As promised a few months ago, following is the new section of the Care of the Soul booklet we use with people who are participating in the “What One Person Can Do” program, excerpted from the book, Real Love, by Greg Baer. To say that it is important work would be a gross understatement.
With all of the understanding that might come from the human mind, little of it will be of any value until we understand the human heart and our connection and impact with every other heart.
REAL LOVE – The Truth About Finding Unconditional Love & Fulfilling Relationships
Greg Baer, MD
Chapter 1 – The Missing Ingredient: What Relationships Really Need
Real Love in unconditionally caring about the happiness of another person.
Genuine happiness is a profound and lasting sense of peace, and fulfillment that deeply satisfies and enlarges the soul.
With Real Love, nothing else matters, without it, nothing else is enough.
Fortunately, there are two reliable signs that love is not genuine: disappointment and anger.
Giving or withholding acceptance based on another person’s behavior is the essence of conditional love, and nearly all of us were loved that way as children.
As a result, no matter how much conditional love we receive, we still feel empty, alone, and miserable. And although we like to believe otherwise, because we have received conditional love from others all our lives, that’s what we tend to give to those around us. We naturally pass on what we were given.
If you’re unhappy, don’t look to your partner for the cause. You’re unhappy because you don’t feel unconditionally loved yourself and because you’re not sufficiently unconditionally loving toward others.
We often need to see that we were not unconditionally loved in the past, not so we can blame our parents or any particular person; but so we can stop blaming the partners we have now and begin to find the Real Love we need to create the genuine happiness we all want.
People who don’t feel unconditionally loved are desperate and will do almost anything to eliminate the pain of their emptiness.
Chapter 2 – Getting and Protecting: The Many Faces of Imitation Love
When we don’t feel unconditionally loved, our need for praise is unbounded, and much of that need is filled – however briefly – when other people find us sexually desirable.
In fact, we often do things for people just so we can receive their gratitude. We prove that every time we’re disappointed and even angry on the occasions when we don’t receive an expression of appreciation for something we’ve done for someone else. But people who feel unconditionally loving don’t require gratitude for the things they do. Their concern is for the happiness of other people.
The pursuit of pleasure is a way to distract ourselves from the emptiness and pain that always accompany a lack of Real Love.
If we can’t have genuine acceptance, we can at least do everything in our power to avoid more disapproval. One way to minimize the risk of criticism and pain is to avoid doing anything unfamiliar. So we stay in the same boring, dead-end jobs, attempt to learn nothing new, and continue in stagnant, unrewarding – but predictable – relationships.
If Imitation Love leaves us feeling empty and miserable, why do we keep pursuing it? Because living without unconditional love and feeling alone are unbearable, and we’ll do almost anything to get rid of those feelings, however superficial and temporary the relief might be.
Victims are always saying variations on the following three sentences: (1) Look what you did to me (2) Look what you should have done for me (and didn’t). (3) It’s not my fault. Victims have excuses for everything and blame everyone but themselves for their own mistakes and unhappiness. We’ve all acted like a victim at some time in our life. Whenever we’re confronted with a mistake we’ve made and say, “I couldn’t help it,” we’re acting like a victim.
It’s a huge waste of time, energy, and happiness to wallow in excessive guilt when we make mistakes. How much more productive it is to simply see our mistakes clearly and learn from them.
Until a child – or an adult – is utterly convinced that he or she is loved unconditionally, even a small amount of doubt or fear is sufficient to destroy the effect of many moments of acceptance and safety.
Similarly, people who are raised with insufficient Real Love don’t choose to be empty and afraid, but they are. And in that condition, they will choose Getting and Protecting Behaviors, because they’re emotionally and spiritually starving, and they cannot be as loving or happy as those who have received sufficient unconditional love all their lives. Fortunately, however, we can all learn to change our feelings and behaviors. Helping us to do that is my entire purpose for writing this book.
To be more loving toward people, even what we don’t feel sufficiently loved ourselves, can contribute significantly to the process of feeling loved and being loving.
