Positivity / Happiness Archives - Page 4 of 6

May 14, 2020October 1, 2020

The Sand In The Oyster

Change your perspective and the way you think about and deal with irritations and you can transform your behavior from reacting in anger and frustration to responding mindfully with love. Choose your response to irritations with care.

“God allows us to experience the low points of life in order to teach us lessons we could not learn in any other way. The way we learn those lessons is not to deny the feelings but to find the meanings underlying them.” ~ Stanley Lindquist

Making Pearls

Have you ever admired an exquisite pearl necklace, each lustrous pearl perfect in shape and shimmering iridescence? Do you know how pearls are made? Natural pearls are created when an irritant, a grain of sand or bit of stone, gets inside the shell of a mollusk. The mollusk reacts to the irritant by coating it with a substance to reduce the irritation.

Over time, as layer upon layer is added, a pearl is formed. The source of a natural pearl is irritation. The mollusk responds to the irritation by creating something of beauty and value.

April 16, 2020October 8, 2020

Why Relationships Matter

The “rugged individual” is a false ideal. We are social animals who have evolved to bond with and depend on other human beings. Our attitude and actions can improve the quality of our relationships or cause them to deteriorate.

Poison!

A story from India about relationships [1]:

A young woman married and went to live with her husband. Her mother-in-law also lived in the house.

It didn’t take long for the young woman to discover that it was nearly impossible to get along with her mother-in-law, a critical and mean-spirited woman, able to find something wrong with anything the young wife did. They constantly argued and bickered, even though custom dictated that the mother-in-law was to be treated with respect.

Finally, the young wife reached the breaking point. She went to see one of her father’s old friends, a dealer of herbs, wise to the ways of the world. There she poured out her sad story about the situation that had become unbearable to her. She asked if he could give her a poison that would solve her problem once and for all.

March 12, 2020October 12, 2020

Be More Of Who You Are

Everyone has a combination of character strengths, “core capacities” for human beings to grow and flourish. The combination of strengths and the ways they are used is unique to each individual. While you can’t be good at everything, you could be GREAT at one thing. Focus on developing and expanding your unique Signature Strengths

The Animal School [1]

Once upon a time, the animals decided they must make some adaptations to meet the challenges of a changing world. So they set up a school.

They developed a curriculum of climbing, flying, running, and swimming and declared that all animals must take all subjects.

The duck excelled at swimming. In fact, she was better than the instructor! However she was only fair at flying and her wobbly gait got her a D- in running. Because of her poor running grade, she had to do extra practice. She ran until she wore out her webbed feet and then she was only average in swimming. But average was OK so nobody worried. Except the duck.

February 20, 2020October 19, 2020

Reap The Benefits Of Positive Emotions

There are a number of benefits inherent in having a positive outlook, including being healthier, having more energy, recovering quickly from adversity, having deeper social ties, and others. While a portion of your natural positive or negative inclination is immutable, you do have the ability to influence a large chunk – up to 40% – of your positivity. Engage positive emotions and reap the benefits.

The Weight Of Water

A psychology professor stood in front of her class and picked up a glass of water. The professor asked, “How heavy is this glass of water I’m holding?”

The students shouted out several answers, ranging from a few ounces to a couple of pounds.

The professor replied, “From my perspective, the weight of the glass depends on how long I hold it. If I hold it for a minute or two, it’s quite light. If I hold it for an hour, the weight might make my arm ache a bit. But if I hold it for an entire day, the weight will make my arm cramp and feel numb – and eventually I’d drop the glass, which would break on the floor.”

December 19, 2019October 24, 2020

Creating Positive Relationships

Developing and enjoying positive relationships is an important part of well-being — one of the 5 core concepts identified by Martin Seligman in his PERMA model of well-being theory. [Seligman] Positive relationships can even help us live longer, as shown by the evidence in the “Blue Zones”, areas of the world with the longest-lived peoples. [Kotifani]

The Fable Of The Porcupines

It was a frigid cold winter. The earth was frozen and many animals died from the cold. And so a group of porcupines agreed to huddle together that they might keep warm.

But as they lay up close to one another, the quills of each porcupine pricked and injured the ones they were closest to. After a while, the porcupines decided they couldn’t take this anymore, so they moved apart. And one by one, they began freezing to death.

October 3, 2019October 29, 2020

Strengths In Adversity

Drawing on character strengths, and especially our Signature Strengths, gives us tools to deal with adversity and grow, even thrive (i.e., become “antifragile”), from the process. Using strengths in adversity provides three distinct techniques to positively deal with set backs, glitches, and failure.

