Today I am thinking about the upward spiral of happiness marriage and other important relationships in our lives. What is it that makes our most important relationships excellent versus bad? Yesterday, I was reading Martin Seligman’s website. I came across his comments about the work of UCLA Professor Shelly Gable on the positive psychology of love and marriage. This quote stopped me in my tracks:
How do you respond when your mate tells you that she’s just been promoted, or your teenager tells you that the most beautiful girl in his class just accepted a date with him, or when your father tells you that he just made a hole-in-one, or when your best friend tells you that she just had an article accepted by the Psychological Review? Shelly divides the possible responses into the following four categories:
- Do you “react enthusiastically” (active-constructive)? “That’s the best news I’ve heard this week, and I’ll bet its just the first of many big raises you’ll get.”
- Do you “point out the potential problems or down sides of the good event” (active-destructive)? “Are you sure you can handle the added responsibility?”
- Do you “say little, but convey that you are happy to hear the news” (passive-constructive)? “That’s very nice, my dear.”
- Do you “seem uninterested” (passive-destructive)? “Isn’t all this rain something?”
She calls the first category “Capitalizing,” amplifying the pleasure of the good situation and contributing to an upward spiral of positive emotion. Capitalizing turns out to be the key to strong relationships.
Celebration Amplifies the Upward Spiral of Happiness
How would your mate, child, or best friend characterize your habitual responses to their good news? Communication with spouses, children, friends, parents, and those we work for and with hinges on what I call celebration.
Celebration is entering into each other’s lives, efforts, and achievements. When someone considers me an important person in their life, my communication to them of how their life, efforts, and achievement impacts me is a vital ingredient in the formula of how healthy our relationship is.
I believe that active, constructive communication (capitalization) is profoundly making your world a happy experience, or destructive communication is making life misery. I see it around me everyday. When we celebrate the big wins of life with the people who are important parts of our lives, and they join in with us in positive encouraging ways, we bond in ways that become powerful foundations for even greater growth. These moments in time become powerful, strong milestones and memories which impact our lives more than we realise at the time.
Destructive Communication Kills the Spiral of Happiness
When we have happy marriages, families, work relationships, and community relationships, our sense of meaning in life, and positive emotions, enable us to be focused. If you have ever been going through bad times in a marriage, you know how distracting and draining it can be. Our minds focus our energy on trying to survive, and save our relationship.
At the moment, I live in The Blue Mountains suburb of Sydney, Australia. We just experienced devastating wildfires. Eighty percent of the beautiful forest we live in has burned. Yet, with the first rains this past week which are watering the dry, drought plagued land, green shoots are forming out of the ashes. Love is like that. Commitment is like that.
With just a little watering, destruction can turn around. If you work for a boss who is angry, critical, or a poor leader whose people skills and emotional intelligence are bad, you will know the negative impact it has on morale, engagement, and company culture. It destroys trust, communication, and getting results. Are you that manager who deflates everyone?
Conclusion
When we are focused, getting in the flow, and doing what we do in amazing ways, we flourish in family life and at work. Speaking positive words in authentic expressions lifts us up and our capability is amplified into exponentially greater and great achievements!
On the other hand, when we are miserable, when people in our life interact with us in destructive ways, it drags us down. Their lack of emotional intelligence or ability to interact with people impacts us. We fail to truly thrive and flourish. We struggle with meaning and finding the positive emotional environment where potential becomes reality.
Take the time to read what I read yesterday. It takes 3 minutes. Then, ask yourself if the most important people in your life are actively or passively constructive, or actively or passively destructive. When we have destructive people in our lives, we will need to make course corrections to turn those relationships positive, if family. If friends or work relationships, we can work to improve them or limit the destructiveness by setting new boundaries and changing those we interact with.
For more on this topic, read Shelly Gable’s original research entitled, “Will You Be There for Me When Things Go Right? Supportive Responses to Positive Event Disclosures.”