Smelling the Roses: Better Living Through Savoring

Most types of psychotherapy involve exploring feelings, being validated, finding explanations, exploring wishes and dreams, setting goals, and gaining clarity. Every therapist has unique ways of working with clients, based on his or her personality, training, and views of how people change.A solution-focused therapist is likely to do the following:

1. Instead of going over past events and focusing on problems, the therapist helps you envision your future without today's problems.

2. During the course of therapy (often as few as 3 to 6 sessions), the therapist helps you discover solutions.

3. The therapist encourages you to identify and do more of what is already working.

4. The therapist guides you to identify what doesn't work and to focus on doing less of it.

5. The emphasis is on the future, not the past.

6. SFBT therapists believe that the client is the best expert about what it takes to change his or her life.

7. The therapist's role is to help you identify solutions that will remove the barriers to having the life you want.Solution-Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT) is a process that helps people change by constructing solutions rather than dwelling on problems. This type of therapy tends to be

"Stop and smell the roses," people often say. Then they smile ruefully, because everybody knows there isn't enough TIME to stop or, as my daughter says, to "chill."

This is the Conventional Wisdom - and I'm here to tell you that the CW is simply WRONG. Researchers in Positive Psychology find that people actually get more done if they take time out to SAVOR their day. Not only that, but, over time, people who set aside a few hours every week are likely to be healthier, more relaxed, and better able to cope with the stresses of everyday life.

Why not try it? Give yourself the gift of Savoring. (Hey, stress is all you have to lose!)

To start, make a list of 10 things you REALLY enjoy doing, whether or not you've made time for them lately. I'm talking about stuff that gives you real pleasure. They may be things you do alone, or with one other person, or with a group. Look over the list, and see if one thing says "pick me." Choose one of those activities that you enjoy.

Now: Take out your calendar, and SOME TIME IN THE NEXT MONTH, block out at least a 2-hour period that is JUST FOR YOU. Half a day is better. A whole day is best of all. Do whatever is needed to make that time free. Ask a neighbor to baby-sit. Tell your spouse you'll be busy. Say "no" to the half-dozen requests that will almost certainly challenge your Savoring Time .

And when Your Day comes . . . GO FOR IT, whether you're making a picture, walking in the woods, going to a movie, or just sitting still. What matters is that you're doing something you really enjoy.

These tricks will help you get the most out of your day:

• Give yourself permission - this is Your Day. It is absolutely 100% okay for you to be taking this time. Leave your cel phone at home, or at least turned off. When kill-joy thinking comes along (and it will), play with it. Pretend it's a stick floating in a stream, and just let it drift away.

• Keep the day alive - collect a souvenir or take mental photographs to help you hold on to this special time.

• Focus - as though you were taking a photograph, adjust the "depth of field." Focus on selected aspects of the experience and let the others go.

• Immerse Yourself - Try not to analyze the experience, just be there. You're savoring, remember?

• Tell the story - Share your experience with a friend or partner - the joy that's shared multiples by ten.

• Write it down. Read it over as a reminder in a few days or weeks.

When your Savoring time is over, celebrate! Pat yourself on the back for challenging the Conventional Wisdom. And, while you're at it, why not take out your calendar and make another date for Savoring Your Day?

© 2004 Maureen Killoran

Maureen Killoran, MA, DMin, is a Life Coach and Unitarian minister, with a passion for helping people connect their strengths with their vision. Maureen offers dynamic individual and group coaching, work team empowerment training, teleclasses, and a free monthly e-zine, "Seeds of Change." http://www.spiritquestcoaching.com

More Resources

Unable to open RSS Feed $XMLfilename with error HTTP ERROR: 404, exiting

More Coaching Information:

