LOVE 501: Love Myths & Barriers – University of Life

Love Barrier Types

by Shaun Roundy

If you don’t love more (and, by definition, you don’t), it’s probably due to one (or two) of two things: ignorance or fear.

Ignorance

You just don’t know better. If you did, you’d probably rise to that level. That’s why people claim that “everyone is doing the best they know how.”

On one hand, this barrier can be solved by simply providing information. That’s why we provide so many insightful explanations on this site, and will continue adding dozens more as we go along.

On the other hand, conscious understanding is far less important than deep, emotional, experiential comprehension. That’s why we provide Sliders, For Discussion topics, and Homework – so these concepts can work their way deep into your paradigms where they can make a difference.

Fear

Sometimes we DO know better, and we still don’t do it. Fear is probably to blame.

Fear is a POWERFUL emotion which the subconscious mind uses to discourage us from taking any risks. It’s like an overprotective parent who never lets their child grow up.

It’s like a terrifying monster who lives in your gut and roars into life whenever you consider stepping outside your comfort zone.

Lucky for you, love conquers fear. Get out there and put these lessons into practice. You may freak out at first, but once your love grows, fear will retreat until you’re not afraid of anything! What a wonderful way to live, don’t you think?

Myths

A subset of ignorance, our culture and our feelings propagate many myths about what love is and how it works. Conscious learning and contrary experience can wipe these out.

Laziness

A subset of fear, we avoid the discomfort of effort or don’t believe that our efforts will pay worthwhile dividends. We obey our feelings rather than making mature choices and following through.

Selfishness

A subset of ignorance, our lack of maturity hides the fact that generous loving is far more satisfying than living a tiny life for only our own immediate interests.

Hurts

A subset of fear, our past heart breaks make us fear to open our hearts try again. Repeated failure in love – betrayals, abandonment, disappointment, abuse, etc. – probably means we have something to learn, and it may be wise to learn to love more maturely first rather than hoping that next time, everything will magically turn out differently.

Really deep wounds may be healed by love, but they may prevent that sort of love from happening, so you may want to seek professional help to speed up your journey. If you’re a do-it-yourselfer, try Heal Your Mind – a practical guide to speaking your brain’s languages and turning pain into power, a book I wrote recently to help you understand and work through difficult emotions.

Availability

If you simply can’t find anyone to love, you may either change your environment or change your perspective and love the people already around you.

If you’re looking for a romantic partner, go new places based on your values and interests where compatible partners may be found. Try online dating sites to quickly sort through thousands of options. Get to know yourself better and love yourself more and see how that changes the equation. See? There’s always someone you can love more!

If looking to love people in general and everyone seems to resist the idea, you may need to be the bold explorer who takes the first steps. If others are afraid to follow your example, don’t feel bad about challenging their position and point out, for example, that constant sarcasm is based on the fear of being more genuine and vulnerable.

SLIDER

Where do you fall on the “Love Barrier Types” love slider?


1: Love is bad. It has hurt me again and again and I would rather be evil and miserable than try to love again!	3: Love is scary. I’ll love more as soon as it’s safe!	5: I wish I was a more loving person, but I’m not, and I can’t change.	7: Love is scary, but I’m willing to learn and improve by ability to give and receive love.	10: Love is infinite and I’m excited to become more and more loving with each passing year.

FOR DISCUSSION

What competing ideas about love do you see in the world? Which do you think are best and why?

If you could choose which culture to be born into based solely on the way they view and practice love, which would you choose? Why? Can you implement their cultural patterns into your life?

HOMEWORK

Choose one (or more) of your relationships and increase the amount or quality of love you invest in it. Observe how others respond, and how this changes you and them.

Next time you have an opportunity to bless someone but don’t feel like it, do it anyway. Afterward, ask yourself whether you’re glad you did.

Second-Hand Love

by Shaun Roundy

To learn to love more, knowledge and explanations are not enough. You must experience love for yourself. That’s why most articles on this site include For Discussion and Homework assignments. I can point the way, and you must walk the path.

If you don’t have (or don’t think you have) people to practice love on, you can start by observing other loving people and learn from that. Eventually, you’ll realize that you’re surrounded by people to practice love on.

The trick is to see love everywhere, because that’s where it’s found.

It may not look like your limited concept of love or what you expected or wanted it to be. It may not be romantic and excessively attractive. It may not heroically save you from challenges and suffering. It may not perfectly accept you exactly as you are without wishing for you to change and grow.

