♥ DAILY LOVE TIP – Saturday November 5, 2011
Hello special ♥People,
This month we are already experiencing a high level of commitments which includes travelling again this Thursday to Brisbane for a week where we will present an Imago Couples Workshop as well as other things so I just wanted to let you know that I am aiming to post on the blog on the odd-numbered days for this month….Any guest bloggers gratefully welcomed!……♥
One of the things that is sooooooooo hard for us is getting the message out about people needing to learn how to have ♥LOVE-ing and happy relationships………….like I had a young couple yesterday morning for counselling and they’ve been married for about 10 years and have 2 young children and they are having problems in their marriage and were close to separating and one thing that came up was that they have shared very little affection between each other let alone sex which they have very infrequently. And they do go months and months without sex and in fact any physical connection which the woman has very little desire for …..and what she says is that this is THE NORM amongst her girlfriends which incidentally research supports…
The question ringing loudest for me is why aren’t all these people signing up in droves to do the workshops to learn how to ♥LOVE so that all aspects of relating and mating are easy and second nature♥♥♥ Why has this state of affairs become acceptable in our society♥ It is ♥heart breaking!
I wonder whether you realize this simple but powerful fact – that actually our survival literally depends on the healing power of ♥LOVE, intimacy and relationships.
As individuals, as communities, as a country, as a culture. ♥LOVE and survival – so what do they have to do with each other you might be thinking♥
Says noted expert on heart disease, Dr Dean Ornish M.D. in his book
“Love And Survival -The Scientific Basis For The Healing Power Of Intimacy” –
“Love and intimacy are a root of what makes us sick and what makes us well, what causes sadness and what brings happiness, what makes us suffer and what leads to healing….If a new drug had the same impact, virtually every doctor in the country would be recommending it for their patients!! – my highlighting and exclamation marks. It would be malpractice not to prescribe it.”
Dr Ornish offers many examples of rigorous scientific studies from his own research and from studies of others around the world that demonstrate that comprehensive lifestyle changes may begin to reverse even severe coronary heart disease without drugs or surgery. He states most emphatically:
“I am not aware of any other factor in medicine – not diet, not smoking, not exercise, not stress, not genetics, not drugs, not surgery – that has a greater impact on our quality of life, incidence of illness, and premature death from all causes.”
People who feel lonely and isolated, he reveals, “have a 300 to 500% greater risk of premature death from physical illness.“ Ornish goes on to say “the real epidemic in our culture” is what he calls emotional and spiritual heart disease, the profound sense of loneliness, isolation, alienation and depression that are so prevalent today as the social structures that used to provide us with a sense of community and connection break down.
But ♥LOVE and intimacy, you say♥ Opening my heart emotionally♥ And feeling……..and relating♥ I’ve cited the research before of the appalling crisis in our society with a 50% rate of breakdown for first marriages and 65% for the second. That’s a lot of unhappiness and loneliness and aloneness…….
It’s so heartening for me to find scientific research that supports my belief in the importance of relationships and ♥LOVE. Many people just delegate ♥LOVE and relationship to the realm of the “touchy-feely” and don’t take them seriously.
We are nearing a significant date this Friday of the 11.11.11 and I invite you to commemorate it with choosing to commit to prioritizing ♥LOVE, intimacy and quality relationships in your life.
Questions for you: What are you doing about insuring your life and survival♥ What are you doing to create quality ♥LOVE relationships in your life♥ What gets in the way of you doing this♥
I’m curious about what matters most to you♥ What do you daily prioritize;…..what will you be putting at the top of your New Year’s resolution List with the fastly approaching ending for this year♥ Will it include doing what ever it takes to make your wife, husband, partner, children, friends, family, the people who matter to you, feel more ♥LOVE and cared for♥…………of being the best partner you can be♥ Have you let another year go by without getting around to it and continuing to live in a ♥LOVE-starved marriage/relationship similar to the couples above♥
Remember the feeling of your eyes lighting up or your heart skipping a beat when one of your loved ones enters the room or even just thinking about them….. Doesn’t it feel sooooooo good to ♥LOVE that much♥………So, I challenge you to commit yourself to learning to love deeper…….to choose relationship education as an essential part of life…….to equip yourself with a range of relationship and communication ♥TOOLS……….Just going back over the ♥ DAILY LOVE TIPs would be a place to start…….
