Life Wounds Can Be Bearers of Light

One myth about positive psychology is that it just focuses in on happiness and ignores the difficulties of life. That is so far from the truth. Yes it does provide research on happiness which of course is a good thing, as who does not want to be happy. Just think of it, even our Declaration of Independence speaks of happiness, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness….”. Still, positive psychology does speak to the illnesses and hurts that affect mankind. The principles they research can aid in overcoming hurts and wounds that are realities in our life journey.

I thought of this as I was listening to Switchfoot’s latest CD, Where The Light Shines Through. I want you to focus your attention to the lyrics of their title song. As always, first click on the title and listen to the video of the song

"Where The Light Shines Through" Switchfoot (click on the title to hear the song)

When you're feeling like an astronaut
Stuck on a planet even time forgot, and
You're a version of yourself, but you're not the same
You try to keep the wound camouflaged, and
The stitches heal, but the years are lost, and
Another bottle on the shelf can't numb the pain

Why're you running from yourself now?
You can't run away

Cause your scars shine like dark stars
Yeah, your wounds are where the light shines through
So let's go there, to that place where
We sing these broken prayers where the light shines through--
The wound is where the light shines through
Yeah, the wound is where the light shines through

Ain't we all just Abraham's son?
Saint and sinner with the song and drum, and
We're fallen on our knees, we all bleed the same
And the only tattoos I have are scars
I got your name written on my heart
And the story that brought us here ain't the thing that changed, no

I wanna see that light shining
Brighter than the pain

Cause your scars shine like a dark star
Yeah, your wounds are where the light shines through
So let's go there, to that place where
We sing these broken prayers where the light shines through
The wound is where the light shines through

Mama, ain't the blood just proof I'm human?
Mama, ain't the wound just retribution?
Well Mama, ain't the scar like a vision of grace?

The wound is where the light shines through
The wound is where the light finds you
The wound is where the light shines through
The wound is where the light finds you
Your scars shine like dark stars
Yeah, the wound is where the light shines through
It's where the light shines through
Yeah, yeah, it's where the light shines through
Yeah, the only time to our heart, oh oh
It's where the light shines through
Where the light shines, where the light shines through
Where the light shines though
It's where the light shines through

As I listened to the song I thought of times of wounds in my life. Back in Chicago there were wounds of hurtful relationships, memories of my mom’s death and oldest brother’s death. There were work difficulties and times of wondering what should be my direction in life. Over the years I have worked with students and in counseling practice I have observed many people’s life pains and wounds. The song speaks truth in that while we go through life wounds, we can feel as if we are outside of life like outer space as we experience pain because we know the pain is not where we are meant to keep living. You feel as if you are somewhere, where God has forgotten you. Some people hide the pain as I made mention in my book, Living More Than OK, some can smile and say “everything is OK while living in the pain”. Others turn to substances like drugs or alcohol, “Another bottle on the shelf can't numb the pain”. Like hiding they find substances do not help with the pain long-term.

The song encourages facing the pain and learning from the wounds that come into our lives. The lyric phrase “Well Mama, ain't the scar like a vision of grace?” to me points out that our wounds can be a turning point to learn more of God’s Grace in our lives. Letting the light shine though our wounds breaks the hold of life pains on us and bring us back to earth where we can serve others who are hurting.

The song writer reminds us that we are all fellow brothers and sisters who each have our own wounds and scars. As we let the light shine through we can learn to grow in our lives and learn to be better people helpers to those around us. I have met people who after the fact are thankful for the tough times they went through as they became stronger in their life journey because of the difficulties and wounds they faced. As I look back of course I did not enjoy in the moment, my life difficulties but they have helped in serving college students as I can be real with them about what they will face in their futures. The past difficulties have been helpful in serving counseling clients, as I can encourage those hurting that the light will shine through in their lives if they do not give up.

Reflection: Think through some of your wound times in your life. In looking back do you see some light shining through that you learned from? How have the hardships and difficulties in your life journey made you a better person today?

Make Time To Be Blown Away

I recently heard a song by singer/songwriter Josh Wilson which captures what I try to get across in my book, Living More Than OK and this blog. Our life is to not be settled or stuck in ordinary okness or stuck in a serious frenzy of hectic mundane activity. We are meant to live in a continual growth cycle of moving higher up into new levels of abundant living. We are to be refreshed by mindfully appreciating the little miracles and beautiful moments God brings into our pathways but we are often too busy to notice.