Related Articles

4 Brilliant Tips to Speed Read Faster than Ever
Many people, particularly students, would love to beable to absorb information faster. But before retaininginformation, they have to go through the first stage oflearning, which is reading.
Priorities: Are You Living Yours?
In the Charles Dickens classic, "The Christmas Story", Scrooge is given the opportunity to examine his life and his priorities before it is too late. Upon being shown his grave by the ghost of Christmas Future, he asks "Spirit, are these instances of things that will be or are they of things that might be? Is it too late for me?" How long has it been since you have examined your life and its direction? When the day comes that you leave this earth, how will you be remembered?Have you ever noticed that once people have something life-changing take place in their lives, an illness, death or tragedy, how quickly their priorities change? It is amazing how instantaneously things that were so important yesterday, fail to cross their radar screens today.
5 Tips to Improve ANY Performance
Seeking improved performance at work? Wishing you could finally achieve your sports-related goals? Merely looking for a way to get more out of everything you do? What follows are five basic skills (basic in that all top achievers know these skills and apply them in some form on a weekly basis) that will dramatically improve your performance.1.
What Are Your Priorities?
"The indispensable first step to getting the things you want out of life is this: decide what you want." -Ben SteinAt the end of every winter as warm weather and sunshine approach, I find myself keenly aware of where I'd like to be spending my time.
Strategic Checklists
I've been through a couple of checklists in the past few days, and it's reaffirmed my faith in their effectiveness as a communication tool.Now, there are at least a couple of ways we can look at checklists in a communication context.
Boost Your Self-Esteem
What Is Self-Esteem?Self-esteem literally means to esteem, or respect, yourself. Having high self-esteem means that you have a positive image of yourself.
4 Amazing Tips To Successfully Persuade Anyone
Having excellent persuasion skills is one of the most important abilities to possess in today's fast-paced world. We need thesupport and cooperation of other people to help us in reachingour goals.
Context is King!
If you've been around the Internet for more than two hours, you've probably heard someone say it or write it. If you haven't, you will.
How to Jump-start Your Emotional Health
You've probably heard the expression: "It's not what you're eating. It's what's eating you!" This well-known saying reminds us that the thoughts we entertain can have an impact on our health.
The Fastest Way to Ruin Yourself
I don't know many people who would admit to wanting to ruin themselves, but there are a lot of people who are doing everything they can to accomplish that very goal. They certainly don't see it that way, but if you look at the way they live, you can see it happening.
Coaching: The Art of Putting Yourself In Somone Elses Shoes
COACHING STEPS: The following are five (5) steps a coach can take to change behavior and performance. The goal of this process is to create the context for the person being coached towards one in which excellence becomes the norm.
The Value of Career Coaching and Its Effect on Productivity
Athletes the world over have coaches. Yet, workers whose very livelihood depends on their ability to perform well on the job are often unaware of the merits of a career coach.
Six Steps for Creating Work-Life Balance
Today an increasing number of us are experiencing burnout, low productivity, insomnia, and stress related illnesses?undoubtedly due to a lack of balance between our work and personal lives. It's time to look at how we can create greater balance in our work and personal lives.
Skills for Change
The name of the game is CHANGE -- that's true at work, and it's also true in life. In both situations there are FOUR skills you can trust:1.
Discover The Coach Within You
One of the three basic roles of leadership is the coach or mentor. The best boss is often the best coach.
Finding Peace: A Taste of Mindfulness
When we are ill and don't know it, we are in a state of ignorance or delusion. We don't view ourselves as sick, so we don't believe it's necessary to go to a doctor or take any medication.
Communicating Anger Compassionately
Whether it is irritability or unmitigated rage, anger is an emotion everyone knows about. Unfortunately, few people have been taught how to mange this feeling in an assertive and compassionate way.
The $10,000,000.00 Question
When I asked my client, Amanda, what she would do if she won a $10,000,000.00 lottery prize, she quickly answered " I would move to Hawaii and sit on the beach all day.
Top Ten Reasons to Hire a Personal Coach
Have you considered hiring a personal coach? Jack Canfield, in The Success Principles says hiring a "personal coach is one of the best-kept secrets of the successful."1.
5 Keys to Powerful Communication
As a coach that specializes in marriage, couples and family coaching, it is critical to develop strong and clear keys for communication. How many times have you been faced with a difficult feeling or occurrence that you are reluctant to discuss with your partner? You probably thought, "If I just don't say anything, I can get past it"?The problem is most of us can't get past it.