Is sharing love an important part of your life? Do you share limited love because you are a strong director, analyzer or socializer—or a weak relator? Do you really share as much love as you want to share? Maybe this pearl can help improve your love life.
There are as many definitions of “love” as there are people to define it—but definitions of love are not as important as the feeling of love, which comes from our emotional energy. The fact is, we transmit and receive emotional energy to and from others, which is either negative (from our fear and anger) or positive (from our joy). Joy is the instantaneous adrenalin rush we feel in our heart when we physically recognized (see, hear, etc.) a connection (family, friends, pets, possessions, etc.)—and, the closer we are to that connection the greater our joy and positive emotional energy.
Unfortunately, the positive emotional energy we transmit is not necessarily received. There are two types of love: one-way love (our positive emotional energy is transmitted, but not received) and two-way love (we simultaneously transmit and receive it from others). As wonderful as the feeling is for us transmitting our one-way love, it is not necessarily the same for the other person no matter how much we truly believe in and say, “I love you”—resulting in the usual response, “I love you, too”. The other person’s “I love you, too” response can also be an expression of their love for us, but we don’t feel it from them because we are not receiving it. Joy is a one-way expression of the love we feel from an adrenalin rush in our heart. Bonding is another one-way expression of the love we feel from an oxytocin rush in our brain; again, the positive emotional energy from bonding is transmitted but not received.
In two-way love, ours and the other person’s positive emotional energy are transmitted and received simultaneously amplifying the oxytocin rush—it is quite wonderful. This is how we can tell the difference between one-way love and two-way love; two-way love is a much more intense feeling of love. So, how can you experience more two-way love daily?
1) By sustaining an impromptu oxytocin rush (bonding).
2) By purposefully bonding with others, thus causing an impromptu oxytocin rush.
Impromptu bonding occurs when you and another person simultaneously have the same positive thought. You know what I mean; he/she says something just as you were about to say it, automatically bonding you and releasing oxytocin into both of your brains. It is a wonderful moment that is instantly dissipated as less positive opinions quickly enter your minds. But with practice you can learn to dwell on that positive moment by ignoring your contrary opinions or "instantly agree" (see below). But as wonderful as this is, it is difficult to count on sporadic impromptu bonding for your daily dosage of love—this is where purposeful bonding comes in.
Purposefully bonding requires that you become a part of the moment, especially when it involves a topic that you have contrary opinions about. If you try to see their point of view or to dwell on the positive aspects (that which you agree with) of their discussion, you can purposefully bond with them. At first this is mostly one-way bonding—which is better than nothing. Fortunately, this allows you to feel more comfortable with their point of view, which can lead to impromptu bonding, since you are both talking about the same kinds of things and your thoughts will simultaneously overlap.
You can also create purposeful bonding by genuinely, "instantly agreeing" with someone's statement. Just allow yourself to see something positive about their statement—nothing negative—at first, it is difficult to do, but eventually it creates a positive state of mind that promotes impromptu bonding. It also allows others to feel more comfortable with you, since you instantly agree with them, opening them up to instantly agreeing with you and allowing for even more impromptu bonding.
The more positive you are about the opinions held by others in your life, the more opportunities you will have to share two-way love. If you have too many differing opinions with them, you need to dwell on the positive aspects of their statement and don't let your contrary opinions enter your mind. This is difficult for fault-finding analyzers and directors, but it can be done; I’m proof of that. And the more you relax your contrary opinions and value their opinions the easier it will be to accept their opinions (but not necessarily change yours), allowing for more loving/bonding moments. And a funny thing happens in time when you give their opinions value; it allows you to be open-minded enough to actually see their point of view—which can be opinion-changing—and your reward is more and more loving/bonding moments in your day. It also allows them to be more open-minded about your opinions.
In the past, my contrary opinions would automatically destroy my loving/bonding moments, but not so much any more, making me feel more two-way love for my wife, children and friends than I have ever felt before—I only wish I had learned this sooner.
It has become obvious to me after working with hundreds of practices and thousands of staff over the past 50 years that the more love you shared the more successful their practice will be; no matter how big or small it is. The more you love your team and patients; the more your team loves you and your patients and the more your patients love you and your team, the more successful and happy you will be. Of course we can’t love everyone all of the time—it has its limits—but we all could share more love.
Love is something that most of us are uncomfortable discussing—while craving more of it. Strong relators (or those of us who do not have a weak relator style) can share love more easily than others. No matter what our genetic style strengths are, we all share love—but unfortunately, only when we are using our “bonding” relator style. In general, I find the vast majority (60%) of orthodontists are task-oriented directors and analyzers, about 30% are strong socializers, and about 10% are strong relators—so the majority of us needs help to share more love. Orthodontists with a strong director style and a weak relator style (opposite styles that balance each other out), find it particularly difficult to share love. Orthodontists with a strong analyzer style and a weak relator style also have difficulty sharing love. Socializers feel a lot of joy and interpret it as love, but it isn’t love because there is little bonding involved. But, just because we don’t naturally share love, it doesn’t mean that we can’t or shouldn’t share more.
In the pearl “Are you getting enough love in your life” we discussed the various ways of experiencing love daily. Most of it was to be aware and to “catch a moment of love”, then dwell on it. But there is a more pro-active way of sharing more love daily—you can institute an “attitude” that relators naturally use—being appreciative and thankful.
It seems unrealistic that just being more appreciative and thankful could make such a big difference in our lives, but it does. Most of us take it for granted that when someone does something for us that our “thank you” is implied—it isn’t. We lose something by not saying it and others lose something by it not hearing it. By not being appreciative and saying “thank you” we don’t acknowledge to ourselves that, that person did something nice for us and that we are worth it. By not saying, “thank you” we degrade the other person by making their efforts seem meaningless and their life less valuable. By saying “thank you” we acknowledge to ourselves that we appreciate what this person did for us, which makes us feel more important. By saying “thank you” the other person feels that what they did is valuable, which makes their life more meaningful. And the sad fact is that a person doing what might be considered “lower status work” actually needs more acknowledgements, but they usually get less.
Over the past year I have experimented with appreciating and thanking others for what they did for me. I did this with clients, anybody I met outside my home, and especially with my family. At first it seemed stilted and disingenuous, but after hundreds of incidences it became natural. I could see the changes on the people’s faces when I acknowledged and thanked them, changing from a “well, that task is done” blank expression to a “my efforts are appreciated” smile. I am a much happier person now that I share more love and appreciation—I whish I had learned this simple fact decades ago.
Thus, whether in your practice, your home or out and about, if you share an appreciative “thank you”, you will eventually share more love. At first, you will feel a little awkward saying it, but it will eventually become more natural and accepted by others as you naturally emanate positive emotional energy. It is especially effective when you can look someone straight in the eye when saying it and emoting positive energy. Of course, there are those who respond to your “thank you” with a “no problem”, which kills the love—but by emanating positive emotional energy you will usually get around that—keeping eye contact also helps. You will also get a “you’re welcome” some of the time, which also feels good. Actually, the more you maintain eye contact emit positive emotional energy, the more positive responses you will receive from others.
And it isn’t necessary to thank everybody for everything—that gets a little stale after a while. For a start, practice maintaining eye contact and saying “thank you” to people outside of your practice when in restaurants, stores, etc., and especially with your family. This will naturally transfer over to your practice. It will take many weeks/months to attain a more loving life, but you will find it well worth the effort.
I hope that this discussion can help you realize that you could have more bonding love in youir life...if you want it.