Why I Created the State of Love Events: A Personal Journey to Understanding Love as an Inner State

The statistics are undeniable: fewer committed relationships are forming across the western and more urbanised world. Economic pressures, cultural norms that change, fear of divorce, and the paradox of choice created by dating apps have created what researchers call a relationship recession.

But witnessing the dissapointment that this creates in quite a number of my friends, particularly straight women (but not only), breaks my heart. They share the same stories with me over coffee, over wine, in late-night phone calls - patterns of superficial connections, attachment problems, avoidance, and an endless search for someone who never quite materialises. This pain made me realize we might be approaching love from entirely the wrong angle.

This isn't just about single people: research shows that loneliness can be precipitated by feelings of relationship dissatisfaction, with studies indicating that people in about one-fifth of marriages consider their relationships unfulfilling, and Pew Research Centre (a respected nonpartisan American think tank that conducts rigorous social science research) found that 28% of people dissatisfied with their family lives feel lonely all or most of the time. I see this too - people finding themselves in relationships yet feeling like strangers to themselves and their partners, going through the motions while their hearts grow cold. Research shows that women's mental health is significantly affected by relationship-related stress and anxiety, but you don't need studies to see it -it's popping up in every conversation about modern love.

The Discovery That Changed Everything

My understanding shifted not through books or theories, but through the raw, messy reality of lived experience. After ending a relationship where the other person was pulling away - choosing to honour my own worth rather than chase someone who seemed to drift further from me each day - I found myself in that familiar territory of heartbreak and grief that follows such loss. I still carry that grief and a bruise.

But something magical happened alongside the pain. Rather than the love simply vanishing with the relationship, I began to notice something extraordinary: the feeling wasn't going anywhere. I discovered I could expand it around me like a warm field, like energy that lives with me even without someone to direct it toward, or I could turn it inward toward myself like the gentlest embrace. There was still sadness, yes, but alongside it was something I can only describe as "all that love with no place to go" - except it didn't feel desperate anymore. The love that had been flowing toward another person didn't disappear when the relationship ended. It remained as pure energy, a field I could feel both within and around me like the most beautiful secret.

What amazed me most was that this wasn't just a moment of grace. Once I recognised this state, I could return to it like coming home. It became my sanctuary, even when I felt sad or angry about other things. The most profound shift was that the anxiety - that hungry seeking for someone external to fill me up - was simply gone. I could let this love become energy that radiates outward, expanding and becoming something others could sense without me even trying, something I noticed in the warmer interactions and unexpected kindnesses that began flowing back to me.

The Neuroscience Behind the Experience

This isn't just spiritual theory, though it can feel deeply spiritual. Research shows that under extreme stress, the nervous system can shift into affiliative modes rather than simply fight-or-flight. The brain's care circuits - involving oxytocin, the vagus nerve, and regions like the periaqueductal grey - can remain active even during grief, creating what neuroscientists recognise as "tend-and-befriend" responses.

What I discovered was that when a strong bond ends, the neurochemistry of attachment doesn't shut down instantly. Oxytocin, dopamine, and the neural pathways for care and connection can still be humming with life even without the original "object." That's why it felt like "all this love with nowhere to go" - because biologically, that's exactly what was happening.

Neuroscientists describe this as stress-induced plasticity: under the pressure of loss, our beautiful, resilient brains can reorganize instead of letting those circuits collapse. It's the same circuitry that compassion training and loving-kindness meditation deliberately strengthen, but in my case the rewiring happened spontaneously through crisis, like grace appearing in the breakdown.

So I had literally stumbled into something profound. But once it was there, glowing quietly in my chest, I became fascinated. I wanted to recall it, observe what happened in me and around me when I accessed it, and understand how this miracle could have possibly happened.

This taught me that our capacity to generate love without an object isn't mystical wishful thinking, although it can feel utterly mystical, but a natural human birthright. I stumbled into it through grief, because that's how my wise body found a survival pathway. The difference is that I recognised it, began to stabilize it like tending a sacred flame, and watched in wonder as my life began operating differently - how people constellated around me with more warmth, how I moved through the world with more ease, creating more beautiful outcomes with less struggle.

