Love and Care: Rewriting the Rules That Keep Anxiety Alive

In this extract from lecture 19 of The Calmness in Mind Process, we explore love and care more deeply, alongside strategies to express these feelings with less emotional trauma and exhaustion. Additionally, we begin to examine self-esteem and techniques to enhance it.

You cannot simply remove anxiety and remain the same person. Fear is the symptom of how you have been thinking, worrying and behaving. The next layer of change is therefore to examine two of the largest programmes most of us run without question: love and care.

Most of us never sat down as adults and decided how we want to love or how we want to be loved. The rules were installed in childhood, reinforced by culture, soap operas and family example. The result is usually some version of conditional love: “I will love you if you behave in ways that make me feel secure. If you break the unspoken rules I will withdraw warmth, sex, kindness or presence as punishment.” The same pattern is often applied to the self. Guilt is simply self-abuse for failing to match an imaginary story of who you “ought” to be.

A more useful starting point is not “Do you love yourself?” (which can feel impossible after years of anxiety or trauma) but “Have you stopped being unkind to yourself?” Self-esteem begins with refusing to allow the internal commentary to be cruel and refusing to accept cruelty from others. You talk to yourself the way a decent parent talks to a child’s first drawing: with encouragement rather than contempt. That single shift reduces the need for constant external reassurance.

In relationships the most practical change is to stop hunting for evidence that the other person loves you. You will never know with certainty. Low self-worth keeps people scanning for signs and testing for commitment. The alternative is to know that you love them, that it is your pleasure to love them, and that their happiness becomes a genuine goal rather than a transaction. Love them the way they want to be loved, not the way you prefer to give love. When that happens they usually want to love you back in the way that works for you — provided you can tell them clearly what that is.

A concrete example: a tidy Settler partner and a chaotic Nomad partner. The Settler expects the Nomad to notice mess and feel the same urgency about timekeeping. The Nomad walks past the mess without seeing it and experiences time as flexible. Conflict is almost inevitable until the Settler stops blaming and starts owning the difference. “Timekeeping matters to me. May I remind you without drama so we can leave on time?” or “I’ll leave at 7:30; join later if you need longer.” Drama is not love. Expecting another person to experience the world exactly as you do is not love either.

The same principle applies to care. Is “I am a caring person” an identity you must live up to at all times, or is caring a behaviour you can choose moment by moment? Care driven by genuine pleasure in helping is sustainable. Care driven by “I ought to” quickly becomes resentment, guilt or martyrdom. You can care without taking ownership of the other person’s problems or emotions. “I care about you. I will listen. Your decisions remain yours.” That stance creates space rather than enmeshment.

Warrior, Settler and Nomad care differently. One directs and protects, one supports and includes, one distracts and lightens. Knowing which character is operating removes internal conflict. You can also decide, on any given day, how much energy you can afford to give without depleting yourself. Saying no is sometimes the most honest form of care — for both of you.

None of this requires perfection. It requires noticing the old programmes, refusing to run them on automatic, and practising new responses until they become familiar. The past does not define the future; what you do now does. Guilt and the need for external proof of worth keep anxiety fed. Self-respect, clear communication of needs, and the willingness to love without conditions starve it.

Start with an inventory. Where are you still unkind to yourself? Where do you place conditions on giving or receiving love? Does your partner actually know how you want to be loved? If you are single, what behaviours would a healthy person need to see in you before they wanted to stay? Observe without the usual stories. The observer already knows what is possible.