All quotes from
Sue's book
Love, to so many of us, seems a bewitchment – a force, powerful and
dangerous, that strikes us without our bidding.
Erosion of a bond begins with the absence of emotional support.
The way we perceive our partner and the meaning we attribute to his
or her actions depends on our sense of emotional connection.
A tsunami of loneliness, anxiety, and depression is sweeping through
Western societies.
We are designed to deal with emotion in concert with another person
– not by ourselves.
Love relationships aren’t meant only to be joyrides; they’re also
restorative and balancing meeting places where negative emotions are calmed and
regulated.
Loving connection is the natural antidote to fear and pain.
Once we are balanced, we can turn to the world and move in it with
flexibility, open to learning and able to look at the choices available to us
in any situation.
Our feelings guide us in issues large and small; they tell us what
we want, what our preferences are, and what we need.
The inability to touch or name emotions leaves us aimless, without
an internal compass to steer us toward what we need.
Love, at its best, brings a cornucopia of good things: joy and
contentment, safety and trust, intense interest and involvement, curiosity and
openness.
The better you are at listening to and distilling your emotions and
sending clear emotional signals, the better your relationships will be.
See if you can find the trigger – the body sensation, the
catastrophic thought… -- and the action impulse that appeared with it. Did you want to run, to turn and fight, to
crawl under the rug? … What did you do?
Paying
attention to the way your emotions unfold in interactions with your partner can
reveal important patterns. Once you
recognize a sequence, you can exert more control over how you react.
Open
responsiveness shows us that we are cared for and valued.
It is repeated experience that turns genes either off or on.
When love begins to erode, what is missing is attunement and the
emotional responsiveness that goes with it.
