A solo Wellness Force podcast episode (Solocast) by Josh Trent discussing micro-resilience and a blog post by Sophia Adler titled "Positive Emotions: You Think You Know, But You Have No Idea." Trent reads and reflects on Adler’s piece, summarizes Barbara Fredrickson’s broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions, contrasts positive vs negative emotions, explains the ‘positivity ratio’ concept (feathers vs rocks analogy), and encourages daily micro-resilience practices across wellness pillars (thoughts, feelings, actions, eating, moving, sleeping). The episode references Sophia Adler’s background and imminent completion of a Master’s degree in December 2018.
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Welcome back to the solo cast of Wellness Force. This is an unplugged, unfiltered and unedited podcast where you and I get to riff for 10 minutes about what's going on at the bottom of our truth basement in regards to physical and emotional intelligence. This is the conversation that no one else is having right now, and it's around Micro Resilience as I read the brand new and powerful blog post from Sophia Adler, the resident author in behavioral psychology for wellnessforce. She's a marketing strategist, she's an avid reader, and she's a lover of storytelling, especially the stories that we tell ourselves. She graduated from Colgate University with a bachelor's degree in Sociology and is currently getting a master's degree in Clinical Psychology and Education with a concentration in Spirituality and Mind Body Practice from Teachers College at Columbia University, which she is expecting to finish in just a couple months here in December 2018. Micro resilience acknowledges the desire for personal growth, self improvement, and the ability to use difficult experiences and negative emotions to continue along the path of living well. Micro resilience is meant to be practiced daily so you can improve in small, incremental ways. When we practice micro resilience, we're changing our lives for the better, one step at a time. She goes into detail to how micro resilience can be applied to the six pillars of wellness, which we talk about on the podcast quite a bit. Our thoughts, feelings and actions and our eating, moving and sleeping. Now, this is twice a month. Make sure you head over to the Wellness 4 site today or you you can tap your phone and access the link to Go write and read the full blog with your own eyes. Now let's take a breath together as I read you the third installment of the Micro Resilience series. Positive emotions you think you know, but you have no idea. In an attempt to be completely honest and vulnerable, I want to share that I'm going through a tough time emotionally. It's a big transition period for me, which is exciting, but hard. I know deep down that this time of my life is simply the start of something new and exciting. Nonetheless, there are many unknowns ahead. The feelings I'm wading through right now aren't easy. I have negative emotions far more than positive emotions these days. I'm sharing all of this because I'm working on being more honest with myself and others about how I'm feeling. I've made this honesty part of my awareness practice, which helps me shift my attention from ruminating over what's wrong and focus on the steps I'm taking to get myself back on track, feel more aligned and and reconnect to myself. I know I'm shedding parts of my old self so I can welcome in the new and step into what I'm meant to and want to be. It's true we teach what we need to learn. My recommitment to a strong awareness practice validates the common saying that we teach the lessons we ourselves need to learn. So in the spirit of this wise message, I want to introduce some relevant positive psychology research by Barbara Fredrickson on positive emotions. Fredrickson's research provides a how for overcoming or at least lessening the grip of negative emotions. Before I do that, however, I want to remind you that we need to honor both the negative and positive parts of our lives. As Francis Bacon once said, in order for the light to shine so brightly, the darkness must be present. One can't exist without the other. It's often those times of darkness that help us appreciate the light that much more. Remember, the good can't exist without the bad. I bring this point up again because I don't want you to walk away from this post thinking you should only focus on positive emotions. It's common to receive advice to focus on the good as a solution to our problems, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, and a message that I share with others too. But it has to be taken in the right context. It can be frustrating, even irritating, to receive advice that implies you should ignore what you're struggling with and see the world through rose colored glass. I've felt this way a lot lately. I've been reminded of how hard it can be to focus on the good when the going gets tough. If it's hard for you too, I hope my story reminds you that no one, and I mean no one, is perfect. We're all in this together. Let's talk about our emotions. Both positive and negative emotions are momentary by nature. Nonetheless, emotions don't always feel fleeting. They may arise quickly in response to a thought or event, but they can also have a lasting effect on our