Sooner or later, at least once in life, even the most resistant person will be overwhelmed by love. When we meet it is a romance, the whole life has another color, another flavor, happiness spills out of all the pores of our skin and whatever we do is wonderful. However, no matter how much care we can take, sooner or later all this will end, leading us to indifference, pain, or suffering. Yet, this will last until we fall in love again.
But what happens when we fall in love? Sometimes a certain chemistry happens and a person, who can be the least attractive in the world, the so-called frog of fairy tales , becomes our charming prince or the goddess of our dreams. Indeed, talking about chemistry is not a metaphor, as neurobiology gives us scientific explanations that could make the most romantic of poets cringe.

FALLING IN LOVE
When we fall in love with someone, what happens in our body is an intense production of a series of hormones that regulate our state of well-being, happiness and excitement and are those hormones that make us feel full of energy and enthusiasm, they are commonly defined as happiness-hormones. This intense hormonal production happens every time we receive attentions, when we are courted or when we court, when we are launched in the conquest of our “object of desire”. This state of well-being and ecstasy can expand to the point that anything we share with our partner takes on that quality of intensity and extraordinariness that makes us feel we have found the man or woman of our life. Well, this is the moment when we feel we have lost our mind for someone. But here is the surprise: the substance responsible for this sensation of extraordinariness is the same that is at the origin of stress. Can you recognize this in your life? Probably yes…
When all the shower of hormones calms down, we make room in our body to another series of substances that makes us more calm, more relaxed, that makes us want to take care of our partner, to nourish and love him-her, to make plans together: the moment of the relationship has arrived. In this phase in which there is an intense exchange of love, cuddles, sweetness, physical contact, etc … the same substances are produced that the body secretes when we spend a lot of time in the sun and in nature and are also the same hormones nature has predisposed in women when they become mothers, so that they take care of their child.
In short, this is the phase in which we realize that our partner makes us really happy. But it’s not over yet …

THE DELUSION
When the phase of symbiosis with the partner fades, if he-she no longer satisfies our needs, or when sex is no longer satisfactory, the levels of these substances decrease, sometimes even drastically, leading us into a state of malaise, disappointment, indifference, sometimes anger towards the partner or even depression. What happens to us is that we were addicted to all the hormones that have been produced in our body being in love and now we are abstinent. From our ability to stay or not in this state, obsessive behaviors depend, such as jealousy, control, destructive fantasies, etc… Over time, our body gets used to the new levels of all these substances in the body but only until the next time we fall in love …

GETTING OUT OF THE CAGE
In these terms, falling in love seems like a large biological cage in which our freedom is subjected to the chemical reactions of our body, it looks more a tragic fatality, rather than a romantic gift.
Is it possible to love outside this cage? Is it possible a love that elevates us beyond this vicious circle?
Well, this love exists and does not depend on the chemical mechanism of reward because there is no cause and no object of this love, it is an unconditional love and it is a state that can be reached through meditation.
This is why meditation takes on fundamental importance in the path of Tantra.
In fact, through meditation, we increase our capacity to be witnesses, that is to say, we become able to take a distance and observe our thoughts, our emotions and even our sensations in the body without judgment. Meditation is therefore very useful both in the phases of falling in love, and in moments of disappointment and pain.
Furthermore, in Tantra, we learn that, despite the partner being a wonderful hormonal “activator”, the whole process happens within us.
Being in love – or not being – obviously does not depend only on us, but in Tantra we learn to focus on ourselves, on our energy, on our ability to expand and love ourselves.
Only in this way will we be able to share with a partner the wonders that we have found inside us and, since we are enough for ourselves, love becomes a beautiful sharing and totally giving oneself to the other without expecting anything in return.

@photo by Chokniti Khongchum from pexel