Chapter 3 – Being Seen and Getting Loved
Real Love, we can look for two characteristics that reliably identify it: (1) The absence of Getting and Protecting Behaviors. (2) The absence of disappointment, anger, and fear.
The most fundamental principle of all relationships is the Law of Choice, which states that everyone has the right to choose what he or she says and does. A relationship is the natural result of people making independent choices.
Remember, as I said earlier in the chapter, that a wise man is anyone who feels sufficiently loved in a given moment that he or she is capable of accepting and loving us when he sees the truth about us.
You only get to make choices that involve your own behavior.
Trying to change another person is manipulative, controlling, and arrogant, and it proves that we’re primarily concerned with our own happiness, not our partner’s.
Anything we get as a result of manipulation cannot be felt as Real Love and is therefore worthless.
But perhaps the worst consequence of controlling others is that we can’t learn to be loving, which is the greatest joy of all. We can’t be happy while we’re selfishly manipulating people.
And so, while we may avoid the pitfall of direct manipulation, we can still destroy our relationships if we crush our partners under the burden of expectations.
Expectations cannot be justified either by what we need or by what we have done for others. The Law of Expectations, which follows naturally from the Law of Choice, states that we never have the right to expect that another person will do anything for us.
Whenever we expect another person to change in any way, we are, in effect, demanding that he or she love us – care about us – and make us happy.
We can have expectations about many things, but we never have the right to expect someone to love us or make us happy, even when they promise to do so – as in the case of wedding vows. When we expect love, anything we receive can only feel like an order that was filled, or something that we paid for.
In all unhappy relationships, the real cause of unhappiness is a lack of unconditional love; controlling and expectations are just symptoms of that cause.
And so, no matter what our partner does, we can never justify being angry – the consequences of anger are just too severe. Anger is always wrong.
The truth and Real Love can never be separated.
But as we begin to feel unconditionally loved, we begin to see people without the blinding effects of emptiness and fear, and then all human beings become beautiful to us and easy to accept just as they are.
Anger is always a choice, not something other people “make” us feel.
We need to focus on taking our own steps toward feeling loved and being loved.
Chapter 4 – Taking the Leap of Faith: Everyday Wise Men and How to Find Them
If you’re unhappy in a relationship, you’re always wrong.
Some people seem to find it impossible to admit being wrong. Being right is a protective habit they will not give up. But such people aren’t bad, they’re just afraid and angry.
These people need to understand that; even though their emptiness began in childhood, through no fault of their own, what they do about it now is their responsibility.
If you’re unhappy in a relationship, you’re always wrong. As long as you focus on being right, you’re wasting your time, effort, and chance for happiness.
We can’t feel loved if we manipulate people in any way.
With faith, remembering that one person loves you can outweigh the effect of a thousand people criticizing you.
I don’t know anyone who would eat with pigs out of a trough in a muddy barnyard if he knew that a well-prepared meal was available on a table in the clean house – do you? And that’s because we really do tend to make the best choice we can see.
When we’re not being loving, it’s because we simply don’t see the availability of that choice. We haven’t been taught how to be loving. We’re incapable of doing what we’ve never been taught, and we can’t give what we’ve never received.
“Placing blame is useless. I’m talking about how you can move forward, be happier, and change your relationship.”
“Trust is not earned. It is given as a gift.”
A lack of faith in other people means that we remain doubtful and fearful, and that we continue to protect ourselves. And in that condition, loving relationships are impossible.
Faith is not a feeling. It’s not wishing or hoping. It’s a choice we make. With faith, we choose to believe something is true and then behave as though it were.
Most of us cannot talk about being unhappy without blaming our partners.
All he ever wanted was for me to love him no matter what he did, and I haven’t done that. When he screws up, I get irritated at him, and then he can see that I don’t love him unconditionally.
If we have not received enough unconditional love, feeling afraid and angry is unavoidable.
Real love is freely given and received. Expectations ruin the possibility of feeling Real Love. You will change your relationships and your happiness dramatically if you can just stop insisting that any one person accept or love you. Simply tell the truth about yourself and wait to be loved by whoever is capable of loving you unconditionally.
Every time we’re angry, we’re really just protecting ourselves from something we’re afraid of. Usually the thing we’re afraid of is not feeling loved.
