Specific Types of Euthumia

As I presented in an earlier post, euthumia is a general category of well-spiritedness. Euthumiacs are relatively healthy, free, self-supporting, productive, and harmoniously connected with others. 

In this post I present some specific types of euthumia. They include- 

Dynathumia, strong-spiritedness. Some examples of strong spirited humans are Rosa Parks, Oprah Winfrey, Florence Nightingale, and General George Patton, .

Glycothumia, sweet-spiritedness. My cat, Boo, comes to mind. If there is a sweeter spirit, I have not met it. I couldn't think of any well-known individuals who were sweet spirits.

Megathumia, great-spiritedness.Some human examples include Lao Tzu, Cleopatra, Napoleon, Marie Curie, Abraham Lincoln,Nelson Mandela, Joan of Arc, Catherine the Great, Helen Keller, Eleanor Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Albert Einstein.

Liberthumia, free spiritedness. Frederich Nietzsche, Jack Kerouac, Georgia O'Keeffe 

Philothumia, friendly, loving spiritedness. The friendliest, most loving person I ever met was Effie Lowe. Another is Brandi Allison. I couldn't think of any well-known individuals who were philothumiacs. Maybe the Buddha and Mahatma Ghandi. 

Erothumia: erotic spiritedness. Marilyn Monroe, Marie Antoinette, Mata Hari, Johnny Depp ,Brad Pitt, William Blake, John F. Kennedy.

Some might say that some of the people I mentioned above could be listed in more than one category. I agree. For example, I think that many megathumiacs are also dynathumiacs. Some might also be liberthumiacs. Some glycothumiacs might also be philothumiacs. I think we can have more than one type of euthumic characteristic at once. It just seems to me that often one stands out from the others.

IQ, EQ and...?

If you've been reading my blog you probably guessed: SQ.

IQ = Intelligence Quotient

EQ= Emotional Intelligence Quotient

SQ= Spirit-related Intelligence Quotient

NOTE: Remember "spirit"  in this context refers to "that which makes alive."

What is SQ?

SQ has to do with our ability to identify and be aware of our own spirit and that of others.

It's the ability to assess the condition of our own spirit and that of others.

It's also the ability to regulate our own spirit and that of others.

Is there a test?

No, the test to measure SQ hasn't been invented yet. Let's not let that stop us from assessing and developing our SQ.

What is Your SQ?

Since Spirit-related Intelligence begins with our own spirit, let's begin there.

On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being total awareness, rate your ability to identify and be aware of your own spirit.

On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being mastery, rate your ability to assess the condition of your own spirit.

On a scale of 1-10, with 10 again being mastery, rate your ability to regulate your own spirit.

Total your score. 

How did you do?

Which of the three abilities was easiest for you? Which was the hardest?

What might you do to raise your score?

Three Perspectives of Gratitude, Part 2

I love words. I like to learn from their etymologies. Every time I study a word’s etymology I gain new insights. Exploring the etymology of gratitude was no exception.

Etymology of Gratitude

Gratitude comes from the Latin word gratus, which means “agreeable, pleasing”. It’s related to the word gratia which means, “favor, esteem, regard; pleasing quality, good will” from which we get our word grace.  

Grace

Originally, grace was not a religious or theological word. It was a relationship word. To give grace to someone or to grace someone was "to show them good will, favor, or to pleasure them.” 

To “grace someone with our presence” was to pleasure and delight them with nothing more than our presence.  

To receive grace was to feel favored, pleased, and pleasure. The verbal response “gratia!” originally meant something like  “Oh, I like this! This feels really good!”

Gratis

Gratis is another word associated with gratitude. What do we use the word gratis to mean?  “For free”, “at no cost.” Originally, gratis meant to do something simply for the pleasure of giving pleasure to another person. What a wonderful thing to do.

Gratify

Another word associated with this group of words is gratify. It’s a verb. To gratify someone is to give them pleasure. Specifically, it means to give someone pleasure by relieving a desire or need that they could not relieve themselves.

Gratitude

Finally, just as all the words mentioned above had to do with pleasure, so gratitude was originally a specific kind of pleasure. It was the pleasure of having a need or desire relieved that we could not relieve ourself. 

Gratitude was our natural response to being gratified by another living being.

Examples of the Pleasure of Gratitude- the Relief of a Need or Desire We Cannot Relieve Our Self

- Our back itches, we cannot reach it, and someone scratches it for us

- Our shoulders are tied in knots with tension and someone massages them for us

- We’re sick and too weak to go grocery shopping and fix a meal for ourselves. We’re hungry and someone brings us food to eat.  We eat and feel our need for food relieved. It feels good and we smile.

- We have a flat tire, are unable to change to the spare tire ourself, and someone stops and does it for us.

- We’re lonely and desire some company and someone spends time with us.

Assessing the Pleasure of Gratitude

Unlike the cognitive-expressive perspectives of both psychology and religion, gratitude as a pleasure is holistic. It's a bio-psycho-social- spiritual experience. It feels good to have a need relieved that we cannot relieve for ourself.

In addition to being holistic, it is-

Natural. The pleasure we experience from a need relieved is natural. It is in-born. 

Spontaneous. It is a pleasure that we experience automatically. The relief feels so good. We do not have to generate it by cognitive reflection, journaling, or counting our blessings.

Authentic. It is not artificially produced.

Social. It requires two or more people: the one who gratifies and the one feels gratitude.

Practicing Gratitude 

All that is involved in practicing gratitude is letting others know that we have a need or desire that we cannot fulfill on our own, asking them to help us, receiving the help, and feeling the pleasure of having our need or desire fulfilled.

