STEP BY STEP GUIDE TO FINDING REAL LOVE

The three stages of romantic love include lust, attraction (overidealizing and fantasizing about the other person), and attachment (where fantasy love is replaced by real love and commitment). Falling in love, your brain becomes flooded by dopamine (which stimulates blissful feelings) and norepinephrine (which produces heightened attention and excitability). Serotonin levels drop, which suppresses the neural circuits involved in assessing others.

Carrying Forward Old Wounds

Those who have studied human relationships assert that on a deep subconscious level, we carry psychological patterns and wounds from previous relationships that can sabotage our current ones. These wounds may not even be ours; they may have been inherited from our parents.

Spend some quiet time reflecting on how your answers to the following questions might be impacting your current relationships. Then consider whether you desire to have someone in your life who triggers or engages in such behaviors.

    Were family members verbally abusive? Was that tolerated in your family?

    Did members of your family practice manipulation instead of truthful integrity as a means of winning?

    Did the adults in your family stoically conceal their emotions? On the other hand, were they emotionally volatile?

    Did either of your parents ever have an affair? If so, was trust ever restored?

    Did anyone withhold love or intimacy as a means to manipulate?

    Did someone suffer an addiction and hurt others as a result?

    Was hitting or spanking a child acceptable punishment in your family?

Evaluate the choices you have made in selecting romantic companions. Try to identify patterns. Do you keep attracting the same type of person? At first, you believe your new love to be the ideal romantic partner, but you eventually discover that you are not good together. Are you an incurable romantic who falls in love at first sight and all too soon has to accept the end of the relationship? Maybe you prefer romantic partners who remind you of someone in your past or in your family — a father figure, for example. Do you seek people whose attitudes are compatible with yours but whose personalities are not? Does it seem that you are always attracted to your mirror opposite?

More at:  http://dating.about.com/od/bodylanguage/tp/bodylanguage.htm

HOW TO LOVE YOURSELF LIKE CRAZY

True love starts with self-love. You must love and respect yourself in order to unconditionally give and receive true love. The choice of a mate necessarily requires a deep understanding of who you are and what you desire as well as what you don't want in a lifelong partnership. Otherwise, you may tumble into a romance based on physical attraction and chemistry and only after you have become emotionally invested will you discover fatal flaws in the relationship.

The Law of Attraction will bring you excellent candidates for your life partner. You help it accomplish that goal by a thorough understanding of your personality, the aspects that drive your choices, and your most important core beliefs and values. Then you must decide what you seek in others.

Brain chemistry changes depending on how long you have been in love. Blind attraction does not necessarily ensure a long and lasting commitment.

Relationships often end because one or both of the individuals in the relationship could not live with some quality, habit, or trait of the other once their brain chemistry returned to normal and the attraction stage of love shifted to the attachment stage at around 30 months. Lack of attachment during the cooling off may account for why divorces hit a peak at around four years.

Probing Below the Surface of Who You Are

Psychologists say that emotionally healthy people who thrive in strong, committed relationships may have had the advantage of having healthy relationships modeled for them. Their interpersonal relationships include such elements as respect, boundaries, truthfulness, and transparency.

Others, who don't seem to be able to make successful relationships, may have had less nurturing models or are driven by psychological factors (such as the need to rescue, seek father figures, or date bad boys or divas) to choose bad partners because their own self-esteem is low
Anthropologist Helen Fisher, Ph.D., professor and human behavior researcher at Rutgers University and author of Why We Love, says that biological programming is why people get antsy after about four years of marriage. The drive for a couple to remain together to see a child through its infancy (or about four years) dates back millions of years. The normal duration for infatuation is two to three years, according to Fisher.

More at:  http://dating.about.com/od/bodylanguage/tp/bodylanguage.htm

HOW TO FLIRT LIKA A PRO

You see someone from across the room and think: Wow. I want to meet them. But how can you be sure that your body language conveys your true intentions - to flirt?

These body language cues are excellent ways to show the object of your interest that you'd like to get to know them better. And if someone uses these cues on you? Flirt right back -- because flirting is harmless, and practice makes perfect.
How To Flirt With Your Eyes

Holding eye contact with someone you find appealing for approximately five seconds is well-used flirt tactic, mostly because it is highly effective, although its ease and simplicity of use doesn't hurt. According to the book, "The Definitive Guide of Body Language," by Alan and Barbara Pease, the person initiating the flirt will - on average - need to lock eyes three times before the flirt recipient catches on.

