Habits of thinking need not be forever. One of the most significant findings in psychology in the last twenty years is that individuals can choose the way they think.

— Dr. Martin Seligman

Last week I started reading Dr. Martin Seligman’s book Learned Optimism:How to Change Your Mind and Your Life. He is one of the originators of a field called Positive Psychology. It looks at the factors which contribute to happiness and positive mental health, as opposed to those which contribute to mental illness. Seligman likes to joke that, prior to this type of study, the field of psychology was half-baked, exploring only the darker side of our nature.

January seemed to be a good month to start this type of reading, given the degree of depression that is prevalent post-holiday, mid-winter. Statistically, January 24th is the most depressing day of the year. Coincidentally, it was the day I picked up Learned Optimism. Intrigued by Seligman’s other titles, I also bought Authentic Happiness, and his latest book, Flourish.

Although each of us has a natural set-point when it comes to our own level of happiness, according to Marci Shimoff in Happy For No Reason, Seligman’s studies show that, for most of us, depression is largely caused by how we think, rather than by genetics, hormones, or the difficulties we’ve experienced. The good news is that we can learn to change how we think about our circumstances, and especially about our traumas and setbacks.

The topic of happiness is gaining popularity as we learn the degree to which we are in control of our moods, despite our circumstances. I’m fascinated by this stuff, and thought I’d blog about my takeaways from each of Seligman’s books. You’re invited to go on the journey with me.

Who’s in?

If you’ve read many of my previous posts, you know that, in addition to psychology, I’m very interested in the WWII era. My parents were married in 1942, just five months after the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Last fall, I wrote a freelance article about a place called Solomons Island in southern Maryland, which is where the amphibious training took place before the actual landing in Normandy on D-Day. My sister lives on Solomons, and when I learned about its WWII connection, I decided to pitch a short article about it to Military Officer magazine. It was published in October of 2011.

My Uncle Dick was in the infantry in WWII, and wrote a book about his experiences called Normandy to the Bulge. Before he died, I helped him re-publish it on Lulu. If you truly want to understand the sacrifices of the Greatest Generation, this is a good book to read. Even if you don’t like combat books, you’ll appreciate Normandy because it’s not gory. Based on his wartime diary, it covers more of the everyday experiences and the friendships that developed out of the hardships they endured.

In 2007, my mom and I self-published her WWII memoir, All on Account of You. It’s interesting to read these brother and sister books from the same time period. My dad was stationed on the homefront, in Key West, FL, during the war. Together the memoirs give you the whole picture of the time period.

Also, not long before he passed away, my uncle wrote a short book, Painting the Milkweeds, about their experiences growing up in the 1920s and 1930s. With the three books together, you can follow the evolution of one American family and their experiences in the first part of the twentieth century.

My uncle died several years ago, but when I re-read the stories, I can still hear his rich Irish storytelling voice relating them to us. We shared a love of writing and I miss his weekly letters of encouragement. I know he’d be proud that his books are still selling, and that I’m still writing.

Yesterday my phone rang, and my caller ID read, “Phone Scam.” It turned out to be a recorded call about reducing my credit card rate, so it was not quite a scam, but I was impressed at how very helpful technology is getting to be these days!

When I related the incident to my brother, he mentioned that it would be cool if phones had lights to let you know how important the call was so you could decide whether or not to pick up. Perhaps a green light for my 93-year-old mom or one of the kids (especially when they’re in trouble), a yellow light for friends calling to chat, and a red light for those wannabe friends (with the never-ending lists of complaints) who just want to unload.

I took it one step further and decided it would be even more helpful if people had identifying descriptors written on their foreheads when you met them. “High Maintenance.” “Kind.” “Hopelessly Romantic.” “Snarky.” “Steer Clear at All Costs.” “A Definite Keeper.” Wouldn’t it be nice to know up front? But I guess part of the joy of friendship is in uncovering the mystery.

