Philosophy – Page 5 – Andrea Arthur Owan

How Feeling Active Improves Happiness

I had an interesting email show up in my inbox a couple of weeks ago from the Greater Good Science Center. The subject line of how being alone can increase happiness snagged my attention. But there was a lot more information in the email that lead to additional cogitating.

In the article, which I clicked through to, Greater Good Magazine managing editor, Kira Newman, highlighted three main (revelations-to-her) takeaways from her recent excursion to Melbourne, where researchers from over 60 countries gathered for the International Positive Psychology Association’s 6^th World Congress. She said that the findings the researchers shared “added depth and complexity to our understanding of major keys to a flourishing life.”

The second point Newman highlighted in her article is what I want to share with you today.

It centered on the positive emotion—or perception—of feeling active.

Benefits of positive emotions—

Researchers have discovered that people who experience more positive emotions benefit in numerous areas. They tend to enjoy—

Stronger immune systems
More frequent exercise engagement
Lower risks of heart disease
Longer lives

Researcher Sarah Pressman wanted to answer another question about feelings and emotions:

What role does “feeling active” play in our health and well-being?

Pressman and her colleagues found a sizable link between positive emotions and different health measures. As Newman notes in her post:

“For men, feeling active was the positive emotion that predicted how long they lived.”

That finding gives me a lot of insight as to why my formerly athletic husband consistently complains about “not getting enough exercise” and not feeling accomplished at work, even though he has—by all observations—accomplished much and has a very successful and distinguished career.

But there was another interesting finding in the research:

Feeling active didn’t necessarily correspond to how physically active people actually are.

Translation?

It doesn’t just matter how physically active you are but how active—energetic, vigorous, and vital—you feel. It’s all about your psychology state.

Most of the research in this area has been derived from workplace settings and what psychologists refer to as relational energy—how some people rev us up while others drain and exhaust us.

Personally, my feeling active quotient has been in the tank lately, and it’s negatively affecting every aspect of my life, from my family relationships to friendships and beyond. I don’t feel active. I feel like a slug. A broken-down, washed up and washed out slug. Most of the time, anyway. As my injuries improve, the pain subsides, and my energy level increases, I feel more active. But I know I’m more active than the average person, so my feeling active meter might look a lot different than someone else’s.

**Future feeling active research—**

What do researchers want to learn about this feeling active measurement and perception in the future? These might be some things they look at:

What makes us feel active?
How is that beneficial in other ways? (What other areas of life does this feeling affect?)
Can we get happier just by “boosting the pep in our step”? In other words, I guess, can we fake it ‘til we make it?

Your turn—

If you’re up for it, get a journal and write down all of the activities, hobbies, interactions, etc. that make you feel active? As the old sixties’ saying goes: What turns you on?

Conversely, what turns you off? What drags you down emotionally, physically and spiritually? Since research is more and more proving the inter-relationship of these life components, it’s an important consideration.

NEXT WEEK we’ll look at how future hopes, dreams and planning increase your happiness.

Got any daydreams you’d like to turn into real happenings?

Until then, remember, the joy of the Lord is your strength. All of this other stuff we’re learning to help us enjoy life more is simply icing on the cake!

Blessings,

Andrea


Andrea Arthur Owan is an award-winning inspirational writer, fitness pro and chaplain. She writes and works to help people live their best lives—physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

Positive (Productive) Solitude—How Being Alone Can Make You Happy

A recent Greater Good Science Center on-line magazine article really caught my attention. Although the post’s title, “Three Emerging Insights About Happiness,” could have been a ho-hum trigger, the email subject line snagged me:

“How Being Alone Can Make You Happy.”

I perked up and quickly clicked through.

Why?

Because I tend to like being alone, even though I extol the virtues of socializing.

I know. That sounds disingenuous and a little dishonest. But it’s true.

Let me explain.

Although many people would swear on a Bible that I’m a total extrovert, I’m not. In fact, I’ve taken several personality tests—including one when I entered graduate school eons ago, and another one maybe a handful of years ago—that indicated I was borderline sometimes-extrovert, sometimes-introvert. It just depended upon my mood and the social situation. And it still does.

