When I walk by the San Francisco Bay, often, I can see Alcatraz Island — home of the famous prison. Sometimes it reminds me of a summer job I once had during my PhD studies at the University of Vermont.

A dentist working for the Department of Corrections needed surgery. The Vermont Department of Corrections needed a dentist. And I, as a graduate student, needed a job between research grants. Putting the three together resulted in me having a way to cover my basic living expenses.

The job entailed driving across the state to various prisons. This gave me a chance to see parts of Vermont that I would not have seen otherwise. For instance, once, while returning from one of the facilities, I was able to add on a quick visit to the Cabot cheddar cheese factory.

For the most part, that summer is a green blur in my memory. There was lots of driving and I saw a lot of greenery, because afterall, Vermont is the Green Mountain State. However, one incident stands out in my mind even now, though it was almost thirty years ago.

A young man had sustained an injury to his jaw joint - also called Temporomandibular Joint or TMJ for short. He could barely open his mouth. Before I could say anything, the nurse who happened to be in the examining room at the time, asked him how he got injured. He smiled at her wistfully and said in a gentle voice “Ma, you don’t want to know.”

Sometimes, it’s easy to give in to the expediencies of life. As a result, we end up assigning people to categories based on variables such as gender, religion, ethnicity, education, sexual orientation, and even the kind of car they drive - that is, if they have a car at all.

After the first few days in this new setting, it became work as usual. Mouths needed to be examined. Prescriptions needed to be written. And referrals had to be made if anyone needed a higher level of care.

Then, just when I had acclimated to the environment, I came across the young man with the TMJ injury. His words, especially when referring to the older nurse as “Ma” and the tone in which he spoke to her, momentarily dissolved the boundaries that defined each of us in our roles.

He was a human being who had been hurt. And there he was, shielding another human from being hurt.

Fate assigned each of us a role in that moment, with labels that each evoke their own stereotypes: prisoner, nurse, and dentist. But beyond our labels, in that moment, we were simply a trio of pain, care and bearing witness.

We typically think of freedom in terms of the ability to come and go as we please and do as we want. We speak of prisons as literal structures, but we also build prisons in our minds. As a result we end up imprisoning others in the shackles of our perceptions, and we can also imprison ourselves.

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The seeds of hope are within each and every one of us: We all have the capacity to love in a multitude of ways and create a future that your children and grandchildren will be proud to inherit.

We can Scale the Science of Love in a strategic way so we maximize positive impact and we can infuse the process with soul which is what makes us all human.

Today is International Women’s Day. Did you know that violence affects one in every three women around the world according to the World Health Organization? Love is a potent and universal antidote to violence and hate that is grounded in behavioral science and in philosophy and spirituality.

Thank you to my colleague and friend Larry Clark for reminding me of this song by the Youngbloods. You can listen to it via the YouTube link below.

The lyrics remind us of a universal truth that transcends our differences and points to the one thing that matters most at the end of our lives: LOVE.

Rise up my friends in Compassionate Love because that is how we realize Hope and that is how we heal individuals and societies. Be someone that future generations will thank rather than curse.

The World Love Forum is supported by donations. Even a small amount helps cover our overhead costs as we work toward sustained funding during this critical time of growth. There are several ways to support this important work.

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For more about the World Love Forum, visit the About page and the Projects page. You can also visit Brush Your Mind, one of the projects of the World Love Forum. If you love what you’re reading, pass the word on!

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Dear San Franciscans,

I invite you to join me in growing the World Love Forum (WLF), an urgently needed innovative way to implement love as a public health intervention to prevent violence and emotional distress, shift harmful social norms, and inspire love-informed actions in everyday life.

This mission builds on more than 20 years of work in preventing violence and depression and represents the next step in scaling innovations that have their roots during my time at Stanford University.

Why love and why now?

In a world faced with uncertainties, love is a time-tested entity that has enabled humans to survive challenging conditions.

