To Love or Not To Love
Most of us want to have the perfect date, fall in love and live happily
ever after. Falling in love is such a wonderful thing. You feel so great about
yourself, and about life. You think anything is possible. And you think that
the person you have just fallen in love with is perfect. It isn’t surprising.
At that moment your brain is soaked in Dopamine, one of the love chemicals,
which, in fact, has a similar effect on the brain that cocaine has. People
suffering from schizophrenia have an abnormal level of Dopamine in the brain,
too. So, even though you are far from experiencing schizophrenic symptoms, and
you are not suffering from the side effects of cocaine, it is safe to say that
you live in a ‘rose-tinted’ world. This is why we often hear the phrase ‘love
is blind’. Because it is!
Just like any other drug, the ‘come down’ comes after the ‘high’. Your brain cannot sustain such a level of Dopamine in the long term. So, eventually, it dies down. That is when you start to notice that your perfect lover is not so perfect after all. In fact, your lover has some annoying habits. And your lover is not such a great lover anymore. Your lover is normal. Human. Flawed. This is when you have a conflict with yourself: ‘My head says this, but my heart says something different… I’m confused!’
Just like any other drug, the ‘come down’ comes after the ‘high’. Your brain cannot sustain such a level of Dopamine in the long term. So, eventually, it dies down. That is when you start to notice that your perfect lover is not so perfect after all. In fact, your lover has some annoying habits. And your lover is not such a great lover anymore. Your lover is normal. Human. Flawed. This is when you have a conflict with yourself: ‘My head says this, but my heart says something different… I’m confused!’
Then you
feel like a fool. How could you have thought that your lover was going to be
the answer to all your problems? The key to unlock all your potential? The
answer to your happiness? Sometimes the comedown is so harsh that you decide
your lover cannot possibly share your bed anymore. You break up, feeling hurt,
feeling you failed. You feel angry at yourself and at the lover who
disappointed you so much. Then, testosterone kicks in. Testosterone is also
called the War Chemical. You are angry. So angry, that, sometimes, you cannot
bear to be near your lover again. You shout at them. You break up. It’s all
over.
And then, you start your search again for the one.
In my practice I often hear:
‘I thought he/she was the one’
‘I’m never successful in dating’
‘I’ve never had a long-term relationship’
‘I can’t seem to be able to settle down’
‘Where are all the single men/women?’
‘Where do you meet single men/women?’
Then I hear rationalisation of the failures of relationships, which are often gender-specific and are generalisations.
I hear women say:
‘All men are bastards’
‘Men don’t do feelings’
‘He doesn’t understand me!’
And then, you start your search again for the one.
In my practice I often hear:
‘I thought he/she was the one’
‘I’m never successful in dating’
‘I’ve never had a long-term relationship’
‘I can’t seem to be able to settle down’
‘Where are all the single men/women?’
‘Where do you meet single men/women?’
Then I hear rationalisation of the failures of relationships, which are often gender-specific and are generalisations.
I hear women say:
‘All men are bastards’
‘Men don’t do feelings’
‘He doesn’t understand me!’
I hear men
say:
‘All women are materialistic’
‘Women are always so emotional’
‘I never know what she wants!’
Most often men and women come to my practice not after one failed relationship but after three or four. And they decide to come for help because they realised that, no matter what they did with each different lover, they always ended up feeling the same, and it was always the same story being played out. They come to therapy to break free from this pattern and to finally find the right partner.
In fact, most people seem to think that falling in love, meeting the one and then living happily ever after should be a natural thing. It should happen with no effort. And it is normal and easy. What if I told you these beliefs were wrong?
What if I told you that falling in love is easy (thanks to Dopamine) but staying in love is hard work? Meeting the one is terrifying. And being happy ever after is quite different from how it is depicted in romantic comedies or in fairy tales.
The truth of the matter is that if you want to meet the one, you can. The right lover for you is definitely out there! But it is terrifying because it means that you have to open yourself up to being vulnerable.
‘All women are materialistic’
‘Women are always so emotional’
‘I never know what she wants!’
