positive psychology – Emily Downward

Counting My Blessings

May 1, 2013emilydownward

“Is your life as fabulous as it looks on Facebook?” I was recently asked by a friend I hadn’t spoken to in awhile.

So I’ve decided to come clean: Yes and No.

How my life isn’t as fabulous as it looks on Facebook: I’ve had some crappy days lately. I don’t post about that. Actually, after attempting to get through it on my own, I finally “broke down” and asked for help from some of my trusted and loving colleagues (my ego hates to admit this, but it’s true, I can’t do it all alone). Coaches rock!

How my life IS as fabulous as it looks on Facebook: Even on the crappy days, I count my blessings. I know how lucky I am to have found someone amazing to share love, to have a loving family, to have an incredible group of friends, colleagues, and past colleagues who are supportive and inspiring. I am so thankful to know my passion for coaching and to be a certified coach. I have phenomenal clients that I get to work with, and to watch them grow in their confidence and realize their dreams is my distinct honor.

The field of positive psychology, the basics of which I apply in my life and in my coaching and find myself craving even more, focuses on increasing people’s resiliency, our ability to bend without breaking, to bounce back when life knocks us down. One of the quick ways to help yourself is by using the ratio of 3:1. For every negative experience, have 3 positive ones to increase your positive emotion over negative emotion. Interestingly, the frequency is more important than the intensity, so even if you count the simple positive things, it can work. I think this also helps by focusing your attention on what you do want rather than what you don’t want. Positivity, besides just feeling good, also broadens your mind and inspires you to be more creative. It also leads to stronger relationships with others. All these benefits can give you even more positive experiences to cherish.

Oh, and another thing? Positivity is contagious! (Did you catch it?)

Love, Birds & Happiness

September 18, 2012emilydownward

When you’re in love, everything seems special: the birds sing so sweetly, there is beauty all around you, and you can’t stop smiling. If only there was a way to bottle this feeling and pull it out on days when you don’t feel so good!

Maybe we can…

Scientists have discovered we have mirror neurons in our brain, which enable us to feel what another is feeling. This allows us to empathize with others, and it also comes into play when we are reading a great novel or watching a play or a movie and feel the emotions of the character within our own bodies. Have you ever identified with a character so much you laughed out loud? (I’ve done this before reading a great book by myself in a restaurant. Who cares if I got crazy looks? Laughter is good!) Or found yourself crying during a touching scene in a movie? (Steel Magnolias or Terms of Endearment are sure tear-jerkers for me.)

Mirror neurons make it possible to feel something even if you’re not experiencing it yourself.

Knowing that our brains control what we feel, we can leverage it in our favor: saturate our minds with treasured memories and flood our brains with the feel good emotions and chemicals.

Martha Beck describes the technique of Sense-Drenching in her latest book, Finding Your Way in a Wild New World, as one of the techniques to get to Wordlessness, a state of being where you shift your consciousness out of the verbal processing and into the more creative, intuitive and sensory brain regions. To try it, you simply come up specific sensory experiences or memories for each of the five senses. Start with your favorite tastes, imagining experiencing them in detail. Add in memories of your favorite scents, unrelated to the taste memory. Next, add in tactile sensations, like touching a kitten or holding a newborn. Then, call to mind the memory of sounds you love, like birds singing, wind chimes or the ocean. Finally, remember your favorite sights: a scenic overlook, a beautiful painting, or a loved one’s face. Try holding all these sense memories in your mind at the same time – this shifts your brain from thinking verbally to the peaceful state of Wordlessness.

In the field of Positive Psychology, researchers have determined to maintain a more positive outlook, you need to have 3 positive experiences for every 1 negative one, and interestingly, they found that the frequency is more important that the severity. You can leverage this, especially on tough days, by increasing the positive experiences in your day. Listen to your favorite music, take a favored snack with you to work, or wear your favorite color. Gratitude helps me, too, by keeping my focus on what I have rather than what I don’t have or don’t want.

Wishing you all a little extra happiness this week!

Stop the Internal Violence

September 4, 2012emilydownward

“Nonviolence means avoiding not only external physical violence but also internal violence of spirit. You not only refuse to shoot a man, but you refuse to hate him.”

