Put Down the Crochet Hook and Put on Your Exercise Shoes, Dammit!

Benefit #17: Positivity Can Help Us Change Our Habits (Including Addictions) Although I have been blessed in that I’ve never had to deal with addiction to alcohol or drugs, I have endeavored to change or correct many bad habits over the years. From little things like making the bed every day to bigger things like

Risking It All on Art and Fairies

Benefit #16: Positivity Helps Us Take More Risks I lived in the library as a kid, reading piles of books every year, particularly over the summer. My sister was the extrovert; I was the bookworm. It must have been junior high when I became fascinated with alphabets. I read less as I checked out book

A Bike, a Book, and an MP3 Player

Benefit #15: Positivity Helps Us Bounce Back After Failure or Setback Sometimes when I think about the fact that I haven’t held an actual J-O-B since 2003, I am astonished. Granted, I was never raising a child – my dependents were always four legged and furry. But there did come a time in late 2008

What if Changing One Word Could Help You Get Fit?

Benefit #14: Positivity Helps Us Embrace Exercise The first personal trainer I ever worked with was brilliant at getting results – for a certain type of client. Having been fat as a kid, he learned to exercise, shed the weight, and got his degree in kinesiology (the scientific study of human body movement). He became

Laugh Your Way to Feeling Great

Benefit #13: Positivity Increases Our Energy Level I’ve been mostly housebound since early December when I was released from the hospital after a serious-but-not-severe bout of covid. The covid and pneumonia are long gone, but it’s taken quite a while to regain my energy and stamina. Friends asked what was the first thing I was

Could You Sleep Through a Tornado?

Benefit #12: Positivity Improves Our Sleep My sister Corina and I were maybe 10 and 12 when we were with my mom in the Detroit area for a funeral/family reunion. Mom’s wacky family never held one without the other, replete with the requisite fisticuffs and someone leaving in a police car. One particular visit, we

Isn’t It Time You Liked Yourself More?

Benefit #11: Positivity Increases Our Self-Esteem A positive outlook naturally leads to positive behaviors – things like problem-solving, good relationship skills, realistic but challenging goal-setting, and good self-care. And with positive actions come positive thoughts, most of which revolve around ourselves. If you subscribe to conventional wisdom, as many as 80 percent of the 5,000

Are You an Open Door?

Benefit #10: Positivity Enhances Our Spiritual/Faith Life A key difference between positivity and negativity is that positivity tends toward expansiveness – relationships to others, wanting more out of life, emotions like joy and happiness. Do an image search for “happiness,” and what picture comes up again and again? People with their arms outstretched – expanding

You Can’t Take It with You

Benefit #9: Positivity Reduces Materialism With the popularity of Maria Kondo’s book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, and the tiny house phenomenon that seems to be sweeping every decorating and DIY channel, it would seem we are in the midst of a movement to downsize, declutter, and minimize. As much as I appreciate the

Don’t Be Like the Douschy Clerk

Benefit #8:Positivity Makes Us Kinder and More Helpful One day, out of the blue, an unanswerable question popped into my head. If we could put all of the disposable straws and straw wrappers used throughout the world in a single day into one big pile, how big would it be? I’m not talking cups or