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Love Defined
How We Communicate Love
We Express Love Through the Power of Attraction
Online Dating in Cyberspace
Have More Sex
A Woman's Top 5 Ways to Better
Intimacy
The Ties That Unbind
Lost that Loving Feeling?
Safety Net
Misery Loves Company: Do the two go hand in
hand?
The Characteristics of Healthy
Love When
Lovers Part
Love
Defined
A deep, tender,
ineffable feeling of affection and solicitude toward a
person, such as that arising from kinship, recognition
of attractive qualities, or a sense of underlying
oneness.
A feeling of intense
desire and attraction toward a person with whom one is
disposed to make a pair; the emotion of sex and
romance.
Sexual
passion
Sexual
intercourse
A love
affair
An intense emotional
attachment, as for an appreciated pet or treasured
object.
Perhaps, the most
important of Divine Laws is the 'law
of love.'
Put simply, "Love is Law, Law is Love." This amounts
to the same thing as "the gift of giving" without the
hope of reward or pay, or serving
others.
When you do the right thing for others you receive
gifts in unexpected ways. Paradoxically, those who
help you may not be those you help. The help you
receive may come from surprisingly distant
connections.
A
stranger you were once.
Then, with a gentle look you took my hand.
As our lives engaged,
you lit my life and I held both your hands.
Now that decades have passed,
our souls have indeed become one.
How fortunate we are
that we have found the love so true
that everyone dreams about.
by
Laura Veronica Merodio
How
We Communicate Love
Why
is it that so few couples seem to have found the
secret to keeping love alive after the wedding? The
problem is that what has been overlooked is one
fundamental truth: People speak different love
languages.
Your
emotional love language and the language of your
partner may be as different as Chinese from English.
Being sincere is not enough.
Seldom
do partners have the same primary love language. We
must be willing to learn our partner’s primary
love language if we are to be effective communicators
of love.
There are basically five emotional love languages.
Here are the five ways that people speak and
understand emotional love:
Words of Affirmation:
Verbal
compliments, or words of appreciation, are powerful
communicators of love. They are best expressed in
simple, straightforward statements of
affirmation.
Quality Time:
Looking at each other and talking, giving your
undivided attention. That twenty or more minutes of
time will never be had again: we are giving our lives
to each other. It is a powerful communicator of love.
Receiving Gifts:
A gift is something you can hold in your hand and say
“Look, he was thinking of me,” or “She
remembered me”. The gift is a symbol of thought
and the thought remains not only in the mind but is
expressed in actually securing the gift and giving it
as an expression of love.
Acts
of Service:
Doing things you know your spouse would like you to
do. You seek to please her by serving her, to express
your love for her by doing
things for her.
These acts require thought, planning, time, effort,
and energy.
Physical Touch: For
some individuals, physical touch is their primary love
language. Without it, they feel unloved. With it,
their emotional tank is filled, and they feel secure
in the love of their spouse. The touch of love may
take many forms. Don’t make the mistake that the
touch that brings pleasure to you will also bring
instant pleasure to her.
When
we choose active expressions of love in the primary
love language of our spouse, we create an emotional
climate where we can deal with our conflicts and
failures.
What
if the love language of your loved one is something
that doesn’t come naturally to you? When an
action doesn’t come naturally, it is a greater
expression of love.
To attract
is to cause to draw near or adhere. Here is how the
power
of attraction
works within each of us:
Because human beings
remember with neurons (the cells of nerve tissue), we
are disposed to see more of what we have already seen,
hear anew what we have heard most often, think just
what we have always
thought.
Within the
brain, every mental activity consists of neutrons
(electrically neutral subatomic particles) firing in a
certain sequence. An "Attractor" is an association of
ingrained links that can overwhelm weaker information
patterns. If incoming sensory data provoke a quorum of
the Attractor's units, they will trigger their
teammates, who flare to brilliant
life.
An Attractor can
overpower other units so thoroughly that the network
registers chiefly the incandescence of the Attractor,
even though the fading, firefly traces of another
pattern initially glimmered there. A network then
registers strikingly new sensory information as if it
conformed to past experience. In much the same way,
our sun's blinding glare washes countless dimmer stars
from the midday sky.
The limbic brain
(i.e. the emotional brain) contains its emotional
Attractors, encoded early in life. Primal bias then
forms an integral part of the neural systems that view
the emotional world and conduct relationships. If the
early experience of a limbic network exemplifies
healthy emotional interaction, its Attractors will
serve as reliable guides to the world of workable
relationships.
No individual
can think his way around his own Attractors, since
they are embedded in the structure of thought. And in
human beings, an
Attractor's influence is not confined to its mind of
origin. The
limbic brain sends an Attractor's sphere of influence
exploding outward with the exuberance of a nova's
gassy shell. Because limbic resonance and regulation
join human minds together in a continuous exchange of
influential signals, every brain is part of a local
network that shares information--including
Attractors.