~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

The people who come to me for coaching aren’t struggling with self-control over whether to shoot someone or not. (Whew!) But this quote by MLK made me think of violence or nonviolence towards the self. Many of my clients would never act violently towards others, and yet the thoughts in their heads about themselves are atrocious.

What does your inner dialogue say to you about you? Is it mostly encouraging, focusing on your unique strengths and talents? Or does it constantly keep a record of your mistakes, noting all the things you don’t do well, comparing you to others in a poor light?

I’m always so impressed by those who have a mostly positive inner dialogue. As for me, I wasn’t wired that way. My inner dialogue was mostly negative, perfectionistic (an impossible goal that keeps one frustrated and dejected), and critical. And while I’ve made great progress at strengthening and listening to my positive inner voice, the negative voice is still there. It’s like the weakened Voldemort in the Harry Potter series. It doesn’t have as much power as it once did, but you know it could still be dangerous.

In the field of positive psychology, researchers have created a formula for happiness:

Happiness = Set Point + Circumstances + Voluntary Variables

Your Happiness level (a subjective measure) is about 50% due to your Set Point, or your genetic predisposition on how you view the world. Another 8-12% is the Circumstances or conditions you were born into: your socioeconomic status, your gender, the family you are born into. That leaves 38-42% of your happiness up to Voluntary Variables, the ways in which you intentionally intervene on yourself, your choices and actions. (That’s where the magic can happen!)

Isn’t it interesting that Circumstances are only 8-12%? We often hear the differences between the Haves and the Have-Not’s emphasized, the privileges or lack of opportunities between groups or countries being touted as determining factors of success or failure. But researchers have shown that the Circumstances are not NEARLY as important as how we think about things, how we look at the situation. It’s not what you have or not, it’s the story you’re telling yourself about it.

When I went through coach training, in addition to learning amazing tools to help others live their best lives, it was an intensive experience to rewire my own brain, creating new ways of thinking that serve me, rather than crippling me. It is my great joy to be able to help others now with what I’ve learned and help them find more peace, joy and success.

So what is your inner dialogue telling you? Is it working for you, or against you?

The Secret to Happiness

May 8, 2012emilydownward

HappyMan — photo by Neal Fowler, Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/31878512@N06/3490869804/

“Happiness is not something the world owes you or can give you. It is not passive. It is not rest… Happiness is an activity of the soul in accord with excellence.” ~ Norman Melchert, philosopher, author, professor

I’ve been taking a fascinating continuing education class on Positive Psychology. The field of psychology has been largely focused on disease, but for the last 20 years or so, there has been a growing trend of looking at the positive side, looking at what makes people resilient and happy. What a fantastic idea: instead of singularly looking at what’s wrong, let’s look at what’s right!

We hear so much about Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, but statistically, a person is just as likely to experience Post-Traumatic Growth from a challenging event. At the beginning of my career, I worked with a number of cancer survivors. Many of them, even those who had recurring disease and who knew they would die from their cancers, would tell me it was the best thing that ever happened to them. They viewed their cancer experience as a wake-up call, to recognize what was truly important and discard petty grievances and stresses that didn’t matter.

Two of the prominent researchers in Positive Psychology, Martin Seligman, PhD and Ed Diener, PhD, have quantified a formula for happiness:

Happiness = Genetic Set-Point + Circumstances + Voluntary Variables

Your genetic set point is what you’re born with. I think of it as how optimistic or pessimistic you naturally are. This accounts for about 50% of your happiness, and as something you’re born with, you can’t really change this.

Your circumstances — where you live, the things that happen to you — account for about 8-12% of your happiness. Surprising? Sometimes in the Western world in particular, we believe that we need more, more, more to be happy. But many studies have shown that’s not the case.

So the remainder of happiness, anywhere from 38-42%, is made up of voluntary variables. This includes the ways in which we intentionally intervene on ourselves, our choices of thought and action.

The exciting news here is that while we can’t change our genetic set-point and may have limited control on our circumstances, we absolutely have control over the voluntary variables. This is why people say you can choose to be happy. I also think of the “glass half full” concept here. If you have a glass with your favorite beverage in it, do you consider it half full or half empty? Are you focusing on what you have or what you don’t have? And of course, there’s always the slightly sassy answer about being thankful you even have a glass!