Why Gratitude And Forgiveness Need To Be Part Of Your Daily Positive Psychology Practice
IF Insider No. 63
In our last issue (IF Insider No. 62), we looked at how stress can shrink your brain and ten ways you can stop this in its tracks. These are easy to implement tips, so if you haven’t checked these out, do so when you finish reading this issue.
Today, we are going to do something a bit different. In our paid group, The Longevity Experience, every month, we do a “Deep Dive” on a topic of interest to our members. This month, since it’s November and the traditional month for giving thanks, Ellen presented a Deep Dive on positive psychology and how to develop a powerful daily positive psychology practice. At the end of the article, we have link you can use to download a free 100 Day Gratitude Journal. ⬇
Today, Ellen will bring you part of that presentation introducing you to how two elements of a positive psychology practice, gratitude, and forgiveness, can hugely impact your wellbeing.
For our premium subscribers, in this week’s Research Spotlight, we’re going to look at loneliness, including why it’s bad for your health and what you can do about it. Hint: Loneliness is not the same as being alone!
Our paid subscribers also get one of Ellen’s recipes each month. Last month, to welcome autumn, we featured Ellen’s easy-to-make spicy hot Fire Cider Shots and Mocktail Mix! This month, we’ll bring you another warming dish, Ellen’s Cauliflower Curry.
Looking for a supportive group that “gets” your interest in IF and other cutting-edge health information? Our free intermittent fasting Facebook group, with over 1800 members, is a wealth of info, in addition to our new Longevity Experience membership.
Developing A Daily Positive Psychology Practice - An Introduction
The formal, academic field of positive psychology was founded in 1998 when psychologist Martin Seligman began his term as the newly elected president of the American Psychological Association. He chose positive psychology as the theme for his term. His visionary move instituted a whole new domain in psychology and changed the trajectory of traditional psychology, which until then had been completely focused on a negative outlook, emphasizing mental illness and maladaptive behavior as well as negative thinking.
His work of course did not just come out of thin air, but stands on the shoulders of the great humanistic psychologists Abraham Maslow, Rollo May, Carl Rogers, the legendary Gestalt therapist Fritz Perls, family therapist Virginia Satir, and my own teachers, the late masters of Redecision Therapy, Dr. Gene Kerfoot and Dr. John Gladfelter, and others whose foundational work emphasized positivity, well-being, freedom, self-direction, and happiness.
Positive psychology is multifaceted and of course I can’t possibly cover them all today so I want to take a look at two of the most effective and popular practices in positive psychology, gratitude and forgiveness, and look at what benefits these practices can bring to your life.
Then we are going to talk about the opportunity to join us to put together a daily positive psychology practice over this month that incorporates these two practices and more which build up over the next four weeks into a solid single practice that you can use morning and evening for the rest of your life.
Gratitude
Let’s look at gratitude first. Of course, we “modern” people were not the first to recognize the benefits of gratitude. The poet 13th-century Persian poet Rumi had this to say about it:
“Gratitude is the wine of the soul. Go on. Get drunk!”
The scientifically proven benefits of practicing gratitude include increasing your general wellbeing, better sleep, generosity, and less depression.
Practicing gratitude changes your brain for the better, lighting up areas of the brain involving social bonding, reward and stress relief and boosting the brain chemical oxytocin, also known as the love hormone that promotes social ties. Developing gratitude can help you decrease stress, decrease a tendency to get angry or triggered over something, can help you develop stronger relationships, and increase your resilience to trauma.
Forgiveness
Now let’s turn to forgiveness. This one is a little bit trickier, as it has more than one side: forgiving others and also asking for forgiveness. Plus, you don’t want to forget yourself in this process, as the great folk singer Joan Baez reminds us, “Forgiveness of oneself is the hardest of all the forgivenesses.”
Research shows that forgiveness increases positive emotions while at the same time reducing negative ones, such as blame and anger, benefits your cardiovascular health and reduces your chances of developing ill health. A forgiveness practice also increases hope, optimism and compassion, boosts self-confidence, reduces stress, lessens depression, and even increases your immune response.
So how do you put these practices of gratitude and forgiveness into practice in your daily life?
There are specific steps to make these a practical and effective part of your daily life. In this month’s Deep Dive for our paid group, The Longevity Experience, Ellen went into specific detail about exactly how to develop these, plus other interventions, over the next four weeks into a morning and evening positive psychology practice that takes less than five minutes and that will serve you well for the rest of your life.
Here’s what Adela Rubio, one of our Longevity Experience members, had to say about Ellen’s presentation:
“What a wonderful presentation, Ellen! I've had lots of practice with gratitude and forgiveness and I've even hosted 30-day events around them. Changed my life. I do all these things BUT not like this. I appreciate how you've distilled the essence of each practice. You've just made magic: compressed time… Awesome!”
Or Mary Elizabeth Clark, who expressed her appreciation not only for the Deep Dive but for the other members of our Longevity Community:
“I am beyond words grateful for this deep dive. I have been working on some aspects on my own prior to listening because my life is starving without this type of structure. I now know just where to put the activities my life has already created for me. I also felt my body “sync/sink” when you said the word. I cried at your gratitude for us with deep, deep gratitude for and to you. Love to every one of you.”
And finally, Longevity Experience member Lyerka Miller, who summed it up like this:
“All I can say is wow!! This was really, really great. Thank you so much!”
In addition to getting more detail on how positive psychology came to be, you’ll get a specific process on how to go about implementing daily gratitude, forgiveness and other techniques to pull into Ellen’s formula:
R + G/I + F + G + FF = Optimal Mental State
When you join us, you’ll not only get this month’s powerhouse Deep Dive: How to Develop A Positive Psychology Practice, plus all of our upcoming presentations, three Longevity Gatherings on Zoom a month, and you’ll join an amazing group of welcoming people on a journey deep into the heart of what it means to be truly healthy. Just go here for complete information on the Longevity Experience.
Why It Matters
“Forgiveness is perhaps the most challenging of all the resources available to us…and the most transformational.”
~ Dr. Shauna Shapiro is a best-selling author, professor, clinical psychologist and internationally recognized expert in mindfulness and self-compassion. Her TEDx Talk, What You Practice Grows Stronger, has been viewed over 3 million times.
What We Are Reading 📚
There are many, many excellent books on positive psychology. Here are just a few of our favorites:
Marci Shimoff - Happy for No Reason
Martin Seligman - Authentic Happiness
Mihaly Csikszentmihaly - Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience
Dr. Daniel Gilbert - Stumbling on Happiness
Dr. Barbara Frederickson - Positivity
Dr. Tal Ben-Shahar - Happier: Learn The Secrets to Daily Joy and Lasting Fulfillment
Dan Harris - Ten Percent Happier
Did you like this article and learn something new? If so, please let us know in the comments! Questions and suggestions for future articles are welcome, too!
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Thanks for sharing this, Denise! The concepts of gratitude and forgiveness are so simple, but so powerful. The burden of holding grudges weighs us down in ways we don't always recognize.
Love this group and all the wonderful conversation, but especially the information that can be transformative - if we embrace it!