Affirmations: Words to Live By

Affirmations: Words to Live By

Positive affirmations are often referenced in circles of self-improvement, encouraging Pinterest boards, and health magazines, but they aren’t often discussed in the realm of positive psychology. Affirmations are just statements about oneself, but the public view is split on whether affirmations are good or not; some people view them only as wishful thinking, while others recite their affirmations daily like a spiritual mantra. The scientific view of positive affirmations, however, depends on which type you’re talking about; there are a couple of different theories about affirmations, and it turns out that we affirm ourselves in different ways.

Get Over Yourself: Cultivating Self-Transcendence

Get Over Yourself: Cultivating Self-Transcendence

Flow states, gratitude, savoring, mindfulness and meditation, spending time in nature, spiritual practices like prayer and pondering, intimate moments with family or friends, and aesthetic or artistic appreciation all foster states of transcendence where we can rise above the usual worries about the self and feel a part of something more. It turns out that the best life is when me becomes us.

Yoga: Overcoming My Stress and My Assumptions

Yoga: Overcoming My Stress and My Assumptions

For a long time, I had a lot of false assumptions about yoga. Before trying it out myself, the only examples I had of individuals doing yoga in my life were women, so naturally I thought it was mainly an exercise for women. Yoga seemed like a weird workout where you sweat and twist yourself into pretzels. I figured you had to be flexible to do it, and I have always been very inflexible. So all-in-all, I thought that yoga was not for me. As I got into college, I got very stressed with everything that I felt I had to do. While studying psychology, I learned that exercise is crucial to regulating anxiety and other symptoms like depression (APA, 2017). However, I have never been good at consistently going to the gym. At that time, someone recommended yoga to me, citing all the benefits of how it might help with anxiety. I was skeptical because of all of my misguided assumptions. I lingered on the idea and when the time to sign up for more college classes came, I noticed my school offered a yoga class for a credit. I figured if I had to attend a yoga class at school, then I would be more likely to consistently do yoga. 

Overcoming Grief

Overcoming Grief

Usually, when people think of experiencing grief, they think of someone who is mourning the death of a loved one. While this is a very real and plausible grief situation, there are other less obvious circumstances in which grief is encountered. Grieving the death of someone is the most common way to grieve, but the loss of a place or the loss of time and associated opportunities are other ways to experience grief (Gitterman & Knight, 2019). The social acknowledgement of grief in response to a non-death loss is minimal, and oftentimes people who grieve these losses suffer silently. Therefore, I’ll be exploring ways in which people who grieve a death or non-death loss can cope and overcome these trials. 

What Are My Friendships Worth?

What Are My Friendships Worth?

Friends were and still are a really important part of my life. However, after graduation things changed. I found it increasingly hard to maintain my old relationships, have time for new friends, and meet new people that would want to spend time with me as well. Maybe not everyone has the same problem as I do with having a lot of friends and having little time to see them, but I do know a lot of people have a problem with too many responsibilities and struggle to maintain the few or many friends that they have. In fact, I think that it becomes pretty common in life

Engaged Living: What to Do if You Are a Side Character in Your Own Life Story

Engaged Living: What to Do if You Are a Side Character in Your Own Life Story

Because of the complexity of modern life, along with the constant pressures we experience, it is no wonder that the plague of our day is being unhappy and unsatisfied with our lives. Fortunately, all hope is not lost. It is possible to take back your position of “main character” in your life and feel good about the way you are living. Among the many ways one can aid with this goal, Engaged Living, or “consistently moving in the direction of one’s values” (Shearer & Warren, n.d., para. 1), is a great place to start.

Basics of Self-Compassion

Basics of Self-Compassion

When you hear the word compassion, what do you think of? You may think of comforting a friend who is grieving the loss of a loved one, visiting an elderly neighbor who is lonely, or simply hugging your sister who just went through a difficult breakup. Most people understand the general concept of compassion, which is “the emotional experience of seeing another’s suffering and being moved to try to alleviate that suffering” (Hansen & Warren, n.d.). For most of us, when we see a loved one going through a difficult situation and experiencing painful emotions, our natural instinct is to want to help them in order to ease their pain. It’s hard to watch someone you care about suffer.

A Hard Life—The Good Life—A Sardinian's Life

A Hard Life—The Good Life—A Sardinian's Life

Within a few days of knowing Ivo, I began to realize what it really meant to live. Really living, it turns out, entails a lot more than kicking back and enjoying life. No, Ivo’s eyes and countenance painted a different picture than conventional media portrays in describing the island paradise, Sardinia. Granted, at a first glance, one might be tempted to think Sardinians live longer and happier simply thanks to the beautiful Mediterranean island they call home. (Fastame, 2022). But looks can be deceiving; the sweeping hills, lined with stone walls and crested by golden stalks of wheat, were not always such an endearing sight.