Love

ANNOUNCEMENT:  On July 18, we will have a Positive Psychology News webinar featuring George E. Vaillant, M.D. discussing the REAL difference between happiness and joy.

The strengths of hope, humor, and love seem particularly vital for healthcare, where close connections between caregivers and patients are essential for good outcomes and high-stakes challenges are an everyday occurrence.

So this Valentine’s Day, whether you’re loving a baby, flirting madly with someone new, keeping the flames of love stoked with your mate, or giving to close relatives, cherished friends, strangers, or pets, remember that loving words, gazes, and gentle touch can elevate the giver and receiver to experience laughter, gratitude, and joy together.

The experience taught me a lesson about fear. It’s not just the dark and wicked emotion that we all wish would be gone because it seems excessive compared to its survival value in the relative safety of the 21st century. Like all emotions, it has an upside, for it possesses a certain goal orientation that urges us to act. When we move beyond our own selfish worlds, fear can give rise to moral emotions such as pro-social anger.

Where do you find the inspiration to live a fulfilling life and the courage to navigate heartache and disappointment? One place I turn to is the writing of poet, lawyer, and positive psychology expert, John Sean Doyle.

Two years ago, my two-year-old son suffered a severe scald burn covering 16 percent of his body. My unborn baby had a birth defect needing attention. In the year-and-a-half that followed, I saw my boys through four surgeries. I went through two surgeries myself after a complicated second trimester pregnancy loss. Seven particular tools from positive psychology helped me come through some very difficullt times. I believe I have experienced posttraumatic growth following these adversities, and Roepke and Seligman’s recent article helps me see why.

Love Sense is indeed about romantic love as popularly defined. More specifically the book targets prospects for “happy ever after.” According to Johnson’s clinical experience, despite inevitable conflicts or setbacks, true long range love is no fairy tale. This book is also about the many other forms of strong attachment because the author believes the roots of all human affection are essentially the same.

This Thursday, March 26, you are invited to a free webinar on Love & Purpose. Why put these two topics together? Read on.

Lunch-time was often a struggle for my mental capacities. Rarely did a day go by when my vibrant nine-year old, just back from school, failed to enlighten us with long and winding tales of girly social interactions. Rarely did I manage to follow them all the way through. In fact, I usually lost the story line somewhere in Act One….

Alexander the Great looked at the philosopher sitting there, impoverished, rags over the rib-thin body, and asked what he was doing. “I am experiencing nothingness,” said the philosopher. “What are you doing?” “I am conquering the world,” responded Alexander, and they both laughed. Each thought the other was a fool.

The world premiere of North of Normal will take place on September 5 as part of the Western Positive Psychology Association Conference. Ph.D. students Monica Montijo and Angela Mouton traveled to 22 countries on six continents in order to interview people about love, passion, and peak experience. In addition to their doctoral research, they were inspired to make a documentary film to transmit their findings to a wide audience through the stories of people in diverse cultures and situations.

I was thrilled to speak at two back-to-back Positive Psychology conferences this summer. I came away from the two experiences with my brain filled with new resources to integrate into my work and dozens of new connections. I am so grateful to be part of a community that is at the forefront of bringing positive health and wellness to people worldwide.

The 7^th ECPP in Amsterdam from 1st-4th July was a fabulous opportunity to get up-to-date with the latest positive psychology research and practice. I was struck by how often the conference returned to the theme of connection and, in the widest-possible sense, well-being from a community perspective.

When they want to feel more loved, valued, respected or connected, most people give away their power. They ask (or want) others to be different, which means someone else’s behavior determines how happy they will be.
What do happier people do?

December 5, 2013 will be remembered for news of the death of the first black president of South Africa, anti-apartheid icon and Nobel Peace Prize winner, Nelson Mandela. I’m not normally drawn to writing about political leaders. But Mandela was different in every respect. His life was a life well-lived.

Nick Vujicic was born with phocamelia, a rare congenital condition that involves malformation of the limbs. With only a tiny little foot, he has defied the odds by becoming a motivational speaker, husband, and father. How has this been possible? As I observe him hobble on the platform set up on stage, I take a good hard look at myself. Here are 3 reasons that he inspires me.

Love contributes to health. It doesn’t stop with counting blessings. It’s not abstract. It’s deeply physical. Let’s follow the argument made by Barbara Fredrickson during the IPPA World Congress.

The IPPA Third Wold Congress had up to 9 parallel sessions, so everybody’s experience was different. But some events were shared by most attendees, including fresh ways to think about the future and about love.

The first part of Love 2.0 sets out a vision of what is so far known about love, including the body’s definition of love and the necessary preconditions. The second part provides guidance for applying this information, drawing on Fredrickson’s experiments with meditation and shared positivity micro-moments.

Pick any chapter from Chris Peterson’s posthumously published book, Pursuing the Good Life: 100 Reflections on Positive Psychology, and you’re in for a real treat. His reflections cover every aspect of what it means to be human and to live a life worth living. Even sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll get a passing mention, although you won’t find them listed in the index.