LESSON 4 - Paying Attention to the Positive and Practicing Gratitude

8/12/2019 LESSON 4 - Paying Attention to the Positive and Practicing Gratitude

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LESSON 4 Paying Attention to the Positive

SPEAKER Clay Cook: This is lesson four-- choosing

to pay attention to the positive, and practicing gratitude.

This lesson is all about what is attention,

and how do we actually direct our attention to thingsthat lead us to feeling and behaving better?

Because our attention really can go in one of three ways.

It can go to the negative.

It could go to the neutral, which means it has no emotional weight to it,

or can go to the positive.

And there's one direction that actually helps us reap resilient benefits,

and we're going to jump into that.

But before we really can have a thoughtful discussion about choosing

to pay attention to the positive, we first

need to define, what is attention?

And attention has been defined as that which takes possession of our mind.Another way to think about it is attention

is the focal point of our consciousness-- the things

that we notice and come to the forefront of our consciousness.

It's like a spotlight that illuminates things in your mind.

And we can think about all the different things that

are happening around you right now, but you're

paying attention to something specific.

And hopefully it's me delivering this lesson,

and not something else that's irrelevant.

But our attention can go many different ways,

but it's that which is actually captured and spotlighted.Researchers have followed people and figured out how many things are they

consciously aware of-- or do they pay attention to-- on the average day.

And they've estimated, roughly, there's 20,000 things--

the average noticeable thoughts or conscious images

that people attend to each day.

The trouble is, when we look at the ratio of what we attend to

in terms of positive to negative, and what

we find is the ratio is way in favor of paying more

attention to the negative then the positive.

Here's another example of how our natural tendency actually works

against us, and can cause more distress than good.We are actually hardwired to pay more attention

to the negative than the positive, and we

can look back to our ancestors to really understand why.

If we attend to the negative, such as stressful, harmful, dangerous

situations, we can understand how this can enhance survival,

and those who actually paid more attention to the negative

were more likely to pass on their genes.


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Whereas the counterpart, paying more attention to the positive,

didn't reap as much survival benefits.

So over time we are now more prone, if you will-- doesn't mean everybody,

but most people are more prone to paying attention

to the negative aspects of what's happening in their lives.

And research by Roy Baumeister has demonstratedthat in interactions with others, we pay more negative attention

to what we don't like-- what the person did wrong, or how they're screwing up--

versus paying attention to what the person did well, what we actually

like about them, what we think is admirable characteristic.

Also, in our own experiences, when we perform,

we're more likely to look at the negative aspects

of our performance versus finding the silver linings.

This tendency for negative attention actually

has implications for how we feel, the meaningfulness we get out of life,

and ultimately, how we behave in life.

So we're going to talk about how we actually gain control of our attentionand focus on paying more attention to the positive aspects of our lives.

There's a concept that's been researched with regard to attention,

and it's called selective attention.

And many people know this as the cocktail party effect.

And the cocktail party effect refers to selectively concentrating on one thing

while ignoring all other things.

So we can imagine ourselves going to a cocktail party

where there's numerous people, and we know the volume of different chatter

that's going on in the room.

But we have the ability to get into a more intimate conversation,

and pay attention selectively to only what'shappening between you and the other person.

And this is what selective attention is.

We can also be involved in what seems like a conversation,

but be selectively attending to someone else's conversation

because we heard a certain word that has captured our attention.

So selective attention really means honing

in on one thing at the exclusion of everything else going on.

So what's the implications of this for resilience?

Well, we have a specific type of selective attention,

and that's called a negative confirmation bias.

And a lot of research has shown that peopleare prone to have a negative confirmation bias.

And that means only seeing others or situations through a negative lens,

and failing to pay attention to the positive things.

It creates kind of a tunnel vision.

You exclude everything else, and all you pick up on

are those things that are negative, annoying,

or problematic about situations and others--


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which ultimately impacts how we feel towards others or situations,

and ultimately how we behave.

And we can easily imagine how we behave can actually

make matters worse for ourselves-- create more stress,

and engage in behaviors that are disconnected from our values.

I'm hoping you can say this out loud after I say it.But we are not victims of our attention.

Go ahead and say it.

That's because we have the ability to effortfully control

what we do with our attention.

We may not be able to control what captivates our attention,

but through awareness, we can notice that we're paying attention

to something negative, and divert our attention

to something that's more positive and uplifting-- that causes

us to feel better, and ultimately behave better.

So we can purposely choose to attend to something that's more positive when

we notice we're focusing on the negative.So what does the research say about people

who strive to pay more attention to the positive in life,

rather than fixate on the negative?

I'm sure you know someone in your life who's a really positive person.

They always have that positive spin.

They always pick up on things that are positive in each and every situation,

versus dwell on the negative.