Then came the thought that kept me awake at night: if I could stumble into this by accident, surely it should be possible to create pathways for others to find it gently, intentionally. Could I reverse engineer this experience? Could I help others step into this state through conscious practice rather than having to wait for heartbreak to crack them open? That's how somatic movement, chanting, self-directed oxytocin practices, and precious moments of authentic connection entered the picture. And it all grew organically into what became my framework: A State of Love.

From Anxiety to Magnetism

This realization became the seed for the State of Love events - but not as another workshop on "finding love" or dating strategies. There are already brilliant coaches doing that important work. This is inner work, zooming out to understand "love" as something infinitely wider and more accessible than we've been taught.

These sessions weave together my professional training in various fields with the deeply personal lived experience that cracked me open and put me back together differently. My intention is to help people access love as a state of being rather than something to endlessly chase like a mirage in the desert.

Each event includes meditation that drops you into your body, energy exercises designed to gently activate the nervous system's affiliative responses, social exercises that create real connection, somatic activities that help you feel at home in yourself, authentic dialogue, a sprinkle of fascinating neuroscience education, and most importantly - a lot of love and care. I dream that anyone who attends walks away with practical tools they can use at home, in quiet moments, to keep cultivating this state independently.

Why These Events Are Different

This realization led me to develop the State of Love events - but not as a workshop on "finding love" or dating strategies. There are already very good coaches on this. This is inner work, zooming out and understanding "love" as a wider concept.

These sessions combine my professional training in various fields with deeply personal lived experience to help people access love as a state of being rather than something to chase.

Each event includes meditation, energy excersises destigned to activate the nervous system's affiliate responses, social exercises, somatic activity and dialogue, a bit of neuroscience education and a lot of love and care. I aim that anyone who attends can get some practical tools to take home and continue the work independently.

What Makes This Work Special

You won't find many workshops that approach love from this angle - as something you become rather than something you desperately seek. Most relationship work focuses on strategies, communication skills, or healing past wounds. While those approaches have their important place, 'A State of Love' rests on something different: the radical possibility that you can generate the feeling of love as an internal state regardless of your external circumstances.

It can feel deeply spiritual, but the scientific backing matters deeply to me. Many spiritual approaches to love rely purely on intuition or energy healing concepts. While I honour and integrate those beautiful paths, my approach grounds the experiential and intuitive work in research and the measurable effects of compassion practices on both brain function and behavior. I want you to understand not just that this works, but why it works.

A Practice more than an Experience

My heart's desire isn't for people to leave feeling blissful for a few hours before returning to the same patterns. I want them to develop a sustainable practice that continues blooming in their daily lives, in their morning coffee moments and evening reflections. Real transformation happens through loving repetition and patient integration, not single peak experiences that fade like beautiful dreams.

The results I'm looking for are tangible and life-changing: people telling me that others respond to them with more warmth and openness, that they feel safer and more at home in their own skin, that the anxiety around relationships has melted while their capacity for authentic connection has expanded like flowers reaching toward sun.

This work is about discovering a way of being that transforms not just your relationships, but how you move through the world with more grace, more ease, more joy. When you stop looking for love outside yourself and start being love from the inside out, truly magical things begin to unfold.

An Invitation Home

The relationship recession isn't just about external circumstances like dating apps and economic pressure. It's about having temporarily forgotten something essential: that love is something we can embody, generate, and share from a place of fullness rather than from the ache of need.

These events are an invitation to remember what you may have always known in your bones but temporarily forgotten: that you are already the love you seek. You don't need to find it, earn it, or convince someone else to give it to you. You can come home to it, right here, right now.

To learn more about upcoming State of Love events or to register, visit the upcoming events page. Whether you're struggling with relationship anxiety, seeking to deepen your understanding of love beyond romance, or simply curious about the intersection of neuroscience and heart-centered living, these sessions offer a unique approach to an age-old human longing.

Come as you are.

To learn more about upcoming State of Love events or to register, visit the upcoming events page. Whether you're struggling with relationship anxiety, seeking to deepen your understanding of love beyond romance, or simply curious about the intersection of neuroscience and heart-centered living, these sessions offer a unique approach to an age-old human longing.