Limbic
Attractors thus exert a distorting force not only
within the brain that produces them, but also on the
limbic networks of others--calling forth compatible
memories, emotional states and styles of relatedness
in them. Through the limbic transmission of an
Attractor's influence, one person can lure others into
his emotional virtuality. All of us, when we engage in
relatedness, fall under the gravitational
influence
of another's
emotional mind with ours. Each relationship is a
binary star, a burning flux of exchanged force fields,
the deep and ancient influences emanating and felt,
felt and emanating.
The limbic
transmission of Attractors renders personal identity
partially malleable---the specific people to whom we
are attached provoke a portion of our everyday neural
activity. Ongoing exposure to one person's Attractors
does not merely activate neural patterns in
another--it also strengthens them. Long-standing
togetherness writes permanent changes into a brain's
open book.
In
a relationship,
one mind revises another; one heart changes its
partner. This astounding legacy of our combined status
as mammals and neural beings is limbic revision: the
power to remodel the emotional parts of the people we
love, as our Attractors activate certain limbic
pathways, and the brain's inexorable memory mechanism
reinforces them.
Who we are and
who we become depends, in part, on whom we
love.
---Source:
A
General Theory of
Love
by Thomas Lewis, M.D., Fari Amini, M.D., Richard
Lannon, M.D.
While
many people think of dating services as just that---an
easy way to find a date---online dating has
established itself as a legitimate relationship maker.
Increasingly, singles are using the Internet to seek
out that special someone for the long-term. For those
who shun singles bars and the dating scene, meeting
someone virtually can forgo much of the uncomfortable
aspects of dating.
According to a survey conducted at the 8-million
member Match.com, the nation's largest dating site, a
half-million new members register each month.
Source:
Jason Williams in Psychology Today, February
2003
Free
Online Dating Sites
Free
dating sites could shake up the online dating scene,
which is already struggling with flattening growth in
the U.S.
PlentyofFish.com
is a free online dating site and a model for the next
generation of Web entrepreneurship. Most other dating
sites charge anywhere between $20 and $40 a month for
membership. The site became popular in Canada and,
later, in the U.S.
There
are now 1.2 million active members. HitWise says it's
one of the five-busiest dating sites.
Nielsen/NetRatings says that by some measures, such as
the time its members spend on the site, it ranks
second after eHarmony.
For
the week ended April 28, 2007, it was the 96th-busiest
website in the U.S., according to the HitWise tracking
service. That means it has more traffic than some of
the Net's best-known destinations, such as
Apple.com.
One
small dating site,HotorNot.comis
dropping its monthly fees, fashioning itself after
PlentyofFish.com.
Source:
The Wall Street Journal, May 23, 2007
"I’d like to
tell you about an entirely new approach to finding a
serious relationship - Chemistry.com. The first site
to understand and appreciate that there’s more
than compatibility to a real connection.
In short order,
Chemistry has become the fastest growing online
relationship site in the world. Why? It’s a new
experience that guides you from start to finish. We
learn about our members. We find their matches. And
knowing they covet their privacy, we keep their
profile private. Only those with whom we match them
can view it. Then we help them set up a face-to-face
meeting, so they can find out if that someone has
something special."
Rickey Morehead of
Match.com and Chemistry.com
Online
Dating in Cyberspace
Online dating
services are attracting roughly one-fifth of all
singles by searching for good
matches
based upon any
number of criteria selected by the single
seeker.
Dr. Alvin
Cooper, the director of the San Jose Marital Services
and Sexuality Centre and a staff psychologist at
Stanford University, says that because online
interaction tends to downplay proximity, physical
attraction and face-to-face interaction, people are
more likely to take risks and disclose significant
things about themselves. The result is that they
attain a higher level of psychological and emotional
intimacy than if they dated right away or hopped in
the sack.
Online dating
represents a return to what University of Chicago
Humanities Professor Amy Kass calls the "distanced
nearness" of old-style courtship, an intimate and
protected (cyber)space that encourages self-revelation
while maintaining personal
boundaries.
An online dater
has a much higher likelihood of finding "the one" due
to the computer's capacity to sort through thousands
of potential mates. "That's what computers are all
about--efficiency and sorting," says Cooper, who
believes that online dating has the potential to lower
the nation's 50 percent divorce
rate.
Why does this sound a little less than
inspiring?
For many people,
the Internet can efficiently facilitate love and help
to nudge fate along. But, for the diehard romantic who
trusts love's mystery, coincidence and fate, the
cyber-solution to love lacks instant gratification.
"To the romantic," observes English writer Blake
Morrison in The Guardian, "every marriage is an
arranged marriage--arranged by fate, that is, which
gives us no choice."
