By Timothy T.C. So - February 18, 2009

‘At such moments, you realize that you and the other are, in fact, one. It’s a big realization. Survival is the second law of life. The first is that we are all one.’ Joseph Campbell

As Joseph Campbell’s quote suggests, there are certain moments that we feel so connected with another person that we become one entity, and perhaps LOVE is the only force that makes two persons become one Love, magical to many people, is suggested to lead to a variety of positive outcomes for instance happiness, satisfaction and positive emotions (Kim & Hatfield). But what exactly grants love the magic? People hold difference views: the sense of existence and significance, the emotional support from the significant other especially during difficult times, or even the sense of intimacy and companionship. Elijah Mickel (the author of Africa Centered Reality Therapy and Choice Theory) and Cecilia Hall (from Delaware State University) recently wrote about the five presents of perfect love. I would like to share this food for thought with you in February – the month of LOVE – when St. Valentine’s Day in the West and Yuanxiao Jie (元宵節) in the East occur in the same month.

5 presents (5Ps) of perfect love
According to Mickel and Hall, the five presents of perfect love are Purgation, Perception, Praise, Patience and Perfection.

Purgation: a present of forgiveness that purifies and eliminates the elements that constitute negative relationships. We all make mistakes, and forgiveness allows us to revitalize our love with the partner such that the relationship can be sustained.
	Perception: a present of insight that reinforces one’s ability to understand the strengths of the partner. Through this process of perceiving and understanding strengths people would be able to assert the value of others. You might be interested in checking it out more from the Values In Action (VIA) Institute.
Praise: a present of affirmation that allows one to see the value in one’s self and one’s partner. Praise is not identical to perception as people do not always express their appreciation to the goodness they see in others. Perception and praise reflects the ability to appreciate the partner’s strengths and competencies as well as sending them your gratitude, both are from 24 character strengths that are considered important by positive psychologists.
	Patience: a present of understanding, a process of sifting out and organizing information to make things comprehensible. According to the authors, patience allows people understand that perfection is a goal which takes time. It thus empowers people to endure and solve the problems confront them throughout the process. Patience might be bitter, yet its fruit would definitely be sweet.
Perfection: a present of wholeness and completeness. In authors’ words, it is “each partner seeking perfection within the imperfection of human behavior.”

Linking up the 5-Ps Though the authors did not go into details the connections among the five presents of perfect love, I see them closely intertwined: you can’t praise without perceiving other’s strengths, and it is difficult to forgive without patience and understanding. And more importantly, the first four presents: Purgation, Perception, Praise and Patience, are actually keys towards perfect loving relationships. Only with the ability to understand and to forgive, as well as to appreciate and to praise, would a person be able to achieve perfect love as well as the positive outcomes associated with love. No one is perfect, but love can be! Sharing the 5ps One should also bear in mind that healthy love relationship should be based on reciprocity. There should be a balance between the two persons in love. A perfect love requires that the needs of both to be fulfilled. The 5Ps hence illustrate how to behave, to act, to interact with our lovers in a better way and fulfil their needs. When one is in love, one acts lovingly. According to Glasser (1965, p. 10), “To either love or allow ourselves to be loved is not enough, we must do both.” So, spreading the 5Ps to those who are in love is necessary - let us overcome all the moments of disagreements, selfishness, loss, pain and problems.

Lastly, the 5Ps obviously should not be limited to romantic love. Be it your parents, siblings, children or friends, you should also strive for these five presents in your love towards them. After spending a sweet moment with your lover on the lovely St. Valentine’s day and Chinese Yuanxiao Jie, are you ready to present your 5 presents of love to people around you?

Good Luck!

Author notes: This article is dedicated to my parents, my love and every of my friends. I love you!

Reference:
Glasser, W. (1965). Reality Therapy: A New Approach to Psychiatry (Colophon Books). New York: Harper & Row.

Mickel, E. (2005). Africa Centered Reality Therapy and Choice Theory. Trenton, New Jersey: Africa World Press

Mickel, E., & Hall, C. (2008). Choosing to love: The essentials of loving (presents and problems). International Journal of Reality Therapy, 27, 30-34.

Kim, J., & Hatfield, E. (2004). Love types and subjective well-being: A cross cultural study. Social Behavior and Personality, 32, 173-182.

This article first appeared on Positive Psychology News Daily. To see the original article, click here. To comment on this article, click here.

By Emiliya Zhivotovskaya - February 13, 2009

Want ideas for what to do with your sweetie on Valentine’s Day?

“Loving, selective, enduring attachment… scientists find such love difficult to talk about,” says Dr. George Vaillant, renown psychiatrist and author.  Love as noun is hard to measure. Love as a verb or an action is more tangible. Consider taking a Valentine’s Day date where your loving activity capitalizes on research from positive psychology.

