Psychology Addict # 29 |The Architecture of Sustainable Happiness – Positive Psychology

in #psychology7 years ago (edited)

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George & The lottery winner


Last week when I spoke to my mother she told me that George, a colleague of hers, asked after me. George is my mother’s age. They worked together for many years when I was a kid. Over two decades ago, on a Sunday afternoon, George went to the water park with his children, where he had an accident (a fall) which caused him to lose the sensation of his legs and become wheelchair bound. Nowadays, George lives a good retired life which he enjoys with his wife, children and grandchildren.

Also last weekend, my husband told me about this TV program he watched. It was a sort of documentary on a young lottery winner, who soon after the euphoria and extravagant celebration of becoming a millionaire, went back to her old self. She did not lose her money or anything like that; the program was an account of her life before and after winning millions. And, based on what my husband told me, despite all the changes the money brought to her life, in essence her general level of satisfaction was still the same.

These two events reminded me of a study I came across a while ago (The architecture of sustainable happiness) that discussed how little influence (10%) life circumstances have on people’s well-being. But, thehedonic adaptation theory of life satisfaction proposes an explanation for this through stating that although our subjective well-being changes after negative and positive life experiences, it always goes back to a baseline level sooner than later - this baseline level being something that is innate and responsible for 50% of our levels of happiness.

So, later in the week, I Skyped my mother and asked her how much George changed after his accident. She told me that in less than 10 months he went back to his old activities, including taking his family to the same water park! My mother said he cursed his wheelchair every now and then; but would soon apologise to it in a jokey way. I don’t remember George before his accident, the George I have always known is the one my mother described: an extrovert.

Extraversion, along with other factors we will discuss next, is one of the features seen in the people who report to experience high levels of subjective well-being most of the time. In this post we are going to use the term subjective well-being, happiness and satisfaction interchangeably.

Primary correlates & determinants of well-being


Extraversion

Extraversion is a personality trait that prompts a tendency in people to socialize and seek leisure activities. Since social relationships – like spending time with those we regard dear to us – is high-up on the list as the cause of well-being, extraversion is amongst the most notable correlates of happiness. Of course, this is an association; so, please don’t get confused and start to think that extraversion actually causes happiness. In the same way we could not say that neuroticism is a cause for unhappiness. However, it correlates with low subjective well-being because it is a personality trait that prompts a tendency to isolation and experience of negative emotions (eg. excessive worry).

Relationship

Being in a relationship is also high up on the list of correlates of subjective well-being; of course you know this means a quality relationship. But what is a quality relationship? When asking couples what are the foremost determinants of satisfaction in their life together, they stated financial security, sharing of responsibilities, sex and friendship.

Unsurprisingly, this list of priorities does not follow the same order for women as for men. I suppose this is why another study found that heterosexual men appear to benefit more from marriage, in terms of overall well-being, than heterosexual women, who seem to be better off single.

Just in case you are curious, the reason for this is that single women appear to receive more emotional support from family and friends when they are single.

Work

Another significant determinant of subjective well-being is work satisfaction, and this is not directly related with the pay-check; it is rather related with work content and healthy relationship with colleagues. This highlights, yet again, the important part that social situations play on either decreasing or improving well-being.

Family

Finally, there is family, an element in life that can prompt both happiness and unhappiness from time to time. For example, a 2003 research revealed cases in which couples which had either small children or teenagers actually experienced a decline in the quality of their relationship.

Is this all? Is your level of happiness in life going to fully depend on whether you like your co-workers, or how good your marriage is at any given moment? No! There is way more to it and this is what the following study, by Lyubormisky, proposes.

The Architecture of Sustainable Happiness



This is a model built upon a diligent review of the studies and research conducted on the primary determinants of happiness. Where life circumstances, which also include all the topics we discussed previously, count towards 10% of the variations of our level of satisfaction in life, which inevitably goes back to a set point (hedonic adaptation), which appears to be genetically determined and account for 50%.