Am I sounding like a broken record I wonder♥………..
Every action, every micro-MOVE-ment of expanding your ♥LOVE-ing matters! And all suggestions on how to motivate/attract/educate people gratefully received. Thank you for caring, hopefully and with LOVE Susie♥
“The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return”
~ from ‘Nature Boy’, sung by Nat King Cole, written by Eden Ahbez.
Susie, I really enjoy reading your posts each morning and always find them very timely in regards to what is going on in my life. Sometimes, I just get so caught up in the daily rigmarole of life (which can consume you) and I don’t take the time out to ‘smell the roses’ and to show my loved ones how much they mean to me. I am now much more aware of this and often stop and ask myself how I have shown those I love just how much they mean to me. This week I have been caught up with work and have had my focus on that. I am definitely going to make sure that my family knows that they are the most important thing to me when they wake today. Thank-you for taking the time to post!
Hello ♥Kristine,
Thank You! I am grateful for you making time in your busy life to share with us as well as being there for your loved ones showing them how much they mean to you.
I love your sentence – “I am definitely going to make sure that my family knows that they are the most important thing to me when they wake today.”
Your sharing has made my ‘taking the time to post’ so much more valuable for me. Have the best day. ♥LOVE Susie
Bravo Susie!
Hello dear ♥Sarcha,
Lovely to hear you voice and acknowledgment. Thank you! ♥LOVE Susie
Hi Susie
I think this is the 3rd comment to you that I have attempted to finish and send so this time I feel I will have sucess, besides its late at night (for me) and Im in bed!
I wanted to share with you what or how I have connected with my daughters Brea and Bec who now live away from home and how I am giving us a feeling of love and connection over the miles. How I have tried to ease the ache of our hearts as we now live so far apart, to help dissapate the isolation etc that you speak of and to strengthen our connection to each other.
While we do email and phone or txt it seems to lack a permanency that vanishes, like a wisp of smoke that you know was there but leaves no trace, no substance.
So I started to send postcards of daily things I was doing, random cards that I could pick up often for free from restaurants, libraries, gallerys and such like with a few sentences of what was capturing my atttention at that moment, maybe once or twice a week. I know the girls love receiving my mail, Bec has hers as art work on her wall, I imagine Brea going to the mail box and her anticipation and smile of delight, I sense Becs joy as she sees the letter slipped under her door and I think about their responses to my words, to what I ate, noticed, remembered or some small happening of the so called mundane.
This then, is how I deepen our love, how I let them know I am thinking of them at various times in a tangible way that is often repeated, an old fashioned idea, snail mail, but one that I know and they tell me resonates in a way that fills and fleshes out the vacancy of not being near each other, a physical sustenance for our hearts.
Hello ♥Hilary dear lady,
Thanks so much for finishing this comment and posting it. It is special……
I so love how committed and dedicated you are to deepening your love and the lengths that you go to to make sure your daughters feel close and connected to you. Snail mail has some special quality about it that is touching….I think we all need to be reminded of this…. your idea of using postcards is great….
You are reminding me of how important ♥LOVE notes and cards are a ♥LOVE Language for me…… thank you!
Such precious feelings you evoke as you write – “I imagine Brea going to the mail box and her anticipation and smile of delight, I sense Bec’s joy as she sees the letter slipped under her door”…….You give a huge gift of – “my words, what I ate, noticed, remembered or some small happening of the so called mundane……”.
Yes – what amazing “physical sustenance for [all] our hearts”. What a trace you leave, what substance!
Your LOVE is potent and tangible. Much ♥LOVE and gratitude, Susie.