Archive for June 2023

How are joy, happiness, hope, and optimism related? I think of joy and hope as emotions while happiness and optimism are states of being. In other words, joy is an emotion felt by someone who is happy, contented, or satisfied, while hope is an emotion felt by someone who is optimistic or has a positive outlook on life. Let’s dig deeper into this analogy starting with happiness and joy.

Although much research has been conducted on happiness over the past 20 years, many believe that it is difficult to measure due to its subjective nature. On the contrary, there are several instruments that have proven reliable and valid over time that appear to quantify happiness (Hefferon & Boniwell, 2011) . This is possible because the individual factors that comprise happiness (presence of positive emotions, absence of negative emotions, and life satisfaction, meaning, and/or purpose) are relatively easily measured via scales, self-report measures, and questionnaires (Ryan & Deci, 2001; Lyubomirsky, 2007). The most recognized instruments include the following:

1. The PANAS (Positive Affect and Negative Affect Schedule),
2. The SWLS (Satisfaction with Life Scale), and
3. The SHS (Subjective Happiness Scale).

Some interesting insight comes to light when we analyze happiness from a cultural vantage point. Studies by William Tov and others have found that people from collectivist cultures think about happiness from the perspective of harmony and contentment, while joy or exuberance are felt by people who are more individualistic in nature. Moreover, there is evidence that the human brain is wired for happiness and positive connections with others and that happiness is thought to be ongoing as well as to fall on a continuum.  Levels of happiness are shaped by social groups, like families, and have been found to have a contagious nature, demonstrating that happy people increase the happiness of those around them. Neuroplasticity further demonstrates that it is possible to learn to be happy despite what has been genetically hardwired.

Joy is defined as an emotion that is evoked by happiness, wellbeing, or good fortune. Amusement, interest, serenity, gratitude, and inspiration are examples of other positive emotions that contribute to one’s happiness. This implies that such emotions are felt and/or expressed for a brief, defined period of time, while an individual may be or remain in a prolonged state of wellbeing, otherwise labeled happiness.

Though people around the world have different ways of thinking about happiness and perhaps even experience it in distinct manners, most involve feeling positive generally and about life overall. Feelings of positivity bring us to hope and optimism. How are hope and optimism related and how do they play into an individual’s level of joy and therefore sense of happiness? I’ll start with my own claim that I definitely feel happier (and more joyful) when I go into a situation with hope and an overall sense of optimism.

Martin Seligman states: “Optimists believe that negative events are temporary, limited in scope (instead of pervading every aspect of a person’s life), and manageable.” If negative events are temporary, limited, and manageable, it follows logically that they must not be too detrimental. On the other hand, of the negativity bias, Rick Hanson states: “The brain is like Velcro for negative experiences, but Teflon for positive ones. That shades implicit memory – your underlying expectations, beliefs, action strategies, and mood – in an increasingly negative direction.” Why do we hold on to the negative so much more than the positive?

Of course, optimism, like other psychological states and characteristics, exists on a continuum. Optimism is also believed to be a learnable skill. Martin Seligman followed up his research on learned helplessness with two bestselling books, Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life (2006) and The Optimistic Child: A Proven Program to Safeguard Children Against Depression and Build Lifelong Resilience (2007), both including measurement tools within them and well-worth a read!

Let’s take a deeper look. If you have a negativity bias and believe the negatives in your life play a more impactful role than do the positives, you will most likely feel worried and/or anxious. You may wonder what more could go wrong. Let’s stop there…PAUSE, take a deep breath, and do me a favor…think about one thing you are hoping for. Pretend all your troubles have left you and something incredible happened. You have the opportunity to do this one thing that is so meaningful to you. Picture yourself there. Who are you with? What does it look like? How do you feel? What did you visualize? Do this every day for at least ten days. If you feel better, you’ve proven that you can learn to be more optimistic and consequently hold onto positives. Would you like to be able to experience this again?

Consider what you can do to experience a little bit of that positivity/optimism you just felt. What do you need to be able to do that you don’t do regularly? How can you remain alert in this way? This self-awareness may be the beginning of a mindfulness practice that can take you forward toward your goals. Beyond the mindfulness, once you’re able to repeat these practices and habituate some of the positive thought processes, you can build your resilience so that when things don’t go as you’d like (which is bound to still happen sometimes), you may be able to bounce back from the setback more easily. This perspective reset, change in mindset, and more positive outlook could make your days brighter, your nights calmer, and your life more satisfying.

As joy is an emotion felt when people experience a state of happiness, hope is an emotion that optimistic people experience regularly. What do you do to feel joy and hope? On a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 is ‘not at all’ and 10 is ‘completely,’ how happy are you? What factors play into this contented state of being? How optimistic are you? What life changes can you make to elevate this level? Try it and comment on your experience!

Forgiveness is not an occasional act, it is a constant attitude.-Martin Luther King, Jr.

