Today I read the New York Times article, "What's Lost as Handwriting Fades."  The article reports on the efforts of psychologists and neuroscientists to discover whether there is any correlation between the practice of writing by hand and ability to think creatively and to learn.  According to the article, correlations have been found!  Stanislas Dehaene, a psychologist at the Collège de France in Paris, said "When we write, a unique neural circuit is automatically activated."  

The article is interesting in its own right, but what struck me in the context of our Love 2.0 class was that it was the practice of learning how to form letters that seemed to make the difference.   The analogy here is with our practices of being more aware of the possibility for micro-moments of connectivity with others and the world.  The New York Times article makes a point of saying that the variability in outcome during practice actually aids in learning.  Lack of perfection helps.  In the process of learning that an "a" is still an "a" even when written very messily, multiple neural pathways are created.  The ability to recognize something in spite of its messiness is a real world skill.  Perhaps this is the basis for the correlation researchers have found with increased capacity for learning and creativity. 

It is our practice of the awareness of the possibility of micro-moments of connection that are our enrichment.  Some of our practices may reverberate and ripple out, splash up and come back to get us wet.  Others may intersect with other waves and make beautiful patterns that continue through generations.  Neither of these is the point.  The practice itself is the reward.

One of the ideas that occurred to me during the course of this class was a theory about why being grateful is so powerfully good for us.  In fact, why being grateful is kind of like a micro-moment of love!

My theory draws on two of the points that we talked about in class. 

The first point is one of the main points of Love 2.0.  Namely, micro-moments of harmonious connectivity between two people create a chain of positivity resonance. 

The second point grew out of our discussion about the relationship of fear to love.  Love is an opening of oneself.  Fear is a narrowing.   Feeling safe is one of the prerequisites for love.

On the first point, remember how we talked about whether or not love needed to be reciprocal? 

It seems to me that the answer is "Yes and no."  On the "yes" side, it is clearly a reciprocal connection that creates the positively spiraling feedback loop that Fredrickson names positivity resonance.  After all, the connection is the avenue for the ascending and accelerating resonance!

On the "no" side, each of the parties involved in the potential connection must open to the connection independently.  If they were both to play "chicken" to see which one would open first, they may never get to the reciprocal part! 

So, you might say that love involves giving primacy to the desire to invest in the well-being of the other.  This sets the stage for the possibility of a reciprocal response - which quite often happens spontaneously on both sides!

That's the first point:  That the wonderful positivity resonance that fills our minds and bodies with exhilaration and happiness comes about because of a reverberating connection.

The second point, the point having to do with fear and its dampening influence on our ability to love, was part of the background for the various thought exercises provided for us in the second part of the book Love 2.0.   I shared background on how we think, on anchors, on negativity biases, and on the power of priming.  The thought exercises in the book are a way for us to prime our minds to the positive.  We need the priming because the human mind is biased to pay about five times greater attention to the negative than to the positive. 

Here's where gratitude comes in.   Gratitude is using our slow thinking conscious brain to anchor on the positive.  When we practice doing this over and over, eventually, it becomes a habit.  Over time, our awareness of the positive moves from the slow-thinking conscious brain to the fast and automatic unconscious one.

Here's where my theory kicks in:  All that positivity out there that we are not noticing because it's not threatening?  I think of it as a potential connection in open offer.  When I notice it and appreciate it, my attention and thanksgiving become the reciprocation that closes the connection.  Suddenly, positivity resonance comes into play!  There is love!

We spoke of the micro-moments of connection we felt when watching a sunset.  When we see something awesome and are struck with the splendor of the moment, aren't we being grateful?

The thing about positivity is that it doesn't have to be intense in order for the resonance to begin.  Why does food taste so good?  Why are there flowers?  Why are children and puppies so much fun to watch?  Why does it feel good just to breath?    Why does doing the right thing make one feel happy?

My theory is that there is a great unrequited love in open offer to us.  When we are grateful, we are reciprocating to the love already offered, a love that is waiting for us without fear.   Our gratefulness closes the connection for the resonance of love.

In fact, this blog is a positive resonance ripple of the article I just read, Six Habits of Highly Grateful People. 

Reading the article made me grateful, and in reciprocity, I write to you all!

Today is Memorial Day.  Let us give thanks to the many who have given their lives for us.  And let us remember their families, friends and communities, whose sacrifices did not end in battle's death.

Thank you for reading this.

I just started reading a new book - The 8th Habit, by Stephen Covey.  In case you don't know, Stephen Covey is the author of the well-known book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.

What does The 8th Habit have to do with LOVE?   I'm not sure yet. 

What I like is that in this book he is recognizing that being  effective, while good and potentially meaningful, isn't necessarily meaningful in any significant way.   Rather, he invokes our need for transcendence in order to move from "effectiveness" to "greatness".

And just to contextualize this, for us small folks, he quotes Mother Teresa:

My understanding of this "small thing" is our recognition and cultivation of the positivity resonance that Fredrickson calls "Love 2.0."

In your experience, is this not a small practice of transcendence?

BTW, Hugh gave me an article that describes Fredrickson's research without harping on the word "love."  It is linked HERE.