The song reminded me of years ago when I was listening to lectures on Positive Psychology by Dr. Tal Ben-Shahar. There was one lecture where he was reminding the importance of slowing down to notice the little beauties in life, “stop and smell the roses”. The thought is simple and in reality; taking note of the little treasures in life would add so much in relieving the stress in our days but we choose not to break out of our hectic rush mode.

Take a few moments to listen to Josh’s song and read my reflection on what I felt was important in the song.

Blown Away by Josh Wilson (click on title for song video)

She's dancing like a crazy fool
From the kitchen to the dining room
And she tells me, 'Baby, life is way too short to be too cool.'
She says, 'When did we get so serious?
Can we just all stop acting unimpressed?'
There's a hundred million miracles in front of us passing by

God open my eyes
I wanna be blown away!
By your extraordinary grace every ordinary day
Blown away!
By your great big love in every little place
I wanna slow down look around
God please show me how to stop and be amazed

I wanna be blown away!
Blown away!
I want to see a sunset
And have to stop and catch my breath
O I never want to forget
How you take a dead heart and bring back to life again
When did we get so serious?
Can we just all stop acting unimpressed?
There's a hundred million miracles in front of us passing by

God open my eyes
I wanna be blown away!
By your extraordinary grace every ordinary day
Blown away!
By your great big love in every little place
I wanna slow down look around
God please show me how to stop and be amazed

I wanna be blown away!
Blown away!
The Earth is full of heaven
Cause you're always breaking through
Put the wonder back inside these eyes
God, I don't want to miss you
When did we get so serious?
Can we just all stop acting unimpressed?'
I wanna be blown away!
By your extraordinary grace every ordinary day

Blown away!
By your great big love in every little place
I wanna slow down look around God please show me how to stop and be amazed
I wanna be blown away!
Blown away!
I wanna be blown away! Blown away! Yeah!
I wanna be, I wanna be blown away.

The first set of lines in the lyrics catch my attention where we are challenged with the shortness of life so why do we spend so much time being serious and unimpressed instead of enjoying the journey. That hit home to me with my health, as I just took a heart scan the other day that reminds me of high calcium buildup in my heart arteries. So I am reminded of the shortness of life. So why just keep moving in OK mode of just getting by. The time I have left on this earth I should listen to the call of the song to be blown away with enjoying life.

The question I think of is how can I be blown away? One important way for me came in the lines, “I wanna slow down look around, God please show me how to stop and be amazed.” Take a mindful approach to life of being aware of the miracles in each day, the beauty of creation, loving acts of grace in relations with people around me. The song writer is calling out to God to help him with this. That is actually a good prayer to pray each day. If we are mindfully aware throughout the day we will be impressed and amazed with all that has happened instead of unimpressed and stressed out.

Consider the savoring of enjoying God’s creation in the lines, “I want to see a sunset, And have to stop and catch my breath.” Sometimes if I have finished seeing clients for counseling and am driving home when there is a beautiful sunset I will get off the highway and take the backroads. That way I can drive and enjoy the sunset as it helps with the commute home.

Those are just a few thoughts that stand out to me in the song. Now it is your turn to think through what were the important points that touched your heart and mind in the song lyrics. How do you want to wake up each day? Do you want to wake up unimpressed with a sense of dread “Oh, another day!”? Or do you want to wake up with a “I wanna be blown away” attitude looking at your day with a sense of amazement and wonder? The choice is there for each of us!

Reflection: What parts of the song stood out to you? What does it mean to you to be “blown away”? I mentioned Dr. Tal Ben-shahar in the beginning of the article – take time to go to his website www.talbenshahar.com on the home page click on videos and watch one of his videos. Think through what he says about happiness and positive psychology. What do you think about it?

Pitfalls To Happiness

This is the fifth week of responding to some questions I have been given about my book, “Living More Than OK”. The final question is very good, in that it looks at the hindrances people have to positive change. With a new year here, this is important to think about! In the first blog post of this year I mentioned a study where only 8 percent of people actually keep their new year’s resolutions. The question posed to me is: what pitfalls do readers have to overcome to maintain a happy life? This causes me to think back to a couple of weeks ago when I spoke about choices.

The Dangers of Passivity

One major pitfall is the passivity of choosing not to choose. Going back to the thoughts of Dr. Shad Helmstetter here is one of the quotes I mentioned from him, “Those who choose to succeed always do better than those who never choose at all.” The successful and the happy make wise choices to move in that direction. The phrase, “those who never choose at all,” is a little misleading to me, as I believe not making an active choice to spiral up to abundant living is still a choice. It is a choice for the negative boring status quo that so many complain about, but never take action to do anything about. This pitfall is easy to get out of by simply taking time to put on your critical thinking and creative thinking hat on, and brainstorm new active choices to improve your life.

