Love Thyself- Intro
One second I was introducing myself to a total stranger, and the next second, I was hooked like an addict on crack; the world was spinning fast, and my heart, beating faster. In the following months, ice cream had never tasted better, and the colors of the leaves in the Fall had never shone brighter.
I was in love! …Or so I thought
L-O-V-E… the reason wars are fought, lives are lost, families are united and divided. The need we crave to give and receive, the reason we exist. As ambiguous as the meaning it carries, love is a universal force experienced by everyone. Yet, there isn’t a singular meaning for love, although we all experience its characteristics… and consequences.
In the search to discover what love is, Psychologists discovered that we experience love differently due to our personalities, attachments styles, and genes. However the mechanism of falling in love is the same across board; through addiction.
This discovery did not only stun me, but sparked my curiosity to learn more about how we fall in love.
Here is what I learned...
Falling in love happens in our brains, not in our hearts. There are two pathways responsible for this; The Mesolimbic Dopamine Pathway and the Mesocortical Dopamine Pathway. They include structures such as the Substantia Nigra (for Dopamine production), Ventral Tegmental area (for transport of Dopamine), Nucleus Accumbens (for motivation and reward) and the Caudate Nucleus (for goal directed behavior and habit learning). Let me give you a quick rundown on how this addiction works.
For example, let’s say I meet a guy named Brandon. When I interact with him and realize that I am attracted to him, I would want to get to know Brandon. The more positive interactions I have with Brandon (the way he makes me feel when he fulfills my needs), the more dopamine my brain produces when I am with Brandon. Now, If I am not with Brandon, my dopamine level drops, and consequently my motivation levels as dopamine is responsible for motivation. The results of this are evident in the following days; less motivation to work, sleep, eat, an increase in heart rate... sounds familiar?
My brain does not like to be in this state as it is wired to do things that makes me feel good. So, it begins to trick itself by daydreaming and fantasizing about Brandon into stimulating more dopamine. Obliviously, I am not aware of this craving for dopamine. All I know is that I am now addicted to Brandon because I CANNOT STOP THINKING ABOUT HIM! So as long as he satisfies my needs and makes me feel happy, loved, cherished, and accepted, I will continue to be in love with Brandon.
I experienced Love as feeling alive and it felt amazing! Until I realized I was vulnerable. If he left me, or died, who will spike up my dopamine receptors and make me feel alive? This is when I realized that falling in love with someone primarily stemmed from how the person made us feel.
However, I also realized that loving someone makes us altruistic. We give more of our time, our resources, and ourselves to the object of our affection, sometimes almost at the cost of our needs, or to the point of downright insanity.
How then can we explain why we become altruistic when we love someone, when the process of falling in love is purely self-centered?
My theory is that love is a binding force that makes us see the object of our love as ONE with us; our better half. The Bible explains this as becoming “become one flesh” with the object of our affection(Genesis 2:24).
When we love someone, we will do almost everything to make them happy because we now consider them as a part of ourselves. In turn we expect them to keep doing the things they did to make us addicted to them, so we can keep loving them. We ultimately love, respect, provide for, take care, and treat our object of affection as we do for ourselves.
Love makes us one entity with our object of love.
Can we apply the mechanism of how the brain works into loving ourselves and others more?
In the following blogs, we will delve into the origin of love, why we are attracted to certain traits in partners, and the manifestation of the absence of love. By the end of this series, I hope that we all can continue to love ourselves better and share that love with others.
Till we meet again,
Keep the crown upright...
and the dopamine pumping.
