Dining with Heart - A Love Skill

Synopsis: Love nourishing the heart while feeding the body; a shared and broad ethology; love infused family dining; couples dining with love; serving friendship love; love, food and Eros; love and dining with self; the dining with heart challenge.

Love Nourishing  the Heart While Feeding the Body

A loving family joyfully shares a meal together, a romantic couple share a candlelight dinner, eating birthday cake with close and jovial friends, chocolates presented in a heart shaped box, kids bringing parents breakfast in bed – all give evidence to how food can be used with the sharing and growing of love relationships of all types.  It is an ancient adage that “The best meals are those served with love”.

A Shared, Long and Broad Ethology

Sharing food as evidence of a love does not only occur in human behavior.  The animal world is full of examples of both mammals, birds and even fish bringing food-gifts to their love mates or hoped for love mates.  There also are many examples where mammals especially, lovingly provide food to smaller and weaker and sometimes sick fellow creatures.  There even are examples of cross species sharing of choice foods and of different species eating side-by-side along with affectionate muzzling, licking, grooming and other likely love-expressive actions.

The evidence suggests that if an animal brain has a limbic system it loves, and if it eats it will mix some sort of love behavior with eating behavior.  The mixing of love and food behaviors probably begins with mothers feeding babies.  Wherever it begins the sharing of food, along with various other acts of loving care and connection, can be traced all the way back into the time of the dinosaurs.  And among humans it shows up in every tribe, culture and society.

Love Infused Family Dining

Making eating together a good, constructive, positive, family love experience is a goal that can be achieved in lots of different ways.  It is interesting to note that all sorts of parents and families who have highly productive, famous offspring had mealtimes together and that those meals were treated in special ways.  Many of the children of such families learned that they were to come to dinner with something by which they could enrich the rest of the family.  Everyone brought to the table a funny story, an intriguing question, a curiosity, an item to be appreciated or perhaps even a contrary opinion.

Different families had different things to stress but they all stressed sharing and the enrichment of one another by the sharing.  In some very musical families the requirement was to sing a line or two from a song or explaining a musical refrain.  In political families it usually had something to do with news related to a cause or a conflict.  In a good many families mealtime was marked by remarks offering another family member, or guest, some sort of affirmative statement.

Praises, compliments, thank you statements and other expressions of gratitude make many families’ meal times together a more loving experience.  In some families the most positive remarks are rewarded with an extra helping of dessert.  In some there is a rule against giving negative statements like criticism, put-downs and complaining; angry or hostile remarks are certainly usually against the dining-together family rules.  The prayers offering blessings for food and thanksgiving, especially in those families where everyone adds something to the prayer, can help accomplish the making of the meal a more love-oriented event.

Sometimes families that ask everyone to hear or discuss unhappy and stressful things at the dinner table can bring about bonding when enough loving care is expressed in the process.  However, such actions may cause indigestion and might bring about an aversion to eating with others in some people who have had numerous, negative, dining experiences.  So, one must be careful about using mealtimes as a time to discuss problems.

Another important thing to remember is to really pay attention to the food and appreciating what tastes good, making comments out loud and also to verbally be thankful to whoever spent time and effort to prepare the food.

Couples Dining with Love

Did you know the romantic, candle lit dinner for two is a relatively new event and was once thought of as an indecent, radical, anti-establishment thing to do.  Typically in many ‘old countries’ the woman served the male patriarch of the family first as he sat alone at the table and she stood behind him while he ate.  Then the other males came to the table and were served, followed by the higher status females who in some lands had to eat at a different table.  Then came the children who usually had to eat in another room.

Finally,  the serving females got to eat whatever was left in the food preparation area which sometimes was outside.  To this day men and women eating together in some places is quite frowned upon.  Males and females eating together counters the male dominance in these cultures and represents movement toward female equality.  Also for a couple to dine alone together adds the chance for intimate exchanges, the sin of self chosen love, and the possibility of indecency.

The intimate dinner for two can be a love feast when there are words of love spoken in soft tones of love, with lots of loving looks and eye contact, punctuated perhaps with touches of love, mixed with loving self disclosures of appreciation and affirmation of each other, and perhaps a little sexy, under the table foot action.  A romantic meal means lots of loving sharing and good emotional intercourse while eating, with strong focus on each other and the experience being shared.  A very important element, not to forget, is making enough time available so as not to be rushed or not to have the experience cut short.

Watch out for love sabotaging actions like complaining about anything, bringing up problems of any type, being distracted by anything, not paying close attention to each other, talking about unloved others, work and other non-couple positive issues, or anything likely to be regarded as impersonal.  Especially important is avoiding unappetizing, gross and rude topics.  Generally the idea is to talk about each other and very positive pleasant things, and to forget everybody and everything else.  That way you do a good job of dining together with and for love.

If one or both of you prepared the food and/or the environmental atmosphere, lots of focus on both of these contributions with words of appreciation are definitely in order.  Focusing on the thinking and feelings of each other by asking personal questions likely to be answered with positive, pleasant words is an exquisite way to dine with love.

When I have suggested these elements of ‘Dining with love’ to some people they have said things like, “What if I don’t like the food or I’m uncomfortable in the environment?  Should I lie, or just keep quiet, or what?”.  I like to suggest that to have a love-focused dining experience with someone that you look for what you can honestly be positive about, and say so.  Then leave the rest for later, or never.

The couples’ love-focused dining experience for two is 1.  giving a couple a chance to feed each other positive, love messages, in a romantic setting, while enjoying food, drink and atmosphere together.  And 2. it is a love skill that is worth adding to your ‘love repertoire’.

Serving Friendship Love

Friends can eat together and in the process show each other friendship love.  In doing so they can substantially grow and improve their relationships with each other.  Sometimes the eating is done informally, quite often in the kitchen, sometimes it’s via a dinner party or going out to eat together in a really nice or interesting, different place.  It can be friends preparing and eating a meal together.  The most important part is the same as in all love-focused eating experiences. The food is not what it’s all about, although that’s important.

It’s the human interaction and the togetherness that are paramount.  Are the interactions of love friendly, positive, deeper than with strangers, maybe sometimes rather quite but sometimes noisy with laughter, and are they often lighthearted and sometimes deeper and quite meaningful?  The atmosphere usually is less important than in the romantic, lovers’ meals but the environment is best when it is at least comfortable if possible.  Above all is to be personable, friendly, accepting, tolerant and sincerely caring.  To joke, tell stories, tell on ones’ self, and to briefly honestly brag, to let out whatever are ones’ larger emotions and concerns, and to talk about whatever is truly important to you may be included.  Also just being able to be quiet together is sometimes a very good, friendly way to share a meal.

Love, Food and Eros

She sat him on a giant pillow and put a turban on his head.  She was dressed in a shockingly revealing, harem girl costume.  She danced back and forth in front of him, erotically bringing him delicious tidbits of various exotic foods from a nearby table.  Then with sensuous twists and turns her diaphanous garments began to disappear.  She then poured aromatic sauces over various parts of her body and offered them to his lips and tongue.  He tasted sweet and tangy juices, and he tasted her, and then she tasted him.  It was indeed the finest meal he’d ever experienced, and one of the most loving dinners she ever served.  His only quandary was how to give her an equally delicious experience when it was next his turn to prepare a love-meal for her.  Need we say more?

Love and Dining with Self

Out of healthy, self-love do you treat yourself to love-filled, just right for you, dining experiences?  When alone do you slowly savor fine tasting food and drink.  Do you think something like,  “I will take time to treat myself well with something I really like to taste?  Do you make it a lovely experience with just the right environment and accouterments.  Perhaps you might enhance a meal with a good book to read, or a special incense, or going outside with nature, or turning on background music you really enjoy.  There are many ways to be extra good to yourself by way of love mixed with food.