Practicing Gratifying Others

What do we need to do in order to gratify others and help them feel the pleasure of gratitude? We need to -

       Pay attention to those with whom we interact.

       Become aware of the needs and desires that they cannot relieve for themselves.

       Offer to help relieve their unmet need or desire.

       Relieve the need or desire when our offer is accepted.

Conclusion

I believe in both receiving the pleasure of gratitude and gratifying the needs and desires of others. I believe that both add value to our own and other's lives.

Three Perspectives of Gratitude, Part 1

Gratitude is a popular topic these days. No doubt Oprah had a lot to do with it.

The Cognitive-Expressive Perspective

For the most part, the current discussion about gratitude comes from the perspective of Positive Psychology and happiness research.  Research suggests that when we focus on things to be grateful for, feel grateful, and verbally express it, we feel happier. So, it directs us to think about things to be grateful for, keep a "Gratitude Journal", feel grateful, and say, "Thank you!" often. I call this the cognitive-expressive perspective of gratitude.

The Religious Perspective

Some of the current discussion about gratitude comes from a religious perspective of gratitude. From this perspective God/our Higher Power is the source of everything good in our life. Everything good in our life is a blessing from above. Since every blessing is a gift from above we should feel thankful to God/our Higher Power for all of our blessings and verbally express our thanks. 

From the religious perspective there is a sense that the more one recognizes and gives thanks for God’s blessings, the more faithful one is and the better one practices one’s religion.

Commonalities Share by both the Psychological and Religious Perspectives

The psychological and religious perspectives of gratitude share some common characteristics. 

Both are individualist. They focus on us as individuals and have us do a private self examination of how grateful we are as individuals.

Both lack a clear standard on how much gratitude is enough. The sense is that we could always be more grateful than we are.

Due to the lack if a standard, both judge us as falling short when it comes to gratitude and direct us to take some initiative to be more grateful than we are.

Both have a moralistic tone. They both say that we ought to be more grateful than we are. The psychological view says we ought to be more grateful in order to improve our mental health. The religious view says we ought to be more grateful in order to relate rightly with God/our Higher Power.

Finally, both offer prescriptions to remedy our short comings in the area of gratitude. They both say, "Be more grateful." Positive Psychologists direct us to journal about we can be grateful for. Religious authorities direct us to say prayers of thanksgiving. 

Assessing Both Perspectives

There is certainly nothing wrong with having a grateful attitude and practicing saying, “Thank you!”

However, I do question assigning and restricting gratitude to our head and tongue , the lack of a clear standard of how much gratitude is enough, fault-finding, and using a subtle form of guilt and shame to encourage us to be more grateful.

A Third Perspective

In my next post I'll present a third perspective on gratitude: gratitude as a specific kind of pleasure that we feel.

Gratitude as a Mental Narcotic

Could it be that the attitude of gratitude so popular these days is a recipe for compliance and supporting the status quo?

The attitude of gratitude directs us to focus on what we have and what is going well. It says we should feel grateful for what we have and what's going well. It promises us that when we focus on what's right with our life and feel gratitude for it, we'll be better human beings and much happier too. It even has scientific evidence to support its claims. 

Question: Is this not a sugar-coated form of, "Shut up, stop complaining, and be grateful for what you have"?

Think about it. If our roof is leaking, do we ignore it and look at all the roof that is not leaking and feel grateful that so much of our roof is just fine? No. We attend to the leak. We might feel irritated and even cuss about that leak. We then do something to fix it. Afterwards, we might feel grateful that the leak is fixed.

If we break our leg, do we ignore it and look at all of our other unbroken bones and give thanks for them? No. We do something about the broken bone. We feel grateful when the cast comes off and we're healthy again.

If we're in an abusive relationship at home or work do we ignore the abuse, attend to everything that's going well and feel grateful? Too often we do. 

We would do well to save our gratitude for later, after we have changed our situation and moved on with a better life. 

Too often the attitude of gratitude teaching directs us to ignore our problems and injustices, count our blessings, and give thanks for everything that isn't a problem. When we do so, it promises that we'll feel much better.

Guess what? It often works. We do often feel much better when we ignore what's harmful, attend to what's going well, count our blessings, and feel grateful. It's a mental narcotic.

This approach to living is fine if we want to be mentally and emotionally anesthetized to genuine problems and injustices that we face in life so that we can endure them rather than rise up and make a better life for ourselves.

Personally, I'm going for actually living a better life rather than anesthetizing myself, complying, and maintaining the status quo. 

Athumia: Non-spiritedness

Euthumia, dysthumia, and athumia are words I coined to refer to three general conditions of spirit. In future posts I'll describe more specific conditions within two of these three general categories.

This post summarizes previous posts about euthumia and dysthumia and introduces athumia.

Euthumia is well-spiritedness. Dysthumia is ill- or disordered-spiritedness.

Athumia is non-spiritedness. Not in the sense of being without spirit; that is, dead. Rather in the sense of being neither well-spirited nor ill-spirited.

When we're athumic, we're neither high nor low as far as our spiritedness goes.

We tend to have a flat affect.

We're neither lethargic nor hyperactive.

We might be able to concentrate but not in a productive way.

We're neither fatigued nor energetic.

We tend to be apathetic, listless, emotionally numb, and unmotivated.

There might or might not be a physical or mental basis.

When we athumic we're neither euthumic nor dysthumic. We just are.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to all of my readers in the US and nine other countries. Thank you for reading my blog posts. May 2014 be a wonderful year for you and yours!