H05 Love Principle

Which would you prefer?

Fend for yourself and avoid being vulnerable to others, since you only can trust yourself fully.

OR

Expand more of your life’s potential by cultivating meaningful and deep connections with others.

Anankelogy

As fewer of your needs fully resolve, you naturally cannot function as well as before. The less you can function, the quicker you naturally prioritize more essential matters. You must put your full potential on hold.

As you go through modern life fending for yourself, you tend to fall prey to situations where your needs cannot fully resolve without the cooperation of others. Others are too busy fending for their own essentials. No one it seems fully resolves their needs.

You don’t personally know anyone living up to their full potential, so you accept your lot as normal. If you dared to reach out to offer someone help, you know you risk being exploited.

Despite the promises of modernity to make life easier, everyone seems to have it a little harder. And effectively become less loving than our recent communal ancestors.

Need-response

The more you honor the needs of others as your own, the more you inspire at least some of them to honor your needs as their own. You tap into your life’s potential when ready to boldly love another like no one has loved them before.

Need-response provides an effective communication framework to honor their needs as much if not more than your own. It follows the praise sandwich format, to sandwich your less pleasant message about how they affect your needs between positive affirmations of them.

• POSITIVE: “Thank you for your [value to me].”

• NEGATIVE: “When you [act in a certain way, it affects my need].”

• POSITIVE: “The more you respond to my needs, the more I can faithfully respond to your needs.”

For example, apply this to each other’s need to be better understood.

• P: “Thank you for listening to me and trying your best to relate to what I experienced.”

• N: “When you joked that I took things too personally, it felt like you didn’t fully understand.”

• P: “The more you can empathize with this traumatic experience, the easier I can relate to yours.”

Here’s another example.

• P: “I appreciate that you took the time to ask me how I am doing.”

• N: “Saying ‘I’m fine’ is only half true, as I am still struggling to cope with all the harm.”

P: “I trust I can share more, as your patient with me as I thoroughly grieve this terrible loss.”

Keeping any unpleasant message squeezed between some positivity helps to sustain our potential to be more caring toward each other.

Reactive Problem

Yes, such engagement opens you to possible exploitation. Not everyone will respond in good faith. Some will assume you must have an ulterior motive. “Why are you trying to be so nice to me?” Others will reject your overtures of kindness for many reactive reasons.

You counter exploitation or unresponsiveness with assertive need-response. You hold firm. Humble and firm. You persist in your intent, and not react with defensiveness.

If others cannot appreciate your responsive effort, move on. Seek those you can trust to be more responsive to your offers of lovingkindness. Build your courage with early successes with them.

Don’t let anyone detract you from the higher ideals of love. Don’t let anyone distract you from your full potential to spread more love in this world. Don’t let anyone or anything detach you from a deeper connection with all life

Responsive Solution

When you experience yourself as one with the universe, you intuitively recognize that whatever you do to others you ultimately do to yourself. At a profoundly deep level, we are all connected.

Smile more often. See others smile in return. Offer small acts of kindness. Witness some reciprocate your generosity. When needing friendship, be a friend to them. Expand your social capital, your outlook on life, your potential to mature your empathy toward others.

Relate to others as you would have them relate to you. Find someone who’s as responsive as you. Recharge each other’s batteries, likely drained from all those distrusting souls out there. Keep each other’s love alive.

Get to know what others need, and how they need it. Humbly share your needs with them. Cultivate your trustworthiness by consistently respecting their needs. Show them how much you value them by your wiliness to put their interests ahead of your own.

Let love be your guide. Grow your lovingkindness reputation by letting your consistent concern for others keep you predictable. Let this keep you open to being loved by caring others.

Be honest about your mistakes, your shortcomings, your emotional wounds still healing, your times of doubt and distrust, your fears of being hurt again, and your willingness to risk more pain to reach more of your potential to love and be loved.

Be resilient, by getting back up after being knocked down time and time again. Let your equanimity keep your love unshakeable. Let your maturing love permeate your life like your life depends upon it—because it ultimately does!

Responding to your needs

How does this principle speak to your experience of needs? Post in our Engagement forum your thoughtful response to one of these:

• It’s hard to love others who keep rejecting my sincere kindness.

• Love often gets confused with sex, and that’s a problem I like to see addressed.

• Emotional intimacy plays a key role, rejected by those fearing such intimacy.

• I find it excruciatingly difficult to love others while self-absorbed in so much pain.

Instead of selecting one of these, post your own engagement feedback about your experience with the subject of this principle. Remember the aim is to improve our responsiveness to each other’s needs, toward their full resolution. If you’re new at posting here, first check the guide below.