A Quote by Barbara Fredrickson
My all-time favorite topic in positive psychology is the study of positive emotions. I'm fascinated by how pleasant experiences, which can be so subtle and fleeting, can add up over time to change who we become. I'm especially excited these days about investigating how positive emotions change the very ways that our cells form and function to keep us healthy.
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Positive thinking is just one small part of positive psychology. Plus, as an approach to well-being, positive thinking only helps you to the extent that it yields one or more positive emotions. The problem with positive thinking is that it sometimes just stays up "in the head" and fails to drip down to become a fully embodied experience.
Positive and negative emotions cannot occupy the mind at the same time. One or the other must dominate. It is your responsibility to make sure that positive emotions constitute the dominating influence of your mind. Here the law of HABIT will come to your aid. Form the habit of applying and using the positive emotions! Eventually, they will dominate your mind so completely, that the negatives cannot enter it.
Positive emotion can be about the past, the present, or the future. The positive emotions about the future include optimism, hope, faith, and trust. Those about the present include joy, ecstasy, calm, zest, ebullience, pleasure, and (most importantly) flow; these emotions are what most people usually mean when they casually-but much too narrowly-talk about "happiness." The positive emotions about the past include satisfaction, contentment, fulfillment, pride, and serenity.
So the first step in seeking happiness is learning. We first have to learn how negative emotions and behaviors are harmful to us and how positive emotions are helpful.
My prayer today is to not be negative about anything for one day. It is so easy to be disappointed, critical, cynical. Nothing is easier than to be a negative person. It takes effort to be hopeful and positive. People will say that you have to have a reason to be positive - what reason do the poor or lonely have to be positive? If we all waited for perfect conditions in our life before we felt hopeful, we would have very few days in life to celebrate. Perfection is rare. Hope means no matter how bleak, all things can and do change in the blink of an eye.
Maybe, through the stories I share about my life and others and the medical research that has been dedicated to the world of positive psychology, they'll relate to the power of a positive perspective and change the world one person at a time. Pipe dream, of course, but I love the thought of being given the chance to inspire!
The American journalist Barbara Ehrenreich has written about this in her book Smile or Die: How Positive Thinking Fooled America and the World (2009) . She talks about the happiness industry, the rise of medication to make us happy and of self-help books, and the influence of all this on religion. In many ways religion has become another form of self-help. We all suffer from over-exposure to positive thinking.
Just like it's not healthy to think overly negative thoughts, exaggeratedly positive thoughts can be equally detrimental. If you overestimate how much of a positive impact a particular change will have on your life, you may end up feeling disappointed when reality doesn't live up to your fantasy.
The benefits of positive emotions don't stop after a few minutes of good feelings subside. In fact, the biggest benefit that positive emotions provide is an enhanced ability to build skills and develop resources for use later in life.
You know, the standard state for people is 'mildly pleasant.' Negative emotions are quite rare, and extremely positive emotions are rare. But people are mildly pleased most of the time, they're mildly tired a lot of the time, and they wish they were somewhere else a substantial part of the time - but mostly they're mildly pleased.
Each of us has something to do in this lifetime. We all have negative emotions to be purified and positive emotions to be cultivated. All of us need to reconnect to our source and drop our personal stories, don't we? Men, women, old, young, from here, from there - it is the same. All you can do is your practice. There is nothing else. Don't get caught up. Don't stop. We have to learn how to get out or our own way. Because ultimately, the only thing standing in our way is ourselves.
Over time, the games we play can change how we think and what we're capable of. And it's easy to maximize the benefits so the changes are positive.
Your reaction to a situation determines whether it will be positive or negative. If you're determined to label a situation positive, no matter how it appears, the result MUST be positive. If you label something negative, that MUST be your experience. It's never too late to change a situation because you have an unlimited supply of positive sticky labels! Your life is always your call!
Spend time with people who know how to use their days well. Just as iron sharpens iron, positive people will inspire you to be positive.
Most of who we are is our deepest emotions, and someone who cannot feel those emotions in a positive way is never going to understand much about his fellow human beings.
My emotions, when I think about the time I spent at Spurs, are always really positive.
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