Realizing you’re ill…not just being visited by a virus or the flu but really ill, can be both terrifying and disorienting. Two years ago, I found myself in this unfamiliar and uncertain territory. The acute phase of a serious, yet to be diagnosed illness, thrusts you into our “dysfunctional” health care system, like it or not.

I am one of the lucky ones…I have health insurance (at least for now) and access to some of the best medicine has to offer. My journey with this illness involved trips to the Mayo Clinic, Johns Hopkins and the Cleveland Clinic. Diagnosing a rare disease is no easy task!!   I’m also blessed to have a personal physician with not only a stellar reputation but he’s a  compassionate human being as well. I remember someone saying, “You never know what kind of doctor you have until you become seriously ill”. How true!

lAlthough my symptoms were puzzling, my physician was narrowing in on the correct diagnosis.   He welcomed second opinions and comprehensive evaluation.   His openness and encouragement to explore every avenue helped me to “trust his judgment” and it reassured me that my care would come before worry about any bruising of his ego. He cooperated fully with the medical team at Johns Hopkins where the diagnosis was finally made….Churg-Strauss Syndrome-a very rare autoimmune disease which is a form of systemic vasculitis. This form of vasculitis can effect multiple organs…It is incurable, life threatening but treatable in most patients with the use of powerful medications including chemo, prednisone and immunosuppressants. Wow! Talk about your world being tipped upside down.

As with many difficult life journeys, there are surprising blessings….one of my many blessings is my developing relationship with my personal physician. Once it “settled in” that I had a chronic illness, I realized that I was going to be seeing a lot of my doctor and he would have to deal with me in the many ups and downs that occur with illness.   Having been a psychotherapist for 35 years, I knew how crucial the healing relationship would be in the success of this journey to find a “new normal”.span /spanI hoped we were both up to the task!

Doctors are human beings….mere mortals like you and me.   A healing partnership must be based on mutual respect.    I’m was not looking for a doctor who feels the need to be the all-powerful Oz but rather a skilled human being that can connect with me in my state of  dis-ease and help me remember that I, like Dorothy, already possess what I need to restore myself to a state of wholeness in mind, body and spirit.  In that process, I also want to be apprised of any and all interventions that could be beneficial.  Then, ideally,  my expert guide will help me weigh the pros and cons of these interventions until we can mutually come to a plan of action.   As doctor and patient travel this journey, the Healing Partnership is developing.  For me this partnership is an emotional bond that must develop.  It is a co-creation for which both partners are responsible.

For all too long, the fields of medicine and psychology have narrowly focused on illness, disease and dysfunction.  In the last decade, Positive Psychology has been studying what is working rather than what is not….Studying those that are healthy rather unhealthy.  Research scientist, Barbara Fredrickson’s work on positive emotion is particularly relevant when we are exploring health, wellness and human flourishing.   The evidence is indisputable that positive emotion has a profoundly beneficial effect on health.  Furthermore, when illness does occur,  positivity is the one factor that most readily explains those that bounce-back and display  resiliency in the face of difficult life events.   Remaining hopeful and positive can be no easy task especially in the first stages of a serious illness.   However, there is no more important time to have access to all one’s resources.  Having a broadened mind set helps you make clearer decisions and see possibilities.  Experiencing fear and anxiety is natural.   It is during this time that the quality of the healing partnership is most important.  The confidence and hopefulness of the physician is crucial to healing.   Physicians with positive mindsets are most effective.

In fact, one fascinating study looked at how physicians functioned in making medical diagnoses.   Researchers primed three groups of physicians…one was primed to be happy,  one to be neutral and one primed by reading scientific journals before asking each group to make as many medical diagnoses as fast as  they could.    Interestingly,  what they found was that the group primed to be happy out-performed the other two groups by 50%.   And the happy group was three times more mentally flexible.  Obviously,  its preferable to find yourself a happy physician and in todays medical system that is quite a challenge.  I was lucky….I not only found a happy, optimistic doctor but he is a natural Positive Psychologist to boot!

If we were to design the Positive Physician what characteristics or strengths would he or she possess?  I would suggest realistic optimism, curiosity, open-mindedness, judgment/critical thinking, gratitude, zest/enthusiasm for life, kindness/compassion and most of all LOVE.   What a tall order. Currently, I doubt that these coincide with the criteria used by many medical school admission boards.   Perhaps it is time to bring back some of the art of medicine….rather than an over-reliance on drugs and technology.   As we understand more and more scientifically what a powerful role emotion plays in health and healing,  we will need to use this knowledge in our choice of future healers.   As in many other professions, emotional intelligence may be the most important quality in creating the best healers.   We need more physicians that understand the mind/spirit as well as the body.   I was lucky to find such a person, and it has made all the difference for me!  

