Is there a science to love?

HPLSJCS_62414I recently had the honor of participating on HuffPost Live’s segment “How We Can Understand Love Through Science” with Dr. Sue Johnson. Dr. Johnson’s book, Love Sense, is a result of her groundbreaking research on our emotional bonds and attachment styles. Love Sense “presents new scientific evidence that tells us that humans are meant to mate for life. Dr. Johnson explains that romantic love is an attachment bond, just like that between mother and child, and shows us how to develop our “love sense”–our ability to develop long-lasting relationships. Love is not the least bit illogical or random, but actually an ordered and wise recipe for survival.” -Little, Brown and Company

Dr. Johnson says that she wrote this book as both a guide and a warning. Tune in to hear about her views on sex, dating, love, and the impact social media plays on our relationships. http://live.huffingtonpost.com/r/segment/third-metric-thrive-on-live-love-sense-dr-sue-johnson/5363f31f02a7604eae00045c She’s concerned about our relationships in the age of technology because “it is making people lonelier and more isolated”. I asked her what her thoughts were on online dating and why single women are having difficulty finding sincere men. I see it as a function of online dating. We treat online dating like we do our social media streams and select only the images that stand out to us. Is it related to a faulty attachment style? Tune in to hear Dr. Johnson’s take.

What do you think? Are we selecting people based on superficial qualities and discounting other factors? Do you think online dating makes it easier to run game? What frustrates you the most about online dating?

 

Top 10 things to help you heal from a failed relationship

First, I’d like to thank all of my followers and readers. I am extremely grateful for your support. Many of you I have cried, laughed, cheered, and ranted with. Most of all I feel like we have gotten to a better place together.

When you are not in a relationship, getting over a relationship/divorce, the holidays can be a challenging time of the year. Each relationship we go through really teaches us about what we need or what we needed to overcome to set you up for a healthy relationship. If you’re currently struggling to get over a relationship, there are a few things you can think about to help overcome some of the pain associated with the break-up.

hearts1. Think about the things that lead you to that relationship in the first place.

2. Think about the things that attracted you to the person.

3. Think about what you were looking for before you got into the relationship.

4. Think about the fears you may have had before you got into the relationship.

5. Think about the things you felt before you got into the relationship.

6. What did the person make you feel about yourself?

7. What did they respond to within you?

8. What did you experience that you hadn’t experienced before?

9. Did you see yourself with the person before you met them?

10. Did you date someone out of your character?

Once you have identified the reasons for some of these questions, you’ll have the answers to help propel you to the next relationship. Sometimes, we keep carrying unnecessary burdens into new relationships. You possess the answers to all that you are feeling; you just have to look at the situation from a different angle. The answers are all within you. You can harm or heal yourself. Returning to the point of who you were before the relationship; puts you in a place of empowerment rather than psychological persecution.  It’s within understanding the unhealthy relationships that we find ourselves and gets us closer to a healthy relationship.

Top 10 things women should tell themselves

Contrary to what we are told and tell ourselves as women, we are really amazing. Think about all the things you manage in a day. Isn’t it really impressive? That’s how we are meant to see ourselves.

Do people annoy you? Of course. Does life sometimes seem unfair? Of course. Do people disappoint you? Absolutely. Do you pursue what you want & feel like it’s unattainable? Of course. Do you want something so badly, yet it doesn’t materialize? Absolutely!

Here are some ways to keep you reminded of what life is really about:

1. Focusing on people that hurt you, will keep you attracting that into your life.

2. Instead of complaining about things you don’t have, focus on what you’re going to have.

3. All that you have experienced in life has made you who you are today.

4. You are meant to live a life of fulfillment and abundance.

5. When you are doing what you enjoy, opportunities are limitless.

6. Focusing on negative events in your day; keeps you in a negative state.

7. Complaining about your body or beauty, doesn’t change anything.

8. Remind yourself of how beautiful and amazing you are every morning.

9. Remind yourself that the person who annoys you for constant help doesn’t really want your help.

10. You create your reality.

How the sexes handle hurt

In our quest for happiness and ultimate life satisfaction, we encounter struggles that we try to figure out. Clark Kent & I decided to collaborate to answer some of the questions that men and women struggle with one another. We wanted to demystify the age old question about not understanding the other sex. We started with some of the stereotypical questions of what we think our genders do wrong when listening and communicating with the other sex. Clark’s answers have the male symbol (♂), mine have the female symbol (♀).

