How To Love Like You Did When It Was New

Do you remember how you behaved when you were first falling in love?

You have the power to change this and recreate some of what it was like during the early stages of the relationship. And in reality, it doesn’t take an enormous effort to do so

In all likelihood, you listened intently to what your partner had to say, found something magical in the most mundane biographical details, missed each other, and were eager to be together whenever you were apart.

You probably went out of your way not only to listen to this new person in your life but also to do things to make that person happy – anything from very grand, romantic gestures to small acts of consideration, and you in turn received similar gestures with gratitude.

If you are in a relationship, you aren’t in that elevated state right now, and are like most people, chances are your way of interacting has changed considerably, and you’re less thoughtful, less focused on your partner, and less appreciative. You have the power to change this and recreate some of what it was like during the early stages of the relationship. And in reality, it doesn’t take an enormous effort to do so.

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…it is more accurate to say that indifference, not hate (or fear), is the opposite of love.

People generally think of love and hate as polar opposites, and this is reasonable; intuitively, the feelings seem antithetical, but in some respects they are more similar than they are different. They are both intense. They both demand substantial emotional and mental energy. Most people devote more attention to those they love and those they despise than to those about whom they feel neutral. Thus, in a very significant way, it is more accurate to say that indifference, not hate (or fear), is the opposite of love.

The inspiration for this understanding comes from our Tantra teacher’s teacher, Swami Gitananda Giri. He defined love as, “profound interest.” This observation not only illustrates our perspective on love and indifference; it also points to a practical method for keeping love and passion alive. All you have to do is actively maintain an interest in your partner.

How do you begin? The first step is to cultivate the ability to pay attention. As any experienced meditator knows, the capacity for sustained attention will fluctuate; similarly, your capacity to be profoundly interested in your partner will vary from time to time and situation to situation. It would be impossible, and undesirable, to be profoundly interested in your partner all the time and during every interaction. As with meditation, the fluctuations are to be expected; the value lies in making the effort and communicating your interest as best you can.

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The small moments of everyday life are the building blocks of relationship.

To frame this concept in somewhat more conventional – and clinical – terms, the couples therapist John Gottman uses the phrase, “turning toward.” According to Gottman, you should, “ . . .be aware of bids for connection and turn toward them. The small moments of everyday life are the building blocks of relationship.”

Every effort to display profound interest in your partner is at once a bid for connection and an act of turning toward. This can be as simple as taking a few minutes to listen to something your beloved is saying, even if you’d rather be doing something else. Consistently turning toward each other, and receiving and acknowledging the bids for connection whenever possible, will create a positive feedback loop that reinforces the mutuality of your profound interest.

When it comes to lovemaking, keeping profound interest in mind can be crucial. It is an important component in the process of developing sexual self-knowledge as a couple. If you aren’t deeply interested in your partner’s sexuality, you won’t be able to gain much insight into your sexual life together, even if you know yourself and your body.

If this is true in the broad sense of developing knowledge of your sexual life together, it is perhaps even more important in the context of any given sexual encounter. Good lovers need to cultivate the ability to tune in and notice what’s happening internally, while simultaneously observing the way a partner is responding. Being able to focus intently on your beloved’s state (without losing track of your own) is the key to giving pleasure.

While many people think that love means your partner will anticipate your every need, this ability is really the product of repeated checking in – both verbally and non-verbally – of building a body of knowledge that’s based on profound interest.

Written by Mark A. Michaels & Patricia Johnson of www.goodmenproject.com




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UNIQUENESS: ONE THING THAT GUARANTEE SUCCESS BOTH IN PUBLIC SPEAKING AND MARRIAGE!

The speaker walks a bit more slowly than you’d expect up the steps to the dais, across it, to the podium. Just slow enough that the applause begins to slacken before he’s there. Something is on his mind.

He just needs a little more time to mull it over, but time is up. He has to decide. The seconds are ticking away and the crowd is quiet now. He’s behind the podium and he fumbles in the breast pocket of his suit coat and pulls out the pages of the speech he prepared. It looks like his hands must be a bit shaky — he’s having a hard time unfolding the paper.

He finally gets the speech unfolded and almost puts it down on the podium, but stops as a sudden peace washes over his face. His mouth opens halfway and then closes again. Is that the faintest trace of a smile? He folds the speech back up. That’s definitely a smile. He puts the now-useless script back into his pocket and leans into the podium, confident. A sigh. Another smile. And then he begins to speak.

This is the formula. It means the audience is about to hear something authentic. This is what they really wanted to hear. Or really needed to hear. The truth. Before the scene is done, there’s a shot of at least three audience members with shiny, teary eyes because this shit is real and necessary.

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In life there are speeches we’re given to read that aren’t authentic. Things we’re supposed to say or think or feel or do that really don’t match who we are individually.

It’s a powerful image because we all know that in life there are speeches we’re given to read that aren’t authentic. Things we’re supposed to say or think or feel or do that really don’t match who we are individually. We all get up and get dressed and go out and read from scripts every day. 

