Psychologist Barbara Fredrickson: Love And The Power Of Love

Love is ubiquitous and universal, and we have all encountered and relished in the power of love. Many people associate the meaning of love with feelings of strong affection and personal attachment. While this is very accurate, there are several different aspects of love that we neglect to acknowledge. Psychologist Barbara Fredrickson steps up and takes up this challenge in convergence with the magic of science. In doing so, she concludes that the things in which our brain thinks love is, are actually just the products of love. Love itself is something much greater and it is worth figuring out what this supreme emotion is all about. Fredrickson’s work primarily centered around the broaden-and-build theory, in which states “positive emotions

A big thing that people may disagree with is that love is supposedly “conditional” (108). According to Fredrickson, “'just as our body is designed to extract oxygen from the Earth’s atmosphere, our body is designed to love” (105). If love is supposedly such an engraved ability, why would it need conditions? Well, as amazing as our brain can be, it is not able to hold huge amounts of information. It will automatically discard of unused information after a short while. So basically, if we want to maintain love, we have to keep renewing acts of love. This explains why many relationships tend to fail. It is very common for people to lose feelings for someone and it is solely because people do not know how to self-generate love. However, it is not our fault, no one has taught us how to love, we just follow our hearts and go with it. But with integration of love 2.0, we will be able to achieve that status of “relationship goals”. Fredrickson simplifies this idea by revealing that love has two preconditions, safety and connection. In maintaining a safe environment, we can continue to bless each other with the gift of positive

We cannot physically test whether we have a real connection with someone with "loud brain scanners" (110) or biological tests. While this point is valid and even accurate, we limit love to romance and family, in which we fail to include everyone else. We associate with people every single day, so why not make it easier for everyone? Maybe it does sound like something that is too much for us to deal with on a daily basis. Love has prospered since the birth of mankind, so is there really a reason to change the way we love? Most people will say no, that we should not overcomplicate love. It comes naturally to us, so why try dissecting something that already makes us happy? It is obviously doing its job if people are still getting married and making families. However, love 2.0 is not an actual upgrade of love, it is simply just the recognition of the smaller parts in life that we overlook. “With each micro-moment of love, you climb another rung, to richer and more passionate social relationships, to greater resilience and wisdom, and to better physical health” (121). The real question is, what else in this world can result in such profound improvements in our