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
No comments:
Post a Comment