Absurd Proposal
Though not nonplussed at having lost her virginity, Nithya, nevertheless, began pressuring Vasu for the nuptial. Yet, his assurances to tie the knot made her give him more of her own that was till she felt he was taking it easy. When she began denying him the good time to drive home her point that only made him indignant, she could figure out the consequences of his indifference. Thus, feeling vulnerable, she forced herself to humour him even more furthering his fulfillment all the more. But even as he procrastinated over their nuptial, his seed began to evolve in her womb and things came to a head when she missed her periods.
When confronted with the development, Vasu could dodge no more, and spilled the beans.
"I understand your embarrassment," he began.
"What an understatement!" she said in consternation.
"We shouldn't have jumped the gun."
"It's neither here nor there," she said, worried over his prevarication.
"Why worry," he said taking her hand, "as I'm around still."
"Better you rush to your parents now," she said as her voice reflected her sense of urgency. "We should get married before my morning sickness shows up."
"Don't I know about that, but...."
"But what?" she interrupted him in alarm.
"Why are you so impatient?"
"Do remember," she said turning apprehensive, "you promised to marry me."
"I'm here to keep my word."
"Then why dilly-dally?"
"Our marriage is not the problem," he said affecting confusion. "The predicament is how to go about it."
"You always sounded confident, didn't you?"
"I am all for marrying you," he said assuming a melancholic pose. "But there are other things in the way. Those that make life what it is."
"What are you trying to convey?" she became nervous.
"I'm too confused for that."
"What confusion?"
"Now I'm trapped between two stools," he said affecting pain. "I can't extricate myself without disturbing either or both. That's my predicament."
"Is it the time to beat around the bush?" she asked in vexation. "Don't you understand my position? Are your parents against our marriage or what?"
"If it were so," he said assuming an air of arrogance, "I would've walked out on them long back and led you to the Registrar's Office straightaway. But my dilemma is different."
"What's that?" she said, perplexed.
"Promise me," he said outstretching his right palm, "you won't take it amiss."
"Oh, tell me," she said brushing his hand aside.
"We've to contend with Prema."
"Who's she?"
"She's my betrothed," he said nonchalantly.
"What!" she exclaimed, unable to believe her ears.
"We were engaged shortly before I met you."
"What do you mean?" she nearly fainted.
"Don't get upset," he said, trying to comfort her, "listen to me fully."
"How could you do this to me?"
"Oh, please listen," he tried to appease her, "I'll explain everything."
"What else can I do now?" she sounded helpless. "After all, haven't I compromised myself?"
"Don't get depressed," he said trying to sound genuine. "I would never swap her for you. I wouldn't do that even with a Helen for sure. Just try to understand my situation."
"I'm confused really."
"Don't be impatient," he said. "We'll sort out things."
"You should've had me," she blurted out, "only after sorting out things."
"Well, I'll explain."
"Does it make any difference to me now?" she said, wearily.
"When I became a probationary officer, Prema was proposed to me," he said, weighing his words as though he was a tutored witness in the court. "It was a dream match, whichever way one may look at it. We got engaged before I came here for the training. How could I have known that you'd come into my life? The moment I saw you, I was lost in love. The day I was sure of your love, I wrote to my father to cancel the engagement."
"What did he say?" she couldn't help enquiring.
"He said it would put him in a spot," he paused as though to let her prepare for the blow to follow. "He said he used the dowry he took to clear the debts. If I go back now, he will be obliged to return the amount and that would push us back into the debt trap all again. What's worse, it would jeopardize our position in the biradari. So he pleaded that he be spared all this in his old age. Can't you understand my predicament? I've a balancing act to do now and you can see how hard it is on me as well."
"If anything, it's harder on me, especially with your child in my womb. Its time you realize that," she said spiritedly. "Well, I see a way out. Let's take a loan to return the dowry. I'll take up a job and help you tighten our belts as well. It's only a matter of time before we come out clean."
