Chemistry of love: what does it mean?
Studying the chemistry of love, psychologists have identified three main manifestations of it. After all, feeling manifests itself at different levels of human life:
- internal drug (a person’s well-being depends on a large number of chemicals that affect nerve cells; in the body of lovers there is a powerful release of these substances that make them happy; the nervous system tells the person that at such moments he feels better than ever before);
- nervous disease (people feel a surge of energy, but cannot use it rationally; it is difficult for them to concentrate, their memory deteriorates, their actions surprise others; this is an unnatural state for the brain, so it has little control over what is happening);
- habit (the hormonal “explosion” gradually passes; but the person manages to remember that he had a good time with this partner; the couple remains together, but loves more calmly; lovers already act rationally; love feelings no longer interfere with their business).
What is the meaning of feeling
Love is a powerful feeling that is expressed in sympathy, the desire to be close and make your other half happy. A lover cannot imagine his existence without a partner. Even modern scientists have not been able to unambiguously interpret the nature of this feeling. They strive to find out what love is like and how this feeling appears in different individuals. It is worth considering the ideas of famous researchers of human psychology:
Robert Sternberg pointed out three key elements of love: passion, attraction, responsibility. Arthur Petrovsky concluded that a deep feeling cannot arise if there is even a slight mistrust in the couple. He believed that emotions are not enough - only actions reflect love.
Erich Fromm believed that love is a commercially beneficial union. He argued that loving people should give each other their best. On the basis of such reciprocity, strong relationships are built, because the initial passion will subside. Otherwise, the feelings can immediately be called invalid.
Love in the life of a man and a woman
As you know, men and women express their relationships differently. Women need love. This is the meaning of her birth - to love, understand, cooperate. Men are more focused on achievements, success in society and awards. They show feelings through care and patronage. What is love for a man? A man’s feelings become mature when he has already established himself in his career, is confident in himself and clearly knows what kind of woman suits him in everyday life. Then he is ready to give flowers to his chosen one, win his ideal and speak directly about his feelings.
Even if some adults deny these differences and consider them to be “rotten” gender stereotypes from old age, children 5–6 years old do not think so. Girls at this age are confident that they will be loving mothers, while boys build construction kits and have career plans.
From the very first years of life, children know what activities will bring them happiness. This inner knowledge of theirs does not need correction.
How it manifests itself
This is a multifaceted feeling that can be selfish or selfless. Most often, a lover experiences possessive feelings and strives to assert himself. There is no selfishness in true love. Loving people are responsible to each other. They try to help their partner, protect him, and become better for his sake. We can name 10 features of real feeling:
- Caring (the lover is attentive to the needs of his partner, dreams of improving his life).
- Selflessness (this feeling is devoid of egoism; the lover gives his time and resources free of charge; he does not think about who invests more in the couple).
- Responsibility (partners voluntarily agree to take on certain obligations, sacrificing certain opportunities; therefore, comprehensive fidelity is an important condition for love).
- Freedom (true feeling is associated with freedom; jealousy and selfishness destroy love).
- Trust (mistrust accumulates, destroying the connection).
- Respect (lovers may not agree with each other's views, but they always respect them).
- Intimacy (emotional, physical, intellectual; lovers share hobbies, combine habits).
- Development (feelings inspire development; loving individuals do not “launch” themselves).
- Awareness (this sign is that lovers do not deceive their partner or make unrealistic promises).
- Changes (love is a process, movement; love involves two individuals with dreams and interests; true love strives for change and is not afraid of it).
Difference from falling in love
Literature often describes passionate love, which to the reader seems like love. In reality, almost everyone experienced vivid emotions in childhood, and connected their lives with another partner. Due to inexperience, people confuse these phenomena.
Falling in love is a strong sympathy that often appears in adolescents and very young people (or in mentally immature adults). They come up with an unrealistic image of the person they like. And in a relationship, the ideal image is destroyed, emotions subside.
An important feature of love is the desire to care, provide comfort, and give benefits to the partner. Falling in love is more selfish: you just want to spend time with a person, and not show concern.
The best description of falling in love and love can be found in Chinese folklore. These people believe that the lover strives to pick a beautiful flower, and the lover wants to water it daily.
True feeling differs from superficial love by awareness. A loving person is not interested in the ideal; he is attracted to all aspects of the personality (including shortcomings). Deep love takes a long time to develop and cannot be destroyed by petty conflicts. You can forgive a loved one even more than you can forgive yourself.
True love does not subside, but “grows up.” After the cooling of passions, the need to go through life together does not disappear. Friendship and affection strengthen the union. The partners are confident that they made the right choice.
- Symptoms of love
- The world is dual
- Love is multifaceted and many-sided
- All my life
- Love is not everything, love is everything!
