Improving Our “Signals” and “Beings”

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“One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life: That word is love.” – Sophocles, 496-406 B.C.

“What most people need to learn in life is how to love people and use things, instead of using people and loving things.” – Author Unknown.

“Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.” – Bible, New King James Version, 1 Corinthians 13:4-8.

You’ve been told by teachers, counselors, relationship experts, self help experts, or religion, that you should at least love your family, friends, and others who are important to you. Though you and I know, it’s not that easy! It is hard to love someone who hurts you. At times you’d rather punch a family member in the face to knock them out so you can live in peace.

This article will help you to love others whom you would like to love. It isn’t about falling romantically in love with someone, though the advice can help you in that sense. It is more about the type of love experienced in a close family. I will give you a logical five lesson plan that you can easily follow to begin loving who you want to love. Loving others will bring an abundance of love, among many other great things, into your life.

What is Love?

Just hearing about the subject of “love” at times gets me cringing. Love gets twisted by society, not just younger generations who are often picked on in this area, into a form that destroys its most pure meaning. People think they are in “love” because they feel attraction or have been in a relationship for many years. Feelings of affection or attraction are a type of love, but they do not comprehend pure love.

Love is a tough subject for anyone to address. Not many people agree with a common description of love. As Haddaway’s classic hit is titled, “What is Love?” Some say it is a willingness of sacrifice, some say its blindness to flaws, while others say it is unexplainable. Some say it is an intense devotion or affection, but that can just be neediness.

I’m not particularly fond of most material about love as the subject has a tendency to get categorized into romance, “Do nice things like give gifts and the person will love you.” Romance doesn’t describe love – not even an act of love, because romance by itself can be a very superficial and manipulative subject. Love is beyond actions. Something is at deeper work in pure love.

Psychologist Robert Sternberg developed the triangular theory of love. The theory is applicable for interpersonal relationships. It categorizes love using three scales: 1) Intimacy, 2) Passion, and 3) Commitment. Basically, variances in the three scales produce different types of love. It is only when all three are present that a pure form of love, known as “consummate love”, can develop. Consummate love is the ultimate form of love an individual can desire.

A more applicable description of love to the style of love I’m writing about in this article is explained by Susan Hendrick and Clyde Hendrick in their love attitude scale:

1. Eros love is based on physical appearance. It describes superficial love.
2. Ludus love is a game based on conquest. Pick-up artists (PUAs) often experience this type of love.
3. Storge love is gradually built from similarities and friendship. The transition from friendship to love is often unclear.
4. Pragma love is more rational than other type of loves as it is based on practicality. An extreme form of Pragma love is prostitution because of the rationalizing financial gains.
5. Mania love is very possessive and unstable. Strong feelings of insecurity, neediness, and jealously are experienced.
6. Agape love is selfless, unconditional, and often spiritual.

Agape love most accurately describes the type of love we wish to have towards family and friends. We want to be able to unconditionally love those who are important to us; not just when they do something nice or when we are in a good mood. It is our goal in this article to develop an agape form of love.

The power of agape love is it doesn’t change when the mood or circumstances change. Agape love even remains when the person you have agape love towards does something mean to you. It is unconditional and withstanding – almost divine. We want to, at minimum, unconditionally love our family as they are our own blood. You are apart of each family member. When you hate others, you are really hating yourself.

The selflessness in agape love we wish to develop is one beyond sacrifice. It is beyond confining boundaries and a lack of concern in fulfilling one’s needs. Selflessness is about focus, attitude, and action towards others while retaining self-love. It isn’t about sacrifice and ignoring yourself. You are more likely to hurt a relationship from resentment by “humbling” your core needs than if you were to act selfishly. Resentment is an unusually powerful emotion that builds in size when ignored.

Acting unselfishly is often thought of as overlooking personal desires. However, selfless acts don’t ignore the giver. This is a very important concept to understand. You can only act truly selflessly when you love yourself. Unselfish actions that overlook the giver’s needs, such as a love-starved wife who cooks for her family, builds emotions like resentment that destroy the selflessness in the action.

Before you can be selfless, you need to be selfish. Keep in mind that being greedy is not the same as being selfish. In mathematics and life, you cannot give what you don’t have. There is nobody more unloving than one who does not have self-love. Unfortunately, we are taught by parents and teachers not to be selfish. I believe this is a big reason for hate in the world.

