Three blessings

In one of my psychology classes this semester, we've spent a fair amount of time on the work of Martin Seligman.  This is not the first time I've come across him in my studies.  He began his career working on depression, studying the symptoms and treatments.  While working on this he found himself gaining a more pessimistic view of life and realized that the impact of focusing on the negative emotions associated with depression was having a negative impact on his own attitudes.  He started wondering if there was a better way to address the negativity of depression.  The result of this wondering is called Positive Psychotherapy (PPT).  Instead of focusing on the negative emotions and how to change them, PPT focuses on positive emotions and the good things in life.

The last couple of months have been a struggle for me.  It is hard for me to be here, alone, away from all of my loved ones.  My lovely partner and her son are half a continent away in New York. My parents and siblings are  all east of the Mississippi. My best friends are in New Mexico and Wyoming.  Even my daughter is in Wyoming this school year.  I'm finding out that I don't do alone very well.  I don't sleep well, I struggle to eat on a regular schedule, I sequester myself in a study room or in my apartment.  I could easily become a hermit.  But I know this is affecting me.  I take steps to make sure I get sufficient sleep, maybe not enough, but sufficient.  I eat breakfast every day and I bought a meal plan at the university so that I eat a "real food" meal at least once a day.  I'm naturally not very social, so the sequestering is pretty hard to fight, but I go to church every Sunday and . . . ok, I don't regularly do anything else social, but I do go to church every Sunday, and I get to the theater in Cheyenne whenever I can.  I focus myself on my schoolwork and the end of this long lonely semester.

I do all this and exist from day to day, but I know I can do more.  I notice that my "Pollyanna-esque" moods have been few and far between.  My tendency to see the good in every situation is missing.  I struggle to look forward to each day as I wake up in the morning.  I am having health problems that I haven't had in over a year, and I know they are related to my poor response to the stressors I'm facing right now.   I have resources available to me and need to use them.

The first resource I'm using is my own knowledge.  Dr. Seligman's PPT uses various activities as interventions for those struggling with everyday life.  One of these is three blessings.  Every day, before retiring for the night, a person can reflect three blessings of their day. This exercise helps a person focus more on the good of their day than on the bad and, according to Dr. Seligman, increases happiness and decreases depression.

So, here goes.  My first entry.

Three blessings, Friday, October 14, 2011
1. My daughter came home again.
2. I purchased my plane ticket to go to New York for a long week at Thanksgiving.
3. I have a family that loves me, no matter what.