Reciprocal Feelings Quotes

Sometimes loneliness makes the loudest noise.

Whenever you feel ‘short’ or in ‘need’ of something, give what you want first and it will come back in buckets. That is true for money, a smile, love, friendship. I know it is often the last thing a person may want to do, but it has always worked for me. I just trust that the principle of reciprocity is true, and I give what I want.

What is a friend? We probably all have our own definitions. For me, it's someone I don't feel alone with. Who doesn't bore me. Whose life I connect with and who takes reciprocal interest in my life. It's someone I feel comfortable turning to when I need to be talked off the ledge, and for whom I am glad to return the favor. Just a few people in my life fit that bill.

I find most of the human race extraordinarily repulsive. They probably reciprocate this feeling.

Do you know how hard it is to find someone who can reciprocate your feelings?

She didn't like to be talked about. Equally, she didn't like not to be talked about, when the high-minded chatter rushed on as though she was not there. There was no pleasing her, in fact. She had the grace, even at eleven, to know there was no pleasing her. She thought a lot, analytically, about other people's feelings, and had only just begun to realize that this was not usual, and not reciprocated.

Jebediah has given up on you, but I never will. I can offer you the security you desire. If you'll but be mine, your heart will forever be sheltered in my care. Yes, we will quarrel incessantly and fight for dominance. And yes, there will be ravishes of passion, but there will also be gentle lulls. That is who we are together. You'll never need fear that your love is not reciprocated. For although you've made me feel things I am not equipped for... I cannot stop feeling them.

What interferes with this peaceful feeling is our expectation of reciprocity.

I write because it's the only thing I love that always loves me back.

There was something abstract and gentle about the experience of being ignored—a feeling of being spared, a known impossibility of anything happening—that was consonant with my understanding of love. In theory, of course, I knew that love could be reciprocated. It was a thing that happened, often, to other people. But I was unlike other people in so many ways.

It's a privilege to love someone, to truly love them; and while it's paradisaical if she or he loves you back, it's unfair to demand or expect reciprocity. We should consider ourselves luck, honored, blessed that we possess the capacity to feel tenderness of such magnitude and be grateful even when that love is not returned. Love is the only game in which we win even when we lose.

At a conference of sociologists in America in 1977, love was defined as "the cognitive-affective state characterized by intrusive and obsessive fantasizing concerning reciprocity of amorant feelings by the object of the amorance." That is jargon - the practice of never calling a spade a spade when you might instead call it a manual earth-restructuring implement - and it is one of the great curses of modern English.

We can never know in the beginning, in giving ourselves to a person, to a work, to a marriage or to a cause, exactly what kind of love we are involved with. When we demand a certain specific kind of reciprocation before the revelation has flowered completely we find our selves disappointed and bereaved and in that grief may miss the particular form of love that is actually possible but that did not meet our initial and too specific expectations. Feeling bereft we take our identity as one who is disappointed in love, our almost proud disappointment preventing us from seeing the lack of reciprocation from the person or the situation as simply a difficult invitation into a deeper and as yet unrecognizable form of affection. The act of loving itself, always becomes a path of humble apprenticeship, not only in following its difficult way and discovering its different forms of humility and beautiful abasement but strangely, through its fierce introduction to all its many astonishing and different forms, where we are asked continually and against our will, to give in so many different ways, without knowing exactly, or in what way, when or how, the mysterious gift will be returned.

Hug me, though I know it is fake. In cold winter nights even a snake feels warm, even lies sound as dreams fulfilled and love reciprocated.

Love—real love—isn’t something you construct or hope or imagine or plan for the future. Love is something you live and feel in real time, in every single moment, big or small. It’s reciprocal and often unglamorous. But we bank on it because it’s what gives life meaning.

Romanticism is a philosophy of intuitive agreement. In real love, there is no need tiresomely to articulate or spell things out. When two people belong together, there is simply – at long last – a wondrous reciprocal feeling that both parties see the world in precisely the same way.

To be pleasant, gentle, calm and self-possessed: this is the basis of good taste and charm in a woman. No matter how amorous or passionate you may be, as long as you are straightforward and refrain from causing others embarrassment, no one will mind. But women who are too vain and act pretentiously, to the extent that they make others feel uncomfortable, will themselves become the object of attention; and once that happens, people will find fault with whatever they say or do; whether it be how they enter a room, how they sit down, how they stand up or how they take their leave. Those who end up contradicting themselves and those who disparage their companions are also carefully watched and listened to all the more. As long as you are free from such faults, people will surely refrain from listening to tittle-tattle and will want to show you sympathy, if only for the sake of politeness. I am of the opinion that when you intentionally cause hurt to another, or indeed if you do ill through mere thoughtless behavior, you fully deserve to be censured in public. Some people are so good-natured that they can still care for those who despise them, but I myself find it very difficult. Did the Buddha himself in all his compassion ever preach that one should simply ignore those who slander the Three Treasures? How in this sullied world of ours can those who are hard done by be expected to reciprocate in kind?

What is emotional intimacy? It is that depp sense of being connected to one another. It is feeling loved, respected and appreciated, while at the same time seeking to reciprocate. To feel loved is to have the sense that the other person genuinely cares about your well-being. Respect has to do with feeling that your potential spouse has positive regard for your personhood, intellect, abilities and personality. Appreciation is that inner sense that your partner values your contribution to the relationship.

The characteristics of healthy boundaries include self-respect; non-tolerance of abuse or disrespect; responsibility for exploring and nurturing personal potential; two-way communication of wants, needs, and feelings; expectations of reciprocity; and sharing responsibility and power.

Maybe it's because we innately know that everything is impermanent that we so desperately cling to it. But cling we do. We know that our youth vanishes that we and our loved one will die one day, that whatever we have accumulated can easily be taken away from us, that one day our skills might not be wanted, that a day may come when our love might not be reciprocated. But we go on clinging. Everywhere we turn we are faced with impermanence. (..) The more we cling - of course - the more pain we feel as things fade, disappear, die around us. And sometimes the more we cling, the more these things happen. (..) The key to being able to let go of all the stuff you're holding on to is knowing that you'll be okay if you don't have it. And that's the truth. You can survive with very little. And though the passing of people and things can be painful, you will survive.

We can never know in the beginning, in giving ourselves to a person, to a work, to a marriage or to a cause, exactly what kind of love we are involved with. When we demand a certain specific kind of reciprocation before the revelation has flowered completely we find ourselves disappointed and bereaved and in that grief may miss the particular form of love that is actually possible but that did not meet our initial and too specific expectations. Feeling bereft we take our identity as one who is disappointed in love, our almost proud disappointment preventing us from seeing the lack of reciprocation from the person or the situation as simply a difficult invitation into a deeper and as yet unrecognizable form of affection.

It is the first visit in many years for your son, finally a citizen of his new country and free to travel, and you try to suppress your undercurrent of resentment at his decision to absent himself from your presence in so devastatingly severe a manner. You feel a love you know you will never be able to adequately explain or express to him, a love that flows one way down the generations, not in reverse, and is understood and reciprocated only when time has made of a younger generation an older one.

Dogs are wonderful, and in many ways unique. But they are remarkably unremarkable in their intellectual and experiential capacities. Pigs are every bit as intelligent and feeling, by any sensible definition of the words. They can't hop into the back of a Volvo, but they can fetch, run and play, be mischievous, and reciprocate affection. So why don't they get to curl up by the fire? Why can't they at least be spared being tossed on the fire?

Among equals gratitude is reciprocal; her gratitude to these Titans, who called themselves average and were unaware of their own tremendous strength in being able to live, only made her feel more lost, inept, and lonely than ever.

A dog only got hurt if its love was repudiated, intentional or not, though it never had long to feel true sorrow in response because it never held its love back, regardless of reciprocation; the dog just tried to love you more. No other distractions such as work, home, friendships, or lovers—just the insistence of undying and unwavering affection in the truest sense of the word—asking for only a fraction of what it gave.

A few years ago I heard Jerome Kagan, a distinguished emeritus professor of child psychology at Harvard, say to the Dalai Lama that for every act of cruelty in this world there are hundreds of small acts of kindness and connection. His conclusion: "To be benevolent rather than malevolent is probably a true feature of our species." Being able to feel safe with other people is probably the single most important aspect of mental health; safe connections are fundamental to meaningful and satisfying lives. Numerous studies of disaster response around the globe have shown that social support is the most powerful protection against becoming overwhelmed by stress and trauma. Social support is not the same as merely being in the presence of others. The critical issue is reciprocity: being truly heard and seen by the people around us, feeling that we are held in someone else's mind and heart. For our physiology to calm down, heal, and grow we need a visceral feeling of safety. No doctor can write a prescription for friendship and love: These are complex and hard-earned capacities. You don't need a history of trauma to feel self-conscious and even panicked at a party with strangers - but trauma can turn the whole world into a gathering of aliens.

The meaning and worth of love, as a feeling, is that it really forces us, with all our being, to acknowledge for ANOTHER the same absolute central significance which, because of the power of our egoism, we are conscious of only in our own selves. Love is important not as one of our feelings, but as the transfer of all our interest in life from ourselves to another, as the shifting of the very centre of our personal life. This is characteristic of every kind of love, but predominantly of sexual love; it is distinguished from other kinds of love by greater intensity, by a more engrossing character, and by the possibility of a more complete overall reciprocity. Only this love can lead to the real and indissoluble union of two lives into one; only of it do the words of Holy Writ say: 'They shall be one flesh,' i.e., shall become one real being.

The world and I reciprocate one another. The landscape as I directly experience it is hardly a determinate object; it is an ambiguous realm that responds to my emotions and calls forth feelings from me in turn.

As we apprentice ourselves to the way of nature, we begin to understand that all of life is in a continuous cycle of giving and receiving. It is the honouring of this cycle that makes us feel at home in ourselves and in relation to the rest of nature. In order to experience true belonging, we must not only acknowledge the gifts we are receiving, but also give our beauty away, no matter how it may be received by others.

I like you to know, with my words in your mouth, the places and ways in which I think of you. It feels good to be reciprocal; eat this part of me while I drive reeds into the depth of you, spill out something sweet.

The world...is too full of real evil for me at least, to cause one moment of unnecessary uneasiness to any of its poor pilgrims. 'Tis strange...that this is not more generally considered, since the advantage would be so reciprocal from man to man. But wrapt up in our own short moment, we forget our neighbour's long hour! and existence is ultimately embittered to all, by the refined susceptibility for ourselves that monopolizes our feelings.

Let’s remember that the “System” is led by individuals, by a relatively small number of people, who have names, with more money than God and certainly less compassion. They sit in boardrooms deciding to exploit fossil fuels for short-term gain while the world burns. They know the science, they know the consequences, but they proceed with ecocidal business as usual and do it anyway. Their behavior feels to me like the same kind of arrogant entitlement as Darren the Farm Stand thief or Darren the Planet Wrecker. They’re all thieves, stealing our future, while we pass around the zucchini.

He is thinking about asymmetry. This is a world, he is thinking, where you can lie in bed, listening to a song as you dream about someone you love, and your feelings and the music will resonate so powerfully and completely that it seems impossible that the beloved, whoever and wherever he or she might be, should not know, should not pick up this signal as it pulsates from your heart, as if you and the music and the love and the whole universe have merged into one force that can be chanelled out into the darkness to bring them this message. But, in actuality, not only will he or she not know, there is nothing to stop that other person from lying on his or her bed at the exact moment listening to the exact same song and thinking about someone else entirely-from aiming those identical feelings in some completely opposite direction, at some totally other person, who may in turn be lying in the dark thinking of another person still, a fourth, who is thinking of a fifth, and so on, and so on, so that rather than a universe of neatly reciprocating pairs, love and love-returned fluttering through space nicely and symmetrically like so many pairs of butterfly wings, instead we get chains of yearning, which sprawl and meander and culminate in an infinite number of dead ends.

You feel a love you know you will never be able to adequately explain or express to him, a love that flows one way, down the generations, not in reverse, and is understood and reciprocated only when time has made of a younger generation an older one.

Social support is not the same as merely being in the presence of others. The critical issue is reciprocity: being truly heard and seen by the people around us, feeling that we are held in someone else’s mind and heart. For our physiology to calm down, heal, and grow we need a visceral feeling of safety. No doctor can write a prescription for friendship and love: These are complex and hard-earned capacities.

So by the time the morning came, Odysseus and I were indeed friends, as Odysseus had promised we would be. Or let me put it another way: I myself had developed friendly feelings towards him - more than that, loving and passionate ones - and he behaved as if he reciprocated them. Which is not quite the same thing.

He turned to go, and I darted around to bar his path again. My desire to keep him there had, at some point, transcended the alignment of an actor’s motivation and his character’s. I desperately wanted him to stay, seized by the nonsensical idea that if he left, I would lose him, irretrievably. “Tell me in sadness, who is that you love,” I said, searching the parts of his face I could see for a flicker of reciprocal feeling.

Finding fault with yourself is also the key to overcoming the hypocrisy and judgmentalism that damage so many valuable relationships. The instant you see some contribution you made to a conflict, your anger softens—maybe just a bit, but enough that you might be able to acknowledge some merit on the other side. You can still believe you are right and the other person is wrong, but if you can move to believing that you are mostly right, and your opponent is mostly wrong, you have the basis for an effective and nonhumiliating apology. You can take a small piece of the disagreement and say, “I should not have done X, and I can see why you felt Y.” Then, by the power of reciprocity, the other person will likely feel a strong urge to say, “Yes, I was really upset by X. But I guess I shouldn’t have done P, so I can see why you felt Q.” Reciprocity amplified by self-serving biases drove you apart back when you were matching insults or hostile gestures, but you can turn the process around and use reciprocity to end a conflict and save a relationship.

limerence noun. An involuntary state of mind caused by a romantic attraction to another person combined with an overwhelming, obsessive need to have one’s feelings reciprocated.

So I told him that I don't look for boyfriends; I look for a person, then if the person happens to be the one then he's the one. And if not, then not! And I was also thinking to myself, about how I will not commit myself to a man more than he is willing to commit himself to me. I refuse to be braver. I choose to be secure. I am brave in so many areas of life and when it comes to a man I would rather he be braver than I. I would rather he commit himself to me in ways that will make my heart know him so well that I can say he swims in my blood and he walks inside my bones. But for me to throw my commitment in front of him, on the ground, to see if it's good enough? Hell will freeze over before that happens. I compromise myself in many ways, because compromise is selfless and compromise is giving. But one thing I will not compromise is my commitment. I have to feel safe to do that. I have to know that I am reciprocating; not initiating.

So the next time a salesman gives you a free gift or consultation, or makes a concession of any sort, duck. Don’t let him press your reciprocity button. The best way out, Cialdini advises, is to fight reciprocity with reciprocity. If you can reappraise the salesman’s move for what it is—an effort to exploit you—you’ll feel entitled to exploit him right back. Accept the gift or concession with a feeling of victory—you are exploiting an exploiter—not mindless obligation.

For when a woman resists an unwelcome passion, she is obeying to the full the law of her sex; the initial gesture of refusal is, so to speak, a primordial instinct in every female, and even if she rejects the most ardent passion she cannot be called inhuman. But how disastrous it is when fate upsets the balance, when a woman so far overcomes her natural modesty as to disclose her passion to a man, when, without the certainty of its being reciprocated, she offers her love, and he, the wooed, remains cold and on the defensive! An insoluble tangle this, always; for not to return a woman's love is to shatter her pride, to violate her modesty. The man who rejects a woman's advances is bound to wound her in her noblest feelings. In vain, then, all the tenderness with which he extricates himself, useless all his polite, evasive phrases, insulting all his offers of mere friendship, once she has revealed her weakness! His resistance inevitably becomes cruelty, and in rejecting a woman's love he takes a load of guild upon his conscience, guiltless though he may be. Abominable fetters that can never be cast off!