Love is an integral part of our humanity; it is at the core of what makes life meaningful. But we have yet to realize its fullest potential as a large-scale social innovation in response to some of the biggest social challenges of our time – violence and hate, social discord, isolation and emotional distress.

Love is more than a message on a greeting card; it is also more than a bouquet of red roses.

Love is a prosocial emotion that can be translated into positive actions that promote health and wellbeing. Love can be understood, innovated upon and scaled – through behavioral sciences and public health. By infusing love-informed practices and policies in our homes, schools, workplaces and media channels, we will create positive shifts on individual and collective levels.

Why San Francisco?

From blue jeans to AI, San Francisco has long been a global hub of innovation. But innovation does not have to be limited to technology; the city can also lead the way in advancing emotional well-being.

Living here has revealed the city’s heart to me: neighbors greeting each other with smiles, Night Ministry clergy offering support to those on the streets, librarians eager to help, bus drivers guiding passengers, and so many others.

These are just some of the many people whose kindness I have been fortunate to experience.

This everyday kindness and connection, combined with San Francisco’s legacy of the Summer of Love, provides the perfect foundation for launching the Year of Love—a movement to grow meaningful love-informed actions and build a world anchored in love.

Not Just for Believers

San Francisco is named after Saint Francis of Assisi. Regardless of your views of the Catholic church, or any organized religion for that matter, I invite you to consider Saint Francis from a secular perspective – for instance as a teacher or philosopher.

Even if you eschew spirituality, his timeless message offers a powerful, yet underutilized action plan: “Where there is hatred, let me bring love...”

These are widely relatable goals that address what ails our country and the world at this time. Surely you recognize the value of bringing love where there is hatred. Surely there is room for more kindness and compassion in everyone’s lives.

Social Innovation

Just as hate and discord can be socially contagious, so can actions informed by love.

What social changes might come about if we brought love where there is hatred and violence?

Motivated by love, what if we brought hope where there is despair?

Motivated by love, what if we brought joy where there is sadness?

Imagine the changes across the city, state, country and world when love-informed actions increase in number and become much more commonplace – in the same way that Levis, Uber, and AirBnb have become part of everyday norms in so many places.

How might life look for you and your family when there is a net increase in love-informed actions in all domains of your life – family, school, workplace and social and mass media?

This would reduce violence, hate and despair. It would turn the tide on Thoreau’s “quiet desperation” and improve living conditions.

Urgent Innovation is Our Only Option

How long must we live with school shootings, hate crimes, bullying and interpersonal violence within families, schools and workplaces?

How long can people endure high levels of chronic stress that harms their emotional and physical health and their closest personal relationships?

We face complex problems requiring urgent, innovative solutions and cannot continue on our current path – characterized by unhealthy social environments, discord and division.

To this there are two possible responses: stay on course with uncertainty, fear and anxiety about the future; or implement large-scale efforts to put love into practice.

The best option is obvious.

When people reflect upon their lives, love — in its multitude of forms — is what they find most meaningful.

Love and emotional health are closely connected: the more we have love in the world, the more we advance emotional health.

Given this, if we organize our lives and societies around love—both as a means and an end—we can face the future knowing we have lived the most fulfilling lives possible, individually and collectively.

Death is inevitable. But what we can control is the quality of life we experience before we die and the conditions under which we raise future generations.

Take the Next Step

Change begins with consistent actions, both small and large, that ripple outward to create lasting impacts. The World Love Forum (WLF) will lead this process by developing a research-informed core curriculum on love and emotional health. This curriculum will be accessible to schools, community groups, professional organizations, and media creators, supporting the widespread diffusion and adoption of love-informed practices.

One of the WLF’s most innovative strategies is using entertainment education to disseminate and promote the adoption of these practices on a large scale. By embedding behavioral vaccines, i.e. skills such as kindness, compassion, self-regulation and healthy management of emotions into entertaining content across television, radio, and social media, we can reach people of all ages in an engaging, stigma-free way.

