If you’ve been coming back to this site for new material, I apologize for the delay in posting new blogs. In March, I wrote that I would be posting some of the activities that I have students complete in my 80 hour Positive Psychology program at Evergreen, as well as the offenders who participate in the prison programs I do.

In the first blog, I want to address perhaps the most powerful activity one could engage in to improve satisfaction with life, and that is to express gratitude. The second blog is focused on how one can enhance the “savoring” of life, as we are often in such a great hurry, we forget to enjoy our experience.

Activity One: Gratitude: The Mother of All Virtues

Gratitude is defined by researcher Robert Emmons as “a felt sense of wonder, thankfulness, and appreciation for life.” If you are focused on this moment, appreciating your life as it is today, and thinking about what made this so, you are in a state of being grateful. It is probably best to consider what gratitude is on your own terms, but if you “think” about your life from a grateful perspective, the benefits are numerous.

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I can recall when I lived in Austin, TX. I was 21 and life was pretty easy and simple, though I was most often broke. I used to lie on the bank of the San Marcos River waiting for my brother and his wife to join me so we could float down the river on inner tubes. If I close my eyes, I can bring this memory to mind in an instant, and smell and feel the sticky, thick summer air of the Texas Hill Country, and hear the laughter of others enjoying their day on the river and the constant clicking buzz of cicadas in the trees. When I call this image to mind, it makes me feel good, it reminds me of the positive things that have happened in my life, it makes me appreciate my brother and the life lessons I learned from him, and it reminds me that life can be simple if you decide to make it so. I recall the trips down the river, the rope swing at a swimming hole near the end of the journey, and the traditional Mexican family restaurant at journey’s end, with homemade tortillas and my first ever experience of homemade chili con queso. This is an example of savoring the past.
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Robert Biswas-Diener, a graduate of The Evergreen State College, is known as the “Indiana Jones” of Positive Psychology because of his life satisfaction research from around the globe (Greenland, India, Kenya, etc.). Join us on Friday night, April 17th at 7 p.m. in the Olympia Community Center when Robert will read from and discuss his book, “Happiness: Unlocking the Mysteries of Psychological Wealth” (co-authored with his father Ed Diener, the greatest life satisfaction researcher in psychology). The community center is located at 222 Columbia Street NW in downtown Olympia. This event is sponsored by Mark A. Hurst, Ph.D.

GET OVER YOUR “SELF”! No, really, I mean it. I would say that more than anything I cover in therapy sessions, as well as in my own personal life, is the inevitability of our egos (or our sense of self) to cause most of our problems. When we are hurt, or hurt others, it is often not physical damage that is done, but a psychological bruise.

Did you know that humans process about 150 to 300 (some say up to1000) words a minute in self-talk? This would be great if all that inner conversation was helpful, but studies show that for all humans (whether you realize it or not) most of it is negative and related to regret, worry, or frustration. Another problem is that we spend so much time creating a sense of self, that we get full of ourselves. And then, when that “self” experiences something as a threat (sometimes based on very minor, trivial matters), we get defensive and behave badly. Relationships are often ruined over even minor slights in this way.     These experiences lead us to distance from others, or criticize, berate others, give them the silent treatment, or even resort to overt violence. (more…)

You don’t have to be born lucky to enjoy a great experience in life.  Life satisfaction comes from having very specific attitudes and engaging in very specific activities. These aren’t a mystery either.  They can be learned AND they must be practiced to be optimally effective in producing good results.

