How to Fail the Right Way

Failure doesn’t have to be a shameful, disappointing experience.  It is possible to enjoy failing.  It may sound a bit far-fetched, but it’s possible….and it’s essential to living a life where you are creating results you love.  It all comes down to how you think about failing.

Why We Don’t Like to Fail

I don’t know many people who LIKE to fail.  What is it about failure that we’re afraid of? For most people failing causes feelings of disappointment, guilt, or shame.  Since none of us like experiencing those feelings, we avoid anything that would produce them: we don’t go to the exercise class because we might look weird, we don’t talk to someone new because they might not like us, we don’t try something new because we “don’t know how.”

Failure Can Be Fun

What if failure brought a totally different set of feelings?   What if failing was motivating, fascinating, or even fun?  It can be.

My daughters and I tried to get a taxi the other day.  We live in China, but don’t speak Chinese yet.  The first empty taxi looked at us and drove right past.  The second one purposely moved to the furthest lane to avoid us.  The third one stopped, but after looking at the address, he yelled something at us in Chinese and motioned for us to get out.

At this point my girls and I were discouraged. It was hot and we were all complaining; we wanted to go home and give up. My brain kept offering me thoughts like, “Why won’t these taxis take us?”  “Is there something wrong with us?”  “This is so frustrating!”   But those thoughts caused me to feel disappointed, embarrassed and frustrated.

I wanted to set a different tone for my kids.  I said, “Let’s see how many taxis it will take to get one that will drive us.  I bet it will be nine.”  My kids perked up and took bets on how many it would be.  As the taxis drove by us it turned into a game to see who would get closest to their bet.  Eventually we got a taxi, and were on our way.   Amazingly, our spirits were high—we had fun comparing how many times it took to get a taxi versus how many we had guessed (one of my daughters won with her guess of seven).  Changing our failure into a game made it fun.

How to Fail the Right Way

Most great people have failed many times.  Thomas Edison said, “I have not failed ten thousand times.  I have not failed once.  I have succeeded in proving that those ten thousand ways will not work.”  I’m glad Thomas Edison didn’t stop when he failed.  Each time he tried something that didn’t work, he considered it helpful information that got him closer to figuring out what WOULD work.

What if we thought about failing differently? What if we thought about failing as gathering information to figure out eventually what WILL work?  What if we made it a game?

Ramit Sethi, a financial expert who has been featured in many popular news sources, has a refreshing perspective on failure.  He believes that failure is evidence that we are stretching ourselves and accomplishing all that we can.  He says he expects to fail at least 5 times per month.  If he isn’t failing, he says he’s not working hard enough.  He keeps track of his failures and uses them as evidence that he is stretching himself, learning, growing, and becoming better. If we aren’t failing on a regular basis, we probably aren’t living our lives to the fullest.

The Wrong Kind of Failure

Failing to try something or not showing up fully in the things we commit to, isn’t the kind of failure that will help us succeed. It is self-sabotage.  This type of failing drives us deeper into shame, guilt and despair.  The kind of failure that really helps us is the kind where we go all in, but don’t make it.  This kind of failure allows us to learn something, and to become stronger.

Failure Lets Us Reach Impossible Goals

The key to failing in the right way is showing up completely.  Setting difficult goals and being confident enough to fail in front of others.  When we do fail, we don’t beat ourselves up about it.  We consider our failures as information that will help us succeed—we turn failure into a game.  The upside of failing is getting huge results—results most people are too afraid to pursue or that they believe they can’t obtain: close relationships, health, success, and happiness.  Sometimes it costs a few failures, but it’s worth it.

Be Confident Enough to Fail

What are you afraid of failing at?

Change the way you think about failure.  Consider it a chance to learn what DOESN’T work and get closer to what does.  You may even consider setting a failure quota to measure how far you are stretching yourself.

Emotions Are Contagious

Just as we can be infected by a sick person passing along their germs to us, our bodies have a built-in mechanism for “catching” emotions from others.  Without even realizing it, we pass along and receive emotions many times a day.  This has a significant effect on how we feel and on the emotional environment we create around us.  If we aren’t aware of the emotions we are giving off and receiving, these emotions can sabotage our moods, relationships, and our success.   