Here are five suggestions for sharing with your partner, friend, or family member:

1)      Strengths Date

The Values-In-Actions Strengths Questionnaire (VIA) is a classification of the positive side of the human experience: the VIA describes what is right with you. Research shows that people who discovered their strengths and used their strengths in a new way every day for a week increased their happiness and decreased depressive symptoms (see graphs below, Seligman et al. 2005) up to six months later. Dr. Karen Reivich, co-author of The Resilience Factor and co-creator of the Penn Resiliency Program, suggests taking a strengths date to facilitate capitalizing on your strengths in a way that can bring people closer together.

Have your partner, friend, or family member take the VIA Signature Strength Survey. Take as many of your top strengths as you see fit, and sculpt an activity together that taps into the individual strengths for both you and your sweetie or friend.

For example, my Valentine and I both shared Curiosity and Interest in the World as our first strength and Forgiveness and Mercy as our fourth. Additionally, he had Judgment, Critical Thinking & Open-Mindedness, Love and the Capacity to Be Loved and Love of Learning. I had Gratitude, Hope, Optimism and Future-Mindedness, and Perspective/Wisdom.

Together we researched quotes about Love and Forgiveness from the wise, the famous, the infamous, and the every day person. Then we imagined that we were going to present at a debate on the topics of Love and Forgiveness. We used the quotes to analyze what others said about what love is. How does forgiveness work? How do these two concepts interplay? What are its outer limits?

With this newly created knowledge, we discussed ways to incorporate it into our future. We ended it by expressing gratitude to one another for specific insights that were raised during the conversation.

Whatever your combined strengths might be, there are creative ways of crafting an activity around them. Consult Dr. Tayyab Rashid’s online resource title “340 Ways to Use Via Character Strengths”.

2)      Savor a Meal… Blindfolded

Research shows that savoring increases the experience of positive emotions, gratitude, mindfulness, pleasure and engagement (See the book Savoring by Bryant and Veroff).  It is easy to take basic things for granted such as foods, sensations and sounds. This activity is one of my personal favorites.

Depending on how daring you are, you can blindfold your partner on the way to a restaurant. Lovingly guiding them through the city and later the restaurant will enable them to engage their sense of smell, touch, and hearing. Try to prevent your partner from finding out what they are going to eat. Rather than reading the order to your waiter, point to the menu. As your courses come out, allow your partner to first smell the food and guess what it might be. Then feed small morsels to them so they can savor all the flavors.

Or you can also prepare a meal at home.  You can both engage in what Bryant calls anticipatory savoring and present moment savoring, as well as reminiscing savoring which happens after the fact.

My partner and I did this once. To this day, one of his fondest moments was guiding me around New York City blindfolded. According to him, the expressions on people’s faces, while watching us have so much pure, radiant fun, seemed to light others up. We met people on the street, played guessing games, and spread our joy to our waiters, taxi drivers, and passersby.

3)      Partner Yoga

Yoga has numerous health benefits, from improving cardiac health to reducing both depression (Pilkington et al., 2005) and premature ejaculation.

Research by Carson et al. (2004) found that relatively happily, nondistressed couples who followed a mindfulness-based relationship enhancement program reported benefits such as increased amounts of relationship satisfaction, relatedness, and optimism.

Partner yoga is a great way to accomplish this. It involves moving your body together, coordinating your breathing, using eye contact and communication, all in a nurturing, loving manner. You both get to stretch, strengthen, and play. Whether you are a trained yogi or can barely touch your toes, there are partner poses and exercises you can do together.

As a yoga instructor, I generally find time to practice yoga and partner yoga because I feel the benefits that researchers write about.  I can vouch for those benefits.  And Valentine’s Day is a wonderful day to find such programs near you. (Check out Part 1 and Part 2 of Partner Poses with Emiliya for a video tutorial).

4)      Gratitude Letter

In a study by Seligman et al. (2005), participants completed a gratitude visit which involved writing a letter expressing gratitude to someone that has positively impacted their lives and reading the letter in person. Participants reported increased happiness and decreased depression (see charts on left). A recent dissertation by Gurel Kirgiz Ozge (2008) found similar benefits in writing a gratitude letter. According to numerous articles in The Psychology of Gratitude (2004), people who express gratitude report greater life satisfaction, optimism, physical health, energy, and connection with others.

In his book Authentic Happiness, Martin Seligman suggests laminating your gratitude letter so the recipient can keep the memento. “Take your time composing this [letter]… read your testimonial aloud slowly, with expression and eye contact” (Seligman, 2002, p. 74). Seligman also recommends reflecting and reminiscing afterward on how the person has affected your life.