The realization crashes into me harder than a hurricane. The reason I nearly lost my goddamn mind isn’t because I’m so obsessed with him that I can’t tolerate someone else having him. It’s because I was hurt, so deeply, thinking he never reciprocated the magnitude of the feelings I have for him.

people we love, as well as how often we can tolerate this venting while not feeling listened to ourselves. Relationships thrive on reciprocity. That’s one of the reasons why therapists charge us for their time and friends don’t.

“Jebediah has given up on you, but I never will. I can offer you the security you desire. If you’ll but be mine, your heart will forever be sheltered in my care. Yes, we will quarrel incessantly and fight for dominance. And yes, there will be ravishes of passion, but there will also be gentle lulls. That is who we are together. You’ll never need fear that your love is not reciprocated. For although you’ve made me feel things I am not equipped for . . . I cannot stop feeling them.” His chin quavers. “You opened Pandora’s box within me. Set loose the imaginings and emotions of a mortal man. And there is no closing it ever again.” The jewels under his eyes twitch between dark purple and blue. “As much as I abhor being anything akin to human, Alyssa, I wouldn’t dare try to close it. Because that would mean losing you.” The confession is lovely and brutal—laced with honesty that I not only hear in the rasp of his voice, but feel in the quaking of his muscles as he holds my hands over my head.

Julian," she said huskily, "you were right the other morning. You know me so well. I'm not made for illicit affaires, all that sneaking around to avoid discovery." In the dark, her hands crept up to his shoulders, then his face. Her finger teased through his hair. "Why should we hide at all? Let all London see us together. I don't care what anyone says or thinks. I love you, and I want the world to know." He wanted to weep. For joy, for frustration. She was so brave, his beautiful Lily, and the situation was so damned unfair. It wasn't her fault that she made these heartrending declarations at a moment when their lives were probably in danger and he couldn't possibly reciprocate. That fault was his, for choosing to live the way he had and making the decisions he'd made. He didn't deserve her, didn't deserve her love. He most certainly didn't merit those warm brushes of her lips against his skin. But damned if he could bring himself to stop them. "We're in love, Julian. Isn't it wonderful?" "No," he murmured as she kissed him again. "It's not wonderful. It's a disaster." Her lips grazed his jaw, then his throat. "I can feel you speaking, and I know you're probably making some valiant protest. But you know I can't hear those words. Your body is making an altogether different argument, and I'm listening to it." Her fingers crept inside his waistcoat, splaying over the thin lawn of his shirt. "Take your heart, for example." Yes, take it. Take it and keep it, always.

when someone she loves is sad, she stops at nothing to make sure they feel better. if she could, she would magic a double rainbow into the sky just to see a small smile on their face, even though she can’t think of a single soul in her life who would do the same for her. — being the dependable friend is difficult sometimes.

In the deepest, darkest depths of her heart where she kept all her dreams locked up in a pink journal decorated with ponies and unicorns, she’d fantasized about declaring her love for Sasha Karimi for two years. In those scenarios, he generally fell to his knees in thrilled delight before he reciprocated the feelings and then they got married and had lots of babies and maybe a pet iguana and lived happily ever after.

He nods, but I'm not sure he's actually heard me. I probably only need one guess to know what's thinking: we were looking for each other. He went to greater lengths, but hearing I wanted to find him too? Well, we all love having our feelings reciprocated.

Pornography also eroticizes male supremacy. It makes dominance and subordination feel like sex; it makes hierarchy feel like sex; it makes force and violence feel like sex; it makes hate and terrorism feel like sex; it makes inequality feel like sex. Pornography keeps sexism sexy. It keeps sexism necessary for some people to have sexual feelings. It makes reciprocity make you go limp. It makes mutuality leave you cold. It makes tenderness and intimacy and caring make you feel like you’re going to disappear into a void. It makes justice the opposite of erotic; it makes injustice a sexual thrill.

It feels good to be reciprocal; eat this part of me while I drive reeds into the depth of you, spill out something sweet.

Ildiko might not reciprocate the feeling, but Brishen considered himself fortunate to have such a wife.

But when members of a burgeoning couple invest feelings without confirmed reciprocation, they naturally become irrational, insecure, and just a little bit dumb.

What about my love for you?” I turn around in his arms, and this time he lets me. “Can that bind me to you? Do I have your permission to reciprocate what you feel?

What does success mean to you?' Those are moments when I feel like I’m contributing something but I’m also receiving something. Reciprocity feels like success. (Melissa Harris-Perry)

How wearisome to let one’s existence become something absolutely dependent on someone else’s feelings; to have no option but to feel, to love a little too, whether or not it is reciprocated.

You see, at that juncture in my life I wasn’t evolved enough to understand the fluid nature of romantic love (its indifference to human cravings for permanence and certainty); its uncivilized, undomesticated nature (less like a pretty melody than a foxish barking at the moon), or, more importantly perhaps, that it’s a privilege to love someone, to truly love them; and while it’s paradisiacal if she or he loves you back, it’s unfair to demand or expect reciprocity. We should consider ourselves lucky, honored, blessed that we possess the capacity to feel tenderness of such magnitude and be grateful even when that love is not returned. Love is the only game in which we win even when we lose.

You might feel weird telling Bob you eat lunch with at work that you love and appreciate him, but maybe you could give him half your sandwich and a handful of grapes. Platonic, reciprocal love grapes.

Fairness and reciprocity are at the heart of good relationships. Emotionally mature people don’t like taking advantage of people, nor do they like the feeling of being used. They want to help and are generous with their time, but they also ask for attention and assistance when they need it. They’re willing to give more than they get back for awhile, but they won’t let an imbalance go on indefinitely.

You can believe what you like. Not everyone can love. We–and they–may believe that, but it is so. They learn the movements, the lines and the steps, that’s all. Some of them are so good they can fool us for quite a while. What surprises me is not that they succeed, but that they can be bothered. Why go to all the effort to have a feeling reciprocated which you don’t understand? Do you understand, Constable?

I waited for that day, for that one thing to complete me. To feel someone's heartbeat inside my chest and know that it was reciprocated. To find the one who belonged to me and could be the one to make me whole.

Nearing two a.m., Liam stretched and yawned, smiling at me. “Don’t you have jet-lag or something? I’ve kept you up too late.” His smile was impossible not to reciprocate. I could feel a smile blossoming unwillingly across my face. “It’s okay. Your mom paid me to stay up and talk to you.” He didn’t even miss a beat. “Well that’s good, since Emily sent a check over in advance for my services to keep you out of trouble.

I was happy to twist the meanings, willfully misread the symbols. Doing what Suzanne asked seemed like the best gift I could give her, a way to unlock her own reciprocal feelings. And she was trapped, in her way, just like I was, but I never saw that, shifting easily in the directions she prompted for me. Like the wooden toy, clattering with the silver ball I'd tilted and urged into the painted holes, trying for the winning drop.

You burn to have your photograph in a tennis magazine.” “I’m afraid so.” “Why again exactly, now?” “I guess to be felt about as I feel about those players with their pictures in magazines.” “Why?” “Why? I guess to give my life some sort of meaning, Lyle.” “And how would this do this again?” “Lyle, I don’t know. I do not know. It just does. Would. Why else would I burn like this, clip secret pictures, not take risks, not sleep or pee?” “You feel these men with their photographs in magazines care deeply about having their photographs in magazines. Derive immense meaning.” “I do. They must. I would. Else why would I burn like this to feel as they feel?” “The meaning they feel, you mean. From the fame.” “Lyle, don’t they?” “LaMont, perhaps they did at first. The first photograph, the first magazine, the gratified surge, the seeing themselves as others see them, the hagiography of image, perhaps. Perhaps the first time: enjoyment. After that, do you trust me, trust me: they do not feel what you burn for. After the first surge, they care only that their photographs seem awkward or unflattering, or untrue, or that their privacy, this thing you burn to escape, what they call their privacy is being violated. Something changes. After the first photograph has been in a magazine, the famous men do not enjoy their photographs in magazines so much as they fear that their photographs will cease to appear in magazines. They are trapped, just as you are.” “Is this supposed to be good news? This is awful news.” “LaMont, are you willing to listen to a Remark about what is true?” “Okey-dokey.” “The truth will set you free. But not until it is finished with you.” “Maybe I ought to be getting back.” “LaMont, the world is very old. You have been snared by something untrue. You are deluded. But this is good news. You have been snared by the delusion that envy has a reciprocal. You assume that there is a flip-side to your painful envy of Michael Chang: namely Michael Chang’s enjoyable feeling of being-envied-by-LaMont-Chu. No such animal.” “Animal?” “You burn with hunger for food that does not exist.” “This is good news?” “It is the truth. To be envied, admired, is not a feeling. Nor is fame a feeling. There are feelings associated with fame, but few of them are any more enjoyable than the feelings associated with envy of fame.” “The burning doesn’t go away?” “What fire dies when you feed it? It is not fame itself they wish to deny you here. Trust them. There is much fear in fame. Terrible and heavy fear to be pulled and held, carried. Perhaps they want only to keep it off you until you weigh enough to pull toward yourself.” “Would I sound ungrateful if I said this doesn’t make me feel very much better at all?” “LaMont, the truth is that the world is incredibly, incredibly, unbelievably old. You suffer with the stunted desire caused by one of its oldest lies. Do not believe the photographs. Fame is not the exit from any cage.” “So I’m stuck in the cage from either side. Fame or tortured envy of fame. There’s no way out.” “You might consider how escape from a cage must surely require, foremost, awareness of the fact of the cage.

The manner in which we speak is exceedingly important. An ancient sage once said, “A soft answer turns away anger.” When your spouse is angry and upset and lashing out words of heat, if you choose to be loving, you will not reciprocate with additional heat but with a soft voice. You will receive what he is saying as information about his emotional feelings. You will let him tell you of his hurt, anger, and perception of events. You will seek to put yourself in his shoes and see the event through his eyes and then express softly and kindly your understanding of why he feels that way. If you have wronged him, you will be willing to confess the wrong and ask forgiveness. If your motivation is different from what he is reading, you will be able to explain your motivation kindly. You will seek understanding and reconciliation, and not to prove your own perception as the only logical way to interpret what has happened. That is mature love—love to which we aspire if we seek a growing marriage.

This is what you get. To work in a nice place with a few interesting people, to have friends with whom to discuss life and ideas. To attend the theatre, to hear live music, to arrange the use of the studio room on Monday nights for the local philosophy reading group. Oh, Kierkegaard, that'll be interesting. To exercise once again, for a little time, who knows how long, the power to charm and fascinate, to be the object of an intense and searching desire. And to feel inside herself the reciprocating force of desire, this is what she gets, a life of her own.

but I understand more now about how it feels to love the excess in people, about how knowing someone else’s love will consume you doesn’t make it any less real or any less reciprocated, about how you can leave a person behind just to save the thing they value most—yourself. Or maybe I understood it even then but couldn’t have told you how.

At a conference of sociologists in America in 1977, love was defined as “the cognitive-affective state characterized by intrusive and obsessive fantasizing concerning reciprocity of amorant feelings by the object of the amorance.

...and yes even loved him even though logic and reason told me I had no business feeling that way about him but I didn't care, no I loved him, and wanted him to know it not because I expected him to reciprocate )and yes even loved him even though logic and reason told me I had no business feeling that way about him but I didn't care, no I(even though I really really wanted him to) but because if someone ever loved me in that pure way I would want to know about it

Artoo, I'm switching back to regular handwriting. Calligraphy is hard, and I didn't bring my good pens. Or I need more practice. Right now you're sitting across from me, probably writing HAGS 30 times in a row. I know a little bit of a lot of languages, but even so, I struggle to put this into words. Okay. I'm just going to do it. First of all, I need you to know I'm not putting this out there with any hope of reciprocation. This is something I have to get off my chest (cliché, sorry) before we go our separate ways (cliché). It's the last day of school, and therefore my last chance. "Crush" is too weak a word to describe how I feel. It doesn't do you justice, but maybe it works for me. I am the one who is crushed. I'm crushed that we have only ever regarded each other as enemies. I'm crushed when the day ends and I haven't said anything to you that isn't coated in five layers of sarcasm. I'm crushed, concluding this year without having known that you like melancholy music or eat cream cheese straight from the tub in the middle of the night or play with your bangs when you're nervous, as though you're worried they look bad. (They never do.) You're ambitious, clever, interesting, and beautiful. I put "beautiful" last because for some reason, I have a feeling you'd roll your eyes if I wrote it first. But you are. You're beautiful and adorable and so fucking charming. And you have this energy that radiates off you, a shimmering optimism I wish I could borrow for myself sometimes. You're looking at me like you can't believe I'm not done yet, so let me wrap this up before I turn it into a five-paragraph essay. But if this were an essay, here's the thesis statement: I'm in love with you, Rowan Roth. Please don't make too much fun of me at graduation? Yours, Neil P. McNair

We are talking about love, and love is something you do for someone else, not something you do for yourself. Most of us do things each day that do not come "naturally" for us. For some of us, that is getting out of bed in the morning. We go against our feelings and get out of bed. Why? Because we believe there is something worthwhile to do that day. And normally, before the day is over, we feel good about having gotten up. Our actions preceded our emotions. The same is true with love. We discover the primary love language of our spouse, and we choose to speak it whether or not it is natural for us. We are not claiming to have warm, excited feelings. We are simply choosing to do it for his or her benefit. We want to meet our spouses emotional needs, and we reach out to speak his love language. In so doing, his emotional love tank is filled and chances are he will reciprocate and speak our language. When he does our emotions return, and our love tank begins to fill. p139

I choose joy over despair. Not because I have my head in the sand, but because joy is what the earth gives me daily and I must return the gift. We are deluged by information regarding our destruction of the world and hear almost nothing about how to nurture it. It is no surprise then that environmentalism becomes synonymous with dire predictions and powerless feelings. Our natural inclination to do right by the world is stifled, breeding despair when it should be inspiring action. The participatory role of people in the well-being of the land has been lost, our reciprocal relations reduced to a KEEP OUT sign.

How many of us are compelled in our daily lives by what we think we should do? By what we have to do? In all this caretaking, we backburner our own needs, never lending them any heat, hoping, perhaps, that someone will notice our selflessness and reciprocate by taking care of us. This is often futile: It’s impossible not to feel resentful, to take that anger and turn it toward ourselves.

When you treat your time together as something he has to do, you’ve taken something that was a pleasure and made it a chore. If you are nice, but you give of yourself with strings attached, the demand for reciprocity will send him several steps backward. Whenever you make him feel as though he has to see you, it will feel like work. When it’s not an obligation to see you, the very same thing will feel like pleasure.

