Contents
We yearn for love in the days of loneliness. And especially acutely – when we do not find a response to our feelings. In fact, who among us has not at least once tried to connect together two poles that should complement each other, but in reality they rarely come together: to love and be loved?
Basic Ideas
- Love builds. Heartfelt feelings are the root of our existence. We build our lives on them.
- Love is everywhere. In the family, at work, in school – everywhere we are looking for sensual connections.
- Love is given and received. It only expands its boundaries from such an alternation. And it can be learned.
“If I speak the languages of people and even angels, but I don’t have love, I’m only copper ringing and timpani roaring. If I have the gift of prophecy, or all secrets and all knowledge are available to me, or I have such faith that I can move mountains, but there is no love, I am nothing. These gospel words of the Apostle Paul are dedicated to divine love, but few of us who live with earthly feelings cannot attribute them to ourselves. “Our whole life is permeated with love,” says psychoanalyst Ksenia Korbut. “We all need to build relationships, make connections, give and receive love, feel affection for another person. On these feelings, as on a foundation, we build our life.
Biography of love
The foundations of our feelings are laid in childhood: how we were loved by parents and loved ones later determines much of our sensory potential, explains French psychiatrist Boris Cyrulnik. Mother and father are not chosen, but it is their love – mean, “sufficient” or excessive – that introduces the child to love relationships. “If, for example, a child was spoiled, indulged in everything, protecting him from the realities and complexities of the world, later it will be more comfortable for him to receive love than to give it,” Ksenia Korbut agrees. “Although there is no predestination here: over time, our attitude towards love can change.”
Every experience we have has the ability to develop and enrich us. So, in adolescence, we suddenly learn that loving, even one-sidedly, is a fantastic way to feel that you exist, spread your wings and gain strength, grow up, separating from your parents – our first objects of love … And it becomes a wonderful ally in this matter. friendship: it helps to experience the whole gamut of human feelings. Becoming parents, we take the next step: we learn amazing, unique love in relation to each child. And this feeling is demanding: it educates us and teaches us to give. The convergence of these two poles – to love and be loved, to give and receive – lives in us, moves us and makes us change until the very end of our days, – Boris Tsiryulnik is sure.
Empire of feelings
“I know only one duty – to love,” the French writer Albert Camus admitted half a century ago **. Compared to this beautiful message today, our moods have changed. “What do you want more – to love yourself or to become the object of a strong feeling?” – such a question we asked recently on our website. “I want to feel that I am loved – without this, a reciprocal feeling is impossible for me,” answered 65% of those who took part in the survey ***. It seems that many of us are increasingly relying on love as a kind of universal medicine that can heal doubts, get rid of weaknesses, make up for our imperfections. And this, essentially childish, hope manifests itself in various areas of our lives.
So, many modern parents are convinced that the main thing that is necessary for the happiness of their child is boundless love.
And as a result, children often suffer from a lack of parental authority, the rules and boundaries of behavior necessary for a successful maturation. “My boss doesn’t like me…” In professional life, the concentration of our emotions is also growing. “We spend more time in the office than at home, and our desire to communicate and make friends, as well as to hope that we are loved and appreciated, is understandable,” says psychotherapist Alexander Orlov. – On the other hand, it is becoming increasingly difficult for modern managers to keep a distance in relations with subordinates. “Competition in the labor market is growing. Since the employee feels the possibility of losing his position and cannot rely on the protection of his institution, his emotional ties become exaggeratedly significant. Someone who is sufficiently valued professionally is unlikely to look for hypothetical evidence of the love of his superiors.
The love lexicon is increasingly found even in politics. Who does not remember the recent campaign call that sounded from all our TV screens: “Mark the name of your FAVORITE party on the ballot …”?
accept gifts
And yet the main laboratory of our sensory expectations remains the relationship in a couple. It is in it that we learn that loving is a complex, almost acrobatic exercise, and that the perfect balance between our ability to give and receive love is given to us only in rare moments of grace.
The poetic stanza “I belong to my beloved, and my beloved belongs to me” from the biblical Song of Songs of King Solomon is for us an ideal rather than an everyday reality. In most couples, alas, an endless account is kept: “I listen to him for hours, but you won’t hear even a couple of affectionate words from him …” Such bookkeeping is always wrong, because it tries to find material evidence of intangible feelings.
But, demanding attention, tenderness, passion, are we really ready to accept these gifts? “Proximity scares many of us,” explains client-centered psychotherapist Marina Khazanova. “A genuine relationship is really risky: we open up to another person, but the coincidence with him (her) may not happen, and this hurts.” This is why so often we unconsciously avoid deep relationships. But is it possible to love, to give, if you do not allow yourself to enjoy receiving?
There seem to be two extremes in love. Some of us can only give our love, be caring, compassionate. “Often, such people grew up with the feeling that they are not worthy of love, respect, or recognition,” explains Ksenia Korbut. “And now, constantly, giving away their feelings, they seem to be trying to earn the right to exist.” Others act like the whole world owes them. Having once experienced a lack of parental love, they do not feel safe. Passionately desiring to be loved, they unconsciously hope that the feelings of another will protect them from anxieties and fears. “But, not knowing how to give, they rush about, devalue existing relationships, change partners, quarrel with friends,” says Marina Khazanova.
And yet most of us need both to give feelings and to receive them. “Give or receive” – these needs are satisfied alternately, in different ways, with different intensity at different moments of life.
All they need is…
For most modern parents, the question is clear: the main thing for a child is … love.
This statement seems especially obvious, because it is extremely rarely dictated to a person only by the arguments of reason. In fact, when speaking about a child’s need for love, an adult, without knowing it, often talks about himself. About his nostalgia for tenderness, which he, having experienced it once, knows the true price. Or about the inescapable pain because he once did not have enough love. A person never talks about childhood from a neutral position. In this area more than in others, judgments are rooted in the very depths of the personal history of the person who makes them. Behind the most seemingly well-thought-out scientific or philosophical arguments often lies the pain of the soul. The influence of personal history is all the more powerful because, for the most part, becoming unconscious, it eludes the speaker, who sincerely does not realize to what extent the past directs his thoughts … It is difficult to discuss the issue, and one can only regret it: the belief that love exists the main food for the child, has already conquered modern society. Love has become the main measure in everything that concerns the relationship between parents and children …
Open up in dance
A truly adult, mature love relationship is like a dance together: partners move together to the beat of a common music, but at the same time they have the opportunity to change places, step aside or take a step forward. “The love that you give and receive only expands its boundaries as a result of such an alternation,” Ksenia Korbut is sure. Despite the vicissitudes of fate, there is love, and this wonderful feeling is fueled by creativity, passion, spiritual search, friendship, our love for life, for others, for ourselves. Everything we do is filled with this experience, it is on it that most of our relationships are built. It is not in vain that wise people in their declining years often ask themselves: “Did I manage to fall in love? Have I been able to convey the power of the feelings experienced to my life partner, children, friends? Could you rejoice in their feelings? All our lives we learn to give and receive in order to be able to say to ourselves as a result: “How wonderful it is to feel love!” In both senses of the phrase.
* 1st Epistle to the Corinthians. 13:1-2.** A. Camus “Notebooks”. Vagrius, 2000. ***
About it
- Dalai Lama XIV “How to give love” Open world, 2007.
- Erich Fromm “The Art of Loving” ABC Classics, 2007.
Pass the tests
- How do you love… and want to be loved?