Ah, the financial cliff. In this period of great economic uncertainty, when we are forced to come nose to nose with overspending that now must be cut. I’ve been watching our country and its reaction to this cliff and it has surprised me—America has maintained a high-spirited attitude of cautious optimism. I’ve been reflecting on what underlies the steadfast sense of security and concluded that American families are, at their core, optimistic. This is a great conclusion because we know from research that children who start out as optimists either stay happy or recover quickly from episodes of unhappiness. Conversely, children with pessimistic attitudes, when followed over a 4-year period, become and often stay depressed.
Optimism is a simple matter of how you spin things. Research shows that explanations that tag a bad event as temporary, specific, and external do better than those who attribute an event as permanent, pervasive, and personalized. When bad events happen (and, let’s face it, they do almost every day), a pessimistic cliff looms. Are you going to see the bad thing as never going away or changing, likely destroying everything, and being your fault? If so, you might be walking off the cliff. We can choose to avoid the cliff by changing the way that you explain things as a family. A shift from pessimism to optimism means that unfortunate things that happen to you will change, aren’t a reflection of your whole life, and are sometimes just part of circumstance.
Rumination has a really bad reputation. Rumination, technically defined as pondering, is often thought of as the main culprit in depression. But that’s because we often think of how rumination sets us up to become caught up in what’s broken or what went wrong. But rumination doesn’t have to be negative. We could ruminate about how good things are in our lives. We could ruminate about how we plan to make changes in our lives that make the future look brighter. We could ruminate about how to expect the best, empower ourselves to have a positive attitude, and take responsibility for our happiness. We know that pessimistic ruminators face higher risks of depression…that’s the cliff. Optimistic rumination, however, is how we recover from bad jobs, break-ups, anxiety, and depression. Optimism is the core of an emotionally healthy family.
If, like America, you have the sense that you’ve been heading for a cliff, it may be time to create your own cutbacks on the things that are making you feel overspent. Cutback on complaining and substitute it with appreciating something good in your life; cutback on pointing out your stress and substitute it with a good hard look at opportunity. A competitive ice-skater who I know commented on how more and more of her friends have dropped out as she has aged—they face the cliff of growth and the gravity their taller bodies bring with it. Her eyes sparkled as she described the upside to a bigger body – stronger muscles to pump the corners and propel the jumps and a more mature mind that can develop a clear vision of the sweetness of success. As you face your cliff, challenge yourself to optimistically explain the so-so world as sweet.
Virginia DeRoma, Ph.D.
Licensed Clinical Psychologist