Cracking the Code of Love

These are highlights from an interview between Shane Parrish (Farnham Street) and Dr. Sue Johnson.

The full interview is available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ws-4Oy0ongU

Dr. Sue Johnson is a researcher, clinical psychologist, and the developer of Emotionally Focused Therapy. In this interview, they discuss how to create, protect, and nourish fulfilling sexual and emotional relationships.

In this discussion, they walk through the life cycle of human relationships, from early infatuation to dating, marriage, and beyond while taking short detours to explore many of the hazards that are common in each stage.

Sue talks about finding, sparking and rekindling connection with our partner, why emotional responsiveness is critical to a healthy relationship, and she shares the recipe to a great sex life that all the popular online and magazine articles are missing.

Here are a few highlights from their conversation:

Many of us have no idea. We don’t know what we’re looking for. We just don’t want to be lonely anymore and we want somebody to have fun with and we want someone to have sex with. We’re caught up in the society thing of girls are supposed to look like this and guys are supposed to look like that.

What I’ve always tried to tell my children is, you can be attracted to lots of people in a very superficial way and you’re going to experiment with relationships, you are, because you have to get to know this dance, and you’re going to make mistakes. But what you really need to do is listen to yourself and listen to when you feel safe and when dancing with someone is easy and makes you feel good, and when you can be vulnerable for a moment and that person tunes in and cares about your vulnerability. That’s the person to go with.

Of course, things go wrong and they fight, they hurt each other and that’s a relationship. If you dance with somebody, they’re going to step on your feet. They’re going to go left when you expect them to go right. It’s just the way it is. The point is, in a good relationship, you can recognize what’s happened and you can tune in and you can repair it. It’s emotional responsiveness. That’s the basis of a secure bond.

Emotional isolation is traumatizing for human beings. You’re not wired for it. It’s a danger cue for your nervous system.

Attachment tends to be hierarchical. We can love more than one person, but in terms of who you turn to when you really need, in terms of where you take your vulnerability, it’s usually hierarchical. We have our special one and most people want to be the special one for somebody else, and most people want a special one. That’s the person that you turn to.

Distressed relationships are always the same all over the world at every age. Where are you? Where are you? Do you care about me? Do I matter to you? Will you respond to me? Will you be there when I’m vulnerable? Am I safe with you? Where are you? Where are you? And when the answer is, “I’m here,” you can deal with almost anything.

Emotional responsiveness is an abstract word that captures a lot. It’s the ability or the willingness that someone has to tune into emotionally and to allow themselves to tune into your non-verbals or your words, and to allow themselves to feel what you’re feeling and who respond to that in a way that you feel that you matter.

You’re more vulnerable to the person you love than anyone in the world; That’s part of being in love. On the other hand, if it’s a good relationship, you’re safer with this person than anywhere else in the world. That’s the paradox of love.

Relationships are live things. They’re live moving organisms, and they’re like every other live thing. If you starve them of attention, and ignore them, and leave them on a shelf for years, then you turn around and try to pick them off the shelf, well, I’m sorry, but they’ve shriveled and died.

The best thing you can give your children is parents who know how to support each other and stand together and help each other. Not only that, but you give your children something more valuable by doing that. You give your children a vision of what a good relationship looks like.

Dr. Sue Johnson (Dr.Sue Johnson), a clinical psychologist and the developer of EFT or Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy. The EFT model is considered to be one of the most effective evidence-based therapy methods available and is currently taught to over 3000 health care professionals every year. Countless couples’ relationships have been repaired and strengthened because of Sue’s work.

Sue is also the author of several books, including Love Sense and her breakout bestseller, Hold Me Tight: Seven Conversations for a Lifetime of Love, which is hands down the best relationship book I’ve ever read.

Is Unconditional Love Possible?

What we're really asking each other for, and what we should seek instead.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we were loved and accepted exactly as we are? Many times during psychotherapy sessions, my clients have uttered some version of, “I just want to be unconditionally loved! I want someone who can accept me with my flaws and foibles.”

