Tag: love

Learning to Love…Again

dr gary davis, love, hurt, relationships, clueless, christian, learning to love again

    “It hurts like hell; and then, one day, it doesn’t.”

-Ari Eastman’s mother.

From I PROMISED YOU

I WOULDN’T WRITE THIS.

 

Learning to love again takes everything you’ve got. You have to relearn trust, transparency, touch, and to risk speaking truth. You have to remember love is more giving than taking; that people are not perfect; that flaws and faults always come with the territory.

“11 When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things.” [1 Corinthians 13:11. NKJV]

Learning to love again is a matter of maturity, fortitude, and determination. It does not “just happen.” It is a decision based on ongoing healing and forming new relationships. It is time to take a chance with new experiences that confirm trustworthiness. It is involves making a commitment to dropping your protective shields and allowing another to know you more fully. It is an adult thing to do. Children simply get mad or sullen, but only for a time. Some adults I have known never move beyond. They wallow in hurt, spite, and revenge. They never forgive, or forget. Somehow, they fester vile to feed their anger; what they do not realize is that this venom is slowly poisoning them from within, like a cancer. Let it go!

To overcome your fear and bitterness, your isolation, you will need to awaken these 4 qualities—

  • Trust (risk). We live in community, not separation.
  • Faith. More likely than not relying on God is a much better idea than stubborn independence.
  • Heart. Activating your passions, your emotions, and fear are worth the risk. Learn to feel again.
  • Commitment. Make a decision to commit is stepping out of your comfort zone. You will have to do it sooner or later. To NOT decide, to NOT commit is a decision to die.

Failure to embrace these 4 qualities will leave you in emotional and relational limbo, encased in the darkness of your soul. It will take work to emerge from your cocoon a new butterfly rather than rotting within a decaying caterpillar shell.

Learning to love again will take real effort on your part. Do not love simply as a response to someone else’s love for you. Initiate love from within. Sponges in the ocean have little more function than to suck up the impurities around them. You are not a sponge.

Again, love is a give and take, not the other way around. You must be proactive, not passive.

This concludes our series Learning to love, maybe again or for the first time. Where would like us to go next?

Awaiting with baited breath,

Gary

How love games ruin relationships

Dr Gary Davis, rock, stubborn, love, games, clueless, Christian

Let’s start with an article from Psychology Today, 7 Behaviors that Ruin a Relationship— August 8, 2016. Let’s use Dr Lisa Firestone’s seven points as a starting point. (Italics mine.)

  1. “Having angry reactions to feedback instead of being open to it.” View any disagreement with your way of thinking as an attack.
  2. “Being closed to new experiences instead of open to new things.” Never do anything for the first time.
  3. “Using deception and duplicity instead of honesty and integrity.” It is far more important that you never let them know who you really are. Living a life of honesty and integrity can expose you to manipulation and exploitation. HIDE!
  4. “Overstepping boundaries instead of showing respect for them. Never allow another person to be their own person.” They have no rights or boundaries. You are in control.
  5. “Showing a lack of affection, and inadequate, impersonal, or routine sexuality instead of physical affection and personal sexuality.” Withholding love and affection for another is the cruelest way of hurting them. It puts you in control of the relationship instead of making your relationship’s health the central focus.
  6. “Misunderstanding instead of understanding.” Understanding another person’s mindset or opinion is not important to you. You don’t need to understand them. They must simply obey you without question.
  7. “Being manipulative, dominant, or submissive.” Whether you are trying to be the passive one, or the dominant manipulative one, you goal is to be in control. This is a perfect way to destroy a relationship.

Dr. Firestone’s article nails it on the head. Keep others OUT: tower over as much around you as possible.  React, conceal, stealthily rule; do not engage in any positive affirmation. Intentionally withhold love, trust, transparency, and truth. Basically, ingenious ways of wounding another person (or group) deeply.

Or, more directly, if you want to destroy a relationship, be it with your wife, lover, employer, or friend, you have the tools and spirit within you to do it. But before you do, certain things need to be in place—

  1. Harden your heart. Make sure you are callous enough to ignore the affects you are creating for the other to bear. Your intention is to be cold and callous, inconsiderate of any pain you are causing.
  2. Prepare for the consequences. Coldly treating someone may reverberate in a whiplash of vitriolic retribution against you, and those you know.

Or, you could seek forgiveness and reconciliation with the other. This is Not eating-crow, or groveling (unless a little groveling is necessary). This is admitting that neither you or the other person, or group, are perfect. It takes a much stronger person to seek forgiveness and reconciliation than to merely destroy the relationship.