What was I thinking? I thought him sitting across from me would make it easier. Stupid me! Now I have to stare right at the warrior archangel and try to stay focused. I closed my eyes for a minute. Come on, Kells. Focus. Focus. You can do this! “Okay, Ren, there really is something that we need to discuss.” “Alright. Go ahead.” I blew out a breath. “You see, I can’t…reciprocate your feelings. Or your, umm, affections.” He laughed. “What are you talking about?” “Well, what I mean is, I-“ He leaned forward and spoke in a low voice, full of meaning. “Kelsey, I know you reciprocate my feelings. Don’t pretend anymore that you don’t have them.” When did he figure all this out? Maybe when you were kissing him like an idiot, Kells. I’d hoped that I’d fooled him, but he could see right through me. I decided to play dumb and pretend I didn’t know what he was talking about. I waved my hand in the air. “Okay! Yes! I admit that I’m attracted to you.” Who wouldn’t be? “But it won’t work out,” I finished. There, it was out. Ren looked confused. “Why not?” “Because I’m too attracted to you.” “I don’t understand what you’re saying. How can your being attracted to me be a problem? I would think that’s a good thing.” “For normal people…it is,” I stated. “So I’m not normal?” “No. Let me explain it this way. It’s like this…a starving man would gladly eat a radish, right? In fact, a radish would be a feast if that’s all he had. But if he had a buffet in front of him, the radish would never be chosen.” Ren paused a moment. “I don’t get it. What are you saying?” “I’m saying…I’m the radish.” “And what am I? The buffet??” I tried to explain it further. “No…you’re the man. Now…I don’t really want to be the radish. I mean, who does? But I’m grounded enough to know what I am, and I am not a buffet. I mean, you could be having chocolate eclairs, for heaven’s sake.” “But not radishes.” “No.” “What…” Ren paused thoughtfully, “if I like radishes?” “You don’t. You don’t know any better.

We sometimes find it easier to feel bitterness or rage than to allow ourselves to experience that aching desire for contact that, when disappointed, originally engendered the anger. Behind all our anger lies a deeply frustrated need for truly intimate contact. Healing both requires and implies regaining the vulnerability that made us shut down emotionally in the first place. We are no longer helplessly dependent children; we no longer need fear emotional vulnerability. We can permit ourselves to honour the universally reciprocal human need for connection and to challenge the ingrained belief that unconsciously burdens so many people with chronic illness: that we are not lovable. Seeking connections is a necessity for healing.

Colonial, white supremacist organizational practices seem inevitable because they were so universally adopted over the next centuries, and they still govern the great majority of our institutions, but they were design choices. This means that other choices are available, even when they seem far-fetched. We know what spices and organizations look like, feel like, and function like when they are inspired by the colonizers’ principles of separation, competition and exploitation. How would they be different if they were based on principles like integration and interdependence, reciprocity and relationship?

I promised myself that I will not cry over you. We are nothing. I thought we had something, but you know, maybe it really was nothing. I have feelings for you and you clearly can’t reciprocate so– why would I waste my time feeling bothered by how obvious that you still haven’t moved on from her. It’s a vicious cycle, this predicament we’re in now. I don’t know what you see in her, and I honestly don’t know what I see in you. Love is fucking blind and it’s stupid.

If we can look at the living Earth and feel joy and love in the sight, can the essential truth of who we are really be beyond redemption? That feeling, that draw to the wild, it arises from two like things calling to one another. Reciprocal. A conversation. A moment of harmony. The pull of a family resemblance.

The hatred of egoism, whether it be one’s own, as with the Christians, or another’s, as with the Socialists, comes about first, as a value judgement under the predominant influence of revenge, and second, as a prudent means of self-preservation on the part of the suffering, by intensifying their feelings of reciprocity and solidarity.

It can be shown experimentally that eidetic perception evokes affection, and that candidness mobilizes positive feelings, so that there is even such a thing as "one-sided intimacy" - a phenomenon well known, although not by that name, to professional seducers, who are able to capture their partners without becoming involved themselves. This they do by encouraging the other person to look at them directly and to talk freely, while the male or female seducer makes only a well-guarded pretense of reciprocating.

Giving people favors is a time-honored way of gaining loyalty. Pharmaceutical reps do it. The salespeople manning cosmetic counters do it. Lobbyists do it. Men with big crushes on impossibly beautiful women do it. Gifts work on our feelings in a couple of ways: they change the way we experience something, and they push our "reciprocate!" button. When we have the mandate to be objective and an incentive not to be, our biases often win the day-even if we don't think they will. Favors deeply affect our preferences and our loyalties.

I cannot imagine anyone not reciprocating your feelings.

Own your feelings but don't expect reciprocation. Let that come if it comes. Amelia Fisher - Vain

Its such a nice feeling to be in love, but its such a blessing for love reciprocated..to love and be loved back..

Well, we all love having our feelings reciprocated

Before you ask the person to vote, do something nice and unexpected that will make that person feel the need to reciprocate the favor.

The answer is that when people do something nice for you, you feel obligated to do something for them in return. This is the rule of reciprocity.

should have reciprocated her feelings and held her tight. That was the one thing she was hoping for—to be accepted and embraced unconditionally, to be comforted by someone,

A happy person is secure in two aspects of being: first, they love many people, and secondly, they feel secure knowing that the people they love reciprocate their strong feelings.

I see you’re one of those people who feel they have to be able to reciprocate any kindness they’re about to receive. But what if you have nothing to give yet still need help? What then?

he woman Caeiro fell in love with. I have no idea who she was, and I intend to never find out, not even out of curiosity. There are things of which the soul refuses to lose its ignorance. I’m perfectly aware no one’s obliged to reciprocate love, and great poets have nothing to do with being great lovers. But there’s a transcendent spite... Let her remain anonymous even to God!

We kissed for two hours. Eventually, I led him into my bedroom and pulled off both of our shirts. He stopped me. "This might sound weird; it's not typical guy response." I froze, suddenly awkward. "I mean, if I didn't feel the way I do with you I would be all for it, but I kind of think maybe it would be good to wait. I've rushed into sex, and had it be a mistake." He shrugged apologetically. "I mean, if it's safe to assume you are experiencing the same date that I am, then I think we will have time." I was a little flabbergasted and more than a little embarrassed. How could I explain that the idea sounded like a huge relief to me, that I didn't quite understand where the impulse to start taking my clothes off came from? I had had the same experience. I rarely enjoyed first-time sex with partners, largely because I usually did it before I really knew or trusted them. Here was where the difference between what I knew and did remained wide. The shame I felt wash over me was tinged with that hatred of my own innocence. Was I still so green? So unconfident? Had I gone straight out of the extremity of sex work to the innocence of my adolescence? Where was my self-knowledge? Still, I was relieved. "Of course. I agree totally." I clutched my T-shirt to my chest and smiled at him. "And yes, I am on the same date you are on." "I thought so," he said. "I mean, I don't think you can feel like this when it's not reciprocal." He left at 2:00 A.M. and called me at 11:00 the next morning to schedule our second date.

I’ve suppressed my aspirations to forget all rationality and let the moment explain everything, for nothing to be said and everything understood. If only I knew how to let these feelings out.

We only know four boring people. The rest of our friends we find very interesting. However, most of the friends we find interesting find us boring: the most interesting find us the most boring. The few who are somewhere in the middle, with whom there is reciprocal interest, we distrust: at any moment, we feel, they may become too interesting for us, or we too interesting for them.

Justin feels immensely flattered by her kind words and gesture. He reaches down to gently brush his hand across hers, and she reciprocates by folding her fingers around his as they make a connection.

And, of course, there was Marjorie Harvey, who besides having a fairylike face and a dazzling, bewildering tongue was already justly celebrated for having turned five cart-wheels in succession during the last pump-and-slipper dance at New Haven. Warren, who had grown up across the street from Marjorie, had long been "crazy about her." Sometimes she seemed to reciprocate his feeling with a faint gratitude, but she had tried him by her infallible test and informed him gravely that she did not love him. Her test was that when she was away from him she forgot him and had affairs with other boys.

I could lose my mind, your love drives me crazy, and I ignore the reason why I'm crying at everytime I remember it's not reciprocal and you're saying that you're sorry because you don't show everything.

Even in times of today, when one does not feel the need to go out of one's way for someone else, there are people who would. There are people who would be good to someone, share a smile with someone, care for someone and actually help someone, despite knowing that their act of kindness would be reciprocated with looks and feelings of suspicion. These are the people so sure of their selfless motives, their act of kindness that in their hearts they know, eventually, around some corner, some day their smile would be returned with a smile and their kindness will earn them kindness and acceptance in return.

We had not got halfway to the door before she had overtaken us and was holding his arm. She had turned in a moment from steel to velvet. "Come and sit down, gentlemen. Let us talk this matter over. I feel that I may be frank with you, Mr. Holmes. You have the feelings of a gentleman. How quick a woman's instinct is to find it out. I will treat you as a friend." "I cannot promise to reciprocate, madame. I am not the law, but I represent justice so far as my feeble powers go. I am ready to listen, and then I will tell you how I will act." "No doubt it was foolish of me to threaten a brave man like yourself.

Knowing that Draco's hopeful face had probably been drilled into him by months of practice did not make it any less effective, Harry observed. Actually it did make it less effective, but unfortunately not ineffective. The same could be said of Draco's clever use of reciprocation pressure for an unsolicited gift, a technique which Harry had read about in his social psychology books (one experiment had shown that an unconditional gift of $5 was twice as effective as a conditional offer of $50 in getting people to fill out surveys). Draco had made an unsolicited gift of a confidence, and now invited Harry to offer a confidence in return... and the thing was, Harry did feel pressured. Refusal, Harry was certain, would be met with a look of sad disappointment, and maybe a small amount of contempt indicating that Harry had lost points.

I was an orphan in my heart. I was begging for people to love me, to approve of me, to want me. And what I learned is that when you're an orphan, even just in your heart, you can love only those who will love you back. You can love only those people who have something to offer or who can reciprocate your feelings. But as a child of God, you can be completely alone and still love people who have abandoned you. As a child of God, you can go to the people who have nothing to offer and give all of you like Jesus did for all of us. That what that smile means to me now. It means that we're all orphans until we know how much we're loved.

Our first kiss, the first touch of our heating lips, the yearning reciprocating from both sides, I was lost in everything. But I had a sudden feeling of eyes staring at our acts and unnecessary muttering. I could feel it even with my closed eyes. So far the sober girl in me resisted and my palms struggled to escape. David realized my condition and he left me be. I could see anger in his eyes for the crowd around but he stayed calm for my sake. My heart purred. ‘I am lost now!’ He sat next to me and didn’t bother to look at anyone around. Though, we knew many looked upon us and then they turned their faces away. He was horny. I could see his bulge behind his winter suit. I avoided looking and forced myself to gaze into his eyes instead. His pair was fixed on mine, reading mine. I gave a wide smile in an attempt to hide my lust although it was clearly written over my face.

Iosif was particularly fond of the youngest, the sixteen-year-old schoolgirl Nadezhda, who reciprocated his feelings despite the twenty-three-year difference in their ages. To a young woman from a revolutionary family, he must have seemed like the ideal man: a tried-and-true revolutionary, brave and mysterious but also personable. In 1919 Stalin and Nadezhda tied the knot. As to the nature of their relationship before marriage, we can only guess.

As Rage Becomes Her author Soraya Chemaly said, One of the top three reasons women report getting angry is the lack of reciprocity in relationships. They feel taken for granted, uncared for, unloved, even as they’re providing care to parents, to children, to spouses, to friends, to coworkers to neighbors, whoever it may be. Being exhausted and fed up at the same time accumulates. I think a lot of the rage people feel is because for the entirety of their lives their needs were not being addressed or met fairly. But now, with the added stresses and exhaustion of this physical transition, that situation is not tenable. This—a lack of reciprocal care and attention—is not about hormones.

There are times when eye contact can move to the dark side and become creepy, hostile, rude, or condescending. When it is overused or made for the wrong reasons, eye contact can make others feel uncomfortable and leave a terrible impression . . . • obsessive staring • mocking • too much intensity • inappropriate focus • averting eyes • obvious contempt • gawking, ogling • casting the "evil eye" • over-watching • intimidating • unwelcome looks • rolling the eyes

This abundance of berries feels like a pure gift from the land. I have not earned, paid for, nor labored for them. There is no mathematics of worthiness that reckons I deserve them in any way. And yet here they are—along with the sun and the air and the birds and the rain, gathering in towers of cumulonimbi, a distant storm building. You could call them natural resources or ecosystem services, but the Robins and I know them as gifts. We both sing gratitude with our mouths full.

Second, we have a strong tendency for reciprocity—responding in kind to the actions of another. When someone says “Hello” or extends their hand to shake our own, we feel the urge to reciprocate—not doing so breaks a strong social norm and feels cold.

The wind rattles the panes, and the lights buzz softly in the hall. He sleeps soundly.How long has it been since he's had a decent night's rest? There's another uncomfortable tug on my heart.Why do I care so much about him,and why do I wish I didn't? How can one person make me so confused all of the time? What is that? Is it lust? Or something else altogether? And is it even possible for me to feel this way about him without these feelings being reciprocated? He said that he liked me. He did.And even though he was drunk, he wouldn't have said it if there wasn't at least some truth to it. Right? I don't know. Like every time I'm with him,I don't know anything.He scoots closer to me in his sleep. His breath is warm against my neck.I don't know anything. He's so beautiful, so perfect. I wonder if he...if I... A ray of light glares into my eyes, and I squint,disoriented. Daylight. The red numbers on my clock read 11:27. Huh. Did I mean to sleep in? What day is it? And then I see the body in bed next to me.And I nearly jump out of my skin. So it wasn't a dream. His mouth is parted,and the sheets are kicked off.One of his hands rests on his stomach.His shirt has hiked up,and I can see his abdomen.My gaze is transfixed. Holy crap.I just slept with St. Clair.

Love is low-stakes. Feelings matter, but don't hold all the power. We infuse them with importance but can deflate them if we need to. Instead of hurting because my feelings weren't reciprocated, I began to coach myself into feeling proud for having taken the risk.

Vulnerability is usually attacked, not with fists but with shaming. Many children learn quickly to cover up any signs of weakness, sensitivity, and fragility, as well as alarm, fear, eagerness, neediness, or even curiosity. Above all, they must never disclose that the teasing has hit its mark. Carl Jung explained that we tend to attack in others what we are most uncomfortable with in ourselves. When vulnerability is the enemy, it is attacked wherever it is perceived, even in a best friend. Signs of alarm may provoke verbal taunts such as “fraidy cat” or “chicken.” Tears evoke ridicule. Expressions of curiosity can precipitate the rolling of eyes and accusations of being weird or nerdy. Manifestations of tenderness can result in incessant teasing. Revealing that something caused hurt or really caring about something is risky around someone uncomfortable with his vulnerability. In the company of the desensitized, any show of emotional openness is likely to be targeted. The vulnerability engendered by peer orientation can be overwhelming even when children are not hurting one another. This vulnerability is built into the highly insecure nature of peer-oriented relationships. Vulnerability does not have to do only with what is happening but with what could happen — with the inherent insecurity of attachment. What we have, we can lose, and the greater the value of what we have, the greater the potential loss. We may be able to achieve closeness in a relationship, but we cannot secure it in the sense of holding on to it — not like securing a rope or a boat or a fixed interest-bearing government bond. One has very little control over what happens in a relationship, whether we will still be wanted and loved tomorrow. Although the possibility of loss is present in any relationship, we parents strive to give our children what they are constitutionally unable to give to one another: a connection that is not based on their pleasing us, making us feel good, or reciprocating in any way. In other words, we offer our children precisely what is missing in peer attachments: unconditional acceptance.

Mirroring and matching works at the sub-conscious level and serves to make the other person feel more “comfortable” and connected to you. These subliminal actions can create a subconscious feeling of unison and connection that demonstrate how much you have in common.

