When We Talk of Love...

When We Talk of Love…

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When we fall in or or what we initially think is love, it’s often our own love being mirrored back to us via another person. For those of us not strongly in touch with our essence and sense of worth, it can be as if this outside force is bringing us to life. (Of course this, coupled with all the dopamine and oxytocin that get activated in early romance further this heightened sensation of pleasure coming from an external source). It is also a real phenomenon that connection with others, when it is good, increases happiness. That is not a mirage. We are social creatures longing for a balance of union and autonomy. It’s nourishing to feel support, validation, love and respect from someone else and it often lighten’s one’s load to be interdependent, sharing activities and responsibilities.

When that outside source withdraws, as it so often does in contemporary relationships through divorce, break ups, and/or an unwillingness to be involved beyond the initial thrill of hooking up, two people are left to feel their independent essence again without the presence of the other. Any kind of separation constitutes an initial reconfiguration of self- be it a sigh of relief or a cry of loneliness and loss, or both.

What is interesting to note though is that in a healthy person, that sense of being vibrant and beautiful remains. It doesn’t withdraw just because the person mirroring it back stops loving or engaging with you. Unfortunately, without anyone to give your essence to in relationship, you might tuck it into yourself a little protectively, holding it close to your skin. But it is still there. Do not let it die. Or extinguish it. It’s your gift to the world.

And do not apologize for sharing and sending it out to someone previously. It is beautiful and natural to give and receive love. And sometimes, it’s a rare opportunity, but it is why we are here. Because of wounding over the course of our lives though, we might feel inhibited and defensive. Vulnerability takes courage. It is also often shunned as needy. Yet the irony is that people don’t tend to be needy when their basic needs are met.

It is okay to be human and to have needs. Projecting our needs onto an unwilling party is an intrusion but to have needs is part of being alive and living with an open heart.

I once heard that people are most attractive when fiercely independent. And while that might be true, for a strong confident individual reflects a degree of psychological autonomy and maturity, independence can also be a decoy for indifference and not caring. It can be a cover for rigidity and cowardice as well. Or not knowing how to maintain healthy boundaries.

Love of self and love of other can create polarities at times. It is not always an easy tension to maintain. But it doesn’t have to be rocket science either. Instead it is an art form of together/apart and apart/together that evolves over time and with care.

When We Talk of Love...

Everyone Is Talking About It

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In today’s world of TikTok Therapy, much is being said about attachment theory. It’s being used to explain any and every relationship issue from rejection to lack of commitment to feelings of suffocation. “Avoidants shouldn’t pair with Anxious-Attachments, blah, blah, blah,” the talking experts say. Yet little is being said how to address the extremely complex issue of attachment that every human on this planet struggles with in some way, shape or form. Put frankly, it’s an existential dilemma.

Attachment theory is a theory of psychology founded by John Bowlby that originally addressed relational patterns between infants, children and their care-givers. The main idea is that a child needs to have a secure attachment with at least one adult for normal, healthy development. The attachment styles discussed in child development are now being applied to theories of romantic attachment. In essence, it’s a way to explain the emotional bonds people have with one another. These categories are called anxious, avoidant, disorganized and secure. While nice to have this kind of spelled out, it doesn’t really address how we heal or navigate our day-to-day interactions with one another.

Not only that, circumstances change over time that can impact our current relational patterns. For instance, even if we had a secure attachment in childhood, we can certainly still be anxious if in a bad relational situation. Conversely, maybe we had insecure attachment in childhood but are blessed with a secure attachment now and in this situation, don’t really struggle.

What I find more interesting is the very human longing to return to the blissful state of fusion we had with our caregivers initially, if some kind of bonding occurred. That state of peering into our mother or father’s eyes while sucking on a breast or bottle of milk and completely melting into the CareGiver felt like nirvana. I am one with you, you are one with me, the infant thinks. I am whole, safe, and this feels pretty damn wonderful. The child does not yet experience itself as a fully, separate self and is highly insecure when left alone or in distress because she/he/they are so vulnerable. So when we have experiences in adulthood that create this sense of fusion – ecstasy in sex, the limerence of falling in love, being intoxicated on a substance, being in a flow state while creating, etc. we get a little taste of that. And that can feel very powerful and addictive. It can also be a little discombobulating when we can’t sustain these states and have to return to drab everyday life. Or, we fear being engulfed in this oneness and need a little separation to feel our ego state again. I don’t want to lose myself, we think going into a self-protective mode. You’re going to suck me in and my needs won’t matter.