Gratitude is one of the most important concepts to me personally, and so, building on solid research to enact true good for yourself - physically, mentally, emotionally, and spitritually - I highly recommend regular expressions of gratitude.  And Valentine’s Day is a natural time to express such emotions to each other.

5)      V.I.A. Strength Gift

If you must resort to dark chocolate, flowers and jewelry, consider a gift with positive meaning. The Values In Action (VIA) Institute has a gift shop where you can purchase a gift for your valentine that reflects his or her unique character strengths. Check out the VIA Store. All proceeds go toward research and training, so your gift will help further the field of positive psychology.

Who wouldn’t be touched by such a personal gift?  And even the anticipation of such a personal touch of thoughtfulness about the relationship or friendship?

Valentine’s Day can be a time to honor the people you love. You can always bring positive psychology tools and techniques to this holiday. Capture the experience through photos, journaling, scrapbooking, or just being present and in the moment. Discuss ways of creating these connections with your partner on non-holidays as well.

Love is a journey, not a destination.

Bryant, F. & Veroff, J. (2007) Savoring: A new model of positive experience.. Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Ozge, G.K. (2008). Effects of gratitude on subjective well-being, self-construal, and memory. Dissertation Abstracts International: Section B: The Sciences and Engineering, 68(7-B), 4825.

Emmons, R. & McCullough, M. Eds. (2004). The Psychology of Gratitude (Series in Affective Science). Oxford University Press.

Pilkington, K., Kirkwood, G., Rampes, H., & Richardson, J. (2005). Yoga for depression: The research evidence. Journal of Affective Disorders, 89,13-24.

Reivich, K, & Shattẻ, A. (2002). The Resilience Factor: 7 Keys to Finding Your Inner Strength and Overcoming Life’s Hurdles. New York: Broadway Books.

Seligman, Martin (2004), Authentic Happiness: Using the New Positive Psychology to Realize Your Potential for Lasting Fulfillment. New York: Free Press.

Vaillant, G. (2008). Spiritual Evolution: A Scientific Defense of Faith. New York: Broadway Press.

This article first appeared on Positive Psychology News Daily. To see the original article, click here. To comment on this article, click here.

By Margaret Greenberg -

Love in a Business Book?

February 14th – Valentine’s Day!

For the last two years I have written about love on this day (“Using the L Word in Business” and “Love and the Capacity to Love”).  This year, I am taking somewhat of a departure and doing a combination book review and author interview instead.

However, I think you will be surprised how love shows up in Tom Rath and Barry Conchie’s latest book, Strengths Based Leadership: Great Leaders, Teams, and Why People Follow.

Tom Rath

I was curious how Strengths Based Leadership differed from Rath’s earlier book, StrengthsFinder 2.0.  I learned that the 34 themes of talent outlined in StrengthsFinders 2.0 are now sorted into four domains of leadership strength:  Executing, Influencing, Relationship Building, and Strategic Thinking. Rath and Conchie bring these leadership strengths to life by interviewing four highly successful organizational leaders who each lead from a very different domain.

Barry Conchie

• Executing:  Wendy Kopp, Founder and CEO of Teach for America
• Influencing:  Simon Cooper, President of The Ritz Carlton
• Relationship Building:  Mervyn Davies, Chairman of Standard Chartered Bank
• Strategic Thinking:  Brad Anderson, CEO Best Buy

If you have already taken the StrengthsFinder assessment, you can get your own personalized Strength Based Leadership Guide by using the unique access code located at the back of Strengths Based Leadership.  If you wish to take the assessment for the first time or retake it, the same access code will allow you to do this.

What differentiates Strengths Based Leadership from other books on this topic is the new research on why people follow.  Four clear themes have emerged of what followers need and want from the most influential leaders in their lives:  trust, compassion, stability, and hope.

Margaret: What would you say are the biggest take-aways from this book?

Tom: From earlier research, we know great leaders never need to be well rounded, but great teams probably do.  The three main take-aways from this book are:

1. First, you need to know your individual strengths.
2. Second, you need to have the right people on your team and understand the strengths of the people around you.
3. And third, make sure you’re meeting your followers’ needs, which is the new published research in the book – what followers need in the first place.

Margaret: In the book you write, “You’re a leader of an organization if others follow.”  Typically when we study leadership, we interview leaders to get their opinions on what they do.  Rarely do we solicit the opinions of followers like you did in this book.  Tell me more.

Tom: We often glaze over the fact that leaders need followers, and the person who has the best vantage point to judge if a leader makes a difference or not is the individual who is following.  We asked 20,000 people from around the world to think of a leader that had the most impact in their life.  Then in a very open-ended way and in their own words, we asked them why they follow.  We then sorted and coded their responses.