Open your eyes and see love’s broader presence and your new awareness will bless your life with greater happiness and peace.

When a family walks hand in hand…that’s love. Observe how they care about each other and enjoy each other’s company. Imagine how it would feel to be included and holding hands with them. Let the experience sink deeply into your mind and teach you about what love is and how it works.

When a stranger holds the door for you because your arms are full…that’s love. When you make eye contact with a stranger in the grocery store and they smile reflexively…that’s love. When a car backs off to let you merge on the freeway…that’s love.

Love is less often like giant gold nuggets and more often like the tiny, shiny flakes that glint from the bottom of a California river. Collect enough flakes and they’re worth just as much as the fist-sized nugget.

Most people don’t need a great deal of love nearly so much as they need a steady supply.” – Anonymous

Find even more examples on the news. When a high school elects an unpopular girl as homecoming queen…that’s love. When Search and Rescue volunteers leave their families on a holiday weekend to rescue strangers who got lost or injured in the backcountry…that’s love.

If watching other people being loved makes you feel lonely, then it’s time to step forward and do something about it! Get together with family or friends and enjoy spending time together. Hold the door for someone or mow your neighbor’s lawn. Generate more loving connections in your life and instantly reap the benefits.

You may also ask for love, and it’s easier than you thought. Walk through doors with your arms full and see who holds the door for you. Ask someone for the time or to borrow a pen. Notice how happy most people seem to get a chance to show a little love.

You can even find instances of love in movies. Why do the heroes do what they do? It’s probably because of love. Why do villains do what they do? They probably didn’t get the love they needed, and a little bit of genuine concern might have made all the difference.

To be perfectly clear, I’m not talking about porn here. Watching others have sex will not teach you about love, and it will make you feel lonelier and more cut off than ever, because the hormones that sex sends coursing through your body make you crave connection, and if you don’t have a real person who you honestly love and care about, your separation will feel even more extreme.

As you open your eyes and learn to see love everywhere, it’s like when you learn a new word – suddenly everybody is using it! It’s not that they learned it when you did, you just never noticed it before.

If you want to the world – or your world – to fill with more love, if you want to raise the bar of how much love is the right amount, begin by experiencing more of the love that already exists and let that lift you on its wings.

SLIDER

Where do you fall on the “Second-Hand Love” love slider?


1: Nobody loves me and nobody loves anyone else, either. That’s obvious by the horrid way people treat each other.	3: If love doesn’t sweep me off my feet and take away all suffering, then it’s not love, it’s just people doing what they feel is expected.	5: Some people are really loving, but most people aren’t. They’re decent enough people, but that doesn’t mean they really care.	7: It’s natural to love, and deep down, everyone wants to love more, but most people are too afraid or just too busy to care that much. Given the chance, though… many people would take it.	10: The world is an incredibly loving place, and the evidence is everywhere! It fills me with joy every single day as I witness all the love in the world and see the great goodness people possess.

11. Going to extremes: By all means – go to extremes with this one! “Extreme” is anything beyond the norm, and going there is the only way to change the norm. See love everywhere! Let it light up your eyes so that everyone who sees you gets an instant lesson on love. You should be warned, however, that people dislike change, and you won’t always get a positive reaction.

FOR DISCUSSION

How do you feel when you do tiny acts of service, like holding the door for strangers? Is it a nuisance or do you enjoy it? Is that love?

How do you feel when you ask for a favor? Do you hate it and assume that you’re inconveniencing people, or do you accept their help graciously, knowing that you would happily do the same for them? What does this say about how well you love and value yourself?

HOMEWORK

Look for love. Everywhere you go. Look for small acts of kindness that you never noticed before.

Ask for love. Ask for tiny favors that are easy for people to do and observe how they respond and how it seems to make them feel.

Learned Limits

by Shaun Roundy

On one hand, love is an absolute. It is what it is, and it’s powerful, abundant, and infinite.

On the other hand, our experience of love is limited to our understanding of it – both conscious and subconscious.

Consciously, we observe how others love and assume that where they stop – where love capitulates to selfishness and fear – is the correct amount of love. Anything more or less would violate societal norms and call attention to ourselves. Then we would be judged, and that can be frightening.

Subconsciously, our ability to love is constrained by the unconditional and conditional love we received from our parents or other authority figures during our formative years.

Even if the love was there, if we didn’t receive it, then we couldn’t learn from it.

If we didn’t experience enough unconditional love – and most of us have not – then our minds have difficulty with the concept of loving ourselves or others unconditionally.

