Dear Friends,
This week you will be able to read Alec’s blog on creating a narrative. In this blog he says we can choose which story we tell. While this may seem self-evident, we don’t always stop to slow down and consider the implications our choices have on our well-being. Do you consistently choose to tell a of failure or of success? One of being slighted or one of gratitude? Alec chooses to tell the story of Dio, an immigrant, because it is an inspirational story, an American story as he says.
Psychologist J. Pennebaker has for decades worked on the idea that writing about important personal experiences brings improvements in well-being. For Pennebaker it is imperative that people use a vocabulary which is representative of positive emotions.
At SeeingHappy we believe photography can play a big part in creating our personal narratives – old photos, family photos, and new photos attending to the positive. All of these can be used to re-craft our stories to see the beauty in our lives and feel the gratitude for those who have helped us along the way. More than anything, we see that our own stories are something we have an agency to create. Through harnessing your own creativity, you can choose to tell an optimistic story that shows your’s or others’ strengths, as well as resilience and goodness. In establishing this overarching narrative, it will help contribute towards shaping your life, purpose, and legacy:
Here is a photo of the David Lenz portrait of Eunice Shriver on show at The National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC. It show Eunice with a few of the children who have taken part in the Special Olympics that she co-founded.
What a story this portrait tells.
The Team at SeeingHappy