For example, George has always been what we would call a satisfied person. That is definitely a trait that has remained stable through his lifetime. So, when his accident (life circumstance) took place and he learnt he wouldn’t be able to walk again, he understandably was devastated; however, after a couple of months he was already ready to receive his co-workers and watch his football matches on TV, and in less than a year he had completely returned to his old activities. Do you remember when we talked about resilience not so long ago? Maybe this would be yet another element to count towards that 50% set point.

The same is valid for the lottery winner who I know very little about; hence, everything I say here is pure speculation. But, if we assume she is the sort of person who feels unsatisfied in general, then after the exhilaration of winning the lottery (life circumstance) wore off she went back to her set point, which may be one of low level of subjective well-being.

Intentional Activity


For those out there who are similar to George, life overall can be a pleasant experience. But, what about those who are more like the lottery winner? Does that mean they are determined to live a life of low subjective well-being that is 10% dictated by life circumstances and 50% by genetics?

Well, not according to this model, which leaves us with 40% of intentional activities. And this is where we can become proactive and take responsibility for our own well-being. This refers to us engaging, and committing to practices in life that will result in improved levels of happiness and mental-health. It counterbalances hedonic adaptation and delivers the means for us to change our levels of overall satisfaction beyond what is pre-set biologically and imposed by circumstances in life.

What sort of practices can help us change the way we feel for the better?

Luckily, there are endless (including being active and adopting a healthy diet)! However, for the sake of keeping this post not too long I am going to briefly discuss only forgiveness and gratitude; as these are practices that along with mindfulness and altruism have received a lot of attention from positive psychology lately.

Forgiveness


Simply put, forgiveness is ‘to let go’, and for many it isn’t an easy thing to accomplish. But like with everything in life, the more one practices, the better one becomes good at it. So, in a way, this can start with the small things. Not holding a grudge over what in the bigger picture is not really important is a good start. Unfortunately, some people choose to engage with exactly the opposite practice and spend a life time of blaming, harbouring grudges and sometimes even nursing vindictive thoughts.

The bad news here is that nursing this sort of emotion not only prevents people from moving on, but also sparks sadness, anger, and consequently higher heart rate and blood pressure, which in turn may generate anxiety. Well, you get it! It’s a mess! Meanwhile, research has demonstrated that people who are able to forgive and let go of things, are more likely to be happy and serene; aspects that are reflected also in their physical health.

Further, in positive psychology, forgiveness is not solely about that person who has hurt you. It is also about forgiving yourself for a past wrongdoing. And the same interventions can be applied in both scenarios; with the most common one being writing a letter which can be sent or not. In case that situation is out of question, simply, imagining forgiving that person or yourself can alleviate feelings of resentment.

Gratitude

‘Practicing gratitude’ is likely to be positive psychology’s intervention most quoted among researchers. This must be because of the significant and surprising results obtained from several studies. ‘The three good things’ exercise is one of my favourites. And I say this because it just shows how balance is needed in everything in this life. For example, did you know there is such thing as too much gratitude? Oh yeah! Listen to this:

This exercise asks participants to, just before they go to sleep, recall their day and pinpoint three things that went well for them, or that they felt grateful for. An important ‘rule’ here is for the participants to be able to identify their own role in that positive experience. The findings that surprised the researchers the most were the results from the participants who undertook the exercise three times a week for one month and a half. It turns out that their well-being decreased a little. While the well-being of those who did the same exercise once a week for six weeks increased.

The psychologists concluded that it is beneficial and important to remind ourselves of the good things we have in life, as long as it doesn’t become a practice that feels more like a chore.

Looking back at George


If we continue to use George to illustrate this study it becomes clear how he manages to live a content life. He completely let go of what happened to him. Even if for a while he blamed himself for falling over on the water-toboggan after fooling around. He forgave himself and instead nurtured feelings of gratitude for still being there for his wife and children.

Isn’t this what normally happens to some people who go through similar life-changing-circumstances? Normally, they report being happier than before. But, if you notice it is partly because, in their new life, they have embraced a cause, became charitable, and even don’t take things for granted anymore.

