stagnate, or lose their passion, again, the loss of the Meaningfulness of the relationship, or even of each person's own life, may be the underlying cause.
At this point, I don't think many people are very conscious of what is Most Meaningful to them. In those relationships where shared meaning exists and persists, it probably does more by chance than by conscious recognition. That's why the "revelation" I experienced in my relating with Joe was so profound. It was not something I had ever recalled being directly addressed anywhere else.
I have since, however, become more and more sensitive to the experience of Shared Meaning and how wonderful it can truly be when it Is Shared. The Sharing of Meaning becomes Meaningful in Itself, and it seems being conscious of it only adds more to the experience. I am a bit sorry for having come to this conscious recognition somewhat later in life, but I am Grateful for it now and for the opportunities I have now, and ahead of me, to continue to consciously Share What Is Meaningful and to share what is Most Meaningful with others.
Friday, February 10, 2012
Overcoming My Addiction to "Falling In Love"
As I said in my last blog, I had another story to tell and it goes like this...
Almost four years ago now I was at a little get-together of friends of friends and met this young man named "Joe". He was tall and slender with kind of longish brown hair. Can't remember if his eyes were blue or brown now, but they were definitely "wide open" and curious. We happened to get to talking and the next thing you know I was telling him about masculine and feminine archetypes, anima/animus projection, etc., etc. He was really listening and engaged, so before the evening was over, I went next door to where I was living at the time, and retrieved copies of a couple of books for him to take home with him: The Invisible Partners: How the Male and Female in each of Us Affects our Relationships, by John A Sanford and About Men and Women: How Your Masculine and Feminine Archetypes Shape Your Destiny by Tad and Noreen Guzie. (I did not know it at the time, but "home" was just a five minute walk into the other condo complex across the road!)
As it turned out, he read both books pretty quickly (each of them under 200 pages), and he was very excited to talk about what he had learned the next time we met.
Now...I have to pause here...because, if there is anything that piques My interest it is someone who gets a lot out of reading books, and, in this case, it was someone who was finding something very meaningful in books I also found very meaningful. On top of that, his name was "Joe" just like the first man I ever fell deeply "in love with", and he was kind of tall and lean like that same "Joe". And, okay, the age differences were reversed, but that is a little hard for me to avoid these days given that most men my age have already married or probably are not going to.
However, Joe was involved with a young woman closer to his own age, and so we were "destined" to be just "friends", and I really wanted to respect that...mentally. Emotionally-sexually...man oh man... I was fighting that ol' "urge to merge", and I KNEW IT. You see, this was all happening after I had come to the understanding about "falling in love" that I have discussed in my previous blog.
So, I fought, and I fought, to keep everything "platonic". The next thing you know, my body starts feeling kind of strange. There was this edginess that seemed a little like the tension I associate with PMS, but...it wasn't exactly the same. If anything, it was more intense and pervasive, whole bodily more so than just mental or emotional tension. I was just feeling agitated and I couldn't put my finger on any immediate outside stressors that might have been causing it.
I remember being aware of this as I was washing dishes one evening, wondering what was really going on, and then, all of a sudden, I get that "light coming on" feeling and realized: My body was going through withdrawal symptoms. Even with all of the "buttons" that were being "pushed" while I was interacting with young Joe, I was forcing myself, forcing my body, to not go into that "falling in love" chemical patterning, and It was NOT "happy" with me...and it was letting me know it.
But...once I put two and two together, that was pretty much it. The game was up. I just relaxed as much as I could and let the rest of my "symptoms" run their course.
I've never felt that kind of "compulsion" to "fall in love" in quite the same way since. But, like any former "drug addict", put me in the right situation, and I'll be thinking about it, just like an alcoholic will think about taking another drink when there's a bottle sitting right in front of them. But, I guess you could say I've managed to "stay sober" for these past four years, and I suspect the worst of this particular addiction is over for me.
And, I'm glad for that, because I do not believe...better yet, I know for certain that is NOT what Truly Loving Someone is all about. It is NOT about "getting high"! Sure, it feels good for a little while, but just like with any other drug, the effects eventually wear off, and, worse yet, you can dip even lower than "normal" once you've been up so "high".
Oh, but the Drama - we do so love the Drama of it all - Don't we?! : P
What I've come to appreciate is that what is Real in Love is also what feels pretty ordinary. Not a lot of "highs", but then, not a lot of "lows" either. Instead of a roller-coaster, it's more like taking a casual drive through the countryside - enjoying the fresh air and sunshine, the grass, the wind in the trees, the sounds of birds singing, a sunset, a moon rise, and stars, and your best friend's hand in yours.
That's it. Whether you're washing dishes or taking out the trash or cooking a meal or laughing at a movie; folding the towels, replacing the toilette paper, making a bed, etc., etc. If you are happily sharing those responsibilities with another person, that is what Human to Human love is really all about. All of those little, ordinary, day to day things.
So, don't let the soap-operas, and the romance novels, and the "chick flicks" fool you, or distract you too far away from what might be right in front of you. Othewise, you will miss out on one of the greatest opportunities we all have to share here, one to one, person to person, day in and day out, as ordinary, and yet still really amazing, human beings.
Almost four years ago now I was at a little get-together of friends of friends and met this young man named "Joe". He was tall and slender with kind of longish brown hair. Can't remember if his eyes were blue or brown now, but they were definitely "wide open" and curious. We happened to get to talking and the next thing you know I was telling him about masculine and feminine archetypes, anima/animus projection, etc., etc. He was really listening and engaged, so before the evening was over, I went next door to where I was living at the time, and retrieved copies of a couple of books for him to take home with him: The Invisible Partners: How the Male and Female in each of Us Affects our Relationships, by John A Sanford and About Men and Women: How Your Masculine and Feminine Archetypes Shape Your Destiny by Tad and Noreen Guzie. (I did not know it at the time, but "home" was just a five minute walk into the other condo complex across the road!)
As it turned out, he read both books pretty quickly (each of them under 200 pages), and he was very excited to talk about what he had learned the next time we met.
Now...I have to pause here...because, if there is anything that piques My interest it is someone who gets a lot out of reading books, and, in this case, it was someone who was finding something very meaningful in books I also found very meaningful. On top of that, his name was "Joe" just like the first man I ever fell deeply "in love with", and he was kind of tall and lean like that same "Joe". And, okay, the age differences were reversed, but that is a little hard for me to avoid these days given that most men my age have already married or probably are not going to.
However, Joe was involved with a young woman closer to his own age, and so we were "destined" to be just "friends", and I really wanted to respect that...mentally. Emotionally-sexually...man oh man... I was fighting that ol' "urge to merge", and I KNEW IT. You see, this was all happening after I had come to the understanding about "falling in love" that I have discussed in my previous blog.
So, I fought, and I fought, to keep everything "platonic". The next thing you know, my body starts feeling kind of strange. There was this edginess that seemed a little like the tension I associate with PMS, but...it wasn't exactly the same. If anything, it was more intense and pervasive, whole bodily more so than just mental or emotional tension. I was just feeling agitated and I couldn't put my finger on any immediate outside stressors that might have been causing it.
