Discover love’s ingredients and, learn how to

measure and use them to strengthen your relationships

Lewis E. Farsedakis

~ 2 ~

OMADAMO

OMADAMO™ is the name of the symbol and theory of love created by Lewis E.

Farsedakis. The theory explains love and all of its manifestations as well as provides a

simple tool that provides a snapshot of your love relationship, by calculating its Love

Quotient™.

1. The name OMADAMO originates from the word "ADAMO" which in Latin means,

"to fall in love with/find pleasure in", which is directly relevant to the theory.

2. The letters "OM" were added in the beginning of the word to make OMADAMO a

palindrome (a word that reads same forwards or backwards) to symbolize the -35

to +35 Love Quotient scale outlined in the theory.

3. The seven letters in OMADAMO symbolize the seven ingredients of love.

4. The "O" in the beginning and the end of the word represent the OMADAMO symbol.

5. The symbol center stone is a Garnet stone, which is known as the stone of love &

devotion.

You will get to know OMADAMO by taking a journey to understand the ingredients of

love, continuously working on them and developing the insight to differentiate reality

from fantasy. Once internalized, you will be able to understand why "It is better than

love...it is OMADAMO."

~ 3 ~

INTRODUCTION

Love is one of the most intense and powerful human experiences. At its best, it is what

makes life most worth living. At its worst, it has started wars, ruined fortunes, and

destroyed families.

People use the word ‘love’ to describe how they feel about a person, a friend, an animal,

an object and their beliefs. Why? Can the same word that describes how parents feel for

their children also describe how one feels about a painting? Do different forms of love

exist or is there just one type?

These questions can leave one dissatisfied with how the word is defined, understood and

used. Certainly, a word everyone utilizes almost daily and so widely needed

investigation. But to do so is to tackle the same philosophical question that great minds

have pondered for thousands of years...what is love? Philosophy brings us various

theories of love, one being Plato’s that love is born of need or lack, a desire to complete

oneself. Aristotle believed that love is an intrinsic appreciation and concern that one feels

for another. An ideal example of love is difficult to identify. Surely it cannot be the love

one feels for a thing like a painting, because some people acquire objects they love and

still search for a greater love. The same holds true for our bond with animals.

Ideal love cannot be identified with the institution of marriage, given how many

marriages end in divorce and how much malice some people show towards their spouses.

Nor can it be identified with the bond between parents and children. Consider how many

children stop talking to their parents, and how many parents abandon or mistreat their

children. An ideal example of love would have to show a prolonged, complex bond,

which both people experience as satisfying. Can ideal love exist in reality—or only in

fantasy?

This question gives us a crucial insight: we must see the difference between reality and

fantasy with love if we are to attain ideal love. But how does one separate reality from

fantasy when it comes to an experience as subjective as love?

First one must understand the word ‘love’ as it is used today, in all scenarios and contexts

in order to explain how someone could say “I love my car” with the same conviction that

another says “I love my dog” or “I love my spouse.” We can find greater value in love if

we develop a deeper understanding of the emotion; only then can we truly develop

meaningful love relationships.

The theory behind OMADAMO, explained below, offers a clear explanation of what love

is and how it develops. More importantly, it establishes a methodology of how we can all

work at developing and maintaining better love relationships. Love, like anything worth

having in our universe, is something we need to work at. Just like seeds that we plant,

love can wither and die due to neglect, or they can be nurtured to blossom and flourish

through nurture. Ideal love is something achieved.

~ 4 ~

What does it mean to achieve love? Aristotle tells us that some activities help us achieve

something separate from ourselves. For example, if you build a table, you perform

actions that lead to a separate product, the table itself. If you dance a tango, the tango is

inseparable from the sequence of movements you perform. Love, therefore, is more like

the tango than the table.

“For one human being to love another; that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks,

the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation.”

Rainer Maria Rilke (Poet)

WHAT IS LOVE?

Definition

Love is a complex emotion consisting of seven essential ingredients of varying quality

and intensity, such that the accumulation over time of actual pleasant experiences is

greater than non-pleasant ones. The ingredients are:

• Affection

• Respect

• Admiration

• Empowerment

• Loyalty

• Intimacy

• Appreciation

It is crucial that these ingredients be real and not fantasized, so that reality remains

distinct from fantasy. There is only one love with many manifestations. Ideal love, which

this theory calls “OMADAMO”, is the most complete, complex, real and pleasurable

manifestation of love.