So, you see, the point of positive psychology is to raise awareness about how adopting this sort of practices in our lives results in higher levels of well-being, and more importantly, how they work towards preventing mental ill-health. After all, one doesn’t need to have been through such an extreme life circumstance to be mindful, forgiving and grateful.

Scepticism


This post and my previous post on Mindfulness have explored and discussed some of the aspects of positive psychology, a relatively new branch within the studies of mental-health, which unlike traditional psychology, focuses only on positive feelings (and practices) through scientific methods. For the sceptics, positive psychology is nothing more than a fad that will fail to discover anything new, as all it seems to do is to state the obvious.

The naysayers of positive psychology are very harsh indeed. To state this discipline is not adding anything new to the field is rather extreme. Take the very study I discussed here, which revealed that happiness is partially innate. This is something that was previously unknown.

Still, we all know that there is nothing new in talking about the benefits of practices such as forgiveness, gratitude and acceptance; topics that have been around for thousands of years and have been highly nurtured in religious societies. But as the world becomes more of a secular place and values such as those seem to get diluted in the medium of modern life; positive psychology may just have come in time to rescue practices that will keep compassion alive among us.

[Original Content by Abigail Dantes - 2018]


Reference List:

Argyle, M. (1994) The Psychology of Social Class, London, Routledge.

DeNeve, K.M., and Cooper, H. (1998) ‘The happy personality: a meta analyses of 137 personality traits and subjective well-being’, *Psychological Bulletin, vol. 124, pp. 197-229.

Russell, J.A. and Well, P.A (1994) ‘Predictor of happiness in married couples’, Personality and Individual Differences, vol. 17, pp. 313-21

Lyubormisky, S., Sheldon, K.M. and Shkade, D. (2005) ‘Pursuing happiness: the architecture of sustainable change’, *Review of General Psychology, vol.9, pp.111-31.

Lyubormisky, S. (2008), The how of happiness: A scientific approach to getting the life you want, New York, Peguin Press.

Seligman, M.E.P, Steen, T., Park, N., and Peterson, P., (2005) ‘Positive psychology progress, empirical validation of interventions’, American Psychologist, vol. 60, no. 5, pp. 410-21


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Dear reader,

Today I would like to take advantage of his timely opportunity and let you know how grateful I am for you, who consistently give me encouragement and inspiration. 😊

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Definitivamente cada post suyo es una ensenanza mi estimada @abigail-dantes y sabe las palabras exactas para llegarle a cada persona, en estos momentos no solo yo sino toda mi familia somos asiduos lectores de sus post. Digamos que llegan en un momento de extrema necesidad de ayuda, no solo monetaria sino emocional, se que es una persona que se toma el tiempo leer cada comentario y votarlo, le comento que en su post pasado me dio un voto significativo a mi comentario y con el sbd recaudado de ese comentario pude completar para pagar el analisis de una biopsia para mi padre que posiblemente tenga cancer de prostata, quizas muchos no se tomen el tiempo de leer este comentario y no lo sabran, pero creame que le estoy infinitamente agradecido ya que soy de venezuela y la situacion aqui esta muy dificil. Esa actitud decidida que tiene George es la que tiene hoy mi padre y es lo que me motiva a seguir luchando junto a el. Saludos mi estimada @abigail-dantes reciba muchas bendiciones

Oh @senteno77, I am so sorry to hear about your father. Have you received the results of his exams? I send you and your family all my positive thoughts and love here from Portugal! I appreciate so much you take the time to read my work and it mades me so happy to hear your family members read it too :) this is very kind !
I hope you can find peace whithin yourselves despite this difficult circumstance.
All the best to you and your dad my dear 🌷

Aun no le han entregado el resultado de la biopsia, que es lo que determinara que tratamiento seguira, tiene una actitud muy positiva y eso es lo importante. Muchas gracias por su amabilidad @abigail-dantes. Saludos sinceros

Dear Abgigail,

I am late but here I am:)

To measure the well-being, there is also a method I can recommend to you.