I remember being aware of this as I was washing dishes one evening, wondering what was really going on, and then, all of a sudden, I get that "light coming on" feeling and realized: My body was going through withdrawal symptoms. Even with all of the "buttons" that were being "pushed" while I was interacting with young Joe, I was forcing myself, forcing my body, to not go into that "falling in love" chemical patterning, and It was NOT "happy" with me...and it was letting me know it.
But...once I put two and two together, that was pretty much it. The game was up. I just relaxed as much as I could and let the rest of my "symptoms" run their course.
I've never felt that kind of "compulsion" to "fall in love" in quite the same way since. But, like any former "drug addict", put me in the right situation, and I'll be thinking about it, just like an alcoholic will think about taking another drink when there's a bottle sitting right in front of them. But, I guess you could say I've managed to "stay sober" for these past four years, and I suspect the worst of this particular addiction is over for me.
And, I'm glad for that, because I do not believe...better yet, I know for certain that is NOT what Truly Loving Someone is all about. It is NOT about "getting high"! Sure, it feels good for a little while, but just like with any other drug, the effects eventually wear off, and, worse yet, you can dip even lower than "normal" once you've been up so "high".
Oh, but the Drama - we do so love the Drama of it all - Don't we?! : P
What I've come to appreciate is that what is Real in Love is also what feels pretty ordinary. Not a lot of "highs", but then, not a lot of "lows" either. Instead of a roller-coaster, it's more like taking a casual drive through the countryside - enjoying the fresh air and sunshine, the grass, the wind in the trees, the sounds of birds singing, a sunset, a moon rise, and stars, and your best friend's hand in yours.
That's it. Whether you're washing dishes or taking out the trash or cooking a meal or laughing at a movie; folding the towels, replacing the toilette paper, making a bed, etc., etc. If you are happily sharing those responsibilities with another person, that is what Human to Human love is really all about. All of those little, ordinary, day to day things.
So, don't let the soap-operas, and the romance novels, and the "chick flicks" fool you, or distract you too far away from what might be right in front of you. Othewise, you will miss out on one of the greatest opportunities we all have to share here, one to one, person to person, day in and day out, as ordinary, and yet still really amazing, human beings.
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Understanding the Psychology of Romantic Love - Part II
The following blog is actually going to tie-in to two of my previous blogs: 1) The Biology of "Heaven" and 2) Understanding the Psychology of Romantic Love - Part I. So if you have not read both of those yet you might want to.
I will sub-title this blog: The Biology of "Falling In Love"
For a quick review: As the movie "What the 'Bleep' Do We Know?" points out, the hypothalamus is our body's own "chemical/drug factory", and each emotion is communicated through the body via a unique chemical or chain of peptides. Joy, sorrow, embarrassment, anger, ecstasy, anxiety, fear, frustration, awe, fascination, curiosity, sexual arousal, love, etc. etc., etc. - every emotional/psychological state you can imagine has its own unique chemical formula. So what your body feels - what you experience as your emotional state is actually the effects of these chemicals traveling to all of your cells and linking up with appropriately matched receptors on those cells, causing additional biochemical reactions within those cells, etc., etc.
As it turns out, it is just as easy to become "addicted" to the chemical/drug patterning of your own body as it is to get addicted to drugs that you take in from outside of your body. And in order to satisfy the addictive demands of that patterning, each of us will seek out or be drawn to conditions that cause us to experience the same emotions, over and over again, positive or negative, for better or worse.
Upon further consideration, I realized that (apparently) in the last several years I have been consciously conditioning my body, my hypothalamus in particular, to produce "happy" drugs. And, in effect, I've become "addicted" to Being Happy, naturally. : )) (And that's why I add emoto-smileys to my writing all the time. : )) (See, I just did it again! : )) (Okay, I'm going to stop now . . . .) Granted, this does not mean I ALWAYS FEEL HAPPY, but it is definitely my Preferred State and a) I really do notice the difference when I am feeling "happy" and when I am feeling something else, and b) I generally know how to get myself back to Feeling Happy when I make a conscious choice to do so.
As I began to more closely observe my emotional states, and especially my desires to experience certain emotional states, I began to wonder: Where are these desires coming from? What are the underlying chemical patterns that my body is still "addicted" to and under what conditions did they originate?
My first real insight in answering these questions came as a consequence of a relationship I entered into with someone I met online. After some time e-mailing back and forth we eventually met, and spent some time together, and not too long after that became intimate, etc., etc. After a fairly short time being in the relationship, I found myself longing to "fall in love", to "let myself" take that "plunge".
Now, it may seem odd to some of you reading this that I was even thinking about "falling in love" as a matter of conscious choice. You may ask, "Isn't 'falling in love' something that just 'happens' to people . . . unconsciously?"
Most of the time, I would say, "Yes". However, many, many years ago I read, The Road Less Traveled , by M. Scott Peck, so I was already aware of "nature's little trick" as he described it; i.e. the tendency for our "ego-boundaries" to "collapse" spontaneously under certain circumstances, thus giving us the "feeling of oneness with each other" which might motivate us to mate and produce offspring. As a consequence, I had started observing this mechanism within myself and had learned a certain degree of control over my "urge to merge". Thus it had become more of a matter of choice for me. However, with my new understanding of biochemical patterning, and the "addictive" nature of that patterning, I began to realize that wasn't the real issue; i.e. "falling in love" consciously vs. "falling in love" unconsciously. No, the real issue was "Why?" Why did I want to "fall in love"? Why did I want to feel "merged" with my partner? Maybe even more importantly: Did I need to feel "merged" with my partner to JUSTIFY loving him? In other words, did I have to feel "in love" in order "to love"?
Once I got to that question, I already new the answer, which was, "No, absolutely not." I knew I knew how to love without having to "fall in love". Nevertheless, those other "Why" questions remained unanswered. Why was there this deep longing to feel "merged" with the other person and why was it so closely associated in my mind (and body) with "loving" that other person? Where had I felt that kind of "oneness" before and why was it so compelling? Then the puzzle pieces fell into place...
In the process of writing a research paper on "Childhood Depression", I came across a study of specific family relationship patterns that predisposed children to depression later in life. The one pattern that caught my attention in particular was called "enmeshment"; i.e. when the child is "enmeshed" with the primary caregiver, usually the mother. In this case there are no significant ego-boundaries between the mother and the child; in effect, the child becomes a mere extension of the mother's or primary caregiver's ego. As I have alluded to in previous posts here regarding my life story with my mother, there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that my mother and I were "enmeshed" - totally - pretty much from the time I was born.
And that was my primary love relationship for the early part of my life right up through adolescence. It was the context in which I experienced what my mother called love, over and over again. But, as I think I have tried to explain before, she was not loving me for "me"; she was loving a totally dependent and willing object onto which she projected her own self-image; her own ego; in effect she was only 'loving' herself, which is one of the recognized traits of a narcissistic personality, and that is often associated with schizophrenia.
I came to the conclusion that my original psychological patterning with my mother was also reflected on a biochemical level, and that pattern was reinforced over roughly 20 years; plenty of time for it to become "addictive", but more so for it to feel "comfortable" and "normal" for me, even desirable.
