Reflections on Resilience

I have been away from my blog too long. First there were the holidays, which always eclipse everything else. Then I traveled out west to visit my mother and help out in those small ways that make things run smoother — getting ready for the conversion to digital TV, fixing the email connection, [...]

My eternity list — another definition of happiness

I came across an intriguing way of thinking about happiness in Sharyn McCrumb’s novel, Ghost Riders. (pp. 205-206).
A character is sitting with a friend on a mountain, the air is not too hot, the sky is cloudless, and the laurel is in bloom.  She says, “It’s so peaceful here.  I’d put this day on my [...]

Reading Science Out Loud

My husband and I have a new entertainment: I read out loud to him from books about scientific subjects that I’ve checked out of the public library. We do this at the ends of meals mostly — I have always eaten much faster than he does — in my opinion because I grew [...]

Gratitude from Growing Up in the Depression Years

While I was out in Idaho, Jesse Posey gave me a sketch that he had written about growing up there during the depression years. It was a very interesting piece about habits of gratitude coming out of a hard beginning.
Since this piece has been published in a magazine (Jesse couldn’t remember where), I’m not [...]

Savoring an early summer day

Savoring is a set of skills that can be learned in order to increase the positive emotion we experience in our day-to-day existences.
Psychologists Fred Bryant and Joseph Veroff published a book last year on this subject:
Savoring: A New Model of Positive Experience

According to them, savoring involves noticing and appreciating the positive aspects of life. In [...]

Positive Emotion Image Map

I’ve been an active contributor to Positive Psychology News Daily (PPND) ever since it started. PPND is an online publication about positive psychology with regular articles by people who have gone through an applied positive psychology training program — the one at Penn and the one at East London University. We also occasionally [...]

The Family Dance

Group gatherings run most smoothly when there is a fine balance between self-expression and observant adjustment. When the balance is attained, people tend not to be really aware that it is happening. On the other hand, disturbances in the balance are very apparent. That’s human nature — the negative tends to [...]

Notes for Gratitude Talk – with 3 Gratitude Exercises

Thanksgiving seems like a good time to share the handout that I used for a recent talk on gratitude.

Gratitude through the Lens of Positive Psychology
Positive Psychology is the rigorous study of what goes right with people, how and when they flourish, what gives them resilience, and how they achieve fulfillment and meaning.
Gratitude is …
1) [...]

Getting ready for Thanksgiving

We’re the collecting point for Thanksgiving this year.  My mother, my daughter, two of my sibs, one with wife, the other with daughter, are all arriving sometime this week.  That means we’re making space and planning meals and arranging for a card table.  My family plays ‘family bridge’ when we get together.  Most  of us [...]

Rain!

We’ve had more than 5 inches of rain this week. What a blessing!
We’ve enjoyed the sound of rain, the smell of rain, the sight of rain against the streetlamps at night, the feeling of rain on our skin. I wish I’d remembered to stand outside with my mouth open to enjoy the taste [...]