Dr. Greg Baer, "I have now seen the powerfully healing effects of Real Love in the lives of tens of thousands of individuals. Impossibly unhappy marriages now thrive, angry and rebellious children now turn to their parents for love and guidance, singles are finding partners interested in a relationship based on Real Love instead of trading in the sure disappointment of Imitation Love, and divisive and unproductive corporate cultures are become nurturing and supportive. I encourage you to learn the principles of Real Love, and as you consistently implement them in your life, you will experience rewards beyond what you can now imagine."
The extent of the unhappiness in the world is staggering: 50-60% of marriages end in divorce; 10-20% of adults are addicted to alcohol or drugs. With rebellion, anger, disobedience, drug use, and indiscriminate sex, we and our children are crying out that something is wrong with our lives. Despite spending billions of dollars, creating uncounted government programs, and devoting endless concern to these problems, however, they are not improving, because we are not recognizing the single cause common to all of them.
In order to be happy, what we all want more than anything else is to feel loved. Even the Beatles knew that "All you need is love" but not just any kind of love will do. We need Real Love, unconditional love. It's Real Love when other people care about our happiness without any concern for themselves. When we make our foolish mistakes, when we don't do what they want, or even when we inconvenience them personally, they're not disappointed or angry.
Sadly, few of us have received that kind of love with any degree of consistency. Instead, from the time we were children, we saw that when we were "good" (when we behaved in the ways that other people liked) we received a great deal of approval in the form of smiles, kind words, pats on the back, and so on. We also saw, however, that when we were "bad" (when we were loud, ungrateful, disobedient, and otherwise inconvenient) the signs of approval were replaced in an instant with frowns, facial expressions, and tones of voice that clearly expressed disappointment, disapproval, and irritation. From those patterns of behavior we learned this powerful lesson: When you're good, I love you; when your not, I don't.
Imitation Love
When we don't have enough Real Love, the emptiness is intolerably painful, and in order to fill our emptiness, we use money, anger, control, sex, alcohol, food, drugs, violence, and the conditional "love" of others, all of which are variations on only four general themes: praise, power, pleasure, and safety. When we pursue these things as substitutes for Real Love, they all become forms of Imitation Love.
Many of us spend our entire lives devoted to the pursuit of Imitation Love. Because the effects of Imitation Love are always temporary, however, we have to work very hard to maintain an adequate supply, and eventually we discover that no amount can ever make us happy.
We tend to establish relationships with people (and fall in love with them) based on their ability to give us Imitation Love. When a man falls in love with a woman because she is beautiful, for example, he is actually declaring that he loves how she makes him feel with her beauty, not how he unconditionally cares about her happiness.
When two people are in love, the exchange of Imitation Love is abundant and feels more satisfying than anything the couple has known before. It's only natural that both of them usually develop the expectation that the other person will continue to make them happy for the rest of their lives. In fact, most people get married for that very reason: to guarantee that they will have a partner who will make them happy for a lifetime.
After a time, however, perhaps months, maybe years, the satisfying effects of Imitation Love always wear off, and the subsequent disappointment is overwhelming. Each partner naturally concludes that the other partner is the cause of his or her unhappiness. They both feel let down and betrayed by the other and an enormous sense of blaming then poisons the relationship. Neither partner understands that the real cause of unhappiness in the relationship is not the other person, but the fact that both of them came to the relationship without sufficient Real Love, thereby lacking the one ingredient most essential to genuine happiness and healthy relationships.
Getting and Protecting Behaviors
When we lack sufficient Real Love, we feel empty and afraid, conditions that are unbearably painful. In order to eliminate our emptiness, we use Getting Behaviors to fill ourselves with Imitation Love. The Getting Behaviors include:
- Lying. Although it's usually unconscious on our part, any time we do anything to get other people to like us, by accentuating our positive physical, mental, social, or occupational qualities, we are lying. With our lies, we earn the conditional approval of others (praise) and often the other forms of Imitation Love as well.
- Attacking. We're attacking people when we use any behavior designed to modify their behavior with fear. We frighten or intimidate people with anger, authority, physical intimidation, guilt, and so on. When we attack people, we feel stronger. We feel a sense of power, which temporarily can be quite satisfying in the absence of Real Love.
- We're acting like victims when we point out what other people should have done for us. When we act hurt and maintain that we have been treated unfairly, we're using guilt and obligation to persuade people that we are victims and that we deserve more than we are presently getting.
- Clinging. When we find people who give us some of the Imitation Love we crave, we often cling to them for more. To illustrate just one of many ways we can cling, imagine that a spouse or friend has decided to part company with you earlier than you had anticipated during an evening or weekend. If you say, "Do you really have to go now?" you're clinging to him or her for more attention.