"I don't think it's not workable," he said sounding sentimental. "Besides making me feel like a drag on your life that would only bring me back to square one. Didn't I tell you I always felt deprived, being born poor? Being a Class One Officer, I still feel insecure. While our tightened belts would only reinforce my deprived feeling, the debt trap could make me feel all the more insecure. Moreover, when the novelty wears off, I may even perceive you as the cause of my discomfiture. What's worse, our marriage itself could be on the rocks due to domestic discords."
"All that could be true," she said, as he felt relieved. "But, what's the alternative?"
"There is one," he said seemingly in hesitation, "if you could take it."
"Tell me."
"That is, he said, 'if you believe that I am yours first and last."
"If not," she said a little relieved, "do you think I would've given myself to you?"
"Prema is stinking rich," he began taking her hand as though to make her a co-conspirator.
"Now I see," she said pulling back in vexation, "why you are ditching me."
"If you think I am marrying her for money," he said seemingly offended, "she is no less a stunner than you."
"Oh, the novelty seems to have worn off already!" she said as sarcastically as she could while trying not to feel helpless. "Why not, haven't you had enough of me already?"
"I'm sorry," he said cajolingly, "I didn't mean to hurt you. I'm just explaining things. Believe me, life for me without you would be like going through the motions. But without wealth it comes to the same in spite of you. Had you come into my life straight away, it would've been like living in heaven in your wifely fold. But this turn of events gave me the opportunity of my life that is hard to miss. And hadn't you come into my life, I would've been happy still, living with her, unaware of what fulfillment could really be with a woman. To be or not to be, that's my dilemma."
"Better realize that you can't have the cake and eat it too," she said as she readied herself to force the issue. "You've to take your pick, now and here. Well, as you have made your inclinations apparent, I won't bank upon your love anyway. I can only appeal to your conscience, that too because of my condition. If only I were not carrying, seeing how you are dodging, I would've walked out on you by now. Now I know what a woman loses by compromising herself. Anyway, it's too late in the day for me to think of it."
"I know you're hurt," he said. "As I understand your vexation, you should also realize I too have my qualms. I've been troubled ever since we've got physically close. That very night I thought of running away from you. But your beauty and my love immobilized me."
"Now that you're satiated," she hissed at him venomously, "why don't you admit it's just lust with you."
"Even if you take it that way," he said, "a lifetime of sex with you won't be enough to quench my thirst for you. And the truth is, I'm passionately in love with you. You know I've got addicted to you, thanks to the ardor of your amour. Without you I would go mad indeed."
"Keeping my fate in balance," she said in agony, "you're killing me with your falsity."
"If you go with my proposal," he said as if to tilt the balance, "everything would turn out fine in the end."
"What's that?" she enquired in spite of herself.
"With your parents' blessings," he said taking her hand, "we'll have a civil marriage."
"What about your parents?"
"We'll keep them out of the loop for a while."
"But why?" she said removing her hand from his.
"It's my idea of our love," he said regaining her hand, "to save our love. In turn, I'll marry Prema without your parents' getting wiser to it. Slowly but steadily, we can prepare her and all, to the reality of our lives."
"What an absurd proposal!" she said in remorse.
"I agree it's unusual," he said disarmingly. "But that suits us admirably."
"I will be a game," she said having read his game in the meantime, "if only you make Prema privy to this plan."
"It's an absurd proposal really."
"Why! Won't it suit you fine, either way?" she said pinning him down. "If she agrees, you would've us both and should she back out, your father needn't return the money. Wouldn't that remove the hurdle to our marriage? You know it would."
"Doubt if it works out that way," he said lacking any conviction in what he said.
"Why don't you admit," she jeered at him, "that you don't want it that way."
"When I'm frank with you," he sounded arguing for a lost case, "I expect a better understanding than that. How do you expect me to tell my betrothed that I've a pregnant lover? But after marriage it would be all so different. Won't the closeness of marriage call for compromises?"
"Now, I understand your method," she said in apparent hatred. "Lure women into bed to make them vulnerable, and then force compromises upon them. You want to make her your wife for money and retain me as your keep to pep up your sex life!"
"If I were as mean as you imagine," he said playing his sincerity card to the hilt, "wouldn't I have married you on the sly?"
