{"id":33780,"date":"2017-01-16T06:00:39","date_gmt":"2017-01-16T14:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/?p=33780"},"modified":"2017-02-24T10:05:28","modified_gmt":"2017-02-24T18:05:28","slug":"is-your-ability-to-receive-love-affecting-the-love-you-give","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/is-your-ability-to-receive-love-affecting-love-you-give-0116174","title":{"rendered":"Is Your Ability to Receive Love Affecting the Love You Give?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"YoungRecently, when I put my 6-year-old son to bed, he reminded me of something I can sometimes lose sight of, particularly when I\u2019m anxious<\/a> or worried<\/a>. As I kissed him on the forehead, he said, “No fair.”<\/p>\n

“What’s no fair?” I asked.<\/p>\n

“You kiss me more than I kiss you,” he said.<\/p>\n

“Well, and isn’t that good? When I give you a kiss, doesn’t that raise your love meter?”<\/p>\n

My son rolled his eyes in the greenish glow of his Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles<\/em> night-light.<\/p>\n

\u201cYour love meter gets higher from giving<\/em> love,” he said.<\/p>\n

This idea\u2014that love<\/a> is something we get more of by giving it away\u2014is a radical one, though it’s nothing new. Folks as varied as St. Francis of Assisi, Mahatma Gandhi, and Martin Luther King Jr. have encouraged people to cultivate true wealth and freedom through conscious unconditional loving, for their own and the world\u2019s sake.<\/p>\n

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For many of us, though, living from this principle is easier said than done. The experience of feeling vulnerable and threatened triggers our fight-or-flight response<\/a>, and it becomes hard to remain aware of ourselves and of our options as we relate to others. Usually, we default to our habitual defensive positions\u2014blame, avoidance, projection<\/a>, rationalization, just to name a few. And yet, being able to tap into our capacity to give love\u2014even when we\u2019re scared\u2014may be an urgent necessity if we want to preserve our sense of agency<\/a> and balance in the aftermath of one of the most anxiety-provoking transfers of power in American history.<\/p>\n

For one thing, our agendas and ulterior motives have a way of creeping into our words and actions, influencing how the love we try to give those around us is experienced. Sometimes, it\u2019s not attuned to what the recipient needs, like the porridge in Goldilocks and the Three Bears<\/em>. It\u2019s too hot or too cold, too much or too little. Sometimes, the love we offer reaches its recipient contaminated by our concerns and preoccupations, and we feel hurt when it\u2019s shrugged off, minimized, or ignored.<\/p>\n

Defenses against receiving love, or giving it, aren\u2019t necessarily good or bad. We learn to defend ourselves against taking in the very things we deeply want for important reasons, including our own psychic survival.<\/span><\/p>\n

When the tables are turned and we\u2019re on the receiving end, we get to experience firsthand how hard it is to take love in: whether it\u2019s in the form of a goodnight kiss, a hug from our partner, or a stranger\u2019s compliment, opening our hearts requires something from us we\u2019re not always willing to give: trust<\/a>, surrender, vulnerability<\/a>, emotional availability, or even self-love<\/a>. If you feel unworthy of it yourself, how can you accept it from another?<\/p>\n

Defenses against receiving love, or giving it, aren\u2019t necessarily good or bad. We learn to defend ourselves against taking in the very things we deeply want for important reasons, including our own psychic survival. Even if we can’t remember having ever truly trusted another human being to love us selflessly, for exactly who we are, we’ve all counted on someone\u2019s appreciation or approval only to experience it withheld or withdrawn. We’ve all opened to another\u2019s concern and felt it suddenly morph into something suspect, a projection or judgment, a form of control. As sensitive beings imprinted with these types of experiences, it\u2019s not unusual to grow up wary about receiving the emotional gifts others offer us, lest they turn out to be Trojan horses or a version of Narcissus using us for a mirror.<\/p>\n

As therapists, one of our jobs is helping people understand what gets in the way of taking in the love that\u2019s already in their lives, even when circumstances are difficult. The more people can access and metabolize the love they\u2019ve been disregarding or ignoring, the more it can nourish them and help them<\/em> love others. In accelerated experiential dynamic psychotherapy (AEDP)<\/a>, the way in which people take in others\u2019 emotional offerings\u2014referred to as our \u201creceptive affective capacity\u201d\u2014becomes rich ground within the therapeutic relationship<\/a> for exploring, understanding, and expanding this ability well beyond the therapy session.<\/p>\n

The relationship between giving and receiving love can seem like a riddle worthy of a sphinx\u2014a human conundrum we begin grappling with early in our lives, as my 6-year-old son reminded me with his take on the true metrics of love. However you frame it, being able to receive love from another seems to be inextricably linked with our own desire and ability to give it. Finding ways to expand our own and others\u2019 capacity to take in and produce love locally, rather than seeking it elsewhere, has the potential to create a more stable and sustainable psychic economy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Letting in the love you receive can be difficult and scary. Therapy can help you understand why, leading to a greater capacity for loving and being loved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3032,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[542],"tags":[262,31,25,27,41],"class_list":["post-33780","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured-articles","tag-accelerated-experiential-dynamic-psychotherapy","tag-psychotherapy-practice","tag-psychotherapy-issues","tag-psychotherapy-models","tag-marriage-counseling-relationships"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33780","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3032"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33780"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33780\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}