Margaret: And their responses fell into four basic needs of followers – trust, compassion, stability, and hope.  What was the most surprising finding?

Tom: I was surprised by what wasn’t at the top of the list.  We didn’t see followers talking about vision directly, clarity, or purpose.  The irony is that is what the literature talks about most of the time.  Leaders do need to think about where the company is going strategically, but there are basic things they need to do on a regular basis to maintain relationships.

Margaret: What else surprised you?

Tom: The other finding we didn’t spend much time on in book is the median duration of the relationship between a follower and the person that had the most impact on their daily life.  It was ten years.  That kind of leadership takes place within the context of a really powerful relationship.  Leaders need to keep in mind that having that kind influence and building that kind of relationship with 5 or 500 takes a lot of time and patience.

Margaret: What about the “L” word — love?  Did people use that word when describing the leader that had the most impact on them?

Tom: People did use the word love quite frequently, along with caring and compassion when talking about great local leaders like mentors, managers, spouses, parents, and teachers.   The word speaks to just how close these relationships are.  When we asked about organizational and global leaders that had the most impact, people used words like caring and compassion.  I’ve learned that the word love is a lightning rod in organizations.  The minute you use that word it creeps people out.  The way love manifests itself in business specifically is in managers who care. Gallup has collected research on the topic of caring managers.  We’ve asked 15 million people:  Does your manager care about you as a person?  Not only do the very best managers have employees who say they care, but the managers themselves see the development of their people as being an end in itself, versus a means unto itself.

Author’s Personal Note:  Tom and I were classmates in the inaugural class of the University of Pennsylvania’s Master of Applied Positive Psychology (MAPP) back in 2006.  Look for Part II of this interview on March 14.

References

Rath, T. & Conchie, B. (2009). Strengths-Based Leadership. New York: Gallup Press.

Tom has also written other important books for people interested in strengths and love:

Rath, T. (2004). How Full Is Your Bucket? Positive Strategies for Work and Life New York: Gallup Press.

Rath, T. (2007). StrengthsFinder 2.0: A New and Upgraded Edition of the Online Test from Gallup’s Now, Discover Your Strengths. New York: Gallup Press.

This article first appeared on Positive Psychology News Daily. To see the original article, click here. To comment on this article, click here.

By Guest Author - February 15, 2009

By George Vaillant

George E. Vaillant, M.D. has studied adult development, including the lives of 800+ men and women over 60 years as a Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Vaillant’s past books highlight many of his results in this field. His current book, Spiritual Evolution (2008), demonstrates the necessity of positive emotions for human development and survival. This is his second article for PPND. The earlier is titled A Fresh Take on Meaning.

First, what is “real love”?

To understand love, those usually helpful resources—the ancient Greeks, the poets, the psychologists, even Cupid—all fail us. Too readily, these experts become preoccupied with lust and forget about lasting attachment. And the Buddha, too, lets us down; for he was too preoccupied with compassion to appreciate lasting attachment. True, love is compassionate; but compassion is not always love. Real love is attached, selective and enduring. In contrast, compassion does best when it is detached and rooted in time present.Mature mammalian, not just human, love involves enduring, remarkably unselfish limbic attachment. If “real” love remains remarkably independent of free will, mammalian evolution has liberated love from the reflexive neuroendocrine dominance by the hypothalamus. Mate choice and bonding, if relatively involuntary, is based on the altruistic, if still biological, motivation of oxytocin and mirror cells.

New Cover for Spiritual Evolution

The Greek philosophers did not and the cognitive psychologists do not always understand attachment. The Greeks’ agape (universal unselfish love) is not selective, and the Greeks’ Eros (testosterone, estrogen and all-about-me lust) is not enduring. Love, like the sacred and our image of God, has a timeless quality. The spirit behind the New Testament words “God is love” can be found in even the self-consciously atheistic Great Soviet Encyclopedia, which explains to us “Love is the point at which the opposing elements of the biological and the spiritual, the personal and the social, and the intimate and the universal intersect.” The novelist Laurence Durrell reminds us that “the richest love is that which submits to the arbitration of time.” In contrast, lust marches to a marvelous but much more urgent drummer. The object of a passionate one-night-stand may seem boring and ugly the next morning. But what a wonderful evening!

The Buddha feared attachment; he correctly saw attachment as the root of much sorrow. Welcome to the world of love. Love is dangerous. Indeed, for many of us, love, like joy, is sometimes difficult to bear; for love - like joy and gratitude - makes us feel vulnerable - sometimes so vulnerable that we are afraid to take love in, let alone give it back. What if your child died, or your sweetheart left you. In contrast, William Blake understood the importance of attachment: both its loss and its restoration. Thus, Blake reminds us, “Joy and grief are woven fine…Under every grief and pine runs a joy with silken twine.” Savor lost loves: don’t just mourn them.