Most often men and women come to my practice not after one failed relationship but after three or four. And they decide to come for help because they realised that, no matter what they did with each different lover, they always ended up feeling the same, and it was always the same story being played out. They come to therapy to break free from this pattern and to finally find the right partner.
In fact, most people seem to think that falling in love, meeting the one and then living happily ever after should be a natural thing. It should happen with no effort. And it is normal and easy. What if I told you these beliefs were wrong?
What if I told you that falling in love is easy (thanks to Dopamine) but staying in love is hard work? Meeting the one is terrifying. And being happy ever after is quite different from how it is depicted in romantic comedies or in fairy tales.
The truth of the matter is that if you want to meet the one, you can. The right lover for you is definitely out there! But it is terrifying because it means that you have to open yourself up to being vulnerable.
The feeling
of rejection is one of those feelings that human beings try to avoid the most.
Why? Because it is a very deeply painful feeling.
Imagine that you are in a pub on your first date. You really like your date, you start to envisage what your second date might be like. But on that first night, your date tells you: ‘I had a really good time, but, actually, I think we should just be friends’. What a rejection!! Very painful! Why is it so painful? After all, both of you are adults, you’ve only just met, you will survive. Oh no… In this scenario your brain will make a connection with other rejections, some that are now so far away that they don’t belong to your consciousness anymore. Yet there are some deep unconscious triggers. Your brain will remember the very sad feeling of loneliness, utter disappointment, sadness, and inadequacy when the person at school that you have been fancying for ages turns up at the Prom with someone else. Your brain remembers the very deep painful feeling when you were five years old; you spent the day at school drawing a picture for your parents. When you presented that picture, your parents were too busy to give you the attention you deserved. Rejection!! So now, as an adult, your date tells you: ‘I think we should be friends’. You feel and you react as the five year old who had been unfairly ignored. Your pain is deep. You feel hurt, sad, inadequate, and perhaps even ashamed.
It is therefore not surprising that human beings avoid this very painful feeling of rejection. So how do we avoid it?
We make sure we meet the wrong people, because if we meet the wrong people, there is no loss, right? No loss means no
rejection. Right?
So we rationalise, ‘He was crap anyway. A typical man. Can’t talk about feelings’.
‘She was crazy. Talking about shopping all the time. So materialistic, like all women’.
The problem is that it is the same the next time. And the time after that.
And then we are suddenly 30-something and still single. And that is when you conjure up all your courage, and you dial my number.
Imagine that you are in a pub on your first date. You really like your date, you start to envisage what your second date might be like. But on that first night, your date tells you: ‘I had a really good time, but, actually, I think we should just be friends’. What a rejection!! Very painful! Why is it so painful? After all, both of you are adults, you’ve only just met, you will survive. Oh no… In this scenario your brain will make a connection with other rejections, some that are now so far away that they don’t belong to your consciousness anymore. Yet there are some deep unconscious triggers. Your brain will remember the very sad feeling of loneliness, utter disappointment, sadness, and inadequacy when the person at school that you have been fancying for ages turns up at the Prom with someone else. Your brain remembers the very deep painful feeling when you were five years old; you spent the day at school drawing a picture for your parents. When you presented that picture, your parents were too busy to give you the attention you deserved. Rejection!! So now, as an adult, your date tells you: ‘I think we should be friends’. You feel and you react as the five year old who had been unfairly ignored. Your pain is deep. You feel hurt, sad, inadequate, and perhaps even ashamed.
It is therefore not surprising that human beings avoid this very painful feeling of rejection. So how do we avoid it?
We make sure we meet the wrong people, because if we meet the wrong people, there is no loss, right? No loss means no
rejection. Right?
So we rationalise, ‘He was crap anyway. A typical man. Can’t talk about feelings’.
‘She was crazy. Talking about shopping all the time. So materialistic, like all women’.
The problem is that it is the same the next time. And the time after that.
And then we are suddenly 30-something and still single. And that is when you conjure up all your courage, and you dial my number.