--Source:
Utne, May-June 2003
Have
More Sex
Need
an excuse to skip that performance evaluation with
your boss and take a long lunch? Two economists say
that regular sex brings people as much happiness as a
$50,000-a-year raise--so no need to kiss up to your
boss if kissing your partner is more fun. David
Blanchflower of Dartmouth College and Andrew Oswald of
Warwick University set out to track people's
lifestyles and happiness in a series of research
papers, and when it comes to the importance of sex,
their conclusion couldn't be more plain: "The more
sex," they write, "the happier the person."
The
real surprise here might not be how much we enjoy sex
but why we need a couple of economists to tell us so.
The pleasure we get from sexual contact is hard-wired,
like nature's incentive plan to keep us propagating
the species. But there are more benefits to safe,
consensual sex than just fulfilling an evolutionary
requirement. As more and more researchers are finding,
it can be awfully good for your physical and mental
health as well.
Studies
show that sex may reduce prostate and breast cancer
risk, boost immunity, relieve stress, and burn 180
calories for a half hour, making it a pretty good
workout. It shoots mood-boosting hormones through the
system, builds intimacy between partners, and
generally just feels pretty darn good.
1.
Ever try slow-motion sex?
"However
long it takes him to perform the
usual
titillating
tasks, tell him you want it take a loooong time," says
Lisa Sussman, author
of
Satisfaction Guaranteed: 350 Best Sex Tips Ever
(Carlton, 2003). "Give all your moves the same
treatment -- make it take a good half-a-minute or
longer to
do
what usually takes an instant or two." The result?
You'll suddenly discover loads of nerve-endings you
never noticed before.
2.
Try a new position.
Don't give up if you can't make a new position work!
"If at
first
you don't succeed, try, try again," says Sussman.
"Give it three attempts before you give up on
something new. Remember, sex is a skill, and sometimes
you
need
practice!"
3.
Set a goal. Make
short-term goals for a long-term improvement in
lovemaking. "If, as a two-person team, you decide,
'Let's try one new position a week!' or 'Let's double
our lovemaking!', you'll find yourself inspired," says
Sussman.
4.
Stay connected.
Sexually, that is. Don't let "I'm not in the mood"
turn into "getaway from me." Your sexual connection is
important. Obviously, sometimes you can let yourself
be off the hook, but "you should take care of him in
some other way
whenever
possible," says Logan Levkoff, a sexologist and
sexuality educator in New
York
City. "Remembering your partner's needs, even when you
feel overwhelmed, will
help
you resist resentment and keep the sexual current
between you eventhrough
the
hard times."
5.
Develop a sexual
language.
"Some people can't talk dirty," says Levkoff. " And
that's okay. You should try to find a new way to let
your partner know what feels
great
in a way that's comfortable for you." It might be
words, it might be moans, but figure out how to let
him know you're loving every minute of it -- or at
least which minutes you're loving.
The
Ties That Unbind
Our
cultural vocabulary indicates that marriages move one
way--downhill.
The
"honeymoon period" implies post-honeymoon strife; the
"seven-year itch" suggests that we tire of our mate at
year seven.
Now,
Wright State University psychology professor Lawrence
Kurdek, Ph.D., confirms that our lexicon is accurate.
His surveys of over 500 couples have revealed that
most married couples experience a gradual but steady
decline in marital quality over the four-year period
after they tie the knot. Newlyweds tend to wear
rose-colored glasses at first, says Kurdek, but
reality kicks in after they see their partner drink
from the milk carton or forget to take out the trash
one too many times.
Source:
Aaron Dalton in Psychology Today, January
2000
Lost
that Loving Feeling?
"Emotional
blunting" is the result of popular antidepressants
increasing the level of the brain chemical, serotonin,
and "hijacking" dopamine, a brain chemical connected
with movement, emotion, motivation and feelings of
pleasure.
Studying
the connection between depression, love, sex and
antidepressant treatment is difficult. However, any
spouse or significant other whose partner suffers from
depression and is on antidepressants knows the
relationship has lost that loving feeling. The drugs
used to treat depression are known to cause side
effects that can interfere with relationships,
including lack of desire and arousal problems,
inability to achieve orgasm, delayed ejaculation and
erectile dysfunction.
"These
drugs blunt emotions and reduce obsessive-compulsive
thinking, but those are also two main characteristics
of romantic love, says Dr. Helen Fisher, a Rutgers
University anthropologist who conducted brain studies
of love. "You are tampering with the mechanisms that
can help sustain feelings of romantic love and deep
feelings of attachment."