And you can imagine how nice it is to be around those people.

I actually play basketball with a guy who's overly positive,

and we're disappointed when he's not around,

because he increases the atmosphere.Everybody has a better time as a result of his presence.

But there's real benefits-- you don't have to be born with the ability

to pay attention to the positive.

You can actually cultivate and practice it.

And the benefits that have been shown through research

include people reporting having a more satisfying life.

What better definition of success is someone who sits back and says,

my life is super satisfying, enjoyable, and fulfilling?

People are more likely to build relationships with others

rather than burn them.

They're able to cope better with stressful life circumstances,and bounce back from adverse situations, such as the death of a loved

one, financial difficulties, relationship problems.

People have better immune systems that resist illnesses.

Physically, your body's in a better place to handle illnesses.

People recover quicker from setbacks.

They've even done studies where they've given people cuts,

and help them pay attention to more positive things.


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And people who received that support to pay more attention

healed significantly more quicker than people

that didn't receive that support.

So we have a range of psychological and physical benefits

that lead to resilience when we actually, purposely

choose to pay attention to the positive.So the point of everything I just said is that first, we

have a tendency to selectively pay attention

to more negative aspects of our life, which ultimately impacts how we feel

and behave-- which isn't necessarily a good thing.

And we understand that we're hardwired, and we have that tendency.

So we have to rectify those situations.

The next point is that we actually learn that we have the ability

to intentionally choose to pay more attention to positive things.

The last thing is that we can actually engage

in a process called attention training, which is the process of purposefully

practicing paying attention to the positive aspects of ourselves,others, and our surrounding environments,

to rewire certain pathways in our brain.

When we actually spend more time focusing and paying

attention to the positive things that are happening in our lives,

we rewire the circuitry of our brain, and we're

more likely to have that more positive lens in the future.

I'm going to cover three things you can do to actually practice

choosing to pay attention to the positive.

Another way of saying that is to engage in that attention training, where

we can help rewire the circuitry of our brain.

And the first thing I want to discuss is searching for the silver lining.And this is more of a metaphor that we're going to borrow from.

And the idea is that every cloud, whether it's

a storm cloud, a dark cloud, has a silver lining to it.

That means in some of the worst circumstances we can face in life,

there's still positive things going on.

Yet we have a tendency to selectively think, and stay fixated,

about all the negative.

So people in some of the most troublesome circumstances

still have the ability to find the small things.

And that is the silver lining.

And the small things might be a simple interaction with someone else.A small thing might be something about the beauty

of the environment you're in.

You caught a sunrise.

You notice some type of wildlife that you never noticed before.

You're amazed at the complexity of what it's like to live in an urban setting,

and how, within all the chaos, there's organization.

Things like that is about paying attention


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to the silver lining that's happening each day.

But you have to practice it, just like you would go shoot free throws,

just like you go and practice running, or you

would practice cooking-- anything, you get better with the rehearsal.

So you have to spend time actually purposely

directing your attention to find the silver lining.That's one way we can practice this choosing

to pay attention to the positive.

The next is choosing to see the positive in others.

This really requires you noticing your natural tendency

to perhaps pay more attention to the negative.

So you have to search and find something that you actually like, approve of,

admire-- something about someone else that may inspire you.

So you have to actually pay attention to another person

in a different kind of way.

And what you'll find is you'll be more open,

and you'll feel more connected to that person versus engage in behaviorsthat can actually harm a relationship, or do

something that actually causes a person to act towards you in a way

that it induces more stress in the future.

So one way we can actually purposely practice this

is choosing to see the positive in others,

and staying away from that negative tendency.

Developing positive go-to staples.

Go-to staples are essentially fixtures in your life.

It's easy for a parent to think about a positive go-to staple,

because they have their child.

And that's what we mean by a positive go-to staple.Any time you're in a stressful situation, it's a go-to.

It's something you can turn to to think about, and refocus

your attention on that to feel better.

So I might be in the most stressful situation--

I have a really strict deadline.

I don't feel like I can meet that deadline.

I have a lot of people communicating me and putting pressure on me,

and so I see my stress go up.

And so I'm thinking all about that.

My attention is focused on this kind of negative.

I can give myself a break by diverting my attention to somethingthat's a positive go-to staple.

And that's a positive fixture in your life.

It could be a person.

It may be a vacation that's on the horizon that's

going to be a really enjoyable experience.

So you just alter and direct your attention

to that more positive fixture, so you can have a better feeling,


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and ultimately engage in better behaviors moving forward.

So these are three ways in which we can specifically

choose to pay attention to the more positive aspects of our lives,

rather than getting stuck in a rut of thinking only about the negative.

LESSON 4 Practicing Gratitude

Speaker Clay Cook: We're now going to turn our attention

to a specific type of paying attention to our lives.