A Dining with Heart Challenge

My challenge to you is to be focused on the giving and receiving of love when you feed or eat with loved ones or with yourself.  The challenge also is to develop your skill at making shared eating experiences, those in which you give the heartfelt psychological nourishment of love while also taking it in.  Graciousness, artfulness, thoughtfulness and a host of other loving ingredients all can be mixed in and can become part of the meals you share with loved ones.  So, I hope you are or will enjoy developing this love skill as much as any other.

As always – Go and Grow with Love

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly

♥ Love Success Question How loving will you be the next time you eat with someone you love?  What’s your recipe for creating love-nurturing dining experiences?

Related posts:

1. Gratitude As a Love Skill
2. Checking It Out – As a Love Skill
3. Intimacy Creation – A Love Skill
4. Respect – As a Love Skill 

How to Talk Love Without Words

Synopsis: How Karen loves Lester “really good” and how she learned, 10 surprising things to notice and make powerful love improvements with, The dark side of this issue and how to go to the bright side.

Lester said, “The way Karen treats me when we talk gives me a real sense that she loves me.  No one else has ever done that as well as she does”.  Lester was asked, “How does she do that”?  He replied, “She does that by her face lighting up every time she sees me, and she gives me these great big smiles.  At the same time her voice gets happy, she usually moves toward me, touches me and is happily animated in all sorts of little ways.  When we sit down together she leans toward me and her looks change a little with each thing she or I say.  That tells me she’s really tuned-in to me, is involved and is really feeling things as we talk.

It doesn’t matter what we talk about because most of it, maybe all of it, feels like love is happening with every little gesture and sound.  Sometimes she briefly glances away when trying to remember or figure out something but then she’s back looking straight at me with a hundred different loving expressions dancing across her face.  She’s wonderful that way!”

Lester is lucky.  He is with a woman who is really good at expressional love.  Karen says she wasn’t always that way.  She tells of growing up in a family where everyone was usually reserved, monotone and stone-faced.  Never-the less she learned.  As a child Karen told of being forced to be part of a school play, and there a teacher who understood the importance of expressional language worked with her.  She laughed at herself when she said as a kid she got quite silly and melodramatic, but people paid attention to her and that was better than what happened at home where she felt mostly invisible and lonely.  Lester says he sort of copies Karen because she is really effective, not only with him but with everyone else too.

By copying her he’s become more demonstrative to their children, friends and family, and even at work.  He also proudly proclaims being more like his wife in these ways is paying off quite nicely in every area of his life.  Lester said, “The people who are important to me want to listen to me more, include me more, pay more attention to me, and I’m a lot more effective with everyone than I used to be.  It’s all because I’ve become a lot more “love expressive” as my counselor calls it.  Now it’s just the way I come across.  Karen likes it too and that’s doing our marriage so much good”.

To learn how to talk love without words and do it really well let me suggest this is what you can do.
First, study other people who come across friendly and loving but also effective in their dealings with others.  We are surrounded by people who demonstrate examples of the language of expressional, nonverbal love-- friends who are happy  and caring, loving grandparents, even strangers or actors on TV or in movies.  To do this studying please pay attention to the following:

1.    Notice Faces, especially smiles, looks of empathy, eye contact, looks that seem to express positive regard, support, concerned interest, pride in others, joy, sweet intimacy and everything you can figure out to notice about facial expressions showing positive feelings.

2.   Notice Voices, especially the tones of lovingness, friendliness happy assertiveness, kindness, care, intimacy revealed, connectedness, pride in loved ones, acceptance, the intonations of non-judgmentalism, tenderness, boisterous support, happy self-disclosure with a touch of embarrassment, empathy, unbridled shared ecstasy, serene quietness, and up-beat feelings; all are ways to express your love without words.

3.    Notice Gestures, especially how love effective people do open arm greetings, wave hello and goodbye, signal inclusiveness, friendliness, gestures of expressed positive emotion, especially acceptance, approval (as in thumbs-up and V for victory), and the many hand and arm gestures which signal subtle indications of comradeship and “I’m with you”.

4.    Notice Posture expression, especially posture changes that show turning to include, standing and sitting open to receiving, friendly leaning forward, standing with, gracefully moving out of the way, respectfully making room for, and standing tall in support of loved ones.

5.    Notice Touching which is love expressive, including friendly “tap touches”, strong but not too hard hand shaking, one arm “Buddy” hugs, pats on the back, tiny caressing, cheek kissing, fast and slow ‘up-thrust’ pressure hugs, empathetic and emotionally intimate nonsexual physical contact, gentle holding, tender rubbing, hand holding, leg to leg touching, full body and A frame hugging, movement filled touch, and calming still touch; all of these are ways to “talk” love without words.

6.    Notice Timing, especially as expressed in not talking louder and at the same time loved ones are speaking, waiting for appropriate pauses and until someone is finished, replying in pace (usually not faster or slower), checking to see if a loved one has caught up with you or you with them, avoiding being accidentally interruptive or invasive, and choosing appropriateness of a topic to the situation; all of which can influence your behavioral messages of love.

7.    Noticing Closeness, especially being with, standing with, sitting next to, moving closer, closing space gaps and distancing when appropriate, cycling away and back to a loved one periodically, allowing closeness to happen, being aware of another’s safe distancing, spatial boundaries and boundary reduction, friendly closeness, intimate closeness, private and public closeness differences, formal and informal closeness behavior, and doing uncomfortable closeness when it is needed; these also are part of how we ‘talk’ love without words.

8.    Notice Active Listening behaviors as in making good eye contact when a loved one is talking, doing silent corresponding facial expressions to another’s speech and facial expression changes, nodding approval and acceptance, harmonizing body and gesture movements with a loved ones movements as they speak, obviously paying close attention, avoiding bored, blank or looking away too much, refraining from stone-faced and robot like motions, and being generally synchronized in movements and tones when a loved one is conveying their messages.  This too is very much a part of talking love without words.

9.    Notice Responsive Receptiveness as in quickly turning toward a loved one who is starting to speak, focusing on the same topic a loved one is talking about, responding in a friendly manner to a loved one’s input or questions with at least a sound indicating having heard the loved one speak, returning greetings, friendly acknowledging of messages received, and being generally pleasantly responsive to whatever a loved one initiates even if declining or disagreeing.  Remember receptional love is one of the eight major groups of behavior by which love is directly conveyed (see the entry “A Behavioral (Operational) Definition of Love”).

10.    Notice Assertive Action conveying love as in suddenly kissing a loved one, reaching and lovingly grasping a loved one’s hand, giving an approval whistle, handing over a surprise gift, initiating flirting with your eyes and other looks, saying common things with intimate special personal tones, a wink, initiating hugs and cuddling, romantically lighting a candle, making lingering eye contact with a special smile, and the many other actions which can assertively convey love without words
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Once you have begun to note how loving and effective others do things, begin to notice your own ways of behaving in each of the above 10 categories.  To do this some people watch videos of themselves at family and friendship gatherings looking for how they can improve.  Others listen to recordings of their own voice searching for tonal improvements to make.  Still others ask friends and family for honest feedback on how they can improve the way they come across when showing love.  Taking a personal speech class (often offered in a continuing education class at local colleges), or being in a counseling group where everybody gives each other improvement feedback can work wonders.  Raising into conscious awareness the things talked about in this site’s entry and others like it may trigger a substantial change.  Adding more exact personal goals for improvement also will do if you practice specific desired changes enough.

Now, let us dare to look at the dark side of this issue.  What happens to those who do not learn enough about how to talk love without words.  For some, things go along tolerably well but for others in love relationships destructive problems arise and sometimes disaster occurs.  Hear what Rita had to say about Rex.  “Rex told me he still loved me and wanted our marriage to work but I decided to go ahead with a divorce because I believed what the rest of him was telling me.  You see, as he told me the words I wanted to hear and believe his actions said the opposite.

