We Should be Happy and Thankful, but…

Ahh… gratitude: that joy-filled emotion of thankfulness! We should always be thankful and happy but especially during the holidays.

Gratitude is so easy when our lives are in order, our kids behave, we work eight hour days, we manage our inbox and we feel loved and appreciated by the people we share our home and work lives with. BUT, how often does that really happen? Sometimes it can be through our deepest pain and challenges that we discover the beauty of gratitude.

I flew home for my mom’s 81st birthday. The 5 days flew by with the challenge of making our mom an old family favorite recipe – Chocolate Amaretto birthday cake (seriously took 5 hours,) a sisters’s shopping trip to Lake Geneva, a few sleepovers (I seriously love sleeping in Tyler’s lower bunk bed with his stuffed animals), kid foot massages and pizza making. Even doing the dishes at Rachele’s house is more enticing than at my own. My sweet beautiful mom and still very handsome dad, like many parents, struggle with getting their lives in order and creating a will and living will. While the weekend was full of excitement it was also full of uncertainty about our parent’s future health and finances. Many of my friends have expressed the same worries.

In quiet moments during the day and night I would find myself whispering to myself, “I am so blessed!” I felt blessed that I have 3 nurturing “can do” sisters and a ”ready to help” brother Michael. I was blessed that my sisters had five kids in five years that for a while felt like a day care center when I visited but now wish they had more kids. I was blessed that I have such deep feelings and love for my family members. When I felt myself going down the slippery slope of negativity and thoughts of how can I help my parents I found myself asking, “Chere, what is good, what is right, what is beautiful?

I realized I was focusing and practicing positivity. Barbara Frederickson Ph.D. Professor of Psychology and author of the book “Positivity” (Crown, 2009), has demonstrated that the secret to being happy is to focus daily on the good stuff which cultivates your positivity. Positivity is experienced by positive emotions like joy, gratitude, interest, hope, awe, inspiration and love. It is those times when you feel truly loved and connected to others, when you feel playful; when you feel blessed; when your spirit is moved by just being alive and you are fully in the moment, or when you are engaged in an activity you absolutely love.

Positivity does not mean you need to force a smile or try to be happy or never experience negative emotions. Positivity means you have more positive emotions than negative ones. She has discovered the happiness tipping point of 3:1; we need to have 3 or more positive experiences for every equivalent negative one. Barbara’s research shows that 80% of Americans fall short of this ideal 3:1 positivity ratio.

Three Step Triple A Approach to Positivity

Awareness:

Take the positivity self test to determine your positivity ratio. It is recommended you take this every evening for two weeks.

Analysis:

Keep a mental or written list of your negativity during the day. Who gets under your skin? What situations trigger frustration every time? Make note of the circumstances and people that bring out your negativity. Also note where does your positivity come from? What triggers that smile on your heart?

Action:

When something negative happens, think of three positives.
What actions can you do to get more of the positives and less of the negatives?

If you seed your life with frequent moments of positive emotions you will positively increase your resilience against your challenges and who knows may even perceive them as possibilities.

Being thankful and cultivating an attitude of gratitude puts life in perspective.

Just like our parents told us when we were growing up things are never as bad as they may seem.

Call to Action: Discover the power of 3:1.which Barbara says leads to more resilience to adversity and effortless achieve what you once only imagined. Gratitude is the positivity muscle. The more you do it the stronger it gets.

Happiness is waiting for you in EVERY moment. But you have to want to choose it. Decide today. Remember as soon as you decide, your life gets more delicious. You only have one life to live, just imagine if it was one you loved.

Read on below for more ideas on how to give thanks through kindness from Laura Berman Fortgang.

With positive gratitude, Chere

Giving Kindness A Quick Route to Positivity

Giving kindness is a quick route to positivity. I always have a Welcome Home Note on the back door when family members return from school or a trip. Gary had this Welcome Home sign for me when I came back from the American Dietetic Association Conference. It immediately puts me in a great mood as I scream, “I’m home” at the top of my lungs!

Here are ideas on how to feel gratitude and positivity through kindness by Laura Berman Fortgang.

In 2003 I was in a group coached by Laura Berman Fortgang.

I love her! 

GIVING THANKS THROUGH KINDNESS By Laura Berman Fortgang

Every time I see her, I feel an impulse to ask if she ever got the manicure and pedicure I left her a gift certificate for three years ago, but I don’t. The ‘her’ is a mom with three kids, one of which is confined to a wheel chair because of cerebral palsy. She was always focused on her kids and barely looked up to allow a hello from a stranger. I don’t even know ‘her’ name, but her youngest shared a class with one of my kids. One day, I slipped a voucher into her kid’s cubby addressed ‘to a very deserving mom’ and left it at that. This is the first I’m telling of it. Not to impress you or to be recognized for it, but to share how easy it can be to express your gratitude for life by spreading kindness to others.

It can cost something or nothing at all to extend yourself to make life just a little easier for those you know or don’t know. Goodness knows we are an overextended culture, especially during the holiday season, but I invite you to multiply all you are grateful for at Thanksgiving by spreading it around.

  • Give an extra long hug to those you normally hug
  • Pay undivided attention and really listen to your most annoying relative at your holiday gathering.
  • Slow down and make eye contact with the people who help you at the places you frequent in your ‘busyness’
  • Leave messages for your family around the house cheering them on or thanking them for a chore well done.
  • Carry around gold star stickers for a day and give them to anyone who does something star-worthy. Catch them doing something right and reward them.
  • Overpay the parking meter and leave time for the next person to come along
  • Let someone take the parking spot you saw first at the mall during the height of the crazy shopping season (ooo, that’s generous!)
  • Carry plastic bags with you and pick up unsightly litter from places you frequent (ball fields, parking lots, local parks)
  • Drop off your discarded magazines or books to a shelter, library or gym. Someone else will enjoy them.
  • Take a few moments to fill out a comment card or write a note to a manager when an employee has done a great job for you whether at your own job, a store, restaurant or other.
  • Overtip a waiter or driver
  • Walk your neighbors’ paper from their driveway to their doorway
  • Do an outdoor chore for your neighbor or friend that you know they’ve been meaning to get to but haven’t (the leaves, the weeds, the broken mailbox or the crooked gate)
  • Shovel more than your share of the sidewalk when it snows
  • Brush the snow off of the two cars next to you in the parking lot when you brush off your own
  • Help a few people sheltered under cover to their car in the pouring rain if you’re the only one with an umbrella
  • Do something nice for someone and never tell or ask for credit
  • Be extremely kind to yourself. (quiet that inner critic!)

Take these actions to heart and you will feel different. “A gift is not a gift until it is given away”. So, say thanks through kindness and know you have our thanks back in return for making the world just a little bit of a better place.

Happy Thanksgiving.

* Borrowed from “Real Simple Magazine”
** As always, your comments and questions are welcomed. lbf@intercoach.com

Laura Berman Fortgang, MCC is the author of “Now What? 90 Days to a New Life Direction” and “The Little Book On Meaning”, among others and the founder of Now What? ® Coaching. She has over eighteen years of experience coaching others to succeed and is known for her down-to-earth approach. She has been seen on Oprah, Today, CNN and many other national media outlets and her books are used as texts to teach other coaches at NYU and other schools worldwide.