What is Love?

What is love?

Love means a strong feeling for another human being because of a personal connection like a mother’s love.

Love can also mean attraction to another human being based on sexual desire.

Love can be an affection for someone like a friend based on admiration or common interests.

Love can be a warmth, attachment or enthusiasm for something or someplace; like sports or a hobby or a place like the sea.

Everyone wants love in their life because we see love as being in the pursuit of true happiness. For most of us, romantic love is being in a state of perfect harmony with another human being. Having a partner who is in complete sync with us, who has our corner no matter what we say or do. Someone we can trust with all of our secrets and the “messy” side of life. That one person who cares deeply about us.

Romantic love doesn’t always last between two people and we get our hearts broken. It hurts for a while and then we get back to finding love again. We can’t help falling in love with someone. Falling in love is easy but break-ups are hard.

How do you know you’re in love?

Our brains are programmed to fall in love. We want to feel truly happy in life and to enjoy pleasure with someone. Some of us want to have children with our partners and build a new family. Others are perfectly content to stay together in blissful harmony.

There are feel-good chemicals that flood our brains at each stage of attraction, attachment and lust. One of them is called Dopamine which gives our bodies a natural “high” feeling. (A bit like we are soaring the skies). This feeling of happiness is addictive and we crave it. Another chemical is called “Oxytocin.” Some scientists call this the “cuddle hormone.” This chemical is responsible for those deeper feelings released during orgasm. It brings us a feeling of bonding and trusting a romantic partner.

Our self-esteem and emotions play a big part in who we are attracted to and so do our past experiences like family. Both positive and negative feelings of love impact who we choose to love.

We get attracted to subtle physical attributes in a person who reminds us of someone we know or has influenced us in some way. We also get attracted to certain behaviors and traits in a person.

I’ve often heard people say that love is blind.

We admire someone for their physical appearance and behavior.

We want to know more about their interests and hobbies.

We feel warm and fuzzy inside when we are with the person we are falling for. We admire them and feel captivated by their every move. Our brains turn to mush and all we can think about is seeing the person again.

Love makes us feel more generous, hopeful and willing to take a risk and try new things.

We feel more alive when we are in love.

We are usually more honest with the person we are falling for.

Being in love helps our sense of self-esteem because we feel loved.

Being in love calms our fear of loneliness because we have someone in our life.

8 Steps to Lasting Love

Feeling and being in love is wonderful, but loving someone does take effort if we want it to last.

1. There has to be mutual respect between you and your partner.

2. Honesty is key to a lasting relationship. If a relationship is based on a lie, then there is no relationship.

3. You need to know yourself, your wishes, and your limits.

4. Get to know each other well. Learn what makes them tick and how they solve tricky situations like conflict or disappointments. Finding out these character traits early can save you a lot of time in the future.

5. Set out clear expectations right from the start of a relationship. If for example one of you wants kids and the other doesn’t, then that is going to cause future problems.

6. Sex releases Oxytocin and bonding between partners.

7. Boundaries and intimacy are vital if a relationship is going to work.

8. Trust. If the person you are with constantly invades your trust, then this will lead to confrontation and anger.

Being in a committed relationship takes work between both partners. There has to be give and take of equal proportions for there to be lasting harmony.

I’ve see many of my friends being in and out of love. I have also experimented with partners and bitter break-ups. What I’ve learned is that love is wonderful. Everyone wants love but not everyone is able to keep it. Love hurts when it isn’t right. I know because I’m the product of such a relationship and it taught me more about love than anything else. I knew right from the start what I did not want in a relationship. But love is bigger than one person. Love is a partnership and only true love can blossom when others fail.

I hope that you have chosen the right person to spend your life with and that you are happy.

My name is Lizzy. I’m a trauma survivor, a wife, a mom, a teacher, and an author.

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