"Relationships", "work" and "family" are two of the five pillars of identity within the systemic therapy approach after Hilarion Petzold.
The pillars are:

  1. my existence within my body and mind (health, physically, mentally, sexuality)
  2. social environment (family of origin, current family, friends, colleagues etc.)
  3. every form of activity (paid and unpaid work, care, cultural activities etc,)
  4. matter (material goods, wealth, money)
  5. ethics (religion, spirituality, virtues)

I find it of good use to get people answered how they feel in their lives. In addition, I use a scale from 1-10 for each pillar to get quick and clear insight. I myself used art to give each pillar a meaning. It's quite interesting to paint pictures and look at them after some years.

I am convinced that all of them actually should go under the umbrella of ethics (which includes what you say about forgiveness). It is to me of great logic that without acknowledging ethics all other pillars will suffer. Expanding the frame, even more, I also would add to No. 2 also strangers as well as the rest of living creatures.

That completes the system in my eyes.

I would like you to try the method first with yourself. I am curious what you will say. Do you like to do that experiment?

I appreciate reading also not only your articles but your replies to all of the comments. I can see why you are doing it once a week. There is going a lot of care and thoughts into them.

Hello Erika :D

I kept postponing the reply to your comment because I saw you had brought me this wonderful activity! I wanted to do it with nothing else playing in my head! :)
So here I am with a nice cup of tea, listening to some music ... let's go!

Number 1 - I would say 7, mostly because of the component 'mentally' - Lately I have too much on my plate, and I have been feeling both overwhelmed and stressed on a daily basis!
Number 2 - It's a 10
Number 3 - I love this pillar Erika and I am going to say 10!
Number 4 - 9
Number 5 - I am not a religious person, but I believe in kindness - luckily, I haven't found myself in the position of having to act against my moral values. I will give this a 9 because the other day I crossed a pathway in order to avoid talking to someone. I had a million things in my head and did not have the energy! In my defense: he doesn't know when to stop talking (bless him!). :P

Thank you for this Erika! It even gave me the time for some self-reflection. Beautiful :)
All the best to you & your family!
:*

Ps: You could turn this activity into a Steemit challenge! :D

Dear Abigail,
thank you for being open to this little experiment. I am glad you took it for self reflection and enjoyed doing it.

I would say there is nothing to worry ;-) - the 7 is totally okay also.

Though I wouldn't be me without being a little bit more tedious.

If you're between 9 and 10, there's little or no room for frustrating experiences up to the top, which means that this level may need to be pressurized and held - that can feel very heavy in times. This raises the question of whether you have considered this exercise to be a daily result or a general one for the most recent time in your life. The second aspect would be, if I were to ask you with every single pillar whether you think that there are still things that could be improved, you would also have no space to move up because you are already there:)

By improvement I don't mean to be more powerful or to create more things in life or otherwise in this direction, but rather to be "changeable". Does that make sense to you?

Therefore, I would cautiously suggest that you check again to see if you would change anything about some of the results. If not, the better.

I can't give you an exact reason, but I think you are someone who is prone to perfection.; -)

Thank you again & talk to you soon!
<3

Hello Erika,
This is really wonderful. There is no way to conclude this experiment without deep self-reflection. I am going to copy the pillars here to prevent me having to go back up each time, so here we go:

my existence within my body and mind (health, physically, mentally, sexuality)

I could not have been more efficient at watching my my body if I was a medical equipment. How I feel about my body is tied to my happiness. So when I am not feeling 100% either due to illness or my weight (which has always been more than average), I always feel sad. And sadness is a feeling I always try to get rid of as quickly as possible. I would say I am at 9.

social environment (family of origin, current family, friends, colleagues etc.)