In order to diminish our fears, we use Protecting Behaviors, which include:
- Lying. From the time we were small children, we learned to hide or diminish our mistakes, flaws, and fears, because then people tended to withdraw their approval less.
- Attacking. Anger gives us a rush of power, and then we feel less helpless and afraid. In addition, when other people are attacking us, we can often get them to stop attacking us if we attack them in return.
- Acting like victims. When people are attacking us, they will often stop if we can act sufficiently wounded and accuse them of hurting us. Victims also frequently use variations on the expression, "It's not my fault."
- Running. One effective way to diminish our pain is simply to withdraw from it. We can run by physically leaving difficult situations or relationships, emotionally withdrawing from interactions or relationships, burying ourselves in our careers, and by using alcohol or drugs.
Although the Getting and Protecting Behaviors do give us temporary relief from our emptiness and fear, the consequences of using them are severe:
- Protecting Behaviors cause the very behaviors we're trying to prevent. All the behaviors in other people that we find frightening (anger, controlling, withdrawing, and so on) are nothing more than their responses to not feeling loved themselves. If we don't understand that, we tend to respond to those behaviors with our own Protecting Behaviors. Now we have a big problem, because with our Protecting Behaviors (lying, attacking, acting like victims, and running) we loudly communicate that our primary interest is our own well-being, not the happiness of the people we're interacting with. With our Protecting Behaviors we make people feel even more empty and afraid, and then they're more likely to respond to us with the Getting and Protecting Behaviors we were originally trying to protect ourselves from.
- They make healthy relationships impossible. When you and I are selfishly exchanging Getting and Protecting Behaviors with one another, both of us hear from the other only one message: I don't love you; in that situation a healthy relationship is impossible.
- We make it impossible to feel loved. You can feel Real Love from me only when I give my love unconditionally and when you receive it unconditionally. The moment you use Getting Behaviors (any behavior designed to pull approval or attention from me) you can't feel loved, because you're not unconditionally receiving what I'm giving you. You can perceive what I give you only as a payment for your manipulations.
When you understand Real Love, and how we respond to the lack of it with Getting and Protecting Behaviors, you can begin to see other people quite differently and change the way you feel about them. Further, you acquire the power to behave differently in all circumstances, contributing to all your relationships in positive, life giving ways, instead of simply reacting mindlessly to the behaviors of others. Following are some of the benefits of understanding the Getting and Protecting Behaviors:
- Most of the unpleasant mysteries of life are eliminated. Often we are as hurt by not understanding other people's behavior as we are by what they actually do. We say, "How could he do that?" or "Why would she say such a thing?" When we don't understand the behavior of others, we feel utterly helpless in choosing wise responses. Once we understand Real Love and Getting and Protecting Behaviors, however, we can begin to see that everywhere we look, people are using these behaviors. Suddenly, the behavior of other people makes perfect sense-it's even predictable-and then we are no longer as confused and frustrated.
- We can completely change the way we see other people, the way we feel about them, and the way we respond to them. When you truly understand and remember that people behave badly only when they're empty and afraid (when you see the truth about bad behaviors, that they're just Getting and Protecting Behaviors) you lose your anger. How can you be angry at people who are just doing their best to respond to the pain in their lives? You can begin to respond to people with compassion instead of reacting with your own Getting and Protecting Behaviors, and that will change your relationships (every interaction, for that matter) dramatically.
- We can eliminate the excessive, destructive guilt in our lives. When we understand that other people are selfish and hurtful only because they are empty and afraid, we can begin to accept that our own selfish and hurtful behaviors are motivated by a desire to eliminate our emptiness and fear. When we behave badly, we're not evil; we're just doing our best to minimize our pain.
- We can finally change the direction of our lives. When we don't understand why we feel and behave as we do, we're doomed to repeat old patterns of feelings and behaviors endlessly. After we clearly see our emptiness and fear, however, as well as the Imitation Love and Getting and Protecting Behaviors that follow, we can finally begin to change the course we've been taking, usually for decades.
- We can begin to feel loved. As we tell the truth about our Getting and Protecting Behaviors, we create opportunities for other people to accept and love us as we really are. We'll discuss that process next.
Finding Real Love
As you tell the truth about yourself to other people (especially about your mistakes, flaws, and fears) they can finally see you as you really are. They can accept and love you unconditionally, as indicated in this simple diagram:
Truth>Seen>Accepted>Loved
When you feel enough of the unconditional love of others, you'll have the most important treasure in life. The wounds of the past will heal, wounds caused by insufficient Real Love, and you'll feel whole and happy. As your emptiness and fear are eliminated by Real Love, you'll simply have no need to use Getting and Protecting Behaviors. Without those behaviors, you'll find relationships with others relatively effortless.
To learn more about these principles, consider a seminar tailored to your organization or personal life coaching.
