Holistic Harmony Network - free articles and books, psychology, relationships, cassettes, self-help and life clarification process

Dear Friend,
May this find you well and happy.
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This is Part 4 of your 15 segment weekly email course which you requested on "Learning to Love Others".
For more on this subject we suggest the books "Relationships of Conscious Love" and "The Psychology of Happiness" which can be found as pdf ebooks at http://HolisticHarmony.com/ebooks/index.asp
and also in your booksores, at Amazon.com or for 40% discount at
http://www.HolisticHarmony.com/psychofhappiness.htmlMay you enjoy it and benefit from it.
**********************************NEEDING FOR PLEASURE AND AFFIRMATION
Let us look at how our needs for pleasure and affirmation can limit our experience of love. We create relationships that give us pleasure and affirmation as well as security. We may be dependent upon the other for money, travel, clothing, sex, encouragement, compliments, humor, tasty food, a clean house, comforts, or even his or her beauty. Yet, if he or she stops providing these for us, or decides to provide them for someone else, or to split whatever it is between us and someone else, do we continue loving that person or do we feel hurt, disillusioned, and overcome with feelings of injustice, anger and perhaps revenge? The condition here is that "I love you because you provide me pleasure, happiness or excitement; if you stop, my feelings change." It is conditional love.
We may also depend on someone for affirmation. This may take various forms. One is that, "You listen to me and do what I say. I can control you. That makes me feel powerful and worthy. If, however, you stop doing whatever I say, I will stop feeling love and unity with you." This problem often develops between parents and children when the child moves into adolescence. It also occurs between spouses. In many countries the wife might be suppressed in the beginning, and the husband feels powerful and affirmed. If, however, she begins to think and act for herself, he begins to panic and becomes angry and sometimes aggressive. The roles may also be reversed, and it is the woman who controls and feels affirmed.
We also feel affirmation when someone needs us, when someone is dependent upon us. This could occur between parent and child, teacher and student, friends, or even between the "savior" and the "needy." In these cases, the needed feels worthy or perhaps superior. This is one aspect of codependency. We might also find meaning in life because someone needs us, depends on us. If however, the other doesn’t want to be the child, the student or the needy one anymore, do we feel the same attraction and love? If not, our love is mixed with our need to be needed. We need to give, offer, and sacrifice in order to feel useful, worthy or boost our self image. If this is the case, then all that we offer in these situations, all our sacrifices, are actually for ourselves and not for the others.
That does not negate the fact that they may actually need us, or that we also have feelings of altruistic love mixed with our need to be needed. We are often motivated by two or three motives simultaneously
A third aspect of this attraction for affirmation is the situation in which we "love" those who affirm our rightness, either verbally by telling us we are right, or simply by belonging to the same social, political, religious, spiritual group and embracing the same belief system.
"I love you because you agree with me, you are like me, you affirm me". If they change beliefs and convert to another political party, religion, or spiritual group, will we feel the same closeness and "love?" Perhaps yes, perhaps no.
A fourth aspect of this affirmation principle is called "Eros" (in Greek "erotas") or falling in love. In this case there is a mutual (occasionally only one-sided) infatuation on the physical, sexual, emotional and sometimes mental level. This is a special attraction between two persons who excite, bring joy to and stimulate each other positively. This positive stimulation usually has to do with the needs for security, pleasure and affirmation.
This intensity of feeling seldom lasts more than a few years. The couple then has the possibility of transforming their "Eros" into a steady form of unconditional love, or facing the sadness of conflict or separation. Sooner or later, we will come face to face with the other’s various negative aspects, and if we cannot love them as they are, the relationship dissolves.
Until we are able to love unconditionally, we will be unhappy, insecure and frequently in conflict with those around us. We will be able to do this only when we have matured sufficiently so as to experience inner security, inner satisfaction, inner freedom and a steady feeling of self-worth. In other words, we can love purely only those who we do not need. When we need others, we cannot love them unconditionally. This might be difficult to comprehend at first, but deep thought and observation will prove it to be true. Being able to love without conditions is a basic prerequisite for both spiritual growth and a happy life.
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Go to http://www.HolisticHarmony.com/courses/index.asp for a list of other email courses you can order - most are for free.
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(The advertisements in the beginning of the email support the web site which kindly offers us this free autoresponder service and are unrelated to the author or articles.)
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ebooks available by Robert Elias Najemy
at http://www.HolisticHarmony.com/ebooks/index.asp
1. Universal Philosophy
2. The Art of Meditation
3. Contemporary Parables
4. The Mystical Circle of Life
5. Relationships of Conscious Love
6. The Miracles of Love and Wisdom
7. Total Emotional Freedom – EFT and Self -knowledge
8. Saram – The Adventures of a Soul and Insight into the Male Psyche
And available also at bookstores near you and also on our site
9. The Psychology of Happiness
http://www.HolisticHarmony.com/psychofhappiness.html
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Robert Elias Najemy is the author of over 600 articles, 400 lecture cassettes on Human Harmony and 20 books, which have sold over 100,000 copies.
He is the Founder and director of the Center for Harmonious Living in Greece with 3700 members.
His book The Psychology of Happiness is available at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0971011605/holisticharmo-20 and http://www.HolisticHarmony.com/psychofhappiness.html.
You can download FREE articles and e-books from http://www.HolisticHarmony.com where you can also receive guidance on life issues.
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