Love in its many facets is the most essential and fundamental experience in our lives. Yet, does anyone of us really understand the forces of attraction that so often cause the greatest delight and deepest despair? How do we learn to love ourselves? How does love develop over time?
Written from an autobiographical perspective, the author and psychologist Martin Luthke shares his story and insights in a candid and accessible style. He explores the inner workings of lust and desire ● self-love and its challenges ● the bisexual dilemma and cultural overlays ● gender and freedom ● how we best learn to love self and others ● the addictive brain ● and love in the life-cycle. Finally, Martin shares about loving one’s twin-flame ● karmic influences of our choices ● and love beyond the personal dimension.
”I found this book to be extremely enlightening and highly recommend everyone read it.” (MaryAnn Myers, bestselling author)
Love in its many facets is the most essential and fundamental experience in our lives. Yet, does anyone of us really understand the forces of attraction that so often cause the greatest delight and deepest despair? How do we learn to love ourselves? How does love develop over time?
Written from an autobiographical perspective, the author and psychologist Martin Luthke shares his story and insights in a candid and accessible style. He explores the inner workings of lust and desire ● self-love and its challenges ● the bisexual dilemma and cultural overlays ● gender and freedom ● how we best learn to love self and others ● the addictive brain ● and love in the life-cycle. Finally, Martin shares about loving one’s twin-flame ● karmic influences of our choices ● and love beyond the personal dimension.
”I found this book to be extremely enlightening and highly recommend everyone read it.” (MaryAnn Myers, bestselling author)
I must have been no more than five years old when I was struck by lightning for the first of many times. There was a pretty boy in the neighborhood whom I set eyes on, for only a moment. I just fell into him in some way. Not that I have a full and complete memory of that chance encounter – after all, it happened over 60 years ago and when you are only five, your mental capacity to record one’s inner fluctuations is limited. But I do recall the effect the vision of this boy had on me because I happened to see him again once or twice when I was older. On those occasions, the impact of the first encounter echoed within me.
They say, the first cut is the deepest. I am not even sure there was a first cut, not in this lifetime, at least. I feel I was born with this wound: Feeling the sudden rush of longing, desire, adoration, and deflation of my sense of self. I admired that boy! He looked so adorable, self-confident, free of inhibitions and self-doubt. He was (in my projection at least) the way I longed to be, completing me and, at the same time, draining me of self-love – all in one instant. Of course, I had no words for my experience, nor did I share it with anyone. I just felt confused and wounded.
When puberty came upon me, at a fairly early age, the lightening strikes became more frequent and more devastating, more confusing and more charged with lust and pain. There were years in which I struggled again and again to regain my equilibrium, easily upset by as little as looking at a boy I fancied from a distance.
It did not take long for me to realize that I was at least partially gay (a bit longer to accept it), but that was not even the worst of it. Actually, looking back I was not tortured as much by shame, guilt, or fear as many other young adolescents are when they are coming out to themselves. Not that it was easy; after all, it was the Sixties and the prevailing winds were quite different from the cultural currents of today. But I always had a nonconformist streak within me that helped me cut through the fog.
Thus, it wasn’t so much my sexual inclinations that bothered me but the fluctuations of my sense of self, the sudden deflation and loss of self-love that tortured me, as they were agonizingly intertwined with lust and desire.
As many an adolescent I, too, had more than a passing acquaintance with suicidal ideations. In fact, I had decided to kill myself around my 18th birthday if things did not look up by then. Well, they did not – but I reached out to a therapist instead.
I had been reading psychological books since I was 12 or 13; at the age of 14 I read my first book by Sigmund Freud. Now, I was hoping to find some answers in “real” therapy. The fact that my therapist was a classical psychoanalyst did not help, however, as she was largely silent and mostly listened to my ramblings. (I still feel sorry for bending her ear with my mental gyrations.)
My many hours on the couch taught me at least one thing: how not to conduct psychotherapy. It was a painful, time-consuming, and costly experience but ultimately helpful in finding my own style in that business.
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Flavors of Love (A Personal Exploration) by Martin Luthke is an unapologetic and yet approachable and nonjudgmental look at love from every angle: lovers, friends, family and the divine. If you can imagine yourself in an ice cream parlor where you can sample all the flavors on the menu, this book provides a tiny instruction manual sampling the elements of what it means to love oneself and others. Luthke’s keen insight includes much food for thought as he shares his perspective on love in the context of psychology, human science and metaphysics. What is refreshingly absent from his perspective is any obligation from the reader to agree with the information provided. Rather, the book is an invitation for the reader to reflect on their own beliefs and possibly challenge what they currently believe.
For me, the book flowed through several components: personal stories, the components of love and love throughout a life cycle, and the role of karma and the metaphysical world. Luthke sets the stage of Flavors of Love by sharing intimate parts of his romantic life, openly, honestly and free from labels. He also examines gender identity and romantic preferences through a cultural lens, and how those expectations impact our sense of self and how we express ourselves to those around us.
Next, the book delves into how we learn to love and the role of parenting on our emotional development. Readers will discover many “aha’s” here from both the child and parent perspective. There are ample nuggets of wisdom regarding how parents can nurture, soothe and support while instilling boundaries, structure and teaching children how to self-regulate their “inner weather.” We are also encouraged to acknowledge that we are chemical beings, affected by feel-good neurotransmitters such as serotonin, dopamine and endorphin, as well as stress hormones such as adrenalin and cortisol. To understand ourselves, we must take into consideration all the components that make us human.
Luthke writes, “Attitudes about nudity, our body’s looks and its functions are deeply ingrained and hard to correct if they are burdened by shame, inhibitions, judgments, feelings of inferiority, or self-hatred.” He later adds, “The need to be seen by others often competes with the fear of judgment or rejection.” To me, these words are the crux of Flavors of Love.
Finally, and admittedly my favorite part of the book, is the discussion integrating all aspects of Self across all lifetimes: past lives and parallel dimensions, and how the thinning of the veil between these realms can explain why many people do not conform to the dominant majority. Instead, we are seeking the cohesion of our complete and authentic self. Luthke also touches on our individual and collective karma for soul growth and karmic balancing.
Flavors of Love is a power-packed little book of wisdom that I highly recommend for anyone seeking to understand their own loving nature.