But why bother? Why exert all this effort to focus totally on the boring prattlings of a six-year-old? First, your willingness to do so is the best possible concrete evidence of your esteem you can give your child. If you give your child the same esteem you would give a great lecturer, then the child will know him- or herself to be valued and therefore will feel valuable. There is no better and ultimately no other way to teach your children that they are valuable people than by valuing them. Second, the more children feel valuable, the more they will begin to say things of value. They will rise to your expectation of them. Third, the more you listen to your child, the more you will realize that in amongst the pauses, the stutterings, the seemingly innocent chatter, your child does indeed have valuable things to say. The dictum that great wisdom comes from "the mouths of babes" is recognized as an absolute fact by anyone who truly listens to children. Listen to your child enough and you will come to realize that he or she is quite an extraordinary individual. And the more extraordinary you realize your child to be, the more you will be willing to listen. And the more you will learn. Fourth, the more you know about your child, the more you will be able to teach. Know little about your children, and usually you will be teaching things that either they are not ready to learn or they already know and perhaps understand better than you. Finally, the more children know that you value them, that you consider them extraordinary people, the more willing they will be to listen to you and afford you the same esteem. And the more appropriate your teaching, based on your knowledge of them, the more eager your children will be to learn from you. And the more they learn, the more extraordinary they will become. If the reader senses the cyclical character of this process, he or she is quite correct and is appreciating the truth of the reciprocity of love. Instead of a vicious downward cycle, it is a creative upward cycle of evolution and growth. Value creates value. Love begets love. Parents and child together spin forward faster and faster in the pas de deux of love.

She had me for a long time, but in shattered pieces – memories and desires that I’ve kept bottled up. This new reality where I get to taste and feel her, where she reciprocates the same desperation in the way she touches and kisses me…It’s already quickly becoming an addiction for me.

Trust is the reciprocal experience, knowledge and understanding of another that enables them to feel safe whether they are present or absent, each person knowing that neither will betray mutual faith, friendship and loyalty, which endures through the most challenging of circumstances.

My views in my early 20’s and kept me separate from those around me. Those views were all about making myself feel significant by bringing other people down. I thought having special problems made me special. Problems don’t make people special. Solving them does. My views created an Us-vs-Them perspective of the world. Solving my problem required finding more Us people and to avoid Them. I wanted a special club of Us people. The problem was that all the Us people I found thought that their problems were more unique than the other Us people. We never bonded. We were still separating ourselves by one-upping each other about the uniqueness of our problems. The upside to Us-Vs-Them is that we feel special being Us. Unfortunately feeling special doesn’t outweigh the significant downside. There will always be more Them than Us There has to be. Otherwise, the exclusively club of Us wouldn’t be exclusive. So to maintain the exclusivity, we make more rules in our head to keep others out. We become more dependent on less people and are devastated when those people don’t reciprocate by valuing our friendship with the same mindfulness. Finding more people to connect with seems beyond our control because we automatically put everyone in the Them column and wait for people to work their way into the Us column. The problem is no one wants to have to prove themselves in order to become friends. We end up waiting and waiting.

If you never knew the worlds in my mind your sense of loss would be small pity and we’ll forget this on the trail. Take what you’re given and turn away the screwed face. I do not deserve it, no matter how narrow the strand of your private shore. If you will do your best I’ll meet your eye. It’s the clutch of arrows in hand that I do not trust bent to the smile hitching my way. We aren’t meeting in sorrow or some other suture bridging scars. We haven’t danced the same thin ice and my sympathy for your troubles I give freely without thought of reciprocity or scales on balance. It’s the decent thing, that’s all. Even if that thing is a stranger to so many. But there will be secrets you never knew and I would not choose any other way. All my arrows are buried and the sandy reach is broad and all that’s private cools pinned on the altar. Even the drips are gone, that child of wants with a mind full of worlds and his reddened tears. The days I feel mortal I so hate. The days in my worlds, are where I live for ever, and should dawn ever arrive I will to its light awaken as one reborn. Poet’s Night iii.iv The Malazan Book of the Fallen Fisher kel Tath

It hurts when the one you love does not reciprocate your feelings. It hurts when all your efforts to set things straight go in vain. It hurts when you are unable to let go. It hurts when everything is rosy one moment and dark the next. All the emotions that are pent up inside you, suffocate you. The other person, it seems, has always been or becomes unemotional, unattached and either unaware or ignorant of your feelings. You are stuck at a place where there is no road ahead and you cannot find the road back home. ~ Lines from the Whispered Words article in June issue of Writer's Ezine

What is harmonious life? By harmonious I mean, balanced, congenial, relaxed… a life where you are in tune with yourself, surrounded by people with whom you have reciprocal liking and respect, a life that is marked by tranquility and contentment, and where you feel appreciated, valued, and understood.

The Law of Reciprocity demonstrates that when we give something from or of ourselves, the receiving party feels an inclination to give back. And in turn, when someone does something nice for you, you naturally want to return the favor. Reciprocity begins a momentum for mutual caring and sweet reward.

Artoo, I'm switching back to regular handwriting. Calligraphy is hard, and I didn't bring my good pens. Or I need more practice. Right now you're sitting across from me, probably writing HAGS 30 times in a row. I know a little bit of a lot of languages, but even so, I struggle to put this into words. Okay. I'm just going to do it. First of all, I need you to know I'm not putting this out there with any hope of reciprocation. This is something I have to get off my chest (cliché, sorry) before we go our separate ways (cliché). It's the last day of school, and therefore my last chance. "Crush" is too weak a word to describe how I feel. It doesn't do you justice, but maybe it works for me. I am the one who is crushed. I'm crushed that we have only ever regarded each other as enemies. I"m crushed when the day ends and I haven't said anything to you that isn't cloaked in five layers of sarcasm. I'm crushed, concluding this year without having known that you like melancholy music or eat cream cheese straight from the tub in the middle of the night or play with your bangs when you're nervous, as though you're worried they look bad. (They never do.) You're ambitious, clever, interesting, and beautiful. I put "beautiful" last because for some reason, I have a feeling you'd roll your eyes if I wrote it first. But you are. You're beautiful and adorable and so fucking charming. And you have this energy that radiates off you, a shimmering optimism I wish I could borrow for myself sometimes. You're looking at me like you can't believe I'm not done yet, so let me wrap this up before I turn it into a five-paragraph essay. But if it were an essay, here's the thesis statement. I am in love with you, Rowan Roth Please don't make too much fun of me at graduation? Yours, Neil P. McNair

A person’s unfilled desire to find love causes human beings to engage in inexplicable behavior. A person must exhibit the maturity of the soul to charitable express love for other people before other people will reciprocate by sharing feelings of mutual affection. To be loveable, we must learn how to love.

Pigs are every bit as intelligent and feeling, by any sensible definition of the words. They can't hop into the back of a volvo, but they can fetch, run and play, be mischievous, and reciprocate affection. So why don't they get to curl up by the fire? Why can't they at least be spared being tossed on the fire?

To the black man, the white man looks and smells like a corpse. To the white man, the black man has the color and odor of shit. Their mutual hatred is based on a reciprocal recognition: the white man hates the black man for exposing that masked and hidden part of himself. The black man hates the white man's need to pull himself up from the earth. The black man sees in the white man's need the blind arrogance of one who thinks himself immortal. But he who brings civilization cannot help but feel immortal. This is why he smells like a corpse: he is constituted by the return of the repressed "remnant of earth," which clings to him as much as to any man.

When we work on a Trusting Team we feel safe to express vulnerability. We feel safe to raise our hands and admit we made a mistake, be honest about shortfalls in performance, take responsibility for our behavior and ask for help. Asking for help is an example of an act that reveals vulnerability. However, when on a Trusting Team, we do so with the confidence that our boss or our colleagues will be there to support us. “Trust is the stacking and layering of small moments and reciprocal vulnerability over time,” says Brené Brown, research professor at the University of Houston in her book Dare to Lead. “Trust and vulnerability grow together, and to betray one is to destroy both.

Madeleine stares through the window into the courtyard. On most days she feels something staring back: a God or a mother-shaped benevolent force. Today, nothing reciprocates. The streamers on the chained bicycles lift in the indifferent breeze. She is alone in old stockings she's repaired twice but still run. Life will be nothing but errands and gray nights.

Social support is not the same as merely being in the presence of others. The critical issue is reciprocity: being truly heard and seen by the people around us, feeling that we are held in someone else’s mind and heart. For our physiology to calm down, heal, and grow we need a visceral feeling of safety. No doctor can write a prescription for friendship and love:

Dogs, in fact, were perfect heroes: unknowable but accessible, driven but egoless, strong but tragic, limited by their muteness and animal vulnerability. Humans played heroes in films, too, but they were more complicated to admire because they were so particular—too much like us or too much unlike us or too much like someone we knew. Dogs, on the other hand, have the talent of seeming to understand and care about humans in spite of not being human and perhaps are better at it because of that difference. They are compassionate without being competitive, and there is nothing in their valor that threatens us, no demand for reciprocity. As Lee knew very well, a dog can make you feel complete without ever expecting much in return.

We've all been in the middle of a conversation and the person with whom we are speaking breaks eye contact, appears distracted, glazes over, or looks elsewhere. Their simple eye movement can quickly break down communications by making us feel ignored, dismissed, or rejected. For some, it may be accidental and unintentional, while for others, avoiding eye contact is on purpose.

it’s a privilege to love someone, to truly love them; and while it’s paradisiacal if she or he loves you back, it’s unfair to demand or expect reciprocity. We should consider ourselves lucky, honored, blessed that we possess the capacity to feel tenderness of such magnitude and be grateful even when that love is not returned. Love is the only game in which we win even when we lose.

Unhealthy narcissism is occurring when an individual excessively pursues admiration, attention, status, understanding, support, money, power, control, or perfection in some form. It also means that the NPD person is not able to recognize, other than superficially, the feelings and needs of others. The rules of reciprocity are not operating in the relationship. This is not to say that NPD individuals don't often shower others with attention, gifts, or favors. Indeed, they often do. But the ultimate goal is always for some kind of return. The giving may be to foster a certain image or an overall feeling of indebtedness in you, such as an IOU note to be called in at some other time. You, of course, would rather believe you received the gift because you are cared for and valued.

The difference could be grouped into categories of mature and immature love. Preferable in almost every way, the philosophy of mature love is marked by an active awareness of the good and bad within each person, it is full of temperance, it resists idealization, it is free of jealousy, masochism, or obsession, it is a form of friendship with a sexual dimension, it is pleasant, peaceful, and reciprocated (and perhaps explains why most people who have known the wilder shores of desire would refuse its painlessness the title of love). Immature love on the other hand (though it has little to do with age) is a story of chaotic lurching between idealization and disappointment, an unstable state where feelings of ecstasy and beatitude combine with impressions of drowning and fatal nausea, where the sense that one has finally found the answer comes together with the feeling that one has never been so lost. The logical climax of immature (because absolute) love comes in death, symbolic or real. The climax of mature love comes in marriage, and the attempt to avoid death via routine (the Sunday papers, trouser presses, remote-controlled appliances). For immature love accepts no compromise, and once we refuse compromise, we are on the road to some kind of cataclysm. 6.

When I think that I'm over you I'm overpowered Your date on my data The chromosomes match Exact as in matter A matter of fact These amourant feelings A cognitive state Need the love object To reciprocate When I think that I'm over you I'm overpowered It's long overdue I'm overpowered When I think that I'm over you I'm overpowered It's long overdue I'm overpowered A chemical reason If reason's your game A chemical needing Is there in the brain With preprogrammed meanings Like a little more pep Alien feelings We have to accept When I think that I'm over you I'm overpowered It's long overdue I'm overpowered When I think that I'm over you I'm overpowered It's long overdue I'm overpowered As science struggles on to try to explain Oxytoxins flowing ever into my brain As science struggles on to try to explain Oxytoxins flowing ever into my brain

Chateaubriand writes of René, his personification, ‘it wearied him to be loved’ – on le fatigait en l’aimant. I realized with astonishment that this experience was identical to my own, and so I couldn’t deny its validity. The weariness of being loved, of being truly loved! The weariness of being the object of other people’s burdensome emotions! Of seeing yourself – when what you wanted was to remain forever free – transformed into a delivery boy whose duty is to reciprocate, to have the decency not to flee, lest anyone think that you’re cavalier towards emotions and would reject the loftiest sentiment that a human soul can offer. The weariness of your existence becoming absolutely dependent on a relationship with someone else’s feeling! The weariness of having to feel something, of having to love at least a little in return, even if it’s not a true reciprocity!

I’m heading out.” Her gaze searched his and, a little breathless, she asked, “Leaving?” “Yeah.” He stepped closer. Any second how Trace would intrude. “Thing is, Alani, I can’t be around you without wanting you. Bad. Really bad.” “Oh.” “If that’s crude, well, then screw it, I’m crude. I know we’d have a great time in bed, but since you aren’t ready for that yet, well . . . I promised Trace I wouldn’t pressure you.” Her neck went stiff. “Dear God. You discussed this with my brother?” “No!” He cut a hand through the air and his voice lowered. “When . . . if . . . I get you out of your panties, believe me, it’ll be a private thing between us. No way in hell would I discuss that with anyone else.” Her face went as red as Priss’s had. “Trace and I talked about you maybe decorating my house, that’s all.” “Oh.” Face still hot, she said, “I—” “Yeah, forget it. That’s off. Like I said, I’d just hanker for you, and you aren’t exactly reciprocating. So that’s that.” She blinked fast. “But if you ever change your mind, all you have to do is let me know.” He reached out and touched her cheek. Her skin was soft and warm and he wanted to feel her all over. All over him. Naked. Hungry. Wet . . . Damn, he had it bad. “I can promise you, if you do come to me, you won’t regret it.” She swallowed, licked her lips and damned if her eyes didn’t heat. She wanted him, too. He had to believe that. But Trace was starting up the hill, and the others were looking on, and the last thing he wanted was to make Alani uncomfortable. “Tell everyone I said goodbye. You make up any excuse you want.” And with that, he left Alani standing there, watching after him as he walked away. God willing, she’d contact him soon. He wasn’t sure he could stand it if she didn’t.

What the devil is 'wordsharing'? Does the word for 'speak' mean 'listen' just as well? If I said, 'Listen to me!' you might talk, instead." "What use is the one without the other? It took me a long time to see this distinction in Valan speech." Spinel thought over the list of 'share forms': learnsharing, worksharing, lovesharing. "Do you say 'hitsharing,' too? If I hit a rock with a chisel, does the rock hit me?" "I would think so. Don't you feel it in your arm?" He frowned and sought a better example; it was so obvious, it was impossible to explain. "I've got it: if Beryl bears a child, does the child bear Beryl? That's ridiculous." "A mother is born when her child comes." "Or if I swim in the sea, does the sea swim in me?" "Does it not?" Helplessly he thought, She can't be that crazy. "Please, you do know the difference, don't you?" "Of course. What does it matter?

When, over the following months, Minta Randall found that Eustace apparently reciprocated her profoundest and most secret feelings, she thought she had never lived before, or knew what life could hold, or what absolute power one heart could exert upon another. She perceived no trace, fossil, or echo of this wild sensation anywhere around her, and concluded that she and Eustace had invented it together, which would be, she thought, just like them.

Bridget turned the screen of her phone to face Margaret and thumbed through the images one by one, and with restraint Margaret nodded her head instead of taking the device from her mother's hand and flinging it forcefully across the room. This is what you get, Bridget seemed to be saying, for being different. Well, it's true, after all, Margaret thinks. This is what you get. To work in a nice place with a few interesting people, to have friends with whom to discuss life and ideas. To attend the theatre, to hear live music, to arrange the use of the studio room on Monday nights for the local philosophy reading group. Oh, Kierkegaard, that'll be interesting. To exercise once again, for a little time, who knows how long, the power to charm and fascinate, to be the object of an intense and searching desire. And to feel inside herself the reciprocating force of desire, this is what she gets, a life of her own.

