It’s St. Valentine’s day again, right? and you are wondering where the love excitement in your life is? It’s just here!
We know the basics, right? When you fall in love, there are certain chemicals in your brain that make all your perspectives shift into high gear… you really know that you are in love, because you feel it all the time. Your pulse quickens; your heart beats and this delicious feeling of anticipation gives a rosy tint to your (previously boring) life.
You also know that, once the first wave of excitement is gone, after 18 months, or two years, routine sets in… you have a secure companion, and this is a good thing. But at the same time, the pulse-quickening excitement is gone! Does it mean that the love itself is now gone? No way! But this delicious excitement is dimmed. And you surely want it back.
The chemistry of love is based on the brain. The love excitement we feel is caused by the chemical dopamine, and it’s highly addictive! After we experience it once, we all need that burst of dopamine, at least once in a while, that will make us feel alive, excited, connected and successful… As a matter of fact, this is the same mechanism that chocolate uses to make us happy (and the reason we love chocolate so much!)
How about it, are you going to search for this excitement by having a new love? This can be the solution if you are single, and you miss really the companionship and support of someone significant in your life.
Then, this is a good time to take your wish for love seriously and put your call out for a new relationship. Be sure that this new relationship gives you that romantic feeling right from the beginning, because without it, there is no gratification and being with someone would be more of a chore, right?
What if you are in a relationship? In search of excitement, are you going to have an affair? This is not such a good idea! It has the potential to give your brain a shot of the excitement you miss, for sure. But, it can be too exciting, and take you just to the verge of disaster, when it pushes you to risk the present relationship… now seen as boring and “lacking excitement.” Going from affair to affair to get a new “dose” is comparable to a junkie looking for bigger and better fixes. Not a good comparison – it suggests you’re never really happy, you’re just always hungry for more.
So, do you want more love excitement/dopamine just in time for Valentine’s day? No need to take a new lover, if the life you have with your present partner is good enough!
Here is what you can do: you need to generate in your brain (and your partner’s) the dopamine-producing activity: both of you need to do something together that is completely new for both of you, something exciting! This new activity, be it snow shoeing, trekking, ballroom dancing, etc. will provide the challenge to the brain to begin producing the results you expect.
It is even recommended that the new activity could be doing something so new, and never intended before, as to be a little challenging or dangerous…Nothing that resembles your sedated vacation plans, but more like learning to climb walls or going to Costa Rica to trek up an active volcano. Your pick, but please, for added security, take also a box of semisweet chocolate in your suitcase, and the excitement package will be completed!
Get a grip at your love life this year!
Originally published by our own Coach Nora at:
http://www.selfgrowth.com/articles/Love_chocolate_and_dangerous_things.html
I wish I would have read this before Valentine’s Day this year, but there’s no reason I can’t experiment with some of your ideas, to get the fire going again in my marriage.
Affairs are very tempting things, but I would much rather rekindle the flames of love and have an affair with my wife, who happens to be my best friend and my heart’s queen!