Introduction
Flowers smell wonderful, but they don't speak tender words. The sound of the surf caresses the ear, but you can’t build a house with it. Chocolate is incredibly delicious, but it doesn't make children. A career is a great thing, but it won't keep you warm on a cold night.
And only love will bring harmony and happiness into your life.
Or pain and disappointment? It only depends on you. As in the famous song - “everything will be as you want, only as you want.”
Symptoms of love
Love is the only disease that you want to experience again and again. And even if we don’t admit it to ourselves, we still expect a relapse. Even if we were betrayed. They led me by the nose. They hit me in the ribs. They were torn to pieces. They made us into a patchwork quilt. They took out the heart and trampled on it with their feet. They gouged out their eyes and took away their minds. We still want to experience it...
We are drug addicts. We are all hooked on this mind- and world-altering drug. All we need is love.
Let's say you don't fall in love for a day, a month, a year... Let's say you turn into a robot convenient for everyone: work from nine to six five days a week, in the evening - bring your mother medicine, look at the box, be horrified by the news and go to bed with a full and drunken belly , because without fifty “front-line” it is impossible to switch off, on the weekend - weed the beds at the dacha and barbecue with friends, drive the car to the service station, throw dirty laundry in the washing machine. "Classmates". "Mamba". "Contact". Facebook. Buzz... No real life. You are dying.
It used to seem to me that when you die, a blissful meditative nirvana sets in: you lie in the eternal damp earth, in a cozy coffin, and are sluggishly devoured by worms. Nothing like this: “we only dream of peace.” Without love you die and go to hell... while you are alive. And this is your endless punishment - work from nine to six, five days a week, in the evening - bring your mother medicine, look at the box...
Without love, a person is a living corpse.
And you, consciously or unconsciously, always pray for a miracle. About the miracle of love, because there are no other miracles.
You ask your God to revive you with a touch of light, joy, magic. And a miracle comes. Swift and sudden, like herpes. At first my lips begin to tingle a little, then my heart burns. And you, habitually dead, shudder and think: where to run to the pharmacy, what pill to take, apply ointment, or better yet, give an injection... Intramuscularly, or subcutaneously, or directly into the heart to freeze it, so as not to get sick... Not to get sick with love. But isn’t it about her that you pray and dream? About her. Only the attack is always painful. Hmmm... Man is a contradictory creature.
The world remains the same, but the perspective changes.
There is no escape. The temperature is rising. The vision becomes cloudy. The brain is boiling. My heart is beating feverishly. And then comes an acute fever attack. Chill of love. And then - the heat. You wake up with a meaningless smile on your lips, wink at your reflection in the mirror, start preening and preening your feathers. You compliment your colleagues, hum while preparing a report, don’t yell at your accountant when your salary is late, because now you are a Buddha who is no longer bothered by earthly problems, because there are no problems, but only euphoria and happiness.
There is an irresistible desire - to bury your nose in the thinning curls behind the ear of your beloved, to pull off his socks with emerging holes and a sweater in pills, throw him on the sofa and stroke, stroke, fiddle with, kiss and understand everything, and realize everything that He is yours my beloved is far from being a superman and is no longer Apollo... And, of course, not the smartest. And not the most fun. But it doesn't matter. All that matters is that it exists. And he's yours!
The world is dual
In my “Ideal Couple” trainings, I often ask what qualities people value in partners. I get different answers - from loyalty to a sense of humor. But the priority is still the belonging factor. My love". My
– of course, the main word.
After all, in reality, you just want to live in a house by the sea, drink white wine and eat rapanov. I want peace and quiet, I want to return to the womb and not be responsible for anything. Belonging to someone, considering yourself to be someone else’s is an opportunity to at least partially relieve yourself of the burden of overwhelming daily responsibility. That's why a person wants to be part of a team, a company, a family... He wants to create a couple.
But the world is dual: yin and yang, good and evil, Adam and Eve... And, giving yourself into the arms of your loved one, you not only relieve part of the responsibility for yourself, but also accept part of the responsibility for the other, for your loved one, because not only you you belong to him, but now he also belongs to you. And we are “responsible for those we have tamed”...
Love is multifaceted and many-sided
There is no one true definition of love, no test for love, no analysis of love. For one it is a virus, for another it is salvation. And it is cruel to deny a person the right to his unique experiences of love with the words: “This is not love for you, this is so... just a hobby. You will have a hundred more of these! But I have love. One! Real!”
Love, like pain, cannot be touched. It is difficult to describe. And this makes it seem ephemeral. But it is real to the one who experiences it. It changes not only your heartbeat and pulse, but your entire life.
There will be many contradictions in this book... Just like in love itself. But not because the author doesn’t know the subject well. But only because love is multifaceted, unique and inimitable for everyone.
