Love

It’s fair to say Americans are conflicted about positivity. Our Declaration of Independence guarantees “the pursuit of happiness” as one our core rights. Yet messages abound that our happiness is located everywhere but our core.

The cultivation of positivity is a practice and, at times, may seem too simplistic to be true. Rest assured this is not a “fake it till you make it” practice. It requires effort, but it will be worth your while. Try it out. Be your own experiment/experimenter.

Positivity is not about putting on a happy face. It’s about resilience. Positivity consists of a range of emotions from appreciation to love, amusement to joy, hope to gratitude, and then some.

By learning how to self-generate love, you can raise your vagal tone. And with higher vagal tone, your actions become more agile, more attuned to the people in your midst. You become better able to forge the interpersonal connections that give rise to positivity resonance.

Our body, sculpted by the biological forces of natural selection over millennia, was not designed for abstractions of long-distance love. It hungers for moments of oneness.

Love is the micro-moment of warmth and connection that you share with another living being. It’s deeply wired and blossoms virtually anytime two or more people, even strangers, connect over a shared positive emotion – be it mild or strong.

Exploring how kindness and appreciation flow back and forth in couples, Barbara Fredrickson, Ph.D, examined how people habitually express appreciation to their partners. Turns out some people say “thanks” better than others.

We are wired for connection. It’s in our biology. The infant comes into the world with needs and getting the needs met is the source of survival. As we grow older, our needs for connection naturally become more sophisticated but the need remains the same.

  Quick, what’s completely pointless and absolutely indispensable? Why it’s play, of course! Sadly, we don’t get nearly enough play time. The  lack of which wrecks havoc on our health and relationships. “We are pushed from play, shamed into rejecting it by a culture that doesn’t understand…

According to Buddhist psychology, by pushing away the painful aspects of experience we isolate ourselves from the capacity to love.