Imagine a current-day equivalent of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood modeling constructive behaviors for managing fear, anger, and frustration while shifting harmful social norms. Only now, it would not be limited to one specific show in one specific language or geographic region, but infused across entertainment across all countries in various languages. This proven approach overcomes barriers such as stigma, high costs, and personnel shortages that are associated with traditional skills training.

Earlier, I demonstrated the viablity of disseminating behaviroal skills essential for healthy relationships through a proof-of-concept I conducted in Ethiopia. This was funded by UNICEF and the American Psychological Foundation.

By training serial drama (i.e. soap opera) writers and producers to incorporate emotion regulation and conflict resolution into storylines, we were able to deliver and model actionable skills such as taking a "time-out" to de-escalate conflicts to 20 million listeners.

Imagine leveraging these methods globally, much like toothpaste campaigns that promote oral health. With strategic investments in entertainment education, we can advance love-informed actions as a behavioral vaccine against violence and emotional distress—for mere pennies per person.

Let’s start by making 2025 the Year of Love in San Francisco, and then extend it to its sister cities and beyond.

Together, we can build the world you wish for - for yourself, your children, and generations to come.

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There is a dumpling shop in Chinatown in San Francisco that I sometimes walk by. From time to time, I stop in and pick up a couple of shrimp and chive dumplings as I work toward my ten thousand steps for the day.

One evening, I spotted a particular type of dumpling at the display counter that I had never seen before. Turns out it was a sticky rice dumpling. I was curious and decided to buy one. As it was nearing closing time, the friendly manager gave me two sticky rice dumplings, though I wanted to buy just one.

A couple of minutes later, after I left the shop, I noticed an elderly man sitting on a street corner surrounded by cardboard boxes. He looked lost in thought, staring into space.

As I didn’t need two dumplings, I stopped and asked him if he might like to have one. He said yes.

A few days later, I saw him again, sitting at the same spot. And there he was yet again on another day. I soon realized this was “his corner,” not far from the dumpling shop where I had gotten to know the friendly manager.

The next time I visited the shop, I bought four dumplings instead of two. I stopped by his corner and asked if he might like some. He said yes, so I handed him two and asked his name. “John,” he replied.

This ritual has evolved over time. On the days I walk through Chinatown, I now stop by his corner first to ask if he’d like some dumplings or maybe a barbeque pork bun. Most of the time, he says yes.

With the onset of winter my walks have become less frequent, and the ritual has slowed down. Regardless, I find myself thinking of John.

Given the magnitude of problems in the world, it’s all too easy to feel powerless. And even when we are working to improve conditions, change can be slow to come about.

That is where moments of genuine human connection make all the difference in keeping us going through difficult times.

In the case of the dumplings, there are no earnings to measure, no donor pledges, no viewer counts, no social media likes and other metrics of our time. It’s just a moment of simple human connection.

And as I continue to implment solutions on a larger-scale, this I know:

Sometimes, on Jackson Street in San Francisco, there is a man named John. And when I give him some dumplings, I enter into a world outside the usual metrics of “productivity.”

And in that moment, I am reminded of the words of Saint Francis of Assisi, the man for whom the city is named: “It is in giving that we receive.”

I offer John food for his stomach; he offers me food for my soul.

If you liked this essay, please share with your friends and invite them to subscribe to the newsletter of the World Love Forum and help grow love in the world. Thank you.

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Prema, or universal love, transcends religion. It is a fundamental skill that anyone can learn, practice, cultivate and nurture. It is not just an abstract philosophical concept—it is a way of thinking and being - that informs our words and actions.

The work of the World Love Forum (WLF) is grounded in science and public health, but it also embraces the integration of science and soul. In that context, words such as Prema in Sanskrit or Chessed, which means loving-kindness in Hebrew, remind us of the universal human essence that connects us all.

Love gives life meaning. It is also a pathway to peace.