It's such a simple thing, but we all know the power of gratitude to incite a cycle of reciprocity. If my girls run out the door with lunch in hand without a "Thanks, Mama!" I confess I get to feeling a tad miserly with my time and energy. But when I get a hug of appreciation, I want to stay up late to bake cookies for tomorrow's lunch bag. We know that appreciation begets abundance. Why should it not be so for Mother Earth, who packs us a lunch every single day?

He terrifies me, Aunt Peg.” I don’t have the backbone to say it to her face. “Oliver is such a self-contained person. He’s always so calm, so at ease, so refined. I’m the one who’s always losing my mind over nothing. He is unbelievably amazing in a way I don’t know if I can reciprocate. His voice is calm and patient. It makes me feel like he will sit me down and tell me everything’s going to be okay. And his eyes. Have you seen his eyes? They’re so kind and gentle.

When your spouse is angry and upset and lashing out words of heat, if you choose to be loving, you will not reciprocate with additional heat but with a soft voice. You will receive what he is saying as information about his emotional feelings. You will let him tell you of his hurt, anger, and perception of events. You will seek to put yourself in his shoes and see the event through his eyes and then express softly and kindly your understanding of why he feels that way.

In most cases, however, another step needs to take place before we can expect the other party to connect with what is going on in us. Because it will often be difficult for others to receive our feelings and needs in such situations, if we want them to hear us we would need first to empathize with them. The more we empathize with what leads them to behave in the ways that are not meeting our needs, the more likely it is that they will be able to reciprocate afterwards.

In this moment, I want to kiss her. I want to confess my delusional, obsessed love and tell her that we should just keep driving and never look back. I want to throw it all away and bare my soul to this person who has awakened something so vital and long forgotten within me. I want to do these things, but I know I can’t. The risk of losing her is not worth the slim, shining chance that my feelings might be reciprocated. No. I would rather have her in my life as my friend than not at all.

Before long she lay naked on the carpet, breathing heavily. Inhaling deeply she raised her attention to him, and he smiled, preparing for the meeting of their gazes. Sure, he’d gone about things in an ass-backwards kind of a way, but he hoped once he had the chance to explain himself, Maya and her she-cat would reciprocate the feelings he and his lion had for them. Then, things should fall into place…and it would go smoothly… “You ass-sniffing, butt-crack licking, litter box-using fuckhole!” Or not.

The bioelectricity of her brain has ceased to function, and as I lay here, the cells are beginning to degenerate and every thought and memory she had is irretrievably fading into nothing. We were like phone towers in concert, reciprocating, each useless without the other, and now I feel like a massive star extending its light, heat, and gravitational pull into a radiant and beautiful universe only to discover that it is singularly without planets, only holding down a vestigial field of cold, dark rocks.

And they had no idea what lives inside me, what I can do.” “I know what you do to me,” Kyle said, finding his eyes. “It’s everything right, honest, and good.” She stood on her tiptoes and kissed his lips. “Kyle, I’m intense and devoted, and I need a lot of direction just to get through my day.” “Cole, I’m impulsive and devoted and hopeless. I have a filthy mouth, and I don’t see it cleaning up anytime soon.” “I would like to make love to you. Here. Right now,” Cole said, continuing his confession. “But I’m afraid I’ll lose you, that you’ll leave your body and go somewhere else. Will you stay with me?” “I’m your shadow now, Cole. I’ll be where you are.” Kyle set her jaw, determined. “Okay,” he said. “This is how it’ll go. I’m going to give you pleasure. And you’re going to take it. No reciprocating.” He instantly saw doubt in her face. “Please, this time—which will be the first of so many—let me make you happy. Let my touch cleanse you. When I’m done, I want your body to belong just to us.” He could feel himself smiling, just thinking about it.

But attentiveness, consideration, compliments, small and large kindnesses, feeling truly loved, having someone put you first while you put them first because you’re in cahoots to make each other’s lives easier and better: most people do like that, when it’s thoughtful and sincere. It’s here, more than in the big gestures, that romance lives: in being actively caring and thoughtful, in a way that is reciprocal but not transactional. And yet, for most of my life, I never would have asked for or expected such a thing. Many women wouldn’t, even the ones who secretly or not-so-secretly pine to be treated like a princess. It’s one thing to fantasize about a perfect proposal or an expensive gift; that’s high-maintenance, sure, but it’s also par for the course. It’s asking something from a man, but primarily it’s asking him to step into an already-choreographed mating dance. But asking to be thought of, understood, prioritized: this is a request so deep it is almost unfathomable. It’s a voracious request, the demand of the attention whore. Women talk ourselves into needing less, because we’re not supposed to want more—or we know we won’t get more, and we don’t want to feel unsatisfied. We reduce our needs for food, for space, for respect, for help, for love and affection, for being noticed, according to what we think we’re allowed to have. Sometimes we tell ourselves that we can live without it, even that we don’t want it. But it’s not that we don’t want more. It’s that we don’t want to be seen asking for it. And when it comes to romance, women always, always need to ask.

But at the age, already a little disillusioned, which Swann was approaching, at which one knows how to content oneself with being in love for the pleasure of it without requiring too much reciprocity, this closeness of two hearts, if it is no longer, as it was in one’s earliest youth, the goal toward which love necessarily tends, still remains linked to it by an association of ideas so strong that it may become the cause of love, if it occurs first. At an earlier time one dreamed of possessing the heart of the woman with whom one was in love; later, to feel that one possesses a woman’s heart may be enough to make one fall in love with her. And so, at an age when it would seem, since what one seeks most of all in love is subjective pleasure, that the enjoyment of a woman’s beauty should play the largest part in it, love may come into being—love of the most physical kind—without there having been, underlying it, any previous desire. At this time of life, one has already been wounded many times by love; it no longer evolves solely in accordance with its own unknown and inevitable laws, before our astonished and passive heart. We come to its aid, we distort it with memory, with suggestion. Recognizing one of its symptoms, we recall and revive the others. Since we know its song, engraved in us in its entirety, we do not need a woman to repeat the beginning of it—filled with the admiration that beauty inspires—in order to find out what comes after. And if she begins in the middle—where the two hearts come together, where it sings of living only for each other—we are accustomed enough to this music to join our partner right away in the passage where she is waiting for us.

Come to my bedchamber now,' he whispered against her mouth ... 'I don't take -' 'Orders. I know.' He kissed her, over and over now, a delectable repetition that despite its simplicity made her cling to him tighter. 'Then your bedchamber.' ... 'It shares a wall with Madame Roche. I cannot -' He grabbed her hand and dragged her along the corridor. He opened the first door they came to. 'A linen cabinet?' But they had managed perfectly well on a staircase once. *Perfectly.* ... 'You are yanking me about a lot.' She was breathless. 'I am. Feel free to reciprocate.

And I knew, I knew as I answered her that I was breaking a rule of conduct which was there to protect them and me equally. Therapists, teachers, doctors, nurses: none of them should share their personal lives with their charges. It isn’t appropriate or fair. They aren’t friends, even if they take your advice, even if they rely on it, even when they share their darkest thoughts and deepest wishes with you. You must never reciprocate and share your feelings, hopes and fears, because in doing so you damage your respective roles in each other’s lives beyond repair.

To set the record straight, love has everything to do with it. Love for ourselves. Love that demands to be reciprocated because we know we are willing to give everything and we want everything in return. Love that is willing to speak up and say, “I need more attention. I deserve respect and deep affection. I’m not going to settle for anything less.” The sweet old fashioned notion demands to be rewritten as one that doesn’t set itself up as a repeatedly broken heart that stems from an insecure woman with a fancy notion of what love is supposed to look and feel like.

Monday's Motivation taken from my debut novel, "Anna Bell- The Sometimes Loner with an Unbreakable Spirit." "Sadly, with this and other experience Anna has encountered over the years, she has learnt one vital and very important lesson; that not all those you love and are loyal to, will always feel the same towards you or reciprocate." Have you ever felt that way, that persons you were once loyal to, were actually the first ones to throw you under the bus? If that was ever your experience, you're not alone but can rise above it no matter what. #annabell #reallifeexperience

It’s true that love can be hard on a person—the act of loving someone the way they need to be loved instead of how you want to love them, I mean. It takes a lot of effort to make someone else’s desires and troubles your own. You have to want it more than anything. And you have to want it whether they notice or not.” Her voice caught, and a tear was hastily wiped away. “Because that’s the nature of the thing: to care so much that it doesn’t matter if they ever reciprocate. If you really feel that way, you can’t hurt them. You just can’t. And when they hurt you, you forget it right away.

To varying degrees, all pathological narcissists are selfish, self-consumed, demanding, entitled, and controlling. They are exploitative people who rarely or selectively reciprocate any form of generosity. Pathological narcissists are only empathetic or sensitive to others when doing so results in a tangible reward for themselves and/or when it makes them feel valued, important, and appreciated. Because narcissists are deeply impacted by their personal shame and loneliness, but consciously unaware of it, they do not end their relationships. Positive treatment results are rare for narcissists.

I like you to know, with my words in your mouth, the places and ways in which I think of you. It feels good to be reciprocal; eat this part of me while I drive reeds into the depth of you, spill out something sweet. I wish sometimes I could be less fierce with you. No–I feel sometimes like I ought to want to be less fierce with you. That this–whatever this is–would be better served by tenderness, by gentle kindness. Instead I write of spilling out your sap-guts with reeds. I hope you can forgive this. To be soft, for me, is so often pretense, and pretense does not come easily while writing to you.

7 Ways to Improve Eye Contact at any Time 1. Relax into the moment by smiling. 2. Practice making eye contact with people you trust, so that when you are with strangers, it is easier to form a connection. 3. When you feel uncomfortable, begin by looking at their mouth or forehead. 4. Lean in and show that you are interested and attentive. 5. Put a little space between you and the other person. 6. Remember that the other person may be feeling just as awkward. 7. Don’t give them a blank stare throughout a conversation. Rather, practice gazing down or to the side every few moments so that you appear relaxed.

What is our responsibility?” is the same as asking “What is our gift?” It is said that only humans have the capacity for gratitude. This is among our gifts. It’s such a simple thing, but we all know the power of gratitude to incite a cycle of reciprocity. If my girls run out the door with lunch in hand without a “Thanks, Mama!” I confess I get to feeling a tad miserly with my time and energy. But when I get a hug of appreciation, I want to stay up late to bake cookies for tomorrow’s lunch bag. We know that appreciation begets abundance. Why should it not be so for Mother Earth, who packs us a lunch every single day?

Define your limits: You must decide what you will or will not tolerate. Pay attention to feelings of resentment: Such feelings let you know when someone has been forcefully imposing their personal expectations, views, demands, or values on you without your consent or interest. Be direct or be silent: There are two ways to set boundaries. First, be direct with the person or people crossing your boundaries by telling them how you feel when they engage in the behaviors that create your discomfort. This method works best in relationships that are mutually reciprocal and open to feedback. With toxic people, the second method—

A man with strongly, in fact exclusively, religious interests, showed markedly this characteristic of helping people without really feeling for them. He said: 'I've no real emotional relations with people. I can't reciprocate tenderness. I can cry and suffer with people. I can help people, but when they stop suffering I'm finished. I can't enter into folks' joys and laughter. I can do things for people but shrink from them if they start thanking me.' His suffering with people was in fact his identifying himself as a suffering person with anyone else who suffered. Apart from that he allowed no emotional relationship to arise.

Frith is the state of things which exists between friends. And it means, first and foremost, reciprocal inviolability. However individual wills may clash in a conflict of kin against kin, however stubbornly individual heads may seek their own way according to their quota of wisdom, there can never be question of conflict save in the sense of thoughts and feelings working their way toward an equipoise in unity. We need have no doubt but that good kinsmen could disagree with fervour, but however the matter might stand, there could — should, must inevitably - be but one ending to it all; a settlement peaceable and making for peace — frith.

But it is the nature of narcissistic entitlement to see the situation from only one very subjective point of view that says “My feelings and needs are all that matter, and whatever I want, I should get.” Mutuality and reciprocity are entirely alien concepts, because others exist only to agree, obey, flatter, and comfort – in short, to anticipate and meet my every need. If you cannot make yourself useful in meeting my need, you are of no value and will most likely be treated accordingly, and if you defy my will, prepare to feel my wrath. Hell hath no fury like the Narcissist denied. Narcissists hold these unreasonable expectations of particularly favorable treatment and automatic compliance because they consider themselves uniquely special. In social situations, you will talk about them or what they are interested in because they are more important, more knowledgeable, or more captivating than anyone else. Any other subject is boring and won’t hold interest, and, in their eyes, they most certainly have a right to be entertained. In personal relationships, their sense of entitlement means that you must attend to their needs but they are under no obligation to listen to or understand you. If you insist that they do, you are “being difficult” or challenging their rights. How dare you put yourself before me? they seem to (or may actually) ask. And if they have real power over you, they feel entitled to use you as they see fit and you must not question their authority. Any failure to comply will be considered an attack on their superiority. Defiance of their will is a narcissistic injury that can trigger rage and self-righteous aggression. The conviction of entitlement is a holdover from the egocentric stage of early childhood, around the age of one to two, when children experience a natural sense of grandiosity that is an essential part of their development. This is a transitional phase, and soon it becomes necessary for them to integrate their feelings of self-importance and invincibility with an awareness of their real place in the overall scheme of things that includes a respect for others. In some cases, however, the bubble of specialness is never popped, and in others the rupture is too harsh or sudden, as when a parent or caretaker shames excessively or fails to offer soothing in the wake of a shaming experience. Whether overwhelmed with shame or artificially protected from it, children whose infantile fantasies are not gradually transformed into a more balanced view of themselves in relation to others never get over the belief that they are the center of the universe. Such children may become self-absorbed “Entitlement monsters,” socially inept and incapable of the small sacrifices of Self that allow for reciprocity in personal relationships. The undeflated child turns into an arrogant adult who expects others to serve as constant mirrors of his or her wonderfulness. In positions of power, they can be egotistical tyrants who will have their way without regard for anyone else. Like shame, the rage that follows frustrated entitlement is a primitive emotion that we first learn to manage with the help of attuned parents. The child’s normal narcissistic rages, which intensify during the power struggles of age eighteen to thirty months – those “terrible twos” – require “optimal frustration” that is neither overly humiliating nor threatening to the child’s emerging sense of Self. When children encounter instead a rageful, contemptuous or teasing parent during these moments of intense arousal, the image of the parent’s face is stored in the developing brain and called up at times of future stress to whip them into an aggressive frenzy. Furthermore, the failure of parental attunement during this crucial phase can interfere with the development of brain functions that inhibit aggressive behavior, leaving children with lifelong difficulties controlling aggressive impulses.

12 Reasons Why People Avoid Eye Contact 1. They do not want to reveal their feelings. 2. They are not being honest and truthful. 3. It makes them feel vulnerable and exposed. 4. They are being rude or indifferent. 5. They are ashamed or embarrassed to talk about something. 6. They are nervous or lacking confidence. 7. It makes them feel very uncomfortable. 8. They are arrogant, snobby, and pretentious. 9. They are afraid of saying the wrong thing or looking stupid. 10. They are shy or introverted. 11. They are accessing internal thoughts or emotions to process and contemplate information. 12. Or as mentioned before, and important to remember, it may simply be a cultural value or behavior.

