Love As Therapy

[Guest guest]

Love Heals

Love is the key to all healing.

Nothing heals better - emotionally - biochemically - physically and mentally than love - or experiencing the frequency of romantic love - as all is frequency. It is like a drug that heals, but one must watch out for the side effects, such as obsession. If you have never felt this love, your soul may seek to heal the issues which will allow you to attrcat this experience.

Some people are happier and healthier giving love - while others need to be loved to remain healthy. Love should be in balance as that is the key word in all healing.

Love affects most species

as they seek to create peace and balance in their experience here.

The ultimate healing from love comes with union/reunion of self.

Love....we search, hunger, pray for this too-often elusive emotion. When we experience it, we revel in the bliss love elicits and bask in the warmth that blankets us with caring, gratitude, comfort, and a sense of all-around well being. Little have we known that this wonderful feeling we call love does, indeed, create well-being. In fact, feeling love sets forth a complex series of events within our bodies that generally bring about better health.

A distinction must be made between "falling in love" and "being in love" or feeling love in general. Simply defined, falling in love is part of the initial stage of a relationship, in which we feel strong passionate feelings of attraction, both emotional and physical, to another person. If we are fortunate, this stage leads to being in love, a deeper devotion and affection, which may develop and deepen over time. Feeling love is much like being in love. However, we can feel love for someone who is not a romantic partner; in fact, we more often feel love without being "in love." We frequently extend the more general kind of love to relatives, friends, even pets.

Numerous studies prove that love does, indeed, improve our health. These

studies look at love not only in the context of male-female primary

relationships, such as marriage, but also in the context of a person's general

social support and connection to others. In other words, these studies

examine both relationships where participants are "in love" and those in which

we feel love for someone. Dean Ornish, M.D., has served as a pioneer in this work. In his book, Love and

Survival, the Scientific Basis for the Healing Power of Intimacy he reports on many such studies. For example, he helped conduct a

study at Yale that involved 119 men and 40 women undergoing coronary

angiography. Those who felt the most loved and supported had substantially

less blockages in their heart arteries than the other subjects. In a related

study, researchers looked at almost 10 thousand married men with no prior

history of angina. These men had high levels of risk factors, such as elevated

cholesterol, high blood pressure, diabetes, and electrocardiogram

abnormalities. Those who felt their wives did not show them love experienced

almost twice as much angina as the first group, who felt their wives did show them love.

While feeling loved appears to benefit our heart's health, giving love seems to

do the same for our aging process. The results of a study of more than 700

elderly adults showed that the effects of aging were influenced more by what

the participants contributed to their social support network than what they

received from it. In other words, the more love and support they gave, the

more they benefited.

Social ties with friends, family, workers, and community that involve love and

intimacy of any type also may help protect against infectious diseases. In a

study of 276 healthy volunteers ranging in age from 18 to 55, all participants

received nasal drops containing rhinovirus, which causes the common cold.

Researchers assessed subjects on 12 types of relationships, including

relationship with spouse, parents, parents-in-law, children and other close

family members, neighbors, friends, co-workers schoolmates, and member of

various groups. They scored a point for each type of relationship if they spoke

to a person in that category at least once every two weeks. While almost all

of the people exposed to the cold virus were infected, not everyone

developed the signs and symptoms of a cold. The participants who reported

only one to three types of relationships had more than four times the risk of

developing a cold than those reporting six or more types of relationships.

"When you feel loved, nurtured, cared for, supported, and intimate, you are

much more likely to be happier and healthier. You have a much lower risk of

getting sick and, if you do, a much greater chance of surviving," Ornish

concludes in his book.

Romantic Love....

Love is a positive high frequency emotion which can heal and help us overcome many obstacles and appear to heal. To watch a person who is ill fall in love - is often like watching a miracle. It is more about mind over matter. When you are in love you feel infallible. You walk fly. You would never create an illness or allow anything detrimental into your energies as you want to remain on that high forever.

Love refers to the emotional body - more specifically the heart chakra - the soul - which we are here to heal! If we heal the heart we create the balance we seek and thus are able to release from the emotional bondage we experience in 3D - the physical realms. Our soul separates from its polar opposite when we come into physical form. It spends its lifetimes seeking love and trying the heal the pain of that separation - until soul reunions is achieved. This emotional concept of love is connecting with twin flame separation.

