Kategorie: Positive Psychologie

Positive feelings: The result of questions

Feelings are the result of emotions. Positive feelings are a result of our thinking. According to Barbara Fredrickson, everyone can enable positive feelings through self-exploration:

  1. Happiness: what observation would make me happy under different circumstances?
  2. Gratitude: What can I be grateful for in this situation? What have I learned and what will I be grateful for in the future?
  3. Cheerfulness: How can I change the context so that it cheers me up? What elements would I enjoy under different circumstances?
  4. Interest: What was unexpected, what made me curious and what would I like to understand better?
  5. Hope: What can I change to make a difference next time? What can I do to make it more fun?
  6. Pride: What was I proud of in this situation? Which skills did I use best? What thought patterns got me this far?
  7. Pleasure: What could I have laughed at because it came as such a surprise?
  8. Inspiration: What behaviour, what message from my conversation partner did I find inspiring?
  9. Awe: What was so fascinating, wonderful, and heart-warming and made a deep impression on me? What is the big picture that is different from normality?
  10. Love: Was there a moment when all the above feelings came together?

This is challenging in many situations, but it helps us to build resilience. Practicing this promotes positive feelings, which lead to positive thinking, which leads to behaviour change.

In the long term, such thinking will transform challenging and static thinking patterns and beliefs into a growth mindset and positive thinking, and appropriate, empowering behaviour.

Give it a try!

For more information, read my book from side 114 forward:

Erfolgreich Gespräche im Berufsalltag führen:
Der Einfluss von Haltung, Deutungsmustern und Unterbewusstsein auf Gesprächssituationen
| SpringerLink

Self-critism and / or self-awarness?

Self-knowledge has a long history and is mentioned in Sanskrit „This is you“ and in the Temple of Delphi „Know thyself“. In psychology, it is the introspective analysis of one’s own thought patterns, interpretations, and character in order to find answers: What am I like? Who am I? It is about understanding the reasons for one’s behaviour and actions to be able to change them. (source: Selbsterkenntnis – Lexikon der Psychologie (spektrum.de))

Self-criticism is looking critically at oneself and finding misbehaviour or shortcomings in oneself. The core question of self-criticism is: „Why did this happen? Why did I make this mistake?“ If a person names the shortcomings themselves, they will be more motivated to change them than if they are criticised by someone else. (source: Selbstkritik – Lexikon der Psychologie (spektrum.de))

In this way, self-criticism is needed to build self-awareness, but it is limited because it focuses on a person’s shortcomings rather than their strengths. Self-awareness is a balanced approach that considers both the strengths and the weaknesses of the self. This has a more positive impact on the self than focusing solely on failures and areas for development, and has an impact on a person’s performance. The Gallup Institute suggests that focusing on strengths leads to six times greater emotional engagement in one’s work, employees are six times more likely to do what they do best every day, three times more likely to feel that their quality of life is excellent, and 8-18% higher performance, which increases turnover by 10-19% and profits by 14-29%. (source: Learn About the Science of CliftonStrengths | EN – Gallup))

To create an environment of self-awareness rather than self-criticism, Tasha Eurich´s tip might be useful. Ask yourself and others questions that start with What…. rather than Why… . The why always looks backwards and seeks out the „culprit“. What looks forward and tries to find solutions. This allows for real reflection on what has happened.

Give more weight to the What in your everyday communication.

Positive psychology: Importance of meaning

Barbara Frederickson is well known as the pioneer for positive psychology in research explains with her colloquies in her latest article “Positive psychology in a pandemic: buffering, bolstering, and building mental health” which abilities helps us to stay positive even during the pandemic.

In the next articles I will summarize the key points of the recent publication of “The Journal of Positive Psychology”.

 Meaning:

To have meaning in life means, to see sense of your live and the world around you. When you see your live as having inherent value and that is worth to live. Therefore, you need to have the three elements, which are:

  1. coherence,
  2. significance
  3. purpose

 

Meaning is a foundational component of wellbeing like many studies show.

People who found their meaning in life:

  • are happier,
  • express more frequent and strong positive emotions,
  • endorse and use their character strengths more,
  • have more satisfying relationships
  • are viewed as more desirable potential friends,
  • help others more,
  • feel better subjective health,
  • report fewer health symptoms,
  • have better functioning immune systems,
  • lower levels of inflammatory cytokines,
  • engage in less risky sexual and substance behaviors,
  • show slower advancement of cognitive decline
  • Alzheimer’s disease,
  • live longer

(for reviews, see Cohen et al., 2016; Roepke et al., 2014; Steger, 2012)

 

Meaning plays an important role in

  1. coping with stress,
  2. trauma, and adversity,
  3. including greater use of effective coping strategies, such as using cognitive reappraisal of stressors and
  4. avoiding emotional suppression.

 

Meaning has both buffering against pessimism and building effects for Optimism.

Positive Psychology Part: Did you know that coping strategies could lower your stress level?

Stress is defined by Lazarus and Folkman (1984) as the internal or external demands appraised as taxing or exceeding the resources of the individual.

 Studies shows that positive psychology can help you to increase the experience of positive cognition (e.g., positive reappraisal) and positive emotions (e.g., gratitude)

hold significant promise for helping people bolster their mental health.

