Tag Archives: heart

5 Things I Learned from Falling In Love

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first published on January 24, 2011 on Wisdom of a 20-Something; republished on 5 Things I Learned on January 25, 2011

 

1) Falling in love is NOT a choice.

It is a feeling of intense attraction to another. A feeling that often comes suddenly and without warning. It’s often something that happens to you rather than something you make happen. It is a reaction to external stimulus. You wake up one day and realize that suddenly you’ve fallen in love.

2) Falling in love and being in love is a roller coaster of emotions.

It’s a time when your mind, heart and body are in complete agreement. You can’t stop thinking about him or her. Your heart feels everything – like its going to burst. And your body makes you feel all amorous and craving for intimacy.

At the same time your mind feeds you with doubts and worries. Your heart feels like its going to shrivel up if your feelings are not returned. And your body no matter what you do leaves you unsatisfied.

But you just go with the flow.

3) Falling in love involves a cocktail of hormones.

  • Adrenaline – results in the phenomenon of sweaty palms, heart palpitations and dry mouth
  • Dopamine – makes you feel desire and a rush of pleasure
  • Serotonin – why your loved one keeps popping in your thoughts
  • Oxytocin – (released during sex) deepens the feeling of attachment
  • Vasopressin – (also linked to sex) cements long term commitment

It’s all here in this article — http://www.youramazingbrain.org/lovesex/sciencelove.htm

4) The feeling of falling in love and being in love fades.

As two people become more familiar with each other the rush of falling in love and being in love fades. Things about the other person begin to irritate you and other flaws become more noticeable.

5) Loving is a choice.

Falling in love is just the first step. Mature individuals recognize that real love requires effort. If both parties are ready, the feeling of falling and being in love can transform into something beautiful and lasting. To love is a choice, chosen every second through triumphs and losses, joy and anger, life and death, peace and pain, celebration and suffering.

5 Things I Learned from “Make You Feel My Love”

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Originally on 5 Things I Learned – February 2, 2011

“Make You Feel My Love” is a song composed and first released by Bob Dylan in 1997. I especially like the version of Adele because her rendition borders on gentle hope and sadness.

1. A touch-warm embrace, a strong hold, is a good way to make someone feel loved.

When the rain is blowing in your face
And the whole world is on your case
I could offer you a warm embrace
To make you feel my love

When the evening shadows and the star appear
And there is no one to dry your tears
I could hold you for a million years
To make you feel my love

2. Be patient and stay true and sincere.

I know you haven’t made your mind up yet
But I would never do you wrong
I’ve known it from the moment that we met
There’s no doubt in my mind where you belong

3. Don’t hold back. Be generous. Be ready to sacrifice and give of yourself.

I’d go hungry, I’d go black and blue
I’d go crawling down the avenue
There ain’t nothing that I wouldn’t do
To make you feel my love

4. It won’t be easy, you may be pushed away. Remember, who you are separate from who you love. Therein lies your strength.

The storms are raging on rolling sea
And on the highway of regret
The winds of change are blowing wild and free
You ain’t seen nothing like me yet

5. If you truly love, their happiness comes first even if it isn’t with you.

There ain’t nothin’ that I wouldn’t do
Go to the ends of the earth for you
Make you happy make your dreams come true
To make you feel my love

Be patient.

5 Things I Learned from Ricky Tantoco

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Originally on 5 Things I Learned – March 17, 2011

Tonight, the choral group I belong to, the Ateneo de Manila College Glee Club performed for officers and staff of the Energy Development Corporation at the invitation of one of our patrons Mr. Ricky and his wife, Vicky Tantoco. After the performance, Mr. Ricky Tantoco was gracious enough to chat with us. It was an evening of music, wine and wisdom. I picked up so many lessons tonight, but I’d like to share three in particular.

When Sir Ricky was in his mid-twenties, he found himself at a crossroads. He had been working for a multinational for sometime and had risen up the ranks and stationed abroad and was earning quite well. He was thinking of taking his MBA abroad. The company offered everything to get him to stay. Confused, he spoke with his uncle Cesar Buenaventura former CEO of Shell Philippines LLC in the 70s-80s. The first three things I learned from Sir Ricky, were actually pieces of wisdom his uncle Cesar shared with him.

1) Always choose skill over well everything else.
I would phrase it as… Go with where you can learn and grow. Choose skill and learning over pay, position, company friends, etc.
Note: Sir Ricky decided to leave the multinational and study.

2) Don’t compromise your integrity.
Simple and straight to the point, without integrity there is no sustainability.

3) The money will come when you’re in your forties.
Build a solid foundation from which to build your life and make each brick count. Reinforce areas that are weak and when the time comes you’ll find yourself with a structure people will pay for to see, to enter, to appreciate, to enjoy, to engage, to use, to exist in.

Sir Ricky also shared with us a conversation he had with Fr. Adolfo Dacanay, SJ the chair of the Theology department of the Ateneo de Manila University. Fr. Dax is a professor of theology and his courses focus on love and marriage. He is also a Canon Lawyer and as such has handled thousands of annulment cases in the Philippines. Sir Ricky asked Fr. Dax what based on his reasons are the 3 Most Important Reasons why Marriages are annulled. Sir Ricky, shared two with us… he forgot the third (but promised to check his notes and share the last one with us on our next Christmas Caroling with their family.)

