Feeling Down? By Andrea Goeglein
Feeling down? Find someone to celebrate a birthday with! It will not take much to shift your mood into a positive state. A person having a birthday, a candle, a cupcake and a song. These are the simple components of a birthday celebration. Think back on a time (hopefully, a recent time) you celebrated someone’s birthday with these simple components. Pay attention to how you felt just by pausing, getting together with someone, and being silly making a big deal out of a cupcake and a candle.
Best part, you don’t have to wait for it to be someone’s birthday to create this pop-up ritual to increase your positivity. A job anniversary, the day your not-so-great boss left the company, the company’s stock price going up a penny, or a friend’s cat getting neutered. There really is no rule. Just because the title of this blog had the word ‘birthday’ in it, does not mean you have to abide by it. Think about that for a moment. Give yourself permission to play when your mood is headed in a non-productive direction.
Loosen up, enjoy the feeling of taking back some control of just how easy it is to increase your own positive emotions.
3 Key Learnings about Rituals:
- How you think about a ritual determines if you enjoy the ritual, dread the ritual, or use your creativity and freedom of choice to create the ritual of your greatest dreams. Rituals are free power.
- Rituals mark your life. You choose how you allow a ritual to impact your emotions. Rituals are an example of your power to choose. Choose wisely.
- Rituals bring people together. A core teaching of positive psychology is: People matter.
Dr. Success Challenge: Set a goal to create a ritual that brings people together. An easy one is to watch this episode of Serving Your Success with my guest, Sharon Adashek.
Listened to your interview with S. Adashek previously, and enjoyed it. And, thanks for the reminder to find moments to celebrate the the goodness of life….all of life.