To appreciate is much more than being positive

Good news! A new muscle has been discovered in the human body. It is the appreciative muscle and since we belong to the same species, we all have it.  A mass of tissue that by contracting and relaxing serves to produce movement.

We have more than 500 hundred different muscles and with them we carry out voluntary and involuntary movements….. but movements in what direction?

Waking up the appreciative muscle

The appreciative muscle wakes up the moment we voluntarily choose to focus on  the strengths, the resources and the opportunities of the other humans around us and the situations that we live each day in any of our surroundings.

Let us look towards the best of what is. Let us focus on exploring and discovering the best moments and asking about, investigating and visualizing new opportunities.

That is how we awake the appreciative muscle. It is a question of searching for those small things that allow one to come out of a long lethargy.

Start by appreciating a daily situation and by asking unconditionally positive questions. What is the greatest learning possible in this moment? What has worked incredibly well? How can we repeat it and make it even better?

Now we have awoken the appreciative muscle. To appreciate is much more than simply being positive. It is asking oneself the question of what is the potential in this moment, even if we do not like the moment we are experiencing. Because each moment has potential.

Despite having been educated (for the most part) in seeing what does not work and what we lack in order to reach a better place, it is possible to see the potential that surrounds us with the intention of activating it. It is question of looking for those small things that awake the appreciative muscle. The manner in which we ask, the questions we ask, the words we use and how we express them both verbally and with our body.  How we listen, how we comment the ideas of others, how we bring out the best of ourselves at every  moment, how we look at the work of a co-worker, what  conversation we have with our children when they arrive home with their reports, how often we express gratitude and how often we tell someone what we like of  what they have done.

Now we have awoken the muscle.

The effect reaches other parts of the body directly and immediately. We breathe better because it opens up the chest. When we smile our brain starts to madly liberate endorphins, which produces very positive effects on our organism.  Or perhaps is it the fact of appreciating everyone else and what we live that makes us segregate a series of substances that make us feel better and smile?

One of these substances, adrenalin, is proven to strengthen our creativity and our boundless imagination. And that surely facilitates us moving towards a more attractive future.

Once awoken we have to train the appreciative muscle

We have awoken the appreciative muscle and we are feeling its effects. Now like any other muscle we have to train it.

When we start to train for the first time (especially when we are beginners) the increase in the strength of a muscle is due to good co-ordination and the adaptation of the nervous system.

After a few weeks our body is capable of more repetitions. And if we train with perseverance and motivation, our muscles start to adapt and take on the size that they need.

So we need a good training plan adapted to each of us and sometimes someone next to us who makes it easier, as well as a diet rich in appreciative moments.

Our appreciative muscle will move in the direction that we are moving in.

Repetition will make us train increasing our strength and a moment will be reached when we shall only need a certain amount of maintenance to keep moving. Because additionally training appreciation generates movement.

And another incredible thing happens because our body has muscular memory and we start to appreciate in an involuntary manner (remember that the muscles carry out both movements: voluntary and involuntary ones).  One appreciates practically without trying. The effect it generates in us and on others is tremendous.

Let us accelerate this transformation wherever we might be: in our family circle, with our small children, with our adolescents (go on give it a try), at our work, with our co-workers, our teams, even with our bosses.

We are able to maintain an unconditionally positive attitude and energy and infect the rest. Moreover, we are also capable of mobilizing ourselves towards an attractive image of the future.

There are as many ways of awakening and maintaining the appreciative muscle as there are humans on earth. Each one has in their own DNA the way to do it.