Greg's Real Love Blog

All the principles of Real Love are relatively worthless unless we’re willing to actually tell the truth about ourselves and create the opportunities to feel the unconditional love that other people can give us. So this business of telling the truth about ourselves is crucial, and we must pay close attention both to how we do it and to how we respond when other people do it.

When people first tell the truth about their mistakes or flaws, they stand at the precipice of both tender and terrible opportunities. At such moments old bonds are broken and eyes once blind are bathed in light. People often feel a measure of freedom, acceptance, and power they’ve never known.

These moments of potential freedom, however, don’t come without their risk. Let’s imagine, for example, that a woman named Carolyn is talking to you on the phone. She’s been reading the book Real Love in Parenting and has come to that awful moment—as many readers of that book do—when she realizes the vast difference between what is possible in parenting and what she has actually done with her children. With an edge of panic in her voice, she says, “Wow, I’m really a terrible mother. When I look at the pain I’ve caused my children, I can hardly bear it.”

Terrible mother—or words like them (lousy husband, awful father, terrible wife)—are potentially very negative words for anyone to face. We tend to hear them in the same accusatory, unloving tones that usually accompanied such words all our lives. You have an opportunity here with Carolyn to make this an entirely different experience.

What could you say?

1. You do not want to minimize or argue with the truth, because that will not help Carolyn to feel truly seen and therefore feel more unconditionally loved. You do not want to say something like, “No, Carolyn, you haven’t been a bad mother.” At such a moment, you’d be trying to make her feel better—which seems like a good thing—but it would be a temporary salve for a problem that needs a better and more permanent solution. She already knows the truth, and if you say anything other than the truth, she won’t feel loved, and, in addition, she won’t trust you.
2. You do not want to sympathize with her. Sympathy is not to be confused with love. As we learn and grow pain is unavoidable. False sympathy trivializes this growth.
3. Obviously, you do not want to criticize her and make her feel worse.

So what can you say? What people need most when they speak the truth about themselves is to feel accepted, and this is accomplished all the better when you can add a bit of truth yourself. Let me suggest three guiding principles for listening to someone who is speaking a difficult truth, each of which have the underlying foundation of acceptance and love:

1. Re-state the truth already spoken but in your own words.
2. Re-state the truth with humor.
3. Demonstrate an understanding of the difficult circumstances of the speaker.

So let’s go back to Carolyn’s original statement and list some possible responses that would illustrate the above guidelines.

Carolyn’s statement: “Wow, I’m really a terrible mother. When I look at the pain I’ve caused for my children, I can hardly bear it.”

Some possible responses from you:

1. “You really are a terrible mother.” This is an example of simply re-stating the truth, and it may seem like a brutal thing to say, but it can be quite loving. People are actually eager to be seen for who they really are, and when you finally give them that opportunity, they are often hugely relieved. One day I said exactly this to a mother, and she responded, “Oh thank you. All my friends have been telling me what a great mother I am, but I just knew it was a lie. How could I be a great mother when my children were so angry and unhappy all the time? It’s such a relief to have somebody tell me the truth.” The relief Carolyn will experience here will not be because of the words you say but because of your acceptance of her, which she will feel from your tone of voice, facial expression, and other indications.

2. “So, we probably shouldn’t be looking for a Mother of the Year nomination for you any time soon, right?” You’re not just making a joke here. You’re helping Carolyn see that her mistakes are not the end of the world. There’s a way out. There’s hope. People tend to take their mistakes too seriously.

3. “I’m sure you have hurt your kids, and probably in more ways than you know. And now you can wallow in that and feel bad for the rest of your life, or you can choose simply to learn how to love them and help them be happier. Which way do you want to go?” Making mistakes is unavoidable. What determines the course of our lives is what we do about those mistakes. As people feel supported and loved by us, they are much more likely to move forward rather than wallow in the guilt of their mistakes.

4. “No kidding. Sounds like you’ve really blown it in a lot of ways.”

5. “Do you still poop your diapers?” At the very least, this usually disrupts any stream of victimhood and gets the attention of the speaker. Then you can go on to explain that we do the best we can at any given moment of our lives. When Carolyn was a baby, she pooped her diapers because it was the best choice she knew at the time. As she learned how to make better choices, she made them. As a parent, she must have faith that she will learn to do the same.

6. “So what?” This attitude is critical. People have a tendency to wallow in their guilt, arrogantly thinking that their mistakes are the worst ever made. You can really take the sting out of their mistakes with comments like “So what?” Then you can go on to explain what you mean by comments like several of those that follow.

7. “And how could you not have been a terrible parent? Really, with what you knew at the time, how could you possibly have avoided the mistakes you made? Pay attention here. We simply cannot do better than we know at the time, and until now you didn’t know how to be a better mother, did you?”

8. “Was there ever a single morning—even one—where you got up and decided that instead of being a good, loving, and supportive mother, you’d be unloving and hurtful? (Response from Carolyn: No.) Then apparently you made your mistakes simply because you didn’t know any better. So are you through with your useless feelings of guilt about this?”

