Positive Perspectives

Five Things You Should Know About Forgiveness

Everyone has experienced hurt and betrayal.  How we deal with it has important implications for our mental and physical health.Social scientists have discovered that people who are able to forgive experience more joy, a sense of control of their lives, and less depression.
People who are unable to forgive experience more stress, have higher blood pressure (which is linked to heart disease), get ill more often, and have more chronic pain. Five things to consider about forgiveness:

1. Forgiveness is first and foremost for you. You are the main beneficiary of your choice to forgive. Wayne Dyer says, “Do it for yourself to provide the antidote for the poison that you have allowed to circulate inside of you.”
2. Forgiveness is a choice. Your quality of life is inherently linked to making the choice to forgive.  The unwillingness to start the process of forgiveness keeps us mired in the past, unable to live in the present and with a limited capacity to envision a positive future.
3. Forgiveness is not always tied to forgetting.  There are degrees of hurt – from shallow to deep.  We can forgive, and should forget, the shallow hurts. It is important however to forgive, and not forget, the deep betrayals so that you do not put yourself, or others, in a situation of being betrayed again. Desmond Tutu said, "In forgiving, people are not being asked to forget. On the contrary, it is important to remember, so that we do not let such atrocities happen again".
4. Forgiving others is not excusing bad behavior or betrayal. There is no excuse for bad behavior. Period. Just because you forgive someone does not mean that what they did was okay. However, not forgiving them gives them control over how you feel.
5. Forgiveness does not mean that you have to continue to be in a relationship with that person.  You can choose to forgive someone and also choose not to have a relationship with them if the relationship continues to be toxic or harmful.

Choosing to forgive is a powerful, life-changing gift you give to yourself – a gift of health, happiness, and peace of mind.

Standing Tall - C. Vivian Stringer

Yesterday, on National Public Radio's, Talk of the Nation, I listened to the interview with C. Vivian Stringer, who is the head coach of the Rutgers University women's basketball team and has just celebrated her 800th career win. Her basketball team was the target of Don Imus' racial insults and the dignity of her response and her fierce defense of the young women on her basketball team will be remembered.

To get a glimpse of how Ms. Stringer arrived, and survived to become one of the most successful basketball coaches of all time, here are some of the life challenges she has faced: the death of her husband at age 47, her 14 month old daughter contracting meningitis and would never walk or talk again, and her own struggle with cancer.

As a child, Ms. Stringer's parents offered her this sage advice:“Work hard, and don’t look for excuses and you can achieve anything.”

Read more about her book Standing Tall: A Memoir of Tragedy and Triumph. You can listen to the NPR interview here.

Rock Paper Scissors Winning Strategy

Everyone needs a strategy when playing rock paper scissors (RPS) according to Graham Walker.

Photo by Geekgirly

Playing against a RPS beginner? "Against a beginner, play as paper. The reason? Most people pick rock."

Playing against an experienced RPS player? "Against a seasoned player, tell your opponent what you're going to throw and then actually throw it. Most people won't think you are crazy enough to telegraph your throw."

These quotes are from The Official Rock Paper Scissors Guide's author Graham Walker as reported in Men's Journal Magazine. Read these quotes in the Globe and Mail's Social Studies section written by Michael Kesterton.

Dr. Happy

Ode Magazine - billed as the online community for intelligence optimists, has a great article about French psychiatrist Christophe Andre a self-confessed pessimist who wrote the book called Vivre Heureux ("How to lead a happy life"). The article in the March 2008 issue, called Professor of Happiness is written by Peter Van Dijk.

Photo by xtheowl

Here are the first few paragraphs...

For the second time in two weeks, I took the train from the Netherlands to Paris, and for the second time in two weeks I missed my connection in Rotterdam due to a screw-up by the Dutch railway system. The first time I got pretty irritated. The second time I didn't.

The key was simple and as old as the hills, but it works like a charm: Try to enjoy the moment. During my second trip, I was reading Vivre Heureux ("How to lead a happy life"), a book by Christophe André, the French psychiatrist I was going to interview in Paris. In the first chapter he quoted Voltaire, who wrote, "I've decided to be happy because it's good for my health." Reading another of Andre's books, L'Art du Bonheur ("The art of happiness"), convinced me I needed to interview him.

André has written some 15 books. Vivre Heureux and L'Art du Bonheur are targeted to a general audience. He also writes scholarly books and has done a comic book with the artist Muzo, in which André explains and clarifies a number of psychological disorders such as paranoia, narcissism and hysteria for laypeople in a surprisingly light and funny style.

Read the rest of the article here.

Time: Quantity or Quality

The ancient Greeks conceptualized time as chronos and kyros. Chronos is clock time measured in seconds, minutes, hours, and is the root word for chronological and chronology. Kyros is timelessness, the here and now, synchronicity, carpe diem – seizing the moment. Chronos and kyros represent quantity and quality.

Isn’t that what our struggle with time is all about? The quantity is fixed and we are often unhappy with the quality or the way in which we are spending our time. While we agree on how long forty-five minutes is (chronos) it is experienced differently if you are sitting in the dentists chair as opposed to watching a fascinating movie (kyros).

How can we experience more kyros time and less chronos?  Doing one thing at a time, refusing to live an over-schedule life, and making time for the important people in our lives will help us to balance the quantity and the quality.

Excerpt from Lucy’s book, Learn to Manage Your Time.