~ 5 ~

Love’s Pitfalls

Love has its pitfalls, mainly because it is so hard to tell fantasy from reality. We all tend

to project our feelings, both good and bad, on to others. For example, a man who feels

intense love for a woman may believe that her feelings for him are equally intense.

Fantasized love can last a long time if reality does not challenge it. If reality does

challenge it, and people are receptive, a couple can expect their relationship to be

increasingly based on reality as time goes on.

A dangerous pitfall is the desire for a perfect mate that matches the stereotype engraved

in our minds when we are young. We are victims of the idea that there is a perfect prince

or princess out there for each of us. Thus, many throw away love relationships -- one in

which our pleasurable experiences surpass the non-pleasurable -- because it does not

conform to our fantasy, especially during a rough patch.

It is all too easy to project today’s bad feelings into the future and then to end the

relationship. It requires imagination and discipline to resist this tendency. For example,

suppose that a couple has had a good relationship for fifteen years. For ten months, one of

them suffers from depression, which makes him withdrawn and short-tempered. Some

people might find it easier to leave in this situation than to search for ways of helping

him. It could be difficult to view the current situation as temporary.

When fantasy is completely absent from a relationship that is missing one or more

ingredients, one may feel bored and look elsewhere, seeking to find the missing

ingredients in another. For example, if you are so familiar with your loved one that

admiration no longer offers intense experiences, you may seek to admire someone else to

experience intense admiration once again.

Another pitfall is allowing things that have nothing to do with love to influence it. For

example, money is the leading cause of divorce; yet money is not an ingredient of love;

however, it can reveal problems with one or more ingredients. In some cases, loss of

wealth can strengthen a couple's commitment to each other, and in others it can reveal

fundamental incompatibilities such as lack of respect, trust or loyalty.

An additional important pitfall of love is our own inherent laziness that begins to affect

relationships from the very first day. This is why in the beginning we are ready, able &

willing to make changes when asked, but as time goes on we are less willing. When we

don’t see the need for ongoing effort, our own laziness erodes the relationship. It is easy

to blame the problems on "not loving me for who I am" instead of recognizing that no

one remains static and unchanged. We need to accept as inevitable that people change,

which need not be negative.

~ 6 ~

Ideal Love

The degree of pleasurable experiences in a love relationship increases along with:

• The quantity of ingredients

• The intensity of ingredients

• The equal presence of all seven ingredients

These conditions allow for varying degrees of fulfillment. We feel dissatisfied when one

or more ingredients is missing or only insufficiently present. Then we might start to

desire to "fill in" real experiences with fantasized ones. This is why love for an object or

a pet cannot rival love for a person, because only people have the cognitive abilities that

can permit the most complex interactions. For example, a car cannot show loyalty and a

pet cannot empower a person to reclaim a lost moral compass.

It is possible to think we are in love when one or more of the ingredients are missing.

Then, to sustain the relationship, we fill the gap by fantasy or mindless acceptance. An

example of fantasy would be to imagine that a loved one appreciates things we do even if

she has said otherwise. An example of acceptance would be to settle for a loved one's

inability to show affection as he once did, because he has become disabled.

~ 7 ~

When quantity, intensity and equal presence of love's seven ingredients are coupled with

actual accepted experiences and the desire to continuously work on building a stronger

relationship, then ideal love - or OMADAMO - has been achieved.

INGREDIENTS OF LOVE

Each of the following ingredients is necessary for love, for if you feel the lack of any one,

you will be dissatisfied. To the degree that both persons feel satisfied with all seven

elements, they will at that moment have achieved the consummate relationship. Why

these elements? From the works on love by great philosophers and psychologists in

~ 8 ~

addition to interviews with a non-random sample of long-term couples and people in

other relationships, these elements in some form emerged as critical to a nurturing and

loving relationship. These ingredients are necessary for love relationships that are non-

romantic, as well. Every close relationship has the capacity to grow, whether it is

between loving partners, friends, or a parent and a child.

Affection (A): Feelings are demonstrated to you in ways appropriate to the relationship.

A child will show you affection differently than your spouse or loved one would. Normal

human beings require touch and signs of fondness. Babies need to be touched and held in

order to thrive. Affection can be expressed through touch, tone of voice, glances, acts of

kindness and thoughtfulness.

“We can live without religion and meditation, but we cannot survive without human affection.”

Tenzin Gyatso (His Holiness, the 14th Dalai Lama)

Respect (R): You are accepted and valued for the person you are intrinsically and

holistically, not just for how you benefit your loved one. You are respected because your

loved one cares about your values, interests, and choices, even if they have different ones.

