The Underestimated Healing Power of Love

 

 

The post of January 2022 has generated noted interest in the matter of heart-centeredness. Because of positive reinforcement expressed for the content, this post represents a feedback for the constructive comments that some readers have shared. 

 

All images in this post are extensible portals. Click them open for useful info. 

 

Since heart is the generator of the emotion of love, as humans use less and less of this emotion, society turns more mechanical and the element of compassion gets eroded. So does health, consequently.

 

The emotion of love is experiential proof that healing is based on the rational utilization of loving kindness characterized by compassion and healthy respect for boundaries. 

 

 

Even some hard core punishment-oriented agencies that had traditionally opted for the systematic institutionalization of mentally ill people have been considering rewriting their rules. Based on recent studies, some of such agencies are now advocating for the accommodation of love in the lives of dysfunctional individuals. Institutions have come to face the fact that for humans, love is a necessity that is as important as air, food, and sleep. As a matter of fact, without healthy experiences of love — which do not necessarily have to be romantic — any human is more likely to get sick or dysfunctional.

 

 

 

A particular research experiment showed that within a group of test subjects, when each person attempted to solve a problem all alone, his/her efforts did not necessarily produce results. On the other hand, when test subjects within the same group of individuals involved a being of higher consciousness in their problem-solving process, a beneficial solution would come, rather effortlessly.

 

Many researchers think that it goes without saying that a beneficial solution would most likely not have presented itself if the more evolved person had not intervened.

 

 

More and more research studies are confirming that it is the anchoring of compassionate love in humans that helps achieve levels of good health through contentment, even when a person’s lifestyle and dietary habits are not sound.

 

Other studies have demonstrated that the need to feel loved and appreciated is so vital that it is reflected in people’s deleterious eating behaviors, sugar cravings, alcohol/drug addictions, social media fixation, gambling, pornography addiction, and shopping compulsion.

 

 

In randomized control trials, some people with eating disorders who typically did not feel satiated after a meal were able to change such pattern instantaneously, even after one single instance of loving attention. Basically, the problem is not so much what these people are eating; the issue is about what is eating them emotionally. In another type of research studies, after some subjects were placed in a supportive environment emphasizing the expression of love, they did not feel the same compulsion for shopping as they previously did.

 

 

The veracity of this observation has proven that hunger for excessive comfort food, compulsive shopping, and obsessive needs for social media connection is often the expression of a craving for loving care and undivided compassionate attention.

 

All types of scientific studies have factually shown that in order to experience health, one must feel secure in their experience of being loved. On Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs chart, the need for social connections requires fulfillment after the human needs for safety, shelter, or property are met. For people with unmet needs, starting with loving the self is the sensible way to learn how to develop love for others.

 

Without genuine self-love, there is no true capability for loving or healing others.