Last summer, when I taught our Happiness for Teachers course along with Lillian Martz, one of the most powerful assignments involved forgiveness. Even though we emphasized that the teachers taking our class didn’t need to actually engage in a forgiveness process, they shared incredibly deep and profound stories of betrayal, forgiveness, and the struggles in between. Here’s the assignment. Again, we’re not saying you need to engage in a forgiveness process. All we’re suggesting is for you to read this and think about forgiveness. Here’s the assignment:
Whether we’re talking self-forgiveness, forgiving others, or spiritual forgiveness, forgiveness is a big deal and a big ask.
For this learning activity, we don’t expect you to purge yourself of all personal guilt or become free from all resentments. Nevertheless, for this assignment, your job is to explore what forgiving yourself, forgiving others, and being forgiven might look like AND how forgiving yourself, forgiving others, and being forgiven might feel to you.
To do this activity, you’re not expected to actually do the forgiveness work; instead, you get to think about doing the forgiveness work and speculate on its effects. . . FOR YOU. Although forgiveness is probably the biggest issue we’ve tackled in this Happiness Challenge, the plan is for you to just take a small sip from the very large cup of potential forgiveness issues that we all have. If you want to go deeper and take a bigger drink, that’s perfectly fine, but that’s all up to you.
To get yourself oriented toward forgiveness you could (if you want) consider and access some of the following ideas and online resources:
Consider that forgiving others can improve your physical health. As Anne Lamott wrote in Traveling Mercies: “Not forgiving is like drinking rat poison and then waiting for the rat to die.” Is there anyone other there toward whom you might offer forgiveness? You don’t even have to talk with them (although you can, if that works for you). You can just bring yourself to a place where you’ve let go of any lingering anger or resentment that you’re holding.
For the first time in seven years, I’m teaching group counseling this semester. This forces me to think about, “What’s the latest scoop on teaching group counseling?” I’ve been reading and talking and gaining information, but if anyone out there has particular insights to share with me, please do.
In my prep, I’ve decided that there’s tons of content out there, in professional journals, books, book chapters, and everywhere else I look. Nevertheless, to break free from the oppression of content, one of my first decisions is to go experiential. This isn’t much different from seven years ago, but my plan is to be even MORE experiential.
Based on previous experiences teaching group, talking with faculty, and talking with students, the Group course is a place with a complex mix of anxiety, vulnerability, and potential conflict. To manage this exciting and challenging mix, I’ve got several plans.
After my infamous “Group is open” anecdote, I will share my philosophy on brain development and counselor skill development. In the Moodle shell, I wrote: “Hey Everybody, Welcome to our group counseling course at U of M. I love group counseling and I love teaching group counseling. More than any other approach, group work requires that we maintain an attitude of acceptance and hold the statements and disclosures that others make with sensitivity and grace. One big goal in this class is for all of us to continue to grow those parts of our brain that makes us excellent listeners. Mostly, we need to let go of other parts of our brain that wants to debate, argue, and express our opinions. I look forward to this adventure and journey with you. See you Tuesday, John SF”
TBH, I’m not sure how my philosophy will fly with students . . . but sharing it fits with Irvin Yalom’s mantra that the group leader is instantly the primary norm setter and role model. Along with my philosophy, I will also disclose some of my anxieties and insecurities. Yes . . . even after 40+ years as a mental health professional, I still feel the creep of imposter anxiety.
Then we’ll circle up and jump into two rounds of experiential introductions. I do two rounds of experiential introductions to give students a chance to “feel” the difference between more structured and less structured group process. I’ve done this before; it feels like a relatively safe, fun, and process-oriented opening.
Then, in the spirit of Yalom’s “self-reflective loop,” we will debrief and debrief some more.
After exiting the experiential introductions, we’ll stay in the circle, review the course syllabus (assignments), and then talk about our planned feedback process. Once, when I asked Allen Ivey for his best advice on learning counseling skills, he said he could summarize his advice in six words: “Practice, practice, practice, feedback, feedback, feedback.” I thought that was a pretty cool answer. You can check out my ideas about feedback on a previous blog post: https://johnsommersflanagan.com/2020/08/18/guidelines-for-giving-and-receiving-feedback/
The last part of class #1 (time permitting) will be me reviewing a few group counseling basics (e.g., group types, group stages, cultural humility, under-confidence, overconfidence, and the wonder and narrowness of the dialectic of lived experience. Should be a blast.
