Love, A Many-Splendored Thing

"Feeling joy in the pleasures of life, as depicted here in Marc Chagall's Festival in the Village, offers rewards beyond those of simply experiencing the moment.  There are benefits to personal health, development and longevity as well as evolutionary reasons why human beings experience positive emotions."...Barbara L. Fredrickson

There is a reason love is called a many-splendored thing.  According to world renowned researcher, Dr. Barbara Fredrickson, in her book "Positivity", love is not a single kind of positivity.  It encompasses all others, including joy, gratitude, serenity, interest, hope, pride, amusement, inspiration, and awe.  What transforms these other forms of positivity into love is their context.  When these good feelings stir our hearts within a safe, often close relationship, we call it love. 

According to Fredrickson and Branigan (2001), not only does love trigger these positive emotions, it also "broadens the momentary thought-action repertoire as people explore, savour, and play with the people they love.  Love as a positive emotion builds and solidifies our social resources."

In the early stages of a relationship, tied up with your initial attraction, you're deeply interested in anything and everything this new person says and does.  You share amusement and laugh together.  As your relationship builds and perhaps surpasses your expectations, it brings great joy.  You begin to share your hopes and dreams for your future together.  As the relationship becomes more solid, you sink back into the cozy serenity that comes with the security of mutual love.  You're grateful for the joys your beloved brings into your life, as proud of their achievements as you are of your own, inspired by their good qualities, and perhaps in awe of the forces of the universe that brought you together.

Each of these moments could equally be described as love.  So even though love is the most common flavour of positivity that people feel, we can appreciate that it has many facets.  Viewing love in this way, we can also sharpen our ability to see love as a momentary state - a surge - and not simply as a description of one of our relationships, be it with our spouse, child, parent, or sibling.  All kinds of love can bring us positive emotions.  These intimate relationships might best be viewed as the products of recurrent surges of love. 

In her book, the above describes the circumstances and patterns of thought that spark love.  The beauty of love, or other emotions, is that they are highly individualized, depending on your inner interpretations than on your outer circumstances.  As you think about love, simply ask yourself:  When was the last time I felt this feeling?  Where was I? What was I doing? What else gives me this feeling?  Can I think of still more triggers?  What can I do now to cultivate this feeling?  Focus more on the "levers" that can turn on the feeling that flows through you than on the label "love" itself.

Think of a time when you felt love surge within you.

I am doing the same right now at this very moment, with my own unique lever.

Making small changes in the ways we appreciate and frame the events of our day can turn positivity on.  And each type of positivity, including and especially love, holds the ability to broaden and build our lives.

Here is Barbara Fredrickson describing the different forms of positive emotions:

Keeping track of our positivity ratio (positive emotions to negative emotions, goal being 3:1) is making a lifestyle change, similar to keeping track of our diet or finances.  The benefit is that it allows us to become more mindful of how different events and activities in our day trigger emotions in us, both positive and negative.  But the rewards are there and it's well worth the effort.  Knowing what our emotions are like today will help us meet our goals of flourishing and being happy long term.  Positive emotions today will impact our lives down the road. 


Cheers and
Be well,

Linda