Love Sense by Dr Sue Johnson

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.

Hold Me Tight by Dr Sue Johnson

All quotes from Sue's book

Forget about learning how to argue better, analyzing your early childhood, making grand romantic gestures, or experimenting with new sexual positions.  Instead, recognize and admit that you are emotionally attached to and dependent on your partner in much the same way that a child is on a parent for nurturing, soothing, and protection.

We now ask our lovers for the emotional connection and sense of belonging that my grandmother could get from a whole village.

When we feel generally secure, that is, we are comfortable with closeness and confident about depending on loved ones, we are better at seeking support – and better at giving it.

Openness to new experience and flexibility of belief seems to be easier when we feel safe and connected to others.  Curiosity comes out of a sense of safety; rigidity out of being vigilant to threats.

When marriages fail, it is not increasing conflict that is the cause.  It is decreasing affection and emotional responsiveness.

The purpose of Find the Bad Guy is self-protection, but the main move is mutual attack, accusation, or blame.

If I appeal to you for emotional connection and you respond intellectually to a problem, rather than directly to me, on an attachment level I will experience that as “no response”.

Flexibility and being able to see your own moves and their impact on others is the key.

Our past history with loved ones shapes our present relationships.

In moments of disconnection when we cannot safely engage with our lover, we naturally turn to the way of coping that we adopted as a child.

There are two signs that tell you when your raw spot or your partner’s has been hit.  First, there is a sudden radical shift in the emotional tone of the conversation. ... Second, the reaction to a perceived offense often seems way out of proportion.

To love well requires courage – and trust.

To really have a strong, loving, healthy relationship, you must be able not just to curtail negative patterns that generate attachment insecurities, to see and accept each other’s attachment protest, but also to create powerful positive conversations that foster being accessible, responsive, and engage with each other.

Fear and longing are two sides of the same coin.

There is no perfect soul mate, no flawless lover. We are all stumbling around, treading on each other’s toes as we are learning to love.

A major part of keeping your love alive is to recognize the key moments of connection and hold them up where you both can see them.

We use stories to make sense of our lives.

To achieve a lasting loving bond, we have to be able to tune in to our deepest needs and longings and translate them into clear signals that help our lovers respond to us. We have to be able to accept love and to reciprocate.  Above all, we have to recognize and accept the primal code of attachment.