When you ask people what love is to them, almost everyone has a slightly different view and experience. But a psychologist and marriage counselor says everyone should know nine things about the best feeling in the world.
Love is something very individual for everyone and yet there are a few facts that every person should know in life. Randi Gunther has been in business for 40 years. She has helped countless people and relationships as a psychologist and marriage counselor. She says she has spent around 130,000 personal hours with individuals, couples and families. That led the California-based psychologist to summarize nine facts about love for Psychology Today magazine.
All walls are falling
Love is, next to pain and sadness, the strongest human feeling. Love can cause us to let down all the walls we have built up, to show ourselves more vulnerable than ever. But love can also bring out emotions and traumas that have long been repressed. Basically, when you’re in love, you’re more sensitive, reactive or awake, but also more emotionally naked, according to Gunther.
Love comes and goes
Do you know love at first sight? And have you ever asked yourself how it can be that you look at a person and something like a bolt of lightning goes through you? Love is not predictable, but it is not necessarily constant either. Because as quickly as it came, it can disappear again. The feeling of love can sometimes move in waves in life and can sometimes be more and sometimes less present.
Stress kills love
The feeling of stress and problems gets on everyone’s last nerve and the stress also damages the love of one’s partner. Because this influences the emotional, intellectual and physical performance of every person. It shifts the focus, which then usually relates to finding a solution to the existing problem. Some people give up under the weight of stress and quit the relationship, others can become interpersonally unbearable because love cannot be a priority at the time. However, according to the marriage counselor, the fact is that stress can destroy love.
Love can conquer everything through a substance
The biochemical attraction between two people cannot be controlled and serves to preserve the species. The more different and therefore more consistent the other person’s DNA, the higher the likelihood that you will feel very attracted. This serves to reproduce and mix an optimal gene pool. But biochemical messengers such as oxytocin can do much more. Oxytocin is also often called the cuddle hormone because it creates a feeling of connection and closeness, especially through physical touch. But also other things, like good food, nice music, petting your pet or meditation. Even deep eye contact can increase your oxytocin levels. And this hormone has a special superpower: it helps reduce stress and relieves emotional and physical pain.
The journey into the past
You shouldn’t always dwell on memories because they belong to the past! When it comes to love, this can even have a positive effect on the relationship, especially in stressful times. According to Randi Gunther, consciously evoking beautiful, shared memories, telling old stories and looking at beautiful souvenir photos can even repair an estranged relationship a little and bring the partners closer together again.
Love and a relationship are continuous work – ignorance often leads to the end
Love is not a given
Almost everyone has heard or read this sentence in their life, but do you take it to heart? In her forty-year career, psychologist Gunther has learned that one should never take love for granted. Love is work, you should show it and appreciate the affection. In addition, according to Gunter, it should be a better feeling to love yourself than to receive love.
Love is difficult to revive
Once the relationship and love have been seriously damaged, ignored and trampled on, it is actually difficult to revive the former rose-colored glasses, the feeling of light-heartedness and cohesion. Most partners continue to fight for their former love for a while, but once you reach the point of silence and resignation, the psychologist warns against “actions too little and too late” – it’s better to think about where the journey should go sooner rather than later .
Humor, joy and hope are the fuel of love
The greatest glue of love is humor, joy and hope in a relationship. If you don’t lose your sense of humor even in difficult life situations, if you have the hope together that better times will come, regardless of whether the impact occurs inside or outside the relationship, and if you look to the future together.
External influences can damage love
Friends, family or religion can cause significant damage to love from outside. Either the connection is strengthened or destroyed from outside and the psychologist’s advice is clear: in such a situation you have to set priorities for yourself as quickly as possible and eliminate the influence, depending on your prioritization. Do you stick with the gossiping family because you think they are probably right, or do you stick with your partner and stop the gossiping? To give just one example of how external influences can harm love.
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I am an author and journalist who has worked in the entertainment industry for over a decade. I currently work as a news editor at a major news website, and my focus is on covering the latest trends in entertainment. I also write occasional pieces for other outlets, and have authored two books about the entertainment industry.