Photo credit: Marty.FM / Foter.com / CC BY-NC-ND

There Is No Such Thing As a Happy Pill

Another example of a pitfall is all the excited talk about legalizing marijuana. Those wanting marijuana legalized act like that is the solution for instant happiness and enjoyment. To me, that is a pitfall that people want some easy way to happiness. “Just give me a drug to make me happy.” I never used alcohol or drugs, as I saw the negative fallout in people’s lives and thought: “Why would I want to do that to myself?” I read how Joe Scarborough of MSNBC came out recently, saying how he never tried marijuana because he thought those using the drug looked so dumb. I bring that same thought out in my book. I have seen a group high on marijuana before and they simply looked and sounded stupid. So my rationale was always why do I want to look stupid?

My essay chapter in “Living More Than OK” about Natural Highs clearly shows that there are so many ways to enjoy life to the full without smoking or snorting drugs. Again on the marijuana front, it is amazing how society has discouraged cigarette smoking as dangerous when it used to be considered cool years ago. Now the same people are exalting marijuana use even though it has more chemicals than cigarettes, is held more intensely in the lungs when they inhale it and some of the chemicals stay long term in the fatty tissue of the brain. Tell me where the critical thinking is on that issue?

What I am trying to get at is the easy way of hoping for a happiness drug is not the best way to “Live More Than OK”. There are so many more healthy and positive ways to have a more flourishing life.

Photo credit: Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources / Foter / CC BY-ND


Open Up To Risks

The final chapter in the book relates to another important pitfall that stops people from growing in happiness. That is not being open to take risks. The openness to try something new. Many freeze up with fear in trying something new. I do honestly admit in my book that I am a low risk-taker. My natural highs are reading, music, travelling, enjoying time with family and friends. You notice I do not mention scuba diving or parachute jumping. That is just me. If you enjoy those activities go for it. Go for sports, art, dancing, photography…..the positive options are endless. I give ideas and resources in my book in relation to new natural high ideas. Take the risk to try something new this year.

Photo credit: o0bsessed / Foter.com / CC BY

I have enjoyed answering these few questions about my book, “Living More Than OK” at the start of this year. Next week I will move into more topics. But if you have a question you would like me to speak to please send me a comment about it and I can address your question in a future week!

Reflection: What personal pitfalls hinder you from moving towards Living More Than OK in your life? What new activities would you like to do in the coming year?

Creating Your Happiness Road

Life is a journey and our power to choose helps to create the pathway. We can either trudge along stress-fully with a woe is me attitude that makes it seem like the road is rocky and painful. Or we can glide along a happy trail attitude where we may still have rocks along the way but life is smoother as we make wise positive choices.

This second mindset of happiness choices is a focus of a book of short essays by Tal Ben-Shahar PhD. He is one of the leaders of the Positive Psychology movement. I will always count it a privilege to have heard his lectures on Positive Psychology through a University of Pennsylvania Continuing Education online program a few years ago. His new book I am reading at the start of this new year is Choose The Life You Want: 101 Ways to Create Your Own Road to Happiness. It is a grouping of 101 thought provoking essays for living a better happier life.

In the very beginning he reminds the reader that in each of our moments we have a choice to make. Each of our choices have consequences. He states, “what we choose to do and how we choose to think directly impact how we feel.” When we are faced with difficulties we can choose to think that life is against us and continue in a negative life is a grey cloud pathway for understand rain falls on everyone and use the difficulty as a turning point to move in a positive direction. Some of the topics he touches on are: making a difference, forgiveness, focus on your strengths, look at difficulty as a challenge, appreciate good things, patience and success. In the tiny book there are 101 ideas on helping you have a happier life.

His title reminded me of an old Roy Rogers and Dale Evans song, Happy Trails. Here are the lyrics:

Happy trails to you, until we meet again.
Happy trails to you, keep smilin' until then.
Who cares about the clouds when we're together?
Just sing a song and bring the sunny weather.
Happy trails to you, 'till we meet again.

Some trails are happy ones,
Others are blue.
It's the way you ride the trail that counts,
Here's a happy one for you.

Happy trails to you, until we meet again.
Happy trails to you, keep smilin' until then.
Who cares about the clouds when we're together?
Just sing a song and bring the sunny weather.

Happy trails to you, 'till we meet again.

