VITAMIN OPTIMISM

Your dose for today…

“Indeed, feelings don’t just matter—they’re what mattering means.” —Daniel Gilbert, Stumbling on Happiness

How does this make you feel? That's what you can tune into. (Image: AS)

Sometimes, people who wonder where to go in love turn to logic for the answer. Logic just seems like a more reasonable way to assess a situation, right? By framing the potential of a relationship like a business plan, you’re more likely to end up with a clear-cut answer. But guess what? Love don’t work like that. Love isn’t logical, never was.

What matters more is what’s pulled from the other parts of your brain, the emotional parts. Those are the parts that take every relationship you’ve ever had, every hurt you’ve ever felt, every smile you’ve ever grinned, that take your pride, your hope, your pain, your struggles, your fears, your tastes and your dreams, and rolls them up into a warm package that comes out of you in a way that defies logic and language. Those are your feelings, your instincts, your gut. Do you love him? Well, what do your feelings say? That’s what matters. As Gilbert says, that’s what mattering means.

Have you ever been steered wrong by trusting your instincts and tuning into your feelings—or have you ever been steered right?

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Big love,

Your dose for today…

Where will your optimism take you? (Image: Taking off from Cuzco, Peru, by AS.)

“Both optimists and pessimists contribute to our society. The optimist invents the airplane and the pessimist the parachute.” —Gil Stern

With each passing year comes some disappointment, pain and rejection. And so, we get better and better at mastering one thing: that dang parachute. We think that if we can perfect a safety feature for our emotions, we’ll be protected from hurt and harm. But the truth is, life is going to disappoint us and there’s not a darn thing we can do about that—and a parachute doesn’t stop a fall, it just slows it down! So think of it this way: Since you’ll never be completely protected from a night on the couch crying, why sit around waiting for a clunky fall from the tarmac when you can be enjoying the lofty beautiful feeling of life and love at 30,000 feet?

Be a dating optimist. Get your dreams for love up in the air, above the clouds. Ask for a half-orange in love, larger than you ever dreamed possible. People once said planes couldn’t fly, right? So don’t think for a second that you can’t find love. Today, forget about the parachute, and get your hopes for love higher than ever. Your dream relationship can only come if you’re up there asking for it.

Try it. Then tell me: How does it feel to fly without a parachute?

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Big love,

Your dose for today…

What's still burning in you? Drop the coal.

“Holding anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.”

—Buddha

When someone hurts us in love, it’s like the longer we hold onto it, the more it symbolizes how deeply this got us and how truly jerky the fool who hurt us was! We want to shout from the rooftops for all to hear: “Can’t you see how awful this person is? Can’t you see how stabbed and stomped on I was? Please, feel this with me! Understand!” We can’t help but simmer in it: Real pain doesn’t go away in a day, right? But here’s the thing: Like Buddha said, that pain doesn’t hurt the other person. It hurts us.

Yes, hurt takes healing, and allow yourself that. But don’t hold onto the pain longer than have to. If you’re tired of feeling angry and bitter and hurt…then let go. Like a hot coal, holding onto anger about the past means you are the one who gets burned. So drop the coal, cool your hands, calm your heart and move forward—away from anger and straight to love.

Big love,