THE THREE STAGES OF LOVE It is important to understand what is love, what is sexual attraction and what is personal attraction The three stages of love are each dominated by given biochemical that greatly influences and even determines your behavior. These biochemical's work on a non-self aware level,. That is you may know that "feel it" but you don't know why. The three stages of love are : (1) Lust (2) Personal Attraction and (3) Attachment.

(1) In LUST Phase are brains are flooded with dopamine's, oxytocin and serotonin, these are al the natural "Feel Greet!" drugs our bodies can produce. Lust is the absolute least discriminatory phase of 'love' we are driven almost solely by biochemical drives. A woman may for example 'know she shouldn't go to bed with guy' or "is shouldn't do this now" but she does anyway and then later she wonders why she did. A man is even more driven and controlled by this biochemical spell of lust. But lust can't last, it is too hard on the body it supercharges your system and tend to 'burn it out'.

(2) PERSONAL ATTRACTION PHASE occurs when it goes beyond the one night stand or such This marks the begging and most often, the 'beginning of the end' of most romantic relationships. The personal attraction phase is dominated by serotonin, all the supercharged biochemical's are exhausted and are no longer at abnormally high levels as they were in the lust phase. It is only now in the personal attraction phase that your brain can start to evaluate and 'see' your romantic partner. But at the start of the personal attraction phase we "see only what we wish to see" about that romantic partner. At this early stage of personal attraction you just sort of "feel good" by just being around the romantic partner. You greatly anticipate seeing them and that is a 'high' in itself too. All of these feelings are gretly influenced by the presence of the romantic partner as their presence elicits serotonin flow in your body. You see we really do 'get high' off of love. In fact, a brain scan, or MMRI , can hardly distinguish between the brain activity of young person who is in "love" and a person who has ingested cocaine hydrochloride (cocaine, or 'blow' etc)

But here is the real significance of all this: One partner in the romantic relationship will come out from under this biochemical spell before the other one does. Then that partner will see more clearly and objectively the person they have become involved with. That reality image will always fall far short of their previous 'romantic, 'personal attraction image'. Previous idiosyncratic behaviors in the partner that were formerly "cute and endearing" now can even become an irritant. This is the root of virtually every romantic break up. It will leave the other partner who is still 'under the biochemical spell" emotionally devastated and left with a feeling of betrayal and bewilderment. They will ask themselves, how could their romantic partner could so 'suddenly' turn on them and abandon them and now behave as if all the love and tenderness they shared together had never even occurred at all. But by understanding all this you can prepare yourself far better rather than 'flying blind'. By studying the process you can far more clearly see where you are in any relationship, where 'if any where' that relationship may be headed and if the relationship has real potential to mature into the much more permanent bonding of "Attachment".

-------------------------- (3) In the ATTACHEMENT PHASE of love the serotonin levels have returned to normal in both partners. They see each other pretty much as they really are and they are nobody is trying to change anyone either. They would see such a thought as being silly, immature and totally unrealistic anyway. The may enjoy sex, but it is not driven by the solely by the factors operant in the lust phase. They may feel good about being near the loved one, but it isn't from a abnormally high serotonin release, though these levels may rise modestly. The dominate biochemical here is Vasperesin. This is the same biochemical that nursing mother secretes and which re-enforces the mother/child bond. It is the biochemical that is dominate in all mammals in nature that have 'naturally monogamous' behavior. That is mammals that mate for life such as some species of pigeons and prairie voles and and some other mammals. Are we as human being naturally monogamous like the other mammals? The short answer is, NO, we are clearly not. Yet it is equally true that we all seek a rewarding and long term relationship, we all do ultimately seek real love in the Attachment phase of love. But for most of us this becomes a hoped for destination only in the fullness of time, and there will most often be many detours on the path. But by seeing the totality of the process in its 'wholeness', we can even begin to see that al we suffered on the battlefield of love was a process of making us who we are. This is deeper consciousness of things that allows us to turn 'Pain' into 'Purpose'.

HOW DO I MAKE IT STOP HURTING? This is of course the most difficult part. The pain can seem without end at times. In fact, we have experience with person's who grieve over the loss of la past love even decades after the break up. However, you must come to understand that this kind of behavior simply will not serve you , Therefore you must be willing to face the reality of the situation first in order to relive your emotional pain. The fist step in that is to recognize that the one you loved and who abandoned you never really existed in the fist pace except in your own mind.

That illusion is part of the power of love itself. When the break up occurred were you not so hurt and bewildered at how the person whom you had shared such love and intimacy seemed to suddenly behave as if none of that ever occurred? The reason for that is it never really did except in your own imaginary vision of that other person. That vision was naturally distorted by the perfectly natural biochemical process of love. But you partner came out from under that biochemical spell before you did! Thus you were left 'still very much in love' with a person no longer there for you'. But in truth they never were truly there for you either, they were there for themselves The clear proof is that are not there now are they?. NO, they are not, But you are.

