Interdisciplinary Psychology:

I felt the experience of going to Seattle for a field trip was a very positive one for me.  I enjoyed getting away from town and school and doing something fun with my classmates.  It gave me a chance to get to know some members of the class that I hadn’t gotten to talk to much.  That was probably what I enjoyed the most.  I liked the interacting with others in a completely different setting.  I also liked the different and varied activities that I did at the EMP.  Again, interacting with others was just as (or more so) positive to me as doing the activities.  In fact, I think that is what made it enjoyable.  One activity that I did alone was to play the piano and sing in a “soundproof” room.  It made me realize that I need to do this more.  I have given up on music lately because of lack of time.  I realized that it was very relaxing and fun for me.  In fact, I would say I was in “flow” while I was playing, which surprised me since I didn’t know I was missing music so much.  This made me think about art.  I used to sketch and draw a lot but I don’t now.  I thought that this would be a good thing to pick up again as a hobby.  Even if I don’t have a big stretch of time I could fit it in here and there and I think it is different from the other activities that I do.  I love interior design so I do get a little of my artistic side satisfied when I do that but I realize now that it isn’t enough.  For me, the most fun, though, had to be going out to eat with everyone.  It was fun to sit at the table with four members of the class that I really hadn’t gotten to know yet.   Good food and company…what is better? 

My idea of a beautiful day was to try and incorporate elements of the “Full Life” into my normal everyday life. I decided to do this because I really do enjoy my life but many times I go through it without being “mindful” of what I am doing.  I thought it would be a great idea to take my normal day and make sure I incorporated aspects of the “beautiful life” into my day.  I wanted to see if I could do it and I wanted to be able to use this daily instead of just a day I could only enjoy rarely.  I actually picked one of my most busy days.  I am not sure if that was wise since I really had no time to put in anything extra.

First, I had to examine what was happening and why I felt the way I did.  When I figured it all out and went through the forgiveness steps I was able to let it go.  I think it may come up again and I may need to confront the situation but at this point I didn’t want to do that.  Mainly because it involved a good friend that I don’t believe has any idea of what she is doing.  I am afraid I will hurt her feelings if I confront at this point and I am hoping that it will not happen again.  I know this friend cares about me deeply and would not do anything consciously to hurt me but she is sometimes thoughtless in her words.  I feel as if I can forgive her this since I am sure I also have areas that need forgiveness from her. 

We were talking in our group how we would like to see the wife have some internal dialogue after she called her husband for the third time.  Here is my proposal.

Angela:  “Dave you ok?......

Sue Wagaman

Positive Psychology

Review of book “The Resilience Factor”

February 12, 2008

1.  Resilience can affect performance in all areas of life including work, physical health, mental health, quality of relationships and is the key to satisfaction in life.  On page 11 in the book, the authors explain that more than 15 years of study at The University of Pennsylvania has found that resilience is essential to success and happiness in people’s lives.  The book states many times and in different ways that we can apply the skills of resilience to reach out and become the kind of person we want to be and have the kind of meaningful life we want.  This is basically done by becoming more aware of the kind of person you really are by examining your deep beliefs and values.  The book also helped me to realize again, how important our thinking process is to how we feel, who we think we are, and how we react to events in our life.  It also reminded me how important it is to be aware of my cognitive processes and the need to often check them and challenge them in order to become more resilient in life.  I found it interesting to think of our thinking processes as a “ticker-tape” running in our mind that can help or hurt us when evaluating life’s difficulties.  This ticker-tape can help or hurt our resilience.  It can also affect other areas in our life, such as our health.  In chapter 13 anxieties and stress and the negative effect on health are discussed.  It is interesting, once again, to see that studies find that resilience can a help our physical and mental health.  

I also found it fascinating that we accept and reject information based on what we believe to be true about ourselves or others. In other words, we throw out anything we learn that is contrary to our belief about ourselves and keep close those that are consistent.  A good example of this is in one of my daughters.  We were working on a problem that keeps reoccurring in her life.  I used the ABC’s and other skills set out in this book.  When it came to one of her “beliefs” she stated that she never finishes anything she begins.  As I worked with her to see the truth in this statement I realized that she was taking in only the facts that supported her belief and discounting everything that showed this statement false.  In fact, it actually became funny as she realized her list of finishing what she begins was much longer than the list of things she didn’t finish, but still she was persisting in believing the statement.  She keep minimizing the projects she finished and maximizing the ones she didn’t.   In fact, on the list of things she didn’t finish were only two things!