I have been on a journey to understand and crack open the many mysteries of life through the use of audio books focused on positive psychology, behavioral economics, and wellbeing. With each book, I have listened to the research, explored the real life examples, and reflected on how I can incorporate what I have learned into my life. I have then looked for opportunities to practice and share what I have learned in an effort to understand and internalize it more deeply.
Last week I finished a wonderful book by Barbara Fredrickson called Positivity. It is not the best positive psychology book I have listened to in the last couple years, but I found a number of important lessons that are supported by research. One of her most powerful findings is that in order to flourish in life we need a three to one ratio or higher of positive to negative emotions. This is not as simple as just deciding to be more happy or less angry, sad, or hurt. It involves careful consideration about how you frame and live your life.
The book lays out the ten most common positive emotions best understood by research (see list here) and provides proven ideas of how to experience more of each emotion. One of the best suggestions is to learn to savor your positive experiences. In the midst of an experience that brings you great positive emotions, think about ways to extend or do more of it. The research also suggests that the more we analyze positive emotions the more we diminish the positive impact they have on our lives. The biggest key to increasing your positive emotions is that it must be and feel genuine. If you try to force yourself to be more positive it will actually result in negative emotions.
The other way to increase your positivity ratio is to decrease your negative emotions. This is where I made my most powerful discovery. The idea is not to eliminate negative emotions completely, but to experience less of them over a shorter period of time. This overlaps with some of the research by Brené Brown that found that wholehearted people choose to experience both positive and negative emotions rather than practicing numbness.
Fredrickson found that the real danger is when we ruminate or wallow in negative emotions and allow them to evolve into a destructive downward spiral. In order to address this, she looked into the research and teachings on mindfulness and meditation. She recommends that we follow teachings similar to what I discovered in Tuesdays with Morrie (feeling emotions deeply and then transitioning to another place) and recently found in Falling into Grace (the more we try to control our emotions, the more out of control we will feel).
Instead of trying to control our emotions and hopelessly force ourselves to stop feeling what we feel, we can seek to transition our negative emotions into more positive emotions. Fredrickson recommends doing this with the use of genuine gratitude. In the midst of an experience that creates negative emotions you can reflect on how that experience might help you achieve something that you genuinely want in your life and express gratitude (internally or externally) for the opportunity to take a step further in that direction. For example, when my kids frustrate me with their poor behavior I can pause, allowing myself to sit in the moment feeling frustration and acknowledge internally how I am feeling, and then expressing internal feelings of gratitude for the opportunity to learn greater patience that will help me be a better parent. I genuinely want to learn this type of patience and this negative experience can be framed as an opportunity to get better at it.
It has been amazing how this new approach has allowed me to feel deeply, melt away many of my negative emotions, and end up focused on the positive feelings of genuine gratitude. I have done this successfully a half dozen times or so over the last week, but yesterday this approach was tested at a new level. I learned that someone I knew, learned from, and worked with died unexpectedly and left behind many close friends that are also my friends, a partner, and two little girls. I spent most of the yesterday afternoon in a heartsick trance unable to focus or engage in the world and only was able to reengage through the numbness of distraction.
This morning I tried to put this new approach to work through my feelings around this death. I gave myself some space to feel deeply the pain of his loss, the worry I have for those impacted by it, and the fear it reinforces in my own mortality and the mortality of those I love. It was not a comfortable experience, but one that I tried to let wash over me without seeking to control it. I then went is search for the gratitude that I could find within this awful situation. I am so grateful that my life was impacted by this person and all that I learned from him. I am grateful for the impact he had on my teachers and all the learning they have created for me as a result. I am grateful for how this person made the world a more just place for my children and taught me to help do the same. I am also deeply grateful for the lessons his unexpected death have taught me about life. I want to learn to live more in the moment with the people I care about and not take their lives or the time I have with them for granted. I want to learn that when remarkable people enter your life that it is worth the effort to invest time in them and ask that they invest time in you.
This new approach to keeping my negative emotions from spiraling out of control has not taken away all the pain or fear, but it has allowed me to avoid short and long term paralysis by those and other negative emotions. I am not sure if this approach will always work, but it has been surprisingly liberating so far. I have been able to transition my negative feelings into productively positive emotions. In this positive space I am more motivated to apply the lessons I am learning in my life. As a result of this person's passing I am going to reach out to some people who I have met and want to get to know further. If I have any success in these efforts, the pool of my positive emotions will only grow and give me a greater chance at flourishing.
BS
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