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Originally Posted by DP_2017
Ok so I've told my therapist I love him. It's not a romantic love, its more friend/family type love. I compared it for him, with how I feel about my dogs.
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I've come to define authentic love as a feeling and experience of
closeness and
connectedness with another 'being'. By defining it this way, it can be applied to a wide range of relationships - parent/child, siblings, girlfriend/boyfriend, husband/wife, same sex friendships, human/animal relationships, etc...
Society conditions our physical minds to only equate 'love' with specific types of relationships... And our society mostly emphasizes and promotes 'romantic love' more than anything else - which often manifests as psychological attachment and codependency type relations...
Quote:
Originally Posted by DP_2017
Problem is, the way I grew up, such things are NOT ok.... no emotions or affection in my family and love was only used manipulative ways. I thought I loved my family at a young age but looking back, it was more because I thought that was what you had to do. They don't love me, I don't love them.
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As a result of your earlier life experience - your psyche and physical mind (understandably) became conditioned by the circumstances of the family dynamic that you endured through.
Now the task in your adult life us to gradually work to undo the conditioning! Which will be deeply healing and transformational....
Quote:
Originally Posted by DP_2017
I do however love my dog (I had a second dog but he passed) and dogs have been something I've connected with in life more than any human. It's easy for me to say and feel love for them.
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I love dogs as well and connect/bond with them very easily. The love/connectedness is authentic and pure - there are no special conditions involved...
Quote:
Originally Posted by DP_2017
I keep emotionally distant from people intentionally.... but this just sort of happened. I'm scared and confused and full of intense shame. I am not used to feeling love of any type for people.... and I guess I just need some thoughts, besides talking with him about it, how can I get myself to learn to accept and be ok with it instead of thinking I am dirty and awful and I have this shame, like if anyone in my family found out, I'd be mortified. I wont tell anyone that I actually know because of this intense shame. I feel trapped and so stupid, help!
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Your experience of 'shame' is real - BUT these circumstances do not warrant/mandate that you or anyone else should have to experience shame! It's very important to connect with this awareness. You are experiencing 'shame' in response to your going through these circumstances - but this experience of shame is influenced by your past and not a required/necessary response to the present circumstances. In realizing this for yourself and fostering your awareness - you can separate/isolate the 'shame' from the actual external circumstances which helped to trigger/elicit that response within you. So from a higher perspective - it's not the generalized 'patient/therapist circumstances' that are the source or real cause of your experience of 'shame', it's the unresvoled emotional 'baggage' from your past that hasn't been healed yet. Being aware of this serves to take the 'charge' or seeming 'severity' out of the present day circumstances, which only on the surface appear to be causing your emotional activity/reaction. The external circumstances are the trigger for deeper internal circumstances that need to be worked out.
Based on what you've shared - it sounds likely that you have experienced being closed off and disconnected from the influence of your Heart Center, and the types of emotions/feelings that it generates. Now with this present development in your life - it sounds like the current circumstances are bringing about the conditions whereby you are reconnecting with the heart-based emotions and feelings that you had been closed off from for so long. So it's kind of like you are re-awakening that element/aspect within you. The therapist can be viewed as an important helper/facilitator/contributor for this process. No shame necessary or required. This is a positive, functional development and a part of your healing process.