Et si on parlait d'amour (11/2) Vézina, who is a psychologist at Maison de Psychologie Salaberry in Québec, explains his cartography of love as mapped out in his book, L'aventure amoureuse, which sounds something like the instructions to a board game.
"I wanted the voyage to take place from East to West, the metaphor being that, going into love today is sort of the equivalent of rediscovering the new world. For me it's really the equivalent of creating a new world in order to arrive at the destination: Durable Love."
It all begins with a vast "Ocean of Meeting", the heart of the Lover's Adventure, and the goal is to arrive on the solid ground of Nascent Love. In this ocean we have the desire to discover a new universe and on the map it is represented by rivers flowing with dopamine. It's a little like Club Med, all services included, it's all marvelous. Then we arrive at the next stage which is the Valley of Everyday and that is usually where we get lost, we lose imagination, dopamine is less abundant and we are calmer. Beyond this is the Desert of Ennui, which provides a necessary pause, but those who need intensity at any cost will move on to the Island of Independence. Within this region there is also the Abyss of Impossible Loves. Especially given the vast Ocean of Meeting that exists today, the possibility of meeting people who are far away is much greater and this creates this abyss. As Jan Bauer said in his book Les amours impossibles: "those who have never been there have not lived, but those who stay [in the Abyss] don't get it."
The moral is to have self awareness and not to want to carry the baggage of the other, and then to learn how to play. The way to arrive at Durable Love is the Path of Play where there is space, because when the body gets stiff it needs to go to an open place and play. When we don't play together , we end up in the Jungle of Power Play where 75% of couples run aground as their relationships become polluted by blame.
The trick is to regain the Land of Recognition where we rediscover the partner, who is not all the same person we started out with.