As he spoke the right words his head often was shaking no, his voice usually was flat and had no real feeling in it, he frequently leaned back in his chair away from me, and his hands just hung there limp with his eyes looking past me.  Worst of all his face was like a mask without expression.  That was just too much evidence contradicting his words.  I think his words lied but his behaviors told the truth and that’s what I’m going to act on”.  Hear what Trey said about Carmen.  “Carmen was always the same.  Polite, even sweet but I could never tell what she was really feeling.

There was never much variation, or at least not very often.  Maybe she over did it with Botox or something because her facial expression was always the same, a kind of pleasant, plastic smile – but that was all.  Her voice never told me anything either.  I once dreamed she was manufactured by a toy company.  So we aren’t together anymore.  When I broke it off she said she was sad but there weren’t any tears so I don’t think she cared that much, but who could tell”.  Here’s another type of non-expressional couple problem.   Emily said of Colin, “All he ever does is try to look and sound strong or tough.  It’s like he’s made out of stone or steel or something.  I’m done with that.  I want a guy who can show me all the feelings humans have”.

Well now, I think you can draw your own conclusions about the necessity and desirability of learning to talk love without words.   Here’s one last suggestion for avoiding the dark side and going to the bright side of this issue.  Pick just one, or at most two of the above 10 items having to do with talking love without words and focus on that.  Decide for yourself a few specific improvements to practice for a couple of weeks, keeping track of each time you perform a practice action.

Reward yourself for doing that, and then go on to another item.  It’s important not to overwhelm or even just “whelm” yourself by taking on too much at once.  Trying to improve 10 things all at once is definitely too much.  Also you might want to talk to a loved one about these items and see if they would want to choose a few in which to make improvements.  The best of luck in learning and practicing all the subtle and bold forms of talking love without words!

As always, Grow and Go with Love

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly

♥ Love Success Question
On a scale of zero to 10 (10 being best) how do you rate yourself on your ability to communicate love without words to those most dear to you?  (You could rate yourself on each of the 10 items listed above).

Related posts:

1. Can You Talk about Sex – with Love?
2. Self Talk for Improving Love
3. “Do and Don’t” Love Talk
4. Pro-Love and Anti-Love Talking
5. Listening with Love 

Smiling With A Mask On: A New Love Skill

Mini-Love-Lesson  # 274

Synopsis: The importance of smiling your love to others and smiling effectively even though wearing a mask; plus ways to behaviorally accomplish that; along with certain significant communication research findings are the topic of this Mini-Love-Lesson.

A Most Important Love Behavior

Smiles may be our most important expressional (non-verbal) communication behavior.  Smiles certainly rank right up there with touch, tones of voice, eye contact and probably even above gestural messaging.  Now that the pandemic has so many of us wearing masks covering our smiles what can we do to not be robbed of this great tool for conveying human warmth?  Well, here are a few ideas.

When your smiles are hidden behind a mask, be mindful of the fact that you would do well to compensate for having your smiles hidden.  Know that you can make up for this smile denial by using your multitudinous other communicating behaviors like words spoken with extra happy sounds, head nods and bobs, hand and arm gestures, posture changes, voice volume inflection and modulations, speed of speech changes and the host of other expressional behaviors we non-consciously use to get our emotional messages across (see “How to Talk Love Without Words”).

Do Some Consciousness-Raising

Being mindful involves raising into consciousness awareness what communicating behaviors are available to us and deciding to consciously and purposefully use them.  Doing this means you can make up for your smiles being robbed from you by a mask and the pandemic.  By giving this a little thought and working at it, you will make better contact with everyone you encounter while wearing a mask.  That will probably get you better responses coming back your way.  And, in turn, that will help you feel better in this troubled time in which we all live.

Actions That Smile

A thumbs-up, a friendly wave, moving just a bit closer, lifting your eyebrows a bit and a host of other micro-moves may do the trick for helping others feel smiled at.  Open arms gestures with the palms showing to whoever you are talking to tends to send some human, emotional warmth toward that person.  With a little work on our expressional communication behaviors, we still can get friendliness and even love across in spite of a mask.  These gestures and movements are called non-verbal communication but we call them expressional because in face-to-face communication they account for as much as two-thirds or more, of what is being communicated.  Communication research seems to show spoken words account for only 7% of what actually is being communicated in verbal, emotive messaging.  The term expressional communication refers to a lot more than what is usually meant by non-verbal, although technically it covers everything else besides words.  Some communication researchers classify as many as 16 other expressional or non-verbal communicators being behaviorally active in face-to-face interactions (see “Emotional Intercourse”).

Can You Make Your Voice Smile?

You can make the tones of your voice nearly have the same effect as smiling.  Whether you know it, or not, you probably already do some voice smiling by altering the lilt variations in your voice.  How you pace and pause, emphasize or de-emphasize and accent your words can also accomplish this.  The next time you talk on the phone pay particular attention to what is going on with voice modulations and you may learn more about this because many people who enjoy phone-talking do this quite well.  Your tones of voice and other voice variables can convey friendliness, empathy, compassion, cheerfulness and a great many other emotions, all conveyed by variations in how you say what you say rather than what you say.  Generally speaking, the more you vary your voice the better you communicate verbally (see “Behaviors That Give Love: The Basic Core Four”).

Words From Behind The Mask

Even though words may be only 7% of the communication which goes on in face-to-face personal communication, they still can have good effects.  Imagine saying to someone while wearing a mask “you can’t see it, but I’m smiling at you right now”.  In the course of talking to someone, you might also say something like “I’m feeling a bit happy dealing with you right now and I thought I’d tell you that since you can’t see my smiling face!”

New situations can cause us to invent new ways of getting things said as well as come up with new ways to get our emotions across to others.  So, start thinking about talking differently.  Do this with words: create differences in vocalization (which accounts for about 35% of the communication value and, maybe, most of the kinetics or movements (which account for about the 55% of our message meaning and impact).  What do we mean by movements?  Well, facial motions are the biggest thing but with a mask on not so much.  So, attend to your gestures, stance and posture shifts, proximity alterations, and the speed of your motions.  All of these factors are constantly getting registered and interpreted in our subconscious minds as we non-consciously perceive them, but not so much in our conscious cognition (thinking) (See “Say It with Love”).

Animate to Communicate

Since the research shows that our kinetics, or in other words, our many movements and especially facial movements account for so much of what we are communicating emotionally, pay attention to how you can get your message across by moving more.  If you are talking on Skype or Zoom, or any of the others, do more hand gesturing, up close to your face where your gestures will be better seen.  Here is a little secret that many sermon givers know.  The more you move, the more you are listened to.  That includes the more you move your voice also: louder, softer, slower, faster, higher pitch, lower pitched and all variations increase attention and help to improve the focus of the listeners.  Leaning forward, leaning back, shifting right or left and especially head movements while being verbally quiet helps convey that you are really interested and care about what someone is saying.  You see, in face-to-face communication you always are talking whether your voice is saying anything or not.  The more you do not alter your kinetics, the more you may be interpreted as uninterested and uncaring.  That is only a maybe, not a certainty.  There are so many more variables to good communications than most people realize.  However, the more you learn and use this information, the better you probably will do.

ONE MORE THING:  you are likely to plant all this in your head a little bit better if you talk it over it with someone else and see what they think about it.  If you do that, please mention where you got this info from and the many, many mini-love-lessons here.  Thanks!

As always – Go and Grow with Love,
Dr. J. Richard Cookerly

♥ Love Success Question: Are you mindful of the nourishing/nurturing value of your love messaging to your loved ones?  (Please, include in your thinking, ideas about your love message frequency and your love message potency, along with possible improvements you might make).

Do and Don’t Love Talk

Synopsis: Love-destructive “don’t” and love-constructive “do” talk; buildup effects; “don’t” for sex disasters; other ways to convey do and don’t; a major “Do” way toward love improvement; and some self-examination gives you what this mini-love-lesson is all about.

“Do” May Send Love, “Don’t” Won’t!