What is the difference between addiction and attachment?

The lonely cynic sneers that “falling in love” is just another form of addiction. Attachment fueled by oxytocin is indeed, dangerous stuff; it makes you fall in love and never get over it. Don Juan and the Buddha had the right idea: Don’t get attached! Consider Henry Higgins’ lament: “I was serenely independent and content before we met; surely I could always be that way again—and yet I’ve grown accustomed to her look; accustomed to her voice; accustomed to her face. Damn! Damn! Damn! Damn!” What is the difference between addiction and mammalian love?

Ah, let me count the ways. First, mammalian love is uniquely fueled by oxytocin and linked to limbic brain centers not linked to addiction. Admittedly, both addiction and love are fueled with the much less specific neurotransmitter dopamine. Dopamine, interestingly, is concentrated in brain centers that also contain opiate receptors. These centers are linked to heroin addiction—an ersatz and often lethal “love”—that is also selective and enduring.However, there is a second critical difference between heroin and love. Addiction is all about me; attachment all about the other. Addiction shouts, “Alack, poor me!” Love compassionately asks others, “Are you feeling better?” Third, we rapidly habituate to our addictions; we need more and more for the same effect. In contrast, the soft touches of real love never stale.

Fourth, an addict in withdrawal is in a crisis of sympathetic arousal: fever, sweating, tachycardia, hypertension, and irritable screams at anyone who tries to hug him. In contrast, a husband at his wife’s gravesite is in a state of parasympathetic withdrawal: sobbing gently, with slow pulse, but grateful for a friend’s arm around his shoulder. In other words, grief over a loving attachment is in some ways still a positive emotion and in time helps us to broaden and build. Addiction destroys us—physically, mentally and spiritually.

Finally, “the morning after” is always the crucial test between true attachment and addiction. Mother bears are delighted by what they find cuddled up to them the next morning; lusty participants in bacchanalias are less enthusiastic about what they find at dawn’s early light.

Where does love come from?

We do not learn how to love from religious education or from life coaching. Love does not come from the Buddha’s mindfulness.

We learn love from our genes, from our biochemistry and from the people who love us and who let us love them. The brain hormone, oxytocin, is released when all mammals give birth. Oxytocin seems to permit mammals to overcome their natural aversion to extreme proximity; and, thus, oxytocin has been rechristened the “cuddle hormone.” In human newborns, there is a short-lived overproduction of oxytocin. Oxytocin goes up in human puberty in parallel with adolescent crushes. Put a newborn baby in a mother’s arms or bless a couple’s sexual union with mutual orgasm and brain oxytocin levels rise. If they are genetically deprived of oxytocin, monogamous, maternal, loving prairie voles (a species of rodent) turn into another subspecies—the heartless, promiscuous, pup abusing montane voles. Without oxytocin, parental cooperation and responsibility vanishes.

Mom always knows how to make him smile

But love is not just about genes and hormones. If, as the French planter sings in South Pacific, “you have to be taught to hate and fear,” you also have to be shown how to love. The ethologists studying imprinting in ducks and the evolutionary anthropologists studying hunter-gatherers know enough to show us rather than tell us how love evolves.

Love is about attachment, music, and odors; states that do not lend themselves to words. Song maybe, but not words.Thus, the behavioral self-regulation that we associate with love does not come from a solitary brain, but from one brain evolving and becoming shaped forever through attachment to a beloved other. Monkeys raised in isolation go on eating binges and cower in corners. Instead of playful roughhousing, they fight with their peers unto death; and they never really get the hang of copulation. All their lives such isolated monkeys remain inept “at doing what comes naturally.” In contrast, isolated monkeys who are subsequently raised by mothers or with siblings for even one year can learn to roughhouse—gracefully stopping once social dominance is achieved; and to skillfully negotiate the dance steps to successful impregnation.

In closing, I may do well to remind the reader of Aren Cohen’s useful suggestion in “How Sweet It Is…” that love songs, too, are for the transmission of love.

No storm can shake my inmost calm
While to that Rock I’m clinging.
Since love is lord of heaven and earth,
How can I keep from singing?
~ Robert Lowry, 1860

Images:
New cover for Spiritual Evolution from George Vaillant
Flickr images were found with Creative Commons License:
Loving hug, labeled True Love in Albert’’s photostream,
Monkey Mother and Child from KenderishShot’s photostream
Mom always knows how to make him smile from jusgre’s photostream

References:
Cohen, A. PPND Feb 2/12/08

Fisher, H., Aron, A., & Brown, L. L. (2005) Romantic love: an fMRI study of a neural mechanism for mate choice. Journal of Comparative Neurology, 493, 58-62.