 These have demonstrated effects on a number of indicators of psychological well being such as:

  • positive affect
  • meaning and purpose
  • depression.

Study results suggest that positive psychology interventions have much to offer to help everyone cope better with both day-to-day stress as well as more major stressors.

 If you ask yourself: Which positive psychology intervention are possible to integrate them into my daily business?

Here are some examples you could use with each other in your daily communication:

  • noticing positive events,
  • savoring,
  • gratitude,
  • mindful awareness,
  • positive reappraisal,
  • personal strengths,
  • acts of kindness,
  • self-compassion
  • appreciation and recognition

 “Be the change that you wish to see in the world.” Ghandi

Positive Psychology: The power of self-compassion to overcome adversity

Self -compassion means to treat your self with care, kindness and concern you would show to your be loved when they are struggling.

In this way, treat yourself like you would behave towards others.

 Often we are more cruel and colder to our-self than to others. Self-compassion turns this around and we have against us compassion as well.

To be able to be compassion against our-self we need to be mindful with our feelings and pains we have.

There fore we have to observe them, accept them and acknowledge them instead of ignoring and suppress them. We need to look at the chance of the situation than to focus on how bad things are.

 Instead of feeling isolated and lonely we should assume that nobody is perfect and has to deal by them self with challenges in their live.

This is what differentiates self- compassion from self-pity.

 Instead of trying to replace bad feelings with ‘better’ ones, we can create sustainable positive emotions through dealing with our suffering with kindness and care. In this way both sort of feelings can be felt in parallel. Such friendly and benevolent ability helps us to come over the difficulties we are coping with and explain why self-compassionate people are happier, more optimistic, and satisfied with their lives than those who don´t care for them self.

From a scientific perspective strengthen such behaviour your immune system and enhances physical health by decreasing cortisol and increasing heart rate variability.

Positive Psychologe: For the future we need courage!

Courage with which it is possible for us to overcome our fear, to be able to go new ways, to trust ourselves, to overcome our own limits, to live our own convictions, to be authentic, to master life, to grow personally, in short, to live in our personal courage zone.

 Courage is something different for everyone.

It means taking a risk to achieve a goal that is valuable to oneself. Therefor the proportionality plays an important role.

The relative proportionality of the risk compared to the value of the goal is based on the subjective assessment of the person taking or observing the action. Actions that are considered courageous by all are usually those where everyone agrees that the risk is significant, and the goal is valuable.

 Courage plays a special role in times of crisis or challenging situations to overcome them.

 If you like to reflect what the meaning of courage is to you, feel free to use the thought flower.

Positive Psychology: Power of Gratitude

To work in harmonious and force human flourishing you should be grateful and demonstrate gratitude to reach this aim. This is scientifically proven.

In order to get a positive emotional reaction to one’s own behaviour, it is necessary to promote goodness in itself through gratitude in and towards oneself.

Gratitude is well proven in many studies that this is beneficial for your well-being in the psychology, physical and spiritual level. Gratitude supports you to have in orientation in your life it lowers the stress level and increase the positive emotions, and through gratitude social relationship will flourish and maintain.

With your appreciation you support the interrelationship between each other.

Studies shows that gratitude helps you to overcome critical situations in live and see the tragic in your life with more distance.

Like Solomon a lecturer on Søren Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Sartre and other said in the Oxford University press 20002:

Gratitude, I want to suggest, is not only the best answer to the tragedies of life. It is the best approach to life itself.

The person you are talking to subconsciously has an influence, if you are relaxed or stressed

Did you felt powerless or full of anger and aggression? Would you like to go into a small mouse hole to be not seen or shouting with some one?

Than your autonomous nevus system has control over you.

The evolution shows that human beings (mammals) can stop such reactions through eye contact, calming voices, deep breathing, and a friendly face you are looking into. This is called co-regulation, which happens through the nevus vagus specially the smart vagus. This is the Polyvagal Theory from Stephen W. Porges.

To understand the power and influence of our autonomous nervous system, please watch this short video: https://youtu.be/ZdIQRxwT1I0

Positive Psychology „Broaden-and Build-Theory“

Barbara L. Fredrickson developed the “Broaden-and Built-Theory“.

The key essence of this theory is, that positive emotions

  • enhance our thinking and awareness,
  • can reduce negative emotive states
  • will support developing psychology resilience
  • can support you to build own abilities
  • increase well-being
  • encourage own development

 Positive emotions in one’s own life and in the life of your conversational partners leads to

  • a good feeling
  • changes us to the better self
  • leads to a healthy life and prosperity

 Positive emotions lead you into a generalized, attitude that leads to more creativity and resilience. This creates a variety of complex possibilities for you.

 In the absence of positive emotions, further development will hardly be possible. One impact is on your freedom to determine one’s own behavior is lost, and we will stay in our pain through negative emotions. To stop this down-spiral, positive emotions are needed, as when they are in excess, the positive emotions support us to grow beyond ourselves.

The „Broaden-and-Build Theory“ demonstrates that positive emotions make us grow beyond ourselves and increase our own well-being.

Do you have ideas, on how you can create positive emotions on a daily basis?

When you are interested in the publication of Barbara L. Fredrickson, please klick on this link: 15347528.pdf (nih.gov)