Bridging the Gap in treatment (Counselling and Medication)

 

Love & Relationship

During romantic love there are many changes that both men and women experience. It seems rather inaccurate to say “falling in love” because experiencing love is more of a high that puts people on cloud nine. According to licensed psychologist Dr. Rachel Needle, specific chemical substances such as oxytocin, phenethylamine, and dopamine, have been found to play a role in human experiences and behaviors that are associated with love. They function similar to amphetamine, making us alert, excited, and wanting to bond. Which actually becomes my question, are you in love or you are just high?

 

A relationship is composed of many things: friendship, sexual attraction, intellectual compatibility, and, of course, love. 

Love is the glue that keeps a relationship strong and solid. It is deeply biological and a complex that grows with time.

But what is love, and how do you know if you are truly in love? It is difficult to define love because of everyone’s perception of real love can be dramatically different. People often get confused between lust, attraction, and companionship. Hence, there is no one best definition of love.

However, what does love mean can be summarized as an intense feeling of euphoria and deep affection for someone or something.

This love definition or love meaning might not encompass all the emotions that are surging within you.

So, to help you understand what is the meaning of love in a relationship, here are some signs that the emotions you are feeling are indeed in line with the concept of love but not LOVE.

1. Love is not lust

Despite the phrase “it was love at first sight,” love is not something we feel right away. 

That strong feeling of attraction, like a magnet pulling you towards that person you’ve just met? That’s infatuation and sexual chemistry not love reason being such feeling may fade away after sexual encounters or  1 or 2 dates, or even a chat.

 Nature gives us a big dose of infatuation in order to get us together initially. Love does include sexual chemistry, but it differs because it is an emotion that takes time to build. Lust can appear in an instant; love evolves over a period of time as you get to know the other person inside and out.

2. Love completes a relationship

You may be immensely sexually-attracted to your partner, but that does not mean you understand the true definition of love.

If you haven’t developed a base of loving feelings with your partner, once the sexual spark dies down, you will become bored. 

3. Love takes time to bloom

How to explain love and relationship?

To start with, a loving relationship is not built in a day. The threads of love take time to weave together to form a strong bond.

It is only as you and your partner share your thoughts, fears, dreams, and hopes that love takes root. So trust the process and don’t rush love. It has its own timetable that needs to be respected and not hurried.

4. The one true love

We talk about “soul mates,” but humans are built with the capacity to love over and over again. Thankfully so, or we would never recover from our high school crush, or losing a partner to divorce or death.  

5. Love is generous

In a truly loving relationship, we give to the other without an expectation of return. We don’t keep an account of who did what for the other. Giving pleasure to our partner gives us pleasure, too.

6. We feel what our partner feels

The true meaning of love is to feel a sense of joy when we see our partner happy. When we see that they are sad or depressed, we feel their blue mood, too. With love comes empathy for the other person’s emotional state.

7. Love means compromise

The real meaning of love in a relationship is to willfully compromise your needs in order to accommodate your partner’s needs or desires.But we don’t sacrifice our own self in doing this, nor should the other person require us to sacrifice our own self for their personal gain. That’s not what love all about in a relationship; that’s control and abuse.

8. Respect and kindness

What is true love?

Well, when we love, we act respectfully and kindly towards each other.

We do not intentionally hurt or denigrate our partner. When we talk about them in their absence, it is with such warmth that the listeners can hear the love in our words. We do not criticize our partners behind their backs.

9. We act with ethics and morals

Our love for the other person enables us to act morally and ethically, both with them and in our community. Their presence in our life makes us want to be a better person so that they will continue to admire us.

10. We guard each other’s solitude

With love, we never feel lonely, even when alone. The very thought of the other person makes us feel as if we have a guardian angel with us at all times.

11. Their success is yours as well

What is true love in a relationship?

When our partner succeeds at something after a long effort, we beam with joy as if we were the winner, too. There is no feeling of jealousy or competition, just pure pleasure at seeing our beloved’s success.

12. They are always on our mind

Even when separated for work, travel, or other commitments, our thoughts drift towards them and what they might be doing “right now.”

13. Sexual intimacy deepens

With love, sex becomes sacred. Different from the early days, our lovemaking now is deep and holy, a true joining of bodies and minds.

14. We feel safe

The presence of love in the relationship allows us to feel protected and safe as if the other person is a safe harbor for us to come home to. With them, we feel a sense of security and stability.