“Don’t kiss me so hard!”  “Don’t make so much noise when we make love.”  “I don’t want you to pull away from me so fast after sex.”  What do you think hearing or saying a string of “don’t” messages like these can have on your sex life?  And on your love life?

“Don’t” messages, no matter how well intended or even based in love, tend to have an emotionally negative effect on most love relationships, be they with a spouse or lover, a child, a teenager and adults of all ages.  They even can have a negative effect on your relationship with yourself.  In relationships the effect usually is thought to put emotional distance between two people and make an emotional dissonance more likely.  That bodes for more arguments and a reduction of demonstrated affection, along with less harmonious time together.

Subconsciously whatever the “don’t” word is referring to, doesn’t usually matter much.  Whenever we hear the word “don’t” or any kind of “don’t” message, no matter what it is attached to, it may trigger a tiny, internal, negative, brain chemistry reaction.  That especially is likely if it is coming from someone important to us.  Saying don’t or sending any other type of don’t message also may create a tiny, negative experience for someone you love.  Saying don’t also is a tiny, negative experience in the brain of the sayer, so it turns out “don’t” are bad for everyone.

Don’t’s and Their Build-up Effect

The problem is that taking in or sending out “don’t” messages can be cumulative.  That means a build-up of negative experiences which can have an erosion effect on a love relationship.  Furthermore, if you heard too many “don’t” messages growing up, you may enter a love relationship “don’t”-sensitive because you already have a subconscious build-up of experiencing “don’t” as a non-conscious negative.

Unless the word “don’t” or any “don’t” message is said with really soft tones and the message is truly loving as in “don’t forget you are my super, special person”, it likely will have this subtle, cumulative, anti-love relationship, brain effect.  It is suspected this may be one of the causes of a fading love phenomenon.

“Don’t” and Its Disastrous Effect on Sex

When I was earning my subspecialty certification as a sex therapist, I became acutely aware of how critical ‘don’t’ and also ‘do’ communications were to success or failure in sex therapy.  Many people with sex problems especially are sensitive to “do” and “don’t” messages having to do with their sexual performance and ability.

Sadly even “do” messages can have a negative effect here.  That is because people sensitive in this area can interpret “do” as a “you’re doing it wrong” message.  However, once we could get a person to accept a “do touch me this other way” type request, as a piece of information that was good and needed, things generally went much better.  Of course, we often also had to get the sender of that message to send it positively and with love for things to go sexually and lovingly well.

Even small ‘don’t’ messages having to do with anything sexual could sometimes cause setbacks that took weeks to overcome.  In conducting sexual love research I later discovered the more loving you can make a sexual request the better it works, and I brag here and say, we published some productive papers on that.

Other Ways to Say “Do” and “Don’t”

Not every “don’t” or “do” message is sent with those exact words.  Sometimes the message is in the tone of voice, the face, the body language, the gestures or it is in words satirically said, or it just is said with other words as in “never come on to me that way again”and “you can keep touching me right there, that way, a lot longer”.

Censuring, Silence and Stifling

Sometimes couples make themselves the rule “don’t say don’t” and that is okay but it doesn’t go far enough.  By itself that sort of rule can lead to self censoring or actions that help censure, silence and stifle those you love.  That rule needs the addition of a “what to do instead” component.  Know that a stifled, censored or silenced loved one frequently is trouble on the way.  That is true even if it involves self stifling.  Silence can be a message that screams loudest of all messages.

Long-term censuring just means long-term hiding truth which may be unpleasant but probably is needed and is going to come out some other way eventually.  Acting to censor a loved one is liable to encourage being treated falsely and is liable to assist passive/aggressive attacks coming your way.  Censuring, silencing and stifling frequently tends to have strong anti-love effects.

Can We Make Every Don’t Into a Do?

So you may ask what’s the solution; if I stop telling you what I don’t like and what I don’t want you to do with or to me, what am I to do instead?  Remember, “don’t kiss me too hard”.  That can change into “Darling, do kiss me soft and tender.  I like your kisses that way so very much”.  “Sweetheart, let’s make quiet love this time.  I think that will help me enjoy it more” can substitute for “don’t make so much noise”.  Then instead of the “don’t pull away from me” message, think about saying something like this.  “Beloved, I really would like you to stay here and enjoy cuddling with me after intercourse.  I think that will just extend our lovemaking and make the whole experience even better for both of us”.

The basic concept is, whatever you say in the way of a “don’t” message probably can be better said with a “do” message.  To do that you may have to be responsible and figure out what you do want instead of what you don’t want.  Then lovingly ask for it.  If you can’t figure that out, you can say things like “Honey, I know I want something a bit different but I don’t know what it is.  Would you help me figure it out.”

Are You Mostly a “Don’t” or a “Do” Talker

To be better at being love constructive and avoid love destructiveness, it will be good for you to figure out if you are more of a “do” or a “don’t” message sender.  Also it is helpful to figure out “why” either way.  Some would proffer, if you are mostly a ‘don’t’ talker it is because you secretly are warped and neurotically negative about yourself and life, or something clinical like that.

Social psychology instead would suggest most of us are just talking the way we heard people talk when we were growing up.  Linguistic psychology suggests you probably will say about as many “do’s” and “don’t’s” as was average in your upbringing.  Developmentalists might add, you probably are talking about like those most influential in your upbringing – maybe like your parents.

The good news is you can change and improve and, thus, become more love constructive in the messages you send your loved ones.  That will take some work but love relationships take work, and they are well worth it because they are the most important relationships we have.  At least, those are the enhancements I have seen with those couples, families, friendships and self talkers who work to improve and increase their “do” type messages while they decrease their “don’t” messages to their loved ones and to people in general.

As always – Go and Grow with Love

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly

♥ Love Success Question
Who in your life might you like to talk to about becoming a better “do” message sender?

Related posts:

1. Can You Talk about Sex – with Love?
2. How to Talk Love Without Words
3. Self Talk for Improving Love 

Critiquing without Criticizing

Synopsis: This mini love lesson presents attracting or repulsing speech; critiquing and criticizing differences; headed toward bonding or breaking up; and what’s coming at you.

Attracting or Repulsing Speech

Which of these statements will you be more likely to make to a loved one:

1. “That was really dumb of you.  How could you have been so stupid?  You never learn do you!  If you just weren’t such an idiot.”
Or 2. “I could’ve made that same mistake.  That just proves were both human and we don’t always get it right.  Do you want to figure out how to fix it on your own?  Or, do you want some help?  By the way we can use this slip-up to learn from so we can avoid this problem in the future.”

The first statement ‘puts down’ both of you psychologically and the speaker probably creates emotional distancing and probably projects a sense of the listener being alone with the problem.  In the second statement the speaker emotionally works to join with listener and to avoid giving a put down message, yet acknowledges a mistake has been made and a want to fix it. You might want to examine which of those two statements is closer to how you learned to talk growing up.  You also might want to think about the people in your life who talk more like the first statement and those who talk more like the second and what influences they might have had.

Here are a couple more statements to examine:

1. “Let’s look at what’s best and worst about what you just did.  Then let’s look at how to improve it.”
Or 2. What you just did is all crap!  There are so many things wrong with it I’m not even going to bother trying to tell you how to correct it.”

Which of these two statements would you rather receive?  Which would be more typical of the way you communicate, especially to loved ones?  The first statement has to do with the speaker and the listener together critiquing something that was done.  By acknowledging that what was done has both ‘a best’ and ‘a worst’ it offers what can be regarded as a critique instead of a criticism.

Critique and Criticism Differences

Criticism is a word with a connotation of tearing down self-concept, personally attacking, searching for and pointing out what’s wrong, and paying no attention to what might be right.  Modern dictionaries now define criticism as fault-finding, disapproving, and unfavorably evaluating.  Criticism at one time just meant analyzing with knowledge.  In some circles that definition still holds true.  Relationally ‘connotation’ often is more important than definition.

