Help a Spouse Be Positive

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

Hi, I’m Dr. Roger Hall and this is Roger’s 2 Cents, and this video blog, I answer questions that people have sent to me. There we go. I will open the envelope. I will read the question and I will give you what’s on the top of my head, my first impression, uncut and uncensored. And if it’s really awful, you’ll never see it.

This person has asked, “I’d like Roger’s 2 Cents on this question. ‘How to help my spouse learn positive affirmations to see good in life.’”

That’s kind of a tough one.

The first question is kind of related to an old psychology joke. “How Many psychologists does it take to change a light bulb? Only one. But the light bulbs got to want to change.” The first thing to consider is, does your wife want to be a happier person? If she does, awesome. If she doesn’t, then you’re probably not going to help her unless she wants to change.

The second issue is there are some fairly easy habits of life that you can engage in to help you improve your mood. If you adopt these strategies then perhaps your spouse will be interested in these strategies as well. So the first one is gratitude. One of the practices correlated with happiness and a positive outlook is the habit of gratitude. And what I advise people to do is to every day write down in a little journal five things that you’re grateful for. And it starts out with, you know, I’m, I’m thankful for America and I’m thankful for my family and I’m thankful for Jesus and I’m, you know, thankful for my good health. And you do all those things. You know, after about the second week, you’re, you’re done with “Liberty” and “Freedom” and you’re, you’re done with, you know, a two party bi-cameral electoral system. I mean, you’re, you’re, you’re done with all that and then you start focusing on the little things you’re grateful for.

And it’s the little things. It’s the tiny things that we’re grateful for. Those are the things that really help us to be happy. So if, each day, you rehearse you know, I’m thankful for this cheeseburger, I’m thankful that I got to hear an owl last night. All those little things are the things that really make us happy. It’s not the big stuff. It’s the concretion of tiny little things that are the things that really make us happy. So I’d encourage you to focus on those things. So, the habit of gratitude is one way to change your attitude. And again, you can’t get your spouse to do this, but maybe she could learn.

There’s a wonderful book written by a person who says himself that he’s not an optimist. He is really a pessimist. And the book is called Learned Optimism. And the author is Martin Seligman. And in it there’s an assessment, are you really a pessimist, are you an optimist? And then tactics for becoming more and more optimistic.

So, first you need to find out, does your spouse want to change? Second, the easiest way to adopt the positive outlook is the habit of gratitude. And then the third is a book I’d recommend called Learned Optimism by Martin Seligman.
And that’s Roger’s 2 Cents.