I had always been in love with someone. It was the only thing that made it feasible to live that way, getting up at six and remaining conscious until late at night. It was like religion for medieval people. It gave you energy to face injustice, powerlessness, and drudgery. The guys I was in love with always ignored me, but were never unkind. There was something abstract and gentle about the feeling of being ignored, a feeling of being spared, an impossibility of anything happening, which was consonant with my understanding of love. In theory, of course, I knew love could be reciprocated. It was something that happened, often, to other people. But I was unlike other people in so many ways.

I base all my counseling on the premise that each of us has these two sides: the essential self and the social self. The essential self contains several sophisticated compasses that continuously point toward your North Star. The social self is the set of skills that actually carry you toward this goal. Your essential self wants passionately to become a doctor; the social self struggles through organic chemistry and applies to medical school. Your essential self yearns for the freedom of nature; your social self buys the right backpacking equipment. Your essential self falls in love; your social self watches to make sure the feeling is reciprocal before allowing you to stand underneath your beloved’s window singing serenades.

As stated earlier, intimacy is greatly enhanced when two people dialogue about all aspects of their experience. This is especially true when they transcend taboos against full emotional communication. Feelings of love, appreciation and gratitude are naturally enhanced when we reciprocally show our full selves - confident or afraid, loving or alienated, proud or embarrassed. What an incredible achievement it is when any two of us create such an authentic and supportive relationship! Many of the most intimate relationships that I have seen are between people who have done a great deal of freeing themselves from the negative legacies of their upbringings. “The Unexamined Life Is Not Worth Living” A further silver lining in recovery is the attainment of a much richer internal life.

One of the things necessary for healing to take place is recognizing the truth of the relationship and that person. You experienced so many covert lies; it is incredibly helpful to be able to see clearly. The truth is you were in love with an illusion, with the person they portrayed themselves to be. At first, this is an excruciating realization. You will doubt and wonder if you are overinflating this, if they really are innocent and you’re just scared to move on. You will have a ton of self-doubt. Eventually, with education and support, you will see that your hunch, your inner knowing, is on target. In time the truth that you were in love with an illusion will feel like a relief because truth does set you free. That full realization will validate years of confusion you felt, years of unexplained exhaustion and health issues, years of sexual confusion, years of feeling less than, and years of unhappiness, along with anxiety. You lived in an unsafe environment, were demeaned and devalued for years (decades for some of you; entire childhoods for many of you). You did not experience unconditional love; you did not live with someone who treated you with respect, who cherished you, treasured you, and felt so lucky to have you in their life. No, the truth is you experienced a counterfeit. If this was a spouse or romantic partner, this awakening to the truth is excruciating because you did love that person with all your heart. You were dedicated. You were in 100%. The truth is that you were the lifeforce in the relationship. When you’re really honest with yourself, when you look back with clear vision, that life, that love you gave and felt, was never fully reciprocated.

We all have some of what may be termed narcissistic needs, such as the need to be valued, admired, understood, or simply recognized as a unique person. During painful periods, we become much more narcissistic, or self-centered, and our demands for attention, mirroring, validation, etc. increase. However, when we feel better, we generally return to a baseline ability to reciprocate in our relationships. Instead of only taking, we give-and-take by listening, understanding, validating, and supporting others. For NPD individuals, however, they feel endlessly entitled to special consideration and attention. The narcissist somehow never moves past the unique circumstance that requires you to put yourself aside and realize that what's happening for him is more special, more upsetting, or more wonderful. Eventually, you realize that you and your needs are on indefinite hold.

they feel ignored, unappreciated, and unloved. That’s because their context-blind Aspie family members are so poor at empathic reciprocity. As we have learned, we come to know ourselves in relation to others. This doesn’t just apply when children are developing self-esteem. Throughout our lifespan, we continue to weave and re-weave the context of our lives, based on the interactions we have with our friends, coworkers, neighbors and loved ones. This is why it is so important for an NT parent/partner to get feedback from their spouse. A smile, a hug, a kind word, a note of encouragement: These are messages that reinforce the NT’s self-esteem and contribute to a healthy reciprocity in the relationship. Without these daily reminders from their loved ones, NTs can develop some odd defense mechanisms. One is to become psychologically invisible to others and even to themselves.

CHAPTER 2: The Language Of Trust Trust each other again and again. When the trust level gets high enough, people transcend apparent limits, discovering new and awesome abilities for which they were previously unaware. — David Armistead Trust is fundamental to our sense of safety, autonomy and dignity as human beings. It is also an integral part of every relationship we have. When we trust someone we feel safe to share what is important to us including our thoughts, ideas, efforts, hopes, and concerns. When others trust us they reciprocate in kind. It doesn’t mean we always agree, just that we listen to, respect, and value what each other has to offer. In fact, trust allows us to disagree, debate, and test each other’s thinking as we work together to find ideas and solutions. Having work relationships built on trust allows us to get better, faster results, with less stress.

I did think about what the endgame could look like. I saw myself pursuing success as a nontechnical woman in tech: becoming a middle manager, then an executive, then a consultant or coach who spoke at conferences, to inspire more women. I could see myself onstage, forcing a smile and holding a clicker, feeling my curls go limp in real time. I could see myself writing blog posts on my own personal buisness philosophy: How to Squander Opportunity, How Not to Negotiate. How to Cry in Front of Your Boss. I would work twice as hard as my male counterparts to be taken half as seriously. I would devote my time and energy to a corporation, and hope that it was reciprocal. I would make decisions based on the market that were rewarded by the market, and feel important, because I would feel right. I liked feeling right; I loved feeling right. Unfortunately, I also wanted to feel good. I wanted to find a way, while I could, to engage with my own life.

Dogs are wonderful, and in many ways unique. But they are remarkably unremarkable in their intellectual and experiential capacities. Pigs are every bit as intelligent and feeling, by any sensible definition of the words. They can't hop into the back of a Volvo, but they can fetch, run and play, be mischievous, and reciprocate affection. So why don't they get to curl up by the fire? Why can't they at least be spared being tossed on the fire? Our taboo against dog eating says something about dogs and a great deal about us. The French, who love their dogs, sometimes eat their horses. The Spanish, who love their horses, sometimes eat their cows. The Indians, who love their cows, sometimes eat their dogs. While written in a much different context, George Orwell's words (from Animal Farm) apply here: "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others." The protective emphasis is not a law of nature; it comes from the stories we tell about nature.

Witch," he grumbled as the woman committed an exploit that caused them both to gasp with a sort of reciprocal anguish. Then... they were moving conjointly, much as one would when riding a horse. The motion went on and on, the lovers more involved, more intense in their enterprise. The woman adjusted herself so that her breasts dangled over Michael's zealous mouth. He pressured, milked, and suckled. Sarah watched to the end, repelled, captivated, discomfited, wanting them to cease immediately, while at the same juncture, never wanting the torrid exhibition to conclude. They reached a mutual goal, a pinnacle, both crying out with a strangled elation, and she felt ashamed and sickened to have witnessed the intense emotion that flared between them, yet she was glad she had. Their pace slackened, the tension abated, the pair relaxed, and Michael rubbed the woman's back. Arrogant and satisfied with himself, he murmured, "Feeling better?" "Oh, Lord... but you utterly kill me when you do that.

The manner in which we speak is exceedingly important. An ancient sage once said, 'A soft answer turns away anger.' When your spouse is angry and upset and lashing out words of heat, if you choose to be loving, you will not reciprocate with additional heat but with a soft voice. You will receive what he is saying as information about his emotional feelings. You will let him tell you of his hurt, anger, and perception of events. You will seek to put yourself in his shoes and see the event through his eyes and then express softly and kindly your understanding of why he feels that way. If you have wronged him, you will be willing to confess the wrong and ask forgiveness. If your motivation is different from what he is reading, you will be able to explain your motivation kindly. You will seek understanding and reconciliation, and not to prove your own perception as the only logical way to interpret what has happened. That is mature love--love to which we aspire if we seek a growing marriage.

They Give Back Fairness and reciprocity are at the heart of good relationships. Emotionally mature people don’t like taking advantage of people, nor do they like the feeling of being used. They want to help and are generous with their time, but they also ask for attention and assistance when they need it. They’re willing to give more than they get back for awhile, but they won’t let an imbalance go on indefinitely. If you grew up with emotionally immature parents, you may face your own challenges with reciprocity, having learned to give either too much or not enough. Your parents’ self-preoccupied demands may have distorted your natural instincts about fairness. If you were an internalizer, you learned that in order to be loved or desirable, you need to give more than you get; otherwise you’ll be of no value to others. If you were an externalizer, you may have the false belief that others don’t really love you unless they prove it by always putting you first and repeatedly overextending themselves for you.

All of this ‘offering up something personal’ made me feel the old clammy twinge of fear of rejection. Then Nick reminds me that social life is governed by reciprocity. ‘A few years ago, I was driving through a remote part of Ethiopia and I kept passing all these mothers and children outside their mud huts. Everybody I passed stared at me like I was dead: totally blank facial expression. It was the most uncomfortable I’d ever felt in my life. ‘But then it occurred to me, while I was sitting there, I was looking at them in exactly the same way they’re looking at me. So I started smiling and waving as I went by – and it was like I flipped a switch. As soon as I started smiling, waving and looking friendly, they started waving from their windows, grinning at me and running out of their houses to give me high fives. ‘That’s the truth of the world, Jessica,’ he says, casually full-naming me to let me know something big is coming. ‘Nobody waves – but everybody waves back.’ I hear his mic drop all the way from Chicago.

We need to rationalize our existences, usually by doing something that feels “important.” Our inner worlds are devalued, because others cannot directly observe them. Many people remain “do-ers.” Doing things to make up for their belief that they themselves are “not enough.” In relationships when your partner is not engaging in a mutual way, and you feel that the only way to keep the relationship afloat and to keep your partner content is to keep doing things—stay fit, look good, clean the house, make his life easy, buy her things— then that becomes your pattern. In addition, you may need to be yet another bringer of admiration into your partner’s life telling him,“you are so attractive/smart/successful/sexy/cool/awesome.” All this stuff you need to bring, day after day after day, can be labeled narcissistic supply. Psychologically healthy human beings nourish themselves from the inside. They do not “need” supply, and other people in their worlds should not be in the role of having to serve them that way. You may get some insight into why this relationship has been so exhausting.

But friendship isn't one of life's little luxuries. It's a necessity. To go through the world without the closest of friends is like walking it with a missing leg, with no crutch to be found when you need that support. Friends are the breath left to us when we run out of our own. They're the mirrors we need when we cannot see ourselves clearly. They point out our little flaws and, in times, the larger ones we must tend to. And, of course, they help us out of trouble as much as they help us into it. They are the truest form of reciprocation. You may think me callow for describing friendship in this way. That I demean friendship--make it seem like an exchange. But you are wrong. Friends are the ones willing and most able to give anything--everything when they can. And you do the same. It is never said. But it is the unspoken agreement in friendship. A reciprocation of feelings--actions. Of time. Which, I have learned over the course of my life, is an alternate way of spelling the word "love." People want time given to them--for them. For it's a kind of love the world is in all too short supply of. And for that, they will love you back. That is friendship.

Only half?” “Huh?” She blinked at him in a daze, not sure what he’d asked. “Why are you only half in love with me?” “Mm, I said I was half in love with you for months. But then you moved in here and I really got to know you. Now I’m completely in love with you.” He pulled back to stare down into her eyes, and she let him see the truth in her heart. He looked away. “I don’t know if I can reciprocate that. I mean, I’m nuts about you. I love having sex with you, obviously. But I don’t know what love is, you know? I don’t know if I’m feeling the same thing you are.” Shannon tried not to be hurt at his words. She pulled back and dropped one hand down to hold his on her lap. “And that’s fine. I won’t rush you into saying something you don’t feel. But I know in my heart that I love you, wheelchair and all, cussing and all. None of it makes me want to be away from you. You were the family I thought about when I fired that gun.” His dark eyes rested on hers for a long time, until he leaned forward to kiss her. “Okay, let’s give this some time to digest, okay? You may feel differently when things settle down and you realize you don’t have to depend upon us anymore.” She

It is not possible for human beings to outgrow loneliness. Nor can someone from a culture that condescends to nature easily escape the haunting thought that one’s life is meaningless. Existential loneliness and a sense that one’s life is inconsequential, both of which are hallmarks of modern civilizations, seem to me to derive in part from our abandoning a belief in the therapeutic dimensions of a relationship with place. A continually refreshed sense of the unplumbable complexity of patterns in the natural world, patterns that are ever present and discernible, and which incorporate the observer, undermine the feeling that one is alone in the world, or meaningless in it. The effort to know a place deeply is, ultimately, an expression of the human desire to belong, to fit somewhere. The determination to know a particular place, in my experience, is consistently rewarded. And every natural place, to my mind, is open to being known. And somewhere in this process a person begins to sense that they themselves are becoming known, so that when they are absent from that place they know that place misses them. And this reciprocity, to know and be known, reinforces a sense that one is necessary in the world.

Hence, if we follow out this idea, their opposition must not be conceived as something to be done away with, but on the contrary as something useful and life-promoting that should be preserved and strengthened. This is a direct attack on the predominance of the one differentiated and socially valuable function, since that is the prime cause of the suppression and depletion of the inferior functions. It would amount to a slave rebellion against the heroic ideal which compels us to sacrifice everything else for the sake of the one. If this principle, which, as we saw, was developed in particularly high degree by Christianity for the spiritualizing of man, and then proved equally effective in furthering his materialistic ends, were once finally broken, the inferior functions would find a natural release and would demand, rightly or wrongly, the same recognition as the differentiated function. The complete opposition between sensuousness and spirituality, or between the feeling-sensation and thinking of the introverted thinking type, would then be openly revealed. But, as Schiller says, this complete opposition also entails a reciprocal limitation, equivalent psychologically to an abolition of the power principle, i.e., to a renunciation of the claim to a universally valid standpoint on the strength of one differentiated and adapted collective function.