And it's called gratitude.

And gratitude is ultimately cultivated by paying attention

to life in a special way.

So what is the special way?

It's a way of positively reflecting on what has happened to us.

Or what's been brought into our lives and our experiences.

And when we actually pay attention in this special type of way,

focusing on what we have deep appreciation for.Or are thankful for.

We actually cultivate gratitude as a feeling.

And gratitude is really more of a feeling.

It's a felt sense of wonder, thankfulness, and appreciation

for both the small and big things that come along with life.

And when we have a deep sense of gratitude,

we actually have a sense of awe.

And that positive emotional experience has been shown to improve resiliency.

And improve overall mental and physical well being.

So gratitude can happen to us in kind of a happenstance way,

or serendipitous way.Or we can purposefully cultivate and practice gratitude.

And we're going to actually focus on how we can actually purposefully cultivate

it so we can achieve its benefits.

And there are numerous benefits that scientific research

has uncovered, associated with purposefully practicing gratitude.

And we know that people who intentionally do this

are more satisfied with life.

They're overall happier.

More optimistic about their futures.

They're better at handling challenging situations.

They have fewer illnesses.They get more sleep.

They exercise more.

And are able to think more clearly in problem solving situations.

So gratitude produces a number of resiliency benefits

that are in our best interest.

So the next question is, how do we actually cultivate and practice this?

Gratitude isn't just creating a checklist-- like oh, yeah I'm


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grateful for that.

Oh yeah, I love these people.

Oh, that was cool, that happened.

There's a specific way to actually-- or best practices of gratitude.

So it's the way in which people think about positive life events

and practice gratitude that's critical.So one of the essential ingredients is that you gotta actually believe it

and intentionally practice it.

So if you don't believe that gratitude is important,

you're not going to reap its benefits.

And if you don't find time to do gratitude practices,

then you can't reap its benefits.

That's kind of like the "no duh" part of this.

The second element is, the deeper the processing, the greater the benefit

the person experiences.

So more than just saying, oh yeah, I'm grateful to have

that person in my life, you ask a deeper question.It's not just who or what happened, and it's why you're grateful.

And that causes you to really kind of search and uncover why.

Why are you grateful?

What aspects of that person actually cause

you to have a deep sense of appreciation or thankless for them?

One trick you can use to create the deeper level processing-- Rather

than thinking about the presence of an event,

we can create deeper processing by thinking

about the absence of a positive event.

So we would ask ourselves, what if that person wasn't in our life?

And that really puts us in a position to go, oh my gosh.And that's where we can cultivate that sense.

Gratitude is really a sense, a feeling.

We have different times in our lives where we experience gratitude.

You may think about a loved one.

And you think about the absence of that person,

and it almost can bring you to tears.

But it's not tears of sadness.

It's just tears of appreciation.

And that's what we mean by gratitude as an emotional experience, that

can be cultivated by positively reflecting on aspects of our lives.

I'm going to give you a little nuts and bolts on howgratitude works to improve our well-being.

So if I purposefully and intentionally practice gratitude.

And process what I'm grateful for.

And I try to process that at deeper level

by asking why I'm grateful for that thing or person.

And imagine the absence of that thing or person.

So I can think of a deeper level.


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I'm likely to get increased psychological well being.

I'm going to feel better after the fact.

People also report having increased social functioning.

So they're more likely to interact more positively with others.

And have increased physical well-being.

Meaning more vitality, energy to do things.When we have those things, it actually creates greater alertness, energy,

and joyfulness on our part.

We're more likely to be generous, compassionate,

and engage in pro-social behaviors.

We often sleep better and longer.

We exercise more.

And we ultimately feel less stressed.

And that, in and of itself, means that we're better rested.

We're happier.

We have decreased levels of stress, that can produce a kind of chronic wear

and tear.We have a greater sense of fulfillment and we're more connected with others.

So that's how practicing gratitude intentionally

actually can operate and work.

And improve the types of outcomes that enable us to become resilient.

My hope by now is that you've been sold on the process of purposefully

and intentionally practicing gratitude in order

to reap the resilience benefits.

So now I want to give you the more important element of,

what can you actually do?

What are the gratitude practices that you

can do to actually pull your attention to reflecton positive aspects of your life that you have a deep appreciation for,

are really thankful for?

The first one is weekly gratitude journaling.

And we're going to discuss what that looks like.

The second one is more of an ongoing thing that you can do.

And that's just creating thank you notes.

Writing essentially thank you notes for potentially anything

that life presents that you're thankful for.

And the most impactful one that's been shown through research

is actually writing a gratitude letter.

And engaging in a gratitude visit to someonewho you're really grateful to have in your life.