For example, if you question a choice your loved one made, does he listen seriously and

consider your reasons openly?

“When men & women are able to respect and accept their differences then love has a chance to blossom.”

John Gray (British Philosopher)

Admiration (AD): You admire your loved one for qualities that you yourself would like

to have. You see the one you love as exemplifying a quality or combination of qualities

that you value or hold in high regard. For example, the child you love may have a quick

wit or a sensitivity to other people that makes you see her as special. A loved one may

have the insight to make you realize something about yourself. You might admire the

gracious way that your loved one deals with other people. Some qualities that we admire

are ones we do not or cannot possess. Admiration presupposes that you see the person as

other, as separate from you, for if you do not, you are seeing the person as an extension

of yourself, not as they are.

“Love is the admiration and cherishing of the amiable qualities of the

beloved person, upon the condition of yourself being the object of their action.”

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (British Poet)

Empowerment (E): Your loved one wants to bring out what they believe could be, the

best in you. (S)he wants you to attain the autonomy you need to achieve your goals and to

be psychologically free to pursue your desires without interference from obsessions fears,

or unhealthy internal conflicts. This does not mean that (s)he is trying to change you to

meet their standards or fulfill their goals, but rather that they understand your standards

~ 9 ~

and goals and want to help you meet them. For example, parents who love their children

want them to become their best; they do not want their kids to be trapped by the same

fears or concerns that trouble them. If your child loves playing the piano, do you try to

find out about different teachers and educational approaches, and then find the best you

can afford to give them? Do you take the child (or loved one) to concerts that you

yourself would not go to otherwise? If you feel that your loved one has lost his moral

compass, do you try to help him reclaim it? A person who truly loves another tries to help

the other achieve his goals so that he feels fulfilled.

“The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two

chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed.”

Carl Jung (Swiss Psychologist)

Loyalty (L): Your loved one is in your corner. You can count on them to be there for you.

They strive to defend you against assaults from the external world, such as gossip, unfair

treatment, criticism and life’s problems. Moreover, you’re confident that your loved one

is trying to reciprocate the emotions you are giving. Loyalty is related to empowerment in

that being loyal involves your loved one supporting and not undermining your mastery in

the world, just as empowerment involves helping you have self-mastery.

“The scholar does not consider gold and jade to be precious treasures, but loyalty and good faith”.

Confucius (Chinese Philosopher)

Intimacy (I): You exist in an emotionally safe and private place in which you express

feelings or thoughts that your loved one would not share in other arenas. You cannot

imagine your loved one telling your secrets to others. If your loved one has a criticism of

you, they express it only in private. Intimacy is an important ingredient of love because it

creates a unique bond in a relationship that is unique and exclusive to those two people.

"Love consists in this, that two solitudes protect and touch and greet each other."

Rainer Maria Rilke (Swiss Poet)

Appreciation (AP): You take pleasure in being with the one you love, and this pleasure

makes you feel improved by the relationship. You want to be with your loved one and

loving them makes you feel like a better human being. You want to spend time with this

person. You want this person to be happy. For example, a parent might enjoy watching

his child discovering and enjoying things, whether it's watching ants on the sidewalk or

getting his college diploma. We also appreciate and are gratified when someone likes

being with us. A father may feel that loving his child makes him more patient, more

responsible, more in control of his emotions or impulses. He feels gratified that his child

has fun being with him, while they do things together. A man who is color-blind might

enjoy accompanying his girlfriend to a museum where she gets absorbed in a painter’s

use of color and brushstroke. He takes pleasure in how she relishes the artworks and also

in his own ability to appreciate her sensitivity.

~ 10 ~

“Appreciation is a wonderful thing: It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well.”

Voltaire (French Philosopher)

The logic of Omadamo is that we have to strive constantly to maintain the connection. A

relationship is dynamic and must respond to the inevitable changes that life brings. For

example, if a breadwinner loses a job, the other partner may have to work harder to show

affection and more creatively to empower the other. Or, if an older parent becomes

disabled, it may require a loving adult child to find new ways of showing empowerment

and appreciation. Alternatively, a partner who becomes highly successful must continue

to make the loved one feel admired and appreciated.

WHY DO WE LOVE?

Pleasure

Our lives are sequences of experiences, some pleasurable, others non-pleasurable. We

seek love, because it is the most pleasurable experience the universe has yet to offer us.