“I don’t forget the things I want to remember – I never forget to watch the Super Bowl.”
Any time we decide to tell other people the truth about ourselves, we’re making a decision to stop using our Getting and Protecting Behaviors; and we greatly accelerate our ability to feel Real Love. It’s a wise decision we’re all capable of making.
Chapter 5 – The Effect of Real Love: Like Money in the Bank
For example, when we were young, our parents and a few others played a very large role in determining our view of the entire world, and if we didn’t receive sufficient Real Love from them – I offer no blaming here, only an understanding – we learned to react to everyone else with Getting and Protecting Behaviors, usually for the rest of our lives.
Sufficient Real Love eliminates our emptiness and fear from both the past and present.
We don’t need to feel loved by the people from our past who once failed to love us. We just need to know that we are loved by someone.
When you feel Real Love from just one person, that love gives you greater strength to interact with everyone else in your life.
Other people hurt us only because they themselves are drowning and doing what it takes to protect themselves and fill their own emptiness.
But victims need to avoid making their wounds the focus of their lives.
It takes more than a little love to eliminate the emptiness and fear of a lifetime.
We must get loved ourselves before we can love anyone else, and the process of feeling loved begins with telling the truth about ourselves to people who are capable of accepting and loving us.
I therefore recommend that you choose to talk to wise men for whom you will not feel a sexual attraction. It’s very difficult for you to feel Real Love from someone when you’re manipulating him or her for sexual attention, and you don’t want to do anything that will interfere with your fidelity toward your committed partner. In addition, I suggest that you talk with your partner about your intentions to tell the truth about yourself with others.
We learn to be loving in the same way we learn anything else – we practice, and the progress is gradual. But when we’re not grateful for the small steps people take, we don’t see their progress, which guarantees that we’ll continue to be disappointed and unhappy with them, as Patricia was with Jack. Being ungrateful is a natural result of having expectations.
Gratitude is not a trick of positive thinking. Gratitude is a choice we make to simply acknowledge the truth about what we have, which greatly amplifies our enjoyment of everything we receive.
Sadly, most of us learned a form of gratitude that can actually interfere with happiness. From childhood, we were taught to be grateful to the people who did things for us. If we failed to express our gratitude when people gave us an ice cream cone or birthday gift, for example, some adult usually admonished, “Now, what do you say?” In effect, we were forced to say thank-you to the people who gave us anything.
Regrettably, that approach usually taught us unfortunate lessons, but as the receiver of those “gifts” and later when we gave them. When we were pressured to be grateful, we didn’t experience feelings of love and happiness; what we felt was a sense of obligation.
Chapter 6 – Sharing Your Fortune: The Power of Loving Others
The joy of being loved is indescribable, but the joy of unconditionally loving others is even greater.
Loved: We Can’t Give What We Don’t Have. We can’t love other people unconditionally until we’ve felt unconditionally loved ourselves. We can’t give what we don’t have.
We also need to understand that loving other people usually does not involve telling them the truth about themselves, as Michelle was trying to do. Loving others is usually demonstrated by the unspoken acceptance or quiet acts of kindness. We see people clearly, when we see them as they really are – with their needs, fears, flaws, and strengths – instead of seeing what we want from them or fear from them. And we must see people clearly before we can love them unconditionally.
When we don’t feel loved ourselves – when we’re empty and afraid – we can’t see people clearly; we can only see what they might do to us or for us. Our vision is impaired, and that condition inevitably leads to expectations, disappointment, and intolerance.
While we’re experiencing the unbearable pain of feeling unloved, we’re blind to other people’s needs and feel justified in expecting them to give us whatever we think we need to alleviate our discomfort. As a result, we simply cannot tolerate anyone who will not help us. But most of the people around us don’t feel unconditionally loved either; so they’re naturally focused entirely on filling their own needs. In that condition, they’re incapable of giving us the happiness we expect, and they’ll even do things that inconvenience and hurt us. Our disappointment in others – and conflict with them – is therefore guaranteed.
