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Emotions in the spectrum of Love are emotions of connection and relationality
They provide the body with an opportunity to re-calibrate itself
One rather unfortunate aspect of modern culture is that many words are used thoughtlessly, rather like magic spells. There is an inherent assumption that the speaker is automatically aware of all that needs to be known about the topic – just by speaking the word. And there is an underlying shame in not being able to achieve that – which prevents many people beginning from where they really are. So many everyday words such as "Love", "Forgiveness", "Belief" are bandied around and used in advertising slogans for chocolate or underwear, but their use is quite superficial. I first came across the HeartMath biofeedback system over 25 years ago, have beein interested in the feelings of Love, Appreciation, Gratitude, Compassion, Awe (and similar[1]) ever since, and can honestly say that I haven’t yet plumbed their depths.
I started to use the HeartMath device in my clinic at one point, but found that many people had a sense of shoulds and oughts (what Steve Baehrmann calls "Oughtism") and so would "try" to get the device to show a coherent heart rate variability (HRV) pattern – and therefore (because trying is based on fear) would instead remain in a chaotic or suppressed HRV state. So instead I now ask people to remember the inner "glow" that they get when they are happy, or see beauty, or children playing, or are in the presence of an ancient tree, or when sunlight warms them or a gentle breeze touches their skin. With everyone there are certain everyday experiences that induce an unforced sense of Appreciation. We take a breath and within 2 or 3 seconds settle into the experience - which is effectively a relational field between you and whatever you are focussing on. The relationality and Appreciation increase – not by trying to feel them, but by being (also) interested in both what they feel like as a qualitative sensation [2] and where they manifest in your body.
I believe in the compelling power of love. I do not understand it. I believe it to be the most fragrant blossom of all this thorny existence.
Theodore Dreiser
This doesn’t usually work so well using other people as the object of loving appreciative attention - because there are often senses of responsibility, should, oughts, agendas, unmet needs and so on. So deep somatic relationality (and therefore also relationality with anything "outside" our body) only happens when whatever happens and whatever we are aware of - is "enough". We are enough and in this moment perfect as we are (so there is no need to even think of whether we are or not), and the object of our attention is likewise perfect just as it is in this moment (such that there is no need to even think of whether it is or not). These ideas are radical and contrary to the problem-solving mentality in Western culture that needs to fix everything, deliberately looks for what is wrong, and that shames everyone for being not enough. That is - except for a few celebrities, who are nevertheless have their imperfections deconstructed in the popular media.
Nothing exists by itself alone.
We all belong to each other; we cannot cut reality into pieces.
My happiness is your happiness; my suffering is your suffering.
We heal and transform together
Thich Nhat Hanh
Connection and relationality are basic aspects of the symbiotic living world we are part of. The quality of relationality can be improved by becoming interested in the internal quality of unforced relationality. When our cognitive focus settles on this unforced relationality, then the body starts to be aware of its true environment and begins to re-calibrate itself to that.
A thought transfixed me: for the first time in my life I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth–that love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire. Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love. I understood how a man who has nothing left in this world may still know bliss, be it only for a brief moment, in the contemplation of his beloved. In a position of utter desolation, when a man cannot express himself in positive action, when his only achievement may consist in enduring his sufferings in the right way–an honourable way–in such a position man can, through loving contemplation of the image he carries of his beloved, achieve fulfilment. For the first time in my life, I was able to understand the words, "The angels are lost in perpetual contemplation of an infinite glory."
Man’s Search for Meaning" by Viktor E. Frankl
References & Notes
1 The Daoist list of five "positive" ("higher") emotions is : quiet joy, awe, a feeling of well-wishing/benevolence for others, a feeling of self-empowerment, and compassion – which are all aspects of Love that have subtly different qualities. Appreciation – as identified by Doc Childre - is a useful non-forceful way to enter that spectrum. The five "lower" emotions are ways in which these degrade : hysteria, fear, worry/anxiety, anger/disdain/hatred and sorrow/greif/hopelessness. It is not possible to simultaneously feel both a "higher" and a "lower" emotion – which in effect gives us a (potential) choice as to where we would wish to place our attention.
2 A total qualitative experience occurs as a quality that may include elements of mental presence, sensory engagement, the texture of somatic sensation, emotion and even non-conscious movement and gestures. Or the ansences of some or all these. This whole inner experiential field is a vast shifting landscape that is usually given insufficient attention. It has (unfortunately) become culturally normal to pay attention to its loud noises – pains, big emotions, busy loud thoughts, etc, but to ignore and skate over the healthy but more subtle qualities of self-presence.
