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intimacy
October 2009 
You Might as Well Face it Your 'Conditioned' to Love
Posted on Jan 15th, 2009
by 
mikeS
mikeS
My prvious posts address the assumed impossibility of unconditional love with the suggestion that it may not be as impossible as we may think.
This suggestion primarily addressed how we could acknowledge and strip away the conditions that we inadvertently and unwittingly apply to our intimate relationships based on a definition of 'love' as we believe it should be experienced. Although such acknowledgment may not bring one full circle to an unconditioned love for another, it may increasingly result in less conditions thereby opening up the possibility of an enlightening "surprise" in our relationships.
I am borrowing the concept of "surprise," as a state of mind, from James Carse and his book, "Finite and Infinite Games." The concept of Surprise is an openness to love, and life, that does not apply conditions, restrictions or limitations to your relationship with yourself, others and the world.
I have been contemplating the numerous ways we apply conditions, hence limitations, chiefly when attempting to engage in close intimate relations with others and more specifically our 'love' relationships. The fear factor in protecting the "psychological self" is the reason conditions are applied. This hypothesis, put forward by many other brighter minds than mine, tends to address our fear of disclosure, or intimacy as deep understanding, for fear of attack. This is because the chief method of attaining self-knowledge is through intimacy or deeply engaging with others, but this can also become emotionally traumatizing if deep understanding is used for attack by others, thereby causing us to close off our channels for intimacy. Often this closing is best on memeroy of past attacks even as far back as childhood.
However, we tend to seek out one "other" as the main mode of self-reflection and this attests to our pairing up and coupling practices. Granted, this union-of-two is apparent in nature or the animal kingdom, but chiefly for instinctual mating purposes. It is true that we have the same drive to mate, but I believe we have a deeper, almost archetypal, drive for a Higher Union. This drive is deeper than what psychology considers as the "unconscious" and is possibly more of a sub-unconscious.
The problem is that this drive toward "awakening" through another is intensely frightening and, because of that fear, for most it is incomprehensible and resisted. This is because the potential of two joining as one annihilates the individual self. Of course, society teaches the exact opposite by reinforcing our need to essentially idolize the individual 'self' and that is referred to in pop psychology as "positive self-development." Therefore, we feel driven to protect the psychological self and, from birth, are taught the supreme importance of a creating a well-rounded self. This is why we maintain division or separation from others through conditions. If we spend decades building up a 'self' we therefore, must protect what we have constructed at all costs.
POSSESSION PRINCIPLE
The first condition of our love simply demands that I be with you, and no one else, in the sharing of sex and emotional bonding. The is the possession principle that most intimate relationships reflect and which is mandated by law. This legalized and sacralized mutual ownership seems advantageous on face value. Unfortunately, it tends to minimize intimacy, rather than magnify, since, in its present mandated form it becomes all to easy to sever your rights of ownership/possession upon the slightest provocation. Love unions mandated by church and state lose credibility only because church and state lack credibility. Nevertheless, we continue to participate in all three in the hope that either state, church or marriage will finally save us.
If there is to be a bond of intimacy it must be made sacred by the participants only. church and state sanctions should be unnecessary. The problem is that church and state sanction ‘love' unions in order to uphold the union, but actually do just the opposite. Deep Spirit should be the only sanctioning factor involved. Yet through church and state "marital" protections must be applied to protect children, uphold religious dogma and protect financial assets. I am not advocating the ban of marriage, just suggesting that we honestly evaluate the underlying dynamics that may impede intimacy. Denying the impediments, simply because "this is the way it's done," will not help to change the institutions and make them more conducive to an intimate knowing of one another.
The fact is that restructuring the institution of marriage in order to increase intimacy can benefit the world since, if I know you deeply I am less likely to harm you and it is only when we are strangers that the propensity for harm is increased. One could argue that parents often harm and abuse their children. My only response is that in many families intimacy is absent and was never available in the first place. Hence, the harm perpetrated by virtual strangers, since to truly hurt you I must make you stranger to me.
RECIPROCATION PRINCIPLE
Although this first 'love' condition is rather inconspicuous and unconsciously adhered to, since we have rationalized the need for legal unions, the second condition is just as unconscious. The second condition asserts that since I proclaim and exhibit my love for you, you MUST reciprocate and this is the reciprocation principle.