The concept of forgiveness has always been important to me. It is in fact, one of my signature strengths on the Values In Action (VIA) Character Strengths Survey. I used to ask myself why it’s so essential. Today, I know and am excited to share this understanding with you!

Picture yourself on a day when you were really riled up about something. What emotions were you feeling? What were some of the bodily sensations you experienced? What thoughts went through your mind? How did you (re)act? Now focus your attention on other details like where you were, who you were with, and how the situation played out. Did you feel in control? Were you able to settle yourself back down afterward? How did it affect the rest of your day?

Chances are the emotions you felt were some combination of anxiety, fear, anger, and frustration. Maybe your stomach felt like it was doing somersaults, you felt pounding in your chest, soreness in your neck and shoulders, a lump in your throat, or a headache. Your thoughts may have been racing, trying to figure out how best to get out of the situation fast, or perhaps you felt frozen in place. None of these physiological reactions are things I find appealing. In fact, I work hard to NOT experience them.

If the circumstances affected others, it exacerbates the situation for me all the more. You see, it’s one thing if I’m not doing well, but if I do something to negatively affect someone else, I feel even worse about it. I don’t want to be responsible for someone else’s misery! There’s a lot in this scenario to unpack.

Let’s begin with yourself. You’re not feeling well. You’re tied up in knots emotionally. What do you do? Well, I for one, try to calm myself. I know that I am in no position to speak coherently with someone if I am not at my best. I take a few breaths and work at clearing my mind. If I can’t, I try to visualize something peaceful- a favorite place, sound, or memory. In the moment, I don’t worry about the details of the event but rather focus on regulating myself. Now comes the hard part. If I’ve made a mistake that caused the situation, I must give myself grace. Yes, you read that correctly. Even in the face of an error, I can’t be overly self-critical. You see, if I’m not in a position to move forward personally, then I certainly am not in a position to move forward with someone else. Finding this self-compassion is hard. We are after all only human. We DO make mistakes. We must learn to forgive ourselves for our imperfections.

If we need to make amends with someone else, we look deeply into ourselves. We must commit to honesty, vulnerability, and humility. Acceptance of our humanity is paramount. It’s in these moments that I solicit my hope that things will work out, my trust in the good in others. If I am open about my wrongdoing, they will be more likely to accept my apology. I seek their forgiveness because I do not want to have any hard feelings.

Similarly, if somebody else has committed a wrongdoing to you and are coming to seek your forgiveness, please accept this same sense of integrity on the other’s part. Holding grudges and feeling vengeful are not helpful. Moreover, internalizing resentment and anger can be harmful to our health. Forgiveness offers us a cleansing from hurt, a commitment to balance, a sense of freedom, and permission to move forward again. I don’t want these painful feelings to define or control me. If I can find it within me to choose a more open, hopeful perspective, one that encourages me to move beyond my present state and into a more productive future where I can reflect and learn from the current situation, I will be best off. If I’m able to do this, I know that my judgment moving forward will be sounder because I have this experience to reflect on. I won’t want to take the same missteps.

Ultimately, forgiveness provides us with an essential lesson in objectivity and transparency. It is a mindset more than an occurrence. That is, we become forgiving people once we learn to practice it regularly. Like any other behavior, it requires repetition to habituate. If we can rise above our human weaknesses and interact with others in accordance with our best selves, we are modeling for the world the authenticity that might just turn around our current trajectory. Relationships are truthfully what make us human. We need one another. First, we need to be there for ourselves. Once we are successful at establishing a loving, accepting relationship with ourselves, it will be much easier to connect with others. Help me in spreading the word, forgiveness!

Who will you connect with today?

Do you have someone to forgive? How will you let them know?

Awe is a fundamental part of being human- making our bodies and minds more receptive to new information, new experiences, and life’s deeper meaning -Lani Shiota of the Greater Good Science Center at the University of California, Berkeley.

In an earlier blog, I discussed positive emotions and the role they play in positive psychology. Originally, interest, love, joy, and contentment were the four positive emotions studied by Barbara Frederickson. Later, gratitude, serenity, hope, pride, amusement, inspiration, and awe were added to the list. Frederickson concluded that all but one of these 10 positive emotions demonstrated some correlation to wellbeing. Awe was the exception!

Why do you suppose this is? What makes awe different? When do you feel awe? How would you define it?

Awesome, awe-inspiring, awestruck…when you read them, positive connotations come to mind, right? But what about awful? If something were full of awe, wouldn’t that be a good thing? Then, why do we think of something bad when we picture awful?

Awe is a complex emotion. Feelings of awe can be positive or negative, unlike most other emotions (especially those considered ‘positive emotions’ in fields including positive psychology). Dacher Keltner, one of the most well-known psychologists to study awe during the past 15 years, explains that the word is derived from Old English and Old Norse and pertains to “fear and dread, particularly toward a divine being.” Today’s meaning evolved into:

Dread mingled with veneration, reverential or respectful fear; and the attitude of a mind subdued to profound reverence in the presence of supreme authority, moral greatness or sublimity, or mysterious sacredness.

