Regarding Anima and Animus "Possession"

Before I continue with my "Reflections on Projections" series, I feel motivated to provide something of a "homework assignment" for the weekend.  What follows is mostly a verbatim transcription of significant portions of Chapter 2 of Invisible Partners by John Sanford.  If you have not been inspired by my other writing to get a copy of Invisible Partners yourself, then my providing this material will save you the trouble, for now.  However, it is not a complete transcription and I may or may not continue with a complete review of the book in this blog, so you may still want to get a copy yourself at some point, if you're interested.

Nevertheless, from my point of view, what follows is really at the Heart of the "Problems" with the anima and animus.  Not that it is All Bad.  When related to properly, the anima and animus make up a very important part of our individual character; but they are, at the same time, just a Part of who we are.  When they become exaggerated in us due to a lack of inner relationship, if we are not fully conscious of them so that they become projected, or they take over, i.e. they "possess" our consciousness and we begin to think they actually are "who we are", that's when the "problems" arise.  Without ongoing awareness and understanding, in other words, if these characters remain invisible to us, then, in effect, there is "hell to pay", and as I have been alluding to, we will miss out on other potential opportunities of more direct, conscious, and loving relationships with one another.

Granted, this is a particular "framework" for understanding certain phenomena that many, if not most, human beings have experienced, to one degree or another.  I have found it particularly useful in my own life as a way to better understand myself and others; i.e. to understand why we act the way we do and say the things we say.  Maybe, more importantly, it has helped me to understand that, for the most part, people really do not want to hurt one another. I know I do not want to hurt the people I care about.  However, when the anima and animus get "triggered", for whatever reasons, then it seems to me at this point, pain and suffering in relationship are soon to follow; sometimes even very serious pain and suffering.  However, if one of the possible "goals" of being human is to become Fully Conscious, then it seems appropriate that there would be negative consequences for when we are not being Fully Conscious.

Furthermore, I have been wondering how anima or animus "possession" might relate to more violent expressions of mental illness. I would like to think if more people understood these "Invisible Partners" and could come into better conscious relationship with these parts of themselves, in fact, with all parts of themselves, then maybe future events like the recent catastrophe at Sandy Hook might be avoided. 

So towards the goal of Peace through better Understanding, I offer the following from Chapter 2 of Invisible Partners:

First of all, what happens when a man becomes "possessed" by his anima.  Sanford writes:

"In the case of the anima, it is she who lies behind a man's moods.  When a man is possessed by the anima he is drawn into a dark mood, and tends to become sulky, overly sensitive, and withdrawn. A poisonous atmosphere surrounds him, and it is as though he is immersed in a kind of psychological fog. He ceases to be objective or related, and his masculine stance is eroded by peevishness.  If a man argues or writes in this frame of mind, this peevishness and poison will certainly emerge.  In writing,  the influence of the anima can be seen in sarcasms, innuendos, irrelevancies, and poisonous jabs that reveal a subjective, personalistic bias and detract from the objective quality of the work.  A man in the grip of the anima acts for all the world like an inferior kind of woman who is upset about something and that, in fact, is exactly what he has within himself.

"Such a mood may fall on a man in an instant.  A seemingly chance remark from someone, a slight, an almost unnoticed disappointment, and suddenly a man may be in a mood.  Astonishingly enough, men almost invariably fail to note that something from within themselves has suddenly possessed them, that a mood has fallen on them and gripped them, and that the event has been quite autonomous.  Such moods may simply make the man a bit grouchy or out of sorts for a while, or they may become dangerously dark.  If the moods are chronic they may lead a man into alcoholism or severe depression.  Under certain circumstances, an intense anima mood may plunge a man into such a feeling of hopelessness that he commits suicide....

"If you can get to the bottom of a man's mood you will find that something has gone wrong, but the man may hardly realize what it is.  It may be that his inner woman does not like what the man is doing.  For instance she may not like his work because it drains her of life and energy, or it may keep her from her fulfillment in life.  It is as though the man's inner woman and the woman's inner man, also need to be fulfilled in life, but the only way they can be fulfilled is through the kind of life their outer man or outer woman leads.  Imagine a woman who is denied her proper scope in life, who is forced to endure a way of life that leaves her no room for her emotions or her own creative powers.  Such a woman would, naturally, become dissatisfied and her displeasure would be felt in the bad atmosphere she would create.  It is exactly this way with the anima if she does not have enough share in the man's life.

"But the negative anima mood may also be a function of a relationship.  For example, a man may get thrown into this mood when his feelings have been hurt.  Someone has ignored him, given him a nasty verbal thrust, or rejected him in some way and he is hurt and angry.  When the man is hurt, if he were to express his feelings directly he would be all right--he would not go into a mood.  If it is his wife who has hurt his feelings, for instance, and if he were to say to her, 'That really made me angry when you said that,' he would be himself and would not become possessed by the anima; he would not fall into a mood about it. But if the man does not express his feelings, they fall into the unconscious, and the anima gets them.  [As I have suggested previously, this is the equivalent of "pushing the balls under the water".]  The anger that the man did not express directly is taken over by the anima, who turns it into resentment; in fact, resentment in a man is always a sign of the anima at work.  In the hands of the anima this unexpressed and unresolved anger smolders, burns, and eats away at him, and is expressed indirectly by 'passive-aggressive' moods, and behavior.  It is always ready to erupt into flames; then the man does not have his anger,  it has him.  He is possessed by rage, and his anger is in constant danger of becoming a terrible affect, for it is as though the anima stands poised to drop her flaming match into the waiting can of gasoline, and the man will erupt in an engulfing and uncontrolled emotion.

"Jung noted that the anima can be seen to be at work wherever emotions and affects are at work in a man.  He wrote, 'She intensifies, exaggerates, falsifies, and mythologizes all emotional relationships with his work and with other people of both sexes.' (Jung, CW9, 1, p. 70.) The antidote for this, as has been mentioned, is for the man to know what he is feeling and become capable of expressing this in relationship. [This would be the equivalent of "keeping all the balls on the water".]  This keeps his emotion out of the clutches of the anima, and, moreover, satisfies her that the correct thing is being done with whatever it is that has wounded or aroused him.  The anima does not necessarily want to carry the man's emotional life for him, she gets it by default.  It is as though she says, 'Why don't you say something about that irritating thing that so-and-so has just done to you! If you don't do something about it, I will.'  We can say that if something has gone wrong in an emotionally significant relationship the anima will grouse about it until the man straightens it out, or comes to terms with his emotions in some proper way. 

[And that includes emotions that may have very deep roots in childhood experiences.  Something I will be discussing further, probably in my next blog.]

"Unfortunately, many men have difficulty expressing their feelings.  Men tend to like their relationships to be smooth, easy, and comfortable.  They are reluctant to get into emotionally toned discussions or difficult issues.  They want 'peace and quiet' and want their women to maintain a pleasant atmosphere and not bring up distressing matters.  But, as we have just seen, if matters of relationship are ignored they simply get worse, and when a man consistently denies his feelings, and fails to relate them to the people in his life, he becomes a chronically moody, resentful, anima-ridden man.  Then it is as though a witch has gotten him, for he has become identical with his moods.

"If a man becomes capable of expressing his feelings, not only does he keep emotional matters out of the clutches of the anima, he also becomes a much more developed person. A man who always avoids emotionally toned encounters with other people is contained within the Mother. One way for him to get out of his Mother complex is to express himself in relationship. If he fails to do so he remains emotionally a little boy who is afraid of women, who resents them if they don't keep him happy, and who is out of touch with his own masculine strength.

"Men are often reluctant to bring up unpleasant things that have happened in a relationship with a woman because they are afraid of her anger, or their own anger, or they are afraid they will be rejected, or they are afraid of pain....

"If a man is afraid of his woman's anger it often goes back to the little boy in him.  Watch a small boy when mother becomes angry at him!  See how unpleasant it is for him, and how many little boys will be terribly hurt, and want to do whatever they can to appease mother so things will be good again, or, if they are more robust, will spew out boyish defiance so as not to be overwhelmed by their own hurt feelings. A woman's acid anger and power of rejection have enormous influence on other people, men and boys especially, and if a man is to become capable of relationship with a woman he must overcome his fear of her anger and his anxiety about being rejected.  This may mean that he will have to find and help the little boy in himself.  By recognizing his hurt-little-boy side he is much less likely to become identical with it, and can remain more the man in relationship with the woman in his life.

[This, by the way,  intersects to some degree with my understanding that, for various reasons, people get "stuck" emotionally in earlier stages of development.  I will be considering this further in my next blog as it relates to Erich Fromm's ideas of "Mother Love" and "Father Love" and how these have differing effects on individual development.] 

"[A man] will also have to deal with the angry, rejecting side of his woman.  Why does she have to be that way? he may ask himself.  But just as the anima has a negative side that must be overcome if the positive side is to be realized, so every man must be capable of enduring the dark side of the woman in his life if he is going to find her tender and life-giving side.

"A man's fear that he will be rejected if he brings up difficult matters in the relationship is usually unfounded.  A woman who cares about a man, or is at all connected to her own instincts for relatedness, has a great capacity for confrontation and working things out...

"Related anger means that the issues that are brought up are concerned with what is going on between two people.  It is an honest expression of genuine feeling.  If a man expresses anger in an unrelated way to a woman, he will do it indirectly by creating a bad atmosphere or indulging in a personalistic attitude.  If he expresses anger in a related way, he will tell her just what it is that is upsetting him.  If a woman cares about a man she will not reject him if he expresses his anger at her in this way; to the contrary, she will welcome it, for it shows that their relationship is meaningful to him.  From a woman's point of view, if a man ignores matters of relationship it is the same as ignoring her, and that means to her that she and the relationship are not important to him.

"The important thing to remember, as will be seen more clearly later on, is that the correct position of the anima is inward, not outward.  She belongs as a function of relationship between a man's consciousness and the unconscious, not as a function of relationship between a man and other people.  When she intrudes into this outer sphere, there are difficulties.  Men are quite capable of doing their own relating and having their own feelings, and do not need the anima to provide this for them.

