SOCIETY
Loving families are the basis of a humane society. As the poet Roberto Sosa writes, “Blessed are the lovers, for theirs is the grain of sand that sustains the center of the seas.” The widening circle of engagement with and responsiveness to others does not stop with our immediate loved ones or even with the future families they create. It continues to spread out, to help create more caring communities and, ultimately, a more caring world.
Understanding our longing for love and how love works is crucial if we want to shape a world that allows those longings to be answered and reflects the best of our nature. A human being longs for, is wired for, connection with others. Our nature is to bond intimately with a precious few, but then, having learned the lessons of belonging, to connect with others, our friends, colleagues, our tribe. When we are at our best, we offer support and caring to others because we recognize that they are just like us, human and vulnerable. In fact, we rejoice in the fellowship that takes us out of our own small world and makes us part of the whole.
I grew up in a small, less than affluent British town after World War II, where the sense that we all needed to pull together to survive was tangible. Everyone came to the pub — the clergyman, the commodore, the paper seller, the judge, the doctor, the clerk, the housewife, and the whore. Elderly villagers would spend all evening in one corner playing cards and discussing politics. Tramps who wandered from town to town would be given shelter, a beer, and a huge plate of my mother’s bacon and eggs before they wandered on. Soldiers who broke down, overwhelmed with the memories of war, were taken into a back room, held, and comforted. Mourners were given a hug, a whiskey, and maybe a cheery out-of-tune song on the piano, courtesy of my grandmother. Of course, there was also fighting and dissension, prejudice and cruelty. But in the end, there was a sense that we all stood together. We knew that we needed each other. And most of the time, there were at least one or two of us who could manage to be compassionate.
Feeling connected, feeling with someone goes hand in hand with feeling for that person. We can learn sympathy and compassion for others from the Christian Bible, from the Koran, or from the teachings of the Buddha. But I think first we have to learn it and feel it in the tender embrace of a parent or a lover. Then perhaps we can actively and intentionally pass it on in ever-widening circles to the larger world.
In fact, for centuries poets and prophets have assured us that we would all be better off if we loved each other more and that we should do just that. Most often this message is given as a set of moral rules and abstract ideas. Trouble is that it doesn’t seem to have that much impact unless we are also emotionally touched, unless we feel a personal connection to another human being. Then we can tune in to their hurt and sadness as if it is our own.
Like many of us, I find myself giving a little money to the relief funds for victims of earthquakes and other disasters. But it is hard to really respond to huge overwhelming problems or to faceless crowds. For me, it is easier and much more satisfying to give more money every month to the families of two little girls in India who are registered with the foster parents plan of the international relief agency Plan Canada. I have pictures of them. I know their names and the names of their villages. I know that one family now has a goat and that the other has clean water for the first time. I dream of going to visit them. I feel a connection to the stoic-looking mothers who stand beside these children in the photos that arrive in the mail every few months. Modern technology makes these links possible and allows someone like me, on the other side of the world, to connect and to care.
Three years ago, in a small, picturesque community of old wooden houses on a beautiful river in the hills outside Ottawa, an organization called the Wakefield Grannies sprang up. It started with one person, Rose Letwaba, a South African nurse, giving a Sunday morning talk in the church by the river. She spoke of the grandmothers in a Johannesburg slum who are raising their grandchildren, all AIDS orphans, in poverty so crippling that the kids’ toothbrushes are always locked up, they are that valuable. A dozen Wakefield grandmothers got together and each connected with one South African granny and began to contribute money to that family. There are now 150 Grandmother-to-Grandmother groups in Canada and the U.S.
The book Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson, American climber and nurse, is the tale of a personal connection that has translated into compassionate action. In 1993, Mortenson got lost in the mountains of Pakistan after trying to climb the mountain K2. He ended up stumbling into the small village of Korphe. The villagers saved his life and formed a special bond with Mortenson. Haji Ali, the village headman, explained that in Korphe, “the first time you share tea with someone, you are a stranger. The second time, you are a guest. The third time, you are family.”
Mortenson became family. His feelings were enhanced by memories of his little sister, Christa, who had died after a long fight with epilepsy. He saw her in the faces of Korphe’s children. Their lives were a struggle just like Christa’s had been. He asked to see the village school and was taken to a place where eighty-two children knelt on the frosty ground scratching out multiplication tables in the dirt with sticks. There was no school building in Korphe. And because the village could not afford the dollar-a-day salary, much of the time there was no teacher.
“My heart was torn out,” Mortenson reports. He turned to Haji Ali and told him, “I will build a school, I promise.” Over the next twelve years, Mortenson and his Central Asia Institute built more than fifty-five schools, many devoted to girls, in the mountains of Pakistan and Afghanistan. Mortenson points out that for the cost of one missile we can build hundreds of schools that offer a balanced education. This is a different kind of war against the eternal separation between “us and them” that fuels extremism. This is a response that emphasizes the power of compassion and connection.
