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Tuesday 31 May 2011

Choice

“Today I choose life. Every morning when I wake up I can choose joy, happiness, negativity, pain... To feel the freedom that comes from being able to continue to make mistakes and choices - today I choose to feel life, not to deny my humanity but embrace it.” Kevyn Aucoin



What are you choosing? More importantly how and why are choosing how you choose to think and act?

This sounds either mindless or confusing but whenever I get my clients to start to think about the reasons and motivation behind their actions it is always challenging.

We choose differently in different areas of our lives and as we go through life the choices that suited us in our youth are different to those as we get older and at every life change.

In my last blog I touched on the accumulated affect of all the little things. We change and our circumstances change in some ways so gradually and surreptitiously that perhaps we don't notice and if we don't notice we can get 'out of date' with our own life. Sometimes we can even forget to choose fun!

One of the ways we choose is our time perspective.

The psychologist Philip Zimbardo writes and talks about the importance of choosing our time perspective and how our happiness and well being is affected by how much (and in what way) we choose to focus on the past, present and future. You can see him talking about this at http://ted.com/talk/lang/eng/philip_zimbardo_prescribes_a_healthy_take_on_time.html
Zimbardo's conclusion is that he used to be too future orientated (choosing how he lived only in respect to future outcomes) and that he is now much more present focused and consequently much happier. He is making an important point that to be too future orientated is not good for your health and wellbeing. His professional achievements, that he now enjoys, came directly as a result of his choice to be single mindedly future focused but he woke up to the cost of his choice (which I believe has much more to do with his age than his research) and wishes he had done so sooner now he has discovered the joy of choosing to live in the present. -Zimbardo's message is that just choosing one focus and perspective, however successful, can come at a price.

Our choices are often in competition and can be affected by hidden - or at least unacknowledged, motivations. When this happens we can feel out of control.

In my book Brilliant Positive Psychology I have started with the power of choice because we are actually choosing everything- not just our time perspective. We are making many many choices -much more that we realise- in fact happiness itself is a choice. By taking a moment to examine what we are choosing (and why) we can begin to evaluate and change our perspective in all areas of life. How we choose to see other people and events, how we choose to see ourselves, and how and what we choose to do what we do. Choosing to choose can be very empowering.


The choices I am talking about are not what to buy, eat or get, but how we choose to think and what we choose to value. In fact one of the best choices you can make for your happiness and wellbeing is to do and have less! Research has told us that having too much choice and always trying to get the most from everything doesn't make us feel good.

In order to change how you think you first have to choose to think!

This is an extract from Brilliant Positive Psychology p.11

Below are some of the ways you are choosing your experience
and well-being; these are some of the factors that govern how
and why you make choices, and, in effect, how you choose to
think and feel. All these influences are part of your complexity
and only you can change or increase what influences your
choices.
1 What you need and value. You choose what you need.
Your basic needs are as individual as you are and what
you need are the things that matter most to you, what you
value.

2 As a response. You choose your response to how others
behave and act, and to outside circumstances. Someone
else’s actions affect your choices. This is often an emotional response

3 To conform as part of a group. You choose because it
is socially appropriate. You choose to do things you feel
you should do because it is considered by others to be the
choice you should make. You choose cultural and social
norms.

4 With autonomy. You choose completely freely and
unrestrained. You choose novelty, excitement and
uncertainty, for your immediate pleasure.

5 With your mind. You choose to do something logically
because it makes sense to you.

6 As a habit. You choose out of habit. You choose
mindlessly, doing what you have always done without
thinking about it.

7 With understanding. You choose what you understand
and is meaningful to you. When you understand why you
want to do something, you have a reason to choose it.

What are you choosing right now?
Are you awake and open to change?
Are you content and grateful for how much you have or do you
want more?
Are you living ‘your’ life or for someone else and have you chosen this?
Are you choosing to see problems or solutions?
Are you learning from your mistakes or do you feel a failure?
Are you looking forward to the future or does the past hold you in
its grip?
Are you choosing safety or adventure?
Are you choosing to be generous with your gifts or do you hold the
best of you only for those who deserve it?
Are you choosing to judge yourself and others or are you choosing
to see the best in yourself and others?

Why not choose to become more aware of the choices you are making today, especially in respect to time.
Look at different areas of your life in the list below and put each area in the middle of the mind map and play with some of the perspectives. Note down which perspective you are choosing and then note down what you might choose from a different perspective.




  1. How or what are you choosing in your career, at work, professionally.


  2. How or what are you choosing to spend your time recreationally, for fun, in your social life.


  3. How or what are you choosing in respect to your romantic life, significant other.


  4. What are you choosing in respect to where you live, your environment.


  5. What or how are you choosing financially, to keep yourself and others.


  6. How or what are you choosing for yourself, your soul.


  7. How or what are you choosing for others, the wider world.


Do let me know if you choose something different and if it changed anything

Friday 20 May 2011

The power of the ironic loop

Try this. I want you NOT to think about a lemon barley sweet. Don’t think about sucking lemon barley for the next two minutes. How is this working?

