This entry was posted on Thursday, October 4th, 2007 at 10:17 pm and is filed under Positive Psychology Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
I spent hours the other night investigating newsletters, blogs, websites related to positive psychology. As I turned out the light, I giggled. Wouldn’t Grandma Millie, my first aid station growing up, have a good laugh right about now? Positive Psychology, indeed…just good old common sense. (I had a heck of a time convincing her that the walk did not occur at the CBS studio in LA.)
Thinking of LS’s post and the wisdom of behavior in challening times, Millie would say, “go buy a new hat”, “fix yourself up” “slap a smile on your face” “call a friend” all things that the “research is certainly telling us is “healthy.”One of the most intriquing suggestions in Happier by Tal Ben-Shahar related to rituals. His course in happiness is one of the most popular courses being offered at Harvard now. His book Happier is filled with information that Grandma Millie would read and say, hmmmmm, but of course.
For most of us in the face of grief or transition, our healthy rituals are often abandoned. Instead, we stay in our jammies for days on end, eat food that is comforting to excess ( wheat thins and easy cheese), take the phone off the hook (in the old days), and park ourselves on a couch with endless hours of television viewing. Oops, too much self disclosure. All things that can be nurturing in certain situations, but when taken to excess, well, feeling like slug bait does nothing to raise our happiness rating and instead seems to reinforce the misery we are experiencing.
The idea of creating RITUALS to cope with challening times is intriquing to me, and Grandma Millie would translate that into; get up, get dressed, put on your “face” and DO SOMETHING. Hmmm. Interesting idea. Positive rituals (behavior) leads to positive thoughts ( hmmm I still can fit into those jeans) which in turn lead to positive feelings (ah, I am not quite as blue.) Really, think about it…what does make you feel better?
So, what are the positive rituals you can work towards during those times of misery?
I remember a few days following the death of my husband I made few committments to myself, but my list did include: get out of bed, brush teeth, get dressed…that was it. That was alot. But, the alternative was unacceptable.
So, like Grandma would say, fix yourself up…
Reminds me on the science behind a “smile” Yes, physiologically cool things happen when we smile…both for us and for those who observe us. More on that “brain stuff” later.
read comments (2)
October 7th, 2007 at 1:48 pm
I do believe your Grandma Millie was a wise person.
Doing nothing doesn’t improve the situation, but some kind of action usually helps. Unfortunately even unhealthy actions help for a bit, but healthy things and thoughts not only help at the moment (even if only a little) they build and keep building giving us tools and a positive frame of mind for the next challenge that comes along.
Nobody escapes grief of some form.
Reading a book on Hindu thoughts on life and I think there is a good point there. Sometimes we need to sacrafice little things in order to get to the greater good.
L
December 28th, 2007 at 7:51 am
How I wish Grandma Millie was alive today and living close by. I would love to smother her with love and immerse myself in her wisdom.
After my mother died, when I was a child, I had strong women in my life who taught me many wonderful lessons. But it’s not the same as having one or more female family role models. My father was good at getting my sister and me down to the southern part of the state to visit our grandmas, grandpa, uncle, aunts and cousins, but it wasn’t like having them close at hand for life’s everyday ups and downs.
My dad’s mother might have been instrumental in helping me understand her son. He was a great father in many ways, but very guarded about his youth and about his life prior to his marriage to my mother. I would have loved to tap into the wealth of knowledge, history (personal and otherwise) and family lore personified in my grandmother.
My spiritual belief is that we will all be reunited someday in Heaven. I asked my dad if he believed in God and/or life in the hereafter. He said no. I told him that I did, but that I could be wrong. He replied, “You probably are.” It made me laugh out loud. When he passed away, I couldn’t help smiling and thinking how surprised he’d be as soon as “he got there”. A short time later, I had a dream in which I was in an office or clinic or something, and when I stepped through a door, I saw my dad sitting on a bench “waiting to be served”. He turned around and said to me, “You made it!” When I woke up, I smiled again with a tear in my eye because I took that as a sign that he wanted me to know that he’d “made it to the other side” and verified that I had “found him there”.
God bless, love,
JC