Emotions Are Fluctuating

When you care less about something, you do better at it. It's also your chance to avoid engaging in negative feelings towards the emotions you experience. 🤐

In a society that promotes gratitude and positivity, there is pressure to suppress or conceal negative feelings.

But psychological studies reveal that acceptance of your negative feelings promotes emotional resilience, with fewer symptoms of depression and anxiety.

Acceptance of negative emotions involves not trying to change how we feel but taking them for what they are.

Acceptance works because it blunts the emotional reactions to stressful events. In time, it can lead to positive psychological health.

It is marked by intense concentration, a sense of timelessness, and a loss of self-consciousness. It’s a deeply healing and enjoyable state and one that greatly contributes to our happiness.

• They meditate.
• They exercise regularly. “Surveys show that exercise may very well be the most effective instant happiness booster of all activities.”
• They stop and smell the roses. 
• They spend time with their furry friends.
• They spend time outside.

Noticing and savoring the pleasant moments and thinking, "Wow, this is really great "can strengthen positive emotions.

In general, we tend to dwell on the negative side and not notice the positive things we experience.

Write yourself a message on a sticky note and attach it to your computer screen at work (an inspirational quote, a reminder to smile, etc).

Small reminders like these help keep positivity front and center in your life.

Guilt is a private feeling of regret about something you did, and the discomfort leads to self-regulation regardless of exposure.

Shaming is about the possibility of being exposed to an audience.

Shaming can give the weak greater power. It can be used as a tool to encourage structural changes of institutions, organizations, and powerful individuals by exposing a transgressor to public disapproval.

There is no major conclusion in positive psychology that has not been challenged, modified or even rejected.

Yet the fact that positive psychology is becoming more popular means that it gives hope, optimism and perhaps happiness to millions of its consumers.

The story of positive psychology started just 20 years ago with Martin Seligman, head of the American Psychological Association. The idea he considered was: What if every person was encouraged to nurture his or her character strengths, rather than being scolded into fixing their shortcomings?

He reorientated the entire discipline of psychology away from mostly treating mental illness and toward human flourishing, then used his authority to promote it.

• Shifting adaptation levels: When an individual experiences a slight emotional up or down, and then returns to his or her default level of happiness.
• Desensitization: When an individual becomes desensitized to a circumstance or situation they no longer have the same reactions that another person might experience. 
• Sensitization: When an individual is sensitized to a certain situation, they get used to something that they were not previously accustomed to. 

Critics view the hedonic adaptation tendency as a generalization that fails to take potentially shifting factors into account.

• Significant life events such as loss of employment or the end of a major relationship can change one's original level of contentment.
• Negative events are often more significant than positive ones.
• Consuming certain medication may also alter the set level of happiness in a person who has mental illness or other clinical problems.

Forcing positive thinking puts us under pressure and in an always-on-the-alert mode. We can never relax because a negative thought might pop into our heads when we least expect it.

It can make us feel more negative emotions and we may blame ourselves for not being happy enough.

Emotions like fear and anxiety can help us to act in certain situations, for instance, alerting us to danger. Anxiety should not be avoided. It can point to an underlying issue that needs to be addressed.

Thinking negatively can also help us prepare for worst-case scenarios in advance. However, too much negative thinking is not good for us either.

To address the disconnect between happiness and deeper levels of satisfaction, researches proposed a model that characterizes people as falling into one of four well-being types.

1. Optimizing one’s positive emotions, and denying the reality of their negative experiences.
2. Feeling unhappy seeing the complexity of the world around them, and neglecting the positive aspects.
3. Having a generally negative view of themselves and the world.
4. Having a generally positive and empathetic view of the world.

Being happy means more than feeling good. True happiness comes from handling challenging and adverse situations, while collaborating and building lifelong bonds with the people in our lives.

A collective thinking process, where the good of all is considered leads to a level of happiness that cannot be attained by being selfish or self-concerned.

• How much effort/time is needed to sustain your current lifestyle.
• How ambitious you are.
• Material circumstances. Wealth, unsurprisingly, gives capacity.
• Work flexibility.
• Family and relationship obligations.
• How many things are non-negotiable for you.