In the first Pillars of Health Wisdom post we reviewed stress, how to combat it in real life and then we showed how some sources of data and research gave us insight into how to deal with our busy lives for a healthier and longer life expectancy.

We also encountered the new word, positivity and how it can be utilized for better individual health, mainly through meditation exercises.

This post will show other pillars of health for the empowered volunteer but it will also move past the individual and embrace the greater good of society beyond what we saw in The Status Syndrome, How Social Standing Affects our Health and Longevity by Michael Marmot in the last post.

Meditation has been documented in the history of mankind for thousands of years.

It seems that the western traditions did not embrace this practice nearly as early or as readily as the eastern cultures did. Philo of Alexandria is perhaps the first westerner to really investigate the “spiritual exercises” that we now call meditation. A Roman philosopher Plotinus also developed a system of meditative techniques we are told but they did not catch on with Christian meditations.

Saint Augustine also delved into meditations but he was in the end not satisfied with the results.

Meditation in the Old Testament is seen as influencing Judaism as well, with Jewish culture and writing seemingly always containing some form of meditative tradition. This would put Christians on firm footing for the use of meditation as a spiritual exercise, even if it was not found in the Bible.

Several translations of Genesis have the word meditation included in Genesis 24:63. This is true for all the translations that this author reviewed except for the Revised English Bible of 1989.

Even the online Hebrew translation has the word “meditation” in the verse, so I am inclined to go with the translations of those who have carried the Torah from the days of antiquity to the present day and to discount the one Bible translation which omitted the term.

This should end any claim that meditation is solely the process of eastern traditions and the practice of such exercises will make the practicing member suddenly a lapsed Christian. If someone lapses their Christian beliefs due to meditation, those beliefs were already on wobbly supports before the the individual conducted any meditation practices.

Meditation has more than just some benefits to mental concentration and an improved vagal tone connecting one’s heart to their brain. But if that was all it gave practicing members it would still be worth the effort.

The kind of meditation studied by Barbara L. Fredrickson, PH. D. in her book, Love 2.0 was of a Buddhist tradition called Loving-kindness Meditation (LKM). She found that, “The fact that reflection on social connection appeared to penetrate the body to affect enduring heart rhythms made us take a closer look.” She is referring to the medical health benefits here.

They found that the physical vagal tone improvements and other aspects on health were verified. These were rigorous scientific studies, with double blind population groups.

They also found what many church goers already knew, if a group does something in unison, their heart rates often synchronize. Evidence suggests that when a group synchronizes like this, they broaden their minds collectively.

Negative emotions narrow your views of the world, positive emotions broaden your views of the world. Meditation is one direct method of raising your positive emotions!

When this and other aspects of meditation happen people often feel more connected to each other and to the world as a whole. That concept alone has tremendous implications for society if we could just get enough of a population density to employ the techniques.

Fredrickson writes, “Clearly something powerful was embedded within this simple thought exercise.” She continues, “From the perspective of emotions science, LKM is not the least bit supernatural”.

Meditation in the United States has had a mixed history. The Beatles were known to have used Transcendental Meditation (TM), which had ups and downs according to how prominent the profile of the latest celebrity membership was at that time.

Some studies found merit in the practice but then some claims by the leader for “flying” were simply not true, at least for the observed physical body.

Claims of spirit flying or astral projection have yet to find any study validation that I am aware of. Things like this and others, popularized in books such as Wisdom of the Mystic Masters, by Joseph J. Weed tended to give new age thinking a bad reputation, something that meditation often found itself included into even if it was unrelated to crystal therapy and other such practices on the new age front.

Practitioners of martial arts brought versions of meditation to the United States after WWII. These forms of meditation were highly influenced by the style that it was learned under, with the associated cultural leanings that accompany any such culture transfers. Karate and Kung Fu members tended to reflect their styles in their meditation practices.

I learned meditation personally in 1979 from a Hopkido practitioner who was my dorm neighbor in college. He was an anthropology major and he was a black belt who usually refused to teach others in the dorm due to the aggression many in our house exhibited.

When some of us did persuade him to work with us, we were taught meditation and breathing katas, which were simply an arrangement of moves coordinated with the forceful intake or exhaling of breaths.

Meditation was focusing on an object, often a candle that flickered if one was practiced enough with an immobile object. The idea was to strengthen one’s individual ability to focus.

Every martial art style seemed to have meditation in it. Ninja’s, popular in the 1990′s had several levels if the books and printed material were to be believed. Most martial artists I knew liked the meditation but declined to follow any of the eastern religious underpinnings.

When I was in boot camp, one die hard gym rat had aspirations of becoming a U.S Navy SEAL. We constantly saw him sitting next to his “rack” meditating after normal working hours. The Christian cross he wore certainly did not reflect any eastern religious traditions either. He claimed a high accomplishment in a martial arts style that I was unfamiliar with at that time so I don’t recall which one it was. I remember him as the most even keeled guy I ever met. I don’t know if he made it into the Teams, but his chances seemed pretty good to us at the time.

