http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRVdiHu1VCc

Great questions and I would never try to answer these (if in fact you are asking me too) in an email.

What I discovered in my work is that the true “positives” the people I interviewed found in their lives came from their ability to use the skill of feel to find what was right about them and transcend what others might judge is wrong about them. They honed this skill in the same way people become wine tasters or experts on smell and taste and music. My belief is “feel” is the low hanging fruit in most people’s lives. I differentiate feel from feelings which are often associated with issues or baggage. To feel the way you want to feel, you have to be able to feel often and a variety of things and not confuse what you feel with past feelings that might be painting their own picture.

Here is what I believe. We are born with gifts designed for each of us to fulfill our own promise, a promise we discover ourselves. Those gifts of life can then be developed into the skills for living the life inside of us. What is the salient aspect of a dream? How we feel when we live it or dream it. So we define for ourselves what a dream is. But here’s the thing. People get it when I talk to them about how they want to feel. They don’t use the word dream. They describe the feel. For a swimmer, he told me it was Easy Speed, a dance with the water.

Anyway, my question to you is how do you answer these questions for yourself? How do you want to feel? If you don’t know, how would you go about finding out? How did today feel? Each moment of it? That is the data I ask people to start with. Then we go wherever that takes us.

Thanks,

Doug

As this is motivation month, I think these questions will help expand the subject.

How does a person collect the data of their lives? Which data are more relevant for change? Is there or will there ever be a general formula for motivation “m” that will move people’s hearts and minds and wallets? Can we define “dreams” precisely? Can we measure a dream and its progress?

If someone is stuck, how does a dream emerge from the hardship of being stuck? There are people for whom positivity is a rare occurrence. They are the brain lottery losers for positive emotion. What is helpful in securing their dreams despite the absence of strong positivity to buoy them?

And that leads me to suggest a book called “Seeing is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees.” It has been called the best book about an artist ever written. It is about Robert Irwin. The most helpful book I have ever read and way better than anything I could write.

Thank you again for this great discussion. WJ, I’m quite sure we’re on the same page; I have read Damasio’s book, and it inspired me as well. One of the most important lessons for me was to beware of false dichotomies. For me, PP is one of the rare disciplines to take emotions very, very seriously. Just can’t agree that PP is limited to CBT interventions. In a recent (2007) chapter, Fredrickson outlined 4 action strategies to increase well being — none can be described as purely or even primarily cognitive: http://positivepsychologynews.com/news/denise-clegg/200810201087. Seligman anchored the field with his work on explanatory style, and/but has been aggressive in expanding the breadth of theory and practice, including new projects on neuroscience and mind/body health.

LRM, thank you for your note … you’re right, everyone has a lot of work to do or should simply surrender, who knows? Have to note that, while there is good research suggesting that danger, threat and negative circumstances get more airtime on the human/brain loudspeaker, that doesn’t mean humans are more negative than positive. If anything, much evolutionary theory suggests that our special species survived because of capacities to bond, sacrifice, love, and work altruistically toward group survival. A few days on the NYC subway shows that humans are far more positive than negative… to the point of millions of daily miracles.

You might find this article interesting http://www.innate-intelligence.com.au/blog/?p=469

Your question “what is conscious awareness?” is way beyond my humble little mind. I’ll leave that for the philosophers to debate.

Out of interest have you read Descarte’s error (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Descartes%27_Error). This book provided the impetus for much of the work that I do.

Your good questions inspire many thoughts. For now, I’ll just say I find it important to consider the brain and its functions as an integrated, dynamic mass of networks, matter, chemicals, and energy – and the boundaries of the mind/brain, as well as boundaries around function and facets of consciousness is awfully murky. It might be metaphorically useful to describe our ‘rational’ brain, ‘emotional’ brain, ‘unconcious’ mind, etc., but it’s one brain, sitting in a body that has numerous portals for numberless transactions, interconnected to ever-shifting conditions.

I think you are asking whether or not ‘top-down’ interventions can be effective if research suggests a powerful ‘bottom up’ influence on conscious awareness (and much of that process happening outside of conscious awareness). I would have to ask back, what is conscious awareness? When you have worked with people to have a deeper affinity with emotional experience, would you say they have an expanded conscious awareness, and more access to modulating their experience of awareness?

I’m not sure I agree that PP is largely based on CBT, but I do think there are many ways to step into the stream, and no matter how you get wet, both you and the river are changed.

Haidt’s comments also fit with Kirsten’s article on mindfulness http://positivepsychologynews.com/news/kirsten-cronlund/200903151652 where research suggests that mindfulness makes it easy to reframe.

This whole concept of Haidts has profound implications for PP which is largely based on CBT – any thoughts?

You articulated it all so beautifully, Denise, thank you!
Christine
http://www.positiveleaders.com