Love has many faces or does it?

LOVE HAS MANY FACES OR DOES IT?

Written by Mel Macdonald

www.loveandindulgence.com.au

As women its like we are bred as hopeless romantics from the beginning. I remember being about 6 years old and doodling on my notebooks at school my first name and the surname of the guy I had a crush on. If it didn’t rhyme he wasn’t for me (funnily enough I still do this and I’m over 40!).

I’m not sure if this theory works or not after 2 marriages ending in divorce (and yes my name rhymed well) but maybe that’s because I wasn’t fully aware that love actually has many faces.

I know people believe that we have 1 soul mate and they go about hunting this person down to spend the rest of their lives with them. 

"But who says you’re supposed to marry your soul mate?"

I know who mine is and he is the one I have kept as a friend all these years. I know we are not supposed to be together this life and I would never risk that connection we have on some belief that he is the one I am supposed to marry.

So what is love and what does it look like?

For me, as a kid, love was those butterflies in the pit of your stomach.

As a teenager, he was the hot guy down the road whom you did your first everything with.

As a young adult, he was the man that would be there no matter what. He was the stable logical one in the relationship who would rush home if you were sick and thought your were beautiful even if you were having a bad hair day.

In my mid 20’s, he was the one I least expected. Not the clean-shaven man I was looking for but a gentle person that had many physical facets that I never looked for in a man. He made me want to give up everything just to be with him (and I did).

My late 20’s and through my 30’s, love came in the form of the ‘hot jock’. It was all about the lust from day 1 to the end and beyond! I know it was more lust then what we describe as love but was that really that bad? I mean, how many couples still grope their partner after 10 years?

Then came my 40’s. Lots of reflection and self love for a few years without the distraction of a relationship and then came the dating. There was the young hot one who loved living in our bubble of happy conversation and mutual growth. Then came the long distant lust affair of two people desperate to meet again. Then I stumbled across the opposite of anything I was intentionally looking for.

If intensity was on a scale of 1-100 this guy was 1,000.  I warned him on our first date not to fall in love with me cause I would “break his f’n heart”. Did that stop him? Hell no! He was a goner immediately. I was like nothing he had ever met before and even though for him our date was supposed to be part of a bet with his mates, it turned into something else real fast.

He offered me more in 1 week then any man had offered in me 25 years of dating!

“This is ridiculous…this is out of control…he is not what I am looking for. He smokes…blah…he drinks more then I am comfortable with…he lives most of the year overseas. This is crazy! No, no, no, no!”

Now does love at first sight really exist or is it just the bunch of chemicals your body is releasing that is playing tricks with your mind?

Love can actually come across like a drug. Kissing alone is 200 times more powerful then morphine so can you imagine how someone is feeling when you’ve taken it to the next level?

If its been a long time between drinks its like an overdose.

These are chemicals that are getting released into your system-

Adrenaline -makes you feel exhilarated

Beta-endorphins -increasing the feeling of human bonding

Oxytocin - also known as the cuddle drug

Serotonin -acts like an anti-depressant making you feel serenity and ecstasy

Vasopressin - better known as the protection drug. Supports feelings of possession (you are that possession now)

Testosterone - fuels your sex drive making you feel sexually virile

Phenylethylamine -triggers the release of Dopamine making you feel overwhelmed with feelings of bliss, attraction, and excitement and is your fireworks!

So the logical brain kicked in and asked, “Is it really love or just that we are loving the drug affect we are getting being around each other?”

I hadn’t been looking for love. I hadn’t wanted anything significant. I was just out there again, on the market, and seeking open-minded enlightenment. I was doing what I called a ‘social experiment’ and I stumbled across a man who would shake it all up. Shake up my ‘in control’ program.

Love does come in many forms and most of the time it’s when you least expect it and not with whom you thought. So when you’re not sure, hang in there a little longer to see how you feel after the drugs wear off!

Love has many faces or does it?

Master Your Cycle

When it comes to menstruation, a woman’s hormones are in a constant state of flux to result in new changes every day of your cycle – and a number of them have a serious effect on your sex life, too.

By knowing what you and your body are going through, you can be better prepared to deal with what’s to come, and also to reap the sexual benefits the whole way through. What follows is a chronological breakdown of the 3 week cycle that will help you master your menses!