Unhealthy selfishness worsens by its supposed solution of selflessness. By being selfless in an area we lack resources, we ultimately become miserable and develop unhealthy selfishness. We need an ongoing supply of external emotional energy from our failure to tap into the infinite source of abundance within ourselves. The neediness and lack of love comes from a lack of self-love. It is in the selflessness of Agape love that we get our first lesson on how to love someone:

1) Love yourself to love others

To give love you must firstly have love. If you’re not into religion, the most reliable source of love you can get is from yourself. You do not need to approve of everything about yourself, but you do need to accept yourself. You will always have flaws that you do not like – accept it. Only by loving yourself can you love others. Consequently, love yourself to love others in order to be loved. You cannot expect others to love you if you do not love yourself.

Give-take Relationship of Love

As babies, we were entirely dependent on our parents or guardians. We would cry to get feed, cry to get warmth, and cry to get love. We wanted whatever we could get our hands onto without giving a single thing. Sure, a baby can create a smile on its parent’s face and bring a warm comfort into people’s lives, but it doesn’t give in the sense that it fails to transfer something from itself to others. Perhaps the only thing a baby gives is its regurgitated food!

As we begin to age, we become more “independent”. We can feed ourselves, make ourselves warm, and put a shelter over our heads. However, our growth and independence sometimes doesn’t go beyond that. We are still that crying baby who wants everything without giving. When we do give, it is solely on the basis that we receive something of equal or greater value in exchange for our gift.

A part of this problem comes from our teachers and parents advising us to avoid people who take advantage of us. We get conditioned to not be conned by someone who doesn’t return the favor. As a result, our giving comes from reciprocation.

The principle of reciprocation states that humans have an inherent desire to return favors. When something is seen as a favor, not an obligation or expectation, we react by reciprocating something to the person of equal or greater value. By giving we usually receive more than what we gave. Give love to others and you will receive things that you cannot comprehend.

Unfortunately, when we do give and do not instantly receive, our giving stops. The expectations we create are the demise of our giving. Our expectations which exceeds results makes us dissatisfied. If you think you need to receive love from others, in order to give love, you are living reactively. The more you get, the more you want. Neediness disables a person from loving others.

When we love others, they in turn love us but not necessarily in the same form as our love. It is much easier to love someone who first loved us. The purpose of loving yourself is to create love in your life so that you can love. An active creator of one’s personal universe doesn’t wait for the right circumstances. The person goes and does what he or she wants done.

Agape love isn’t dependent on firstly receiving love. Agape love doesn’t have limiting conditions. It gives without receiving. Mildred Norman Ryder, also known as the “Peace Pilgrim”, nicely said, “Pure love is a willingness to give without a thought of receiving anything in return”. This gives us our second lesson of loving someone:

2) Give love without any expectation of receiving love.

I know people fear giving love out of a concern for not receiving love. What a scarce and fearful mindset. Needing to receive love in exchange for your love is needy and approval-seeking. Reducing your need for someone’s approval empowers you to love the person. It is contradictory to common thought. Desperately wanting love reduces the love you both give and receive.

Daniel Goleman in his revolutionizing book Social Intelligence, which looks at the science of human relationships, emphasizes the need to go beyond ourselves. When we overcome self-absorption, we are able to connect with and love people. “When we focus on others, our world expands.” says Goleman. “Our own problems drift to the periphery of the mind and so seem smaller, and we increase our capacity for connection – or compassionate action.”

By loving someone without the expectation of them loving you back, you go one step closer towards unconditional love. You become immune to the potential disappointment when others do not love you. Giving love without any expectation to receive love creates radical personal responsibility as you prevent yourself from blaming or becoming angered towards others. When you do get to unconditional love, you will permanently love others. That is something I love.

Scarcity and Abundance of Love

The thought of giving without receiving comes from scarcity which immobilizes our ability to give. Giving on the basis that you will receive creates a fearful mind. We fear being conned, taken advantaged of, and not being treated fairly. The world becomes finite in its mental, emotional, and physical resources. Scarce thinking of love assumes it is a limited resource. It means there is a finite amount of love in the world so you had better keep what you want to yourself. No wonder we keep what we can to ourselves because our survival becomes “dependent” on it.

Loving yourself isn’t enough. It is just one step of loving others. You need to extend your self-love to others. Giving from love is empowering; compared to the limitations of giving from guilt, ego, and scarcity. “Love wasn’t put in your heart to stay.” said the singer Michael Smith. “Love isn’t love until you give it away.”