What is un-Greek in Christianity. The Greeks did not see the Homeric gods above them as masters and themselves below them as servants, as did the Jews. They saw, as it were, only the reflection of the most successful specimens of their own caste, that is, an ideal, not a contrast to their own nature. They felt related to them, there was a reciprocal interest, a kind of symmachia. Man thinks of himself as noble when he gives himself such gods, and puts himself into a relationship similar to that of the lesser nobility to the higher. Whereas the Italic peoples have a regular peasant religion, with continual fearfulness about evil and capricious powers and tormentors. Where the Olympian gods retreated, there Greek life too grew gloomier and more fearful. Christianity, on the other hand, crushed and shattered man completely, and submerged him as if in deep mire. Then, all at once, into his feeling of complete confusion, it allowed the light of divine compassion to shine, so that the surprised man, stunned by mercy, let out a cry of rapture, and thought for a moment that he carried all of heaven within him. All psychological inventions of Christianity work toward this sick excess of feeling, toward the deep corruption of head and heart necessary for it. Christianity wants to destroy, shatter, stun, intoxicate: there is only one thing it does not want: moderation, and for this reason, it is in its deepest meaning barbaric, Asiatic, ignoble, un-Greek.

maternal love, the most successful object of the religious imagination of romantic art. For the most part real and human, it is yet entirely spiritual, without the interest and exigency of desire, not sensuous and yet present: absolutely satisfied and blissful spiritual depth. It is a love without craving, but it is not friendship; for be friendship never so rich in emotion, it yet demands a content, something essential, as a mutual end and aim. Whereas, without any reciprocity of aim and interests, maternal love has an immediate support in the natural bond of connection. But in this instance the mother’s love is not at all restricted to the natural side. In the child which she conceived and then bore in travail, Mary has the complete knowledge and feeling of herself; and the same child, blood of her blood, stands all the same high above her, and nevertheless this higher being belongs to her and is the object in which she forgets and maintains herself. The natural depth of feeling in the mother’s love is altogether spiritualized; it has the Divine as its proper content, but this spirituality remains lowly and unaware, marvellously penetrated by natural oneness and human feeling. It is the blissful maternal love, the love of the one mother alone who was the first recipient of this joy. Of course this love too is not without grief, but the grief is only the sorrow of loss, lamentation for her suffering, dying, and dead son, and does not, as we shall see at a later stage,[9] result from injustice and torment from without, or from the infinite battle against sins, or from the agony and pain brought about by the self. Such deep feeling is here spiritual beauty, the Ideal, human identification of man with God, with the spirit and with truth: a pure forgetfulness and complete self-surrender which still in this forgetfulness is from the beginning one with that into which it is merged and now with blissful satisfaction has a sense of this oneness. In such a beautiful way maternal love, the picture as it were of the Spirit, enters romantic art in place of the Spirit itself because only in the form of feeling is the Spirit made prehensible by art, and the feeling of the unity between the individual and God is present in the most original, real, and living way only in the Madonna’s maternal love. This love must enter art necessarily if, in the portrayal of this sphere, the Ideal, the affirmative satisfied reconciliation is not to be lacking. There was therefore a time when the maternal love of the blessed Virgin belonged in general to the highest and holiest [part of religion] and was worshipped and represented as this supreme fact. But when the Spirit brings itself into consciousness of itself in its own element, separated from the whole natural grounding which feeling supplies, then too it is only the spiritual mediation, free from such a grounding, that can be regarded as the free route to the truth; and so, after all, in Protestantism, in contrast to mariolatry in art and in faith, the Holy Spirit and the inner mediation of the Spirit has become the higher truth.

There is vision, touch, when a certain visible, a certain tangible, turns back upon the whole of the visible, the whole of the tangible, of which it is a part, or when suddenly it finds itself surrounded by them, or when between it and them, and through them it forms a Visibility, a Tangible in itself, which belong properly neither to the body qua fact nor the world qua fact--as upon two mirrors facing one another where two indefinite series of images set in one another arise which belong really to neither of the two surfaces, since each is only the rejoinder of the other, and which therefore form a couple, a couple more real than either of them. Thus since the seer is caught up in what he sees, it is still himself he sees: there is a fundamental narcissism of all vision. And thus, for the same reason, the vision he exercises, he also undergoes from the things, such that, as many painters have said, I feel myself looked at by the things, my activity is equally my passivity--which is the second and more profound sense of the narcissism: not to see in the outside, as the others see it, but especially to be seen by the outside, to exist within it, to emigrate into it, to be seduced, captivated, aliemated by the phantom, so that the seer and the visible reciprocate one another and we no longer knows which sees and which is seen. It is this Visibility, this generality of the Sensible in itself, this anonymity innate to Myself that we have previously called flesh, and one knows there is no name in traditional philosophy to designate it.

I couldn’t wait to follow through. I couldn’t wait to end this. “Your revenge?” Matthias laughed. “You’re revenge? What could you possibly do that would make any difference to me?” I looked up at Kane and he looked down at me. I smiled at him sweetly and he smiled back. I leaned in and he mirrored me. I tilted my face up to kiss him and he gladly reciprocated. Then I pulled back and swiveled my gaze to Matthias. “I will take your family away. Just like you took mine. I will pluck them from you one by one and make them suffer until they beg for death. Or, I will simply rescue them and give them a better life than you ever could.” Matthias barked out a louder laugh. “That’s sweet. It sounds like you’ve put thought into all that, but you can’t. It’s just not possible. “Sure it is,” I told him. “I’ve already gotten two of your children. Tyler isn’t here.” I gestured at Tyler. “Tyler will never be here. Unless you count that. Which being a self-respecting person, I wouldn’t. But who knows about you. And Miller isn’t here either. Miller is worse than Tyler. Look! You got Tyler to come to breakfast, but I seem to have forgotten Miller’s excuse. Could you remind me?” He stayed quiet. Which was a miracle in itself. So I continued, “I’m waiting for the right opportunity for Linley. I’ve been waiting for it for a while now. I’ve been watching her and watching her and just waiting. I cannot wait until I get her alone. I cannot wait until it’s just the two of us. It will be so fun. It’s what helps get me through these long days. Just thoughts of Linley. Just thoughts of what I will do to her and how slowly I will make those last painful moments last. And Kane? I could take him in a second. I could rip him out of your hands so fast you would blink and he would be gone. He might deny that if you ask him. But I know better. I hear everything else he says. I feel everything else he means. Kane is mine. You’re a smart man, Matthias, so don’t think for a second he isn’t. Right?” I turned to Kane. He leaned down again and kissed me. Point proved. I relaxed into Kane and let my threats soothe my soul and settle over the man I wanted to watch burn in hell. His reply was an arrogant smirk and hard eyes. “Little girl, you just asked for trouble, I’m-” “Do it,” I hissed. “Do whatever it is you want to do and see if I’m bluffing. Try me! Hurt someone I love. Hurt me. Take something away from me and see how painfully and how permanently I take something away from you.” I stood up and pushed aggressively away from the table. I stared him down the entire time. Kane let me go without even an attempt to restrain me. I was beyond that. I was beyond all of this. I was leaving. Today. Because without a doubt I would follow through with every single one of my threats. I stomped from the warehouse. I could feel Kane behind me, but he still didn’t try to slow me down. And I knew he wouldn’t. He really was mine. Matthias, Hendrix, nobody could take him from me. And he would do whatever I wanted as long as he thought we could survive. I hoped both of us could survive what I was about to ask him to do.

Hesed is a defining characteristic of God. It is linked to his compassion and graciousness. It is expressed in his willingness to forgive wrongdoing and to take upon himself the sin, rebellion, and wrongdoing of his people. As an expression of his lovingkindness, God allows his people to experience the consequences of their sin, as he promised Moses in Exodus 34:7. Even this is an expression of his hesed. God can be approached boldly based on the confidence we have in this aspect of his revealed nature. He is amazingly kind and loving to his servants as well as to the ungrateful and wicked. He is delighted to show them kindness. Due to this, they marvel that no other god is like their God because of his hesed. The scope of hesed is expanded in the context of worship. It is most often sung, as our hearts resonate sympathetically to the One who created us in his lovingkindness. However, when the reciprocal nature of hesed has been violated we are encouraged in the imprecatory psalms to offer feelings of anger and outrage, trusting in the hesed of the One who knows our hearts and will stand in solidarity with us and act on behalf of the poor. When we are facing despair we can take confidence in all God’s former acts of lovingkindness. Hesed is a standard to which we can appeal. We understand that we can ask, beg, and expect to receive according to the standard of God’s hesed. In light of our inability to keep any of the covenants, God has graciously granted to us a new covenant, based solely on his faithfulness. That covenant came into effect and will be sustained by means of a person Jeremiah refers to as the “Righteous Branch.” He is the incarnation of hesed, full of grace and truth.

1.      Establishing artificial time constraints: Allow the person being targeted to feel that there is an end in sight. 2.      Accommodating nonverbals: Ensure that both your body language as well as your voice is non-threatening.           3.      Slower rate of speech: Don’t oversell and talk too fast. You lose credibility quickly and come on too strong and threatening. 4.      Sympathy or assistance theme: Human beings are genetically coded to provide assistance and help. It also appeals to their ego that they may know more than you. 5.      Ego suspension: Most likely the hardest technique but without a doubt the most effective. Don’t build yourself up, build someone else up and you will have strong rapport. 6.      Validate others: Human beings crave being connected and accepted. Validation feeds this need and few give it. Be the great validator and have instant, great rapport. 7.      Ask… How? When? Why? : When you want to dig deep and make a connection, there is no better or safer way than asking these questions. They will tell you what they are willing to talk about. 8.      Connect with quid pro quo: Some people are just more guarded than others. Allow them to feel comfortable by giving a little about you. Don’t overdo it. 9.      Gift giving (reciprocal altruism): Human beings are genetically coded to reciprocate gifts given. Give a gift, either intangible or material, and seek a conversation and rapport in return. 10.  Managing expectations: Avoid both disappointment as well as the look of a bad salesman by ensuring that your methods are focused on benefitting the targeted individual and not you. Ultimately you will win, but your mindset needs to focus on them. You now have the top ten secrets on how to build rapport with anyone in just a few minutes.  There is nothing in these pages that

WHOEVER YOU ARE, WHEREVER YOU ARE..I'M STARTING TO THINK WE'RE A LOT ALIKE. HUMAN BEINGS SPINNING ON BLACKNESS. ALL WANTING TO BE SEEN, TOUCHED, HEARD, PAID ATTENTION TO. MY LOVED ONES ARE EVERYTHING TO ME HERE. IN THE LAST YEAR OR 3 I'VE SCREAMED AT MY CREATOR. SCREAMED AT CLOUDS IN THE SKY. FOR SOME EXPLANATION. MERCY MAYBE. FOR PEACE OF MIND TO RAIN LIKE MANNA SOMEHOW. 4 SUMMERS AGO, I MET SOMEBODY. I WAS 19 YEARS OLD. HE WAS TOO. WE SPENT THAT SUMMER, AND THE SUMMER AFTER, TOGETHER. EVERYDAY ALMOST. AND ON THE DAYS WE WERE TOGETHER, TIME WOULD GLIDE. MOST OF THE DAY I'D SEE HIM, AND HIS SMILE. I'D HEAR HIS CONVERSATION AND HIS SILENCE..UNTIL IT WAS TIME TO SLEEP. SLEEP I WOULD OFTEN SHARE WITH HIM. BY THE TIME I REALIZED I WAS IN LOVE, IT WAS MALIGNANT. IT WAS HOPELESS. THERE WAS NO ESCAPING, NO NEGOTIATING WITH THE FEELING. NO CHOICE. IT WAS MY FIRST LOVE, IT CHANGED MY LIFE. BACK THEN, MY MIND WOULD WANDER TO THE WOMEN I HAD BEEN WITH, THE ONES I CARED FOR AND THOUGHT I WAS IN LOVE WITH. I REMINISCED ABOUT THE SENTIMENTAL SONGS I ENJOYED WHEN I WAS A TEENAGER.. THE ONES I PLAYED WHEN I EXPERIENCED A GIRLFRIEND FOR THE FIRST TIME. I REALIZED THEY WERE WRITTEN IN A LANGUAGE I DID NOT YET SPEAK. I REALIZED TOO MUCH, TOO QUICKLY. IMAGINE BEING THROWN FROM A PLANE. I WASN'T IN A PLANE THOUGH. I WAS IN A NISSAN MAXIMA, THE SAME CAR I PACKED UP WITH BAGS AND DROVE TO LOS ANGELES IN. I SAT THERE AND TOLD MY FRIEND HOW I FELT. I WEPT AS THE WORDS LEFT MY MOUTH. I GRIEVED FOR THEM, KNOWING I COULD NEVER TAKE THEM BACK FOR MYSELF. HE PATTED MY BACK. HE SAID KIND THINGS. HE DID HIS BEST, BUT HE WOULDN'T ADMIT THE SAME. HE HAD TO GO BACK INSIDE SOON, IT WAS LATE AND HIS GIRLFRIEND WAS WAITING FOR HIM UPSTAIRS. HE WOULDN'T TELL ME THE TRUTH ABOUT HIS FEELINGS FOR ME FOR ANOTHER 3 YEARS. I FELT LIKE I'D ONLY IMAGINED RECIPROCITY FOR YEARS. NOW IMAGINE BEING THROWN FROM A CLIFF. NO, I WASN'T ON A CLIFF, I WAS STILL IN MY CAR TELLING MYSELF IT WAS GONNA BE FINE AND TO TAKE DEEP BREATHS. I TOOK THE BREATHS AND CARRIED ON. I KEPT UP A PECULIAR FRIENDSHIP WITH HIM BECAUSE I COULDN'T IMAGINE KEEPING UP MY LIFE WITHOUT HIM. I STRUGGLED TO MASTER MYSELF AND MY EMOTIONS. I WASN'T ALWAYS SUCCESSFUL. THE DANCE WENT ON.. I KEPT THE RHYTHM FOR SEVERAL SUMMERS AFTER. IT'S WINTER NOW. I'M TYPING THIS ON A PLANE BACK TO LOS ANGELES FROM NEW ORLEANS. I FLEW HOME FOR ANOTHER MARRED CHRISTMAS. I HAVE A WINDOWSEAT. IT'S DECEMBER 27, 2011. BY NOW I'VE WRITTEN TWO ALBUMS, THIS BEING THE SECOND. I WROTE TO KEEP MYSELF BUSY AND SANE. I WANTED TO CREATE WORLDS THAT WERE ROSIER THAN MINE. I TRIED TO CHANNEL OVERWHELMING EMOTIONS. I'M SURPRISED AT HOW FAR ALL OF IT HAS TAKEN ME. BEFORE WRITING THIS I'D TOLD SOME PEOPLE MY STORY. I'M SURE THESE PEOPLE KEPT ME ALIVE, KEPT ME SAFE.. SINCERELY. THESE ARE THE FOLKS I WANNA THANK FROM THE FLOOR OF MY HEART. EVERYONE OF YOU KNOWS WHO YOU ARE.. GREAT HUMANS, PROBABLY ANGELS. I DON'T KNOW WHAT HAPPENS NOW, AND THAT'S ALRITE. I DON'T HAVE ANY SECRETS I NEED KEPT ANYMORE. THERE'S PROBABLY SOME SMALL SHIT STILL, BUT YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN. I WAS NEVER ALONE, AS MUCH AS I FELT LIKE IT. AS MUCH AS I STILL DO SOMETIMES. I NEVER WAS. I DON'T THINK I EVER COULD BE. THANKS. TO MY FIRST LOVE, I'M GRATEFUL FOR YOU. GRATEFUL THAT EVEN THOUGH IT WASN'T WHAT I HOPED FOR AND EVEN THOUGH IT WAS NEVER ENOUGH, IT WAS. SOME THINGS NEVER ARE.. AND WE WERE. I WON'T FORGET YOU. I WON'T FORGET THE SUMMER. I'LL REMEMBER WHO I WAS WHEN I MET YOU. I'LL REMEMBER WHO YOU WERE AND HOW WE'VE BOTH CHANGED AND STAYED THE SAME. I'VE NEVER HAD MORE RESPECT FOR LIFE AND LIVING THAN I HAVE RIGHT NOW. MAYBE IT TAKES A NEAR DEATH EXPERIENCE TO FEEL ALIVE. THANKS. TO MY MOTHER, YOU RAISED ME STRONG. I KNOW I'M ONLY BRAVE BECAUSE YOU WERE FIRST.. SO THANK YOU. ALL OF YOU. FOR EVERYTHING GOOD. I FEEL LIKE A FREE MAN. IF I LISTEN CLOSELY.. I CAN HEAR THE SKY FALLING TOO. - FRANK

How Could You Not - for Jane Kenyon It is a day after many days of storms. Having been washed and washed, the air glitters; small heaped cumuli blow across the sky; a shower visible against the firs douses the crocuses. We knew it would happen one day this week. Now, when I learn you have died, I go to the open door and look across at New Hampshire and see that there, too, the sun is bright and clouds are making their shadowy ways along the horizon; and I think: How could it not have been today? In another room, Keri Te Kanawa is singing the Laudate Dominum of Mozart, very faintly, as if in the past, to those who once sat in the steel seat of the old mowing machine, cheerful descendent of the scythe of the grim reaper, and drew the cutter bars little reciprocating triangles through the grass to make the stalks lie down in sunshine. Could you have walked in the dark early this morning and found yourself grown completely tired of the successes and failures of medicine, of your year of pain and despair remitted briefly now and then by hope that had that leaden taste? Did you glimpse in first light the world as you loved it and see that, now, it was not wrong to die and that, on dying, you would leave your beloved in a day like paradise? Near sunrise did you loosen your hold a little? How could you not already have felt blessed for good, having these last days spoken your whole heart to him, who spoke his whole heart to you, so that in the silence he would not feel a single word was missing? How could you not have slipped into a spell, in full daylight, as he lay next to you, with his arms around you, as they have been, it must have seemed, all your life? How could your cheek not press a moment to his cheek, which presses itself to yours from now on? How could you not rise and go, with all that light at the window, those arms around you, and the sound, coming or going, hard to say, of a single-engine plane in the distance that no one else hears?