Romantic love can help us heal - but is it a quick fix - rarely permanent. As we know - the adrenaline high of falling in love does not last forever. I have seen depressed people who have fallen in love - function perfectly - until the high is over - which can last days.. weeks...or months...up to 3 years. After that - the depressed person goes back to their emotional problems as the high feeling of love subsides. Sometimes the depression that follows is deeper than before. Professional help should be sought at this time.

The best love for healing - is balanced love with compassion, acceptance, and understanding. It is a spiritual and emotional high which can be romantic - but is more powerful as it lasts.

Chemistry....

Falling in love produces certain chemical reactions as well as hormonal effects in the body that create an emotional high unmatched by any other means of healing. Love is in the mind and is fueled by chemicals and chemistry. There is something in chocolate that affects the chemistry of the brain in the same way - hence we often substitute chocolate for love - or give chocolates when in love. The candy kiss - is chocolate.

When two people are attracted to each other, a virtual explosion of adrenaline-like nuerochemicals gush forth. Fireworks explode and we see stars. PEA or phenylethylamine is a chemical that speeds up the flow of information between nerve cells. Also, involved in chemistry are dopamine and norepinephrine, chemical cousins of amphetamines. Dopamine makes us feel good and norepinephrine stimulates the production of adrenaline. It makes our heart race! These three chemicals combine to give us infatuation or chemistry. It is why new lovers feel euphoric and energized, and float on air. It is also why new lovers can make love for hours and talk all night for weeks on end. This is the chemistry or the love sparks we all seek.

Singles search for love armed with a list of qualities desired in a mate/lover, such as honesty, fidelity, loyalty, sense of humor, intelligence, warmth, etc. Yet when that person appears they say, they are really nice, but nothing clicked, just no chemistry. We always seek the chemistry high.

Unfortunately, we hear that click when we recognize our original parent/child situation. That's when our brain really gets those phenylethylamines and other chemicals moving.

Some people become veritable 'love junkies.' They need chemistry or this chemical excitement to feel happy about and intoxicated by life. Once this initial rush of chemicals wanes their relationship crumbles. They're soon off again, detectives seeking a quick fix to their forlorn feelings: another chemical high from infatuation.

These love junkies also have one other problem. The body builds up a tolerance to these chemicals. Then it takes more and more chemistry to bring that special feeling of love. They crave the intoxication of chemistry and infatuation.

Many adults go through life in a series of six-month to three-year relationships that keep them high. If these love junkies stay married, they are likely to seek affairs to fuel their chemical highs.

Studies conducted at the Institute for HeartMath in Boulder Creek,

California, confirm the health-improving and life-affirming effects of love on the

human body. By studying the heart's rhythms, researchers there have

discovered that when we feel love, or any positive emotion such as

compassion, caring, or gratitude, the heart sends messages to the brain and

secretes hormones that positively affect our health. "Our heart rate changes with every heartbeat," Rollin McCraty, director of

research at the Institute of HeartMath, explains. "It creates patterns we call

heart rhythms." Researchers see the difference in heart rhythms easily when

study participants wear portable recorders that allow researchers to monitor

their heart rhythms as they go about their day. These rhythms provide "a

window" into the inner workings of the communication system between the

heart and the brain.

McCraty believes the heart actually monitors the blood stream for hormones

and translates the hormonal information into neurological information, which

cascades up into the higher brain centers, like the cortex.

"When we get stressed out or mad or worried, the bottom line is that the

heart's rhythmic beating pattern becomes very incoherent, and that has the

effect of inhibiting the brain's cortex," McCraty explains. "When we feel

emotions like love and appreciation the heart switches into a very rhythmic,

coherent, beating pattern that facilitates cortical function." These coherent

heart rhythms, he says, cause an "inner synchronization" of the systems in

our body, which then affects how we think, function, and fight off disease. Not only does the heart communicate with the brain via the nervous system,

its rhythms affect the functioning of the nervous system itself. The autonomic

nervous system is divided into two branches, one that speeds things up and

another that slows things down. "When we are in a non-loving state, when we

are angry at someone, the two halves of the nervous system get out of sync

with one another. It's like they're fighting each other: one tries to speed the

heart up as the other tries to slow it down. This is what creates this very

erratic heart rhythm. "When we are in a loving state, our hearts go into coherent heart rhythms,"

says McCraty. "This is because the two halves of the nervous system are in

sync and operating much more efficiently together. That allows the body to

go through its natural regenerative process," he explains. "If we feel love and compassion, that boosts our immune system." The effect of which McCraty speaks showed up in a study documented by Doc

Childre, architect of the HeartMath program. When subjects of the experiment

felt angry for one five-minute period, their cortisol levels increased. Cortisol,

known as the stress hormone, suppresses the immune system. Thus, these

subjects experienced suppressed secretory immunoglobulin A (IgA), an

antibody, for up to six hours after feeling angry for only five minutes.

