Love is Scary
There is strong evidence that people want romantic love. From the work I've done as a psychotherapist and trainer, I've seen that people want a relationship in which they are loved and valued in a very profound way. One where they will accept someone and be accepted,
Loving someone is about self-expression and it generates the pleasure and energy of being alive.
However, for many, romantic love can be a terrifying experience. When we love someone, we are in a position where another human being is enormously important to us. And there is a yielding to our feeling for the other person, which can make us feel out of control. Or become fearful.
What is The Fear?
It is about the possibility of loss. The potential for pain (that we know will cost us dear and will require a recovery).
The human heart, at whatever age, opens to the heart that opens in return." Maria Edgeworth
Where Does This Fear Start?
Your earliest and most crucial relationships (usually baby and mother) colours the lens of your perception of relationships. Children tend to make conclusions about their fundamental value based on the messages they receive, either indirectly or directly, from caregivers. For example, they judge whether or not they are loved and important. And whether that attachment to the people who care for them is secure or is likely to be temporary or is based on certain conditions (being loved conditionally, rather than unconditionally).
John Bowlby, an important child development psychologist, broadly said love is a “lasting psychological connectedness between human beings.” Infants without a secure connection can become people who question the connection between themselves and other people. This is often what is at the root of people’s emotional distress with relationships and love.
"A house is made with walls and beams; a home is built with love and dreams." Ralph Waldo Emerson
Fears Can Be Resolved
If you had a secure attachment during your earliest years, consider yourself very fortunate. You received an invaluable, life changing gift.
But, as you are reading this, you may think that you didn’t develop a natural secure attachment.
Nevertheless, if you fit into other attachment categories (anxious, avoidant, ambivalent, disorganised - rather than ‘secure’) it doesn’t mean you cannot love, be loved, or enjoy loving. The latest research in neuroscience has confirmed that your brain can rewire itself. And fears and angst that you have carried to this point can be resolved. You can go to psychotherapy, which would work through your situation. And, if you get into a relationship with someone who is “secure,” you have a great chance of healing through that relationship.
"A part of you has grown in me. And so you see, it's you and me together forever; and never apart, maybe in distance, but never in heart." Anonymous
And We Benefit Greatly From Love
The word love itself has a variety of meanings and interpretations. And that makes it very difficult to describe. The health benefits of love, however, are easy to identify and much more obvious.
Love has a great impact on our emotional and physical well-being. Falling in love and being in love are very positive activities.
"Love knows no reasons, love knows no lies. Love defies all reasons, love has no eyes. But love is not blind, love sees but doesn't mind." Anonymous
Here Are the Four Main Health Benefits of Love
1. Love produces positive emotions.
People who had a secure attachment already have a positive self-concept. They feel at ease internally, coming from a place of, “everything will be alright.”.
Love is a very powerful antidote to fight emotional and physical stress, conflict, and pain and it also has the power to heal. Research shows that loving acts neutralise the kind of negative emotions that negatively affect immune, endocrine, and cardiovascular function.
2. Love helps us to love
Those who had a secure attachment often make positive assumptions about others. They have a higher level of inherent trust and benefit of the doubt that people can be relied upon. According to Dr. Cesar Alfonso, MD, secure attachment plays a role in the engagement in altruistic or pro-social behaviour such as gratitude, appreciation, caring, comforting, safekeeping and even volunteering. When the baby observed empathy and felt enjoyment from the caregiver taking care of them, they internalised that behaviour and go on to project it out to other loving relationships in the future.
3. Love helps you live longer and fights disease.
People with a secure attachment often are effective at regulating their emotions and not be so physiologically aroused they are overwhelmed by their feelings, thereby reducing stress, and the diseases that are associated with it.
Being loved and loving helps in this regard, too. There have been studies that show even patients who are diagnosed with illnesses have recovered from them faster when they had strong family connections. It has been deduced that there was no scientific explanation other than the fact the patient had great love and support from close family and friends.
3. Love makes us feel good and alive
“Endorphins are the key. According to the National Institute of Health, love triggers the hormone oxytocin which makes us feel good. It also lowers the levels of stress chemicals in our system. Physical contact like cuddles, hugs and kisses trigger the production of oxytocin,” said Jodi Prohofsky, Ph.D., L.M.F.T
"To love and be loved is the greatest happiness of existence." Sydney Smith
Do We Get Love Enough?
Nathaniel Branden says that “We are living in a time of terrible emotional shallowness. There is a lack of depth and passion in young people, and it shows up in their relationships. It's not good news for romantic love, and that means it's not good for people. They don't understand what they're depriving themselves of. There has to be some way back to intimacy”.
I believe that there is a way back to intimacy. And, rather than fear or avoid love, there is a way for us all to enjoy experiencing love.
- Firstly, believe in it - believe that you can get, give, and share love. Remember that even if you did not have the best start, you are not imprinted forever. The brain is moveable, as the neuroscientists have now discovered. And new learnings, and emotional ways of being can be developed in adulthood.
- Secondly, value it - understand what you are depriving yourself if you do not experience loving and being loved.
- Thirdly respect it. Remember that love, like everything, only exists right now. And while it does, it feels secure, as if ‘everything will be alright’.
"You can give without loving, but you cannot love without giving." Amy Carmichael
Get Love Often
There are two energies at the core of the human experience: Love and Fear.
- Love Grants freedom, fear takes it away
- Love invites full expression, fear limits it
Make sure that you love and Love - get daily doses of hugs, affection, smiles and physical higs as much as you can. You will feel good, fight off ailments, and function better, and 'everything will be alright'.
"Love has a hem to her garment that reaches to the very dust. It sweeps the stains from the streets and lanes, and because it can, it must". Mother Teresa