Can you believe over 4,000 books were written on “happiness,” last year alone? I would argue from a science perspective that most of them are pop psychology and not worth your time (and money), but there are those dedicating their careers to a rigorous examination of what leads people to be satisfied with their lives.  In January I traveled to Claremont Graduate University in Los Angeles to hear a number of the contemporary researchers talk about the things we can do to improve our experience of life. And, having used this material for 10 years in my practice, in an 80 hour experiential program I teach at Evergreen, and yes, even creating and implementing programs in prisons, the research is clear that doing specific things leads to greater life satisfaction. (more…)

I see so many couples in my practice who are “crazy, busy,” as one recent book describes it. I have used the term “always on,” to describe the current state of the contemporary American. This often leads to couples telling me they have no time for the little things I suggest they do to work on their relationship. Research shows that spending more positive time together every week is critical for improving marriages. Because it is unlikely society will slow down, it is critical that we take responsibility and have the intention to change, and invest the attention and time in those we say we love.

One way to do this is to create “rituals of connection,” those little daily or weekly habitual things we can do to invest in each other. I use the term “invest” specifically, because we often take for granted (more…)

In my previous articles I covered the various types of professionals, and the questions to ask yourself prior to making that first call to a helping professional.

Here are the next steps in that process:

• Determine which of the questions you’ve asked yourself (in that list from my previous column) have the greatest meaning to you and make a quick list of what you’ve deemed most crucial to you.
• Look in the phone book under Counselors, then look at Therapists, then Social Workers, and then Psychologists.  You’re likely to find quite a number of these professionals, and the services they appear to offer will look pretty impressive.  I suggest that you pick three from each section and give each a call.  (I never said this would be quick!)
• You’re likely to reach an answering machine—don’t let that put you off—you need not give anything more than your first name, a phone number and possibly the best time to return your call at a given number.
• Pay attention to who calls you back, and how quickly.  Busy professionals may not be the first to call back, but they should reach you within the course of the day.
• Have paper and pencil ready when you’re talking to each professional who calls you back.  Get the questions about insurance out of the way first so you don’t waste time with someone who is not covered by your plan.

When professionals return your call

I advise that you compose a single sentence about (more…)

Many people ask me whether I think the psychologist or therapist they are currently seeing is on the right track.  Others will recall an experience they had in long-ago therapy sessions, and will ask about the effectiveness of methods practiced by that professional.  I don’t like to second-guess the good-intentions of my colleagues in the helping professions, so I evade these questions as politely as possible.

What I CAN do, and often attempt to do, is to assist people in finding a professional within their own community.  Below I’ve outlined what needs to happen if you think you might want to see someone in the helping professions. (more…)

Oh, you’d be astonished at the number of well-educated people who don’t know the difference between a psychologist and a psychiatrist!   The same is true of distinctions among the other helping professionals, so here’s a short course:

Psychiatrists. A psychiatrist is a medical doctor, just like the one that delivered your child or set the bone in your ankle.  In medical school they took all the classes along with their colleagues going into other specialties.  At some point, however, they selected psychiatry as their special interest, and began to focus—not on psychology, but—on brain chemistry and how that relates to emotions and behavior.  They do spend time talking with patients about issues and progress toward goals, but their special area of expertise is in prescribing particular medications.  Insurance carriers almost always cover the services of a psychiatrist, but may require a referral from a primary care doctor.  Often individuals will see a psychiatrist in addition to the helping professions listed below. (more…)

“Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others.” – Cicero (106 BC – 43 BC), ‘Pro Plancio,’ 54 B.C.

Research shows (see articles by Martin Seligman, Robert Emmons, and on this website) that the best predictor of “happiness” and life satisfaction is the degree of gratitude experienced and expressed by the individual.  In other words, to begin to raise your life satisfaction, be thankful for the good things already in your life!

I’ve given talks to crowds large and small, in school, corporations and even in prisons, and I’ve found that the audiences have a common denominator (several, really).  People are fascinated when they hear about the difference that simple gratitude can make in one’s life.  Just to illustrate the research that has been done in this area, it has been shown that life satisfaction increases (as measured on a psychological test) over the course of as little as six weeks, if a person takes just a few minutes each week to write down the good things that have happened during that 7-day period. Ironically, the research shows that doing this one night a week was more beneficial than doing this three nights a week. (In a future article I will address the research by on how life satisfaction efforts must be a good fit for each individual). (more…)