I had the chance to have lunch with Donna nearly a year later. I asked how she was doing, and she said she was doing great. Her demeanor concurred. She seemed far more relaxed and cheerful than she had during that breakfast at which I first shared with her my lab’s serendipitous discovery. Later, I learned that setbacks and disappointments were still streaming into her life. As I listened to her recount them, I thought they might even be worse. The difference, she said, was that now she was able to let these recurrent sources of negativity simply roll by. They didn’t get under her skin. With her decisive focus on cultivating three loving connections each day, she’d created more spaciousness in her mind and generosity in her heart for facing these ongoing difficulties. Although still single, she discovered that love comes in many different forms. She knew she was a special part of her family, even if they were miles away. She had also cultivated special relationships with a few families in her neighborhood. And she had found that not all of her work relationships were doomed to be difficult, but discovered some good friends there, also.
Try This Micro-moment Practice: Create
Three Loving Connections
Recall how energizing and rewarding it can be to really connect with somebody, sharing a flow of thoughts and feelings with ease. As your day unfolds, seek out at least three opportunities to connect with others like this, with warmth, respect, and goodwill. Opportunities may spring up at home, at work, in your neighborhood, or out in your community. Wherever you are, open toward others, freely offering your attention, creating a sense of safety, through eye contact, conversation, or, when appropriate, touch. Share your own lighthearted thoughts and feelings, and stay present as the other person shares theirs. Afterward, lightly reflect on whether that interchange led you to feel the oneness of positivity resonance, even to a small degree. Creating the intention to seek out and create more micro-moments of loving connection can be another tool for elevating your health and well-being.
Loving-Kindness Meditation
Back in chapter 1, I first underscored the power of a particular meditation practice, known as loving-kindness meditation, or LKM. LKM is an activity, honed over millennia in various Buddhist traditions, designed to condition your heart to be more open and loving. Although Buddhist in origin, LKM can be used to deepen any faith tradition, or be practiced without one. Here, throughout part II, I show you the ropes for how to practice LKM yourself. In each chapter, I introduce one or more facets of LKM, each designed to stretch your goodwill in new directions. Before I turn to the first meditation activity, however, I offer a few framing thoughts to help you get the most out of LKM, especially if you are completely new to it. As a preparatory tool for creating positivity resonance, LKM is well worth trying out. My research program confirms that it can open up many fresh possibilities for you.
First and foremost, LKM helps you recondition your habitual ways of responding to others. Odds are you cruise through much of your day wrapped up in a cocoon of self-absorption, tightly woven with all of your wishes, plans, and goals of the moment. You consider what you’ll wear, eat, and do, and where you’ll go. You prioritize things on your to-do list. You puzzle over what you’ll say in an upcoming encounter that you suspect may be difficult. You, after all, are the lead character in the play that is your own day and life. Others play bit parts. They are not particularly consequential to the overall arch of your plotline, and by consequence they often undergo little character development in the script that your mind follows. You sometimes even treat them as though they were mere props, inanimate objects that populate the setting, yet bear no real importance to you or your day. Why wouldn’t it be this way? The play is all about you.
You see where the illustration is going. Each person is, after all, the star of his or her own play and day. If you dropped the script of your own day and picked up the script of another person’s day, this other person would suddenly undergo considerable character development. You’d come to appreciate his or her own wishes, plans, and goals. You’d understand that this person isn’t merely a bit part or prop, but rather fully human, like you. Just like you, this person is full of yearnings and strivings, hopes and insecurities. This is true of every person. It’s equally true of all those with whom you cross paths, as well as all those you’ll never meet, not even once.
LKM opens the doors of perception to break you out of your cocoon of self-absorption and restore others to their full humanity. It challenges your natural tendency to treat others like props or thinly developed characters who play only bit parts in your own self-centered play. By widening your awareness, LKM opens your eyes, mind, and heart to seeing others more fully, with warmth, kindness, and tender wishes for their well-being. The practice expands your outlook in ways that help you create the safety and connection between you and another that can seed positivity resonance.
Like other meditation practices, LKM involves quiet contemplation in a seated posture, often with eyes closed and an initial focus on the breath and the heart region. You might start by setting an alarm to chime softly after ten or so minutes, so that you can experiment without concern for the time. As the practice becomes more familiar and comfortable, you can experiment with longer meditation times, aiming for twenty to twenty-five minutes of daily practice whenever possible. I’m not suggesting that you become a monk. Keep in mind that randomized controlled trials from my lab and others have revealed a wide array of benefits after just a few months of practicing LKM for an average of sixty minutes a week, which translates into three to four times a week for just fifteen to twenty minutes each.
LKM is a bit like guided imagery, although the practice targets loving feelings more than visual images per se. You encourage those warm feelings to rise up by repeating a set of phrases—silently, to yourself—each of which is a wish for another’s well-being. To some, LKM may at first blush seem fake, like saccharin, or unrealistic. Or it may feel forced, like your smile when you’re getting your passport picture taken. These are understandable misimpressions of the practice. Although it may seem as though your goal in LKM is to fabricate positivity, the truth is, that’s not even possible. You can no more conjure up an emotion directly out of thin air than you could right now, sitting as you are, conjure up pain in your left shin. What you can do, however, is set the stage for positivity. You do this by contemplating certain thoughts and wishes and then being open to the positive sentiments that may arise out of those thoughts and wishes. You set your intentions and then see what follows from that.
Some people, when they first learn of the science of positive emotions, think they should make their motto “Be positive.” I advise against this, strongly. When you enact this motto, even with good intentions, you can inadvertently create a toxic insincerity that is harmful to both you and others. It’s like papering over the messy reality of being human with a simple yellow smiley face. Indeed, studies show that striving too hard for happiness backfires. Better than making your motto “Be positive” is to lightly adopt the mind-set of positivity. I find “Be open” to be a better motto. It can serve as a touchstone for attitude adjustment in most every circumstance.
Openness is especially important to the practice of LKM. Although you might begin a session of LKM intending to create warm and tender feelings of care, it’s important not to cling to this goal too tightly. The idea is, instead, to be open to whatever arises. Sometimes it may actually feel as though your heart is expanding within your chest, overflowing with tenderness and concern for others. Other times you might feel next to nothing. Both responses are normal. The best way to avoid the damaging effects of insincere positivity, or an oppressively saccharin LKM session, is to accept whatever feelings authentically arise within you. Pay special heed to the feelings that arise from within your body. Your mind, after all, can all too readily fall into a trap of wishful thinking. You may so dearly wish to feel loving feelings that your mind fools you into thinking that you do. Your body isn’t so tricky. As you practice LKM, learn to trust the s
ensations within your body more than the thoughts within your mind.
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:
May this one (or I, we, he, she, or they) feel safe.
May this one feel happy.
May this one feel healthy.
May this one live with ease.
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.
May they feel safe and protected, like a child in her mother’s arms.
May they feel happy and peaceful.
May they feel healthy and strong.
May they live with ease.
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.
Love 2.0: How Our Supreme Emotion Affects Everything We Feel, Think, Do, and Become Page 11
