Chapter IV. CAN LOVE BE CONSIDERED AN APHRODISIAC About the chemistry of love YALV: Love is localized in the back of the head. ZI: Is this what you are talking about the feeling that gives life meaning, to which humanity has dedicated volumes of poetry, because of which wars have broken out? YALV: We can with great accuracy

- How to make people love you? This question worries many people. Do you think other people depend on us, and how can we become more attractive to a specific person?

– I think we all understand that the final answer to the question “What should you do to be loved?” does not exist. However, we recognize that any action we take may or may not be successful.

Of course, a lot depends on us. But our desires and capabilities do not decide everything. If someone knew the laws by which one heart begins to accept another person, then everything would be simpler (I am now talking specifically about the love between a man and a woman). But the trouble is that such laws do not exist. You know the well-known saying “Love is evil, you will love and...” Unfortunately, confirmation of such an expression is found all the time.

If our heart chose the one more worthy of love and rejected the less worthy, then a person would simply need to become as worthy of love as possible. But we know of many cases when the heart chooses a person whom we could not even think of... And so, those around them throw up their hands and say, for example, to a girl in love: “What do you see in him? What's good about it? And she stubbornly repeats: “He is the best for me!”

But this is not the worst option either. There are times when a person does not even love, but experiences a strong feeling of attraction, passion. He himself is aware of his painful craving and understands that the object of his aspirations is not worthy of love. He notices moral flaws and a variety of shortcomings in the object of his “love,” but at the same time he says, “I can’t help myself. I love him/her. I want to be with him/her.”

Sometimes a lover rejects a person who has feelings for him and is distinguished by merits and virtues. For example, a girl may state: “I see that the young man who loves me is much better than the guy I love. But my heart is cold to him. But that person with glaring flaws attracts me more.” She cannot control her feelings and cannot help herself...

– That is, it turns out that love does not depend on any factors and arises spontaneously, against our will?

“I think we have to agree that in most cases beauty is the deciding factor.” If a person wants to be loved, he must try to be beautiful. For this, people use the most various means, starting with cosmetics and clothing, and ending plastic surgery. Do these remedies help? Perhaps sometimes. But I think they can help for a while. Perhaps I will say a banal thing, true beauty is inner beauty. It is this that is of decisive importance. Much more than external attractiveness.

I understand that this statement will in no way reassure many, and they will again be perplexed: “How can someone like me if I am ugly on the outside?” But I’m not talking about abstract things, but I take my own experience as a basis.

It is clear that people are greeted by their clothes. But sometimes even a person with a homely appearance or downright ugly can make a lasting impression. At first, when you meet such a person, you only see his appearance. I myself have met many people in my life and I know many cases when, during close communication with an ugly person, you gradually stop noticing external flaws, and his inner beauty shines through more and more. Moreover, there is such a paradox: over time, a person who is not attractive becomes beautiful for you.

But the opposite also happens: a person is externally beautiful, but internally extremely unattractive. And so, when the lack of inner beauty is revealed (undoubtedly, spiritual unsightliness becomes obvious after some time; with close communication, the soul shines through the body, through the face, it cannot be hidden), external beauty becomes repulsive.

But let's return to the case of inner beauty and external unattractiveness. I think that external ugliness further highlights the inner beauty of a person. We are designed in such a way that we see and evaluate people first from the outside, and not from the inside. And having met a person who is distinguished by external beauty, but not finding beauty inside, we begin to be disappointed and experience the effect of disappointed expectations. With a person who has an ugly appearance and a beautiful soul, the opposite is true. When faced with an unsightly appearance and discovering the beauty within, we are pleasantly surprised. We are attracted to such a person even more than to someone who is pleasant both externally and internally, and thereby lives up to our expectations.

– Can each of us change ourselves within? Or is it not possible for everyone?

– Our internal state largely depends on us. Any of us can achieve inner beauty. I guarantee that a person who makes the main task of decorating his personality, his inner self, will be perceived by others as a beautiful person. Literature gives us so many confirming examples...

What can I offer to all those who want to be loved? I can tell them “Try to be beautiful! Make yourself beautiful! But do it right!”

