positive emotion

14 Jan

Posted at 20:54h in Coaching, customs, Efficacy, gratitude, Inspiration, Life Coach, Life Coaching, Mindfulness, positive emotion, Positive person, Positive Psychology, Relationships, resilience, resiliency, Thoughts-Action by

Can you believe Albert Einstein said, “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” I’ve been thinking on this lately. Albert Einstein was a smart, smart man. But quotes of his like this make me see his intelligence in different, universal – perhaps even spiritual ways. I’ve been testing my ability to see everything as miracle and boy, does it take work. As a New Yorker, I’ve recently been doing this work in finding ways to enjoy winter. My tendency is...

15 Dec

Posted at 20:33h in Action Research, Hope, Inspiration, Life Coach, Life Coaching, Mindfulness, positive emotion, Positive Psychology, Relationships, resiliency, savoring, Social-Emotional Leadership, Uncategorized by

Last week, our meetup discussed ways to really have a banging holiday season this year.  A mighty group of us talked about how to use Positive Psychology (the science of happiness & success) to make this happen.  We started by asking, "How do we want to be feeling on January 1?" Inspired? Excited? Rested? Hopeful? Some of our ideas for how to ensure this - about how to have a joyful season, included: * Keep a growth mindset (things change, people change) * Appreciate what's already good (what you look forward to each year - dig deep if need be) * Consider 'best' possible...

04 Oct

Posted at 16:16h in Action Research, Hope, Inspiration, Life Coaching, Love, Meaning, positive emotion, Positive person, Relationships, resiliency by

She is an old soul with a young spirit who I met at a mutual friend’s cocktail party sometime last year. She and I were hanging out in the kitchen with several others talking about what we “do” – typical cocktail party banter. But when it came to Amanda’s turn to share, she had an atypical response: she told us how she was a dog-walker in Chelsea and that she loved what she did. I’ll never forget how she spoke her words with such conviction, they resonate in me still today. She was an easy pick for my newer blog...

24 Sep

Posted at 12:29h in Love, Meaning, positive emotion, Positive Psychology, Relationships, savoring by

[caption id="attachment_138" align="alignleft" width="286" caption="Me with Ariana (left) and Cruz (right)"][/caption] I spent the past weekend in Florida visiting some old and new friends. It was amazing to spend time with Joe and Terry (the old ones) and their two-month old fraternal twins, Ariana Michele and Cruz Aiden (the new ones). How amazing it was to meet these little guys for the first time – so precious and sweet and innocent. So easy to love. I admire the measures Joe and Terry took to even have these babies. Given they are two men, these measures were creative, far from convention,...

22 Sep

Posted at 19:12h in Action Research, forgiveness, Hope, positive emotion, Positive Psychology, Relationships, resiliency, savoring, social contagion factor by

Hello Mother, Hello Father Greetings from summer sleep-away camp. Really, I write this tucked away in the woods in northeastern Pennsylvania – a tiny spot of heaven called Camp Happy Times – aptly named for a place where two hundred kids who have or have had cancer come for a week’s time of fun, fun, and more fun. They come here to celebrate the joy of life. Essentially, they come here to be kids, not just the “kids with cancer”. [caption id="attachment_132" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="This is me (center) in the middle of the table in a cake eating contest. I...

31 Mar

Posted at 19:58h in customs, positive emotion, Positive Psychology, Social-Emotional Leadership, Traditions, Uncategorized by

Communitas is a ritual-building process that inspires and revitalizes while reaffirming relationships within a community, state University of Virginia psychologist Jonathan Haidt and his colleagues. According to Anthropologist Victor Turner, building communitas is an essential step to activating a community to healthy family functioning, healthy child development, and other dimensions of well-being.  It also creates positive emotion, which according to psychologist Barbara Fredrickson and mathematician Marcial Losada, builds upward spirals for individuals and groups. Here is an example of some of the work I’ve done with my own family as an action researcher to build communitas and expand positive emotion.  As...

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