These stories give me hope that we can learn about love, nurture it with our partners and family, and then, with the empathy and courage it teaches us, find ways to take it out into the world and make a difference. Writer Judith Campbell suggests, “When your heart speaks, take good notes.” These stories began with people being open and responding from their heart to the plight of others. They speak to the power of emotional responsiveness and personal connection to shape our world for the better.
The view of love and loving presented in this book fits with the thoughts of the Trappist monk and writer Thomas Merton, who believed that compassion had, in the end, to be based on “a keen awareness of the interdependence of all living things, which are all part of one another and all involved in one another.” It seems to me that if we, as a species, are to survive at all on this fragile blue and green planet, we have to learn to step past the illusion of separateness and grasp that we truly are mutually dependent. We learn this in our most intimate relationships.
It is hard to end a book on love and loving. These pages have detailed the new science of love and how it helps lovers create a secure, lasting bond. But we will never completely understand love. The more we discover, the more we will find what we do not know. As the poet E. E. Cummings observed, “Always a more beautiful answer that asks a more beautiful question.”
Acknowledgments
First, I wish to thank all the couples I have had the honor to work with over the last twenty-five years. You have fascinated, enthralled, and educated me. In the drama of separateness and togetherness that is a couple therapy session, I have explored with you the reality of what it means to love, to be heartbroken, and to find a way to deep, nurturing connectedness.
Second, I wish to thank my dear colleagues at the Ottawa Couple and Family Institute and International Center for Excellence in EFT, especially Dr. Alison Lee and Gail Palmer. Without them, the Institute and Center would not exist; with them, I’ve been able to create a professional family.
I would like to thank all my wonderful graduate students at the University of Ottawa, School of Psychology, who have hurled themselves at outcome and change proces
s studies in couple therapy with a passion and commitment that match my own. They have watched thousands of tapes of therapy sessions with me.
I thank my colleagues at the School of Psychology at the University of Ottawa, who have collaborated with and supported me, especially Dr. Valerie Whiffen. Also, the colleagues who teach EFT with me and have taken this way of helping couples all over the world, including Dr. Scott Woolley of Alliant University in San Diego, Dr. Jim Furrow, Dr. Brent Bradley, Dr. Martin North, Doug Tilley, Dr. Veronica Kallos, Yolanda von Hockauf, Dr. Leanne Campbell, Dr. Judy Makinen, and Ting Liu, who translated the key book on EFT into Chinese. A special acknowledgment goes to Dr. Les Greenberg, who formulated the first version of EFT with me at the University of British Columbia.
A special thank-you goes to my colleagues in social psychology, particularly Dr. Phil Shaver, Dr. Mario Mikulincer, and others who have been pioneers in applying attachment theory to adult relationships and who have tolerated a crazy clinician in their midst. Over the past fifteen years, they have produced an explosion of research studies and rich insights — knowledge that I have taken into my couple sessions and used to make a difference in people’s lives. I also thank my dear colleague John Gottman for all the debates and discussions and the wonderful validation and encouragement he has given me over the years.
I would like to thank Tracy Behar, my editor at Little, Brown, for her unflagging enthusiasm and outrageous confidence in me and this project; my agent, Miriam Altshuler, for her total professionalism and expert guidance; and freelance editor Anastasia Toufexis, who waded through rough drafts of the book and saved the reader from having to do the same.
I must thank my three children, Tim, Emma, and Sarah, for tolerating my obsession with this book, and all the friends in Ottawa who believed in me. I have been most fortunate to find exactly what it was that I was meant to do, as a researcher, teacher, writer, and therapist, but my real learning about love and relationships has been done, of course, in my own family. Most of all and always, I must thank my incredible partner, John Palmer Douglas, who is my safe haven, my secure base, my inspiration.
Glossary
amygdala An almond-shaped area in the midbrain associated with rapid emotional responses, especially the processing of fear. It appears to play a crucial role in fight-or-flight responses. When you leap out of the path of a suddenly approaching car, your amygdala has just saved your life.
A.R.E. An acronym for a conversation that positively addresses the question Are you there for me? Attachment theory and research tell us that emotional Accessibility (Can I reach you? Will you pay attention to me?), Responsiveness (Can I rely on you to respond and care about my feelings?), and Engagement (Will you value me, put me first, and stay close?) characterize secure bonding interactions between intimates.
attachment cue Any sign — from an inner-felt sense, a loved one, or a situation — that turns on the attachment system, our attachment-oriented emotions, or our sense that we need others. A sudden sense of doubt that a partner cares, a dismissive comment from a partner, or a threat from a situation makes us focus on how available and responsive our loved ones are.
attachment figure A person we love or are emotionally attached to whom we see as a potential safe haven and source of comfort. Usually a parent, sibling, romantic partner, or lifelong friend. On a spiritual level, God can also be an attachment figure.
attachment injury A sense of betrayal and/or abandonment at a key moment of need that, if not addressed and healed, undermines trust and connection and triggers or fuels relationship distress and partner insecurity.
attachment protest A reaction to perceived separation from an attachment figure. It is often the first response to emotional and physical disconnection. Protest is designed to signal distress to attachment figures and get them to respond. It is characterized by anger and anxiety.
