Love

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From Birthday Girl (2018)

  Me sonríe, inclina su cabeza juguetonamente, y todavía veo a esa chica arrastrándose por el suelo del cine cada vez que la miro. Me tenía incluso entonces. —Te amo —digo. Bajando, se cierne sobre mí, mirándome a los ojos mientras mi mano va a su pecho. —Oh, espera. —Se incorpora y se inclina para apagar la vela. —No, déjala encendida —gimo, rodando mis caderas contra ella—. Quiero verte. Baja la mirada hacia mí. —¿Bloqueaste la puerta? Hago una mueca. —Mierda. ¿Por qué olvidé eso? Solo he tenido hijos durante la mitad de mi vida. —No podemos dejar que echen un vistazo, ¿no es así? —regaña, pero me sonríe. Inclinándose de nuevo, cierra los ojos, hace una pausa momentánea, pensando, y luego los abre de nuevo, soplando la vela suavemente. La habitación se oscurece excepto por la luz de luna atravesando la lluvia brillando en la pared de nuestro dormitorio, y veo su contorno bajar de nuevo sobre mí. Aprieto sus caderas, sintiéndola frotarse contra mí. —¿Alguna vez vas a decirme lo que deseas? —pregunto. Me besa, susurrando contra mis labios: —Trae mala suerte decirlo. Se mueve a mi cuello, arqueo mi cabeza y cierro los ojos, dejándola entrar. —Pero lo diré —continúa, mordisqueando mi mandíbula—. Siempre deseo la misma cosa, y cada día se vuelve realidad. Penélope Douglas es una escritora y profesora de Las Vegas. Nacida en Dubuque, Iowa, es la mayor de cinco hermanos. Penélope asistió a la Universidad del Norte de Iowa, obteniendo una licenciatura en Administración Pública, porque su padre le dijo: “¡Obtén el maldito grado!” Luego obtuvo una maestría en Ciencias de la Educación de la Universidad de Loyola en Nueva Orleans, porque odiaba la administración pública. Una noche, se emborrachó y le dijo al guardia de seguridad del bar donde trabajaba (sí, estaba borracha en el trabajo) que su hijo era sexy, y tres años después se casó. Con el hijo, no el gorila. Han desovado, pero solo una vez. Una hija llamada Aydan. Penélope ama los dulces, el programa Sons of Anarchy, y va de compras a Target casi a diario. Document Outline 54647a3b1ebfee6c21bab56a646d0e88c4d090426fd93b6fc55b52785a800059.pdf 8f43ac04dd9f1bcaa00484355870d6e5693723eb65396a69187691d16f62045c.pdf 54647a3b1ebfee6c21bab56a646d0e88c4d090426fd93b6fc55b52785a800059.pdf

• From The Surrender: An Erotic Memoir (2004)

  But you must be ready for it. —JOSEPH CAMPBELL I dry the freshly washed K-Y tubes on my bath towel and put them back in the bedside drawer. I turn off the bathwater and strip into the wet heat. Knees drawn up, I fill my pussy with water and shoot it out like an underwater fountain. I watch the ripples in the water, sometimes lifting my hips so I can watch the fountain above water. After soaking, soaping, and shaving, I pull the plug, crouch on two feet, and with a slightly soaped middle finger reach gently into my ass and give it a good warm water bath. You could eat out of my ass, and on my ass; it’s that clean. Out of the tub I dry, cream, and powder my entire body—calves, thighs, ass, stomach, arms, neck, breasts—brush my teeth and hair, perfume my wrists and neck, and stain my lips red with a liquid rose potion. I prepare the bedroom, clearing all books, papers, magazines, and remotes off the bed and piling the pillows at one end. From the closet I retrieve Pink Square, a rectangular pillow I bought because I liked its fleur-de-lis pattern. It doesn’t match the colors of the other pillows, but it fits perfectly under my hips, raising them to cock height. It is one of A-Man’s favorite amenities and once, when I forgot to put it on the bed, there was a moment when I saw him scanning the bedroom, perturbed: “Where’s Pink Square?” I go in my closet and plan an outfit. Sometimes a black bra and thong, or, occasionally, crotchless panties when I want to be a slut. Applied slutdom doesn’t do much for A-Man, though, he just smiles indulgently when he sees those dainty crotchless wonders. But they don’t turn him off, either. A long silk or velvet gown, elegant but easily raised, is the most frequent choice. If I’m feeling like more exposure, I’ll choose high, tight shorts and a skimpy top. Lady or slut, I wear high-heeled mules and keep them on throughout—or, at least, I try to. The sound of those shoes hitting the floor, pounded off me, one by one, is his sign that things are going well, that now we’re rocking, that now she’s lost control of her facade, her fears, even her shoes. It’s usually when he’s deep in my ass that I can’t cling any longer to those heels. I lay out my outfit on the bed and fill a couple of water bottles and place them around the room and open him a cold beer. I draw the curtains and light candles—at least ten of them. Frankincense adds to the smoke, the chapel is prepared for his confession—and my baptism. I turn off the phone machine and turn on the music.

