Love 2.0: How Our Supreme Emotion Affects Everything We Feel, Think, Do, and Become

by Barbara Fredrickson

  The key to knowing whether self-correction or self-congratulations are in order is to assess the degree to which either is commensurate with your actual circumstances. This is where the classic tools of cognitive behavioral therapy can work wonders. What evidence backs up your self-talk? Is any evidence being ignored or distorted? Are there parts of the bigger picture that you are conveniently keeping out of view, whether negative or positive? The idea is to check your self-talk against the full reality of the situation as evenhandedly as you can.

  Whatever your tally of self-criticism or self-aggrandizement amounts to, this same number represents the opportunities you have each day to practice something altogether different: gentleness instead of harshness, openness instead of tightness, flexibility instead of rigidity, an inner smile instead of that all-too-familiar inner scowl. This is what learning to be a true friend to yourself entails.

  Try This Micro-moment Practice: Narrate

  Your Day with Acceptance and Kindness

  Your inner voice narrates your experience—your days, and indeed, your life. Your self-talk can feel unbidden and completely outside of your control. Yet truth is, it isn’t. Like any habit, with awareness and effort, you can change it. After you’ve witnessed your own self-talk for a day or two, and perhaps tallied instances of your inner harshness or inner Pollyanna, try countering any unfriendly or rigid tendencies with a more accepting, kind, or loving tone. When you notice a shortcoming, instead of berating yourself for it, try gently reminding yourself that other people also struggle with that same shortcoming. Like them, you’re human, you’re learning. Like everyone else, your aspirations and shortcomings are all intertwined in one jumbled skein of experience. This skein will never be all goodness and light, without imperfections or darkness, either now or in some distant, yearned-for future. At the same time, wallowing in your shortcomings—or defensively hiding them out of view—distorts reality. Simply accepting them, allowing them to exist and inform you, can be a radical act of self-love. Meditation teacher and clinical psychologist Tara Brach’s phrase “radical acceptance” can be a useful touchstone for this. Embrace all aspects of yourself, especially when your first impulse is to either turn away from or scold yourself for them. Put differently, experiment with leaning in toward your shortcomings, with eyes and heart open. Find a way of rephrasing your self-talk such that you become a friend to yourself.

  It can help to imagine how someone more practiced in love and compassion might respond to you at this moment. My own touchstone for accessing love and acceptance has become an experience I had upon the tremendous honor of first meeting His Holiness the Dalai Lama. I’d been invited to participate in a scientific discussion with His Holiness as part of the grand opening of Richard Davidson’s Center for Investigating Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. I’d been briefed on the ritual aspects of the event: Following Tibetan custom, on parting, His Holiness would greet us each individually in turn. We were each to bow when he stood before us, and then he would drape a khata, a ceremonial white silk scarf, around each of our necks. I knew all this, and indeed I’d witnessed this ritual countless times. And yet, when the Dalai Lama stood before me, I froze. I simply stared into his eyes and absorbed the warmth and benevolence of his demeanor. I did this for too long. I’m sure it was only a few seconds too long, but it was too long nonetheless. What happened next was an exquisitely subtle and loving nonverbal gesture: a slight movement of His Holiness’s face that gently moved me along, as if to say “You’re doing this [ritual] wrong, but I love you anyway.” It was an experience completely new to me. I was simultaneously corrected and loved, and in a public setting, no less. What was especially new to me was the silence of my inner critic, that part of me that would typically scold myself for such a public gaffe. Instead, I gently thought to myself, I bet this happens from time to time. Some people become awestruck in the presence of the Dalai Lama. It happened to me. He’s experienced this before and helped me along without judgment.

  This last piece is key: without judgment. That’s what full acceptance feels like. It is loving connection without judgment, without the unreachable conditions of perfect actions or perfect speech. Acceptance—full, radical acceptance—does not hold out for some improvement in your character or your abilities. However you find yourself right here and right now is enough. However broken you feel, however incomplete, however inadequate. No matter which of your aspirations yet remain out of your reach, you are worthy of your own kindness, your own acceptance.

  Who better to practice this level of acceptance with than yourself? You know yourself better than anyone. You know all about your own unmet aspirations and your own shortcomings. To narrate your day with acceptance and kindness means keeping those unmet aspirations and shortcomings in full view, while also taking in your noble qualities. For you—just like everyone else—are a unique mixture of good and bad, of success and failure. Being a friend to yourself means accepting all those parts of yourself, without judgment or harshness, and without sweeping the unsavory aspects of yourself out of view.

  When I shared my “frozen khata” experience with an audience at the Environmental Protection Agency some months later, someone voiced “I wish all bosses were like that!” She longed to have a boss who could point out her mistakes while also maintaining full acceptance of her. That is a nice image to uphold, especially when thinking of the times when we are responsible for pointing out someone else’s missteps—whether those of a child or an employee. Yet how does your inner boss treat you? If you find that you boss yourself around with a harsh tone, remind yourself that there’s another, more loving way to treat yourself. As Walt Whitman reminds us, you exist as you are, and that is enough.

