Do You Have a Negativity Bias?* March 8, 2008
Posted by beholdthestars in Links, Motivation, Positive Thinking, Quotations.Tags: ANTs, automatic negative thoughts, Carol Kline, Dr. John Cacioppo, Dr. Richard Davidson, happiness, Happy for No Reason, Laboratory for Affective Neuroscience, Marci Shimoff, University of Chicago, University of Wisconsin-Madison
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Of course you do. Human beings are thinking machines. It is estimated that the average person has about 60,000 thoughts each day. They bubble up spontaneously, one after another, without end. To see them in action, try to sit quietly for five minutes without thinking of anything. You can’t do it. Thoughts keep intruding on your quiet time.
What is interesting is that it is estimated that about 95% of those are the same thoughts we had yesterday and the day before. That means that most of the time our brains are chugging along thinking about things that have nothing to do with what we’re doing at any given moment. In other words, thoughts regarding our daily activities are merely intrusions into this ocean of self chatter.
It gets worse. It is also estimated that roughly 80% of thoughts in that ocean are negative. Let’s do the math: 60,000 thoughts X 80%=48,000 negative thoughts a day. Admitting that this is a rough estimate of a rough average, we’re still talking about a lot of negative thoughts for most of us. We are not only swimming in a sea of thoughts, but a sea of negative ones. Specialists call these “automatic negative thoughts,” or ANTs.
Now for the bad part: we’re junkies for the bad stuff. Our brains are “Velcro for negativity and Teflon for positivity,” says brain researcher Dr. Rich Hanson. According to Dr. John Cacioppo at the University of Chicago, our brains respond more intensely to negative or disturbing thoughts than to positive, comforting ones. In a study, he measured different levels of brain activity in subjects viewing images inspiring positive feelings, images involving negative or disturbing images, or images inspiring neutral feelings. Activity was much higher when subjects viewed the negative or disturbing images than when viewing positive or neutral images.
So we are hardwired to focus on the negative, right? Not so, says Dr. Richard Davidson of the Laboratory for Affective Neuroscience at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. New ways of thinking produce new neural pathways and shrink older, unused pathways. This explains why it gets easier to focus on the positive aspects of our lives the more we practice. We’re training our emotional pathways the way an athlete trains his body. That is good news.
Start your training today. Do 25 repetitions with your gratitude journal followed by 15 repetitions with your success journal. Add intermittent episodes of smelling the roses throughout the day, and pretty soon you’ll be a lean, mean happy machine.
Make a great day.
* This post is based on a summary of information taken from Happy for No Reason: 7 Steps to Being Happy from the Inside Out, by Marci Shimoff and Carol Kline.
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You Can Learn the Happiness Habit March 6, 2008
Posted by beholdthestars in Links, Positive Thinking, Quotations.Tags: gratidude, gratitude journal, happiness, Kathleen McGowan, made to stick, Psychology Today
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Optimists seem to be sprinkled with fairy dust. They suffer less and recover quicker. They’re healthier and better-liked and have stronger marriages and more fun. It’s enough to make the rest of us gloom — except that psychologists believe that a lot of these qualities stem from cognitive habits that can be learned. More than any other major personality trait, optimism is a matter of practice.
The key to increasing optimism lies in understanding its true nature. It’s not relentless cheer or “positive thinking.” It has more to do with how you behave, says Suzanne Segerstrom, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Kentucky in Lexington. “I think an optimistic outlook can be cultivated, but it’s even better to cultivate optimistic behavior — engagement and persistence toward one’s goals.From “Second Nature” by Kathleen McGowan, in the April 2008 issue of Psychology Today
This represents some very good news. Psychologists are finding that many of the traits we consider natural — like kindness, loyalty, optimism, and courage — are products not only of innate characteristics, but of our habitual ways of interacting with the world. And because they are habits, they can be learned (or unlearned). The great news is that optimism is among the easiest to learn.
In a nutshell, the research shows that we can become more optimistic by taking on the characteristics of optimism. This is exactly what the self-help gurus are saying when they encourage us to “act as if.” When we “act as if,” we are pretending to have the traits and characteristics we desire. We “act” optimistic by engaging with the world and sticking to our goals. Here are a couple of tricks psychologists think can help you along:
- Pay attention to the good things in your life. Keep a log of the good things that happen each day. For those of you who read this blog, this should sound suspiciously like a gratitude journal. Noticing the good things around you helps you to develop the belief that good things happen all the time.
