She's Baaaaack!

Did you miss me?

I'm back and more bouncy and positive than ever! It's been a while since I wrote - but my excuse is official (if excuses can ever be official). I officially submitted my capstone (which is like a thesis) for my masters program on Sunday night. 50 pageroos, on the power of positivity. Some of my writing will remain top secret, but I'll be sharing most of it with you.

Let me share a few factoids about positivity just to refresh.

1. You're not supposed to be positive 100% of the time. First, because positive emotions actually don't stick around, they are transient. Second of all, that would be unhealthy, even if it were possible. We need negative emotions to inform us when something is wrong.

2. But, if you're interested in flourishing, you should experience at least three positive emotions for every one negative emotion. Just like ice has a tipping point for melting, you have a tipping point for thriving. If you're not thriving, you're languishing. This has been mathematically and scientifically proven.

3. Don't be so all-or-nothing and let yourself spiral into chocolate cake and misery. Just a little dose of positive emotion can deliver QUANTUM effects in your life. If you're more positive, you are open. When you're open, you welcome new encounters, literally see the world differently, more broadly, and you're more creative.

Hope you enjoyed just this little dose...so much more on its way.

Much love,
S

Resource: Positivity by Barbara Fredrickson

Gratitude is the Gateway Emotion to Good Things

After I lost just about everything (money, men, apartment, and job), the only thing that got me back was GRATITUDE.

By experiencing true gratitude for my family, my friends, and the opportunity I had to rebuild and rest, I learned that in all that was lost, I had been found.

I believe, and once I'm done writing my capstone I will publish something official on this, that GRATITUDE is THE GATEWAY emotion to all the good stuff.

By gratitude I mean HEARTFELT "thank YOU." Not the BS thanks we sometimes mindlessly express. I mean the kind where your heart expands and you FEEL it. Here's why GRATITUDE is the shit:


GRATITUDE helps you SAVOR.
It induces you to SAVOR small things you can easily take for granted. Like running water, clean sheets, or your honey who just made you breakfast and wished you a good day.

In the process of SAVORING, gratitude gently, effortlessly, helps you become more MINDFUL, more PRESENT. Only if you are HERE and NOW can you be truly grateful for what is. (This is a relief for people like me who can't meditate regularly).

Being GRATEFUL opens your heart; by experiencing it you are automatically acknowledging all that you are able to RECEIVE and experience. So you are OPEN.

Lastly, true gratitude inspires you to want to give and serve others (Fredrickson, 2009). Not in the tit for tat kinda way, but in a way that is energized to really make a difference.

I have so much more to say about this...but for now this will do. Gratitude is the bombdiggity.

PS Sometimes people think I'm all pie in the sky - like just because I'm me I have an extra canny ability to experience this full-of-wonder-type-of-gratitude...but it's not me.

Anyone can get themselves into Gratitude. It's a process. Here are some ways I do it:

1. If I'm feeling like dump and throwing a pity party or hissy fit, I'll take a mental break from whatever I'm thinking and just list all the things I'm grateful for in my head until I feel better. I'll do this as I walk from the subway to my office or as I take a coffee break. Sometimes it takes a while. Here's how it sounds: "I'm so grateful for my legs that carry me. I'm so grateful for my mind that works. I'm so grateful for safety I feel. I'm so grateful for these cute shoes. I'm so grateful that it's warm outside..." Stay with this for minutes until you TRULY feel and believe just how damn lucky you really are.

2. If I'm about to sleep and feeling icky, I'll write at least three things I'm grateful for and why. The key is to be specific about the things as they relate to the day. So for example, even if a meeting didn't go well, instead of focusing on how it sucked or I suck, I'll say: "I'm grateful that I have a team dedicated to helping me organize our next presentation." Or, "I'm grateful that I had the opportunity to present and learn so I can kick ass next time."

3. If all else fails, just focus on everybody else who has it worse than you. This will zap you into a mindset of acknowledging all the abundance in your life. It may feel like cheating, but you gotta do what you gotta do.

To conclude (again). "If you focus on what you don't have, you'll find you never have enough. If you focus on what you do have, you'll find you always have more."

Thank YOU for reading.

S

Source: Positivity by Barbara Fredrickson

Mindful Multi-tasking...Am I Brilliant or Kidding Myself?

I'm eating chocolate, doing laundry, facebooking, editing a paper, blogging, and watching the Olympics.

What does Positive Psychology say about multi-tasking?

Hmmm...I don't know. But let me talk about mindfulness.

If I am eating chocolate mindlessly yet am mindful that I am eating the chocolate in such a way, where am I? Let's see...

Mindfulness creates a space, a distance, between the “self” and the contents of one’s consciousness which includes thoughts, emotions, motives, one’s behavior, and the world (Maddux, 2009).

In this space, a flexibility imbues the individual, opening one up to novelty, sensitivity to context, and engagement with the present (Langer, 2009). Because we're open, mindfulness enables us to best deal with the inevitable uncertainties of life.

Still with me?

According to Barbara Fredrickson (2009), mindfulness is the gateway to optimism and positive emotion: “once you deliberately cultivate openness [via mindfulness], positivity follows automatically, along with its broaden-and-build entourage.”

Well, that's a plus! (pun intended).

Fredrickson further discusses how mindfulness is linked with resilience; because it is more grounded in the present, when mindful, an individual is less concerned or worried about the future. They don’t overgeneralize or overreact.

Jon Kabat-Zinn, the first Western scientist to teach and apply Eastern mindfulness practices to his medical patients using a methodology called, Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), discusses mindfulness as a non-judgmental attending to one’s inner experience with full awareness (Fredrickson, 2009).

