Happy Times!

Enough about negative emotions! Today I want to look at positive emotions. Too often we don’t stop to analyze positive emotions. We feel good. We feel happy. So that’s all that matters. We are content. But when we are feeling positive emotion, we have a wonderful opportunity to learn more about positive feelings if we just take the time to notice a few things.

For example, next time you are feeling really good about something stop and ask yourself why. Solidify in your mind exactly what it was that made you feel good. The something doesn’t need to be big. Sometimes our happiest moments are caused by little things such as watching one of our children lovingly help a sibling. Take note of the fact that the happiness occurred because you were satisfied with what happened. Satisfaction is key to all happiness and so learning to be satisfied will bring more happiness.

Also notice that your thoughts were so occupied by what occurred that you totally pushed aside any bad thoughts such as worry about bills or stress over a task that needed to be done. In other words, part of the happiness was caused not just because of the good thing that happened but because you didn’t think about other things in that moment—you focused on the good. That is an important discovery because too often we think happiness is something that occasionally falls upon us without realizing that we have a big part to play in making it happen and making it last.

By stopping to analyze what is happening when we feel happy we solidify and deepen the feelings and it helps us look for and enjoy more of these kind of happy moments. Thus being aware of what we are doing and thinking in happy times increases our chances of having more of those good times!