I was only ever truly loved once. Everyone has always treated me kindly. Even the most casual acquaintance has found it difficult to be rude or brusque or even cool to me. Sometimes with a little help from me, that kindness could - or at least might - have developed into love or affection. I've had neither the patience nor the concentration of mind to want to make the effort. When I first noticed this in myself - so little do we know ourselves - I attributed it to some shyness of the soul. But then I realised that this wasn't the case, it was an emotional tedium, different from the tedium of life; an impatience with the idea of associating myself with one continuous feeling, especially if that meant steeling myself to make some sustained effort. Why bother thought the unthinking part of me. I have enough subtlety, enough psychological sensitivity to know how, but the why has always escaped me. My weakness of will always began by being a weakness of the will even to have a will. The same happened with my emotions, my intelligence, my will itself, with everything in my life. But on the one occasion that malicious fate caused me to believe I loved someone and to recognise that I really was loved in return , it left me at first stunned and confused as if my number had come up on the lottery and I had won a huge amount of money in some inconvertible currency. Then, because I'm only human, I felt rather flattered. However, that most natural of emotions soon passed, to be overtaken by a feeling difficult to define but one in which tedium, humiliation and weariness predominated. A feeling of tedium as if fate had imposed on me a task to be carried out during some unfamiliar evening shift. As if a new duty - that of an awful reciprocity - were given to me, ironically, as a privilege over which I would have to toil, all the time thanking fate for it. As if the flaccid monotony of life were not enough to bear without superimposing on it the obligatory monotony of a definite feeling.

The preconventional level of moral reasoning, which develops during our first nine years of life, considers rules as fixed and absolute. In the first of its two stages (the stage of obedience and punishment), we determine whether actions are right or wrong by whether or not they lead to a punishment. In the second stage (the stage of individualism and exchange), right and wrong are determined by what brings rewards. The desires and needs of others are important, but only in a reciprocal sense—“You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours.” Morality at this level is governed by consequence.   The second level of moral reasoning starts in adolescence, and continues into early adulthood. It sees us starting to consider the intention behind behavior, rather than just the consequences. Its first stage, often called the “good boy—nice girl” stage, is when we begin classifying moral behavior as to whether it will help or please. Being seen as good becomes the goal. In the second stage (the law and order stage), we start to equate “being good” with respecting authority and obeying the law, believing that this protects and sustains society.   The third level of moral development is when we move beyond simple conformity, but Kohlberg suggested that only around 10–15 percent of us ever reach this level. In its first stage (the social contract and individual rights stage), we still respect authority, but there is a growing recognition that individual rights can supersede laws that are destructive or restrictive. We come to realize that human life is more sacred than just following rules. The sixth and final stage (the stage of universal ethical principles) is when our own conscience becomes the ultimate judge, and we commit ourselves to equal rights and respect for all. We may even resort to civil disobedience in the name of universal principles, such as justice.   Kohlberg’s six-stage theory was considered radical, because it stated that morality is not imposed on children (as psychoanalysts said), nor is it about avoiding bad feelings (as the behaviorists had thought). Kohlberg believed children developed a moral code and awareness of respect, empathy, and love through interaction with others.

While limerence has been called love, it is not love. Although the limerent feels a kind of love for LO at the time, from LO’s point of view limerence and love are quite different from each other. It is limerence, not love, that increases when lovers are able to meet only infrequently or when there is anger between them. No wonder those who view limerence from an external vantage are baffled by what seems more a form of insanity than a form of love. Jean-Paul Sartre calls it a project with a “contradictory ideal.” He notes that each of the lovers seek the love of the other without realizing that what they want is to be loved. His conclusion is that the amorous relation is “a system of infinite reflections, a deceiving mirror game which carries within itself its own frustration,” a kind of “dupery.” It should also be clear now that limerent uncertainly as well as projection can be viewed as the consequence of your limerent inclination to hide your own feelings: If you hide your true reactions, then LO, if indeed limerent, can be expected to do the same. When LO appears not to be eager, or even interested, it is not unreasonable to interpret that behavior as evidence itself of limerence; and a kind of “paranoia” becomes an entirely logical consequence of a situation that may indeed be what Simone de Beauvoir has called it: “impossible.” Because one of the invariant characteristics of limerence is extreme emotional dependency on LO’s behavior, the actual course of the limerence must depend on the actions and reactions of both lovers. Uncertainty increases limerence; increased limerence dictates altered action which serves to increase or decrease limerence in the other according to the interpretation given. The interplay is delicate if the relationship hovers near mutuality; a subtle imbalance, constantly shifting, appears to maintain it. Each knows who “loves more.” If limerence were measurable by an instrument that enabled its intensity to be read by the points on a dial, one could imagine that, if lovers sat together reading each other’s degree of reciprocation, the dials would rarely if ever set themselves at the same point on the scales. For instance, if you found yourself more limerent than your partner, then your limerence might decline through reduced hope, or if your partner’s were higher, it might decline through reduced uncertainty. Perhaps such true awareness would provide a means of controlling the reaction.

According to the book of Genesis, “God created man in his own image.” According to Aristotle, “men create the gods after their own image.” As should be clear by now, Aristotle seems to have been onto something, especially when it comes to the minds of gods. So, in theory, some of the more basic features of the human mind should be fairly standard equipment in gods, especially the gods of “primitive” religions. That seems to be the case, and one of these features deserves special consideration: the part of the human mind shaped by the evolutionary dynamic known as “reciprocal altruism.” In light of this dynamic, much about the origin of religion, and for that matter much about contemporary religion, makes a new kind of sense. Thanks to reciprocal altruism, people are “designed” to settle into mutually beneficial relationships with other people, people whom they can count on for things ranging from food to valuable gossip to social support, and who in turn can count on them. We enter these alliances almost without thinking about it, because our genetically based emotions draw us in. We feel gratitude for a favor received, along with a sense of obligation, which may lead us to return the favor. We feel growing trust of and affection for people who prove reliable reciprocators (aka “friends”), which keeps us entwined in beneficial relationships. This is what feelings like gratitude and trust are for—the reason they’re part of human nature. But of course, not everyone merits our trust. Some people accept our gifts of food and never reciprocate, or try to steal our mates, or exhibit disrespect in some other fashion. And if we let people thus take advantage of us day after day, the losses add up. In the environment of our evolution, these losses could have made the difference between surviving and not surviving, between prolifically procreating and barely procreating. So natural selection gave us emotions that lead us to punish the untrustworthy—people who violate our expectations of exchange, people who seem to lack the respect that a mutually beneficial relationship demands. They fill us with outrage, with moral indignation, and that outrage—working as “designed” —impels us to punish them in one way or another, whether by actually harming them or just by withholding future altruism. That will teach them! (Perhaps more important, it will also teach anyone else who is watching, and in the ancestral hunter-gatherer environment, pretty much everyone in your social universe was watching.) This is the social context in which the human mind evolved: a world full of neighbors who, to varying degrees, are watching you for signs of betrayal or disrespect or dishonesty—and who, should they see strong evidence of such things, will punish you. In such a social universe, when misfortune comes your way, when someone hits you or ridicules you or suddenly gives you the cold shoulder, there’s a good chance it’s because they feel you’ve violated the rules of exchange. Maybe you’ve failed to do them some favor they think they were due, or maybe you’ve shown them disrespect by doing something that annoys them. Surely it is no coincidence that this generic explanation of why misfortune might emanate from a human being is also the generic explanation of why misfortune emanates from gods. In hunter-gatherer religions—and lots of other religions—when bad things happen, the root cause is almost always that people in one sense or another fail to respect the gods. They either fail to give gods their due (fail, say, to make adequate sacrifices to ancestral spirits), or they do things that annoy gods (like, say, making a noise while cicadas are singing). And the way to make amends to the aggrieved gods is exactly the way you’d make amends to aggrieved people: either give them something (hence ritual sacrifice), or correct future behavior so that it doesn’t annoy them (quit making noises while cicadas are singing).

... explained to him how nature is not criminal. How common it was for certain African men on expedition to engage in what might be called "reciprocal sex." How it was common for these men to declare more love for their boy wives than their girl wives. And then why wouldn't Sir Richard Oslet, the hunter said, allow himself, as such to no longer feel pain. And that was the moment, Oslet explained, when hge realized he loved Sowning, that what he had always felt for Downing was love, and Oslet begged Downing's forgiveness. But how could he possibly have know any sooner when there was no language to describe how he felt, no currency, and to even attempt to speak of it would have smacked of revolt, but hopeless revolt, one toward a freedom that Oslet knew did not exist. For Britian, didn't Downing know was perfectly to content to ignore them, so long as there was ambiguity. And hadn't Downing grown up reading, as Oslet had, for decades about the thousands of souls who tried to love one another unambiguously, or those who got caught and were tried allover England at the Courts of Assize, the quarter sessions, and hung? Was Downing so think as to be unaware of the Offenses Against the Person Act, asnd risk the bopth of them landing locked up for years as men were in Redding Jail... Nature, Oslet said the hunter had said, ... unlike man does nothing in vain. God is Nature, and because God is Nature, he created nothing in vain. Therefore, the soul can never expire. It is immortal and in perpetual transit.

Although an increasing number of girls have begun to participate in team (not individual) sports, most girls still do not compete as a group against another group of girls. Many girls still demand an egalitarian, dyadic reciprocity and are, therefore, more threatened by the slightest change in status. The dyad is the female equivalent of the hierarchically structured boys club. A change in status of one member of the dyad may mean that the entire club is endangered. According to Benenson and Bennaroch, “If a friend is succeeding in school, then the friend might be spending more time studying, or if the friend has a boyfriend, then she might be abandoning other friends to spend time with her boyfriend.” By contrast, boys who are members of the same group feel enhanced by the achievement of any other group member, even if he is a close friend.

Whenever you feel ‘short’ or in ‘need’ of something, give what you want first and it will come back in buckets. That is true for money, a smile, love, friendship. I know it is often the last thing a person may want to do, but it has always worked for me. I just trust that the principle of reciprocity is true, and I give what I want

What is love" was the most searched phrase on Google in 2012, according to the company. In an attempt to get to the bottom of the question once and for all, the Guardian has gathered writers from the fields of science, literature, religion and philosophy to give their definition of the much-pondered word. 카톡 ☎ ppt33 ☎ 〓 라인 ☎ pxp32 ☎ 홈피는 친추로 연락주세요 The physicist: 'Love is chemistry' Biologically, love is a powerful neurological condition like hunger or thirst, only more permanent. We talk about love being blind or unconditional, in the sense that we have no control over it. But then, that is not so surprising since love is basically chemistry. While lust is a temporary passionate sexual desire involving the increased release of chemicals such as testosterone and oestrogen, in true love, or attachment and bonding, the brain can release a whole set of chemicals: pheromones, dopamine, norepinephrine, serotonin, oxytocin and vasopressin. However, from an evolutionary perspective, love can be viewed as a survival tool – a mechanism we have evolved to promote long-term relationships, mutual defense and parental support of children and to promote feelings of safety and security. 요힘빈구입,요힘빈구매,요힘빈판매,요힘빈가격,요힘빈파는곳,요힘빈구입방법,요힘빈구매방법,요힘빈복용법,요힘빈부작용,요힘빈정품구입,요힘빈정품구매,요힘빈정품판매 Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. 아무런 말없이 한번만 찾아주신다면 뒤로는 계속 단골될 그런 자신 있습니다.저희쪽 서비스가 아니라 제품에대해서 자신있다는겁니다 팔팔정,구구정,네노마정,프릴리지,비맥스,비그알엑스,엠빅스,비닉스,센트립 등 많은 제품 취급합니다 확실한 제품만 취급하는곳이라 언제든 연락주세요 Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works. We're here to put a dent in the universe. Otherwise why else even be here? The only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn't matter to me ... Going to bed at night saying we've done something wonderful... that's what matters to me. I want to put a ding in the universe. Quality is more important than quantity. One home run is better than two doubles. Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. The philosopher: 'Love is a passionate commitment' The answer remains elusive in part because love is not one thing. Love for parents, partners, children, country, neighbor, God and so on all have different qualities. Each has its variants – blind, one-sided, tragic, steadfast, fickle, reciprocated, misguided, and unconditional. At its best, however, all love is a kind a passionate commitment that we nurture and develop, even though it usually arrives in our lives unbidden. That's why it is more than just a powerful feeling. Without the commitment, it is mere infatuation. Without the passion, it is mere dedication. Without nurturing, even the best can wither and die. The romantic novelist: 'Love drives all great stories' What love is depends on where you are in relation to it. Secure in it, it can feel as mundane and necessary as air – you exist within it, almost unnoticing. Deprived of it, it can feel like an obsession; all consuming, a physical pain. Love is the driver for all great stories: not just romantic love, but the love of parent for child, for family, for country. It is the point before consummation of it that fascinates: what separates you from love, the obstacles that stand in its way. It is usually at those points that love is everything.

Eventually Win had accepted that the feelings she had for Merripen were not reciprocated. She had even cried on Leo's shoulder. Her brother had pointed out that she had seen very little of the world and knew next to nothing about men. "Don't you think it's possible your attachment to Merripen was a result of proximity as much as anything else?" Leo had asked gently. "Let's look at the situation honestly, Win. You have nothing in common with him. You're a lovely, sensitive, literate woman, and he's… Merripen. He likes to chop wood for entertainment. And apparently it falls to me to point out the indelicate truth that some couples are well-suited in the bedroom but not anywhere else." Win had been shocked out of her tears by his blunt-ness. "Leo Hathaway, are you suggesting-" "Lord Ramsay now, thank you," he had teased. "Lord Ramsay, are you suggesting that my feelings for Merripen arc carnal in nature?" "They're certainly not intellectual," Leo had said, and grinned as she punched him in the shoulder.

Social support is not the same as merely being in the presence of others. The critical issue is reciprocity: being truly heard and seen by the people around us, feeling that we are held in someone else’s mind and heart. For our physiology to calm down, heal, and grow we need a visceral feeling of safety.

Social support is not the same as merely being in the presence of others. The critical issue is reciprocity: being truly heard and seen by the people around us, feeling that we are held in someone else’s mind and heart.

Romanticism is a philosophy of intuitive agreement. In real love, there is no need tiresomely to articulate or spell things out. When two people belong together, there is simply - at long last - a wandrous reciprocal feeling that both parties see the world in precisely the same way.