Maybe my initial college introversion came more from being insecure about whether or not I actually deserved to be attending graduate school where I was; and being downright terrified about whether I had the brains to actually be successful in graduate school.

I loved socializing and could chat up a storm (still can) and can easily and comfortably work my way around and through groups of people. But I grew up an only child and learned to spend a lot of time alone. Spending hours in a gym, working out alone (with just my dad or another coach) simply re-enforced my aloneness. I didn’t always like it, (I often loathed the isolation); and it made it difficult to develop friendships, but I learned and adapted.

As a writer, I spend hours alone in a VERY quiet house every day, except when my Shetland sheepdog Dolly ruins my eardrums barking.

So with all of that in mind, I read the article with tremendous interest, trying to glean insights for those of you who would like to spend time alone, learn to spend time alone, need time alone, and would love to know what benefits you can get from that alone time.

Greater Good Magazine managing editor, Kira Newman, highlighted three main (revelations-to-her) takeaways from her recent excursion to Melbourne, where researchers from over 60 countries gathered for the International Positive Psychology Association’s 6^th World Congress. She said that the findings the researchers shared “added depth and complexity to our understanding of major keys to a flourishing life.”

Newman went on to say that attendees heard about when kindness makes you happier, and when it doesn’t. Now the latter part of that statement in itself—especially with the “Be Kind” movement in full swing—is a revelation for many.

She also noted:

“Researchers also addressed modern obstacles to happiness—from the way we’re hooked on technology to a widespread sense of disconnection and loneliness.”

**Defining positive solitude—**

It is well known that social connection is one of the keys to happiness and longevity. For many, feelings of being separated from others—on the outside or forgotten—equals loneliness and disconnection.

But a group of researchers—Martin Lynch, Sergeyt Ishanov, and Dmitry Leontiev—at Russia’s National Research University Higher School of Economics—have investigated “the phenomenon of positive or ‘productive solitude.’”

Newman asks,

“Does solitude have to be a negative experience? Can time alone feed our well-being?”

She explains that positive, or productive solitude is in contrast with the more unpleasant experience of being alone.

“Productive solitude doesn’t occur because we fell disconnected from others; it’s something that we deliberately seek out.”

Productive or positive solitude is when we use the solitary time not for negative ruminating or feeling sorry for ourselves because we’re alone, but using the time for

Contemplation
Reflection, or
Creativity

In other words, it’s time spent being intentionally productive engaging in something that will enrich your life physically, emotionally, mentally, or spiritually.

The benefits of productive (positive) solitude—

Researchers note that people who practice periods or times of positive solitude tend to feel more positive emotions, like:

Relaxation
Calm
Greater pleasure
Greater meaning
Less of a sense of void in their lives.

Who benefits most from productive (positive) solitude?

It’s not surprising to learn that introverts tend to benefit most from practicing productive solitude. After all, introverts easily tire from too much social stimulation, or having to socialize with large groups of people, and get re-energize with alone time.

But another group also benefits:

Those who enjoy emotional and psychological maturity.

Would you count yourself in that category—an emotionally and psychologically mature person?

That’s one of the primary goals of my website, which hosts this blog—for all of us to grow into emotional, psychological (and spiritual) maturity.

Tips for achieving positive solitude effects—

Deliberately schedule alone time to do something you enjoy, without interruption.
Spend solitary time in a peaceful setting, like nature.
Disconnect from social media, turn off your phone and computer, tuck them away and focus on something else—like prayer, drawing, meditating, stretching, thinking, daydreaming, doodling, coloring. Even cleaning out a room or closet can reap positive solitude rewards, especially if that chaotic space makes it difficult for you to feel peace and tranquility or achieve any type of productivity.

What positive/productive solitude isn’t—

Positive solitude isn’t time spent alone doing regular work or trying to catch up on office demands.

Deterrents to positive solitude—

If you aren’t used to practicing positive solitude, you may find your normally busy or over-stimulated brain challenged, and rebelling. The brain loathes change and habit-correction.

But persevere! It may take you a few attempts (or many) to discover what you’d like to do during your alone time, or determining what activity gives you the most bang-for-your-time buck.

If you must, set up a positive solitude reward. Your choice.
Deliberately schedule alone time for doing something you enjoy.
Think of it as time spent cultivating new attitudes, and growing happier!