Choose your course of action wisely.

NEXT DISCUSSION:  Your Personality and the Way You Love: you are how you love.

 Familiar with the taste of crow,

Gary

Love games., and how to play them

dr gary davis, clueless, love, christian, amherst, communication, games, love gamesLOVE GAMES. We’ve all played them at one time or another. Not something I’m proud to admit; but I have too.

We learn to play love games because we’ve been hurt, wounded. We learn to not trust, to not be open, to guard ourselves. We play them because we want to protect ourselves, our hearts, from further pain. Nothing wrong with that!?! At first. But after a while we grow a shell around our souls, like the crust on an apple pie; just not as tasty.

In marriage, partners guard their love, withhold their deepest fears and desires from the other. In business, we learn to play our cards close to our chest, revealing just enough that will still allow us to hold the upper hand. It’s business; not personal. With friends, we might dare confide, unless we have been betrayed before. After that, no one really knows us. We always hold something back.

We even play love games with God. We pretend to serve Him when we are secretly seeking recognition for our own actions. We give to the poor in a shielded, cautious manner, making sure we don’t forfeit our own safety or security. Or indulgences. Sacrifice?!? That’s a whole ‘nother conversation.

Love Games are a part of life. We use them to protect ourselves. At some point, though, they can dominate our souls and shut out the world so thoroughly that we trap ourselves within our own fortress.

Is there any way to safeguard ourselves within this self-imposed isolation, these ostensibly compulsory love games? Well, yes…, but you will have to work hard. Here are some ideas for you to bring your best to your love games—

  1. NEVER be real with yourself. There are real dangers in discovering a deeper understanding of who you really are. Best to remain content with your fanciful projection of yourself.
  2. NEVER lose control. You must regulate everything around you. Leave no variance in your realities. Surprise is your enemy.
  3. NEVER trust others, especially your fellow workmates. They may gain your complete confidence in the beginning, but be careful; they will outshine you in time. That is exactly what you don’t want. NEVER enable people to become better than you.
  4. Above all else, DO NOT TRUST GOD! To do so puts you in too precarious a position. You never know what He is going to do with you or your situation. Letting go of the game to give God control over your life is a very risky move.  Trusting God will make your life and livelihood far more exciting in the long run, but do not be concerned with that. Better to stay safe now than to trust your future to some unknown God.
  5. MAINTAIN YOUR JUDGMENTS OF OTHERS. TRUE, they are not designed to be like YOU. They are inferior. Above all else you MUST win. It is not your job to empower lesser people to succeed.
  6. NEVER TELL THE WHOLE TRUTH. Subtleties, nuances, and innuendoes will do just fine and enhance your odds of winning the game.  Always withhold something. NEVER reveal all:  NEVER say what you actually mean.
  7. NEVER CONCERN YOURSELF ABOUT WHO YOU ARE BECOMING; just play the game and blend in until it is time for you to take control. Taking the time to evaluate and recalculate your direction is a waste of your time.

Still want to keep playing love games? Maybe…, maybe not? Tune in for our next discussion.

NEXT DISCUSSION:  Escaping Love Games.

 Your turn…,

Gary

The dangers of not being loved

gary davis, clueless, christian, love, plumb, unlovable     The effects of being unlovable, or not being loved, are horrible. If you don’t know that, you’ve either never been truly loved, or never been in love. REJECTION cripples us to a point where it is difficult for us to function, let alone breathe.

Let’s start this discussion with a music-vid from Tiffany Arbuckle Lee, known in the music world as Plumb. (www.plumbmusic.net) Please enjoy the lyrics and presentation of unLovable—  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnDfi9VlBI4 .

What were the questions raised in the music? How did she convey her longing to us? What were your thoughts? Your feelings? Or…, maybe you had no response whatsoever. What does that tell you about yourself?

Some of the results that follow extended periods of NOT being loved are—

  • Self-Isolation
  • Insecurity
  • Fear
  • Unrealistic self-image
  • Loss of desire to love or to be loved
  • Lost ability to trust or believe anyone
  • Loss of feeling or being safe anywhere

Have you experienced any of these symptoms? If you have, there IS something you can do!

You can start loving other people. There may not be any feelings underneath your actions; they may come later; or, they may not. That is not the point. ACTION that you initiate is. Love is a decision.