 Perception: What are some of the differences between men and women in handling hurt?

 ♂ Every man or woman experiences things that alter what perception of illusion that is what is felt within. The more pain experienced the greater the capacity for love to take its place. When a man is hurt or is hurting another it is because of the choices he can’t see! I had to break someone’s heart who meant alot to me, when she learned everything I had done, and did to myself I then tried to make it work with her. But what I had to learn from this was that the more I came true inside myself the more I was able to see this very pain in others. I could see her pain and I was forcing her to see it without her permission to obtain it. This was not what I wanted for her I wanted her to be happy.

You have to take what shattered pieces of you that you have and remove those life situations to live your life more fully. All pain has to be embraced, all flaws accepted, all regrets uncovered, all of it.  It doesn’t happen overnight and it doesn’t happen in your thoughts it happens outside of them.  If you are with someone, male or female, it does take you to remove all forms of judgement, lies, etc. to be able to hear another!  You can run from those that you feel are dangerous or you can stand your ground long enough to allow them to see themselves through your eyes.  It takes this if you want to be in love, it takes this if you want to understand another, it takes this to heal inside yourself what you wish to heal in others.  Love has no end of depth it only has the surface that you can see with your eyes and then sink to realize you will always float and be able to breathe more than you ever had.  In general we continue to seek answers in others rather than seeking them inside ourselves. You will need to listen deeper to accept all things inside yourself before you will hear it in others!

♀ What blunts a woman’s ability to see things for what they are is that we are seeing things that affirm what we want. Only after time passes, do we start seeing things for what they are. Generally, it is after a painful experience do we see the full extent of the distortion. We want to believe that what we are creating in the relationship is for the betterment of the person and ultimately the relationship. We don’t want to believe that what we created in the world could be distorted, diseased, or dysfunctional. It would mean accepting a definition of ourselves that is contrary to what we know of ourselves and what social and biological realities we face.

Communication style: Why can’t my he/she communicate with me so we can make this relationship work?

♂ A man will still pick up the communication habits of the father or mother or variables of both. It isn’t that he doesn’t love you unconditionally, but the place of love he experiences through sight keep him from hearing himself. If you never are able to communicate what your truths are, then you will play a role as you were taught or are willing to learn from your partner. This is how it has been and how it will remain until this core of thinking can be eliminated in either one. It is not something you have to repeat, it is not something you have to make as a choice to live your existence under this.

All those broken pieces that were me I had to pull together to create something out of it. I had to take the corpse I was and put something beautiful together out of it. I didn’t know where to start and I didn’t know where I would end up. I met someone who watched me go through this, something in her love in a friendship that was placed allowed me to be as honest with her as I hadn’t been with myself but in essence it allowed me to be honest with myself beyond anything I ever knew possible. You can change the vibrational love within you by this very acceptance of knowing something deeper is before you!

♀ The lack of self-awareness is gender neutral. From your insights, it seems that men learn a communication pattern from their environment and model that behavior that he was exposed to within that environment. Where, women adapt their communication styles based on situational experiences. Women learn earlier on that expressing ourselves releases some of the emotions that can create negative and maladaptive thinking if it’s unexpressed. As we go through relationships, we have expressed some of the painful emotions and cultivated a support base to keep us from repeating some of the pain we wanted to avoid. The difference is that we have outlets to express emotion and can synthesize the negative emotion and at least not repeat those same emotional triggers in the next relationship.

Often times, though, we keep trying to tell men what we want them to be, what to do, & how we want things; instead of just listening. If we just listened to men, we would let them get out their raw, pent-up emotion and let their truth emerge. In their truth emerging we might see our truth. If that isn’t aligned, we can begin searching for the person who is designed for us. In many relationships, I have failed to listen to what they were saying and I realized way down the line that it was an illusion that I assisted in creating. Their lies became my lies.

Top 10 things to stop doing right now

1. Don’t think that people will change.

2. Don’t settle. In every person you encounter you gain something. Focus on what you gained, instead of what you were disappointed with. Use that list to carry you into the next relationship.

3. Don’t think that people aren’t satisfied with what they are or their circumstances. People structure their lives the way they want. When you join someone’s life it either works or it doesn’t.

4. Don’t get caught up in someone else’s drama. Follow your gut. If you hesitate about something, it is usually something you should avoid.

