a letter to my daughter

Saying “I love you” is not love.

Being in love with you is not love.

Finding you beautiful is not love.

Having sex with you is not love.

Giving you massages is not love.

Giving you money is not love.

Giving you compliments is not love.

Helping you with your homework, chores, heavy or light-- none of that is love.
Serving you or your loved ones, even your children, that is not love either.

Neither is saying, doing or giving anything at all you have not asked for.  Even listening to you while you talk, vent or rant is not love.

These things make you feel good but they are NOT NECESSARILY LOVE.

They may in fact be toxic to you when they foster attachment to someone who makes you feel like you can depend on him to feel loved, special, needed or cared for— but who is not really there to give you what you need.

It is like sugar on berries:

Sweet but addictive and lacking real substance.
It is not love.

So what is love?

Above all, it is giving you what you ask for.

It is listening carefully to you.
It is not hurting you.

It is willingness to own mistakes when you do get hurt,

Receiving your grievances graciously,

Committing to refraining from all forms of violence against you, or being willing to learn how to do that.

Demand it.

how to deal with anxious thoughts

Clients besieged by anxiety often ask me how to stop bad thoughts. My answer to them is always the same: you can’t.  Don’t even try.  By giving them any attention at all you empower them, lending them more room in your head to bully you with.

So DO NOT try to stop bad thoughts.  

Just turn your attention elsewhere, starving bad thoughts of attention while feeding your mind friendlier thoughts; not “positive thoughts” which you do not believe, but pleasant memories, comforting truths or reveries.

Finally, if anxious thoughts keep bugging you, breathe them in, imaging you are purifying the air like a fire-breathing dragon in reverse.  This is a form of Tonglen, a powerful Buddhist practice which reminds us that we are bigger than whatever thoughts besiege us. 

rehashing

It is a common theme in my office: one partner brings up an old wound and the other accuses her of “rehashing” the past, often responding (angrily), “I’ve already told you I was sorry”, “THAT again!?”, or even “You seem to take pleasure in bringing that up over and over.”

The offending partner not only fails miserably at empathy but attacks the victim all over again.

What is going on here?  The defensive partner is feeling attacked.  Sometimes this is because the wounded partner is venting AT rather than TO him; but, more likely (in my experience), he has convinced himself that her goal is to criticize him, or that she is taking some kind of sadistic “pleasure” in holding the past over his head and watching him squirm.  No wonder he lacks empathy for the pain she is sharing!  He is making it all about himself.

She probably does not enjoy revisiting her wound any more than he does.  In fact, she is probably not “rehashing” it at all; it is rehashing her, coming up on her again her like the aftershock of an earthquake.

  

This is what wounds tend to do. 

The victim has no control over aftershocks or decides when they come, their duration or intensity; their impact can sometimes be even worse than the initial shock, especially if the victim went numb the first time round.  

If your partner keeps revisiting a past wound, it is probably because she has not healed from it.  When she shares it with you, she is not seeking revenge (what good would that do?), she is hoping you will apply the salve.  Accountability is part of that, so is empathy, and making amends.  If you cannot do this, maybe the two of you are not in the relationship you thought you were.