Getting from “OK” to “Better than OK”: Strategies for a more positive experience of your world

Maybe you don’t feel so great but are able to put on a “happy face” and get your jobs done.  You perhaps are “OK” but you have a lot of unpleasant feelings (e.g., fear, worry, anger, embarrassment, sadness, depression, etc.).  How can your change that experience to be better – at least better than OK.  Really, it depends on what works best for you today.  Sometimes people need to do (e.g. engage in an activity that has been proven to increase happiness) and other times people need to be (e.g. live in the moment with compassion and acceptance). Below are some different specific tasks and also some big picture ideas to support you.  
 
If you are a person looking for something to do, some techniques from Positive Psychology may be helpful.  There are many “happiness exercises” which are designed to increase your happiness and thus energy.  Here are a few:

1. Three good things – Every night before bed, take a moment to reflect on your day and identify 3 things that went well.  Write them down and your role in this good thing.  You can add how this made you feel at the time and how you feel later about it (such as now as you are reflecting on it).  You can add why you think this event happened.  You can write this in any style you want.  (For example: My pet snuggled me.  I was lying in bed feeling sleepy and she jumped up and curled up on my chest.  I started scratching her and she kept pushing her head further into my hand.  I felt happy and warm.  As I think back on it, I remember how soft the fur was and warm I felt as well as how happy I was for that moment and I feel love right now.)  Do this every day for at least one week.
2. Gratitude visit – Take a moment to identify someone who you feel gratitude towards but have not thanked appropriately.  Picture their face as you experience the feelings of gratitude.  Write that person a letter or note.  Deliver it to them (ideally in person, but now, maybe over video).  Spend some time with that person after you have shared your gratitude.
3. You at your best – Write about a time when you were at your best, a time when you felt productive and/or happy.  What were you doing and who were you with?  Write or record about this time in detail. Review this story every day for a week and reflect on the strength(s) you identified.  

 
There are many more of these exercises on the Internet and there is even an app that has been created by the US Department of Veteran Affairs to help with coping with COVID-19 stress.
 
If you are a person into being, Buddhist Psychology provides other approaches to move towards improving your mood.  Based off the work of Daya (2000), seven core Buddhist principles that you can apply to your life to move towards a more positive experience of the world are:

1. Flexibility of self – Work to recognize that your actions are often related to states (flexible) rather than traits (inflexible).  For example, a trait attribution is: I am lazy and therefore I want to lay on the couch.  A state attribution is: I am stressed due to COVID-19 and therefore I want to lay on the couch.  
2. Being in the present – Focus on the moment you are in and only that moment.  What happened a moment ago or what will happen in a moment is not where you are focused.
3. Experience without evaluation – Rather than rationalizing or trying to mentally understand your experience, focus on how you feel: your emotions, thoughts, senses, body senses, etc. without judgement.  (This takes a lot of practice!)
4. Compassion – Practice acceptance, humility, and humor towards oneself.  This is not about a pity party, but rather about being okay with where you are right now.  
5. Openness – Work to let go of the boundaries that hold you in place and limit you.  These can be fears, expectations that things be a certain way, or something else.
6. Interdependency – Notice how you are connected to your surroundings.  We live interconnected lives and noticing this systematically can increase an understanding of how we need each other. 
7. Sitting with suffering or dis-ease – Practice acceptance of your suffering: emotions such as fear, anger, anxiety, and sadness.  This can include noticing what you are feeling when you are in the middle of a tantrum and accepting that this is how you feel and that it is okay.  You are not at ease or are experiencing dis-ease, a state that is experienced by all.  

 
One does not need to commit to one path or the other.  It is okay to switch between doing and being.  As you notice more of the positives in your life and feel content with where you are, you may find you have more energy and a more positive experience of your world.  
 
Reference:
Daya, R. (2000). Buddhist psychology, a theory of change processes: Implications for counsellors. International Journal for the
​            Advancement of Counselling, 22(4), 257-271. doi:http://dx.doi.org.proxy.library.nyu.edu/10.1023/A:1005648127301

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