Since today is Valentine’s Day, I decided to do a post related to romantic love.

There are many forms of love, the deepest kind of love being compassionate, unconditional love, the kind of love that religion and spirituality speaks to. But there is also romantic love, the kind all humans crave. So why do we crave it? It turns out it is hard-wired in our brains and our biology. There is research in the scientific community to uncover the underlying cause and effect of this thing called love, and a very intelligent TedTalk on this subject by Helen Fisher which is quite interesting.

Please take a few minutes to listen to her eloquent speech on this subject that she is very passionate about and see how it relates to your life experience. I’d love to know what you think and feel about this, so freely comment and share.

Be well and joyful ~ be love and be loved.
Happy Valentine’s Day 💖

“Romantic love is an addiction: a perfectly wonderful addiction when it’s going well, and a perfectly horrible addiction when it’s going poorly.”

~ Helen Fisher

Helen Fisher

Anthropologist, expert on love

Anthropologist Helen Fisher studies gender differences and the evolution of human emotions. She’s best known as an expert on romantic love.

Why you should listen

Fisher’s several books lay bare the mysteries of our most treasured emotion: its evolution, its biochemical foundations and its vital importance to human society. Fisher describes love as a universal human drive (stronger than the sex drive; stronger than thirst or hunger; stronger perhaps than the will to live), and her many areas of inquiry shed light on timeless human mysteries like why we choose one partner over another. Her classic study, Anatomy of Love, first published in 1992, has just been re-issued in a fully updated edition, including her recent neuroimaging research on lust, romantic love and attachment as well as discussions of sexting, hooking up, friends with benefits, other contemporary trends in courtship and marriage, and a dramatic current trend she calls “slow love.”

What others say

“In hands as skilled and sensitive as Fisher’s, scientific analysis of love only adds to its magic.” 

— Scientific American

TED Talk

HELEN FISHER: THE BRAIN IN LOVE

Why do we crave love so much, even to the point that we would die for it? To learn more about our very real, very physical need for romantic love, Helen Fisher and her research team took MRIs of people in love — and people who had just been dumped.

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Anthropologist Helen Fisher studies gender differences and the evolution of human emotions. She’s best known as an expert on romantic love, and her beautifully penned books — including Anatomy of Love and Why We Love — lay bare the mysteries of our most treasured emotion.