How YOU CAN Redevelop Strong, Healthy EMOTIONAL Connections After Heartbreak. Enter the Happy Zone!

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Your Parents and Grandparents Laid a Decent Foundation of Love for You, and Someone Blew It All Up!  Not to Worry -- You CAN Fix It! 💫

Human beings are triangular in nature in that they have three main sides and they connect with others around them using all three of those sides.  

You were cared for fairly well as a child and though your parents were not perfect, you had a deep, inner knowing that you were loved and protected.  This is important in identifying the proper audience for this article because other scenarios require much different processes in order to build healthy emotional connections.  The physical connection is usually the easiest to make with another person, but you must be careful not to mistake this as a whole relationship.  


Let's say your first love relationship was primarily based on vanity.  He thought you were hot so you decided to go out with him.  In his infatuation, he showered you with simple, yet thoughtful gifts and promised his undying devotion.  He listened to everything you had to say, but he never really talked....just nodded.  After nine to 12 months of dating, he'd grown on you and you both decided to marry.


Six months into the marriage, you realized there was an emptiness about him.  You met his mom prior to marrying him, and she had been somewhat cold, only concerned about what he could do for her.  In fact, you noticed that your husband treated his mom like your dad treats your mom.  The relationship was a bit skewed from your cultural vantage point.  To make a long story short, it became clear to you, after your first child was born, that your husband had never seen a man love a woman (outside of the movies) and therefore he did not know how to love you either.

You are an emotional, physical and spiritual being.  For the purposes of this article, we will stick to your three dimensional self because anything above that is gravy or icing on the cake.

I have chosen not to include a mental side because it has been proven that mental processes are physically based, emotionally inspired and spiritually discerned.  Basically, if the physical, spiritual and emotional sides of you are healthy, you are likely mentally sound.  

Physical connections are the easiest for humans to make, however one of the main points in this article is to show how emotional connections are important also.  Most of you are born with natural urges and desires to be cared for and these desires begin very selfishly at birth:  Satisfy my needs.  

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The 5 Love Languages: 

The Secret to Love that Lasts 


To Have Your Physical Needs Met Is Vital, But Can Leave You Feeling Incomplete and Lonely.

All of the babies in Russian orphanages are fed, however you have only to look at a few adoption stories to learn that babies that do not receive love and nurture suffer great emotional and physical distress.  Let us look at some important definitions using the Oxford Dictionary:

Nurture:  to care for and encourage the growth or development of.

Love:  minimally conditional deep adoration and affection toward someone or something

There is one important word missing from the definition of nurture:  consistency.  When someone is consistently doing what is good for you, they become trustworthy in a positive way.  Trust that someone will consistently affect you positively by caring for you and encouraging your development is an open door to love in relationships. Additionally, what you adore and have deep affection for is typically what you are familiar with, therefore cultural similarities help with building emotional connections, which we will discuss later.

Let's go back in time a bit...babies who do not sense adoration or affection from their caretakers usually show the following characteristics per goodtherapy.com:

  • Numbing out” or being cut off from one’s feelings
  • Feeling like there’s something missing, but not being sure what it is
  • Feeling hollow inside
  • Being easily overwhelmed or discouraged (high stress levels)
  • Low self-esteem
  • Perfectionism
  • Pronounced sensitivity to rejection
  • Lack of clarity regarding others’ expectations and your own expectations for yourself
Adults exhibit the very same qualities in relationships where they feel they are not nurtured, loved or developed in the three main sides of themselves; physical, emotional and spiritual.

Can Adults Build New Emotional Connections?

