Building a Backdrop of Positive Emotions

My goal with Flourish 52 is to learn to flourish despite the circumstances in life.

This week we’re looking at how to build positive emotions, something that’s much easier when times are good, but can be a real challenge when we’re going through a harder place in life.

Being positive doesn’t mean that we don’t experience negative emotions like sadness, grief, loneliness etc. Those emotions are part of life.

I love this quote from author, Leslie Jamison. In an interview with the New York Times, she was asked what moves her the most in literature. Her answer:

“When it captures the acute simultaneity of human experience, the ways life simultaneously holds grace and terror and grief and hope and wonder and weirdness. We never get the luxury or the prison of an uncontaminated feeling.”

Negative emotions seem to grip us easily. We never have to go looking for those. But it is helpful to seek out and build positive emotions in our lives. Here are a few ways to do that.

Choose to be happy

In The Seven Decisions, by Andy Andrews he lists choosing happiness as the fifth decision.

“Today I will choose to be happy.

Our very lives are fashioned by choice. First we make choices. Then our choices make us.

The Joyful Decision, when fully understood, becomes a powerful catalyst for change in your life. Happiness is a choice. This Decision can liberate your spirit with the infinite joy available in each moment of every day.”

Making the decision to be happy lays a foundation for our life like a painter might choose a color for the base layer in a painting that then influences the finished work or a director chooses a musical score for a movie that influences the viewer’s experience as they watch.

Our decision to be happy, no matter the circumstances that arise, will influence our life in positive ways.

Keep track of what you’re grateful for

Some people find keeping a gratitude journal very helpful for building positive emotion. Others resist the activity or don’t find it useful, but writing things you’re grateful for isn’t the only way to practice this.

If you don’t like gratitude journalling, try linking your gratitude list to some other event in your day. Try bringing to mind three things you’re grateful for as soon as you wake up, or when your head hits the pillow at night or while you brush your teeth.

The point is to pay attention and to get very specific about what you’re grateful for, basically to count your blessings.

Even in the hardest times, there are things to be grateful for.

Keep a “Notable” journal

At the end of last year I mentally started ticking through the months of 2022 to remember the key events that happened over the year. I found I was only listing off the bad, hard things.

I knew that lots of good things had happened too, but I couldn’t seem to remember them. I combed through my planner, looking for things like going out to dinner with friends, day trips to neighboring cities, seeing my daughter in a musical etc.

I made a list of all of those good things and filled three pages.

This year, I’ve made a place in the back of my planner to record the notables as they happen and I’ve set a weekly goal so I remember to follow through. I want to savor these events as they happen and remember them afterward.

Search for awe and wonder

Fostering a sense of awe and wonder can really boost our positive emotions. Spend time in nature or looking out the window, if you can’t get outside. Pay close attention to details like the sound of birds singing, the wind blowing through trees, how the frost sparkles on the grass in the morning.

Slow down to notice small details in your day – steam rising from a hot cup of tea or coffee, a new leaf forming on a houseplant, the coolness of the water when you first turn on the tap.

So often we float through life letting these small details go unnoticed. By taking a moment to really pay attention to what’s around us, we find that there are all kinds of things to be grateful for and to find wonder in.

“If you want a flower, you’ll find a flower.”

This video shows a true positive outlook, even in the midst of experiencing grief, sorrow and chronic illness. Notice how she pays attention to everything in her life. She’s learning to accept and be grateful for the “acute simultaneity” of life. This is what flourishing can look like.