Not in speeches exactly — not often anyway — but in our conversations. “Hi. How are ya’?” “I’m fine. You?” “Fine.” 

We do it with actions, attitudes, and even thoughts as much as with our words. We talk and live from speeches and scripts that we’ve rehearsed our whole lives, to the point that we’re almost unaware that we’re doing it at all.

This is probably good.

If we had to take the time and energy to make sure that every word, action, and thought was an authentic reflection of exactly who we are, then we wouldn’t get a whole hell of a lot done. We have to have prepared, pre-approved speeches to get through the day, otherwise everything grinds to a halt as we figure out every interaction from scratch.

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Who writes the speeches? I think we write some of them ourselves. But I think a lot more of them have just been tweaked and adjusted with each generation and were written ages ago by people no one has ever met.

The older an idea is, the harder it is to recognize where the script ends and we begin.

Take marriage, for example. It’s an ancient institution. The decisions we make about marriage affect the courses of our lives, yet we often aren’t even aware we’re deciding anything. The questions we’re brought up to ask about marriage (church wedding? caterer? open bar? invite list?) beg for more detailed questions.

When a man asks “Is she the one?” it begs the question of whether the one is a she, whether a “One” exists, whether the one is only one, and whether marriage is the a good idea if she is. For many men the answer will be yes on all counts. For others, not so much.

Other scripts that are pre-written for us include buying an engagement ring, taking on traditional, gender-assigned roles within the marriage, or having kids.

Anyone who’s in a relationship has made decisions about these, and probably hundreds of other topics, whether they’re aware of it or not. When a traditionally minded man goes out shopping for an engagement ring, he’s decided that engagement rings are a thing he agrees with — even if it never occurred to him to ask the question. He’s reading from the “Marriage Script”.

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In my own marriage, I’ve found that the pre-written speech has had amazing moments. I’m a straight guy who’s been faithfully married to one woman for almost 15 years; we have two kids; we got married in a church; there was a cake. There have been plenty of times when the whole thing would’ve been derailed or just bogged down to a molasses crawl if we’d insisted on agonizing over every detail; slogging through it, line by line, word by word, choice by choice.

But there have also been plenty of times that the prepared remarks didn’t fit my wife and I at all. Some of the toughest times in my marriage have been when my wife and I kept trying to fit into the one-size-fits-all script we were given, often without realizing that’s what we were doing. Some of the biggest successes we’ve had in our marriage happened when we finally stopped, looked around, and asked ourselves, “Why are we even doing this?” Just asking the questions is often the hardest part, because many solutions are clear if you’re willing to throw away the script.

Every individual, every couple, and every marriage are unique.

I’m convinced that anyone who says they know exactly what someone else’s marriage should look like is … well … wrong. Every individual, every couple, and every marriage are unique. While the scripts they follow might do well to be inspired by the ones that have been written for us, the final drafts have to be written, together, by the participants themselves.

Not every couple is actually compatible, but as hard as it is to find a person you’re compatible with, it’s even harder when you don’t let yourselves ad lib through scripts written by strangers, too.

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A BURNT BISCUIT NEVER HURT ANYONE... BUT HARSH WORDS DO!

HERE IS ONE STORY YOU WONT WANT TO FORGET!

"When I was a kid, Mum liked to make food for dinner & I remember one night in particular when she had made dinner after a long, hard day at work. On that evening, Mum placed a plate of bread, jam and extremely burned biscuits in front of my dad.

 

I remember waiting to see if anyone noticed! Yet, all my dad did was reach for his biscuit, smiled at my Mum and asked me how my day was at school. I don't remember what I told him that night, but I do remember hearing my Mum apologize to my dad for burning the biscuits. And I'll never forget what he said: "Honey, I love burned biscuits."

Later that night, I went to kiss Daddy good night and I asked him if he really liked his biscuits burned. He wrapped me in his arms and said,

"Your mum had a long hard day at work today and she's really tired. And besides... A burnt biscuit never hurt anyone but harsh words do!"

You know, life is full of imperfect things...and imperfect people. I'm not the best.

What I've learned over the years is that learning to accept each others faults and choosing to celebrate each others differences, is one of the most important keys to creating a healthy, growing and lasting relationship. So...please pass me a biscuit. And yes, the burnt one will do just fine!

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1 REASON I DON'T CHEAT... by Ben Martin

In a word: Trust.

I don’t cheat because, for me, love and all its facets are based on trust. Being loved, in a romantic sense, means opening oneself to someone and being accepted in every respect. That kind of openness requires an incredible amount of trust.

