Think Yourself Happy

On Saturday I was in Quebec City (one of my most favorite city in the world). I must have walked over 15 km around le Vieux Québec, up and down the many stairs leading from la basse-ville to la porte St Jean towards Château Frontenac. It was raining again as it has been for the last 4 weeks. We only get two months of summer and the first month has been cold and wet this year!

By midday I was drenched and feeling tired and grumpy. I had created my very own black cloud hanging over my head with my bleak thoughts. I decided to escape the weather for a while and see a movie at the theater, De père en flic (the title is a play on words from the expression De père en fils - "flic" means policeman). Québecois comedies have a unique type of humour that I find so refreshing. I laughed out loud many times. Lo and behold, when I left the theater I was in a very positive frame of mind.

Many authors have talked about the power of positive thinking. Norman Cousins wrote a book called Anatomy of an Illness in 1979. He was diagnosed with a incurable degenerative disease (ankylosing spondylitis), and was told he had little chance of surviving. Cousins developed a recovery program incorporating mega doses of vitamin C along with a positive attitude, love, faith, hope, and laughter induced by Marx Brothers films. "I made the joyous discovery that ten minutes of genuine belly laughter had an anesthetic effect and would give me at least two hours of pain-free sleep." Norman Cousins died of heart failure on November 30, 1990 having survived years longer than his doctors had predicted.

One of my all time feel good motivational speaker is a spunky woman of Italian descent, Loretta Laroche. Loretta calls herself a Stress Management and Humor Consultant and has been in the business for over 30 years. She has written several uplifting books. One of my favorites is entitled Life is Short - Wear Your Party Pants. What I love about Loretta Laroche is that she injects her particular brand of wit and irreverent humour in describing every day occurrences and helps us see how silly we really are when we fret over life's foibles . I've had the privilege of meeting Loretta on a few occasions. The last time we chatted she asked me what I wanted to be when I "grew up". I shared with her my dream of bringing humanity back into the workplace. In many ways that is Loretta's mission in life as well. She told me that she had recently enlisted in Martin Seligman's online classes on Positive Psychology. She suggested that I look him up.

When Dr. Seligman became interested in the study of happiness in the early 1980's, a literature search on mental health would generate over 46,000 papers about depression compared to only 400 papers about joy. We knew a lot about what makes people unhappy and mentally ill but had little insight into what makes us happy and at peace. Seligman and his colleagues looked across cultures and centuries to distill six character attributes that contribute to happiness: wisdom/knowledge, courage, humanity, justice, temperance, and transcendence. Seligman believes that pessimists can be taught the skill of optimism.

Seligman believes that optimism is a skill rather than a personality trait that you may have inherited from your parents. We can actually learn to be more hopeful and positive. Our lives can improve simply by changing the way we think. That is a powerful concept don't you agree?

Are you a glass half empty or a glass half full kind of person?

When you are in a sour mood what helps you snap out of it?

Are there people in your life that always know what to say or what to do to pick your spirits up? Who are they? How can you surround yourself with more positive, energetic people?

What do you do for fun? What are your simple pleasures? What brings you satisfaction and contentment? How can you invite more joyful experiences in your life?