"Oh, you're too clever for that," she said in exasperation. "You're no fool to bite more than you can chew. You know you would come to grief fighting on two fronts. So you've hit upon this strategy of smothering me before tackling her. If you can coerce me now, you think you can cajole her later. It calls for an evil genius to come up with such a devious plan."
"Am I expected to take all this rubbish?" he said feigning anger.
"Why, were you to fail with her later," she continued her tirade against him, "you would have me still, won't you? What's more, her money too, for I'm sure you would make some of hers yours without losing any time. And in case you can't sell your idea to me, still you would've a beautiful wife, and all her money. Either way, you know, you would gain more than you can lose. How cleverly you got into a win-win position!"
"You're attributing motives," he said sounding sad, "to a victim of circumstances."
"On the other hand," she said in pain, "you've made me a victim to better your circumstances. Betrothed though, you wormed your way into my life with the idea of making me your keep."
"Do blame me but spare my love," he said affecting distress. "I love you, and I want you forever. I know that you love me too. Don't break our hearts and make life bleak for both of us."
"So much for our love," she said broaching the topic of her embarrassment, "what about your child in my womb?"
"He would be my first born, won't he?"
"You mean the first bastard?" she said in all sarcasm. "Oh, you've determined the sex of our child beforehand! You seem to be cock sure in all you do, don't you?"
"Don't be harsh!" he said taken aback at her resistance. "Didn't I tell you it's time I owned up you up as my wife?"
"What if you fail to keep your word?" she said in vexation. "Won't that leave our child illegitimate and keep me ever your keep?"
"Believe me."
"You mean I should believe you after what all you've done to me?" she said rebelliously. "What if I reject your proposal?"
"Then unfortunately for both of us," he said after a pause, "we've to go our separate ways."
"Well," she said resolutely, "before that see the child goes out of the way."
"Don't be in a hurry," he tried to sound even more persuasive. "What if we make up in the end? Won't we feel sorry then?"
"You know it brooks no delay, don't you?"
"I'm hopeful," he said reaching for her hand, "our love would make us cling together through thick and thin."
"So you want me to let it grow so that I would've nowhere else to go."
"I don't want to lose you if I can help it," he said not giving up. "You may call me mean that way."
"Haven't I got the taste of your meanness already?" she said, "But if you help me get aborted, I may still feel that there is something left to be salvaged in your character."
"I'm still hopeful."
"That's another way of saying that you won't like to pick up the bill," she said sarcastically. "A rupee saved is a rupee earned, isn't it? Who knows about it better than you, a bank officer opting for mercenary marriage?"
"Well, there's a limit even for insulting."
"Thanks for reminding me about the limits," she said unable to control her tears. "Didn't I bring it upon myself by crossing my limits? Had I not given myself to you, you would've found it hard to decide which way to go now. Having given in myself, I've lost my aura, and having had me, you've lost your appetite. Where's the incentive to marry me now?"
"You're cross with me as you've misunderstood me," he said trying to gain control over her. "But don't nurse hatred for me. Our destinies might still bring us together. Won't the intimacy of the old times usher in fresh tidings then? When the dust of your misgivings settles down, I'm sure we won't be able to resist each other any time."
"I would like to forget you in double quick time," she said as she left him in a huff. "How I wish I had never met you at all. Let the devil take you."
As she walked out on him, she was consumed by hatred.
'Why not I kill him and avenge myself?' she thought on her way. 'But that would only ruin my life further and scandalize my family even more. Let him go to hell. I better think about how to get out of this mess.'
As she walked her way home, she turned her attention on self-preservation.
'I've to handle my parents first,' she contemplated. 'They're sure to smell a rat, sooner than later. Better I tell them that he backed out because of parental opposition. Why, they are bound to be disappointed if not shaken. All the same, how their enthusiasm for him surged my own infatuation. Didn't they make it appear as though all was over bar tying the knot? How sad that I got carried away only to end up being pregnant! Oh, how fate has contrived a parental part in my downfall!'