Emotions are Contagious

Do any of these experiences sound familiar: Have you ever winced when you saw someone stub her toe?  Have you ever yelled at your children to stop yelling, only to realize the irony that you just did the thing you asked them not to?  Have you ever been having a great day that turned sour because your children came home from school and started fighting and complaining?  Have you ever given your spouse the silent treatment because he was giving it to you?  Have you ever noticed someone who looked skeptically at you and later softened when you smiled at them?

Emotions are contagious.  Our brains are wired to mirror the emotions of people around us.  Check out this interesting demonstration of contagious emotions in a YouTube Video of a man laughing on the Metro and people around him starting to laugh until almost everyone is laughing.

Mirror Neurons

Obviously, we don’t “catch” emotions in the same way we catch disease.  However, there is a scientific explanation for the contagion of human emotion. The American Psychological Association describes this phenomenon as something called “mirror neurons.”   Essentially, mirror neurons are the brain’s ability to feel what someone else is feeling.

A group of researchers studied the neural reactions of some monkeys when they bit into a treat and other monkeys as they watched their companions eat the treat.  The pre-motor cortex of the monkey eating the treat responded in the same way as the pre-motor cortex of the monkey who only watched the other monkey bite into the treat.  Researchers were later able to find similar reactions in the human brain.  In other words—when we see others experience something, our brains have a similar reaction.  Literally, the same areas of the brain are affected when we watch someone experience something as when we experience it ourselves.

The Upside of Mirror Neurons

Mirror neurons serve a crucial purpose in connecting us to others.  They help us learn in our early development.  As infants, we observe how our parents and caregivers respond and feel about things, and we pattern our actions after theirs.  We’ve all seen mirror neurons in action as we watch a baby learn to smile.  These neurons help us determine what is safe and good around us.

These neurons also give us the ability to feel empathy.  When we see or hear about someone experiencing something, we are able to actually feel (or imagine) the same biological stimuli they do.  For example, when we see someone bump their head, we might wince.  Mirror neurons let us feel what we think the other person might be feeling.  This allows us to act with compassion or concern.  In the same way, these neurons can help us feel excitement for someone else.  We all love watching a romantic movie or seeing someone we know fall in love.  Our brains experience a portion of that same feeling.  This mirroring of emotion allows us to be excited for and supportive of people. The ability to mirror others’ emotions is at the crux of helping us connect with others.


The Downside of Mirror Neurons

The downside of mirror neurons is that we sometimes unwittingly become susceptible to the emotions of others.  When others are frustrated, angry or impatient, we may find that we have the same experience.  Several years ago, researchers studied mirror neurons in public settings. They watched the impact of one person at a metro stop who was visibly impatient—sighing, looking at his watch, and rolling his eyes.  The study showed that others around him became impatient as well.  In contrast, in the absence of someone who was visibly impatient, others at the metro stop did not become as impatient.  If we are not aware of our brain’s unconscious mirroring of emotion, we can easily be swept up into the drama of other’s emotions.

How To Avoid Mirroring Negative Emotion

Simply knowing that negative emotions can be contagious can give us leverage as we choose not to mirror back negative feelings.  Below is an example of how choosing not to mirror back emotions has helped our family during “morning mayhem”:

Getting out the door in the morning sometimes feels like a race.  From the minute the alarm clock rings, we rush around trying to get ready and eat breakfast in order to get to the bus in time.  My kids would much rather play and take their time—they don’t like rushing.

I’m constantly nagging and reminding my kids to “hurry.”  They are irritated that they “have” to do something and they are bothered that they have to do it quickly.  Without realizing what I am doing, I often mirror back their emotions.  I’m irritated that they aren’t hurrying.  We get caught in a yucky collusion of my nagging and reminding them to hurry, and they show their irritation by being grumpy, talking back, and moving slowly.

Using the same principle of mirror neurons, I decided to try a different approach.  I figured my kids would probably get ready more quickly if I was calm and supportive.  At the very least, I hoped a calmer environment would help us start the day and get out the door on a happier, more positive note.  I got up and reminded myself I wanted to set a calm tone—I woke my kids up by rubbing their backs and talking gently.  I smiled at them and handed them their clothes.  During breakfast, I put on calm music, I used a calm voice, and I tried not to nag.  My kids reflected calmness back to me.  I noticed a lot less talking back, frustration, and distraction.

