Issue 9 February 2011
Quantum
believe that love is simply a blend of emotions with survival value.
Love as an emotion
Emotions are related to our biology – they are, in effect, physical responses to our thinking and our belief systems. They can feel wonderful, but they can also bring misery. Life can be unbearable for someone racked with guilt or irrational fears.
Emotions can ruin our ability to think clearly. That’s why wise individuals understand that acting on our emotions is not always the best way. As we mature, we leave childish emotions behind and earn more adult ways of functioning. Or do we?
Not always. Many of us fall in love with people who aren’t necessary right for us. ‘Ever fallen in love with someone you shouldn’t have fallen in love with?’ (I’m indebted to the Buzzcocks for this song title.) Among the reasons people make this mistake are:
• Looking for a Mr/Ms Fix it to take their pain away, to remove loneliness, self-doubt, poverty, etc.
• Trying to make themselves complete through another person.
• Romantic delusions: • We need each other so badly.
• I want to marry you and have your children – see how much I love you? How unselfish I am!
Needs based ‘love’ is all too often bound up with emotions such as fear and selfishness. It can arouse fierce passions such as jealousy, possessiveness and revenge, and can easily be confused with:
• Co-dependence - ‘I need you; I can’t live without you.’
• Conditionality - ‘I’ll love you, but only if...’ • Lust - ‘I fancy you.’ • Romance - ‘I love the fantasy I have of you.’
• Hope - ‘I love you but I wish I could change you.’
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Long-term loving relationships The things that first attract us to each other are not necessarily those which keep us together in the long term. It used to be said that humans are one of the few species where a couple naturally stay together to support the offspring they have created. In reality, this may no longer be entirely true, but is still seen as the ideal. Stable societies depend on stable family groupings, which is why it is regulated by law and enshrined in religion and custom.
Where the will to stay together is present, the transformation to long-term loving relationships is supported by our body chemistry. The feel- good chemicals endorphins and oxytocins replace the sex hormones, and are abundant in successful long-term relationships. The hormones that initially made us blind to the reality of the other person subside. Now we see them as they are, warts and all! Unlike romantic lovers, long established loving couples are all too aware of their partner’s failings!
We may ask ourselves in this cynical age whether ‘happy ever after’ is still a realistic possibility? Or indeed, whether it ever was? Perhaps people in previous generations were simply more orientated towards duty and necessity.
I believe it is, but only if both partners realise:
• No-one person can meet all your needs. Don’t expect them to. And don’t allow them to expect it of you.
• No two people match perfectly. Part of ourselves may never be understood by the person we had hoped would understand us.
• You are still individuals even when together – Kahlil Gibran quote, ‘Let there be spaces in your togetherness.’
• And remember, love does not equate to idolatry
But as we all know, sadly it isn’t. A man was attending the burial of his recently-deceased wife when someone asks: ‘Who is it who rests in peace here?’
Quantum Health 23
HEALTH
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