While scarcity can work against us in loving others, it can also work for us. The principle of scarcity states that we more highly value a resource when it is rare. Realizing love is scarce and that it can be lost will make you value it more. Thinking like this uses the pain component of the pain-pleasure theory of motivation which states that we do things to avoid pain or gain pleasure. It is great to acknowledge the scarcity of love and how it can be easily lost, as it makes you value love. You avoid taking love for granted.

Those who have experienced loved ones passing away know the value of love. Unfortunately, some people are too late at expressing their love and greatly regret not having done so. Don’t become someone who doesn’t value what is in their life until it is gone. A loving person knows their love in a person’s life counts. Gratitude gives us our third lesson to love someone:

3) Be grateful for everything in your past and present.

Transforming Pain Into Pleasure

If you have trouble feeling grateful, something that always helps me feel grateful is thinking about the meaning of “appreciate”. To appreciate is to increase in value. Therefore, to be grateful for everything in your past and present you need to increase your feelings of value towards your experiences and the world around you.

You will need to overcome feelings of anger, blame, and resentment first before you can feel grateful and begin loving those who hurt you. When you experience these feelings, you fight an uphill battle that discourages you from loving the person who “caused” you these feelings. Remove the pain to experience the gain. Eliminating emotional pain gives us our fourth lesson on how to love someone:

4) Remove anger, blame, and resentment to make love possible.

Any anger or blame you experience towards someone is a sign that you lack radical personal responsibility. Men who complain that women are “bitches”, and women who complain that men are “jerks”, are examples of those who need to accept radical personal responsibility. Once you accept radical personal responsibility, you no longer blame others and possess feelings of anger towards people.

Recently I was blaming something for making me stay up late which left me feeling tired and unproductive the following day. My youngest brother who is thirteen said, “Josh, don’t blame. You had a choice and you choose to stay up late.” Yikes! What a profound statement that caught me in my tracks. Hearing this shifted the responsibility onto myself, and made me proud of my brother!

Will this technique of accepting radical personal responsibility remove all your anger? No. You will feel anger towards someone sooner or later, but that is just a sign that you lack personal responsibility again. Every second we make a choice as to how we respond to the world. Use your Higher Self, the part of you which gets you acting beyond everyday annoyances, to help you accept radical personal responsibility.

Resentment really just comes from blame, but it needs a mention by itself because of its destructive capabilities. Resentment builds when you fail to forgive someone or when you do not take radical responsibility. Learning the art of forgiveness will erase any resentment you currently have in your life. We think we hurt others when holding resentment against them, but we only hurt ourselves.

Seeing Abundance

Here is a useful exercise to help you become grateful for everything in your past and present. You have probably heard that in every problem is an opportunity. Well, we know that in every problem exists a lesson.

Think of the significant positive and negative main events in your past and present. Summarize them on a piece of paper in separate rows. If you have a painful memory of how your parents brought you up, you could summarize it as “I dislike my upbringing by my parents”.

Once you’ve listed the significant events, write down what you are thankful for about the event besides its summary. What is it you appreciate about the “negative” or positive event? If you disliked how you were raised by your parents you could be thankful for: the independence they created in you, your new knowledge on how not to raise children, or the desire they gave you to lovingly raise your children. Seeing a lesson in a problem is difficult, and you may need to think about it for sometime, but it does exist.

People who value lessons and opportunities, instead of seeing pain and problems, are sometimes accused of being delusional. Negativity and pain isn’t any more real than positiveness and pleasure. You have a choice as to whether you want to be grateful for everything in your past and present – every moment of your life. Being grateful for everything in your past and present removes pain. It makes you aware of the wonderful abundance in your life that you have been blinded from. This gives us our fifth and last lesson on how to love someone:

5) See abundance and you will be exposed to an abundance of love.

Love is everywhere we go. “Although humans inherit a biological bias that permits them to feel anger, jealousy, selfishness and envy, and to be rude, aggressive or violent,” says Harvard psychologist Jerome Kagan, “they inherit an even stronger biological bias for kindness, compassion, cooperation, love and nurture.” It is your choice as to whether you see the abundance of love because it is real. It is also your choice as to whether you use your biological gift of compassion and love to bring an abundance of love into your life. “Only when we give joyfully, without hesitation or thought of gain,” says love expert Leo Buscaglia, “can we truly know what love means.” That is love.

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