Hold Me Tight

Love may be the most used and the most potent word in the English language. We write tomes about it, pen poems about it. We sing about it and pray for it. We fight wars for it and build monuments to it. We soar on its declaration "I LOVE YOU" and plummet at it's dissolution " I DON'T LOVE YOU ANYMORE" We think about it and talk about it endlessly. But what is it really?????

For better or worse, in the twenty-first century, a love relationship has become the central emotional relationship in most peoples lives. One reason is that we are increasingly living in social isolation. Most of us no longer live in supportive communities with our birth families or childhood friends close at hand. We work longer and longer hours, commute farther and farther distances, and thus have fewer and fewer opportunities to develop close relationship. We now know that love is, in actuality, the pinnacle of evolution, the most compelling survival mechanism of the human species. But because love drives us to bond emotionally with a precious few others who offer us safe haven from the storms of life. Love is our bulwark, designed to provide emotional protection so we can cope with the ups and downs of existence. This drive to emotionally attach- to find someone to whom we can turn and say " HOLD ME TIGHT" is wired into our genes and our bodies. It is as basic to life, health, and happiness as the drives for food, shelter, or sex. We need emotional attachments with a few irreplaceable others to be physically and mentally healthy
to survive.

I have always been fascinated by relationships. I spend a lot of time watching people meeting, talking, drinking, brawling, dancing and flirting. But the focal point of my young life was my adoptive parents marriage. I watched helplessly as they destroyed their marriage and themselves. My response to my adoptive parents pain was to vow never to get married. Romantic love was, I decided, an illusion and a trap. I was better of on my own, free and unfettered. But then, of course I fell in love and married. Love pulled me in even as I pushed it away.

Love it seemed, was all about nonnegotiable. You can't bargain for compassion,
for connection. These are not intellectual reactions; they are emotional responses.
I began to understand that there were key negative and positive emotional moments that defined a relationship. I also saw my own marriage much more clearly.
I understood that in these dramas we are caught up in emotions that are part of a survival program set out by millions of years of evolution. I understood that what couple therapy and education had been lacking was a clear scientific view of love.
But when I tried to get my views across, most of the people around me did not agree at all. First they said that emotions was something adults should control. Indeed, that too much emotion was the basic problem in most marriages.
It should be overcome, not listened to or indulged. But most important, they argued, healthy adults are self-sufficient. Only dysfunctional people need or depend on others. We often slip into disconnection and lose our love, in spite of the best intentions and the greatest insights. Love has an immense ability to help heal the devastating wounds that life sometimes deals us. Love also enhances our sense of connection to the larger world. Loving responsiveness is the foundation of a truly
compassionate, civilized society.

Today's Wisdom:

"A change of feeling is a change of destiny"

Love Always Anna Anka