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Tamara Star Blog: Eight Simple Ways Happy Couples Stay Happy

Love is obviously a hot and tricky topic, and while we can all agree good love takes time and effort, love seems to fall apart quickly when the ball is dropped and laziness creeps in.

Here are eight things happy couples do to keep that from happening:

1. They deal with past pain. This one is a biggie. Once we pass the age of 16, the likelihood of experiencing hurt, disappointment, or betrayed is 100 percent. Happy couples take the time individually to feel past pain, heal it, and leave it where it belongs... in the past. We may love the one we're with, but we'll also project all over them if we don't deal with our past hurts.

When we have pain that hasn't been processed, we carry it forward. You can't skim over or positive think your way out of emotional pain, and when we try to stuff our emotions, we'll find a way to make our current partner pay for the past sins of others because pain wants to be processed. Healthy couples deal with their past so their present can be happy.

2. They don't over-think everything. Remember the phrase paralysis by analysis? Over-thinking and over-analyzing someone's every word, move or intention kills any chance of intimacy or connection.

Happy couples take one another at face value, versus looking for alternative meanings in each other's words or actions. Emotional paranoia is a sign of emotionally operating from the past in an effort to stay safe in the present. Healthy couples aren't hyper vigilant. Even if they've hurt one another in the past, they don't expect to be hurt again.

Remember, we see what we expect to see -- happy couples stay in the now moment.

3. They are emotionally open. Keeping one foot out emotionally to protect yourself is like trying to consistently drive 65 mph while tapping your brake every other minute. Healthy couples respect their own boundaries, but are vulnerable and open towards one another. Too often we experience hurt and never really let go again. Happy couples take their feet off the brake and trust.

4. They avoid taking one another for granted. Happy couples don't take for granted that they'll be together forever. They remember to turn on the charm and attention they give others, towards one another. It takes two to do the hot passionate dance of tango -- happy couples don't drop one hand and expect the other half to keep dancing.

5. They keep making eye contact. As William Shakespeare said so well: "The eyes are the window to your soul."

Let's face it, life is busy; over time it becomes a little too easy to navigate getting out of the house in the morning without making eye contact. It may sound small, but eye contact is intimate. Happy couples remember that intimacy in the bedroom starts with intimate contact throughout the day. They look at one another.

6. They continue to be intrigued. Even if you met at birth, spent every day together and have talked for hours, there is no way to know everything about another human being. We are all individuals with unique thoughts, perceptions, and emotional experiences.

People change over time, and healthy couples continue to explore one another, while realizing it's impossible to know everything, no matter how long they've been together.

7. They stay in the moment. Happy couples know remaining in the present moment is non-negotiable when it comes to love. Regardless of tough times, they remember the past does not equal the future. Healthy partners have a relationship with the person in front them now, not the ghost from yesterday.

8. They continue touching. Two large influences on our sex drive originate from our skin and our brain. Relationships are hot in the beginning because we're touching and kissing, as well as talking and questioning one another, constantly.

As time goes on, happy couples continue to touch. When we touch the one we love, the hormone oxytocin is produced, providing us with a fertile opportunity for connection. Oxytocin is one hell of a powerful love drug. Talking stimulates the brain, while touching stimulates everything else. Happy couples touch each another a lot.

Post by Tamara Star, originally published in Digital Romance

Margaret Paul, Ph.D. Blog: Five Things Preventing You From AttractingYour Beloved

By Margaret Paul, Ph.D. 

Most of us would love to be in a loving, committed relationship. Yet, for many, this seems to be elusive. There are some good reasons for this.

1. We Attract at Our Common Level of Self-Abandonment or Self-Love

Do you abandon yourself in one or more of these four ways?

Staying focused in your head rather than being present with your feelings in your body

Judging yourself harshly, putting a lot of pressure on yourself

Turning to various addictions to avoid your feelings and to fill up inner emptiness

Making others responsible for your happiness and self-worth

People who love and value themselves, and take responsibility for their own happiness and self-worth, are not attracted to people who abandon themselves. Two people who abandon themselves often get together, hoping the other person will give them the love they are not giving to themselves, only to be disappointed and move on. We do not have love to share with another when we are not loving ourselves.

2. Fear of Rejection -- Loss of Other

When you abandon yourself -- which means that you are rejecting yourself -- then you naturally fear being rejected by others. The fear of rejection leads to feeling anxious in relationships, which leads to trying to have control over not being rejected. Whatever you do to try to control not being rejected -- being overly nice, having sex too soon, giving yourself up and being compliant, tolerating unloving behavior on the part of the other person -- is inauthentic and often leads to the rejection you are trying to avoid.