"The anima not only interferes with a man's emotional reactions, she can interfere with his thinking as well.  For instance, when a man is anima-possessed he may begin to give forth opinions instead of genuine thinking.  It is as though the anima begins to talk right through him, and she expresses herself as though she had an animus, which means she expresses opinions without regard to facts, relationship, or logic.  When a man is in this state of mind he begins to argue in a peevish way, and his masculine objectivity is quite lost in a sea of emotionally toned and irrational opinions that prove resistant to reasonable discussion...."

In summary, Sanford offers: "...[T]he anima can poison a man's consciousness and rob him of himself should he fall for her insinuations...a man can prevent the negative anima from having this destructive influence on him...by making her conscious." (Pp. 35-43)

As for what happens when a woman becomes "animus possessed", Sanford offers the following:

"If the anima is the master of moods in a man, the animus is the master of opinions in a woman.  He typically expresses himself in judgments, generalizations, critical statements, and apodictic assertions that do not come from a woman's own process of thinking and feeling, but have been picked up from various authoritative sources, mother or father, books or articles, church or some other collective organization.  It is the animus who is behind the autonomous, critical, and opinionated thoughts that intrude into a woman's consciousness.  He thus represents inferior masculine logic, just as the anima represents inferior feminine emotionality.

"....If a woman becomes identified with such opinions within herself, which happens when the animus is not differentiated from her own ego psychology, we speak of animus possession.

"The opinions of the animus have an unpleasant and even destructive quality, and may be projected onto other people, or directed inwardly on the woman herself.  In the former case, other people cannot stand the woman because of the blunt and critical judgments she passes on them.  In the latter case, the woman cannot stand herself, for the effect of the judgments of the animus on her is to destroy her sense of her own value and worth.

"The animus is thus able to rob a woman of her creativity, even as the anima...can rob a man of his.  At the moment when a woman gets a creative idea, or her eros and tenderness begin to stir in her in a new way, the animus may intrude into her consciousness with thought that could prevent her from fulfilling herself.  He may say, 'You can't do that.' Or, 'Other people can do these things much better than you.' Or, 'You have nothing of value to offer.'  If the woman identifies with such thoughts, that is, mistakes them for her own thoughts and for the truth, the new creative possibility is taken away from her.

"The opinions of the animus have a peculiarly irritating effect on other people because, in spite of their seeming logic, they do not fit the actual situation.  Yet neither can they be reasoned with, for the animus has an absolutist attitude, and his opinions are not amenable to discussion or qualification.  Whenever the animus takes over, a woman is taken away from her own thinking and feeling, and she becomes identical with banal statements, sweeping judgments, or generalizations. Small wonder, when these judgmental opinions are directed from within against herself, that a woman tends to become depressed and is robbed of the colorfulness of life." (Pp. 43-45)

And as I referred the other day in my "In Defense" blog:

"The animus often keeps other people from reaching and experiencing the warm, feeling side of a woman because they cannot get through the animus and his opinions. Children with such a woman for a mother feel deprived of their mother's affection because they keep coming up against the animus.  She comes across to them as a hard disciplinarian, and the critical, judgmental attitudes of the animus effectively shut them out from her tenderness and affection.  (The situation is exacerbated when the father has relinquished the masculine role of disciplinarian and forced the mother to assume this role in the family.) It is not that the mother does not have warm feelings for her children; they are there, but the children do not receive them because the animus blocks them.  Such women may appear hard and steely, and other people may be leery of them, for their animus can wound; however, strangely enough, they themselves easily get their feelings hurt, and when this happens they are terribly injured and bewildered and do not understand why other people do not love them..." (Pp. 45-46)

"When the animus utters an opinion, it is said with an air of great authority. It is like a pronouncement, and pronouncements of course, are indisputable.  This air of authority, Emma Jung suggests in her monograph Anima and Animus*, is enhanced by our present culture, which tends to overvalue everything masculine and undervalue the feminine.  Masculine achievement, power, control, success, and logic are rewarded in our society by prestige, good grades in school, and generous paychecks.  The feminine principle, which tends to unite and synthesize, is undervalued culturally both in men and in women.  It is as though the animus were aware of this, and so his utterances are all the more authoritative, while, conversely, a woman is led to distrust her seemingly inferior and more vague feminine intuitions and feelings, even though it is these that have the truth of the matter.  This is a deplorable situation, for not only does our world need more of the healing influence and wisdom of the feminine, but the woman herself is all the more victimized by animus judgments that, if left unchallenged, nullify her own deepest psychological truth.

*Emma Jung, Anima and Animus (Zurich: Spring Publications, 1974).

"Since the anima and animus have these peculiarly irritating effects, it is not surprising that they are inclined to quarrel with each other. A typical anima/animus quarrel can start in many different ways.  A man may comes home in a dark mood.  He is possessed by this mood, that is, by the anima, and exudes an air of poison and gloom.  Now if the man were to tell his woman what his problem is, things could take a more positive direction, but the chances are that he will say nothing about his frame of mind, but will just inflict his mood on her.  Being in this mood, of course he is not related, and his woman senses this immediately, and cannot stand the lack of relationship.  She finds the psychological atmosphere, and the sense of isolation, increasingly intolerable, and also wonders if somehow she is being blamed for something, for a man in the grip of the anima has a way of being vaguely reproachful of others.  At this point, unless the woman is very careful, her animus may intrude.  It is as though he does not like that man's moody anima either, and so he will pick up his sword or club and take matters into his own hands.  This may be done with some kind of stinging remark, or a direct frontal assault on the man's objectionable moodiness.

"Stung by the attack, the anima of the man may retaliate.  Unless the man is quick to realize what is going on, and to make a conscious response to this situation, the anima will probably drop her match into the gasoline, and the result will be an eruption of affect.  The man will then become irrational and fight back in a sarcastic, affect-laden way, perhaps with a personalistic attack on his wife's character, that of her mother, and anything else that can be thought of to get revenge for the wound that has just been inflicted on him. The animus then comes back in kind, and the result is an angry quarrel.  It never occurs to the man, of course, that he has become possessed by a witch inside himself; to the contrary, he is quite convinced that his wife is to blame for all of this.

"Or perhaps it is the woman's animus that first delivers a stinging remark or irritating opinion.  The man is immediately affected by this, but unless he is quick to realize what is happening, it is his anima who reacts.  As Jung once wrote, "...no man can converse with an animus for five minutes without becoming the victim of his own anima...the animus draws his sword of power and the anima ejects her poison of illusion and seduction.'

"At this point projections occur again, but it is not the positive animus and anima who are projected onto the human partners, creating an air of fascination and magical attraction; it is the negative images, which have the effect of driving the man and the woman apart.  The man's wife now receives the projections of his inner witch, and is, accordingly, held responsible for his bad mood, while the woman projects onto her man all the infuriating qualities that, in fact, belong to the man inside herself.

"Clearly such anima/animus fights can be destructive.  The tragedy is that while the man and woman have their unproductive quarrel, and the atmosphere becomes darker and darker, neither realizes that the scene is being dominated by the Invisible Partners.  It is not John and Mary who are quarreling, but these archetypal figures within them.  For just as the anima and animus can fall in love, so they can quarrel, and the intensity of their attraction to each other is matched only by the intensity of their dislike.

"This destructive anima/animus fight is not to be confused with a genuine encounter between the actual man and woman.  When John and Mary confront each other to express their anger and work out their differences, something positive can emerge.  Such encounters between a man and a woman can have great psychological value and must not be avoided just because a person is too squeamish to get into emotionally difficult situations. But when John and Mary are eclipsed by their anima and animus, and these two begin to quarrel, the result is most unfortunate.

"The strange thing is, as suggested earlier, that the quarrel could be avoided if the man would just say what it is that he is feeling, and the woman would just say what it is that is troubling her.  If the man directly expresses his hurt, anger, or bewilderment, it is he who is talking.  If he does not, however, the anima gets hold of it and expresses his emotional reaction for him in the devious, destructive ways described.  She  exaggerates, as Jung said.  In her grasp, a relatively minor personal injury becomes magnified and a mountain is made of a molehill.  She falsifies.  Once the personal slight or hurt is in her grasp, the facts of the situation become distorted.  In the ensuing argument, what really happened becomes obscured by the emotionality of the anima.  She intensifies, so that the original emotion that man felt now becomes a powerful affect, and the small fire a large one. And she mythologizes.  When things are left in her hands, an ordinary human woman becomes a goddess or a witch and an ordinary human situation takes on a highly dramatic character.

"Similarly, when a woman who is troubled by something in a personal relationship says what she feels, it is she who is speaking, and the matter can be worked out.  But if she hides her true feelings, it is the animus who seizes the club or sword and tries to set matters straight.  The result is disastrous as far as the relationship is concerned, and is a defeat for the woman's ego, for the ego always experiences defeat when it becomes possessed by the anima or animus.  Club in hand, the animus will let the offending man have it by some form of direct attack that may have little perceivable relationship to the actual offense.  Taking his sword of seeming logic, the animus will bring up some argument that has little or nothing to do with the real emotional issue.  Irritated at such an irrational assault, and frustrated by its seeming unfairness, a man is all too likely to fall into the clutches of his anima at this point and then dark things happen.

"A woman can avoid this by saying something like, 'You seem to be upset about something.  Are you angry at me?'  If he is angry at her, he can say so and perhaps the matter can be resolved.  If not, the woman need not feel guilty or anxious, and can afford to let her man remain with his mood and work it out himself while she goes about her business.  For it is not her job to get him out of his mood; that is a task that every man must take on himself.  Of course the man may be dishonest.  He may snarl, 'No!' when he really means yes.  It is probably best, however, for the woman to take his words at face value and let him stew in his own juice, and say to herself, 'Okay, he said I was not to blame for his bad mood so I accept no guilt or responsibility for what he is feeling.' It goes without saying, of course, that if people persist in emotional dishonesty with each other, relationship is exceedingly difficult.

"A man who is confronted by a woman's animus can help the situation by keeping his cool and responding out of his own masculine strength.  If a man's masculinity is stronger than that of the animus, he can usually free the woman from possession; at least he can keep himself from falling into the clutches of his inner woman.  It usually helps to find out what the problem really is.  'What is really bothering you?' a man might ask if he realizes he has just been attacked by a woman's animus.  He may often find that what really is bothering her has nothing to do with the subject the animus has brought up.  (It isn't that she doesn't like the suit he has put on, which she has chosen to violently criticize, but that she is hurt because he ignored her at the party the night before.)