Another effect of being unable to see people clearly is that they effectively disappear. When we see them only as objects that either serve or hurt us, who they really are does not exist for us. Obviously, we are then alone, the very condition we fear the most.
Seeing clearly is, therefore, the natural result of eliminating emptiness and fear with Real Love.
When we see people without distortion, we cease to feel threatened and alone. We realize that all the “unattractive” behaviors of human beings – attacking, accusing, manipulating, selfishness, anger, and so on – are just reactions to their own emptiness and fear. When we feel loved, we no longer find people “ugly” when they use their Getting and Protective Behaviors – we see that they’re just drowning and trying to survive.
The world is a much more beautiful place when we see it clearly; as are the people who live in it.
There are only two reasons we don’t accept people as they are:
- We want something from them and don’t get it. When we feel unloved, we cannot accept anyone who fails to give us what we want.
- We’re afraid of them because they’re criticizing, mocking, or avoiding us – or because they might do those things. How can we possibly accept someone we’re afraid of?
It’s the lack of Real Love in our individual lives that causes all the anger, racism, and contention in the world.
We generally don’t accept people as they are. We say we do. We wish we did. We know we should. But we don’t, and we prove that with our behavior.
Disappointment is so common among people that we believe it’s a normal and unavoidable reaction to not getting what we want. We’re disappointed if other drivers aren’t courteous, if our boss isn’t appreciative, if our spouse isn’t cooperative and loving, if our children aren’t sufficiently grateful, and so on. What we need to understand is that disappointment is absolute proof that we don’t accept people and things the way they are; and it’s always selfish and wrong.
Anger is a tiny step beyond disappointment, and is always selfish and unloving. As long as we feel angry, we can’t have a loving relationship with anyone. Disappointment and anger are selfish. You can’t be genuinely loving toward your partner if you’re disappointed or angry with him or her.
When we attempt to control our partner’s behavior, we demonstrate in yet another way that we don’t accept him or her. When we genuinely accept other people, our behavior changes in any number of ways. For example, when people make mistakes that inconvenience us, we almost always expect them to apologize, and then we generously consider whether or not we’ll bless then with our forgiveness. But if you truly accept someone, why would you ever require him to apologize to you for making the mistakes are are unavoidable in the process of learning? You learned from making mistakes, and so will your partner. People really do have the right to make their own choices, including the ones that inconvenience you. Demanding an apology is therefore selfish and arrogant, and in any case it will make you unhappy.
“We all make mistakes. It’s the human condition. It’s unavoidable. So do you. When you get angry, whether you realize it or not, you’re saying that people – in this case a lot of people – have dared to commit the crime of inconveniencing Your Royal Highness. And you expect some kind of apology from them. You want them to stop being who they are – with all their inconvenient flaws – and make things right with you.”
Our relationships will become much happier when we decide not to require apologies from our partners, but instead to apologize ourselves (which really means to tell the truth about our mistakes) and to quickly forgive (which really means to accept) our partners. By learning to give your partner the gift of your acceptance you’ll bring great joy into your own life, and you’ll experience an enormous change in your relationship.
It’s quite common for people – especially parents – to say “I love you, but I’m angry at your behavior.” This is a lie we use to justify our anger. When we genuinely accept someone, we never feel disappointment or anger as we describe their mistakes. When people feel unconditionally loved, they don’t get angry.
When you love unconditionally, you don’t expect anything in return.
I’ve heard you play the piano, and you do it beautifully. But when you were a child, didn’t you make lots of mistakes while you were practicing? “Sure,” said Sandra.
“And was it stupid of you to make those mistakes?”
Sandra finally smiled, “No, Everybody makes mistakes when they’re learning to play.
” “And everybody makes mistakes when they’re learning to love people, too.”
In the beginning, we all need to feel the love of people who are willing to stay with us while we learn to tell the truth and feel their love. We need to be loved while we have nothing to give in return, and while we still use Getting and Protecting Behaviors. Our partners need the same experience. Are we willing sometimes to be the ones who give that to them? Are we willing to love a partner who gives us little or nothing in return? If not, we’ll never learn to be loving and will give up the possibility of having loving relationships.
