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 

Protective Love

Mini-Love-Lesson #287

Synopsis: The courage of those who love protectively; our species reliance on the protective love of the cooperative; the 4 cardinal points and formulas for understanding protective love and its psychology; the protective usefulness of fear, worry and anxiety; avoiding over-protective love, plus empowering your own protective love are all concerns of this mini-love-lesson.

Among the stories about us humans, there literally are hundreds of thousands of verified accounts which tell of mothers, fathers, other family, friends, comrades and even humanitarian strangers who bravely defended and tried to save loved ones and others. No one knows how many gave up their lives in these actions of courageous love.

Many nobly give their lives in other ways. Those who defend the downtrodden, the disadvantaged and the persecuted are great practitioners of protective love.  Included in this esteemed group are those who search for cures for illnesses, maybe out of love for a lost or suffering victim of that illness.  Also of note, are the many who watch over and give care to those unable to take care of themselves. Then there are the troops who stand guard, ready to defend and protect.  Many are the others who care about safety and protection and work on better safeguarding devices and procedures.  There are so many more who devote their lives to protective love in large and small ways to the betterment of us all.

Love, real love, is protective! False love seldom is heroically protective but only pretends to be so. Protective love is of cardinal importance to the survival of our species.  Not too long ago, humanity was viewed in a survival of the fittest framework which emphasized conflict and competition.  More recently, our existence has been seen as actually more dependent on cooperation, mutual protection and on love itself.

Protective Love is understood to be hardwired in our brains and has been evolving over millions of years.  There is anthropological evidence that this protective drive predates human existence.  A great many species exhibit protective behaviors (which look like love) not only for their young but for others of their own kind and even for other species.

Cooperative, group, protective behavior also has been observed by naturalists studying higher order animal families, tribes and pack’s defensive actions in the field. An example are the musk ox under wolf-pack attack, who form a circle around their calves; they face outward with their horns lowered ready to gore any wolves hungry or brave enough to attack their circled wall of horns. Another observed example was larger male apes that worked together by standing between predators and the smaller young and females, and even threw stones and tree limbs at predators driving them off. Then there is man’s best friend and the many authenticated stories of dogs saving their master’s lives by attacking threatening bears, lions and tigers. Sometimes these dogs, even when severely wounded, continued to defend their masters even to their death.

Protective Love Is a Cardinal Love

When we shine a light on the meaning of cardinal, we see it indicates immense importance, essential influence and the highest order of significance.  When we combine cardinal with love, we see it points to love’s most potent aspects.  Then, if we add the element of protection, we have a formula that leads to the survival of our species.  

Protective love has the high standing of being a cardinal love because of four major reasons: 

1.  Love motivated protection and rescue has ensured survival throughout the ages.  If it were not for protective love, none of us would be here.  If that is not a cardinal principle, we do not know what is.  Arguably, the survival importance of protective love is true for all higher order species as well.  Protective love is essential to our continuing existence and advancement – protecting self, others, nature, and all that makes life worthwhile is our challenge.  

2.  Another reason protective love is cardinal has to do with our brain.  Our brain is essential to life and our way of being human.  Our brain is built for processing protective love.  That is evidenced in our neurophysiology, neurochemistry and neuro-electrical functioning.  Thus, our brain is central to our behaviors of giving and receiving love.   

3.  Protective love is cardinal because it encompasses many of our grandest, human actions.  Protective love has been the chief, driving force motivating millions of life-saving actions, courageous rescues and heroic defenses.  Steadfast and enduring, safety-focused actions done on the behalf of those we love epitomize the cardinal nature of protective love.  The altruistic and humanitarian efforts which bring safety to the endangered, healing to the wounded or sick, along with relief to the beleaguered are other manifestations of the cardinal essence of protective love.

4.  The final reason protective love is considered cardinal involves how wide ranging and broadly influential it is. Every way love can be conveyed can be done for safety’s sake. Every love relationship, at times, can need some protective and safety-oriented help.  Every time there is an absence of protective love action, where it might be useful or needed, damage to a love relationship may occur.   However, every time protective love is expressed or enacted it is likely to make a love relationship better.  Every time we are doing protective love, we are doing love relating.

The psychology of protective love is fairly simple. Love involves the high valuing of who and what we love. Therefore, it is natural to want who and what we highly value to keep existing, to function well, and be present in our lives.  Furthermore because of love, we want for the well-being of who and what we love. So, we act to be protective of who and what we highly value.