The lines that stood out to me were: “Some trails are happy ones, Others are blue. It's the way you ride the trail that counts, Here's a happy one for you.” This speaks to what Dr. Ben-Shahar is trying to get at in his book. Positive Psychology does not rule out the Blue days that some our way. But how are you riding the trail? Even on the blue days you can have a song in your heart or in other words work on positive choices that help the ride go more smoothly.

Pick up a copy of this book for yourself or encourage your local library to add it to their collection so you can start creating your happiness road in this New Year.

Reflection: What kind of road are you traveling presently in your life journey? What are three things you can do to make your road a little happier?

Be Happy While You Work

Every now and then I re-read magazine articles I enjoyed to learn more from them. So this past week I was spending some time with the Harvard Business Review January/February 2012 issue. Their special focus was Happiness with several articles focusing on happiness in the workplace. Usually when you observe people they are happy when they are leaving work not going to work. That is what attracted me to the issue. Two articles that stood out to me were "Creating Sustainable Performance" by Gretchen Spreitzer and Christine Porath and "Positive Intelligence", by Shawn Achor.

Both articles brought to light research metastudies that showed how happier and positive employees are more productive, more creative, and go beyond the call of duty. It makes sense that if you hate your job you have less energy and when asked to go the extra mile “forget it”, is the first thing that comes to mind. I thought of my own work over the years and I would say the jobs I enjoyed the most I put more effort and energy into them.

I want to discuss a few ideas from the articles that can help us improve our happiness levels in our work. The first item I want to share is how Shawn Achor discussed the importance of creating positive habits. New habits that are positive can keep us growing to thrive in our lives. He presented ideas such as to write a positive note to someone in your social network on a regular basis. Also to keep a journal and write down a few minutes each day a meaningful experience from your day or write down three things you are grateful for. Since the focus of this is to increase happiness at work I would suggest to think about meaningful experiences in your workday. Maybe you had a positive experience in solving a problem for a customer. Or jot down how you encouraged a co-worker who was having a difficult day.

One thing that can drag us down is workplace stress. Shawn gave an interesting reminder that stress although we don’t like to experience it, often is the fuel for growth in our lives. He listed how one company he consulted with, he asked the managers to list 5 life experiences that helped shape their lives. All the items they listed were times of stress and struggle. He states, “few people grow on vacation”. So, when we are in the stress of work have a mindset of how can I grow through this experience. He suggests to look at the stressors affecting you and list those that can be controlled and those that can not be controlled. Consider the stress factors that can be controlled and then brainstorm specific ways you can lessen the stress.

Another item that helps with happiness levels is discovering a sense of meaning in your work. Look at your work and see the bigger picture of going beyond just putting in your 8 hour day. How does what you do touch others lives? How are you adding value to the world around you in your work? Life long learning relates to this. What new things can you learn to grow in your job position to improve how you serve customers or help your fellow co-workers? As we learn and grow we can find deeper levels of meaning in our work to appreciate and enjoy our work on new levels.
As I have mentioned in the past we spend much of our time in this thing called work so doesn’t it make sense to be happy in it rather than carry a sense of dread about it. Some of the research in the articles show that the benefits of being happy at work carries over to happiness outside of work. If we are happier in our work we do not carry home the burden of stress and anger that is then often displaced on those living with us, or the household pet having to run and hide.

Reflection – Think over your work life then list a few things you are thankful for about your work. Write down a way you can bring new meaning to the work you do. What is your mindset about stress? Look at three turning points of growth in your life. Did they occur out of a time of struggle or a vacation time?

Living a Flourishing Life

Dr. Martin Seligman’s book Authentic Happiness was one of my first introductions to Positive Psychology. That book along with the online course I took of Dr. Tal Ben Shahar solidified my thinking that psychology is not only for the variety of mental illnesses but the principles are also there to help all people live better lives. I am grateful for both of these experiences in my life.

Being the Bookhead I am, when I saw a new book Flourish, by Dr. Martin Seligman I had to get it. The book has been out for a while and it continues his thoughts on Positive Psychology. The work is a deeper expansion of Positive Psychology beyond his initial work, Authentic Happiness. He shows examples of how the principles behind Positive Psychology have been used with beneficial results in a variety of populations.

The deeper expansion Dr. Seligman speaks of in the book is moving beyond happiness to overall improved well being in our human life journey. The core features of Positive Psychology he mentions in the first chapter are having positive emotions, being intentionally engaged in our life focus, and having a sense of meaning and purpose. The first core principle focuses in on our happiness level and life satisfaction. The second is centered on the joy of learning and creatively looking at life. Then the third focuses in on what is the big picture of what we want to do with our lives. What will make our life journey meaningful? He describes some other principles which flow out of the three core features but I don’t want to give all the book’s features away. Hopefully you will go to your local library or favorite bookstore and pick up a copy to read. As I definitely would say this is one of those books that would make life better if everyone would read it.

