Wellness Wednesday – Valentine’s Edition

– Jana Svoboda, Advising Center

A brief pause in the Sturm und Drang for LOVE.

What the world needs is more love and less paperwork. –Pearl Bailey.  

Happy Valentine’s day, Roadrunner! Tis the season to reflect on matters of the heart, and the curious nature of Love.

This is one of my favorite holidays.  You might hate it, especially if feeling lonely for a romantic partner. But don’t be fooled by commercialization of the most healing and basic of human emotions. Although some think of Valentine’s day as only relating to romantic love, I’ve always seen it as an opportunity to celebrate all forms of affection and connection, and to show it to those who engender it in you. You have your eros, sure– that adrenaline (or more precisely androgen and estrogen, dopamine and norephedrine) fueled state.  This is the kind of love that can make you weak in the knees, butterfly-ed in the tummy, and frankly, temporarily a little stupid. It’s fire and it can burn you. But there’s also philia, attachment-based love, which biochemically speaking is more driven by oxytocin, the calming hormone that binds us with affection. It needs nourishment as well.  And there’s the kind we can all practice, agape, or “gift love”: love for everyone borne out of our connection to all humanity.

Cover image by Freepik