3. Fear of Engulfment -- Loss of Self

If you came from controlling parents and learned to give yourself up to avoid a loss of love, then you might have a big fear of being consumed and smothered in a relationship. You might believe that you need to give yourself up to be loved -- to avoid rejection -- and this fear might lead you to pull back from a relationship the moment it starts to get close. 

If you find yourself coming on strong at the beginning of a relationship and then losing interest as soon as the other person is interested, then you likely have a fear of engulfment and are relationship-avoidant.

4. Level of Happiness and Self-Worth

If you are an unhappy person with low self-worth, do you expect that a happy person with high self-worth is going to be attracted to you? This is very unlikely. The problem is also that you might not be attracted to another unhappy person. You might hope to find a happy person who will make you happy, but it doesn't generally work this way.

If you want to attract a happy person and create a loving relationship, then you need to first do your inner work to become a happy, loving person.

5. Attachment to the Outcome

When you meet someone and you become attached to the outcome, in terms of making your happiness and worth dependent on the other person liking you, you may put out an energy that actually pushes the other person away. Most of us don't want to be responsible for another's happiness, worth and well-being. It doesn't feel like love when someone is focused on getting love rather than on being loving.

Getting Love, Being Loving

This is the essence of the issue of attracting your beloved. Is your primary intent in being in a relationship to get love, or is it to share your love with your beloved? If it's to get love -- due to your own self-abandonment -- then your challenge in attracting your beloved is to learn to love yourself and share your love.

If you want to be in a loving, committed relationship and you have not been able to manifest this in your life, or if your current relationship isn't working, then you first need to learn to create a loving relationship with yourself. 

Once you know how to fill yourself up with love to share with a partner, you will find that you have a much easier time attracting your beloved and creating a loving relationship.

In the News: Oxytocin Could Increase Anxiety, Fear In Response ToFuture Stress

The "love hormone" may not be as warm and fuzzy as first thought. A new study shows that while oxytocin does play a huge role in social bonding and feelings of love, it also is the reason why terrible events can scar you for life.

This new finding is important because "by understanding the oxytocin system's dual role in triggering or reducing anxiety, depending on the social context, we can optimize oxytocin treatments that improve well-being instead of triggering negative reactions," study researcher Jelena Radulovic, the Dunbar Professsor of Bipolar Disease at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine, said in a statement.

The study, published in the journal Nature Neuroscience and conducted in mice, explains that oxytocin can not only make us remember stressful situations from the past (like being bullied), but they also increase feelings of anxiety and fear in the face of future stress.

The hormone does this by triggering a molecule called ERK, which itself makes sensations of fear greater because it stimulates fear pathways in the brain's lateral septum region. This molecule is activated for hours after a stressful social experience.

Researchers noted this is the first time oxytocin has been identified to have a function that isn't just boosting feelings of love and connection.

Past studies have looked at the hormone's role in relationships and friendships. For instance, a study in the journal Psychoneuroendocrinology earlier this year showed that oxytocin makes people more likely to "tend and befriend" others who have just experienced social rejection.

And a 2012 study showed that oxytocin levels could be a predictor for how long a relationship lasts.

Meredith Melnick Blog: Healthy Love: The Perfect Antidote To Stress



Girls' Love Stories #7, DC, September 1950.



The Huffington Post 

Falling in love sure sounds stressful: the quickened pulse, the fixation, the anxiety that feelings won't be returned. But while the sight of your beloved might send your heart racing (thanks to a kick of adrenaline), the act of being in love may have a protective effect on your health.

Indeed, the moments of first love involve some stress. One small study of those who were newly in love found that levels of cortisol -- a stress hormone -- were higher in recent lovebirds than in those who were single or in long-term relationships. What's interesting is that when the group was tested again 12 and 24 months later, their cortisol levels had returned to normal. It suggests that the stress of falling in love is fleeting, but the benefits of being in love remain -- including some other hormonal changes that may have a stress-protective effect.
"
What happens in the brain when you love someone is that there's more activity in the 'reward' system," explains Dr. Helen Fisher, a physical anthropologist who studies the neurohormonal phenomena of love and is a research professor at Rutgers University. "Your brain floods with dopamine, which gives you focus, energy and optimism and those things can all be good to counter stress."