9. “You really have made lots of mistakes. You might even qualify as a ‘terrible’ mother. But I have a question, and I really want you to answer it sincerely. Did you do the best you knew how at the time?”

10. “I believe you. Now let’s look at where you learned that. Who taught you how to be a parent? Really, who did? (Carolyn answers: “I suppose my parents did. Sort of.”) And what did they teach you? Were they unconditionally loving? Did they teach you to do your job right, but somehow you didn’t pick it up? (Carolyn: No.) So, you really were not a bad parenting student in the classroom you attended. In truth, you were an excellent student of the examples you were given. You were an excellent student of poor teachers. Do you see that? (Carolyn agrees.) Then I see no reason here for you to feel guilty, do you?”

11. “There’s no doubt of it. And knowing what you know now about loving and being a good parent, if you could go back in time and do it differently, would you do it differently? (Carolyn: Yes.) Then there’s no reason for you to feel guilty, and now you can focus your efforts on learning how to do it all differently.”

12. “Now that you know what loving looks like, would you let another person do to your children what you did to them in the past as a parent? (Carolyn: No) Of course not, you’d stop them. So it’s obvious that the mistakes you made were from ignorance. You didn’t mean to hurt them. So let’s not waste time feeling guilty about your mistakes, ya think?”

13. “Since the days that you made those awful mistakes, have you learned anything about how to be a better parent? (Carolyn: Yes) And if you had enough years, do you think you would do an even better job? (Carolyn: Yes) So it’s clear that when you made your mistakes, you were not a bad person. You were just at the beginning of the learning curve of parenthood. You just didn’t know what you needed to know. Now you’re beginning to learn how to love them, and you will learn. That’s all that matters.”

14. “Sure you screwed up, but what’s great is that we don’t have to make up for our past mistakes. All we have to do is learn from them and move on.”

15. “Naturally. With what you knew at the time, your mistakes were utterly unavoidable.”

16. “Duh. If you don’t know how to do something, mistakes are inevitable.”

17. “Understandable. You didn’t know any better.”

On many occasions—in books, movies, and seminars—I’ve heard people propose the idea that we should aspire to the lofty goal of loving other people more than ourselves. On the surface, this sounds like a potentially attractive idea, and when people hear it, they almost uniformly nod their heads in deep thought. On further examination, however, this profound insight proves to be the orphan of romance novel and fortune cookie wisdom.

The only kind of love that can produce happiness and healthy relationships is Real Love, which is given and received freely and unconditionally. The moment love is required or given out of obligation or guilt, it is no longer given and received unconditionally, and then Real Love no longer exists. With this understanding, allow me to illustrate the problem with loving other people more than ourselves as I describe a call I received from a woman named Barbara.

Barbara’s aging mother, Sylvia, was becoming unbearably demanding of Barbara’s time. If Sylvia had her way, Barbara would be over at her house all day every day, serving her and keeping her company. Barbara couldn’t see how she could love her mother and still have her own life.

“Why can’t you do both?” I asked. “Why can’t you love your mother and still have your own life?”

“Because she’s constantly demanding that I do more for her,” she said.

As we talked, it became obvious that the only reason Barbara felt pressured in this situation was because she believed in the wrong definition of love—the one we just discussed. She believed that if she truly loved her mother, she would love Sylvia more than herself. But the instant she believes that, look at the position that puts her in. She then feels an obligation to do whatever her mother wants—from a sense of guilt and duty, not from genuine love.

And is there any doubt that her mother doesn’t feel that? Of course she does. When people spend time with us only because they have to, only because they feel obligated to, we know it. I somewhat regret the graphic illustration, but do you think any man doesn’t know the difference between having sex with his wife who adores him and having sex with a prostitute? That’s the difference between Real Love and any attention that’s given with obligation.

When we feel that we have to love other people more than ourselves, we set ourselves up to be constantly torn by the expectations, demands, obligations, and guilt of everyone around us. Barbara was constantly shredded by those demands—from her mother, her husband, her children, and from herself.

In Real Love, there is no more than. We’re not required to love other people more than ourselves. We’re required only to learn to love people as well as we can and as well as we choose from moment to moment.

We do have a responsibility toward people, to love them as well as we’re able, but we’re never responsible for people, never responsible to make them happy, which is an enormous misconception that seems to be held almost uniformly in relationships. We demonstrate our belief in this misconception every time we become irritated at another person. Without being aware of it consciously, every time we’re angry at someone, we’re declaring that we had somehow made that person responsible for some measure of our happiness, and they failed to live up to their responsibility.

Barbara’s mother was irritated at her all the time. Why? She claimed it was because she didn’t call her enough, didn’t spend enough time with her, didn’t do her errands right, and so on. But those are just the details. The common thread uniting all these complaints is that Sylvia believed that Barbara was responsible for loving her and making her happy, and when Barbara failed to do that, Sylvia was angry.

The belief that we’re responsible for other people’s happiness is a lie and is responsible for a great portion of the misery on this planet. Now, when I say that we’re not responsible for other people’s happiness, this is not meant to give us an excuse to be uncaring. Not at all. We are still responsible to care about their happiness, and this is not just a play with words. Let’s apply this to the situation with Barbara, for example.