We didn’t beat any Olympic time records, but we did make it out the door in decent time and everyone was so much happier starting the day.  I was floored at the power of mirror neurons to change how I felt and my kids felt.

Avoiding mirroring negative emotions first requires that we become aware of our capacity to both receive emotional cues from others and give them out ourselves.  Second, we must make a conscious decision to choose the emotion we want to feel instead of simply responding to emotions around us.

Mirror Neurons and Difficult Conversations

Almost everyone cares at least a little about what others think of them, and we often predict what others might think about what we do or say.  We might assume others won’t like something—or that they will.  Interestingly, we often make our assumptions true by the way we present something.  We read other’s feelings (or project the way they will respond) through our mirror neurons and mirror back that emotion.

Instead of being reactive to the way other’s may feel, we can determine how WE feel.  When we genuinely express our own feelings, others will often mirror back the same emotion.  This can be particularly powerful in difficult conversations.

I completed a Nutrition and Dietetics degree at small women’s college in Boston.  I enjoyed my time there and found some wonderful professor-mentors. Many of them encouraged me and my fellow students to pursue challenging career paths and to seek out positions of leadership in our field.  I had many of these opportunities available to me.

Near the end of my degree program, my husband and I decided to have a baby.  I became pregnant and we were thrilled!  I planned to complete my program, but I decided to complete it at a slower rate and I knew it might change some of my career choices afterward.  I was worried about how my choice to have a baby would be received by my professors.  I was afraid they would be disappointed, and view my baby as a road block to my success.  All summer I stewed about how I would tell them about their pregnancy, worrying about their reaction.  I felt awkward telling them, and my first inclination was to approach it awkwardly.

When the time came to tell my professors, though, I decided to exude my genuine emotion, which was excitement!  I shared my exciting news and told my professors how thrilled I was!  I was curious about their reaction and I was delighted to see that they responded with excitement and support for me!

In fact, they were so generous—they allowed me to take time off for the delivery, told me that I could bring the baby to class, and supported me in several research projects, including my thesis on pregnancy-related diet issues.  I have always wondered how they would have responded had I gone in feeling uncomfortable and awkward about telling them—I wonder if they might have responded with discomfort and awkwardness about it as well.  I don’t know, but I learned a powerful lesson about emotions.

People often mirror our emotions back to us.  It’s counterproductive to anticipate their response and come to them with that emotion, because we simply create the result we feared.  Making a deliberate choice to be authentic in our feelings may or may not result in a positive response from the person we’re talking to.  However, being authentic brings us personal peace.  As we learn to care less about what others think, being authentic becomes easier.  Check out my article about getting over people pleasing.

The Emotions We Express Matter

The emotions we exude to others matter. We play a pivotal role in co-creating the emotional environment we live in with others.  Being deliberate about our emotions, instead of simply mirroring back the emotions of others, gives us more control, more peace, and more satisfaction.

Act Emotionally, Don’t React Emotionally

What is the dominant emotion you feel when getting ready in the morning?  What emotions do you feel most often when you are with your spouse, your children, or your friends?  What emotions from others are you mirroring?

1.   Be aware of others’ emotions and how you might be mirroring their emotions.
2.  Choose what emotion you want to feel and project that emotion for others to mirror.


Sources
Scientific American.  “What’s So Special About Mirror Neurons?” Ben Thomas, Nov. 6, 2012.
Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews.  “Connecting Minds and Sharing Emotions through Mimicry:  A Neurocognitive Model of Emotional Contagion.”  Eliska Prochazkova, Mariska A Kret.  Vol. 80, September 2017, Pages 99-114.
Mind Spring. “The Connection Between Mirror Neurons and Workplace Success.” April 5, 2018.

The Marble Jar: How to Build Trust

Trust is the magic that connects us to people–it allows us to share vulnerable things and to feel close to others.  Without trust we become separate entities that only interact on the surface.  Trust opens us to deeper and more loving connection.  Developing trust may be more simple than you think.

