[00:00.00]Lesson Seven Text
[00:04.88]Some Meanings of Authentic Love Gerald Correy & Marianne Schneider Correy
[00:13.71]So far, we've discussed mostly what we think love is not.
[00:20.27]Now we'd like to share some of the positive meanings love has for us.
[00:27.53]Love means that I knout the person I love.
[00:32.89]I'm aware of the many sides of the other person
[00:37.64]not just the beautiful side but also the limitations,inconsistencies and flaws
[00:46.71]I have an awareness of the other's feelings and thoughts,
[00:52.27]and I experience something of the core of that person.
[00:58.15]I can penetrate social masks and roles
[01:03.40]and see the other person on a deeper level.
[01:07.50]Love means that I care about the welfare of the person I love.
[01:14.16]To the extent that it is genuine,
[01:18.21]my caring is not a smothering of the person or a possessive clinging.
[01:25.58]On the contrary, my caring liberates both of us.
[01:31.74]If I care about you,I'm concerned about your growth,
[01:37.80]and I hope you will become all that you can become.
[01:42.84]Consequently, I don't put up roadblocks
[01:47.89]to what you dothat enhances you as a person,
[01:53.53]even though it may result in my discomfort at times.
[01:59.09]Love means having respect for the dignity of the peraon I love.
[02:05.57]If I love you, I can see you as a separate person,
[02:12.02]with your own values and thoughts and feelings,
[02:17.87]and I do not insist that you surrender your identity and conform to an image
[02:25.53]of what I expect you to be for me.
[02:30.49]I can allow and encourage you to stand alone and to be who you are,
[02:37.34]and I avoid treating you
[02:41.41]as an object or using you primarily to gratify my own needs.
[02:48.18]Love means having a responsibility toward the person I love.
[02:54.84]If I love you, I'm responsive to most of your major needs as a person.
[03:02.41]This responsibility does not entail my doing for you
[03:08.58]what you are capable of doing for yourself;
[03:13.72]nor does it mean that I run your life for you.
[03:18.87]It does imply acknowledging that what I am and what I do affects you,
[03:27.41]so that I am directly involved in your happiness and your misery.
[03:34.28]A lover does have the capacity to hurt or neglect the loved one,
[03:40.94]and in this sense I see that love entails an acceptance of some responsibility
[03:48.99]for the impact my way of being has on you.
[03:54.55]Love means growth for both myself and the person I love.
[04:00.43]If I love you, I am growing as a result of my love.
[04:06.60]You are a stimulant for me to become more fully what I might become,
[04:13.44]and my loving enhances your being as well.
[04:19.60]We each grow as a result of caring and being cared for;
[04:25.35]we each share in an enriching experience that does not detract from our being.
[04:32.80]Love means making a commitment to the person I love.
[04:38.13]This commitment does not entail surrendering our total selves to each other;
[04:44.60]nor does it imply that the relationship is necessarily permanent.
[04:51.45]It does entail a willingness to stay with each other in times of pain,
[04:58.68]uncertainty, struggle, and despair, as well as in times of calm and enjoyment.
[05:08.64]Love means trusting the person I love.
[05:13.18]If I love you,I trust that you will accept my caring
[05:18.82]and my love and that you won't deliberately hurt me.
[05:24.39]I trust that you will find me lovable and that you won't abandon me;
[05:29.56]I trust the reciprocal nature of our love.
[05:34.29]If we trust each other we are willing to be open to each other
[05:40.45]and can shed masks and pretenses and reveal our true selves.
[05:47.12]In a love relationship there are times of boredom,
[05:53.78]times when I may feel like giving up, times of real strain,
[06:00.72]and times I experience an impasse.
[06:05.69]Authentic love does not imply enduring happiness.
[06:11.54]I can stay during rough times, however,
[06:16.89]because I can remember what we had together in the past,
[06:22.85]and I can picture what we will have together in our future
[06:28.49]if we care enough to face our problems and work them through.