I’m hoping to blog every week about my Group Counseling class and the teaching and learning experience. Of course, that will depend on my time management skills. I’m thinking maybe I’ll coax one of my students into running a psychoeducational group on time management—and then maybe I’ll actually achieve my weekly Group Counseling goals.
Here’s a screenshot of my feedback prompt (aka ppt slide).
Last week was about emotional journaling. This week, we stick with the power of words and writing and take a dive into an evidence-based therapeutic writing activity called the Best Possible Self.
You all already know about optimism and pessimism.
Some people see the glass half full. Others see the glass half empty. Still others, just drink and savor the water, without getting hung up on how much is in the glass. Obviously, there are many other responses, because some people spill the water, others find a permanent water source, and others skip the water and drink the wine or pop open a beer.
Reducing people to two personality types never works, but that doesn’t stop people from labeling themselves or others as optimists or pessimists. This week’s activity—The Best Possible Self—is an optimism activity. You don’t have to be a so-called optimist to use it. And the good news is, regardless of your labels, the Best Possible Self writing activity is supposed to crank up your sense of optimism. That’s cool, because generally speaking, optimism is a good thing. Here’s what the researchers say about the Best Possible Self (BPS) activity.
[The following is summarized from Layous, Nelson, and Lyubomirsky, 2012]. Writing about your Best Possible Self (also seen as a representation of your goals) shows long-term health benefits, increases life satisfaction, increases positive affect, increases optimism, and improves overall sense of well-being. Laura King, a professor at U of Missouri-Columbia developed the BPS activity.
King’s original BPS study involved college students writing about their Best Possible Selves for 15 minutes a day for two weeks. The process has been validated with populations other than college students. If you want to jump in that deep, go for it. On the other hand, if you want a lighter version, here’s a less committed alternative:
Spend 10 minutes a day for four consecutive days writing a narrative description of your “best possible future self.”
Pick a point in the future – write about what you’ll be doing/thinking then – and these things need to capture a vision of you being “your best” successful self or of having accomplished your life goals.
As with all these activities, monitor your reactions. Maybe you’ll love it and want to keep doing it. Maybe you won’t.
If you feel like it, you can share some of your #writing on social media.
Berkeley’s Greater Good website includes a nice summary of the BPS activity. Here’s a pdf from their website:
Being a counseling and psychotherapy theories buff, I should mention that this fantastic assignment is very similar to the Adlerian “Future Autobiography.” Adler was way ahead of everyone on everything, so I’m not surprised that he was thinking of this first. Undoubtedly, Adler saw the glass half full, sipped and savored his share, and then shared it with his community. We should all be more like Adler.
The following excerpt is from our freshly published textbook, Clinical Interviewing (2024, 7th edition, Wiley).
What Is a Clinical Interview?
Clinical interviewing is a flexible procedure that mental health professionals use to initiate treatment. In 1920, Jean Piaget first used the words “clinical” and “interview” together in a way similar to contemporary practitioners. He believed existing psychiatric interviewing procedures were inadequate for studying cognitive development in children, so he invented a “semi-clinical interview.”
Piaget’s approach was novel. His semi-clinical interview combined tightly standardized interview questions with unstandardized or spontaneous questioning to explore the richness of children’s thinking processes (Elkind, 1964; J. Sommers-Flanagan et al., 2015). Interestingly, the tension between these two different interviewing approaches (i.e., standardized vs. spontaneous) continues today. Psychiatrists and research psychologists primarily use structured, or semi-structured clinical interviewing approaches. Structured clinical interviews involve asking the same questions in the same order with every client. Structured interviews are designed to gather reliable and valid assessment data. Virtually all researchers agree that a structured clinical interview is the best approach for collecting reliable and valid assessment data.