Week 1

Make Time for Make-up Sex

Your peaking fertility in the first week of your menstrual cycle will make him more possessive and you more assertive, according to evolutionary psychology. This is the perfect mix when it comes to tiff-causing tensions in the relationship, but not to worry, because this is the same week you’re easier to become sexually aroused, making some mind-blowing make-up sex more than likely.

Sexy Sounds

In the first days of your cycle you may experience a hoarser than usual voice, meaning you can really commit to some Kathleen Turner levels of dirty talk during sex!

While menstruation’s effect on voice has been studied quite a bit, there is no clear reasoning for this – it just happens. Fun fact; many professional singers have ‘grace days’ included in their performance contracts for just this very reason.

Week 2

Burnin’ Up

The increase in your levels of estrogen can cause you to burn off more fat than usual during your trips to the gym, according to a review in Current Opinion in Pharmacology. The effect is strongest two days before you start ovulating, so make the most of this time by cranking up your cardio and presenting yourself in your favorite lingerie.

Craving the Strong, Secure Type

Your unconscious emphasis on reproduction will have you liking a certain kind of man this week, namely muscle-y manly men, and the healthier their stock portfolio, the better. 

Again this comes down to Evo Psych, as a masculine fella with a strong jawline has some choice genetic material to pass on, and if he’s got the bank to boot, he can provide for your shared offspring – both of which you might find yourself responding to.

Your Gaydar Pings Perfectly

According to a study in Psychological Science, your peak time for procreation coincides with your precise ability to figure out if he’s straight or not. The reasoning here again comes down to evolutionary psychology, which posits that you’re more open than ever to cues and clues as to whether or not a man is into you.

Let Your Hormones Do the Shopping

When you’re ovulating, you’ll find that you’re extra-competitive, increasingly extroverted and likely to wear revealing clothes that stands out from other women. Not only this, but you may find yourself opening your purse to buy things you would have walked right passed the week before. These findings are actually from the Journal of Consumer Research, which is equal parts fascinating and terrifying, if you ask us.

DAY 14: THE BEST SEX OF YOUR CYCLE

This is enough to add to your calendar every month for years to come; according to Italian researchers and published in a recent edition of The Journal of Sexual Medicine, on or around the 14^th day of your cycle is when your clitoris grows about twenty percent bigger than its normal size. Not only is your sweet spot even easier to reach, it will become engorged much more easily than usual, which drastically up your chances of becoming fully aroused.

Week 3

Tossin’ & Turnin’

As your heightened estrogen levels from the previous two weeks are being replaced with progesterone (which your body produces to facilitate the pregnancy it is absolutely certain will happen this time, as it is every month), you might be experiencing lighter or harder-to-come-by sleeping patterns, according to the International Journal of Endocrinology. While you could use this extra awake time counting sheep, wouldn’t a full-body massage from your partner be an even better idea?

Things get decidedly less sexy from here, but hey, take heart in the fact that the cycle begins anew for the next month – so make the most of it!

www.loveandindulgence.com.au

NEXT ARTICLE : SURVIVING BREAST CANCER AND REDISCOVERING INTIMACY

Better Loving Through Chemistry: Staying Connected with Someone Special

When people say that sex is everywhere, they’re not lying. From the way you feel about yourself, how good you’re sleeping, to even your body image, sex and sensuality affects your life in a big way.


To give a bit of perspective on the importance of intimacy, we’ve scoured a number of sources to paint a wide-ranging picture of pleasure, and why we all should be making a little more room for lovemaking.

Stay Connected

Oxy-what? It’s all about oxytocin, a powerful hormone released during arousal and orgasm that acts as a pain reliever, stress decreaser, and strongly influences pair bonding.

Studies have shown that people who share frequent contact with the one they are connected to in the form of kissing, hugging or holding hands are better able to deal with stress and have lower blood pressure than those who don’t. And what’s more, it only takes a mere 20 seconds of this intimate contact for oxytocin to start working its stress-relieving magic.

Oxytocin and love are linked, and this bonding hormone plays no small part in couples’ feeling closer together; the pair bonding effect is long-lasting and can be maintained through sex and the aforementioned intimate contact.

Consider this, if you will;

Six months of couples’ therapy: average cost $2,000

Total spent on divorce annually in the U.S.: $28 billion

Cost of personal massagers INA 2, MONA 2 and ELISE 2: much, much cheaper – and they come with 10 years’ worth of warranties and guarantees!

Next Article: HEALTHY MEALS FOR MORE MOJO: FOODS THAT NATURALLY INCREASE LIBIDO

www.loveandindulgence.com.au