15. We feel seen and heard

Our partner sees us for who we are and still loves us. We can show all our sides, positive and negative, and receive their love unconditionally.

They know who we are at our core. Love allows us to bare our souls and feel grace in return.

16. Love helps fight without fear

What is love all about? It is a sense of security.

If we are secure in our love relationship, we know we can argue and that it will not break us apart. We agree to disagree, and we don’t hold grudges for too long because we don’t like to hold bad feelings towards our partner

Note the above characteristics ought to be evident in a relationship for it to be deemed as a love relationship unless or otherwise.

 A renowned psychologist who propounded that theory of the triangle of Robert Sternberg, posed that there are  three components of love which are intimacy, passion, and commitment. Intimacy encompasses feelings of attachment, closeness, connectedness, and bondedness. Passion encompasses drives connected to both limerance and sexual attraction. Commitment encompasses, in the short term, the decision to remain with another, and in the long term, the shared achievements and plans made with that other person.

“Romantic love evolves when one feels a sense of interdependence, attachment, and that their psychological needs are being met,” Kane says. “Some researchers say oxytocin plays a part in the evolution of romantic love as it is released in the brain during orgasm, which contributes to the couple’s ability to bond with one another.”

So worth noting is that Love is an interplay of emotions leading into the establishing of a long lasting bond.

However what happens when Love fails?

Lies, evasions, and half truths. All are deceits. Yesterday's white lie, once discovered, reveals the big one from the month before. That's the problem with lies. When you unravel one, there is always another behind. It's a ball of string that leads to the darkest recesses of the mind . . .

It's easy to demand honesty, to hold the other person to a high standard. It's hard to deliver, though, and harder still to know if we receive the truth in our most intimate exchanges. So often, love and hope blinds to what's obvious, when seen from a distance.

After all, what are those demands but another form of conditional love.  Do this, and I'll love you.  And the implied threat, Don't do this, and I withhold my love for you.  There is also the thought that it takes a cheater to know a cheat; one must wonder from whence the demands for honesty and integrity arise.  In hindsight, it would have been wise to question.

Hindsight is like that.  But we're blinded by love, and sometimes more . . .

Our understanding of others is based on observation and interpretation. Revisited in the hard light of freshly discovered deception, everything changes. Was it innocent, or was it planned?

Relationships end, and we don't really know why. A few months later, the truth emerges, in a few casual words. Innocent enough,until the idea percolates in the mind. There were the phone calls, those unexplained days, and those fights that made no sense . . . suddenly, everything looks different. It feels wrong. Did those things really happen, or was it all in the mind? When one fact proves real, other evidence is harder to ignore. Hope gets replaced by resignation. And so the mind begins its tortured journey.

What seemed sweet and sad immediately turns shabby and tawdry. Sympathy turns to cold rage, as the realization of what's really happened sinks in. All of a sudden, the magic of the precious days before is shattered, never to seem beautiful again. Was her sweet smile real, or was it just a pretty lure, reeling him in?

Logic tells us it started out real. Love grows, and goes astray. Life intrudes. Other options appear. At some point, what was real became false. And looking back, we cannot know the precise time and place that it all went wrong.

The optimist says it was beautiful, until the very last day.

The pessimist says he was played for a fool, right from the start.

Critical View

Unarguably there is a big distinction between love and infatuation. Note there is a moment when the emotion fades hen the test of time comes, infatuation fades but “love” tend to endure and bloom even in those dark times.

The question becomes what happens when infatuation fails. What hurts may be hat infatuation may fed while one has already marries to the person, or had conceived together the next thing you realize would be hat your emotions “heart” lied to you. You will realize that you never loved the person but enjoyed being with him or her but not for he whole life. Anger and blame sets in as you can’t reverse the hands of time, others goes to he extremes of divorce and sociality.

After infatuation has worn off and disillusionment sets in, that’s when couples engage in what well known therapist and  author Harville Hendrix calls “the power struggle”. Handrix posed that people don’t really enter into relationships in order to take care of each other, but they do it to heal their hearts. So while they say we love  our partner and want to make them happy, what were really doing is trying desperately to make ourselves happy. According to Handrix , at some point the wounded child inside  us decides they’ve  been ‘good’ long enough to endear themselves to the romantic partner and will now start making demands

This is make or break time for relationships , if they’ve e managed to survive past disillusionment. Can you find a way  to see each other for who they you are really are  be honest about what you need from each other and learn to meet those needs?. Its not easy , as most couples don’t manage  it. That’s why so many  people get divorced . They imagine that if they just had  the right partner, a different partner ,they wouldn’t  have to go through  this phase.