Who Are the People You Trust?

“I will never trust anyone again!” she announced as she slammed the door and slumped down on the floor.  Not sure exactly what had prompted the outburst by her third-grade daughter, Brene Brown, a well-known author and researcher probed her daughter a bit more.

The story came tumbling out; she had told an embarrassing moment to a friend during recess.  That friend had told other friends and soon everyone was giggling and whispering about her when the teacher came into the classroom.  To make matters worse, because of all the talking and giggling, the teacher took marbles out of the class marble jar used to help promote good behavior.

Brene took a big breath and wiped her daughter’s tears.  She set aside her desires to beat up her daughter’s friends, and tried to think how to explain trust to her daughter.  With the marble jar image fresh in her mind, Brene explained that we share precious things with people who have earned the right to know them.  Our trust of others is like a marble jar.  Over time people gradually add marbles to the jar with little acts of trust–or lose marbles with small acts of betrayal.  Marble jar friends are people who we have learned we can trust and depend on.

Then she asked her daughter, “Do you have any marble jar friends?”  “Yes.” Her daughter replied.  “How do you know they are marble jar friends?” Brene asked. “Because Laura gives me half a hiney-seat at lunch when there isn’t anywhere else to sit.  And, Hannah because she remembered Opa and Oma’s name at the soccer game.”  Brene was surprised at the simplicity of things that earned theoretical marbles of trust.  Frankly, they weren’t heroic, they were small.

Why Do You Trust Them?

Inspired by this exchange, Brene Brown spent the next several years researching what creates trust.  Interestingly, she confirmed exactly what her daughter had first identified; trust is built in small moments. Moments such as; remembering a birthday, smiling and saying hello in the hall, listening and empathizing instead of fixing, showing up at a funeral, remembering a family member’s name, asking follow up questions, following through on what you say you’ll do.  Truly trust is built through small acts…putting marbles in the jar consistently over time.

What have the people you trust done to earn your trust?

How Do You Earn The Trust of Others?

Trust is precious.  I want the people closest to me to trust me.  I love the image of the marble jar as a metaphor of how to build trust. The following are things that research shows build trust and how they have played out in my life.

Examine Your Motives

Humans are astute judges of other’s motives. Most of us have more than one motive for doing things.   Our motives don’t have to be 100% altruistic all the time, but they need to have others’ interests at heart.

My husband prefers to do his haircuts at home to save money.  Over the years I learned how he liked his hair and every few weeks I would cut it. During a period of time when I was up with my baby at night a lot and I felt in high demand during the day, cutting his hair sometimes felt like one more duty I had to perform.  Of course, I loved him, and wanted to help him, but often I felt some resentment that this task meant less sleep or less time I could do something other than helping people all day.  I never verbalized this to my husband, but he could tell that I was a bit put out.  He knew that I was cutting his hair out of obligation and not love.

One day I came in and he was cutting his own hair.  I was surprised.  When I asked him why he was cutting his own hair, he explained he felt bad asking me to do his hair when it seemed like it was so stressful for me.  He could tell that my motives weren’t pure. Although he was very gracious, I lost some of his trust in that exchange.

Be Reliable

It may seem intuitive that reliability builds trust–however being reliable can be challenging.  It certainly requires deliberate effort.

My kids are often slow at getting out of the house.  I often have to remind them multiple times to put their shoes on, go to the bathroom, and get out in the car.  I realized one day that I’m not very reliable; when I say it’s time to go, I’m still running around grabbing a diaper for my diaper bag, getting my own shoes, or running back in the house to get something I forgot.  My children have learned not to trust me when I say it’s time now.  I am trying to be more reliable.  I have been making an effort to get myself ready first and really be ready to go when I ask them to come.  Things have improved—we’re still not smooth as silk but it has improved things.  When my kids know I’ll be ready when I call them, they are better at coming right away.

Be Willing to Sacrifice

Sometimes the tiniest sacrifices build the most trust.   Small sacrifices can add up over time to be more meaningful than big ones offered once.

