Though our lives are filled with more technology, entertainment, and connectivity than ever before, some of us still feel empty and lonely. Something is missing. Its hard to put a finger on it, but for many of us, this missing something is the safety, understanding, and the support we get from feeling loved. Feeling loved is different from being loved. When you feel loved, it makes you feel whole, accepted, and supported by another person, be they a spouse, lover, friend, family member, or work colleague. You get the sense of being valued and emotionally fulfilled, that someone gets you. Do your relationships make you feel valued and emotionally fulfilled? Is there someone in your life who really gets you? Do people you love actually feel loved by you? Do they know that you appreciate them as they really are? If the answer to any of these questions is no, read on to find out why your ability to thrive in life depends on feeling loved, and what you can do to find it. Though we have so much more, it can often still feel like less. How is that possible? Just as you can eat without being nourished and drink without quenching your thirst, you can be connected without feeling connected. You can satisfy an urge without feeling you’ve satisfied a need. You can have hundreds of friends online and so on but you feel lonely. Why is because face-to-face connections really matters where you can touch, read non-verbal cues, or give undivided attention, then it’s nearly impossible to feel connected, or feel loved. Similarly, you can express caring for others and receive care yourself without getting what you really need—that sense of feeling loved. The need to connect to others is a biological human need, similar to the need for food and water. We cant escape it; it’s hardwired into our brains. For most of human history, our survival depended on being with others to find food and shelter, protect us from predators, and to thrive intellectually.Even if we feel less dependent on others today, the need to connect still exists. No matter how much some of us might try to deny it, we hunger for that meaningful connection to others that makes us feel loved. Do you have someone you can contact in the middle of the night if you’re upset, someone who’ll not only listen to you, but will genuinely care about what you’re feeling and want to help? Would your spouse or partner want to talk to you, or would he or she just roll over and tell you to go back to sleep? Even if you live alone, do you have someone who’s there to console you when you’re down and celebrate with you when you’re excited? Do you have someone you trust and feel safe with? Feeling loved requires you to focus on what is happening in the moment between you and the other person. This is largely done through nonverbal communication or body language, such as facial expressions, eye contact, tone of voice, posture and gestures, touch, and the timing and pace of a conversation. When you can pick up on another person’s nonverbal cues, you’ll be able to tell how he or she really feels and be able to respond accordingly. *.The way you look, listen, move, and react to another person tells them more about how you’re feeling than words alone ever can. *.Connecting to someone requires eye contact when they open up to you, a hug to show empathy, a gesture that says you’re listening when they talk, and a smile that says you care. To feel loved, and to make others feel loved, takes time and the willingness to stay connected to our own feelings and the emotions of others. But modern life is often rushed and full of distractions, excitement, and temptations that divert our attention from our emotional experiences. These distractions absorb our time, attention, and energy, making it difficult to find the intimacy we need. Over-schedulingand overloading ourselves, losing ourselves in technology, and taking advantage of quick fixes that mask core problems diverts us from the slower, more absorbing task of staying connected to ourselves and others. If youre very lucky, you learn the skills for feeling loved early in infancy. Before you can speak or think, you can learn to manage stress and self-soothe. In addition, you can learn that your feelings matters because your parent or caretaker successfully responded to your emotional signals. If you’re not part of the lucky few who learned these abilities as infants, you can still learn them in later in life by mastering two core skills: *.The ability to recognize and manage stress. *.The ability to stay connected to what you feel.
Posted on: Sat, 02 Nov 2013 10:55:36 +0000
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