"One word of caution: In discussing their relationship a man and a woman do well to avoid the use of the terms anima and animus, or any psychological terms for that matter.  It is best to use ordinary language, for the use of psychological language is unnatural in relationships and tends to depersonalize them.  The value of being aware of the anima and animus is that we may know what is going on, and our heightened consciousness helps us in working out the relationship, but the use of psychological language as we do so is generally destructive.  So a woman who sees her man in a mood, instead of saying, 'Looks like you are gripped by your anima,' might say, 'You look upset; is something bothering you?' And a man, suspecting his woman's animus attacking him, can say, 'I have a feeling that you are angry at me about something,' instead of saying, 'Your animus is showing again.'

"[Regarding the anima and animus] It is always best to get the bad news first; besides it is usually the negative side that we experience first.  But the anima and animus also have a positive aspect, in fact, when they are in their correct place they have a great blessing to give to us.  However, in order to realize this blessing we must be able to overcome their negative effects...." (Pp.48-55)

Okay, I hope there are some lights going off for those of you who have persevered in this reading. And I must say, looking more closely at this again, as I have been typing it, and thinking about long distant and not so distant experiences, I know I still have work to do in terms of keeping my animus "in the correct place".

I think there are several important things to understand though: We are not alone in what we have experienced in our relationships.  This explanation, though certainly not absolute, does seem to give an approach to understanding that could be useful, and I suspect many of you saw things that were familiar to you, that you had experienced yourself, especially with "significant others".

For myself, personally, I have carried this "point of view" with me for many years now, but it is amazing to me how few men I've known have been willing to read this book.  Clearly, when both people involved in the relationship are aware of what could be going on, i.e. between their respective "anima" and "animus", there is a better chance they can help each other mediate their effects .  As they say, two heads are better than one, and, clearly, when it comes to our interpersonal relationships, even if just one person can keep from overreacting, if one person can stay Fully Conscoius, it is better than if each of them, in turn, becomes "possessed" by their anima or animus, and in effect "loses consciousness".

Finally, I would like to add that there are ways that we may end up alleviating some of the effects of "anima" and "animus" without really realizing it, without needing to be aware of the framework provided here to understand what is going on inside of us.  For instance, as I have already indicated in previous blogs, allowing one's emotions to remain "as balls on top of the water" instead of repressing them does a great deal to alleviate the  effects of the anima in men.  Not being judgmental of self and others helps to alleviate the effects of the animus in women.  (Of Note: Terry Gorski's "First Rule of Functional Relating" is to a) Be aware of your feelings, b) Put a label on your feelings and c) Be able to communicate those feelings effectively to another person, and d) Reciprocally, be able to listen to another person tell you how they feel without judging or condemning them).

Having reviewed this material again, I find it interesting that "masculine" character is more often associated with being rational, but it is the exaggeration of emotion carried out by the anima that subdues a man's capacity for logic.  On the other hand, it is the distortion of logic and judgment carried out by the animus that subdues a woman's more emotional and related nature.  And yet, when a man is struggling with his emotions, that is when he needs his woman's emotional nature the most. In other words, she must become a better woman than his anima. Likewise, when a woman is struggling with judgment, that is when she needs her man's rational nature the most; i.e. he has to become a better man than her animus.

I sincerely hope this material will be useful to all of you who are reading.  It is one more effort of mine to simply try to make the world a more peaceful place at this most up-close and personal level of relationship.

In my next blog, I'm going to take another look at our relationships with our parents and the profound influence of "mutual projection" between parents and their children.  This is a very recent, and actually, somewhat painful insight for me, but I think it is something else that needs to be considered and better understood if future generations of children are going to have a better chance of "Being Who They Are as Ordinary Human Beings" from a much earlier point in their lives, even "Day One".

Reflections on Projections - Part 2

Another Way of Looking at "Sexual Magnetism"

So what happens when a man projects his positive anima on a woman and a woman projects her positive anima onto the man?

Sanford explains:

"If both a man and a woman project their positive images onto each other at the same time, we have that seemingly perfect state of relationship known as being in love, a state of mutual fascination. The two then declare that they are 'in love with each other' and are firmly convinced that they have now found the ultimate relationship..." (P. 17)

Furthermore,

"...the human reality of the individual who carries a projection for us is obscured by the projected image.  This is especially the case with the anima and animus since these archetypes are so numinous.  This means that they are charged with psychic energy, so that they tend to grip us emotionally.  Consequently these projected images have a magnetic effect on us, and the person who carries a projection will tend to greatly attract or repel us, just as a magnet attracts or repels another metal...." (p. 13)

Also, as M. Scott Peck suggests in The Road Less Traveled, "falling in love" represents the spontaneous and effortless collapse of ego boundaries. It is only when the ego boundaries are consciously extended to include the other person that the effort and actual satisfaction of love is realized.

As I have considered in other blogs, whatever may be happening "psychically" or "emotionally" when we "fall in love", I would assert that there is going to be a biochemical component to it.  And most people's bodies Love the Love Drugs in part because (as I have posited in "The Biology of 'Omnipotence'") they harken back to a much earlier time in life when one felt secure and in control of the sources of their nurturance (i.e. the "two who are one bond" with the "Mother").

Furthermore, without some other experience to compare to, and with so much media propaganda promoting the effects of "romantic love", most people identify as "love" the fascinated, sexually magnetized, feeling associated with mutual projection, and mutual collapse of ego boundaries, etc.  However, if the projection is not mutual, then the feeling, and therefore the experience on a biochemical level, will not be the same. 

Having first read Invisible Partners almost 20 years ago, I have been aware of this "false impression" of love ever since, and, for the most part, I have been determined to See Men, and even other people more generally for Who They Are. I have had almost 20 years to practice recognizing projections when they have occurred and coming into conscious relationship with those elements of myself, rather than continuing to see them in others or as others. To be honest, I cannot remember the last time I felt "fascinated" by anyone.  Interested, most definitely, but not "fascinated".  I have also mediated my tendencies to "judge" people.  My post here "The Difference Between Judgment and Discernment" speaks to my orientation towards seeing people for who they are and more generally seeing Reality for What It Is.

Furthermore, as I told a male friend of mine recently, I have intentionally not been "putting it out there" for men to become "fascinated"  with me or "sexually magnetized" towards me.  In other words, I have not been seeking or encouraging those kinds of "projections" through the way I act or dress. I have not been seeking those "projections" because I know they are Not True and because I know that no man is going to love "Me" unless he first Sees "Me".  Since reading Invisible Partners I have not wanted my intimate relationships to be based on the lies that projections are.  Consequently, I have not been in a truly "in love" state with anyone for the last 20 years. I may not have abstained completely from emotional/sexual intimacy, but I have intentionally abstained from the relative "high" of "being in love" based on mutual projection. 

However, that does not mean I haven't been Loving People, even deeply, I just have not felt "in love with" them, and I am perfectly okay with that. I do not need to experience the  "high" of "oneness" in order to justify a motive to actively care about another human being and to consciously choose to meet their "love needs" as I come to understand them.

What I want to reinforce here is that there is no possibility of actually loving someone Until we see them for who they are. And seeing people for who they are means, in part, seeing them as Ordinary Human Beings, as I discussed in Part 1 of this series.  What seems to be the "problem", if we are to define it as such, is that, compared to all of the distorted imagery around us everywhere, both positive and negative, being an ordinary human being loving another ordinary human being isn't really all that exciting.

However, I am convinced, given the opportunity, it could lead to other types of emotional experiences that we are not as familiar with, for instance, the feeling of deep security that comes from "true" intimacy.  The peaceful comfort of knowing that you are being seen by your partner and that you are both accepted for who you are as well as encouraged and supported to continue to grow, to reach your fullest potential as an individual. To have the pleasure of consciously choosing to meet your partners most important "love needs" and to experience them also consciously choosing to meet yours.

Again, as Paul Chappell points out in Peaceful Revolution: Lies have a lifespan.  Part of the reason "romantic love" fades is it is based on the lies that projections and spontaneous collapse of ego boundaries represent. But, as Erich Fromm points out in The Art of Loving, true love is based on a conscious choice to act in a caring, responsible, and respectful way, with full and accurate knowledge of the other person (pp. 26-29).

As if to taunt me after my last blog post, I started hearing Sade' singing "This Is No Ordinary Love..." in my head as I rode my bicycle away from my local internet hot spot.  On the one hand, it is a perfect example of how what might otherwise be an "ordinary love" has been creatively expressed/projected and exaggerated through the social media of music.  On the other hand, if what most people consider to be "ordinary" love is the kind involving projections, then maybe the song has a deeper truth to it, as it might be applied in my own life right now; i.e. I do not want the ordinary/common/projection-based love that it seems so many other people are seeking, and, therefore, I am looking for something that is "not ordinary"; i.e. love that is based in the Reality of Ordinary Human Relating.

Although I am not certain where my reading and writing will continue to take me down this particular path of consideration, I do know I have at least one more major insight to share (so far) in this series.  So, again, if you have been following along thus far, I encourage you to "Stay Tuned".

Reflections on Projections - Part 1

In my last two blogs here I have referred to the term "projection" without taking the time to clearly define it.  Even without defining it though, I suspect many of you will have an intuitive understanding of what it means.  However, just to clarify, I will first refer once again to the book  Invisible Partners by John Sanford  wherein "projection" is described as follows:

"Projection is a psychic mechanism that occurs whenever a vital aspect of our personality of which we are unaware is activated.  When something is projected we see it outside of us, as though it belongs to someone else and has nothing to do with us.  Projection is an unconscious mechanism.  We do not decide to project something, it happens automatically. If we decided to project something it would be conscious to us and then, precisely because it is conscious to us, it could not be projected.  Only unconscious contents are projected; once something has become conscious projection ceases." (Pp. 10-11) 

(One might wonder, "Why are only unconscious contents projected?" I will offer my answer to that question shortly.)