In contrast, clinical practitioners, especially those who embrace post-modern and social justice perspectives, generally use less structure. Unstructured clinical interviews involve a subjective and spontaneous relational experience. These less structured relational experiences are typically used to collaboratively initiate an assessment or counseling process. Murphy and Dillon (2015) articulated the latter (less structured) end of the interviewing spectrum:
We believe that clinical interviewing is—or should be—a conversation that occurs in a relationship characterized by respect and mutuality, by immediacy and warm presence, and by emphasis on strengths and potential. Because clinical interviewing is essentially relational, it requires ongoing attention to how things are said and done, as well as to what is said and done. . . . we believe that clinicians need to work in collaboration with clients . . . (p. 4)
Research-oriented psychologists and psychiatrists who value structured clinical interviews for diagnostic purposes would likely view Murphy and Dillon’s description of this “conversation” as a bane to reliable assessment. In contrast, clinical practitioners often view highly structured diagnostic interviewing procedures as too sterile and impersonal. Perhaps what’s most interesting is that despite these substantial conceptual differences—differences that are sometimes punctuated with passion—structured and unstructured approaches represent legitimate methods for conducting clinical interviews. A clinical interview can be structured, unstructured, or a thoughtful combination of both. (See Chapter 11 for a discussion of clinical interviewing structure.)
Formal definitions of the clinical interview emphasize its two primary functions or goals (J. Sommers-Flanagan, 2016; J. Sommers-Flanagan et al., 2020):
Assessment
Helping (including referrals)
To achieve these goals, all clinical interviews involve the development of a therapeutic relationship or working alliance. Optimally, the therapeutic relationship provides leverage for obtaining valid and reliable assessment data and/or providing effective interventions.
With all this background in mind, we define clinical interviewing as…
a complex, multidimensional, and culturally sensitive interpersonal process that occurs between a professional service provider and client. The primary goals are (a) assessment and (b) helping. To achieve these goals, clinicians may emphasize structured diagnostic questioning, spontaneous talking and listening, or both. Clinicians use information obtained in an initial clinical interview to develop a collaborative case formulation and treatment plan.
Given this definition, students often ask: “What’s the difference between a clinical interview and counseling or psychotherapy?” This is an excellent question that deserves a nuanced response. . . . [to be continued]
When I was teaching social skills to elementary school-aged youth, one boy couldn’t stop talking about himself. Because I wanted the students to be interactive with and interested in each other, I intervened.
“Ask a question about her.”
He nodded, in apparent understanding. Returning to the activity, he followed my instructions (sort of), immediately asking,
“What do you think of me?”
The question, “What do you think of me?” is powerful. We all wonder this, at least occasionally, and perhaps constantly. As I just wrote in a previous blog post, being seen and known by others is a profound experience. Having your strengths and positive qualities reflected back to you by others is a gift: https://johnsommersflanagan.com/2023/12/25/the-gift-of-being-seen/
The Natural Talent Interview requires vulnerability; it’s a challenging and potentially awkward assignment. I recommend it anyway. 😲
Here’s a link to the version of the Natural Talent Interview that we assign in the Happiness Course. Note: It includes a nice description of self-awareness and the Johari Window.
Rylee said there was an internet thing going around about how men should be more like women and start complimenting each other. Then we watched “Rye Lane” (two thumbs up). In the movie, the protagonist male tried out that compliment-another-guy thing; the guy he complimented told him to “Fuck off” and a few other things I won’t repeat.
Maybe compliments don’t translate all that well across genders. But maybe they do.
Years ago, I was doing psychotherapy with a Native American father and his teenage son. To try to help with their strained relationship, I coached the dad on being more authentically positive with his son. During the next session, I had them do a version of the “What’s good about you?” therapy activity.
I asked the son to sit across from his dad and ask, “What’s good about me?” ten times in a row. The only rules were that dad was supposed to give 10 different answers and respond honestly. The boy muttered along with an eye-roll. I felt nervous.
He looked at his dad and asked, “What’s good about me?”
The dad said, “You have a big heart.”
What’s good about me?
“You treat your mom with respect.”
What’s good about me?
“You love your sister.”
What’s good about me?
“You’re my son and I’m proud of you.”
The tears came slowly at first.
What’s good about me?
“You are intelligent”
It was over. They embraced, with the boy sobbing in his father’s arms.
The points: Parents can get so overfocused on providing constructive criticism to their children that their children don’t KNOW the inner strengths their parents see within them. In the preceding example, the teen boy was shocked—in a very positive way—to hear the strengths, skills, and talents that his father saw in him.
This can happen in all relationships. Nearly everyone wants to be seen and known. It’s probably easier to imagine—especially without clear and reassuring evidence—that others see our negative qualities. Our strengths can feel invisible, even to ourselves. It’s often hard to imagine that others notice anything good about us.