Again, persevere!

Happiness gained from positive solitude awaits you!

NEXT WEEK: What does “feeling active” have to do with your happiness factor?

If you have any tips for other readers on how you spend positive solitude time, please share them, so we can grow and explore together!

Until next week, enjoy your solitude.

Blessings,

Andrea


Andrea Arthur Owan is an award-winning inspirational writer, fitness pro and chaplain. She writes and works to help people live their best lives—physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

How to Pursue, Build, and Nourish Friendships

Have you ever met anyone who seems to yack and yack and yack and doesn’t let anyone else get a word in edgewise?

Most of the time they’re usually talking about themselves, their activities (or lack thereof), or their problems. They can be exhausting to listen to.

I’ve had some interactions like that, especially with new acquaintances, people I’ve just met or recently met. On a weeklong writing retreat, I spent much of the week listening to one woman’s life story, (which was quite a story), with all of its pitfalls and sadness; although she frequently interjected words of praise to the Lord and joy and how much she liked to write.

On the last day of the retreat, I sat at the dining room table with her, listening to her tell me—and the other seven writers seated at the table—about more gory life history. When it was time to leave, I said goodbye and started to go. She looked at me and said, “Wow. We have to leave already, and I didn’t even get a chance to talk to you and hear your story.”

The first thought that crossed my mind was Of course not. You were too busy telling yours. I’ve been with you for a week, and you never asked.

I’d been in close proximity and boarding in the same house with her for six days, and not once did she ask me about me, or my life.

The heart of the matter—

She may have just been a talker, but—as much as I tired of her droning and was irked by her assessment—and insinuation that I’d withheld information from her—I sensed something else going on.

This woman was either scared or lonely, which meant she talked incessantly to cover her fear; or people never really listened to her. Or she didn’t have enough close friends that really listened and gave her honest feedback.

That’s where so many of us find ourselves these days—scared and unsure of ourselves around others, especially strangers; or just flat out lonely. Plugged into the Internet or television with no real friends to share life with. Covering up our loneliness with busyness and cramming too much activity into a day. Being pressed on all sides by family and work.

And that’s one of the reasons we’ve been covering friendship building on Meditation Monday blogs for the last month.

Our purpose—

God didn’t put us on this orb and allow us to populate it because we’re supposed to live and go it alone. We need to make connections and share life. At the very least, we are to be Jesus-with-skin-on to others.

This post will give you another idea for building friendships.

Connect or reconnect with old friends—

Having a connection to your past through someone else is important. Someone you grew up with, came of age with, slogged through growing angst with.

I think we intuitively know that and that’s one of the reasons so many in their 40s, 50s and 60s (or older) start looking for “old friends or classmates” and try to reconnect or establish a new friendship through a common bond.

Regretfully, high school friendships dropped off the radar for me some time around the birth of my first child. I’d done a pretty good job of maintaining contacts during college and then beyond, but either busy life or inattentiveness caused my connectedness to whither away. Then the same thing happened to college friends, as we moved on, moved away, and started careers and had children.

I’ve begun rectifying that, with a very close high school friend. (I honestly didn’t have too many really close BFFs. I was too busy swinging from uneven bars and being a gym rat to nurture friendships the way I should. And I realize now that I also had too many hang-ups to be a really good friend. It’s one of my biggest regrets.)

I’ve managed to keep in touch with a friend from my freshman year in college, even though she transferred to another college our sophomore year. She lives up the road from me in the north Phoenix area. We mostly communicate via text message, but sometimes it’s a visit, (I flew to Las Vegas to visit her once, drove to Central California from Southern California another time, and enjoyed her guest bedroom after a Phoenix writing retreat on another).

Even when months slip by, she knows I’m only a phone call away; and we’ve prayed each other through some pretty rough times. And I recently learned that she and her husband are buying a retirement home just minutes up the road from where we bought our retirement lot.

And I count myself blessed that my beloved and I came of age together in college. As my youngest noted the other day: “You and Dad sure have a lot of good stories together!” We do. I only hope I can remember them in another ten, twenty or thirty years!

Tomorrow—Tuesday, August 13—will mark 36 years of married memories and 40 years of significant other memories.