For that reason, I can’t propose strongly enough that the fullest measure of happiness in life comes from sharing our love with others at every opportunity.
As you make conscious decisions to share your love with others, you’ll experience a miraculous increase in the Real Love you feel, even if those whom you love don’t return the love you give.
Giving Real Love is relatively effortless, when compared with the enormous exertion associated with lying, attacking people, acting like a victim, and otherwise manipulating people.
Chapter 7 – Playing a Beautiful Duet: The Joys of Mutually Loving Relationships
Mutually loving relationships develop only after many acts of faith. If you want such a relationship, you must be willing to tell the truth about yourself to your partner even on the many occasions when you’re not sure he or she is being loving.
If we can’t provide the unconditional acceptance people need while they hear the truth about themselves, we should be quiet.
Do not consider telling other people the truth about themselves unless you are unconditionally loving and they are feeling loved enough to hear what you are saying.
In a loving relationship, you can always make a request, but when you’re disappointed and angry if you don’t get what you “requested”, you demonstrate that you were really making a demand.
If we make vague requests, or if we drop nebulous hints here and there, we shouldn’t be surprised when we don’t get what we want. Be clear about telling your partner what you want. Be certain you feel loved and loving when you make your requests. And then remember that your partner does not have to agree to your requests in order to express his or her love for you.
We cannot be happy if we keep score with our partners.
Chapter 8 – Real Love in All Our Relationship: Spouses, Children, Friends and Co-workers
We tend to fall in love with someone because that person makes us feel good. That is not Real Love.
“I haven’t had sex with Paula for all those months, either,” I said, “but I’m not angry at her.”
Bruce looked rather surprised. “But that’s different. She’s my wife!”
“So what?”
“But she’s supposed to have sex with me. We’re married!”
“You believe that because you’re married to Paula, she’s obligated to have sex with you – how much fun do you think that is for her? How would you like to be with someone who forced you to be with them and do things for them? You can’t have a loving relationship with Paula as long as you keep demanding things from her – and I don’t mean just sex, I mean anything.
” Most of us get married so we can feel justified in demanding that our partner make us happy.
In the absence of Real Love, sex can become a powerful and dangerous source of Imitation Love, and many of us will do almost anything to get it.
There is nothing that will make you more sexually appealing to your partner than if he or she knows you genuinely care about his or her happiness.
“That’s because when people feel loved, they lose their need to protect themselves with anger. The more you do this – talk to people who can see you and accept you- the easier it will be for you to be loving toward Matt.”
When people feel unconditionally loved, most sexual dysfunction disappears.
Good parenting is not a technique but a natural result of unconditionally loving and teaching our children.
No parent ever has the right to expect love from a child. It’s the responsibility of parents to teach and love their children, not the other way around.
When our children are angry, rebellious, or otherwise difficult, they’re reacting to insufficient Real Love in their lives, and we parents always have a major responsibility for that.
There is no job in the world more important than being a parent, but our behavior testifies that we don’t believe that.
“Amazing; I really do have a choice. When I remember that I’m loved, I don’t feel angry at anyone. I like having a choice instead of always getting angry and feeling miserable.”
I suggest that most problems in the workplace do not result from a lack of information, insufficient technology, or poor management techniques but from a lack of Real Love.
As we feel Real Love of other human beings, we naturally strengthen our connection to God, the source of perfect and infinite love.
Chapter 9 – Dealing with Obstacles on the Path to Real Love: Disappointment, Anger, and Getting and Protecting Behaviors
It’s possible to disagree without becoming involved in a conflict, and it’s the conflict, not the disagreement, that harms relationships.
A single hateful argument can neutralize the effect of a hundred words of acceptance. Experts often propose ways to “manage” those conflicts, but I suggest that we not settle for the superficial and temporary effect of such techniques and learn instead to eliminate as much conflict as possible by filling our lives with unconditional love and genuine happiness.
We create conflict, on the other hand, when we demand that other people respond to us in any particular way.
In any relationship, there will always be simple differences or disagreements, but Real Love eliminates the disappointment and anger that turn disagreements into conflicts.