I suspect the tradeoff for my true emotional and psychological autonomy was a sense of security, although all of that was constantly being contradicted by my mother's paranoid fears. The more I think of what a complicated emotional, psychological mess I was really in, the more I understand why it has been so difficult for me to sort it all out and be able to experience truly functional and loving relationships as an adult . . . but I haven't given up yet! : ))
I have learned from Avatar Adi Da that one way of expressing love is simply to Be Happy around others, whether they are strangers or intimates; to consciously and literally embody and/or manifest Divine Consciousness as Love-Bliss-Happiness in all relationships and under all conditions. And, although I'm not yet perfect at it, that's what I intentionally do on a regular basis now. By recognizing yet another potentially limiting emotional/ psychological/ biochemical pattern in my body-mind, I have also been given the opportunity to transcend it.
I know for a fact that my relationship with my mother was a fairly extreme version of "enmeshment" and resulted primarily from her having very serious mental problems. However, what I have come to understand about schizophrenia and other extreme mental disorders is that they are part of a continuum, a continuum which includes greater and lesser degrees of similar patterning.
For instance, it is a very natural and normal phenomenon for a mother to form a very strong bond with her newborn child. In addition, it is well known in psychology that it takes several months of development outside of the womb before the infant starts to experience itself as being fundamentally separate from the mother. The length of time may vary significantly with respect to when the mother is prepared to "let go of" that very close relationship with her child and give the child the emotional and psychological space they need to develop as individuals.
In other words, even without abnormal enmeshment, and in the absence of some very unusual circumstance where that bond may not develop normally between the mother or primary caregiver and the newborn, just about every human being will experience a period of time during their infancy when they feel "one" with the "other".
Furthermore, given the food taking and nurturance that is experienced in that context, the "feeling of oneness" carries with it many positive associations. Consequently, it is perfectly natural for each of us to want to repeat that experience, and that desire is reinforced by our biochemical patterning. I dare say this is one of the great foundations of the "myth of romantic love". Even Plato's description of the two halves, male and female, finally finding their "wholeness" in intimate union may stem from Plato's latent memories of "oneness" with his own mother while he, himself, was an infant.
People throughout history and up to the current day identify with this idea because, except for unusual cases where the child does not receive early nurturance, we have all had a similar experience as infants and we all carry within us that latent memory and desire as a biochemical imprint. Furthermore, research into the role of Oxytocin as a primary "bonding chemical" would suggest that there are certainly evolutionary benefits to having a chemical reinforcer for the "bonds" we make with others and the feeling we experience when we have oxytocin flowing through our systems.
Nevertheless, there is So Much More to making a long-term intimate relationship work than merely experiencing a rush of chemicals every now and then. Furthermore, getting to experience that every once in a while does not, and cannot, counteract all the negative thinking/chemical patterning a person might otherwise be perpetuating.
It kind of comes back to how responsible you are for Your Own Happiness - FIRST; as in...How You Consciously Choose to Feel in contrast to how you might wait for circumstances outside yourself, or some "other person" outside yourself to stimulate a particular feeling in you.
If your naturally produced "Happy Drug" is the "cake", then sure, "oxytocin" might be the "icing on the cake." Nevertheless, it's a good idea if you have the "cake" taken care of first, because trying to get by on just "icing" will most likely make you sick! : p
So: Here's to "Love" for Real! Not the fleeting, accidental or circumstantial, unconscious "falling in love" kind.
And if you come to the conclusion that you are "addicted to falling in love" then, stay-tuned, as I have yet another story to share that might just help you with that.
Until Next Time...
Peace! : ))
I will sub-title this blog: The Biology of "Falling In Love"
For a quick review: As the movie "What the 'Bleep' Do We Know?" points out, the hypothalamus is our body's own "chemical/drug factory", and each emotion is communicated through the body via a unique chemical or chain of peptides. Joy, sorrow, embarrassment, anger, ecstasy, anxiety, fear, frustration, awe, fascination, curiosity, sexual arousal, love, etc. etc., etc. - every emotional/psychological state you can imagine has its own unique chemical formula. So what your body feels - what you experience as your emotional state is actually the effects of these chemicals traveling to all of your cells and linking up with appropriately matched receptors on those cells, causing additional biochemical reactions within those cells, etc., etc.
As it turns out, it is just as easy to become "addicted" to the chemical/drug patterning of your own body as it is to get addicted to drugs that you take in from outside of your body. And in order to satisfy the addictive demands of that patterning, each of us will seek out or be drawn to conditions that cause us to experience the same emotions, over and over again, positive or negative, for better or worse.
Upon further consideration, I realized that (apparently) in the last several years I have been consciously conditioning my body, my hypothalamus in particular, to produce "happy" drugs. And, in effect, I've become "addicted" to Being Happy, naturally. : )) (And that's why I add emoto-smileys to my writing all the time. : )) (See, I just did it again! : )) (Okay, I'm going to stop now . . . .) Granted, this does not mean I ALWAYS FEEL HAPPY, but it is definitely my Preferred State and a) I really do notice the difference when I am feeling "happy" and when I am feeling something else, and b) I generally know how to get myself back to Feeling Happy when I make a conscious choice to do so.
As I began to more closely observe my emotional states, and especially my desires to experience certain emotional states, I began to wonder: Where are these desires coming from? What are the underlying chemical patterns that my body is still "addicted" to and under what conditions did they originate?
My first real insight in answering these questions came as a consequence of a relationship I entered into with someone I met online. After some time e-mailing back and forth we eventually met, and spent some time together, and not too long after that became intimate, etc., etc. After a fairly short time being in the relationship, I found myself longing to "fall in love", to "let myself" take that "plunge".
Now, it may seem odd to some of you reading this that I was even thinking about "falling in love" as a matter of conscious choice. You may ask, "Isn't 'falling in love' something that just 'happens' to people . . . unconsciously?"
Most of the time, I would say, "Yes". However, many, many years ago I read, The Road Less Traveled , by M. Scott Peck, so I was already aware of "nature's little trick" as he described it; i.e. the tendency for our "ego-boundaries" to "collapse" spontaneously under certain circumstances, thus giving us the "feeling of oneness with each other" which might motivate us to mate and produce offspring. As a consequence, I had started observing this mechanism within myself and had learned a certain degree of control over my "urge to merge". Thus it had become more of a matter of choice for me. However, with my new understanding of biochemical patterning, and the "addictive" nature of that patterning, I began to realize that wasn't the real issue; i.e. "falling in love" consciously vs. "falling in love" unconsciously. No, the real issue was "Why?" Why did I want to "fall in love"? Why did I want to feel "merged" with my partner? Maybe even more importantly: Did I need to feel "merged" with my partner to JUSTIFY loving him? In other words, did I have to feel "in love" in order "to love"?
Once I got to that question, I already new the answer, which was, "No, absolutely not." I knew I knew how to love without having to "fall in love". Nevertheless, those other "Why" questions remained unanswered. Why was there this deep longing to feel "merged" with the other person and why was it so closely associated in my mind (and body) with "loving" that other person? Where had I felt that kind of "oneness" before and why was it so compelling? Then the puzzle pieces fell into place...
In the process of writing a research paper on "Childhood Depression", I came across a study of specific family relationship patterns that predisposed children to depression later in life. The one pattern that caught my attention in particular was called "enmeshment"; i.e. when the child is "enmeshed" with the primary caregiver, usually the mother. In this case there are no significant ego-boundaries between the mother and the child; in effect, the child becomes a mere extension of the mother's or primary caregiver's ego. As I have alluded to in previous posts here regarding my life story with my mother, there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that my mother and I were "enmeshed" - totally - pretty much from the time I was born.