Pleasures are good not only because of the quantity, but also the intensity, quality and

variety. You can quickly erase years of pleasurable experiences with one, powerfully

intense, non-pleasurable experience. For example, consider a couple that has shared many

happy times. Those happy times can instantly become insignificant if one person

physically assaults the other.

“The reputation of a thousand years may be determined by the conduct of one hour.”

Japanese Proverb

Real Shared History

We want pleasurable experiences to be as intense, varied and numerous, as possible; but

even non-pleasurable experiences, while inevitable, may be worthwhile because they may

lead to moments of intense pleasure in the future. For example, dragging your unwilling,

whining child to his tennis lessons may be unpleasant for both of you, but it may result in

many wonderful moments of shared enjoyment in the future when you can play together.

The more experiences we share with someone, the more intricate our history becomes.

The uniqueness of that history intensifies the quality of future experiences. Suppose you

are visiting the Grand Canyon in Arizona. Awed by its beauty and the aura of the

moment, you can relive it often with someone who experienced it with you. Having

someone to share our experiences validates our lives. We write the history of a

relationship by living it and keeping a mental account of pleasurable and non-pleasurable

experiences.

~ 11 ~

The greater the pleasurable experiences, the richer is the shared history. The richer the

shared history, the greater is the desire to remember, to defend, to cherish and to work on

the relationship. It is important that we could, however, have a desire to defend and to

work on that relationship when it is only imagined love, because we are projecting what

we want the relationship to be, while ignoring what it actually is. This is so common in

human experience that it is the subject of much great literature. Conversely, we can

imagine a relationship with so many non-pleasurable experiences that they overshadow

any pleasurable ones, which would lead us to abandon the relationship.

The longer we are in a love relationship, the greater the number of experiences we have

accumulated. In a close relationship, these experiences will be strongly intense. This

makes our love relationship stronger and allows for a greater degree of pleasure and non-

pleasure. Therefore, the stronger the love relationship, the more disappointed we are with

non-pleasurable experiences, and vice-versa.

Simply being together, however, doesn’t mean there is a shared history; A history with

someone may be a parallel history. For example, many couples, whether consciously or

unconsciously, opt to stay together for the benefit of their children, while leading

essentially separate lives.

CONDITIONS FOR LOVE

In order to love, we must have self-respect and a feeling of comfort in our own skin. This

requires that we be honest with ourselves. Self-regard is different from narcissism, which

is pathological.

Constant Effort

Being ready to love means understanding what love is and being willing to put the effort

into growing and nurturing a love relationship. The other person can be a catalyst to its

growth or an impediment. Our own attitudes can act like water or poison. If we want to

sustain and grow love, we must work at it, which involves open, honest communication.

Even though this is painful, we should be willing to do it because love makes us feel safe,

given the challenges we face in the world and our uncertainty about what life will bring.

People realize that we need to interact with others in order to survive. This, in part, is the

foundation of our need to love and to be loved.

The idea of two individuals becoming one sets up the wrong expectations. A better model

is two individuals being great partners. And in any great partnership, each needs to

participate equally in the effort. When one does more of the work that the other, the

inequality will eventually wear on the relationship.

However, just like the lack of effort can hurt a relationship, putting in the time and effort

can strengthen it. We should constantly reveal yet unseen aspects of ourselves to our

~ 12 ~

loved one by being creative and thus keeping passion alive. For example, consider a

couple that has been together long enough so that their lives become routine. One year,

instead of taking his wife to their usual celebratory restaurant for her birthday dinner, a

husband prepares a private sunset picnic on a beach. Surprise and thoughtfulness can add

vitality to the relationship.

Shedding Illusions

Often, passion is the initial impetus that leads to love. Initially, passion is for a fantasy

that we project onto someone, not for the person’s true self. For example, if a person is a

great kisser, we may project other favorable attributes onto him/her such as generosity

and kindness. With time, as we accumulate the essential ingredients that produce a love

relationship, our fantasy of the person will start to separate from the reality. So we may

complain that all he/she wants to do is kiss, rather than listening to me when I talk.

“Fantasized love” is often mistaken for real love. Real love is only possible when

experienced in actuality, not when experienced through anticipation, fantasy or

projection.

We continuously test reality as we live our lives; thus, our real perception of our loved

ones gradually replaces our desired perception of them. Our fantasy of the loved one is

never as nuanced or complicated as the image we come to have of the real person.