4) One of the two partners are fundamentally broken.

I’ve done a piece about brokenness before, and I agree completely. The most broken people have experienced childhood trauma, violence or abuse that they never recover from. Sometimes they have cast a veneer of normalcy, so that you would never suspect how hollow their sense of self is. Initially, pointers are not definitive things like possessiveness and temperamentalness – things that would seem more like personality defects. But for broken people, these are just the tip of the iceberg. Their brokenness comes out by way of increasing frequency and degree of physical and especially psychological abuse.

5) The great divide and the Messianic Complex.

There is a great challenge when bridging divides between two people the most common is socio-economic disparity, educational disparity and religious disparity. You have one partner who feels ‘superior’ or ‘more blessed’ and thus feels that he or she can ‘improve’ the life of the other. Eventually the messiah feels frustrated that the other doesn’t want to change, and the one who doesn’t want to change feels pressured to change even if he or she doesn’t want to.

It was truly a night that reaffirmed the importance of connections and conversations…all that’s missing is convergence.

5 Things I Learned About Relationships From Meredith Grey

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Originally on 5 Things I Learned – February 13, 2011 (seemed timely to re-post as I just finished Season 7 the other week)

As I was doing my normal thinking routine, I came across a couple of quotes from the fictional character: Meredith Grey from the US show Grey’s Anatomy. I love Grey’s Anatomy especially the first few seasons. Now, I’m not such an addict but I still try to keep up with the series. I know the show is a whole lot of drama and is an exaggeration of the universal human experience but well… that’s TV for you.

So here’s 5 things I learned about relationships from Meredith Grey

1. “At some point, you have to make a decision. Boundaries don’t keep other people out. They fence you in. Life is messy. That’s how we’re made. So, you can waste your lives drawing lines. Or you can live your life crossing them. But there are some lines… that are way too dangerous to cross.”

We are all afraid of being hurt, of disappointment, of being stupid…we do our best to guard our hearts, to be conservative in the risks we take in beginning to love someone and loving them some more. If we are willing, we let them in a little and then if all goes well we let them in a lot. But so many of us never really honestly lets the other person in-there is that line we are too conscious of- too afraid of crossing…the last line of defense that signals if I let you in you could destroy me…I would be at your mercy.

I don’t know how to figure out which lines are worth crossing and which ones aren’t. That’s a circumstance we each have to face and we respond to differently. But I think it is imperative that we face it and we make a decision – to avoid it, to exist in ambiguity is the greater torture.

2. “I wish there were a rulebook for intimacy. Some kind of guide to tell you when you’ve crossed the line. It would be nice if you could see it coming, and I don’t know how you fit it on a map. You take it where you can get it, and keep it as long as you can. And as for rules, maybe there are none. Maybe the rules of intimacy are something you have to define for yourself.”

Unwelcome advances are easy to spot – even without any physical contact you can already feel uncomfortable by just the intention  of the other person. But when you genuinely like the other person, his/her advances are welcomed…then we have to figure out whether it’s healthy or unhealthy – whether it’s good for us or not. What’s even more tricky is realizing that you want it but it’s not good for you!

3. “Sometimes reality has a way of sneaking up and biting us in the ass. And when the dam bursts, all you can do is swim. The world of pretend is a cage, not a cocoon. We can only lie to ourselves for so long. We are tired, we are scared, denying it doesn’t change the truth. Sooner or later we have to put aside our denial and face the world. Head on, guns blazing. De Nile. It’s not just a river in Egypt, it’s a freakin’ ocean. So how do you keep from drowning in it?”

There are so many intelligent women that are denial junkies when it comes to matters of the heart. (Full disclosure: I am one of them). We know better but still we choose something unhealthy for us. We rationalize and try to fool ourselves into thinking that things will go our way even though we know it’s never going to happen. Whether it’s unrequited love, an abusive and selfish partner,  an obsession with someone unattainable… the pattern is the same.

We wait till we’re at rock bottom, feeling like shit before we actually do something about it. Then we bash ourselves for being stupid when we should have been smarter than that.

4. “Maybe we’re not supposed to be happy. Maybe gratitude has nothing to do with joy. Maybe being grateful means recognizing what you have for what it is. Appreciating small victories. Admiring the struggle it takes simply to be human. Maybe we’re thankful for the familiar things we know. And maybe we’re thankful for the things we’ll never know. At the end of the day, the fact that we have the courage to still be standing is reason enough to celebrate.“

Life is a series of ups and downs. To hope for perpetual happiness and to expect never-ending difficulties is the surest way to a life of misery. It is through celebrating the big and the small that joy is created and maintained. To acknowledge the difficulty and our resilience and love ourselves for it would be the greatest self-gift.

5. “At the end of the day, when it comes down to it, all we really want is to be close to somebody. So this thing, where we all keep our distance and pretend not to care about each other, is usually a load of bull. So we pick and choose who we want to remain close to, and once we’ve chosen those people, we tend to stick close by. No matter how much we hurt them, the people that are still with you at the end of the day – those are the ones worth keeping. And sure, sometimes close can be too close. But sometimes, that invasion of personal space, it can be exactly what you need.”

No one wants to be alone. We all want to belong and feel connected to each other. If we only recognize that fact then maybe we can be grateful for the relationships we do have and work to make them better.

Well I hope your Valentine’s is better than mine! xoxo