He was sure in control of his emotions during boot camp and he could do hundreds of push ups, on demand. He said it was all due to his mental training, much of which he credited to meditation.

Also popular the last few decades is the Edgar Cayce meditation techniques, which are available online. The Association for Research and Enlightenment (ARE) is a very fun place to visit, located in Va. Beach, Va. Edgar Cayce was a Christian clergyman who became known as the sleeping prophet.

LKM is a better scheme of meditation than I was taught for what I need in the hear and now and also for what I am suggesting for the empowered volunteers out there. It seems also to be the most studied version of meditation too.

While improving your focus is worthy and achievable, it is more helpful to achieve the health improvements associated with this specific type of meditation. There are many people who need to register a much needed break from the stress induced impact of their job or their commute or other stress producing portions of their lives. They need LKM and most have never heard of it.

Today, it is very hard to have too many stress busting processes. LKM is a great technique that works and has great value for every single person who has excess stress.

The key to LKM is that it produces a measurable effect on the human body reflected in the body language which studies with solid empirical evidence have reflected, “will take whatever positive feelings you generate in LKM are likely to imbue the rest of your day with more positivity as well.”

Furthermore, the “Pathways through which LKM seeds subsequent moments of positivity resonance are wholly physical.” Fredrickson continues, “Since nonverbal gestures are contagious, your openness also allows others to become more open and relaxed. Meeting each other with openness like this increases the odds that the two of you will come into sync.”

If you ask any salesman, they would love to have a method of generating more rapport with their clients. Every businessperson would love to go into meetings generating and emitting nonverbal signals embedded with positive feelings which the other members would pick up on and react more positively to, hopefully helping his or her presentation close positively. Teachers would love to have their students receive the messages more deeply due to positive messaging transfer too.

Things usually go better with positive vibrations!

The message received through a more positive delivery method always has a better chance of being received more positively, and therefore it also has a better chance of being accepted.

The old saying, it’s not what you say, but how you say it really resonates when you used LKM.

Everyone would love to have more positive interactions in their lives! This is the one thing that an individual can do that can ensure your positive emotions will be generated and received by many if not most of those around you.

Every empowered volunteer should carefully consider this technique for their own health as well as their impact in spreading the volunteer message. If you present your message in a better tone, it will be heard more clearly and it will be received more readily.

So LKM gives the meditating member better health over time and also puts the member into a better state for presenting the empowered volunteer message! This increases the potential for success in membership building, thus helping the charity too. Everyone wins under these circumstances.

Below are links to studies which are current and give compelling reasons for engaging in positive mental training for better individual health and also for better results in interactions with other humans.

1) Can Meditation Change Compassionate Behavior?

http://www.mindandlife.org/can-meditation-change-compassionate-behavior/

2) Meditation causes compassionate action?

 http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/meditation_causes_compassionate_action

3) Morality and Meditation?

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/07/opinion/sunday/the-morality-of-meditation.html?src=me&ref=general&_r=1&

So take heart if you read this article dear empowered volunteer.

The next time you meditate, know that you’re not just benefiting yourself, you’re also benefiting your neighbors, community members and as-yet-unknown strangers by increasing the odds that you’ll feel their pain when the time comes, and act to lessen it as well.

4) This link is a deep study which many people may find too much to digest. It is offered for those who like to really dig into the material and know that the findings are sufficient to produce the effect claimed.

http://brainimaging.waisman.wisc.edu/publications/2013/WengCompassionPsychSci.pdf

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Stress moderation is at the top of the pillars of health care wisdom for the empowered volunteer. You can actually die from stress related effects.

When volunteers think of how to work their time around volunteer projects they don’t automatically think of stress. Their passion for the volunteer group or the charity supported by the group helps them prioritize their emotions and their time management. Simply put, they make it work no matter how much effort it takes to get the job done.

For the empowered volunteer, what is the incentive for someone who is not already involved in the represented group to join, pending their busy, busy, busy schedule? Obviously if they have a passion for the charity they might be persuaded. But what if they are not passionate for the charity? What then? They say that they are too stressed and that they don’t have any time! Then the empowered volunteer needs to refer to the pillars of health wisdom!

The empowered volunteer is all about helping people. That must be the first priority, above all other things.

If you put people first, the other things will find a way to resolve themselves, one way or another. Happy passionate people solve problems and they also brag about the experience. They also have better health, statistically speaking. First, let’s tackle the stress issue and then we will address the other health studies and how they affect our message.

Stress is manageable in our lives. But for those who find themselves under extreme stress they should explore the science discoveries from the power of positivity.