Protective love not only is an inherently powerful force, it also is empowered by some of our other strong emotions. One of these potent influencers is fear and its cousins worry, anxiety, apprehension and sense of threat. Those emotions can guide us to be cautious, watchful, on guard and safeguarding in our actions so that we can see danger coming and do something about it before it reaches us. Wisely handled, our fears can be self-protective and help us be protective of our loved ones. It is only when fear becomes too big or goes on too long that it becomes a damaging stressor. Fear, worry and anxiety can be our friends providing us with warnings we need to keep us and our loved one’s safe.

Another source of empowerment for protective love is our desire for our loved ones to do well, advance, grow, prosper, actualize and be happy. Anything that might be a threat to those positives, we tend to protectively act against. In short, we want the best for who and what we love and we can be quite powerfully protective about that.

When protective love becomes our dominant guide for how we go about love, danger lurks there. Protective love, even as wonderful as it is, has a focus on the threatening negatives of life and love relating. It is about defending against what can go wrong and shielding us and those we love. Healthy, real love works best when it is dominated by a positive focus on what can go right.  Doing love well usually requires a positive focus.  Protective love, therefore, must be secondary and assistive and must only be the primary way to go about love in times of distinct threat, marked danger and eminent distress. When protective love takes up too much time, energy and effort, it can crowd out the great, positive joys of love. 

As always – Grow and Go with Love

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly

Quotable Question: Do you know somebody you might like to tell about, or talk over with, these ideas?  If so, you probably will grow from doing that and so will they.  You also might tell them of our free, mini-love-lesson website.

♥ Love Success Question: Who could use some more of your protective love attention?

Nurturing Love

Mini-Love-Lesson # 286

Synopsis: The reparative and advancement benefits; the input for optimum healthy real love developing; the general aid to relationship wellbeing; the lack of nurturing in many false love syndromes; the sabotage of nurturing love that can occur; and the joys and necessity of the love that nurtures are all well introduced. 

The nurturing kind of love gets healthy growth to happen, helps find and develop all types of talents, spurs on achievement of goals and assists discovery and actualization of hidden potentials.  It also encourages the discouraged, revitalizes the worn down and helps the recovering to keep going.  Furthermore, nurturing love brings confidence to the unsure, gets the fearful to be courageous and the shy to go boldly forward. It is because of nurturing love that many people meet and surmount challenges, come to know and believe in themselves, make contributions to the greater good and become far more than they otherwise might have become.

With nurturing love, relationships of every type can become healthier, deeper, broader, climb higher, get closer, become richer and can be happier than they would be with an absence of nurturing love. Without nurturing love, many relationships would fail, would not reach their potential or would only exist in mundane mediocrity.  These are some of the reasons nurturing love is so important to relationship success. 

When we have nurturing love to give, we want for the well-being of who we love.  When we have nurturing love, we not only want for but also act for the benefit of those we love.  Sometimes nurturing love inspires us even to live for what we love like humanitarian causes, altruistic enterprises and other worthy endeavors.  The nature of nurturing love is to be helpful, constructive, caring and additive.   With nurturing love, we cannot help but care about and care for the ones we love.  Nurturing love is what moves families to function well, kids to get raised, spouses be sustained, friends to be supported, good causes to be worked for and important things to be cared about. Nurturing self-love keeps us healthy, makes our life richer and sustains us through hardships. In every way, nurturing love is broadly considered to be of great importance to the well-being of just about everybody and everything worthwhile.

A great sense of fulfillment and deep joy can be found in those people who live and love by nurturing the well-being of others.  Nurturing love virtuosos almost automatically seem to take pleasure in helping and watching their loved ones grow, mature, become successful, blossom, and find and develop their positive potentials.  They also take pleasure in seeing the continuance of what they have fostered.  An abiding sense of serene satisfaction often occurs when they observe those they have nurtured come to benefit and live well.  Their healthy pride tends to grow knowing that with nurturing love they have assisted the life and success of those they love.  When a nurtured loved one does well, achieves or advances, the most common statement is “I’m so proud of you”.  At the same time usually there is some pride knowing they played a part in that positive attainment.  In fact, seeing a loved one’s victories, happiness, good experiences, good fortune and goal attainment can bring as much, or more, joy than having won those victories themselves.