There is a fundamental difference between the godless view of beauty and the Christian one. Usually, many people understand that being beautiful is necessary in order to be loved. They are right, but they forget that the main emphasis should be on inner beauty.

I am not one of those priests who do not accept external decorations. I never blame those women who resort to such means as jewelry, clothing, etc. Let us remember the words of Chekhov: “Everything in a person should be beautiful: his face, his clothes, his soul, and his thoughts.” It is possible to strive for external attractiveness, but it is necessary to understand that our possibilities here are limited, and that in fact this lack of reference external indicators is not so scary.

Yes, external beauty significantly increases the chances of being noticed and loved, but it does not guarantee the love of others.

– What exactly needs to be done in order to be loved? Are there any ways: what should you do to win the man you like? ?

– To be specific, there are several ways to make a girl (or, accordingly, a man) fall in love with you. The first way is worldly. I won't describe it. Anyone who wants to get to know him can read works of world literature. Young people, in particular, can read books about Don Juan, about Pechorin, the works of Shakespeare and Ovid (for example, his poem “The Art of Love”). There they will find answers to the questions that concern them, how to talk and behave with a girl so that in the end she belongs to you.

But, as a rule, love that is achieved using such means ends in disappointment. In the same literature we find many examples of the tragic ending of such stories.

There is also another way to attract a loved one - supernatural. It is unnecessary to explain that when using this method, a person turns to spiritual forces. And here there are probably only two strategies: either turning to God or turning to occult means (love spells, conspiracies). Now newspapers are full of advertisements “I will bewitch you, guaranteed.” I'm sure that most of these magicians are charlatans. But I also admit the possibility that there are those who really know how to bewitch, attracting dark forces for this. However, you need to understand that after interacting with evil spirits, there is a reckoning. Artificial attachment and passion cannot lead to anything good. Magic can only result in tragedy for the people who fall under its influence.

Let us remember that God is love. And true love comes only from God. And here I think that in addition to external decorations and working on our inner beauty, in addition to everything else, we also need to pray. If you fall in love with a person, you don’t have to be afraid or embarrassed. I think we need to pray and continue to love. After all, we can win the heart of another person with our love. This is a fact - it has the ability to attract love.

Look, two lovers (for example, husband and wife) rarely have synchronous mutual love, that is, for them to meet and fall in love with each other at the same time. What usually happens is that one of them (a man or a woman) falls in love, and after a while the object of love responds to the love and begins to experience a reciprocal feeling. And so I think that if we really love someone very much, then love itself and our expression of this love can cause reciprocal love.

I have already said that prayer can do a lot. Returning to magic, we can say that with sorcerers the situation is quite simple: if we turn to their help and trust them, then we are guaranteed to get what we want. What if we turn to God? Then things get more complicated. Usually, any of our requests should be crowned with the words: “Thy will be done.” God knows better than me whether I need this person or not, whether this union will be saving for me or, on the contrary, threatens with negative consequences. Therefore, when turning to God with a request to help us gain the favor of a person for whom we have strong feelings, we must initially be prepared for the fact that God’s will may differ from our desire. Perhaps God wants something better for us...

I am of the opinion that the person you love needs to show his true spiritual beauty. But even here it may be controversial point. After all, there are the concepts of “to be” and “to seem.” There are people (and there are quite a few of them) who only strive to appear beautiful. And they don’t realize that any deception is revealed sooner or later...

Do you know what the tragedy of many families is? The fact is that before becoming spouses, each of them tries to look as beautiful as possible in the eyes of the other. But you can only pretend and play a role for a while. But when people live together under one roof, then the deception begins to be revealed, and people recognize each other for who they really are.

But I also know many cases when young people entered into a relationship without any special feelings, and then in marriage such beauty of the soul of their spouse was revealed to them that they began to understand how lucky they were to meet each other. Communication gradually reveals the true beauty of a person. And of course, in order to show beauty to the object of your love, you must have it inside. Therefore, be beautiful not only externally, but also internally!

Love is a very intense period that requires the mobilization of all our forces, and not considering it today as a challenge is extremely imprudent and short-sighted

Tell me, are you sure that you are ready for what will happen to you when you meet Love?