One
solution for couples is to take an antidepressant that
can be stopped intermittently for "drug holidays"
without losing effectiveness. Forest Pharmaceutical's
Lexapro sometimes can be stopped on a Friday and
resumed on a Monday, which increases the patient's
sexual interest on the weekends. Some doctors give
patients bupropion, sold under the brand Wellbutrin by
Glaxo, which has been shown to have a lower rate of
sexual side effects and is sometimes used as a
treatment for sexual dysfunction. For menopausal
women, sometimes estrogen and testosterone drugs, such
as Solvay Pharmaceutical's Estratest, are
prescribed.
If
you are taking an antidepressant and develop marital
or romance problems, "don't immediately assume it's
you or the relationship," Dr. Andy Thomson, staff
psychiatrist at the University of Virginia student
health services, says, "because it may be the
drug."
Source:
The Wall Street Journal, February 14,
2006
Safety
Net
You
are my safety net.
When
I fall
Your
arms
Like
thick protective ropes
Catch
and envelope me
Before
sending me
Upwards
Again.
And
next month
When
you leave
For
good
I
will have to learn
To
never fall…
Or
to land well.
Not
walking
The
treacherous
Tight
rope
That
is Life
Is
not an option.
Perhaps
I can
Wear
big skirts
That
billow out
Like
a parachute
When
I fall.
Then
the trick
Is
to kick and
Coax
the air
To
propel me
Upwards
Again
by
Sara Hinnant
Misery Loves Company: Do the two go hand in
hand?
Does misery love
company or does misery make company equally miserable?
Psychologists have long pondered whether couples and
close friends are depressed in tandem because one
person's mood poisons the well, or because people
gravitate towards significant others with the same
traits.
In the first
longitudinal comparison of mood in romantic partners
and roommates, Chris Segrin, Ph.D, a professor of
psychology and communications at the University of
Arizona at Tucson, found that emotional tone is set at
the starting gate.
Segrin surveyed
153 dating couples and 170 pairs of roommates for
three months. He concluded that women's emotional
states positive or negative were unrelated to changes
in their boyfriends' moods and vice versa. Moreover,
couples that had been dating longer were no more
likely to mirror each other's emotional states than
were newly minted partners.
Source:
Kaja Perina in Psychology Today, January
2003
The
Characteristics of Healthy Love
People
in healthy relationships have the following
characteristics.
1.
They allow for individuality.
2.
They experience both oneness with and separateness
from another. 3.
They bring out the best qualities in self and another.
4.
They accept endings. 5.
They experience openness to change and exploration.
6.
They invite growth in the other person.
7.
They experience true intimacy.
8.
They feel the freedom to ask honestly for what is
wanted. 9.
They experience giving and receiving in the same way.
10.
They do not attempt to change or control the other.
11.
They encourage self-sufficiency of partners.
12.
They accept limitations of self and other.
13.
They do not seek unconditional love.
14.
They accept and respect commitment.
15.
They have a high
self-esteem. 16.
They trust the memory of the beloved; they enjoy
solitude. 17. They
express feelings
spontaneously. 18.
They
welcome closeness; risk vulnerability.
19.
They care with
detachment. 20.
They affirm equality and personal power of self and
other.
by
Dr. Brenda Schaeffer, licensed psychologist, certified
addiction specialist and author of
"Love’s
Way: The Union of Body, Ego, Soul and Spirit"
and
"Is
It Love Or Is It
Addiction?"
available at your local bookstore,
at
www.loveandaddiction.com
or
by calling 888-987-6129.
When Lovers Part
The
intuition of love had told him. It could never be
deceived. Tears came into her eyes. But I am glad that
I will be the one to go first, she thought. You are
strong, but I am weak. You will bear this as you have
borne other tragedies, but I could not have borne your
dying. For that, if nothing else, I thank God. All our
lives are a giving up, one by one, of the things we
love and enjoy, and finally there is the last
abandonment and we are
empty.
But
the memory of our love which I will take with me, if I
may, for you are the only joy I have ever known, the
only contentment and delight. And so, I am rich after
all, richer than most. Others live lives of no color
or vitality, and their existence is like nursery
porridge, and as bland.
But
I have known all the heights that can be possible for
a woman, all the raptures and the faith and the trust,
all the excitements and the wonders, and even grief
was bearable in your presence, my darling. I must not
be greedy and try to cling to what I have had--for it
is all fulfilled, full and overflowing. Nothing can be
added. Nothing taken
away.
From: "Captains
and the Kings" by Taylor Caldwell (Doubleday &
Company, Inc) 1972
Where
is your life today and where do you want to
be?
"Have
you ever watched, listened, and felt someone tuning a
guitar or other string instrument? That is what it is
like to have the good fortune of connecting with John
Agno. He is a living tuning fork and you're that
string instrument. Today, I have greater self
awareness, am more in step with my calling, and better
able to appreciate the journey, including the valleys,
than ever before. Thanks, John for helping me get
attuned with my
LifeSignature."T.U.,
Chicago, IL,
USA
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