Your Love-making factory - becoming a better lover

     This stren provides a view of love and is an introduction to the skill of becoming your own best friend.  It can improve your love-making (LM) - to yourself and to others.

     Likely you know of some person(s) who have a great capacity to express love; and likely you can think of some other(s) who have a great capacity to be hateful. So much of our energy that goes into producing love or hate can be under our direct control - we can have immense say in the degree we love and hate and in what form we choose to express our self.  Experience, observation, and the testimonial of others verify the importance of love to a fulfilling life.  This stren offers directions in growing your love-making ability.   We lack disciplined teaching programs to develop LM skills (do you agree?).  This is an attempt to fill this void.  This theory stren provides an understanding of making love; the practical strens provide the “how to” steps. 

On love:
     Many persons I have asked to express what love is respond saying they don’t know how to describe it, but they “know what it is.”  The disciplined teaching and learning of a skill (here the skill of making love) requires identification; “Learning starts with labeling.”  Let’s begin by attempting to identify the skill of creating “love.”

     I distinguish three types.  Erotic love originates in our genes to insure reproduction.  The “filial” love we have as a parent is a second type.  While parental caring is also biologically motivated (it may be turned “on” or “off” in most life by a hormone), in creatures having a long period of dependence, such as ourselves, the love of a parent for a child is mostly learned from our nurturers.  The third type of mature love is that which we our self make, independent of what our nature or nurture provides.  Of these three sources of love – nature, nurture, and our self, this stren focuses on the “mature love” we our self create.  [A son urged me to call this “love-creation” instead of “love-making” to distinguish it from our common association of love-making as a sexual act.  If you prefer, simply substitute “LC” when I refer to “LM.”]      

     Love is energy and attention directed for the benefit of someone (including yourself!) and/or something beyond our self.   Love is not of a limited quantity; we can make a little, a lot, or virtually none.  An eight-child parent is not restricted to give 1/8th the love to each child that a one-child parent can offer.  Indeed, each of the eight children in a family may receive more love than the only child in a family.  Likewise, you may love (and/or hate) an “other,” many “others,” and you may love your self.  Giving love to one friend doesn’t mean you need love another less.      

     Love is a willing gift, i.e. you have great freedom to generate love and decide where and how you direct it.  Your loving may be short or long-lived.  Your loving may continue, cease, increase, or decrease, in the same manner a factory may increase, decrease, or cease production, and the factory (as you yourself) may even change what it is producing.  Indeed, this stren proposes that you review the products coming from your energy factory and increase your loving capacity.    

     What thoughts do you hold about love?  How do your views agree?  differ?  Most religions and ethical programs teach that you love your neighbor as yourself.  What does this mean to you?

Qualities of a lover*:

     Pure love requires the maturity to enjoy giving without strings, i.e., there is satisfaction in the act of giving even when the act of loving is not returned.  The gift of love is a complete act in itself.  The lover has learned to love him/her self and is skillfully self-endorsing.  It is difficult to give with an empty cup.  When you first fill your cup and it overflows, you then have the greatest capacity to give. [The person who gives with an unfilled cup often resents the receiver when the response is less than expected.]  The love-maker skillfully uses energy to enrich others, and the world we share...and experiences joy in so doing.  He/she has become aware of his/her natural tendency to blame, recognizes and redirects this energy in a positive direction.

     The lover may have very limited or immense capacity.  Most religions and cultures have examples of infinite lovers, for example, Jesus.  While one may strive to be an infinite lover, reality suggests that doing our “reasonable best” is a practical obtainable goal.  To me, this means allocating an appropriate amount of our energy to continued growth of our LM capacity and being sufficiently humble to accept our human limitations and fallibility.  
 
     *[This stren primarily focuses on the creation of love.  The capacities to express love and to receive love are important qualities mentioned here but more directly addressed elsewhere.]
 
1. In my observation, many persons create and feel their love but have great difficulty expressing it.  It is as though we have a rationed quantity of love and we’d better store it for when we really need it.  The words “I love you” are rarely expressed.   Quite obtuse ways are devised to express love in a manner that would not hurt if the loved one doesn’t “properly” receive our love.  In a recent popular sitcom, Raymond is asked by his wife why he never says “I love you.”  Though he quite obviously does, he chokes on the word and finally says “I show you with my eyes.” 

2.  While the mature lover derives joy in his/her act of giving love and isn’t giving merely to get, the capacity to receive love is also a most worthy quality of LM.  Recognize that the loved person’s acceptance and acknowledgment of the love offered by another is itself an act of loving; it does enrich the satisfaction of even the most experienced lover ... AND is immeasurably encouraging to the novice lover in his/her tender often clumsy attempts to grow their LM factory.  To maintain unconditional loving is a very advanced skill few attain; thus, the gracious acceptance of the giver’s gift is your gift.  [I have observed many persons who become quite good lovers but have little capacity to receive love.]

Do you agree with this description?  What would you add?   Subtract?   How do you assess your own LM skills?