Some say that true self-esteem is all about self-evaluation, and not reliant on what others think of us. That’s partly true. But, it’s ridiculous to think that any of us can feel good about ourselves without at least getting occasional feedback about our strengths and positive qualities.
One new thing you can try this holiday season is to give the people you love the gift of seeing their strengths. It can be as simple as noticing and saying something that you think your friend or family member does well, like, “You’re really good at picking out just the right gifts.” Or, “You’re always so much fun to have around.” Or, “You make the best pumpkin pie.”
You can take this deeper if you want by noticing character traits and patterns. “You’re the most honest person I know, and I really value that.” “I love how you pay attention to your grandma. You are such a good person.”
Recognizing and naming the strengths and positive qualities of others is an amazing gift. You’re not just “seeing” people, you’re seeing, acknowledging, and articulating their best qualities. And by naming their best qualities, you’re not just giving them a compliment; you’re nurturing those qualities, and helping them grow.
I’ve taught a different version of this activity for years, and called it the “Natural Talent Interview.” For more on the Natural Talent Interview, which is this week’s Montana Happiness Challenge activity, go to the Montana Happiness Project’s webpage: https://montanahappinessproject.com/natural-talent-interviews
Thanks to BEN ALLAN SMITH of the Missoulian for this fantastic photo!
Now that the University of Montana Grizzly football team won today, and will be going to the FCS Championship game, we can all relax. Of course, I’m joking, but I know some fans (not necessarily me) have lots of trouble relaxing while their favorite team is playing, and many of them (not necessarily me) will be out celebrating, and not at home relaxing. Of course, all that cheering and jeering and beering may not be optimal for our health, but I want to emphasize that just because this week’s happiness challenge activity is “Your favorite relaxation method,” I’m not suggesting that anyone should relax (other than the kickers) when you’re in (or cheering) a double overtime semi-final game.
That said, I hope, at some point during this weekend, everyone takes time to explore and experiment with their favorite relaxation method. As I’ve already noted on social media, relaxation is a viable and evidence-based intervention for several different problems and mental disorders. Indeed, learning relaxation skills—so you can use them when you want to use them—is a very good deal.
In 1975, Herbert Benson of Harvard University published a book titled, The Relaxation Response. Benson wrote that for humans to achieve the relaxation response, they need four components:
A quiet place.
A comfortable position.
A mental device.
A passive attitude.
Benson’s research was pretty phenomenal. When people were able to create a state of relaxation within themselves, they experienced physiological and psychological benefits similar to (but not quite as good as) the benefits of sleep. For this reason, I sometimes refer to the relaxation response as “almost sleep” and recommend it as an in-bed goal for those of us who suffer from insomnia.
The relaxation response involves slowing your respiration and heart rate, with a concomitant reduction of blood pressure. People can achieve the relaxation response via different pathways. . . including, but not limited to methods like deep breathing, visualization, meditation, and self-hypnosis.
For this assignment, your job is to identify and practice your favorite pathway for reducing your heart rated and breathing (aka your relaxation method). The good news is that you don’t really need a quiet place and a comfortable position (although they help, they’re not essential). But you do need a mental device and a passive attitude.
Unfortunately, as it turns out, for some people, the act of trying to relax creates anxiety. This is a puzzling paradox. Why would trying to relax trigger anxiety?
The intent to relax can trigger anxiety in several different ways. For some, if you try to relax, you can also trigger worries about not being able to relax. This is a relatively natural byproduct of self-consciousness. If this is the case for you, take it slowly. Self-awareness can trigger self-consciousness and self-consciousness can trigger anxiety . . . but time and practice can overcome these obstacles.
For others, a history of trauma or physical discomfort can be activated. This is similar to self-consciousness because the turning of your attention to your body inevitably makes you more aware of your body and this awareness can draw you into old, emotionally or physically painful memories. If this is the case for you, again, take it slowly. Also, manage your expectations, and get support as needed. Support could come in the form of specific comforting and soothing cues (even physical cues), an outside support person, or a professional counselor or psychotherapist.