Great Soviet Encyclopedia. (1973) Vol 15, p. 153, 3rd Edition, English Edition, Jean Paradise (Ed.). New York: MacMillan Publishing. Quote above: p. 153.

Insel, TR. and Young, LJ. (2002) The neurobiology of attachment. Nature Reviews Neuroscience 2, 129-136.

Lewis, T., Amini, F., & Lanoran, R.. (2000). A General Theory of Love. New York: Random House.

Uvnas Moberg, K. (2003) The Oxytocin Factor: Tapping the Hormone of Calm, Love, and Healing. Cambridge, MA: DeCapo Press.

Vaillant, G. (2008). Spiritual Evolution: A Scientific Defense of Faith. New York: Broadway Press.

This article first appeared on Positive Psychology News Daily. To see the original article, click here. To comment on this article, click here.

By Kirsten Cronlund - February 16, 2009

Pros and Cons of Valentine’s Day

I have mixed feelings about Valentine’s Day. On the one hand, having a holiday dedicated completely to the savoring of romantic relationships seems a likely way to enhance and cultivate positive emotion, express gratitude, and even feel gratitude. And I’m sure there are many who have lovely romantic Valentine’s Day celebrations.

On the other hand, even the most loving relationships go through ups and downs, and dedicating a holiday to highlighting romance and passion might cause stress for people because we can all fall victim to social comparison: it’s easy to assume that everyone else is feeling close to their spouse and that there must be something wrong with our relationship if we are not lovey-dovey.

I’m not a cynic. In fact, I have cultivated the practice of optimism to such a degree that some might say I’m Pollyanna-ish. So don’t take it the wrong way when I say that romance is overrated. There’s nothing wrong with you if your Valentine’s Day is not Hallmark-worthy, and there may not even be anything wrong with your relationship if you would rather spend Valentine’s Day by yourself, soaking in a tub and reading a good novel, than get dressed up and engage in stimulating conversation with your spouse. Maybe your idea of the expression of love is contained in the activities of daily life – the sharing of and active responding to good news, helping your spouse by unloading the dishwasher or picking the children up from soccer practice, or painting the kitchen together. There’s nothing wrong with this.

Be Wary of Maximizing

Barry Schwartz has written in The Paradox of Choice that we make ourselves supremely unhappy when we maximize – that is, search and search for the “perfect” object or decision. We set ourselves up for disappointment because the amount of time and energy we invest in this process makes us subconsciously expect a level of happiness with our final decision that is highly unlikely. This is true when researching the best dishwasher, and it is also true in relationships. Barry states that we are most happy when we set for ourselves a limited set of criteria that we are looking for, and quit looking when we have satisfied those requirements. He tells us: don’t second guess your decision, and avoid comparisons to others as much as possible (except for downward comparisons, which can make us feel better about our circumstances).

Schwartz’s advice is perhaps relatively easy to follow when buying a vacuum, but it’s not so easy to remain as satisfied with one’s spouse. Conflict is inherent in all relationships, and the negotiation of the complexities of merging two outlooks and lifestyles incites people to periodically question whether or not they have made the right choice of spouse. It’s easier said than done to set criteria for that choice and then not look back. It is possible, however, to achieve a great deal of contentment and peace with your spouse if you practice mindfulness in your relationship.

Mindfulness in Relationships

What does this look like? In my last article, I stated that mindfulness is “attending nonjudgmentally to all stimuli in the internal and external environments,” and it turns out that this is arguably the greatest pathway to satisfaction in relationships. Raising awareness nonjudgmentally about your irritations over your spouse’s spending habits, awareness of your spouse’s need for more support with household chores, your perceptions of the expectation of your mother-in-law about holiday traditions, and conflicting ideas about ideal parenting practices allow you to be a dispassionate observer of your inner and outer circumstances. “There’s that irritation again,” you might say to yourself, avoiding labeling it as “bad,” a practice which activates the sympathetic nervous system to prepare for fight or flight.

Instead, as the observer, you are in a position to practice the most effective optimistic practice, which is to scan the available options, determine the action that is most likely to yield positive results, and then take action. This mindful approach activates instead the parasympathetic nervous system, or the calming response. (See Wayne Jencke’s article here and the Thayer article listed below.) What is the goal of this nonjudgemental scanning? The goal is not to erase the irritation, but to work with it to continue moving forward. Going back to the stream analogy I mentioned in my last article, your irritation with your spouse is like the boulder in the path. Beating yourself against the boulder, either through angry expletives or efforts to “make” him or her do what you want, will not yield positive results. Instead, you’ll both continue to be stuck at that spot in the stream.

