Fostering Positive Emotions

In this episode of the Dignity Lab, Jennifer explores the complex relationship between pain and positive emotions. She emphasizes the importance of acknowledging difficult emotions while also cultivating positive feelings such as love, joy, and gratitude. Through a discussion of ten specific positive emotions, you will gain some practical strategies to nurture these feelings, even in the aftermath of hurt. The episode encourages a balanced emotional landscape, where both pain and positivity coexist, ultimately supporting healing and resilience.

Takeaways

• Growing positive emotions alongside your hurt is essential.
• This episode is not about positive thinking or toxic positivity.
• We can plant tiny shoots of life in the middle of the ashes.
• Positive emotions need tending in a world of harm.
• Emotions are automatic reactions; feelings are our interpretations.
• Positive emotions broaden our perspective and build resilience.
• Love can be felt for people, pets, or even nature.
• Joy can exist even in hardship; it's about recognizing it.
• Gratitude can start with noticing small things going right.
• Forgiveness is a gift you give yourself, not others.

Exploring what it means to live and lead with dignity at work, in our families, in our communities, and in the world. What is dignity? How can we honor the dignity of others? And how can we repair and reclaim our dignity after harm? Tune in to hear stories about violations of dignity and ways in which we heal, forgive, and make choices about how we show up in a chaotic and fractured world. Hosted by physician and coach Jennifer Griggs.

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Transcript

This is The Dignity Lab, a podcast that seeks to define dignity, its violations, and its reclamation. No matter who you are, no matter what you’ve done, no matter what’s happened to you, you can reclaim your dignity.

Hosted by physician, narrative medicine practitioner, and leadership coach, Dr. Jennifer Griggs.

This season focuses on healing from past hurts through forgiveness and its alternatives.

Today’s episode is a dose of dignity, a solo, bite-sized episode that focuses on living and leading with dignity.

Hello and welcome to the Dignity Lab. In this season, we've been talking about what happens to us after our dignity has been violated and how we might move toward healing, whether or not we choose to forgive. Today, I want to focus on something that can feel almost impossible when you are hurting, and that is growing positive emotions alongside your hurt. This episode is not about positive thinking and is certainly not a prescription for what has been called toxic positivity, the tendency to invalidate the pain we all experience as part of being human. 

If you've been deeply hurt, it may feel wrong, disloyal, or simply unreachable to imagine feeling anything other than sorrow, anger, numbness, or any of the other difficult, or any of the other difficult emotions we've covered in our last episode. 

This episode is not an invitation to ignore or suppress those emotions. Instead, it's an invitation to make just a little more room in your inner world for moments of love, joy, tranquility, gratitude, hope, awe, curiosity, amusement, forgiveness, and inspiration. Think of this as tending a small garden in a scorched earth. We are not pretending the fire never happened, but we are planting tiny shoots of life in the middle of the ashes.

It is the case that positive emotions do need tending. In a world where harm and violence appear to be winning, we need to set aside time to build our reservoir of positive emotions. This way they're there for us, we have those strategies available to us when we're hit with something hard, when we experience or remember a dignity violation. You may remember from our earlier episode on emotions and feelings that emotions are automatic body reactions to what happens to us and feelings are how we become aware of and make sense of those reactions, your heart racing, your chest tightening, the heaviness in your throat or stomach. These are emotional signals, especially common when we think about our time, especially common when we think about a time our dignity was violated. Feelings are the words and meanings we give those sensations, sadness, anger, shame, relief, or even a flicker of hope. Naming these with precision, what we call emotional fluency, helps us regulate our inner experience rather than be driven by it. 

Positive emotions live in the same landscape. They are not replacements for the so-called negative emotions, what I generally refer to as difficult emotions. Rather, they are additional colors on your palette. Research on positive emotions shows that even brief experiences with these emotions can broaden our perspective and build inner resources over time, including resilience, creativity, and the capacity to connect with others. 

So as you listen to me, as I go through 10 positive emotions, you might gently notice what is happening in your body right now as we talk about positive emotions in the context of your hurt, not ignoring your hurt. You might feel tightness or resistance. You might have a little softening or maybe nothing at all. All of this is data. None of these are wrong reactions to have. 

