- Blueprint for love
- Set yourself and love free
- The thermostat of love
I have been to a lecture and mini workshop on the Thermostat of Love by Charlotte Fruergaard. A very skilled and experienced mediator who delivers the messages very directly and who makes the material come alive in a glow of freshness and love. Below is a summary based on my experiential worldview as a couples therapist, relational coach and process consultant within management, collaboration and communication.
Emotional detachment
It is about our blueprint for love, which is based on our first experience of emotional separation – the childhood break from love. How we are attracted to our partner (opposite attract / law of attraction) through our old breaks and love wounds (what some also call rejection, failure, cooping, attachment, object relation, imago, gestalt…), in a constant attempt to close our unfinished figures and break with our urge to repeat – the autopilot, the basic scene (imago), the repeated drama of love…
It makes it clear that our partner, despite our frustration and difference, triggers our patterns and is thus perfect for leading us to our challenge and learning, so that we can heal our breakup, release love and be emotionally reunited – to come home and to achieve cohesion, connectedness and serenity (the universal love or One Love as the Rastafarians say). It is thus about becoming whole and liberated through insight and letting go. Of course, you can’t control love, but you can regulate yourself.
The liberation process
The first step in the liberation process is realizing your patterns and then letting go. The patterns can i.a. include the roles in the drama triangle (Violator, Victim and Rescuer, Stephen Karpman) or as Charlotte characterizes it: Drama-junky (stays in the relationship despite the fact that something is always wrong and oscillates in ambivalence/complains/creates drama), the Cuckoo ( keeps a low profile/resigns/flat-liners and stays in the relationship), the Jumper (jumps from relationship to relationship as soon as love ends and problems arise – love junkie) and Lone Wolf (the wounded single who fends for herself and feels that is better without a relationship). After the insight comes a complicated process that includes themes such as guilt, shame and forgiveness. In practice, however, a simple exercise which starts from saying out loud ‘I don’t want to…’ at the same time as quietly letting the body and heart work, while letting go quite naturally.
the love
To cut to the chase, everyone talks about two energies in the universe – fear and love (reminiscent of elements from giraffe language). The problem is that there is no room for both emotions at the same time. So when there is fear, our hearts (urine instinct / reptilian complex think defense – flight, freeze or fight) shut down. You can see it in many ways, but the most individual is enough, as a form of protection. Paradoxically, this creates an inverted dynamic with two closed hearts, where it becomes difficult to get love to flow – as if from an empty cup. We must therefore have the parades down, get beyond our focus on what the other has to do and give us, and rein in our deep urge to receive and have the holes (wounds) filled – and instead give love. So the cup can be filled in a process where both parties both drink and fill – alternately or simultaneously. When both parties see this picture, the fear that the cup will be empty and that there will not be enough for themselves disappears at the same time. With this image in mind, it becomes easier both to give and to let go.
A cognitive model?
Charlotte describes the reaction based on a fixed model, where 1. we experience that the love (incl. rejection and break of contact, I think) disappears, 2. we change the experience of and our view of the other (incl. the perception of oneself and the field, I would argue), 3. we feel a shift in our emotions (and state incl. physiology I would think), 4. your stuck behaviors (incl. habits/reaction patterns, I experience) are triggered, 5. you achieve (yet another) affirmation of yourself (schemata, I think).
A simple explanation you may also recognize in KAT = the cognitive therapy (the cognitive diamond / SFTAK = Situation, Feelings, Thoughts, Behavior and Consequence including automatic thoughts, basic assumptions/rules of life and core assumptions/schemata).
You can read more about love in Charlotte Fruergaard’s book Det hander om Kærlighed… from the publisher Magnolia Press.
My experience as a couples therapist and business coach
I see the above patterns daily in my practice as a couples therapist. But in principle, problems we take with us everywhere throughout life – at home and at work. Issues that in low practice start from whether we as humans send and receive on our preferred frequency (e.g. The Five Languages of Love, Gary Chapman) and whether we feel seen, heard, taken seriously and recognized. If this does not happen, it could in principle trigger old feelings and reaction patterns (stimulus-response). Issues I also see repeatedly and also work with professionally in business, as a relational coach and as a process consultant within management, collaboration and communication.
What now
You can also read more about love, relationships and couple therapy at www.parterapi-parterapeut.dk. If you want couples counseling or a consultation in couples therapy, call 6166 1900.
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Kasper Larsen
Coach, psychotherapist, sexologist, family and couples therapist in Copenhagen Valby
Copyright © Kasper Larsen, 2014. All rights reserved.
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