Now you might think that this condition is rather self-explanatory and elementary. Of course, why would I ‘love' you, engage in sexual relations, have children and create a 'life' with you, if you did NOT, in turn, love me. Duh!
But the problem is not in theory, but in practice. Who defines HOW I must reciprocate your love? YOU DO! But I too, in my relative defining of what love is, have determined how you must reciprocate my love back to me and, oh, what tangled 'love' webs we weave.
Reciprocating love is a gray area that we demand be black and white. This is because in a relative world, love is a many splendored, and highly relative, thing. I enjoy reading all the pop relationship experts (some who are Ph.Ds) who claim that, in relationships men and women each "speak a different language." Well, that may be, but I can tell you, as a psychotherapist specializing in relationships for the past 25 yrs, gay and lesbian relationships have just as many problems and break up just as often as heterosexual relationships. So who's speaking a different language here?
Actually, the language of love certainly is different. The problem is that there are 6 billion different renditions and each one applying different conditions based on each individual definition of love. Oh sure, there are always similarities, but based on all the variability that makes up each individual 'self,' the devil is in the details (and this is why the ‘devil' often wins and intimate relationships and marriages lose).
The concept of ‘love" is used on ad infinitum, but how do you define it? More specifically, how do you define love in relation to that significant other you have chosen to love "till death do you part." In your current relationship, do your definitions mesh? Are your mutual 'love' renditions congruent and perfectly compatible?
The answer is easy. Do you fight? If you do, then be clear on the fact that you both define love differently and assert conditions based on each unique definition of love. You give love based on your definition and you expect it be returned by that definition as well. But then, so does your partner, only based on his/her definition and most likely not yours. Thus, "what we have here is a failure to communicate" (Cool Hand Luke).
In western, and many eastern, societies the first condition, or the possession principle, is currently non-negotiable. However, I'm rather indifferent and unconcerned about what brings people together. But I am very concerned about them staying together (and rising up together through a deeper understanding) and that cannot occur unless the second condition, or "reciprocation principle," is closely examined.
I find it interesting that most people have difficulty defining their unique definition of what love is, but they will easily define how and when they are not getting it. Do you demand that love be reciprocated? Can you love your partner without reciprocation? How do you define the loving reciprocation of another and what frequency of that reciprocating would repress the fear of not receiving love?
You might as well face it, you're conditioned to love and those conditions have been determined and applied by YOU (I speak to both parties). The conditions may have been instilled in you from childhood as an attempt to limit fear, but now, only limit love. Time to examine and strip away your conditions because, essentially, they are most likely irrational and often totally absurd (in many ways, just like society).
Many would retort that we must set limits or conditions, such as, you must not physically hurt me, or lie to me, etc, etc. I agree that conditions can be set, but must be agreed on at the start. However, I recall a couple in which the wife was adamant that her husband could never physically strike her and he never did. However, she felt she had a right to smack this 230 lbs man around whenever she felt he deserved it and she did just that, which is what resulted in their meeting with me. She found it incredulous when I suggested that she cease and desist from striking him!
Basic survival and conditions of 'do no harm' are self explanatory and require little discussion. Yet, the deeper conditions resulting in beliefs such as, "if he/she loved me, he/she would....." are the more unconsciously insidious impediments to intimacy that need to be identified and possibly reframed in order to further an intimacy related to Deep Spirit and not just related to conditioned beliefs as to what love is or is NOT.
Time to start identifying your knee-jerk responses to one another, because these are symbolic of conditioned beliefs and may need to be dissolved in order to finally experience the love from Deep Spirit and the union of two into ONE. This type of unconditioned openness will be very "surprising" in that nothing you have learned, or been conditioned to believe about 'love' is true. But something more real IS the truth.
Happy Trails,
mikeS
This suggestion primarily addressed how we could acknowledge and strip away the conditions that we inadvertently and unwittingly apply to our intimate relationships based on a definition of 'love' as we believe it should be experienced. Although such acknowledgment may not bring one full circle to an unconditioned love for another, it may increasingly result in less conditions thereby opening up the possibility of an enlightening "surprise" in our relationships.