If we didn’t experience enough conditional love – which means to be encouraged, accepted, and rewarded for our efforts and accomplishments – then we may feel incompetent and lack confidence.

Now that we’ve grown up, the responsibility falls on ourselves to make up for whatever deficits we acquired during childhood, and that’s no easy task!

The solution begins with awareness.

Do you feel loved unconditionally? Do you feel safe and able to express yourself and risk because you know that even when you fail, you have a secure, accepting place – within yourself – to land?

If you don’t feel this way, it’s up to you to correct that deficit. I hope the many resources posted on this site will help.

Do you feel competent? Do you calmly and confidently go about your business, knowing that you’ll do a good enough job to be accepted and even appreciated and praised? If not, it would be worth your while to repair your paradigm.

SLIDER

Where do you fall on the “Learned Limits” love slider?


1: Nobody loves me, including myself. I am paralyzed by social anxiety and emotional distress. I don’t know what love means, and I’m not sure it even exists.	3: Most people are selfish jerks. I’m sorry, but that’s reality. If I don’t watch out for number 1, nobody’s gonna do it for me!	5: I love myself and others enough already. This is how it should be done. As long as I keep up with the Joneses, that’s good enough for me.	7: I love myself and others, but not perfectly. I’m striving to love and accept and celebrate myself and others more, and when I look back, I see myself progressing.	10: I feel happy, loved, and competent. I don’t need to analyze my capacity for love because I’m plenty busy loving myself and everyone!

11. Going to extremes: There’s no such thing as loving yourself too much or feeling too confident. If you get accused of that, then make sure you also love others the same way. If you do, great, and your accusers simply don’t understand love. If you don’t, then you may have a counterfeit of self love – selfishness, narcissism, pride, etc. Learn more about what it truly means to love yourself and you’ll find a happiness you can’t yet imagine.

FOR DISCUSSION

What do you think are appropriate limits of how much to love yourself and others? What would happen if someone loved more or less than that?

How loved did you feel as a child? Looking back, did your parents and others show love in ways you may not have recognized?

HOMEWORK

Find ways to show more love to yourself than you normally do. If it feels uncomfortable, continue until it feels more natural.

Find ways to show more love to someone you already love, someone you dislike, or a total stranger. Note their reaction.

Look around for examples of people who love more than the norm. What do they do differently? What effect does it have on them and on the people they show love to?

The Burden of Love

by Shaun Roundy

One reason we don’t choose to love more is that we’re afraid that love will be a burden. We’re afraid that love means we have to listen patiently to the most annoying people on earth and do whatever they ask for when they need a favor.

Well, that’s not exactly true.

To correct this myth, let’s examine one of the world’s most famous examples of love and its burden – Santa Claus himself!

As legend has it, Santa and his elves spend the year making gifts for all the good little boys and girls; and on Christmas Eve, his reindeer carry him ’round the world to deliver the gifts.

How does he do it? Well, there are many theories, but the more valuable question to ask is WHY does he do it? The answer, of course, is love, and here’s what that means:

He doesn’t do it because he has to, he does it because he WANTS to. He likes it. It brings him joy. He wants to make the world a better place. He would get bored hanging around with the elves all year if he didn’t have something meaningful to do.

And therein lies an important lesson: if you become more loving, you can still do whatever you want. If you want to serve someone, do it! You’re under no obligation. Love always only does what it wants. You can’t force it.

The best protection against letting yourself be abused by love’s “obligation” is to love yourself. Because you’re more responsible for yourself than anyone else (and they’re primarily responsible for themselves), you can prioritize your own needs first, and only put others first when you choose to. Mature love makes no excuses for this. It doesn’t respond to fear-based manipulation.

Whatever other reasons you may have to not choose to love more, they come down to either ignorance or fear.

As for ignorance: if you truly understood love, you would choose it. You would choose to have all the love you could possibly have. You would know better than to worry about love being a burden because you’d be too busy being lifted by it higher than you can now begin to comprehend.

As for fear: if you truly understood love, it would drive out all fear! Fear would utterly cease to be a factor. How does that appeal to you – to never feel afraid?!

The world’s other most-famous love-related figure is Jesus, who also addressed this fear of love’s burden when he advised us to, “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”

Well, if Jesus’ burden is love – and it is! – then how can that be? Because frankly, sometimes love IS a heavy burden.

light of love, and if you take it upon you, you will certainly find rest and refreshment.

(Okay, Bible scholars, go ahead and reference the original translations and tell me I’m wrong. That’s okay. It’s still a valid point!)