This year I found The How of Happiness by Sonja Lyubomirsky to be truly inspiring.  I read it and reread it, shared it, recommended it and gave it for presents.   The science and applications are beautifully organized for the construction of a happy life full of gratitude, connection, meaning and self-acceptance.
I then found myself pondering that first and most difficult step in the process of achieving satisfaction:  being ready to be happy.   While it sounds simple and straightforward, this commitment is actually more deep and complex.  This first step to contentment seems to require an openness to an unknown, elusive or perhaps even forbidden state.  It involves letting go of striving and finding the happiness that we’ve missed as we have been focusing on achieving, possessing, parenting, controlling and/or merely surviving.
Being receptive to happiness may involve overcoming such obstacles as negative emotions like hurt, jealousy, disappointment, loss or resentment.  Being truly ready requires determination and perseverance as the ever present demands of our lives are continually available to interfere and distract us.
In this first step we are mature individuals as we explore the most personal task of fully taking responsibility for our own happiness independent of family, work and friends.
Those who are ready for contentment believe, that it is possible, even as imperfect humans, to truly enjoy our selves and savor our lives.  As we commit fully to this task we must resist the temptation to feed our emptiness with short lived gratifications.  We cannot blame others or circumstances when our expectations are not met.   If we are determined to enjoy meaningful happiness we cannot allow the cynicism of others nor our own fears to dilute our energy and divert our trajectory.
As we take the first step of being open to experiencing gratitude and happiness in our evolving, challenging, imperfect lives, we are merely by our presence deserving.
If we are ready to take this first step and all that it brings, then we can begin to optimistically to connect in the present and allow happiness to unfold in our unique lives.

Elayne Hunter

A recent post in the “Huffinton Post” from Dec 3, 2008 discussed Barack Obama’s political campaign in which he communicated to the American public a feeling of hope and painted the possibility of a better future.  “Even amidst economic crisis and international turmoil, a shared sense of hope lifted and opened people’s hearts, seeding their better dreams.  And with Obama’s decisive win of Nov 4, hope erupted into effusive joy.  For millions of supporters, ‘Yes, we can’ morphed in to ‘Yes, we did’. ”

As we return to our daily routines and lives with all the challenges of paying the bills, work, raising children, etc., the highs will fade.  Millions of Americans are facing homelessness, joblessness and more.

“We need positivity, the complex web of causes and consequences of positive emotions, now more than ever.   Not just to sugarcoat bitter news or distract us from gloom.  We need positivity because we’re different people when we are under it’s influence.”

“Pleasant emotions like hope, inspiration, joy, and well-earned pride litterlally open us up.  As the blinders of negativity fall away, we take in more of what surrounds us.  We see both the forrest and the trees.  We appreciate athe oneness that binds us instead of the barriers that devide us.  Even race becomes irrelevant.”

The research of Barbara Fredrickson and her “Broaden and Build Therory of Positive Emotion” illuminates beautifully the power of positive emotion to engender creative and integrative thinking making hard-to-find solutions and compromises more possible.  With the problems we currently face as a nation, we desperately need expansive thinking.  Thinking broadly helps us to build new thought-action repitoires, build new skills and develop more resliency.  “Even mild positive emotions experienced regularly, set people on discernable trajectories of growth, making them better off next season than they are today.”

Fredrickson suggests that when we expereince emotions in a 3-to1 ratio of positve to negative, we cross a psychological threshold and function at our very best.  The trick is knowing how to cultivate this positve outlook and how to call upon it on a regular basis.  “Tools developed and sharpened by the science of positive psychology allow us to self-generate positivity whenever we choose-even during these trying times.  Indeed, positive emotions are at the heart of what allows people to bounce back from hardship and become stronger than ever.”

“Many of positive psychology’s science-tested tools hinge on the stance we take toward our current circumstances.  Are we truly open to what is?  Do we savor and celebrate the good?  Do we see adversity with clear eyes that resist stoking catastrophe?  Do we connect with others earnestly and with kindness offering up our best selves?  When we adopt these stances, we considerably raise the odds that positive emotions will bloom.”

In order for positve emotions to have a transformational impact, they must be geniunely felt with the full knowledge that they are a feature of moments, not a permanet emotional state.  Forced or fake positivty does more harm than good.  We are looking for realistic, optimistic thinking that leads to heightened sense of possibility.  “Positive emotions fundamentally change our biochemistry and our worldviews.  In time, we can even change who we are-helping us become better versions of ourselves”.  Even though it may seem like we are helpless to control the waves of negative emotions that enter into all our human experiences., we each have much more control than we realize over what we feel and when.  As president -elect Obama has warned, it will most likely get worse before it gets better.  How will we rise to the challenge of indivdually and collectively stoking the the fires of positivity?  The answer will determine to a great degree our futures, both personlly and as a nation.