'What a paradox pregnancy for women is,' Nithya thought that night. 'If a married conceives, it's a cause for celebration, but with an unmarried, it's a means of castigation. After all, man doesn't have any bother in this regard, but then, someone has to bell the cat of nature's urge for procreation. At least, he should've got the decency to arrange for the abortion. But the bastard seems to have designs on me into the future as well. He may even resort to blackmail to entrap me all again. Will he ever allow me to live in peace? Oh, what a devil have I courted?'
As she imagined his shadow on her future, she was frightened no end.
'Had I not conceived,' she reasoned, 'it wouldn't have been so tough on me. Well, I wouldn't have made myself as vulnerable to his blackmail later. Won't it pay to take precautions for women in love to save their skin? Why, the hymen would go away anyway but how can any be wiser to the coitus that caused its rupture? Whatever, I've to get on to the table straight away for there is no other way.'
'Is death the only solution to my predicament?' she thought as the hypocrisy of women's chastity seemed an irony to her. 'Oh no, what dreams I had for my life! But, how sour they all turned out to be! And that's another story. Now, before all else, I should get out of this mess. But how am I to go about it? That's the big question! And what of the future threat from him? Well, I would see how to deal with him later, if he ever returns.'
This is an eponymous episode from the author's third novel 'Crossing the Mirage - Passing through youth' that is a free ebook in the public domain
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Deepening Your Personal Relationships: Developing Emotional Intimacy and Good Communication
Deepening Your Personal Relationships: Developing Emotional Intimacy and Good Communication
(ISBN: 978-1-61897-590-4)
Looking for Better Relationships? Let the Experts Tell You How!
Deepening Your Personal Relationships was written by three experts in the field. Their combined expertise will help you in Developing Emotional Intimacy and Good Communication, which will be beneficial in all types of relationships.
Everyone wants to improve and deepen their relationships. The book explains how to achieve healthy and fulfilling interpersonal relationships by using effective communication, empathy, shared transformational development, and constructive conflict resolution to achieve this aim. Deepening Your Personal Relationships provides original, meaningful, and transformational insights that are especially helpful in understanding how to overcome our subconscious resistance against emotional intimacy and good communication. The goal is to understand how good relationships can produce enhanced levels of spiritual development, psychological healing, self-understanding, creative functioning, inner peace, happiness, and ultimately, fulfillment in life. A section on improving society through enhancing interpersonal relationships is also included.
Thus, readers wanting to enhance their personal relationships, gain insight into transformational self-help, and achieve social transformation will find this book especially helpful. The authors anticipate that this book will also be of keen interest to professional relationship counselors, including marriage counselors, family counselors, and conflict mediators, as well as community organizers and social activists.
Targeted Age Group:: Adults and Teens
What Inspired You to Write Your Book?
We were inspired to write this book as a way of helping readers understand how to develop psychologically healthy, fulfilling interpersonal relationships, with true love, good communication (i.e., open, honest, direct/non-evasive, nonjudgmental/non-blaming, respectful, communication). Another related goal was to help readers understand and overcome the ego’s fearful, narcissistic, attempt to undermine the development of experiential closeness or caring intimacy in relationships. Furthermore, we sought to alert readers to how good relationships can contribute to the development of greater levels of psychological wellbeing, genuine self-understanding, and spiritual awakening. We authors are deeply saddened to see many potentially beautiful and happy relationships fail because of the lack of public understanding of psychological factors that can facilitate or impede the development of true love, experiential intimacy, and good communication; and that is the primary reason why we feel a responsibility to make our combined insights available to the public.
Book Sample
Excerpt from the Introduction of the Book:
Some of the basic components of a real, lasting relationship that will be discussed more extensively in this book (especially a more detailed description of the basic components in chapter 1) are summarized as follows:
1) Relating to the person and not the persona. One is in a real relationship with another individual to the degree that one relates to what is actually experientially real in the other person, from moment to moment, rather than relating to what the other individual offers up as a self-concept, or to the concepts, images, and presumptive interpretations that we project or superimpose upon the other. In addition, one must offer up to the other what is experientially real in himself or herself, rather than offering some idealized conceptual self-definition, or predetermined psychosocial mask, with which one is identified.