This topic was addressed by Barbara L. Fredrickson, Ph. D. in her book, nicely named Positivity! In it she presents credible and robust scientific evidence on how proper meditation helps humans deal with stress. Then she moves on to give concrete examples of how to meditate and other features in order to help drive your health benefits from lowering the effects from stress on your body. She has placed guided meditations and other simple tools on her website, which is very easy to use and worthy of a visit for anyone who would like to feel better in our stressful world. This kind of easy to do it yourself stress modification is why Dr. Fredrickson’s book and website are a pillar of wisdom for the empowered volunteer.

http://www.positivityratio.com/index.php

Once you go to the site, use the tools tab or the take the test tab and see how you are faring on an individual level. With over two decades of research on this subject along with tons of behavioral science supporting data going back several more decades it is worth checking it out and seeing if you can benefit. To be honest, everyone can benefit unless you just don’t want to let it help you. Meditation has been used by many civilizations for thousands of years, from Christians like St. Augustine to Chinese Kung Fu monks.

Never underestimate how you can improve your life with small changes that affect your health in a magnified way beyond the small time and effort you expend.

Decades of data from research into how social status affects your health are also available and helpful for the empowered volunteer to understand for their pillars of health wisdom. Scientists use the term social economic status (SES) for these kinds of studies and conversations about them. SES is in general terms an individual’s social level in society. Usually this is divided into three areas, low or working class, middle class and upper middle class or upper class status levels. Low class is the working people, usually living from pay check to pay check. Poverty level is below this group.

Middle class is the group who was lifted by many factors after WWII, but one of the most controversial was the GI Bill, which allowed many of those returning from the war to attend college and then better their lives with better paying jobs and more upward mobility. In this case, a veterans group was instrumental in helping pass this important piece of legislation, one which in looking back historians and economics agree was a huge success.

Harry W. Colmery, a former national commander of the American Legion and former Republican National Chairman, is credited with drawing up the first draft of the GI Bill.

Some people reading this will be surprised that a former Republican Party National Chairman could have been involved with promoting a middle class path towards education back in the days after WWII. Back then, only the very rich could afford college. But keep in mind, political parties change over time and their policies change over time too.

The GOP today is not your grandfather’s party! The current Republican Party thinking on education is reflective of some of those changes in mindset regarding middle class education at the high school level as well as for higher education and is thus beyond the scope of this post.

SES is very important to the empowered volunteer from the point of those who are least likely to be volunteering and which also can benefit the most from volunteering, health wise.

Upper middle class is more often defined as someone who has physical assets which generate enough income so that if that person suddenly stopped their regular employment they could still live off their passive income. This status level is worthy of achievement and is the focus of another pillar of wisdom, that of wealth which will be addressed in a forthcoming post. For our purposes here, the higher the status the better the likely hood of good health is expected.

Michael Marmot, in his ground breaking book 2004 book, The Status Syndrome, How Social Standing Affects Our Health and Longevity has reviewed and distilled the data results from over three decades of studies in order to write about how we can benefit from this knowledge.

One key to his book was that if someone has little autonomy over their lives, as most working class people find themselves, then they are more likely to have lower health.

This is true for many countries beyond the United States too. It goes further though, for those people reporting “the greater the degree of inequality of material deprivation and of income, the worse the health.” He found that low control over one’s life to be the big central factor that linked everything to health, happiness, etc.

In America’s past labor unions were often the only way for laborers to exert any form of control over their lives. Before the unions formed, safety and other factors we take for granted today were not common in many industries.

For those people then and even today in many industries, having some control over their life could determine their future health. Volunteering is one path towards restoring some form of control over one’s life if it is not found elsewhere. Each person can control how much they volunteer and where, and to what extent for each group they join.

This kind of life control opportunity can help them if they are in a job where they have little or no control over their lives. 

The main thing here is that no matter what your station in life, you can do things to help your health and your mental or emotional wellbeing. The positivity ratio is so simple once you start that you will wonder why you have not heard of it before. I would suggest starting with the guided meditation and then moving on where ever you are comfortable. This tool is absolutely awesome for its potential to help people with high stress jobs.

The health harming aspects attributed to many working class jobs should surprise no one. They have been apparent for generations of American workers. From swing shifts to heated environments too hot to stay in for very long to extended nursing hours for patient coverage. The potential ways to combat the negative effects seem to have escaped the general public’s notice, until now hopefully. Even middle class American’s can use this information to their advantage so that the stress from the job doesn’t inflict further harm to your health.

Knowing the health harming effects of low autonomy is important for the health of employees and management.

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Body language is something not often discussed openly in volunteer groups, but it can be a prime factor in the empowered volunteers success.

For many people who take on the challenge of volunteer group membership building it will be the their first encounter with sales or any form of direct solicitation with the possible exception of helping a child move some Girl Scout cookies.

This means that most empowered volunteers will have only informal or nonexistent knowledge of body language mechanics that are not dramatic, such as poses like that of a boxer or acting poses for the most part. This post can’t substitute for books or videos on the subject but a few reminders and a bit of structure can go a long way towards success in prospecting.

The hand shake is often the initial response to meeting someone for the first time or renewing an old relationship, even if it is only one of customer sales relationship. Usually hand shaking is a normal way of renewing relationships too.

There are variations of the regular handshake, but most of them should be avoided. The normal firm, grip to grip is expected, no matter what the combination of the two involved, mixed sex or both male or both female.