One of the delights of a relationship is the process discovering, new aspects of the person,

at least when we find those aspects attractive. The behavior of the idealized partner will

deviate from the long-term behavior of the real one. One of the great disappointments is

discovering unappealing features. So, as we spend more time with the person, we find

more features than we envisioned in our imagination. If the features we dislike are

powerful or manifested often, the non-pleasure they bring will outweigh the pleasure we

take in being with the person. Accepting and admiring the reality and shedding illusions

are important to the relationship. If we cling to the fantasy, then that person will

inevitably disappoint us when they do not do things that we expect they would. With

time, actual experiences outnumber fantasized ones. Our expectations then either force us

to adjust our picture, or they make us feel disappointed or even betrayed.

Ideals

Unfortunately, from early childhood we absorb the myth of the flawless prince or

princess. Of course, no one is flawless, so as disappointment with a person grows, we

begin to feel that someone better must be out there. The moment a problem surfaces,

people with immature expectations will simply move on and keep searching for their

prince or princess, sometimes leaving something terrific behind. It is important to identify

if the disappointment is valid. Moving on to seek another relationship should be done

only with the realization that there is no perfect prince or princess; we should be seeking

~ 13 ~

a partner who makes life richer and deeper, who helps us become more authentic in the

world.

Empathy

Love requires empathy. Empathy is a necessary precondition for love as opposed to one

of its seven essential ingredients. Contemporary neuroscience has shown that normal

human beings are wired to feel empathy. In the early 1990s, Italian researchers

discovered what are now called “mirror neurons.” These neurons fire in the same way

when we act or feel in a given way and when we observe others acting or feeling in that

way. Prominent neuroscientist Vilayanur S. Ramachandran calls these “Gandhi neurons”

because these mirror neurons are responsible for connecting people to one another.

Aristotle said 2,400 years ago that human beings by nature imitate and enjoy imitations.

Contemporary science has proved him right. Empathy is a kind of mirroring or imitating.

If I see you suffer, then I can feel your suffering, through empathy. That feeling of

kinship widens my world and gives me a sense of connection. Love relationships thus

enrich life, except for those with certain pathologies.

“In the arithmetic of love, one plus one equals everything, and two minus one equals nothing.”

Mignon McLaughlin (American Journalist)

It is impossible to measure each pleasurable and non-pleasurable experience along with

its respective quality and intensity, every second, for all the love relationships that exist

in your life. However, it is possible to produce a snapshot of how you perceive your love

relationship by calculating its Love Quotient™.

Love Quotient™ is a tool created to help you build stronger love relationships and to

provide you with insight into the gap between real and fantasized love. The objective is

not to reduce love to a score, but to get a better grasp on how you perceive your

relationship and encourage open, honest communication. By understanding the

ingredients that compose love, motivated couples can work to improve their love

relationship.

This is an intimate exercise; do not share scores with anyone other than your loved one.

Dialogue with others is encouraged to learn from and help you with ideas on how to

improve ingredient scores with your loved one – but actual scores should remain private.

~ 14 ~

You may now use the free Love Quotient™ tool here www.OMADAMO.com to:

• Calculate your Love Quotient™

• Make associated diary entries

• Track one or many relationships

• View historical ingredient scores

• View historical Love Quotient™ scores

Alternatively, you may continue below to measure your Love Quotient™ manually:

BEGIN any day keeping in mind you will most likely assign more positive scores on a

happy day and more negative scores on a gloomy day. A typical day may provide the

most relevant score, but extremely happy or upsetting days may provide deeper insight

into certain ingredients. Either way, it doesn’t matter since you are interested in the

longer term Love Quotient™, not the initial score. As you continue to make entries, the

initial score will average out over time and the Love Quotient™ will become a better

representation of how you perceive your love relationship. The more entries you make,

the clearer picture you will get. Get into a habit of making a daily entry for any

experience affecting an ingredient, whether it was pleasurable or non-pleasurable. You

will need a pen and paper OR you may use a electronic spreadsheet.

STEP 1: Assign each of the 7 ingredients one of the following scores; -5, -4, -3, -2, -1,

0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Use a negative score to indicate a degree of non-pleasure, use 0 to indicate

ambivalence and use a positive score to indicate a degree of pleasure.

*Be honest with yourself. You should only give a score of +5 if you cannot think

of anything else that your loved one can do to satisfy you more for a particular

ingredient. List what is not present, or does not meet your satisfaction for each

ingredient. Remove a point for each item on your list starting with +5. For

example, if you have 3 items, you would score +2. The list can be used to explain

your scoring criteria to your loved. Nothing is set in stone; you can always edit

your list as you go along because it is what YOU perceive as important that

matters. YOU determine the score you feel your loved one deserves for each

ingredient (not what your loved one thinks they should score).

