Real Love

 

 Baer, Greg. (2003) Real Love. The Truth About Finding Unconditional Love and Fulfilling Relationships.  New York, NY. Gotham Books. 

• Real love is caring about the happiness of another person without any thought for what we might get for ourselves.  When we give Real Love, we're not disappointed, hurt, or angry, even when people are thoughtless or inconsiderate or give us nothing in return- including ingratitude- because our concern is for their happiness, not our own. Real Love is unconditional.
  It's Real Love with other people care about our happiness without any concern for themselves.   They're not disappointed or angry when we make our foolish mistakes, when we don't do what they want, or even when we inconvenience them personally.
  Sadly, few of us have either given or received that kind of love, and without it we experience a terrible void in our lives, which we try to fill with money, power, food, approval, sex and entertainment.  But no matter how much of those substitutes we acquire, we remain empty, alone, afraid, and angry, because the one thing we really need is Real love. (4-5)
  

• If you're feeling disappointed or angry with your partner, it's a sure sign you're not unconditionally loving him or her. (9)

• The origin of our irritation is not what they've done, but the lack of Real Love in our lives. (11)
  
  If you're unhappy, don't look to your partner for the cause.  You're unhappy because you don't feel unconditionally loved yourself and because you're not sufficiently  unconditionally loving toward others.  (13)

• How often did your father hold you and tell you he loved you? How many times a day was he obviously delighted when you entered the room?  How often did your mother sit with you and ask what was happening in your life- just to list, not to give advice?...Did you feel just as loved when you made mistakes? (13)

• Emptiness, fear, and anger had been caused by a lifetime of feeling unloved...need to see we were not unconditionally loved in past not so we can blame parents, bu to stop blaming partners (13-14, emphasis added)

• We feel like we need to protect ourselves with anger, lying, acting hurt, withdrawing (17)
  
  
• You may use anger to win an argument with a partner, but can you remember the last time your anger made you feel more unconditionally loved by someone,  or more loving toward him?  (28)

• The worst effect of Getting and Protecting Behaviors, however, is that they make it impossible for us to feel Real Love,  even when it's actually being given to us.  Whenever we manipulate people in any way for something we want, we know that what we received is purchased, not freely offered.  We are paying for what we get. (28-29)

• A drowning man doesn't mean to hurt other people; in his stat3e of mindless panic, he simply can't seem to stop himself from grabbing anything or anyone that might help to keep his head above the water.  His fear is so overwhelming that he doesn't think for a second about the harm he might cause others as he saves himself. (29)

• Imagine that when you and I meet for the first time, we only have ten minutes to spend together.  For the first nine minutes, our conversation is delightful and you feel warmly accepted by me.  But during the last minute, I scream at you and chase you around the room with a butcher knife.  What is the overall effect?  do you remember only our first nine minutes together and feel loved and safe with me?  Of course not.  The effects of fear and pain are overwhelming.  Until a child- or an adult- is utterly convinced that he or she is loved unconditionally, even a small amount of doubt or fear is sufficient to destroy the effect of many moments of acceptance and safety. (32-33)

• Imagine this scenario:  You look out your window and see a man walking toward your house carrying a bushel of apples.  You want some of those apples, s oyo hurry outside and say, "I haven't had a bit to eat all day, and no one will give me anything."  the first statement is a lie and the second presents you as a victim. 
  The man with the apples starts to say something but you don't wait to hear what it is.  Instead, you rush on, verbally attacking him and making him feel guilty.  "I hope you remember all the things I've done for you in the past."
  The man then gives you the apples, but what you don't know is that he'd actually picked them specifically from his orchard to give to you as a gift.  The apples may taste good, but they can't make you feel loved, because you know that you manipulated the man into giving them to you.
  Real Love can only be felt when it's freely offered and received.  Although the man offered his gift freely, you did not relieve it freely,  In effect, you bought the apples with your behavior- by lying, acting like a victim, and attacking...And because of what you did, whatever the man gave you could not feel like a gift.  If you had allowed him to offer the apples without your doing or say8ing anything beforehand your feelings about his gift would have been entirely different.  You would have felt his unconditional concern for you...This happens whenever we do anything to manipulate another person into giving us something we think we wan, such as praise, attention, approval, and sex.  Whatever we receive will always feel purchased and less worthwhile, even if it was freely offered. (44-45)
  

• Trying to change another person is manipulative, controlling, and arrogant, and it proves that we're primarily concerned with our own happiness, not our partner's. (51)
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• The worst consequence of controlling others is that we can't learn to be loving, which is the greatest joy of all.  We can't be happy while we're selfishly manipulating people. (52)
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• How arrogant it would be for me to expect that you would change who you are just for my convenience.  Surely you wouldn't expect that of your partner.  And yet that's just what you do every time you're angry or disappointed with anyone- you're indicating that your expectation have not been met...Expectations are self-serving and unloving...
  Whenever we expect another person to change in any way, we are, in effect, demanding the he or she love us- care about us- and make us happy.  But Real Love can never be demanded; it can only be freely given and received. (53-54)

• While it is true that I may promise to love you , the moment you expect me to keep that promise, you destroy the possibility of feeling unconditionally accepted, because unconditional love  can only be freely given and freely received.  When we expect love, anything we receive can only fee like an order that was filled, or something we paid for.
  