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  Here the suit - which I had, indeed, grown rather used to while strolling in it for Walter - began to feel strange again. When Kitty undressed I pulled her to me; and it was lewd to feel her naked hip come pressing in between my trousered legs. She ran her hand once, very lightly, over my buttons, until I began to shake with the wanting of her. Then she drew the suit from me entirely and we lay together, naked as shadows beneath the counterpane; and then she touched me again. We lay until the front door slammed, and we heard Mrs Dendy’s cough, and Tootsie laughing on the stair. Then Kitty said we should rise, and dress, or the others might wonder; and for the second time that day I lay and watched her wash, and pull on stockings and a skirt, through lazy eyes. As I did so, I put a hand to my breast. There was a dull movement there, a kind of pulling or folding, or melting, exactly as if my chest were the hot, soft wall of a candle, falling in upon a burning wick. I gave a sigh. Kitty heard, and saw my stricken face, and came to me; then she moved my hand away and placed her lips, very softly, over my heart. I was eighteen, and knew nothing. I thought, at that moment, that I would die of love for her. We did not see Walter, and there was no more talk about his plan to put me on the stage at Kitty’s side, until two evenings later, when he arrived at Mrs Dendy’s with a parcel, marked Nan Astley. It was the last night of the year: he had come to supper, and to stay to hear the chimes of midnight with us. When at last they came - struck out upon the bells of Brixton church - he raised his glass. ‘To Kitty and Nan!’ he cried. He gazed at me, and then - more lingeringly - at Kitty. ‘To their new partnership, that will bring fame and fortune to us all in 1889, and ever after!’ We were at the parlour-table with Ma Dendy and the Professor, and now we joined our voices with his, and took up his toast; but Kitty and I exchanged one swift, secret glance, and I thought - with a little thrill of pleasure and triumph that I couldn’t quite suppress — poor man! how could he know what we were really celebrating? Only now did Walter present me with his package, and smile to see me open it. But I knew already what it would hold: a suit, a stage suit of serge and velvet, cut to my size to the pattern of one of Kitty’s - but blue to match my eyes, where hers was brown. I held it up against me, and Walter nodded. ‘Now that,’ he said, ‘will make all the difference.

• From Love 2.0: Finding Happiness and Health in Moments of Connection (2013)

  In fact, a recent attempt to pinpoint the most essential feature of love—a feature that spans all varieties of love, from romantic to parental to platonic—identifies such care and concern, expressed abstractly as your “investment in the well-being of another, for his or her own sake,” as an essential, always-present fingerprint of love. Love’s characteristic care and concern drive you to attend more closely to other people’s needs and help you vigilantly take in and evaluate incoming information so that you can protect them from harm. Love also leaves you with more positive automatic reactions to the persons with whom you’ve shared micro-moments of positivity resonance the next time you meet, an implicit goodwill that paves the way for future experiences of positivity resonance with them. Indeed, studies show that as you learn to cultivate micro-moments of love more readily, your everyday interactions with friends and coworkers become more lighthearted and enjoyable. Simply put, love changes your mind. Doing If, like me, you are a product of Western culture, odds are you tend to see the mind and body as rather separate. “Thinking” seems like one thing, and “doing” quite another. Yet this sharp distinction is only an illusion. New science makes clear that each is cut from the same cloth. Knowing then that love alters your mind’s modus operandi, swinging open your doors of perception wider, allowing you to recognize your unity with others, care for them, and capitalize on your combined strengths, should make it easier to understand how love alters your gestures and actions. For just as neuroscientific studies show that positive emotions open your perceptual awareness, kinematic studies by my collaborator Melissa Gross show that they also open your torso, literally expanding the (rib) cage in which your heart sits. When your mind and body are infused with good feelings, those feelings lift and expand your chest, a subtle nonverbal gesture that makes you more inviting to others, more open for connection. Genuine good feelings also open up your face, as your lips stretch up and open into a smile, raising your cheeks to create (or deepen) the crow’s feet at the corners of your eyes. Any positive emotion can draw you to smile and carry yourself with a more open posture. And so any positive emotion can be taken by those around you as a sign to relax and connect. When someone feels safe enough to accept that invitation and joins you with his or her own heartfelt good feelings, love’s positivity resonance fires up. The nonverbal gestures unique to these shared micro-moments of love eluded scientists for decades.

• From Love 2.0: Finding Happiness and Health in Moments of Connection (2013)

  Toward this end, consider the spiritual lessons from Buddhism. In his acclaimed 1995 book, Living Buddha, Living Christ, Vietnamese monk Thich Nhat Hanh wrote that he resonated with how a Catholic priest once described to him the Holy Spirit as “energy sent by God.” Nhat Hanh shared that this phrasing both pleased him and deepened his conviction that the most reliable way to approach the Christian Trinity was through the doorway of the Holy Spirit. Integrating this with his Buddhist perspective, he likened the Holy Spirit to mindfulness and its fruits: understanding, love, and compassion. When you purposely tune in to the present moment, this view holds, and see and listen deeply in an open, accepting manner, you open a door to divine oneness. As does Armstrong, then, Nhat Hanh sees both Christian and Buddhist spirituality in the doing. From this vantage point, love, compassion, and other deeply moving spiritual experiences become holy states that you can cultivate through your own intentional efforts to be present, grounded, and mindfully aware of both yourself and others. Learning to trust that your deepest emotions can lead you somewhere good is what my collaborator and American Buddhist writer Sharon Salzberg calls faith in her 2002 spiritual memoir by the same name. Faith, or alternatively trust or confidence, is the usual translation of the ancient Pali word saddha, which Salzberg points out literally means “to place the heart upon.” Like Armstrong and Nhat Hanh, Salzberg emphasizes that faith is a verb, an action—something you do—not a received definition of reality or belief system that explains away life’s mysteries. In Buddhism, to have faith is to open your heart to your experiences, or as Salzberg puts it, to be willing “to take the next step, to see the unknown as an adventure, to launch a journey.” Faith is a way of leaning in toward your feelings of love and oneness, trusting that—somehow—they will nourish you and lead you closer to your spiritual higher ground. Faith, according to Salzberg, is “an active, open state that makes us willing to explore.” It draws you out of the safe and familiar territory of labels and constructs, and into the more challenging and always changing flux of your own inner experience. From what I’ve highlighted so far, you won’t be surprised to learn that I especially resonate with how my friend and Harvard psychiatrist George Vaillant, an expert in adult development, defines spirituality. In his 2009 book, Spiritual Evolution, he equates spirituality with positive emotions, noting that these states are what connect you to others, to the divine, and over time help you attain wisdom and maturity. Succinctly, he concludes, “Love is the shortest definition of spirituality I know.” I see no need to improve upon this definition.