 I don’t know about you, but when I think of an awe-inspiring experience, I imagine an extremely positive experience often occurring in nature. My last three days have been magical. You see, my family’s beloved pets, a golden retriever and house cat who cumulatively gifted my husband, kids, and me 20 years of love and affection, both passed last summer within about a month of one another. We decided to adopt another golden retriever puppy. We brought her home this past weekend. Penny is the most beautiful puppy. She is the image of perfection. Anytime we take her out, people of all ages come running to pet her. It reminds me of our early days with our kids, some 20 years ago. What incredible years those were!

What is it about young people and animals that’s so attractive to others?

According to the John Templeton Foundation,

Awe experiences are what psychologists call self-transcendent. They shift our attention away from ourselves, make us feel like we are part of something greater than ourselves, change our perception of time, and even make us more generous toward others.

When do you feel this way? Is it when you perceive extreme beauty, excellence, virtue, or maybe the supernatural?

It’s fascinating to me to see how the literature connects awe with so many other phenomena of psychology…humanity, transcendence, flow…in other words, we are attuned to things that do not occur naturally in our day-to-day lives except perhaps for a select few of us (the Lucky Ones). But why then, I ask, does awe not demonstrate correlation with wellbeing according to the research? I certainly feel more connected to something larger than myself when people swarm around to meet Penny. I am most definitely in awe of her beauty, sweetness, and out-of-this world cuteness.

What role then do feelings of fear, dread, and threat play in awe-inspiring scenarios?

As referenced in the Science of Awe , a white paper prepared for the John Templeton Foundation by the Greater Good Science Center in September of 2018 (Dechner,  https://ggsc.berkeley.edu/images/uploads/GGSC-JTF_White_Paper-Awe_FINAL.pdf), Dacher Keltner and Jonathan Haidt explain how awe-inspiring circumstances require two phenomena, perceived vastness and a need for accommodation. The concept of perceived vastness is self-explanatory to me. It’s the need for accommodation that shed new light when I read it. You see, there are indeed awful events that occur in the world: genocide, famine, natural disasters, etc. They are truly terrible and at the same time, very difficult to wrap our heads around. As such, sometimes we need to metaphorically and quite literally, adjust our mindset and thought process to comprehend how and why things like this occur. Fear or dread-based experiences that fall beyond our understanding therefore create awe without wellbeing.

Good to know, but I prefer to remain awestruck by things like my adorable little Penny puppy finding a way to feed her stuffed animal through the hole in the center of her frisbee! Nonetheless, this article piqued my interest, and I am encouraged to think more about awe and its multiple dimensions in the coming weeks. Join me!

 What awe-inspiring events will you think about today? What other emotions conjure up images for you when you contemplate a sense of awe?

Humanity is often referred to as being human or a part of the human race. However, it has also grown to become one of six well-defined virtues that make up one’s character. In this case, there are character strengths that define humanity.

According to the VIA Institute on Character, “Humanity describes strengths that manifest in caring relationships with others. These strengths are interpersonal and are mostly relevant in one-on-one relationships. The other strengths in humanity are kindness, love, and social intelligence.”

WHAT IS KINDNESS?

Simply put, kindness is being generous, compassionate, and nurturing toward others. Kind individuals believe that others are worthy of positive attention as human beings, not out of a sense of duty or principle. Altruistic people are those with personalities that are characterized by selflessness and concern for the wellbeing of others.  As such, altruism includes the three traits of empathy/sympathy, moral reasoning, and social responsibility.

WHAT IS LOVE?

VIA explains “Love as a character strength, rather than as an emotion, refers to the degree to which you value close relationships with people, and contribute to that closeness in a warm and genuine way…Love is reciprocal, referring to both loving others and the willingness to accept love from others. There are four types of love, each with a biological and evolutionary base:

• Attachment love: parent for child; child for parent
• Compassionate/altruistic love: kindness
• Companionate love: friendship
• Romantic love: spouse/partner/boyfriend/girlfriend.”

WHAT IS SOCIAL INTELLIGENCE?

When a person knows what makes other people tick, he or she is displaying social intelligence. According to VIA, socially intelligent people are “aware of the motives and feelings of themselves and others, and how to fit into different social situations. They can feel comfortable and say the right thing whether they’re in the boardroom or the janitorial room, in a school setting or at a construction site. Social intelligence involves two general components:

• Social awareness: what we sense about others and
• Social facility: what we do with our awareness.”

When I first took the VIA Character Strengths survey, kindness, love, and social intelligence all ranked in my top 10 out of 24 strengths. Kindness and love were in my top 5. What does this say about me? Is it truly a measure of my character as a person? It does speak to my being a people person. I wouldn’t say I’m any better than anyone else who ranks differently, however. It simply means that those are traits that are important to me, so I prioritize actualizing them in my day-to-day life. I am pleased enough with this. I wonder how other virtues like courage and transcendence show up however. I’ll need to take a closer look!