Think of all the things we keep hidden from the world on any given day. Think of the thoughts and fears and insecurities we don’t broadcast. On behalf of the world, I’d like to say, “Thanks! Good call!” I guarantee that even if I don’t mind listening to strangers whisper their secrets and insecurities to me while waiting at the bus stop, someone else does. That’s not because I don’t have insecurities and character flaws myself—we all do. Maybe we’ve always been self-conscious about the size of our feet or our peculiar sexual peccadilloes. Perhaps we just have poor math skills or still resent our older brother.

Regardless of what our foibles and flaws are, we need boundaries because otherwise we’d never be able to tolerate one another. Despite the fact that boundaries are important, we also need a safe place to relax those boundaries. Otherwise we’re living in isolation. That’s where having a relationship based on trust comes in. A trusting relationship gives us a place to drop our boundaries with someone—a small, safe place to be our genuine selves in a world that keeps rigid rules about decorum.

Needing someone you can trust is all well and good, but creating trust is a two way street. How can I trust someone who doesn’t trust me? How can I expect someone to trust me if I don’t allow myself to trust them? Those questions were rhetorical. I can’t. That’s why it’s so important for me to be honest and forthright with my wife. Otherwise, I’m showing her that I’m not safe to be open with. And if she doesn’t feel safe being open with me, then I can’t feel safe being honest and forthright with her. It’s a system that’s based on reciprocity. “Cheating” means actions that undermine our ability to trust and love someone. Sexual cheating is only one piece of what it’s really about.

I’m not going to go out and have an affair for the same reason that I’m not going to talk to others about my wife’s foibles and fears or mock her for her mistakes or dismiss her thoughts and ideas or do anything else that would indicate that she’s not a whole person who deserves to have a partner she can trust. She knows that and she’s not going to do those things to me either. How do I know? Because we’ve spent 15 years learning what it means to trust one another. Inasmuch as all of those actions damage our ability to trust one another, they’re all cheating.

So, why don’t I cheat? I don’t cheat because I love my wife. I love the person she really is, and I want to be her safe place—the person she can trust enough to really be herself around. If I violate that trust, then I lose the real her.

Written by Ben Martin of goodmenproject.com

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IF YOU WANT TO MAKE MORE MONEY... INVEST IN YOUR RELATIONSHIP

What’s your best investment pick for 2014? Is it high-tech like Apple or Google, oil such as Exxonmobil, or banks like JPMorganChase? While all of those companies are recommended by experts, your most trusted investment pick for 2014 is actually your marriage. While investments, by nature, carry with it a risk, the dividends you’ll receive by investing in your relationship will yield both immediate and long-term results.

Here are four reasons why investing in your marriage will actually make you more money than last year.

1. A bad marriage is expensive Not only will divorce drain your assets by splitting your disposable income in two, not to mention all of the lawyer fees, but the tumultuous period leading up to the divorce may also harm you financially. Men or women who are planning a divorce are often thinking ahead about their future and want to make sure they are as financially secure as possible. This may mean spending money on clothes or to furnish a new apartment before divorce is official and the joint credit cards and bank accounts have been cancelled. Once you get divorced, whatever you have left will be limited. I’ve even had divorce lawyers tell me that they recommend their clients stay together as divorce is too expensive! A bad marriage and subsequent divorce is the worst investment you could possibly make.

2. A bad marriage will make you less productive. If your marriage is bad, you’ll be dealing with constant stress in your life. It will disrupt your productivity as you may have to interrupt your workday frequently to deal with arguments with your spouse over the phone or email. Even if you are not directly dealing with your conflict, your concentration at work is likely to be disturbed. The stress of not getting along is also likely to drain you emotionally and physically. When our brain is under stress, we can’t perform optimally and are unable able to harness all of our cognitive resources and apply them to the task at hand. While work certainly has its own share of stress and challenges, if you have a good relationship with your spouse, you won’t have the added stress of a bad marriage thrown into the mix.

3. A bad marriage will incur more debt One of the secrets to responsible financial planning for couples is good communication. When couples are not on the same page, they’ll spend money on items that may not be in line with their shared goals. For example, if you aren’t able to come to a meaningful conclusion of where to send your child to college, you could risk paying at least $30,000 a year more for tuition if your kid goes to a private school. When couples can communicate and work out their differences, they are able to spend wisely and not resent each other for their expenses.

4. A good marriage will build wealth When couples experience tension in their relationship, they often do their best to avoid each other. This may mean both partners work for long hours, requiring more money for childcare and babysitting. Depending on their salary, tax bracket, and childcare costs, it may be cheaper for one spouse to stay home. For those spouses that may be entrepreneurs, building a good marriage could help build your wealth. You may be able to use your talents and collaborate together to build the type of business you may not have been able to build if your resources were diverted elsewhere.

The financial liabilities of a bad marriage are clear. Investing in your marriage to make it great will spare you the emotional and financial costs of divorce, allow you to be more focused and productive, help you make sounder financial decisions together, and even possibly work together with your partner to generate more income. The time and energy you invest into creating a good marriage is the surest investment you can make for the coming year. With best wishes for your relationship success.

Your views are most welcome...