Love is basic to what binds us to ourselves and to others.
When we can love ourselves, we are freer to love others and feel safe and trusting and able to give.
Depression, anxiety and low self-confidence are feelings that are painful and difficult. What is particularly worrisome about them is not knowing why you have them and what can be done about them. Understanding them as aspects of Problems in Loving can provide a supportive focus for you. I will explain.
Love is basic to what binds us to ourselves and to others. When we can love ourselves, we are freer to love others and feel safe and trusting and able to give. But, there are many ways that the capacity to love others and ourselves can be interfered with. It often has it’s roots in how we were loved and valued early in life. There are many ways that we experience the after-effects of those relationships…
FOR EXAMPLE
- Do you have anxiety about being open or being too giving?
- Do you keep things more on the surface and superficial with your friends and relationships?
- Are you extra critical of yourself when you are not perfect and become mean and unsympathetic to yourself?
- Are you often more angry than loving and passionate?
- Do you hold onto old hurts and resentments and don’t know how to let go?
- Do you feel an inner sadness or even emptiness and don’t understand what it is about?
- Do you admire generosity and expansiveness in others, but never quite get there yourself?
- Do you feel tight or constricted? Are you unhappy with your body and your body image?
- Do you have relationships but don’t experience much pleasure or appreciation for them?
- Do you rush through your relationships without reflecting or savoring the pleasure in them?
- Do you want the most from your relationships but cannot give back fully?
THESE EXPERIENCES MAY REFLECT PROBLEMS IN LOVING
These experiences may reflect problems in loving. When you value yourself (love yourself) you feel deserving of more of what life has to offer and you ask for what you want and you choose people who can give and love. When you love yourself less, you do not feel deserving of such fullness. Sometimes these feelings about yourself may even stop you from reaching out for help. I encourage you to see your reluctance as something that is important to understand about yourself. If you have a sense you are emotionally off track and you still have conflict about addressing what is going on, you may be expressing some of your difficulties about loving.
I WILL LISTEN CLOSELY
I will listen closely and respond to you because I value what you have to say. You may find you are welcoming of my interest, anxious about it, guilty to receive it, unwilling to share those caring attitudes in kind, sometimes suspicious of it, or even angry about it. Sometimes, of course, you may just be grateful or glad to have an understanding ear. We will talk about your feelings towards others, and yourself, talk about what in life thwarts your goals, whether they are creative, personal, professional or otherwise. We will talk about how people make you feel or not feel, whatever is on your mind. I will help you to look more deeply and closely at these experiences to learn more about why you are thwarted and less than pleased. I will use my feelings to sense whether you are “out of touch” or “in touch” when you are with me. When you are out of touch we will try to get to what you are afraid of feeling and ultimately this will lead to the work we will do on your problems in loving. Love is not only a feeling, it is the deepest layer of feeling that we have.