For example, if one has a negative thought, in a mindful state, one can step back, accept the thought as just a thought, and not give into it.

AHA! This means I AM being mindful of my behavior right now and without slapping myself on the wrist, can step back and say, "enough, Stella, hide the chocolate!"

Here's where it gets interesting...

Over 25 years of studies reveal that mindfulness contributes to greater competence, health and longevity, positive affect, creativity, charisma, and reduced burnout (Langer, 1989, 1997).

In fact, mindfulness helps you experience less stress, less pain, reduced anxiety, clearer skin, and better immune functioning.

It's like vitamins, birth control pills, exercise, and pro-biotics all rolled into one!

Furthermore, it’s been proven that mindfulness training affects your brain; it reduces activity in circuits linked with negativity and increases activity in circuits linked with positivity (Fredrickson, 2009).

The opposite of mindfulness is mindlessness, going on automatic pilot. Most of the time we are mindless (Langer, 2009). Langer describes that mindlessness occurs in two forms: 1)through repetition such as driving the same route home and 2) Through single exposure of information such as when we blindly accept information without questioning it when presented by “authority” figures. So beware!

What can you do to be more mindful?

1. Meditate! Not sure how? Listen to Gabrielle Bernstein's guided meditations on iTunes.

2. When in conversation with someone, LISTEN to what they're saying instead of thinking about you're going to say or planning your grocery list.

3. Doing "mindless" tasks? NEVER! Even simple things like LAUNDRY can be done mindfully. Pay attention to the task at hand. For example, consider how amazing it is that you just have to press a button and presto, your clothing gets washed. Pay attention to how deliciously warm your clothing feels when it comes out of the dryer. Be HERE.

And yes, it's probably best to not do your laundry, blog, watch the Olympics, eat chocolate, facebook, and write a paper at the same time.

More mindfully now, with love,
Stella


References

Fredrickson, B. (2009). Positivity. New York: Crown Publisher.

Kabat-Zinn, J. (2003), "Mindfulness-based interventions in context: Past, present, and future," Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice 10:144-56.

Langer, E. (2009). Mindfulness Versus Positive Evaluation. In Lopez, J. & Snyder, C. R. (Eds.), Oxford Handbook of Positive Psychology (pp. 279-293). New York: Oxford University Press.

Maddux, J. E. (2009). Self-efficacy: The power of believing you can. In Snyder, C. R., & Lopez, S. J. (Eds.), Oxford Handbook of Positive Psychology, 2nd ed. (pp. 335-343). New York: Oxford University Press.

BREAK-UP, BREAK-DOWN, BREAK-THROUGH: honoring the ugly to get to beautiful, again.

2009 was a very tough, personal year for me. One of the best and the worst yet. I broke off a long term relationship, started another one, got engaged, planned a wedding in two months, cancelled the wedding, moved three times, started a full-time masters program, and continued to run and grow two businesses.

I remember post break-up(s) how frustrated I would get for the sudden forgetfulness and clumsiness that took over the person I formally was. I’d walk into rooms forgetting why. I’d make appointments and not be able to keep them. I felt tired and demotivated. And while I showed up the next day(s) post break-up for work, ready to go, I wasn’t really ready at all. I kept wondering to myself, why am I not on top of my game?

DUH, STELLA!

In trying to keep it all together, I almost got away with IT. I almost got away from the big lesson. I almost got away from the pain.

Here are five insights/points/tips I picked up on why and how to honor the ugly. Honor it so you can break-through and grow beyond the breakdown.

1. There’s a difference between experiencing negative emotion and just festering. Don’t fester. Feel the darkness but look towards the light and always move towards it. They say “acknowledge” your negative feelings - which is hard. What exactly does “acknowledge” mean? That’s part of the journey, figuring that out.

2. Negative emotion narrows your breath as much as your thinking. You’re literally less creative and able to see the big picture. You’re very focused. Read Positivity by Barbara Fredrickson, there’s research that proves this.

3. Because you’re focused, you are more likely to better analyze a problem or something that doesn’t feel right. You make certain types of decisions, better. Like leaving a relationship that you shouldn’t be in. It’s hard to leave something if everything feels dandy.

4. So therefore, negative emotion is good for you - at least in small doses. When you experience a big loss, obviously you’ll experience more of it. However, on a regular day, you want to experience THREE positive emotions to every ONE negative. Read Barbara Fredrickson's book, Positivity, for research on why this magic ratio works...I’ll provide another post to talk more about this later. Want to know your ratio of positive to negative emotion? Take the PANAS test here.

5. If you don’t address deep negative experiences, your body will address them for you. Let yourself feel, experience, “acknowledge,” so you CAN move on.

For some of you, this blog may seem out of sorts for “Positively Stella!” But it’s not healthy or smart to pretend that shit doesn't go down. Life is beautiful, but it can get messy.

In Diener and Biswas-Diener’s book: Happiness: Unlocking the Mysteries of Psychological Wealth, they discuss that being too happy and too optimistic can actually be bad for you. On a scale from 1-10, 10 being extremely optimistic, people who are very optimistic at a 7 or 8 are FAB. But people who are at a 9 or 10, might be too peachy keen. Take the optimism test on www.authentichappiness.org.

So why is being too positive bad?
1. If you have a health condition and just hope for the best and that everything will be fine, you might ignore signs and symptoms that need attention.
2. If you’re so deliciously satisfied with yourself and life, than you might lack the drive to take things to the next level at work. You might not challenge yourself to grow.
3. If you’re SOOOO positive that you’re almost manic, you run the risk of being insensitive, flaky, and other fun stuff.

Here's to honoring the processes that make life worth living.

With much love in both the light and the dark,
Stella

Positive Psychology in a Box