tba
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Dislike self No love Completely loved
(Negative no.)
Level created by you: (mark it above with an "x")
Level created by another:
Add the two together (of course, subtracing where appropriate): Total love received (mark above)
Anything you need to do to assure that you get to a higher level of love inputs?
1. Acceptance (and appreciation
2. Wanting good for someone (or self)
3. Supporting that good in some way
We attach to it "meaning", just as we do in life in general:
Romantic "feelings" - Which are actually "safety", "at last I'm loved as I wish to be loved", "I will no
longer be alone and I owe it all to this relationship and my love.
Security "feelings" - Visions of security and companionship
Love is potentially (often) a "do it to me" proposition, one of dependency rather than true love. Being in a "victim" state does not work nor does trying to control "out there" doesn't work. We should do what works and take the rest as gravy. (Read the two pieces linked on this page!!!!!!!! Or be a fool.)
Hypothesis (from experts): When it works and after the big surge at the front has passed, about 25% of our love needs our met by relationships, in total. Therefore, we need to supply the rest.
Life observation: Unhappy people depend on "out there" to make them happy. Happy people depend on themselves providing the happiness.
THE TAKE AWAY
Love from another is dessert and very good for us. Love from oneself is the entree, which is sufficient to satisfy ourselves and to not be so hungry for dessert that we foolishly make ourselves unhappy!
PROVEN
"Love does feel good" is a "true" statement, but not quite accurate, in that we are the ones who generate the good feelings by what we say to ourselves about love. (It is not ever the event, it is what meaning we add to the event. This is a pure fact of life, though so many people still deny it and think the event is the cause of their emotion. Those people are not happy.)
ANECDOTAL EVIDENCE (GENERALIZATION WITHOUT SCIENTIFIC FOUNDATION)
"This is all I hear, from millions of high level people who say love has transformed their lives and made them so happy." Therefore, I conclude that being loved is the source of happiness that I must have or I can't be happy. (Oops, dropped the use of logic....)
CULTURAL MYTHS/WORSHIP
Most people make conclusions from what is handed down to them and from what they see in the culture. But does that make it true?
Dramatized: I ain't nothing til you love me.
The prince will come along (after the romance he looks more like a frog)
MISUSE OF STATISTICS
People who are married are happier, as verified by tests, than those who aren't.
But some people misuse this as "marriage causes happiness", what is called an attribution of cause. However, it is also proven that happy people marry more often and stick with it.
So the correct assertion could be that happiness in happy people causes then to be suitable to marry more and to also maintain relationships better. Therefore, happiness is the or a cause of marriage and of marriage being happy.
Per one expert couple: 7% of marriages work out well. The others are either just so-so or negative (divorce rate is 50%, but there are people who just put up with it, estimated to be above 25% more).
