watch to see if score/ration increases
Joy, gratitude, serenity, interest, hope, pride, amusement, inspiration, awe, and love.
Whether it's fascination, laughter, or love, your moments of heartfelt positivity don't last long. Good feelings come and go, much like perfect weather. It's the way we humans were designed. Positivity fades. If it didn't, you'd have a hard time reacting to change. If positivity were permanent, you wouldn't notice the difference between good news and bad news, or between an invitation and an insult. p. 16
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. p. 21
All people yearn to be happy, but many of us have been coaxed into looking for our happiness in all the wrong places. We look for happiness in higher salaries, more possessions, or higher achievements. Or we fixate on the future, holding out that "one day" our dreams will come true and make us happy. p. 29
Whereas the old story leaves people feeling guilty when they "take time" for something that makes them feel good, the new story can give people the courage to cultivate, protect, and cherish moments that touch and open their hearts. p. 30
You may have noticed that the term happiness is not in my top ten. I avoid this term because I feel it's murky and overused. Although sometimes we use the word happy to refer to heartfelt positivity (as in "seeing you smile makes me happy"), that same feeling is often better described by another, more-specific term, like joy, gratitude, or love, depending on the circumstances. p. 37
It turns out that unexplained positivity lasts longer than positivity we analyze until we fully understand it. p. 50
Simply asking yourself "What's going right for me right now?" can unlock so much...you prepare the soil for positivity to take root. p. 51
As gratitude opens your heart, it creates the urge to do something kind for the person who was kind to you. Scientists have carefully studied the downstream effects of expressing heartfelt gratitude. The evidence shows that when we share our gratitude--whether in words, kindnesses, or gifts--we fertilize our relationships, helping them grow stronger and closer. p. 92-93
...studies show that shared moments of laughter and joviality between partners deepen their relationship, making it more satisfying to both. Other studies show that couples who express high levels of positivity to each other build up important reserves that help them weather the inevitable hardships they will face. p. 93
Although any single hug--or moment of positivity--is unlikely to change your life, the slow and steady accumulation of hugs--or positivity--makes a huge difference. So find a way to increase your daily dose of genuine, heart to heart, ahng on tight hugs. You will not only give and receive good feelings, but over time, you'll give and receive good health. p. 95
Whether we seek it or not, negativity has a way of finding us. Even when we jump our higest, we most often find ourselves closer to the floor than to the ceiling in the gymnasium of life.
As is true in many relams of life, more is not always better. Problems may well occur with too much positivity. Yet I see a more usuful lesson hidden in the upper limit to flourishing: negativity is also a necessary ingredient in the recipe for a flourishing life. Go figure...
...knowing that positivity is life-giving doesn't mean that negativity needs to be forever banished. It can't be. Life gives us plenty of reasons to be afraid, angry, sad, and then some. Without negativity you become Polyanna, with a forced clown smile painted on your faic. you lose touch with reality. you're not genuine. p. 136
I've come to see the ration of positivity to negativity as the uncanny balance between levity and gravity. Levity is that unseen force that lifts you skyward, whereas gravity is the opposing force that pulls you earthward. Unchecked levity leaves you flighty, ungrounded, and unreal. Unchecked gravity leaves you collapsed in a heap of misery. yet when properly combined, these two opposing forces leave you buoyant, dynamic, realistic... Appropriate negativity delivers the promise of gravity. It grounds you in reality. Heartfelt positivity, by contrast, provides the lift that makes you buoyant and ready to flourish. p. 137
Decrease Negativity
Bear in mind that the goal is to reduce your negativity, not eliminate it. At times, negative emotions are appropriate and useful. It is proper and helpful, for instance, to mourn after a loss, to resonate on your anger to figut an injustice, or to be frightened by things that could cause harm...
Your best goal is to reduce inappropriate or gratuitous negativity. Whereas some of your negativity is corrective and energizing, not all of it is. Gratuitous negativity is neither helpful nor healthy. At times your entrenched emotional habits can intensify or prolong your bad feelings far beyond their usefulness. Your negativity become corrosive and smothering. Like an out-of-control week, gratuitous negativity grows fast and crowds out positivity's more tender shoots. p. 158-159
- Dispute negative thinking; examine facts, compare them to the negative thinking
- Break the grip of rumination: Our minds are often high traffic places--it's easy to go to a bad place over and over again in your mind. You examine negative thoughts from every angle, question them, and don't get anywhere. You are stuck in a rut of endless questions. Break this cycle by being aware, distract yourself, find a way to lift your mood.
- Become more mindful: Negative thoughts inevitably arise. Attempting to block out negative thoughts and emotions backfires. Instead, pay attention to your own inner experience with full awareness and without judgement. Accept a thought as just a thought--simply an occurrence in your mind that arises, takes shape, and passes, then soon dissipates.
- Defuse your negativity landmines: Reflect on typical daily routine and ask which circumstances usher in the most negativity. Ask--is this necessary? Is it gratuitous? Is it both? Necessary negativity faces facts and moves us forward. Gratuitous negativity doesn't lead anywhere good. It is identified by it's sheer size relative to the circumstances at hand. It's excessive, redundant, ugly--blown up all out of proportion. If you can't avoid a situation that brings you needless negativity, you have at least three options for curbing it: you can modify the situation, you can attend to different aspects of the situation, or you can change it's meaning.