How To Flirt By Preening

There are many, many ways one groom themselves in public in a flattering yet flirty way, depending on your gender. Ladies can try some hair stroking, posture enhancing, neck exposing, hip tilting (if standing), clothes straightening or lip licking - all with the intention of calling attention to her attractiveness. Men can also straighten their clothing, lick their lips or fix their hair, but they should also include things like hooking their fingers into their pants (if standing), suck in their stomach, or take deep breaths to increase the size of their chest. For both men and women, try to use preening body language that shows off your best features while enhancing what makes you, you.
How To Flirt With A Smile

There are few things better than receiving a genuine, radiant smile from a stranger, yet many people don't respond to them as a flirt tactic. Therefore, use your smile in conjunction with the other body language ideas listed in this article to ensure whomever you've got your eye on realizes a flirt is your intention.
How To Flirt By Pointing

No, not by using your finger silly. Instead, try to 'point' at the person you want to flirt with by moving your body towards them. Take your feet and make sure they are facing your flirt target, and use your shoulders to lean into them - even if you aren't speaking with them. Other ideas include facing your shoulders towards them or 'closing off' a space just for the two of you (such as crossing your legs towards each other).
How To Flirt Using Touch

Look for opportunities where you can touch the person you want to flirt with, either 'accidentally' or otherwise. Shaking hands is an excellent flirt tactic, because not only does it place your hands together (which conveys a "higher level of intimacy" according to Alan and Barbara Pease), but it is easy way to combine flirting with an introduction. You could also try carefully and casually placing your hands on the person's arms to very gently 'move' them so you can pass by on your way to the bathroom, or lightly tap their arm while sharing a laugh. And if you aren't quite comfortable touching the person you want to flirt with quite yet, you can try mimicking their movements for a short period of time (i.e. a couple of seconds), instead.

More at:  http://dating.about.com/od/bodylanguage/tp/bodylanguage.htm


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WHAT REALLY IS LOVE?

Poets and authors have tried to define love for centuries, whereas scientists have only recently started. Many of us know intuitively that love is a major purpose for living; that connection is inherent in all that we do, and without love, we cannot survive as a species.

But what is love, and how do we know when we're in it? First, let's start off with what love isn't.
What Is Love? It Definitely Isn't...

Manipulation. "If you loved me, then you would..." isn't love, but rather infatuation.

    Compromising who you are. If someone asks you to do or say something that isn't in your nature, that isn't true love. Although love does involve compromises between partners, someone who is in love with you will never ask you to change who you are in order to be loved.

    Violent. Passions can definitely become inflamed with someone you love, but a relationship with physical or emotional violence isn't true love. (More: Dating Violence)

    Just lust. Yes, chemistry and physical attraction are important, but true love also includes commitment, trust and respect. (More: Is It Lust... Or Love?, Test Your Chemistry)

So then, what exactly is love?
True Love Is...

    True Love is Caring. The ancient Greeks had many different names for different forms of love: passion, virtuous, affection for the family, desire, and general affection. But no matter how love is defined, they all hold a common trait: caring.

    True Love is Attractive. Attraction and chemistry form the bond that allows people to mate. Without this romantic desire for another individual, a relationship is nothing more than lust or infatuation.

    True Love is Attached. Like the mother-child bond, attachment comes after the initial attraction. Attachment is the long term love that appears anywhere from one to three years into a romantic relationship (sometimes sooner and very rarely after), and you'll know you've found it when you can honestly say, "I've seen the worst and the best you have to offer, and I still love you," while your partner feels the same way.

    True Love is Commited. When it comes to true love, commitment is more than just monogamy. Its the knowledge that your partner cares for you and has your back, no matter what the circumstances. People who are strongly commited to one another will, when faced with seemingly negative information about their partner, see only the positive. For example, a friend comments that your partner doesn't say a lot. "Ah yes, he's the strong, silent type," you reply. People with less commitment to their partner would instead say something like, "Yeah, I can never have conversation with him. Its annoying."

