This activity is suitable for both children and adults. It has been designed to encourage you to spend more time acknowledging and savouring the positive emotions you experience.  As well as inspiring you to pay more attention to what creates your emotions, it offers the opportunity to build a personal resource that can be revisited. The act of reminiscing over events that triggered positive emotions can provide an immediate boost to your well-being as well as reminding you of good times when things aren’t perhaps going so well.

Method

Choose one positive emotion e.g. amusement and begin to collect examples of what triggers this in you – memories, people, places, photos, music, poetry, quotes etc… This can be done in a traditional crafty manner such as the creation of a scrapbook, box or thought board, or for those that prefer online creativeness, as a digital project.

This is an ongoing activity and, if it works well for you, can be a long-term project. Over time, as well as adding ideas to your original choice of emotion start the activity with a new positive emotion.

Further Reading

Fredrickson, B. (2009). Positivity: Groundbreaking Research Reveals How to Embrace the Hidden Strength of Positive Emotions, Overcome Negativity, and Thrive. New York: Crown.