I’m very sympathetic to the desire for a partner who is not prone to fixing and changing us.  As psychologist Harville Hendrix has stated, one purpose of adult relationships is to heal old childhood wounds.  A common wound is not feeling seen and accepted as we are. Love relationships can help heal childhood deficits by allowing us feel welcomed, wanted, and embraced as we are.

Each individual, however, has their own set of vulnerabilities and needs; there is a limit to what others can accept about us. Clinging to a demand that we be unconditionally loved might give us license to be self-centered or destructive. If we have affairs or are emotionally abusive, can we expect our partner to keep tolerating such damaging behavior?

It’s a pleasant fantasy to desire someone always to be there for us, regardless of how obnoxious we might be. Could our plea for unconditional love be a convenient way to use romantic or spiritual language as a way to cling to our narcissism and avoid noticing how we affect others?

What Self Do We Want Others to Love?

Sure, we want to be accepted for who we are. But are we truly being who we really are? Or are we being a self that has been defensively constructed to avoid the vulnerable aspects of who we are? Have we built walls of defenses and mistakenly taken this fabricated self to be our authentic self?  And then proudly insist that people accept and love this distorted, reactive self?

The notion of unconditional love raises tricky questions. Are we expecting our partner to love our nasty, prickly self? Is being angry and critical hiding something deeper that we don’t want to face or feel? Might our aggressive outbursts reflect a defensive pattern whereby we hide more tender parts of ourselves?

Criticism and contempt have been identified by researcher John Gottman as reliable predictors of relationship distress and divorce. If we have a pattern of lashing out in anger when we don’t get our way, we may insist that we want to be accepted for that. But how might you feel if your partner lashed out unpredictably, perhaps when you’re feeling most vulnerable? Even a saint would have difficulty experiencing love during such moments. 

We may hide our true feelings because we don’t want to feel uncomfortably exposed. Consequently, our feelings may come out indirectly. Distancing from what is alive inside us may explain why we feel irritable, moody, or angry sometimes… It takes a quiet inner strength to expose what is vulnerably alive inside us. We can relate to others in a more direct, fulfilling way as we become mindful of what we’re really experiencing and show our true feelings and wants without misdirection, games, or shame about who we really are.

I have found Eugene Gendlin's research-based approach known as Focusing to be especially helpful in uncovering deeper feelings.

Dancing with a Difficult Partner

You want to be loved as you are? That’s understandable. You want to be accepted with your human flaws and limitations? Of course! It’s easier to garner compassion if your partner can trust that you’re making a sincere effort to become more aware of your true feelings and longings.

If you have a challenging partner, you might recognize their tendency to be reactive and critical. Your love might prompt you to explore this together rather than separate, which includes looking at your possible contribution to cycles of conflict. But it would be unrealistic to practice unconditional love in the sense of accepting hurtful behaviors without voicing how they affect you and asserting that it’s not okay to be treated this way. This would be self-neglect, not unconditional love. In some situations, it might be easier to love unconditionally from a distance rather than remain in a partnership that is destructive.

If your partner pleads with you to seek help through couples therapy, you might want to consider it. Perhaps see this as an invitation to uncover and reveal more of who you really are—and to learn how to do so together in a constructive way. It’s difficult to see ourselves and our interactional dynamics clearly without reflections back from a wise, caring guide. I have found the research-based approach of Emotionally Focused Therapy  for couples (developed by Dr. Sue Johnson ) to be particularly beneficial. As the sage Rumi suggested, “Without a guide it will take you two hundred years for a journey of two years.”

Mutuality

Children need our unconditional love. But mature love is nourished through mutuality. Just as our garden needs ample sunshine and watering, we are sustained by respect, understanding, and nurturing.

John Amodeo, Ph.D., MFT, is author of the award-winning book, Dancing with Fire: A Mindful Way to Loving Relationships  

If you like this article or know someone who may be interested in it, please feel free to forward it to them.

The Power of Authenticity to Create Intimacy

  Written by:

 John Amodeo, PhD  Author of Dancing with Fire: A Mindful Way to Loving Relationships

We long for acceptance, love, and connection. But oftentimes we don't know how to create it. We may push away the love we long for.