Which virtues are your most prominent?

How would your family and closest friends describe you?

How do you feel about this?

Can these change over time? How?

Temperance is often discussed with abstinence from alcohol in mind. More broadly, it can refer to moderation in action, thought, or feeling and requires control and/or restraint.  The VIA Institute on Character includes the strengths of forgiveness, humility, prudence, and self-regulation in this virtue.

Forgiveness

How often do you hold grudges? Why do you seek revenge? When do you give someone a taste of their own medicine?

Forgiveness, one of the VIA Institute of Character’s character strengths within the virtue of ‘temperance,’ means “to extend understanding towards those who have wronged or hurt us. It means to let go.” For me personally, letting go of the frustration, resentment, and other feelings associated with a wrongdoing, is my invitation to peace. I shy away from conflict and accept the imperfections of others by giving them the benefit of the doubt and often, a second (or third) chance. After all, we are only human. From VIA’s website, “forgiveness is a process of humanizing those who have led us to feel dehumanized.” This does not mean that I condone or forget the offense. And I most certainly do not feel the need to restore the relationship, I simply do not let what has happened negatively affect my attitude or behavior moving forward.

Now don’t get me wrong. This is far from easy. It takes a huge amount of humility.

Humility – wow, that ‘s a tough one to define. It’s easier to describe what humility is not than what it is! According to VIA, humility is NOT:

• bragging,
• doing things in excess,
• seeking the spotlight,
• drawing attention to yourself,
• viewing yourself as more special or important than others,
• bowing to every wish or demand of another person, or
• being highly self-critical.

They add, “humility means accurately evaluating your accomplishments.”

It’s important to note that like all character strengths, there are two ends to the continuum. A highly self-critical person can be self-deprecating, putting themselves down at all costs. This moves beyond the positive explanation of humility and actually puts the individual at risk, at least emotionally. I consider myself a humble person, think well of myself most of the time, and have a good sense of who I am. However, I am also well aware of my mistakes, where my gaps in knowledge lie, and when my best efforts fall short. Perhaps even more essential to my personality, my humility allows me to feel content without being the center of attention. In fact, I am somewhat uncomfortable being in the spotlight. I humbly recognize my limitations, keep my accomplishments in perspective, and often, because I am so inspired by others, pay attention to others before/above myself.

Likewise, forgiveness requires much self-regulation.

Self-Regulation has to do with controlling one’s appetites and emotions and regulating one’s behaviors, especially when challenged. According to VIA,

“Those high in self-regulation have a good level of confidence in their belief that they can be effective in what they pursue and are likely to achieve their goals. They are admired for their ability to control their reactions to disappointment and insecurities.”

Personally, self-regulation helps keep me balanced, organized, and in charge of my own life. This self-control is what allows me to forgive. Forgive myself, loved ones, and strangers alike, for I know that in order for me to genuinely feel content and at peace, I have to let things slide. Honestly, I struggle more to show myself self-compassion than I do to show others compassion.

Enter prudence…

Prudence

According to VIA, prudence means “being careful about your choices, stopping and thinking before acting. It is a strength of restraint. When you are prudent, you are not taking unnecessary risks, and not saying or doing things that you might later regret.”

During my studies to become a teacher and later a parent, I thought hard about what role my actions would play with the children in front of me. I reflected on my own upbringing and on that of other youth I knew. I am deftly aware of the lifelong damage our behaviors can have on the developing brain. AND, I am likewise keenly aware of the tremendously positive influence other behaviors can have in providing for and modeling a safe, secure, atmosphere where youth can and will flourish.

I have not always had this keen sense of self-regulation and prudence, however. As a youth, like so many others, and still as a younger adult, I spoke my mind with little attention to its potential detriment to others. Some particularly astute friends and family members called this to my attention in ways that sometimes made me feel rather vulnerable. I hated this vulnerability, as I also had ‘friends’ who would rub it in my face. I quickly learned to bite my tongue and retreat back into myself in a way that also proved to be problematic. With time, I have found a balance that works for me most of the time. I will, once in a while, say or do something that I wish I hadn’t. Likewise, sometimes I shy on the side of being overly prudent and not speaking my mind when I should self-advocate. However, I have grown infinitely more aware of these incidences and have likewise prioritized surrounding myself with healthy relationships that help me grow.

Join me in discovering how you can build your temperance!

What elements do you struggle with?

Who is in your network that can help build you up?

When do you feel safe to experiment with forgiveness? Humility? Self-regulation? Prudence?

Socrates is thought to have said:

 “The quality of being morally just is the most important quality because it is only through the application of justice that freedom, happiness and truth can exist.”

Justice has been at the foundation of human existence forever. It attracts attention at specific points in time when an entity is trying to make impactful change. Globally, justice has been at the forefront of many nations in the past decades. But what is justice? To have justice, does one need to be moral/just/righteous/equitable? Justice is applicable throughout society- in social, economic, political, and legal scenarios. There are four generally accepted types of justice:

1. Distributive- defining who gets what,
2. Procedural- addressing how fairly people are treated,
3. Retributive- assigning punishment for wrongdoing, and
4. Restorative- restoring relationships to “rightness.”