The sometimes encountered “fingers only” grip some lades give sends a message that is in my experience followed up by either indifferent or negative body language, telling the other hand shaker that the message is not being received well. In my limited experience when I was on the receiving end of this partial handshake, the interaction was always difficult and for her part indifferent.

I suggest any female empowered volunteers always avoid the fingers only hand shake.

For the rest of the body language supported hand shakes such as the two handed politicians grip, or the over the top businessman who shakes but also includes the other hand on the elbow or worse, on the shoulder, these have no good use for the empowered volunteer. They convey way too much intimacy for nearly all encounters you will find with even well known prospects.

From The Definitive Book of Body Language, by Allan and Barbara Pease I have gleaned some very helpful hints for the new empowered volunteer to employ. Select which, if not all of these helpful hints Allan and Barbara Pease provide in their international bestseller, revised and expanded edition of Signals you find worthy of employing.

Laughing is unique to humans and worthy of cultivation by the new empowered volunteer, even if it needs practice and refinement before being used in public. Allan and Barbara point out research that in the 1980′s several American hospitals introduced the “Laughter Room” for medicinal purposes. All it took was 30 to 60 minutes a day to show dramatic results in many forms for patients, including painkiller drug reductions. Laughter and smiling are powerful features for any human to use in bonding.

They concluded, “He who laughs, lasts”. 

Humor research has determined that, “Only 15 percent of our laughter has to do with the jokes. Laughter has more to do with bonding.” Relationship building is what is more important and jokes are a fundamental tool for that bridging. Further research concludes, “The results demonstrate that the more social a situation is, the more often people will laugh and the longer each laugh will last.”

Advertisers know that humor sells too. A marketing professor, Karen Machleit from the University of Cincinnati’s College of Business Administration found that consumers will accept advertisers claim if humor in included, such as a funny ad with a famous person will become even more readily accepted.

Empowered volunteers will be more effective if they find ways to include humor in their presentation.

Smiling has been studied and the results are predictable, women smile more than men. The portion for the empowered volunteer to take from this is that for women, smile less when dealing with dominant men in business or to mirror the amount of smiling that men do. Unfortunately this is a fine line, research shows that for women photos of unsmiling women were judged to be unhappy while the same thing for men were judged as a sign of dominance. Male empowered volunteers in dealing with women need to smile more in all contexts, according to the authors.

From a health perspective many posts have shown that when properly applied, many of the suggestions for the empowered volunteer help parts of the body cope better or help extend the life expectancy of one’s life. In short, body language that is positive will have health benefits and body language that is negative doesn’t help.

In this case, another fact the authors bring up is that, “Evidence shows conclusively that smiles and laughter build the immune system, defend the body against illness and disease, medicate the body, sell ideas, teach better, attract more friends, and extend life. Humor heals.” 

The authors include a section on touching to gain maximum effectiveness for your message and it is very detailed, with the percentage of success between different European nationalities and how exactly, “skillful elbow-touching can give you up to three times the chance of getting what your want”. At this point the fine points are too detailed for this forum, I would encourage the empowered volunteer to either view their website or to purchase or borrow their book. Information from their website can be found here.

http://www.peaseinternational.com/

Also, through the power of the internet a pdf is available for downloading. It is large so allow time of a minute or so for downloading please. It contains a bunch of the information I have related already. I would recommend it if you can support this for a reference tool.

http://e-edu.nbu.bg/pluginfile.php/331752/mod_resource/content/0/Allan_and_Barbara_Pease_-_Body_Language_The_Definitive_Book.pdf

Something interesting to note, cultural differences between world regions. Europeans and Westerners blow their nose into a handkerchief while Asians and Japanese spit or snort! This stems from the days of tuberculous in past times, the authors say. Spitting, which is the Asian way of dealing with the same issue was seen as a method of spreading diseases, thus making it disgusting in the eyes of Westerners. For the empowered volunteer, avoid either in public if at all possible.

The authors also review lie detection, which is valuable for the empowered volunteer to know when the prospect is not being honest and thus they can disengage the presentation without the prospect ever knowing that they have been found out.

One detail I will mention, “Research shows that people smile less” when lying. Most people think its the opposite. In this case less positive or more negative means just that, the message is not good and the empowered volunteer should read the body language accordingly.

I am going to revisit a topic I have mentioned before, if you find these tips overwhelming or even daunting to learn you might consider broadening your mind and making your awareness to body language easier through another researcher, Barbara L. Fredrickson’s website on Positivity. The site provides for free a few guided meditation exercises that takes only a few minutes to learn and are very powerful at expanding your awareness of body language when done properly over a few weeks.

Couple these techniques from Barbara with the lessons in the book on pdf  for body language listed above and you are on your way towards a better life no matter how well your prospecting goes! Here’s the website for the meditations as well as the positivity ratio needed for moving your life toward flourishing. Who doesn’t want to flourish?

http://www.positivityresonance.com/meditations.html

Body language can’t be learned overnight, nor would you want to believe that meditation techniques will transform your life experience overnight.

