Psychologist Barbara Held of Maine believes that a little kvetching makes for a better outlook on life.
I believe in mystery.
I believe in family.
I believe in being who I am.
I believe in the power of failure.
And I believe normal life is extraordinary.
This I Believe.
When you are feeling down, you are often told to cheer up. But that's usually not as easy as it sounds. Today, for our series This I Believe, we have an essay from Brabara Held, professor of psychology at Bowdoin College in Maine. She says maybe cheering up is not necessary. Held is a clinical psychologist and she counseled people for 15 years. Her special interest is coping mechanisms in alternative ways of dealing with stress. Here is our series curator, independent producer Jay Alison.
One of the few guidelines for our series that we inherited from Edward R. Murrow and his team is that statements of belief must be affirmative, in other words, you can't write about what you don't believe. That doesn't mean however that statements must be positive. As you'll hear from Barbra Held self-described as the queen of kvetching with her essay for This I Believe.
Many Americans insist that everyone have a positive attitude even when the going gets rough. From the self-help bookshelves to the Complaint-Free World Movement. The power of positive thinking is touted now more than ever as the way to be happy, healthy, wealthy, and wise. The problem is this demand for good cheer brings with it a one-two punch for those of us who can not cope in that way. First you feel bad about whatever's getting you down, then you feel guilty or defective if you can't smile and look on the bright side, and I'm not even sure there always is a bright side to look on. I believe that there is no one right way to cope with all the pain of living. As an academic psychologist, I know that people have different temperaments and if we are prevented from coping in our own way, be it postive or negative, we funcion less well. As a psychotherapist, I know that sometimes a lot of what people need when faced with adversity is permission to feel crummy for a while. To realize that feeling bad is not automatically the same as being mentally ill. Some of my one-session curers have come for reminding people that life can be difficult and it's OK if we are not happy all the time. This last point first became apparent to me in 1986. I came down with the flu accompanied by searing headache that lasted weeks after. Eventually a neurologist told me that a strain of flu that winter had left many people...
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