- Assess your Media Diet
- Find substitutes for gossip and sarcasm: if gossip or sarcastic humor is habitual for you, consider whether you are needlessly shackling your own positivity ration and also bringing those around you down. If this is you, challenge yourself to find substitutes. When you talk about others, highlight their positive qualities and good fortunes, not their weaknesses and mishaps. When you want to poke fun, poke fun lightly. Hurl puns, not barbs. Avoid hidden forms of verbal aggression...
Increase Positivity:
Heartfelt: To truly feel positivity in your heart requires that you slow donw. The pace of modern life is often so relentless that it keeps you focused outward, away from your inner core. Over time, this stance numbs your heart. To increase your positivity you'll need to "un-numb" your heart. Let it feel. Let it be open. Slow yourself down enough that you can see and hear and sense with your heart, not just with your eyes, ears and mind. Let yourself breathe in and fully absorb the goodness that surrounds you. Connect to that goodness. Revel in it. p. 180
- Find positive meaning: how do you interpret the circumstances? What about big meaning? How about the meaning of life itself? What sense do you make of your life as a whole? What story do you tell yourself about why your life has gone the way it has? Does the story energize you or hold you down?
- Savor goodness: Think about goodness in a way that pumps it up--before it think "it's going to be fabulous", during think "I just want to drink this all in," after it replay in your mind. This is NOT analysis, and requires a light mental touch. Dissecting deflates positivity. Do things to pay more attention to positive experiences.
- Count your blessings: Count only a few days out of the week rather than every day.
- Kindness counts: be intentionally kind to others--preferably several large acts of kindness on a single day rather than spread out.
- Follow your passions
- Dream about your future
- Apply your strengths: the boost in positivity that comes from learning your strengths is significant but temporary. By contrast, the boost in positivity that comes from finding new ways to apply your strengths is significant and lasting.
- Connect with others: Connect with others, every day, and no matter what. And even if you're not a naturally outgoing person, act like you are. Scientific experiements document that if you simply pretend to be extroverted when you're with others--if you act bold, talkative, energetic, active, assertive, and adventerous--no matter what your natural inclinations are, you'll extract more positivity from those exhanges. My own open heart study suggests that you don't particularly need to be or act outgoing; cultivating loving concern for others seems to be enough. People who made regular efforts to cultivate such tenderness and compassion pulled more positivity out of their ordinary exchanges with others than those that didn't. I encourage you to experiment with putting on extroversion or loving concern for others. See what new sources of positivity spring forth. My prediction is that when you're with others you'll smile more, laugh more, enjoy greater positivity, and all the while build deeper and more satisfying connections...
- Connect with nature: increases positivity and memory, but only in spring and early summer
- Open your mind--practice mindfulness, be open to goodness, practice acceptance not analysis of the good that comes your way.
- Open your heart--loving kindness meditation--find warm and tender feelings, direct them towards yourself then to a widening circle of others.
Positivity Toolkit
- Be open--experiment with mindful awareness, temporarily rid your mind of expectations and judgments. Give yourself permission and time to experience the richness of the present moment. Being open means cultivating curiosity about and acceptance of whatever you're experiencing. Dont' try to suppress any thoughts or feelings, just acknowledge and allow them to pass. It is what it is.
- Create High Quality Connections--even where none existed before using one or more of these ways: Be present, attentive, and affirming, Support what the other person is doing, Trust and let it show, Play.
- Cultivate Kindness: Give yourself the goal of performing 5 new acts of kindness on a single day, something that makes a difference and comes at some cost. Try once a week or once a month.
- Develop Distractions--which are important tools for breaking the grip of rumination and curb needless negativity. Effective distractions demand full attention. Make 2 lists--healthy distractions, unhealthy distractions. For each unhealthy distraction come up with a healthy alternative. Figure out resources necessary for healthy distractions.
- Dispute negative thinking: Write down common negative thoughts, shuffle and dispute each one loudly and with conviction. Add new gratuitous negativities to deck of thoughts.
- Find nearby nature
- Learn and apply your strengths---online survey @ AuthenticHappiness.com, Reflect on which truly resonate and halp you come alive. These are signature strengths. Google Reflected Best Self Exercise. Once you've learned your strengths, redesign life to use them every day.
- Meditate Mindfully--see if you begin to see thoughts arising, describe them neutrally. Observe why it is alluring. Try to stay in the present. No need to suppress thoughts, just start again.
- Loving-kindness meditation: May I/he be safe. May I be happy. May I be healthy. May I live with ease.
- Ritualize Gratitude--notice the gifts that surround you. Record in journal, silently offer thanks for parts of daily routine.
- Savor positivity--past, present, or future. Really think about it in a away that cherishes the event.
- Visualize your future.
Tune in to kindness--your own and that of others. Seek out and savor all manner of goodness, beauty, and excellence. Treasure these moments and you'll unlock recurrent waves of gratitude, awe, inspiration, and more. Become like a plant and turn toward the light, in all its spiritual, earthly, and human forms. Feed on it. The more you train your eye, mind, and heart to the positivity in your life, the more of it you'll find. Remember that the intensity of your positivity matters far less than its relative frequency. This means that even more positivity, experienced often, can lead you to your higher ground.
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