My mom made small sacrifices for me growing up.  I remember the budget was often tight when I was in my teen years.  Like most girls I was anxious to look attractive and feel like I had stylish clothes. I remember multiple times my mom would say, “You can have the clothing budget this month.”  I knew she needed new clothes as well, and was giving me the budget knowing how important it was to me.  These moments added marbles to my jar.

Notice and Act

Most people aren’t brave enough to ask for help when they really need it unless things get pretty dire. Interestingly, research shows that asking for help is one of the most powerful ways to build trust.

I will always be grateful to an amazing friend, Melinda Call, who knew how to be a marble jar friend.  Shortly after my fourth baby she must have noticed the dark bags under my eyes from being up late with my newborn. She casually mentioned she’d be happy to watch my baby one morning a week so that I could have a time I could count on to nap or have time to do whatever I’d like.  I was so taken back.  I never would have asked someone to do that, and yet I so desperately needed it. She didn’t know that I had struggled with post-partum depression after each of my last 3 children, partially due to lack of sleep and feeling constantly needed without much of a break. My friend just observed and acted.

Own Your Words

If you say something, own it.   It’s easy to say something, and mean something else.  We diminish trust when we  expect others to know from our tone of voice or from our facial expression what we really mean.

One time a friend asked if I could watch her children.  Normally I don’t mind watching kids owever, it was a stressful day, and I was feeling overwhelmed and worn down.  Her children were lively and busy and I knew it would drain me if I took them that day.  Although I wanted to help, I should have probably said no.  Instead I agreed to watch her kids not wanting to disappoint my friend.

The kids were particularly difficult–drawing with permanent marker all over my daughter’s new bedspread, breaking some items in the house, and dumping every basket of toys out.  I found myself resenting my friend and feeling frustrated that she would ask me to watch her children at the last minute.  When she arrived to pick up the kids she asked how it went.  “It was fine.”  I said.  But my tone of voice and face said otherwise.

As I look back, I wasn’t adding many marbles to her jar.  I agreed to watch her kids and yet I blamed her for bringing difficult kids over on an inconvenient day.  I didn’t own my words when I accepted the responsibility or when I gave the report on the day.  My friend, I’m sure, felt mixed signals from me.   It must have been confusing and frustrating for her!

Love Even If They Don’t Deserve It

Most of us know when we’ve let someone else down; we feel less lovable.  One of the most powerful ways to build trust with others is to love them even when they don’t deserve it.

When stress gets to me and I feel overwhelmed, sometimes I am snappy and critical of my family.  Really this isn’t fair and certainly isn’t pleasant.  My husband’s response has taught me a lot about trust.  Sometimes he will hug me and ask how I’m doing.  Occasionally he will ask if he can take the kids while I have some personal time, or make a joke that diffuses the tension.  Sometimes he simply ignores it.  Loving me through my yucky times and not being critical back to me really melts my heart.  It fills my jar of trust.  Interestingly it makes me WANT to be more loving and kind.

It’s The Little Things

It’s the little things that build trust–the way we respond when our children spill something, choosing to do something inconvenient because it’s important to someone else, forgiving small or big injustices, smiling just because, deliberately noticing ways we can help, doing what we say we’ll do, owning what we say, and really doing things out of love and not obligation that slowly add up to relationships of trust.

Do the people you love most have a jar full of marbles from you?

Begin adding marbles to their jars by doing small and simple things consistly over time.

Brene Brown tells her story about the marble jar in one of her books, Daring Greatly.  She also gives an audio rendition of the story in this video called, “The Anatomy of Trust.”

https://brenebrown.com/videos/anatomy-trust-video/

How To Not Fear Fear: Metabolizing Emotions

We spend a lot of our time as human beings trying to escape or ignore or change these types of feelings. Why?  Because they feel awful!  No one likes feeling fear, or feeling stressed, overwhelmed, afraid, embarrassed, or depressed.  The problem is that when we avoid negative emotions they stay around longer, get more intense and rarely address the takes up lots of brain space!  There is a better way to handle difficult emotions.

Negative Emotions Are Essential

Our brains and bodies are programmed with these feelings to move us to action.  If a truck is headed straight for us, we feel fear.  And, our fear drives us to move out of the way. If we have too many things required of us, we feel overwhelm.  This feeling drives us to eliminate the unessential.