The VIA Institute on Character places three character strengths in the virtue subcategory entitled justice: fairness, leadership, and teamwork. Let’s take a deeper look at each!

Fairness

According to VIA, “fairness is treating people justly, not letting your personal feelings bias your decisions about others.”  If you are an individual who wants to give everyone a fair chance and believes there should be equal opportunity for all, do you also feel that what is fair for one person might not be fair for another? Where, then, do equality and equity come in? Who is to decide what is fair for one but not for another?

Via continues, “fairness is a cognitive judgment capacity that involves reasoning and making judgments. It involves 2 types of reasoning:

• Justice reasoning which emphasizes logic and weighing principles to determine moral rights and responsibilities (and)
• Care reasoning which includes empathy and compassion; the ability to put yourself in somebody else’s shoes.”

Justice in this definition then likewise embodies the virtues of humanity, wisdom, and courage.

Leadership

VIA states that as a character strength, leadership refers to “the tendency to organize and encourage a group to get things done, while maintaining good relations within the group” and involves:

• setting goals/accomplishing them,
• enlisting effective help,
• building coalitions, and
• smoothing ruffled feathers.

Leadership is a social phenomenon whereby effective leaders provide a positive vision that empowers others through either 1) practice: defining, establishing, identifying, or translating direction; or 2) personal quality: motivation to seek, attain, and carry out leadership roles.

Thought leaders identify many different leadership styles. I’d like to highlight two here:

• Transactional leaders clarify responsibilities, expectations, and tasks to be accomplished (see ‘practice’ above); whereby,
• Transformational leaders motivate their followers to perform at an extremely high level, fostering a climate of trust and commitment to the organization and its goals (see ‘personal quality’ above).

Teamwork

Like leadership, teamwork involves an individual’s commitment to contributing to a team’s success. In other words, the person high in teamwork applies a certain way of acting in whatever context they consider themselves committed to the good of the group as a whole. This can be a dedicated, reliable, contributing member of a small group like a family, company or corporation, or as large an entity as one’s country. Teamwork is closely related to loyalty, belonging, and community and is also sometimes identified with the concepts of patriotism and citizenship.

I’d like to return to Socrates’s quote however: “the quality of being morally just is the most important quality because it is only through the application of justice that freedom, happiness and truth can exist.”

How will we as a human race, bring social, economic, political, and legal justice to all our peoples?

Who is qualified to identify who gets what?

How can we address how fairly people are treated?

What groups warrant the power to assign punishment for wrongdoing?

What process must we take to restore relationships to “rightness”?

How do we ensure that each and every person experiences firsthand the freedom, happiness, and truth that Socrates alluded to?

Throughout my coaching training in positive psychology, something was eating at me. It wasn’t blatant, but there was this dull nagging that something didn’t quite make sense, and I wasn’t sure what it was. While spending a few minutes researching for this blog, I came across a new learning. Since love of learning is one of my signature strengths, I was tickled to stumble on this diagram! You see, all my years in teaching and social work, I like Maslow, believed that people needed to have their basic needs met in order to learn and fully thrive. However, I see learning and thriving as part of self-actualization. As a person who was not brought up with a lot of formal religion, I view myself to be spiritual in ways that pertain more to nature, appreciating beauty, etc. I’ve come to realize that in addition to self-actualization, helping others puts me in a state of flow and self-transcendence of sorts. This sensation calls to mind a service beyond me, myself, or my needs, and rather may point to a greater calling. This sense of transcendence feels like a higher level of being/motivation than self-actualization, as I am moving beyond myself into a state of ‘otherness.’ I taught Maslow’s 5-tiered pyramid and had never come across this 8-tiered expanded form that holds transcendence at the apex. I wonder why this was not part of my previous knowledge base!

Maslow’s Expanded Hierarchy of Needs

When Abraham Maslow wrote his original hierarchy of needs it had five tiers, the four at the base of the above pyramid plus self-actualization. His theory held that in order to self-actualize, we as humans, need our basic (sometimes referred to as physical and psychological) needs met first. Later in life, Maslow added three additional tiers, two between the basic needs of physiological, safety, love/belonging, and esteem and the third, above self-actualization. As such, he claimed that people needed a certain amount of cognitive and aesthetic understanding to be capable of self-actualization. He also acknowledged that once an individual self-actuates, they may be able to enter a state of transcendence. Clearly, not everyone attains this level, but I find it fascinating that he did, in fact, come to the realization that he had left it out of his original model and that it needed to be added. It is through this model that I expand on the following discussion of transcendence as a virtue.

The VIA Institute on Character lists five character strengths in its classification for transcendence:

• Appreciation of Beauty and Excellence
• Gratitude
• Hope
• Spirituality
• Humor

Appreciation of Beauty and Excellence

As with Maslow’s addition of the two tiers of Knowledge/Understanding and Aesthetics/Beauty above, VIA considers an appreciation of beauty and excellence to be one of the character strengths under the transcendence umbrella.

