The month of amore!
As hearts abound in quests to love and be loved, analysis of how to truly experience the greatest feeling on earth is intriguing. A plethora of studies identify uniqueness in how we experience love, primarily based on our initial mother-child interactions and experiences with sexual attachments as one matures.
This blissful feeling we experience is produced by the “hormone oxytocin.” Physiologically, oxytocin triggers serotonin in a “chain reaction” that produces that sense of pleasurable contentment, or love. Labeled the “love hormone,” oxytocin is activated most strongly when we touch a loved one and behaves as a neurotransmitter in the brain. This hormone is greatly stimulated during sex, childbirth, breast-feeding, and according to the latest research, sometimes during less intimate human interactions.
If you are fortunate enough to love and be loved, Gary Chapman offers insight that may deepen that love! Dr. Chapman’s advice can help us discover behaviors that impact love experiences. In The Five Love Languages, he describes how uniquely each of us receives love, through:
- Words of Affirmation
- Quality Time
- Gifts
- Acts of Love, or
- Physician Touch?
Take Dr. Chapman’s The Five Love Languages‘ QUIZ to learn how you experience love.
How many types of love exist? Depends on the source, but without any doubt, many, including:
Platonic love: The kind of relationships you share with siblings, close childhood friends, and even [close,] grownup friends fall here.
Crushes: Ever had a crush on someone? Of course we all have!
Unrequited love: Filled with heartbreaks… it’s the dreaded one sided love, where you like someone and you know that person will never like you back.
Obsessive love: Obsessive lovers are scared, insecure, and… really, there’s no hope for a happy ending here.
Selfish love: Two people… in love with one person. Narcissistic love where you don’t care about your partner or their happiness.
Same sex love: An emotion less to do with sexual attraction and more to do with awe, respect, and admiration.
Lusty love: The type of love you experience when… you’re extremely sexually attracted… that revolves… less around [shared values or futures].
Romantic love: Butterflies… bliss… beautiful, sappy love at its best. The world looks so much more beautiful… having the time of your life!
Unconditional love: Blessed are the lovers who experience this special type of love [which always grows out of another type of love.] Do you love someone more than you love yourself? This grand love experience that dreams are made of!
Happy Valentine’s Day! Cheers to learning how to love and be loved!
Love isn’t something you find… it’s something that finds you. Unknown
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With respect and gratitude,
Barbara & your research team