Your love-making factory, and steps to strengthen it:

     Picture within your self the energy factory that carries out your life’s activities.  Making love is among the many skillfully created products of your factory. [What other products can you identify: viz. hate? worry? greed? knowledge? ideas? music? material products?]  Your factory production is determined by a Board of directors; it consists of your genes (what you need), your nurturers (what you are expected to want), and your self (what is wise).  There is a chief executive officer (CEO) of your Board of Directors who has the last word.  And though you may become CEO of your energy factory’s production, you would be unwise to assume this powerful position without appropriate skill.   Consider your lack of such skills when you came into this world and the multiple years nature and/or your nurturers served as CEO to make you what you are.   [Who have been and still are on your current Board of Directors?¹]   Much of the early teachings we receive not only don’t contribute to becoming CEO of our factory, they are persuasive in immobilizing such aspirations.  Realize that you can learn to wisely direct what and how much your factory produces; this taking charge process has been referred to elsewhere as “becoming your own person.”   We learn from those who have developed such skills, have clarified the resources needed, and may also be worthy role models (that’s what strens are about). You are on your way to being CEO when you become aware of the factory within you and accept your response ability to make a difference.   

     You pick which TV station you watch, you may choose to develop a job skill, study a language, or learn to play a musical instrument, AND you have the resources to grow your love-making factory.  Now let’s focus on the LM portion of your energy factory and consider the resources needed to “turn on” your production. 

     LM is a skill that you may choose to study, learn, and develop.  You have a good start if you have been lucky enough to have experienced loving role models.  Disciplined preparation in “loving” has long been neglected; most persons could far better explain how to play bingo than how to create love.  We receive far more instruction in reading, job training, and so much else.  To grow your LM, you will likely need to make room in your factory and re-direct some of your attention and energy, i.e., a willingness to challenge and let go of old established habits that don’t get you what you want, and frequently get you what you don’t want.  

     Action begins with the faith that “Yes, I can.”  The other ingredients to growing your LM factory are all available to you - work, direction, patience, and the willingness to risk letting go of some old patterns [factory space if you will] to focus on LM skills.  Superior intelligence, wealth, and even good health are not required.  Absolutely zero (0) magic is needed though new skills may seem to work magically.  You have or can surely acquire the five needed ingredients -- faith (in your capacity to make a difference), work (practice), direction, patience, and risk-taking.²  Like any skill, the skills involved in growing your LM factory are acquired step-by-step, in bits and pieces.   Some bits are best acquired before you can master the more advanced pieces that contribute to your LM production. 

     Once you become aware of your LM factory and your capacity to invest your energy in its development [the main intent of this stren], you can proceed to acquire the additional “strengths” or multiple skills to grow your LM factory.  Each skill is teachable and learnable.  You can surely develop these skills.  In my efforts at growing my own LM factory, I have identified many component skills that I have described in additional strens that are available to you.  These components of growing your LM factory are briefly elaborated in the Addendum accompanying this stren.  These “bits and pieces” useful for growing your LM factory include self-endorsement - becoming your own best friend (a very basic skill worthy of your earliest attention!), learning from mistakes, acquiring the vocabulary of mature thinking, recognizing and dealing with blaming (resentments, destructive aggression), using the near magical problem-solving sentence, strengthening faith – the “yes I can” skill, the skill of forgiving, the “reasonable best” measure of your self-worth (avoiding perfectionism), patience, dealing with anxiety, clarifying your values, and ultimately your skill to create new strens that are most meaningful to you and that may also make a difference as you share them with others.    The strens here identified are picked from a larger collection because they most directly contribute to developing your LM factory.  Though often not specific to LM; they will contribute in other ways to your skill in the management of your life, to feeling good and doing good.    

Love and sex (here mentioned because they are often confused):

     Love and sex have distinct qualities.  They can be experienced together or separately.  Together, they can be glorious and mutually enhancing.  However, they need not go together ... (like bacon and eggs; a piano and violin; health, wealth and happiness; parenthood, responsibility and commitment; religion, faith and peace-of-mind). 

     Sexual gratification is primarily a response from direct stimulation of nerve endings, which is conveyed to a relatively primitive area of the brain and is thereafter experienced consciously (in our newer brain).   Interest characteristically is heightened at puberty with hormonal and physical changes, and often declines with the hormonal and physical changes of aging.  Our genitals and skin contain receptors that receive information whereas love is willfully transmitted.  Sexual fulfillment may be very nondiscriminating towards who or what is providing the stimulation.   Love, while having powerful emotional ties, is more strongly influenced by our newer “thinking” brain.  And while loving actions may be acquired from role models, LM is a more conscious “willing” act growing with mental and emotional maturity, and the development of our skill to create and modify it.  [Infatuation may be a mental and emotional byproduct of sexual (or other) emotions, but does not have the same voluntary giving quality as love.]  

Summary: This stren encourages you to think more about your skill in love-making.  It offers a view of love to compare with your own.  The most important point is to recognize that you have the capability to determine the quantity and quality of the love you create.  Unlike sexual instinct and infatuation which are strongly biologically driven, love, like  resentment -- the amount we produce and the manner we sustain them -- are subject to our self’s personal direction!  Awareness of the LM factory within you empowers you to grow your LM skill.  If you so choose to invest energy in growing this skill, you can benefit by strengthening other more basic “component” skills.  The most basic skill in love-making is learning to be your own best friend, i.e., loving your self.  The self-endorsement strens, which follow, provide specific direction in growing your LM factory. Other important basic skills are identified in the Addendum and explained in the Guide’s strens.  [A CD, The Practical Person’s Guide to Feeling Good and Doing Good is free upon request and postage.]   

Concluding learning step: 1. Write down your idea of love-making.  And/or share this stren with another person who would be willing to discuss it with you.  Express your thoughts.  The goal is for you to examine your own view of LM and be able to put it into words.   2. Terrorists often claim they act for the love of their principle, usually but not always religious.  Do terrorists meet your criteria of love-making?  Where might they fall short? 
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ADDENDUM to the stren on Your Love-making Factory:This Addendum identifies skills to grow your LM factory.  As a bonus, each bit of mastery may strengthen your overall well-being.  They are teachable and learnable.   They can be mastered step-by-step.  Developing and strengthening these skills requires study and practice.  Each of the strens contained on this Internet site or the CD disk  will grow your LM skill.  I recommend you make a hard copy of only one or two of these strens at a time.  Study and put each into practice.  When comfortable with your understanding, go on to another.  Keep each in a binder for regular review.  [Ed. Note: the ANWOT strens are not ranked, just listed, although I recommend beginning with the self-endorsement strens.]

1. Self-endorsement, becoming your own best friend: If you were to take several random
“tape recordings” of the conversation that goes on within your mind and replay them, would it sound like two good friends talking?  Does it seem more like there is a terrorist(s) within your self-conversations?  These strens provide effective means to become a marvelous lifelong companion to your self.
2. Learning from mistakes: To learn to walk, we need to overdo it, “this way,” then “that way,” and fall quite a few times.  Children usually tolerate their mistakes better than adults.  For example, a “fall” while learning to walk leads to more effort and “success.”   Direction is provided in turning mistakes into a source of growth rather than a trauma.
3. Acquiring the vocabulary of mature thinking: Words trigger patterns of thinking and action. Some simple changes in our vocabulary can promote the mature thinking that was not possible to teach or learn during our early years of development.
4. Dealing with blaming: Our natural tendency to hold someone or something the cause of our discomforts (often one’s self) usually leads to a desire to hurt or punish.  Blaming wastes energy that could be used more productively.   The blaming response is one of the most easily identified and converted to beneficial problem-solving. 

5.  Using the “magical problem-solving sentence”: This stren encourages use of the problem-solving approach to life’s stresses rather than those that more likely lead to anxiety, depression, avoidance, and the like.

6.  Strengthening faith – the “yes I can” skill: Until you have some belief that we can make a real difference, you aren’t likely to call on the energy available to you to make a change.  This stren explains how to “borrow” some faith to get you on the track.

7.  The skill of forgiving: Resentments are natural, common, and rarely productive.  This stren helps in recognizing this tendency and how to reclaim the energy it wastes.

8. The “reasonable best” measure of your self-worth (avoiding perfectionism): Unrealistic expectations are a major source of unhappiness and depression.  The perfectionist is sometimes quite effective and productive but is usually among the most miserable depressed persons.  This stren offers a more effective approach to evaluating your efforts and preserve your self-worth.

9.  Patience: One of the five basic ingredients in acquiring a new skill, patience needs to be acquired, for we all enter life with the motto “I want what I want when I want it.”    This stren explains you can develop patience without need, as one person requested, for a “crash course.”

10. Dealing with anxiety: Excessive anxiety, panic, and phobias are far more common than most realize.  Our tendency to “what if” and anticipate the worst, usually most unlikely, possibilities is addressed in this stren. 

11. Your value system: Since most decisions we make are based on our beliefs and assumptions rather than scientific fact, we make more informed use of our resources when we are able to more clearly identify our values.  This stren encourages you to become more aware of your own values. 
12. A newer way of thinking (ANWOT): We are born immature and dependent.  Achieving maturity, what some researchers have described as “becoming your own person” requires newer ways of thinking that often are quite contradictory to our earliest ways.  The strens identified above are among others I believe to be useful components of ANWOT.  They represent my attempt to develop a systemic method to teach/acquire the skills to becoming your own person, the CEO of your life.  Slight modifications of a few trigger words become important substitutions that enable you to process information accurately, more so than the “native” language you acquire when you are physically and mentally immature, and likely continue to habitually use.  

13. Ultimately your skill in creating your own original strens: The strens here offered can only be a fragment of the multitude of possible strengths that add value and meaning to our lives.  An important goal in developing basic skills in making our life more meaningful is to develop our own capacity to create our own teaching/learning skills, ones that fit our unique life’s situation.   And hopefully you will create some worthy of sharing with others, adding to the general pool of strens.