Interestingly, one of the ways false love syndromes seem to differ from real love is this joy factor in nurturing love (see our book Real Love, False Love: Which Is Yours? Answers & Solutions).  In most of the forms of false love there is an absence of happiness in seeing another’s advancement or betterment.  Rather, with false love quite often there is envy, jealousy, disappointment, resentment or indifference when a supposed loved one achieves or experiences something positive.  Instead of celebrating a life improvement, acts of sabotage, belittling, spoiling or even feelings of being threatened followed by anger and discouragement may occur.  Nurturing real love is constructive.

Increasing the pleasures of nurturing love can be achieved with mindfulness and purposeful effort.  Becoming happier when observing the growth and development of someone or something we love can be made a healthy, self-love goal.  Concentrating on purposefully lingering and mindfully enjoying another’s success can be achieved by this sort of self-training.  Gardeners who marvel and take joy in seeing the growth and blooming of what they have nurtured seem to do this rather automatically and quite well.  When we plant seeds and nurture their growth in others, we can nurture ourselves by enjoying the whole process.

Whether it is the small beginnings of new life like a child taking their first steps, a loved one earning a degree or a friend getting a promotion, if we encourage and support them, we can be enriched by purposefully enjoying what we nourished and helped to happen.  This applies to what we nurture in ourselves as well when we take joy in our own evolution and accomplishments.  These rewards, of course, will encourage us all to do more of this wonderful thing we call nurturing love.

As always – Grow and Go with Love

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly

Quotable Question: Are you nourished by the independent and unique growth and development of those you love?

Self-Love and 12 Reasons to Develop It

Synopsis: This mini-love-lesson covers what self-love means and does not mean; a list of 12 of the many things healthy self-love helps us do; and how to work and grow using this list.

What Self-Love Means

Healthy, real self-love means you highly value, honor and enjoying the unique bundle of miracles that you are, and that you have been since birth.

Self-love means because you highly honor your own essence and your individual shaping by life, you treat yourself well respecting the one-of-a-kind self you are.  Therefore, you are prone to act to safeguard and develop your gifts and appreciate your unique nature.  Self-love also can mean that you powerfully strive to thrive, live with vitality, delight in your natural self, and that you can be in awe of your own, miraculous, natural processes.

Self-love can mean you actively desire and work for your own well-being and strive to be your best self, not only for yourself but for those you love and care about.  You do that partially because the well-being of others, in a sense, selfishly means a great deal to you.  Self-love also can mean that you take healthful pleasure in the many ways you are built to experience pleasure and share pleasure.  Self-love also can mean that you work against anti-self-love teachings, programming, and influences that come into your life. Such factors can rob you of your strengths, restrict use of your talents, and deprive you of becoming the best self you can become.  Self-love also means that you act toward yourself, feel toward yourself and think about yourself in the ways that are in accord with the definition of love offered at this site.

What Healthy Self-Love Does Not Mean

Healthy self-love does not mean becoming uncaring, ungenerous, mean, stingy, greedy, egotistical, covetous, uncharitable, miserly, narcissistic, hedonistic, sociopathic or self-absorbed.  In fact it means quite the opposite of those things.  That’s because healthy self-love leads to more and better love of others.

You see, when you love yourself healthfully you have the selfish desire to see your loved ones do well, and that leads you to act for their benefit.  Their benefit is your benefit.  It is those who are poor in self-love that go ‘out of balance’ and become stingy, destructively selfish, mean-spirited, etc.  Healthy self-love helps you live by the ancient wisdom which says “Love Others As You Love Yourself”.

What Healthy Self-Love Helps You To:

1.    Believe that the love you have to offer others is good and, therefore, you offer it more

2.    Have a self generating source of energy and power to get through hard times when no one else is giving you their love

3.    Have greater self-confidence and, therefore, accomplish more

4.    Have greater self-reliance and, therefore, be less dependent

5.    Develop more adult maturity so you can emotionally take care of yourself rather than be like a ‘needy child’ who must be taken care of

6.    Be free to ‘want love’ instead of living in a state of ‘need love’ like a weak and needy person more susceptible to false love addiction

7.    Become more ‘inner self-directed’ than ‘outer other-directed’ and, therefore, live more true to yourself, rather than betraying yourself for the approval and acceptance of others, or rather than becoming dutifully or slavishly conformist

8.    Enjoy the praise, thanks and compliments that come from others, rather than automatically discounting them, or being suspicious of them, or becoming addicted to them