I am borrowing the concept of "surprise," as a state of mind, from James Carse and his book, "Finite and Infinite Games." The concept of Surprise is an openness to love, and life, that does not apply conditions, restrictions or limitations to your relationship with yourself, others and the world.
"To be playful is not to be trivial or frivolous or to act as though nothing of consequence will happen. On the contrary, when we are playful with each other we relate as free persons and the relationship is open to surprise."
"Because infinite players prepare themselves to be surprised by the future, they play in complete openness. It is not an openness as in candor, but an openness as in vulnerability. It is not a matter of changing one's unchanging identity, the true self that has always been, but a way of exposing one's ceaseless growth, the dynamic self that has yet to be. The infinite player does not expect only to be amused by surprise, but to be transformed by it..." (James Carse, "Finite and Infinite Games" p. 22-23)
I have been contemplating the numerous ways we apply conditions, hence limitations, chiefly when attempting to engage in close intimate relations with others and more specifically our 'love' relationships. The fear factor in protecting the "psychological self" is the reason conditions are applied. This hypothesis, put forward by many other brighter minds than mine, tends to address our fear of disclosure, or intimacy as deep understanding, for fear of attack. This is because the chief method of attaining self-knowledge is through intimacy or deeply engaging with others, but this can also become emotionally traumatizing if deep understanding is used for attack by others, thereby causing us to close off our channels for intimacy. Often this closing is best on memeroy of past attacks even as far back as childhood.
However, we tend to seek out one "other" as the main mode of self-reflection and this attests to our pairing up and coupling practices. Granted, this union-of-two is apparent in nature or the animal kingdom, but chiefly for instinctual mating purposes. It is true that we have the same drive to mate, but I believe we have a deeper, almost archetypal, drive for a Higher Union. This drive is deeper than what psychology considers as the "unconscious" and is possibly more of a sub-unconscious.
The problem is that this drive toward "awakening" through another is intensely frightening and, because of that fear, for most it is incomprehensible and resisted. This is because the potential of two joining as one annihilates the individual self. Of course, society teaches the exact opposite by reinforcing our need to essentially idolize the individual 'self' and that is referred to in pop psychology as "positive self-development." Therefore, we feel driven to protect the psychological self and, from birth, are taught the supreme importance of a creating a well-rounded self. This is why we maintain division or separation from others through conditions. If we spend decades building up a 'self' we therefore, must protect what we have constructed at all costs.
POSSESSION PRINCIPLE
The first condition of our love simply demands that I be with you, and no one else, in the sharing of sex and emotional bonding. The is the possession principle that most intimate relationships reflect and which is mandated by law. This legalized and sacralized mutual ownership seems advantageous on face value. Unfortunately, it tends to minimize intimacy, rather than magnify, since, in its present mandated form it becomes all to easy to sever your rights of ownership/possession upon the slightest provocation. Love unions mandated by church and state lose credibility only because church and state lack credibility. Nevertheless, we continue to participate in all three in the hope that either state, church or marriage will finally save us.
If there is to be a bond of intimacy it must be made sacred by the participants only. church and state sanctions should be unnecessary. The problem is that church and state sanction ‘love' unions in order to uphold the union, but actually do just the opposite. Deep Spirit should be the only sanctioning factor involved. Yet through church and state "marital" protections must be applied to protect children, uphold religious dogma and protect financial assets. I am not advocating the ban of marriage, just suggesting that we honestly evaluate the underlying dynamics that may impede intimacy. Denying the impediments, simply because "this is the way it's done," will not help to change the institutions and make them more conducive to an intimate knowing of one another.
The fact is that restructuring the institution of marriage in order to increase intimacy can benefit the world since, if I know you deeply I am less likely to harm you and it is only when we are strangers that the propensity for harm is increased. One could argue that parents often harm and abuse their children. My only response is that in many families intimacy is absent and was never available in the first place. Hence, the harm perpetrated by virtual strangers, since to truly hurt you I must make you stranger to me.