Trauma and anxiety are common human challenges. Although trauma and anxiety can be terribly emotionally disturbing and disruptive, the core treatment for these problems usually involves one or more forms of exposure and can be traced back to Mary Cover Jones. You can read more about Mary Cover Jones and her amazing work on my blog: https://johnsommersflanagan.com/2018/06/04/the-secret-self-regulation-cure-seriously-this-time/
Okay, that’s enough of my jibber-jabbering. Here’s the activity:
Try integrating your favorite relaxation method (no drugs please) into your daily life. You can do it for a minute here and there, or 20 minutes all at once.
Experiment! Try different methods for helping your body achieve a relaxed state.
If you feel inspired, share about your relaxation experiences here, or on social media, or with your friends and family,
I hope you all become fantastic at relaxing . . . at least until the Grizzlies face South Dakota State for the national championship on January 7.
This morning’s weekly missive of “most read” articles from the Journal of the American Medical Association included a study evaluating the effects of high-dose “fluvoxamine and time to sustained recover in outpatients with COVID-19.” My reaction to the title was puzzlement. What could be the rationale for using a serotonin specific reuptake inhibitor for treating COVID-19? I read a bit and discovered there’s an idea and observations that perhaps fluvoxamine can reduce the inflammation response and prevention development of more severe COVID-19.
To summarize, the results were no results. Despite the fact that back in the 1990s some psychiatrists and pharmaceutical companies were campaigning for putting serotonin in the water systems, in fact, serotonin doesn’t really do much. As you know from last week, serotonin-based medications are generally less effective for depression than exercise.
For the happiness challenge this week, we’re touting the effectiveness of my own version of what we should put in the water or in the schools or in families—the Three-Step Emotional Change Trick. Having been in a several month funk over a variety of issues, I find myself returning to the application of the Three-Step Emotional Change Trick in my daily life. Does it always work? Nope. Is it better than feeling like a victim to my unpleasant thoughts and feelings? Yep.
I hope you’ll try this out and follow the instructions to push the process outward by sharing and teaching the three steps. Let’s try to get it into the water system.
Active Learning Assignment 9 – The 3-Step Emotional Change Trick
Almost no one likes toxic positivity. . . which is why I want to emphasize from the start, this week’s activity is NOT toxic positivity.
Back in the 1990s I was in full-time private practice and mostly I got young client referrals. When they entered my office, nearly all the youth were in bad moods. They were unhappy, sad, anxious, angry, and usually unpleasantly irritable. Early on I realized I had to do something to help them change their moods.
An Adlerian psychologist, Harold Mosak, had researched the emotional pushbutton technique. I turned it into a simple, three-step emotional change technique to help young clients deal with their bad moods. I liked the technique so well that I did it in my office, with myself, with parents, during professional workshops, and with classrooms full of elementary, middle, and high school students. Mostly it worked. Sometimes it didn’t.
This week, your assignment is to apply the three-step emotional change trick to yourself and your life. Here’s how it goes.
Introduction
Bad moods are normal. I would ask young clients, “Have you ever been in a bad mood?” All the kids nodded, flipped me off, or said things like, “No duh.”
Then I’d ask, “Have you ever had somebody tell you to cheer up?” Everyone said, “Yes!” and told me how much they hated being told to cheer up. I would agree and commiserate with them on how ridiculous it was for anyone to ever think that saying “Cheer up” would do anything but piss the person off even more. I’d say, “I’ll never tell you to cheer up.* If you’re in a bad mood, I figure you’ve got a good reason to be in a bad mood, and so I’ll just respect your mood.” [*Note to Therapists: This might be the single-most important therapeutic statement in this whole process.]
Then I’d ask. “Have you ever been stuck in a bad mood and have it last longer than you wanted it to?”
Nearly always there was a head nod; I’d join in and admit to the same. “Damn those bad moods. Sometimes they last and last and hang around way longer than they need to. How about I teach you this thing I call the three-step emotional change trick. It’s a way to change your mood, but only when YOU want to change your mood. You get to be the captain of your own emotional ship.”
Emotions are universally challenging. I think that’s why I never had a client refuse to let me teach the three-steps. And that’s why I’m sharing it with you now.
Step one is to feel the feeling. Feelings come around for a reason. We need to notice them, feel them, and contemplate their meaning. The big questions here are: How can you honor and feel your feelings? What can you do to respect your own feelings and listen to the underlying message? I’ve heard many answers. Here are a few. But you can generate your own list.
