LOve…… Can ya DiG?

Real Love and Genuine Happiness; Real Love is caring about the happiness of another person without any thought for what we might get for ourselves. When we give Real Love, we’re not disappointed, hurt, or angry, even when people are thoughtless or inconsiderate or give us nothing in return – including gratitude – because our concern is for their happiness, not our own. Real Love is unconditional. It’s Real Love when other people care about our happiness without any concern for themselves. They’re not disappointed or angry when we make our foolish mistakes, when we don’t do what they want, or even when we inconvenience them personally. Sadly, few of us have either given or received that kind of love, and without it we experience a terrible void in our lives, which we try to fill with money, power, food, approval, sex, and entertainment. But no matter how much of those substitutes we acquire, we remain empty, alone, afraid, and angry, because the one thing we really need is Real Love. Without it, we can only be miserable; with it, our happiness is guaranteed. When I use the word happiness, I do not mean the fleeting pleasure we get from money, sex, and conditional approval. Nor do I mean the brief feeling of relief we experience during the temporary absence of conflict or disaster. Real happiness is not the feeling we get from being entertained or making people do what we want. Genuine happiness is a profound and lasting sense of peace and fulfillment that deeply satisfies and enlarges the soul. It doesn’t go away when circumstances get difficult. It survives and even grows through hardship and struggle. True happiness is our entire reason to live, and that kind of happiness can only be obtained as we find Real Love and share it with others. With Real Love, nothing else matters; without it, nothing else is enough. ************************** The Destructive Legacy of Conditional Love Real Love is “I care how you feel.” Conditional love is “I like how you make me feel.” Conditional love is what people give to us when we do what they want, and it’s the only kind of love that most of us have ever known. People have liked us more when we made them feel good, or at least when we did nothing to inconvenience them. In other words, we have to buy conditional love from the people around us. It’s critical that we be able to distinguish between Real Love and conditional love. When we can’t do that, we tend to settle for giving and receiving conditional love, which leaves us empty, unhappy, and frustrated. Fortunately, there are two reliable signs that love is not genuine: disappointment and anger. Every time we frown, sigh with disappointment, speak harshly, or in any way express our anger at other people, we’re communicating that we’re not getting what we want. At least in that moment, we are not caring for our partner’s happiness, but only for our own. Our partner then senses our selfishness and feels disconnected from us and alone, no matter what we say or do. Most of us have received little, if any, Real Love. We prove that every day with the evidence of our unhappiness — our fear, anger, blaming, withdrawal, manipulation, controlling, and so on. People who know they’re unconditionally loved don’t feel and do those things. But most of us have been taught since childhood to do without Real Love and to settle instead for giving and receiving conditional love. Let me use myself as an example. As a child, I was thrilled when my mother smiled at me, spoke softly, and held me, because I knew from those behaviors that she loved me. I also noticed that she did those pleasant things more often when I was “good” — when I was quiet, grateful, and cooperative. In other words, I saw that she loved me more when I did what she liked, something almost all parents understandably do. When I was “bad” — noisy, disobedient, and otherwise inconvenient — she did not speak softly or smile at me. On those occasions, she frowned, sighed with disappointment, and often spoke in a harsh tone of voice. Although it was certainly unintentional, she clearly told me with those behaviors that she loved me less, and that was the worst pain in the world for me. Giving or withholding acceptance based on another person’s behavior is the essence of conditional love, and nearly all of us were loved that way as children. When we made the football team, got good grades, and washed the dishes without being asked, our parents naturally looked happy and said things like “Way to go!” or “I’m so proud of you.” But when we failed a class at school, or tracked mud across the carpet, or fought with our siblings, or wrecked the car, did our parents smile at us then? Did they pat us on the shoulder and speak kindly as they corrected us? No, with rare exceptions they did not. Without thinking, they frowned, rolled their eyes, and sighed with exasperation. They used a tone of voice that was not the one we heard when we did what they wanted and made them look good. Some of us were even yelled at or physically abused when we were “bad.” Other people in our childhood also gave us conditional approval. School teachers smiled and encouraged us when we were bright and cooperative, but they behaved quite differently when we were slow and difficult. Even our own friends liked us more when we did what they liked. In fact, that’s what made them our friends. And that