I’ve heard of some Christians who do loving actions so God will reward them for it. Seriously?!? Think about this. It’s still all about ME! You can do nothing that will make God love you any more than He does.

In my personal life I have learned that loving other people comes easily when I expect nothing in return. This has only been possible because of my acceptance of Christ’s love for me. DOING loving actions for others often produces feelings of love after the fact. The trick is to love freely and openly. If you want some “loving” response from the people you have loved, then, actually, aren’t you loving so you will get something out of it?

Here’s your homework assignment— Make a conscious effort to love someone who people consider unlovable, or even lovable. See how it affects you.

 

NEXT DISCUSSION: Love Games and how to play them.

 

How do you say “I love you?

Gary

How does love affect us?

gary, davis, love, live, heart, affect, christian, clueless

Your first thought should be, “You’re kidding right!?!” Everyone knows how love affects us. Do we? From The World of Psychology comes these ideas on How Being in Love Affects Your Personality. https://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2014/05/30/the-science-of-love-9-ways-being-in-love-affects-your-personality/ .

  1. You’re a Combination of Happy and Anxious.
  2. You’re Addicted.
  3. You’re Capable of Taking More RISKS.
  4. You’re Over-the-Top Overprotective.
  5. You Can’t Focus.
  6. You’re Confident
  7. If You’re Neurotic, You Become Stabilized.
  8. You Don’t Judge.
  9. You’re Smarter.

In short, your dopamine level propels you to heights you never thought you could achieve. But it’s not simply chemical. That’s merely a scientific analysis.

Being LOVED is an enabler, a foundation, a definer, a source of personal strength, a reference point, and a reflective mirrorof who you are. When you know you are loved you feel safe, secure, and in a place where things make sense. This is true of romantic love, family love, brotherly love, or familiar love. Love provides the context for so much of our life that it can never be underestimated.

NOT being loved creates a vacuum in us which is not always filled by wonderful things! Just the opposite; we replace a healthy human love with a self-promoting, self-aggrandizing love. This kind of love may seem fulfilling at the moment, but in the longer view creates isolation, protective walls, and a façade we want others to see. Choose your loves wisely.

There is yet another effect of love on us. It stems from the love that we give to others. Because if love is to be grasped to the fullest, it not only must be received, but given. Dare I say that if you have difficulty receiving love, you will have equal difficultyexpressing love. Love’s manifold facets affect us in the giving and receiving of it; its volume expands exponentially as it is given. For that is what grounds love in its fuller context.

So, if I may ask, How’s your love life? Are you being loved in such a way that it fills your life? Are you loving another that enhances your own life (& theirs, of course)? Or do you find it hard to love or be loved? These are the kinds of questions to talk over with your spouse, a good friend, or a counselor.

 NEXT DISCUSSION:  What are the effects of NOT being loved? Of NOT loving?

 How do you say “I love you?

Gary

Why does love even exist?

dr gary davis, clueless, christian, relationships, love, purpose   Try to imagine your world without love? Hard to do, isn’t it. Most of us have been wounded in a relationship. It hurt. Some of us have lost a husband, a wife, or a child. That pain is unbearable; a gut-wrenching vacuum that nothing can fill. If you have God in your life you have a great resource for strength & solace; if not…, how do you ever deal with the agony?!?

Back to my original question— Why does love even exist? Frankly, love is something we all take for granted. It’s just part of the fabric of life. But for some of us love is rather close to an impossibility. Either we’ve lost the ability to love from some past experience, or we are simply incapable of loving or accepting love. We fear love for…, whatever reason. So we always have our guard up, protecting our hearts.

Scientists have concluded that love is an inner chemical response to some external stimulus. Really! So why do we love some people and not others? And why do we not loveeverybody? Equally? Some other species on this planet form what appears to be a lovingfamily entity. Is it? And, unlike humans, they commit for life. Humm.

Evolutionists will insist that love, even if only an internal chemical reaction, is there for the preservation of our species. That doesn’t ring true for me. Love exists for so much more than that. It’s what binds people together; it is the bond of trust, comradery, brotherhood, friendship, parenting, caring for the dying, sticking with someone through thick and thin, remaining faithful.

The evolutionary theory has it all wrong. Love is a gift from our Creator. It fulfills us as human beings. It brings joy at the end of sorrow, peace after suffering, release in finality. It brings elation at that first kiss, and the second, the third…, lalalala. Love exists to force us to define boundaries that are appropriate to the nature of the relationship we hold with each other person, or people, or nation. Love is an inner ethereal reach for meaning and connection to something, someone, outside of ourselves. It is Devine and human at the same time. A “chemical response” can no more define the reason love exists than a bumble bee could describe the Universe.