However, in our modern world, it’s easy to feel that we SHOULD feel happy or peaceful all the time. We think if we feel something negative, we should fix it.  We have so many easy options for escape!

Avoiding Negative Emotions

When our to-do list feels too long, we can turn on Netflix and get lost in a show instead.  When dinner our is crazy, we eat a cookie on the counter to dull the overwhelm and get a hit of joy—even temporarily.  After a difficult conversation that didn’t go well, we can drown our guilt and disappointment by pushing a few buttons on Amazon and a box shows up on our door with a new pair of shoes.

Everyone has different emotions they try to avoid, and there are myriad methods of avoiding them; eating, shopping, TV, staying busy, anger, withdrawing, sleeping, alcohol, drugs, porn, gambling, working etc.  When we avoid emotions, we never process them.  They continue to cause us problems.  And, the things we do to avoid negative emotions cause us trouble sometimes too.

The Problem with Avoiding Negative Emotions

There are 3 problems with trying to escape emotions:

  1. The things we do to escape difficult emotions sometimes have negative consequences.

    Here is an example:  There was a time in my life when I felt so overwhelmed and discouraged I listened to audiobooks all the time—especially at dinner time and crazy times in the car.  It seemed like a benign enough escape.  I knew it wasn’t ideal for my family but I wasn’t sure how else to deal with the chaos without becoming a person I didn’t like. I checked out.  While it saved my kids a lot of yelling, my escape also robbed me of precious time and interactions with my kids.

  2. When we don’t deal with an emotion, it sticks around and continues to resurface

    Emotions are simply chemicals in our body. Their job is to alert us of something important and move us to action if  necessary.  If they are not allowed to complete their job, they continue to resurface. Sometimes the emotion itself rises up again and again and other times it shows up in different ways.
    It’s sort of like those windup music boxes where you turn the crank and the ballerina dances to music.  If you keep the box open, eventually she will stop.  But, if you shut the box, she stops.  However, every time the box is opened she dances and the music plays. It may take many times of opening and closing to finish the cycle.  That is how our emotions work too.
    I had a baby just a few weeks after my mother passed away.  I wanted to grieve my mother’s loss—she was a tremendous presence in my life.  However, I was busy around the clock taking care of a newborn, an emotional toddler, and a needy pre-schooler.  We were in the middle of an international move and I didn’t know how to grieve in the midst of the insanity!  So I just closed the metaphorical music box (unconsciously of course) and kept trying to survive.

    Over the next few years however, when strong emotions surfaced, my grief was often right there.  Our move to a foreign country was overwhelming and difficult and I found myself sobbing nightly.  (I had moved to other countries before and been fine.  But this time I was totally lost.)  I thought it was the move itself—but looking back I see it was that grief resurfacing.  My grief resurfaced again and again as difficult things emerged in my life.  The ballerina had to play her part.

  3. It takes so much work to keep the negative emotions away we don’t have as much space in our minds for the things we really want to do!

    Recently I was trying to concentrate on something and my daughter was whistling.  It was really grating on me.  I tried to ignore it, but the harder I tried to not be bothered by it, the more intense the irritation began to be. In fact, it was requiring so much effort to “ignore” it, I hardly had any brain space left for the work I was doing.   This happens with emotions too—when we are angry at someone or irritated and we keep trying to push it down, it often consumes us even when we don’t realize it.

There is a better way to deal with emotions.

Allow Your Emotion

Most people think that if they allow their emotion they will end up doing something they don’t want to do—like yell at their kids, or eat too many cookies, or sleep until 10 in the morning. However, allowing a feeling is different than acting on it.  Allowing a feeling just means that we feel it, we notice it, we don’t avoid it.  It doesn’t mean we act on it.  In fact, allowing an emotion actually allows the emotion to dissipate, so we are less likely to re-act to it.

Emotions are just chemicals in our body.  When we feel them, they are simply moving around inside of us.  The emotion itself won’t hurt us.  This is a powerful piece of knowledge.  When you know that you can handle any emotion, you stop feeling afraid of certain emotions and you don’t have to spend as much time avoiding negative emotions.