The mind plays an ironic trick: when we have the thought that we mustn’t think about something it sets up a feedback loop that increases, rather than diminishes, this thing we mustn’t think about in our minds.

Were you able not to think of a lemon barley and did your mouth water by any chance? When we ruminate on something negative or want to stop doing something that is hard, like dieting or smoking, or even when we just feel miserable and want to stop feeling this way, we can set up such a loop.

It is very hard to overcome strong emotion, which can then govern what we think; yet paradoxically what we 'think', may have elicited the strong emotion. Just choosing not to think of the things that make us feel negative may in fact increase those thoughts and feelings, as the above example with the lemon barley sweet shows.

Whatever it is that you want to stop doing or deny yourself try not to be too obsessed.  Acknowledge your cravings/worry/hatred and see the gremlin on your shoulder who is making such a big deal - and then find something to distract you. Chances are that if you embrace your worries and fears; notice and stay with the emotion, it will probably loose some of its grip.  Denying the emotion or fighting it, is the fuel to feeling it more strongly.

One way to break the ironic loop is to name the emotion. 'Hi desire', 'hi fear', 'hi anger' so this is what you feel like.   I am feeling you and  I notice your grip, but you will pass in a while. Then focus on something different and positive. Good luck

Sunday 1 May 2011

Celebrating

This is my first post.
What do I write about?

My oldest daughters happy happy wedding three weeks ago.
My youngest daughters twenty first four months ago.
The publication of my book six months ago - Brilliant Positive Psychology- and the party I had to celebrate it one month ago.
Being married for 30 years, three months ago.
Becoming 50 seven months ago.
The courageous and tragic death of Bunty aged 36 and the wisdom and strength of Ned her son aged six, four months ago.
The last two books I read on holiday- The Junior Officers Reading Club and One Day, one week ago.
The launch of action for happiness two weeks ago.
Consciousness.
The joy of friendship.
The love of family in both grief and joy.
The importance of sisters and sisterhood.
The cost of gardening and sailing - the pleasure of gardening and sailing.
Wisdom and common sense.
Living through the biggest change since the reformation or the fall of Rome .........................
What really matters to me enough to write about it today?
All the above have filled and over filled the last seven months of my life and looking at the above list I think I must focus on the unusual number of celebratory events.

In the last seven months we have had three tents for celebration, the local marquee company in the village thinks our life is one long round of celebration but we have never had a tent in the garden before this year! We also watched, and supported as best we could, my husbands niece die of secondary cancer leaving her sister to bring up her son alongside her own three small children and nothing I could write about that would be adequate except to say her funeral was a perfect celebration and recognition of her unique life.

Life is the measure of the small, shaping and giving strength to the large. When we make the small things good, the big good things are better and the big bad things more bearable. Celebrating and marking the big events in life matters, but it is noticeable how much the big celebrations are an amplification of all the little things.

Relationships are built on numberless small kindnesses and shared moments. Each moment spent well, authentically and generously, whether laughing or crying, listening or sharing, each small intimacy becomes another drop in a pool of love and friendship. What has marked the last seven months for me has been the incredible joy of swimming in the lake that is the sum of all these pools.

Each event was very different, and each lake unique to the event. However each event was without doubt a reflection and celebration of love and friendship, new and old, all valuable and authentic.

The country's celebration on Friday was a wonderful example of swimming in all the good things. A mass celebration of the joy of young love and the hope invested at the start of a marriage. It was a celebration of a national identity, built over time as a nation represented in the pomp and splendor or individually in each person comming together to share in public celebration and joy.

Celebrating is one of the many ingredients of a happy life and as with everything that contributes to a happy life,when combined with other positive ingredients, such as generosity, kindness, recognition, gratitude and meaning (to name a few) it becomes more potent.

I included celebration in the 5th chapter in my book, the chapter on positive relationships, a small paragraph on page 120, on how to positively celebrate someone else's achievement. I am still learning and wish now I had written more but then there are so very many ways to build wellbeing and happiness......................This is that small paragraph;
Celebrating and sharing good things is a very important aspect of positive relationships. Sharing good things can be done well and encourage trust and intimacy. We all know how good it feels when someone says well done, but it can feel even better when the ‘well done’ is well done!
Being positive and supportive involves responding to good news in a genuine constructive reaction that actively acknowledges the other and celebrates the event with them. Psychologist Shelly Gable has shown that this is vital to the health and well-being of all relationships but particularly builds intimacy and trust.
Do’s and don’ts of positive celebrating. DO
Be genuine, and excited
Mark the moment
Be fully attentive and interested in all the details
Really enjoy your friend’s or partner’s achievement
Set your own needs aside.

DON'T
Talk about yourself and your achievements


Look for bad consequences or pour cold water on it: ‘that’s great but how will you cope . . afford it. . . etc.?’
Immediately change the subject or the focus of your attention
Ignore the news or event.
Whatever you are doing today, if you are doing it with someone else, know that however small the kindness or shared joke or small attention you give or receive is adding to a pool of shared moments that will be part of who you are when in celebration together, yours or their celebration. Have you or someone you love a reason for celebration? If so start making the plans