Also in previous blogs I have referred to "anima" as a man's "inner feminine" nature and "animus" as a woman's "inner masculine" nature.  As Sanford explains, part of the reason people never become fully conscious of these elements of their own personalities is because they are so often "projected". He writes:

"...[T]he anima and animus have, for millennia of mankind's history, been projected onto mythological figures, onto the gods and goddesses who have peopled our spiritual world, and, perhaps most important of all, onto living men and women. The gods and goddesses of Greek mythology can be understood as personifications of different aspects of the masculine or the feminine archetype*.  Mythology has long been the way in which the human psyche personified itself, and as long as people believed in the living reality of their gods and goddesses they could, through appropriate ritual and worship, effect some sort of relationship to their psychic world." (P. 10)

(*Emphasis mine and I will get back to this shortly.)

He goes on to say:

"When the anima and animus are projected onto other people our perception of them is remarkably altered.  For the most part, man has projected the anima onto woman, and woman has projected the animus onto man.  Woman has carried for man the living image of his own feminine soul or counterpart, and man has carried for woman the living image of her own spirit. This has led to many unusual and often unfortunate consequences, since these living realities within ourselves often have a peculiarly powerful or irritating effect." (Pp 10-11)

In addition:

"Because the anima and animus are projected, we do not usually recognize that they belong to us, for they appear to be outside of us.  On the other hand, once the phenomenon of projection is recognized, these projected images, can, to a certain extent, be taken back into ourselves, for we can use projections as mirrors in which we see the reflection of our own psychic contents*.  If we discover the anima or animus image has been projected onto a man or a woman, that makes it possible for us to see in the reflection contents of our own psyche that otherwise might escape us." (P. 11)

(*Emphasis mine. Again, I will be addressing this below.)

There are two things I'd like to draw attention to here. The first is that where our projections once expressed themselves in the myths and stories of gods and goddesses, we now have an entirely new forum in which these projections take place, over and over again - Modern Media. Whether it is television or cinema, magazines or video games, hip-hop or country western music, our closest neighbors or someone half-way around the world -  these "projections" are more present all around us than ever before. In fact we are being bombarded by them constantly.  Given the function of "mirror neurons", automatically internalizing all of these images for us, it is extremely difficult for people to avoid being influenced and shaped by what they are seeing, day in and day out.

The second point I will go into in more detail shortly, but for now I would like to offer that not only is the perception of the other person "remarkably altered" when they are seen through a "projection" of anima or animus, but the anima and animus themselves are distorted in the process of projection.  Therefore, we have to be careful to accept without question the idea that  "The gods and goddesses of Greek mythology can be understood as personifications of different aspects of the masculine or the feminine archetype."  If they are "personifications" at all, I will explain later why they cannot necessarily be trusted as accurate "personifications of different aspects of the masculine and feminine archetype."

Sanford writes: "Empirical evidence for the reality of the anima and animus can be found wherever the psyche spontaneously expresses itself.  The anima and the animus appear in dreams, fairy tales, myths, the world's great literature, and, most of all, in the varying phenomena of human behavior." (Pp 6-7)

I would contend that it does not have to be "great literature" for these projections of anima and animus to take place.  In fact, I am slowly but surely coming to the conclusion that most if not all of our "creative" efforts to characterize human behavior will, of necessity, be projections.  Furthermore, in many cases, we think what we are expressing creatively is somehow "true to life" - in part because it does reflect the very same tendencies we have in life - i.e. for women to project their animus onto men and for men to project their anima onto women (and more generally for unconscious aspects of ourselves to be projected onto other people, regardless of gender).  However,  when viewing other human beings/ourselves through great literature, or on the big screen, or on the small screen, or the cover of a magazine, or in all the creative forms available to us - we are actually seeing Second Order projections; i.e. illusions On Top Of Illusions, "projections" about "projections".  

And further more, these projections are self-perpetuating in what I would consider a  negative loop: 1) The projection goes out and is "seen" as an actual human being.  2) Then someone creatively represents what they think they saw of that human being as a character in a movie or story. 3) Someone watches that movie or reads that story and internalizes that character, thinking that is the way "real people" act (or should act). 4) Then they try to embody that character, only to repress some other natural character in themselves. 5) What gets repressed is what then becomes part of the unconscious to be projected back out into the world and the whole cycle repeats itself.

Therefore: Projections Are Double Illusions.

First of All: When projected from the unconscious, anima and animus disguise the person onto whom they are projected giving the person making that projection a False View of the other person, either positive or negative.  In either case, they are Not Seeing the Other Person As They Truly Are.  

Second: (And I am presenting a challenge here):  Sanford and Jung contend that "we can use projections as mirrors in which we see the reflection of our own psychic contents".  But what I am offering is that the person making the projection is also Not Seeing the content of their unconscious "inner masculine" or "inner feminine" for what It Truly Is.  But to understand why, we have to answer the question I posed earlier:  Why is the unconscious content "projected" in the first place?

This is my "theory":  In order to "project" there has to be enough energy in the anima or animus to get beyond the subconscious and even outside of the conscious mind.  Consequently, the anima and animus come across as exaggerated, distorted versions of themselves, which means...even if we were to seek "self-knowledge" through recognizing our projections, that self-knowledge would not be "true" necessarily as we are seeing only exaggerated distorted versions of what comes up and out of the unconscious.

One of the best ways I know to describe this is with the metaphor of holding a plastic ball under water.  If you push it down with enough force, it will eventually "explode" out of your control and Out of the Water altogether.  Once you let go of it, or lose control of it, the ball doesn't just gently rise to the surface. No. It "explodes" out of the water.  And you might think to yourself, "There's something wrong with that ball that it would act that way!" However, the only reason why the "ball" accumulated that kind of energy in the first place was because it was being repressed.  Left on their own - floating naturally in view of one's conscious awareness, "balls", the "anima" and "animus", one's emotions, natural tendencies, ideas about oneself, etc. would not go "out of control", they would not come out as exaggerated versions of themselves either in their negative or positive aspects.

(Although the "Ball Under the Water" metaphor is one I've been using for a few years now, I've had another one come to mind recently involving a metal "Slinky".  I know as a kid, for some reason it was just so tempting to twist the Slinky really tightly in upon itself and try to keep it from "exploding" into a tangled mess. But, inevitably, that is exactly what would happen. Even if I were able to get the Slinky untangled after the fact, it would never be quite the same, its thin metal spiral would be bent here and there; i.e. "distorted", if not from the tension of my twisting, then by the consequence of the "explosion" once the forces on it became too great for me to control. But, it certainly wasn't The Slinky's fault that it "exploded" like that!)

Most people do not realize how much they repress in themselves, or even that they Are repressing certain things. I think most people can accept the idea that we start to repress things even as children. Jung has suggested repression actually starts within our very genes, when we are differentiated biologically as "male" or "female".

Sanford explains: 

"The simplest and earliest definition Jung offered is that the anima personifies the feminine element in man, and the animus personifies the masculine element in a woman.... [In addition], the anima, Jung has suggested, personifies on the psychological plane [the] minority of feminine genes [in a man], and, in the case of a woman, the animus personifies the minority of masculine genes.

"If this is so, that which makes men and women different is not that men are entirely Yang and women Yin, for each sex contains the other within; it is the fact that a man ordinarily identifies his ego with his masculinity and his feminine side is unconscious to him, while a woman identifies herself consciously with her femininity, and her masculine side is unconscious to her." (Pp. 12 - 13)

He goes on to  suggest that the "ego" tends to identify with the body, male or female, thus forcing the "opposite" nature into the realm of the unconscious.  At the same time, some may become over-identified with their "opposite" nature leading to a more homosexual presentation to the outside world (if not the actuality.)

Sanford writes:

"All of this has important implications for the relationship between the sexes.  As stated above, men, identified with their masculinity, typically project their feminine side onto women, and women, identified with their feminine nature, typically project their masculine side onto men. These projected psychic images are the Invisible Partners in every man-woman relationship, and greatly influence the relationship, for wherever projection occurs the person who carries the projected image is either greatly overvalued or greatly undervalued.  In either case, the human reality of the individual who carries a projection for us is obscured by the projected image." (P. 13)

What this also means is that we are currently living in a world of exaggerated versions of ourselves, and maybe, more importantly, we are all trying so very hard to live up to (or, in some cases, down to) similarly exaggerated expectations of what it means to be a human being. I dare say most of us have no idea of what it means to be an Ordinary Human Being, an Ordinary Man, or an Ordinary Woman.  At the same time, it is no wonder that our lives are so full of stress and disappointment, extreme highs and lows, various neurosis and psychosis, and searches of all kinds.

But in truth:  How many people do you personally know who act like people you have seen in the movies? How many people do you personally know who are as good or as evil as characters you have seen portrayed through any number of media? How many men or women have you known that you are certain you saw for Who They Were and not as (distorted) projections of your own animus or anima respectively?

As Paul K. Chappell has written in his book Peaceful Revolution: Truth is eternal. Lies have a lifespan.

Our "projections" are lies, not only about the other person, but, as I am suggesting here, they are even lies about ourselves. The projections are distortions of what is inside of us, not the reality. So even though there may be something to gain from "seeing projections as reflections", with this particular reading of Invisible Partners, I am considering the possibility that even that self-understanding, though useful, may not be entirely "true", and should be considered with "a grain of salt" as the saying goes.

Finally, although we may take at face value Jung's assumption that repression starts with our genes, when we are biologically differentiated as "male" and "female", we all know that it does not stop there. I dare say within the various cultures of man we have discovered as many ways to repress ourselves as we have to express ourselves.  I'm afraid we are far from the place where we live, moment by moment, with "all the balls on the water" as a personal and cultural norm.  But, I believe, with better and more thorough understanding of the mechanisms of repression and projection, we might just have a chance to see through all of the lies and illusions and find out For Real what it is like to live as relaxed, balanced, and (otherwise) ordinary human beings.

I, for one, am looking forward to that!  And to that end, I will continue to share what is coming to my mind regarding all of this.  And, there is definitely more to come. So...Stay Tuned!

In Defense

Here's the latest video from my friend Ben Ralston:

How to Be Love

It ties very directly to recent realizations of my own.

