Fight, flight or change your focus?

Do you spend a portion of your day worrying about what could go wrong, complaining about what did go wrong, beating yourself up for missed opportunities, or feeling frustrated with life's many set-backs and disappointments?  There is a body of research evidence showing that we are actually "hard-wired" to pay attention to threats and problems.  From an evolutionary stand-point this makes sense - how else did we escape lions, tigers and bears unless we were on guard to protect ourselves from them?!

Although it may have been logical to worry about the threat of an attract by a sabre tooth tiger, is it as logical to worry about the threats that are in today's world? Are we doing ourselves a favour by worrying about missed deadlines, communication difficulties, and problems with  productivity, when they are not matters of life and death?  This is an important question to ask ourselves - is paying attention to what does and could go wrong the best route to accomplishing our goals?

Positive psychology suggests that it might be fruitful to look at opportunities, successes, and strengths, as we go about the business of living.  There is much to be gained in expanding our focus to include life's better points.  No need for rose-colored glasses, there is strong empirical support that a solutions orientation and strengths focus actually works!

What we think about, we bring about! It's the Law Of Attraction.  I am learning for example not to focus so much on my financial debt, but instead to focus on earning money, or ways of attracting more money into my life.  And its working!  When a challenge arises, my fiance is a master at focusing on the solution, rather than the problem.  Even last week we had several challenges face us, and I found myself reverting back to an old habit where I used to believe that bad things happen in 3's.  I used to believe it was a great explanation that made it seem 'normal' to have a lot of things go wrong at once.  But, when I focus on this old wives tale and expect 3 'bad' things to happen, they do - or I attract the 3rd!

You see we have a system in our brains called the RAS, or Reticular Activating System, that is designed to filter incoming stimuli to discriminate irrelevant background stimuli.  It acts to seek out the things we are focused on.  Ever noticed that when you buy a Mazda, suddenly you notice everyone on the road drives a Mazda!?  Wether you are focused on something good, bad or indifferent, your brain will search for the stimulus you want.  So if you are focused on finding the bad things in your environment, your brain will search for it - same as if you focus on finding the positive things in your environment.  This is why practicing gratitude is so important.  It trains the brain to search for the positive things that surround you. The result?  You have a happier, more positive life!

Want to live a happier, less worrisome life?  Practice becoming more aware of what you habitually focus on and train your brain, and your RAS, to focus on the positive.  Notice how you can activate the Law of Attraction and attract into your life exactly what you want - not what you don't want!

  

Reference:
'Invitation To Positive Psychology' Robert Biswas-Diener

 

Live Today As If It Were Your Last

In loving memory of Alfred Singbeil.  February 28, 1931 - April 26, 2013

My friend suddenly passed away at age 82.  I found myself reflecting about life and death at his funeral.  As I watched the photos of Alfred during the slideshow, it was like watching a snap-shot of light that captured a moment in time; a moment that remains a memory.  My final memory of Alfred is when he hugged me good-bye after our bi-weekly visit and massage, smiling with that all too familiar sparkle in his eye like he is about to tell a joke.  Alfred passed away later that night.

As I sat in the pew at the church, watching the photos of Alfred and the story of his life that it painted, I realized what a full life he led.  Alfred survived the German war as a young boy, relocated back onto Polish farms to run them as his own, while his dad was drafted into the German army.  When the Russian army advanced into Poland, the Singbeil family fled in the midst of winter back to East Germany. At the age of 18 in 1949, Alfred along with the Singbeil family immigrated to Canada and settled in Winnipeg, Manitoba. It was in September 1955 that Alfred met the love of his life, Olga and she became his dear wife on January 21, 1956; only 4 months after meeting each other!  In 1963, Alfred moved his family to Kelowna. A carpenter, trumpet player, band conductor, fisherman, fruit farmer, loving husband and father, grandfather and friend; his life was so full.

Lying on my massage table, Alfred would share stories from his life in Germany and Poland.  Of the day he met Olga, and how they have remained happily married for 57 years.  When I asked him what is the secret to lasting love, he told me it all boils down to communication.  After watching Alfred and Olga together, I have learned that keeping a sense of humour about things is also a big part of their secret.  On my visits to the Singbeil home, I always laughed as the two love birds as they joked with each other.  Olga would assist getting Alfred on my massage table by straightening out the sheets and stroking the cow lick on the back of his head.  She would peep into the room to finish his sentences, or clarify a story he was trying to articulate.  I always left their house feeling light, happy and full of love - and with cookies or fresh baked goods!

It is sad to say good-bye to my dear friend Alfred, but I also feel so very blessed to have known him.  I have learned so much from this wise man who's experienced life has taught me so much about love, humour, gratitude and about living each day as it if were the last.