Maintaining or building a friendship—

Regular conversations, cards, text messages go a long way in maintaining a friendship, or even building a new one.

I’ve recounted the story before about an older woman I’d been doing Bible study with calling me not long after the birth of my youngest, which was a difficult, isolating time due to his prematurity and sensitivity issues. I did not hear the phone ring, so her call went to voice mail. When I listened to it, I broke down in grateful heaving sobs.

“Hi Andrea. It’s Louise. I just wanted to let you know I’ve been thinking about you, and if I didn’t call to let you know, you wouldn’t know that.”

What a simple, beautiful call that was to an exhausted, stressed and overwhelmed parent of a new preemie.

I wasn’t alone. Someone was thinking of me.

And now that I’m feeling a little overwhelmed about my mother’s condition and having 100% responsibility for her, her medical care, and her funds, I’m in need of more phone calls like that—calls of empathy and sympathy, especially from people who have walked through this kind of valley. Ones that know what it’s like to care for an aging, dementia-ridden parent that never treated you all that well to begin with and who still communicates with a barbed-wire tongue and combative, screeching decibels.

As one person told me, after she gave me priceless direction on how to set up in-home medical care for my mother: “I totally get what you’re suffering. Other people who haven’t gone through what you’re going through don’t get it. They never will. And don’t expect them to. Talk to people who understand.”

It was a fluke that I’d even connected with this woman on the phone, the owner of the company I needed to contract with, who only answered the phone because her receptionist was on vacation. She was patient, informative and compassionate. I knew I was talking to a kindred spirit, and that God had placed her in my path to give me some emotional (and eventually physical) relief.

I heaved grateful sobs when I got off the phone with her.

One connection with a kindred spirit.

And I’m considering finding a support group to encourage me on this new season of my life. Hopefully I’ll make another friend. I already have one who’s is undergoing much of the same, and we are supporting one another.

Keep trying—

The goal is to keep trying. Persevere. If one person doesn’t show interest in spite of all of your efforts, then graciously move on and try someone else or another setting. Invite someone out to lunch or over for tea, to try to connect. Usually you’ll know immediately whether or not there’s a potential heart bond.

I’ve come to realize that I can’t just dredge up high school friendships that weren’t there in high school, or pretend some existed or went deeper when they didn’t. I can go to my high school reunion and enjoy conversations without expectations of being asked to join “the group” for outside social events. I can move forward from where I am, at this age, with the needs, weaknesses, goals and gifts I have now.

In this season of my life.

Be realistic—

Don’t spread yourself too thin. Work on maintaining and deepening the precious friendships you do have and focus on the new person or two you’d like to spend more time, or encourage. I’ve noted a couple of people I can tell need someone to come alongside them, as encouragers, so I’m making plans to spend some time with them.

Start with something low key, like grabbing a cup of coffee, going to a movie, inviting someone over for a swim if you have a pool they’d enjoy.

Don’t be too hard on the friends who go for months or maybe longer without getting in touch with you. Extend them grace and the benefit of the doubt. Check in with them via text or a call or email to let them know you’r thinking of them and love them. Yours may be the most uplifting, positive message they’ve heard in a long time. Life and time zip by quickly before people realize it; and life is hard—harder for some than others.

Be creative. As I tell my kids, try to find some common ground and interest you can connect on. You’d be amazed at what blossoms for your efforts!

NEXT WEEK we’ll see what the Blue Zone researchers discovered about the importance of lifelong friendships.

Until then, branch out and try some new things, do your best to connect with an old friend, work on deepening the relationships you already have.

Blessings,

Andrea


Andrea Arthur Owan is an award-winning inspirational writer, fitness pro and chaplain. She writes and works to help people live their best lives—physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

How to Make the Most Out of Life: Building Friendships

Want to broaden and strengthen your friendships and relationships? It could be one of the most important things you do to make you physically, emotionally and spiritually healthier.

Last month we started a series on developing and building friendships, something all of us need. Even the most righteous and Spirit-filled believer needs someone with skin on her. Even our Lord had His special twelve, and his intimate three. Why would we think we could go it alone?

Last week we looked at taking the first step on that journey: taking your whole person into account. Rather than take a shotgun or dart-throwing approach to friendship building, we need to know ourselves—our strengths, weaknesses, desires and needs—as we embark on friendship finding and building. In a nutshell, we need to discriminate based on that list.

