How's Your Love Life?

Love in All It's Guises

“Affection is responsible for nine-tenths of whatever solid and durable happiness there is in our lives.”

                                               C.S. Lewis

This weekend I am in a seminar titled, “Breaking the Rules of Love.” We are learning about the role of eros in our lives. When someone asks you, “How's your love life?” your mind almost always goes to your erotic life—or lack thereof. If you are “in love” you might answer this question, “Great!” and if you do not have a lover, you might answer, “Terrible!” Rarely do we associate love with friendship, or children, or pets or all the other relationships that give life its texture and meaning. We feel deprived if we don't have a significant-other, even though we may have many good and intimate friendships. We may find ourselves asking, 'What's wrong with me that no one loves me?” Our culture has taught us to feel odd if we aren't in a monogamous relationship, and we have internalized that expectation. But it fails to recognize and embrace all the manifestations of love that grace our lives. We have drawn our 'love-box' too small and should feel cramped by its confinement.

Conversely, we may have been in a committed relationship for a long time, decades even. The fire that pairing began in may have changed to embers, or even ashes. We may see this as a sign that we no longer love this person and need to try again with someone new—get the old fire back. And no doubt we will get that fire with a new partner, and again, we will watch it wane. Love changes over time. We have different brain chemistry active during various stages of relationship. The fire, passion, lust is evoked by testosterone in both men and women. Affection, or caring for a person deeply, but not in a sexual way, is governed by dopamine. And the bonding that sustains relationships long term is due to oxytocin, the same hormone that helps nursing mothers bond with their infants. Love, eros, is really about relatedness, and further, it is about relatedness to life.

When we expand our understanding of eros to include all our relationships that are nurturing and sustaining, especially our relationship to our self, we will see that we are surrounded by love all the time, every day. So...how's your love life, anyway?

                                          In the spirit,

                                              Jane