Unfortunately, a lot of people fall in and out of love without the slightest idea what controls their love-lives. The mind tends to form patterns and these patterns once they have been practiced a bit become regular and expectable features of a person's experiences in the world. If you aren't interested in understanding your psychological patterns then you live a life with significantly less choice. Your psychological patterns in the area of your love-life may have been molded by your family of origin or whatever experiences in life you have had so far, the point is you are not really in the driver's seat so to speak. For me, this is much too much of a sacrifice. Who really wants to give up on their love-life like that? We are so dedicated to everything else, right? Look at how much energy we put into the things we value in our lives. Imagine investing a little time in reflecting on what is going on in your love-life and how productive that could be?
If you are feeling courageous here is a tip to help you get started. Think of it as a Love-Life Review. The purpose being to get to know what drives your love-life so that you can take over and direct it in more satisfying directions. This is the short list of items that make up a person's love-life psychology: Love-Life Needs, Expectations of Love, Love-Life Self-Esteem, and the Psychological Defenses Used in Love. When you think Needs in love you should think about whether or not your childhood disappointments in love are affecting your adult love-life. Are you looking for a 'parenting' kind of love from your lover? If you are, the easiest way to modify this is to think 'equality.' On emotional levels most things in a love relationship should be reciprocal. That means what is good for you is good for me and vice versa. Keeping things equal in a love relationship helps keep our heads above the limiting influences of childhood love disappointments. And if you get good at that, you can move onto to loving your partner even when you feel empty. This one is a little harder.
Reviewing your expectations of love will bring you to a belief that your partner is going to complete or correct something in you. Although sanctioned by our culture and the media this kind of thinking interferes with the growth needed in a love relationship. The main objective in a love relationship is for two people to grow into the individuals they truly are over the course of the relationship. You help me be me not by being me for me but by supporting the me I am? (Say that ten times fast!)
Self-esteem is a very import part of a love-life. How lovable you feel coupled with how much you value the love you have to give make up the love-life self-esteem for most people. Its kind of simple, if you feel good about you (and take good care of you) this will be reflected in the quality of your love-life. For one thing you would never tolerate abuse or mistreatment because you have higher standards.
Last but not least, the Defences you use in love are very important to get to know. They get kind of habitual and hard to notice after awhile. So you have to concentrate on yourself in love-life situations. Why are I doing this or that? Is it because I am afraid of being hurt? No risk no love. Once I see what I am up to, I can get involved directly and either maintain it or change it. I choose.
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