And are you sure that all your attitudes about love are correct and lead in the right direction?

Or maybe everything that is instilled in us since childhood, they say, “Meeting your love is the most important thing in life, and as soon as we find it...”, or the eternal and beautiful awaits us, “And they lived happily ever after!” - somewhat untrue?

And it is this attitude that is the cause of numerous failures, suffering and losses.

Love is a very intense period that requires the mobilization of all our forces, and not considering it today as a challenge is extremely imprudent and short-sighted.

Love is a real, real challenge in our entire life! Both physical, psychological, nervous, and even hormonal systems are literally subjected to inhuman stress, leading to radical changes.

Yes! If everything goes well, our hearts will open and we will become kinder, more open and compassionate. Our eyes will open, and we will begin to see the beauty of the world around us and much more that we did not even suspect before. We will feel wonderful integrity, share creativity, our thoughts and feelings with the closest person in the world.

But have no illusions: this “beautiful thing is far away” you literally have to live.

All that happens to us when we meet our love is stress, mobilization of vitality and incredible intensity. Still, in a very short period of time, or rather “suddenly”, at the level of psychophysiology we literally become a different person.

We begin to produce oxytocin and vasopressin, which are responsible for affection, fidelity, trust, intimacy, and that very sense of kinship that we are all looking for on this planet. But here, too, difficulties await us: it is oxytocin that makes us feel discomfort in the absence of a loved one, since the body requires “doping” received during sex with a loved one.

From the above, it is obvious that we will be overwhelmed by extreme emotions and experiences, right? And in response to such serious hormonal shocks, we will need complete emotional mobilization of all our strength.

So, are we ready for it?

A loving relationship is an unpredictable living and breathing flow, and you either breathe in rhythm with it, or you are suffocated by the emotions that overwhelm you, unable to cope with the emotions that overwhelm you. Either you swim or you sink.

Can we swim? Here, only experience and a few useful settings can help us!

But how hard this very experience is given to us, “thanks” to the so-called adults!

Remember the eternal “Don’t date this guy, he’s not right for you, he’ll turn your head and hurt you”?

Firstly, what is the attitude towards pain in our society? It always accompanies growth and must be respected and accepted.

Secondly, what an exaggeration of “His” role? in your life, instead of accepting what is happening? It was our own wonderful experiences that turned our heads, and not some “he”.

Here we need words spoken from the bottom of our hearts: “Darling, what wonderful strong feelings live in you, how good you are, you are passionate, you are a woman.” This is the cultivation of a feeling of deep self-respect and acceptance.

And thirdly, here's what's funny to me. And when should we learn to love and mature emotionally, if not in our youth??

Learn to love and be loved, master the art of understanding your loved one at a glance and giving in, but not losing yourself in the whirlpool of feelings, desires and emotions?

And remember this angry one: “Well, he left you, which means you did something wrong, perhaps you’re not good enough for him!” or “He doesn’t deserve you...”. What kind of cult of guilt and unworthiness is this?

So you can become a psychological invalid, unable to love and meet your soul mate, instead of accepting your vulnerability, and most importantly — realize , how important it is to trust yourself in “responsible hands”, or rather, « responsible and brave man's heart" !

These few settings will help you in the extremely dramatic conditions of Love:

• educate yourself deep respect and openness to your feelings, emotions, experiences, sexual impulses;
• begin to distinguish between a brave man's heart and a fake;
• approach growing pains with respect and curiosity;
• Cultivate empathy within yourself.

And by the way, all of the above is the basis for your changes.

Do not have any illusions - love does not come so that you fall into the idyllic picture of your dreams and, together with your loved one, sail towards the rising sun. She is here to change you once and for all!

Along with love, we are bound to experience a “thrust”—a step beyond our usual limitations and boundaries. And the more powerful the feeling, the faster and more dramatic the changes will be.

When a person comes into your life, even if he is our soul mate to the core, he somehow grew up in a different family and a different environment, and often in a different culture, and this is a challenge to our old belief systems and views. Our heart and soul next to him sing in unison, and our views on the world pull us apart different sides. And it is necessary to go beyond, overcome barriers and come to a compromise, distinguishing the artificial from the real and living!