Love and intimacy don't blossom by trying to pull it toward us or manipulating people. Connections thrive as we create a climate that's conducive for them. Love and intimacy have a greater opportunity to grow as we cultivate a climate of authenticity.

Being authentic in relationships is easier said than done. It requires that we tend closely to our actual felt experience. Rather than defend and protect ourselves, it means finding the courage to allow ourselves to be vulnerable and then show that to a person we want to be close to.

Dr. Eugene Gendlin, whose research led to the innovative approach known as "Focusing," ( see http://www.holisticcounsel.com/focusing/ for more information) found that clients who made the most progress in psychotherapy (despite the orientation of the therapist) were those who were contacting and speaking from their actual felt experience. They paused, stammered, and groped for words or images to describe their deeper experience rather than just talking from their heads. Things shifted and opened up as they stayed with their authentic experience from moment to moment.

Apply this principle to relationships: When we share what we're experiencing with each other, intimacy is more likely to arise. Dr. Sue Johnson, the primary developer of Emotionally Focused Therapy for couples (EFT), invites couples to contact and share what they're really feeling and wanting -- and she helps clients find the words to convey this. Through the power of such authenticity, conflict often yields to deeper connections.

Couples may enter my office complaining that they're having a communication problem. Although there is often truth in this, more fundamentally, they are usually having a self-awareness problem. They are in touch with their anger, their blame, and their perceptions about their partner (they're selfish, insensitive, or bad), but they're not connected to the tender feelings and longings beneath their criticisms and accusations. And they're not skilled at communicating their authentic experience in a sensitive, respectful way.

Blaming and analyzing others pushes them away. It doesn’t create the safety necessary for deep communication. It covers up what they're actually experiencing, which is usually something more vulnerable, such as sadness, fear, or shame -- or a longing to connect in a deeper way. Finding the courage to contact and convey this deeper experience, perhaps with the help of a couples therapist when necessary, is a key to resolving conflicts and creating a climate for a richer, more vibrant intimacy.

There are layers to our authentic experience. Being authentic means taking the elevator down inside ourselves and noticing whatever we happen to be experiencing right now. It may change from moment to moment.

For example, we might be authentically feeling anger. As we stay gently present with that rather than act it out, it might shift into something else. We might notice sadness beneath the anger, or an unmet need for kindness and closeness. If we can be patient with ourselves -- allowing the time necessary to uncover what most authentically lives within us -- we can then share that, which might invite our partner toward us and create a richer, more fulfilling intimacy.

Feel free to forward this to anyone you think might be interested

What is all this about love and romance anyway… and how does love work?

Dr. Sue Johnson says:

Love is not some kind of weird morass of sex and sentiment that comes and goes mysteriously.  It’s an ancient, wired-in survival code designed to keep those you can depend on close.   It’s the human survival strategy par excellence.  The bonds between parent and child and between adults are our safe haven in a potentially dangerous and random universe.  There are now hundreds of studies that show this and also tell us what the key elements in these bonds are what defines them, makes or breaks them.

This map shows us how to actually shape and create love to the point where trained guides, can now take a relationship that is going down in flames and show couples how to turn it around into - No, not just a comfy relationship - but a vibrant, close, loving bond. Moving out of despair and disconnection into the kinds of bonds we all dream about and long for.

For years we had studies showing that our way of working with couples shifted relationships into less conflict and more satisfaction.  But this is not the same as showing that it is possible to deliberately sculpt attachment - the special, deep emotional bond that our brain codes as crucial to survival.  This kind of bond predicts:

•         Strong sense of self
•         Good mental health
•         Resilience under stress
• 
  

It is now possible to deliberately isolate the key elements in love, such as emotional responsiveness, and in a short time to systematically guide two disconnected people to shape these elements so as to change the security of their attachment bond.

