Boosting Oxytocin–The Love and Joy Hormone

Did you know that there’s a place in your brain that literally lights up when you’re with someone who is glad to see you, glad to be with you?

And that when these “joy centers” or “relational circuits” light up,  a certain hormone–oxytocin–releases into your body and does all kinds of wonderful things to you, including promoting healing?

When your Relational Circuits are ON, you can live in love, joy, and peace, even if your circumstances are not so ideal.

When they are Off, you are in fear and stress mode. Then another hormone–cortisol–takes over, and that does bad things to your body over time.

So how do you know whether your Relational Circuits (RCs) are on or off?

Here’s how you feel when they’re OFF:

1. You just want to make a problem, person or feeling go away.
2. You don’t want to listen to what others feel or say.
3. Your mind is “locked onto” something upsetting.
4. You don’t want to be connected to ___ (someone you usually like).
5. You just want to get away, or fight, or freeze.
6. You more aggressively interrogate, judge and try to fix others.

If you answered yes to any of these, your Relational Circuits are OFF.

And having your RCs off “is like trying to see with your eyes closed or driving your car at night with the headlights off!” No fun–even dangerous.

So how do you turn them back on, so that you see the person as more important than the problem, and can operate from love, respect, humility, and peace?

There are things you can do with your body to actually help you “wake up” your RCs.

For instance, you can:

• yawn
• tap, using EFT or some other tapping approach.
• breathe deeply: in for 4 seconds, hold for 7 seconds, exhale for 8 seconds (I do this at night when I’m trying to fall asleep–works like a charm!)
• And, of course, do Healing Codes, which has been proven (through Heart Rate Variability tests) to remove stress from the autonomic nervous system (i.e. switch from cortisol dominance to oxytocin dominance). (For my take on the difference between EFT and Healing Codes, go here.)

A good place to start is to think about a time when your RCs were definitely OFF. What was that interaction like? How did you feel, behave?

Now think about when you can remember your RCs being ON, a time when you were with someone who was glad to be with you, and you felt connected, understood, loved.

Remembering such a time might even be a good way to switch your RCs on. In a marriage retreat I attended called Joy Rekindled, where I learned some of this, we told the story of when we met our spouse–nonverbally! It was fun, and turned the RCs on by helping us remember what it was we noticed and perhaps fell in love with in the first place.

You can also use memories of such connections when you do your Healing Codes. While pointing to the Healing Centers, focus on that feeling of connection (with another person, God, or even a pet). It will do wonders to heal you and move you toward a state where your RCs are on most if not all of the time!

Recommended: Take the Love Styles quiz to pinpoint where the pain places are that need to be healed–and to also point out where you might be doing pretty well! And if you don’t know how to do The Healing Codes, sign up for my free email coaching course called “Getting Started with The Healing Codes.”