2) Growth-oriented rather than object-oriented: An optimal real relationship offers opportunities for transformational developmental growth of liberating new insight, leading to more fulfilling ways of functioning, or living, rather than being locked into predetermined ways of relating and functioning, as well as holding predetermined views of oneself, the other person, and the relationship itself. Openness to liberating new insights can significantly enhance the functioning of each of the individuals in the relationship, as well as enhance the functioning of the relationship itself, arousing what is most creatively empowering, productive, revealing, constructive, vibrantly alive, healing, transformational, and spontaneous in each individual, as well as in their relationship. Later in this book, we will also discuss how a pseudo-relationship, egoistic relationship, or object relationship is devoted to making an object of the other person, meaning the person views the other as a defined interpretive label and controlled possession, or an “It,” in Martin Buber’s terminology (reference note 3), rather than empathically tuning into their living energy presence and experiential states, or what Buber calls the “Thou,” and valuing the other individual and one’s relationship with them for its own sake, primarily, rather than just valuing them for the sake of some kind of egoistic gratification that they are expected to provide. That kind of predetermined, controlling way of relating to another individual restricts rather than enhances the transformational growth of each individual, and of the relationship itself, in contrast to relationships in which greater levels of openness, flexibility, insight, and creative transformation exist. When the other person relates to you with what is experientially real in themselves, it will naturally trigger in you a spontaneous experiential reaction, which if observed non-dualistically and non-judgmentally will yield creative self-understanding, (reference note 4), which in turn will serve as the basis of transformation into more fulfilling levels of psychological functioning, or psychological growth. (We are using the terms “creative self-understanding” and “genuine understanding of others” to refer to insights that come from direct experience and from openness to the deepest core of one’s own being–unrestricted and undistorted by any preconceived interpretive presumptions). In contrast to a growth-oriented relationship, an object relationship exists if one relates primarily not to the whole person, but rather, to the particular aspect of another person that one can exploit for one’s own gratification. In such a relationship, there is an attempt to prevent the other person from outgrowing old habits and growing in real self-understanding and self-transformation because that prevention of growth guarantees that one will not lose the particular aspect of the other individual that one is using for self-gratification. For example, a dependent person makes you feel strong, so you do not want her to outgrow her dependency.
3) Unconditional acceptance of the whole person: One is open to and non-judgmentally accepting of the whole of the other person, and not just focusing selectively upon whatever partial aspects of them relate to one’s own perceived need for gratification. Unless you are first able to accept yourself unconditionally, you are not free to accept the other person unconditionally, and be in a real relationship with them. For example, if you label yourself as weak and insecure, and you seek to compensate for those traits through the relationship, you will look for and accept only strength and security in the other individual, and reject all other contradictory traits.
True love is not selective, not a positive value judgment, not a conditional intense favorable valuing, an extreme approval, a conditional acceptance, of preferred or desired partial aspects of the other individual, but, rather, love is an unconditional acceptance of and appreciative empathic attunement to the whole other person, including their indivisible whole life energy presence, and all of its natural expressions and genuine experiential aspects. The whole of the other person is perfect to us, or beyond conditional approval and disapproval, but not perfect as an idealized image of unrealistic infatuation projected onto the other individual, conditionally value judged extremely positively, or extremely favorably, for partial aspects of him or herself that conform to our own selective preferences, expectations, needs, and fantasies; instead, the beloved is unconditionally accepted as being of absolute value as a living energy presence. When we truly love someone, we do not conditionally value them only when they conform to our own selective needs, expectations, needs, and fantasies; instead, the beloved is unconditionally accepted as being of absolute value as a living energy presence.