First of all, it has come to my attention that the last time I actually had a place where I lived by myself for any significant period of time was when I was in Rockville, MD between, 2004 and 2005. I had just come off of sea duty, which meant I had been living in very close quarters with other people, a lot of other people, for several months at a time. I'd also lived with a couple of boyfriends during those years, but that was at least somewhat better because it was only one other person sharing my shore-based living quarters rather than 60 (as was the number of other women who typically lived with me in the berthing areas on board the ship, and then there were the approximately 5940 other people on board when the ship was "fully deployed").

However, because I was committed to a spiritual practice that encouraged communal living and because one of my female co-workers proposed the idea of our sharing a place together, I only stayed in that apartment in Rockville by myself for about a year, the term of the lease, before getting an apartment with the woman from work, and then we moved again into a house. It was not too long after that before her boyfriend started to live with us as well, or, at least, he stayed over enough to almost qualify as another housemate, even though he did not contribute (as far as I knew) to the rent or utility expenses.

I won't go into detail about all of the other living situations I was in over the next six years or so, but will simply say, I have yet to have my own apartment again, completely by myself. Furthermore, one of the motivations for my wanting to leave Maryland and ride my bicycle across the country was because I had become quite tired of having to live with other people, very, very tired in fact. (Again, I won't go into all the details, but as much as I have tried to "rise to the challenge", on a deep level, it's kind of been hell for me, emotionally and psychologically. Why else would being on the road, on my bicycle, living in the woods if necessary, be so much more appealing?!)

However, I grew up living with my mother, day in and day out. Our lives were "enmeshed" emotionally and pscyhologically. I was in no position to assert my own needs for personal space or even personal boundaries. I adapted myself to that experience and, in many ways, I have been adapting myself ever since.  Not that this is a unique experience for me. I totally get the fact that other people have also had to live in the company of other people maybe for most of their lives, and maybe they are okay with it, maybe they even prefer it, or maybe they have disliked it as much as I have. We live in a very complex and increasingly crowded world, so being able to Be Alone and Just Be may be becoming even more of a luxury. Nevertheless, it is a luxury that I am beginning to realize I need to figure out a way to afford myself, because, there is a part of me that has stayed "on the defensive" all this time, and I do not want to stay that way for the rest of my life.

In re-reading Invisible Partners by John Sanford, I have come across this particular passage and I had to stop and do some "home work" on it:

P45, para 4 - "The animus [a woman's "inner man"] often keeps other people from reaching and experiencing the warm, feeling side of a woman because they cannot get through the animus and his opinions. Children with such a woman for a mother feel deprived of their mother's affection because they keep coming up against the animus.  She comes across to them as a hard disciplinarian, and the critical, judgmental attitudes of the animus effectively shut them out from her tenderness and affection.  (The situation is exacerbated when the father has relinquished the masculine role of disciplinarian and forced the mother to assume this role in the family.) It is not that the mother does not have warm feelings for her children; they are there, but the children do not receive them because the animus blocks them.  Such women may appear hard and steely, and other people may be leery of them, for their animus can wound; however, strangely enough, they themselves easily get their feelings (p. 46, para 1) hurt, and when this happens they are terribly injured and bewildered and do not understand why other people do not love them..."

Although I read this book for the first time in my late 20's and got a lot out of it then, now, almost 20 years later, I am realizing other things as well.

First of all, and this has actually been part of my self-awareness for a long time, I know that I have had to "be the man" in my own life, even from the time I was a young child.

To begin, my father was a long-haul truck driver, which meant he was not at home very much. (In that case, as Sanford suggests, he was not there to play the disciplining role in the family, although I can see now that my mother was very much an "animus driven" woman herself, with or without my father's presence.) Once my mother divorced my father and especially after my sisters went to college, I was left to become the "opposite" of my mother in terms of the "masculine/feminine" polarity that tends to emerge in very close interpersonal relationships between single children being raise by single parents. This is especially true when those single parents have mental illnesses that often prevent them from developing healthy, functional, interpersonal relationships with men or women their own age. Given the child's natural dependency on the parent, they are ready servants to the parent's emotional needs.

I can't find the source right now, but I know I have read somewhere that children who are the same sex as their single parents very often polarize to the opposite role; i.e. boys with single fathers will polarize towards the feminine and girls with single mothers will polarize towards the masculine. This happens in part because of the emotional neediness of the parent when they are not able to get those needs met with men or women their own age, or, possibly even from a spouse who is physically present but not emotionally available to them. Regardless of the source, I know the reading stuck with me because I easily recognized that was exactly what had happened to me, and I have since observed this to be the case with others as well.

(As another note though: Opposite sexed children who share this kind of emotionally codependent relationship with a single parent are also at risk as the surest way to keep the child in the relationship with the parent is for the parent to make sure the child never matures enough to have a close relationship with any other adult; i.e. an adult peer. And it is quite easy to prevent that maturing...by not expecting it. In such cases, the children instead remain a "Mama's Boy" or a "Daddy's Girl", and may not ever establish truly intimate ties with their spouses because, should there be challenges that demand growth, they can always return to the "unconditional" but also unhealthy and controlling love of the parent.)

Having started in ernest when I was 10 years old, the masculine patterning I developed in relationship with my mother was well established by the time I was in college. Furthermore, given my mother's paranoia and her keeping me from socializing normally with my peers, roughly from age 7-16, I entered college with even more naivete about men than most. Yes I was of "legal age" to have relationships, even sexual relationships, but I was not emotionally prepared for all of that, and I feel now my "animus", my "inner man", became a very significant part of my life in part to Protect Me, to Protect my still very vulnerable emotional core from the inevitable trauma so often associated with intense emotional-sexual relating. Truth is, my animus became active to Protect my vulnerable psyche From My Own Mother way before I set foot on the college campus, and without my father's presence in my life to protect me from her or from other men who may not have had my best interests at heart, again, I was left to figure out ways to protect myself.

But, I wonder, am I really that different from so many other women in the world, or just a more intense case, skewed somewhat towards one end of the continuum because of my more challenging relationships with my mentally ill mother and absent father? In other words, my "animus" has become even more developed as my Protector than for other women?

If you were to look at the previous writings in this blog, the defense is also there. In much of what I have written I am providing a defense against Unconscious Relating. For instance, in the
"The Biology of 'Omnipotence'" I am defending myself against being seen as Only a "Mother/Woman"; i.e. a perpetual Source of love and nurturance for a man that he may want to control for his own purposes without recognizing that, as a "Woman/Woman", I have love needs of my own; and that, in that case, I need him to be a "man" with me - an equal who can reciprocate love and not just a dependent "boy". In "Understanding the Psychology of Romantic Love...", I am also defending against the unreasonable expectations that often come when people are seeking "romantic love" partners. I do not want to be seen as "The Goddess" or "The Witch" - I just want to be seen for who I am.

With regards to Ben's video, how often are we allowed to really "connect with ourselves"? To connect with that love-core of our being so that we can also express that more fully moment to moment and in relationship with others? If we are being constantly bombarded by others "projections" and expectations, often irrational and unreasonable, if we never have a "safe space" where we can go regularly just to be alone with ourselves, to be at peace with ourselves, to meditate through the various moments and activities of our lives without the persistent distraction or demand of others, then how much more difficult is it to get to that Feeling of Being Love that he is talking about? How often can we carry out the normal activities of our days as a moment-to-moment Meditation of Ourselves as Love rather than a "performance" for others to observe and possibly judge or criticize?

The problem is, most of what people have been seeing of "who I am" over the past 20+ years has been heavily shadowed by my animus: My inner masculine is fairly quick to come to the front should there be any threat to my heart. Sometimes I can keep "him" at bay, and sometimes I cannot.  And given that I have not even been able to relax out of that completely, even in my own living space; i.e. in what should be the physical and emotional privacy and safety of my own home, then it is pretty much who I am perceived to be, all of the time.

But it is not All of who I am, and it is certainly not expressing the depth or warmth of my feminine core. And, I am beginning to realize that is not only a loss for me, it is a loss for those I care about as well.

Consequently, in the next year or so, I am going to put out the very clear intention that I be able to find a suitable living situation where I can actually live (and afford to live) By My Self for a while, even for a long while. I have a feeling, at this point in my life, if I am given the option to relax those defensive masculine patterns consistently, at least in my own home, it will also help me to relax those patterns in relationship with others outside of my own home as well. I do not want my animus to prevent or block others from experiencing the love and warmth that I know is in me.

In the mean time, I will once again highly, highly recommend Invisible Partners to anyone who is interested in following along with me on this part of my "inner journeying".

Oh, and for all of you men out there, be advised: Your "inner woman", or "anima", functions in very much the same way as the animus in a woman, in that she can undermine your masculine core if you let her rule your life, especially in your "defense". I will be writing more about that in future blogs as I continue my re-reading and reviewing of Invisible Partners.

The Biology of "Omnipotence"

Preface:  As the discussion which follows is only one of many potential considerations of the relationship patterns between boys and their mothers, men and women, and men and "Mother" Earth, I want to acknowledge from the beginning that I have not tried to draw any absolute conclusions here. I am sometimes speaking very generally because I do not have the time to go more deeply into all the possible variations on these themes, although I may at another time here, or in some other format, like a book or something!

I share these comments as I am "in process" with the ideas myself, as writing and thinking and intuiting tend to go hand in hand for me. Furthermore, at another time, I will probably go more deeply into the archetypal patterns Carl Jung talks about as they relate to a woman's inner masculine he calls the "animus", and the man's inner feminine he calls the "anima". As John Sanford explains in Invisible Partners (one of my favorite books under 200 pages, by the way), the anima and animus are all too often "projected", so a man does not really see a woman for who she is in her own right, but instead he sees his "projected anima", and vice versa for women in terms of their "projecting" their "animus" onto men.

Needless to say, all that projection business makes discussing "masculine" and "feminine" traits, and "typical" patterns of interaction between them much more difficult, although, not impossible, and again I highly recommend Sanford's book on the subject, as he does a pretty good job of sorting a lot of it out in less than 200 pages.

The other book I will dig into in the future is About Men and Women... by Tad and Noreen Guzie. As another of my favorite books under 200 pages it gives a clear and straight forward introduction/synopsis of the four major archetypal patterns for women, "Mother", "Amazon", "Companion", and "Medium", and for men, "Father", "Warrior", "Seeker", and "Sage".