Critiquing means to examine with a view to determining something’s nature and qualities. A critique used to be defined as an act of criticism.  However, critique is coming to have the connotation of giving a balanced evaluation without likelihood of emotional dissonance.  Of course, some people can take anything badly and feel wronged by the statement, no matter what.  This is where saying things with a loving tone of voice and loving facial expressions and gestures usually helps to carry a connotation of critique instead of criticism.

Critiquing is evaluating with knowledge, hopefully without the negatives of criticism.  It’s not enough just to change your style from criticizing to critiquing, you also need to make an attitudinal change from blame to one that can be a benefit to both people in a love relationship (this includes to children, family, friends and other love relationships).

Heading toward Bonding Or Breaking up?

Being demeaning with putdowns, complaints, fault-finding, derogatory remarks, etc. is increasingly taken to mean a person is criticizing.  This is the number two reason for couple’s breakups (the number one reason is insufficiently loving) according to some research.  Criticism helps love relationships break apart. Critiquing, as a rule, helps love relationships address issues in a balanced, positive way.

There are some exceptions. There are people who have grown up thinking all positive speech is sugar-coating and only negative, critical speech can be trusted.  There is a type of masochism in which a person feels very uncomfortable hearing anything positive.  Barring things like that, critiquing works a whole lot better with loved ones than does criticism.

If you find it a lot easier talking about what’s wrong rather than what’s right with someone you supposedly love, something may be amiss in your way of going about love.. It just can be that you grew up around people programming you to talk more negative than positive.  In any case, there’s a whole lot of research saying focusing on and talking about the positive more than the negative helps you stay physically and psychologically healthy and is good for love relationships.

What’s Coming at You?

Do you hear lots of criticism coming at you?  There are several possibilities about that. One is ‘you have been programmed to filter out the positive and only hear the negative’ and you possibly may give negative interpretations to neutral and positive statements coming your way.  Another is you are encountering  too many people who would rather talk about the ‘weeds’ rather than the ‘flowers’ in everybody’s psychological garden.

Both of these possibilities can be true.  Then there is the possibility that you are way too much of a noxious influence on others and, therefore, what’s coming at you is appropriate. That too can be fixed with the help of a good counselor or therapist.  If nothing negative ever comes at you suspect that you are surrounded by people who give ‘false positives’ or everybody’s too afraid of you to give you their truth.

If you hear more critical than critiquing talk, it may be time to change some things.  Ask yourself, are the people in your life more negative or positive?  Do some really love you and, if so, do they know how to love well?  Are you unknowingly rewarding them for criticizing you and, thus, reinforcing their tendencies to do criticism more than critique?  Is your interpretation system in need of improvement?   Are you really counting the positive things that are said to you, or are you discounting them, or even not really hearing them at all?  Most important, are you figuring out what to do about these things?

If you let criticism come your way more than critiquing, it can do you and your love relationships a lot of harm.  Are you going to help your loved ones who criticize a bit too much change to a more critiquing style?  With some work, anyone can make critiquing with love a most effective and rewarding love skill.  You might want to read related topics at this site in the Subject Index under the Communication heading: “Communicating Better with Love”, “Love Complaints versus Love Requests”, “Love Positive Talking” and others.

As always – Go and Grow with Love

Dr. J Richard Cookerly

♥ Love Success Question Which are you better at saying to yourself and others: putdowns or praises, compliments or complaints, criticizing or congratulating?

Emotional Intercourse

“What do women want?” is supposed to be a question that has baffled the wise for centuries.  Even Sigmund Freud said he didn’t figure it out.  Let me suggest that perhaps the answer is – emotional intercourse.  Time and time again when I use this term in couple’s counseling the women smile and nod while the men look quite puzzled.

Frequently a woman will say something like, “Of course” or “How true” or “That sums it up”.  The men will usually remark, “What the heck is emotional intercourse?”.  I think the truth is that males also want emotional intercourse at a deep instinctive level but are not so likely to be consciously aware of having this natural and needed desire.  When both men and women get, and know they have gotten, good emotional intercourse they express that it has enriched their relationship as well as their lives in general.

Emotional intercourse is an extremely important part of intimate, romantic, real love.  It seems emotional intercourse is one of the main things that keeps intimate love fueled and running.  To keep a healthy romantic-type love alive and growing emotional intercourse is probably a very vital, necessary requirement.

What is emotional intercourse?  Emotional intercourse is the frequently satisfying and often passionate giving and receiving of each other’s many and varied emotions.  Much like sexual intercourse it is best done naked – that is, emotionally naked.  Going emotionally naked engenders very real, without disguise or deception communication.  Emotional intercourse also is best done up-close and quite personal, and it’s best when it involves the whole person (facial expressions, voice tones, body postures, etc.) of each of the participants.

How is positive emotional intercourse done?  Emotional intercourse is accomplished by the speaking and showing of emotions, and by closely attending to the emotional expressions of another person while having and showing corresponding, empathetic feelings.  If your lover is sad be sad for their sadness and show it.  If your lover is glad be glad for their gladness and show it.  With each feeling your lover has you can harmonize with that feeling, and feel it and then show you feel it.

Emotional intercourse also can be accomplished by showing corresponding, empathetic caring when your lover hurts, empathetic anger when your lover is angry about something in their life, and empathetic concern when your lover is afraid.  These empathetic feelings are to be felt and shown whether or not you cognitively believe the feeling they are having is justified, rational, or right.  Remember, emotions are facts.  When you have one it is a reality, whether it makes sense to anyone or not.  Emotional intercourse involves intimately being with your lover’s psychological heart, gut and genitals as they feel the feelings that emanate from each of those symbolic centers.

To be good at emotional intercourse takes showing your own emotions.  That is done with varying facial expressions, tones of voice, gestures, posture changes and touch.  Of course, the more you can identify, label  and give voice to your emotions with words the better.

In order to enhance the speaking of your emotions here is a little learning exercise.  Make a list of emotions.  Come up with one or more names for emotions which start with each letter of the alphabet.  Yes, there are words that label emotions starting with each letter of the alphabet.  Aim for your list to have more pleasurable emotions than dis-pleasurable ones.  After you make your list think about when you have felt each of these emotions.  Pick out several and share these feelings, and the events that went with them, with someone you love.

After that ask your loved one when they have had the same emotions.  Pay really close, loving attention to what they say and how they say it.  Then show that you are doing this.  Usually making good eye contact, being able to elucidate on the emotion you think they are experiencing, and being able to empathetically reflect back to  them what they just said usually accomplishes this.  In doing this exercise perhaps you will start toward experiencing deeply satisfying emotional intercourse in a somewhat new and different way.

Sexual intercourse has a strong relationship with emotional intercourse in lasting relationships.  To have ongoing, healthy sexual intercourse with someone it almost always requires good, ongoing emotional intercourse.  Yes, people can have short-term, enjoyable sex without having much emotional intercourse with a sex partner.  However, to have a lasting and good sex life with a particular person, good and repeated emotional intercourse seems to be necessary.  If you get really good at emotional intercourse you probably will be getting good at one of the most important skills for growing lasting and highly satisfying, intimate, romantic love.

As always – Grow in love.

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly


♥ Love Success Question
What are three emotions you have felt so far today?  Who might you share them with and, thereby, probably feel a little closer to?

Related posts:

1. Intercourse Absent Lovemaking – a Love Skill
2. Listening with Love
3. Are You Talking About Love Enough?
4. Lasting Sex and Lasting Love
5. Sexual Love Laces

Gratitude - As a Love Skill

Synopsis: This mini-love-skill lesson starts with important questions about thankfulness; goes on to gratitude awareness, gratitude confusion, gratitude insensitivity, the self enrichment of gratitude, gratitude expression and ends with a thankfulness and gratitude challenge.

Thankful?