  Erika’s Story

  I see a powerful reminder of how self-acceptance is foundational for positivity resonance in the stories that my good friend Erika has shared with me about her experiences as an amateur musician. For the past few years, she’s enrolled in a summer camp to expand her musical abilities under the tutelage of some of her favorite professional musicians. She’d learned about this particular camp from a friend who’d attended it himself, a fellow Deadhead she’d jammed with for years. True to his forewarnings, the camp experience was not only immensely rewarding but also immensely challenging. Although she’d played guitar for years, she felt self-conscious in the presence of so many great musicians. She was sure she was among the least skilled students at camp, some of whom were actually career musicians themselves. She reinforced her insecurities by ruminating on certain facts: She’d not been classically trained; she only played a few hours each week; she’d only picked up music theory on her own; and so forth. Although she absorbed the wondrous experiences that the camp offered, she fretted periodically about how she’d be able to solo in front of all those brilliant musicians when she was called to do so. I’m sure you can recognize aspects of the classic imposter syndrome script here. We all read from it when we take up the challenge to push ourselves to the next level.

  The camp was designed to be a safe haven for musical exploration. Campers were encouraged to place their full trust in others and to create an encouraging and supportive atmosphere for everyone. In light of inner self-judgments, however, this is easier said than done. Any form of self-consciousness can rob you of the chance to fully immerse yourself in learning something new and can derail peak flow experiences. Erika knew that if she wanted to get the most out of this camp, she’d need to let go of her self-doubts and self-judgments. She credited her longtime meditation practice for helping her keep such thoughts at bay, and for reminding her that her ultimate goal—in both music and life—was to be ever happier, lighter, and more playful. As she described it, it took her both radical self-acceptance and radical presence to “let go” and “lighten up.”

  Having worked hard to cultivate a more accepting and lighthearted attitude toward herself, when she was called up to solo on that last day of camp, Erika thoroughly enjoyed it. She also played
differently from that day forward. She became “truly open and ready” to take her music to the next level, to learn how to listen deeply to other musicians as they played together, and to improvise with them in fresh ways. Building on these experiences, when Erika returned to camp the following summer, she had what she called one of the “peak musical experiences” of her life in a small workshop on “Chemistry.” The band member who led the workshop emphasized that musical chemistry didn’t come from musical skill alone. Even two great musicians can completely miss out on it. Hearing Erika recount the take on musical chemistry she’d absorbed here, I couldn’t stop seeing it as an amplified form of positivity resonance: The bodily vibes that resonate between and among people during micro-moments of love could be amplified and made audible by musical instruments. After the band member’s brief discussion of his own experiences and observations of musical chemistry, each student in turn took a chance to improvise with him as he played the drums. While some musical connections emerged, they were all getting the sense that true chemistry is hard to predict. Then Erika took her turn. She started off introducing an idea by playing a few notes in a particular way on her guitar. Her teacher responded on drums. They each listened, they each responded, and eventually they started playing, playfully, together at the same time. It was immensely enjoyable “the way a good conversation would flow, we were on the same page and could finish each other’s ideas.” They played together like this for only three to four minutes, yet when they finished and looked up at each other the teacher pronounced to the class, “Okay, now that’s chemistry.”

  Full self-acceptance is what allowed Erika to make the most out of the safety that the camp created. She’s found that lightening up on herself has been essential for getting the most joy out of her music, which comes especially when she’s jamming and improvising with fellow musicians. It’s a lesson that she finds applies to the rest of life as well. Truth is, however much they may try, other people can’t make you feel safe. Only you can do that. When you do, you spring open countless opportunities to forge fresh instances of that elusive state we call chemistry.

  Love 2.0: The View from Here

  Loving is a skill. It takes practice. When you set the goal of learning to love yourself, you’ll find ever-present opportunities to practice this new skill, because you’re never further than arm’s reach, or perhaps better said, heart’s reach. Just like all forms of positivity resonance, however, self-love first requires safety and connection. Beating yourself up with the continual harshness of self-criticism is no way to make yourself feel safe in your own company. Likewise, if your self-assessments are unflappably sunny, unhinged from reality, or otherwise blind to your ingrained bad habits, you can hardly feel safe either. A true friend, after all, is the one who tells you the truth. He or she affirms you realistically and often, and yet does not abandon you or grow silent when a negative assessment is prudent. Creating a sense of safety within your own skin is just the same. To access self-love, disengage from harshness in your self-talk, but not from reality. Affirm your positive qualities, but refrain from delusion and self-deception. Be your own compassionate truth-teller.

  Love’s second precondition is connection. This is no less true for self-love than for positivity resonance with others. Truly loving yourself requires that you slow down enough to truly meet yourself heart to heart, letting the heart of your I resonate with the heart of your me. Allow time to reflect on your inherent strivings for goodness. Tune in to the messages your body sends you. You can’t simply rush from one activity to the next, attending forever outward, and expect to fall into self-love. Indeed, you might let rushing about serve as your cue to switch gears.