** The way my life is now, it would not matter if there is a war going on in the country where I live. I am pretty much oblivious of most of the negative things going on in the world because I am insulated from them because of my family of origin, steemit family, steemit colleagues, offline friends and colleagues. I have been blessed with an awesome social support system. This is a 9**

every form of activity (paid and unpaid work, care, cultural activities etc,)

** I am inclined to believe that every work done, whether for self or for others, is beneficial to us. Therefore, I feel sad and irresponsible whenever I am unable to do some meaningful work. As a result I have so much activities in my life that 24 hours are not enough. So this is a 10.**

matter (material goods, wealth, money)

I have never had much money but I have material goods. I place little value on these things because I realized early in my life that they are not totally under our control. Therefore giving them a place in dertermining how we feel has the potential of causing us harm in the long run. I am not wealthy but I feel like I am. This is an 8.

ethics (religion, spirituality, virtues)

I was born in a Christian family. However, from a very young age, no religion has been able to completely answer most of the questions I have about life, the meaning of life and why we are here. I have found snippets of satisfying answers from several religions, science and mere reflections on life in totality. The only thing that makes sense in this life is love and I believe in love. I am totally at peace with myself and everybody else. Therefore, this is definitely a 10

Oh, Abby, please forgive me once again for turning your blog to forum. I could not help myself. Thank you, Erika for this experiment. I could not have thought about all these without it. All the best from Nigeria to you two.

Happy Valentines Day!

Hello my Dear! You don't need to apologize for anything. You can turn my blog into whatever you want. And, I only say this because I trust you enough to know you would only brings us positive constructive things anyway :) Also, I thoroughly enjoyed reading your feedback! Let's see what Erika will have to say about our replies!! :D

Happy Valentine's day to you too (but, just to let you know, Brazilians celebrate it only in June! :P). Still, I wish you all the best always my dear!

... But, just to let you know, Brazilians celebrate it only in June! :P)

That means double celebration for you, my dear. Who would have thought there was another date for St. Valentine except February, the 14th? Well, that's good to know. Thank you for the permission to use your blog. Yeah, I'm waiting for Erika too.

Hey Churchboy,
Thank you for taking part with Abi:)

I will take my time and look closer at your results and just wanted to let you know that I read your comment and you should know that it's on my list. If you are okay without a response from me let me know. If you would like to have one, please also let me know:)
I totally forgot Valentines day, was it yesterday? LOL
Take care,
E.

Thank you for dropping a comment when you saw my response to the assignment. Of course, I would love to hear what you think. I'm here whenever you are able to reply. I enjoyed the assignment. Thank you.

Well done wonderful words
We should be grateful for what life offers us and do more
It is conviction that makes us happy‏

Oh! Thank you @slimanepro :)
I am very glad to hear you liked it!
Best.

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Unsurprisingly, this list of priorities does not follow the same order for women as for men. I suppose this is why another study found that heterosexual men appear to benefit more from marriage, in terms of overall well-being, than heterosexual women, who seem to be better off single.

This is what I've been noticing more and more as I grow older and gain more experience of life, but also now that women have more freedom, can divorce without being ostracized, etc., it's easier to compare their happiness levels inside and outside of marriage.

My (tentative) conclusions, coupled with what I know of biology, religion, and anthropology, are that monogamy is primarily a male invention, probably meant to make certain the male has a child: in a free-for-all polygamous society, all women would know whether they had a child, but no man could ever be sure.

The vast majority of separations I see around me are initiated by women, and women tend to get well real fast, whereas men are miserable, sometimes for years. Women also seem to enjoy the single life, whereas men appear to lead the bachelor life more like a kind of social pressure rather than actual enjoyment.

And if you look at religions the picture becomes even clearer: it's men imposing monogamy on women. You could even argue that when women embrace monogamy, it's just the successful brainwashing on the part of men, who also invented all the art and music and novels that talk about love, always written by men!

Anyway I'm stating all that in a rather sketchy manner and without any support or argument. But I was thinking what kind of series to start doing after I'm done with my biology series, and I'm thinking to tackle sex differences, cognitive, emotional, etc. I'll be learning and posting at the same time, since my knowledge of the topic isn't deep, and I think it's something that objectively interests everyone: who doesn't like to talk about men vs women!

I veered off topic there, but great post! It's nice how you ground the theoretical in the personal by using George's case study. And I think your posts are getting better. Like you say "the more one practices, the better one becomes good at it"!

Forgiveness

Just today I saw this on my fb feed:

😄

OH MY GOD ! I don't know whether I am more amazed by his negative emotions or by his boldness to openly express them.