Are you good at being thankful?  Are you good at noticing what you have to be thankful for?  Are you good at identifying who you have to be thankful to?  Are you good at experiencing a sense of gratitude?  Are you good at showing your thankfulness and gratitude to those you love and those you would or might come to love?  Are you good at finding different ways to state your gratitude?  Being sincerely thankful and finding ways to convey your thankfulness or gratitude can be a very useful and constructive part of doing ‘affirmation love’, see entry “A Behavioral (Operational) Definition of Love”.  Are you aware that without gratitude sufficiently felt and thankfulness sufficiently expressed love relationships are likely to be diminished and often seriously damaged.

Gratitude Awareness

Do you agree with this statement?  Every positive and pleasurable experience of your life, and everything you achieve or accomplish, and every one of your victories, comforts and acquirements are things you have been helped to have and did not achieve all on your own.  Someone else did a lot of work with almost everything you eat before you eat it.  Someone else built the roads you travel on and the domiciles you live in as well as the structures you function in.

Someone else researched and developed the medicines you take and the tools you work with.  Most of your learning opportunities come from the endeavors of others.  Perhaps most important of all, someone loved you enough to keep you sufficiently thriving in infancy and childhood so that you stayed alive and are now able to be reading this mini-love-lesson about gratitude.  So, are you grateful for all that?

Perhaps today someone will smile at you.  Perhaps today someone will treat you nicely.  Perhaps today someone will do you a favor.  Perhaps today someone will give you a loving touch.  Perhaps today someone will make your life just a bit easier.  Perhaps today someone will say words indicating that you are loved.  Will you experience the pleasure of gratitude as these things happen?  Hopefully your gratitude awareness will be keen.  If not, work on it and be grateful to yourself for doing so.

Gratitude Confusion

Gratitude is not to be confused with guilt, obligation, sense of duty, owing somebody something in return, or anything else that might be felt as a negative.  Sadly, many people have been trained, or in essence subconsciously programmed, to cancel the joy of gratitude with one negative set of feelings or another.  Gratitude as an emotion just means you get to feel good that something good has come your way and you can have a sense of being grateful about that.  By itself gratitude does not mean that you have to, or should, or ought to do anything except have the positive experience gratitude provides.

Gratitude Insensitivity

Lots of people take for granted so many of the positive things they might otherwise be grateful for.  Many others take for granted not only the actions of, but also the people who are providing love and other strong positives in their life.  Many of the people I have dealt with in therapy stopped taking things and people for granted and became grateful only after they lost or were in danger of losing the most important people in their lives.  So many people are focused on some other aspect of life that they are blind to the things and people they could be grateful for.  Many others are insufficiently aware and grateful for the bundle of miracles they themselves are.  Did you know you are a bundle of miracles?  Everything about you and all your natural processes (biologically, psychologically and socially) can be seen as wondrous.  Dare you be grateful?

The Self Enrichment of Gratitude

Do you know that it does you good to be grateful?  First, gratefulness starts with awareness of something you appreciate and appreciation is a form of pleasure, therefore, you pleasure yourself when you experience being in a state of appreciating.  Second, gratefulness for something or someone puts you in a state of sensing a positive connection with that something or someone.  Third, both the pleasuring and the connecting senses tend to stimulate several healthful neurochemical events in your brain which are rather good for you biologically and psychologically.  Gratitude also frequently can give you something to enjoyably share with another person.

Gratitude Expressed

Gratitude shared with someone you love often increases the love and the occurrence of ‘love giving actions’ going back and forth between people who have a love relationship with each another.  Because of gratitude’s positive nature, gratitude shared can help you have or make a positive interaction and strengthen a bond with another person.  Telling someone you love that you are thankful they are in your life and that various actions that they do to express their love toward you is appreciated is best done as a free gift without any expectation of a return.  If there is an expectation of return when expressing gratitude that can be a disguised, selfish manipulation instead of just a true gift of love.  Saying thank you, if done in a perfunctory way without a true sense of gratitude behind it, may make the expression weak and nearly meaningless.

Overdoing it also has its problems.  Going on and on about something you are grateful for may produce embarrassment, awkwardness, suspicion and annoyance.  Usually the best verbal expressions of loving gratefulness are delivered clearly, strongly and shortly.  However, in intimate situations longer and more detailed, love-filled statements can work quite well.  Gifts, cards, notes and special experience gifts which express thankfulness to someone you love often are excellent ways to demonstrate love.  One of the best things about expressing your thanks to a loved one is that it can be fun.  It can be done as a surprise, a special, intimate event or as a social, laudatory and celebratory occurrence.

The gratitude challenge

Let me dare you to be grateful and from that actively thankful for things small, medium and large which others do for you, do on your behalf or do in your direction.  Let me dare you to express your thankfulness with a little more intensity than perhaps you usually do.  Let me dare you to express your thankfulness a little more frequently than is usual for you, and let me dare you to start today!

As always – Go and Grow with Love

Dr. J Richard Cookerly

♥ Love Success Question
Right this minute, what will you be thankful for about yourself ?

Related posts:

1. Gratitude As a Love Skill
2. Dining with Heart – A Love Skill
3. Checking It Out – As a Love Skill
4. Intimacy Creation – A Love Skill
5. Non-Defensiveness – A Love Skill 

Love Expressiveness

Mini-Love-Lesson #279

Synopsis: This mini-love-lesson greatly helps give due attention to how we do or don’t communicate love in other than with word ways, even when we are completely silent.  The high importance of expressionally sent love is emphasized and backed with some intriguing data.

There is a lot going on between people besides their words when communicating.  Why do we feel comfortable when meeting one person and not another – even if nothing has been said?  That is, nothing verbally has been said; a lot has been conveyed expressionally.  We message with our face, posture, movements and the tones of our voice.  Sometimes it is subtle, even subconscious, and at other times it may be blatant.  Expressional behaviors can be developed to great advantage in all types of love relationships.  How elaborate is your expressive stock of skills?  We have some expressional communication suggestions for you to think about.  One set of skills has to do with sending expressional communications and the other has to do with recognizing them when they are flashed at you.  You may want to add a number of these to your repertoire as best practices of expressional communication (see “Additive Talking – A Love Skill” and “Emotional Intercourse”).

Put simply, expressional communication usually is understood to mean the face, tone, gesture, body language and appearance variables which communicate feelings.  Actually, there is a lot more to it.  Take voice for example; voice variables include tone, amplitude, pitch variation and contour, tempo, duration, overtones and undertones, accentuations, rhythm, cadence, non-words like a sigh or pause or hmm or ahh and miscellaneous other sounds.  The scientific fields of Paralinguistics, Psycholinguistics and Sociolinguistics have published over a thousand research articles on expressional communication topics.  Therefore, much knowledge about this area is known.  The new brain science of Interpersonal Neurobiology also may be contributing relevant research (see“Talking Styles That Hurt and Help Love” Link “Other Ways to Say I Love You”).

Early studies found that in personal, direct, face-to-face communication only about 7% of the meaning was conveyed by words, about 35% by voice tones, about 55% by movement expression (such as facial, body and gesture expression) and 3% by other variables (such as clothing and atmospherics).  Isn’t it absurd that only 7% is verbal and all the rest, 93%, is called non-verbal.  This is one of the reasons we use the word expressional for this very important range of human communication.  “Non” just doesn’t cut it.  If we focus only on words, we miss much of the meaning.  If you want to become powerful and impactful when expressing your love, focus some on your words but much more on your looks and sounds of love.

 Did you know some research shows that your subconscious mind is analyzing about 300 bits of expressional information per minute in direct, personal interactions?  Likewise, the sending of expressional messages can be almost instantaneous.  Although most of this is being unconsciously processed, it can be brought into conscious awareness and worked on for improved impact. Link “Love Bids and Their Astounding Importance” and Link “Listening with Love”

“The way her face lights up when I walk in, just makes my day!”.  “It’s not what he says, it’s his loving tones that go straight to my heart”.  “He has a way of towering over me that really turns me on, but it also feels protective and sweet and, well, – loving, very loving.”  “She literally dances up to me when I come home from a long trip.  Every move she makes charms me and no matter how tired I am I get delighted and feel energized”.  “Even after all these years, I still get a kick out of her giggles and wiggles when I tease her”.  Those quotes show expressional actions creating love success.   They also reveal love cycling back and forth like an engine generating happy, love dynamics.