Our bodies need food to survive.  When we eat food, the body metabolizes it–breaks it down, absorbs it and sends it out to the body for fuel.  Similarly, emotions are essential to our survival. They provide the necessary impetus to eat, live, reproduce, find purpose and even get out of bed in the morning. When our body encounters an emotion, it’s crucial to metabolize it just as it would food.  It’s important for the emotion to be allowed to run it’s course, be identified and serve as fuel for the appropriate action.

How to Metabolize an Emotion

Become an observer of yourself.  When you notice yourself feeling a negative emotion like fear, stress, anger, embarrassment, disappointment, frustration, shame etc. don’t shove it down or numb it away by distracting yourself.  Instead, close your eyes and “watch” the emotion in your body for a minute.

It seems like just when I start to chat with another adult one of my girls decides they need something.  They are often pulling on my arm or nagging, “mom, mom, mom, mom….can we go?”. My two-year old often just lays down and howls.  Even after I’ve let them know we will be leaving in 5 min. they continue to pester me.  I often feel irritated!  Here’s how I process this emotion.

  1. Name the emotion

    I say to myself “This is irritation.”

  2. Describe what it feels like.

    Imagine that you were going to describe to someone what it feels like to feel a particular emotion.  You’d describe where you felt it in the body, what the sensation was like, what color it was, if it was hot or cold etc.I say, “I’m feeling really irritated right now. I feel tension in my eyebrows, my lower jaw feels tingly, and my lungs feel a little short of air.  To me irritation is a warm emotion—I picture it as orange goop sort of slowly building up in my lungs.

  3. Allow it to hang out.

    Remember it is just a chemical in your body, it can’t hurt you!  Many people worry that if you allow emotion to hang out, it will cause you to act on it. Don’t act on it (acting is an escape too.)  Just feel it.

    I say to myself.  “This is fine.  This is just irritation.  I can just be a person who is irritated.  I’m going to calmly continue my conversation, and it’s okay if my kids fall apart for a few minutes.  I don’t have to get angry at them.  Each time I just observe my irritation and don’t act on it, it becomes less intense.”

  4. Continue to allow it until it dissipates

    Of course my brain wants to sell me all sorts of ideas. “My kids are so disrespectful.” “They know better.” “Uh, this always happens.”  The more these ideas creep in, the more irritated I feel.  I just try to go back to noticing the emotion.  At first it seems to become the most important thing in that moment!  I can hardly think of anything else.  However, the more I allow it (and refuse to act on the emotion) it gets less and less intense.  It slowly starts to go away.    Soon I’ve forgotten all about it.

  5. Allow the emotion each time it re-surfaces.

    And it will!  But each time it comes back, it will be less and less intense.

    By this time, I’m likely walking to the car since I had told my kids it would only be five minutes.  However once everyone is back in the car, my brain loves to remind me of the irritating moment we just had.  When the thoughts start again, the emotion starts again.  Back to step 1.  But each time I allow the feeling until it dissipates.

Our emotions are just chemicals in our body.  They won’t hurt us and there’s nothing to fear.  If we try to ignore them or escape them we end up with a lot more trouble than the original emotion created in the first place.  Simply acknowledging and being willing to feel the emotion, allows it to pass.  What would your life be like if you weren’t afraid of feeling any emotion?

How do you handle negative emotion in your life?

What negative feelings do you fear most?
What do you do to avoid them?

Next time you notice a negative emotion try these steps:
1.  Name the emotion
2.  Describe it
3.  Allow it to hang out
4.  Continue till it dissipates
5.  Allow the emotion to hang out each time it re-surfaces

Abundance

“Both abundance and lack exist simultaneously in our lives, as parallel realities. It is always our conscious choice which secret garden we will tend… when we choose not to focus on what is missing from our lives but are grateful for the abundance that’s present— love, health, family, friends, work, the joys of nature and personal pursuits that bring us pleasure— the wasteland of illusion falls away and we experience Heaven on earth.”

The Best Truth Can Make Us Happy

Most of us assume that the way we see things, is the way they are.   But have you ever disagreed with someone about what happened in a particular situation?  You both KNOW you are right?  There’s a scientific explanation for why different people can have a totally different idea of what the truth is!  The explanation can also improve your happiness.