• From Love 2.0: Finding Happiness and Health in Moments of Connection (2013)

  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.

• From Love 2.0: Finding Happiness and Health in Moments of Connection (2013)

  Then, repeat the classic phrases for each subset of your focus, calling forth your heartfelt goodwill. May all children feel safe. May all children feel happy. May all children feel healthy. May all children live with ease. As you extend these wishes, gently coax yourself to truly feel the sentiment that underlies that simple word all. Give this one word just a bit more emphasis than the other words, to nudge your heart just a bit wider with each wish you offer. May all adults feel safe. May all adults feel happy. May all adults feel healthy. May all adults live with ease. As you end this practice session and move on into your day, know that each person you encounter has already been the focus of your loving intention today. Use that awareness to forge new micro-moments of connection. Unlock Your Opportunities for Focusing on Others Outside the formal practice of LKM for all people, it can be heart-stretching simply to notice how much of your attention each day is devoted to your own concerns. There’s nothing inherently wrong with self-concerns. You are responsible, after all, for navigating yourself through your day, and at times doing so can require planning or strategic self-presentation. Problems arise only when you get swept up in swirls that appear to run on indefinitely. It can seem, sometimes, as if you’ve entered a hall of mirrors, completely alone. All you see reflected back at you is yet another view of the same self-concern, and you can no longer find the way out. Redirecting your focus toward others is the way out. Your intent, of course, matters. Focusing on others comes in many forms, not all of which are generous. It can be yet another selfish act. I spent several years early in my career cataloging the psychological damage done to girls and women who face the message that they can be reduced to how they look. The question an objectifying stance asks is, “What can you do for me?” By contrast, a genuine wish to understand and appreciate who this other person is asks, “Who are you?” and trusts that taking steps to find out will reveal inherent goodness. From this openhearted perspective, caring sentiments surface quite effortlessly. One way to become more mindful of the degrees of your focus on self versus others is to revisit a typical day—your yesterday—and comb through it episode by episode. In doing so, you uncover the sheer number of untapped opportunities for creating micro-moments of positivity resonance. This added awareness can then inspire you to begin turning toward these recurrent opportunities, rather than let them slip away unnoticed. Try This Micro-Moment Practice: Reconstruct Your Yesterday to Uncover Opportunities for Love Here I walk you through how you can adapt an assessment technique developed by a former collaborator and mentor of mine, Nobel Prize–winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman, author of the best-selling book Thinking, Fast and Slow . It’s called the “Day Reconstruction Method,” or DRM for short.

• From Love 2.0: Finding Happiness and Health in Moments of Connection (2013)

  Any positive emotion can draw you to smile and carry yourself with a more open posture. And so any positive emotion can be taken by those around you as a sign to relax and connect. When someone feels safe enough to accept that invitation and joins you with his or her own heartfelt good feelings, love’s positivity resonance fires up. The nonverbal gestures unique to these shared micro-moments of love eluded scientists for decades. In part, this reflected early methodological choices, like overreliance on posed expressions and still photographs. More recently, scientists have taken a more holistic and dynamic look at the spontaneous nonverbal expressions that flow between two people engaged in ordinary conversations infused with mutual positivity. Widening their approach has enabled scientists to uncover the unique nonverbal fingerprint of love. Love, this new evidence shows, is characterized by four distinct nonverbal cues. The first cue, not surprisingly, is how often you and the other person each smile at each other, in the genuine, eye-crinkling manner. A second cue is the frequency with which you each use open and friendly hand gestures to refer to each other, like your outstretched palm. (Hostile hand gestures, like pointing or finger-wagging, are by definition excluded from this category of gestures.) A third cue is how often you each lean in toward each other, literally bringing your hearts closer together. The fourth cue is how often you each nod your head, a sign that you affirm and accept each other. Taken together, these four nonverbal cues—smiles, gestures, leans, and nods—both emanate from a person’s inner experiences of love and are read by others as love. Love, displayed in this way, also matters. It has force. It forecasts not only the social support people feel in their relationships but also how they deliver direct criticism, which (as I describe in a later section) has been found to predict the long-term stability of loving relationships. These four nonverbal gestures are thus a dependable and consequential sign of love. Other nonverbal gestures can also reveal love—literally if the timing is right. For instance, when people come together and connect, their actions often come into sync, so that their hand movements and facial expressions mirror each other to a certain degree. Spontaneously synchronized gestures like these can make two separate individuals come to look like one well-orchestrated unit. This phenomenon extends beyond pairs: Just as birds migrate in flocks and fish swim in schools, large groups of people at times spontaneously move in synchronized ways. You can begin to appreciate how a football game or a concert can trigger positivity resonance on a grand scale. Through intense synchronized cheers, chants, marches, or dance, these and other ways of keeping in time together forge deep feelings of group solidarity—even throughout an entire arena.