And that was my primary love relationship for the early part of my life right up through adolescence. It was the context in which I experienced what my mother called love, over and over again. But, as I think I have tried to explain before, she was not loving me for "me"; she was loving a totally dependent and willing object onto which she projected her own self-image; her own ego; in effect she was only 'loving' herself, which is one of the recognized traits of a narcissistic personality, and that is often associated with schizophrenia.
I came to the conclusion that my original psychological patterning with my mother was also reflected on a biochemical level, and that pattern was reinforced over roughly 20 years; plenty of time for it to become "addictive", but more so for it to feel "comfortable" and "normal" for me, even desirable.
I suspect the tradeoff for my true emotional and psychological autonomy was a sense of security, although all of that was constantly being contradicted by my mother's paranoid fears. The more I think of what a complicated emotional, psychological mess I was really in, the more I understand why it has been so difficult for me to sort it all out and be able to experience truly functional and loving relationships as an adult . . . but I haven't given up yet! : ))
I have learned from Avatar Adi Da that one way of expressing love is simply to Be Happy around others, whether they are strangers or intimates; to consciously and literally embody and/or manifest Divine Consciousness as Love-Bliss-Happiness in all relationships and under all conditions. And, although I'm not yet perfect at it, that's what I intentionally do on a regular basis now. By recognizing yet another potentially limiting emotional/ psychological/ biochemical pattern in my body-mind, I have also been given the opportunity to transcend it.
I know for a fact that my relationship with my mother was a fairly extreme version of "enmeshment" and resulted primarily from her having very serious mental problems. However, what I have come to understand about schizophrenia and other extreme mental disorders is that they are part of a continuum, a continuum which includes greater and lesser degrees of similar patterning.
For instance, it is a very natural and normal phenomenon for a mother to form a very strong bond with her newborn child. In addition, it is well known in psychology that it takes several months of development outside of the womb before the infant starts to experience itself as being fundamentally separate from the mother. The length of time may vary significantly with respect to when the mother is prepared to "let go of" that very close relationship with her child and give the child the emotional and psychological space they need to develop as individuals.
In other words, even without abnormal enmeshment, and in the absence of some very unusual circumstance where that bond may not develop normally between the mother or primary caregiver and the newborn, just about every human being will experience a period of time during their infancy when they feel "one" with the "other".
Furthermore, given the food taking and nurturance that is experienced in that context, the "feeling of oneness" carries with it many positive associations. Consequently, it is perfectly natural for each of us to want to repeat that experience, and that desire is reinforced by our biochemical patterning. I dare say this is one of the great foundations of the "myth of romantic love". Even Plato's description of the two halves, male and female, finally finding their "wholeness" in intimate union may stem from Plato's latent memories of "oneness" with his own mother while he, himself, was an infant.
People throughout history and up to the current day identify with this idea because, except for unusual cases where the child does not receive early nurturance, we have all had a similar experience as infants and we all carry within us that latent memory and desire as a biochemical imprint. Furthermore, research into the role of Oxytocin as a primary "bonding chemical" would suggest that there are certainly evolutionary benefits to having a chemical reinforcer for the "bonds" we make with others and the feeling we experience when we have oxytocin flowing through our systems.
Nevertheless, there is So Much More to making a long-term intimate relationship work than merely experiencing a rush of chemicals every now and then. Furthermore, getting to experience that every once in a while does not, and cannot, counteract all the negative thinking/chemical patterning a person might otherwise be perpetuating.
It kind of comes back to how responsible you are for Your Own Happiness - FIRST; as in...How You Consciously Choose to Feel in contrast to how you might wait for circumstances outside yourself, or some "other person" outside yourself to stimulate a particular feeling in you.
If your naturally produced "Happy Drug" is the "cake", then sure, "oxytocin" might be the "icing on the cake." Nevertheless, it's a good idea if you have the "cake" taken care of first, because trying to get by on just "icing" will most likely make you sick! : p
So: Here's to "Love" for Real! Not the fleeting, accidental or circumstantial, unconscious "falling in love" kind.
And if you come to the conclusion that you are "addicted to falling in love" then, stay-tuned, as I have yet another story to share that might just help you with that.
Until Next Time...
Peace! : ))
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
On "Loving Yourself"...
This subject came up on Facebook today and I really wanted to give a thorough response as follows. I have decided to quote it here rather than making a Really Long (un-formatted) "comment" on FB.
From: "The New Guide to Rational Living" by Albert Ellis, Ph. D., and Robert A. Harper, Ph. D., Chapter 10 - Tackling Dire Needs for Approval. (There are newer versions but this happens to be from the 1979 Edition, Pp. 94-101 - I wish I could quote the whole chapter, but I'm going to start about half way in.)
...Your accepting yourself and devoting yourself to outside activities may constitute reciprocal goals. For if you really follow your own basic bents and do not overly concern yourself about what others think of you, you will have so little time to spend in self-centered worrying that you will feel virtually forced to find absorbing interests on the outside. By the same token, if you throw your energies into outside activities and actively devote yourself to other people and things, you normally will tend to feel less concerned about what others think of you and, hence, to respect your own values.
Put somewhat differently, if you devote yourself enthusiastically to long-range hedonism--to activities that you consider desirable and enjoyable from a long-term perspective--you will clearly accept yourself because you do what you really want to do and do not falsely follow what someone else thinks you should do. Our clients and associates frequently ask: "I can see that accepting myself rather than desperately needing the love of others constitutes a more realistic orientation. But how will this help me love other people? As I less and less concern myself about whether others approve of me, won't I find it more and more troublesome and unnecessary to give a damn about them--to relate lovingly to them?"
No, for several reasons. First of all, if you direly need love, you will feel so preoccupied with obtaining it that you have as much chance to honor your own choices or to love others as a dope addict has to relate freely and self-confidently to the person who supplies him with drugs.
Secondly, if you surrender your dire need for love, you will still retain, in most instances, a strong desire for acceptance by others. People often wrongly assume that your not direly needing love means the same thing as your feeling love has no value. Not at all. You can easily enjoy well-written stories and plays even though you have no need to do so. Why can you not, then, enjoy and seek intimate relationships without believing that your life depends on them?
Thirdly, when you free yourself from your demands that you receive love, you can better love. You can see more clearly the lovable traits of others; stop hating them when they do not immediately respond to you; learn what you really enjoy in relationship; risk committing yourself to loving, even when you know that a given affair may not work out well; and feel unanxiously free to experience and experiment with loving because you realize that although you may lose your beloved you can never lose yourself.
Another frequently asked question: "Granted that loving has more rewards than desperately needing love, should I therefore give up all my desires for approval and recognition?"
Answer: Certainly not. Complete self-sacrifice or the total surrender of your own desires for approval can prove just as foolish as your obsession with winning esteem of others. Again for several reasons:
1. You act quite normally when you want to express your own unique conceptions of the world to others and want them to take pleasure in some of your expressions. You would hardly seem human if you did not derive some satisfaction from relating to others.
