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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Greg Baer
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December 6, 2019 - February 8, 2020
Because other people have often pointed out how their anger was caused by our mistakes, we have learned to justify our anger by pointing out the mistakes of others. And because people are always making mistakes, it’s easy to find justification for our blaming and anger.
Real Love is unconditionally caring about the happiness of another person.
This is the big thesis of this book.
Real Love is “I care how you feel.” Conditional love is “I like how you make me feel.”
Real love
Fortunately, there are two reliable signs that love is not genuine: disappointment and anger. Every time we frown, sigh with disappointment, speak harshly, or in any way express our anger at other people, we’re communicating that we’re not getting what we want. At least in that moment, we are not caring for our partner’s happiness, but only for our own.
So easy to fall into this.
Although it is given unintentionally, conditional acceptance has an unspeakably disastrous effect, because it fails to form the bonds of human connection created by Real Love.
We like to believe we’re unconditionally loving, but in most cases we’re not. We prove that each time we’re disappointed or irritated with another person. We like to think we unconditionally love our spouse or children, but then we become annoyed when they don’t do what we want, or when they’re not grateful for the things we do for them.
This is a very hard habit to break when we are so selfish and critical of everything. Why do we feel we have to critic everything?
If you’re unhappy, don’t look to your partner for the cause. You’re unhappy because you don’t feel unconditionally loved yourself and because you’re not sufficiently unconditionally loving toward others.
I continued. “What happened when you made mistakes and disappointed your parents? Did you
feel just as loved then as when you were ‘good’?”
Most relationships fail because we become angry and blame our anger on something our partner did or did not do. We need to remember that our anger is actually a reaction to the feelings of helplessness and fear that result from a lifetime of struggling to survive without unconditional love. Getting angry and assigning blame may give us a fleeting sense of power that momentarily relieves our fear, but those feelings originate within us, not with our partner’s behavior.
our subsequent behavior is often completely determined by our need to be loved and our fear of not being loved. Without
with anger—probably the most common form of attacking—we can make most people sufficiently uncomfortable (afraid) that they’ll do whatever we want in order to stop us from making them feel bad.
Victims are always saying variations on the following three sentences: (1) Look what you did to me. (2) Look what you should have done for me (and didn’t). (3) It’s not my fault. Victims
Whenever we manipulate people in any way for something we want, we know that what we
receive is purchased, not freely offered. We’re
When two people fall in love, each one is likely to tell the other what it is about him or her that is so “lovable.” We all like to hear that we’re intelligent or handsome or beautiful or witty or dependable, but ironically, those are just the kinds of statements that cause relationships to fail.
When two people are in love, they’re quite sincere when they say, “I love you,” but if they understood what was truly happening, they would say this: “Really loving you would mean caring about your happiness, but I care a lot more about how I feel. I like it when you do what I want. When you listen to me, I feel flattered and important. When you spend time with me, I don’t feel as empty and alone. I feel good when I’m with you.” When we don’t feel unconditionally loved and we tell someone we love him, we’re only expressing a selfish wish for that person to keep making us feel good. But when we
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“The man lives like a pig,” Joan angrily complained to her wise friend. “He throws his stuff all over the floor and then I have to clean up after him. It doesn’t matter how many times I talk to him—he never listens.” “So,” said the wise man, “you expect Tyler to be neater and more considerate of you, is that right?” When Joan agreed, her friend went on. “Then your relationship is doomed. Relationships result from the choices people make independently. Tyler has chosen to be a pig, and he gets to make that choice, even if it’s inconvenient for you. He’s almost certainly been a pig all his life,
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Your choices
Trying to change another person is manipulative, controlling, and arrogant, and it proves that we’re primarily concerned with our own happiness, not our partner’s. And,
Insight!
by controlling Tyler, Joan was making sure she would feel alone.
Control others
Whenever we control another person, that person becomes nothing more than an object—no different from our shoes or our car—and we can’t have a relationship with an object. I
Controling makes other an object
We can’t be happy while we’re selfishly manipulating
Can't Be happy via controlling
expectations can cause as much harm in our relationships as outright manipulation.
Expextatgions
Although you may not openly nag your partner to get what you want, honestly ask yourself what you expect your partner to do for you. Is it to be grateful for everything you do for him or her, to compliment you on your appearance, take the major responsibility for the household chores, take care of you when you’re sick, read your mind and be extrasensitive to you when you’re in a bad mood, have sex on demand, be nice to your difficult parents, do the disciplining of the children, handle the family finances, and so on?
Expect
You cannot expect your partner to do something just because you think he should.
Expect
But the real problem was that, because Joan had insufficient Real Love in her life, she expected Tyler to pick up after himself as an indication that he loved her—and she didn’t have a right to expect that.
