The Love Drug

When I use the term love drug, I am referring to that incredible euphoria, floating-on-a-cloud feeling of romantic love. The Cinderella Syndrome. You require less sleep, there's a new found skip in your step.

In The Iliad, Homer professed "There is a heat of love, the pulsing rush of longing, the lover's whisper, irresistible---magic to make the sanest man go mad." The love drug is a natural, hormonal shift. A cocktail of dopamine, norepinephrine and serotonin. Studies have shown that this hormone shift, the love drug, can last anywhere from two hours to 18-24 months.

Just as romantic love is a natural hormone state, so is the next state you enter: mature love. Not so exciting. Your lose that skip in our step. You need more sleep (well, most of us). Prince Charming is now driving you insane. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the power struggle. Your and your lover are now fighting or you just can't communicate at all. Why doesn't he get me? Why won't she just do want I want her to?

Mature love, including the power struggle, is where we grow as human beings. It's the land where you heal childhood wounds you have carried into your adult life. Every single one of us does it, regardless of the how little or how big our baggage is. It is human nature. You picked this partner of yours just for that very reason. To heal, to grow, to love.

With the divorce rate hovering above 55%, American culture doesn't promote mature love. Our media sells romantic love. So how do we defy the odds of staying together once the romance has waned? How do we stay together, happily, in mature love?

Just as you must weed and fertilize a garden, you must do the same in your relationship. Two keys to keeping the love alive are safety and oxytocin.

The first key, safety, is composed of physical, emotional, mental and spiritual safety. A healthy relationship must have all four of these components. Both partners must feel safe speaking their truth; being themselves. It's gotta be safe being vulnerable in the couple hood.

The second key, oxytocin, is the bonding hormone. When a mother is breast feeding she is releasing vast amounts of oxytocin, therefore, bonding to the baby. When we have an orgasm, we are releasing high amounts of oxytocin resulting in bonding to our sexual partner. It's released when we hold hands or kiss. Even hearing our loved one's voice over the phone can release oxytocin. So when we get tightly wrapped up the children's schedule, forsaking date night with our partner, we aren't bonding. We are neglecting our love garden. Then we become unhappy in our relationships, bored, feeling like the love is gone.

So tend your love garden. Keep a weekly date night. Hold hands. Pay a complement. Research suggest that happy couples do 100 caring things a day for each other. That can be a compliment, a favor, a wink, a smile and of course, an "I love you."

For further information you can reach Leta Bell at www.LetaBell.com