  When we stop seeing marriage as an obligation for our partner to fill our expectations, and instead see it as an opportunity to learn to love another person, it becomes the most beautiful experience imaginable. (55-56)

• If you're unhappy in a relationship, you're always wrong...when you're unhappy it means that you haven't' yet done enough to feel unconditionally loved and loving...your happiness is in your own hands...focus your attention entirely on what you can do to become more loved and loving...that is what will make the greatest difference in our relationship and...happiness; not what your do to change your partner. (66) 

• Being wrong doesn't make us bad. (67)
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• Faith is an act of consciously choosing to experience something we don't know. (68)

• When we require people to prove they're worth trusting, we naturally- and most unconsciously- look for evidence that they're not.  that's understandable, since we're afraid of being  hurt and are eager to protect ourselves.  However, the consequences of that fearful and protective approach are terribly destructive to relationships and to our own happiness because:
• 1- we look for the slightest mistakes to justify our fears and prove that our suspicions were correct.  But as the people around us learn to tell the truth and become loving, they will make mistakes.  They have to .  We can't require them to be flawless when they interact with us...that outlook keeps us afraid of almost everyone we know...
• We see mistakes where they don't exist...we tend to see what we're looking for. (73-74)

• As long as we assume that our partners are hurtful, they can never prove otherwise, because we will interpret everything they do in a negative way, confirming our critical assumptions....this only succeeds in hurting us. (74)

• We feel most unconditionally loved when we're accepted with our mistakes, not our successes. (105)
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•  Imagine you are down to your last two dollars, and you're hungry.  Putting the money on the table to get ready to go out and buy some bread.  Suddenly, I dash into the room, snatch the two dollars off the table and run away before you can stop me.  You'd almost certainly be angry at me.
  
  Now imagine that I do exactly the same thing- steal two dollars off your table...- but this time you know you have twenty million dollars in the bank.  How would you feel this time?  The loss of two dollars matters very little when you have twenty million....
  
  That's how it feels to have sufficient Real Love....When we feel unconditionally loved, everything else becomes relatively insignificant.  People don't make us angry anymore....when people speak badly of us, we're not threatened; we understand that they're simply afraid and protecting themselves.  (117-118)

• Mark usually responded to his wife's anger with his own anger...he was already in pain from a lifetime of emptiness and fear and he immediately reacted to both her anger in the present (which told him he wasn't loved) and his entire lifetime of emptiness and fear (which carried the same painful message)...with his predominant Protecting Behavior...his own anger.
  when he felt enough Real Love...he wasn't frightened by his wife's anger in the present, so it didn't become the straw that broke the camel's back- instead, it rolled off his back like water off a duck.
  
  Other people's anger disturbs us only because we feel unloved when they get angry...the solution is not to control their anger, or attack them in return, or run, or act like a victim...the solution is to feel loved, and we don't need to feel loved by everyone. (120-121)

• It helps enormously when we remember...that other people hurt us only because they themselves are drowning and doing what it takes to protect themselves and fill their own emptiness.  When we can remember that, we don't take our injuries so personally. (121-122)

• We see people clearly when we see them as they really are- with their needs, fears, flaws, and strengths- instead of seeing what we want from them or fear from them.  And we must see people clearly before we can love them unconditionally. (140)
  It's not
  
• When you see your partner clearly, and he becomes critical or angry, you know he is only afraid and protecting himself...with that understand it no longer makes sense to be resentful or angry. (142)
  
  
• Most obvious sign of acceptance in relationship is absence of criticism. (149)
  
  
• But if you truly accept someone, why would you ever require him to apologize to you for making the mistakes that are unavoidable in the process of learning? (151)
  
  
• Our relationships will become much happier when we decide not to require apologies from our partners, but instead to apologize ourselves (which really means to tell the truth about our mistakes) and to quickly forgive (which really means to accept) our partners.  By learning to give your partner the gift of your acceptance you'll bring great joy into your own life, and you'll experience an enormous change in your relationship.  (153)

• People learn far better while feeling loved than they do while feeling our anger. (155)
  
  
• You will find it much easier to tell the truth about yourself to any partner if you already feel sufficiently filled with the acceptance and love of wise men and women to whom you have told the truth about yourself on other occasions.  When you do that it will be like money in the bank; you won't be afraid to tell the truth about yourself to your partner, because you won't need his or her acceptance in that given moment.  Under those conditions, telling the truth becomes easy.  (172)

• see parenting and sibling examples on pages 212-217.  Also 154-155

• Good parenting is not a technique but a natural result of unconditionally loving and teaching our children. (213)
  
  
• When our children are angry, rebellious, or otherwise difficult, they're reacting to insufficient Real Love in their lives, and we parents always have a major responsibility for that. (215) 

• Parents need to view arguments between children not as inconveniences to be stopped, but as opportunities to teach them about Real Love. (218)
  

• When we truly believe that other people have the right to make their own choices, we don't feel disappointed in them, no r do we get angry when they make a choice with which we disagree.  Without anger and disappointment, there's nothing to fuel a conflict, and it will die from a lack of energy.
  
  We create conflict, on the other hand, when we demand that other people respond to us in any particular way. (229)

•  It's not disagreement that causes unhappiness- it's disappointment and anger. (236)

• If your car stalled in the middle of the highway would you try to start it again by pouring gas on it and setting it on fire?  That's what we do when we speak in anger. (236-237)
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• When you're angry, you're unloving, blind, trying to control your partner, and expecting him or her to make you happy.  You couldn't be more wrong. (239)
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• One winter, I hiked with a friend far out into the desert...