Frowning or crying if you feel sad
Grimacing and making angry faces into a mirror if you feel angry
Drawing an angry picture
Punching or kicking a pillow (no real violence though)
Going outside and yelling (or screaming into a pillow)
Scribbling on a note pad
Writing a nasty note to someone (but not delivering it)
Using your words, and talking to someone about what you’re feeling
Step two is to think a new thought or do something different. This step is all about intentionally doing or thinking something that might change or improve you mood. The big question here is: What can you think or do that will put you in a better mood?
I discovered that kids and adults have amazing mood-changing strategies. Here’s a sampling:
Tell a funny story (“Yesterday in math, my friend Todd farted”)
Tell a joke (What do you call it when 100 rabbits standing in a row all take one step backwards? A receding hare-line).
Tell a better joke (Why did the ant crawl up the elephant’s leg for the second time? It got pissed off the first time.)
Exercise!
Smile into a mirror
Talk to someone you trust
Put a cat (or a chicken or a duck) on your head
Chew a big wad of gum
I’m sure you get the idea. You know best what might put you in a good mood. When you’re ready, but not before, use your own self-knowledge to move into a better mood.
Step three is to spread the good mood. Moods are contagious. I’d say things like this to my clients:
“Emotions are contagious. Do you know what contagious means? It means you can catch emotions from being around other people who are in bad moods or good moods. Like when you got here. I noticed your mom was in a bad mood too. It made me wonder, did you catch the bad mood from her or did she catch it from you? Anyway, now you seem to be in a better mood. I’m wondering. Do you think you can make your mom “catch” your good mood?”
How do you share good moods? Saying “Cheer up” is off-limits. Here’s a short list of what I’ve heard from kids and adults.
Do someone a favor
Smile
Hold the door for a stranger
Offer a real or virtual hug
Listen to someone
Tell someone, “I love you”
Step four might be the best and most important step in the three-step emotional change trick. With kids, when I move on to step four, they always interrupt:
“Wait. You said there were only three steps!”
“Yes. That’s true. But because emotions are complicated and surprising, the three-step emotional change trick has four steps. The fourth step is for you to teach someone else the three steps.”
I’m a big fan of exercise and movement as a solution for nearly everything. Below is my famous or infamous “Last Dance” video that I filmed after a day when I got beat up pretty bad by all things Moodle, Powerpoint, and Qualtrics. My solution was to Dance it off, which I share with you all despite the fact that this is the sort of thing one should keep private.
I share this video as a challenge to anyone who feels inclined to make their own 1 minute dance-it-off video. Yes please! And share.
[Unless you read this blog regularly] you may be surprised to hear that exercise is more effective in treating depression than antidepressant medications. If so, that’s likely because pharmaceutical companies spend millions every year to tell you their antidepressants are effective. The marketing budget for exercise as a treatment for depression is considerably less.
Movement—along with sleep and a healthy diet—is probably the best way to keep your brain healthy. Nearly all movement helps. In my favorite exercise study on treating depression in youth, preteens and teens who were depressed had a 100% response to cardio (including Jazzercise and Wii) and a 67% response with just stretching. Exercise does so many good things for the brain that it’s hard to track. Also, other than sweat, thirst, and sore muscles, exercise has no real negative side effects—which isn’t the case for medications.
In conclusion, the researchers wrote:
“Compared to antidepressant medication treatment with adolescents, exercise resulted in (a) a faster response rate, (b) a better response rate, (c) fewer relapses (n = 0) at six and 12 month follow-ups, and (d) no side effects or adverse events” (Hughes et al., 2013). One caveat, at the beginning of the study, none of the participants were exercising.
But who were these researchers? Were they anti-drug researchers with an axe to grind?
Nope, and this is my favorite part. The researchers were prestigious academics who mostly do pharmaceutical research. One of them was the guy responsible for the clinical studies that led to FDA approval of Prozac for treating youth with depression. The two biggest names on the study have repeatedly been funded by Eli Lilly, GlaxoSmithKline, Pfizer, and more.
All this leads me to this week’s #MHPHappinessChallenge assignment.
Find your preferred way to move, pair it with your favorite music, and do what the researchers in the Hughes (2013) study did to treat depression. I call this “Dance it off,” because dancing—alone or together—is a fabulous way to make the time fly by while you give your brain a dose of what it’s craving.