Extensive research show both tool sets reviewed in this post work and will help you live a healthier life if you use them and retrain your mind to work better. When you’re more positive and perhaps even funnier when appropriate you will be more effect in your encounters with others, whither you are trying to persuade them to your point of view or just trying to be friendly.

Enjoy the empowerment expanding your mind and improving your communication skills which the proper reading of body language can help you achieve.

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                         Checking out the fishing action roadside from the motor home.

After a successful career and then retirement, is there another ladder to climb for volunteering?

The answer is, only if you want to climb that ladder. Volunteering at any age is worthy and even brings health benefits. See my other posts on the subject of health, positivity, connectivity, and ways to broaden one’s mind, using meditation. However, health aside volunteering has many other benefits for both sides of the volunteer equation which in these days of declining services and opportunities are more in need than every before.

AARP, the largest and probably the most recognized of the retirement age advocacy groups in the United States also provides several paths and steps for those who want to volunteer. This group is well organized and very focused on the welfare of the retired membership.

http://www.aarp.org/giving-back/

Freemasons, the largest and oldest fraternal organization in the world are another group where men of all ages are welcome to join and where volunteering is highly encouraged. Freemasons only accept men who believe in a supreme being, are of legal age, free of criminal past, well respected in the community, and who are willing to pass through the three degrees of initiation. Most men who join the Masons have been volunteers for many years in their churches or other well known groups. Masons have a ladder of success in the form of the progression for the governing of the lodge as well, though many members never care to engage in that part of the Masonic experience.

http://askafreemason.org/

Another group who allow both men and women and is associated with Freemasonry would be the Eastern Star. This group’s purpose is to provide membership association as well as charitable work for its focus. They operate independently from the Freemasons, with the only requirement that a belief in a supreme being and a focus on Christianity through the story of the  star of Bethlehem.

http://www.easternstar.org/

Another group of Freemasonry related members are the Shriners. One group is men only and one group is ladies only. Today the requirement to join the Shiriners is for the men to be a Mason in good standing. For the ladies, being related to a Mason in good standing is required, along with the usual belief for both groups that you believe in a supreme being and be of good character. Both groups volunteer extensively for charities as well as provide funds for their respective area Shriner’s Crippled and Burn Hospitals. Many retirement age ladies and men have been in these two groups for years but with retirement they fully engage their time and effort for the good causes these groups support, volunteering in ways too numerous to cover.

http://www.shrinersinternational.org/Shriners.aspx

http://www.shrinersinternational.org/en/Shriners/Organization/NewFirstLady.aspx

Habitat for Humanity is another group with many opportunities for retired volunteers. They are faith based but help those in need regardless of their religious affiliation or other characteristics. The help ranges from pure labor to organizational type positions and everything in between for most of the local groups, along with fund raising or donation solicitations.

http://www.habitat.org/where-we-build

                                                        USO, December 1941

Another group with opportunities for retired volunteers is the many veterans groups, not all of which require prior service to become involved. The USO is one of these groups that doesn’t require prior service for volunteering.

http://www.uso.org/ways-to-volunteer.aspx

For prior service members, the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars offer many outstanding opportunities for volunteering wither retired or not.

http://www.legion.org/volunteers

http://www.vfw.org/Community/Get-Involved/

One more is the Disabled American Veterans, which runs collection centers where the proceeds go to helping disabled veterans.

http://www.dav.org/volunteers/Opportunities.aspx?gclid=CJPdg5y_-LcCFVMV7AodDUsAlQ

A different focus for helping children is the Senior Corps. This aligns people 55 and older with youth in need of mentoring and other services.

http://www.nationalservice.gov/programs/senior-corps

Many local opportunities for youth engagement can be found at schools too, with after school programs for tutoring or coaching opportunities.

The American Red Cross is another group that has well thought out programs aimed at those over 50 who can focus specialties on disaster relief when needed. Go to their website for the details.

http://www.crossculturalsolutions.org/retired-volunteer-abroad-programs?siteID=Google_Grants_retired_volunteer&gclid=CLS8pPjA-LcCFQho7Aodm0EAbQ

This short and very incomplete list of volunteer friendly groups for older citizens is reflective of not only the need for elderly involvement but the abundant benefits gained by both the volunteers and those on the receiving end.

Life’s steps as we age provides many ladders for us to climb and then move onto another portion of our life experience, one where retirement age eventually makes all of us cross the age of elibibility for AARP, which is technically 50 but most of the groups providing services for AARP don’t activate their participation until 55. 

The opportunities to volunteer through faith based groups abounds, secular groups who don’t specialize in spreading the mostly Christian message but simply help whoever, where ever the needs is found, and even those who are very focused on helping one select group in need such as Special Olympics.

http://www.specialolympics.org/volunteers.aspx

Many of the posts I have provided here on this site already detail the health benefits of networking, social connectivity, positivity, and how face-to-face interactions rather than internet networking can provide enormous life prolonging human benefits to the volunteer.

These attributes associated with volunteering should be included in the retirement planning of every able bodied retired volunteer who wants to enrich their life. 

