Hard Wired

Yes, we are hard wired. I know that with myself, no matter how hard I try to be positive, when an emotion of disgust, shame, guilt, negativity, stress, anxiety, sadness, anger gets into my head, my head starts spinning. I start imagining scenarios and my thoughts go off in a tangent, the what ifs, the what coulds, the when wills......

I wanted to understand this phenomenon. I am pretty sure now, I am not the only one who experiences it. No matter how great my day has been, one snooty comment from one snooty mum at school and all I seem to focus on is the negative emotion.

Yes, this is a real emotion.  We experience it (yes all of us) because our brains are hard wired that way.  Its the way our brains keep us safe - we focus on the negative or alarming aspects of our lives to prepare ourselves for those scenarios.  So what to do?  Here is the three step solution:

1) Acknowledge to yourself this moment is difficult. This is the monumental point. When you acknowledge your difficulty, things instantly start to feel better.  Scientifically, this acknowledgement down regulates the alarm centre of the brain and calms you down.
2) Investigate the difficulty. Work out if there is anything you need to do to improve it.  Does it need a solution? Do you just need to time to get accustomed to it? Do you need to punch someone?  I wouldn't recommend the later, it could land you in prison!
3) Cast the net. And what else. Did the negative aspect teach you something? Has it made you realise what is going on?  What did you learn from it.

I think it makes sense. For me, the three step process is something I go through naturally, when I saw it written on paper it made sense.  So your anger is normal. Embrace it. Learn from it.

digging deep

My current favourite quote.  I am finding myself having to revert to this quote quite a fair bit this week, and its only Tuesday. Yes, my little sparkles of happiness are rapidly eroding. My liberal carefree daily cycle to work has been replaced with being stuck in traffic in a tin can. My precious lab space - the zone in which I feel happiest has been eroded to half of what I had before, and frankly I have been struggling to find the happiness.  This moment, that I have been building slowly towards for the last 18 months is finally here - the site has finally closed (or is closing) in Cambridge, and we are being located 40 miles away.  Time to implement happiness project phase II.

Its  hard to stay positive and focussed when you're decontaminating an entire lab space, and watching thousands of pounds of chemicals and reagents being tipped into biohazard bags.  Its also hard to find the happiness when your closest friends at work - the sisterhood - have decided that this is the end for them, really leaving you alone to face the harsh truth.  So yes, dig deep.

phase II, what is it then?  Self analysis once again, but the big realisation, making other people happy actually makes me happy. It works for me. So of course my first guinea pig is the child. We played hide and seek, I let her "scare" me so she gets her kicks and we had a cuddle in bed until she fell asleep. That really brightened my day. Buying a coffee for colleauges at work, telling someone you care - seeing that smile that someone has did its magic.

There are actual studies to support this. In science there was an article about how spending on others makes you happier than spending on yourself. For someone like me, I relate to that. Whether its spending time or money, pampering others gives me a great deal of satisfaction - and especially with children, when you get very little back in return for it (in my case a cuddle is a rare commodity), I still don't mind.  Action plan for tomorrow - make someone happy, you might find it might just make you happy too.

Managing the bad

Its been a long while. I know. I haven't found it in me to write my blog. My happiness project is waning. I know why. There is too much going on in my life that its sucking out the time to enjoy the things i need to make me happy.  I am going through changes in practically every aspect of my life. This has left a cleft of uncertainty in my mind, and happiness is certainly the last thing on my mind.

So with much activation energy, I am sitting here tonight wondering how it is you need to combat the blues.  We are all going to have times in our lives where we feel down, unmotivated and where we loose focus. The happiness project hasn't eliminated those, but there must be a way to manage this. It might not just be feeling down because of the pressures of life, but you might have a sudden traumatic shock that you weren't expecting, how do you manage this when your aims are to stay happy and focussed?

This is a difficult issue to address, and I can't claim I have the answers either.  I tried to google it. I got nonsense most of the time, talk, find the positive things again in your life. Too airy fairy for my liking. However what started to catch my eye was other peoples blogs on their personal journeys and this really sucked me in.  These seem to be the key facts of bouncing back:

1) ask for help. ESPECIALLY if you are one of those people (like me) who never do. Having friends to lean on in times of need is priceless.

2) fake it. Apparently, putting on a big smile and pretending everything is ok actually helps the recovery process.  Certainly I felt that believing that you will get better and convincing yourself that things will change helps. I find a little memory helps me to remember this - like wearing a bracelet or ring to remind me...

3) Reminders. Every morning wake up and think of three things that will remind you of being happy. Starting your day happy does have rippling effects throughout the day.

4) Cry. Yes it helps weep like a baby and get it out. But then re-compose yourself and inspire yourself. When you hit rock bottom there is only one way - up!

5) Know your worst case scenario. This helps you to manage your expectations.  When you have already replayed how bad it can get, it doesn't feel so bad anymore.

I also saw this quote which helped me too. I know i don't do quotes, but this one inspired me:





I am going to bookmark this page of my blog. There will be times that will be hard and I have to refer to this page to pull myself out of it. One thing is never to feel alone, there are many people out there who care and want to help. While you may only be one person in this world, you may be the world to one person.