Happiness Can Spread Among People Like a Contagion, Study Indicates

By Rob Stein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, December 5, 2008; A08

Happiness is contagious, spreading among friends, neighbors, siblings and spouses like the flu, according to a large study that for the first time shows how emotion can ripple through clusters of people who may not even know each other.

The study of more than 4,700 people who were followed over 20 years found that people who are happy or become happy boost the chances that someone they know will be happy. The power of happiness, moreover, can span another degree of separation, elevating the mood of that person’s husband, wife, brother, sister, friend or next-door neighbor.

“You would think that your emotional state would depend on your own choices and actions and experience,” said Nicholas A. Christakis, a medical sociologist at Harvard University who helped conduct the study published online today by BMJ, a British medical journal. “But it also depends on the choices and actions and experiences of other people, including people to whom you are not directly connected. Happiness is contagious.”

One person’s happiness can affect another’s for as much as a year, the researchers found, and while unhappiness can also spread from person to person, the “infectiousness” of that emotion appears to be far weaker.

Previous studies have documented the common experience that one person’s emotions can influence another’s — laughter can trigger guffaws in others; seeing someone smile can momentarily lift one’s spirits. But the new study is the first to find that happiness can spread across groups for an extended period.

When one person in the network became happy, the chances that a friend, sibling, spouse or next-door neighbor would become happy increased between 8 percent and 34 percent, the researchers found. The effect continued through three degrees of separation, although it dropped progressively from about 15 percent to 10 percent to about 6 percent before disappearing.

The research follows previous work by Christakis and co-author James H. Fowler that found that obesity also appears to spread from person to person, as does the likelihood of quitting smoking. The researchers have been using detailed records originally collected by the Framingham Heart Study, a long-running project that has explored a host of health issues, to construct and analyze detailed maps of social networks.

The findings, Christakis and others said, provide striking new evidence of the power of social networks, which could have implications for public policy. Happy people tend to be better off in myriad ways, being more creative, productive and healthier.

“For a long time, we measured the health of a country by looking at its gross domestic product,” said Fowler, a political scientist at the University of California at San Diego who co-authored the study. “But our work shows that whether a friend’s friend is happy has more influence than a $5,000 raise. So at a time when we’re facing such economic difficulties, the message could be, ‘Hang in there. You still have your friends and family, and these are the people to rely on to be happy.’ ”

Other experts praised the study as a landmark in the growing body of evidence documenting the influence of personal connections and the importance of positive emotions.

“It’s a pathfinding article,” said Martin E.P. Seligman, a University of Pennsylvania psychologist. “It’s totally original, and the findings are striking.”

Stanley Wasserman, who studies social networks at Indiana University, said: “We’ve known that one’s network ties are important, but we’ve never looked at anything on this scale. The implications are you can’t look at individuals as little entities devoid of their social context.”

Others, however, questioned the findings, noting that it is difficult to account for every variable that might affect the outcomes of such studies.

“Researchers should be cautious in attributing correlations in health outcomes of close friends in social network effects,” wrote Ethan Cohen-Cole of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston and Jason M. Fletcher of Yale University in an accompanying study. Their research used data from a large federal survey to show that acne, headaches and even height could appear to spread through social networks if not analyzed properly. “The methods of detecting ’social network effects’ of health outcomes commonly found in the recent medical literature might produce effects where none exists.”

But Christakis said his analysis took other possible explanations into consideration.

Ed Diener, a psychologist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, said the findings could explain why people in some countries tend to be happier than others. “This is an extremely exciting study — interesting, provocative and important,” Diener said.

While obesity appeared to spread even among people who lived far apart, happiness appears to be transmitted only among people who live within a mile of one another. The influence was also greatest among people who considered themselves mutual friends.

Because the researchers did not find the effect for people living on the same block beyond a next-door neighbor, they were confident that the positive mood was not the result of living in the same good neighborhood. Because people tended to get happier if someone they knew became happy, the researchers could rule out the alternative explanation that happy people tend to be drawn to each other.

“We know it’s not a ‘birds of a feather flock together’ effect,” Christakis said.

Surprisingly, happiness had no such effect at work. The researchers speculated that work relationships may have different dynamics. One worker might become happy because he or she got a raise or a promotion at the expense of another, for example.

Unhappiness also appeared to be catching, but not as strongly: An unhappy connection increased the chances of being unhappy by about 7 percent on average, while a happy connection increased the chances of being happy by about 9 percent. While having more friends is important for a person’s happiness, the benefit of having more friends appears to be canceled out if they are unhappy, the researchers found.