  Self-love, we’ve seen, is not the same as having an inflated, narcissistic view of yourself or high self-esteem. These often hinge on good outcomes, making you rigidly guard against negative feedback. When bad news crashes through, it sends you into a free fall. Self-love, by contrast, is steadier, more peaceful. This inherent calm arises because it’s not predicated on good outcomes. You can learn to be a friend to yourself through thick and thin, through good times and bad. Indeed, it’s in the toughest times that harboring compassion toward yourself makes the biggest difference. Practice standing by your own side during hard times, with openness and goodwill, and you’ll appreciate the steady security self-love offers you. It safeguards you from plunging into despair.

  Self-love buys you even more. It’s the currency in which all other forms of positivity resonance trade. When your reserves of self-love are low, you can scarcely meet the gaze of others, seeing yourself as either beneath or above them. A chasm forms between you and others that slashes your odds of forging true connections. Yet when you practice and bank self-love, you become rich with emotional reserves. You’re more able to recognize sources of goodness in others, to see and fulfill others’ yearnings to connect, no matter their circumstances. The next chapter describes how to do just that.

  CHAPTER 7

  Loving Others, in Sickness

  and in Health

  WHAT IS RICH? ARE YOU RICH ENOUGH TO HELP

  ANYBODY?

  —Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Love, in its old-school version, seems to love similarity. Study upon study bears this out. People are most drawn to others who share roughly their same level of physical attractiveness, their same degree of financial wealth, their same physical abilities, their same lot in life. Each person, then, tends to have a small, circumscribed set of “loved ones” whose beauty, wealth, health, and ability are not too different from their own. Your attraction to similar others seems to keep the playing field level.

  Yet attraction like this also stratifies. Seeking similarity in your companions invites endless social comparisons as you continually size people up, judging whether they’re worse off or better off than you. When you judge others as having it worse than you, you may even feel relief at your own relative good fortune. Or maybe you feel some form of aversion: pity for their plight, fear that their unfortunate lot in life may one day be your own, or unspoken anger at them for bringing their misfortune on themselves. Regardless of which emotions emerge as you look down on others, the distinctions you’ve already made between you and them—and the judgments that go with it—create a gulf between you, a gulf that erodes your potential for authentic love.

  A similar gulf forms when you judge others as better off than you. When you see others as having more than you—more beauty, more wealth, more happiness—you come to see yourself as relatively disadvantaged. This can stoke fires of envy, or of self-pity. In looking up to others in this comparative way you stratify your social world into haves and have-nots. Most poignantly, though, you limit your own opportunities to experience the healing powers of positivity resonance.

  For some people—and you may be one of them—social comparisons like this happen constantly. When encountering someone new, without a moment’s thought, you size him or her up, placing the person on a rung above or below you. Although this habit may seem innocuous, it fuels an often imperceptible greed that constricts love’s radius. Greed thrives on the illusion that good fortune is a scarce commodity, that another’s gain is your loss, and vice versa. It leads to a guarded stance toward others that creates and reinforces distance. Greed makes you cling tightly to your own good outcomes, fearing anything that might make you lose a foothold on the rung on which you find yourself. You look down at those below you with pity, fear, or irritation, and up at those above you with envy or desperation. You grab at opportunities to get more “goods” for yourself, with little regard for whom you may be pushing aside or harming along the way. Through the mere act of ranking others, greed slithers in to create a false social topography that utterly denies the inherent sameness and oneness across all people.

  The truth is that there’s no such ladder. When it comes to the things that matter most, others are neither beneath you nor above you. Time and again, studies show that the happiest among us are the ones who’ve simply
shed this pernicious habit of social comparison. When you learn to see others through the lens of sameness, instead of through the lenses of downward and upward comparisons, you come to recognize that others’ difficulties are also your own difficulties, either at present, or at some past or plausible future moment. You also recognize that their good fortune doesn’t subtract from your own, and it does you no harm whatsoever to celebrate it. Indeed, you multiply your own riches when you do so.

  Love’s boundaries, as we’ve seen, need not be constricted, its vision need not be myopic. Love is both open and caring. While love like this obeys the bedrock preconditions of safety and connection, and is in part defined by some form of shared positivity, it does not hinge at all on you and another sharing precisely the same positive emotional state. Given the many factors that shape each person’s emotions, an exact matching of inner experience would be exceedingly rare and can hardly be expected.

  Fortunately, love doesn’t require the absence of unpleasantness or misfortune. Nor does it require the presence of any certain form of pleasantness or good fortune. Awareness of these fundamental truths opens the entire spectrum of human experience as opportune moments to cultivate positivity resonance. Whether in sickness or in health, good fate or bad, love remains possible. In this chapter, I share techniques for accessing two forms of love that may perhaps be less intuitive to you: loving through and despite another’s suffering, and loving through and despite another’s good fortune.

  Compassion: Meeting Suffering with Love

  By nature’s design, we all recoil from pain. Suppose you’re cooking dinner with brand-new cookware and mistakenly pick up that fancy, all-metal, oven-ready pot lid, forgetting to use a pot holder. It’s only natural that you drop the lid in a clamor as you yank your hand away. The haste of your recoil probably spares several layers of skin. And so it may seem with suffering of all sorts. Your first instinct may often be to look, leap, or pull away, or otherwise hang back. Increasing your distance from the source of pain can seem like the best way to spare yourself the added suffering that may come from being too close to it.