This is an incredibly interesting comment @alexander.alexis, and based on it only I am already looking forward to reading every post of your new series! Also, thank you so much for your always complimentary words :)

All the best to you!!

First of all, allow me to congratulate you for your content @abigail-dantes. Through your post I have given myself the opportunity to learn things that many people live on a daily basis through their circumstances and emotions, without knowing that these are more common in people than they imagine.

I believe that happiness is a state that we all yearn for, because it is the dreamed state, to be happy, with your partner, at work, to have an ideal home with exceptional children and surrounded by a very stable financial health. They are the things that in basic terms as you pronounce in your post are the priorities for your well-being and happiness satisfaction. Thing that is not a lie, we focus happiness on these basic aspects.

The detail is that if some day any of these things are not as you imagined or something unbalances your perfect plan, your world can come down, well, you have based your well-being on these things and once they are not as you think it happens to us like the winner of the lottery, because perhaps his happiness was based on his wealth and not on the really important thing like love, family and enjoy the good that he had wisely.

Now, God bless George, because despite such a difficult circumstance, with courage and his extraversion or ability to maintain his happiness, he went ahead. And to not lie to you, I'd like to be like George. Wao what character.

You mention Neuroticism, which seems to be the state in which emotions have an imbalance that leads to the person not being happy with himself with thoughts that evade situations that bring him pain. And I'm surprised because in the world there are many people like that and we think it's normal because I think that's their personality but today I learn that it's a matter of emotions that result in an alteration of their mental and physical health due to details of dissatisfaction or very low level of subjective well-being.

But dear friend Abigail I think there is a solution to this picture of emotions when we decide to do something for ourselves, because I agree with you that a low level of subjective well-being marks and damages lives, because it deteriorates our health, because everything we feel It will reflect on our body and behavior.

Finally I must say that this post has touched my heart in this section because I have loved the tips of forgiveness and gratitude that among the many others that exist especially these can be crucial for our subjective well-being. Being grateful is very necessary and the forgiveness really useful starting with ourselves and then with others. Forgiveness can be a liberating experience so that so many bonds of our minds release all the negative thoughts and bitterness that besets the soul.

Beautiful study today.
God bless you.

What a truly wonderful comment @rosibelsac :) It is because of feedback like this I feel inspired to talk about the things I do here. Thank you so much, you (and all the others too, of course) have just made me feel that all the research I put together for this post was worth my while! :D

Yeah, George is indeed a great character. That is why I decided to use him as an example. And also, as a homage to him, who is someone I respect and admire.

when we decide to do something for ourselves

Thank you for making this observation. Because it is indeed the main message of this post. We need to be proactive and work towards our our mental health! The beautiful thing about this is that we can do it through really simple things such as being grateful for our food, the roof over our heads ... and replace the negative thoughts and complaints with gratitude!

It is a simple thing to do, but that goes a long way towards our well-being!

All the best to you :)

Thank you abigail-dantes for your beautiful comment and take into account my appreciation.

Today I have taken the time to respond to this message because even if you do not believe it, your messages are very nutritious for my life, but especially this has been very important.

Since I read this post, my whole weekend has been full of anecdotes and messages that are aimed at happiness and what we do to get there and I have taken the time to reflect widely on it.

I have reflected and decided that in my life many things must change and for love of myself start to do something for me and look for search a emotional state in my life that is healthy.

And I really thank God for his writing and for take me the time to translate, read and take note of every interesting thing that you say, but above all I remind my brain of each of those important paragraphs for me to begin with. practice it, and as help.

Abigail successes.

I wait for the next ones. God guide you.

My subjective well-being dropped like 70% when I read:

Extraversion, along with other factors we will discuss next, is one of the features seen in the people who report to experience high levels of subjective well-being most of the time.

However, it did get back to my innate baseline level sooner rather than later. : )

Would you say that extraversion correlates with seeking leisure activities in general or only with seeking social leisure activities?

Maybe the amount of positive effect of being in a relationship also depends on intraversion/extraversion - my guess is that extraverts both need and enjoy it somewhat more than introverts.