• From Love 2.0: Finding Happiness and Health in Moments of Connection (2013)

  First, that’s because any of the other positive emotions—joy, amusement, gratitude, hope, and so on—can be transformed into an instance of love when felt in close connection with another. Yet casting love as shared positive emotion doesn’t go nearly far enough. Second, whereas all positive emotions provide benefits—each, after all, broadens your mind-set and builds your resourcefulness—the benefits of love run far deeper, perhaps exponentially so. Love is our supreme emotion that makes us come most fully alive and feel most fully human. It is perhaps the most essential emotional experience for thriving and health. My approach to love is also different because it crosses emotions science with relationship science. From relationship science, I adopt the idea that love draws you out of your cocoon of self-absorption to attune to others. Love allows you to really see another person, holistically, with care, concern, and compassion. Within each moment of loving connection, you become sincerely invested in this other person’s well-being, simply for his or her own sake. And the feeling is mutual. You come to recognize that, in this loving moment, this other person is also sincerely invested in your well-being; that he or she truly cares for you. Relationship scientists cast this sense of mutual care as an abiding attribute of intimate relationships. By contrast, I see mutual care as a momentary state that rises and falls in step with changes in context and emotion. Truth be told, a happy accident pressed me to see love in a whole new light. I was minding my own business as an emotions scientist about eight years back, testing hypotheses drawn from my broaden-and-build theory. My main goal at the time was to find a way to probe the long-range effects of accumulated positive emotions. Would they build people’s resources and transform their lives for the better as the theory predicted? To support definitive claims about cause and effect, I needed an experiment, complete with randomization and rigorous measures. I needed to compare one group of people who increased their daily diets of positive emotions to another group that didn’t. The vexing question was how? How can people reliably and sustainably increase their daily intake of positive emotions? The methods that I and other scientists had used in the lab to test the short-range effects of positive emotions—the music, the film clips, the cartoons, the unexpected gifts of candy—wouldn’t do. They fall flat and lose their charge with repetition. That’s because we humans adapt: Even the most potent emotion-eliciting stimulus fades into the background like wallpaper with repeated exposure.

• From Love 2.0: Finding Happiness and Health in Moments of Connection (2013)

  From a practical standpoint, there’s certainly nothing wrong with that. I wouldn’t ask you to upgrade your vision of love if I didn’t see a big payoff for doing so. When we unravel love in chapter 2 , you’ll begin to understand it in terms that your body knows. For now, suffice it to say that although you may subscribe to a whole host of definitions of love, your body subscribes to just one: Love is that micro-moment of warmth and connection that you share with another living being. I want to emphasize, though, that love isn’t simply one of the many positive emotions that sweep through you from time to time. It’s bigger than joy, amusement, gratitude, or hope. It has special status. I call it our supreme emotion. First, that’s because any of the other positive emotions—joy, amusement, gratitude, hope, and so on—can be transformed into an instance of love when felt in close connection with another. Yet casting love as shared positive emotion doesn’t go nearly far enough. Second, whereas all positive emotions provide benefits—each, after all, broadens your mind-set and builds your resourcefulness—the benefits of love run far deeper, perhaps exponentially so. Love is our supreme emotion that makes us come most fully alive and feel most fully human. It is perhaps the most essential emotional experience for thriving and health. My approach to love is also different because it crosses emotions science with relationship science. From relationship science, I adopt the idea that love draws you out of your cocoon of self-absorption to attune to others. Love allows you to really see another person, holistically, with care, concern, and compassion. Within each moment of loving connection, you become sincerely invested in this other person’s well-being, simply for his or her own sake. And the feeling is mutual. You come to recognize that, in this loving moment, this other person is also sincerely invested in your well-being; that he or she truly cares for you . Relationship scientists cast this sense of mutual care as an abiding attribute of intimate relationships. By contrast, I see mutual care as a momentary state that rises and falls in step with changes in context and emotion. Truth be told, a happy accident pressed me to see love in a whole new light. I was minding my own business as an emotions scientist about eight years back, testing hypotheses drawn from my broaden-and-build theory. My main goal at the time was to find a way to probe the long-range effects of accumulated positive emotions. Would they build people’s resources and transform their lives for the better as the theory predicted? To support definitive claims about cause and effect, I needed an experiment, complete with randomization and rigorous measures. I needed to compare one group of people who increased their daily diets of positive emotions to another group that didn’t. The vexing question was how ?

• From Love 2.0: Finding Happiness and Health in Moments of Connection (2013)

  Love is also deeply personal. It unfurls within and throughout your mind and body like a wave, cresting with each new micro-moment of connection—that smile, that laugh, or that knowing and appreciative glance that you share with another. Yet even as these micro-moments are deeply personal and fleeting, they’ve also been targets of increasing scientific scrutiny. So now, for the first time, you can know and appreciate love not only through a personal, subjective lens but also through a scientific, objective lens. Through this scientific lens, you can better see and appreciate how your body and brain were made for love, and made to benefit from loving. Learn to seek love out more frequently and it can elevate you, your community, and our world far beyond what you and I can today envision. Opportunities for love abound. It’s up to you to nourish yourself with them. Acknowledgments The ideas about love that you’ll encounter here have been gestating in my mind and heart for years. Fittingly, they first arose through my connections with others. Some of these connections have been fleeting, others long-standing. Some have been mutual connections, with ideas forged through rich conversations and collaborations, others have been more one-sided, as I’ve privately mulled over and expanded on the words of other scholars. For the foundational idea that love is best seen as any positive emotion shared within a safe, interpersonal connection, I thank Carroll Izard. His 1977 book described love as moments of shared joy and shared interest, and convinced me that any accounting of the positive emotions should not omit love. What little I wrote about love in my first presentation of the broaden-and-build theory owed a great deal to Izard’s influence on my thinking. A deeper shaping of my views on love comes from the pioneering work on high-quality connections by my friend and University of Michigan colleague, Jane Dutton. I’ve long been inspired by her ways of seeing and describing the connective tissue that binds and energizes people in long-standing relationships and one-time encounters alike. Apart from her inspiring theoretical work, Jane is also an inspiring person, and I am thankful that our friendship has withstood the strain of my move from Ann Arbor. Other scholars whose work has deeply influenced my thinking about love and related ideas include Lisa Feldman Barrett, Kent Berridge, John Cacioppo, Laura Carstensen, Sy-Miin Chow, Steve Cole, Michael D. Cohen, Mike Csikszentmihalyi, Richie Davidson, Paul Ekman, Ruth Feldman, Shelly Gable, Eric Garland, Karen Grewen, Melissa Gross, Uri Hasson, Julianne Holt-Lunstad, David Johnson, Danny Kahneman, Dacher Keltner, Corey Keyes, Ann Kring, Bob Levenson, Kathleen Light, Marcial Losada, Batja Mesquita, Paula Niedenthal, Susan Nolen-Hoeksema, Keith Payne, David Penn, Chris Peterson, Bob Quinn, Cliff Saron, Oliver Schultheiss, Leslie Sekerka, Marty Seligman, Erika Rosenberg, Robert Vallerand, George Vaillant, and David Sloan Wilson. Although these people span the spectrum from my dearest friends to those I’ve yet to meet, the theoretical and empirical contributions of each have inspired me to build upon them.

• From Love 2.0: Finding Happiness and Health in Moments of Connection (2013)

  Through eye contact and close attention to all manner of smiles—and the embodied simulations such visual intake triggers—your gut instincts about whom to trust and whom not to trust become more reliable. Rather than avoid all new people out of fear and suspicion, oxytocin helps you pick up on cues that signal another person’s goodwill and guides you to approach them with your own. Because all people need social connections, not just to reproduce, but to survive and thrive in this world, oxytocin has been dubbed “the great facilitator of life.” It, too, can jump the gap between people such that someone else’s oxytocin flow can trigger your own. A biochemical synchrony can then emerge that supports mutual engagement, care, and responsiveness. The clearest evidence that oxytocin rises and falls in synchrony between people comes from studies of infants and their parents. When an infant and a parent—either mom or dad—interact, sometimes they are truly captivated by each other, and other times not. When an infant and parent do click, their coordinated motions and emotions show lots of mutual positive engagement. Picture moms or dads showering their baby with kisses, tickling their baby’s tiny fingers and toes, smiling at their baby, and speaking to him or her in that high-pitched, singsong tone that scientists call motherese . These parents are superattentive. As they tickle and coo they’re also closely tracking their baby’s face for signs that their delight is mutual. In step with their parent’s affectionate antics, these attentive babies babble, coo, smile, and giggle. Positivity resonates back and forth between them. Micro-moments of love blossom. Of course, not every infant-parent interaction is so rosy. Some pairs show little mutual engagement. Some moms and dads rarely make eye contact with their infants and emit precious little positivity, either verbally or nonverbally. These pairs are simply less attuned to each other, less connected. And in those rare moments when they are engaged, the vibe that joins them is distinctly more negative. They connect over mutual distress or indifference, rather than over mutual affection. It turns out that positive behavioral synchrony—the degree to which an infant and a parent (through eye contact and affectionate touch) laugh, smile, and coo together—goes hand in hand with oxytocin synchrony. Researchers have measured oxytocin levels in the saliva of dads, moms, and infants both before and after a videotaped, face-to-face parent-infant interaction. For infant-parent pairs who show mutual positive engagement, oxytocin levels also come into sync. Without such engagement, however, no oxytocin synchrony emerges.

• From Birthday Girl (2018)

  Durante diecinueve años, siempre fue él. Sacrificándome para construir mi negocio para poder darle un buen hogar y educación, y tener miedo de las relaciones después de lo que pasé con Lindsay o perder las relaciones, porque otras mujeres no querían tener que lidiar con la madre de mi niño por el resto de nuestras vidas. Mi vida giraba en torno a él, pero sin importar lo que hiciera todo se fue a la mierda. Ella lo retorció y lo usó en mi contra, y él no sabe en quién confiar. Ser feliz con una mujer no está mal, pero que esa mujer sea Jordan es lo que podría romper la fe que le queda en sus padres. ¿Por qué no puedo detenerme? ¿Por qué me duele tanto el corazón cada vez que sonríe? ¿O se muerde la uña del pulgar o se pone de puntillas para alcanzar algo en la cocina o parpadear, por el amor de Dios? Entro en la cocina y sirvo café en mi taza de viaje. Aprieto la tapa y saco mi almuerzo del refrigerador, arrojando algunas papas extra, ya que no tengo tiempo para el desayuno. De repente suena el timbre, y me vuelvo, frunciendo el ceño. ¿Quién aparece a esta hora de la mañana? Dejando todo en el mostrador, camino hacia la puerta principal y me inclino, mirando por la ventana delantera. Y hablando del diablo... Mi ex está parada en pantalones de nylon y una camiseta sin mangas a juego. Su cabello está recogido en un moño marrón desordenado, pero tiene el rostro lleno de maquillaje. Es la única persona que conozco que se maquilla para ir al gimnasio. Por supuesto, probablemente solo va a conocer chicos. Abro la puerta, tratando de estar en silencio, para que Jordan no se despierte. —¿Qué es lo que quieres? —le digo, abriendo la puerta. —Bueno, qué amable —se burla, manteniendo los brazos cruzados sobre su pecho—. Siempre eres tan imbécil, ¿eh? Y sin esperar una invitación, entra, empujando más allá de mi brazo. —Si te presentas en mi puerta a las cinco de la mañana, no puede ser amable —le digo, cerrando la puerta—. ¿Estás borracha? Entra a la cocina, arrojando sus llaves en mi mostrador y da media vuelta, mirándome. —¿Por qué mi hijo está viviendo en la casa de alguna chica y no contigo? Lucho contra el impulso de poner los ojos en blanco ante su falsa preocupación, que es solo una excusa para ser invasiva. —Es bienvenido a volver a casa en cualquier momento —le explico, dirigiéndome al taburete y agarrando mi camiseta—. Él es quien se fue. —Porque estás permitiendo que Jordan se quede. ¿Por qué? Me paso la prenda por la cabeza. —Si quieres saber qué está pasando con Cole, pregúntale a él. En cuanto a quién le alquilo una habitación, no es asunto tuyo.

• From Birthday Girl (2018)

  Mi pecho se sacude con una risa, porque es tan mentirosa. Este asunto de dormir durante las tormentas nunca ha sido un problema en nuestra cama. Duerme como una muerta a mi lado, y me enorgullezco mucho por ese hecho. De repente quiero ver su rostro, así que alcanzo las cerillas con mi mano libre, prendiendo una y encendiendo la vela sobre la mesita de noche. Apagando la cerilla, la habitación brilla con una luz suave, y bajo la mirada a su rostro, todavía en sombras pero un poco más visible ahora. Sus largas pestañas y hermosa piel. Sus labios rosas que he besado miles de veces durante miles de horas. Su cuerpo que he amado durante diez años y en un millón diferente de maneras. Pensarías que estaría acostumbrado a ella ahora, pero mi polla empieza a endurecerse ante el solo pensamiento de ella sobre mí de nuevo. Su cabeza se alza y mira alrededor, sobresaltada. —Oh, la ropa —suelta. —Ya me ocupé —le digo, palmeando su pierna para calmarla—. No te preocupes. Se relaja, asintiendo y bostezando al mismo tiempo. —¿Los niños están bien? —pregunta, poniendo su cabeza de nuevo en mi pecho. —Síp. Durmiendo como troncos. Froto su espalda, intentando calmarla para dormir y siento su pierna cubrir la mía. Aprieto mis dientes, la calidez entre sus muslos filtrándose a los míos ahora. Mi ingle pulsa. —¿Estás nerviosa? —susurro. —Un poco. Hará una presentación en la apertura de los jardines botánicos que diseñó para el nuevo museo en Rockford, mañana. Después de la universidad, trabajó para una firma durante varios años, pero decidió empezar su propio negocio el año pasado. El museo fue su primer y gran proyecto en solitario, y los clientes no solo están extremadamente complacidos con su trabajo, sino que esto ha traído varios proyectos ya. Es una artista. Pero una que odia hablar en público, así que estoy pensando que será doloroso pero breve mañana. —Solo recuerda. —Beso su cabello—. Subimos al auto y nos ponemos en camino después. Sus brazos se aprietan a mi alrededor. —No puedo esperar. Después de la presentación, vamos a Minnesota donde alquilamos una casa del lago durante dos semanas. Su hermana Cam y el último de una lista de novios ricos, también alquilaron una casa cerca, así que van a llevar a su hijo, y tendremos compañía cuando nos apetezca. Y alguien para llevarse a los niños por una noche cuando no lo hagamos. Sus dedos trazan mi pecho y arrastra sus uñas ligeramente por mi estómago. Mi cuerpo empieza a volver a la vida bajo mi piel, y no creo que pueda dormir hasta que lo saque de mi sistema. —Entonces, ¿estás despierta ahora? —me burlo. Asiente. —¿Tú? —Es difícil dormir cuando haces eso. Se ríe y se alza, deslizando una pierna sobre mi cuerpo y montándome a horcajadas. —Oh, qué bien. Se quita su camiseta y de inmediato toco su estómago, sintiendo el duro y pequeño bulto donde mi hijo o hija está.

• From Birthday Girl (2018)

  —Sí. —Beso su frente, poniendo las sábanas sobre nosotros—. Vuelve a dormir. Gran día mañana. —Sabes que no puedo dormir durante las tormentas. Mi pecho se sacude con una risa, porque es tan mentirosa. Este asunto de dormir durante las tormentas nunca ha sido un problema en nuestra cama. Duerme como una muerta a mi lado, y me enorgullezco mucho por ese hecho. De repente quiero ver su rostro, así que alcanzo las cerillas con mi mano libre, prendiendo una y encendiendo la vela sobre la mesita de noche. Apagando la cerilla, la habitación brilla con una luz suave, y bajo la mirada a su rostro, todavía en sombras pero un poco más visible ahora. Sus largas pestañas y hermosa piel. Sus labios rosas que he besado miles de veces durante miles de horas. Su cuerpo que he amado durante diez años y en un millón diferente de maneras. Pensarías que estaría acostumbrado a ella ahora, pero mi polla empieza a endurecerse ante el solo pensamiento de ella sobre mí de nuevo. Su cabeza se alza y mira alrededor, sobresaltada. —Oh, la ropa —suelta. —Ya me ocupé —le digo, palmeando su pierna para calmarla—. No te preocupes. Se relaja, asintiendo y bostezando al mismo tiempo. —¿Los niños están bien? —pregunta, poniendo su cabeza de nuevo en mi pecho. —Síp. Durmiendo como troncos. Froto su espalda, intentando calmarla para dormir y siento su pierna cubrir la mía. Aprieto mis dientes, la calidez entre sus muslos filtrándose a los míos ahora. Mi ingle pulsa. —¿Estás nerviosa? —susurro. —Un poco. Hará una presentación en la apertura de los jardines botánicos que diseñó para el nuevo museo en Rockford, mañana. Después de la universidad, trabajó para una firma durante varios años, pero decidió empezar su propio negocio el año pasado. El museo fue su primer y gran proyecto en solitario, y los clientes no solo están extremadamente complacidos con su trabajo, sino que esto ha traído varios proyectos ya. Es una artista. Pero una que odia hablar en público, así que estoy pensando que será doloroso pero breve mañana.

• From Love 2.0: Finding Happiness and Health in Moments of Connection (2013)

  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 The 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.

• From Between Us

  When I teach about cultural differences in emotions, my students often think that love should be more pronounced in collectivist contexts. If the ties between people are strong in collectivist contexts, then wouldn’t this be because individuals feel lots of love for each other? Wouldn’t interdependence between people be achieved by individuals consistently seeking intimacy? The answer to both questions is a resounding “no”; in fact, nothing could be further from the truth. In truly collective cultures, relationships are either a given or chosen in close consultation with the group (the latter being the case in arranged marriages). In these cultures, relationships are not so much organized around admiration or attraction (love), but rather around the needs of others (empathy/compassion). The “right” emotions in many cultures are not about idealization and choice, but rather about need and the unavoidable connection between people. Take the Japanese emotion of amae. Like love, this is an emotion that centers on caring and dependence, but it is very different from love. The prototype of an amae relationship is that between mother and child. As we have seen in chapter 3, Japanese mothers accept and indulge the childish behavior of their toddlers and kindergartners. They do not curtail this behavior, and show empathy and understanding. In the case of the preschoolers Nao and Maki (also introduced in chapter 3), Nao clung to her mother’s leg, and in so doing, she was acting younger than her age. She did not take control in the situation, and waited till someone else did. Maki became the nurturing partner, and in so doing accepted an amae relationship. She approached Nao and convinced her to play with her. Maki thus accepted Nao’s inappropriate demeanor and offered what Nao needed. Amae not only presupposes, but also—importantly—created an interdependent relationship between the girls. Therefore, amae, a central emotion in Japanese close relationships, achieves interdependence, rather than mutual admiration, attraction, and longing. Amae is certainly not restricted to childhood. You grant your close friends or your romantic partners what they need even, or especially, if it is unreasonable. Amae is based on need and indulgence, rather than idealization or elevation of the partner. In her book Unnatural Emotions, anthropologist Catherine Lutz describes a central Ifaluk emotion of closeness and dependence: fago. One of the translations of fago is “love.” However, unlike U.S. American love, which shares features with joy, fago shares features with sadness and compassion. Fago is “right” in Ifaluk society. It is a mature person’s response to the suffering of others: the readiness to take care of other people in need. Fago is typically felt for someone who is sick, dying, or without family, but it also occurs in a more pleasant context, as is apparent from an example involving Tamalekar. A young man from another island came to visit him by ship. The visit was appropriate, because the young man shared a clan affiliation with Tamalekar.

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  I adored my legs - my legs which, while they had had skirts about them, I had scarcely had a thought for; but which were, I discovered, rather long and lean and shapely. I sound vain. I was not - then - and could never have been, while Kitty existed as the wider object of my self-love. The act, I knew, was still all hers. When we sang, it was really she who sang, while I provided a light, easy second. When we danced, it was she who did the tricky steps: I only strolled or shuffled at her side. I was her foil, her echo; I was the shadow which, in all her brilliance, she cast across the stage. But, like a shadow, I lent her the edge, the depth, the crucial definition, that she had lacked before. It was very far from vanity, then, my satisfaction. It was only love; and the better the act became, I thought, the more perfect that love grew. After all, the two things - the act, our love - were not so very different. They had been born together - or, as I liked to think, the one had been born of the other, and was merely its public shape. When Kitty and I had first become sweethearts, I had made her a promise. ‘I will be careful,’ I had said - and I had said it very lightly, because I thought it would be easy. I had kept my promise: I never kissed her, touched her, said a loving thing, when there was anyone to glimpse or overhear us. But it was not easy, nor did it become easier as the months passed by; it became only a dreary kind of habit. How could it be easy to stand cool and distant from her in the day, when we had spent all night with our naked limbs pressed hot and close together? How could it be easy to veil my glances when others watched, bite my tongue because others listened, when I passed all our private hours gazing at her till my eyes ached of it, calling her every kind of sweet name until my throat was dry? Sitting beside her at supper at Mrs Dendy’s, standing near her in the green-room of a theatre, walking with her through the city streets, I felt as though I was bound and fettered with iron bands, chained and muzzled and blinkered. Kitty had given me leave to love her; the world, she said, would never let me be anything to her except her friend. Her friend - and her partner on the stage.

• From Birthday Girl (2018)

  Supongo que significa después de sus primeros seis meses en el mar. La vela grabada en mi piel se siente como si estuviera realmente encendida, el humo de la mecha sube por mi brazo hasta mi codo. Desde la primera vez que Cole mencionó los tatuajes hace dos meses, supe que algo que representara a Jordan sería la única cosa que querría en mí por el resto de mi vida. La cumpleañera y sus deseos. Siempre sería una parte de mí. Inhalo profundamente, y a pesar que he lavado las sábanas muchas veces desde que se fue, todavía puedo sentir el aroma de su cabello en la almohada. Y si me concentro lo suficiente y dejo mis ojos cerrados, ella está junto a mí. Muevo un brazo alrededor de su cuerpo, y la atraigo hacia mí, clavando mi nariz en su frío cabello. —¿Estaba roncando? —susurra. Sonrió, tratando de no reír. —No. Se siente tan cohibida, y es adorable. La abrazo, sintiéndome tan lleno, porque todo lo que necesito es ella en mis brazos ahora. Sus curvas encajan perfectamente conmigo, y estoy lleno. Mi pecho se llena de algo que es prácticamente demasiado para poder contener. Ella respira calmadamente, y deslizo mi mano sobre su estómago desnudo, mi cuerpo vuelve a la vida por ella. Tan fácilmente, como siempre lo hace. De pronto, su pequeña voz interrumpe una vez más el silencioso cuarto. —Me embarazaste —susurra. No me muevo. ¿Qué dijo? No, eso no puede ser verdad. Hemos tenido cuidado. Cuando no digo nada, gira para mirarme. —No tuve mi período la semana pasada —dice tímidamente—. Me hice unas pruebas en la mañana. Mi mejor suposición es que tengo un mes. Cierro los ojos. Dios mío. ¿Un bebé? Mi bebé. —Espero que tenga mis ojos —dice. Abro los míos. —¿Tus ojos? —Bueno, ella será una mezcla de ambos después de todo —explica—, y quiero que tenga tu sonrisa. Eso lo pone parejo, ¿verdad?

• From Birthday Girl (2018)

  —Solo recuerda. —Beso su cabello—. Subimos al auto y nos ponemos en camino después. Sus brazos se aprietan a mi alrededor. —No puedo esperar. Después de la presentación, vamos a Minnesota donde alquilamos una casa del lago durante dos semanas. Su hermana Cam y el último de una lista de novios ricos, también alquilaron una casa cerca, así que van a llevar a su hijo, y tendremos compañía cuando nos apetezca. Y alguien para llevarse a los niños por una noche cuando no lo hagamos. Sus dedos trazan mi pecho y arrastra sus uñas ligeramente por mi estómago. Mi cuerpo empieza a volver a la vida bajo mi piel, y no creo que pueda dormir hasta que lo saque de mi sistema. —Entonces, ¿estás despierta ahora? —me burlo. Asiente. —¿Tú? —Es difícil dormir cuando haces eso. Se ríe y se alza, deslizando una pierna sobre mi cuerpo y montándome a horcajadas. —Oh, qué bien. Se quita su camiseta y de inmediato toco su estómago, sintiendo el duro y pequeño bulto donde mi hijo o hija está. Me sonríe, inclina su cabeza juguetonamente, y todavía veo a esa chica arrastrándose por el suelo del cine cada vez que la miro. Me tenía incluso entonces. —Te amo —digo. Bajando, se cierne sobre mí, mirándome a los ojos mientras mi mano va a su pecho. —Oh, espera. —Se incorpora y se inclina para apagar la vela. —No, déjala encendida —gimo, rodando mis caderas contra ella—. Quiero verte. Baja la mirada hacia mí. —¿Bloqueaste la puerta? Hago una mueca. —Mierda. ¿Por qué olvidé eso? Solo he tenido hijos durante la mitad de mi vida. —No podemos dejar que echen un vistazo, ¿no es así? —regaña, pero me sonríe. Inclinándose de nuevo, cierra los ojos, hace una pausa momentánea, pensando, y luego los abre de nuevo, soplando la vela suavemente. La habitación se oscurece excepto por la luz de luna atravesando la lluvia brillando en la pared de nuestro dormitorio, y veo su contorno bajar de nuevo sobre mí. Aprieto sus caderas, sintiéndola frotarse contra mí. —¿Alguna vez vas a decirme lo que deseas? —pregunto. Me besa, susurrando contra mis labios: —Trae mala suerte decirlo. Se mueve a mi cuello, arqueo mi cabeza y cierro los ojos, dejándola entrar. —Pero lo diré —continúa, mordisqueando mi mandíbula—. Siempre deseo la misma cosa, y cada día se vuelve realidad.