In a way, this phenomenon is like the fall from Eden. We once felt this profound unitive state in the spiritual domain and now have to deal with the very real struggle of being human and/or separate from the CareGiver. We are drawn over and over again to that divine state of oneness, yet strive to be separate. To have agency, free will, choice, autonomy and individuality. Self/other/God. Me/you/world/God. And yet on some level, we all came from the same Star. We all have a spark of the Divine within us.

And so it is. Everyone is talking about it…

When We Talk of Love...

Nothing Thrives In Ambiguity

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We are living in a time when there is a great intolerance for ambiguity. Most likely because the world is changing rapidly with an ever increasing sense of uncertainty. And in times of transition and upheaval, humans often lean toward the concrete as a means of staving off anxiety and pain. We see this in fundamentalist doctrine where rigid adherence to absolutes can be a way to ward off complexity and growth because it feels safer to cling to what is known.

If we can learn to tolerate a degree of ambiguity, we become more receptive to different perspectives. And great learning and growth can result in these periods of change that lack definition. There is a certain freedom in this that allows new possibilities to emerge.

The challenge though is that too much ambiguity for too long creates a chronic state of unpredictability. And this is destabilizing. Nothing thrives in this kind of environment. We don’t want to hang out in ambiguity forever. No matter how sophisticated and complex we might be, we still need boundaries, routines, and rules. Consequences and clarity. Without them children don’t feel safe and can’t thrive in their home and school environments. In relationships, we never know where we stand. And in society, anarchy can reign and/or cultures fall apart.

There comes a point when too much ambiguity becomes damaging to all parties.

We don’t want to be so rigid in our approach to life, work, and relationships that we rule out new possibilities. But we don’t want to be so fluid, we find ourselves like a blot of ink spilling out all over the page. At some point, clarity becomes essential, safe and grounding. We owe this to ourselves and to each other.

When We Talk of Love...

Angels in Fur Coats

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“They’re so much work,” a friend of mine said recently. “I can’t be tied down like that,” he continued. “I need my freedom.” He was referring to pets as he knows I’m obsessed with mine.

I get it. I’ve had periods in my life when I couldn’t be tied down either.

“But it’s really not,” I replied. “Sure, you have to feed them and care for them and take them to the vet when they are sick. But beyond that, animals tend to take care of their humans vs. the other way around.”

Having lovingly raised two humans, my friend has a solid track record in that arena. So I continued to explain. “With kids, you are there solely for their growth and well being. It’s not about you,” I said. “You don’t use your kids to fulfill your unmet needs. But with animals, they seem to intuitively know how to heal us. It’s a different kind of thing.”

While it’s true animals can be just as wounded as humans if they’ve experienced abuse and neglect, their natural state is so loving, raising animals becomes an experience of relational attunement many of us did not receive in our own childhoods. I think that is why so many people care deeply for their animals. The unconditional love animals exude often is a new experience, allowing us to heal rifts in attachment bonds from childhood.

While human relationships are perhaps more rewarding, complex and sophisticated, they are far more risky. Animals don’t hurt us in the ways humans can. They don’t lie, cheat, betray, or steal (well, maybe a little bite of our food). And they don’t attack us, unless they feel threatened. They simply want to be loved.

When a human is an infant, ideally the parent attunes to the child by noticing her needs, holding her, and mirroring her facial expressions. Hours are spent simply gazing at the child in a loving, attuned manner allowing the child to feel safe and seen. Over time, as the child grows and becomes aware of being a separate self, she still tracks where her care giver is and how much attention is coming in her direction. But not all of us receive this type of attunement in the early and developing years.

Each morning and evening, my cat Marcus comes to me with his toy in his mouth wanting me to toss it to him. Or he will meow and want to be held. In this process, I am the care giver, attuning to him and his need for contact, stimulation and attention. But the rest of the time, Marcus and Mena are more attuning to me. Watching me as I work, sitting on my lap when I read, snuggling up to me when I sleep. And if I am crying for some reason, one of them immediately comes and checks on me. So the question is, who really is healing who?

In being so unashamed about their desires for affection and contact, animals help remind us that connection is part of being alive. Humans want love and contact too, yet we are often conditioned to view this as needy and shameful once we’ve grown beyond a certain age. By modeling their sense of connection and presence, they help us restore a sense of wholeness with the world around us. I think of them as angels in fur coats.

When We Talk of Love...

Trust YOUR Process

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When my mother died by suicide in July 2008, two well-meaning loved ones made comments a month later. One pondered whether the fact that I lived alone intensified my grief. Perhaps if I had roommates, I might not be so upset. The other said that if I had a child, I wouldn’t be so self-absorbed. I would have to care for another person instead of feeling sorry for myself. The latter statement was particularly painful because I desperately wanted to be a mother, yet I was thirty-nine and single. I wondered if she wanted me to get myself knocked up by a stranger, so I could circumvent grieving.

There was also the ex-boyfriend who emailed me, “Onward and upward!” when I notified him of the suicide and shared that my mom had always been fond of him. But this is not a blog post to roast people for the odd things they say. It’s simply a cautionary tale to be discerning and protective of what you personally need when you’re most vulnerable and raw. In my case, I wasn’t just grieving my mom’s death. I was grieving the mom I never truly had. And it had only been one month.

When we’re in the heart of deep pain, not every one understands or can tolerate it. Because everyone has their own issues and opinions. For these reasons we must discern who is equipped to witness our experience and hold it with compassion while also acknowledging that people are not always available or able. In these situations, we must ultimately hold space for ourselves.

Grief entails a type of intra-psychic death. We feel like parts of ourselves are dying and life as we knew it has irrevocably changed. In the process, other relationships often fall like dominoes compounding the sense of loss. If you find yourself in this situation, see if you can embrace it as a time for personal transformation. Allow yourself to trust your process. Even if it’s messy. Even if it’s non-linear. And even if it doesn’t follow a set of prescribed rules or steps.

Nothing in life ever does.

Can We Ever Truly Understand and if Not, How Do We Try?

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In the long over due discussions of race and class inequities in this country, it is important to note difference. Without acknowledging that the minority experience is less advantaged than the privileged one, healing can’t occur. To move beyond trauma, people need to feel heard, witnessed, and validated.

Yet while acknowledging difference is core, it’s also important to eventually draw upon common human connection and similarities. How can we do that though, if we can never truly understand someone else’s experience? And does moving toward union negate the significance and seriousness of difference?

This raises the bigger question of whether we can relate to someone else whose life experience differs from ours. For instance, does an actor have to have had every experience of its character to play it well? Or, does the actor find the core themes and parallels of her life to draw on and connect to the emotional truth of the role? Can we imagine what it would be like to be someone else? Can we care enough to? This is the heart of empathy and compassion.

And why do we automatically assume someone’s story and values are so different from our own? I remember a friend once saying, “Everyone has a story. Just because you can’t see it, it doesn’t mean it’s not there.” Another friend who is Latino and Black was once surprised to hear that my mother had spent many years in jail. He had an incarcerated family member too. When I shared, he gave me a funny look.

“What? Do I look too Waspy? ” I asked and he laughed and said, “Yes. You look way too Waspy.”

Yet just because we both understood the pain of having incarcerated family members, this didn’t mean our lives had been the same. On the contrary, they were very different. As a white woman initially raised in an upper middle class home, I had a number of advantages that come with that package.

In human relationships, we can’t ignore differences in age, class, gender, ethnicity, and childhood experiences. These factors shape who we are for the personal is indeed political. Yet there are aspects of being human that are universal. This is why we relate so well to people’s narratives. They bring us together. And all stories that are rich in aesthetics, have complex layers. Strong characters are never one dimensional. Reversals abound.

In drama, conflict launches the story. But what makes for a good ending is when we don’t see the same-old, same old. While we never want to tie things up with a glossy, fake Hollywood ending, the most exciting stories are ones where people connect and transcend. When despite it all, something changes. That is what I’m hoping for in our stories of race, class, age, and gender.

The post Can We Ever Truly Understand and if Not, How Do We Try? appeared first on Selfish Bitch of a Daughter.

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Can We Ever Truly Understand and if Not, How Do We Try?