What follows positivity

I’m currently undertaking a positive psychology course and while it’s been fascinating in so many ways one of the big moments of insight came when I learn’t that being positive had a lot more to offer then just feeling good.

Firstly I understood that there is a whole range of positive emotions that all fall under the umbrella of giving the feeling of happiness or positivity. These are: inspiration, awe, gratitude, pride, serenity, joy, interest, hope, amusement and of course love.

As you might have experienced in your lives each of these emotions has its own energy and urges you to do certain actions. For example:

Feeling Gratitude gives the outcome of feeling social bonds more and improves skills for loving

Feeling Serenity has the outcome of savor and integrate, modify self and world views

Feeling Interest has the outcome of explore, gain knowledge and energy

Feeling Hope gives the outcome of being inventive and increased resilience

These are very different to negative emotions which have the outcomes of attack, flee, spit, fight or flight which has obviously been useful for our ancestors when they were being chased by a tiger and the broad range of negative emotions can actually be understood as ‘evolutionary adaptations to threats our ancestors faced’.

Instead of solving problems of immediate survival, positive emotions solve problems concerning personal growth and development.

Generally all positive emotions give actions such as exploring, dreaming big, coming up with insight, broadening our perspective. They help us become better versions of ourselves, broaden our mindset, become more resourceful, resilient and connected to the people around us.

So next time your feeling good, savour it a little and know you are actually doing more than just simply feeling good in the present moment.

Another thing that I found interesting was to learn about our negative bias. Our brain is built with a greater sensitivity to unpleasant news. The bias is so automatic that it can be detected at the earliest stage of the brain’s information processing, which basically means we are more skewed to think negative rather then positive and have negative emotions and experiences stay longer then positive ones do.

In saying that they have also done studies that show positive experiences are actually more frequent in peoples lives, the distribution of good and bad events in someones life, generally favours the good, but because positive emotions are very short, subtle and fleeting as opposed to negative emotions which are very strong, stay longer and feel powerful it doesn’t sometimes feel that way.

And that is why we need to savour positive experiences, take time to breath them in so they turn into positive emotions. Try and investigate experiences, and things that can give you those positive emotions and bring them into your lives. Positive emotions as mentioned are subtle and fleeting, but they are powerful drivers of who we become. Try to see positive emotions as nutrients that our body and mind needs on a daily basis. So therefore seek them out and consume them just as you would consume a healthy does of vegetables and fruit.

Namaste

Now let me know where in your life, could you spend a little longer to savour the positive experience and turn it into a positive emotion? Or you could explore one of the ten emotions mentioned and create a collage of things that help you feel that emotion. Let me know how you go