In any case, we are faced with an hourly choice between momentary emotions and impulses and real feelings that lead to long-term relationships.

This is where our emotional maturity comes in handy, the ability to treat all (both our own and our partner’s) the above-mentioned euphorias, addictions and doping requirements more or less balanced and calmly (well, as far as possible:).

Our whole life is in some sense a challenge. We have to make important decisions and cope with difficulties.

And love is its essence, without love our heart closes and our eyes don’t shine!

Therefore, may she always be in the lives of each of us!

Just let's... well... no illusions.

Remember, Love is a Challenge!

Instructions

Love at first sight is more of a beautiful fairy tale than a real situation. Looking at a person, you can see in him traits close to your own idea of ​​an ideal partner, but not a long-awaited life partner. The birth of love is a process that takes time.

Love is preceded by falling in love. This feeling is very bright in nature, accompanied by uncontrollable passion and idealization of the partner. When falling in love, people do not notice flaws in each other, and therefore cannot adequately evaluate their feelings. Many, mistaking this feeling for true love, begin to propose to their partner to get married, and when the “rose-colored glasses” in marriage come off, they are severely disappointed.

In successful couples, infatuation smoothly flows into love. This happens when people did not make hasty decisions, and, after waiting for the partial extinction of passion, they gave the opportunity for a deep feeling to appear. At this stage, it is important to understand that you cannot rush a person to a decision: a declaration of love should be balanced, and not spontaneous.

Strong love is based on mutual understanding. If a person wants to solve his partner’s problems, he feels his mood swings and is ready to accept it, then the stage of falling in love is over. Ahead is the development of strong relationships and building living together. Even if lovers are not together, distances no longer exist for them. The growing desire to live in the same territory, to share not only a bed, but also everyday life, means the emergence of a true feeling.

You can also notice the emergence of love for a person by the quality of sexual relationships. They move from superficial to more comfortable. Attempts to impress a partner are replaced by a desire to please him. More confidential behavior in bed is an indicator of sincere sensuality.

All people love differently: some try to please their partner, some try to surprise, and some try to protect. That is why only the person himself can catch the emergence of a strong feeling. Not a single psychology reference book will tell you what you love. Science has not yet proven how falling in love turns into true love, but on a subconscious level a person feels something familiar, close physically and spiritually only to him. The main thing is to carry this feeling through life and retain the ability to love.

Sources:

• Ten signs of love

Hundreds of answers can be given to the question of what love is, but there is still no clear definition. That is why the very fact of the birth of love and reflection on why this feeling arises is of particular interest.

Instructions

The first impression you have depends entirely on his appearance. The more spectacular, unusual, brighter, and sometimes, on the contrary, more modest a person looks, the more likely he is that you may be interested in him.

When the initial interest has already formed, the feeling of falling in love receives further development through personal acquaintance. You compare the person you like with yourself, evaluate the similarities of your characters, and look for similarities between you. If you have at least one common hobby or, for example, you have a common

PHOTO Getty Images

For many centuries, humanity has been struggling with the solution to the formula of love, trying to understand why the presence of a particular person can turn our lives around, why we fall in love with some and not notice others, and is it possible to force someone to love us? There are still no answers to these questions. But still, science has made great progress in studying the mechanisms of love. For example, I found out who we fall in love with more often.

Thus, biologist Claus Wedekind found a direct connection between attraction and smell. As it turns out, we are drawn to those whose immune system different from ours. That is, nature gives us a signal - the offspring with this partner will be strong and beautiful. Therefore, hair color, shape of eyes and lips, natural smell, pitch of voice - all these physical features can become “identifying marks” for an ideal partner, the most harmonious couple from a genetic point of view.

Another important nuance in the birth of love there is an emotional connection. Love arises from a feeling of closeness, which can be even stronger than physical attraction. And to better determine compatibility, you just need to show who you really are as quickly and honestly as possible.

How can you understand that your new relationship has a future?

Do opposites attract?