It might seem that this approach would lead to passivity in the relationship, but that is not what happens. James W. Carson and colleagues at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have found that people who engage in a mindful approach accurately assess the best ways to express their emotions, and when to do so (pdf). Conflict is not avoided, but navigated more successfully. Also, a clearer assessment of behaviors and dynamics leads to a greater chance that you will take action in unhealthy situations (e.g., your spouse is spending the grocery money at the casino). (See Carson article listed below.) The mindful approach also does not preclude the expression of joy and passion, but leads instead to unconditional love. (See Leon article listed below.) But it does promote, most of all, contentment, a positive state that gets a bad rap in our culture. Contentment is a powerful emotion, and is associated with high levels of well-being. (See Gilbert article listed below.)

So I’d like to propose a mindful approach to Valentine’s Day and love in general. Why not do what makes sense in your relationship? Maybe it’s a dozen roses and a night of passionate lovemaking, but maybe it’s an amiable chat or a few hours spent doing separate but meaningful activities. And, most of all, excuse yourself of any expectations of the way love is supposed to be expressed.

Images:

By David Niblack: rose, relaxing coffee cup, groom bride.

References:

Carson, J.W., Carson, K.M., Gil, K.M., & Baucom, D.H. (2004). Mindfulness-based relationship enhancement. Behavior Therapy, 35, 471-494.

Frewen, P.A., Evans, E.M., Maraj, N., Dozois, D.J.A., & Partridge, K. (2008). Letting go: mindfulness and negative automatic thinking. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 32, 758-774.

Gilbert, P., McEwan, K., Mitra, R., Franks, L., Richter, A., & Rockliff, H. (2008). Feeling safe and content: A specific affect regulation system? Relationship to depression, anxiety, stress, and self-criticism. Journal of Positive Psychology, 3(3), 182-191.

Leon, I., Hernandez, J.A., Rodriguez, S., & Vila, J. (in press). When head is tempered by heart: heart rate variability modulates perception of other-blame reducing anger. Motivation and Emotion.

Lyke, J.A. (2009). Insight, but not self-reflection, is related to subjective well-being. Personality and Individual Differences, 46, 66-70.

Schwartz, B. (2004). The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less. New York: Ecco.

Thayer, J.F. & Lane, R.D. (2009). Claude Bernard and the heart-brain connection: further elaboration of a model of neurovisceral integration. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, 33, 81-88.

This article first appeared on Positive Psychology News Daily. To see the original article, click here. To comment on this article, click here.

By Dave Shearon - February 17, 2009

Love is … .  From that sentence stub, poets, philosophers, and psychologists have taken flight.  Now, Barbara Fredrickson gives us a new angle on love in her book Positivity.  Our readers are likely familiar with Dr. Fredrickson’s “Broaden and Build” theory of positive emotions:  While experiencing positive emotions, we broaden our thought/action repertoires and build physical, psychological, and social resources for the future.  In Positivity, Dr Fredrickson explains this theory, summarizes some of the research that has failed to falsify it, and also describes the 3:1 minimum ratio for flourishing established by Marcial Losada’s mathematics and empirically verified by her data. 

She also discusses the 10 positive emotions that her research subjects have recounted as most common and most powerful in their lives.  Love, while most common and most powerful, is listed last — and it has to be.  Let’s look at the other nine positive emotions first in order to understand the positioning of love, and also Dr. Fredrickson’s explanation of what love is.

Here’s a short description and a picture for each of the first nine positive emotions.  Click on the pictures to see larger versions –they are wonderful!

Joy (glad, happy)

Context  Safe, familiar Experience:  Things going your way, even better than expected Feeling:  Playful Action:  Jump (in)

Gratitude (appreciative, thankful)

Context:  N/A Experience:  Recipient of a gift — from another, from God, or from the universe Feeling:  Open-hearted Action:  Give back

Serenity (content, peaceful)

Context:  Safe, familiar Experience:   Low effort, relaxed, all is right with the world Feeling:   Savor Action:   Sink in

Interest (alert, curious)

Context:  Safe, but with something new Experience:  Attracted, fascinated, engaged Feeling:  Open, alive  Action:  Explore, learn

Hope (optimistic, encouraged)

Context:  Facing threats or challenges Experience:  Uncertainty, fear Feeling:  Energized Action:  Plan

Pride (Confident, assured)

Context:  Specific achievement Experience:  Personal credit, valued by others Feeling:  Upright (stand tall) Action:  Dream and persist

