Falling in Love? Call the brain!

Good morning

Our meeting this morning will be short but of crucial importance to our integrity. The situation is getting worse, results are terrible and complaints pilling up. If we insist on going this way we’ll be outdone by competitors and file for bankruptcy. I called both of you here, Heart and Brain, urgently, to announce some slight changes in your attributions.

Heart, your performance of organic functions has been excellent for all years, but considering the so called “matters of the heart” you are coming up short. You still behave like a teenager. Haven’t all those training and retraining programs had any effect?

First, you make selection mistakes worthy of an intern. Besides that you frequently repeat the same pattern. Have you forgotten the lessons about the signals the other is not interested? Even after all our talks you are still naive, too innocent and a fool. You take a lot of time to choose someone but when it happens it is totally passionate. You create a crazy logic, never ask the brain any advice and decide everything by yourself. You give all of you, do not deman anything, believe everyone is sincere and love with all your strength.

I know this kind of behavior promotes that wonderful feeling of green birds singing, butterflies in the stomach and monkeys on the roof, but this doesn’t last long. It is great, we wish it could last forever, it is the winning strategy all pursue. But sometimes, the same daring heart that showed courage to dive into deep water drowns by unrequited love.

Disappointed, but still beating wildly, you no longer see the color of life. The pain is unbearable as well as listening to “no”. Just like a scared little girl you hide in elegance and feign disinterest, abdicate the adrenaline of passion, replace the emotional roller coaster for a merry-go-round and leave the scene. You ask for vacation, request a sick leave, threaten early retirement and delegate autonomy to the brain, which, as a superhero, tries to help, but lacks sensitivity.

You sometimes lack resourcefulness, triggering dangerous arrhythmias. You do not know how to negotiate, jealous and ashamed, afraid and insecure. Your fear your own feelings. The brain takes advantage of this and enslaves you, not allowing you to venture into what you do best, unrestricted love. Are you satisfied with your physical functions and those related to love of others? Are you happy not being yourself? You can do more than this.

Brain, now it's your turn. I know you have no experience with the subject, you are a theorist. You never felt what love is, nor was loved. You know about concepts and get happy to arrange all the mess the heart leaves behind. Even though you were not listened, or for some reason negligent, you take responsibility for the emotional damage, search in all you files for those signals the heart ignored, rationalize and justify trying to heal the wounds. Besides that you give advice which went one ear and out the other.

Some other times you anticipate the heart and start to recruit potential candidates for a relationship. You evaluate prerequisites, test, create flaws, put commas, insert "buts," and when you realize things have happened over your head, or even worse, did not happen. You do not like to talk, silence, love the logic, and almost never listen to what the heart wants to say.

I no longer want you to watch others or work during nights and weekends. Give freedom to the heart. As he becomes more independent he can teach you the pleasure of a feeling. You will enjoy the peace romantic love offers.

Sorry if I were very strict with you both, I think the stress of working life is so embedded in me I treated you guys as company employees, but actually I want to care for you as my children. I remember when you were little kids and were playing, talking, having fun. You used to sleep and wake up happy, always together. I do not know what happened, but you grew up and became different. You do not speak to each other anymore. When one of you likes something, the other disagrees, when one makes a choice, the other does not accepted. It seems you do not know each other, one wants to dominate and ignore the other.

If you do not make up and talk to each another, how can you get along with other people? The others have hearts and brains which work like you do, what makes things even more complicated. There are companies which think like brains, hearts that feed only on love, dictator brains, slave hearts, silent brains, fragile hearts ... everyone is different from the others. There are even couples where one plays the role of the brain and the other of the heart. Before approaching others you need to be together and understand each other. Like someone said: "It is not love that sustains relationships, but how we relate that sustains love."  Tomorrow will be a new day.

Versão para o inglês – Claudia Marques