“That which does not kill us makes us stronger.” ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

“Whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. But it almost kills you.” ~ Conan O’Brien

Opportunity Or Adversity: A Good Time To Use Your Strengths

I typically think about using my Signature Strengths to enhance positive emotions and experiences. But in addition to using them when life is going well, a person can draw on Signature Strengths during the hard times and difficulties of life. In fact, using strengths in adversity may be one of the most beneficial ways to live from your Strengths.

August 29, 2019October 19, 2020

Practicing Positivity

“Happiness” is much deeper than simply having pleasant feelings. Research by positive psychologists has identified exercises that increase positivity / happiness. Increased positivity, measured by subjective well-being, leads to flourishing, and a life of well-being, meaning, and purpose.

Dark Cloud Or Sunshine?

Negative Nellie and Positive Pollie (not their real names) are colleagues at a local business. Both are married. Each is raising a family. But there the similarities end.

Nellie’s daily commute is, as she describes it, “the drive from hell”. She is constantly getting cut off in traffic or stuck behind some moron who refuses to speed through a yellow light. Her horn and one specific finger get a workout every morning. By the time she gets to work, late as usual thanks to all those idiots out there, she is fuming.

At work, she carries a black cloud with her everywhere she goes. Co-workers avoid her; customers complain about her treatment of them. Nellie has been passed over twice for promotions and she is sure it’s because her boss has it out for her and besides, she works with a bunch of suck-ups who the boss is partial to.

At home, Nellis is furious about something a co-worker said. She yells at her kids for leaving a mess in the kitchen after school. Her husband helps with dinner then retreats to the TV. The kids rush up to their rooms to play video games and escape their mother’s wrath.

August 1, 2019November 2, 2020

Why You Need Positive Relationships

Creating positive relationships and nurturing our ties to other people are fundamental practices for flourishing and enhanced well-being. Simple practices have a large impact on improving our relationships. When we do them, our own happiness increases.

Once a month, my wife, Rebecca, and I join with other musicians we’ve met over the years for an acoustic jam session. We sit in a circle and each person takes a turn performing a song, while the rest of us join in. Depending on the size of the group, we go around the circle two or three times, then break to share the food we’ve all brought. After the break, we go back to the circle and go around once or twice more.

The group varies from month to month — we may have 12 or more or we may have only 5 or 6. We sing and talk and laugh and share a meal. By the end of the evening, I have connected to people with whom I have developed positive relationships over the years. I always leave in a more relaxed, peaceful state than when I arrived, especially if I’ve had a hectic, stressful week. In a word, I am happier.

May 9, 2019October 5, 2019

Develop Your “Weaker” Strengths

Use your Signature Strengths but don’t neglect your lesser strengths — there is potential for growth.

A Journaling Practice

Almost every morning, after I spend some minutes in meditation, I write in my journal. I list my “Eulogy Virtues” – the things I want to be remembered for. Next I write my “Valid Values” – my highest values and the ones I want to structure my life around. Then I write out my Signature Strengths – the character strengths that I scored highest for in the VIA Strengths Survey. Writing them down helps to imprint them in my conscious and subconscious mind. It helps me consider them as I plan my day.

This practice helps to make using my Signature Strengths almost automatic. However, while I want to make good use of these top character strengths, I don’t want to neglect the others that don’t come as naturally to me . . . especially when they could be beneficial in helping me grow and develop.

April 18, 2019September 19, 2019

Build Your Positivity

Positive emotions have a long-lasting effect on your psychological well-being and lead to flourishing – the ability to thrive and grow. Not only do they feel good in the moment, but they are worth cultivating as a way toward improved well-being.

“Positivity opens us. The first core truth about positive emotions is that they open our hearts and our minds, making us more receptive and more creative.

“Positivity transforms us for the better. This is the second core truth about positive emotions. By opening our hearts and minds, positive emotions allow us to discover and build new skills, new ties, new knowledge, and new ways of being.” [Fredrickson 2009]

Broaden and Build

Barbara Fredrickson was one of the first Positive Psychologists I encountered. Martin Seligman referenced her work a number of times in Authentic Happiness and described the profound impact she had on his thinking about positive emotion. She was the first recipient of the $100,000 Templeton Positive Psychology Prize, awarded for the best work in Positive Psychology by a scientist under 40. [Seligman] Based on Seligman’s reference, I immediately purchased and read Barbara Fredrickson’s book, Positivity. It was an excellent introduction for me to the concept of building the skills that help you flourish.