Okay, I'm going to walk you through 10 positive emotions you can begin to cultivate even in the aftermath of hurt. You don't need to try them all at once. You might just choose one that feels most accessible today. These emotions have been named by Barbara Fredrickson and others. 

And there are of course other positive emotions. If you'd like to, you can hop over to our website, www.thedignitylab.com and download a handout on positive emotions and a second one on ways to foster positive emotions with little tiny acts. 

Okay, let's get going. 

The first one is love. Love is not limited to romance. It is the deep affection and care we can both give and receive from a person, a pet, a spiritual presence, or even the earth itself. You might bring to mind someone you love or someone who loves you and simply sit with the warmth or tenderness that arises, even if it's mixed with grief. A gentle question for you. To whom can you show a small act of love today? Perhaps send a text or give a kind word or simply hold someone you love in your thoughts with care. 

The second one I wanted to cover is joy. Joy is an inner sense of delight and wellbeing that's distinct from the outward expression of happiness. It is possible to feel a quiet joy even in seasons of hardship, such as remembering a time you were lifted up by life or a moment when in the middle of a struggle, something felt just right for a breath or two. You might ask yourself, when is the last time I felt even a tiny spark of joy? And what conditions made that possible? Music, conversation, a walk, a memory. Joy tends to be experienced with others. Is there a time you felt joyful with someone else? Perhaps you were singing or listening to music. Tapping into these experiences can help stretch your joy muscles.

The third is tranquility. Tranquility is a peaceful, calm state, a kind of inner quiet that doesn't require the outside world to be quiet. Acceptance of “what is,” what is actually true, even briefly, can open the door to tranquility, like noticing your breath for a few cycles or feeling the support of the chair or bed beneath you. Consider: what helps you feel a bit more tranquil? A hot shower, a cup of tea, time in nature, or simply turning your phone over so you can't look at it for five or 10 minutes? A few minutes of noticing stillness can help grow that stillness. 

The fourth is gratitude. Gratitude is the feeling of being thankful for what has been given to you or done for you, often by other people, but sometimes simply by life or the earth itself. You might remember a time when someone was unexpectedly kind or notice something very small, a stranger's smile, the way the light falls on the wall in your room in the afternoon, the fact that the ground is steady beneath your feet. If everything's feeling bleak, you can start with the question, What is one thing, however small, that is going even a tiny bit right today? 

The fifth is hope. Hope is an optimistic state of mind based on the possibility of a better outcome, a confidence that a different future might be available even if you can't see how. Sometimes hope is not for a specific event or change, but rather for the capacity to hope again, for the soft thought, “Maybe someday I won't always feel this way.” You might reflect, when have I felt even a tiny sense of hope before and what helped me reach for it then?

The sixth is awe. Awe is a feeling of wonder in response to something vast, beautiful, or mysterious, grand or very small. It might come from a fierce thunderstorm, a cloud formation, a newborn, or even watching a tiny ant carrying something twice its size. If awe feels far away, you might experiment with paying close attention to something ordinary, the pattern of a leaf, the sound of a bird, or the rhythm of rain on a window. 

The seventh is curiosity. Curiosity is an emotion. It's the desire as well to learn or to know, an inquisitive stance towards your surroundings or your own inner world. Curiosity is interesting because it helps soften judgment. Instead of, “I shouldn't feel this way,” you might ask, “What is this feeling trying to tell me?” Or, “How does this sensation show up in my body?” You can also practice curiosity outwardly, wondering how a familiar object works, looking up the origin of a word, or listening more deeply when someone speaks.

The eighth is amusement. Amusement is our sense of humor, lightness, and play, which can feel almost taboo in the wake of pain, as if laughter means the hurt wasn't real. Yet a brief moment of amusement, a silly video, pets tricks, a shared joke, can give your nervous system a tiny break and remind you that you are more than you're suffering. You might recall, when were you last a little playful or silly and what would it like and what would it be like to allow yourself a moment like that again without guilt?