RECIPROCATION PRINCIPLE
Although this first 'love' condition is rather inconspicuous and unconsciously adhered to, since we have rationalized the need for legal unions, the second condition is just as unconscious. The second condition asserts that since I proclaim and exhibit my love for you, you MUST reciprocate and this is the reciprocation principle.
Now you might think that this condition is rather self-explanatory and elementary. Of course, why would I ‘love' you, engage in sexual relations, have children and create a 'life' with you, if you did NOT, in turn, love me. Duh!
But the problem is not in theory, but in practice. Who defines HOW I must reciprocate your love? YOU DO! But I too, in my relative defining of what love is, have determined how you must reciprocate my love back to me and, oh, what tangled 'love' webs we weave.
Reciprocating love is a gray area that we demand be black and white. This is because in a relative world, love is a many splendored, and highly relative, thing. I enjoy reading all the pop relationship experts (some who are Ph.Ds) who claim that, in relationships men and women each "speak a different language." Well, that may be, but I can tell you, as a psychotherapist specializing in relationships for the past 25 yrs, gay and lesbian relationships have just as many problems and break up just as often as heterosexual relationships. So who's speaking a different language here?
Actually, the language of love certainly is different. The problem is that there are 6 billion different renditions and each one applying different conditions based on each individual definition of love. Oh sure, there are always similarities, but based on all the variability that makes up each individual 'self,' the devil is in the details (and this is why the ‘devil' often wins and intimate relationships and marriages lose).
The concept of ‘love" is used on ad infinitum, but how do you define it? More specifically, how do you define love in relation to that significant other you have chosen to love "till death do you part." In your current relationship, do your definitions mesh? Are your mutual 'love' renditions congruent and perfectly compatible?
The answer is easy. Do you fight? If you do, then be clear on the fact that you both define love differently and assert conditions based on each unique definition of love. You give love based on your definition and you expect it be returned by that definition as well. But then, so does your partner, only based on his/her definition and most likely not yours. Thus, "what we have here is a failure to communicate" (Cool Hand Luke).
In western, and many eastern, societies the first condition, or the possession principle, is currently non-negotiable. However, I'm rather indifferent and unconcerned about what brings people together. But I am very concerned about them staying together (and rising up together through a deeper understanding) and that cannot occur unless the second condition, or "reciprocation principle," is closely examined.
I find it interesting that most people have difficulty defining their unique definition of what love is, but they will easily define how and when they are not getting it. Do you demand that love be reciprocated? Can you love your partner without reciprocation? How do you define the loving reciprocation of another and what frequency of that reciprocating would repress the fear of not receiving love?
You might as well face it, you're conditioned to love and those conditions have been determined and applied by YOU (I speak to both parties). The conditions may have been instilled in you from childhood as an attempt to limit fear, but now, only limit love. Time to examine and strip away your conditions because, essentially, they are most likely irrational and often totally absurd (in many ways, just like society).
Many would retort that we must set limits or conditions, such as, you must not physically hurt me, or lie to me, etc, etc. I agree that conditions can be set, but must be agreed on at the start. However, I recall a couple in which the wife was adamant that her husband could never physically strike her and he never did. However, she felt she had a right to smack this 230 lbs man around whenever she felt he deserved it and she did just that, which is what resulted in their meeting with me. She found it incredulous when I suggested that she cease and desist from striking him!
Basic survival and conditions of 'do no harm' are self explanatory and require little discussion. Yet, the deeper conditions resulting in beliefs such as, "if he/she loved me, he/she would....." are the more unconsciously insidious impediments to intimacy that need to be identified and possibly reframed in order to further an intimacy related to Deep Spirit and not just related to conditioned beliefs as to what love is or is NOT.
Time to start identifying your knee-jerk responses to one another, because these are symbolic of conditioned beliefs and may need to be dissolved in order to finally experience the love from Deep Spirit and the union of two into ONE. This type of unconditioned openness will be very "surprising" in that nothing you have learned, or been conditioned to believe about 'love' is true. But something more real IS the truth.
Happy Trails,
mikeS
Access: PublicTagged with: Intimacy
Hi Mike~ just stumbled on your post in New Activity this morning:-)
If we could only get rid of that conditioning eh? If you haven’t done so, check out the youtubes of the late Anthony De Mello. I think you would appreciate his take on love.