In Laura Berman Fortgang’s book, Take Yourself to the Top, she shares some very useful tips for creating the life you want. Most have to do with clearing out that which is not feeding you, and actively choosing people and activities which do. She describes three types of relationships:

• Those that will sink you. These are the energy-draining ones, which drag you down and, eventually, use you up. Fortgang says, however difficult it is to accomplish, those relationships simply need to go. You may feel some guilt when shedding them, but you will feel tremendous relief once you have done it.

• Those that will float you. These are more balanced, with give and take, and they’re pleasant enough, but they aren’t terribly special. It’s okay to have some relationships like this, but you don’t want to devote too much of your time to them.

• Those that will rocket you. These are the powerful ones that inspire you and spark your creativity. They give you energy and bring out your best self. You’ll want to spend the majority of your time with these types of friends.

As a highly-sensitive person, some people are simply too loud or demanding or intense for me. My tendency is to back off quickly, because I’m too nice, and too loyal, so once I’m in a relationship, it’s hard for me to disentangle myself from it. But I’ve learned recently that some relationships just need a little tweaking.

I may need to see someone less often, or for shorter periods of time, or do more emailing with them and less in-person visiting. At that level, even highly energetic friends with strong personalities can be quite enjoyable. It’s hard to set firm boundaries, and friends can balk at first when they feel us pulling back from them, but they can and do adjust. If they don’t get what they need from us, they eventually move on, and that’s okay, too.

We may not have lights on our phones that indicate how we should respond to others when they reach out to us. But we do have internal monitors that tell us exactly how we’re feeling when we’re with people, if we just pay attention to our gut feelings.

Now is a good time to do an inventory of your relationships. Consider which of your friends support you, light a fire under you, or make you happy.

Then you can decide whether it’s time for some paring down, or whether you just need to do a little tweaking.

Today we have a guest post by Cindy Brody, my longtime personal editor, who has a Good News story of her own to share.

Life’s like a movie. Write your own ending, keep believing, keep pretending.

— Kermit the Frog

I was at the post office on Friday, in the middle of a long, fidgety line of women—grandmothers, mothers, and daughters—with the requisite toddler throwing a tantrum in the back. It was during the countdown to Christmas, a set up for major stress.

A few people behind me, there was a frazzled young woman in a pink camo headscarf, which didn’t quite conceal her hair loss, likely from chemo. She told the already-vexed businesswoman in front of her she needed to run out to her car for a moment, something about a box in her trunk. The businesswoman said she would hold her place. But when the woman in the scarf came back, the businesswoman actually let her go in front of her.

The next thing you know, each person in that disgruntled line offered to let her go ahead of them, until she was first in line! After each person insisted, the next followed suit, and in the end, everyone was smiling.

It was such a brief incident, but I got to witness firsthand how kindness begets kindness, and how it can really transform us. It reminded me of a scene in A Muppets Christmas: Letters to Santa, where everyone breaks into song at the U.S. Post Office!

The woman in the scarf thanked everyone, holding back tears, saying it just meant a lot to her right then. I think it meant a lot to all of us, especially in this time of year, to have the opportunity to offer a small act of kindness.

Today’s Good News story has two parts, and neither is about an individual.

The first is about a movement which is taking hold across the country. More than a few generous souls are anonymously paying off Kmart layaway bills so that other families don’t have to struggle so hard at Christmas. As you’ll read in this article, which my son shared with me, donors are specifically asking to pay the bills for young children, to make sure they don’t go without. And they are leaving a small balance to ensure that the account stays active. Kudos to the kind and smart donors.

My friend Bev shared a story about another kindness, this one performed by… a moose at a zoo in Idaho. No longer anonymous, the ironically-named Shooter was photographed during the act of rescuing a tiny (compared to him) new friend.

It seems the desire to help our fellow creatures is instinctual, if we only pay attention to it.

