Only Love

Love is what makes the world go around. It brings happiness, hope, possibility and redemption. At the same time it can break our heart, make us angry, even revengful. How can the same emotion turn us in completely opposite emotional directions? In my work I have observed such tenderness and alternately have seen the most ruthless behavior, all in the name of love. Go figure.

Love takes us all the way down into the deepest darkest regions of our particular forest. Whatever we have suffered with in our past will be stimulated in a love relationship. I can see a patient for years and never get a squeak until their spouse comes in. Suddenly, an invisible switch gets thrown and out pops a never before seen fire breathing godzilla like creature spewing rage and vindictiveness all over the room. As I sit in stunned disbelief I am struck by the power of love. When we are alone we are working on about 500 watts of power but when the loved one enters the room we switch to another system and suddely we are in a 10,000 watt environment. Everything gets touchy and can explode in a nano second.

The other night I am working with a couple and suddenly out pours a slew of criticisms. I'm thinking to myself, well that's not going to produce love and affection from his mate. So why is he acting this way? I dig deeper. I say to him that it feels to me like he is trying to tell his mate that he doesn't feel like she really cares about him. He looks at me with a dazed expression on his face and in a whisper says, "yes, that is how I feel." How did we get there? The answer is: there is always a reason for behavior, we just have to find it.

So what can we do about this seeming contradiction between loving someone and then behaving like we hate them? Is there truly a fine line between love and hate? I think it is a matter of distinction. The distinction between loving someone and how we have been loved, between how we want to be loved and how we are being loved, between treating some like we have been treated or treating them in a completely different way, like someone we truly care about.

As we all know rage and anger kill love. There's no way around it. If we do it often enough our love will die. So we must conclude that those things don't work. What we really have to do is to get to know ourselves, like what we suffered with and bring that understanding into how we create a love that endures. Sure, everyone gets angry, it's only natural. But we don't have to share it out loud. We can learn how to stop and think about our anger. Anger is informative, If we take the time to understand what our anger is telling us about our deepest wounds or what we want and need, we can then express it in a constructive way. No argument has ever been resolved when two people were angry at each other.The goal of conflict resolution is to bring us closer not further apart.

So, the next time you feel like wiping the floor with your mate, take a break, think before you speak and make sure you put your finger pointer in you pocket.