Achieving critical-mass of love will be humanity’s greatest achievement. But who is not scared of love?
In behavioral science, critical mass refers to the point at which enough individuals have adopted a behavior, belief, or innovation that it triggers a self-sustaining chain reaction, leading to widespread adoption without external intervention.
“The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.”
~ Albert Einstein
But what if one of our most powerful tools for expanding human consciousness and addressing humanity’s growing social, political and environmental crisis, has been hiding all this time in plain sight – in our forgotten language of affectionate non-sexual touch.
Because by reconnecting with our natural, yet forgotten language of physical affection, we awaken our brain’s innate capacity for love and awareness – setting course towards a personal and social tipping point, where love becomes self-sustaining, self-spreading and a transformative force in our life and in the world.
For caring touch originates in our heart – in contrast to the language of dogma and ideology which originates from our ever-busy thinking mind.
Love is already hardwired into our brains. But while exploring the inner reaches of the human brain using fMRI, Mario Beauregard and his fellow researchers at the University of Montreal, discovered that in addition to our neural networks for maternal and romantic love, we also have a distinct one for unconditional love. A network they describe as “paramount for the future of our world and humanity.” 1
“As in the case of romantic love and maternal love, the rewarding nature of unconditional love facilitates the creation of strong emotional links between humans. Such robust emotional bonds may critically contribute to the preservation of the human species.”
~ Mario Beauregard, Jérôme Courtemanche, Vincent Paquette, Évelyne Landry St-Pierre.
That is of course if we actually do wish to survive.
So now that we have the blessings of both science and religion for unconditional love, where do we go from here? How do we allow it to grow in our hearts, how do we integrate it into our busy competitive lives, while also making the world a better and safer place?
Unfortunately, love of the unconditional kind, doesn’t grow through wishful thinking or by just believing in it.
Instead, love is a neurobiological personal and community skill that can be learnt and practiced.
Because neuroplasticity – our ability to learn, adapt, and evolve over our lifetime – ensures we become what we practice by developing the associated neural areas of the brain. Therefore, the more we use our neural love networks, the more they grow, and the more rewarding it feels.
Touch quiets the mind, allowing us to come to our senses – literally – while opening our heart.
Touch can be a particularly exhilarating meditation of love and artful movement. It releases natural, beneficial, feel good hormones into our bloodstream, offering us a multitude of physical and emotional health benefits. That is why in therapeutic massage, a form of functional medicine, practitioners may often experience euphoria in a session.
Finally, sharing affectionate touch is an intuitive practice in self-awareness and respecting human boundaries, both ours and other people’s – skills much appreciated in our modern world.
Achieving critical-mass of love is a bold vision for a global shift in human consciousness.
“I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to carry.”
~ Martin Luther King, Jr.
IN A NUTSHELL:
- What is critical-mass of love: A tipping point of love in our life and in the world after which love becomes self-sustaining, self-spreading, and a transformative force in our life and in humanity.
- Impact of achieving critical-mass of love: It triggers a chain reaction of love in the world that will repair humanity, where the great divides and conflicts of society will just melt away, ending war, hate, violence, greed, apathy, and selfishness.
- How we can achieve it: By activating our brain’s neural networks for non-conditional love that currently lie dormant – using our forgotten language of caring touch, in heart-opening, transformational meditation and everyday life.
- Hug lovingly for more than 30 seconds, give caring massages, cuddle with loved ones, and touch more.
Footnote:
Mario Beauregard, Jérôme Courtemanche, Vincent Paquette, Évelyne Landry St-Pierre,
The neural basis of non-conditional love,
Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging, Volume 172, Issue 2, 2009, Pages 93-98, ISSN 0925-4927, (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0925492708001881) ↩︎
Copyright 2025 Paul Magoulas