2. Wanting acceptance from others constitutes one of the main essences of desire; and men and women entirely free from desire again do not appear entirely human. According to the Hindu classic the Bhagavad-Gita, the strongest individual "has indifference to honor and insult, heat and cold, pleasure and pain. He feels free from attachment." A few select individuals find this a worthy ideal. But we doubt whether many humans could ever attain it.To lean so far over backwards to get rid of psychological pain that you also eradicate all pleasure does not seem too rational to us. By all means try, if you will, to eliminate your extreme, unrealistic, self-defeating desire; but not desire itself!
3. From a practical view, if you ardently want various things--such as material goods or more leisure--you had better win the approval or respect of certain people such as your parents, teachers, or bosses. Though you may wisely eliminate your inordinate demands that others love you, you'd better sanely retain, in any social group, some wishes for acceptance by other group members.
Granted that having an inordinate need for others' love will serve to defeat your own ends, and that having some wish for acceptance seems eminently sane, the question arises: How can you somehow manage to attain a middle-of-the-road policy in this respect?
First and foremost, by admitting that you do have a dire need for love in many instances; by making a continual effort to observe this need in operation; and by then continually challenging, questioning, and disputing it....
....If you do have a dire need for love; if you accept the fact that you have it; and if you keep challenging, questioning, and disputing it, it will ultimately, and often quite quickly, start decreasing. For remember: It remains your need; and you keep sustaining it.
Other methods you can use to combat and minimize your inordinate love needs include the following:
1. Ask yourself what you really want to do, rather than what others would like you to do. And keep asking yourself, from time to time: "Do I keep doing this or refusing to do that because I really want it that way? Or do I, once again, unthinkingly keep trying to please others?"
2. In going after what you really want, take risks, commit yourself, don't desperately avoid making mistakes. Don't act needlessly foolhardy; but convince yourself that if you fail to get something you want and people laugh at or criticize you for your failure, they may have a problem. As long as you learn by your errors, does it make that much difference what they think?
3. Focus on loving rather than on getting love. Try to realize that vital living hardly consists of passive receiving but of doing, acting, reaching out. And just as you can force yourself to play the piano, do yoga exercises, or go to work every day, you can also often forcibly commit yourself to loving other humans. In so doing, your dire needs for love will probably decrease.
[What follows is probably the most significant part to me...LB]
4. Above all, don't confuse getting love with having personal worth. If you must see yourself as having any intrinsic worth or value as a human (which we would not advise, since we think that any kind of self-rating, positive or negative, tends to bring pernicious results), you'd better claim to have it by virtue of your mere existence, your aliveness, your essence -- and not because of anything you do to "earn" it. No matter how much others approve you, or how much they may value you for their own benefit, they thereby can only give you, as Robert S. Hartman explains, extrinsic value, or worth to them. They cannot, by loving you, give you intrinsic value--or the worth you have to yourself. If intrinsic value exists at all (which we seriously doubt, since it seems a well-nigh undefinable Kantian thing-in-itself), you get it because you choose, you decide to have it. It exists purely because of your own definition. You emerge as "good" or "deserving" because you think you do and not because anyone in any way gives you this kind of intrinsic value.
If you can really believe this highly important truth--that you need not rate yourself, your essence at all (and that you can choose to call yourself intrinsically worthwhile just because you decide to do so)--you will tend to lose your desperate need for others' approval. For you need--or think you need--their acceptance not because of the practical advantages it may bring, but because you foolishly define your worth as a human in terms of receiving or not receiving it. Once you stop this kind of silly defining, the dire need for their approval generally evaporates (though the strong desire to have them like you may well remain). Similarly, if you rid yourself of your dire need for approval, you will find it relatively easy to stop rating yourself as a person, even though you continue to rate many of your traits, and to accept yourself merely because you remain alive and kicking--and for that reason alone "deserve" to continue to exist and to have a maximally enjoyable life.
To underscore this last point about human worth, consider the case of Herbert Flisch, a forty-year-old successful businessman who recognized, after eight sessions of rational-emotive therapy, that almost every single one of his actions for the past four decades had stemmed from his dire need to win the approval of his parents, wife, children, friends, and even employees. At his ninth session he asked:
"Do I understand you correctly to mean that if I stop trying to win everyone's approval and do what I think I would like to do (and what would not at the same time defeat my own ultimate ends) that I'll then love myself because I'll consider myself more worthwhile?"
"No," the therapist replied. "Those of us who have worked to develop this system of rational-emotive psychotherapy have come to realize that worthwhileness proves just as illegitimate a concept as its counterpart, worthlessness; and that, in fact, just as soon as you tend to think in terms of personal 'worth' you must almost automatically tend to think, at the same time, in terms of personal 'worthlessness.'
"Thus, if you consider yourself 'worthwhile' today because you function effectively, make wise decisions, or think bright thoughts, you'll tend to consider yourself 'worthless' tomorrow because you then function less effectively, make some unwise decisions, or think dull thoughts."
"But wouldn't I have no worth if I never functioned effectively?" asked the client.
"No, definitely not. Even if you had mental deficiency and never functioned well, you would then have no extrinsic 'worth'--meaning that others might not find you a suitable companion or employee--but you could have, intrinsically, as much 'worth' to yourself as any other more efficient individual. You would have 'worth', in other words, if you believed you had. But if you believed, as you obviously do, that inefficiency makes you 'worthless,' you would then feel exactly that."
"So I remain worthwhile if I think I do--no matter how inefficiently I may actually perform in life?"
"Yes--except that, as I said before, the very concept of 'worth' has dangers, since it implies the concept of 'worthlessness.' Just like the concept of heaven implies the concept of hell. In fact, the way we usually employ the terms, to have 'worth' really means pretty much the same thing as to behave angelically or heaven-directed; and to have 'worthlessness' means to behave demonically or hell-directed. Doesn't it?"
"In a way, I guess it does. I can see what you mean," said the client.
"Moreover, if you have concepts of 'worth' and 'worthlessness,' even if you avoid extreme self-designations in using these concepts, you will tend to remain preoccupied with varying degrees of 'worth.' Thus, you will tend to say to yourself: 'Today I have great worth; yesterday I had less; I hope and pray tomorrow I can have more'
"This kind of concept of 'worth' (and, hence, of the lack of worth or less worth) carries with it irrational and undesirable aspects of guilt, self-disrespect, self-blame, shame, anger, hostility, and other self-sabotaging emotions. The counter-concept, that you have neither 'worth' because of your effectiveness nor 'worthlessness' because of your ineffectiveness, but that you merely exist, this concept, difficult as it seems for almost all people to see and accept, safely eliminates the notion of intrinsic 'worthlessness' and self-damnation."
"I'll have to give this some more thought," said the client. "But, it does seem to have something to it. However, how does it tie in with self-acceptance?"
"It has a most important tie-in with self-acceptance. For self-acceptance means fully accepting yourself, your existence, and your right to live and to devise as happy a life as you can for yourself--no matter what traits you have or performances you do. It does not mean self-esteem, self-confidence, self-respect, or self-regard. For all these terms imply that you can accept yourself because you do something well or because other people like you. Self-acceptance, however, merely means that you accept yourself because you remain alive and have decided to accept yourself. Only a relatively limited number of talented, intelligent, competent, or well-loved people can gain self-esteem or self-confidence. But anyone, merely because he chooses to have it, can gain self-acceptance."
"Does self-acceptance mean that I consider myself worthy or deserving of living and enjoying no matter what I do?"