9.    Become motivated to take care of yourself so that you have more to offer both to yourself and others, instead of needlessly sacrificing and wasting yourself

10.    Be careful that the love that’s coming to you is of good quality, instead of taking       anything you can get (which includes phony love, contaminated love and love substitutes)

11.    Open yourself up to love chances, opportunities and adventures, instead of being overly protective or defensive about the love you have and, thereby, letting lots more love in

12.    Love life, love others and all that can be loved much more freely because you keep enough of your heart full through healthy self-loving to be able to give a lot

Working and Growing with This List

As a sort of homework to help grow your healthy self-love, you might consider doing these things.  Go back over the 12 items seeing which ones ‘grab’ your attention the most.  It is rather likely that those are the ones that it would be really good for you to examine closely and see if they point to areas you might want to make improvements in.  Are there any of the above items that cause you any level of discomfort or disturbance?  If so, that may represent some area you perhaps are vulnerable in and which needs some strengthening.

Do you find any of the above items more puzzling, confusing, confounding or curiosity generating?  Those, in particular, may (with study) yield clues pointing to areas you might want to and need to explore further.  When working on healthy self-love many people make really good gains by journaling about their learning and growing healthy self-love, and you might want to do the same.

As always – Go and Grow with Love

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly

♥ Love Success Question
Do you know the difference between when you are being healthfully self loving and when you are being destructively selfish, arrogant, conceited, haughty, contemptuous, scornful etc.?

Gender Diversity Love

Mini-Love-Lesson  #194

Synopsis: How a lot of people are a wide variety of something other than strictly male or female; the big problems that diversity presents; what that can have to do with several kinds of love and how those kinds of love can help are presented in this mini-love-lesson.

Whose What And What Difference Does It Make?

Transgender, transsexual, intersexual, gender dysphoric, omni-sexual, bisexual, homosexual, androgyny and other not strictly or primarily straight female or straight male gender variations have been scientifically identified as existing in the human race.  Both psychology and biology offer confirmation of these different gender diversity states being part of natural reality.  Neurophysiology, neurochemistry, neuropsychology and other brain sciences in particular yield evidence that gender is much more in the brain as well as much more diverse than previously thought.

What is not very different in all gender variations including heterosexuality is the natural need for love, the ways of giving love and the many beneficial effects of being healthfully well loved.  There are some larger differences in the area of love problems but even in that area there is not as much difference as you might at first think.

But for the gender diverse there are extra confounding complications, conflicts, confusions, stressors as well as some very puzzling romantic and heart-mate dilemmas.  Also there can be some hard to cope with biological concerns.

Perhaps worst of all for many are the very dangerous social and religious value clashes that occur in many cultures and subcultures around the world.  For all too long and for far too many, being gender different has been deadly.  To this day in many parts of the world having certain types of gender diversity can get you physically assaulted, jailed and even killed.

Especially dangerous has been the area of who you love and who loves you.  Romantic and spousal love, family love, friendship love, parent-child love, spiritual love and healthy self-love all have been fraught with stressors and serious problems for those whose gender is other than standard heterosexual.  Children, youth and young adults having gender diversity issues have suffered especially.  Embarrassment, shaming, bullying and religious guilt-tripping push many to suicide.  In pockets of the world, it is getting better but certainly not everywhere.

We suggest all this means the people of gender diversity can use extra acceptance, extra understanding and extra love.  So, let’s look at three very important, different kinds of love and what they can mean for the gender diverse.

Healthy, Real Self-Love

Healthy, real self-love is so often extremely important, hugely needed and so very often hard to come by for the people of prevalent and strong gender variation.  The problem is worse wherever there are prevailing anti-gender variation biases, fears, social norms, teachings and laws.  As perhaps you know, some societies, religious groups and families are much more loving and positive toward the gender variant.  Others are very condemning, anti-loving, rejecting, hateful and even murderous.

The gender diverse are so often confronted with overt and covert hate, rejection, exclusion and severe social disapproval.  Sometimes even worse is this.  Whether it is in a family or a whole culture, there frequently is a prevalent teaching something like “you should hate yourself for being anything but straight male or straight female”.  When that teaching becomes an internalized mindset in an individual, the results can be devastatingly self-destructive.

Doing the hard work of finding and growing enough healthy self-love to survive all that can be the best defense.  That is because healthy self-love is something you can carry with you and always have available.  Without sufficient self-love and its strengthen effects, it is very hard to stay okay when hearing “you’re wrong, you’re sinful, you’re sick, you’re not right, etc. for being the way you are”. 