Love exists, simply, for us. It was built into our beings at the beginning. Period. Please, argue with me.

 NEXT DISCUSSION:  How does love affect us?

 Love rocks!

Gary

Learnning to love-different kinds of love

dr gary davis, clueless, christianity, christian, love, meaning, agape, eros,

What are the different kinds of love? The ancient Greeks had at least six words (categories) for love—

EROS, or sexual passion. Not always a safe form of love at that; often considered dangerous loss of control.

PHILIA, or deep friendship. Denoting deep comradery, loyalty, and sacrifice for the other.

LUDUS, or playful love. As between children or young lovers. Or cheerful banter in a local pub.

AGAPE, or love for everyone. Selfless love, extended to all people and even distant strangers.

PRAGMA, or longstanding love. The deep-understanding that develops between married couples. It conveys the compromises we make over time to make a relationship work. Patience. Forgiveness.

PHILAUTIA, or love of self. Describes a love that can be an unhealthy self-obsessed narcissism, OR, a love wherein you are secure in yourself, enabling you to have a greater capacity to love others.

[ http://www.yesmagazine.org/happiness/the-ancient-greeks-6-words-for-love-and-why-knowing-them-can-change-your-life ]

As with much of Western Philosophy, compound concepts are grouped under a single word. Thus, the above may be helpful for your understanding, but if we simply recall the numerous relationships we have, it should be obvious that love takes on many shapes. In each love shape the feelings are different, the expressions are different. So also are the degrees of commitment.

Love cannot be discussed solely in a conceptual realm. We need to drag it down to earth, to more human surroundings. When we start talking about love at this level, it forces us to become eminently practical. It is not erroneous to say that to understand love one must first love. So if we are to have any meaningful discussion on love, it truly helps to be in love— with a spouse, a partner, a child, a friend, even a dog. Hopefully, the “other” is reciprocating in some manner which feeds your soul.

So if you want to get into this discussion, ponder the different people you love. How is each love different? How would you describe each feeling? Each different expression? If they all feel the same then something is wrong. If you are expressing your love for your wife the same as you express your love for your car, believe me, something is terribly wrong.

NEXT DISCUSSION: Why does love even exist?!?

Let’s make love an action verb,

Gary

Learning to Love-Introduction

There’s really nothing quite like being in love, is there? Being loved, and loving, builds us in ways that nothing else can.

     We live in a culture where love has been lifted up to the highest pinnacle of experience…, and then we complicate it with sex, romance, and shattered relationships. We’ve lost something— a depth of love and any ability to love another selflessly. It’s always about me. Genuine love should be about the other.

     We need to learn to love again— with a rich love, a deep love. I’m not talking simply about romantic love…, but a love that is empowering— for our wives, husbands, our parents, our children, neighbors, and our workmates.

     Love cannot be merely a word or a feeling: it must be an attitude toward living, an underlying approach to everyone around us. Only then will we begin to grasp the wild stability found in selfless love.

     So if you’ve been hurt by love, or simply forgotten how to love, I invite you to join me over the next 6-7 weeks in this discussion about love. Invite your friends into the discussion too. Great fun lies ahead.

~ Dr. Gary Davis

[ALL OF THE STARS, Ed Sheeran—  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkqVm5aiC28 ]

Some of the facets of love we will be discussing are—

  • Learning Love. What are the different kinds of love? Why does love even exist? To what extent does loving and being loved affect our lives? And what are the effects of NOT being loved, or NOT loving other people.
  • Love Games.  What are they? Why do we play them? What do they do to our relationships?
  • Your Personality and Love. Your individual personality has a lot to do with your interactions with other people. It influences how and who you love too.
  • Love Hurts. Surprise! Giving love that expects nothing in return can lead to deep wounds. How do I recover from them? Giving love expecting something in return is even more dangerous. How are we to recover from love’s life discouragements? Learning to love again is one of the most difficult challenges we will ever face.
  • Trust. Loving anyone involves a measure of trust that lets go of personal protection and says My life is in your hands. How do we learn to “trust?” What are the ingredients of trust?

More issues will probably arise as we move through our discussion. There’s no right or wrong here; only open, honest options for us to knock around.

 Let’s make love an action verb,

Gary

Why Jesus became human

 nativity, Jesus, love, lightThis is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit. Because Joseph her husband was faithful to the law, and yet did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.