The ninth is forgiveness. Forgiveness, as we've explored throughout this season, is a path to peace and freedom from ongoing hurt. It is not synonymous with condoning harmful behavior. It is not synonymous with reconciling with someone who has violated your dignity. It's a gift you give yourself, often slowly, 

as you decide if and when you want to loosen the hold that past, present or future pain has on you. For today, forgiveness might be as small as acknowledging I may not be ready to forgive them, but perhaps I can start by softening my self-blame, my self-blame, or by considering that someday I might want this freedom for myself.

The tenth is inspiration. Inspiration is the feeling of being lifted up or energized by an idea, a person, a story, or a work of art. Inspiration can spark creativity or the desire to take one small step, like making something with your hands, writing a few sentences, or reaching out to someone who embodies the kind of courage or kindness you value. You might ask who or what inspires me even a little, a piece of music, a poem, a mentor, a child, a memory. And how can I let that inspiration touch me today for a few minutes? 

I'd like to offer you a brief practice you can use with these 10 emotions as you move along your path to healing. You might do this exercise with a pen and paper in a journal or simply in your mind. Bring to mind a story of hurt related to a dignity violation you've experienced. Notice what happens in your body. Heaviness, tightness, heat, numbness, these are all valid signals of your emotions. Name at least one feeling connected to that story. Perhaps anger, sadness, grief, shame, or fear.

If you can, use really precise language, remembering that this helps grow your emotional fluency and your resilience. Then choose just one positive emotion from our list that feels less threatening, maybe tranquility, curiosity, or gratitude. Ask yourself, what is one tiny way I could invite a moment of this feeling into my day without abandoning my pain?

Take a few breaths and imagine what it would feel like in your body if that emotion were present for a minute or two. Perhaps a slight softening in your chest for tranquility, a widening of your perspective for curiosity, or a subtle warmth or groundedness for gratitude. Finally, notice any resistance that arises–skepticism, irritation, or disbelief, and see if you can meet that thought as well with curiosity and dignity, recognizing that your responses are understandable. 

You might repeat this practice with different emotions over time allowing your inner landscape to become more spacious with room for many truths at once. Your hurt, your boundaries, your longing for justice, and also the small but powerful glimmers of positive emotion. Healing is not a straight line and it does not depend on you feeling cheerful or moving on. It does, however, often involve reclaiming your full emotional range, honoring both the depth of your pain while nurturing positive emotions that can support your resilience and sense of worth.

So let's say you don't want to try that exercise right now. My invitation to you this week is simple. Just choose one positive emotion from today's exercise and experiment with cultivating a tiny moment of it. Whatever way feels most accessible and aligned with your dignity. What would it be like? What would it be like if you could feel, nurture, and rely upon a healthy and deep reservoir of positive emotions?

Which, if any of these, are you already focused on regularly? What's your plan for continuing to foster positive emotions? And how will these help you heal from past hurts and the inevitable hurts you'll face in your future?

I love hearing from you. Drop me an email at jennifer@jennifergriggs.com. You can always contact us through our website, the dignity lab.com. And if this episode has been helpful, I'd be grateful if you would rate, subscribe and share it with someone who might also be walking a path towards healing. Thank you as always for listening to the dignity lab, and we'll see you next time. Thank you as always for listening to the Dignity Lab and we'll see you next time.

This has been The Dignity Lab with Dr. Jennifer Griggs.

If you have experienced a dignity violation or have a dignity dilemma and want to be a guest on our show, contact us through our website, www.thedignitylab.com. Guests may remain anonymous. 

And If you’re a leader wanting to up level your leadership with a small community of like-minded people, visit our website thedignitylab.com to learn more about the Dignity Lab (yes, the same name), our group program for leaders.

Our website and the show notes have downloadable resources that you can access from anywhere.

More information about any of our guests can be found in show notes for that episode. 

This season of The Dignity Lab is produced by me, Vanessa Aron. Pete Carty is our audio engineer and sound designer. Chase Miller composed our theme music.

This podcast is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional advice, diagnosis, or treatment. The content discussed is intended to explore and raise awareness about dignity. Sensitive topics may be discussed that could evoke strong emotions; discretion is advised, and listeners are encouraged to engage with the material with empathy."

Remember, “...be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the Universe, no less than the trees and the stars.”