- Keep a journal. I’m not talking about a journal filled with your whining about how life is unfair (a girl I knew told me she stopped writing in her journal when she realized that it was just a “chronicle of my pain.”), but a journal of your hopes and dreams, including a description of your goals and dreams and a plan for positive actions you’ll take in achieving them. This focus on process is similar to something I discussed after having read Made to Stick.
What’s great about these findings that they remind us that there’s nothing wrong with us. We’re okay. We just have some bad habits we need to change, and focusing on the negative is one of them. We can deal with that.
Make a great day.
Photo: AMagill
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5 Ways to Feed Your Happiness March 5, 2008
Posted by beholdthestars in Life & Living, Positive Thinking.Tags: Barbara DeAntelis, Carol Kline, Cherokee legend, Cognitive Therapy, Feal the Fear and Do It Anyway, forgiveness, gratitude, happiness, Marci Shimoff, Tips
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One evening, a Cherokee elder told his grandson about the battle that goes on inside people. He said, “My son, the battle is between the two ‘wolves’ that live inside us all. One is Unhappiness. It is fear, worry, anger, jealousy, sorrow, self-pity, resentment, and inferiority. The other is Happiness. It is joy, love, hope, serenity, kindness, generosity, truth, and compassion.”
The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, “Which wolf wins?”
The Old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”
In Happy for No Reason, by Marci Shimoff and Carol Kline
Whether or not you believe this is really a Cherokee story or can accept that the old Cherokee would speak in contemporary self-help terminology, this is still a pretty valid approach to mental health.
Whatever we focus on is heightened and magnified. If we focus (feed) on the negatives by whining, complaining, and criticizing ourselves and others, we wind up with a pretty bleak view of life. If, on the other hand, we focus (feed) on what’s going well, what’s beautiful, and what makes us happy, we wind up feeling pretty good. It’s the spiritual equivalent of the difference between living on burgers, fries, tacos and cokes versus living on fruits, vegetables, lean proteins and water. Or as programmers say, “Garbage in, garbage out.”
There are a number of things we can do to feed our happiness. Here are five:
- Pay attention to what’s good around you. Make it a game. How many great things can you collect today? What is your best score? Give awards for the coolest, most unusual things you come across.
- Think about others. Everyone else is in the same boat you are, struggling with hopes and disappointments. We all have bad days. Notice that as well. Is there a way that you could make somebody else’s day a little better? Could you bring fresh coffee to that cranky co-worker or pick up the kids tonight, even though it’s not your night? As J.M. Barrie said, “Those who bring sunshine into the lives of others cannot keep it from themselves.”
- Practice forgiveness. This one is tough. I hesitated to put it on the list because the process of forgiveness is much more difficult and complex than “practice forgiveness” implies. It does take practice. Forgiveness is an act of kindness toward yourself. Forgiveness doesn’t mean condoning the behavior or accepting the offender back into our lives; withholding forgiveness won’t give you power, it won’t keep you from getting hurt again, and it punishes no one but yourself. There’s an old saying about resentment that applies to equally to withholding forgiveness: “Resentment [or withholding forgiveness] is like taking poison and then expecting the other person to die.”
- Notice what things make you happy and do them more often. A no-brainer? Sure. When was the last time you played basketball, took a hike, knitted a scarf, saw a good movie, or took a road trip? Make a list of those things that make you feel good and build time for them into your schedule.
- Dispute your negative thoughts. After all, they’re only thoughts. This is the bedrock of Cognitive Therapy, which suggests that we are unhappy because we have an unhealthy monologue going on in our head, most of which is irrational and untrue. Question your negatives. Ask, “Is this really true?” and, “How do I know this is true?” “If I were to see this as a positive, how would I see it?”
- Outtalk your negativity. Barbara DeAngelis, in Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway, encourages us to so overwhelm our negativity with positive input that it can’t get a word in.
Feed happiness; starve unhappiness. Write it down. Post it on your computer. Chant it like a mantra. Then live it like your life depends on it — because it does.