According to VIA, those who express an appreciation of beauty & excellence notice these elements in all domains of life, including physical (through awe and wonder) and moral (desiring to be better, more loving, and creating feelings of elevation), and excellence through heightened levels of skill and/or talent (energizing, inspiring admiration, and compelling a person to pursue their own goals). I am aware of beauty and excellence in a way that I did not appreciate when I was younger.

Gratitude

The character strength of gratitude involves feeling and expressing a deep sense of thankfulness in life, and more specifically, taking the time to genuinely express what you are grateful for to others. After I am given a gift or someone is especially thoughtful toward me, I am always thankful and express that openly. However, it is more recently that I have grown more aware of all of life’s other gifts that I am grateful for, those things that are harder to put your finger on. I must say that this mindfulness regarding the goodness in our world has had a profound influence on my ability to keep my chin above water when life gets tough. When the news is disturbing or I learn that something tragic has happened to a loved one, for example, I feel a deep sense of remorse, but since I’m living my life with more gratitude, I certainly make it through these rough times more easily. I am also infinitely more aware of how lucky I am and express gratitude for this more than when I was younger. I feel I am more humble, persistent, and kind when I acknowledge the goodness in my life and recognize/acknowledge the source of this goodness. More than the kind of gratitude felt after receiving something, I am especially grateful for my awareness and appreciation of what is personally valuable and meaningful.

Hope

The character strength of hope has to do with positive expectations about the future and involves optimistic thinking and focusing on good things to come. VIA states, “It is an action-oriented strength involving agency, the motivation and confidence that goals can be reached, and also that many effective pathways can be devised in order to get to that desired future.” Optimism is closely linked, as it pertains to how a hopeful person explains the cause of things. For example, as an optimist, I may interpret less than optimal performance as: 1) not doing as well as I could because I hadn’t gotten a good night’s sleep the night before (internal), 2) I’ll do better next time (stable), and 3) many others also struggled on this particular assessment (global). Whereas a pessimist may see the same event this way: 1) the instructor graded harder than normal (external), I never do well on this type of assessment (unstable), and 3) I am not good at __ subject (specific).

In positive psychology, hope plays three significant roles. In addition to being a character strength, it is also a positive emotion and is referenced in Hope Theory. Look for more blogs to come digging deeper into hope in these multiple facets!

Humor

Humor involves recognizing what is amusing in situations, seeing the lighter side of things, and often includes the ability to make others smile and/or laugh. “Where other strengths are more or less essential for achieving certain types of goals or dealing with certain types of problems, humor is rarely an essential component to positive social interactions, but it is often a desirable one (VIA).” People with a good sense of humor may take a cheerful view on adversity and therefore may help themselves cope with difficult situations, while sustaining a good mood.

Spirituality

As is true for many of the character strengths in the VIA Classification, the strength of spirituality has many dimensions, including “meaning, purpose, life calling, beliefs about the universe, the expression of virtue/goodness, and practices that connect with the transcendent”. Although spirituality has been defined as connection with the sacred, the sacred might be that which is blessed, holy, revered, or particularly special. It is important to note that this can be secular or non-secular. For example, I perceive spirituality to be the search for purpose in life, an awe-inspiring sunset, or the self-sacrificing kindness of a stranger.

As a character strength, spirituality involves the belief that there is a dimension to life that is beyond human understanding. I don’t connect this belief with the concept of divinity and prefer to think of it in terms of a sense of meaning rather than spirituality, but in the VIA Classification the terms are considered closely related.

Spirituality is believed to describe both the private, intimate relationship between humans and the divine, and the range of virtues that result from the relationships. Spirituality is universal. Although the specific content of spiritual beliefs varies, all cultures have a concept of an ultimate, transcendent, sacred force (VIA).

What are your views on spirituality and other forms of transcendence?

Why is it important to feel gratitude?

How do you use a sense of humor to alleviate strained circumstances?

Do you feel optimism and hope are the same? How? How not?

What have you experienced recently that was particularly awe-inspiring?

When did you last feel a deep sense of gratitude?

The VIA Institute on Character defines the virtue of courage as “Emotional strengths that involve the exercise of will to accomplish goals in the face of opposition, external or internal” and comprises the strengths of bravery, honesty, perseverance, and zest.

Bravery

VIA describes bravery as “Fac(ing) your challenges, threats, or difficulties. It involves valuing a goal or conviction and acting upon it, whether popular or not. A central element involves facing – rather than avoiding – fears.”

We can be brave in multiple settings- physical, psychological, and moral. People often refer to others demonstrating bravery while doing something physical, similar to strength. Psychological bravery takes special courage, as it makes us vulnerable. But moral bravery is perhaps the most compelling. When we do something that is seen as morally brave, we are often putting ourselves on the line, doing something that may not be accepted even though we know it is the right thing to do. This requires a special kind of strength of character!