My favorite news stories are the ones in the “Making a Difference” segment on NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams. This week, Chelsea Clinton joined the staff. Apparently Brian’s wife is the one who gave him the idea of taking five minutes out of the half hour show most nights to highlight a positive story.

Every one of us knows people like the ones in those segments, everyday folks who are doing extraordinary things. Most of them are quietly making a difference in their families and their communities without getting any notice at all. Whether their efforts are put forth at work, at a nonprofit, or through their own initiative, each of them is passionate about his or her mission.

In yesterday’s post I promised to launch my own Good News channel of sorts, so here goes. I’m going to introduce you to some of the people in my life who I feel are “quite something,” each in his or her own way.

First up is one of my longtime, true-blue friends, Sue Ivy. Sue and I share many interests, chief among them, personal growth. I hired Sue back in 1996 when I was working in human resources for a software company. In her first day on the job, she told me that one of her hobbies was collecting quotes and sending out a Quote of the Day via email to her friends. She asked if I’d like to be added to her list. I agreed, and I’ve been receiving them ever since.

Rather than selecting the inspirational quotes randomly, Sue takes the time to hand pick them to correspond with holidays and other important world events. She also tailors them to the happenings of her personal friends, whether they are struggling or celebrating, and by doing so has discovered an interesting phenomenon.

Often, when she sends out a quote in support of one friend, several others will respond and say, “I know that quote was meant for me—it truly spoke to what I’m going through right now. Thank you.” Yet another confirmation that we are more alike than we are different, and our struggles often parallel those of others.

Day after day, year after year, Sue continues to send out her quotes. It’s her gift to her friends, and their friends, as each person encourages another to sign up for the quotes.

More recently, Sue has taken up nature photography and digital art. She now attaches kaleidoscopes, and the photos from which they are derived, to her quote emails. You can see Sue’s work on her photo blog at http://the-enchanted-forrest.blogspot.com/.

Her hobby has expanded to include products with her designs on them, available on http://www.cafepress.com/enchantedcorgi, and books and calendars at http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/ivysue1.

Sue’s collection of quotes is now nearing six thousand. I often print them and post them around my office for inspiration as I write.

Thanks, Sue, for making a difference by sharing classic words of wisdom with your friends.

My daughter, who will be 23 in February, frequently says that she hates the evening news and the 24 hour news channels because the stories are always so negative. She asks why there isn’t a “good news channel.” As the traditional news, particularly the economic news, gets worse and worse, I keep thinking about my daughter’s question.

So, in an effort to follow Ghandi’s advice to “be the change I want to see in the world,” I’ve decided to launch my own good news channel of sorts. It occurs to me that, all around me, I see people doing extraordinary things in an effort to make a difference in the world, or at least to the people around them. And I know that these efforts are being repeated, day after day, all over the world. It’s just that the shocking stories grab the headlines, and we’re all guilty of head-turning when we see the “Breaking News” banner on the screen, knowing full well it will not be positive.

None of the people I’m about to introduce to you consider their good works heroic or extraordinary. Most just started out wanting to help, to give back in some way, and somewhere along the way they became passionate about their causes. They’re humble, grateful people whose stories are inspiring to me and, I hope, to you. When you read about their efforts, you may feel compelled to contribute. Or you might feel that you’re not doing enough, compared to them. But my purpose is not to solicit on their behalf or to shame you. We all contribute something, in our own way, and on our own time, and most of us do more than we realize. My aim is simply to shine a light on some positive stories, to try to balance our negative worldview, which is sadly skewed because of our overexposure to one side of the story.

I thought this holiday season would be a good time to expose the warmth and compassion of some ordinary people I know who consistently act out of love for others. The good news starts tomorrow. Join me.

Here is my tribute to the Greatest Generation, in honor of all those who were killed and injured at Pearl Harbor 70 years ago today. First published in The News & Observer in 2007, it feels like an appropriate offering for today:

I was born in 1957, just twelve years after WWII ended. Like most Baby Boomers, as a youngster I was interested only in things that were new and hip. Bell bottoms, Levi jeans, Carole King records. I’m the youngest of eight children, so my parents were older when I was born. Middle-age parents with old-fashioned ideas were sometimes hard to bear.