Add each ingredient score and determine your total score. The minimum total score

possible is -35 and the maximum is +35. The result is the initial Love Quotient™ you

calculated for your loved one.

Do NOT show each other your scores just yet. Consider the following:

~ 15 ~

. A positive score indicates that you perceive love at the moment.

. A zero score indicates that you are ambivalent to the relationship at

the moment.

. A negative score indicates that you do not perceive love at the

moment.

~ 16 ~

STEP 2: On separate paper, repeat step 1, however this time, score each ingredient how

YOU think your loved one should have scored you.

STEP 3: Compare Love Quotient scores with your loved one. The closer the score you

gave yourself in STEP 2 is to the score your loved one gave you in STEP 1, the more

your love relationship is based on reality. The further apart the scores are, the more your

relationship is based on fantasy.

STEP 4: Discuss the variances and clearly communicate to each other what you consider

a +5 would be for each ingredient BEFORE you begin STEP 5 (INTOX). If your loved

one brought up any issues that you may have forgotten and agree with, feel free to alter

your score (only if YOU feel you should).

STEP 5 (INTOX): Each day, for the next 28 days, you and your loved one will both

work on the same ingredient and score it daily, starting with Affection. Score your loved

one on how you feel on that day, even if the score remains the same. Over a 28-day

period, you will score each of the 7 ingredients at least 4 times, focusing on one

ingredient per day. Consider the quantity, quality and intensity of the experience when

you are scoring an ingredient. If you don’t feel an effort was made that day for an

ingredient, score it 1 point less than what you scored it on the initial Love Quotient™.

Communicate your score and its reasoning daily to open up the communication channel.

This will allow your loved one to hone in to your specific needs and do better as time

goes by, building a stronger love relationship along the way.

At the end of the 28 days, you will have scored each ingredient 4 times:

1. Add up all 4 scores for each ingredient.

2. Divide each total ingredient score by 4 to get average score.

~ 17 ~

3. Add up all 7 average scores to determine your current Love Quotient™.

4. Compare the INITIAL Love Quotient and the INTOX Love Quotient to determine

if there has been any change.

5. Schedule some alone time to discuss why the results have increased, stayed the

same on decreased. The most important question at all times is: are you both

committed to working at building a better love relationship? As you discuss

whether there is anything your partner wants you to do to improve the quality of

your life together, some things will stand out as more important than others. In

each case, you have three options:

a. ACCEPT – by accepting what your significant other is requesting from

you, an intense pleasurable experience will be added in your relationship.

b. REJECTING – by rejecting what your significant other is requesting from

you, an intense non-pleasurable experience will be added in your

relationship. This may result in your significant other seeking satisfaction

of the request(s) elsewhere.

c. COMPROMISE - by partially satisfying what your significant other is

requesting from you, a less intense pleasurable experience will be added in

your relationship. This may result in your significant other seeking

complete satisfaction of the request(s) elsewhere.

STEP 6 (MAINTAIN): Ideally you should work on an ingredient each day, focusing on

weaker ones first until they even up with the others. The more frequently and creatively

you work at each ingredient, the greater the accumulation of pleasurable experiences.

With pleasurable experiences accumulating faster than non-pleasurable experiences, your

love relationship will continue to grow stronger, provided both you and your loved one

remain committed to continuously work at it.

Remember: life changes and people change. No one in a mature relationship should have

a perfect score. A perfect score is a danger zone, where the relationship will become

boring and stagnant, or both of you become complacent. Do not assume that the

relationship that is great today will be great tomorrow. Make it a habit to periodically re-

examine each ingredient.

OMADAMO can help you move from the fantasy of love to a dynamic love reality, so

that you can encourage and share in one another’s growth, and development. Together

you can then adapt to a transforming world, while supporting one another in good times

and bad.

~ 18 ~

Remember, too, even if you initially score high with certain ingredients, there will always

be creative and enjoyable ways to work on each ingredient. This is why the author

recommends to never give a +5 score for any ingredient, as a constant reminder of the

endless possible experiences that exist if we apply ourselves and engage our creativity.

Like maintaining a healthy weight, growing and maintaining love requires discipline,

effort and math--except with OMADAMO, you count experiences...not calories.