Emotions, which implies a need for affection, is attached to the feeling of being fragile and defenseless. To engage in an exchange of affection, we must let our original feeling of vulnerability come out. And during an exchange of affection, vulnerability is not only a feeling, it is actually experienced.

Emotions are physical feelings spread throughout the whole body. Emotions are generated by the body and we are aware them by our intelligence. They indicate the degree of intensity of the efforts furnished by the body to re-establish the equilibrium of our metabolism. So life is held on by the maintenance of an equilibrium that is called homeostasis. Every moment of our lives, many things destabilize the functioning of our bodies, and our sensory organs detect any change in our environment. To maintain a constant temperature of 98.6F, our body must produce heat by burning fat if our temperature is too cold and by sweating to lower our temperature if it is too high. In this example, emotions come at a precise moment when the body is making an effort to maintain its constant temperature. The more hot or cold the temperature is, the more the emotions will be intense. Emotions associated with cold can be described as a feeling of panic or excitement while those associated with heat can be described as heavy or tiring.

Our psychology is in direct relation to the manner in which we interact socially. A level of psychological equilibrium also exists which must be maintained; if not, it can cause mental illness. This equilibrium level is characterized by a state and feeling of security. Our physiological equilibrium is not only threatened by the physical environment like temperature, but also by our social environment. We are born wild like the animals in the forest and we are only comfortable in the company of our parents before the age of two. Babies have a reaction of fear in the presence of a stranger. I see socialization as the ability to tame and to be tamed by our surroundings. Taming means reassuring the other by showing them that we are not a danger to them. This instinctual fear towards all people is necessary for our survival.

The presence of a person modifies from the first few moments our level of psychological balance. The more we experience intense emotions with her; the more this level of equilibrium is modified, and the more energy the body must expend to re-establish its equilibrium. This unbalance will be as great with someone that we hate as with someone we love a lot. This will be re-established by a behavior of flight or disinterest towards people we cannot stand and by affectionate behavior with those who we feel good with. Affection re-establishes the level of psychological balance by the feeling of security that it gives us. With people who are our friends, for example, just speaking to them gives us a sense of security.

The basic emotion in human relationships is fear. Everyone around us potentially represents a danger for our physical (being beaten) and psychological integrity. Psychological integrity is linked to self-esteem and the fear that people are making fun of us. Laughing at and ridiculing someone is part of psychological violence. We protect our self-esteem with facades. Thus, a facade is a behavior designed to camouflage our real feelings in order to prevent a malevolent person from playing with us to destroy us. We are the image of what our emotions are. Our personality is defined by the manner which our body reacts to all the stresses in life. Finally, all our emotions have their reason for being and it is from them that we hang on to reality. Degradation intervenes by the negation of the existence of certain emotions in ourselves and others. It is a disrespect of the other's experience and personality to control them and force them to do certain things.

When we were young, our parents taught us to recognize dangerous people, all while being present to protect us. As we grew older, we learned to protect ourselves. When our friendships go well, fear is dormant in us, yet ready to resurface if the need or one of these friendships becomes conflicting. Our psychological balance is situated between two emotional poles. The first pole would be a situation where we can completely reveal ourselves to the other, something very possible within a couple - it is the pole of perfect security. The other would be complete emotional closure and the behavior of flight. In reality, we can't have absolute confidence towards the person that we love the most and this limit is our base of security in case of complications. A part of ourselves is never revealed to the person in order to preserve our identity. Love is not a fusion but an exchange of emotions between two different beings.

Our level of security or balance differs with each person that we know. The more we feel secure with someone, the more we reveal who we are. With people who make us uneasy, we use many facades to protect ourselves from them. We will get closer to those with whom we feel comfortable and distance ourselves from those with whom we don't. This emotional distance is the point of equilibrium which varies to maintain us in security.

Self-esteem is not an absolute thing. No-one's self-esteem is perfect. Essentially, the level of esteem varies from one person to another in relation to the amount of education received and personal paths. The lower our self-esteem, the more difficult it is to precisely identify the level of confidence that we can give to others. Thus, a person who has low self-esteem has more chances of making a mistake. They can reveal themselves to someone who wishes to do them harm and close themselves off from someone who knows how to appreciate them. The more mistakes they make, the more they fear and the more they will isolate themselves from others. In precisely pinpointing our equilibrium, we can go on to control and be controlled by human beings without malice. With good self-esteem, we know our limits, we know what to say and not say in accordance with the level of confidence that we give someone.

We all live with a certain weakness because no-one can have perfect self-esteem. This weakness produces fissures in our facades which show off our emotions without realizing it, through our words and gestures. This leak of emotions can have two consequences: make others experience unpleasant things or risk that others use our emotions to manipulate us or abuse us, by insulting us for example.

Often, we escape by letting the emotions that we desire to hide consciously transpire. This situation makes us experience both good and bad things, all depending if the people met have a tendency to abuse others or not. Any experience, whether uplifting or deceiving allows us to progress in our self-knowledge in the goal of better controlling our emotions. This emotional control consists of sealing the fissures in our facades and recognizing situations which allow us to put them away, in relation to the level of confidence that we give to the people surrounding us. To form a couple, the development of confidence is essential. Meeting our soul-mate is done in two stages. At first, there is a spark, we fall in love with each other because we both share the same need for affection. Falling in love is luck because it is by chance that we meet a stranger with whom we feel naturally good with to dare to manifest our need for attention and affection, because a date constitutes a risk. Then, we try to control her. We do everything so that this woman has confidence in us. It is impossible to be totally comfortable and in love during the first few days of a relationship. The fact of loving, that is being comfortable with our new love interest will grow with time, interest and love that we decide to give her. Loving our partner means that we feel in physical and psychological security with her.

