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Football hero Andrew Luck so far has led the Indianapolis Colts to the playoffs every year that he has been on the team. In his first three years he threw passes for more yards than anyone in NFL history. Yet there is a further and maybe even more impressive aspect to this quarterback's's success. As Wall Street Journal's Kevin Clark wrote admiringly of Luck (12/16/2014), "Luck has become famous for congratulating--sincerely and enthusiastically--any player to hit him hard. Any sack is met with a hearty congratulations such as 'great job' or 'what a hit!.' He yells it after hard hits that don't result in sacks too. It is, players say, just about the weirdest thing any quarterbckdoes in the NFL." Instead of getting impatient with himself or annoyed at having been battered and even knocked over, Luck stays in a positive mode. He proffers appreciation to others as if they were family, creating emotionally healthy relationships, and in so doing, keeps himself and his team in a mode of emotional strength and spiritual well-being.
At every moment in your own life, you too have the choice as to whether you respond to difficult events in a negative or in a positive mode.
You can get impatient, frustrated and annoyed. Or you can express gratitude, experience appreciation, and focus on the hidden blessings in each downturn. Too much traffic slowing your drive home from work? You can let impatience make your blood pressure rise, or you can turn on the radio and enjoy your favorite talk or music station.
You always have the choice of focusing on the half-empty part of the glass or enjoying the half-full contents. You can feel impaitent, frustrated and annoyed if here you are in Hawaii, just starting a long-awaited Hawaii vacation, when a big wave has knocked you over, causing you to sprain your wrist so you won't be able to swim, golf or even plaly tennis. Or you can feel thankful, counting your blessings with the realization that if you hadn't had such quick athletic impulses, the broken wrist that saved your head from injury would have been instead a broken skull...a lifelong disaster.
The opposite of impatience, and of many similarly negative emotions, is gratitude.
Psychologists Robert Emmons and Michael McCullough's book The Psychology of Gratitude summarizes research that study after study highlights how positive attitudes, and especially appreciation and grataitude, create a life of well-being.
Gratitude in itself is a pleasant feeling. At the same time, experiencing gratitude in situations where others might fall prey to negative emotions such as resentment, envy or regret brings benefits galore: physical health, social appreciation, more gratifying personal relationships, community strength, harmony, and even NFL chamionships.
In this Chanukah-Christmas season, you can choose to add light to your life and to the lives of others, or to let darkness prevail.
In the run-up to Chanukah and Christmas, you may find yourself especially quick to break out in impatient irritability. It's certainly easy to feel overwhelmed by the huge seasonal time, energy and financial demands of shopping for gifts, sending out cards, hosting partites and cooking big meals, and yet still having to keep up with work and family responsibilities.
Alternatively, gratitude and appreciation can buoy your spirit to sustain you in a climate of goodwill throughout the stresses of the times.
And the more you enjoy these positive feelings, the more you will convey them to others, spreading the light.
Do tune in to the singer-songwriter Julie Geller's video, I Believe in Miracles, to uplift your spirit this holiday season. Whatever your circumstances, instead of succumbing to stress, impatience and irritability, may you appreciate the miracles in your life and feel blessed.
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Susan Heitler, Ph.D, a Denver psychologist, is author of the book on therapy, From Conflict to Resolution, and of the online program that teaches the collaborative dialogue skills for relationship success, Power Of Two Marriage.