codependent A term applied to a person who facilitates, albeit often unintentionally, the dysfunctional behavior of a loved one. For example, the partner of an alcoholic who wants the drinking to stop but does not insist that this problem be confronted. The implication is that this partner’s dependence on the relationship prevents him or her from confronting the alcoholic.
contact comfort A phrase used by psychological researcher Harry Harlow to describe the response of infant monkeys to physical contact with a “soft” mother, made of squashy cloth. Contact comfort is, in Harlow’s view, essential to help infants soothe themselves in times of stress and anxiety. In his studies, infant monkeys sought contact comfort before food. He concluded that, in primates, contact comfort is a primary need.
conversation In this book, a deliberate attempt to talk with a partner in a way that each learns about the relationship. The seven transforming conversations illuminate how you interact, not only what you talk about.
cortisol A key stress hormone released by the adrenal glands to mobilize the body, particularly the amygdala, to deal with emergencies. Hostile critical reactions from others trigger especially high levels of cortisol. If produced constantly or in excess, the hormone can damage the body, notably the heart and immune system. There is also evidence suggesting that it destroys neurons in the hippocampus section of the brain, impairing memory and learning and facilitating overgeneralization of danger cues. For example, we know that dark streets late at night are potentially dangerous, but under prolonged stress, we may begin thinking that all streets, even early in the evening, hold danger.
Demon Dialogues The three patterns of interaction that form self-perpetuating feedback loops and make secure connection more and more difficult. These patterns are: Find the Bad Guy, or mutual blaming and criticism; the Protest Polka, wherein one person protests lack of safe emotional connection and the other defends and withdraws (the polka is also known as the Demand-Withdraw cycle); and Freeze and Flee, in which both partners withdraw in self-protection.
earned security The concept that our attachment expectations and responses can be revised as we gain experience in relationships. Even if we have a negative history, for example, with a parent, if we have a loving partner we can “earn” a secure feeling in our relationship.
effective dependency A positive state of secure attachment that enables us to tune in to our need for others and successfully ask for support and comfort. This state promotes connection with others and helps us handle stress as well as explore and deal with the world.
emotion From the Latin emovere, to move. Emotion is a physiological process that orients us to important cues in our world and gets us ready to act. It is best understood as a process. It consists of a very rapid perception that something is important, followed by a body response, an effort to understand the meaning of the cue, and a move into action. Emotions, expressed mostly in voice and face, also send rapid signals to others. In this book the word is used interchangeably with the word feelings.
enmeshed Extreme closeness that impedes separate functioning and autonomy. In the past, lack of separateness, rather than lack of secure, positive connection, was considered the core problem in conflictual families and couple relationships. Health was defined as being able to separate from others, to stay objective and in control of emotions, and to not allow loved ones to strongly influence one’s decisions.
handles Descriptive images, words, or phrases that capture and distill your innermost feelings and vulnerabilities. Once we find our handles, we can use them to open the door to and explore our inner world.
mirror neurons Nerve cells that activate in sympathy and in the same brain location as the nerve cells of the person whose actions we are watching. This seems to be the physiological basis of imitation, our ability to participate in another’s actions. These neurons help us sense what others intend and help us connect with what the other feels. We grasp the minds of others; we resonate with their state. Scientists suggest that the more active a person’s mirror neuron system, the stronger his or her empathy will be.
oxytocin The neurotransmitter most associa
ted with bonding between mother and infants and between sexual partners. Dubbed the “cuddle hormone,” oxytocin is synthesized in the hypothalamus region of the brain and is found only in mammals. It plays an important role during nursing (helping to eject milk), labor (helping the uterus to contract), and orgasm. It also seems to promote close contact and affiliative behaviors with attachment figures as well as overall positive social interaction. The higher our levels of oxytocin, the more we want to approach and engage with others. Oxytocin appears to inhibit aggressive and defensive behaviors. It also depresses production of stress hormones like cortisol. Skin on skin, touch, and warmth prime oxytocin manufacture.
primal panic The feeling often induced by separation from a key attachment figure. This panic mobilizes us to call to, reach for, and renew contact with the loved one who provides protection and a sense of safety. Emotion theorist Jaak Panksepp, who coined the term, views primal panic as a specific anxiety system in the brain that is especially honed in mammals. He refers to it as an “ancestral neural code” that sparks our brains to produce stress hormones like cortisol upon separation and the calming hormone oxytocin when we are again in close contact with the loved one.
resonance A term in physics that denotes a sympathetic vibration between two elements that leads them to suddenly synchronize signals and match pace and vibration. This creates a prolonged response. In relationships, we resonate with each other when we are tuned in to each other physiologically. Then emotional states converge. We are on the same wavelength, so that we literally share in the experience of others. It is this resonance that triggers a wave of emotion in a crowd; for example, at weddings when the vows are said and the happy couple marches out together, or at soldiers’ funerals when the bugler sounds a final goodbye.
Hold Me Tight: Seven Conversations for a Lifetime of Love Page 24
