Love 2.0 (15 page)

Sometimes people new to LKM are suspicious of the intent of the practice. It can seem naïve, or like magical thinking. They wonder, “Do people really believe that simply thinking these wishes instantly erases all troubles? Doesn’t this whole enterprise hinge on the metaphysical? If so, why should I waste my time with it?” From the perspective of emotions science, LKM is not the least bit supernatural. I can assure you, based on solid empirical evidence, that whatever positive feelings you generate in LKM are likely to imbue the rest of your day with more positivity as well. This greater positivity can show up as more openness in your posture, breathing, and body comportment, and on your face, openness that can be readily spotted by those with whom you interact or cross paths. Since nonverbal gestures are contagious, your openness also allows others to become more open and relaxed. Meeting each other with openness like this increases the odds that the two of you will come into sync. LKM also shows up in the sense you make of each new circumstance that you encounter. You’re more likely to see things in a good light, give the benefit of the doubt, and be optimistic about the future and others’ potential. Your intonation becomes more upbeat and inviting. Well after you practice LKM, your verbal and nonverbal behavior may remain changed such that others feel a greater sense of safety in your presence, more likely to open up and connect. The pathways through which LKM seeds subsequent moments of positivity resonance are wholly physical. There is no need to invoke magical thinking or the metaphysical to explain its downstream effects.

Another way to ward off insincerity or any seeming naïveté when practicing LKM is to balance the practice with equanimity, the wisdom of the big picture. When you step back and take in the big picture
in a balanced way, it’s easier to see that all people are alike in the ways that matter most. All have wishes, feelings, and yearnings—to feel secure and happy, and to experience ease as their day unfolds. From this vantage point, you can gently remind yourself how interconnected you are with everyone else who walks this earth: how your and each person’s separate pursuits of safety, happiness, and ease are in actuality intertwined and interdependent.

You can also remind yourself of the truth of suffering. Suffering exists. No matter how many warm wishes you cultivate, conditions in this world are such that people to whom you offer loving-kindness inevitably suffer from time to time. It can be helpful to allow your recognition of the inevitability of suffering to surface, while at the same time registering the abundant sources of safety for both you and others. Holding suffering and safety side by side helps you maintain your resilience in the face of suffering, so that you don’t become shattered or overcome by it. It is into this larger context of acceptance—acceptance of similarity, interconnection, and of suffering and safety—that you can offer the wishes for happiness and well-being that are central to LKM.

Cultivating the wisdom to put your LKM practice into balanced perspective protects its sincerity and keeps it real. Absent the backdrop of this wisdom, you might notice yourself becoming too attached to the prospect that your wishes will come true. You may come to feel that the people who you contemplate
will
feel safe, happy, healthy, and at ease. Or you might slip into feeling that these wishes must come true: that your own pursuit of happiness somehow hinges on it. These sorts of yearnings are not helpful. They reflect attachments to a certain outcome or way of being, rather than openness to whatever arises or is. Know that clinging to any sort of fixed idea that your wishes need be fulfilled is not the state you seek. Such desires masquerade as the state you seek, but miss the mark altogether.

Far more important than reading or talking about LKM, however,
is the time and energy you devote to practicing it. When you’re ready to dive in, read the following passages a few times, and then put the book down and experience it yourself.

Try This Meditation Practice: Loving-Kindness

Find a quiet place where you are unlikely to be interrupted. If you’re in a chair, scoot back in your seat so that the lowest part of your spine is well supported and straighten your spine up toward the sky. Lean forward from the back of the chair just a bit. Relax your shoulders and pull them back slightly. This position allows you to expand your rib cage in all directions when you breath, creating more spaciousness around your heart. Place your feet flat on the floor, so that the heels and balls of your feet make equal connection with the ground. Rest your palms gently on your thighs. If sitting like this doesn’t appeal to you, find any other position that makes you feel both alert and relaxed and that allows your chest to expand. Once you are physically comfortable, let your eyes drift closed. Or, if you find that awkward, set your gaze lightly on a spot on the floor in front of you, or on a simple, peaceful object.

Bring your awareness to the sensations of your own heart. Breathe to and from your heart. Notice how each breath brings new energy to your heart and allows your heart to send life-giving oxygen coursing throughout your body. Rest in this awareness for several breaths. Now, in this quiet moment, visualize someone for whom you already feel warm, tender, and compassionate feelings. This could be your child, your spouse, even a pet—someone whom the mere thought of makes you smile. Let his or her smiling face surface in your mind’s eye. As you take in that image, with the lightest mental touch, briefly call to mind this loved one’s good qualities. Your goal is to rouse warm and tender
feelings naturally, by visualizing how connecting with this loved one makes you feel.

Once these tender feelings have taken root, creating genuine warmth and kindness in you, gently repeat the traditional phrases of LKM, silently to yourself, in some form or another. The traditional phrases go something like this:

The words themselves are not as critical as the sentiments and emotions they evoke. You can rephrase the statements in ways that serve to stir your heart the most. You might try extending the phrases ever so slightly to draw out the intent of each wish more fully.

Although your mind may pull you to race ahead, try to reflect on these phrases slowly, at your heart’s pace. Silently say no more than one phrase to yourself with each breath cycle. Visualize what the fulfillment of each wish would look like. How would the loved one’s face and body posture appear? What energy would be created? In the space between breaths, pause just a moment to feel your heart and body. Really notice them. Discover what sensations arise in you. As you repeat the phrases for this loved one in particular, you might imagine seeing your good wishes moving from your heart region to his or hers, perhaps as a wave, a beam of light, or a slowly unfurling golden ribbon.