An exchange of affection is emotional or physical abandon. To abandon ourselves, the two partners must be in perfect psychological security with each other. Abandoning ourselves is to remove our masks to show our vulnerability. In this situation, we become fragile. The other can easily abuse us and lack respect for us. Someone who knows all of our emotions and weaknesses possesses all the arms to demolish us. Sharing our vulnerability, is being true to ourselves and showing us as we really are. Physical abandon requires great self-esteem. It gives us the ability to live with the emotions linked to our vulnerability. When we feel that we are the worst of persons, we refuse to perceive ourselves as vulnerable. When we have low self-esteem, we will maintain facades towards others, but also to ourselves so we don't feel our vulnerability. Thus, this prevents us from being in contact with our need for affection, because we are unable to live with a feeling of being fragile and defenseless. This feeling plays a role in the initiation of affection.

Physical abandon allows for an exchange to occur. We reveal the emotions that are inside of us. The two main senses used in affection are touch and smell. It is through these that we capture the emotions that another person's body gives off. Affection is the only moment where there is an emotional exchange in real time, that is to say there is no delay between the moment when I receive a feeling and how I react. When we are not in physical contact with our partner, we stay a little bit on the defensive. We don't immediately react to the emotions that we experience. We will take time to analyze the situation and in most cases, we won't react. In a relationship, we must maintain some of our facades to preserve our independence and identity and to protect ourselves from a possible change of behavior of our partner towards us.

Facades also serve us so we are able to listen to and help our partner. For example, when our partner is going through a rough time with her job or with her parents, we can listen to her tell us about it without getting emotionally involved as she could be. When we take down our facades, we become open to the emotions of the other, thus, if her thoughts are troubled, ours will be troubled too. With the help of facades, we can analyze the events experienced by our partner while being detached from its emotional content. This allows us to intervene to tell her things that will calm her down, which will take some of the drama out of her situation and encourage her, in order to tell her that she will always be a good person in our eyes.

To maintain an affectionate link, a couple should continually learn to mutually control each other. Dialogue helps to develop a relationship of confidence. In communication, love will always be taken into consideration by the efforts that this requires. Communication, is knowing how to listen to our partner and ask questions to better understand her. It is to give her all of our attention and to make her feel that she is important to us. This attitude proves to her that we are emotionally engaged towards her. It is from this engagement that she will feel secure with us, present and available for her. With love, we create an atmosphere where our partner feels good in our presence and we will do anything so that she loves us. Love, is feeling secure with our partner. Affection is experienced in a feeling of mutual security.

To help us maintain a reassuring climate in the couple, we must be attentive to our partner. This behavior allows us to identify day by day the factors responsible for her emotional moods in order to understand her and intervene in an appropriate manner to situations. Love is constructed like a house. When we are not in our partner's presence, we think about her so we can predict her emotional mood when we will be with her again, and also plan some activities and discussions to help make the relationship grow. The love of our partner is the main worry in our life. Recall that love is motivated by the well-being that an exchange of affection gives.

In physical abandon, we don't reveal ourselves completely as a person. Our partner doesn't need to know all the details concerning our childhood and previous experiences. During an exchange of affection, we only reveal to the other our feelings of vulnerability, that we feel small and fragile when faced with life. And the emotions which circulate concern only the affectionate relationship. For example, when we first lose a job, all the emotions related to this event should not come out during an exchange of affection because this will prevent us from physically letting go. Our mind must be completely present to this activity and to our partner's well-being. If we stop thinking about our partner, we cut ourselves off from the relation because our masks will automatically come to surface. The emotions that we experience during physical contact are limited to those linked to the need for security. Thus, an exchange of affection doesn't threaten our psychological integrity: some aspects of our life will always stay secret.

When two human bodies touch each other affectionately, they create a virtual conductor of energy where emotions can pass freely. Physical abandon makes emotions flow which keep us awake in spite of the absence of stress associated with fear. In everyday life, we are continuously on our guard when faced with a situation which threatens our physical and psychological integrity. We are inhabited by an emotion of fear necessary to our survival and which is responsible for our state of awareness. This only leaves us during an exchange of affection because we are in perfect security at that moment. Some emotions associated with affection are used to maintain a certain level of stress to prevent us from falling asleep. This state of awareness comes from the secretion of a hormone which makes us happy, which is a natural drug modifying our state of consciousness. Affection is experienced in a daydream. We float in the clouds, we no longer belong to ourselves, we give into our emotions, we no longer control anything and are like leaves in the wind. Intercourse is done in a burst of affection and without premeditation. The fact of penetrating our partner doesn't signify that we are making love to her. Making love is done with tenderness and affection.

Love is the stage preceding an exchange of affection which is created through the efforts that we make for our partner. So, during physical contact, we no longer have to make an effort, we abandon ourselves to the other to be taken away by our emotions which come and go. An exchange of affection is the most effective relaxation exercise that there is. Our worries disappear, there is no past and no future, only the present moment counts. Physical abandon relaxes us both physically and mentally.

Affection is the only activity which is spontaneous and relative at the same time. With everything that goes on around us, we can have spontaneous behaviors reflecting the emotions which inhabit us at these moments. By being spontaneous, we reveal ourselves little by little to others on the emotional level, but this is only one way. It is not because we are open to others that others will be open to us. On the other hand, with affection, both partners open up emotionally at the same time. I call this relational spontaneity.

In conclusion, physical abandon allows us to be emotionally transparent and permeable when faced with our partner's emotions. We must be genuine and have good self-esteem and respect our partner to remove our masks. The exchange of affection fulfills a need of security. It also gives us well-being and re-energizes the body. The need for affection pushes us to desire to be in a loving relationship so that we can be physically and psychologically healthy.