pattern of conditional approval has continued throughout our lives. People continue to give us their approval more often when we do what they want. And so we do what it takes to earn it. ****************************** Drowning for Lack of Love Imagine yourself again in the middle of the ocean, but this time there’s no boat, no island, and no one to help you. You’re drowning out there all by yourself. You’re exhausted and terrified. Suddenly, a man grabs you from behind and drags you under the water. Completely overwhelmed by fear and anger, you struggle wildly to get free, but no matter what you do, your head remains underwater. Just as you’re about to pass out and drown, I arrive in a small boat and pull you from the water. After catching your breath, you turn and see that the man who dragged you under is actually drowning himself and only grabbed you in a desperate attempt to save his own life. He wasn’t trying to harm you at all. Once you realize that, your anger vanishes immediately and you quickly help him into the boat. That’s how it is with relationships. People really don’t do things with the principal goal of hurting you. When people hurt you, they’re like the man who dragged you under the water – they’re simply drowning and trying to save themselves. People who don’t feel unconditionally loved are desperate and will do almost anything to eliminate the pain of their emptiness. Unfortunately, as they struggle to get the things that give them temporary relief — approval, money, sex, power, and so on — their behavior often has a negative effect on the people around them, including you. But that is not their first intent. Other people hurt us only because they’re reacting badly to the pain of feeling unloved and alone. When we truly understand that, our feelings toward people, and our relationships with them, will change dramatically. Without Real Love, we feel like we’re drowning all the time. In that condition, almost everything seems threatening to us, even the most innocent behaviors. When people get angry or criticize us, we don’t see them as drowning and protecting themselves. We become afraid, defensive, and angry, and we respond by using behaviors that may hurt them. Naturally, they react by protecting themselves and hurting us with even greater intensity, and until we understand that Real Love is the solution, we can only perpetuate this cycle of self-protection and injury. Most relationships fail because we become angry and blame our anger on something our partner did or did not do. We need to remember that our anger is actually a reaction to the feelings of helplessness and fear that result from a lifetime of struggling to survive without unconditional love. Getting angry and assigning blame may give us a fleeting sense of power that momentarily relieves our fear, but those feelings originate within us, not with our partner’s behavior. When the man dragged you under the water, he did not cause your angry reaction. Your anger was the result of a series of many events that led to your drowning in the ocean, and also a result of your own decision to blame that man for drowning you. You weren’t murderously angry with the man in the water because of a single tug on your shoulder. You were angry because you’d been spit out in the middle of the ocean with no chance for survival and because you were exhausted and frightened and about to die. What the other man did just added the last straw to the camel’s back and appeared to be the cause of your anger. Similarly, the anger we feel toward our partners results from past events (whether or not we felt Real Love – mostly from our parents) and present decisions (whether we choose to be angry or loving with our partners). We’re reacting to a lifetime of trying to survive without unconditional love, and anger is an understandable response because it makes us feel less helpless and afraid – for the moment. It protects us and briefly makes us feel better. But it never makes us feel loved or happy or less alone. We need to learn a better response to our pain than blaming and anger, and we can. As we come to understand that our partners are not to blame for our unhappiness, we can better exercise selfcontrol to curb our anger. Then, as we begin to find and experience Real Love, we’ll feel as if we’re being pulled out of the water and into the boat. In the absence of the terrible fear that accompanies drowning, we’ll no longer have a need to protect ourselves with anger – or any of the other unproductive behaviors we use in relationships, such as lying, acting hurt, and withdrawing. Our ability to form and maintain loving relationships will then come simply and easily. Just as being pulled into the boat instantly allowed you to gain the correct perspective on the man who was drowning you, understanding Real Love will provide you with the ability to discern the difference between the “right” and “wrong” decisions you make in your life and in your relationships. First, I suggest that being genuinely happy is the ultimate goal in life and is therefore also the ultimate good. Second, because Real Love is absolutely essential to our happiness, I suggest that anything that interferes with our ability to feel and share unconditional love is necessarily “bad” or “wrong,” while anything that promotes our ability to feel loved and share that love with others is “right” and “good.”