At a soul healing/relationship conference last week, I learned something that I had always suspected to be true. People who are in love are on drugs. Yeah, that's right. Being love sick is not just a term. When two people fall in love, the brain releases a variety of chemicals that affects how the people act, think about the other person and feel. These chemicals cause emotional highs - the whole world seems better when you are in love. It can be easy to dismiss the faults of the other person when you are in love. And with any drug, the effects are not permanent. This phenomenon explains why couples may lose after a few years the feelings that they first felt when they met each other.
Then I learned another fun fact about the brain while reading a magazine the other day. Marianne Szegedy-Maszak of the U.S. News & World Report, wrote, "Accoding to cognitive neuroscientists, we are conscious of only about five percent of our cognitive activity, so most of our decisions, actions, emotions, and hevaior depends on the 95 percent of the brain activity that goes beyond our conscious awareness." Wow, I never really thought about the fact that most of the time I am not even aware that I am thinking. For example, when I decide to turn in a car, I make a lot of decisions in my head that I am unaware of. From language to motor skills to decisions about particular brand to buy at the store, this pattern exists all throughout life. My adaptive conscious helps me know that the caption "Children Make Nourishing Snacks" describes kids baking cookies not serving as munchies for a bunch of cannibals.
As I have stopped to think about thinking, I have discovered that there is a whole world of reasons to explain why I do what I do. The good news is that I don't have to get a PhD to navigate life. God designed me. He can help me figure out what I need to know to live as He directs. God has placed His Spirit inside of me that can help me deal with brain chemicals, automatic neural responses or deep memories that can impact my actions and reactions. Even the brightest scientists are just starting to understand how the human brain works, but God understands my design from head to toe.
Now I know what to think when I see a young, love sick couple looking at each other as if there is no one else in the world. I can say to myself, "That's Ok. They're on drugs!"