Terry and Tim (fictitious) came into our office talking about divorce. “He never talks” says Terry.  We have zero connection.  I don’t know why I stay.  I am lonely and mad all the time. “Yep, that is about right” replies Tim.  “All you do is complain and demand stuff from me and tell me how damned disappointing I am.  So I just shut down and turn you off. Just 8 weeks later, Tim and Terry see each other differently.  Their dance and the emotional music directing that dance has changed.  They can now see how they trigger fight and flight responses in each other, and how each of them gets stuck in defensives and distance.  After another few weeks or so, they start doing something incredible-they begin to build a loving, responsible bond. In just 20 weeks we didn't just change our problems. And we didn't just fall back in love, she says.  We went to a whole new level.  We never knew love could be like this.

Our study showed that, whether your secret insecurity is that you are anxious and always worried about being abandoned or dismissed, or that you are usually numbed out and defensively denying your need for closeness, this process that we call Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) works and moves you into new levels of emotional connection. The big shift is that people open up emotionally and become more attuned and emotionally responsive to each other's vulnerabilities and needs.  And we all know that this is what love is all about in the end.  It`s all about emotional presence, being there for each other, no matter what.

FEELING ABANDONED?

It is human nature to feel a sense of attachment with primary figures, e.g. parents and/or grandparents.   If this does not happen during childhood, then it becomes more difficult to have a secure, fulfilling relationship as an adult.  That’s where relationships hit a brick wall.

Some of the physical and emotional aspects of abandonment are: no appetite, light sleeping, anxiety, etc…. In order to heal yourself from deep abandonment feelings, whether it is from childhood or adult trauma, it is not necessary to remember the incidence, just to deal with the feelings.

The way I work with this issue is by first getting in touch with the feelings of the small abandoned child through a Focusing exercise (guided visualization).  This child is the part of you that usually has the feelings of insecurity, worry, aching for kindness, acceptance and approval.

After that, visualize the adult part as the strong and capable part.  Think of when you have felt the most successful and competent.  Then have the 2 parts communicate with each other.  The adult’s role is to parent/adopt the child and give him/her what she needs: acceptance, love, admiration, a sense of being heard, and a person to turn for help. The child’s role is to share her/his feelings and help the adult understand them.

It always amazed me, as a therapist, how powerful the Focusing exercise is for all my clients.  There are often tears of relief and love for oneself.  I see the change in their face at the end of a session, as if a great burden is lifted off their shoulders.  For individual therapy, this is a very powerful tool in my practice which is gratifying for both the client and me. 

Unconditional Happiness

Feelings are so important to us because we base our sense of happiness on our feelings.

We think we have to achieve something, acquire something or be in a certain relationship in order to be happy. Actually, we don’t need any of these things to be happy. We just need to approach our feelings in a certain way to experience a sense of happiness unrelated to achievement, possession or relationships. That’s called: Unconditional Happiness.

In today’s society there seems to be a huge gap: we are intellectually advanced, but emotionally unaware. The goal of unconditional happiness is to create a balance between intellect and emotion, thinking and feeling, reason and intuition.

Have you noticed that you may have strong negative feelings that you can’t seem to resolve, like: depression, loneliness, anxiety, etc…. You may also be experiencing active emotions such as: anger, jealousy, fear, which erupt from time to time, especially in intimate relationships, where our buttons get pushed the most.

Most of us are locked into fixed, limiting patterns that we find difficult to get out of. Until we release the feelings associated with these patterns, we will be unable to change. For example: Negative feelings cause stress and stress is merely a negative emotion we are unable to release. This does not mean that we can be stress-free all the time. Even in our most positive relationships, we will from time to time experience periods of loneliness.

When we resist an experience, that negative energy gets trapped and held in our emotional and physical body. This in turn leads to suppression. A suppressed emotion goes into the subconscious, and creates a body of unresolved feelings and emotions, waiting to be released. The problem with suppressed emotions is: if we don’t consciously release the feelings, they will start coloring our experience, making us react in unreasonable and destructive ways. Often we blame the other person for our feelings because we are not aware that our own unresolved issues are being triggered.

What is the solution? Not to resist those negative feelings, but to allow yourself to experience them. Know that when you allow yourself to feel the feelings, they will come to a completion and you can then be free of them.