All my life
Love is my whole life. Is a song. Of course, I could give this song to one and only man in exchange for his song. And we would live happily ever after until we poisoned each other one day. But no, this is not what my seeking soul strives for. I don't want to cook borscht because someone will hammer nails in response. This will not change anything in the world, but I still believe that I can change a lot! And therefore I want to share with you, my reader, the secrets of communication and seduction, the secrets of knowledge and the joys of recognition, survival tips and my own experiences. All the pages of this book are saturated with love. And after reading it, you will probably become a little happier, and the world around you will be a little more magical. I believe in it!
This is not a manual on sex techniques, not a collection of articles in the style of glossy magazines, not an esoteric Talmud, not school moral teachings about family values, and not just another “work on stervology.” This is more of a fortune telling book. It can be read from any page.
Drink like the nectar of love, in small sips. By a little. Every day. The whole year.
You can ask yourself and the world a question about love, then close your eyes and dive into a book. The rule you fall for will be your answer. You can follow it if you find a response in your heart. Or you can do the opposite. Over time, I realized that books and people live both through their acceptance and opposition, both love and hatred. And I don’t expect that each of my readers will perceive this work as the Bible, I expect objections, disputes, because people are terrible debaters, and in each of us there lives a little bully who does not want to acknowledge other people’s experience, but is in a hurry to fill his own bumps .
I worked on this book not to get into the annals of academic literature on psychology and philosophy, but only so that you, my reader, would be in a romantic mood for at least a year. So that you flirt, smile at passers-by, have fun with friends, make sparkling jokes, please others and yourself. So that you fall in love and love, give yourself completely and receive more than in return. So that life begins to be perceived as a miracle. This is my simple goal. I want to see people in love, loved and loving around me. Because this makes me love life more and more every day.
This book can be used as a wound balm, a relaxer, or a beer coaster. With her you can spend a pleasant evening at home or on the road, relax, laugh, be sad and just be yourself - alive, simple, dear and so good... That's who you are, isn't it?
Love is not everything, love is everything!
For the sake of a dozen rhymed lines, I’m letting spring arrive on the threshold again. I write again at night - I don’t sleep. Again I love, love, love...[1]
Always yours,
Diana Balyko
Notes:
1
?Hereinafter, unless authorship is indicated, the poems were written by Diana Balyko.
Table of contents
Types of love
The following main types of love are distinguished: passionate, platonic, unrequited, mutual, selfish, fictitious, feigned, painful and true. Often people experience several varieties of this feeling throughout their lives.
Passionate
People who are passionately in love can even give their life for their partner at the peak of euphoria. But such a feeling cannot withstand everyday difficulties. Passion is considered a primitive feeling: unconscious, infantile, selfish. More precisely, passion is a type of egoistic attachment. It is based on sexual instinct. This feeling ends as soon as the sexual attraction exhausts itself.
Platonic
Platonic feeling is the most disinterested, wise, romantic phenomenon. A person needs such love, it is important to experience it at least once. The definition arose thanks to the philosopher Plato. In his work “The Feast,” the thinker described ideal feelings that do not require bed intimacy. This is highly spiritual love, excluding any sexual desires.
Unrequited
If feelings bring only pain, you should subjugate them and gradually get rid of them. Recommendations for hopelessly in love:
- accept the fact of a person’s lack of interest, destroy illusions;
- realize that time must pass before feelings cool down;
- get rid of things that cause painful associations;
- realize that love is rarely the only one, most people experience several strong feelings throughout their lives; it is important to remember this fact and wait for the right person to appear;
- take into account that in close relationships people turn out to be imperfect; It’s worth imagining this person in everyday life, observing (if possible) his shortcomings; this sobers up the lover.
An unrequited feeling often brings benefits, because lovers develop and try to become better. To please the object of adoration, a person struggles with shortcomings and engages in creativity. And often spiritually outgrows the chosen one.
Mutual
For feelings to develop, they must be mutual. You need to love not only your partner, but also yourself. After all, a healthy attachment can only arise between two individuals who value themselves. Reciprocity involves working on feelings, getting to know your partner, and accepting shortcomings. A person who loves unrequitedly revels in his illusions. Reality may disappoint him. “One-sided” love often arises from complexes, asociality, and unfulfillment.
Reciprocity is also an equal exchange of emotions, thoughts, and energy. In strong couples, partners are on the same moral, intellectual and spiritual level. They have a lot to give and get just as much in return.
Selfish
The most common form. When a selfish person talks about love, it means that she wants something from her chosen one. These can be material benefits, increasing one’s own social status, salvation from loneliness, physical and emotional satisfaction. This is also love, but not between two halves, but for yourself.
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Selfishness is a sign of an immature personality. She is focused on herself, her dreams, suffering and pleasures. In pop culture, egoists are portrayed as strong and confident. But often these are self-obsessed and complex people. Their insecurity and weakness prevent them from causing harm, but they remain the same selfish people. They seem sensitive, but their emotions are caused by their own problems. Egoists are indifferent and inattentive to others. At the same time, they seem to themselves to be sensitive individuals with a kind heart.
