Love Languages

Relationships cause the greatest joy and the greatest suffering. Cultivating unconditional love instead of attachment is a BIG key. What most of us call love is not love but attachment. It's my partner fulfilling a need that I cannot fulfill on my own. Then I feel a huge void when my partner is not around. We cultivate unconditional love by the state of non attachment. This can happen when we're providing love and needs for ourselves. Unconditional love is positive focus in an attitude of appreciation for something we're paying attention to (using our conscious mind).

1. Work to discover and release your fears in your relationships 
2. Communicate completely 
3. Stay on the same page 
4. Look at you're Love Patterns 
5. Changing Beliefs from the pattens we learned growing up 

Dr. Bruce Lipton says when we're in LOVE we are very focused on detail, staying in shape, saying the best words to our partner and dressing our best. We are much more aware and awake because our mind has NO reason to wander. We're in love with what's in front of us and it's much easier to stay present and NOT wander/overt into our subconscious mind (the programed mind). We're looking at life from the conscious mind which happens to be the creative mind connected to our spirit.

When we're not in this honey moon state with new love we're operating from the programed patterns in the subconscious mind. It's kind of like we're just sleep walking through life. This is what many call, falling out of love or not in love.

Being in love makes you think smarter and faster.In one study, participants stared at a computer as names flashed across the screen (but flashed so quickly that they couldn’t consciously recognize them). When the name of their loved one appeared, their ability to perform demanding cognitive tasks improved significantly. Scientists believe that’s because love activates the brain’s dopamine system—a system that’s been shown to boost cognitive and motor skills.When we're operating from the conscious mind we are a lot sharper, smarter, faster in thought because we're NOT operating from the subconscious mind (the program).



Cocktail of Chemicals???


Stage 1: Lust

This is the first stage of love and is driven by the sex hormones testosterone and testrogen-in both men and women.



Stage 2: Attraction

This is the amazing time when you are truly love struck and can think of little else. Scientists think that three main neurotransmitters are involved in this stage; adrenaline, dopamine and serotonin.

Adrenalin

The initial stages of falling for someone activates your stress response, increasing your blood levels of adrenalin and cortisol. This has the charming effect that when you unexpectedly bump into your new love, you start to sweat and your heart races.

Dopamine

This gives us heightened attention, causes sleepless nights, causes us to be more goal oriented and is why we cant think of anything but this person. I believe with this released into our bodies we are operating from our conscious mind and not the programing?

Helen Fisher asked newly "love struck" couples to have their brains examined and discovered they have high levels of the neurotransmitter dopamine. This chemical stimulates desire and reward by triggering an intense rush of pleasure. It has the same effects on the brain as taking cocaine!

Dr. Helen Fisher suggests, "Couples often show the signs of surging dopamine: increased energy, less need for sleep or food, focused attention and exquisite delight in smallest details of this novel relationship"


When you have butterflies in your stomach from meeting someone new, dopamine levels surge. All of the dopamine gives you and extra thrill when you see your newly beloved, creating an intense craving to be around them. A neurotrophin called nerve growth factor accompanies all this euphoria and increases your emotional dependency.

Lastly, serotonin levels drop, which cranks up the dial for desire. This chemical cocktail is why lovestruck couples can be so infatuated with each other. Studies show that the chemical concentrations brewing inside the brains of new lovebirds are similar to those who suffer from OCD. Isn't OCD in a way keeping us aware and operating from the conscious mind and not the programing?

Serotonin

And finally, serotonin. One of love's most important chemicals that may explain why you're falling in love. Your new lover keeps popping into your thoughts all day long.

Does love change the way we think??? A landmark experiment in Pisa, Italy showed that early love (the attraction phase) really changes the way we think.
Dr. Donatella Marazziti, a psychiatrist at the University of Pisa advertised for twenty couples who had been madly in love for less than six months. She wanted to see if the brain mechanisms that cause you to constantly think about your lover were related to the brain mechanisms of OCD, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.



By analyzing blood samples from the lovers, Dr. Marazitti discovered that serotonin levels of new lovers were equivalent to the low serotonin levels of OCD patients.

Love needs to be blind

Nesmitten lovers often idealize their partner, magnifying their virtues and explaining away their flaws says Ellen Berscheid, a leading researcher on the psychology of love.

New couples also exalt the relationship itself. "It's very common to think they have a relationship that's closer and more special than anyone else's." Psychologists think we need this rose-tinted view. It makes us want to stay together to enter the next stage of love.....attachment.



Stage 3: Attachment

Attachment is the bond that keeps couples together long enough for them to have and raise children Scientists think there might be two major hormones involved in this feeling of attachment: oxytocin and vasopressin.

Oxytocin-the cuddle hormone
Oxytocin is a powerful hormone released by men and women during orgasm. It probably deepens the feelings of attachment and makes couples feel much closer to one another after they have had sex. The theory goes that the more sex a couple has, the deeper their bond becomes. Oxytocin also seems to help cement the strong bond between mom and baby and is released during childbirth. It is also responsible for a moms breast automatically releasing mild at the mere sight of sound of her new baby.

Diane Witt, assistant professor of psychology from New York has showed that if you block the natural release of oxytocin in sheep and rats, they reject their own young. Conversely, injecting oxytocin into female rats who’ve never had sex, caused them to fawn over another female’s young, nuzzling the pups and protecting them as if they were their own.

Vasopressin

Vasopressin is another important hormone in the long-term commitment stage and is released after sex. Vasopressin (also called anti-diuretic hormone) works with your kidneys to control thirst. Its potential role in long-term relationships was discovered when scientists looked at the prairie vole.



Prairie voles indulge in far more sex than is strictly necessary for the purposes of reproduction. They also – like humans - form fairly stable pair-bonds. When male prairie voles were given a drug that suppresses the effect of vasopressin, the bond with their partner deteriorated immediately as they lost their devotion and failed to protect their partner from new suitors.

People say love is like an addiction. According to many neuroscientists, they're right! Romantic love can release so many happy-go-lucky neurotransmitters into your bloodstream that the effects can outdo some drugs.