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It's customary to send messages
of love on the day devoted to Saint Valentine. But proclaiming love, as
legions of suitors will testify, is easier than having it acknowledged and
accepted. Many people do find it easier to brush off compliments. They
discount votes of validation without batting an eyelid. Words of
encouragement might actually make them wince. Such praise resistance is
nearly universal, say Harville Hendrix, and his wife Helen LaKelly Hunt,
coauthors of Receiving Love: Transform Your Relationship be Letting Yourself
Be Loved. This could also explain why so many relationships don't get better
even when one partner dramatically changes patterns of behaviour to say and
do all the right things. For, people often have a hard time accepting the
good things they are offered, even if they are very generous and giving
themselves.
Hendrix and Hunt trace the
problem to a "broken receiver," a part of us that is damaged in early life
when we are ridiculed, ignored or punished for expressing natural emotions
and needs. ("If you are going to sulk and be angry, then go to your room
until you can be with other people.")
In response to such cruelty, self-protective
mechanisms kick in; souls sensitised to abuse learn to hide the most
spontaneous or fun parts of themselves. As adults these individuals may have
problems of communicating their feelings freely and they often act with
self-repression or self-rejection even as they go about discounting, denying
or denigrating other people's expressions of appreciation and affection.
The only way to break out of this self-created
prison is with unbounded compassion for the hurt self sulking inside you.
Also, try to adopt in yourself the traits you like the least in your
partner, suggest Hendrix and Hunt. For only by learning to love your partner
you learn to love yourself. Then you are able to take in the love that
another offers-- giving and receiving, the counsellors emphasise, are part
of the same system.
But you need to create a
reparative relationship first. In practical terms this may be simpler than
it sounds: put feelings into words; identify what triggers anxiety and
integrate what you're feeling.
Of course, it also means
giving up ancient hurts. Stop craving for validation and approval all the
time. Brighten up; wear you heart on your sleeve. |