Are we more often attracted to our “soul mates” or are we constantly faced with our own antipodes? Experts believe that warm relationships develop best among people who are similar to each other. This feeling of closeness, of some similarity, fuels the relationship. “Shared views lead to better understanding of each other,” says psychologist Gian Gonzaga of the University of California. “And in the future, disagreements only become the cause of growing misunderstanding on both sides, which will have to be overcome all the time.”

We are unconsciously looking for someone who would help us “fashion” ourselves into perfection.

Opposites really can attract thanks to the Michelangelo phenomenon. Just as we define the ideal of a future partner, we create an image of an ideal ourselves and sometimes unconsciously look for someone who would help us “fashion” ourselves into perfection. And we fall in love with a person who contains all the qualities that we lack in ourselves.

Attractive flaws

“Each of us, already as a teenager, has formed for ourselves a set of those character traits of other people, It's their values, preferences and behavior towards us that attract us, says anthropologist Helen Fisher, but at the same time these traits are not necessarily pleasant. Imagine a girl whose alcoholic father has thrown her life into chaos and ultimately decides that she will never marry such a man. Having matured, she does not choose an impulsive alcoholic as her husband, but marries a constantly busy actor. What was she looking for in a partner? She won’t say it’s spontaneity, but she’s so used to it. That's part of her ethos."

People tend to think that their view of the world is the only correct one. It is not surprising that a person who agrees with our opinion immediately seems attractive to us

Falling in love, we may not notice negative qualities partner, but with age and experience our judgment will become more accurate and deeper. “We are able to draw conclusions from small notes and guesses, based on acquired experience,” explains Gian Gonzaga. - For example, breaking up after long term relationship or marriage, you will most likely feel insecure on a date, but you will have experience that will help you avoid problems and mistakes in a new relationship.”

Love does not tolerate fuss?

We don't always fall in loveat first sight, the feeling may come later. More often than not, it takes time to develop sincere and strong relationships. “Kate and I got jobs at the same company within a month of each other, and I immediately had the feeling that we could become good friends, but she worked in a different department, John recalls. “Once we met at a meeting, and I noticed a book by my favorite author in her purse. I asked how she liked it and her eyes lit up. That’s how our first conversation began.”

Getting to know each other is an exciting event, because it is an instant assessment of each other. It is important not only to boldly declare your interests and tastes, but also to try to delve into those of others. This can be key in budding relationships, as people tend to think that their view of the world is the only correct one, says Gian Gonzaga. “So it’s not surprising when we immediately like a person who agrees with our opinion even more.”

Why doesn't it work?

There can be many reasons why relationships don’t work out, and all of them, of course, are individual. But if you thought you found perfect couple, but the union did not work out, perhaps you will recognize yourself in these situations.

You have similar shortcomings

Sometimes we meet people with whom we formally have a lot in common, we pursue similar goals and are proud of similar achievements, but on an intuitive level we sense some kind of flaw in them. Why is this happening? “We often project past experiences onto new people,” explains psychotherapist Toby Ingham. “We have a tendency to interpret the behavior of others using our own ideas about life, to pass events through the filter of our experience - all this is the influence of the script embedded in our unconscious.”

Antipathy can be caused by recognizing your own shortcomings in the person you are rejecting.

Antipathy may be caused by recognizing your own shortcomings in the person you are rejecting. For example, a woman who constantly rejects men because they are “too nice.” In fact, it is her fear of looking weak that makes her suspect a similar quality in other people and condemn them for it.

Are you afraid to open up?

We always try to please new acquaintances and make a good impression. For example, we come up with interesting hobbies to attract attention at a party. This type of manipulation is usually harmless. Such people can be called approval seekers - they immediately calculate what the interlocutor likes and adapt to his expectations and needs.

Approval seekers easily adapt to groups immediately putting team members at ease. But when it comes to creating deeper relationships, those who seek approval have a hard time: close, intimate communication is difficult for them. Their ability to quickly adapt to other people hides their true traits that they do not want to discover. In relationships, they are distrustful and suspicious, which prevents them from opening up to their loved one.

But to experience real feelings, you need to show your face. This is the only way you can understand whether you are really suitable for each other.