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

Love, Actually

Barbara Fredrickson radically changed the way I think about the purpose of positive emotions in our lives.  I am forever grateful to have learned from her first hand in her positive psychology seminar at UNC.  It seems Dr. Fredrickson is at it again, this time discussing the experience we call “love” in her new book:  2.0: How Our Supreme Emotion Affects Everything We Feel, Think, Do, and Become. In her recent article on CNN she explains, “Love, as your body experiences it, is a micro-moment of connection shared with another.”  Love lives in the moment of our experiences with another.  Love can be all around us if we are open to it.

Why Vulnerability Must Proceed Love

For me in this moment, a highlight of her article is this explanation that love does not belong to one person.  When we are open to being moved by others, love can exist in many forms and come from many places.  And as with so many other things, we must first be open to being loved before we can experience connecting in love.  The first step towards connection must ALWAYS be taken by us, and that first step is ALWAYS towards – yep, feeling vulnerable.  And how could it be any different?  When we remain guarded and don’t show our true self, there is nothing that we put out for other people to be moved by.  But when we risk showing our true messy-beautiful self with the world “we open to the possibilities of making [our] prospects for love — defined as micro-moments of positivity resonance — nearly limitless.”

The full article is definitely worth the read.  I look forward to reading this book!

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