Hence you need to take the initiative, abandon the absurdity and self-defeating of any thoughts of winning them back. It did not work before and it will never work. To pursue this person in nay way is to pursue the dead in your life, it is worse than pointless. It will only prolong your pain and handicaps you further in finding a real love in the future. I t is also wore than simply a waste of time and time is priceless.

Realize this reality too. There is not simply one person you 'can ever love". If that were true it would not be love anyway it would be a pathological self-indulgent obsession and not anything even approaching love. Now grasp this reality, you will never be happy with anyone in this world until you are first happy with yourself. Are you happy with yourself now? I sincerely hope your are moving in that direction and I am trying to help you move in that direction too. But in any case the fist thing you must begin to work on is being happy with yourself, that means accepting your self worth and value as human being apart from nay external thing at all.

You are no less valuable as a human being in the slightest measure either inside or outside of romantic relationship. You have already paid terrible price in suffering and great emotional pain over this failed love affair and abandonment by your former 'partner'. Now you must acquire knowledge that you did not have before. In that way you let go of the pain and begin to turn that terrible pain into a very powerful purpose. I have been there too, I have felt that pain myself and worked my way through greater understanding of these things. That journey took me nearly 25 years too, don't let it take you that long! That is the precisely the very reason I wrote this book too.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN THAT MEN AND WOMEN HAVE DIFFERENT BRAIN Wiring?

It was once popular or perhaps 'politically correct' for some people to pretend to believe that the differences between men and women's behaviors were all learned behavior. That is the difference between boys and girls is mainly the result of socialization differences. The total absurdity was even seriously proposed that the behavioral differences between the two sexes was exclusively the result of their different socialization. For the most part that is just simply false. Boys and girls are socialized and raised differently of course. But that is a reflection of their innate differences, their different brain wirings and not the other way around.

Think about it please. Why in a restaurant do a groups of women at the conclusion of dinner meticulously study the check and then calculate exactly who owes what and then have each woman pay accordingly? Why would men in the same situation never dream of doing such a thing and actually 'fight' to see who gets to pay the whole check themselves sometimes?

This is because of different brain wiring and not so much socialization. Paying the check shows to the other men that the check payer has the "power". Tribal aboriginal men in older Australia or parts of Africa today and in other parts of the globe will do about the very same thing only in a slightly different way, and mostly because they do just not have restaurants!. In Borneo the tribal man who brings the best and biggest pigs to the tribal feast gets the power points and he is naturally driven to achieve this because he is a male with the psyche of a normal male.

Conversely, think on this. Why will a woman who is in her car looking for an address or road and who can't find it as a rule not hesitate to ask for directions from anyone they think safe to talk too? And why is it that a man who may well know that he is clearly and hopelessly lost not admit that to himself and rarely will he ask for any directions or help from anybody?

It is really obvious isn't it and in so many other ways too? Men and women naturally think differently and they value different fundamental things. Men and women fundamentally obtain pleasure and security and self-worth in different ways.

Let me say this simply and admittedly in a rather over simplified way too. Men find pleasure and security in being seen as being COMPETENT. Being competent to a man is often times even more important than his feeling loved. So to ask directions is to admit 'incompetence' and that is exactly why most men don't ask directions easily. For a man to pay the dinner check entirely by himself is to show competence to everyone at the table, that is why men fight over the check! They naturally want to be seen as competent and powerful.

But women naturally seek happiness and fulfillment in a very different modality. First, women seek to be loved and needed. Women want to be loved and needed by their family, their children and of course their men. Unlike men 'competence' and the "quest for power' is not innately part of the female psyche as it is with men. Women have no problem dividing up the check because they simply do not see that as having anything to do with 'competence' or their personal value. They do need to pay the check themselves as they feel no natural need for the 'power points' that men feel and get in doing so.

One of the main points of all this for women is as follows: Do not imagine that you will ever change a man to be more like what you really want. If you think "he isn't exactly what I want him to be now, but I can change him over time" you are absolutely living in a dream world of pure fantasy and denial.. If you think anything even remotely resembling this then you are just living on the wrong planet. You need to grasp that If he is a man then he is not looking for mother, he won't ever accept one as a romantic interest and so he isn't looking for you as a woman either if you act like 'mother' in nay way. Any such idea that you 'will in time change him' is born of a total ignorance and denial of the male psyche and it is doomed to absolute failure. You see, even if you succeeded in such a naive and childish ambition with any man, then you would have then absolutely failed terribly and quite miserably for both of you.

The point for men is to likewise accept that woman will think like a woman. Do be so foolish as to think you can change this either. Instead seek the greater enlightenment that illuminates for you why you don't want them to change or think 'more rationally like a man". Accept the way it is and then deal with it rationally as a man, but do not expect a woman to somehow 'see the light'. That woman follows her own innate lights my friend so understand them and come to respect them.

You truly do need to understand the differences in male and female brain wiring to advance your to your goals of finding and securing a rewarding romantic relationship that endures and that of course is why I discuss them in this book..