Honesty

According to VIA, “when you are honest, you speak the truth. More broadly, you present yourself in a genuine and sincere way, without pretense, and take responsibility for your feelings and actions.”

Honest people are often described as having integrity. What I appreciate most about honesty is that it allows me to accurately represent myself, all of me – my internal states, intentions, and commitments, both publicly and privately. As such, my goals accurately represent my interests and values. When I was completely honest with myself, I realized that the work I was doing did not align with who I really was or what I truly stood for. I didn’t feel I was being authentic to myself. That is when I came to positive psychology coaching!

Perseverance

Perseverance means being hardworking and finishing what is started, despite challenges, obstacles, and discouragement. Perseverant people get pleasure from completing tasks and projects (VIA).

In order to follow through and be perseverant, I need to organize myself to support the action steps required to achieve my goal. This may include taking breaks, doing research, asking for help, and ultimately rewarding myself along the way. I need to put in the initial effort and also endure through barriers and setbacks. When I persevere, I feel proud. I gain more confidence and consequently feel encouraged to take future risks.

Zest

According to VIA, having zest means “approaching a situation, or life in general, with excitement and energy…People who are high in zest are excited to get up in the morning, and they live their lives like an adventure.”

Zest is a dynamic strength and is related to both physical and psychological wellness. It has the strongest ties to living a life of engagement and consequently to life satisfaction. This is particularly interesting to me. You see, I am excited about my life and am engaged and satisfied. While I feel this energy internally, I don’t often display it externally, as I am not an overly energetic person physically. As such, I see myself as being psychologically zestful but not as much so from the physical perspective. Would people still see me as being zestful?

What I find so interesting about the virtue of courage, is that it is quite possibly the only of six virtues defined by VIA that does not implicitly imply ‘feeling good’. However, the definition of zest above clearly insinuates as much. What do you think? Does someone need to embody all manifestations of each strength in order to embody the strength in general?

What does bravery mean to you?

What are your biggest obstacles to perseverance?

Is it easier to be honest with yourself or others?

What area of courage can you work on this week? How will you accomplish this?

Barbara Fredrickson is a psychology professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In 1998, she coined the broaden-and-build theory in positive psychology suggesting that “positive emotions (including interest, love, joy, contentment) broaden one’s awareness and encourage novel, exploratory thoughts and actions. Over time, this broadened behavioral repertoire builds useful skills and psychological resources.” The resources she refers to can range from physical to intellectual to social in nature. Frederickson suggests that these resources are more sustainable than the transient emotional states that led to their acquisition.

You may have heard that our thoughts affect our feelings which in turn determine our behaviors. Sometimes we are happy with the result, and others, not. Once we’ve repeated certain (re)actions enough, they become habit. This can result in positive and negative effects. Let’s say for instance, you make a bad decision and rationalize that you were foolish to do what you did. You are likely to be self-critical. The resulting reaction may turn out to be something else you are upset about, putting you back where you began. It can be a vicious cycle. Humans tend to have a negativity bias, encouraging us to have this pessimistic outlook. However, if we take the opposite stance, let’s say, you do something you’re not proud of, but you show yourself a bit of self-compassion and think, well I can’t always expect to get it right (we’re all human after all), you may be motivated to give it another try. Repeating these more optimistic thought-feeling-action cycles eventually habituate into lasting behaviors. Therefore, you have gained not only new skills but also the personal resources necessary to tackle unwanted (automatic) thoughts and/or unhealthy (defeating) feelings. This theory supports the claim that when we do so, our wellbeing expands.

Originally, interest, love, joy, and contentment were the four positive emotions studied. Later, gratitude, serenity, hope, pride, amusement, inspiration, and awe were added to the list. Research into attributional relevance was sparse prior to Frederickson’s work in 2013. Although they were seen as existing measures in behavioral science, little structured research had been conducted. Frederickson concluded, nonetheless, that 9 of these 10 positive emotions demonstrated correlative response at it pertains to continued wellbeing. Awe is the exception.

Why do you suppose this is? What makes awe different? How would you define awe? When do you feel awe?

Stay tuned for a future blog about awe!

If you want to learn more about positive emotions and/or the broaden and build theory, check out Barbara Frederickson!

https://ladyofthelakedotblog.files.wordpress.com/2021/01/b.-fredrickson-10-positive-emotions.jpg?w=2048

Reproduced from “Positive emotions broaden and build,” by B.L. Fredrickson, In P. Devine and A. Plant (Eds.) Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 47, p. 16, Copyright 2013 Academic Press.

Adapted from “Positive emotions” by B.L. Fredrickson and M.A. Cohn, 2008, In M. Lewis, J.M. Haviland-Jones, and L.F. Barrett Handbook of Emotions (3rd Edition, p. 783). Copyright 2008 Guilford Press.

Understanding the concepts of flourishing and flow is vital to understanding the field of positive psychology.