With the potential for many soon to retire Americans seeing their wealth reduced in the last few years this is one area where a fixed income volunteer can still reap the rewards of a vital life without impacting their monthly budget.

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Empowered volunteers are by nature caring and empathetic.

For this reason they will find themselves as they hand out business cards and encountering people who are not happy, they need to fall back on the empowered volunteer wisdom. They may have many of life’s hard issues on their plate and they may be emotionally dragging. They won’t feel that they have any good reason to even consider your offer of joining your group. When they tell you why they won’t or can’t join, the negativity of their emotional state radiates and drowns your positive nature.

This is where many would simply take “no” for an answer and move on. That is a choice. I am now going to suggest that another potential path is available, one that must fit the individual empowered volunteer well enough to even try to employ the empowered volunteer wisdom approach.

After reading this short post if an empowered volunteer feels that this idea has potential they should check out the website where the author of this book and many of the supporting studies can show a more well rounded presentation of methods to become more emotionally positive.

http://www.positivityratio.com/index.php

For people in emotional distress there are things that they can do to help themselves that are at no cost and are backed by decades of studies that show their positive impact and effectiveness. Barbara L. Fredrickson, in her book Positivity writes about the positivity ratio, the balance between negative things in your life and positive ones.

This ratio is totally in the control of each of us and it can mean the difference between languishing and flourishing! It is that powerful, according to the author.

Studies show that positive emotions don’t directly improve or impact the human heart, but they can undo the influence of the negativity! In other words, they can minimize the negative influence or damage. Positive emotions also helps the body to rebound from the negative effects faster than if they were not involved.

There are two types of positivity identified by the author, serenity and amusement. She sees both as equally good at improving recovery time from negative emotional stress. In the book and to some extent on the website she explains how each works. Serenity is something that is a great tool for those in the funeral business to use to keep their empathy from being drained away. Amusement is open and accessible to everyone.

A high percentage of empowered volunteers will be of the “resilient personality” that the author identified.

People who are of this type worry less and are able to rebound from negative life influences quicker than those who hold a more pessimistic life view. Studies on the behavior type resilient personalities have decades of research as well, and the results show that positivity and openness work together with resilience to dissolve negativity and enable people to make stronger comebacks in their lives.

If you find yourself as an empowered volunteer and you are not one of the resilient personalities, good news you can build this characteristic into your nature! It is a resource you can develop.

Empowered volunteers that encounter emotionally distraught people who seem to be generally positive but are at that point when they are encountered by an empowered volunteer in a negative rut can use this pattern to engage and perhaps set that person onto a better path. Down the road they just may take that business card and give you a call.

Negative emotions narrow the persons emotional state and their point of view.

They don’t see the forest for the trees in many cases. Many people in such states emotionally cut themselves off from the positive aspects of the community too, such as charities and volunteer groups. Do you see where this is going? They need the groups but they won’t see it.

The empowered volunteer wisdom secrete involves resilience to go beyond ones individual amount of positivity and embrace it from others in the community! In other words, the people who will without even contemplating your offer of volunteering reject it are the ones most in need of the a community embracing. Their negative emotions won’t let them even see the potential due to their narrowed focus, with the forest being the community full of positive types who can support those in need.

The author further explains that their are two responses to hardship, despair or hope. Despair multiplies the effects of negativity until it drowns out all forms of positivity! Beware of this great sucking sound of emotional drainage. Hope is the opposite of despair and it is like a shield that holds off negative emotions from the outside world in most instances. Resilience is another result from positive emotions using hope as one of the supports.

Summing things up, positivity broadens your mind, helps you build your best future, and fuels your resilience. Using the three to one ratio of positive emotional experiences to negative ones people can then see how positivity and negativity work together to “tip” their lives toward flourishing.

The nuts and bolts of how to find positive life emotions and view points from a broadened mind are available on the website. So is a test to determine the current state of the persons emotions. Tools to change that states if it needs changing are also listed in the book and on the site.

The empowered volunteer simply needs to be familiar with the wisdom and then when the presentation is rejected this is potentially the very best message that an empathetic person could offer to another who is emotionally down. Positivity and the surrounding message has decades of studies on it’s validity for the prospect who is data driven, it has strong empathy for the prospect who is more into touch and contact type informational learning and it just plain has absolutely no drawbacks that involve either monetary cost or resource costs. What could be better than FREE?

When you encounter an emotionally distraught person who rejects your message despite your passion and your knowledge that they need it, this is the one thing that you can offer them. Have the web address on you, take your card and write it on the back of your card for them. They still have to take action on their own, but they may just call you down the road and tell you they want to join your group that has so much to offer, just like the passionate presentation you offered him or her when they needed it most.

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With over 40 comments on this initial post on passion, and several directly requesting more information on the topic, I will elaborate on “passion” as it relates to the empowered volunteer and volunteer groups and the data or science supporting why it works and how it helps all involved, health wise.