Make a great day.
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Thank You March 4, 2008
Posted by beholdthestars in Uncategorized.Tags: blogging, Hamed Saber, happiness, thank you
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Just a short post to thank you for visiting Behold the Stars. I do appreciate your taking the time out of your day to read the posts and periodically add your own thoughts. Writing this blog is turning out to be more interesting than I thought. I find that I enjoy the daily challenge of writing, and the subject matter helps me keep my head on straight. I also get the reward of having people come by to read and comment on what I’ve written.
I’ve received some very nice comments so far. Some of the posts resonate with you, and when I visit your blogs, I can see why. I read there of other struggles — stories of regret, financial problems, sickness, and other losses — different in the particulars from mine, but similar in magnitude and destructiveness. I also see something else. I see people who have learned to count their many blessings, and I see people who are working to add some more. We’re like a handful of pebbles thrown into a pond, radiating concentric circles of okayness to our little groups of readers. That can only be a good thing, I think. Keep writing.
The point of Behold the Stars is that our lives are pretty good — if we allow them to be and are willing to notice. They can be better, though, but though not in a nose-to-the-grindstone, grit—your-teeth grab for every last bit of efficiency and personal success. That approach only reinforce our insecurities. Our choice is rather to choose those tools and ideas that make us happier, more peaceful, and better to those around us. That’s what it’s all about anyway, isn’t it?
Thanks again.
Make a nice day.
Photo: Hamed Saber
Tip #20: Do an Inverse Gratitude Journal February 28, 2008
Posted by beholdthestars in Motivation, Positive Thinking, Tips.Tags: appreciation, Compassion, gratitude journal, happiness, inverse gratitude journal
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I have suggested gratitude journals often, and often to the point of annoyance. I’m absolutely convinced that doing the practice daily for a few weeks will dramatically change your outlook. Today, I’m going to twist things a bit and come in through the back door. I’m going to ask you to do an Inverse Gratitude Journal. The Inverse Gratitude Journal is the back door to the gratitude journal. It works like this:
- Make a list of everyone in your list.
- Go through the list and recall everything ever done on your behalf by each of those people
- If you’re really motivated, make a list under each name of all the wonderful things he or she has done for you.
C’est tout. That’s all.
What you’ll find is that almost everything in your gratitude journal came from one of those people (except that one about making all the lights on your way to work). You’re swimming in a sea of people who care about you. Some are kind, some are shy, some are cheapskates, some are hip, and some are bastards, yet they’ve all still found a way to do something for you.
We are not alone in this life, folks. We support each other, and we lift up the ones who have fallen. Notice those who have quietly been there for you. Got it? Now spend the rest of the day thinking about them.
Then go do something for somebody.
Make a great day.
Photo: 顔なし
Tip #19: Write a Personal Mission Statement February 28, 2008
Posted by beholdthestars in Life & Living, Tips.Tags: happiness, Laurie Beth ones, meaning, personal mission statement, Steven Covey, The Path, thinkpublic
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What is a personal mission statement? According to Laurie Beth Jones’ The Path: Creating Your Mission Statement for Work and for Life, a personal mission statement is a “brief, succinct, and focused statement of purpose that can be used to initiate, evaluate, and refine all of life’s activities.” Steven Covey says creating one is a way of “connecting with your own unique purpose and the profound satisfaction that comes in fulfilling it.” In other words, it’s a quick summary of what matters — to you.
The process of creating a personal mission statement is fairly straightforward, but not as easy as it looks. To write a statement that resonates with you in a fundamental way will take some effort. I suggest that you get one of the many books on personal mission statements (I used and recommend Laurie Beth Jones’ The Path, mentioned above) and let them walk you through the process. Then set aside some quiet time, and get to work.
As you go through the process, it’s important that you constantly ask yourself, “Does this matter to me, really, or do I just think it should matter to me?” Remember, this is about your mission, not what you think you should want as a mission. Absolute integrity to yourself, your dreams, and your values is essential. A mission statement based on what you think would impress others will not motivate you or keep you on track.