Flourishing

Flourishing is one of the most significant concepts in positive psychology, as it encompasses and extends to so many other concepts.

In short, flourishing refers to a state of being we can accomplish when we tune into each aspect of our holistic wellbeing. Dr. Martin Seligman used the PERMA (positive emotion, engagement, relationships, meaning, achievement) Model of wellbeing. My training and practice use the SPIRE (spiritual, physical, intellectual, relational, emotional) Model. When I taught, it was all about the Mind-Body Connection, and many religious institutions expand this to Mind-Body-Spirit. Regardless, it requires us to pay attention to our human welfare and how to bring this to fruition.

Early in his work with positive psychology, Dr. Seligman used the term happiness more than flourishing. He found that in order to truly feel complete happiness, we need to also accomplish a sense of achievement. “We flourish when we find fulfillment in life along with achieving more traditional objectives related to success when we are truly living the ‘good life’” (Seligman, 2011). Hence the addition of the ‘A’ in PERMA. To learn more about Seligman’s definition of flourishing, watch this great video: https://youtu.be/e0LbwEVnfJA and/or read Flourish: A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Well-being (2012). I know I have a highlighted copy sitting on my bookshelf!

As with any other new scientific theory, the concept of flourishing has been studied by many others.Positive psychologist and professor Dr. Lynn Soots (n.d.) describes flourishing as the following:

“Flourishing is the product of the pursuit and engagement of an authentic life that brings inner joy and happiness through meeting goals, being connected with life passions, and relishing in accomplishments through the peaks and valleys of life.”

Further, Soots emphasizes that flourishing is not a trait, a characteristic, or something you “either have or don’t have;” rather, flourishing is a process that requires action. While flourishing may not always come easy, it’s encouraging to know that anyone can flourish!

Flourishing is surely an important concept in my coaching practice, as my tagline is ‘Fostering Flourishing Families!’ On my website (larahaascoaching.com), I state that it is necessary for each person in a family unit to feel a sense of flourishing in order for the entire family to flourish.

What are your thoughts? How can WE foster flourishing families? How can YOU foster YOUR FAMILY TO FLOURISH?

Comment here or go to my website if you’d like guidance learning to flourish or helping your family flourish!

Flow

Another well-known topic in positive psychology is that of flow. The concept of flow was first scientifically explored and defined by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, our second “founding father” of positive psychology. In the last decades of the 1900s, Csikszentmihalyi noticed that many artists fell into a particular state  while they were working. He described this state as ‘characterized by intense focus and great concentration on the task at hand, to the point of losing track of time for hours at a time.’

He continued pursuing this topic and noticed it in others as well. Athletes, musicians, writers, and other creative professionals frequently reported losing themselves in their work in a similar way. As he gathered more descriptions of this phenomenon, he observed six factors that characterize a flow experience:

1. Intense and focused concentration on the present moment,
2. Merging of action and awareness,
3. Lack of attention to the self,
4. Sense of personal control or agency in the situation,
5. Distorted sense of time passing, and
6. Experiencing the activity or situation as intrinsically rewarding

(Csikszentmihalyi, 1975). Notice the date on that, 1975. Wow, that was nearly 50 years ago! I know I’ve felt in flow. It’s an incredible feeling. It happened frequently while I was teaching. I was totally immersed in what I was doing, not so much the subject I was teaching, but being and collaborating with my students. It’s as if we were working like a unit, playing off one another’s learning.

I learned about flow from Csikszentmihalyi’s first book while I was teaching. What I didn’t understand until recently however (or at least I didn’t remember from the book), is that this sense of immersion arises when the challenges of the activity we’re engaged in are significant and roughly equal to our skill at the activity. So, do I not achieve a state of flow more often or during other endeavors because I didn’t regularly challenge myself enough? It is a question worth pondering.

Once I learned that, I challenged myself to new tasks more frequently. I was taking risks and trying out new things. I think in some ways, my subconscious was telling me I needed to work harder to earn the pleasure of finding flow. You see, when we have high skill and low challenge, we are bored. When we have high challenge and low skill, we feel overwhelmed. When we have low skill and low challenge, we grow apathetic. It is only when both our skill and our challenge are high that we enter a flow state.

Entering a state of flow is intrinsically rewarding and often enjoyable. Flow has therefore been found to be linked to greater happiness and wellbeing, heightened levels of academic and career success, and more positive and healthier relationships (Csikszentmihalyi & Csikszentmihalyi, 1988). To learn more about flow, Csikszentmihalyi gave an outstanding TED Talk on the subject: https://www.ted.com/talks/mihaly_csikszentmihalyi_flow_the_secret_to_happiness?utm_campaign=tedspread&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=tedcomshare. If the video only piqued your interest, you may want to consider Csikszentmihalyi’s books on flow:

• Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement with Everyday Life (1998)
• Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience (2008)
• Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention (2013)

When/where are you in flow? What puts you there? How does this feel? Why?

How can you find opportunities to experience flow more often?