These books are relevant to what follows in that they address the subjectivity of "perception": How often do we actually see another person as they are without "projection"? Are we actually seeing this Earth/World As It Is, or does it also suffer from the burden of our projections? Is it our "Mother"? Is "Mother" Nature a source of nurturance and blessing on the one hand and then death and destruction on the other? (In Invisible Partners, Sanford describes these as the opposite poles of a single projection.) Or is "Lady Nature" also here to be a "Companion" - which happens to be the feminine archetypal "opposite" of "Mother" (as the Guzie's discuss in About Men and Women...)?

So, again, I'm making some generalizations here because that's as deep as I want to go with it right now. But, I want and need to start somewhere, so this is where I am starting this discussion. And because this is just the beginning, I really am open to feedback when it comes to working out the nitty-gritty details. (Thanks in advance to Paul Chappell for the very helpful feedback he has already given me.)

* * * * * *

In "The Biology of 'Heaven'" and in "Understanding the Psychology of Romantic Love - Part II: The Biology of 'Falling in Love'", I have suggested that there are latent memories as well as biochemical patterns associated with prenatal and early postnatal infancy. To the degree we attempt to duplicate these patterns or recapture these experiences as (at least physically) mature adults, we are setting ourselves up for repeated frustration and disappointment, and basically dysfunctional relating interpersonally. In this blog I'd like to add another possible "story line" that follows from the earliest stages of postnatal infancy as it relates to the "Biology of 'Omnipotence'". I will also offer that trying to perpetuate or regain that particular early emotional/biochemical state can result (or may be resulting) in consequences that extend far beyond our interpersonal relationships all the way to our relationship with this planet and the world as a whole.

As suggested above, this story begins in the first few months immediately after birth.  As Jean Piaget "explains" (via the author's hypothetical "conversation" between Piaget, Erikson, and Kholberg) in Stages of Faith... by James Fowler, "If the psychoanalysts speak of this phase as characterized by feelings of narcissistic omnipotence in the child, we must say it is a narcissism without Narcissus.  As yet, there are no 'self' and 'other.'"(P. 53) I would offer, however, that there is a form of "consciousness" of this early life experience as it is patterned both biochemically and neurologically in the infant's body and brain.

Furthermore, as I suggest in "The Biology of 'Heaven'" where the latent memory of being in the womb coincides with the desire for a state where "All of my needs are being met with No Effort of my own"; likewise, "The Biology of 'Omnipotence'" coincides with our wanting to be in a state where "All I have to do is cry and my needs are met...magically...AND...I do not have to give anything in return". In the "adult" arena, the equivalent would be, "All I have to do is 'snap my fingers' and, Viola! People do what I tell them to do!"

Although I can no longer recall it exactly, knowing what I know about human development, knowing that during those first six or seven months of life there is no sense of "self" OR "other", I can imagine that experiencing the cause and effect relationship between crying and having one's needs met, would make one feel pretty omnipotent. Of course, this would be juxtaposed against the practical realities of being completely dependent and helpless. Furthermore, should crying not get your needs met adequately and consistently, one would probably end up feeling even more vulnerable and biologically "stressed" if not absolutely terrified.

Nevertheless, in such a state, not only does the infant not recognize the existence of their care givers as "others", they are also a long way away from the capacity to recognize that those "others" have needs of their own. Let me make clear though, this does not imply that the child is therefore being inherently selfish when it cries to get its needs met. As stated above, it is, of necessity and by no particular conscious choice of its own, completely dependent on its parents For Its Survival, moment by moment and day by day.  It will actually be several years before a child can begin to assume responsibility for themselves when it comes to meeting basic needs (and only then to the degree the parents allow the child to start developing their skills in those areas).

So let's fast-forward to consider the potential impact of these "postnatal" emotional/biochemical patterns in relationships between (at least physically) mature adults, by looking back at another blog I've written here "Understanding the Psychology of Romantic Love - Part I"...

Integral to "The Psychology of Romantic Love" is the idea that our "partner" is our respective and personal "Love God" or "Love Goddess" and our greatest hope and expectation is that they will always be there to shower their love and blessings upon us, whenever we ask them to. Or... maybe we don't even bother to ask, we just expect them to read our minds - as any proper "God" or "Goddess" should be able to do.  After all, this is what it felt like, this is the way it seemed to be when we were living through those first six or seven months of our lives.  On the one hand we thought we were totally in control, but, if by chance, sustenance did not "magically appear" on demand, then we were more likely left to feel helpless, and terrified for our lives. Wondering how many of you out there have ever been afraid of being abandoned by your significant other?

In so many cases, just like with the infant, there is no recognition that the "other" PERSON has love needs and life needs of their own.  Furthermore, having a "need" satisfied does not automatically evoke a sense of obligation to reciprocate.  With regards to infants, that "reciprocation" is not expected because they are so totally undeveloped, with hardly any capacity to exert control over themselves or their actions or feelings in relationship to others. However, as adults we are in a completely different situation, even if, deep down inside, we are, probably, mostly unintentionally and unconsciously...living in the past emotionally/ biochemically. Nevertheless, we have a much greater capacity for action, for self-control, for choosing our thoughts and feelings, for taking care of ourselves - far, far more capacity than a newborn baby.

Consequently, without rational re-evaluation of our expectations, people have been, are currently, and will continue to be Profoundly Disappointed in their Intimate Interpersonal Relationships, especially if they keep expecting their partners to relate to them as "Love Gods" and "Love Goddesses"!  And this applies to all of us "common folk" as much as it does to the "super stars" of our culture. Why? Because we have all been born, and therefore, we have all been through pretty much the same experiences from these earliest stages of our lives.

Furthermore, (and here comes one of my big "generalizations") because of the easy shift (at least in heterosexual relationships) from "baby boy and mother" to "boy friend and girl friend" and "man and wife", I suspect that part of the reason men have persisted in having a strong if not compulsive desire to control women (and even "Mother Earth") is because a) Like most everyone else, they want to reclaim those earlier feelings (i.e. the emotional/biochemical patterning) of "Omnipotence", and b) At the end of the day, they generally have the superior physical/technological strength to force their will on women (and "Mother" Earth) if they so choose.

Even if it is not overt use of physical force, or the threat of physical force, there are all kinds of ways that threat is sublimated into other more culturally accepted means of control.  At the same time, (and here comes another big generalization, though one I think could probably be proven pretty easily with a little data research) on the whole, Male CEO's are running this world, and Controlling and seeing to the consumption of the resources of "Mother Earth" - with, again, it seems to me no sense, or very little sense of responsibility or obligation to Give Anything Back!

Again, I am suggesting here that the "baby boy" in relationship with the "Mother" and wanting to have control, or wanting to think he has control over the "Mother" as his personal source of nurturance and care, is the easiest relationship to transfer to the more adult version of a heterosexual relationship between a man and a woman, as well as with respect to the still great dominance of men in positions of power who control the human and material resources of this planet. It could also be a woman's "baby animus" that engages in those kinds of activities. In other words, it doesn't mean it is the only way those desires get expressed in the world today, though it may very well be the most common. And, by extension and media propaganda, most people in the world tend to identify themselves primarily as consumers in relationship to the earth's resources...just like all of the other plants and animals on this planet. Of note, however, is that the plants and animals cannot really choose to be otherwise, or relate to the planet in a more conscious way than they already do. Human beings CAN.

Also, given the inherent challenges of "survival" for human beings in this rather chaotic and often times unpredictable natural world, as a species, we've had every reason to see ourselves as "separate" from and "superior to" nature and to use all of the means at our disposal to try to control it as much as we could. There is a pattern for that in early childhood development as well, and it is a precursor of our actually becoming autonomous; i.e. "separate from the Mother". (Three-and-a-half to four-and-a-half-year-olds are well known for their egocentric, willful, and controlling behaviors, especially in relationship with their mothers, or primary care-givers. However, again, this is a Normal stage of their development. At the same time, it is not supposed to last the rest of their lives, as it appears to have in the lives of many "adults" living today!) So to the degree that mankind has tried to "separate" itself more and more from the Natural World, it may be that in the Grand Scheme of Things this was necessary in order for us to develop all of our capacities, individually and collectively; to develop our "autonomy" from "Mother" Earth.

Furthermore, as True Adults, we learn to relate to "others" differently. Having moved from "dependence" (child/parent relationships) to "independence" (personal autonomy and self-responsibility) the next step is "interdependence". Interdependence recognizes the respective needs of each person, or each party in the relationship. Mutual understanding and care look to find the best way for needs to be met so that both individuals, or all individuals involved, are sustained, not such that one individual must totally sacrifice their needs in service to the other. In this way we develop the capacity to be companions and friends, as well as "husbands" - prudent and frugal managers of resources.

An example of how this attitude and level of development looks in real life can be seen at Tom Brown, Jr's Tracker/Survival School. I attended two weeks of Primitive Survival Skills classes in New Jersey, a few months prior to my going on my cross-country bicycle trek. There were many young people there who were learning to be true "caretakers" of the surrounding pine wood forests, and that opened my eyes to the actual good that human beings can do to have a very direct, positive, and supportive impact on an otherwise completely natural environment.

Consequently, as I commented in my very first blog here: It is not that human beings are inherently bad, it is not a matter of inherent "character flaws" in human nature itself - our issues are ones of lack of development, specifically emotional and, I would also say, spiritual development. On the whole, and for all kinds of reasons, we are still struggling with "growing up". And, on top of that, even as we do grow up physically and even mentally, to the degree that we can be quite capable of manipulating this environment in all kinds of highly technological ways, it doesn't mean we are emotionally prepared to make Mature decisions regarding how we use all of that technology.

But...I do have hope as I am seeing more and more people getting to the point where they can act like fully mature, fully human Adults - with a recognition of all of their Capacities as Fully Mature Human Adults and a willingness to accept the Responsibilities that such Human Adulthood would naturally imply.

