SFL Love Pyramid Friday

Well kids, the weekend is nearly here and I'm excited about it.

But first I have to get a few things done.

Write nasty letter, check.

Send out some bills, check.

Get out of 4 p.m. conference call on some bullcrap excuse, check.

Read Judge Posner's penetrating discussion of "lubricious sexual devices," check.

(Oy on the last one, btw).

Ok, now that the decks are cleared, I hope you all have some wonderful weekend plans.

Me, I plan to devise a dish that somehow includes chocolate, salmon, oatmeal, and artichokes. I also plan to live in the 70s', but I pretty much do that already.

Tomorrow is Global Youth Service Day, so put your hands on something interesting and maybe even constructive this weekend.

Why do I talk about service so much?

My peoples, it's all about the love pyramid:

The overall premise of the book is simple: under stress, the body undergoes a Fear Response, which has to do with activation of the sympathetic nervous system and secretion of stress hormones. Although the Fear Response is essential to our survival (e.g. to run away from a saber-toothed cat), its tonic activation under conditions of modern stressful living can wear down our immune system and make life miserable.

You get the fear response when you think "I am not enough; I do not have enough." The Love Response - "I am enough; I have enough" - is the antidote, with simple practices that activate equally robust physiological mechanisms of well-being and joy.

The questionnaires in the book provide tools for self-assessment, and the scoring cleverly operates such that unless you get a perfect score, you've got some work to do, buddy. In one of these, she introduces the concept of the tripartite Love Pyramid: "The Love Pyramid is a life structure that can help you override negative childhood conditioning and negative experiences from early life and keep your Fear Response in check." Its three levels are:

* Social Love: the love you exchange with others

* Self-Love: the love and nurturance you give yourself

* Spiritual Love: the connection with Spirit or something larger than yourself and the altruistic works that flow from it.

I like love in all its varieties, don't you?

Have a great weekend everybody!