But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”

All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel” (which means “God with us”).

When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. 25 But he did not consummate their marriage until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus. ~ Matthew 1:18-24

This historical description of the events surrounding Jesus’ birth have been recorded in the Christian Bible for anyone to read. But the WHY of Christmas is a much more panoramic story. It starts with the beginning of time itself. Time, along with this fantastic universe were brought into being for us. That’s right—us. And the Lord God Creator said it was good.

In the early days of our livelihood, life was idyllic, if not busy. God had set our ancestors with the task of naming the animals; a.k.a.- imbuing them with their core characteristics. Busy, busy. Then there was that first garden to plant, till, and harvest. More busy. Forget about clothes. Who had the time anyway!

We did, however, find the time to cross the one line God had drawn in the sand—Do not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The rest is history.

Why did Jesus become human? To become one of us. To suffer the punishment we deserved for crossing the line with God. And in so doing we can be reinstated in a relationship with our Creator.

Why is it this way? I don’t know. Make something up. Most people don’t even believe this much. So we’ve turned the celebration of Jesus’ birth into a cultural economic bonanza for marketing and consumerism. Don’t get me wrong. I love Christmas celebrations. I love giving gifts. [Ok, I love receiving them too.]

So I will celebrate in the Christmas spirit right alongside the rest of our culture! But I will also celebrate a more quiet one (or maybe not so quiet), remembering the great gift that God the Creator gave us, Jesus Christ: the way back to Him.

Merry Christmas!
  Gary  &  Starr

Black and Blue…. and White

Black, white, violence, community, love, futureDallas PD, Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church Charleston, SC, Newtown CT, Orlando, San Bernadino, Oregon Community College, Boston Marathon, Kalamazoo, Washington Naval Yard, Virginia Tech.

These are the some of the communities who have found their place in American history through the tragic taking of innocent lives. These were men whose spirits were fueled with anger and resentment toward the police, the military, white people, black people, and innocent children. Their crimes were crimes of racism and resentment, of control and feeling out of control, of having no voice in the greater arena of our great American culture. Maybe we’re not so great after all.

These murders and assassinations are representative of deeper divides between black & white, between police brutality and criminal license. On a deeper lever, they belie a sickness and fear within the souls of men to dominate, to be right, and to win. This is not a healthy platform on which to build a civil society. It is a platform that lays the foundations for civil war, permanent racial tension, and mutual destruction.

Is this the country we want to leave to our children?!? Of course not! But unless we act, all of us, and act now, our children will be facing the same issues 50 years from now.

Allow me to offer a course of action4now.

  1. The violence must STOP, on all sides of our conflicts. I grew up in a racially torn Baltimore, MD. I made a friend who was black in the midst of a gang war. We had to feign a personal feud to cover up our friendship. That should not have been; but it was. What if we ALL learned friendship again? Friends…, with those who are different from us? It can be done.
  2. It is easily observable that America is not “one nation under God. We are a matrix of peoples—Muslims, Christians, atheists, agnostics, Jews, scientists, philosophers and some people who are too busy earning a living to even think about their “position” on things. We are a patch-work quilt at best. It is well past the time we should know about our differences and come to allow for, if not respect, other people’s viewpoints, other people’s plights. One size does not fit all.
  3. A system, not of Social Security, but of Social Assistance should be set up. Not one where $$$ is blindly doled out, but one where people come to work together, side by side, for the common good. [See- Habitat for Humanity.] Who knows, maybe even those “row-houses” of my youth can be made to shine again.
  4. As a nation, we need to return to God. [Again, atheists & agnostics honorably excused.] But for the rest of us, it is time we took the dictates of our faith, no matter the faith, more to heart. Let’s not merely be Christians, but genuine Christians, giving to the poor; let’s not be simply Jews, but the Jews of the Book, honoring our history and caring for our fellow human beings; and let’s be worthy Muslims, obeying and honoring the teaching of Allah, and of Muhammad ﷺ, His Prophet, not killing, which is a sin, but cherishing life, bringing about great changes for all mankind.

These suggestions may go unnoticed, be seen as invalid, or simply ignored. Nonetheless, my belief is that they are not as naïve and uncritically fanciful as they might appear. One of my mentors was the business consultant Peter Drucker. One of his more famous sayings was— The best way to predict the future is to create it. It’s time we all got down to some serious, creative work.

And did I mention the difficulty and necessity of forgiveness? Do I have to?

Honor God; honor people…, make a difference,

Gary