If Barbara thoroughly understands Real Love, how will she feel and behave toward her mother? Barbara will freely, unconditionally offer whatever portion of time and effort that she chooses to her mother. She’ll offer that as a gift because she cares about her mother’s happiness. Then if Sylvia complains that she wants more—which she almost certainly will, judging from past experience—Barbara will not feel the slightest bit guilty, because she understands that she is not responsible for her mother’s happiness. Barbara will understand that if Sylvia continues to be unhappy, that’s is Sylvia’s choice. The difference between caring about and feeling responsible for someone’s happiness is huge.

As we make choices to care for the happiness of others, we recognize that it’s a learning process. We’ll make lots of mistakes. And then we’ll simply tell the truth about those mistakes and learn from them. There’s no need for guilt. Gradually, we’ll learn to love better. And it becomes more and more fun, for us and for the people we love.

Although most of us thirst to hear the words I love you, they can also be unsettling—even frightening—because in the past these words have been associated with experiences that were not entirely pleasant. It’s very common for people to say I love you in order to get something they want in return: sex, for example, or a favor, or a smile, or an I love you too. So I love you is a common for a manipulation, and we don’t like the burden of being manipulated, even when it’s done with sweetened words. How often has an I love you been soon followed by some kind of disappointment or betrayal? Or how often have these words been spoken insincerely from the beginning?

In short, we have discovered over the years that while these three words have a rosy attraction, they are often accompanied by many nasty thorns, so it’s little wonder that when many people hear them, they often wonder—or even become frankly suspicious—about their meaning. We therefore need to become familiar with some additional ways of communicating "I love you” without actually using those exact words and thereby arousing the questions and suspicions associated with them.

Following are a few examples of ways to say I love you. These are commonly spoken to people who are experiencing fear or pain, but not always.

“I can’t make your pain go away, but I can promise that while you’re having a hard time, I’ll be here with you.” When people are in pain, we have a tendency either to minimize it, to make vain promises that it will go away, or to give them advice. On the whole, none of these approaches is effective. People simply need our assurances that we care about them, and with the power of our love, they will make the best decisions they can in the moment.

“I’m not leaving you.” People tend to fear most the thought of being left alone, with no one to care about them. As you affirm that you will be there for someone, he or she will feel your concern for him or her.

“All your life, people have criticized you or withdrawn from you when you’ve shared with them how you’ve really felt. I won’t do that. I’m enjoying every word you’re saying.” One of the reasons we are so afraid to share how we really feel with people is that the people around us have no idea how to respond. In the past they have criticized us, run from us, given us advice, expressed their disgust, and so on. If we can communicate to people that we will simply listen and support them as they share who they are, we will great facilitate their ability to continue sharing.

“I love talking to you. I love being around you, and I don’t want anything from you. If you really get what that means, it will change your life.” We are so accustomed to people manipulating us, using us, and wanting something from us. This is one way to communicate to people that you are just there to accept them.

“Why are we talking? Really, what is the purpose of our conversation? To fix your problems? That won’t last. We’re talking so that you can feel that somebody cares about you. You. Without wanting anything in return. Do you have any sense of that now?” People get confused about the purpose of meaningful conversation. It’s not about the details. It’s not about fixing them. It’s about love. This is one way to communicate that core purpose.

“You are not alone.” This is a variation on “I’m not leaving you.”

“As you talk about yourself, I really do feel connected to you. Thank you.”

“The next time you feel anxious, call me. I mean this. You don’t have to live with pain and fear anymore. You don’t have to be alone.”

Touch. As someone is talking, a gentle touch on the knee or arm can clearly communicate compassion.

Look. The way you look at the speaker can be a powerful communication of love.

“I don’t know if you can feel it or not, but my real intent as I’m listening to you—even when I’m saying nothing at all—is just to hold your hand, to be here with you.” This is something you might say over the phone. Phone conversations tend to be a little more distant, and this tends to make them more personal.

“I can’t tell you how much I enjoy hearing you talk about yourself.”

“The most important thing you could get from our conversation isn’t the words I’m speaking but a change in the way you feel. Right now I could be doing a great many other things with my time, but I’m choosing to talk with you—for as long as you’d like. What does that tell you about how I feel about you?” This can be a powerful communication of love.

“I don’t know if you feel this yet or not, but of all the things I could be doing in this moment, you are the most important. There isn’t anything I could be doing more important than listening to you.” This is usually said on the phone and usually in response to something the other person says, like, “I hate to take your time,” or “I know you’re busy.”

“Look at me. What do you see? All your life—as you have described who you are to people—you have seen disappointment, impatience, and irritation in the eyes of other people. Do you see or feel any of that in my face now? Remember how that feels. Remember how it feels to be unconditionally accepted. Gradually, that feeling can make a big difference.” Sometimes people are being unconditionally loved and simply fail to recognize it. This is one way to point it out to them.

“I’m not in a hurry. Take your time.” You would say this when people are in a hurry to finish a conversation or to tell a story, telling you that they hate to take your time. It’s a powerful way to tell them that they are important and that you care about them.