My female
clients in this situation have a hard time. The biological clock is ticking
louder and louder. They are afraid of ‘being left on the shelf’. All their
friends have babies.
My male clients have an equally hard time. They are perceived by their peers as lesser men because they should have settled down by now. ‘What is wrong with you? Still no girlfriends?’ They see their friends marrying, having babies and getting a mortgage together.
Why is it so difficult to meet ‘the one’? Because you are looking for the one in the wrong place. The one is not in a bar. They are not the single person at your friend’s wedding. They are not in your online dating inbox.
‘The one’ is inside you.
From the moment that we are born to the present day, we experience life, and we experience life with others. Through those experiences, we learn information about ourselves. It is the way we feel about ourselves that inform whom we see. Our brain acts like a filter. It means that if we believe that all men are bastards, we will only meet bastards, disregarding the really nice one sitting just next to you. And if that really nice one comes to you and pays you a great compliment, you don’t believe them. You dismiss them. Because they do not match what your brain perceives as the ‘romantic template’. You tell yourself that this man is weird. You move away.
If we believe that all women are overly emotional, we will miss the thousands of emotionally stable women walking around everywhere, every day. If a wonderful stable woman approaches you, you think ‘she’s got a secret agenda, she’s after something’.
My male clients have an equally hard time. They are perceived by their peers as lesser men because they should have settled down by now. ‘What is wrong with you? Still no girlfriends?’ They see their friends marrying, having babies and getting a mortgage together.
Why is it so difficult to meet ‘the one’? Because you are looking for the one in the wrong place. The one is not in a bar. They are not the single person at your friend’s wedding. They are not in your online dating inbox.
‘The one’ is inside you.
From the moment that we are born to the present day, we experience life, and we experience life with others. Through those experiences, we learn information about ourselves. It is the way we feel about ourselves that inform whom we see. Our brain acts like a filter. It means that if we believe that all men are bastards, we will only meet bastards, disregarding the really nice one sitting just next to you. And if that really nice one comes to you and pays you a great compliment, you don’t believe them. You dismiss them. Because they do not match what your brain perceives as the ‘romantic template’. You tell yourself that this man is weird. You move away.
If we believe that all women are overly emotional, we will miss the thousands of emotionally stable women walking around everywhere, every day. If a wonderful stable woman approaches you, you think ‘she’s got a secret agenda, she’s after something’.
In therapy,
I help my clients challenge their thoughts about their romantic template, I
challenge their thoughts about love and relationships. Let’s be honest, sex and
relationship education is poor in our country, so we often have the wrong
information about it. And, well, there are no lessons in love either, so if you
want to change things, it is important to un-learn some inaccurate information
and re-educate yourself.
With my clients, I also guide them to look thoroughly into their life experience so that we can bring to the fore what their romantic template is made of, in order to change it to a more realistic one. Most of the time, the work is challenging, because it involves letting go of some beliefs that had been held for a long time. Sometimes, it involves being vulnerable in the therapeutic setting.
The good news is that this therapeutic process is a transformative one. Time and time again, I see clients at the end of their journey being so much happier with themselves and others. Being happy in a good relationship is very good for you! It triggers Oxytocin, the brain chemical known as the ‘well-being’ chemical. This chemical regulates your heart rate, brings down anxiety, boosts your immune system and is the best anti-depressant. It is literally good for you to be in a good relationship.
With my clients, I also guide them to look thoroughly into their life experience so that we can bring to the fore what their romantic template is made of, in order to change it to a more realistic one. Most of the time, the work is challenging, because it involves letting go of some beliefs that had been held for a long time. Sometimes, it involves being vulnerable in the therapeutic setting.
The good news is that this therapeutic process is a transformative one. Time and time again, I see clients at the end of their journey being so much happier with themselves and others. Being happy in a good relationship is very good for you! It triggers Oxytocin, the brain chemical known as the ‘well-being’ chemical. This chemical regulates your heart rate, brings down anxiety, boosts your immune system and is the best anti-depressant. It is literally good for you to be in a good relationship.
Originally published
in February 2014