By the time I was old enough to be aware of world events, the cultural revolution of the late sixties was going on. One brother had served in the Air Force in Korea; another was in the Army in Vietnam. To me, WWII was ancient history.

My father was a brilliant, but quiet man. He was a good dad. Like most men in his generation, he spent the majority of his time working hard in order to pay the bills and put food on the table. He wasn’t much on talking and, like a typical teenager, I wasn’t that interested in his life anyway.

Until it was too late.

We found his love letters several years ago while helping my mother pack to move to an independent living residence. Over fifty of them, by the time we were finished. Romantic, engaging, and inspiring, they revealed a side of him we had not known. They were filled with words of encouragement for my mother, telling her to keep her chin up during the troubled times. Perhaps they were also the words he needed to hear?

Embedded in the letters were also bits of history, details about his naval officers’ training and the progression of the war. Reading them, I felt such a mixture of emotions. Grief, for the opportunity, now lost, to know the real man. To hear his stories in person. To ask questions. Yet profound joy in the physical permanence of the letters. His beautiful handwriting, his struggles, his undying love for my mother.

Why didn’t he tell us that he’d been a “Ninety-day wonder” who trained almost every waking moment for months in order to join the war as soon as possible? That, as a young ensign, his best buddy was Wellington T. Mara, later the long-time owner of the New York Giants. He never mentioned Key West or Miami, where he was stationed, or blackouts, or rationing, or war bonds.

We never heard about “The Sylph,” the Navy yacht on which he trained for a few days despite seasickness fears. I wonder if he knew that the antics on the TV series McHale’s Navy were derived from Earnest Borgnine’s real-life experience as a first-class gunner’s mate aboard “The Sylph?” Dad didn’t tell us anything about the gyroscopes he studied at the Brooklyn Navy Yard for four months, training he never got to use because of an apparent Navy SNAFU. And although we’d watched the movie PT-109 together, he never once mentioned that he headed the section base that repaired the PT boats.

I guess to him none of it seemed worth the telling. It was just his life. All that had been long ago, when he was a much younger man, doing his duty during wartime. I’m sure he didn’t consider himself to be extraordinary, or to have lived through extraordinary times.

I’ve spent the last two years transcribing the letters and reconstructing the story of my parents’ early life together. My mother is 88 now, but she has an amazing memory, especially for that time period. Unlike him, she’s a born storyteller. I was able to verify much of what she told me via the Internet. I even located a copy of a Collier’s magazine from March 28, 1942, which featured the men of the Prairie State, the ship he trained on.

Together Mom and I went through bins of mementos, newspaper clippings, and photos. We found Dad’s Navy yearbook, The Sideboy, and a dance card from the ship’s farewell ball the night before his graduation and their engagement luncheon. No longer ancient history to me, this was living history, my history.

My dad was never awarded any medals, but I know he was a hero. They all were. The men who died, the men who lived, the women who went to work, the ones who waited at home and rolled bandages for the Red Cross, the WACs and the Doughnut Dollies.

Suddenly we’re the middle-agers, and many would argue that we’re still self-involved. But I think we know that the Greatest Generation is leaving us, and before long it will be too late to thank them for their sacrifice and tell them how fortunate we are to have known them.

Weather permitting, I will be reading from All on Account of You on Saturday, September 6th, at 3:00 p.m. at The Storyteller’s Bookstore in Wake Forest, as part of the store’s Grand Opening event. Please come by if you can! Here is the schedule:

Author Readings and Storyteller Events

Saturday, September 6, 2008

10-11am              Anita Stone, I Never Met a Flower I Didn’t Like
11am-12pm         Roz Grace, Trina’s Family Reunion
3:00pm-3:30pm  Elaine Klonicki, All on Account of You
6:00-7:00pm       Storytellers Ron Jones and Claire Ramsey

Sunday, September 7, 2008

3-3:30pm             Alice Osborn, Right Lane Ends
3:30-4:00pm       Sharon Wood, Writing From the Authentic Self

Drew Bridges, owner of the store and a semi-retired psychiatrist, opened the store in order to return to his English major roots. Drew Bridges describes himself as an “early career storyteller.” He is well known around the Wake Forest area, having performed at charity events and at local events including Herbfest.