The degree of success of any love relationship can be profoundly affected by the expressional messages being sent, received and cycled.  It also is true that the lack of expressional love interactions can severely limit the effectiveness of love.  Even when the love that is felt is strong, but not much expressed, the benefits of love can be diminished. Link “Do and Don’t Love Talk”

The expressional choreography, going back and forth between people who love each other, can be like a beautiful, artful dance.  At times this dance can be fun and joyful, or intimate and romantic, or spirited and daring, or sensual and sexy or precious and tender if carried out skillfully and loaded with love.  To become good at this art form, takes lots of feeling-filled practice and plenty of playful teamwork.  I’ve seen couples of all ages, families, parents with their kids and diverse others learn the dance of expressional love.  Therefore, I bet you can too, if you haven’t already.

One more thing: Are you going to talk to someone about what you just have read?  It may be quite interesting to do so.  If you do, please mention this site and our multitude of Mini-Love-Lessons aimed at helping love relationships grow bigger and better.  Thank you.

As always – Grow and Go with Love

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly

Quotable Question:  How long can you talk your love to a loved one, before you have to start using words spoken out-loud?

Responsiveness and The Life or Death of Love!

Mini-Love-Lesson  # 267

Synopsis: Everything from responsiveness ping-pong to the five types of love effecting responsiveness is usefully covered here, along with perhaps some love relationship saving ideas for improving one's own love responsiveness can be found in this mini-love-lesson.

On To a New Birth of Love

Jaden looked and sounded as heartbroken as he said he felt as he sat across from me in a first counseling session.

Choked up and shedding tears he stated, "I just learned too late to be really responsive to my sweetheart and now she's left me for someone who is way better at that than me.  At first when she told me I wasn't responsive enough I argued with her but I didn't really know what she meant.  For a while I thought she meant sexually but we were pretty good there.  She called me a robot and a stone face and said I just didn't get it and now I admit I did not.  She finally explained I seldom spoke back to her when she made a comment unless she asked me a direct question, I seldom smiled back when she smiled, touched back ( Link “Touching Back - A Surprisingly Important Love Skill” ) or showed any feelings when she showed her feelings.  I read up on responsiveness and was surprised to learn that it meant to quickly, positively, and often appropriately, emotionally reply to someone or show my feelings back to them when they demonstrated their feelings.  I really hadn't been doing much of that, if any.

In the family I grew up in, we were obediently quiet or mostly just critical of each other.  You know, I didn't even say I love you back very often when she said it to me.  So, Dr.C., Is there hope for me, can I learn?”

In time and with work, Jaden unlearned his family's ways and did far better with a new love.  However, first it cost him a lot of heartache and then a bunch of self-work to get to the good love life he had achieved when I last saw him.

Responsiveness Ping-Pong

Lots of people say and do things just to get a response.  Sometimes what they want is a response with some love in it.  That might be simple and delivered by an upbeat tone of voice or a happy grin, a factual reply with an affirming smile, or by a curious question with a positive quizzical but kind look, or maybe even by a playful teasing reply -- just so it is rather quick and positive in some way.  What is said more often is not as important as the positive interplay it starts.  It sort of is like a friendly game of ping-pong. It is not a serious table tennis kind of game where winning is what is so important, instead it just is a mutual bit of back-and-forth pleasantness or fun happening.  The dictionary meaning of the words going back and forth do not convey the real communications that are occurring, instead the facial, tones of voice and other expressional behaviors do.

For many people trained and in the habit of focusing mostly on the meaning of the words being said and maybe missing the rest, this can be quite hard and confusing.  It also is difficult for the cautious who may have gotten seriously hurt when they made spontaneous, quick replies.  That happens a lot in certain kinds of dysfunctional families.

Five Types of Love-Related Responsiveness

Love relating depends on responsiveness.  Without responsiveness there is no mutual, interactive, love relating.  With good love responding, the relationship thrives.  With negative, or non-responding, or fake responding, a love relationship diminishes and then may die.  Here are five types of responsiveness effecting love relationships for you to know about and work with.

1. Unresponsiveness  A non-response frequently is perceived as a negative response indicating rejection, an insult, an expression of anger,  an attack or some other form of a negative inner response.  Remember, sometimes silence screams the loudest.  Especially in love relationships, nonresponsive reactions often trigger hurt, defensiveness, retaliatory actions and/or emotional and physical distancing.  A nonresponsive person may not have felt or meant any of these negatives.  They just may have been distracted, preoccupied, deep in their own inner concerns, doing rehearsal thinking about what they want to say next, or just not hearing well due to congestion or some other physical issue.  Quickly negatively reacting to an unresponsive loved one with anger, or accusatory complaint, or by guilt-tripping them usually makes things worse for some time.  It also can be quite unjust.  With tolerational love and kindness, checking to see if they heard you, or asking for a reply in an up tone of voice, or saying something like “I think I'm being non-responded to and that's bothering me a bit, so help me with that please" can often work much better.

2. Neutral responsiveness  In love relationships, neutral responses sometimes can work fine but sometimes not.  Neutral responses are things like saying "ah", "oh", "humm", giving a  nod or gesture, etc..  They are better than unresponsiveness because they indicate having received a sent message and usually being sufficiently okay with it.  This also conveys that the speaker is being listened to, at least to some degree, is not likely to be having a strong negative reaction and is okay enough for things to continue.  Too many neutral responses soon can begin to seem negative.  Neutrality in response to high emotionality can be interpreted as a lack of understanding, being uncaring or feeling restrained disapproval.

3. Negative responsiveness  Responses of anger, aggravation, exasperation, reluctance, disappointment and the like may just be a cathartic release, a defense against interruption or being talked over, or being diverted from a desired path or goal.  Some people tend to interpret almost every new input coming at them as some sort of negative or critical remark including even the most neutral and laudatory statements.  Likewise, they interpret informative, neutral and general comments as criticism or complaints aimed at them.  They often had one or more highly critical parents.
Then again, the negative response may indeed be a personal attack indicative of very unloving feelings and disapproval.  It even could be a subconscious expression of hate or a marked undervaluing of another's importance.  But sometimes it just is a habitual poor way of responding.  The thing is, with only one negative response to go on, unless it is severe and prolonged, you can't know for sure why it was made or how to accurately interpret it.  That is why a response of pleasant equanimity to the perceived negative response usually is best.  Pleasantly say something like "Honey, you sound unhappy, are you?”  That way you give your loved one a chance to reflect, explain and reorient themselves while not letting yourself get into a not okay reaction.  Being quick not to take offense or get trapped in sending negatives back to where perceived negatives came from is usually a better way.

A negative response often is not as bad as a nonresponse.  That is because it indicates at least some attention is being paid and some interaction may have begun.

4. Fake Positive Responsiveness  This has some value sometimes.  It may help keep the peace, give time for thinking things through, avoid destructive exacerbations, help us not sweat the small stuff and best of all allow for the emergence of tolerational love.  It, however, can have a high cost.  Fake positives can grow distrust and generate emotional distancing along with tendencies toward passive/aggressive relationship sabotage.
                                    
5. Real Love Positive Responsiveness  Just about anything said to you by a loved one actually may be a bid and/or an opportunity for some love interaction.  It also could be a tentative start to a loved one revealing personal, intimate and important feelings.  Then again, it could be any of 1000 other things.  More likely, it could be a little chance for a mutually pleasant and rather nice bit of joint, love-bonding experience.  It might be playful, affectionate, romantic or even a bit sexy and/or fully sexual.  In any case, it is an opportunity for something positive to happen; so why not use it and respond in a pleasant, positive way (see “Love Bids and Their Astounding Importance”).