One of many scientists writing on social intelligence, Daniel Goleman PH. D., author of Social Intelligence, the New Science of Human Relationships (2006) makes quite a strong case for human connections.

To quote him from this book, “Neuroscience has discovered that our brain’s very design makes it sociable, inexorably drawn into an intimate brain-to-brain linkup whenever we engage with another person. That neural bridge lets us affect the brain-and so the body- of everyone we interact with, just as they do us”. 

He continues to explain that this effect between people goes to the very cells of our bodies, as to whether or not our T-cells are activated, which are the basics of our constant battle against invading germs. That is some very fundamental influence!

To wrap up his thinking regarding the links between people, “That link is a double-edged sword: nourishing relationships have a beneficial impact on our health, while toxic ones can act like slow poison in our bodies”.

This is huge stuff for the empowered volunteer!

What it means is that someone with passions for a cause can instill very profound physically helpful health influences on another person’s body when they convey their passions to another person. They are really helping that person just by being so vibrant and intense, in a real physical way beyond any cheer leading type of temporary emotional lift.

It is real, science has documented this impact and the health affects enough to call this particular health benefit valid.

Another scientist, writing in her 2009 book, Positivity, Barbara L. Fredrickson, PH. D. provides top-notch research that reveals the 3-to-1 ratio that will change your life. In this book she associates human needs for positive things to the heliotropic effect in plants, where they will turn their leaves towards the sun as it moves across the sky.

In humans, who need what she terms positivity just as plants need the sun light, she calls our need for positivity the “broaden effect”. Humans need positivity for a great many good things and effects on our bodies her research proves, research proven over two decades long and continuing.

I present the science behind what I am suggesting the empowered volunteer has to offer because I want to drill home the idea that it is fundamental to human nature to associate with others who are positive and driven to helping others, to sociability. The science reflecting the abundance health benefits from social intimacy that many society has intuitively known for hundreds of years is now abundant and irrefutable.

Humans are hard wired to be socially intimate with each other, brain-to-brain connections that really align us for causes while helping us physically at the same time.

Passions generate these brain-to-brain connections and thus help provide the basis for the health benefits that are generated by such intimacy. Teachers connect with students, great leaders connect with their followers, religious leaders of renown connect with their parish members, political leaders sometimes connect with their constituency, and parents connect with their kids as examples of the intimate relationships that benefit from passionate exchanges between two people in face-to-face passionate contact.

So why can’t this effect be generated between two people by reading a great uplifting book or by viewing a popular but still positive internet post?

Face-to-face contact provides the communication of body language which seems to be the link necessary for the health benefits both parties receive when passionate communication is exchanged. The old rule, “it takes to to tango” is about passion and dancing, but it now holds much more meaning for the two participants!

A large percentage of human communication is by body language, much of which is only recently being decoded at the level of micro-expressions. These studies reveal that much of our communication is on a deep level in our brains, much of which we are not conscience about. Our brain registers the communication, but our minds may not convey the message to our conscience thoughts. The information is transferred into feelings instead.

To sum it up, science is understanding the power of emotions and gut feelings today. Unfortunately people don’t always interpret the body language correctly, such readings take patience and practice. Science is evaluating these emotions, their effects and how those effects last, and making huge strides on how to improve your life by small changes to be more positive in your own life.

The empowered volunteer can rest assured that the prospect who accepts the offer to join a group can if they are willing benefit greatly in a deep and personal way, just by the science showing how positivity helps the health of all those engaged in human to human interactions, particularly if those people are passionate and positive.

Thus, everyone wins when someone joins a volunteer group if these elementary issues are met.

Even if goals go unfulfilled, even if disasters happen, the human to human element coupled with passion and positive aspects guarantees positive health benefits of various kinds to the participants no matter what else happens.

Good things happen to positive people are doing good for others.

Barbara Fredrickson’s “broaden effect” shows that conclusively in the two decades of studies she and her students have conducted. Believe it and go forth with passion to help your group, which helps your charity cause, and in the process also helps every prospect you engage with your message.

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Ben Franklin was the ultimate networking man in his time.

Do you have a network you can count on if the chips go against you, making you a minnow or a whale as the saying goes? What about baling you out of jail because some lady at a restaurant suddenly recognized you as a terrorist? Would someone in your network still believe in you enough to help even then?

Bestselling author Harvey Mackay, in his book “Dig Your Well Before You’re Thirsty”, the only networking book you will ever need” relays a story about himself. In it he says that after a golf game several of his group were conversing about recent events. The issue how far would you go to help a friend and how many real friends do you have that you can really count on came up? He related that most of the rest of his group each figured if they had to call a member of their network at 2 AM and needed $20,000 they would all have only a small handful of potential loaners willing and able to help to that extent.

Then Harvey was asked the same question. He replied he could call on at least 50 members of his network who could help him in just that way! This book was written in 1990, so $20K was a bigger number then even though it is still substantial in 2013, 23 years later. That is someone who has put blood, sweat, and tears into building his network. By the way, his book and even the others he has authored are well worth their money, in my opinion.