Magic Words

I remember when I was young, my mother would burst into singing during dinner when we forgot to use the words, “please,” and “thank you.”  You might remember the song, “There are two little magic keys that will open any door with ease.  One little word is ‘thanks’ and the other little word is ‘please.”  I learned it as gospel truth that it is nice manners to say “thank you” when someone helps you.

 When we moved to China, we employed a woman to help us with some cooking, cleaning and child care.  She worked so hard, and amazed me with her efficiency.  As the mom of 3 little ones I was SO thankful for her help.  When she was at my home, I would often thank her for all she did.  I noticed that she looked very awkward when I said “thank you.”  Our communication was fairly limited since she spoke Mandarin and I spoke English so it was difficult to flesh out what was going on.  At first I thought maybe my pronunciation was off and I was saying something rude unintentionally!

However, I learned later, that culturally it is rude to say thank you to someone who is close to your family.  Family members and people in the inner circle of friends consider it essential to be loyal to each other.  Serving each other is something that is expected.  Saying thank you carries the connotation that the person is not part of your inner circle.  I was floored.  I had never considered that saying “thank you” could be rude!  In my culture saying thank you was  kind, but in China, in this context, it was not.

Is There Another Truth?

This is a fascinating principle to apply to the mind.  At any one time there are multiple truths that exist at the same time.   Our brain is used to seeing things in one particular way and it’s most efficient and comfortable for the brain to keep thinking about things in the same way.  However, keeping an open mind to the possibility of multiple true perspectives can be powerful in feeling happier.

In his book “The Happiness Advantage,” Shawn Achor, a positive psychologist suggests that at any one moment there are multiple realities that are true and available to us about any given situation.  He asserts that people who are happy often have the ability to discern multiple parallel realities, and select the most beneficial one.

There is so much information coming at us at any one time, it is impossible to synthesize all of it.  The brain uses shortcuts in order to select relevant information and process it in a meaningful way.  While this is essential to our survival, it also means that the “truth” we see is filtered.

These filters can be anything from our belief system, to our culture, to our anxiety to preference, to fatigue and many more things.  We don’t mean to skew our reality but it is a product of being a human.  The good news is, that if your reality isn’t working, there are several true realities for the same situation.

The Truth About Winter

Here is an example of how this concept increased my happiness.  Although I grew up in  Colorado, which is a four season climate, I don’t love winter.  As winter starts approaching, it’s easy for me to start feeling sort of anxious and trapped—even edgy.  The default reality that I think of related to winter is the one where my fingers feel stiff and cold, I have to bundle my kids to go out and find lost mittens, I have to scrape windshields and shovel sidewalks, and the cars slip on the roads.  The landscape is monochromatic, and people hurry between their cars and their inside destinations.

However, there is an alternative reality—equally believable to me—that exists as well.  There are things I do love about winter.  I love a white Christmas.  I enjoy skiing, sledding with my kids and playing Fox and Geese.  I love their rosy cheeks from the cold as they come in after being outside.  I love the excuse to put on sweaters and boots.  I love drinking hot herbal teas and hot chocolate and I love winter baking.   It’s nice to have an excuse to cuddle up and read or watch a show.

Both realities are true, but one will create more happiness and less feelings of resentment and isolation.  Turning into a Polyanna who can’t see the truth will not be helpful.  We absolutely need to recognize all the factors, but we don’t have to allow exclusively negative information we take in to form our view of reality.  At any given moment in the winter I will take in lots of information–everything from cold fingers and scraping the windshield to feeling cozy and noticing my children’s rosy cheeks.  As my brain chooses data to process, I can purposely choose to notice things I love and things I enjoy and spend more time thinking about those.  There will still be the negative, but I don’t have to allow those details to inform the chatter in my brain or my view of life.  I choose my reality by what I choose to focus on.  Choosing to live in the most beneficial true reality will increase our happiness.

Live in the Best Truth

What drags you down?

If you had to write a newspaper article about that situation or person or event, what would be the title of it?  Explore more than one reality about it.  Could you write a different newspaper article about the same situation that was equally true and but highlighted different facts?  Choose to highlight to your mind the facts and stories that bring the most happiness.