In 1959, Jay Haley, the famous family therapist, asks his mentor, Milton H. Erickson, MD, the words most renowned hypnotherapist and psychiatrist: “If you were to describe what a good marriage is, how would you describe it?” Milton H. Erickson replies: When I describe a good marriage to my patients, I point out to them that there are essentailly four kinds of Love:

1. The infantile type of love, “I love me.”
2. The next stage, “I love the me in you. I love you becaue you are my brother, my mother, my father, my sister, my dog. The ‘me’ in ‘you’.
3. Then the adolescent type of love, “I love you because your dancing pleases me, and because your beauty pleases me, and because your brains please me.”
4. The adult stage of love wherein, “I want to love you and cherish you because I want to see you happy, because i can find my happiness in your happiness. The happier you are, the happier, I’ll be. I’l find my happiness in yours. Il” find delight in your pleasure and intellectual persuits. I’ll find a delight in your enjoyment of dancing.” So the mature love is the capacity to find enjoyment in the enjoyment of the other person’s enjoyment. It works both ways.

Dr. Erickson continues: ‘So in a good marriage upi’ll see some of the “I love me.” You should expect that. You’ll see some of the I love the me in you. You’ll see some of the adolescent variety of your good qualities that please me. But there should be a very considerable percentage of the enjoyment of the other person’s state of happiness.
It isn’t enough to just enjoy your wifes cooking. You ought to enjoy the “pleasure” that she has in cooking. You ought not just enjoy the fact that she keeps the kids quiet while you are working. You want to enjoy, really, the pleasure and satisfaction that she gets out of dealing with the kids, even though you can’t understand why that particular dealing with the kids gives her so much satisfaction. It is beyond your capacity to understand, but you are so glad she enjoys it. You know that as long as she ‘s happy, enjoying inexplicable things, you’re going to be happy too.’

I wanted to share this wisdom with you. Who would not dream of such a lasting loving relationship? Paul

P.S.: A friend has sent to right now another interesting related quote:
Immature love says: ‘I love you because I need you.’
Mature love says ‘I need you because I love you’

1. First, I remembered that I started to develop this pleasant feeling right after my first years of being a professional. Probably one needs to build ‘competence’ first, to feel selfconfident in what one is doing. So, if you read this and are still building competence in your profession, just accept that learning takes effort. And that there will be a day where you feel ok with what you do. Your customers will let you know when you do a good job and that will reinforce you.
2. Second, this pure concentration on one person – no phone calls, no interruptions – gives our brain the time to tune in, the time to focus and as we know from litterature: focus is that what provokes “flow” in a human beings. Focussing relieves stress & tension and opens us up for joy. I remember from my philosophy classes the quote of Jean-Paul Sartre, in “L’Être et le Néant”, describing self-consciousness as  ”Conscience de soi de quelque chose” (being aware of yourself through being aware of something).  Now, years later, I start to see that we become more ourself, indeed, when we focus on something else with dedication and concentration.
3. Third, in working with clients, one knows -after years of training- that one can only focus on one small concrete result at the time. Your client needs this, or (s)he would get confused or lost in your words. Since you focus on small & measurable results, you automatically start to do that what is good for yourself too:  breaking big & complex projects into small measurable steps, so that you setup for visible success. Focussing on big & vague goals leads to confusion and “Learned Helplesness“.
4. Fourth, the feeling of contribution, is probably another important contributor to happiness. By focussing on helping others, one feels useful. And we are born “social animals“. We need contribution for our own personal survival and satisfaction. We exist partially in the eyes of the others, we become more ourselves through adding value to others.

There are certainly more factors that have contributed to my happy feeling this morning. I just wrote about those that came first into my mind. Paul

Paul studied medicine, philosophy and sports medicine at the Catholic University of Louvain. After his management studies, at the VLERICK School for Management, he was profoundly trained in systemic coaching, brief therapy an hypnotherapy in Europe an the U.S.A.

As a trainer, consultant and coach he served important business leaders and organisations like  Alcatel-Lucent, KPMG, BASF, Siemens, Borealis, IBM, Swift, Nextiraone, Janssen Pharmaceutica, Banksys, HP, Junior Chamber International, Haribo, Proximus, Belgacom, Delta Lloyd Life, Generale Bank, Belgian Military Police, Anco, Givi, Axias, IPPA, HBK Spaarbank, Vlaams Centrum voor Kwaliteitszorg,  Socialistische Mutualiteiten, Onafhankelijk Ziekenfonds, Arenberg Group, Partena, Prayon Ruppel, Pandora,  … He coaches fluently in 5 languages: Dutch, English, French, Spanish, German and studied Italian, Portuguese, Latin, Esperanto, & Russian.

Radio Interview with Dr. Paul Koeck about digital stress: Part 1 -  Part 2