HERE is the handout of the summary of our classes.

Below is a rough photo of our last whiteboard.  Love has its ups and downs!  Remember - our bodies are VERBS!

Here we are! 

Thank you for the last class.  Thank you for the whole term!  The contributions you made were grist for the mill.  I learned from you, and I can see that you learned from each other.

We spent a lot of time over the term talking about the overuse of the word "Love."  How it is used as a catchall.  How it is used without any real meaning until we end up with "compassion sickness."  Naming the book "Love 2.0" might be considered nothing more than a marketing ploy.  (I'm glad it worked and got you into the class!)

Most of us came to class associating love, true love, as the mark of a rare and precious relationship.  Indeed, it is.  Perhaps as altogether rare as exercise of our own free will!

As I pondered Fredrickson's use of the word "Love" to invoke the system of physiological activities that go into play when we connect with something outside of ourselves - be it friend, stranger or a sunset - it occurred to me that she is inviting us into a secret paradox:  Love is indeed the most wonderful thing we can experience.  The paradox is that this most precious of experiences actually takes places in micro-moments throughout the ordinary course of our days!  And this happens whether we are aware of it or not!

What Fredrickson and her colleagues have found in their research is that it is the frequency, rather than the intensity, of experiences of positive resonance that correlates with good health, resilience, and wisdom.  In other words, she is alerting us to the fact that the opportunity to experience meaningful connections is already available in the ordinary!  While we are looking for Love as a summit experience, we are trodding rough-shod over the silver lining of our daily path.

Just as I was thinking about this, I had the chance to hear Jenny Sherman speak as the student speaker at the Duke Commencement.  This young woman speaks with a contained passion that - strange as it may seem - was heralded by a bird!  You can hear him trilling his little heart out, for all the world saying, "Listen to her!  Listen to her!"

Jenny's speech runs from minute 54 - 1:02 - about 8 minutes.  It is well worth the watch.  Click HERE and then scroll down to the embedded video.

I have copied below the lines that speak most deeply to me.

"At Duke, we have learned from extraordinary and ordinary moments.  I think the ordinary ones are more important."

"There is nothing in the range of human experience that is off limits.  You may encounter yourself in a foreign way of life, and you may encounter the foreign in your own mind.  Our greatest gifts are not the things that make us extraordinary. 
Our greatest gifts are the things that make us human.   Our flaws and our vulnerabilities help us to connect,  to understand, and to live in pursuit of justice for others.   When we fail, we give others the chance to treat our humanness with grace and compassion.  When we lose people, it's the ordinary things that become precious....."

"I hope we will think back with love on our triumphs, and our failures, and the people who showed us kindness through both."

Thank you for the many kindness that you showed to me!  I hope to see

Recently, the body of a murdered woman was found on a branch of the American Tobacco Trail.  One of my favorite haunts, I happened to pass by when the WRAL-TV news truck was on the prowl for people to interview.  You can see the interview HERE.

The interviewer was especially interested in knowing whether or not I felt safe on the trail.  She asked me, "Will you be coming back?"  I replied, "For us, to desert the places of vulnerability does not make the world safer."

Afterwards, I realized that this was a point that is relevant to our class. 

It is commonly understood that fear constrains and narrows our cognitive abilities, whereas feelings of safety and trust open our awareness.  We need to trust in order to love.

This is as it should be.  Loving involves opening oneself, being vulnerable.  When we are fearful, our job is to protect.

Let's face it:  We need to be safe in order to live on to another day!  This isn't really the question.

What Fredrickson is pointing out in her book, Love 2.0, is that, in her words, "Put simply, your body was designed for love, and to benefit from loving.  Human bodies become healthier when repeatedly nourished by positivity resonance with others, with the result that human communities become more harmonious and loving.  This clear win-win arrangement is written into our DNA." (p. 60)

Fredrickson doesn't suggest that we put ourselves in danger.  Rather, she encourages us to become more self-aware of the many daily opportunities we have to enjoy the positivity that is already all around us. 

And as we do, we make the world a safer place!

Pearl S. Buck wrote:

I like this quote, because as the Scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz said, "You know that you have a heart when it is broken!"

The problem isn't whether one has a broken heart.  

As Erich Fromm wrote, "One cannot be deeply responsive to the world without being saddened very often.” 

Love may be connection, but each one of us is responsible only for our own side.   The same is true of our aspirations and our dreams.  Someone said, "The great tragedy in life is not to fail to reach your dream.  Rather it is to fail to try."

So dream big and love without looking back.

In class this past week we had a great discussion about the book itself, and its premise concerning "Love 2.0".

It seems that one of the biggest problems is associating the precious name "Love" - whether modified by "2.0" or not - to the minute moments of physiological response of the body.  

I'm open for suggestions.  How do we tie the idea that the smallest things that we do in our normal daily life are associated directly to the biggest and most important?

Frank Parker shared this wonderful video of a mother cat with three ducklings.  Click HERE.

Does this look like "love" to you?

Along the same line, HERE is a shorter clip of a mother cat with baby squirrels.

Finally, least you think that only domesticated cats are capable of overcoming their predator instincts, HERE is a clip of a lionness and a baby oryx.