Getting practical and proactive in friendship building—

After you’ve taken your whole person into account and made a thorough personal assessment, you can move forward. Today we’ll look at two suggestions for friendship building.

Get yourself out there!

You won’t make too many friends, or strengthen old friendships, if you don’t get busy and get visible. Some of the best ways are to:

Try something new—a painting or drawing class, taking music lessons, joining an exercise class that gives you the opportunity to interact with others.
Volunteer—join a board that works to achieve something you hold near and dear to your heart. When I volunteered at the local food bank, I had the pleasure of meeting all sorts of interesting people and even having the opportunity to interact with some of them outside of the volunteer setting.
A friend of mine who recently moved to another state got busy joining the local Newcomers Club, a church and one of its small groups, and Bible study. She also has a knack for talking to nearly every new person she meets, so she quickly racked up new friends and opportunities.
Join a hobby group—our younger son, who is 24, recently commented to my husband that he realized the one thing that was missing from his life was a hobby. My husband laughed, probably because he has too many hobbies going. “I really need a hobby,” Cory said. He correctly views a healthy hobby as one that helps him release work stress and engage his mind in different ways than his work does. It’s a win-win physically, emotionally and spiritually.

Find a place to gather with others.

People tend to like having a place to go to meet others, and it needs to be a comfortable place. Your local Mexican restaurant is likely not it. Why? That type of environment is too noisy and too busy to be able to focus on others and share your heart. Some places that make gathering locales are:

Library activity rooms—a writers group I belong to meets every Friday in a nearby library. It has been a fabulous place to meet others and make some new friends.
Quiet coffee shops
Parks
Community Centers
Meet-up Groups
Church rooms available for meetings
House rotation—have others over for tea, lunch or dinner and then ask others to host at their homes, if they are able. That way one person doesn’t feel burdened with hosting every time. We rotate between homes in one of my writing groups. And if someone needs to bow out at the last minute for some reason, another member quickly jumps in to fill that roll. There are only five of us, so it’s a close-knit group.

Think of other places you can meet, or groups you might want to start.

In response to a prompting I felt from the Lord, I started a small women’s group about a decade ago. We met at my home the second Saturday of every month and arranged occasional get-togethers with the family members in our backyard. Grilling, swimming and dining on S’mores made over an outdoor fire pit are quick ways to form friendships! The group last seven to eight years, and we opened our hearts to one another and formed special bonds. We studied the Bible together and prayed fervently for one another. When one of us had family issues or faced illnesses or death, we circled the wagons around one another for support.

As you read this post, does anything come to mind that you’d enjoy or think you’d like to start? Pray about it and about the people you think the Lord would like you to be-friend or gather with.

He knows best what your needs are.

Next week we’ll look at two more ways to bolster friendship building.

Until then, check library bulletin boards, community center activities pages, and Google search for meet-up groups in your area. You’ll probably be surprised to find the number of activities that will spark your interest.

Blessings,

Andrea


Andrea Arthur Owan is an award-winning inspirational writer, fitness pro and chaplain. She writes and works to help people live their best lives—physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

The Millennial Falcon in our Backyard

We have a problem child residing in our backyard, and he’s not the human variety.

It turns out that peregrine falcons also have problems with getting their offspring to exit the nest.

Actually, it’s been hysterical watching the frustrating process.

The precarious transition of a baby falcon to adult—

The first time we noticed that there was a baby falcon living in our eucalyptus tree, it was because the adults (parents) were dive-bombing our black lab every time he was outside in their vicinity. Hami wasn’t deterred, though, and continued to make himself visible and noisy.

Then, nearly two weeks ago, I came home one afternoon to find a peregrine falcon perched on the edge of my roof, leaning against our fireplace brick. He peered down upon me as I drove to the garage. As soon as I slowed down to look at him, he swiftly pivoted and ran back across the roof in the direction of the tree. And that was the first thing that seemed odd to me.

He didn’t fly back to the tree, as they usually do. He sprinted, as though he didn’t have wings.

He also had tufts sticking straight up from his head that gave me the impression he was a young falcon shedding some baby feathers.

