When people come into my office and say, “Help me find love, Dr. Gluck,” I say, “Not so fast.” I ask them to define the love they need, they find that they can’t, often reminding me that love is undefinable. But that’s part of the problem. How can you expect to get what you can’t even define for yourself? Remember, there are all kinds of love; all kinds of ways to experience and long to experience love. In other words, when I ask for a definition, there’s no wrong answer. Every client, in all the 40 years I have been life-coaching, has benefited from understanding that love is defined through their relationships with another person. From there, I can help you not only envision and describe – with absolute clarity – but find that person to love.
My own definition of love revolves around starting to become emotionally influenced or transformed by another person’s predicament. The recent disaster in Nepal is a great example. Whether or not you know any of the victims, you might still be so moved by the concept in relation to your own security that you want to give whatever you can of yourself to help. Maybe you might have been through a similar disaster, which makes you empathetic in your generosity; though empathetic love can serve as an end in itself. By that, I mean, let’s say, an aspiring musician’s favorite singer dies tragically, leaving the admirer with a sadness as though a close relative had died. The reaction isn’t devalued because the musician never knew the singer personally. In fact, what’s taking place is a sublime if common form of empathy that incites the person to consider self-reflect in the shadow of the loss. Naturally, if you share more qualities than less with another person, the empathy is deeper. Grief is a manifestation of the conflict between wanting to die yourself – to be with the object of empathy – and knowing that self-destruction is not the course you’re truly willing to take, if you’re sane. Depending on how close the person is to you, the chance of killing yourself is low; and the grief is surmountable.
The main idea is: If you’re connecting with someone at a level where you not only empathize but want to understand what the person is dealing with – you want to get together with the person, inside and out, despite what others think; you want to give yourself in some way, even if abstractly, to the person – then you already know what love is. You should pursue that person. Don’t be held down by whether you’re male or female. We all grow up differently. Different from when I started practicing during the late 70’s, an increasing number of men are less likely compelled or obliged to make the first move or turn down women who do. Even if it’s unrequited, go for it.
If you don’t have that feeling with someone, and you’d like to, don’t start with trying to find the feeling; start with trying to find the person who gave you that feeling and might give it to you again and possibly forever. These opportunities don’t only happen once, that’s the good news. Moreover, you might have a few to several people who’ve given you that spark; and it could only be a matter of creating the drive to try them all until you hit the right one. In any event, hypnotherapy combined with life-coaching can teach you how to search and be open to accepting the person you want to love. The capacity for such an accomplishment can be difficult to recognize on one’s own. For further information on how professional guidance via hypnosis works, feel free to give me a call at (212) 599-3195.