Here’s the Hughes et al (2013) study. I’m sharing it because everyone should know about it:
But you don’t have to dance. You can walk, run, skip, or yoga. You can jump rope, do Wii or Jazzercize, kickbox, or just jiggle your body in the kitchen while you’re cooking. If you ride the elevator, take the stairs. If you’re in a chair, dance with whatever parts of your body that will move. Of course, don’t do anything that’s so excessive that you might hurt yourself.
I’m sure you get the point.
And then, if you feel something-maybe a high or a fun new thought or anything that kicks your mood up a notch, savor it, linger, and then share it with us.
As always, thanks for participating in the Montana Happiness Challenge. Let’s dance it off together this week.
Why is it so easy to look for and focus in on that which annoys us . . . and so hard to look for and focus in on that which inspires us?
Nobody really knows the answer. There’s the usual speculation about evolution and potty training, but trying to find out “Why?” life is the way it is, is frustrating, as most 3-year-olds discover when they begin repeatedly asking their caregivers the Why question.
One thing is certain, if we want to focus on joy, inspiration, and small stuff that makes a positive difference, we have to be intentional. The default setting in most of our brains is to look for what’s wrong.
For this week’s Montana Happiness Challenge, we’re we’re encouraging everyone to intermittently and intentionally look for what’s right and good and inspiring. We know there is war, poverty, racism, climate change, and other big and horrible issues out there and we’re not suggesting you put your head in the sand and ignore these important problems. What we are suggesting is that you just direct your attention . . . a little more often . . . in the direction of the positive. #MHPHappinessChallenge #MontanaHappiness #WitnessInspiration
The research on mindsets is so immense that no one even bothers arguing about whether mindsets matter. They do. We all know it. Mindsets influence our performance, our success, and how we feel. That’s the good news.
The bad news is that it’s all-natural to automatically adopt negative mindsets. If you’re in a bad mood or mental state, you’ll find it easier to “see” things consistent with your bad mood.
The human psyche naturally and automatically looks for evidence to confirm what we already believe. At the same time, we tend to overlook, ignore, or dismiss whatever is inconsistent with our existing beliefs. Researchers and writers call this Confirmation bias.
Confirmation bias is everywhere, in everyone, and operating all the time. According to Brittanica.com, the formal definition is: “People’s tendency to process information by looking for, or interpreting, information that is consistent with their existing beliefs. This biased approach to decision making is largely unintentional, and it results in a person ignoring information that is inconsistent with their beliefs.” An example:
If you believe your parents or partner are hyper-critical of you, you will watch and listen for evidence to confirm your belief and be more likely to witness and experience them being critical. You will also tend to overlook or miss out noticing when they’re positive and affirming of you.
This week’s activity involves you intentionally shifting your mindset. Your goal is to look for small things that feel positive. In our University of Montana happiness class, we gave this assignment over Martin Luther King, Jr. weekend and called it: “Witness something inspiring.” We asked students to spend the weekend watching for inspirational moments in real life (not online). Students reported small and glorious outcomes, including:
A friend using good study skills
Watching my dog play in the yard
Seeing my co-worker treat a rude customer with respect
Noticing a high school student chat with a very old woman
Mindset shifting has other names. For example, in her book, Joyful, Ingrid Fetell Lee described “Joyspotting.” Joyspotting is a visual version of orienting yourself to that which brings you joy.
This week, your job is to intentionally watch, listen, and observe for things you find inspirational. If you don’t like the word inspirational, you can switch it out for joyspotting, and head out in search of joy. Although you could do an online search for “Inspirational,” we hope you’ll watch for inspiring or joyful moments in the real world.
What you notice may be small or big. The key point is to put your brain on intentional alert for that which will inspire or stimulate joy. Keep your sensory modalities open to the positive.
One warning: It’s natural to dismiss or disqualify small positive things you notice. You may see someone do something small (like hold open a door) and then quickly dismiss it as “no big deal.” For this week, try to avoid dismissing the small bright spots. Notice them, linger on them, and see what happens.
If you’re into the social media part of this challenge, we hope you’ll share your experiences. Using your favorite social media platform, consider sharing:
What it was like to intentionally watch for inspiration.
A description of what you observed.
Reactions you had to the inspirational event.
Anything else you want to add.
You can do this activity all on your own, or you can do it with a friend, a class, or a community.
Good luck . . . we look forward to your inspirational stories.
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