It’s like a horror movie, the regret and torment is excessive , hence  one has to find ways to deal with it . The wrong  move , I have  seen may take is getting into a REBOUND RELATIONSHIP. Only to realize  that instead of healing , the circle starts again , infatuation sets in , sex, sex, sex and before you know boom , you’re hurt.

How Can You Deal With Your New Reality Becomes The Quest

1.        Allow yourself to feel  your feelings – when someone breaks up with you  you’re going to feel a flood of emotions , It’s a trauma, it’s a shock  you want  to be really  gentle with yourself  and you want to allow yourself  to feel  your feelings. Allow yourself to cry  and acknowledge that a break up  is like any other type of loss . With loss come five stages of grief, Denial, Anger. Bargaining , Depression  and Acceptance

2.       Don’t Become Your Feelings – Though it is important o express your feelings , it’s also  important to stop short of becoming them .Allow the feeling to flow away , scream, cry yell for at least 60 minutes  after then stop  and move on to something, RELEASE THE PRESSURE

3.       Cut Off Communication With Your Ex- You go through  withdrawal like symptoms  after a break up because the feel-good hormones you got from your partner are  suddenly gone. When your partner is nolonger there , you start  o crave those feel=good hormones , if you  give in again you will struggle to move forward  and you will find yourself such months and even years later . Brief occasional communication, like “hey, could we talk for a few minutes? I’m having a hard time with this –could be okay, Just be cautious  that those innocent check-inns don’t become a habit .Every time you talk to them you open up another energy tie between you  and your goal is to break those energetic ties and not keeping creating them.

4.      Find A Support System- opening up to others nay bring catharsis in return

5.       Exercise- the endorphins produced during exercise will help with the withdrawal symptoms post-breakup and it also helps you build confidence in yourself

6.      Remember What Sucked

7.       Take Care of Yourself

8.      Don’t Judge the length of your Healing Process

9.       Don’t Internalize the break up- avoid thinking , I’m not good enough , there is something wrong with me

10.    Identify and Eliminate Unhealthy behaviors – stop texting your Ex, don’t let yourself  overindulge in obsessive  behaviors like analyzing every aspect of relationship till 4am

11.     Explore old and New Interest

12.    If You Decide To Date, Do It Cautiously

 

For assistance visit or contact

www.ruvhenekomentalhealthadvocatesfoundation.blog

 

www.facebook.com/ruvhenekomentalhealthadvocatesfoundation/

 

www.facebook.com/ruvhenekoladiestalk/

Contact +263 778 897 329

 

ANGER & ANGER MANAGEMENT

While anger is a vital part of our range of emotions and is a legitimate feeling, it is how we respond to and express anger that can cause problems. Anger is a basic human emotion, common to all of us –  its OK to feel angry from time to time. That’s where understanding our anger and using anger management strategies can help. Anger is often associated with frustration. Anger may arise when things don’t happen the way we want or people don’t act the way we would like. It’s usually a reaction to a ‘trigger’ event or emotion, which can include feeling embarrassed, guilt or shame, jealousy, stress and a host of other reasons. When we are angry, there is nearly always an underlying need or want that has not been met. Sometimes this is something material (such as money) or it can be a desired emotion such as wanting to be respected or loved.

Outburst of Anger

 Understanding our anger can be difficult, as it is often not immediately apparent where it is coming from. Sometimes anger is justified and appropriate to the situation, at other times it is not. When anger starts to gets out of control, it can have enormous effects on our physical and mental health. It can also hurt your career and relationships with others.

Anger Management Techniques

 

Anger management techniques focus on recognizing the ‘warning signs’ that you’re getting angry and implementing techniques that can help diffuse the anger before it escalates.

There are many different strategies that can help you manage your anger before it gets out of hand. 

1.     Time out – take a break for a bit

1. Controlled breathing
2. Use calming self-statements such as “Cool it. You can handle this.”
3. Relaxation skills
4. Changing beliefs that contribute to anger
5. Physical activity
6. Problem solving strategies
7. Write things down or compose an unsent letter
8. Learn assertiveness skills
9. Better Communication

11.   Work on responses that help with your anger – develop a list of things to say to yourself before, during and after situations in which you may get angry.