"Yes, though we don't like the words worthy or deserving, since they imply a rating--that you have to do (or refrain from doing) something in order to feel 'worthy' or 'deserving.' When you have what we call self-acceptance, you make minimal assumptions about your (and other people's) intrinsic worth or value."
"What minimal assumptions?"
"Several: One, you exist. Two, you can probably, by continuing to exist, achieve more pleasure than pain, thus making it desirable for you to keep living. Three, to a considerable degree, you can help minimize your pain and maximize your pleasure. Four, you decide--and this constitutes the essence of self-acceptance--that you will try to live and make your existence as pleasurable and as unpainful as you can make it. Or, putting it another way, you choose as the main purpose of your existence short-range (here and now) and long-range (future) enjoyment. Not achieving for the sake of achieving. Not receiving adoration from others. Not proving your greatness as a person. Not getting into heaven. Just plain damned enjoyment!"
"So instead of my continuing to ask myself, 'What worth have I?' 'How do I keep proving myself?' 'How can I outstandingly impress others?' or 'What do I have to do to ennoble myself?' I'd better, instead, ask, 'How the devil can I avoid needless pain and find out what I truly enjoy in life and do it?' Right?''
"Exactly right! You make the purpose of your existence having a present and future ball--in whatever idiosyncratic and harmless ways you experimentally discover."
"You mean that I may then enjoy myself and accept myself and my existence as more enjoyable. But that I still will not really exist as more 'worthwhile'--only more alive, happier?"
"Right. And you will not, we hope, blame yourself or punish yourself whenever--as an imperfect human--you do something wrong or unwise. You will accept yourself with your foolish thoughts, feelings, perceptions, or actions, and use the experience that you get as a result of these unwise acts to help you enjoy yourself and behave more rationally in the future. What greater acceptance of self (and through that, potential acceptance of and tolerance for other humans) could you then have?"
From: "The New Guide to Rational Living" by Albert Ellis, Ph. D., and Robert A. Harper, Ph. D., Chapter 10 - Tackling Dire Needs for Approval. (There are newer versions but this happens to be from the 1979 Edition, Pp. 94-101 - I wish I could quote the whole chapter, but I'm going to start about half way in.)
...Your accepting yourself and devoting yourself to outside activities may constitute reciprocal goals. For if you really follow your own basic bents and do not overly concern yourself about what others think of you, you will have so little time to spend in self-centered worrying that you will feel virtually forced to find absorbing interests on the outside. By the same token, if you throw your energies into outside activities and actively devote yourself to other people and things, you normally will tend to feel less concerned about what others think of you and, hence, to respect your own values.
Put somewhat differently, if you devote yourself enthusiastically to long-range hedonism--to activities that you consider desirable and enjoyable from a long-term perspective--you will clearly accept yourself because you do what you really want to do and do not falsely follow what someone else thinks you should do. Our clients and associates frequently ask: "I can see that accepting myself rather than desperately needing the love of others constitutes a more realistic orientation. But how will this help me love other people? As I less and less concern myself about whether others approve of me, won't I find it more and more troublesome and unnecessary to give a damn about them--to relate lovingly to them?"
No, for several reasons. First of all, if you direly need love, you will feel so preoccupied with obtaining it that you have as much chance to honor your own choices or to love others as a dope addict has to relate freely and self-confidently to the person who supplies him with drugs.
Secondly, if you surrender your dire need for love, you will still retain, in most instances, a strong desire for acceptance by others. People often wrongly assume that your not direly needing love means the same thing as your feeling love has no value. Not at all. You can easily enjoy well-written stories and plays even though you have no need to do so. Why can you not, then, enjoy and seek intimate relationships without believing that your life depends on them?
Thirdly, when you free yourself from your demands that you receive love, you can better love. You can see more clearly the lovable traits of others; stop hating them when they do not immediately respond to you; learn what you really enjoy in relationship; risk committing yourself to loving, even when you know that a given affair may not work out well; and feel unanxiously free to experience and experiment with loving because you realize that although you may lose your beloved you can never lose yourself.
Another frequently asked question: "Granted that loving has more rewards than desperately needing love, should I therefore give up all my desires for approval and recognition?"
Answer: Certainly not. Complete self-sacrifice or the total surrender of your own desires for approval can prove just as foolish as your obsession with winning esteem of others. Again for several reasons:
1. You act quite normally when you want to express your own unique conceptions of the world to others and want them to take pleasure in some of your expressions. You would hardly seem human if you did not derive some satisfaction from relating to others.
2. Wanting acceptance from others constitutes one of the main essences of desire; and men and women entirely free from desire again do not appear entirely human. According to the Hindu classic the Bhagavad-Gita, the strongest individual "has indifference to honor and insult, heat and cold, pleasure and pain. He feels free from attachment." A few select individuals find this a worthy ideal. But we doubt whether many humans could ever attain it.To lean so far over backwards to get rid of psychological pain that you also eradicate all pleasure does not seem too rational to us. By all means try, if you will, to eliminate your extreme, unrealistic, self-defeating desire; but not desire itself!
3. From a practical view, if you ardently want various things--such as material goods or more leisure--you had better win the approval or respect of certain people such as your parents, teachers, or bosses. Though you may wisely eliminate your inordinate demands that others love you, you'd better sanely retain, in any social group, some wishes for acceptance by other group members.
Granted that having an inordinate need for others' love will serve to defeat your own ends, and that having some wish for acceptance seems eminently sane, the question arises: How can you somehow manage to attain a middle-of-the-road policy in this respect?
First and foremost, by admitting that you do have a dire need for love in many instances; by making a continual effort to observe this need in operation; and by then continually challenging, questioning, and disputing it....
....If you do have a dire need for love; if you accept the fact that you have it; and if you keep challenging, questioning, and disputing it, it will ultimately, and often quite quickly, start decreasing. For remember: It remains your need; and you keep sustaining it.
Other methods you can use to combat and minimize your inordinate love needs include the following:
1. Ask yourself what you really want to do, rather than what others would like you to do. And keep asking yourself, from time to time: "Do I keep doing this or refusing to do that because I really want it that way? Or do I, once again, unthinkingly keep trying to please others?"
2. In going after what you really want, take risks, commit yourself, don't desperately avoid making mistakes. Don't act needlessly foolhardy; but convince yourself that if you fail to get something you want and people laugh at or criticize you for your failure, they may have a problem. As long as you learn by your errors, does it make that much difference what they think?
3. Focus on loving rather than on getting love. Try to realize that vital living hardly consists of passive receiving but of doing, acting, reaching out. And just as you can force yourself to play the piano, do yoga exercises, or go to work every day, you can also often forcibly commit yourself to loving other humans. In so doing, your dire needs for love will probably decrease.
[What follows is probably the most significant part to me...LB]
4. Above all, don't confuse getting love with having personal worth. If you must see yourself as having any intrinsic worth or value as a human (which we would not advise, since we think that any kind of self-rating, positive or negative, tends to bring pernicious results), you'd better claim to have it by virtue of your mere existence, your aliveness, your essence -- and not because of anything you do to "earn" it. No matter how much others approve you, or how much they may value you for their own benefit, they thereby can only give you, as Robert S. Hartman explains, extrinsic value, or worth to them. They cannot, by loving you, give you intrinsic value--or the worth you have to yourself. If intrinsic value exists at all (which we seriously doubt, since it seems a well-nigh undefinable Kantian thing-in-itself), you get it because you choose, you decide to have it. It exists purely because of your own definition. You emerge as "good" or "deserving" because you think you do and not because anyone in any way gives you this kind of intrinsic value.