5. Don’t help people that don’t deserve it. It could be that you are enabling something or you’re caught up in their lies.

6. Don’t live your life for others. Find the things you enjoy doing, enjoy those things, enjoy who you are and where you are in life.

7. Don’t lose your sense of self in a relationship. The person you were when you met is what attracted the person in the first place.

8. Don’t look for someone’s potential. Focus on what and who they are in the present.

9. Don’t be someone for someone else.

10. Delete the need to understand. Sometimes we really don’t know the reasons why things worked out the way they did.  Relying on a source outside yourself to understand why you feel hurt can lead you to persecute yourself. Sometimes people might not be completely honest with themselves and aren’t ready to be honest with you or can’t be honest with you. The best thing to do is just recognize that it’s over or the person is not going to call or the person doesn’t want to be in your life and that’s ok. You lost nothing. You will drive yourself crazy trying to figure out what the other person was about, said, did, etc.

Death of my former self

This is extremely difficult to write, but I think my experience may help others. This post is dedicated to my former self and to those that can relate to what I am writing. I hope this brings you strength and understanding.

I am an interpersonal violence/domestic violence survivor. Let me explain what goes on in the mind of a someone who is the victim of someone using physical force to stop another from doing/saying something.

The first thing you feel is shock. Shock that someone you love can do this to you. Once the initial shock settles in, then you start uncontrollably shaking because you are in disbelief. Then your mind starts to process what just happened. That’s where feeling returns. Was I so numb during the relationship that I missed the red flags? How did we get to this? What did I do to yield this level of behavior? This is not happening. This is not happening. How could this be? What did I do? Where did I go wrong? This is where you’re stuck for awhile. This is where you live for awhile. Then, an even crazier level kicks in: forgiving. I wanted to seek solace in the idea that I wasn’t in a relationship with a version of someone that I created. Because all you hear is that you attract what you put out. Right? Was I putting out a subversion of reality, a diseased version of love? I could’t accept that, so I did the opposite: I told myself that everyone deserves forgiveness & everyone has the ability to be remorseful and be a better from that experience. Now, I’ve went a level further and entered into a world of disillusionment. Not about forgiveness, but that people can change. That’s when I realized that physical violence is end stage. It was all that led up to it that where the signs and symptoms of dysfunction. The insecurity/fears, the lies, the fights that you only become aware of after violence occurs. That’s the beginning of where the abuse started. I wasn’t listening to what was being said I was too busy forgiving, discounting things, believing it was something that it wasn’t. The truth is I was discounting myself. All I wanted was a happy, healthy relationship. I got the opposite.

Now, I look back at who I was and know that people are what they are and not what you want to believe they are. Love is not just a feeling, it’s an ability. Love is complex and exciting. It begins with you.  If it’s not present, a person can’t create it for you. They can make you experience love, but you have to recognize it from within. Now, I look back at my former self and what I lacked and am grateful that I am able to recognize love. It radiates from me, it envelops me, it is me.

Let’s reframe hurt

Inspired by Mastin Kipp’s The Daily Love.

Love is one of the areas that can cause the most hurt. Whether we are looking for it, dating it, or committed to it; hurt will occur. The way you cope with it can determine how you receive love. We all loveknow of relationships that overcome the most catastrophic life events and those that can’t overcome the most mundane events.

If you were the dumpee/divorcee. Forgive yourself for believing in something that couldn’t be. Ultimately, you believed enough in love that you wanted to see it in all things. Even people that may not be designed for you.

If you were the dumper/divorcer. Be true to yourself and happiness flows effortlessly. Perhaps you loved so much that you thought you could be someone you weren’t.

Begin with you. In both cases, extract what you learned about yourself and what you need going into the next opportunity to meet someone.

Ask yourself these questions:

Are you capable of unconditional love? Have you forgiven yourself for your past relationships? Sometimes you have to let go of the pain associated with the past to be receptive to unconditional love. You might be saying “what are you talking about, you’re just a dumbass, I have & it’s not my fault. I tried.” Yes you did. But, the definitions that you currently possesses might not be completely true to who you are and what you are becoming. The have  been shaped by your past experiences. Since everything in our lives has an origin, locating the source of pain and forgiving yourself for that experience will open you up to an abundance of opportunities for love, success and happiness. Sometimes we have the tendency to focus on what we didn’t get in the relationship and unknowingly keep finding that in the next relationship (or subsequent relationships). Instead, we should balance both the good and bad and focus more on the parts that helped you learn more about yourself. Your character, your nature, or your sense of what you want to become in the future.