I might be wrong, but, although I wouldn't mind having financial security at all, I would say that people who stated financial security as their top benefit from the relationship are hardly in a really high-quality relationship.

It is interesting how hard it can be to accept and forgive your own minor flaws or mistakes, while you would easily accept and forgive those same flaws or mistakes if you found them in other people. Actually, little idiosyncratic flaws and mistakes can sometimes even raise the attraction of a person!

Cheers! : )

Hi @lifenbeauty :)

What a beautiful comment this is!! The beginning of it actually made me laugh out loud. :D

Although extraverts seek social leisure activities in general, the tendency is to go for more social ones! I completely agree with what you said about the enjoyment extraverts and introvert get out of a relationship. In general, extraverts get more enjoyment out of things than introverts, for sure!

Your observation on financial stability is indeed a valid one! However, this is a finding that is aligned with Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

Your final paragraph is very, very interesting. You see, in many cases, flexibility with accepting one's own flaws and mistakes is linked with being a perfectionist - another personality trait :)

I wish you a great weekend!
All the best to you always.

Dear Abigail, I am not just saying this to flatter you (or to flatter my "other half" that your cartoon avatar is lol) but this article took me about 5-6 minutes to read (and comprehend I hope) and I honestly feel much wiser and enlightened.

There are several topics that you "touch" in your post, but I would like to focus on forgiveness exclusively, as I tend to believe that if we (humans) manage to forgive with a sincere heart (and brain I may add), then we have taken a HUGE step forward, when it comes to our spiritual and mental evolution.

You are writing, Further, in positive psychology, forgiveness is not solely about that person who has hurt you. It is also about forgiving yourself for a past wrongdoing

Allow me to add that when you forgive, you do an absolute favor to yourself and humanity as a whole (some may not realize how). On the one hand, you let hate/pain go and this helps no one but YOU, as you are the one who experiences all these ill emotions that usually derive from hate/pain/urge for vegeance as the other person will never ever be directly infected by your pain or hate (well, that is if you don't take action in order to hurt him/her back).

On the other hand, when you forgive you defeat your worst possible enemy in life, YOUR OWN EGO!

Last but not least, let's not forget about self-forgiveness...The healing "superpowers" this simple (but so hard to achieve) act has, could solve so many existential and personal issues that often happen to be sources of more serious mental problems.

Forgiveness is usually accompanied with love&balance (inside us). Unfortunately, manyyyyyyyy people fail to realize that...even 2018 years after the ONE preached all about the eternal gifts of unconditional love and true forgiveness.

Regardless, that was ONE inspirational and encouraging post, Abigail. Thank you...the gratitude usually comes last :)

@tkappa ❤️My cartoon-soul-mate! How wonderful to see you here.

Your incredible kind words made me smile :)

Please let me tell you how invaluable your comment is as it furthers the discussion about self-forgiveness. You explored with detail the benefits of nurturing healthy emotions and practices as well as how through it we heal not only ourselves but the world around us.

On the other hand, when you forgive you defeat your worst possible enemy in life, YOUR OWN EGO!

I suppose that if we become more aware of this important observation you made; both forgiving others and self-forgiveness can become a more achievable goal.

Thank you once again my dear, for your truly encouraging and beautiful comment!
All the best :)

I was inspired by your great post, Abigail. But it's true...It took me around 30 years (alright, let's not count the first few years that I was an innocent toddler lol) but I finally realized that my MAIN issue in life was my inability to forgive...others and myself. The power of forgiving is INCREDIBLE!