beliefs, decisions, and actions. Our emotions thus directly impact how we live our lives. Psychology research on emotions has historically been reserved for negative emotions, but the rise of positive psychology has led to a surge in research on positive emotions what they are, how they work, and how we can use them to our advantage. Professor Barbara Fredrickson is one of the pioneer researchers on positive emotions, best known for her broaden and build theory. What research says about the broaden and build Theory through the Broaden and Build theory, Fredrickson explains that positive emotions broaden people's momentary thought action repertoires, which build their enduring personal resources, ranging from physical, cardiovascular, health and intellectual resources to social and psychological resources of resilience. In other words, positive emotions broaden our awareness, which opens us up to more possibilities and sparks our creativity. Positive emotions expand our peripheral vision, helping us see more and capitalize on the opportunities around us. Research also shows that negative emotions have the opposite effect. Negative emotions cause us to narrow our beliefs and prevent us from seeing multiple outcomes or opportunities when presented with a problem. Consider our fight or flight survival mechanism. For example, when your body thinks you're at risk and signals the negative emotion of fear, your immediate reaction is to run. There's no time for considering the various possible outcomes or whether or not the risk is real. We experience a tunnel vision of sorts and take immediate action accordingly. This is beneficial and necessary in a threatening situation, but this type of limited thinking holds us back in less dire circumstances. Positive Emotions and the Power of Possibility now that you understand more about the power of our emotions and the way they can shape our outlook and actions, I want to introduce one last principle, the Positivity Radio. The the positivity radio explains that our negative emotions are more impactful than our positive emotions. Put simply, we need many positive emotions to outweigh the effects of a single negative emotion. The initial ratio of 3 to 1 positive to negative emotions has recently been disproven empirically, but the general premise of the research still stands. In order to fully process and absorb the meaning of the Positivity radio, I like to reference a helpful analogy I picked up from one of my teachers. Think of negative emotions as rocks and positive emotions as feathers. If placed on a scale, you need far more feathers than rocks to balance things out or tip the scale in positivity's favor. Here's what you need to remember. I'm a big fan of understanding the why before I act. In order to make sure you fully grasp the meaning of this research and how you can apply it to your life, I've summarized what I feel are the key takeaways. Number one Next time you get frustrated when someone tells you to focus on the positive, remind yourself there's empirically proven research behind this advice. When done in the right context, focusing on the good causes an increase in positive emotions, which can have a profound impact on your lives and the way you see the world. Number two if you feel stuck and can't seem to find any sort of solution, your emotions may be to blame. Positive emotions help us see that there are many potential ways to deal with a problem, whereas negative emotions do the exact opposite. Number three Both positive and negative emotions have a significant impact on our thoughts and actions, yet we have to be aware of the power dynamics between the two. We need far more positive emotions than negative emotions to break the hold of negative emotions, thoughts and feelings. Remember the feathers versus the stones Finding ways to spark more positive emotions throughout the day Micro resilience is key to maintaining long standing happiness. Take some time to let all of this sink in. I'll share some of my favorite ways to boost positive emotions in my next post, but in the interim I'd love to hear your favorite techniques. I hope you enjoyed this reading of Sophia Adler's blog post titled Positive Emotions yous Think youk Know, but yout have no Idea. Part three in our series on micro resilience from Sophia's brain, downloaded possibly from higher intelligence onto the pad for your listening and reading pleasure, make sure you go to the Wellness Force site this week. Look at not only Sophia's post, but all the resources we have for you as you walk your path step by step that we all are actually walking together. Even if it seems like you're alone, the reality is you're not alone. You never have been and you never will be. Because we're all walking ourselves home, just you and me and Sophia this afternoon, morning, night, wherever you're listening to this show, take that deep breath and know that every single week this podcast is here for you. We're talking about this more in the Wellness Force group. What was your micro resilience this week? What did you do when things were stacked against you? What mindset did you adopt and what was your feather versus the rock? How many feathers did you collect and did they outweigh the rock? Let us know wellnessforce.com group so until I see you again next week, I'm wishing you love and wellness.