To truly love someone is to relate to, appreciate, and cherish what is actually, naturally real in them, rather than projecting imaginary idealized images and valuing that in them. We intuitively recognize that the beloved simply feels right for us, they simply belong with us, their energy presence feels like a naturally compatible “good fit” with ours. We intuitively recognize a deep sense of mutual inner familiarity with the distinctive life energy presence of the other individual, so our love or caring is not dependent or conditional upon the other individual conforming to some kind of idealized image of perfection, demanding expectations, or preconceived roles. That intuited sense of natural relatedness of being, inherent belonging, or inner familiarity enables individuals to remain unselfishly devoted to one another and to unconditionally remain together “for better or for worse,” as suggested by the traditional marriage vow, but also applicable to other kinds of non-marital caring relationships.
True love is enduring, not temporary, for it is not dependent upon any conditional reason (there is no “I love you because….”); it is not conditional, because our intuitive recognition of natural relatedness of being or inner familiarity does not depend on changing circumstances or upon altering or distorting the other person’s natural real being, experience, and expressions. True love is free of conditional valuing based on self-seeking motives, so our love does not depend on, or is not conditional upon, having the beloved provide us with intense feelings of excitation and gratification (be they sexual, sensual, intellectual, emotional, entertaining, financial, etc.). We love the other person for their own sake, and are contented to relate to what is actually experientially real and spontaneously natural in them, regardless of whether they gratify particular needs, ideals, fantasies, and expectations that we may value.
True love is sufficient unto itself, and therefore unconditional, because it is fully satisfying to the core of our being, even if it does not satisfy the ego’s conditional expectations and needs. True love can be unconditional and without excessive self-seeking motives because it arises from an intuited sense of contentment, relaxed security, and inner wholeness of being, in contrast to relationships focusing on seeking gratification of insatiable, often unreasonable, impatient, intensely demanding needs arising from the ego’s basic sense of deficiency, discontent, or lack of intrinsic wholeness, security, and wellbeing.
Because love is the essential core of life energy, it is the one basic comprehensive passion, which subsumes all of the natural constructive wholesome passions of life within itself. Perhaps all, or most, hungers, appetites, yearnings, or aspirations, are ultimately derived from, and satisfied by, the natural hunger to experience the connective energy of loving warmth in the core of the heart, as an optimal experience of wholeness, security, sweetness, beauty, grandeur, charm (wonder-full enchantment), and joyful vitality.
True love unconditionally accepts, warmly embraces, and cherishes, all that is truly real and natural in the beloved, because true joy, vitality, and beauty is found only in what is real and natural, and cannot be found in any kind of imaginary ideal or preconceived demanding expectation, which only imitates the true goodness of life energy, like a lifeless statue, doll, idol, photo, or portrait. The true goodness of the relational reality of life as love can be found, contacted, experienced only when we are contented to contact the immediacy or undefinable mystery of another person’s undivided whole being without superimposing any preconceived agendas of the controlling, selective, distorting, manipulative, ego-mind.
4) No Manipulation. Manipulation converts the other person into an object for your own exploitation. Manipulation can be overt, viewing relationships as forms of combat, such as, battles to be won and objects or possessions to be manipulated, maneuvered, managed, controlled, which affirms the ego’s power to control, as an illusory sense of security. Subtle forms of manipulation can involve insisting on tangible signs and symbols of love, as a way of enhancing the ego’s fragile sense of self-esteem and emotional security, rather than developing the ability to directly, intuitively, empathically experience another individual’s love for oneself, without demanding such tangible signs and symbols as “proof.”
5) Communication and Understanding: A Real relationship requires a sense of existential relatedness, inner connection, or shared experience, derived from a mutual understanding between the two individuals, at any given moment. This understanding involves a process of empathic communion, producing immediate, non-presumptively mediated, experiential knowledge of the other individual. True understanding is possible only when communication is open, honest, nonjudgmental, non-evasive, and unimpaired.
6) Commitment: For a real relationship to exist, or to develop, there must be a commitment to unconditional acceptance of what is naturally real in the other individual, without necessarily condoning inappropriate attitudes and non-constructive behaviors that are not intrinsic to the other individual’s natural being, but rather, acquired or learned patterns. Commitment involves being devoted to the constructive developmental growth and wellbeing of the other person, and to openness and honesty in communication even when it might possibly result in emotional pain, discomfort, or constructive conflict in the relationship.
