The Ten Positive Emotions (Part One)

Well-being is a wonderful state of nature, but what is it?  There are many aspects of well-being, but of interest now are the emotions that broadly describe it.

Positive psychology researchers, particularly Barbara Frederickson, identified and summarized the ten most common positive emotions which embrace and enhance well-being.  Below are short definitions of these positive emotions in ranked order of frequency:

Love: All the positive emotions below when they stir the heart to engage and share with others in constructive relationships.

Joy: Feeling bright and light.  Colours seem more vivid.  There’s a spring in your step.  You feel playful.

Gratitude: Appreciating something that has come our way as a gift to be treasured.  It opens your heart and carries the urge to give back – to do something in return.

Serenity (savouring):  Low key, personal and private joy; savouring the moment; feeling that things are so right and comfortable.  Perhaps seeking ways to integrate this moment into your life more fully and often. Privately reflect on your prized present moment.

Interest:  Feeling open and alive; your horizons are expanding with new possibilities.  A desire to explore, to take in new ideas and learn more.

Hope:  A belief or yearning that things can change and be better in the future, especially when the present moment is uncertain or challenged. Feeling motivated to turn things around to benefit yourself and others.

Pride:  A managed and modest feeling of achievement, taking “blame” or ownership for something good or going right with your present situation.

Amusement: Something unexpected but non-threatening happens that simply makes you laugh, usually in a social context.

Inspiration: Feeling uplifted, seeing better possibilities than usual, a desire to want to express and do what is good.

Awe:  Feeling overwhelmed by greatness, experiencing goodness and amazement on a grand scale.

Your well-being challenge is to observe, nurture and multiply these ten emotions in ways that are meaningful and real.  What I do is regularly repeat them to myself and see when and how many times these emotions were present recently Or take one or two of your favourites and noted their frequency.

This emotional inventory taking naturally and immediately improves my spirits and positivity and renews my focus on being in a state of wellness.  These ten emotions are powerful tools for well-being!! 

You might want to memorize them (I use the system that 6 start with consonants, 4 with vowels).

Source and recommend further reading:  Positivity by Barbara Frederickson

Reflection Source: www.Smallercup.org

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Habits

Confucius noted that “All humans are the same, except for their habits.” 

Habits are your natural tendencies or practices.  They determine how you behave or react to a situation and they are automatic reflexes, often unconsciously made.  We are all largely the same biologically, but we differ in how we behave or react to things.

Given that habits define your uniqueness and personality, then maturing habits that enhance contentment and wellness would be constructive. I have struggled to make my intentional activities (the 40% I control, see graph below) habitual and more beneficial.  Learning to be grateful, positive and reframing problems to possible thinking took a lot of mindful effort.  However, with practise these responses and perspectives became my natural habits - my default reaction.

Habits do have a pattern in their formation.  Repeating the same behavior consistently, deliberately and with mindful determination, for on average for 66 days, make a behavior or response automatic and habitual.   The wonderful reward of building wellness and contentment habits is that you get a subtle but real reward almost immediately and sub-consciously; you feel better quite quickly.  But just like medicine, once you start to feel improved health you often stop taking the medicine.  So also with wellness habits. 

Positive psychology suggests that the most useful and easiest well-being habit to mature is gratitude.  Start a gratitude journal to note your blessings, finding three to five things to be grateful for EVERY day.  Express internally or externally gratitude at every available opportunity (and especially when you are in a difficult situation).  Search for wonder in your present moment. 

Design your wellness program and invest 66 days to see what happens.  Nothing to lose- just take baby steps, one habit at a time.

Think about looking at some of your strengths and making them more habitual and regular.

What other well-being habits might you want to cultivate?

Ø  seeking opportunities for service

Ø  delaying gratification to its most opportune moment

Ø  exercising

Ø  working with your willpower to make it stronger

Ø  wanting less

Ø  practising resilience

Ø  looking for opportunities to express your purpose. 

For further reading, if you are interested:

How are habits formed: Modelling Habit Formation in the Real World,  Phillippa Lally,  Cornelia H. M. van Jaarsveld,  Henry W. W. Potts,  Jane Wardle; European Journal of Social Psychology, 16 July 2009, https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.674.

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40% of What Determines Happiness is Up to You – Possible Thinking

For me, this is one of the most amazing and empowering findings from positive psychology. Your intentional (self-determined) thoughts and perspectives are said to determine about 40% of your experience of happiness.  You have around 40% control over how an event is perceived and emotionally experienced.  You have significant choice over how you react to the weather, the view out of your window or anything else in your present moment.  How you frame or reframe the present moment is significant.  Do you just react to events unconsciously or do you deliberately set out to apply a certain mindset?

If around 40% of what determines your well-being is up to your intentional thoughts and activities, what about the rest?  50% is largely set by your genetically determined set points (your genes, which cannot be changed).  The last 10% is your unique life circumstances (rich or poor, healthy or unhealthy, beautiful or plain, live in amazing or poor housing, etc.).

So what does this 40% suggest?  You experience an event or action, but how you process and internally experience that situation is flexible.  You cannot change the weather, traffic conditions or world events but you do have a choice as to how you react to these circumstances.  Your job, relationships, health, wealth, home and education are largely fixed in the short run, but how you feel about these matters is 40% is up to you.  These circumstances can be framed negatively or that same moment can be painted as having glimmers of wonder, joy, empowerment, opportunity, excitement, optimism; you decide.

This 40% possibility does not negate that one’s present moment may have difficult, sad or unjust elements, but to ruminate and exclusively stay focused on the negative aspects can have troubling consequences.  There is much truth to the saying:

“Every cloud has a silver lining”

You just have to look for that sliver of hope, to be open to a small possibility of a positive outcome.  Call this possible thinking rather than positive thinking, finding at least one hopeful aspect of your present moment.

For further reading, if you are interested:

Pursuing Happiness: The Architecture of Sustainable Change, Sonja Lyubomirsky, Kennon M. Sheldon, David Schkade, Review of General Psychology 9(2):111-131 · June 2005

Please freely share and widely, there are no copyright concerns.