A declaration of love from such a person will sound selfish: “I need you.” Even in such moments he is focused on himself. The chosen one is a source of pleasure for the egoist. Until he matures, his interest in other people will be false.
Painful
This concept is closer to drug addiction than to love. The lover does not understand the reason for his feelings. He idolizes the chosen one, even seeing a bad attitude towards himself. Such attachment brings nothing but torment; it can be called a disease. Those who get sick most often are those who lacked parental affection in childhood. They fall in love with everyone who treats them kindly. This connection is built on uncertainty and fears. Many people enjoy such painful devotion.
True
Briefly about true love we can say this: a loving person values his loved one no less than himself. He is able to sacrifice, to give. He makes his loved one stronger, and he himself gains strength. This is the great meaning of love. True love leads to happiness and harmony.
True love is a mature feeling. You need to grow up to it. You need to outgrow selfishness, primitive needs, and superficial thinking. A mature person is able to sincerely empathize, care, and appreciate someone else’s inner world. To do this, it is important to develop and expand the scope of your thinking. This love must be earned. You need to be prepared not only for pleasures, but also for difficulties. Love is work.
Fictional
Sometimes love is invented out of boredom. The individual wants suffering, thrills. The lover mentally pronounces all this passion, provoking himself with his words. From idleness, a person seeks bright emotions. At the same time, he chooses not a loved one, but a “toy”.
Romantic fantasies are fueled by plots from novels. These are short-lived, superficial, but strong emotions. An individual in love can abandon his spouse and children for the sake of beautiful fantasies. This can develop into obsession. And when faced with reality, such relationships quickly “burn out.”
Fake
Often partners do not love, but play with feelings. They enjoy romantic rituals: giving flowers, dedicating poetry, arranging beautiful dates. At the same time, “lovers” are not able to truly sacrifice. As long as such relationships are convenient, people play in them. They like to think about how this relationship looks from the outside. They are satisfied with such self-deception. Behind these relationships lies commercialism, a desire to stand out, or sexual attraction.
Love is like a disease, love is like a fever
For those who, even with a headache, climb to the top shelf for a medical reference book.
Apparently, something did not work out for the experts of the World Health Organization in their personal life, and they entered love into the register of diseases under the item “Disorder of habits and impulses, unspecified” with code F63.9, classifying it as a mental illness.
How to understand that you are sick?
- Pay attention to the first symptoms - “tunnel vision”: a person is not able to perceive anything that does not directly or indirectly relate to his love object.
“If a person does not find an answer from the object of love, then depending on his level of culture, his moral values, the person is capable of becoming evil, committing a crime aimed at his partner or the circumstances around him. Or he can write a picture, a poem, music, or perform a feat in the name of his love,” says Doctor of Medical Sciences, Professor Alexey Danilov.
- Next, you will notice clouding of your mind, emotional instability, insomnia, and mental instability.
“A person really becomes stupid at this time. And such a perception is called limitation. There is an idealization of the image of the beloved, which the person absolutely does not want to destroy,” says psychologist Ekaterina Stepanova.
- Be attentive to your adrenal glands!
According to some scientists, love begins there. The adrenal glands begin to produce hormones of passion and fear. When you see the object of love, adrenaline increases your heart rate and blood flow. The hormone cortisol increases the production of glucose in the pancreas, providing the body with more energy.
“Love is a very good workout for the brain, because it is well supplied with blood in this state,” says Alexey Danilov.
- Remember that only drug addicts and lovers have equally elevated levels of dopamine - a substance that causes a feeling of pleasure. Yes, for lovers this increase was natural, but for drug addicts it was artificial, but it is the hormone dopamine that gives the feeling of “butterflies in the stomach.”
More - here
If you are interested in this topic, Google “Monroe syndrome” (!).
Do you have to fight for love?
Attempts to take away a lover, manipulation, lies, waiting, persuasion, threats are unhealthy methods. They are used by selfish individuals who are incapable of love. The best way to fight for your beloved is to develop, become better, express emotions through creativity, while remaining a friend to your object of adoration. It is important not to close yourself off from other people. Then painful attachment will not arise. And while communicating with other interesting personalities, you can quietly fall in love with each other.
But this requires effort and resources. In the first stages of falling in love, it is almost impossible to control yourself like that. It’s worth staying at a distance, coming to your senses, and then fighting for feelings. And in order to forget your beloved, you need to fill your life with interesting activities and stop seeing the object of your adoration. It will gradually become easier. Everyone determines for themselves whether it makes sense to fight for their loved one. To understand your capabilities, you need to go through such an experience.
Love is an emotional connection between two full-fledged strong personalities. They feel good alone, but with a significant other they are better.
