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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Greg Baer
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December 6, 2019 - February 8, 2020
We can’t love other people unconditionally until we’ve felt unconditionally loved ourselves. We can’t give what we don’t have.
We must feel loved first
We also need to understand that loving other people usually does not involve telling them the truth about themselves,
Too much truth
When we don’t feel loved ourselves—when we’re empty and afraid—we can’t see people clearly; we can see only what they might do to us or for us.
See what they do for us
they’re naturally focused entirely on filling their own needs.
Needs
When we see them only as objects that either serve or hurt us, who they really are does not exist for us.
Objects
attacking, accusing, manipulating, selfishness, anger, and so on—are just reactions to their own emptiness and fear.
Fear
I’m your friend, and I tell you this because I care about you. When you look at a woman, you’re too selfish to see who she really is. You see only how she might make you happy—by giving you something beautiful to look at, by flattering you, or by becoming an object for your sexual fantasies. If a woman offers you those things, you like her. That’s Imitation Love, because your concern is for your happiness, not hers. You don’t love ‘ugly, fat’ women because they can’t give you the kind
Why we hate
Without Real Love, we see people only as objects that will or will not give us what we want.
Without real love
Without Real Love, we’re miserable, and then we naturally expect our partners to help us feel better by giving us what we want. When they don’t, we’re disappointed. We tend to believe that other people exist for the primary purpose of making us happy, and when they don’t, we judge their behavior to be unacceptable.
Miserable
In fact, when we say, “I’m only disappointed in my partner’s behavior, not in my partner,” that distinction is actually a self-deceptive justification, because any form of disappointment will continue to prevent us from being happy in our relationships.
Disappointment
Anger is a tiny step beyond disappointment, and is always selfish and unloving.
Anger
When we attempt to control our partner’s behavior, we demonstrate in yet another way that we don’t accept him or her.
Control
we all have a sacred, inviolable right to choose for ourselves what we think, say, and do—and to make our own mistakes—we’ll be able to accept other people more easily, even if they inconvenience or hurt us.
One of the most obvious, and most common, signs of acceptance in a relationship is the absence of criticism.
we must be careful how we impose consequences. If we apply them with anger, they become punishments, which rarely benefit anyone.
Punishment
In a mutually loving relationship, there is never any place for disappointment or anger.
We don’t keep score.
do not try to change our partners.
“I promise to make you happy—always. I will heal your past wounds and satisfy your present needs and expectations—even when you don’t express them. I will lift you up when you’re discouraged. I will accept and love you no matter what mistakes you make. I give to you all that I have or ever will have. And I will never leave you.”
From the beginning, most marriages are fatally burdened with the impossible expectations each partner places on the other to make him or her happy.
As long as we use marriage as a whip to force our spouse to give us what we want, we’ll never be happy.
“That means to care about her happiness,” I reminded him. “If you consistently remember that simple phrase, you’ll know what to do most of the time.” But then I helped him see specifically what he could
And if your partner says no to most or all of your requests? Remember that marriage is a lifetime commitment to learn to love your partner. Don’t give up on this process too quickly. Keep filling your own life with Real Love. Keep learning to love and serve your partner. Keep making your loving requests. I know that can often be very difficult, but the potential rewards are without equal.
Marriage is not an opportunity to dump our expectations for happiness on our partner—it’s a commitment we make to stay with our partner while we learn to love him or her unconditionally.
When our lives are otherwise unfulfilling, sex provides an immediate thrill so powerful that we’re often willing to risk serious social, emotional, health, and even criminal consequences to get it. Many relationships are initially based on an exchange of the praise, power, and pleasure derived from sex.
sex will only lead us away from feeling unconditionally loved and from sharing that love with others—and that’s in addition to the obvious health and social liabilities of sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted children.
“Then it’s almost impossible for you to know if it’s Real Love. While you’re enjoying the enormous praise, power, and pleasure of having sex with this woman, it will be very difficult for you to determine whether you genuinely care about her happiness—which is Real Love—or whether you just like how she makes you feel—which is Imitation Love. Have you had sex with other women?”
There is nothing that will make you more sexually appealing to your partner than if he or she knows you genuinely care about his or her happiness.
“Then don’t keep waiting for your husband to approach you about sex. That just makes you feel more like a victim—you feel attacked and defensive. And stop looking at sex as something you trade with your husband. Or as something being done to you. You have an opportunity here to make a conscious decision to increase the unconditional love in your own life and in your relationship with Matt. You committed yourself to learn to love this man for a lifetime. Now you can choose to be more loving and change your relationship. Don’t wait for him to approach you. Go to him and offer to have sex. You’re
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Families exist to provide a place where a child can feel unconditionally loved and can learn to love others.
No parent ever has the right to expect love from a child . It’s the responsibility of parents to teach and love their children, not the other way around.
Whenever I speak about loving our children unconditionally, at least one person is sure to protest, “But somebody has to discipline them. If we don’t do that as parents, how will they ever learn?” Loving our children unconditionally does not mean we say and do nothing when they make mistakes. Children do need to be corrected, but they do not need the disappointment and anger we almost always administer along with the instruction we offer. The moment we’re irritated, our children correctly sense that we don’t love them unconditionally, and the effect is always disastrous.
Disciplining children
When we try to change other people, we’re really choosing to be miserable. Most of us prove that every day, but we still continue to do it.
When you’re angry, you might actually be right about something in that interaction, but that fact becomes meaningless in light of the destruction you cause with your anger. Your puny “rightness” will never outweigh the loss of Real Love caused by your anger.
If you’re angry, you’re trying to control your partner’s choices, and you’re ruining the possibility of a loving relationship. You’re violating the Law of Choice and the Law of Expectations.
When you’re angry at your partner, you may not feel like doing something loving for him or her. But if you do it anyway you’ll create an opportunity for both of you to feel the miracle of Real Love in your lives.
We need to tell the truth about ourselves and create the opportunity to feel unconditionally accepted.
short, telling the truth about ourselves is part of the solution in all situations where Getting and Protecting Behaviors arise, whether in ourselves or in others.
Victimhood is the result of our belief that other people have an obligation to make choices that will benefit us. It’s a combination of anger (that we’re not getting as much as we think we should) and fear (that we’ll be hurt).
They see people as objects that will either make them happy or hurt them.
We run to protect ourselves. When we withdraw physically and emotionally from people, we’re running. When we drink alcohol and take drugs, we’re running.
You, however, will always be happier when you’re loved and loving, despite the negative reactions of others. Loving other people is always the happier way to live.
When someone habitually refuses to tell the truth, however—especially if that person attacks us and adds to the feelings of emptiness and fear we already have—continuing that relationship may not only be unproductive, it may also interfere with our own ability to tell the truth, feel loved, and learn to love others. For that reason, it’s simply best that some relationships end.
If I had to pick the one quality I wanted most in a potential spouse, it would be this: ‘Can he or she easily admit being wrong?’”
“When people can admit they’re wrong, it means they can tell the truth about themselves. If they can do that, they can learn to feel loved and to love other people. People who can’t admit they’re wrong can’t learn anything. How can you learn anything if you’re already right about everything? But if you find someone who can easily admit being wrong, that person can learn just about anything, including how to participate in a mutually loving relationship—and that’s what you’re looking for, isn’t it?”
When Cynthia and Michael left their respective marriages, they were accepting the choices their partners had already made not to participate in a loving relationship.
