September 7, 2007
Take a Page from Positive Psychology and Extend Summer into Winter
It has been a beautiful couple of weeks here by the ocean: sun, warm breezes, barbeques, a deer in the garden, two eagles in tree, happy friends and passing cruise ships silhouetterd against the distant mountains. Now pause and let yourself feel the euphoria of days like these.
Yet we’ve both been around long enough to know that some days it rains. So the question becomes, "How do you extend these good feelings to the days when the weather is dismal, people are anything but enthusiastic, and your feel the zing slipping out of your own life?”
The answer comes from positive psychology. It lies in taking conscious control of something that you are already doing on a ’sunny day,’ and then extending that action to every other day until it becomes a habit.
On a sunny summer day you tend to have many happy thoughts. Whether you realize it or not, you are putting those feel-good thoughts out to the universe, thereby attracting more good. You are unconsciously celebrating life. And you feel great!
Unfortunately, when you are unconscious of what you are doing, how you feel will tend to vary with the weather or with the crowd. You are a victim of your environment.
Perhaps it’s time to take charge. To become more conscious of the celebratory thoughts you are putting out to the universe on a good day, begin by deliberately pausing to feel the appreciation you have for the good in your life. Focus on something about the day that you particularly appreciate. Then raise your eyes upward and say something exclamatory like "Life is great!" Say "Thank you God!" if you are so inclined.
Do this when you are feeling the sun or see the flowers. Do it when you meet other happy people. Do it as you see children playing. It’s easy on a day like today.
Then do it again tomorrow and the next day. It may be harder when it’s raining, but you can always find things you appreciate. As you put your appreciation of the good out to universe, your mood will stay up or pick up.
Over the next month as you follow this practice of taking frequent "appreciation breaks," a couple of things will happen. First of all by practicing appreciation breaks every day, you develop the habit of doing it. That is to say, remembering to express appreciation is no longer an effort. Secondly, you begin to realize that you have control over your feelings of well-being. You still feel good on a great day, but now you are feeling good on most of the days in between too.
You have taken over control of your sense of well-being. Now life really is great.
Lives — millions of lives — have been transformed through this simple self growth process.
Dr. Neill Neill, Registered Psychologist and Diplomate, Comprehensive Energy Psychology, maintains an active psychology and life-coaching practice on Vancouver Island, BC, Canada. He is a member of the treatment team at Sunshine Coast Health Centre, an alcohol and drug treatment center for men. His goal is to help you to help yourself to a better life. http://www.neillneill.com
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1 Comment »
Mary :
This article is exactly what I have been doing for a long time. I was raised in a very negative home…all illness, nagative attitudes and poverty. Thus that is how I was until one day the light came on! My children were very young, my hudband was in a difficult work situation. I had a positive attitude friend and a negative attitude friend and found the latter always managed to make me feel negative and depressed. I knew I had to sever that friendship. That was a beginning but old habits are so hard to break. Over the years I have had varying success with this but when my husband developed cancer that would claim his life in about a year and a half I really worked hard to remain positive. Prayer, faith and wonderful friends helped. On days when my husband was feeling low we would talk about what we had to be joyful about and would find something going on in that day to be joyful about. Many people comment on my joyful attitude and that does not mean I don’t have times of grief even nearly four years later, but that I have made a choice to live my life to the best of my ability.