Big Idea Daily | Love 2.0
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Creating Happiness and Health in Moments of Connectionby Barbara Fredrickson |
“Love is that micro-moment of warmth and connection that you share with another living being."BARBARA L. FREDRICKSON PH.D. |
BIG IDEA #1
Love 2.0: Time for an Upgrade
FROM THE BOOK“Perhaps counterintuitively, love is far more ubiquitous than you ever thought possible for the simple fact that love is connection.
It’s that poignant stretching of your heart that you feel when you gaze into a newborn’s eyes for the first time or share a farewell hug with a dear friend. It’s even the fondness and sense of shared purpose you might unexpectedly feel with a group of strangers who’ve come together to marvel at a hatching of sea turtles or cheer at a football game. The new take on love that I want to share with you is this: Love blossoms virtually anytime two or more people—even strangers—connect over a shared positive emotion, be it mild or strong.
To put it in a nutshell, love is the momentary upwelling of three tightly interwoven events: first, a sharing of one or more positive emotions between you and another; second, a synchrony between your and the other person’s biochemistry and behaviors; and third, a reflected motive to invest in each other’s well-being that brings mutual care.
My shorthand for this trio is positivity resonance. Within those moments of interpersonal connection that are characterized by this amplifying symphony—of shared positive emotions, biobehavioral synchrony, and mutual care—life-giving positivity resonates between and among people. This back-and-forth reverberation of positive energy sustains itself—and can even grow stronger—until the momentary connection wanes, which is of course inevitable, because that’s how emotions work.”
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Brian's Notes
Ready for our new, upgraded definition of love?
Love 1.0 = The emotion you feel for your “soul mate” or kids or family; what we hear about on the radio, etc.
Love 2.0? Love 2.0 is ubiquitous. It’s that “micro-moment of warmth and connection that you share with another living being.”
It’s what Barbara describes as “positivity resonance.”
As you know, when I read these books, I’m always underlining the gems (this book is nearly entirely underlined/asterisked/marked all up with “wow!”s). I particularly focus on the key words and phrases the author comes back to most often to get a feel for the heart of the book.
Obviously, “love” was one of the key words. As were these two: “positivity resonance” and “micro-moments.”
Love is found in those TINY moments—the micro-moments—in which we are truly present, sharing a positive experience with someone. When that happens, our brains and bodies synchronize in truly stunning ways. Sprinkle in some mutual care for the others’ well being and you have positivity resonance—aka Love.
What’s exciting about this upgraded version of love is that it’s not limited to our most intimate relationships (yet, very importantly, can be practiced most frequently within them—something I’ve done a bunch of times since picking up the book yesterday). When we allow ourselves to open up to this possibility, we can create more of this positivity resonance with others and experience the extraordinary gains in health and happiness that go with practicing this supreme emotion.
How do we go about doing that? Glad you asked. Part I of the book walks us through the science. Part II walks us through the practice—combining beautiful loving-kindness meditations with informal micromoment practices. More on that after we take a trip to Vagus.
Big Ideas
01: LOVE 2.0
02: VAGUS
03: DESIRE
04: 3 LOVING MOMENTS
05: COCOON OF SELF-ABSORPTION
“Love doesn’t just sit there, like a stone; it has to be made, like bread; remade all the time, made new."URSULA K. LE GUIN |
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