Controlling other people is selfish and wrong. We’re never justified in demanding that our partners do what we want – not when we badly need it, not when they have more than enough to give, and not even when they’re married to us.
Every time you find yourself becoming irritated or unhappy, take one or more of the following steps. They can be taken in any order and repeated many times.
- Be quiet
- Be wrong
- Feel love
- Get loved
- Be loving
When you’re angry, you will not say anything loving or productive, and therefore, when you’re angry, do not speak.
So any time you feel disappointment or anger, repeat, “If I’m disappointed or angry, I’m wrong.” and you won’t be able to maintain those feelings for long.
Anger is a sure sign to us that we cannot see our partner clearly. When we’re angry, we’re blind – we are wrong. It is most unwise to continue speaking in that condition.
When you’re angry, you’re unloving, blind, trying to control your partner, and expecting him or her to make you happy. You couldn’t be more wrong.
When we’re absolutely certain that we’re loved – when we have that one thing that matters most in all the world – the disagreements and anger of other people are no longer threatening to us. With Real Love, we don’t become afraid and have no need to get angry.
Notice that Janet’s anger – and her conflict with her boss – was not resolved by some clever technique of communication, it was resolved as Janet took all four of the steps we’ve discussed thus far. First, she exercised self-control and kept quiet. She then remembered that she was loved well enough to call her wise friend and tell the truth about herself – that she was unloving and afraid. And, as she did that, she took the step of being wrong by speaking a variation of the words “If I’m angry, I’m wrong,” thereby telling the truth about herself and creating an opportunity to feel unconditionally loved.
When you’re angry at your partner, you may not feel like doing something loving for him or her. But if you do it anyway, you’ll create an opportunity for both of you to feel the miracle of Real Love in your lives.
When we tell people the truth without being unconditionally loving, or when they’re not capable of hearing the truth about themselves, we can only hurt them, and we need to keep our observations to ourselves.
We can learn how to lovingly help people see the truth about their lies, and one way to do that is to tell them the truth about ourselves. Obviously the first requirement is that we ourselves feel loved.
As we tell the truth about ourselves, we give others the courage to do the same and the opportunity to feel unconditionally loved by us.
People are only angry because they’re empty and afraid. When we defend ourselves, they feel even more afraid and use their Protecting Behaviors more vigorously. And on it goes. We can, however, stop the vicious cycle simply by telling the truth about ourselves, because when one or both parties in a disagreement admit to being wrong, it’s difficult to continue the argument. And as we practice telling the truth and feeling loved, we can actually be loving toward the people who are attacking us.
When we feel loved, we can see unloving criticism for what it is – an attempt by a frightened person to protect himself from further emptiness and fear.
Victimhood is the result of our belief that other people have an obligation to make choices that will benefit us. It’s a combination of anger (that we’re not getting as much as we think we should) and fear (that we’ll be hurt).
It’s difficult to have a relationship with a victim, because victims see everyone else in the world as doing things to them or for them. They see people as objects that will either make them happy or hurt them. As a result, they can’t have relationships at all, because you can’t have a relationship with an object.
We run to protect ourselves. When we withdraw physically and emotionally from people, we’re running. When we drink alcohol and take drugs, we’re running.
We can, however, care unconditionally about another person’s happiness and still choose not to spend time with him or her.
Joanne discovered this about the relationship she had with two friends. After learning to tell the truth about herself, Joanne began to feel loved and slowly gained the ability to love other people, but two of her longtime friends wanted nothing to do with telling the truth. They constantly talked about people behind their backs, got angry, acted like victims, and manipulated people for approval.
When they did those things with Joanne, who was still unfamiliar with feeling and giving Real Love, she forgot how loved she felt with the wise men and women she found, and she became empty and afraid. Then, of course, she resumed using Getting and Protective Behaviors of her own. When she finally realized that the time she was spending with these friends was making it difficult for her to remain happy, she stopped associating with them. She continued to love them – she genuinely cared about their happiness – but she also knew that her spending time with them was not benefiting either her or them.
Make yourself a splendid day and know that you are loved absolutely and without condition!
Namaste!
Bill