After you’ve slowly and steadily repeated the phrases for this particular loved one for a few minutes, gently let go of his or her image and simply hold the warm and tender feelings in your heart region.

Next, radiate your warm and friendly feelings to someone else, perhaps to another person that you know well. Visualize this person’s face, and gently and briefly call to mind his or her good qualities. Now again, with this new person in mind, slowly repeat the classic LKM phrases, or your own renditions of them. Visualize how this person would appear if each wish were to come true for him or her, pausing just a moment between each phrase to notice how your body responds.

As you continue to practice, gradually call to mind all your friends and family, as a group. Wish them all well through your body’s appreciation of the classic LKM phrases. Next, welcome in all the people with whom you share a connection—even remote connections, like the service person you reached on your last call for tech support. Use the phrases to extend your goodwill as far as you can.

As you end your meditation, gently remind yourself that you can generate these feelings of kindness and warmth anytime you wish. By taking time with this activity, you’ve begun to condition your emotions to more readily do just that. You’ll now be better prepared to experience true connection with others.

Beginning a meditation practice is a very personal project. People differ in the kinds of external support they need to get started and to stay with it. The most important step to take is to allocate time to practice. Keep in mind that our research shows that just sixty minutes a week can make a noticeable difference in your life. You might thus choose to set your alarm for ten minutes earlier each morning to practice with the LKM phrases completely on your own. If you find yourself losing focus, you can follow any number of guided meditations until your focus and follow-through become stronger. I’ve included a few such guided meditations free for you to download at
www.PositivityResonance.com
. Other great meditation aids are also available, and I
point out a few of my favorites under Recommended Reading in the back of this book. I also highly recommend taking a meditation class or workshop. Ask for one at your local hospital, gym, or wellness center.

Love 2.0: The View from Here

Love is not simply something you stumble or fall into. While love can certainly catch you by surprise, like a sudden rain, unlike the weather, you can also seed and cultivate the conditions for love all on your own. All it takes is that you develop an eye and a feel for love and for the contexts in which you might seed it. Slow down and prepare your own heart and mind to be truly open to others. Reflect on moments of connection, actively seek these moments out, or condition your heart with the time-tested good wishes of loving-kindness meditation. Try these practices and watch what then unfolds between you and others, using your own body as your tuning fork to spot love’s presence. With any of the practices that I offer in this chapter, you take steps toward shifting your attention away from yourself and toward others, a shift that in itself opens countless opportunities for love.

Notice how this shift feels inside your body. Notice how energized you get in a bona fide moment of positivity resonance. Conversations become deeper and more meaningful, connections stronger. You’ll begin to see each new interaction as an opportunity, not as an obligation or obstacle. Your more open stance will be amply reinforced by the positive feelings that you share in the brightened moments spent with others.

Aware now of the ingredients and potency of positivity resonance, you have new lenses through which to view each and every encounter you have with others. True, you are unlikely to elevate all of your interpersonal encounters into moments of positivity resonance. After all,
you can only reshape your side of each interpersonal interchange. So don’t judge yourself against unrealistically high standards. Do notice, however, whether you’ve been able to upgrade one, two, or even three ordinary interchanges each day into acts of love. These are the small changes that can add up to big improvements in your health and happiness.

CHAPTER 6

Loving Self

I EXIST AS I AM, THAT IS ENOUGH.
IF NO OTHER IN THE WORLD BE AWARE I SIT CONTENT.
AND IF EACH AND ALL BE AWARE I SIT CONTENT.

—Walt Whitman

T
he old saying tells us that we can’t love others unless we first love ourselves. It’s true. Even though love is defined throughout this book as moments of positivity shared between and among people, the positivity shared between knower and known—between
I
and
me
—provides a vital foundation for all other forms of love. We first need to accept ourselves fully, as worthy partners in positivity, before we can freely enjoy the many other fruits of positivity resonance that we can share with others.

Like all forms of positivity resonance, self-love requires both safety and connection. Either of two obstacles may stand in the way. For some people, both obstacles are fused together into one mammoth and seemingly insurmountable boulder. The first is self-diminishment, or not believing yourself to be worthy of love or acceptance. At an implicit, unspoken level, you may dismiss your good qualities as insignificant and stay locked in on your shortcomings. You may feel it necessary to fill those gaps in your character before you can fully accept and love
yourself. You may think, “If only I were _______.” You can fill in the blank with any of your usual suspects, those ideals against which you judge yourself: “thinner, kinder, wealthier, smarter, more energetic, more productive, more organized, more successful, more thoughtful . . .” Then you wait. You withhold love from yourself until you meet those unspoken preconditions. But the waiting never ends, and the self-love never flows.

The second obstacle to self-love presents as self-aggrandizement, or believing oneself to be more special or more deserving than others. Or perhaps you’re not so busy comparing yourself favorably to others, but rather you see yourself as especially capable or triumphant. Your self-esteem is high. This is a devious obstacle to circumnavigate because it masquerades as self-love. Sure as day it’s positive. Even so, a telltale sign that these positive self-descriptions fall short of true self-love is that they are guarded very tightly. As you shield your positive self-views from the light of contradictory evidence, a brittle narcissism emerges. Although narcissism like this is often taken as excessive self-love, in truth it’s something else altogether. In believing yourself to be especially deserving and discerning, or especially wonderful—even at a deep, unspoken or unrecognized level—the slights and shortcomings that all people face as they navigate the social world become magnified out of proportion, viewed as threats or insults to your character. If this is your obstacle, your happiness hinges on whether others treat you in just the right way, or show you the proper form of respect by turning a blind eye to your shortcomings. In truth, self-aggrandizement is often a defense—a protective armor donned to cover up a more negative view of self. It can be self-diminishment in disguise.