Several days later, as Chris and I enjoyed a cooling-off session in the pool (it’s extreme heat time here in the Southwest), we watched our two resident falcons come soaring back to the tree. Then another followed suit. Two coasted easily into the confines of the tree branches. The other one got snagged up on the low-hanging branches and flapped and swung and flapped and swung in vane. Finally, he dropped out of the tree and stood on the dead grass. When I got out of the pool, I slowly walked up the steps and sat on the patio couch to watch him. His wings hung limply out from his sides. So much so that I thought they were injured.

Concerned, I watched him several minutes before rising and moving toward him. At that point, he hopped across the grass and flew—sort of—to the nearby metal fence. Then he flew awkwardly to our back wall. Up to that time, I was considering a call to the game and fish department, or the Sonoran Desert Museum to see if they could lasso an injured falcon. But Chris and I realized he wasn’t injured.

He was afraid to fly!

Since then, Chris and I have watched daily as the young falcon sits on the edge of our dog’s water bowl, inches from our glass bedroom door, with his tail feathers dipped in the water; watched him as he watches us between the sliding glass door separating us from him on our back patio and our bedroom; watched him perch on a patio chair within safe distance from his parents and his tree—the only home he’s ever known.

Then Chris watched a frustrated parent squawk at him from our rooftop, while the other parent sat next to him on our olive tree branch, trying valiantly to boot him off the branch into flight by butting her head against her progeny’s back end. But the adolescent wasn’t about to take flight. He sat stubbornly on the branch, unmoved and unmoving.

But in the last several days, progress has been seen. The three of them leave the tree together to hunt and return effortlessly to the tree. Picked-clean animal carcasses litter the tree base. He’s finding himself comfortable in a variety of places on our patio, including the furniture.

Last Thursday morning, Chris was treated to what he described as “an air show.” The three falcons zoomed back and forth around our acre property in Blue Angel-like flight formation. Clearly, the offspring is growing into his wings. Indeed, he seems to be realizing he has splendid, useful ones.

And it seems, from our limited perspective, that his parents are patiently guiding him every step of the way, sticking closely enough—but not too closely—to boost his confidence. Squawking out encouragement from various vantage points around the yard. (It’s gotten pretty noisy back there.)

When we told the story to one of our older sons college friends, she laughed and labeled him “the millennial falcon.” Thus he’s been christened.

Maybe he’ll finally venture out and find a home of his own, and a mate with which to share flying fun and a family. Or maybe he’ll decide he’s got pretty good digs in our backyard and will only move down to a lower rung to set up shop, living in the “basement” level of the 80-foot eucalyptus. Multi-generational family is back in vogue right now, mostly out of necessity. But it does have its advantages.

Either way, we have a burgeoning aviary in our backyard and are blessed to be witness to this spectacle. It’s been delightfully entertaining!

Benefits for me—

It’s been educational, to see how one member of the animal world trains and supports its offspring. The ties that bind has a new meaning for, and I’m thinking a lot about how much more our adult boys seem to need us—and our advice—than they ever did (or wanted) before.

And I’m ruminating on how different children need vastly different techniques in child rearing and releasing, depending upon their abilities, their personalities, and their confidence. Clearly, they are not all able, or interested, in leaving the nest at the same age, or at the age we’ve arbitrarily deemed the mandatory release date.

As parents, sometimes we need to squawk reprimands, sometimes we need to cajole, sometimes we need to sympathize, protect, and encourage.

Sometimes we need to sit back, observe, and not interfere.

It’s a delicate job that needs a ton of wisdom and discernment from our heavenly Father to do well. And a heap of patience and forgiveness (from both parent and child sides) as we walk this lifelong road together. Because once we’re parents, we never stop being parents.

And even though they achieve adulthood, they never stop being our children.

It’s a blessing we must never take for granted.

Our faithful, long-suffering backyard dwellers are demonstrating and reinforcing a lot of what I already knew but didn’t always do well.

I’m looking on the animal world a little differently now, with more appreciation and camaraderie. And more than a few chuckles and outright belly laughs.

I had no idea how much we could relate to one another.

This entire process could be less stressful and more successful if we’d just let it.

Until next week,

Enjoy the animal creatures in your midst!

Blessings,