SGM April 2014 Weekly Message One: “This Simple Technique Will Increase Your Happiness Right Now!”
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Welcome to the April 2014 Edition of Spiritual Growth Monthly. I’m Kevin Schoeninger. It’s great to have you with us here at SGM!
Did you know that your body and brain have a bias towards stress, fear, and negativity? Fortunately, there’s a simple way you can overwrite that tendency and feel more happiness, more easily, right now and in the future. Happiness can become a habit.
In his book, “Hardwiring Happiness,” (Harmony Books, 2013) neuropsychologist and bestselling author, Rick Hanson, Ph.D., describes four steps you can take to grow the happiness you feel and make it easier and easier to progressively experience more happiness every day. This month on SGM, we’ll learn how to do this, why it works, and how to avoid the pitfalls along the way. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised at how easy and effective it is to start feeling happier right away!
First, let’s understand just a little about why your DNA is programmed to hone in on things that make you feel anxious, stressed, and afraid, while diminishing the importance of those things that make you feel happy, empowered, and successful. As Hanson says, our brains are “like Velcro for bad experiences but Teflon for good ones.” (p. xxvi, HH) Why is that?
Basically, it comes down to survival. When our ancestors were scanning their environment and deciding what to pay attention to, there was a premium placed on noticing things that were threatening to survival. If you have a choice between looking for something tasty to eat and being on guard against something that could kill you, the natural priority is to notice the later. You’ve got to survive first, if you are going to live to eat for another day. Finding food is important and it won’t make much difference if you’re not around to eat it!
Jumping forward several millennia, we face similar, if mostly less life-threatening choices. If you are concerned about paying your bills, doing that job that pays your bills (even if you hate it), will naturally take precedence over pursuing that dream of doing what you love (that you fear might not pay the bills). Perhaps, that job you hate gives you health insurance, the company seems more stable than what you might do on your own, and so it feels much less risky to stay where you are. It makes sense to your survival instincts—even if it doesn’t help you thrive and be happy.
So, what can you do to increase your happiness without jeopardizing your survival? Is that even possible?
Hanson offers four simple steps to start increasing your happiness right away. He uses the acronym H.E.A.L. to describe these steps. If you practice these steps a few times each day, you’ll discover that you immediately feel more happiness. You also make feeling happiness much easier and more natural to you. Soon, you are feeling more empowered to take steps that lead you in the direction of thriving instead of just surviving.
Here are the four steps:
“Have a positive experience. Enrich it. Absorb it. Link positive and negative material so that positive soothes and even replaces negative.” (p. xxvi, HH)
This week, we’ll begin with Step One: Have a positive experience.
Because our brains are hardwired for noticing what is threatening, scary, and stressful (so we can avoid and minimize those experiences), it’s going to take a conscious effort on your part to do something different. You’ve got to set your mind to the task of having positive experiences. Fortunately, it’s not really all that hard to do and it doesn’t take much time or effort. It just takes repetition to make a habit of noticing the good stuff.
You can do this right now by asking a simple question. One of my clients just came back from a Happiness Retreat in Costa Rica with this question and I’ve found it really effective. “What went well?”
Here’s a few suggestions for how you can use it to grow your ability to notice the good stuff in your life:
When you are feeling stressed, overwhelmed, or negative about what’s happening in your life, insert a mental pause and ask yourself, “What went well?”
For example:
Did anyone compliment, appreciate, or acknowledge you? We tend to minimize compliments and overemphasize complaints. Since our brains are hardwired for noticing the negative, it takes a ratio of four or five compliments taken in to override the power of a criticism. So, it’s important to notice every moment someone positively acknowledges you.
If you can’t remember when that happened, this is a good thing to start paying more attention to. It’s also a great thing to do for others—and it’s as simple as eye contact, a smile, and a few words of thanks. Giving others compliments, appreciation, and acknowledgment will feel good to you, too.
What did you enjoy? We tend to rush through our enjoyable experiences, perhaps thinking of other things while we’re doing them, instead of paying attention to the pleasure. What has felt good to you today? Did you feel relaxed in meditation? Feel endorphins from a workout? Enjoy a warm shower or a warm cup of coffee? Eat something delicious? Even the smallest pleasures can make a big difference in how your life feels.
Did you do anything that had a good result? We tend to overlook our good results and focus on what is not going well. What did you accomplish today? Did you help your kid complete their homework or read them a story that they enjoyed? Complete a work task? Get the bathroom cleaned? Pay a bill? Write an important email and receive a positive response?
Just beginning to notice and pay a bit more attention to “what went well “can be life-changing. It certainly will change how your life feels right away—and change what you feel is real and possible for you. Over time, it will begin to reshape the choices you make and the actions you take. This, in turn, will change the shape and function of your brain and the results in your life.
Now, if you find yourself, saying “That’s a waste of time, I’ve got more important things to do!” just notice that. Understand that you have an evolutionary bias towards minimizing positive experiences and emphasizing what you need to do to survive. While that does have survival value, what if it were possible to feel good and be successful? What if it isn’t an either/or? What if paying more attention to positive experiences is the basis for learning how to thrive? What if doing this can elevate your life above mere survival?
I encourage you to see what’s in this practice for you. Experiment with asking yourself “What went well?” and begin to notice the positive experiences in your life. I’d love to hear your results in our Discussion below.
In the upcoming weeks on SGM, you’ll learn how to make these little feelings of happiness more than fleeting experiences. You’ll discover how to make them powerful forces that forever change how your body and brain functions, so you are happier, healthier, and more successful in everything that you do!
Until next time,
Ask yourself, “What went well?”
Kevin