I created one for myself during the deepest, darkest days of the Dark Period. I was desperately trying to get myself straight, so I had no interest in wasting my time on anything but the truth. I spent three days sitting in my favorite grungy, bohemian coffee shop in south Austin, Texas, and wrote like crazy. Here’s what I came up with:
To inspire magic in myself and others,
To follow the path with heart in all actions and interactions,
To bring peace to those around me, and
To deliberately live an extraordinary life.
That’s it. It may look simple, but remember that it was written to have meaning for me and only me. So to me, those four phrases are filled with layers of hidden meaning; it implies a lot more than what is contained in the four sentences. For example, “Follow the path with heart” may mean nothing to you, but to me it is the doorway to a larger set of concepts. It means something to me, and that’s all that counts. It has been six years since I wrote that, and I’m still happy with it. Do I always live by it? I would be lying if I said yes. But I try.
So that’s all there is to it. If you haven’t done a personal mission statement, I encourage you to give it a try. If you have, how about sharing it with us in the comments? I’d love to see what others are thinking.
Make a great day.
Photo: thinkpublic
Do You Need a Little Christmas? February 27, 2008
Posted by beholdthestars in Life & Living, Positive Thinking, Quotations.Tags: disco, grunge, happiness, heavy metal, Jerry Herman, Joy Behar, optimism, waltz
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Here’s another suggestion for beating the blues from Joy Behar’s When You Need a Lift: But Don’t Want to Eat Chocolate, Pay a Shrink, or Drink a Bottle of Gin:
I go to my piano and force myself to play a rousing chorus of “We Need a Little Christmas,” followed by a few bars of “It’s Today,” and after subliminally saying, “Listen to your own advice, kid,” the gray snaps back to its usual chrome yellow and I walk away laughing.
Jerry Herman, Composer and Lyricist
I challenge you to sing “We Need a Little Christmas” from start to finish without getting in a better mood.
It’s amazing how certain types of music have the ability to instantly change our emotional state. How about disco? After hating disco for many years, I realized that people liked it because it was peppy, happy music. Or listen to a waltz. Could you write lyrics for a waltz that weren’t upbeat? Now imagine applying heavy metal or grunge lyrics to a waltz or disco. You can’t do it. Your mind would reject the mix.
Today, take Jerry Herman’s advice. Find some music that you love and that always puts you into a good mood. It may be Stevie Ray Vaughn turned up loud, , or the songs from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (admit it: you can’t sing the Oompah Loompah song without feeling better.). Put it on right now. Turn it up. Sing. Feel the love, brothers and sisters. Remember: You don’t have to feel bad to feel good.
Make a great day.
Photo: Sister72
The Whisper of Okayness February 26, 2008
Posted by beholdthestars in Life & Living, Links, Positive Thinking.Tags: Charlie Brown, fulfillment, happiness, Peace
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Last night I read a very nice post called “Late Afternoon” over at the blog House of Apollo that got me thinking about a post I’ve been planning to write. Here’s a taste of his post:
People are coming home from work and families are reuniting. This is what you worked all day for: To come home, relax, slow down, and spend time with the people you love doing the things you enjoy. It really is quite worth it. I don’t kiss my wife as she gets home like in the movies, but she kisses me with her voice as she brightly says hello, as if totally happy to see me.
I take in this quiet moment because it makes me smile, it really makes me quite happy. Sometimes I wonder if one of the big secrets to happiness is just slowing down and breathing in deep.
Helios Apollo, House of Apollo
We chase stimulation and larger-than-life experiences. We play video games, talk nonstop on cell phones, watch movies with car chases and explosions, and listen to ipods. And when we talk of happiness, we and the self-help gurus discuss it in the same terms: Slam! Bam! Exciting! Breathtaking! The sensation of happiness, we say, is tantamount to the rush of skydiving. As a result, we run in circles in search of increasingly more intense experiences. Oh, we succeed — we have more and more extreme experiences — but we never seem to find happiness.
This is where Helios Apollo is on to something. Happiness isn’t about more and more intensity, but just the opposite. What we’re searching for, and what we find the wise and the peaceful, is a sense of okayness. We’re okay. Life is okay. In the future, we’ll be okay. True happiness, it turns out, is much closer to Charlie Brown’s “Happiness is a warm puppy” than living permanently in the emotional state of just having won the lottery.