Drew emphasizes his belief that, “Even in today’s world of iMax and iPods gee-whiz technology, there is still room for a more personal form of entertainment.”

The store is designed with open areas for activities and is furnished with a grand piano and a red leather antique barber chair, the “storyteller’s chair.” Paintings and photography from local artists adorn the walls and are for sale as well.

The Storyteller’s Book Store is located under the bridge, at 100 E. Roosevelt Ave, Wake Forest, NC.

For more information about the grand opening or other programs and activities at the store call 919-554-9146 or send an email inquiry to storystore@nc.rr.com.

I’ve been having a pull-back week this week. It’s kind of like a mental health day, only longer. On emotional overload after my uncle’s funeral, and after seemingly every one of my close friends has had some kind of crisis, I finally had to pull back. To limit phone calls and emails and invitations in order to process some of what I’ve taken in. Death often causes us to do this. To look at how we’re living, to see if we have our priorities straight and our “house in order,” even to the extent of updating our wills and health care powers-of-attorney.

Before I learned about the death of my uncle, I had been struggling with a career decision. An agent expressed interest in my first book, Thinking About Therapy. She wanted to try to sell it to a mainstream publisher–every self-published author’s dream–except that, in her opinion, re-marketing it would require pulling it off my website. At first glance, it seemed like a no-brainer. I could have an agent! One who doesn’t intimidate me, is passionate about my topics, and returns my phone calls.

On the other hand, I had a visceral reaction when she mentioned pulling the book, especially after the enormous effort that went into redesigning my website last fall. Add to that the fact that I’m getting some traction on various fronts online, and the timing felt completely off. It would have meant switching gears, perhaps even backtracking. In the end I decided to decline the offer, although we left the door open for working together on future projects.

Then, this week, the webmaster for an online magazine for women responded to my request to blog on their site. A few weeks ago they had put out the word that they were looking for bloggers, and, in a high-energy moment, I had signed up. They sent me an application, and asked if I was interested in writing a regional or national blog. As my husband likes to say, “Is that a trick question?” Don’t all writers want as much exposure as possible? At any rate, the application asked me to explain what I thought I could offer to their readers.

Isn’t it amazing how hearing the right question can set your brain straight to the task of answering it? Part of my emotional funk this week has been due to a lack of focus. Self-published authors face a dizzying list of shoulds. In order to build an audience and sell books, we are told that we should blog, set up book signings and speaking engagements, send out books for review, write magazine pitches and sell articles, create book trailers, mine the web. And, oh, by the way, write the next book. I’m guilty of switching haplessly from one to the other, sometimes getting overwhelmed in the process.

Which brings me back to the “What can I offer?” question. I know the big-picture answer because I’ve done a lot of work in this area and I have a personal mission statement: “To inspire others to live a more joyful, purposeful life.” I want to share my personal experiences with other people, particularly women, in the hopes of saving them some of the emotional struggles that I’ve been through.

I just needed to be asked the question again. Refocused, I know where to put my efforts going forward. I have a feeling that, as a result, next week is going to be one of those pull-ahead weeks.

As Greg Anderson says in his uplifting book Living Life on Purpose, “You have a mission in your life…Truly, the world has need of you…You are here, now, where you are, how you are, given the personality you have, with the unique abilities you possess because this is your moment to contribute to the world.” 

How about you? What can you offer to the world? Do you need a pull-back week to figure it out?

Take all the time you need. We’ll wait.