    True Love is Intimate. Intimacy is a crucial component of all relationships, regardless of their nature. In order to know another, you need to share parts of yourself. This self-revealing behavior, when reciprocated, forms an emotional bond. Over time this bond strengthens and even evolves, so that two people merge closer and closer together. Intimacy by itself if is a great friendship, but compiled with the other things in this list, it forms an equation for true love.



More info at: http://dating.about.com/od/intimacy/qt/whatislove.htm

HOW TO KNOW IF THE LOVE IS TRUE

In a folktale that has been retold for centuries in many variations (one of which is Shakespeare's King Lear), an elderly king asks his three daughters how much they love him. The two older sisters deliver flowery speeches of filial adoration, but the youngest says only "I love you as meat loves salt." The king, insulted by this homely simile, banishes the youngest daughter and divides his kingdom between the older two, who promptly kick him out on his royal heinie. He seeks refuge in the very house where his third daughter is working as a scullery maid. Recognizing her father, the daughter asks the cook to prepare his meal without salt. The king eats a few tasteless mouthfuls, then bursts into tears. "All along," he cries, "it was my youngest daughter who really loved me!" The daughter reveals herself and all ends happily (except in King Lear, where pretty much everybody dies).

Each of the following statements is the polar opposite of what most Americans see as loving commitment. But these are "meat loves salt" commitments, as necessary as they are unconventional. Only if you and your beloved can honestly say them to each other is your relationship likely to thrive.

1. I can live without you, no problem.

"I can't live," wails the singer, "if living is without you." It sounds so tragically deep to say that losing your lover's affections would make life unlivable—but have you ever been in a relationship with someone whose survival truly seemed to depend on your love? Someone who sat around waiting for you to make life bearable, who threatened to commit suicide if you ever broke up? Or have you found yourself on the grasping side of the equation, needing your partner the way you need oxygen? The emotion that fuels this kind of relationship isn't love; it's desperation. It can feel romantic at first, but over time it invariably fails to meet either partner's needs.

The statement "I can't survive without you" reflects not adult attraction but infancy, a phase when we really would have died if our caretakers hadn't stayed close by, continuously anticipating our needs. The hunger for total nurturing usually means we're in the middle of a psychological regression, feeling like abandoned infants who need parenting now, now, now! If this is how you feel, don't start dating. Start therapy. Counseling can teach you how to get your needs met by the only person responsible for them: you. The "I can't live without you" syndrome ends when we learn to care for ourselves as tenderly and attentively as a good mother. At that point, we're ready to form stable, lasting attachments that can last a lifetime. "I can live without you" is an assurance that sets the stage for real love.



2. My love for you will definitely change.

Most human beings seem innately averse to change. Once we've established some measure of comfort or stability, we want to nail it in place so that there's no possibility of loss. It's understandable, then, that the promise "My love for you will never change" is a hot seller. Unfortunately, this is another promise that is more likely to scuttle a relationship than shore it up.

The reason is that everything—and everyone—is constantly changing. We age, grow, learn, get sick, get well, gain weight, lose weight, find new interests, and drop old ones. And when two individuals are constantly in flux, their relationship must be fluid to survive. Many people fear that if their love is free to change, it will vanish. The opposite is true. A love that is allowed to adapt to new circumstances is virtually indestructible. Infatuation relaxes into calm companionship, then flares again as we see new things to love about each other. In times of trouble and illness, obligation may feel stronger than attraction—until one day we realize that hanging in there through troubled times has bonded us more deeply than ever before. Like running water, changing love finds its way past obstacles. Freezing it in place makes it fragile, rigid, and all too likely to shatter.

3. You're not everything I need.

I'm a big fan of sexual monogamy, but I'm puzzled by lovers who claim that their romantic partner is the only person they need in their lives or that time together is the only activity necessary for emotional fulfillment. Humans are designed to live in groups, explore ideas, and constantly learn new skills. Trying to get all this input from one person is like trying to get a full range of vitamins by eating only ice cream. When a couple believes "We must fulfill all of each other's needs," each becomes exhausted by the effort to be all things to the other and neither can develop fully as an individual.

Read more: http://www.oprah.com/relationships/How-to-Know-Its-Real-Love-Advice-from-Martha-Beck/2#ixzz2erq707S2