You take care dear Abigail :)

Looks like this one is for me. Although I too was a little "worried", when you talked about Extraversion

is amongst the most notable correlates of happiness

But then again, since I know now, after reading on, that I most likely inherited the happy spirit of my parents, I got over it quickly :-)

I find myself in most of what you say contributes to happiness, gratitude playing a big role. Thing is, I don't "practice" it, like a task I have to do more or less periodically. Its more of a general attitude. And when something great happens, I hesitate for a moment and let that thankful feeling flow through me. Of course, "great" means something different for everyone. For me it can be a comment here or my mother coming by with some cookies ;-)

I found it funny, when you wrote about

the participants who undertook the exercise three times a week for one month and a half. It turns out that their well-being decreased a little

It reminded me, of how I was often amazed when I lived in the States and there always seemed to be a formula for everything. Of course, many things actually worked a lot better than in Europe, which to me feels more "analog", compared to "digital" in the so called new world. Not sure if that makes any sense. What I'm trying to say is, when everyone in a society follows a certain procedure and knows the rules, a system is more efficient. Of course every society has these "rules" and rituals, but for an outsider, in the US they seemed to me more "scientific". I even saw it in something like dating. It was amazing, how my friends followed a kind of procedure, with predetermined turning points and reactions. European approach appears rather chaotic in many areas... at least in my generation. But with what might appear chaotic, another element comes in, which I see as freedom... and to come back to the subject: you are not grateful because of a set schedule or because you are supposed to be, but because you just are.

There is this Swiss happiness researcher, forgot his name... and he compared people with jobs, I mean working for someone with those self employed (on equal "career levels"). All the facts actually put self employed people in the disadvantage. They have to work more for less money, must take higher risks, no spare time, high responsibility and so on. Nevertheless, the self employed were generally happier and he explained it with the level of freedom and self determination.

Forgiveness is something I too had my problems with for a long time. No issue on more minor things and I can go along for quite a while. But when I feel someone really stabbed me in the back, I used to remain hostile forever (almost). I now learned, and I think its probably one of the benefits of getting older, that it is actually me, who simply had a wrong expectation. Its not necessarily the other one who changed or did something. On my side, its me, who wanted or expected something and it didn't happen that way... Of course I'm no saint and we all have people we just don't like or get along with. But holding a grudge and focusing ones thoughts on them or a particular issue is really just a waste of time and energy. Its better to go and do the dishes, if nothing else helps ;-)

Reading your beautiful post raised my already high level of happiness even a little more and I am really glad and grateful that I stumbled over your b&w photo with the glasses a few weeks ago...

Hello my dearest @reinhard-schmid

I am so pleased to hear you liked this post. I confess that I thought of you when I was writing about gratitude, as this is something that always comes across on your comments. You never fail to mention how grateful you are for your parents, wife, job etc... maybe this is why you cannot relate to it as a 'practice', as it is rather part of who you are :) and this why you are able to find happiness in a comment or cookies.

I found your comparison of the North American and European culture and how you associated it to the Swiss study very interesting. There is a lot to be said about the sense of freedom, particularly when it comes to subjective well-being.

Ahahahah, absolutely, doing the dishes is much, much better than holding grudges. And I must say this is the most practical, objective strategy for 'letting things go' that I have ever heard! Ahahah :) Excellent!

Ooohhhh I remember your first comment on my blog (on that photo post, of course!). I am very grateful that you have found my blog too my dear. Thank you for your constant support!

I wish you and you wife a wonderful Saturday evening!
All the best to you both always.
:*

I like the way you post. You seem inspired by stories around you. This is something I look for in psychological posts. A litlle bit of human in psychology. sometimes it is missed.

The story of your mother's friend seems to be very postive. I can tell similar stories f people I know. But something came to my mind in the middle of your post. Also your thoughts about more secular world nowadays inspired me to thing about... PTSD and Post Traumatic growth.

Posttraumatic growth is evidence for everything you wrote down in your post. I mean that you are going to be upset with your life without some factors in it and you will be happy after turbulences when you have some factors in your life. PTG is a little bit diffrent. It shows us that some traumatic events can cause in people will to look for theese factors. To create them by themeselves. It is also called benefit finding and the name for it says a lot! It comes also from buddism, hinduism, christianism. in ancient times people belived that negative experience can lead us to happiness. It is not so secular point of view.

Inspired me again. Thanks Abigail!

Gosh @smashedturtle, I have had the same thoughts towards PTSD!

Thank you very much for pointing this out to us and explaining in an effective, straight-forward way.

All the best to you always my dear & thank you so much for taking the time to stop by once again :)