SLIDER

Where do you fall on the “The Burden of Love” love slider?


1: Don’t bother me! I have my own needs to attend to!	3: Just the thought of loving other people makes me feel tired.	5: I’d love to be more loving…but I don’t have time, and I don’t really care. What I meant was, I’d love to be more loving as long as it doesn’t take much effort.	7: I’d love to be more loving and why do you think I’m reading this web site??!! I’m working on it and excited about my progress!! xoxo	10: I am bursting with love and there’s nothing that I like better than seeing the good in others and helping them progress!

11. Going to extremes: you don’t need to pretend that love isn’t taxing sometimes. It is. But that’s okay, because it makes us grow and increases our capacity and that’s what this life is all about!

FOR DISCUSSION

Have you ever avoided being more loving for fear of its burden and obligation?

HOMEWORK

Pick a loving act that you don’t feel like doing and do it anyway. Was it as hard as you imagined? Was it worth it? Why or why not?

Romantic Love Counterfeits

by Shaun Roundy

Romantic love is one of the most powerful forces on earth, and because it’s also quite complex and confusing, several common styles of counterfeits exist.

First, let’s review the Top Three reasons why we’re collectively so confused about romantic love:

People don’t understand their emotions. They’re like a foreign language that most people only speak a few words of: happy, sad, angry, frustrated, etc.
When a complex, nuanced emotion like romantic love comes along, they feel it but don’t begin to understand what it’s saying.
People didn’t have good examples to learn from, and therefore they haven’t fully matured, and this affects their actions, needs, and expectations in a relationship.
Hollywood and The Marketers use romantic love to sell films and products, and while they’re fun to watch and nice to have, their portrayals of what love is and how it works is extremely over-simplified and skewed.
Sexual conquest is often considered “manly” or a power trip. Sexual fulfillment, regardless of whether it contains a shred of love, is often sold as happiness and contentment – and it is, briefly, until reality rears its inconvnenient head.

Now let’s list some common limited, incomplete versions of romantic love:

“Accept me as I am!” If a child doesn’t receive enough unconditional love when growing up, s/he may fail to internalize it, and thus require others to demonstrate that they’re perfect just as they are.
Are they really perfect? Of course not! No one is. The trick is to be imperfect yet still feel perfectly worthy of being loved and secure.
S/he may make him/herself weak in a bid to win love due to his/her helplessness.
“Rescue me!” If a child doesn’t receive enough conditional love – or approval for doing a good job – when growing up, s/he may not feel competent and dream for a knight in shining armor or beautiful princess to save her/him.
S/he may avoid taking personal responsibility for life rather than face the daunting voices in his/her head chanting that s/he’s not competent and that things are too hard and will never work anyway.
Needy/neurotic love. When someone doesn’t know how to love his/herself and desperately needs to be loved, s/he may resort to various forms of manipulation to bind a lover to her/him.
This may include intimidation, playing the victim, and demeaning his/her partner to keep them weak and needy in return.
Attraction & sex appeal alone. Yes, it feels good. Yes, it makes you crave him/her. But if you don’t care about them, if you’re not interested in them, if the connection doesn’t go beyond your sexual appetite, then it’s not love and it won’t last. When it fails, it will bring misery and possibly heart ache.

These distortions of romantic love may seem romantic. They may seem cute and adorable, and neediness may be interpreted as devotion. There may not be much joy and spiritual growth in such relationships, but at least there’s a degree of twisted security.

If such relationships seek stasis rather than encouraging growth, that makes them the opposite of love.

Healthy relationships, on the other hand, require each partner to stand on their own two feet. Someone else’s love can’t live your life for you.

Sometimes each person will need help, and lending a hand will strengthen the relationship. But in general, each individual respects healthy boundaries and takes responsibility for their own feelings and actions.

SLIDER

Where do you fall on the “Romantic Love Counterfeits” love slider?


1: HELP ME! SOMEBODY SAVE ME! I NEED YOU TO TAKE CARE OF ME! And if you try to escape my clutch, I’ll fall to pieces and guilt you back or get angry or cry for months or kill myself and IT WILL BE ALL YOUR FAULT! THEN YOU’LL BE SORRY!!	3: Yes, I know I’m needy or controlling, but that’s just the way I am! Some people like me this way! And change is too hard, so forget it.	5: Ouch! The truth hurts! I know I’m needy or controlling or something, but I’d like to grow up and get better at this love thing!	7: Maybe I lean on my partner a little too much sometimes, but we’re both working hard and tackling life’s challenges together.	10: I feel perfectly free to be myself, express my feelings, enjoy my independence, share my life with my partner without letting them take over too much, and trust that my partner will appreciate it!

