Girl 2 Girl: L-O-V-E

Are you unable able to sleep, eat, concentrate and can’t go about your daily routine with out thinking about that one person a zillion times? Is your mind a blur, or now do you see things so much more clearly?

You can’t wait to be with that person again because you know how alive he makes you feel. He adds light to your heart.

If the following is true you might have just fallen in L-O-V-E.

So what now? What is love? As you may know my favorite portrayals of love are the ones found in a Jane Austin novel: Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Mansfield Park and Northanger Abbey.

The simple, sweet, effervescent kind of love that consumes you and leaves you in a state of perfect confusion, a misty haze where the world going on outside the walls of your heart is now so different.

There’s magic and something spiritual about it, like a soulful intimacy has been found and it’s truly powerful.

Today love is a different animal on the outer levels, but I think still the same underneath. We’re just living in a different century and geography.

Sure there are plenty of Mr. Darcy’s out there just like there are Lizzie’s.

Life was not so complicated then as it can be today where there’s so much more cynicism and distrust from previous hurts. Divorce rates are increasing and people with too high of expectations are wanting out when they meet with a boulder or even a rock on the path.

Where does bailing get you? It gets you alone.

Perhaps too many people depend on their significant others to always make them happy when the truth is you have to find that happiness within yourself .

There are so many shapes of love, some loves are reciprocated, some unrequited, some one sided, there are the ever popular love triangles which we’ll talk about next week and with each we come away from the experience transformed.

But with each comes uncharted territory and emotions to deal with and understand. And life just keeps unfolding and zipping by around us. Some people just don’t get it or get us. After all they’re not inside our hearts.

Have you just fallen in love for the first time or wish to go back if only for moments? Are you waiting for Mr. Right to come knocking? Are you not sure if you can give your heart to someone again because you have been deeply hurt?

Or have you found that something special and you just know that this is it! I drudged through some of that and flew through the rest, and oh the feelings!

I was  curious if there’s a scientific explanation for falling in love.

Helen Fisher of Rutgers Universityhas proposed 3 stages of love – lust, attraction and attachment. And with each stage different hormones and chemicals are involved.

Stage 1 Lust: Oo-la-la! is the first stage of love driven by the sex hormones testosterone and estrogen.

Stage 2 Attraction: is driven by Adrenaline. This is where you are love-struck causing your heart to race, you sweat profusely, deodorant anyone? And your mouth goes dry if you happen to bump into your new love. Dopamine stimulates “desire and reward” and a feeling of pure pleasure, things are rosy now! And finally Serotonin, which causes your new love to continue to pop into your thoughts all day and night long.

Stage 3 Attachment: Couples are bonded long enough to raise children, the gold at the end of the rainbow through the chemical Oxytocin which is released during sex and is known as the “Cuddle hormone” and Vasopressin also released during sex is capable of promoting bonding and long term commitment.

I’ll tell you what a special person, my mom, always told me, “Live in the moment and don’t think too far ahead, just be happy.

And so I do.

Ciao Bella

Posted by Janel M. Harrison on August 8, 2013. Filed under Girl-2-Girl. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry