Fredrickson notes is far more ubiqui- tous than previously thought possible. Her research shows that it requires only connection, not the intimacy or shared history that comes with any special bonds.
LOVING LARGE T
Scientists Say We’re All Connected by Linda Sechrist
rue love is not something reserved exclusively for soulmates, couples, children, friends or family. Obser-
vations by sages for millennia and by enlightened scientists more recently are increasingly aligned with the point of view articulated by renowned meditation teacher Jack Kornfield that true love and awareness—a sense of universal connectivity and the idea that divinity, or the sacred, is found in all things—are indistinguishable.
Scientific View This state of being, generally denoted by strong feelings of love or acceptance toward others, brings us into contact with universal energy which connects all of humanity with the natural world. Clues to our united commonality are explored in two 21st-century books, Love 2.0: How Our Supreme Emotion Affects Everything We Feel, Think, Do, and Become, by Barbara L. Fredrickson, Ph.D., and A General Theory of Love, by medical doctors Thomas Lewis, Fari Amini and Richard Lannon. These authors explore the brain science that’s related to love and awareness.
16 Twin Cities Edition Although trying to grasp love intel-
lectually may be like eating soup with a fork, the authors of A General Theory of Love cite feelings as a good starting point. Fredrickson describes love as “the momentary upwelling of three tightly interwoven events: a sharing of one or more positive emotions between you and another; a biochemical synchrony between your and the other person’s biochemistry and behaviors; and a reflected motive to invest in each other’s well-being that brings mutual care.” Fredrickson, director of the Positive Emotions and Psychophysiology Labora- tory at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, believes love is a com- plex physiological response; a “positivity resonance.” She describes key factors in love’s ability to biologically transform us as oxytocin, a hormone active in social bonding and attachments, and the vagus nerve deep within the brain stem that connects with numerous organs, includ- ing the lead “character” in this relation- ship, the heart. The neural synchrony of positivity resonance between the brains of two individuals is a connected oneness that
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Cosmic View During their 30-year friendship, Bob Staretz collaborated with astronaut Edgar Mitchell, Sc.D., the lunar mod- ule pilot on Apollo 14 and founder of the Institute of Noetic Sciences, to research and write “The Quantum Hologram and the Nature of Con- sciousness,” published in the Journal of Cosmology. Their scientific theory explains how all of creation learns, self-corrects and evolves as a self- organizing, interconnected holistic system through love. “Without exception, everything in nature exists and works together in total balance, resonance and harmony, interacting as one. From this perspec- tive, Edgar and I reached the obvious conclusion—the organizing principle of the cosmos is agape love, an ulti- mate form of unconditional love that accepts all things existing in nature without regard to conditions, expec- tations, shortcomings, flaws or faults,” explains Staretz. The former executive director of Eternea, an organization focused on spiritually transformative experiences and the study of consciousness, Staretz says individuals that undergo such an experi- ence attest that loving one another and all
Micro-moments of the connected oneness we feel as life-giving rever- berations occur via shared smiles or laughter, a common compassion or an engaging story. Humans all hunger for such moments. The prerequisites are perceived safety and authentic sensory connection with another, even if it’s fleeting. In Fredrickson’s perspective, such neural coupling is a biological manifestation of oneness in which a habitual focus on “me” expands to a life-expanding “we”.
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