1: What do we see when we look into a mirror? Ourselves.
Imagine, though, looking into a mirror and seeing another person.
A moment before, each of us was “doing your own thing—feeling our own emotions, making our own moves, and following our own inclinations,” Barbara Fredrickson writes in her book Love 2.0: Creating Happiness and Health in Moments of Connection,“
“But in this particular moment of connection,” Barbara observes, “our respective feelings, actions, and impulses align and come into sync.
“This is no ordinary moment. Within this mirrored reflection and extension of our own state, we see far more. A powerful back-and-forth union of energy springs up between the two of us like an electric charge.
“For just a moment, we each become something larger than ourselves.”
What exactly is happening here? Simply put: Love. The biology of love.
“Ordinary positive emotions don’t resonate like this at all. They are not mirrored back to us,” Barbara writes. Only love creates such a deep interpersonal resonance.”
2: Somewhat counterintuitively, love is present more than we might realize. “Love blossoms virtually anytime two or more people—even strangers—connect over a shared positive emotion, be it mild or strong,” she notes.
It involves three tightly interwoven occurrences:
First, a sharing of one or more positive emotions between two people. Second, a union between their biochemistry and behaviors. Third, a desire to invest in each other’s well-being that brings mutual care.
What results?
“Life-giving positivity resonates between and among people. This back-and-forth reverberation of positive energy sustains itself—and can even grow stronger—until the momentary connection wanes, which is of course inevitable, because that’s how emotions work.”
Love is a mirror: We “mirror the positivity in each other’s emotional state; we mirror each other’s gestures and biochemistry; and we mirror each other’s impulse to care for one another,” Barbara explains.
We become a reflection and extension of each other.
Within these micro-moments of love, “our own positivity, our own warmth and openness, evoke—and is simultaneously evoked by—the warmth and openness emanating from the other person,” she notes.
“These are powerful, energizing moments,” Barbara observes. “Our bodies were designed to harness this power—to live off it. Our ability to understand and empathize with others depends mightily on having a steady diet of positivity resonance, as do our potential for wisdom, spirituality, and health.”
3: In Western culture, we usually think of our emotions as “largely private events,” she explains. We locate them within a person’s boundaries, confined within their mind and skin.
We talk about “my anxiety,” “his anger,” or “her interest.”
We assume that love belongs to the person who feels it.
But we have it wrong.
The biology of love “alters the unseen activity within our bodies and brains,” Barbara writes, “in ways that trigger parallel changes within another person’s body and brain.
“More than any other positive emotion, then, love belongs not to one person, but to pairs or groups of people. It resides within connections. It extends beyond personal boundaries to characterize the vibe that pulsates between and among people.”
More tomorrow!
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Reflection: How does love differ from other positive emotions? What is my experience? Are there more opportunities to experience love as I go through my day?
Action: Seek out three micro-moments of love and connection today.
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