• Home
    • Who I Am
    • How I Work
    • Clinical/Academic Background
    • Services
    • Fees
    • Policies
    • Forms
  • Consulting
  • Publications
  • In the Media
    • Urgent Assistance
    • Trauma Books
    • Low Fee Counseling and More
    • Mindfulness
    • Podcasts
  • Thrive (blog)
  • Location
Menu

Eleonora Bartoli, Ph.D.

she/her/hers
  • Home
  • About
    • Who I Am
    • How I Work
    • Clinical/Academic Background
  • Counseling
    • Services
    • Fees
    • Policies
    • Forms
  • Consulting
  • Publications
  • In the Media
  • Resources
    • Urgent Assistance
    • Trauma Books
    • Low Fee Counseling and More
    • Mindfulness
    • Podcasts
  • Thrive (blog)
  • Location

Thrive

In this blog, I integrate some of the insights I have gathered over the years from close and distant mentors about resilience and empowerment (please note that I will not address treatment issues here). The entries might be of interest to social justice activists, first responders, mental/health professionals, and anyone aspiring to lead a joyful, intentional, and transformative life. I hope some of what I share will resonate and support your journey!


if you would like to be notified when I add a post, follow me on SOCIAL MEDIA (SEE LINKs BOTTOM RIGHT CORNER OF PAGE)


image.jpg

Love everyone! It's vital that we do - Part III

December 18, 2019

Part I of this post I described how survival and well-being converge in our ability to love, and in Part II we looked at why practicing love in today’s world is not always easy. In this third and final part, I will share how we might enlist our amazing neurological capacities to maximize our ability to love and feel loved. We need to (literally) let love conquer fear.

Here is how it works.

Our human bodies function like emotional sponges, we literally “vibrate” with each other’s emotions. When we empathize, our body feels what the other feels. In that process, we also automatically want to do something about it, because it turns out that

empathy and compassionate action are neurologically tied responses (how convenient!).

Empathizing, then, requires that we tolerate (or increase our ability of) “feeling with” the other.

So to love is to feel without shutting down; the ability to love is squarely planted in our emotion regulation skills. If we are overwhelmed by feeling another’s emotion, our fear response takes over and we can no longer empathize, connect, or think well. On the other hand, if we are able to sustain the emotion, both parties experience a deeply soothing, meaningful connection.

This means that our difficulty to welcome and tolerate our own internal sensations is the single most central obstacle to experiencing love. Why do we find tolerating our inner sensations so difficult?

First, much of what we are taught and exposed to (not necessarily much of what actually exists) leads us to fear each other. Second, we live in a culture that has perfected vilifying negative emotions and has created technologies to constantly distract us away from them. (And all that even before we consider direct contact with traumatic experiences).

Both problems have the same solution: “practice makes perfect”, as they say, where practice is more powerful than intellectual learning. What does that mean?

If we feel love for each other, what we think has little impact on our actions and decisions. We don’t want to hurt those we love and empathize with, even when we might not like them. We only want the best for them, because, remember, to love is to feel “with”, in our own bodies. While deconstructing misconceptions and biases is always a welcome addition to learning to love one another, without the experience of loving/resonating with one another, intellectual understanding has no hope of making an impact.

In a recent interview, social activist Rev. Jennifer Bailey said that while

“relationships move at the speed of trust, social change moves at the speed of relationships”.

It couldn’t be more biologically true!

So the most important thing we have to learn is attuning ourselves to others and sustaining the activation that that attunment creates in us. How do we do that? Social psychologist Dr. Barbara Frederickson has wonderful resources for the former, and mindfulness practices are an effective option for the latter.

The operative word in both cases being “practice”. Just like the best work out, the best practice is the one you do! Consistency and repetition are the key.

Now, the love and empathy I’m writing about are not dangerous: they don’t imply agreement, or lack of boundaries, or indiscriminate submission to others’ will.

In fact, none of those create physiologically helpful loving moments. While love conquers fear, it doesn’t make us stupid! In fact, it makes us smarter. It allows us to detect more accurately who deserves trust, where to build connections, and where to establish boundaries. Fear, on the other hand, only separates. It compromises our perspective taking, it doesn’t allow us to see context, have nuanced understanding, learn, or act wisely.

Love is not an intellectual experience (of agreement, political alignment, cultural understanding). It’s the momentary, genuine realization by the parties involved of our shared humanity, it’s an experience of interconnectedness. In those moments, no one is better or worse, right or wrong, we simply (and physiologically) “are” together. When that happens, our entire being feels well, good, right. And the added bonus is that we are much wiser as we take action from there.

Love, then, by definition, is a tender spot to be. You have to train for it.

We have to practice fully welcoming what arises within us so that we can be fierce in our capacity to come together and thrive,

both individually and as a species. And learning to love we must: our very survival depends on it!

← Befriend your imperfectionsLove everyone! It's vital that we do - Part II →

Latest Posts

Featured
Feb 22, 2023
We Must Dismantle the “Matrix” from Within: Liberatory Practices in Counseling
Feb 22, 2023
Feb 22, 2023
May 4, 2022
A healthy multiracial society could be ours
May 4, 2022
May 4, 2022
Jun 12, 2020
Healing and Resistance: 3 Antidotes to Oppression
Jun 12, 2020
Jun 12, 2020
May 28, 2020
Concerned about social justice? This one is for you! Feel your power when it matters the most
May 28, 2020
May 28, 2020
May 14, 2020
4 Anti-Anxiety strategies for our time
May 14, 2020
May 14, 2020
May 6, 2020
4 Tips to refuel your resilience during the Pandemic
May 6, 2020
May 6, 2020
May 6, 2020
4 Tips to Ease Your Mind During The Pandemic
May 6, 2020
May 6, 2020
May 6, 2020
3 Common Reactions to the Pandemic (MORE RESOURCES AT THE BOTTOM)
May 6, 2020
May 6, 2020
Mar 19, 2020
Resilience and adaptability through COVID-19 (RESOURCES at the bottom)
Mar 19, 2020
Mar 19, 2020
Jan 24, 2020
Befriend your imperfections
Jan 24, 2020
Jan 24, 2020
Dec 18, 2019
Love everyone! It's vital that we do - Part III
Dec 18, 2019
Dec 18, 2019
Oct 24, 2019
Love everyone! It's vital that we do - Part II
Oct 24, 2019
Oct 24, 2019
Oct 23, 2019
Love everyone! It's vital that we do - Part I
Oct 23, 2019
Oct 23, 2019
Sep 4, 2019
The real power of mindfulness
Sep 4, 2019
Sep 4, 2019
Aug 23, 2019
Don't just survive, thrive! Part II
Aug 23, 2019
Aug 23, 2019
Aug 9, 2019
Don’t just survive, thrive! Part I
Aug 9, 2019
Aug 9, 2019

☎ (215) 917-2289 ✉ Eleonora.Bartoli.PhD@gmail.com

Copyright © Eleonora Bartoli PhD