Everyday Happiness - Finding Harmony and Bliss
Education:Self-Improvement
A tale of caution for writing happy moments…they can actually make you sad! Tune in to Everyday Happiness to learn why that is and what you should do about it!
Transcript:
Welcome to Everyday Happiness where we create lasting happiness, in about 2 minutes a day, through my signature method of Intentional Margins® (creating harmony between your to-dos and your priorities), happiness science, and musings about life.
I'm your host Katie Jefcoat, and today I want to bounce back to Sonya Lyubomirsky’s book The How of Happiness for a second. Here on Everyday Happiness, we talk about writing gratitude lists and using writing as a form of happiness. As I thumbed through the pages, I paused on a note that had honestly slipped my mind, Sonya’s cautionary note on writing.
She says that while utilizing writing to foster gratitude and process negative feelings is all well and good, we shouldn’t use it to savor or relish the present. Her research has shown that writing is an inherently structured process that forces the mind to create a systematic narrative. While this is excellent for making sense of traumatic events and encouraging individuals to push past negative feedback loops, we don’t need to do that with happy feelings. Right? You don’t want to move past happy feelings; you want to hold on to them.
However, when you write about these happy feelings, it forces you to analyze them systematically. At worst, you may end up finding something in that process that makes you feel negative emotions, putting an end to that happy memory. At best, it will decrease your pleasure in the memory.
So, what should we do instead? Sonya advises that the best way to savor positive moments in the present is to reflect on the memory within your mind, relish those good feelings, and share them verbally with others.
Does this mean that we shouldn’t write gratitude lists? You should absolutely write them if they make you happy. But keep them short and sweet, not a novel. As for your daily diary, try to skip turning a happy memory into a story. Make a quick bullet point or note, and save the long-winded writing for negative emotional processing.
Until next time, remember that kindness is contagious. Spread some love today by visiting our Kindness Card Shop!
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Links: https://onamission.bio/everydayhappiness/
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