To close, I would like to offer one other observation: Although being a Source of Nurturance is a very important aspect of The Feminine (as it is expressed in both men and women) and through "Mother" Earth, it is not the Only Way the Divine Feminine expresses itself in or As the World. Sometimes, it is nice to be appreciated not only for what we can give, but, instead, simply for Who We Are (and I think this applies to all human beings, both men and women, and even to All of Life Itself). As I have suggested above, there are those who look to this planet merely as a collection of "resources" to be "consumed", just as infants look to their mothers as sources of sustenance...and...the way most other living beings involve themselves with this planet...with no Sense of Obligation for Giving Back. And, I have to add, even for many who want to help protect the planet For Future Generations of Consumers, they are still short of helping or loving the planet For Its Own Sake.

It is the true "husband" (as defined above) and lover who appreciates their loved one for Just Being Who They Are and wants to preserve and protect the other, not just as a resource for future consumption, but for the value of such a one's mere existence. It is the Truly Mature Human Being who Looks in Awe at this World and at "Lady Earth" in All Her Wonder, and loves Her Just for Being Who and What She Is!

In other words my friends, it is time for more of us to finish Growing Up in every way, as there is a lot of "companioning" and "husbanding" ahead and it is going to take a lot of Fully Mature Adult Human Beings, both men and women, to do it. We can be a Potent force of Good in this world, even if we are not, never really were, and never will be Omnipotent!

So here's to the Dawn of a New Era of Understanding - Happy December 21, 2012 Everyone!!!!

Levels of Intimacy and Relationships - A Guide from Terry Gorski

In general, the following information comes from Terry Gorski's book, Getting Love Right: Learning the Choices of Healthy Intimacy. In this book he shares his point of view on the different types of relationships that people can have with varying levels of intimacy. (Some of it I have paraphrased from a lecture he gave on the same topic that I had the opportunity to listen to many years ago.) As Gorski explains: It is one of the hallmarks of dysfunctional (unhealthy) relating to believe you either have to be totally, intimately involved with someone, from the beginning, and it has to be seen as a serious or potentially long-term relationship, from the beginning, or you have no relationships at all. In other words, there is no "middle ground" - it's "All or Nothing".

One of the things I have come to appreciate about Terry Gorski is that he pretty much sees the realities of relationships for what they are and he addresses those realities as they are rather than making a lot of moral/value judgments about the people having various types of relationships. He basically says, "Look: It's obvious not every relationship is meant to be a serious long-term, committed relationship. People actually relate at a lot of different levels and for different reasons, and for different periods of time, which includes different expectations and different levels of intimacy."

In the original lecture I heard of Terry Gorski speaking on intimacy, he outlined several different levels of relationship as follows:

a) Casual - the type of relationship you have with the cleaning people at your workplace; in this case you'd have a very low level of intimacy, you may or may not even know each other's names, but you may say "Hi" to each other and interact in a very superficial way.

b) Acquaintance – someone you know a little better than a casual relation, but still with very little regular interaction. Maybe you know each other through other closer friends and relationships.

c) Functional Association - this form of relationship includes people that you work with and possibly people that you share housing with, clubs or social organizations of which you are a member. These are "functional associations" in that the individuals share responsibilities to maintain a given circumstance or to accomplish specific goals. Interactions are more task-oriented. Again this usually involves little or no intimacy in the sense of their being discussions about personal matters; although, it is common (though maybe not necessarily healthy) for those lines to be crossed.

d) Companionship - In a companionship, "the activity is more important than the person". In other words, the reason two people get together is to share an activity that they both enjoy. However, if Joe doesn't want to go see the latest Leonardo DiCaprio movie then you call up Steve and see if he wants to go instead since he also likes Leo. If Steve can't go, you move on to Alan, etc. For heterosexuals, it is probably easier to negotiate "companioning" activities with the same sex; however, negotiating motives and expectations can get a little trickier when companioning with the opposite sex. Same goes for homosexuals only in reverse, i.e. it's easier to companion with the opposite sex than it is to companion with the same sex. It is possible, however, in all cases as long as all parties involved understand at what level they are relating. In terms of intimacy, there may be a little more personal interaction between companions, but again, the focus is usually on the activity rather than the person with whom you are sharing the activity.

e) Friendship - Friendship is basically the opposite of companionship. In a friendship, spending time with the person becomes most important and the shared activity becomes secondary. Friendships involve much more focus on interpersonal communication, sharing of feelings, wants, hopes, dreams, desires, fears, etc. Friendships include emotional and psychological intimacy, but not necessarily physical intimacy. I think it is worthwhile noting that I have already discussed three other levels of relationships and we are just now getting to a level where intimacy becomes a more defining element.

f) Although at this point Terry Gorski would have defined the next level of relationship as a "Romantic Relationship" which would be further defined as "having a sexy friend"; I'd rather define this relationship as a Physically Intimate Friendship (especially given the info I shared in these blogs: Understanding the Psychology of Romantic Love - Part I and Understanding the Psychology of Romantic Love - Part II). I'm beginning to feel whenever you throw "romance" into the mix, you open the "Big Romantic Myth Box" (not unlike Pandora's) and the relationship will be undone by all the cultural and archetypal expectations that come spewing forth as a result. For me, at least, at this point in my life, I would rather have a lover who was first and foremost a good friend than anything mythically "more" than that (which would actually end up being less, as far as I have experienced it).

In further consideration of what it means to be a good friend; I would say it involves being able to maintain a balance of giving and receiving of energy and attention and a mutual meeting of love needs (See Also:Understanding Basic Human Love Needs). You can have friends who meet your love needs for togetherness or companionship, and you can have other friends who meet your love needs for communication or talking, and you can have still other friends who meet your love needs for physical intimacy and/or caring. If you happen to find a relationship where one other person can satisfy many or all of your most important love needs and you can satisfy all or most of their most important love needs, then I'd say that is a good basis for a longer-term, committed, relationship; if practical circumstances support that as well.

In Getting Love Right..., Gorski divides "love relationships" into four types: experimental dating, transitional and committed relationships, and intimate encounters. He says:

"Experimental dating, transitional relationships, and intimate encounters are all short-term relationships that last from several days to several months and are generally not expected to grow into long-term committed relationships. These short-term involvements each meet particular relationship needs. Experimental dating relationships give us new experiences that allow us to gain the knowledge we need to make sound relationship choices in the future. Transitional relationships provide valuable support during the difficult period after the end of a long-term committed relationship. Intimate encounters are unique relationships outside the normal context of our lives that meet our here-and-now needs for intimacy." (p. 91)

(This last statement is one that has sold me on Terry Gorski - the fact that he acknowledges a functional, relational place for "one night stands"! Granted, they're not what I'm really "into" anymore, but I've definitely had my share and I think I would have been able to truly enjoy them for what they were if overriding "romantic/all or nothing" expectations had not already been programmed into my brain by both religious and secular elements of society!)

Gorski continues:

"Two essential factors in all healthy relationships are awareness of your own and your partner's expectations and your honesty of motive. You must first be aware of the type of relationship you are or are not looking for and then be willing to discuss your expectations with your partner in the early stages of the relationship. If you are unsure of exactly what type of relationship you want, you can communicate that, too. Your partner also must talk about his or her expectations. This will give both of you an opportunity to decide if involvement, under those terms, will meet your relationship needs. This is especially important in transitional relationships and intimate encounters, when a misunderstanding of expectations and motive can be emotionally devastating." (pp. 91-92).

I can only say - how true, how true?! And here's some more:

"Although you think you know what type of relationship you are ready for, your relationship goals may change when you become involved with a particular person and your feelings toward him or her evolve. You can never be certain at the outset how a relationship will turn out. Don't be afraid to change your expectations as your feelings change, but realize that if they do, you need to let your partner know and renegotiate the terms of the relationship. Remember, just because you change your expectations doesn't mean your partner will change his or hers.

"These relationship categories are not absolute. They are important primarily to help you clarify the essential nature of the short-term relationships so that you can have a way of determining what you are seeking in a particular relationship and talk about it with your partner. There are times these categories will overlap, and you may find they are less definite in practice than in theory." (p. 92)

Okay - that's probably enough to digest for this blog.

My motives in writing: a) reinforcing these definitions/concepts with myself, and b) offering to my friends and "subscribers" what I consider to be some very practical understanding for healthy intimate relationships. My hope is that they will learn from this information as well, thus increasing the chances for them to also have healthy, functional relationships if they are not experiencing them already. And if they realize that what they have is/are already healthy, functional relationship/s - then this will help to reinforce and validate their experience in a way that all our media propaganda about the "romantic myth of love" cannot.

Understanding Basic Human Love Needs

Several years ago in the context of a "Match.com" relationship, I asked my partner the following questions: How do people really "know" at the beginning of a long-term relationship that it will actually be a long-term relationship? Barring stories from elder relatives, especially those who have been together for say, 25 years or longer, what references do we have for what one might expect at the beginning of a relationship to indicate the long-term future of the relationship? Furthermore, without those kinds of references for comparison, how did either he or I know how to assess our own feelings, and the long-term potential of our relationship?

Since he was not able to offer satisfying answers to any of my questions, I decided to do some research on the internet with "Love" as my search term.

What follows is a greatly paraphrased version of what I found to be one of the most relevant results of that search. It was originally published on a site called "Lovetingle.com", and even though that source no longer exists, I still like to give the authors credit. The information takes the form of an "exercise" in which you (and a partner, if you have one) determine what are your Most Important "Love Needs". Once you've got that figured out, then you can have a more rational discussion about whether or not each of you is prepared to meet your partner's most important love needs, especially at the level of a "Physically Intimate Friendship" (See Also: Levels of Intimacy and Relationships)

From my current point of view, just figuring out what Your Most Important Love Needs are is an essential piece of "home" "work" - the "work" you do on your own, at "home", and it is something everyone should know about themselves before they get involved in any kind of serious relationship. Furthermore, once you have a better understanding of "love needs" in general, you are in a better position to have a conversation about this subject with a potential partner; i.e. you might be able to guide them through the consideration process so that they can come to a deeper understanding of themselves while you are also getting to know them.