11. Going to extremes: I don’t let others help me with anything I can do for myself. It makes me uncomfortable. I feel disrespected. Or I don’t dare rely on anyone because then they’ll get tired of me and leave. Because of this, I keep people at a distance and we don’t enjoy the loving, trusting, mutually supportive connection that love is supposed to include.

FOR DISCUSSION

Few people are perfectly mature in love, so what limitations do you have? Do you ever feel needy or controlling? How much is too much?

How well does it work to be needy or controlling? How would your relationship change if you worked at being less so? How would you go about that?

HOMEWORK

Whenever you do something well or put in a good effort, give yourself credit for your competence and remind yourself that you can handle life.

Whenever you do something poorly, remind yourself that you’re still worthy of love, then catch your breath and get up and try again!

The Ego Police

by Shaun Roundy

Society teaches us that it’s wrong to love yourself, and we often believe it. They call it selfish, egotistical, arrogant, pride, cockiness, narcissism, and being full of yourself.

“Well,” they declare with an eyebrow raised judgmentally, “SOMEbody certainly thinks highly of him/herself!”

People who say this are members of the Ego Police. How I despise them! (Or despise what they say, rather.) They’re out to beat anyone down who begins to crawl free from the cesspool of self hatred and unhappiness.

The Ego Police are closely related to the Fashion Police, who associate your self worth with whatever clothes you’re wearing.

Most Ego Police don’t do it on purpose. They got brainwashed, taught to fear love, and carried on the evil game they learned from other unwitting E.P. officers.

DO NOT BELIEVE THEM! Do not play their horrid games!

Once a year, the Ego Police stand down. On your birthday, you’re more or less allowed to let the whole day be about you. You receive gifts and cards with loving sentiments. On your birthday, you are briefly allowed to be special.

Well, I say you ought to make EVERY day like your birthday. (Especially the gifts part, if you can get others to cooperate 😉 ).

The fact is, you ARE special! You deserve to love yourself and be adored by all. Everyone does!

Furthermore, pride, arrogance, and selfishness have NOTHING to do with love. They are absolute opposites. They’re all built on fear, scarcity, and lack of love, while love is built on courage, abundance, happiness and support.

From now on, realize that the Ego Police have no actual authority besides the intimidation and fear they inspire. Realize that most E.P. officers don’t actually like what they do. It’s a long-standing habit, but one that can be quickly broken once a clear choice is presented.

Stand up as an example of loving yourself and show the world a better way!

SLIDER

Where do you fall on the “Ego Police” love slider?


1: This article is WRONG! It’s WRONG to think highly of yourself! How arrogant and stupid of you to think you know better!	3: It’s safer to put myself down before everyone else does. And as long as I’m down, I’ll drag everyone else down with me! Misery loves company!	5: I don’t like the Ego Police, but I can’t do anything about it. That’s just how people are. Always have been, always will be. I don’t dare stand up to them!	7: The Ego Police are wrong and they suck!!! I’m gonna think highly of myself no matter what they say, though I’ll be cautious about saying so out loud.	10: I love the Ego Police (though of course I strongly disagree with their actions). I’m not afraid of them and every time I see them tear someone down, I confidently build them right back up.

11. Going to extremes: if you REALLY HATE the Ego Police, be careful you don’t turn into one of them by using their fearful, hateful, non-loving methods to attack them. Also remember to counter their words and not their identities as they may need love even more than the people they undermine.

Another way to go to extremes is to be SO SICKENINGLY POSITIVE that people can’t believe you. You THINK you’re being kind, and I suppose you are, but you’re also taking responsibility for other people’s self esteem and happiness, and that simply doesn’t work. It backfires. Learn to respect healthy boundaries, love yourself as an example, and give heartfelt compliments judiciously. Don’t be afraid to acknowledge flaws when it serves the greater good.

FOR DISCUSSION

Have you ever said or done anything that would make you a member of the Ego Police? Why did you do it? Why do you think other E.P. officers say what they do?

Have you ever publicly disagreed with an Ego Police officer? How did it turn out?

HOMEWORK

Raise your right arm to the square and take this oath: I [state your name] solemnly swear to oppose the Ego Police by standing up for loving myself and others at all times and inviting others to do the same.

Next time someone cuts you down, reply unapologetically and with a confident grin, “Whatever. I’m AWESOME!!!”