The researchers and others speculated that the emotion may be important on an evolutionary level by helping people cooperate. Seligman likened happiness to an orchestra tuning up.

“Laughter and singing and smiling tune the group emotionally,” Seligman said. “They get them on the same wavelength so they can work together more effectively as group.”

As I view and listen to the political rhetoric in the media, I find myself agreeing and disagreeing with both sides. HERE is a website where you can compare your moral values with the political factions we are presented with. Where do you stand?

Linda

As we rush toward election day, inundated by political ads and television, I ask myself how do I keep myself positive about the electoral process. So when in doubt, I google. I found a wonderful article on the University of Pennsylvania’s website about how positive psychology plays a part the electoral process. Check it out at their website HERE.

Linda

Barbara Fredrickson and her colleagues just published some interesting new research in the “Journal of Personality and Social Psychology”.  Here is the abstract:

B. L. Fredrickson’s (1998, 2001) broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions asserts that people’s daily experiences of positive emotions compound over time to build a variety of consequential personal resources. The authors tested this build hypothesis in a field experiment with working adults (n = 139), half of whom were randomly-assigned to begin a practice of loving-kindness meditation. Results showed that this meditation practice produced increases over time in daily experiences of positive emotions, which, in turn, produced increases in a wide range of personal resources (e.g., increased mindfulness, purpose in life, social support, decreased illness symptoms). In turn, these increments in personal resources predicted increased life satisfaction and reduced depressive symptoms. Discussion centers on how positive emotions are the mechanism of change for the type of mind-training practice studied here and how loving-kindness meditation is an intervention strategy that produces positive emotions in a way that outpaces the hedonic treadmill effect. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2008 APA, all rights reserved)

This research has many important implications for coaching, psychotherapy, education, personal practice and health enhancement.

Recently my husband and I saw “The Bucket List” staring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman.  Nicholson plays a corporate billionaire and Freeman a working class mechanic who share the same hospital room.  Both have been diagnosed with terminal illness and realize they share the same urgent desire to accomplish unfulfilled dreams until they “kick the bucket”.  As they set off on the trip of a lifetime, they build a powerful bond of friendship while learning to “seize the day and live life to the fullest”!  As they accomplish each of their goals, they check it off the list.  In the process, they find the joy and fulfillment that had thus far eluded them in their lives.  Although the plot is somewhat predictable, the message rings true.  The absolute joy that can result from setting goals and pursuing them with abandon is supported by much of the research in goal setting.  Often, we don’t have a feeling of gratitude for our life, or health until it is threatened.  When we are reminded that our time is limited, living our authentic life often takes on a new urgency.

Many people who have had brushes with death have created “life lists”.  Marty Seligman suggests writing a Legacy Letter (or Eulogy) that takes a retrospective look back at your life from a future vantage point to encourage “seizing the day” and becoming the architect of your own future.  I found this exercise really inspirational and clarifying.

One of the biggest problems facing most of us today is being over-stressed, over-tired and overworked.  Taking time to stop, pause and reflect in a state of mindfulness and gratitude helps calibrate our life’s trajectory.  Another message from “The Bucket List’ is that relationships with others offer much deeper satisfaction than accumulating wealth. However, living out one dreams and not standing on the sidelines of life is also essential to a life well lived!

I can enthusiastically recommend “The Bucket List”….I am busy composing my list….How about you?

“Perhaps you’d like to know a secret, one of the happiest ones of all… The Secret.. presents the essence of being gratefully present in life as Greg Woods explores and traces contact with the world of nature and family. My favorite lines are:
“The heart that gives thanks is a happy one, for we can not feel thankful and be unhappy at the same time.” and the secret: “We don’t give thanks because we’re happy. We are happy because we give thanks.”

These conclusions provide both adults and children with the opportunity to deepen their understanding of gratitude. It takes us all beyond superficial Thank yous into an exploration of our negative emotions, wants and cravings. It challenges us to confront and let go of our demands and disatisfactions. Can we find the resources to be appreciative and grateful when things do not go our way and our wishes are denied?

When I read this to kids I like to contrast being thankful with a picture of a child begging her Mom to buy her candy in a store. Then we work on what she could feel thankful for and we talk about feeling the opposite of thankful or unthankful. It seems to help children connect with how to put their minor wants into perspective and to identify and feel grateful for the more important things in their lives. This process takes them deeper into understanding what it means to be thankful twelve months of the year and teaches them how to accept the “no”s gracefully.

Elayne Hunter

Want to change your mood? A little laughter never hurts . . .