Happiness is a Skill, and Skills can be Learned.

SUNDAY GRATITUDE

This week my thoughts have been swirling around something one of my mentors shared with a group of us this week: “Conditional happiness is as empty as conditional love.” This subject is very important to me and the work I do, and his words provided additional clarity.

Our brains are built to look for danger, and there is so much "danger" taking up our attention right now. It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking we must wait for circumstances to be a certain way before we can be happy. Additionally, it’s easy to allow difficult, fearful, or painful thoughts to run feral around in our brains and forgetting the importance of interrupting that process.

Then there’s the saying, “Happiness is a choice.” I say happiness is a practice and a skill, and unless we develop the skill, happiness isn't a choice we can make easily in the midst of turmoil.

We can train our brains to also look for the good. Every time we do so, it changes our brain chemistry and shifts our automatic thought patterns: our neural pathways, more accurately. I talk about this subject often because I think it's critical to success.

When you create a gratitude practice, you build new neural pathways and new habits—new skills—for your brain. Not only do you create new neural pathways, but you also change your chemistry because seeking things to focus on that you feel grateful for shuts off the survival brain and turns on the learning brain.

Here's an overview of of the process:

When we focus on what we're grateful for—even for a few minutes each day—we engage the prefrontal cortex (PFC) which is the "learning" part of our brain. When the PFC is engaged, the "survival" part of the brain is NOT engaged—it's essentially "off" providing a break from ruminations, and negative thoughts and emotions.

When you regularly engage in a gratitude practice, you build new neural pathways in the PFC. The PFC is where the executive functions operate from (short-term memory, attention, planning, etc.), and any amount of time spent building new neural pathways there benefits the ADHD brain and nervous system significantly, literally increasing your gray matter and impacting which chemicals are being released.

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