MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT

Dear Spiritual Light Center family and friends:

The holiday season is upon us! If you are like me, you have pleasant memories of sitting around the dining table and enjoying food and fellowship with family members at Thanksgiving, and of a tree in a corner of the living room bright with colored lights and ornaments at Christmas.

I am grateful for these memories of enjoyable times past. It is sometimes difficult to find enjoyment every day in the present, with media reports of tragedy and destruction in the world, grim forecasts of increasing economic distress and disaster to come, and political negativity and polarization at every turn.

Even when such things occupy too many of our waking hours, it is still possible to generate feelings of gratitude and thankfulness. Professor Barbara Fredrickson of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has written an easy-to-read little book entitled “Positivity,” in which she suggests that it’s neither necessary nor desirable to have a positive attitude 100% of the time, as Pollyanna did. But she offers evidence that if we enjoy three heartfelt positive emotional experiences for every one negative emotional experience, we will have reached a “tipping-point” which determines whether we flourish or languish.

How can you improve this positivity ratio? One way is to keep positive experiences in the front of your mind through keeping a gratitude journal. That doesn’t have to be anything elaborate; just write a few sentences every day about good things that have happened to you. Even the smallest positive experience counts! If you keep looking for positive things, you will find more and more of them as the days go by. If you already keep a journal, this will just be a small addition to what you’re already writing. If you don’t keep a journal, begin now with a gratitude journal!

Note that you can’t avoid the negatives; nor should you take that Pollyanna approach to dealing with them. Just remember that positives are better than negatives, and when your positivity ratio reaches or exceeds 3-to-1, you will begin flourish!

Everything that I do is with the intention of drawing inspiration to myself, so that I may share it with others for their inspiration, And the inspiration I am referring to comes from KNOWING that we are Divine, Beloved Beings adored by our Creator, We are precious, priceless treasures of the Universe, and as such, life is meant to be good for us.

Here’s to getting – and staying – positive! And all good wishes for a blessed holiday season.

Jim Swanson , President
Board of Trustees