Thanks for posting this. I had not heard of James Carse, but will check him out now.
~Janet
something more real is the truth.
oh, tantalising!
Hey Guys!
Thanks for stoppin’ by!
Yes, it is somewhat crazy, but it isa factthat I am actually proposing a means to attaining unconditionality through less psychological self-protection rather than more. This would require considering all the ways we unintentionaly block love. However, this is a difficult project since, essentially we have been conditioned to see trouble as coming from outside the mind.
Oh well, my effort is noble but most likely unachievable.
I will check out that link, thanks Janet.
Peace Angels,
mikeS
Less protection actually leaves less at the effect of others. Isnt’ it interesting? And so much of what we call love is really a conditioned response to something someone else does or says. Then what happens when they do something different? Or stop saying the thing that made us feel love? There we are….but now feeling unloved/unloving. To truly love is a discipline, I think. At least until we can get away from the knee jerk responses we have carried with us since childhood.
it’s worth trying, Mike. Imagine if you succeeded.
I’m truly honored by return visits!
QUESTION:
Have you ever gotten a feeling, a sort of midsection-chest experience, of deep calm and relaxation in relation to someones extending to you for no apparent reason? Some call it a “warm fuzzy,” and it comes about when someone does something kind directly to, or for you. It has no sexual connotations andit happens when someone goes out of there way to connect with you with no conditions. It is an extension of one to another with no need for reciprocation. It seems this happens more often with strangers, since we tend to attribute some self-related motive with those we are deeply involved with. However, this feeling is so obscure and abstract that I’ve rarely come across any discussions or theories surrounding cause, since it seems outside the normalized spectrum of emotions we usually experience. Yet, it is very a gut-visceral experience and if one dwells on it, it can actually be extended. It’s not really a yippee-yahoo kinda feeling, more like a centered peaceful ‘thing.’
LOL! I dunno, maybe I’m a bit daft here, butcan anyone relate to what I’m trying to describe?
Let me know, because i was thinking of developing a blog discussion around it. But I’m starting to think that it really cannot be adequately described so I may have to let it go.
Thanks!
mikeS
MIke~ I’m going to point at this wonderful vid that someone on Gaia posted back last spring when I was pretty new here. I don’t remember who posted it, but I bagged and tagged it for my very own because I thought it was so good.
I think maybe what you’re talking about is the oxytocin or wave response as opposed to the seratonin or spike response. It’s more subtle than lusty sexual feeling, yet it is still a lovely warm feeling.
Anyway, enjoy and I’d love to know if it speaks to you at all.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NliPruvbhHA&feature=PlayList&p=AC2E86B4A5CB7920&index=0&playnext=1
Wow! Janet, we seem to be on the same wavelength, since just last night I was researching the ‘oxytocin’ connection. However, if you read the Wikipedia presentation on this neurochemical, that is produced in the brain, yet does enter the bloodstream and travels the body, the chief purpose is mammalian sexuality.
A great big thanks for the video link (did you know that this woman is a Gaia member Marnia Robinson)
Here’s my issue with what Robinson teaches, which is also what science is teaching. The primary prardigm for “love” continues to be that of the sexual-couple or mating unit. In fact, in the video, Robinson refers to sex as “making love.”
I’m sure we can agree that there are numerous other ‘love-models’ i.e, parent-child, sibling, extrafamilial, close longterm friendships, etc, etc, that in NO way incorporate or involve sexual coupling. Therefore, oxytocin may not be involved in these interactions or if it is, it then must be seen as not necessarily a sexual hormonal response. Robinson refers to oxytocin as “the cuddle hormone” and seems to be connecting it with companionate bonding, but again this is within the traditional mating unit and leaves out other paradigms of love. My question: is there a similarity between other concepts of love that we miss in our utter fascination with sexual bonding? Has our distraction with sexual bonding caused us to miss the deeper aspect? Have we diluted the path of intimacy in this way and is intimacy actually a spiritual model of love that incorporates all other modes of relating?
