Love 2.0

HUDSON STREET PRESS

Published by Penguin Group

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Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

First published by Hudson Street Press, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

First Printing, January 2013

10   9   8   7   6   5   4   3   2   1

Copyright © Barbara L. Fredrickson, 2013

All rights reserved

REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Fredrickson, Barbara, L.

  Love 2.0 : how our supreme emotion affects everything we think, do, feel, and become / Barbara L.
Fredrickson.

       p. cm.

  Includes bibliographical references and index.

  ISBN 978-1-101-60984-2

  1. Love—Psychological aspects.   I. Title.

  BF575.L8F72 2013

  152.4'1—dc23

                                         2012018970

Printed in the United States of America

Set in Bell MT Std

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ALWAYS LEARNING

PEARSON

PART I

The Vision

CHAPTER 1

Love, Our Supreme Emotion

THE ESKIMOS HAD FIFTY-TWO NAMES FOR SNOW
BECAUSE IT WAS IMPORTANT TO THEM: THERE OUGHT
TO BE AS MANY FOR LOVE.

—Margaret Atwood

L
onging
. You know the feeling. It’s that ache of sensing that something vital is missing from your life; a deep thirst for more. More meaning, more connection, more energy—more
something
. Longing is that feeling that courses through your body just before you decide that you’re restless, lonely, or unhappy.

Longing like this is not just another mental state. It’s deeply physical. Your body craves some essential nutrient that it’s not getting, yet you can’t quite put your finger on what it is. Sometimes you can numb this ache with a deep dive into work, gossip, television, or gaming. More often than not, though, these and other attempts to fill the aching void are merely temporary distractions. The longing doesn’t let up. It trails you like a shadow, insistently, making distractions all the more appealing. And distractions abound—that second or third glass of wine, that stream of texts and tweets, that couch and remote control.

Odds are, food is abundant in your life. And clean drinking water
is as close as the nearest faucet and virtually limitless. You have access to reasonably clean air and adequate shelter. Those basic needs have long been met. What you long for now is far more intangible.

What you long for is love. Whether you’re single or not, whether you spend your days largely in isolation or steadily surrounded by the buzz of conversation, love is the essential nutrient that your cells crave: true positivity-charged connection with other living beings.

Love, as it turns out, nourishes your body the way the right balance of sunlight, nutrient-rich soil, and water nourishes plants and allows them to flourish. The more you experience it, the more you open up and grow, becoming wiser and more attuned, more resilient and effective, happier and healthier. You grow spiritually as well, better able to see, feel, and appreciate the deep interconnections that inexplicably tie you to others, that embed you within the grand fabric of life.

Just as your body was designed to extract oxygen from the earth’s atmosphere, and nutrients from the foods you ingest, your body was designed to love. Love—like taking a deep breath or eating an orange when you’re depleted and thirsty—not only feels great but is also life-giving, an indispensable source of energy, sustenance, and health.

When I compare love to oxygen and food, I’m not just taking poetic license. I’m drawing on science: new science that illuminates for the first time how love, and its absence, fundamentally alters the biochemicals in which your body is steeped. They, in turn, can alter the very ways your DNA gets expressed within your cells. The love you do or do not experience today may quite literally change key aspects of your cellular architecture next season and next year—cells that affect your physical health, your vitality, and your overall well-being. In these ways and more, just as your supplies of clean air and nutritious food forecast how long you’ll walk this earth—and whether you’ll thrive or just get by—so does your supply of love.

It’s Not What You Think

To absorb what the new science of love has to offer, you’ll need to step back from “love” as you may now know it. Forget about the love that you typically hear on the radio, the one that’s centered on desire and yearns for touch from a new squeeze. Set aside the take on love your family might have offered you, one that requires that you love your relatives unconditionally, regardless of whether their actions disturb you, or their aloofness leaves you cold. I’m even asking you to set aside your view of love as a special bond or relationship, be it with your spouse, partner, or soul mate. And if you’ve come to view love as a commitment, promise, or pledge, through marriage or any other loyalty ritual, prepare for an about-face. I need you to step back from all of your preconceptions and consider an upgrade.
Love 2.0
offers a different perspective—your body’s perspective.

If you were asked today, by a roving reporter or an inquisitive dinner party guest, to provide your own definition of love, your answer would likely reflect a mishmash of shared cultural messages and your own deeply personal experiences with intimacy. However compelling your answer, I’d wager that your body has its own—quite different—definition of love. That’s what this book is about. Love is not sexual desire or the blood-ties of kinship. Nor is it a special bond or commitment. Sure enough, love is closely related to each of these important concepts. Yet none, I will argue, capture the true meaning of love as your body experiences it.

The vision of love that I offer here will require a radical shift, a departure from what you’ve come to believe. It’s time to upgrade your view of love. Love is not a category of relationships. Nor is it something “out there” that you can fall into, or—years later—out of. Seeing love as a special bond is extraordinarily common, albeit misleading. A bond like this can endure for years—even a lifetime with proper commitment and effort. And having at least one close relationship like this is
vital to your health and happiness, to be sure. Even so, that special bond and the commitments people often build around it are better taken as the
products
of love—the results of the many smaller moments in which love infuses you—rather than as love per se. When you equate love with intimate relationships, love can seem confusing. At times it feels great, while at other times it hurts like hell. At times it lifts you up with grand dreams for your future and at other times oppresses you with shame about your inadequacies, or guilt about your past actions. When you limit your view of love to relationships or commitment, love becomes a complex and bewildering thicket of emotions, expectations, and insecurities. Yet when you redirect your eyes toward your body’s definition of love, a clear path emerges that cuts through that thicket and leads you to a better life.