As Fisher explains, romantic love can provide something of a loop: as you fall in love, your dopamine levels surge, which in turn contributes to testosterone production. More testosterone is linked to increased sex drive. And sexual release has a particularly healthful effect, Fisher says, delivering oxygen to the brain and other organs.

"Sex with the right person has a lot of health benefits," she says, listing a battery of stress-reducing health benefits. "It lowers blood pressure, enhances mood by releasing endorphins. It's a sedative, helps you sleep, soothes aches and pains. It even gives you healthier skin and even emotional confidence."

While many of those side benefits of the physical acts of love can contribute to reduced stress, you don't need to have sex to achieve calm: kissing, holding hands or even just looking at your beloved can release the "love hormone" oxytocin in the blood stream, Fisher told Healthy Living. And oxytocin can actually work to inhibit cortisol production and stress response. Some research finds that just feeling the emotional support of a partner was enough to amp up levels of the feel-good hormone coursing through one's veins.

So this Valentine's Day, as you're thanking your beloved for the happiness they bring you, don't forget to include the calm they provide as well.

Girls' Love Stories #4, DC, March 1950

Love Potion #1: "PEA The Hormone of Love" by Dario Nardi, Ph.D.





Ball-and-stick model of the phenethylamine molecule. Many of its derivatives are psychoactive drugs.

  

While a half-dozen hormones and neurotransmitters are involved in the experience of love, the hormone at the center of it all is Phenylethylamine (PEA).

PEA occurs naturally in the brain and acts as a natural amphetamine, promoting feelings of infatuation when we are in love. We might stay up all night interacting with someone new we find attractive.

When we start to fall in love, dopamine and norepinephrine levels also go up. These are the same hormones that rise when we win a prize, take drugs such as cocaine, or when we are frightened or angry.)

These hormones result in a infatuation -- high dopamine results in a feeling of addiction or obsession, while high norepinephrine results in an intense interaction with physical giddiness. The person feels aroused, many a little edgy, with a feeling of "butterflies" in the stomach.

There is also sleeplessness, loss of appetite, and a narrow focus on the mate and mating activity. PEA levels are also increased by high-intensity activities like skydiving, by eating large amounts of chocolate, and by taking certain drugs.

MDMA (also known as Ecstasy) is similar to PEA. MDMA dispels feelings of distrust, suspicion and jealousy, and replaces those with a general global sense of universal love. Most of the recreational drugs people indulge in work in one or more of the same ways that love happens in the brain.

Later, when love is serious, serotonin falls and the feeling of love begins to feel like madness.

We feel uncomfortable and obsessed when the other person is not around, while just being with them sharing the same space is enough. To avoid the negative feelings that come with low serotonin, we desire to spend all our time with the other person.

For better or worse, after a certain period of eighteen months to four years the body builds up a tolerance to the effects of PEA and related hormones. The hormones just don't deliver like they did before with the other person.

However, the brain still produces endorphins on a long-term basis in association with the person we are with. The endorphins provide a feeling of calmness and reduce anxiety and pain.

In fact, when a spouse dies or is away, some people experience "separation anxiety." This feeling could be considered a kind of chemical withdrawal. Oxytocin, a hormone produced by the pituitary gland, also plays a role in love, since physical touching promotes higher levels of this hormone. Variations in the levels of hormones related to love are an opportunity for people to exercise maturity in relationships instead of relying on chemistry alone to do the work for them.

PEA is documented to have severe cyclical highs and lows in some people, creating up-and-down experience of excitement, interest, arousal and obsession.

Silk Stockings - Cyd Charisse 's own voice - It's a Chemical Reaction

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p71V6HRP1IY

Schadenfreude Sideshow: Girls' Romance #80

Art by John Romita Sr., DC, 1961

Schadenfreude i/ˈʃɑːdənfrɔɪdə/ (German: [ˈʃaːdənˌfʁɔʏdə]): pleasure derived from the misfortunes of others.[1] This German word is used as a loanword in English and some other languages, and has been calqued in Danish and Norwegian as skadefryd and in Swedish as skadeglädje and Finnish as vahingonilo

Schadenfreude Sideshow: Girls' Romances #28

Art attributed to Tony Abruzzo, DC, 1954.

The cover blurb that says it all: Love stories that could happen to you. September 1954.

Schadenfreude i/ˈʃɑːdənfrɔɪdə/ (German: [ˈʃaːdənˌfʁɔʏdə])" pleasure derived from the misfortunes of others. This German word is used as a loanword in English and some other languages, and has been calqued in Danish and Norwegian as skadefryd and in Swedish as skadeglädje and Finnish as vahingonilo.