Whether you hear that sort of message internally, externally or both it is destructive.  Depression, anxiety, self rejection, lonely isolation, escape into addiction, breakdowns and suicide all may result.  The good news is all that can be prevented, blocked and reversed with enough healthy self-love.  The bad news is self-love is taught against just as much as gender diversity is taught against and often by the same people.

Gender diverse youth especially are vulnerable to becoming victims of diversity negation coming from culture, society, family, religion, governments and elsewhere.  As gender identity and preference begins to emerge, insecurity and hormonal based confusions tend to mount.  Furthermore, the development of strong, healthy self-love frequently is quite tentative at best among the young.

If you are not strictly heterosexual, go to work on your self-love.  Learn, know and own the fact that you have a lot to offer and certainly are at least just as worthy as any other human being.  Then find out how your variance from standard is a blessing if you use it smartly, bravely and productively.  Most of all, learn and own the following: The core, real you is lovable just the way you are.  Also own that you have healthy, real love to give and that, all by itself, makes you of high value.
If you care about and/or love someone struggling with gender diversity issues, love them by assisting them toward healthy, real self-love.  See this site’s Subject Index concerning healthy self-love for more mini-love-lessons on how to do just that.

Family Love

Those families that offer accepting and affirming love to a gender diverse family member tend to have and keep better cohesiveness, be more resilient and generally function more healthfully and happily.  Those families who try to force or manipulate a family member into a conformist, gender role that the person is not comfortable with, tend to experience severe family disruption and family dysfunction.  Families that reject, shame, personally attack, expel, condemn, guilt trip and are judgmental against someone showing A gender diversity can and are so often ripped apart by these anti-love ways of behaving.

On the other hand, if family members have ongoing clashes about gender issues but they handle disagreements with loving tolerance and democratic acceptance of each other, they can be quite functional and successful.  Likewise, families wounded by gender issue disputes can be healed by activated family love, whether or not they come to agreement on the disputed issues.  Love focused family therapy can be wonderful for this healing process.

Best of all are the loving families that accept, expect and encourage their individual members to develop themselves in whatever way they want to, so long as it is sufficiently healthy.  Love is not dependent on conformity in such families but rather is given freely for whatever variations come about.  Then those variations become enrichments to the family bonded together by family love rather than restricted by compliance.

Friendship Love

Friendship love has been known to save the lives of those suffering conflicts concerning gender.  Friendship love also is known to greatly help lives to be lived well in spite of discrimination, misunderstanding, prejudice, bias, fact free opinions and the other negatives that commonly beset those who are a bit different in gender.  Friendship love also has been known to counterbalance the anti-love effects of hateful, abusive and indifferent families when they cease giving nurturing love to a family member of a diverse gender orientation.

Friendship love is so often a vital element in the development of healthy self-love among the more isolated individual struggling with gender issues.

A big problem arises when a person of gender variation fears peer rejection and, therefore, hides their gender differences, pretending to be someone they are not in regard to gender preference.  They tend not to do the required self-disclosure needed for the development of deep, real, friendship love.  If they do reveal their gender truth about themselves and they receive loving acceptance from a friend or friends, they then may blossom and their social whole world can change for the better.

If they meet with rejection it can be very dangerous unless they have sufficient self-love or other loving friends.  I do understand the fear and self-protectiveness and I suggest careful patience when deciding who might be a worthy friend to share your true self with.  Observe over time who appears open to differences and start with small revelations to test the water before jumping in the deep end.

Those who publicly show openness and acceptance to all gender variations do a great love-positive service.  They give to those struggling to figure out who and what they are gender-wise and to the self rejecting, the chance to know acceptance, inclusion and real friendship is possible for them.  From such demonstrations of open-heartedness, great and enduring friendships have been known to result.
In the next mini-love-lesson, “Gender Diversity – Romantic, Heart-mate Love” we will cover romantic and mated love issues among those of gender diversity.

Help spread love knowledge – tell some people about this site.

As always Go and Grow with Love

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly

♥ Love Success Question: How much do your ideas and feelings about gender influence who and how you love?

Related posts:

1. Other Genders Love
2. Age Differences and Romantic Love
3. Removing Your Hidden Blocks to Receiving Love Fully
4. Power or Love or Both
5. Does Sexual Preference Influence Love?