This is the final part of a 6-part series in which we take a closer look at the basic emotions: Anger, Happiness, Sadness, Love, Fear, and Guilt/Shame. Simply click on each link to view the associated article.
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Love
Love. Love. Love. The subject of so much art, music, and literature. And of course the focus of St. Valentine’s Day on February 14th.
Love emotionally lets us know that someone or something is important to us. It makes us feel connected and shows we care deeply. This most powerful of emotions can manifest itself in many ways. As friendliness, caring and affection for example. But also as tenderness, compassion, desire, and passion.
The exquisite feelings of love make it one of the most pleasurable of the basic emotions. You can feel calm and content or as if your heart’s swelling. It can make you feel warm inside as though you’re melting, with sensations flowing from your chest and throughout your torso.
It can cause goose bumps on your skin or a pleasant tingly feeling inside. You may feel tenderness for the person you love, an inclination to move toward them, to embrace them and show affection.
Love brings with it many of these pleasant feelings, but it can just as readily generate unpleasant even painful secondary emotions and sensations. We may feel anxious at the prospect of closeness or the possibility of losing our connection. So much so that some of us keep our hearts under tight wraps to avoid the pain our nervous system anticipates will follow if we let ourselves become vulnerable and fall in love with a partner.
Instead of loving like we really mean it, many of us operate as though we’re on autopilot, at the mercy of our old brain wiring. Our internal working model for relationships dictates that our emotional needs are to be avoided as experience tells us they only result in disappointment and despair.
So when our comfort zone is encroached upon by a partner, when we start to feel vulnerable or have emotional needs, or when our partner is feeling loving toward us, we may get anxious, shut down or pull away. We try and find distractions – immersing ourselves in our work, playing video games, even going on an online shopping spree. We deal, but we don’t feel.
These reactions cause difficulties in our relationships. When we’re not aware of what’s going on inside of us and explicit about how we’d like things to go in our relationships, when we don’t consciously choose the path down which we want to walk, we don’t have a strong enough rudder to guide us, especially when we face rough waters. Our old programming gets the better of us, and our actions don’t line up with what we want for ourselves.
But, when we tune into our experience, get clear about our values and we set an intention to uphold them, they become a source of guidance and motivation. By showing up wholeheartedly with intention in our relationships, we maximize our capacity to flourish.
That’s what happens when we work through the four steps of emotional mindfulness that I outline in my book Loving Like You Mean It. These steps can be used to break the cycle of old programming, push through our fears and try something different. By doing so, we can overcome our fears and free ourselves from the constriction of the past.
Only when we recognize and attend to what’s going on inside of us and find the courage to open up and be more fully present with ourselves and in our relationships, can we really change.
The Four Steps
These steps provide a foundation that can enable us to open up to our feelings of love and be vulnerable and share them with others, which ultimately benefits our relationships:
1. Recognize and Name: This step helps identify when old programming has activated our threat response – is triggering us – so we can break free from our habitual ways of responding.
2. Stop, Drop, and Stay: Here we create an opportunity to make room, turn our attention inward and abide with what’s happening inside of us without being reactive.
3. Pause & Reflect: In this step, we gain access to the wisdom that comes with being in touch with our core selves. By doing so, we gain a broader range of options to consider and then choose a course of action that better aligns with our true intentions and values.
4. Mindfully Relate: Step four is about learning how to manage the anxiety that comes with opening up in a new and different way, staying centered and present and expressing our truth in a way that maximizes the likelihood of us being heard and received.
What helps us feel safe and secure in our relationships and grows and strengthens our bonds is being mindfully attuned to ourselves and our partners. As does being able to manage and express our feelings while staying present, engaged and responsive. To hang in there even when the going gets tough. To see the way through to a better place.
Love Awareness Exercise
Try and recall a tender moment that you shared with a loved one. Or a time when someone really came through for you. It could even be a memory of a time when you felt particularly loving toward someone in your life. Now imagine being in that situation again, in the presence of someone you love, looking at him or her with affection, maybe even sharing a warm embrace. As you think about this, tune into and note what kind of physical sensations are you experiencing? How does your body respond? What are you inclined to do? Do you notice feeling any anxiety? Try not to judge and just stay open and curious about your experience.
Take some time to reflect on your experience. What did you notice? What were you inclined to do? Is this similar or different to how you respond to others in your life now? What are you learning about your emotional experience? You might like to make a note of your observations. See if they compare with those mentioned at the beginning of this article. If you notice others, that’s great. It’s a sign that you’re becoming more emotionally mindful of your experiences. Now, try practicing the same awareness when you’re with those you love in your life.