Indicstion of love
In all unhappy relationships, the real cause of unhappiness is a lack of unconditional love; controlling and expectations are just symptoms of that cause.
Control expectations
If Tyler had promised to pick up after himself, and then failed to do so, would Joan have been justified in being angry at him? No—because, as we’ve discussed, our ultimate purpose here is to be loved, loving, and happy, and anything that interferes with achieving that purpose is wrong.
Mad because failed promise
no matter what our partner does, we can never justify being angry—the
Never justify angver
Earlier, I said that when it comes to changing a relationship, we have four choices. It should be obvious by now that trying to change your partner is always the worst choice of all, because it will never be fruitful.
Chbangve others
anger is always a choice, not something other people “make” us feel.
Anger is a choice! Quit choosing it!
If you’re unhappy in a relationship, you’re always wrong . If you can remember that sentence, it will change your life. When you’re unhappy, it means that you haven’t yet done enough to feel unconditionally loved and loving. That doesn’t make your partner right; it just means that your happiness is always in your own hands.
it’s not our right to try to change other people. And in any case, focusing on our need for other people to change will only make us selfish, unloving, and unhappy. The only reason for us to think about what other people should do in the first place is that we are empty and afraid.
Don't Change others
When people say, “Trust is earned,” what they really mean is this: “I’m empty and afraid. I’ve been used and hurt by people many times in the past, and I’m afraid that everyone I meet will do the same things to me. I therefore protect myself constantly until people individually prove that I don’t need to be afraid of them.” That faithless and frightened view of the world guarantees that we’ll use Protecting Behaviors, which can only lead to everyone’s feeling more afraid, unloved, and alone. When we require people to prove they’re worth trusting, we naturally—and mostly unconsciously—look for
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“Trust is earned,” what they really mean is this: “I’m empty and afraid. I’ve been used and hurt by people many times in the past, and I’m afraid that everyone I meet will do the same things to me. I therefore protect myself constantly until people individually prove that I don’t need to be afraid of
When we require people to prove they’re worth trusting, we naturally—and mostly unconsciously—look for evidence that they’re not.
Trust
When we require people to prove they’re worth trusting, we naturally—and mostly unconsciously—look for evidence that they’re not.
When we refuse to trust, we’ll make others miserable with our protecting behavior.
We look for the slightest mistakes to justify our fears and prove that our suspicions were correct. But as the people around us learn to tell the truth and become loving, they will make mistakes. They have to. We can’t require them to be flawless when they interact with us. When we feel unloved and empty, however, and when we have no faith in people, we see every mistake as a threat to our well-being. That outlook keeps us afraid of almost everyone we know, which makes loving relationships impossible.
Flaws
As long as we assume that our partners are hurtful, they can never prove otherwise, because we will interpret everything they do in a negative way, confirming our critical assumptions about them.
“Me?!” said Ellen. “You’re saying this is my fault?” “I didn’t say anything about fault,” replied the wise man. “Placing blame is useless. I’m talking about how you can move forward, be happier, and change your relationship.”
Faith is not a feeling. It’s not wishing or hoping. It’s a choice we make. With faith, we choose to believe something is true and then behave as though it were. Anything short of that is not faith and will not lead to growth or happy relationships.
The trick, of course, is that we need to be seen, accepted, and loved while we’re still feeling empty and afraid, and on the occasions when we’re angry, wrong, and stupid. That’s
There’s only one way to know for sure whether someone is truly a wise man—exercise some faith and actually tell the truth about yourself.
But don’t stop there. Keep trying the same conversation with other friends, and eventually you will find someone whose eyes light up when you talk about who you really are. You will find someone—likely several people—who will say something like “Wow! That was honest.” You will find someone who is attracted to the truth and who will accept you as you are. And that person will likely share the truth about himself, too. That’s how you find wise men. They’re everywhere, and most of them don’t even know who they are. When you finally get that warm feeling of unconditional acceptance from one
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Wise friend
Real Love is freely given and received. Expectations ruin the possibility of feeling Real Love.
Big thought!
ourselves
“Every time we’re angry, we’re really just protecting ourselves from something we’re afraid of. You’re afraid of your new boss, and you’re using anger to protect yourself.”
When I expect you to give me five apples and you give me only three, I can’t possibly be grateful for the three I get. I effectively ruin the enjoyment of your gift by focusing on the two apples I don’t get. What a pity. When we don’t get what we expect, we’re always disappointed.
Apples
Gratitude is a choice we make to simply acknowledge the truth about what we have, which greatly amplifies our enjoyment of everything we receive.
Gratitude