Nevertheless, Robinson is spot on with regard to our being “hooked on sex” based on chemical stimulation, as procurred through orgasm, while we avoid intimacy. Here is Robinson’s website Reuniting. (looks like I’m gonna have to buy another dogone book!!)
Sorry, this comment was a bit long and I probably should have made a blog post.
Anyway, thanks for the comments guys and I imagine this may lead on to other ideas and more posts (therefore, i apologize in advance, LOL!)
Peace Angels,
mikeS
This makes so much sense, Mike, so while we do experience these “warm fuzzies” with strangers, as soon as we get to know someone it can get difficult to sort out what love it is, because of the biochemical cocktail?
Definitely worth further exploration.
nice to read some of your writing again mike.
speakingof the warm fuzzies… not sure if that is oxytocin or not… but who cares really if there is a chemical behind it or not… that warm and fuzzy thing… the feeling of thankfulness, or generosity perhaps, or connectedness … or simple well-being, whether it is enjoying a bit of winter sun or having a good poo… (er - am i allowed to say that here?) … lots of great “blessings” we get to experience here in our bodies.
and in regard to the original post above - i like very much your angle… you may be interested in the preliminary practices of the Toltec - which are designed to uncover the events that condition our experiences. The idea is to release past conditioning(which forms current views/actions/reactions) - or at least , be open to create other kinds of agreements (which are other conditions) so that one may have a different experience. The premise is that we have many energetic ties - indoctrinated - familially, culturally, experientially - which keep our minds tied up in thinking a certain way - especially in regard to relationships… most of which are quite unconscious… and when they are seen - there is the opportunity to release that energetic tie to allow energy to be used in another way (however one chooses)…. so that the conditioning is chosen consciously…
because, as you say - i don’t know if we can function entirely without conditions - but at least in our intimate relations, we can, if we are aware enough, form agreements for conditions that serve both parties.
Hey Arpita!
Good to have your comments here.
I have read “The Four Agreements,” but I may need to go back over that book since I read it some time ago.
Yes, It does seem we cannot function without conditions, since obviously being in a body is highly conditional. I suppose I am suggesting that the path toward an ‘unconditional’ love may be all we can seek to achieve. But since there is no destination (or ‘place’ of no conditions)then identifying and dissolving as many conditions as possible would lead to an increased intimacy and a greater experience of love. Kinda like a breaking through the rings of fire to get to the center.
But, as you say, it would be the unconscious conditions that would somehow need to be identified. Yes, agreeing on conditions would be advantageous. However, the need to understand how and why conditions have been imposed might be difficult, particularly when the need to indict the other as unloving is second nature for most folks.
I work as a marriage/couples therapist and partners will state “he/she no longer meets my needs.” You would enjoy the look on their faces when i respond, “well, then maybe you need to get rid of your needs.” This is a real slap for some egos. Needless to say, I then assist them in understanding the self-imposed impediments they project. Yet many are highly resistant to the idea that they are the oneblocking love and not their partner.
Great to hear from you, Arpita. Stop by more often!
Peace Angels,
mikeS
hi there…
yes - self responsibility is the key…
i think the four agreements is a good tool to integrate into counselling. they are simple and allow people to see how they are perhaps - not being impeccible with their word, making assumptions, taking things personally, and not making their best effort. it is obviously not as simple as just reading the book - although, if these things are followed well - it would certainly transform lives and relationships
these “four”agreements actually are the guidlines in which to begin the process of recapitulation occurs (some call it stalking - stalking the unconscious mind)- the unravelling of the unconscious/subconscious tendancies which shape relationship choices/actions/reactions…which can take years…with a good psychotherapist or other modality…. The toltec modality for this is interesting - it involves systematically bringing up memories that have energetic hooks (for example abuse as a child leading to an identification with being a victim)… and using breathing techniques - either taking or giving back energy that was given over to a situation - that still has power over you in one way or another… it is a lengthy process… years. In this way these little energetic threads are cleaned up - resulting in have a lot more energy and clarity to make a change… this is not discussed in the four agreements - but is in another book by a different author (i just don’t remember what it was - haha). Eventually, the idea is to acheive a sense of mastery in one’s life - being conscious of the dream - and to be a conscious dreamer ( both awake and asleep)…