Secretory IgA serves as the human body's first line of defense against disease.

Thus, lower than normal levels of IgA, leave us more susceptible to colds, flu

and respiratory disease. When the subjects of this study felt love and

appreciation for just one five-minute period, their secretory Iga rose

significantly. While the rise in IgA spikes after feeling love for five minutes and

then drops off, it then begins a slow rise that continues for many hours

afterward. A few years ago researchers at the Institute of HeartMath used their tools to

teach 30 people how to feel love in a conscious manner. One month later,

they measured the study subjects' levels of both cortisol and DHEA, known as

the anti-aging hormone. They found that the cortisol levels for the whole

group had decreased 23 percent while the group's DHEA levels increased 100

percent across the board.

"The measurement of those two hormones is considered by many, including

myself, to be a very good measure of stress and aging" says McCraty. "If they

are out of balance, such as high cortisol, low DHEA, that basically is rapid

aging. Learning to love or to love more consciously, more of the time, brings

those hormones into balance. This is a very direct pathway to see how love

affects health."

Cardiologist Bruce , chairman of the Medical Education Committee at

Columbia Hospital in Milwaukee, WI, found that many of his patients suffer not

from the five identifiable risk factors for heart disease, which are family history,

cholesterol elevation, smoking, diabetes, hypertension, but from the effects of

a stressful life. In his work as both a doctor and a HeartMath trainer,

reports that he has seen people shift their heart rhythms from anger or stress

to love and benefit from the physiology.

Another body of work sheds light on the health benefits of love by looking at

the makeup of emotions. Candace Pert, Ph.D., research professor at

town University Medical Center in Washington, D.C., and author of

Molecules of Emotion, Why You Feel the Way You Do (Scribner, 1997),

reports that endorphins, which are associated with the feeling of bliss, help us

"bond" with other people. In other words, they help us form loving

relationships. Endorphins are "natural endogenous morphine-like substances

that we produce in our brain, sex organs, gut, immune system, and heart,"

says Pert. "Certainly the data would suggest that endorphins are involved"

when we feel love. Endorphins are known not only to create a positive,

bliss-like feeling -- which we definitely associate with love -- but also to

stimulate the special immune system cells, called Natural Killer cells, which fight

cancer. In addition, they improve digestion and elimination.

While the fact that love improves our health may be good news for people in

an intimate primary relationship, it may appear just the opposite for those who

are not. However, to reap the benefits of love you need not have a lover or

spouse. The love you feel can be for a co-worker, a parent, a child, or a

sibling. In fact, it can even be for your dog, cat, fish, or plants. "Somebody

could be flooded with love for their pet or their God and get just as much of a

boost...as someone who just started going out with someone new,"

comments Pert. There are numerous studies illustrating the fact that people

live healthier lives and heal better after a major illness or surgery if they own a

pet. In particular, many such studies have shown that the elderly fare better if

they own pets. For those who still feel doubt about the power of love to improve their lives,

yet one more hope exists. suggests that people can apply HeartMath

techniques to the deep gratitude or appreciation you feel toward a movie, a

concerto, or another activity or event that fosters in you positive

feelings."One step in this technique has to do with focusing very hard on one

moment of sincere appreciation," explains. He conjures up a sunset in

Cancun, though your own chosen focus may be closer to home. "You call up

one of your many images, think of that special moment, center yourself in

your heart, and access this physiology. Then these changes in physiology

totally change how you are interacting with your environment. They change

your internal physiology. They change the balance in your autonomic nervous

system. Literally," he concludes. One question still remains unanswered: Is falling in love better for our health

than being in love or feeling love? While McCraty feels that truly falling in love

can boost health, he notes that dating and the insecurity that can go with

looking for new relationships can involve a fair amount of stress. Pert agrees:

"We could speculate that in the beginning stages of love there is more of an

excitement factor, which would produce some of the classical

neurotransmitters, like norepinephrine and dopamine, which are involved with

excitement," she explains."If you are actually flooded with norepinephrine,

[viruses have a hard time getting in." But Pert urges us to "celebrate old love

as well." She adds, "Maybe as [love] becomes richer and deeper and

different...then additional chemicals come into play." In any case, we can all be

reassured that the more we love and are loved, the healthier we become.

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