2177: How to Know Who Loves You Best by Dr. Kelly Flanagan on Relationship Counseling & Finding Lasting Love

[00:00:00] Now, before we start, you might want to check out our other podcasts covering topics like

[00:00:04] personal development and minimalism, money, health, relationships, and more. So, to optimize

[00:00:10] your life in other areas, just search for Optimal Living Daily in your podcast app.

[00:00:15] Now onto the show. This is Optimal Relationships Daily, episode 2177,

[00:00:22] How to Know Who Loves You Best, by Dr. Kelly Flanagan of DrKellyFlanagan.com.

[00:00:29] Hello everybody and welcome back to another installment of Optimal Relationships Daily,

[00:00:34] hosted and narrated by me, Greg Audino. And the article we have today for you comes from

[00:00:39] Dr. Kelly Flanagan. It's all about seeing beneath people's actions and rather observing their

[00:00:45] intentions. That's my interpretation of it at least, yours might be different. More on that

[00:00:50] in my commentary at the end. But for now, let's get into this post and start optimizing your life.

[00:00:59] How to Know Who Loves You Best, by Dr. Kelly Flanagan of DrKellyFlanagan.com.

[00:01:06] It's spring again in Illinois, and that means a lot of things. Green soft grass,

[00:01:13] pollen everywhere, thunderstorms, soccer games, and the countdown to summer. It also means a big

[00:01:20] empty box sitting in the foyer of my daughter's preschool, advertising the countdown until the

[00:01:25] chicks hatch. We arrive at the school on day zero and peer over the edge of the box. Nothing yet.

[00:01:32] I ask her where the eggs are. My daughter looks at me somberly and says,

[00:01:38] the chicks don't have a mama, so we needed to keep them warm in an escalator.

[00:01:43] I think about telling her it's called an incubator, but I know what she means,

[00:01:49] and not every moment needs to be a teaching moment. I smile. She smiles and grabs my hand,

[00:01:56] and we walk into her class together. How do we know when we belong? The people we belong to

[00:02:03] know what we mean. Escalators. I've seen it countless times over the years.

[00:02:10] In the middle of a marital or family therapy session, someone will say something gutsy and

[00:02:15] loving, and I know exactly what he or she means. But it's stated clumsily and with an ounce or

[00:02:22] more of protectiveness and defensiveness. As an objective observer, I can see the tenderness

[00:02:28] through the messiness. I hold my breath, hoping I'm not the only one who knows what was meant.

[00:02:34] And then I cringe a little inside when the meaning of the words is missed altogether.

[00:02:39] The heart of a loved one isn't known or trusted or believed in. I cringe because showing that

[00:02:44] good heart took courage, and now it will probably go more deeply into hiding.

[00:02:50] But then there are other moments. Moments in which the heart stumbling through the words is seen,

[00:02:55] and its goodness is trusted, and its beauty is believed in. There are other moments in which a

[00:03:02] partner or a family member sees the incubator through the escalator. A place of belonging

[00:03:07] is not the place where someone can read our mind or anticipate what we might say.

[00:03:13] A place of belonging happens when someone receives the words we've already said,

[00:03:17] or the things we've already done, and sometimes understands their meaning even better than we do.

[00:03:24] Napkins. Recently, my wife and I were having lunch in a fast food restaurant. We were talking

[00:03:30] about the many things happening in our life when I realized we had forgotten napkins.

[00:03:36] Mid-thought, I got up, retrieved a napkin for myself, and sat back down. My wife looked at me

[00:03:42] and said, in equal parts amusement and annoyance,

[00:03:46] Were you planning to get me a napkin too? I smiled sheepishly and retrieved one.

[00:03:52] When I sat back down, she looked at me and said,

[00:03:55] I know in your heart you want to get me a napkin. You want to think of me and show me love.

[00:04:00] But sometimes your anxious brain doesn't cooperate.

[00:04:04] In a fast food restaurant, my wife knew what I meant. In a fast food restaurant, I belonged.

[00:04:12] Incubators. In two weeks, my family will be moving to a new town,

[00:04:17] where we will work and live and love and keep growing up. We'll be leaving our town,

[00:04:23] but far more importantly and painfully, we'll be leaving our people. The people we belong to.

[00:04:30] How do I know we belong to them? Because they know what we mean.

[00:04:34] Over the years, I have been messy and angry and distracted and absent and sad and confrontational

[00:04:43] and withdrawn and overjoyed and clueless and scared and a little too brave. And I've made

[00:04:51] mistakes and I've hurt feelings and I've cared well for the people I love. And I've cared poorly

[00:04:56] for them too. But when my love has been an escalator, they've known I meant it to be an

[00:05:02] incubator. It takes time and courage and not a little bit of luck to find a community like that.

[00:05:09] Even more, it takes time to trust and believe the way they see you is for real. To trust it isn't

[00:05:15] going to go away. To trust that they will be there for you, especially when you're at your sloppiest.

[00:05:21] Our family's transition this month is more pronounced than some,

[00:05:25] but I think most of us are in some way moving between places of belonging. We're always leaving

[00:05:31] some people, taking others with us and meeting new people along the way. So perhaps the words

[00:05:38] of gratitude I feel right now are words we all need to share with the people we have,

[00:05:43] do and will belong to. To those we are leaving behind, words fail the gratitude we feel for

[00:05:50] the ways you have loved us, even when we used the wrong words. To those who will remain with

[00:05:56] us along the way, thank you for standing by our side and loving us in the midst of our crazy.

[00:06:02] And to those we are moving toward, thank you for being patient with us.

[00:06:06] We are going to show ourselves to you. We hope you can see who we are, underneath all our mess.

[00:06:13] When we say escalator instead of incubator, we hope you know what we mean. You just listened

[00:06:23] to the post titled, How to Know Who Loves You Best by Dr. Kelly Flanagan of drkellyflanagan.com

[00:06:31] and I'll be back with my commentary in just a sec. And thank you so much to Dr. Kelly for this

[00:06:36] piece which really comes down to intentionality right? Knowing and trusting the intentions of

[00:06:42] others. Indeed it is a great way to know who loves you best, but at the same time it's also

[00:06:48] a sign of someone who is particularly secure within themselves or the situation at hand.

[00:06:54] This is to say that correlation doesn't always equal causation. For example, someone might be

[00:07:00] able to see your intention, which might seem like love, but really they're just secure enough to

[00:07:06] not be offended by what's transpired. Or on the other hand, someone who loves you very deeply

[00:07:12] may in a moment not be able to see your intention if your action has triggered an issue they're

[00:07:16] really struggling with. So while I do love this article and I do think it's a great observation

[00:07:21] made by Dr. Kelly, I would advise you to not rely on single moments like these when sorting out who

[00:07:28] loves you best, but rather a series of moments with the same person. Do they keep seeing what

[00:07:34] you mean, even when it might hurt them? And in the times that they don't, are you too able to

[00:07:39] communicate about the disconnect and recover once things have settled? That'll tell you who loves

[00:07:45] you best. But that's it for now everyone. So thank you so much for spending part of your weekend

[00:07:50] with us, enjoy the rest of it if you're listening in real time, and I'll see you in the Monday show

[00:07:54] tomorrow, where your optimal life awaits.