If you can really believe this highly important truth--that you need not rate yourself, your essence at all (and that you can choose to call yourself intrinsically worthwhile just because you decide to do so)--you will tend to lose your desperate need for others' approval. For you need--or think you need--their acceptance not because of the practical advantages it may bring, but because you foolishly define your worth as a human in terms of receiving or not receiving it. Once you stop this kind of silly defining, the dire need for their approval generally evaporates (though the strong desire to have them like you may well remain). Similarly, if you rid yourself of your dire need for approval, you will find it relatively easy to stop rating yourself as a person, even though you continue to rate many of your traits, and to accept yourself merely because you remain alive and kicking--and for that reason alone "deserve" to continue to exist and to have a maximally enjoyable life.
To underscore this last point about human worth, consider the case of Herbert Flisch, a forty-year-old successful businessman who recognized, after eight sessions of rational-emotive therapy, that almost every single one of his actions for the past four decades had stemmed from his dire need to win the approval of his parents, wife, children, friends, and even employees. At his ninth session he asked:
"Do I understand you correctly to mean that if I stop trying to win everyone's approval and do what I think I would like to do (and what would not at the same time defeat my own ultimate ends) that I'll then love myself because I'll consider myself more worthwhile?"
"No," the therapist replied. "Those of us who have worked to develop this system of rational-emotive psychotherapy have come to realize that worthwhileness proves just as illegitimate a concept as its counterpart, worthlessness; and that, in fact, just as soon as you tend to think in terms of personal 'worth' you must almost automatically tend to think, at the same time, in terms of personal 'worthlessness.'
"Thus, if you consider yourself 'worthwhile' today because you function effectively, make wise decisions, or think bright thoughts, you'll tend to consider yourself 'worthless' tomorrow because you then function less effectively, make some unwise decisions, or think dull thoughts."
"But wouldn't I have no worth if I never functioned effectively?" asked the client.
"No, definitely not. Even if you had mental deficiency and never functioned well, you would then have no extrinsic 'worth'--meaning that others might not find you a suitable companion or employee--but you could have, intrinsically, as much 'worth' to yourself as any other more efficient individual. You would have 'worth', in other words, if you believed you had. But if you believed, as you obviously do, that inefficiency makes you 'worthless,' you would then feel exactly that."
"So I remain worthwhile if I think I do--no matter how inefficiently I may actually perform in life?"
"Yes--except that, as I said before, the very concept of 'worth' has dangers, since it implies the concept of 'worthlessness.' Just like the concept of heaven implies the concept of hell. In fact, the way we usually employ the terms, to have 'worth' really means pretty much the same thing as to behave angelically or heaven-directed; and to have 'worthlessness' means to behave demonically or hell-directed. Doesn't it?"
"In a way, I guess it does. I can see what you mean," said the client.
"Moreover, if you have concepts of 'worth' and 'worthlessness,' even if you avoid extreme self-designations in using these concepts, you will tend to remain preoccupied with varying degrees of 'worth.' Thus, you will tend to say to yourself: 'Today I have great worth; yesterday I had less; I hope and pray tomorrow I can have more'
"This kind of concept of 'worth' (and, hence, of the lack of worth or less worth) carries with it irrational and undesirable aspects of guilt, self-disrespect, self-blame, shame, anger, hostility, and other self-sabotaging emotions. The counter-concept, that you have neither 'worth' because of your effectiveness nor 'worthlessness' because of your ineffectiveness, but that you merely exist, this concept, difficult as it seems for almost all people to see and accept, safely eliminates the notion of intrinsic 'worthlessness' and self-damnation."
"I'll have to give this some more thought," said the client. "But, it does seem to have something to it. However, how does it tie in with self-acceptance?"
"It has a most important tie-in with self-acceptance. For self-acceptance means fully accepting yourself, your existence, and your right to live and to devise as happy a life as you can for yourself--no matter what traits you have or performances you do. It does not mean self-esteem, self-confidence, self-respect, or self-regard. For all these terms imply that you can accept yourself because you do something well or because other people like you. Self-acceptance, however, merely means that you accept yourself because you remain alive and have decided to accept yourself. Only a relatively limited number of talented, intelligent, competent, or well-loved people can gain self-esteem or self-confidence. But anyone, merely because he chooses to have it, can gain self-acceptance."
"Does self-acceptance mean that I consider myself worthy or deserving of living and enjoying no matter what I do?"
"Yes, though we don't like the words worthy or deserving, since they imply a rating--that you have to do (or refrain from doing) something in order to feel 'worthy' or 'deserving.' When you have what we call self-acceptance, you make minimal assumptions about your (and other people's) intrinsic worth or value."
"What minimal assumptions?"
"Several: One, you exist. Two, you can probably, by continuing to exist, achieve more pleasure than pain, thus making it desirable for you to keep living. Three, to a considerable degree, you can help minimize your pain and maximize your pleasure. Four, you decide--and this constitutes the essence of self-acceptance--that you will try to live and make your existence as pleasurable and as unpainful as you can make it. Or, putting it another way, you choose as the main purpose of your existence short-range (here and now) and long-range (future) enjoyment. Not achieving for the sake of achieving. Not receiving adoration from others. Not proving your greatness as a person. Not getting into heaven. Just plain damned enjoyment!"
"So instead of my continuing to ask myself, 'What worth have I?' 'How do I keep proving myself?' 'How can I outstandingly impress others?' or 'What do I have to do to ennoble myself?' I'd better, instead, ask, 'How the devil can I avoid needless pain and find out what I truly enjoy in life and do it?' Right?''
"Exactly right! You make the purpose of your existence having a present and future ball--in whatever idiosyncratic and harmless ways you experimentally discover."
"You mean that I may then enjoy myself and accept myself and my existence as more enjoyable. But that I still will not really exist as more 'worthwhile'--only more alive, happier?"
"Right. And you will not, we hope, blame yourself or punish yourself whenever--as an imperfect human--you do something wrong or unwise. You will accept yourself with your foolish thoughts, feelings, perceptions, or actions, and use the experience that you get as a result of these unwise acts to help you enjoy yourself and behave more rationally in the future. What greater acceptance of self (and through that, potential acceptance of and tolerance for other humans) could you then have?"
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
Understanding the Psychology of Romantic Love - Part I
What similarities are there between "falling in love" and having a "religious experience"? Ecstasy, bliss, a feeling of "oneness with the Universe", peace, security, freedom - all are commonly described experiences of both "falling in love" and "awakening" or "self-transcendance" or "enlightenment".
What Robert Johnson points out in We: Understanding the Psychology of Romantic Love is that, given the culture that has arisen out of the scientific revolution (and progressive materialism) started several centuries ago, our "souls" (or "psyches" or "unconscious sides" or the "collective unconscious" as a whole, or "God/dess") have persisted in wanting to be "known" and related to, honored, and loved. Where once this was available through more broadly accepted "religious practice" (soul searching, personal pondering of "That Which is Invisible", etc.), scientific materialism has virtually wiped out that possibility for "modern man". And yet, in spite of our almost exclusive focus on only what can be scientifically measured and proven (or literalized in the case of the Bible) and willfully manipulated for our personal material gain, we have nevertheless continued to cling en masse to the "Myth of Romantic Love".