In the preface of the book he makes this statement that stood out to me “… happiness, flow, meaning, love, gratitude, accomplishment, growth, better relationships – constitute human flourishing. Learning that you can have more of these things is life changing.” Life can be a continual growing journey of flourishing if we make the right choices to spiral up instead of spiral down in life. This is the way to have the best life possible and I believe it is the way we were meant to be.

As I come at life with a Christian worldview, the title of Dr. Seligman’s book made me think of how God wants us to be living. I looked in the scriptures for the word flourish and found many references to the word in Psalms. In Psalm 92:1 we read, “The righteous will flourish like a palm tree, they will grow like a cedar of Lebanon.” Or in Psalm 52:8 “ But I am like an Olive tree flourishing in the house of God; I trust in God’s unfailing love for ever and ever.” There are several other verses that use the metaphors of our being like a flourishing tree or plant without using the term flouring but it is implied, (Psalm 1:3; Psalm 144:12; Proverbs 11:28; Jeremiah 17:8).

The scriptures look at God’s desire for us not as shriveled up plants or dried up dead trees. The verses mentioned above describes God’s people as flourishing, healthy trees. Trees that are strong and fruitful as well. The metaphor carries with it that our lives are to be positive and have meaning in being fruitful so that we have a purpose in our daily living. So, that we are strong to meet the challenges of each day. This is what I appreciate about Positive Psychology is that it’s focus on making people stronger and more fruitful in their life.

Reflection -- If you were a tree what kid of tree would you be? Thinking of the three core features of Positive Psychology where are you at presently:
1. What is your level of happiness?
2. Are you learning something new and excited about it?
3. What do you see as your primary purpose in life at the present time?

Self Efficacy and Happiness in the Workplace

With work taking up a large amount of our daily living I am always interested in how to keep work moving at a more than ok level. So I was intrigued at coming upon a book entitled, Happiness At Work: Maximizing your Psychological Capital for Success by Jessica Pryce-Jones. She is CEO of IOpener, a human asset management consulting group. In the future I will mostly likely touch on many of the topics she brings up in the book but today I want to look at a concept in her chapter on Confidence concerning Self-Belief. Another term for this is self efficacy.

Self efficacy is the internal feelings and beliefs we hold about we how can do at different tasks and knowledge. How capable do we believe we are. Albert Bandura the noted Psychologist known for his work on self efficacy defines it this way,” self-efficacy is the belief in one’s capabilities to organize and execute the courses of action required to manage prospective situations.” This is our capacity to believe in ourselves which is important in our work life to make the most out of our time in the workplace. If we believe in our ability our work will flow much easier and we will have higher levels of satisfaction in what we are doing. It is also an impetus to keep us growing in our skills.

A big enemy of our self efficacy is “I can’titus”. It is the sickness that tells us we can’t perform as well as others. I can’t do this project. I can’t be creative in my work. The I cant’s bring stress to our work and drags out each work day. That is when the ball and chain feeling begins to overtake us.

By building up our self belief we can have more success on the job as we will reach our goals and perform better on our projects we do at work. We will be able to expand our possibilities more at work by creatively seeing new ways to help clients and customers. Creativity and skills levels grow when we have a positive belief about our capabilities. This allows us then a higher level of happiness in our work.
Some things that can build our self efficacy levels are to keep growing in our work skills. I can chant all day long that I believe that I am a great with my computer skills. Yet if all I know about the computer is how to push the power button my self belief statements are to no avail.

So be a lifelong learner, attend workshops, read up on journals and research in your work field. Attend conferences that relate to your work. Keep persistent in the difficulties of your work until you reach success. Don’t have a give up attitude but a keep on going and growing attitude. Learn from other co-workers. Don’t be an island, instead appreciate what others who work with you are doing, Also learn more about self efficacy to build up your levels of it. A professor at Emory university has a wonderful website full of information on the topic: www.des.emory.edu/mfp/self-efficacy.html
Check out the informational articles there on this important subject.

Our beliefs affect our job performance and the quality of our work experience. As stated in the past since we work about 80,000 hours in our lifo we want to make the most of that time instead of dreading that time. SO it is important to build up our self efficacy.

Reflection:
On a scale of 1-10 one being low and 10 high what is your level of self-belief about your work capabilities. Journal about a growth area you can improve on in your work life. Take the time to go to the emory website above and read up on self efficacy.