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Being Thankful: How It Creates Happiness

December 12, 2011 by admin in Giving Thanks | Leave a comment

During difficult times, it’s easy to lose sight of the positive aspects of our lives and focus solely on what’s going wrong.  This can be because what’s going wrong is right in our face, demanding our attention.  There is, however, a great deal to be gained from paying attention to what is good in our lives, especially during more difficult times.

Focusing on the things we are thankful for is important since the things we pay attention to grow in importance.  When we spend time thinking about what we are grateful for, we’ll notice these things appearing more frequently in our lives.  Noticing things that make you happy will automatically increase your feelings of pleasure and appreciation. Read More

Containing Our Emotions: When It’s Helpful To Hold Back

April 9, 2011 by admin in Emotions | Leave a comment

I usually write about allowing our feelings to be felt, to be talked about, and to be shown. Today, I’ve been thinking about the opposite: containing them – and how to know when to do what!

Containing our emotions means to hold back how we’re feeling from someone else.  It’s what we do when we know something’s going on inside of us because we have a strong emotion(s) about something, but we choose not to let it show on the outside.  We deliberately decide not to say anything.  We choose to stay quiet.  We limit what our face expresses by refraining from rolling our eyes or frowning.  We still our body and do not shrug our shoulders, cross our arms, or tap our feet. Read More

Giving Thanks, Gaining Happiness

November 10, 2010 by admin in Giving Thanks | Leave a comment

Grateful children giving their father a kiss

Is everything going wrong?  Are you feeling frustrated, stuck, unhappy, or overwhelmed?  It’s easy to get bogged down and feeling bad when it seems like nothing is going your way.  During these difficult times, we often lose sight of what’s good in our lives and focus solely on what’s wrong.  It’s easy to lose perspective when the things that aren’t going well are right in our face, demanding our attention.  We forget about all the things that are good, allowing them to fade into the background and take a backseat to our powerful negative feelings.  There is, however, a great deal to be gained from paying attention to what is good in our lives, especially during more difficult times. Read More