To find that sort of okayness, though, we have to turn off the noise. We have to cut the internal and external chatter enough to see what’s both around us and within us. It’s not easy though. If we suddenly reduce the noise in our lives, we’ll experience the kind of rough shift of gears that leaves transmissions smoking on the side of the road. Better to reduce gradually, wean ourselves off the drug of constant stimulation like a reformed junkie,and give our spirits the chance to adjust.
Today, let’s reduce the noise in our lives, and let’s pay special attention to what’s left behind after we do. We may learn something.
Thanks, Helios Apollo, for reminding us.
Make a great day.
Photo: Medmoiselle T
The Lesson of the Lotus: Happy Despite… February 25, 2008
Posted by beholdthestars in Positive Thinking.Tags: Barry Neil Kauffman, happiness, lotus, overcoming obstacles
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The lotus begins in the mud, grows through the pond’s muddy water, and breaks the surface to produce a clean and beautiful flower. It grows beautiful despite its surroundings, despite its muddy beginnings. One of the most beautiful Buddhist symbols, the lotus represents a way to approach our lives. Like the lotus, we can rise above our environment to find peace and happiness.
We lead messy lives. We struggle with money, we have pressures at work, our kids need to be taken to soccer, we want to paint the house but don’t have time, we want to go back to school, we want a better job, we would like to find the perfect mate, our family upbringing was painful, and we’ve been hurt relationships. The list goes on and on. Despite our struggles, we can still live pretty good lives. And we can do it by being like the lotus.
Our situation in life doesn’t create our happiness; our reaction to it does. As Barry Neil Kaufman, author of Happiness is a Choice, says, “How we look at our life determines our experience.” Our beliefs create and shape our thoughts, which create our actions. The results of our actions feed back into our beliefs and thoughts creating a circle of happiness or unhappiness. From the lotus we learn that we can control our response and choose to be happy despite the negatives in our environment.
We don’t have to be Buddhists to appreciate the beauty of the lotus’ symbolism, any more than we have to be Christian to appreciate the beauty of “Love your enemy” or “Thou shalt not kill.” Wisdom is all around us, if we stay open to it – whatever the source.
Today, or even for the next hour, follow the lesson of the lotus. Be happy despite. Despite what? Despite anything.
Make a great day.
Photo: joka2000
“Ghastly Nontragedies” February 25, 2008
Posted by beholdthestars in Links, Positive Thinking, Quotations.Tags: Diane Sawyer, happiness, Joy Behar, Mark Twain, nontragedy, optimism, reframing
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I have three friends who know that the world is full of what one of them calls “ghastly nontragedies.”
They turn everything into funny, immediately. True but funny.
In other words, they rewrite the story as fast as possible. Most depressing encounters contain only the past, not the future. Laughter is the balloon that carries you out of the present.
Diane Sawyer
What a phrase: ghastly nontragedies. It reminds me of another quote:
I have been through some terrible things in my life, some of which actually happened.
Mark Twain
I like these quotes because together they remind me of three important things:
- The need to view our lives objectively. Many of us can turn any negative experience into a catastrophe although most of the “disasters” in our lives aren’t really disasters, but merely obstacles and temporary setbacks.
- The need to have people in our lives who can keep us balanced — who can share our pain, make us laugh, correct our faulty thinking, and on our worst days, talk us down from the ledge.
- The need to reframe our problems. Good and bad are judgments, not facts. If we can learn to see things through a different lens, we can often talk ourselves down from the ledge.
Think about those things today. Try to be realistic about your problems, don’t let your emotions overrule your reason. And as for your relationships, don’t try to find a friend. Try to be one.
That’s all.
Make a great day.
By the way…
The first quote comes from When You Need a Lift: But Don’t Want to Eat Chocolate, Pay a Shrink, or Drink a Bottle of Gin, by Joy Behar. According to the cover of the book, “In When You Need a Lift, comedienne Joy Behar and a host of her friends share the simple, silly, profound, and personal things they turn to for comfort when life gets hard. ” There are 88 of these friends – actors, writers, politicians, and other celebrities – and their advice ranges from thinking of others to downing a shot of whiskey (I bet you won’t find that one in a self-help book!). The Mark Twain quote comes from, well, any quotations book or website.
Behold the Stars 