[06:34.97]We agree with Reverend Meier
[06:38.92]when he writes that love is a spirit that changes life.
[06:45.58]Love is a way of life that is creative and that transforms.
[06:51.61]However, Maier does not view love as being reserved for a perfect world.
[07:00.26]"Love is meant or our imperfect world where things go wrong.
[07:06.11]Love is meant to be a spirit that works in painful situations.
[07:12.64]Love is meant to bring meaning into life where nonsense appears to reign."
[07:19.90]In other words, love comes into an imperfect world to make it livable.
[07:27.63]Love is freeing. Love is freely given, not doled out on demand.
[07:35.99]At the same time,
[07:39.55]my love for you is not dependent on whether you fulfill my expectations of you.
[07:46.91]Authentic love does not imply
[07:51.07]I'll love you when you become perfect
[07:55.22]or when you become what I expect you to become.
[07:59.97]Authentic love is not given with strings attached.
[08:06.82]There is an unconditional quality about love.
[08:12.28]Love is expansive.
[08:15.93]If I love you, I encourage you to reach out and develop other relationships.
[08:24.11]Although our love for each other
[08:28.06]and our commitment to each other might bar certain actions on our parts,
[08:34.82]we are not totally and exclusively wedded to each other.
[08:40.28]It is a pseudo love that cements one person to another
[08:47.93]in such a way that heor she is not given room to grow.
[08:54.60]Casey and Vanceburg
[08:58.44]put this notion well:
[09:02.07]The honest evidence of our love
[09:06.30]is our commitment to encouraging another's full development.
[09:12.54]We are interdependent personalities
[09:17.09]who need one another's presencein order to fulfill our destiny.
[09:23.85]And yet, we are also separate individuals.
[09:30.02]We must come to terms with our struggles alone.
[09:35.48]Love means having a want for the person I love
[09:41.12]without having a need for that person in order to be complete.
[09:47.89]If I am nothing without you, then I'm not really free to love you.
[09:55.04]I love you and you leave, I'll experience a loss and be sad and lonely,
[10:03.30]but I'll still be able to survive.
[10:08.05]If I am overly dependent on you for my meaning and my survival,
[10:15.00]then I am not free to challenge our relationship;
[10:20.46]nor am I free to challenge and confront you.
[10:26.42]Because of my fear of losing you,I'll settle for less than I want,
[10:32.97]and this settling will surely lead to feelings of resentment.
[10:37.73]Love means identifying with the person I love.
[10:43.00]If I love you, I can empathize with you and see the world through your eyes.
[10:51.05]I can identify with you because I'm able to see myself in you and you in me.
[10:58.91]This closeness does not imply a continual "togetherness,"
[11:05.26]for distance and separation are sometimes essential in a loving relationship.
[11:12.71]Distance can intensify a loving bond,
[11:18.06]and it can help us rediscover ourselves,
[11:22.81]so that we are able to 0meet each other in a new way.Love is selfish.
[11:30.55]I can only love you if I genuinely love,value,appreciate,and respect myself.
[11:39.30]If I am empty,then all I can give you is my emptiness.
[11:45.96]If I feel that I'm complete and worthwhile in myself,
[11:51.71]then I'm able to give to you out of my fullness.
[11:56.56]One of the best ways for me to give you love
[12:01.29]is by fully enjoying myself with you.
[12:06.13]Love involves seeing the potential within the person we love.
[12:11.69]In my love for another I view her or him as the person she or he can become,
[12:20.15]while still accepting who and what the person is now.
[12:26.32]Goethe's observation is relevant here:
[12:30.97]by taking people as they are, we make them worse,
[12:36.82]but by treating them as if they already were what they ought to be,
[12:44.08]we help make them better.
[12:47.56]We conclude this discussion of the meanings
[12:52.23]that authentic love has for us by sharing a thought
[12:57.69]from Fromm's The Art of Loving (1956).
[13:04.22]In love this paradox occurs that two beings become one and yet remain two. |