We all miss these opportunities from time to time.  We all respond negatively or not at all sometimes, and fake positive is the best we seem occasionally to manage.  If we respond with other than love positivity to our loved one’s offerings too frequently, we may do serious harm to our love relationship with that loved one (this includes children, parents, friends and other loved ones).

It is a love positive when we respond with a smile, a loving up tone of voice, a love pat, a little affectionate squeeze, a bit of appreciated humor or wit, or with anything else that helps make a friendly smile or laugh occur.  Even better is when your usual demeanor around your loved ones is one of happy and/or caring receptivity and loving responsiveness (see “A Best Gift of Love”).  By making positive, expressional responses to most inputs from a loved one, you show the loved one that you respect them, value them and feel a loving positivity toward them.  Not only that, you also are sending the message that you enjoy their presence in your life and you find their influence to be worthwhile and wanted.  That, of course, helps build relational harmony and teamwork which is good for kids, friends, family and even strangers to see happening. ,Responding positively even concerning negative things helps a loved one feel safe with you and that can assist deep bonding.

Loving responsiveness and especially happy, loving responsiveness is good for all concerned.  That is because our brains produce more happy making and health making neurochemistry when we respond to one another with love and especially when it is happy love.  As love goes back and forth between people, both giving and receiving love causes a broad range of health creating brain reactions in both the givers and receivers simultaneously.  That is the biological equivalent of loving another as you love yourself.  It also is a form of doing what the Buddhists and Hindus call Mudita love which has to do with choosing to be happy and sharing your happiness with others (see  “A Best Gift of Love?”  and Teachings on Love by the acclaimed Buddhist teacher, Thich Nhat Hanh).

Learning to Do Better, Positive Love Responsiveness

To make ever improving quick positive love giving responses, often takes some doing.  It frequently requires unlearning relational sabotaging habits of unresponsiveness and negative responsiveness picked up in childhood.  Have you ever noticed that there are quite a few people who start most of their replies with the word "no" followed by whatever they want to say.  That speech habit is sort of self-defeating because starting any statement with a negative word like "no" seems to increase the chances of hearing a return negative reply.  Then there are other people who habitually start to frown whenever others start talking.  That too can cause communication self-sabotage.  Responding with unfriendly gestures, distancing movements, power posturing, speaking in gruff and or winey tones and a host of other expressional language factors all can be done non-consciously but, nevertheless, can have some subtle but considerably destructive effects on love relationships over time.

Good loving responsiveness is best done by being amply attentive to what loved ones are feeling and are dealing with currently in their lives.  Being able to tune in to a loved one’s emotional, overt and covert feelings is useful for every interaction with them.  That emotional tuning in to a loved one enables us to make appropriate and effective responses.  Also, learning to lovingly ask directly how or what a person is feeling usually is very helpful but not always reliable.  So, keep looking for emotional indicators to make your responsiveness replies spot on (see  “Listening with Love”and “Communicating Better with Love”).

One More Little Item.  May I suggest you try developing your own thinking about responsiveness by talking it over with others, perhaps loved ones.  If you do that, we would very much like it if you would mention this site and its many mini-love-lessons about the better how-to's of love.  Thank you.

As always – Go and Grow with Love

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly

Love Success Question:  What do you hope to see yourself do the next time someone, perhaps a loved one, does not respond to something you say, or makes only a neutral sort of grunt noise, or takes what you innocently said and interprets it as some kind of put down, criticism or other negative?

Blame Attacks Love

Synopsis: This mini-love-lesson starts with some important questions, goes on to 10 things to ponder about blame and then follows up with ways to reduce blame destructiveness in love relationships.

Important Questions

Do you get blamed a lot by people you love?  Are you a ‘blamer’ of those you love?  If blamed do you ‘counter-blame’?   Do you do a lot of self-blaming?  Were you brought up in a blaming environment?  What do you think blaming does to love relationships?  How do you feel when someone blames you – guilty, defensive, inadequate, angry, compliant, submissive, hopeless, indifferent, or what?  How often does blame lead to constructive action in your life?  Have you been in a situation where blame helped a love relationship get better?

10 Things to Ponder about Blame

Do you agree or disagree with the following:
•    Much blame involves an attempt to feel better by making someone else feel worse.
•    Much blame involves an attempt to impose your value system on another.
•    Much blame is based in persecuting another by playing victim.
•    Much blame is a dodge and avoidance of taking responsibility for handling something poorly.
•    Much blame is an attempt to not feel inadequate, at fault, guilty, wrong, etc.
•    Much blame is an attempt to be blind to one’s own self.
•    Much blame as an attempt to feel superior.
•    Much blame as an attempt to get control of someone else and manipulate them to one’s own advantage.
•    Much blame is an attempt to feel righteous, right, virtuous, sinless, guilt free, etc. without having to do anything curative or constructive.
•    Much blame is an attempt to give oneself permission to be destructively judgmental.
In a love relationship whenever any of the above statements are true they probably are destructive to the love relationships involved!

How do you talk about something being wrong without blame?

Look at these different sample statements.  “That’s all your fault!” versus “I think we have to make an improvement.”  They both can be addressing the same issue but one tends to trigger defensiveness and the other may trigger corrective action.  Look at these two statements.  “You stupid idiot, how could you have done such an asinine thing!” versus “I think we have a problem that it would be good to do something about.  What do you think?”  Actually, just about everything can be said in a non-blaming way.  Blaming tends to distance people, or help them want to resist or escape from you.  If the blame is accepted the person accepting it usually is more de-powered than empowered.

Whenever one person in a love relationship is de-powered the love relationship (team) is de-powered.
In a love relationship if someone is de-powered the chances are emotional distancing from each other will escalate.  Also blame can trigger fighting which can harm the love relationship.  Wouldn’t it be better to work at teaching yourself how to talk more lovingly and cooperatively, without blame corrupting your love relationship interactions?   There are times when blame may have usefulness, but in your love relationships isn’t it usually much more destructive than constructive?

What about Self Blame?

Self-blame tends to attack your confidence and bring you down.  Healthy self-love tends to do the opposite.  You can admit a mistake or see that you might make an improvement without a lot of self blame.

What To Do When You Are Blamed

One thing you might try is to say something like, “I hear blame” or better yet,  “Honey, I think I hear I’m being blamed, is that right?”  Not always do people talk more constructively and lovingly after hearing that question, but often they do.  Notice, talking this way avoids blaming someone for blaming you.  Sometimes two people in a love relationship make a contract with one another to work on taking ‘destructive blame’ out of their interactions.  Often that helps a lot.

What To Do When You Think You Just Have To Blame a Loved One?

You might try saying something like, “A part of me feels I just have to blame you for …  .  So, please, hear me out, and work with me on this so we both can get past it.”  Or you might say something like, “Let me bitch, and complain and blame you for a while so I get it out of my system.  Then love me anyway, if you can, and I’ll show you love too”.  This style shows you know you are blaming, and you take responsibility for it and want to move on to a more loving interaction.

What To Do When You Think You Are Blamed, and Maybe You Are Not

Some people heard so much blame growing up they hear it all the time now, even though that is not what is coming at them.  When you think you are blamed you might want to ask yourself, “Am I really being blamed, or is that just a complaint or is it identifying an issue and it’s not meant for me personally”.  Then after you’ve asked yourself, ask the same question of the person you think is blaming you.

Remember, how we treat others, lovingly or unlovingly, often says more about us than them.  Also, loving teamwork, done in constructive ways, usually can solve problems big and small.

As always, Go and Grow in Love

Dr. J Richard Cookerly

♥ Love Success Question Are you really willing to examine your own blaming tendencies, and do it lovingly as well as accurately?

Related posts:

1. Love Against Blame And It’s Hidden Harm
2. Love Complaints Versus Love Requests
3. Dealing With Love Hurts: First Aid Tips
4. Listening With Love and IN and OUT Brain Functions