After Alfred's funeral my fiance and I were discussing how we picture our own funerals.  I want people to show up to happy music playing and to be handed a glass of champagne so that everyone can toast to the amazing life I lived!  I have been reminded this week how important it is to do things NOW...because if I wait until the 'right' time, it will never come.  On my death bed I want to know that I lived a full life, and that I enjoyed every laugh, every tear, every challenge and every triumph.   I want to be grateful for all that I have each and every day knowing that it's the little things that matter most. I want to be proud that I stepped into fear, felt every emotion, that I focused on the solution, that I laughed when things got tough, and that I truly lived full of contentment, gratitude and happiness.

During this difficult time of loss, Olga has demonstrated her strength by putting her hand on everyone else's shoulder while they cried.  But at the same time she has allowed herself to grieve and cherish every day her and Alfred shared.  We are all so surprised that he is gone, but can find gratitude in all that he had.

For some inspiration about living every day as if it were your last, listen to The Kickass Life podcast:

http://www.thekickasslife.com/?s=live+like+you+are+dying&submit.x=0&submit.y=0 

What comes first, success or happiness?

When I graduated from Massage Therapy College and started my full-time job, I remember asking myself, is this it?  What's next?  After graduating from high school while juggling my gymnastics career, 4 years of university and 2 years of private collage, I thought at the end of it all I would be happy!  Yes I was relieved I no longer had to go to school and I had become a Health Care Professional, but the celebration was short lived.  Soon I found myself striving to work harder as a Massage Therapist so I could earn a greater income.  The problem was no matter what I did, success always seemed one step away, and I was depending on my success to be happy!  When would I truly be happy?

As a young gymnast with an Olympic dream, I was taught that the harder I worked the more successful I would be;  if I worked hard enough I would go to the Olympics and be happy making all the effort and sacrifice worth it.  When I missed making the Olympic team by only a few spots I felt like a failure and incredibly disappointed that I had sacrificed my childhood for a dream I never realized.  The race for success continued into my adult life as I continually set goals for myself, hoping that would bring me happiness.  But it seemed the harder I worked, the more I sacrificed my present enjoyment, hoping that I would be happy in the future.  As long as I believed in no pain, no gain, all I got was no happy! 

I refer to this period in my life as' always striving and never thriving'.  Tal Ben-Shahar, author of 'Happier' would classify me as A Rat Racer.  Someone who lives in the hope for being happy in the future, and yet is unable to enjoy the here-and-now.  The science of happiness explains that when I was waiting to be happy until I successfully completed a goal, the brain automatically prevents me from reaching happiness because the brain measures the achieved success, then changes the goal!  I'm willing to bet that I'm not the only one who believes that we have to be successful in order to be happy.  Well as it turns out, we have the happiness formula backwards!

Shawn Achor studied the science of happiness at Harvard University and discovered that we commonly assume that our external world is predictive of our happiness levels.  He found that in reality only 10% of long term happiness is determined by our external world.  90% of long term happiness is based on the way our brain processes the external world.  So this means that our happiness is determined by the lens from which we see the world.  It's a matter of perspective!

Shawn Achor explains that if we can raise the level of positivity in the present  moment, the brain experiences what he calls 'A Happiness Advantage'.  When the brain is happy, it performs significantly better than it does when its negative, neutral or stressed.  A happy brain increases intelligence, creativity and energy levels and every single business outcome improves.  When the brain is positive, people are 31% more productive and 37% better at sales.  Studies in the science of happiness found that only 25% of job success is predicted by IQ and  75% of job success is predicted by optimism levels, social support and the ability to see stress as a challenge instead of a threat. 

So if happiness comes before success, the next step is to re-wire our brains by training them to become more positive, just like I trained my body to do gymnastics.  Practicing positivity 2 minutes a day for 21 days in a row is the key to creating lasting positive change.  

We can do this through 5 practices:

1. GRATITUDE - Stating 3 things we are grateful for, every day for 21 days.  This will re-wire the brain to scan the world for positive things.
2. JOURNAL - Journaling 1 positive experience over the last 24 hours allows the brain to re-live it.
3. EXERCISE - Exercise teaches our brains that our behaviour matters, and releases happy hormones into our system, like Dopamine, which turns on the learning centers in the brain. 
4. MEDITATION - Meditation helps us get over our cultural ADHD and trying to do several tasks at once, and teaches us how to focus.
5. RANDOM ACTS OF KINDNESS - We can do this in many ways, Shawn Achor suggests writing one email a day thanking someone in our social support system.  But this could be as simple as noticing a stranger needing help opening a door, or helping an elderly person across the street.

Our family has dinner together most nights and we have a ritual where we share 2 things we are grateful for, one thing we were good at that day, and one thing we are looking forward to.  The kids love this process and are the ones who initiate it at meal time.  My next step is to in corporate these 5 steps to lasting positive change and practice happiness in order to achieve success!

What I'm really excited about is as we train our brains for more positivity and practice happiness in order to experience more success in our own lives, we will create a ripple effect and contribute to the happiness revolution!