Call to Action:
What small acts of Prema can you practice today? Can you share a kind word? Offer someone a helping hand? Offer someone compassionate understanding? All of these seemingly small actions will nevertheless generate positive ripples that can travel far and reverberate through other people’s lives. This is one way to foster peace in our families, schools, workplaces, and social media. And in so doing, you can start to build the world you wish for — for yourself, your children and your grandchildren.

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WHO Declares Loneliness a Global Health Concern

Love, in its various facets, is one answer to this problem, as at its core is genuine human connection.

I invite you to please share in the comments below, practical ways that we as a society and as individuals can help reduce loneliness in the world.

What do you see around you that is already working - to reduce loneliness?

What might be low-hanging fruit and quick wins that help us help people form more genuine bonds and meaningful connections?

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Dear Friends,

Happy New Year! And thank you for subscribing to this newsletter!

I am deeply grateful to each and every one of you who signed up.

Your presence here is more meaningful than I can put into words. It is the resonance of hearts that helps me in growing this work and indeed, that is what will carry all of us forward as we work to create a more loving and compassionate world.

Let us make 2025 the Year of Love

As we enter 2025, let us declare this year the Year of Love. This is more than a phrase—it’s an invitation to reflect on what love truly means and to act with intentionality to increase the sum of love in the world.

Love is the answer to many of life’s challenges, from interpersonal conflict to social discord. It is the foundation for health, happiness, and flourishing—for individuals, communities and even nations.

Please remember that love is more than just an emotion. It is a powerful force that can be nurtured and cultivated to build a better tomorrow not only for ourselves but also for our children and grandchildren.

Metaphors to Consider

There are various metaphors we can use to understand more deeply the importance of love in everyone’s lives, and to also understand how a deficit of love can have a negative impact on people.

Just as there is financial poverty, which compromises people’s health, there can be emotional poverty which keeps people from realizing their fullest potential.

Love is also an essential nutrient for our well-being—analogous to protein for our body.

Love is an important basic element for our survival — similar to oxygen for our brain and other organs.

Love can also function like a vaccine against violence.

Love can boost our psychological immunity, promote our resilience and reduce our risk for depression, especially in difficult circumstances.

The wonderful thing about love is that it is not patented like an expensive medicine, though its effects can be equally profound and life-saving at times.

Love is freely available within everyone’s hearts and we can expand our hearts and help others overcome their emotional poverty or emotional malnutrition.

What Exactly Does the Year of Love Mean?

Over the course of this year, we will embark upon a journey into uncharted waters, as we work individually and collectively to increase love and love-informed actions in our daily lives.

To that end, here are some reflections to start the new year with:

• How can love help you overcome personal challenges?

• How can love shape policies, media, and education?

• How can love improve the quality of healthcare delivery?

• How can you create a ripple effect, where love-inspired actions lead others to do the same?

• What are simple actions that don’t take much effort on your part, that yet you can easily do to show someone that you care about them?

Thank You for Being a Part of This Movement: from Local to Global

Whether it’s a small act of kindness, or advocating for improving conditions for people within your community, every action matters.

Together, each of us can amplify the positive impact of love, and through that, contribute to the betterment of conditions locally, and globally.

When you signed up for this newsletter, you took a step toward building a better future. I look forward to sharing further what we can all do in the coming weeks and months. And of course, I welcome your thoughts on this - which we can share and amplify as we work toward this collective goal.

Here’s to your dreams of building the world you wish for, for yourself, your children and your grandchildren! Together we can do this, starting with 2025 as the Year of Love.

With heartfelt gratitude for your presence,
SD Shanti

P.S. If you have not already signed up for the sister site Brush Your Mind, I invite you to please have a look at this post which explains the interconnectedness between self-regulation and love and how each supports the other. In a nutshell, it works like this: the more we have love in the world, the more we advance emotional health; and when people are in a state of optimal emotional health, their ability to be loving and caring toward others is also increased.

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