Absolutely, you can!  There are many ways in which this can be done so know that there is hope in experiencing real love again:

  1. You and your partner must truly want a relationship with each other.  Before you can proceed with anything else in the remainder of this article, you MUST understand the importance of lines 1 and 2 of this section!  You will be surprised to know how many people are in relationships that started out AND continued as mere physical attractions.  After months of interacting, these couples realize they have nothing in common (except for sex) and do not enjoy being together, yet they carry on until one of them cannot take it anymore.  At this point, it becomes a test in resolve.  Who can take the pain longer than the other party?  What is the answer to determining whether or not you want a whole relationship with someone?  DATE!  Get to know people.  See how they handle crowds and being around other people when they are with you.  Determine their hang ups and what type of relationship they want to have.  Ensure that your primary love languages are compatible with each other.  If things get serious, you NEED to understand and witness their family dynamics because this is how they deal with others, consciously or subconsciously -- no matter what they tell you.  Ask them about their parents and try to determine if they have resolved any conflict with them.  Give your potential mates (at least three months) to take their masks off and show you if what they have said to you about who they are is really true.  Don't try to interview them, just give them time to come out!  If you are hot and heavy to enter commitment right now, slow your roll! To women who are in relationships with men, ensure you understand the differences between men and women so you don't assume something is a problem when it's just a normal man thing (that's an entirely different article).
  2. You and your partner must be aware of how your pasts affect you.  So you have decided to stop serial dating and you have honed in on someone you feel is a good match for you.  They're not perfect, but they are willing to do something concrete to improve in areas where personal or relationship help is needed.  This is the point where you should consider couple's counseling or therapy.  Depending upon whether or not you both place a life focus on spirituality, you may decide to choose a spiritual counselor to assist you with your relationship journey.  The key point is to deal with personal and relational shortcomings and to come up with healthy resolve and coping skills to be successful in a relationship.  If they leave all of the work of finding a counselor up to you, especially when they are the one with all the problems, DO NOT proceed to step 3...go back to step 1!
  3. Common cultures help in establishing emotional bonds.  Many couples, specifically in the west, are entering into cross-cultural and interracial relationships.  This adds a new dynamic in that your interpersonal, family and social interactions could add challenges to relationships that are already challenging enough.  Time and strength of friendship between the two of you are really important in facing unique obstacles that may be presented inside or outside of your relationship.  Give yourself extra time to develop your emotional connections and be sure to have frank, safe discussions about how you will handle various situations as they occur. Spend time with and in the other culture and NEVER act like a guru of the culture you were not born into.
  4. Purposely create segments of time (Happy Zones) -- one within a 24-hour period -- where both you and your partner are allowed to feel pure, non-sexual happiness in each other's presence.  You have five main emotions:  anger, sadness, happiness/enjoyment, fear and disgust.  Sorry, sexual attraction is not an emotion.  ALL emotions are healthy, however if they are out of balance, then the emotional connection becomes unhealthy.  Much of what could be considered as out of balance should have been dealt with in numbers 1 and 2, however stuff happens as you go through life so maintenance and recalibration are ALWAYS needed.  If you are having trouble naturally feeling happiness, then plan to feel happiness by scheduling an event together (not sex) for a prescribed amount of time (30 minutes to 1.5 hours) where both you and your partner are pretty much guaranteed to feel happiness. You may decide to go to the zoo; for a ride in the car to see a naturally, beautiful landscape or monument; to a Nascar event; whatever you BOTH will enjoy.  This is NOT the time to do something that only your partner wants.  Also, remember safety is a big part of happiness so NEVER bring up intimate conversations that have taken place between you in a sensitive therapy session or otherwise, to use them as a weapon against your partner in an argument or as a topic of regular conversation. Judgement-free interactions are vital to developing happy connections -- you are in the Happy Zone.  You can't fix everything by talking about it all the time, just enjoy yourselves.  I am not advocating sweeping situations under the rug, just stressing that Happy Zones are not the place to bring them up.
  5. Give yourself time to settle into your new sense of emotional balance.  It can take weeks or months to develop healthy emotional connections, but it does not take forever.  If you have already been broken by previous relationships, give yourself at least a month of happy emotional connections, with a couple of days between Happy Zones with your partner, to allow your new emotional bonds to solidify.  Do not discuss relationship issues or problems within a 24 hour period after entering a Happy Zone.  Also, I reiterate no more than one Happy Zone in a day, especially if you are in the process of building broken emotional connections.  Once you get the hang of a few Happy Zones, you can extend their length, however they should last no more than four hours at a time, and longer zones should only occur toward the end of the first month of emotional tie building.  Don't start building emotional bonds by taking a two week vacation to a remote island....not a good idea.
Happy new relationship building! 💕