Self-deception at its best

Best WTH lines I have heard so far:

1. “Dating while you’re married isn’t cheating”. Explaining some of the difficulties of a marriage after years of divorce. Grounds for divorce: not performing marital duties! WHAT? “Oh really? No sex for you? Uh, perhaps the key reason for that is that they were dating while you both were married”.

weddgring

2. “Found out he is married, living with her and is expecting a kid with her, but we are going to go ahead with planning our wedding”. After hiring a private investigator, crashing his car & wrecking his apartment (after breaking & entering).

3. “I know that we are different religions and that everyone has turned their backs on us, but it’ll work out”. One year and several re-locations later, “We got divorced”. What? “Yeah, turns out her family had a hit out on me!”.

4. “She’s a little too much to handle sometimes, but I’m getting used to it”. After throwing F bombs & Christmas gifts across the room at her in-laws. The trigger phrase: “You didn’t have to get us anything, your presence is gift enough!”.

5. “I don’t bring my partner to any of my social engagements because I don’t want anyone knowing my business”. As they tweet, instagram and fb throughout the entire night enough information that if the cops needed information about their whereabouts, it would suffice.

Sex for the psyche! Book Review: Eufeeling! The Art of Inner Peace and Outer Prosperity!

Since I am a novice to the Quantum Entrainment (QE) theory and technique and was interested in learning about a technique that would help me to reach a state of higher consciousness, I decided to read Dr. Kinslow’s Eufeeling! The Art of Inner Peace and Outer Prosperity!. The book is based on shifting one’s current perception to an effortless state of realization and actualization. If you are looking to learn to quiet your mind and actualize your dreams, Kinslow can help you achieve this with very little effort. He begins by describing the process as having to do nothing to get everything you want. To help understand this seemingly unbelievable and complex concept better, he uses examples from physics and nature. E.g., a drop of water falling effortlessly off of a leaf and into an ocean required no concentration, effort, or meditation. In order to fully appreciate the technique, you’ll have to abandon any prior understandings of the self and ego. As Kinslow points out, most of us are very consumed by functioning and striving to achieve in a world that relinquishes us to material acquisition and its pursuit without seeing beyond the object. The first few exercises help you focus on expanding or transcending human consciousness to a metaphysical level of perception.

In the first few chapters, Kinslow defines eufeeling (euphoric feeling), its state, the awareness required to experience it and how we can train ourselves to experience it over and over again. The exercises are easy and effective, but require some practice. I was unfamiliar with the QE technique before reading the book, so you don’t have to worry about being versed in it before you begin to see that it does work. As the book progresses, the theory became more explicable and relatively easy to apply. But it wasn’t till I got to the last 6 chapters of the book that I really got the full benefits of the technique. Once I did, though, I couldn’t stop being in absolute amazement of how my life changed simply because I did nothing and perceived everything.

The brilliance in the technique is Kinslow’s 2 part system of intention: 1) it is the object and 2) the emotion attached to the object that makes it difficult for us to attain eufeeling. If you identify the negative emotion associated with your desired object, you will be able to rid yourself of the negative anxiety because you are able to see beyond the source of your pain. The key to getting what you want is that as you become aware of eufeeling and your desire, you don’t have to meditate over it or think of the details associated with getting it, you just have to have thoughts that depict the fulfillment of your desire in a fun way. His example is: “if you desire having a happier relationship with another person, you might want to think of the happiness of children at play or flowing effortless as a river” (pg. 181). Once you have that image in your head you can return to eufeeling and begin creating solutions to achieve your desire. It is a very peaceful process and it does work.

Once you master QE Intention, the world becomes boundless and you are able to see solutions that are all within your favor. Kinslow provides examples in all areas of life whether it be relieving anxiety to financial issues. An added benefit of the QE Intention technique is that you can also use it to help others. The chapter on chronic illness is devoted to teaching you the ways to apply it for someone else’s welfare.

Overall the book has great insights and the technique is easy to apply to any area of your life. It takes you to a higher level of consciousness, serenity, and functioning.

FTC Disclosure: I received this book for free from Hay House Publishing for this review. The opinion in this review is unbiased and reflects my honest judgment of the product.