The first gratitude exercise we're going to cover

is weekly gratitude journaling.

And thankfully researcher has identified the optimal frequency.

So you don't need to get too crazy by doing it every day,

or multiple times per day.

But you don't want to do it too infrequently like once a month


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or once every other month.

Really, research has pinpointed once a week as the optimal frequency

to engage in gratitude journaling.

So let's talk about what the gratitude generally process actually looks like.

You want to reflect on your week and you want

to identify five things for which you are grateful for,or was a surprised in a positive way, that happened.

So you want to list these five things.

But then, we need to engage in that deeper processing.

You're also going to write about how that positive event, if it never

happened, how would that have affected you.

And so we're going to really think about--

and it's going to cause you to think about-- why you're

grateful for that event, or that person, or action

that was directed in your way.

So that's essentially the structure.

Identifying five things that you have an appreciation for, or are thankful for,or grateful for, in the past week.

And really imagining the absence of that event

so you can process why it really was a meaningful event that happened to you.

The next gratitude exercise is writing thank

you notes about really, conceivably, anything that enters into your life

that you're thankful, grateful for, have an appreciation for.

Some could be kind of serious.

And some could be not so serious and kind of funny.

But in some way, you were grateful for that happening.

So imagine actually writing a note to something.

And it can be over anything.It can be a person.

It can be an object.

So I'm going to give you a couple that I've written in the past, that are just

when it entered into my attention-- why am I grateful for these things

and why do I have appreciation for them?

And often they're the smallest, sometimes odd things

that are in our lives.

So one I wrote was to my clean sheets.

And I said, "dear clean sheets, thank you

for being so much softer and inviting than dirty ones.

You are the best thing to climb into after a tough day at work.Gratefully, Clay."

That's something I just noticed.

I'm thankful that I have the ability to actually have clean, soft, nice sheets.

And it was something that I really had an appreciation for.

Particularly when you climb into those things after tough day

and it just feels too good.

Another one I wrote was, "dear walks, thank you


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for being the activity that allows me to break and come up with my best ideas.

It used to be showers, but showers don't allow me to get into shape."

So this is something that I just said, I have the ability to go walk around.

And actually not only does it afforded me the ability

to think and come up with ideas, but I also get exercise.

So I have an appreciation for just the abilityto be able to walk and experience that type of thing.

I also work with young kids.

And those young kids often have emotional behavioral problems.

And so I wrote this one to a little boy who kind of pushed my temper.

And I said, "dear little boy who pushes my temper, thank you

for being the student who pushes me to become a better

psychologist, while also helping me appreciate my own child."

And this is a way to spin, and use positive attention

to reflect on my experience.

To say, what am I grateful for?

This person is actually causing me to become better.And also it gives me a sense of appreciation for my own family members.

So these are examples of writing simple thank you notes

about, really, anything that enters your life that you appreciate,

are grateful for, or have an appreciation of.

The last gratitude exercise, and the one that the research actually

has the most support for, is actually doing a gratitude letter or visit.

Martin Seligman, who is considered the godfather the positive psychology

movement, actually developed this technique

at the University of Pennsylvania.

In one of his psychology courses.

And the gratitude letter-visit actually requiresthe person to sit down and write a letter to a mentor, a family

member, or friend, or any other important person in the person's life

whom they've never really properly thanked or conveyed

their deep appreciation to.

And so you write to this person a letter.

And tell them what it is about them that you're truly grateful,

and you appreciate, and you're thankful for.

When you write that letter, you then prepare to do the visit.

And this visit is it a face to face meeting with that person.

And the person doesn't necessarily know the nature

of why you want to get together with them.It could be a family member or anybody in your life

who you want to write this letter for.

But you're going to arrange this meeting.

And at the meeting, you're going to actually read the letter to them.

And give the letter to them.

This may seem kind of like an awkward or uncomfortable situation,

and it often is for people.


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But on the back end, it may, while you're delivering the letter,

seem a little bit awkward and comfortable--

But the benefits are tremendous.

People's happiness levels, life satisfaction levels,

their physical well-being measures, have been

shown to improve for months and months followingdoing engaging in such an intentional practice.

So this one really requires reflecting and identifying

a person who you want to write this letter to.

And then ultimately, the delivery of that letter.

By reading the letter to them and giving them a copy.

If you want to reap the benefits, this is perhaps

one of the most beneficial gratitude practices that you could do.

Through practicing the three gratitude exercises we discuss,

you can reap the resiliency benefits by really

cultivating that positive emotional experience.

Which is what we define as gratitude.So I really encourage you to integrate practices such as these in your lives.

To cultivate gratitude by purposely choosing

to pay attention to those things that you

have a deep appreciation for in life.

LESSON 4 - Paying Attention to the Positive and Practicing Gratitude

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