The Healing Power of Love and Intimacy
 

A growing amount of scientific research supports that love and intimacy are amazingly healing and, in fact, figure more important in healing than perhaps any other factor. World-renowned physician, researcher and author, Dean Ornish, M.D.,has been a leading contributor to this body of research.  In this his book, Love and Survival:  The Scientific Basis for the Healing Power of Intimacy, he writes, "I am not aware of any other factor in medicine that has a greater impact on our survival than the healing power of love and intimacy. Not diet, not smoking, not exercise, not stress, not genetics, not drugs, not surgery." 

Dr. Ornish helped conduct a study at Yale that involved 119 men and 40 women undergoing coronary angiography. Those who felt the most loved and supported had substantially less blockages in their heart arteries than the others. In another study, researchers looked at almost ten thousand married men with no prior history of angina. But all had high levels of risk factors, such as elevated cholesterol, high blood pressure, diabetes, and electrocardiogram abnormalities. Those who felt their wives did not show them love experienced almost twice as much angina as the first group, who felt their wives did show them love.

It's not just romantic love relationships that can be healing-all relationships have the potential power to heal.  Another study found that women in support groups healed better and faster than women who were not involved in group support.  And while many different types of relationships can be healing, there is something unique about love relationships in that they can blast our hearts wide open and therefore have the power to transform us emotionally and spiritually. 

We're all familiar with the highs of romantic love when our neurotransmitters are dancing making us high on love.  We become more open and vulnerable at this time and can have experiences which allow us to open more to who we really are.  We are glimpsing the Divine in each other, and that has the powerful effect of allowing us to feel the Divine in ourselves.

What often happens, however, is the new wears off and the neurotransmitters in our brain calm down, and we begin to find fault with our partner.  The partner we once projected all our light upon we now begin to project our darkness on.  Our buttons get pushed, old unresolved issues are activated, and we begin to close our hearts little by little, one disappointed moment after another.  Some people stay in these relationships and watch them go through repeated little deaths, until it becomes too painful to remain. Others go from relationship to relationship always searching for that initial rush, becoming what they call emotional junkies, always searching for the adrenaline rush of the new relationship.  It is possible, however, for people to grow in their love and commitment after the attraction phase ends and couples move into the attachment phase.

Different hormones are produced in the brain during this attachment stage of a relationship.  And for those who don't get scared and run away, this is when the deeper healing can begin.  
The secret to experiencing the true healing power of intimacy is in keeping the heart open.  If people have done enough healing work to attract a healthy partner, then when the new wears off, although there might be an adjustment period, they actually experience a deepening of their love as the projections fade and are replaced by a clearer sense of who each other is. A truer, deeper intimacy develops when partners keep their hearts open and stay committed to their relationship, nurturing it and allowing it to grow.  

Then the real healing begins.  In a healthy relationship that you feel will endure, you feel safe which allows you to be more vulnerable.  Then layers upon layer of those old wounds begin to peel away allowing you to open up to deeper and deeper parts of yourself.  Both partners can experience profound healing when this kind of intimacy is achieved.

To experience the full power of this healing, you must begin with loving yourself, learning to live in your heart, and doing some healing around your own inner wounds.  Then you will attract a partner who's also done some inner work.  Together then, rather than getting into the old reactive battles that are common to many relationships, you will be living in your hearts with each other much of the time.  You will be able to help each other heal rather than wounding each other more deeply.

Our healing is an amazing journey; each level of our growth allows us to peel another layer to heal more deeply and to become more of who we really are.  With a loving and supportive partner, the depth of our healing and our opening is infinite, only limited by our own fear.

Light and Love~

Pamela