Amusement (Humorous, fun-loving, silly)

Context:  Safe, usually social Experience:  Safe, nonserious social incongruity, surprise Feeling:  Laugh Action:  Connect

Inspiration (Uplifted, elevated)

Context:  N/A Experience:  Human nature at its very best Feeling:  Warmed Action:  Step beyond yourself, give, excel

Awe (Wonder, amazement)

Context:  N/A Experience:  Goodness or greatness on a grand scale (nature, art, achievement) (can mix with fear) Feeling:  Part of something greater Action:  Challenged to accept, accomodate; can emotionally bind to charismatic leader

Love (closeness, trust, connection)  Dr Fredrickson suggests, is momentary surges of all of the preceeding positive emotions within a safe relationship.  This can be an intimate, romantic, familial relationship.  But it can also be a friendship, team, or group of colleagues.  The degree of closeness, openness, and intimacy varies, but the nature of this positive emotion is a higher-order melding of other positive emotions and a relationship, with the whole being greater than the sum of the parts.  Love makes us feel warm, affirmed and affirming, and we act by getting closer. 

You may have noticed that I have not presented a picture for love.  I have one.  I selected it in the same way as the ones above, by searching at www.flickrcc.bluemountains.net for photos on flickr with a Creative Commons license allowing commercial use (with the exception of the Mona Lisa picture).  I found these pictures to go with a CLE presentation I was recording for use in a program that would have a moderator, but with me not present.  So, I have not gotten feedback yet.  I like the picture I selected for love, but (1) I have some questions about my choice and (2) I would like to see what images speak to you of Dr. Fredrickson’s explanation of love. 

So, here’s a challenge for readers.  Find a picture that you think captures this meaning of love, or find one that really represents one of the other positive emotions, and post the links in the comments.  I enjoyed looking for pictures to capture what these emotions meant to me, so I hope you will.  In addition, I suspect we will all benefit from seeing each other’s selections.  So, good hunting!

Fredrickson, B. (2009). Positivity: Groundbreaking Research Reveals How to Embrace the Hidden Strength of Positive Emotions, Overcome Negativity, and Thrive . New York: Crown.

This article first appeared on Positive Psychology News Daily. To see the original article, click here. To comment on this article, click here.

We often strain and strive to reach our goals because we think it needs to be that way. Be happy first and things will come much more easily.

As a publisher of assessments, I am always looking for the next trend or tool we can offer our clients. Not long ago, I was completing an online health assessment that claimed — based on your lifestyle, health practices, and background — to predict your life expectancy. Well, that piqued my curiosity.

I was not surprised to see many of the common factors we all acknowledge, such as smoking, lack of exercise, and eating platefuls of my favorite Hungarian Salami — but I never guessed what was next. More beneficial than sufficient sleep and moderate exercise was this: the companionship of close friends. This item alone would significantly increase my life expectancy. Im not talking about a month or two; the difference was calculated at several years, depending on my level of active friendships.

The Happy Musing for the Day: Fun is the best taskmaster. Mary Poppins was right! She knew that “a spoon full of sugar makes the medicine go down.” To her sugar meant some kind of fun. Fun is the best taskmaster! Kids know it. Teachers and parents know it. Now, to act on this knowing when it has to do with your own activities, is a good habit to have. It always comes down to attitude. No matter how you try to get around it, it is attitude that makes the difference in the doings that we have to do.

By Editor S.M. - February 10, 2009

Dear Readers!

We have delightful news today.

In our very first article over two years ago, we wrote about how positive psychology studies what is right with people.  Today, we bring you a resource of coaches who consistently target what is right with people, and use positive psychology tools to do so.  Here is the new positive psychology coaching page:

www.pos-psych.com/coaching

If you think you may be interested in speaking with a coach, please feel free to

• Contact each coach directly from the coaching page.
• Call our coaching phone line 1-877-818-NEWS any day 24-hours for Positive Psychology News Daily (PPND) authors who are coaches.  You will be able to speak with one of us about good positive psychology coaching fit recommendations targeted personally to you.

It’s your comments on the articles that make this site come to life, so please let us know how you like this new coaching page, and please continue to chat with us in the comments at the end of each article.  While we launched our coaching page in beta last May, we are now announcing this page’s full functionality, and would love to hear how well this works for you as a resource.  In addition to contact information, for each coach, you will see the area of expertise, a highlighted client result, and a PPND article by that coach.

* * *

Please continue to enjoy the LOVE theme for many articles this month!  There is a secret guest author who will be joining us sometime this month on the topic of LOVE - a researcher whom we have heard you like very much.

All our best!

This article first appeared on Positive Psychology News Daily. To see the original article, click here. To comment on this article, click here.