gratitude

over indulging over summer wasn’t the only activity i undertook, i also took a course in positive psychology and no that doesn’t mean i spent the summer reading the secret. positive psychology is much more than positive thinking, it is the scientific study of psychological wellbeing and human strengths.

it is the yang (light) to psychologies preoccupation with the yin (dark) side of the human psyche. an endeavor that is both refreshing and new and yet finds its influence from ancient greek philosophy. 

like socrates before them, positive psychologists essentially concern themselves with elements of and predictors of the good life. martin seligman the founder of the movement defined the good life as ‘using your signature strengths everyday to produce authentic happiness and abundant gratification’.

throughout the course we were encouraged to undertake weekly activities including meditation and gratitude exercises. now i’m not gonna lie the first couple of exercises i felt like a bit of a dick but then i asked myself… why is it so hard for me to create positive thought patterns and yet saying something negative or cynical to myself is second nature??? and that’s when i decided to really give these exercises a red hot crack and you know what when you let go of all that heavy negative baggage and replace it with the positive you feel like you are headed to bali with just a carry-on full of bikinis!

i thought i’d share with you some of my fave ‘pick me up’ positive psychology techniques and the first i’m going to introduce is gratitude.

gratitude is such a simple concept and yet we can get so complacent with our lives or obsessed with our future or distracted by the past that we miss living in the moment and forget to be thankful for our experiences. having that appreciation for the everyday can really begin to shift your focus from all the things that aren’t going well, to all the things that are.

building gratitude is a straightforward and uncomplicated practice that can be done anywhere, in any form you like. with our particular exercise i was asked to write down all the things / people / experiences i was grateful for within my day. this was particularly helpful when i was having one of those days were everything just seemed to go wrong. so i decided to change my day. i went and sat out in the sunshine on my lunch break and started to list EVERYTHING i was grateful for and you know what by the time i got back to my desk my whole mood had shifted.

The practice of gratitude has been indicated in the importance of wellbeing and my positive psychology text notes research that suggests ‘practicing grateful thinking on a regular basis can indeed improve positive emotionality’ and can ‘increase perceived social support and lower stress and depression’.

so here's the advice from a former skeptic and cynic...

want more. read: positive psychology, the science of happiness and flourishing, william. c. compton and edward hoffman.