In addition, it should be recognized from this discussion that Love Needs are Real, they are different for different people, and they vary in their level of importance for different people. To expect your partner to deny their own love needs because you are not comfortable meeting them is irrational, and not truly loving. In other words, understanding each other's Most Important Love Needs, and each person's willingness and capability for meeting the other's love needs should Weigh Heavily as individuals looking to couple go through their Selection Process (See Also: On Sharing What Is Most Meaningful). As Terry Gorski points out in Getting Love Right: Learning the Choices of Healthy Intimacy, most relationships fail due to Selection Errors!

I am all about learning to make better choices myself, and the consideration below has been helping to guide those decisions in my own case for a long-time now. Hopefully, readers of this blog will find this information useful as well.

So, to begin...Everyone has certain things they need from their relationships, and those relationships can have varying levels of intimacy and commitment. (See Again: Levels of Intimacy and Relationships if you haven't already.) Just like food, water and shelter, love needs are not things you only want. You NEED your love needs to be met to feel "comfortable in your own skin" as a human being. The mutual meeting of love needs is what is critical for any truly intimate relationship to survive, whether or not that relationship includes physical intimacy.

Although by no means complete, here is a list of "love needs" to consider:

1) Talking
2) Love Making
3) Caring
4) Togetherness
5) Loyalty
6) Looks
7) Money
8) Help
9) Family
10) Verbal Awe/Expression

While you read the explanations, be thinking of how important each need is to YOU:

Talk

Unlike the need for sex, Talk is not a love need that is exclusive to an intimate relationship. Keep this in mind: you can experience the feeling of "falling in love" with someone simply by talking to them, because your love need for talking is being fulfilled. If your significant other is not listening and talking to you, and Talk is one of your biggest love needs…you may very well "fall out of love" with that person!

There is such a thing as bad Talk. This happens when the person you are talking to is angry, shows disrespect, or the conversation in general is negative or controlling. This type of bad Talk will hurt a relationship.

When you first started dating someone you were really attracted to, you probably talked all the time. You were both very curious about each other and were finding out everything you could. If you’re like most couples, after a while the Talk slowed considerably. This obviously becomes a problem for the partner whose love need to Talk is high on their love need priority list.

Love Making

This is a need only your partner can meet if you are married or have a committed, physically intimate, monogamous relationship. The need for sex is important for many reasons. Men usually find it physically satisfying while also enjoying the challenge of bringing pleasure to their partners. Women tend to get more out of the emotional part of the emotional-sexual connection, maybe even feeling emotionally closer to their partners during physical intimacy than they do at any other time. Most people who have sex as a high priority love need, will feel better about themselves when they feel genuinely desired by their partners.

There are many different ways to approach physical intimacy. Some people prefer to keep things completely spontaneous, while others may prefer to practice Tantra and/or engage in "planned intimate occasions". If this is a high-priority love need for either partner, then it is important for it not to be ignored merely as a consequence of "life distractions", like children, and work. Having "planned intimate occasions" creates an opportunity to truly let-go of those other concerns for a while and focus on relating intimately. It can also give partners something to look forward to while they are otherwise handling the daily, maybe less pleasurable, responsibilities of their lives.

As with other love needs, it is important to be able to talk with your partner about your intimate needs, what behaviors and actions from your partner make you feel loved and desired. Therefore, talk often about what each of you like and don't like. Ask specific questions; sometimes one partner may feel shy about bringing an issue up, so it’s important to probe. Try to avoid the tendency to expect your partner to read your mind. You are much more likely to get what you need when you are willing to talk about those needs openly.

Also, if one or the other partner has a major problem with or aversion to physical intimacy, and cannot feel comfortable making themselves available to intimacy with a partner for whom physical intimacy is a high-priority love need, then it may be a "deal breaker" for the relationship. The sooner people are honest about that with one another, the better; i.e. it should be taken into consideration as part of the "selection process" referred to above. This does not deny the opportunity for growth and change, but it is also important sometimes to see realities for what they are and manage levels of relationship and expectations accordingly.

Care

Care is showing someone that you love them via your words and actions. Hugging, holding hands, kissing, massaging, or writing a love note all show Care. Actually listening to your partner, without judgment, being compassionate, recognizing their vulnerability, also expresses care. It is important to care if your partner actually feels loved, understood, and appreciated by you, and to acknowledge the differences between the feeling of loving and the feeling of being loved and cared for, honored, and respected.

Togetherness

Going to the movies together, having dinner at your favorite restaurant, golfing with each other, and ordering in pizza are a few examples of togetherness. Obviously, this is doing things as partners instead of on your own. Maybe at one point you only did what the other partner wanted to do (perhaps you weren’t interested in going to an art show but you both went anyway).

It’s important that you both do things together, whether the other partner is 100% interested or not. Alternate your favorite things to do if you have to, just to be together. While it’s necessary for the both of you to enjoy some alone time, you are likely to deepen your relationship while doing things in tandem. If you love going dancing and your husband does not, then he is probably out at a boat show with his buddies at the same time. This is a recipe for disaster if someone of the opposite sex happens to join either of you. Why? Because if you enjoy yourself most while you do these activities but your partner is not there, you risk falling in love with the person who is with you and therefore satisfying your Togetherness need.

(Note: This ties into the idea of being able to share things that are "most meaningful" to each person. It does not mean that you have to share Everything together, but being able to share the Most Meaningful things is important. See again: On Sharing What Is Most Meaningful).

Loyalty

Being loyal in love means building trust, and the only way to do that is to be truthful and open ALL the time. You need to know that you can trust your partner while you’re not together, and that they uphold you in the same manner they would if you were standing right beside them. Unlike the love need to Talk, which could be about anything, the need for loyalty includes discussing very deep feelings and revealing everything important about you. These range from political views, family history to what you did today, what you’re doing tomorrow and any future plans. If your significant other has this need and it is not met or vice versa, security and trust will fade fast. There shouldn’t be anything that you don’t want the other to know about, and if there is, work it out before you get more involved.


Looks

Love at first sight? Only if this is one of your most important love needs. Yes it seems superficial, but the truth is this need can be just as important as the others. Weight, clothing style, and personal hygiene are important factors when thinking about Looks. There is nothing wrong with needing your partner to put effort into their appearance. Perhaps they did when you were first dating and have recently stopped? Regardless of the situation, Looks can be an important issue between two people, and again, it is not something either partner should expect the other to ignore, if it is one of their most important love needs.

Money

Money is another love need that may seem superficial; however the actual money (or lack thereof) is important to the relationship, if it is a need of yours (or your partner’s). It brings the security of knowing that financial stability is there. You might make plenty of money, therefore it is not important to you if your spouse does or does not. If you are not content in the financial department, other areas of the relationship can turn sour quickly. It all depends on what you consider “enough” money. Do you want to be extremely comfortable? Or just get by? People have different expectations of the level of income needed to satisfy their love need for money.

Help

Remember, love needs know no gender. This need has to do with housekeeping, things such as keeping things clean and tidy, cooking and washing dishes. This is often a need that is more important to whichever partner does the majority of these tasks. You may take on a lot of the household responsibility, and feel that your partner does nothing to help you out. If you feel overwhelmed, and are not getting any Help, it can creep up on you and result in bitter feelings towards the other.

If this is a need of yours, you feel happy and comfortable when things are as you want them. When they are not, you feel out of sorts and irritated. Some married couples do these chores together at first but slowly slip into routine of one partner carrying more of the work load. If the most important thing to you is that the house is vacuumed daily and you expect to come into an organized home, often times this can’t be done alone, especially where their are children present.

Family

There are two different parts to the Family need. The first is children. Simply put, you have a love need for your partner to be involved with your children. It could vary anywhere from needing them to take an active role in caring or nurturing, or just needing them to uphold the family values and rules (perhaps you prefer to do most of the day to day parenting). Keep in mind feeding, dressing, or watching the children while you run out to the store is NOT the family love need we are talking about. Teaching and spending quality time helping them grow and learn IS. If this is a love need of yours, you must also agree significantly with your partner on the type and method of parenting, whether or not you will use physical punishment can be a major issue, and a very important one to decide on before you have children.

The second part of the Family love need involves extended family. It could vary anywhere from needing them to take an active role in caring and nurturing, to just needing them to back you up in decision making. Taking trips to see your mother and father, spending Holidays with your brothers or sisters, etc., could be very important matters for you or your partner, especially if either of you experience love deeply in the context of family associations.

Verbal Awe/Expression

The need for verbal awe/expression is important to many. As a human, you naturally want to communicate. Do you love getting compliments? Do you hate to be criticized? If you feel that your partner is not vocal about things they appreciate about you or love about you, then he or she is not expressing themselves in a way that satisfies this love need. Expression is defined as an act, process, or instance of representing or conveying in words. You know your partner loves you, but you want them to TELL you this, or SHOW it to you through actions.

This can be a very easy love need to meet for a lot of people, as many times this is how relationships begin in the first place. But, if this is not done the results can be hazardous and potentially fatal to your relationship.... If you need these compliments and gestures, but your significant other stops doing them after you’ve been together or has a problem doing them from the beginning, it can devastate you. Not only will it make you feel unsure about yourself, but you will begin to question things like their fidelity, their interest in you, your importance to them, and the meaning of the relationship.

The bottom line: People tend to "fall in love" because their love needs are being met. However, if in longer-term relationships, one or the other partner stops meeting the others Most Important Love Needs, then the relationship can suffer and even dissolve entirely as people "fall out of love".

With the information shared here (and in some of my other blogs), people can become more fully conscious of what it means to "love" someone, rather than merely experiencing the feelings of "falling in" or "falling out" of love. In truth, loving is a choice. One of the greatest ways to express love to another person is to actively meet their Love Needs; i.e. to make them Feel Loved by your words and actions, that can actually be targeted in very specific ways as outlined above.

This is what love between ordinary human beings is really all about. And although it may not satisfy all of your needs; i.e. it will not substitute for your need to experience true, personal, spiritual, ecstasy (as I discuss here Understanding the Psychology of Romantic Love - Part I), it can certainly go a long way to broadening your capacity to have truly satisfying relationships, with varying levels of intimacy, with many of your other fellow human beings.

Given all of the dysfunction, dissociation, and suffering that is what most people are experiencing these days, being able to work-out our most intimate interpersonal relationships, to be able to find more contentment and satisfaction in those relationships, can go a long way towards making the world a better place, a more peaceful place, for everyone.