7) Investment: Investment involves a mutual reaching out to the other person for contact. Each individual must go outside oneself and give of oneself to the other, and not expect the other to go the whole way in bridging the psychological gap between the two. The investment is like a seed that we plant in the other individual, and permit the other to plant in us, with the hope that the other will nourish it with the warmth of their caring so that one day it will grow and blossom into a flower of fulfillment. The one in whom we invest is the one we entrust with our most fragile self, and we risk that the other will shelter it so that there will be an opportunity for it to grow or be outgrown rather than being rejected or buried by us.
8) Compatibility of values. To accomplish deep mutual understanding and experiential intimacy, the two individuals must share a compatibility of values. Their primary value, that which they hold most dear, and are least likely to surrender, should be basically the same for the two, or at least compatible. Basic compatibility produces mutual empathic understanding of one another. Thus, the compatibility of basic values serves as the uniting force that connects the two individuals, although their more surface values differ. Even though, over the years, one or both individuals may grow psychologically, develop new interests and goals, or change in his or her bodily appearance, their sense of union or psychological connection is unaffected because it exists at a deeper level.
9) Respect. Without it, a relationship is object manipulation. Respect involves permitting the other to be a separate and whole person in her/his own right, rather than just an extension of you. Respect grants the other individual the natural right to have interests, goals, and needs of her/his own, apart from you. You recognize that the other individual is not your possession. You treat the other individual as an adult, as intrinsically equal to you in value and freedom, which means not taking the other individual for granted. Although this other person may always do certain things for you as an expression of caring, you should not come to expect those things to be done for you, and should never demand anything. Instead, recognize that all that the other person does for you comes out of caring, not obligation.
10) Empathy: This involves the ability and willingness to feel what the other person is feeling. It involves the ability to transcend one’s own psychological boundaries and to “stand in the other person’s shoes,” psychologically speaking, or to empathically tune into the other individual’s experiential frame of reference or view of reality. This involves the ability to perceive and experience the world, or particular situations and issues, as the other person does. Without it, one is not able to make full experiential contact with the other person, which is necessary to provide optimal understanding and experiential closeness.
11) Trust. Trust involves a relative state of assurance that if one leaves oneself vulnerable to the other individual, he/she will not take advantage of that state of vulnerability to inflict emotional pain on you. Trust implies accepting a degree of uncertainty. It involves a risk or a feeling of some degree of vulnerability. Without trust, a real relationship cannot survive, because you hold yourself back in terms of what you expose and give to the other individual.
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Psychological Healing Through Creative Self-Understanding and Self-Transformation
Buyer’s Guide: Psychological Healing Through Creative Self-Understanding and Self-Transformation by Max Hammer, Barry Hammer, Alan C. Butler
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Targeted Age Group: adults
Category: Personal Growth
Print book price range: $19.11-$28.50
eBook price range: $9.99-$9.99
About Psychological Healing Through Creative Self-Understanding and Self-Transformation:
Psychological Healing Through Creative Self-Understanding and Self-Transformation
Are you ready for psychological healing? This book is your liberating guide to psychological growth, including self-understanding, self-transformation, healing psychologically painful inner conflicts, as well as achieving psychological and spiritual fulfillment. Some aspects of psychological health and fulfillment clarified in this book include, authenticity, sincerity, integrity, creativity, intuition, empathy, inspiration, vitality, courage, strength of character, unselfish love (or warmhearted caring), emotional security, inner wholeness, and fulfillment.
Readers will discover a new understanding of effective psychotherapy, groundbreaking diagnostic psychological testing research, as well as the distinction between the ego self-concept, the experiential self, and the transpersonal self (the real self, the relational self, or the holistic self).
The authors deeply explored their own psychological pain and experiential truth to write this book, as a way of helping readers achieve greater self-understanding, fulfillment, and liberation from psychological pain. These principles of psychological self-understanding and healing self-transformation can also enhance the development of interpersonal relationships, as well as facilitate effective and fulfilling ways of living in society. Self-transformation at your fingertips!
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