As a consequence, for almost every person in modern day Western Culture, we have come to expect our intimate partners to fulfill a terribly idealized and even deified role in relationship to us. We seek passionately only for that "ecstasy" and feel There Is Something Missing from Our Intimate Relationships If We Are Not ALWAYS Experiencing That! In other words, at least in This culture, we do not feel comfortable or satisfied with the idea or the commitment to HUMAN LOVE between HUMAN BEINGS.
As a consequence, our capacity for Human Love and Divine Love are both compromised since they are not associated properly within their appropriate contexts; i.e. Divine Love is that which one experiences in a personal (individual) relationship with the Divine (or one's soul, or one's feeling nature, or one's unconscious, or one's anima/animus, however you want to acknowledge or identify the "invisible" part of yourself); while Human Love is experienced in relationship with other Human Beings, other (apparently separate) individuals outside of oneself. And if it is not already obvious, there are Very Different obligations in each form of relationship and different ways to "practice discipline" in each of those levels of association.
What this boils down to is - instead of acknowledging "God/dess" as "God/dess" we keep expecting our partners to be the "God" or "Goddess" in our lives, and as soon as they fail to live up to our expectations, they either have to suffer our disappointment through emotional, psychological, or even physical abuse, or...it's off to find another man or woman to carry that "projection" for us until they too fail under the weight of it. There are other cultures in the world that do not place such inappropriate and even irrational expectations on their human partners - and, guess what, their human relationships are much more likely to be stable and satisfying as a consequence. Surprise, surprise!
For many years now I feel I have been living at the "narrow end of the bell curve". And..to be honest, I haven't been living with "romantic love expectations" of my partners for a lot of that time, going back to the first book I read about anima/animus projections back in 1993 (i.e. Invisible Partners by John Sanford). However, I know for a fact, because I have been Unwilling to get "caught up in" that "divine love at the human level" game, I have made myself "less attractive" to the men around me who were hoping/expecting to experience that with me. Truth is, I do not expect my male companions to play the "Romantic Hero" in some overly dramatized version of an intimate relationship with me, nor am I inclined to play the "Damsel in Distress" or the Athena-like Love Goddess who vacillates between blessing and cursing her lover with no peace to be found in some middle ground of ordinary human life. Furthermore, because I have fully satisfied my need for a direct, ecstatic Love Relationship with the Divine, through my ongoing religious practice, I am simply not "driven" to seek that in my human intimate relationships.
Does that mean I do not "need" those human relationships? Of course not! I acknowledge the fact that I am as much a human being as I am a spiritual being. Obviously human beings need to relate to one another for all kinds of reasons and in all kinds of contexts and at all kinds of levels of intimacy. But in our culturally conditioned quest for that "One Love" we are failing miserably in our capacity to love in all these other relationships at all these other levels.
And that, my friends, I feel is one of the greatest tragedies in our society today and it has been the Great Tragedy of Western Culture for centuries. However, this World persists in the midst of our insanity - at least for now, and that means we still have time to "change our ways" and change our expectations and get back to relating with the Visible and the Invisible as it is apparently "normal" and appropriate for us to do as the human and spiritual beings that we are.
What Robert Johnson points out in We: Understanding the Psychology of Romantic Love is that, given the culture that has arisen out of the scientific revolution (and progressive materialism) started several centuries ago, our "souls" (or "psyches" or "unconscious sides" or the "collective unconscious" as a whole, or "God/dess") have persisted in wanting to be "known" and related to, honored, and loved. Where once this was available through more broadly accepted "religious practice" (soul searching, personal pondering of "That Which is Invisible", etc.), scientific materialism has virtually wiped out that possibility for "modern man". And yet, in spite of our almost exclusive focus on only what can be scientifically measured and proven (or literalized in the case of the Bible) and willfully manipulated for our personal material gain, we have nevertheless continued to cling en masse to the "Myth of Romantic Love".
As a consequence, for almost every person in modern day Western Culture, we have come to expect our intimate partners to fulfill a terribly idealized and even deified role in relationship to us. We seek passionately only for that "ecstasy" and feel There Is Something Missing from Our Intimate Relationships If We Are Not ALWAYS Experiencing That! In other words, at least in This culture, we do not feel comfortable or satisfied with the idea or the commitment to HUMAN LOVE between HUMAN BEINGS.
As a consequence, our capacity for Human Love and Divine Love are both compromised since they are not associated properly within their appropriate contexts; i.e. Divine Love is that which one experiences in a personal (individual) relationship with the Divine (or one's soul, or one's feeling nature, or one's unconscious, or one's anima/animus, however you want to acknowledge or identify the "invisible" part of yourself); while Human Love is experienced in relationship with other Human Beings, other (apparently separate) individuals outside of oneself. And if it is not already obvious, there are Very Different obligations in each form of relationship and different ways to "practice discipline" in each of those levels of association.
What this boils down to is - instead of acknowledging "God/dess" as "God/dess" we keep expecting our partners to be the "God" or "Goddess" in our lives, and as soon as they fail to live up to our expectations, they either have to suffer our disappointment through emotional, psychological, or even physical abuse, or...it's off to find another man or woman to carry that "projection" for us until they too fail under the weight of it. There are other cultures in the world that do not place such inappropriate and even irrational expectations on their human partners - and, guess what, their human relationships are much more likely to be stable and satisfying as a consequence. Surprise, surprise!
For many years now I feel I have been living at the "narrow end of the bell curve". And..to be honest, I haven't been living with "romantic love expectations" of my partners for a lot of that time, going back to the first book I read about anima/animus projections back in 1993 (i.e. Invisible Partners by John Sanford). However, I know for a fact, because I have been Unwilling to get "caught up in" that "divine love at the human level" game, I have made myself "less attractive" to the men around me who were hoping/expecting to experience that with me. Truth is, I do not expect my male companions to play the "Romantic Hero" in some overly dramatized version of an intimate relationship with me, nor am I inclined to play the "Damsel in Distress" or the Athena-like Love Goddess who vacillates between blessing and cursing her lover with no peace to be found in some middle ground of ordinary human life. Furthermore, because I have fully satisfied my need for a direct, ecstatic Love Relationship with the Divine, through my ongoing religious practice, I am simply not "driven" to seek that in my human intimate relationships.
Does that mean I do not "need" those human relationships? Of course not! I acknowledge the fact that I am as much a human being as I am a spiritual being. Obviously human beings need to relate to one another for all kinds of reasons and in all kinds of contexts and at all kinds of levels of intimacy. But in our culturally conditioned quest for that "One Love" we are failing miserably in our capacity to love in all these other relationships at all these other levels.
And that, my friends, I feel is one of the greatest tragedies in our society today and it has been the Great Tragedy of Western Culture for centuries. However, this World persists in the midst of our insanity - at least for now, and that means we still have time to "change our ways" and change our expectations and get back to relating with the Visible and the Invisible as it is apparently "normal" and appropriate for us to do as the human and spiritual beings that we are.
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