He goes on to relate how anyone can create and maintain a network. The acronym R.I.S.K. is how he states it, Reciprocity, Interdependency, Sharing, and Keeping at it. The bottom line is that he writes and still today on his Face Book page puts out positive messages and good core values that he has lived by and still endorses for all human interactions. I subscribe to his blog as well, just because I need to keep many of the MacKay maxim’s refreshed in my mind.

Every empowered volunteer should be increasing their network all the time. Connections between people which are genuine and worthy always help both of you well beyond the tool swapping or stock market tips you might exchange.

Maintaining a network is a particularly powerful way of combating life’s negativity if you are in a bad situation at work or some other place of interactions.

Birds of a feather flock together, so if you are increasing your social capital by increasing the value of your network, you should not only benefit from that tool you borrowed but also from the mental and physical health aspects associated with social connections that are deep and meaningful to both parties.

Another real life example, if you and another family always did things together when suddenly a falling out happened over the children, say criminal things were involved? Would you be able to engage your network for support as well as even finding a new church because the two of you always attended the same one? This is extreme but life is full of extremes. Networks know you and support you in good times as well as down times.

The purpose of a network is to engage in reciprocity, or hook ups as we called them in the Navy. I hook you up with a favor when you need it and you owe me one when I need something. It is like emotional bartering. But it can go much deeper, which is a must if you get a call at 2AM needing something pretty extreme. Even family can balk at that kind of call.

If you want to have folks there for you when you need them, you need to be there for them. This is simple to say but very hard to do in real life when the pressure is on and time is short. How do you get to that point? I have never done this before in a post and I don’t expect to do it very often, but if you really want to know, read Harvey’s book. I can’t imagine a library today that doesn’t have a copy, or hit the book store and get a copy. It long ago came out in paperback.

The quality of the network is supreme, much more than the hundreds or thousands of so called “friends” in a social network on the internet. Use the internet social sites carefully. The networks on the internet don’t give you the face to face contact that builds relationships where one person will go to bat for another. To get that kind of personalized response when you need it, you must build it up face to face over time.

Barbara L. Fredrickson, Ph. D. expands on the concept of relationships and their positive or negative nature in her book, Positivity. Barbara writes on how to maintain your positive attitude in reality, not faking it and how much it helps your health and general well-being. She goes on to give specifics on how to deal with negative people as well as how to increase your own positivity in your life.

So even if you have a negative boss (and who hasn’t at one time or another?) or even a negative person in a group you attend on a regular basis, there are strategies you can employ to help your emotional health.

Barbara’s book is from 2009 and already in paper back too.

For the most part nearly all of the wisdom of mankind is contained in books or other published works. Very few of our problems are so unique that we can’t find some worthy guidance in a book or in our network or both.  Your network should be able to supplement any personal library, and with a lot more interesting stories than those of people you don’t know. A real good network can enhance a library and enrich your life. Use both for the most bang from your emotional buck.

Enjoy building your network.

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If you want an example of passion, you will find it in waves with the Shriner’s who help crippled and burned children get to the various Shriner’s Hospitals all over the country, and in other countries too. They often drive all day, deliver the kids and often parents supporting the children, then return the next day. All the time by the drivers is volunteered. I have seen waiting lines in my days in Va Beach (see hat image above) as a Shriner to drive the kids. That is passionate care, which is very hard to fake!

For the empowered volunteer who is out passing out cards and approaching people to present them with an opportunity to volunteer for his or her volunteer group, attitude is everything. I have already mentioned passion in a previous post, which is something we all need in our lives.

I want to touch on the abundant science behind the attitude in this post. Many studies have made sense of the human emotions and associated body language. However, we are now seeing much deeper into what makes us human and how we really operate between each other.

Barbara L. Fredrickson, PH. D. in her new book, Love 2.0 reports on how being positive can help open up the brain, which in certain negative modes acts as a “reducing valve” and “by-pass”.

She reports on that despite previous authors writing on this concept of using drugs to open the mind, it has now been confirmed that without drugs or hypnosis even people can become much more open in their perception, which newer studies by brain imaging experiments have now confirmed.

The studies show sometimes all it takes is what Dr. Fredrickson calls, “positivity”.

Negative emotions narrowed people’s perceptions while positive emotions opened them up.  This brings us to an important point for any person who is in the position where they need to persuade others to their way of thinking, which involves many more of us than are usually credited with so called selling jobs. Nearly all humans engage in selling, in one form or another.

People who fake a smile do themselves a disservice, studies show. They are I suspect meaning well, but they are not getting the message across in most cases. Here again science weighs in with evidence from studies.

Dr. Fredrickson writes in Love 2.O, “Feigned positivity resonance creates a toxic insincerity that is damaging perhaps most severely to the person who initiates it. To be loving rather that to seem loving is an aspiration truly worthy of your time and energy”.

The challenge for anyone presenting a product or service is to know in their heart that what they provide is not only worthy of the time and effort they are presenting to the candidate, they also must know that it is a positive aspect of that persons future.

The saying, fake it until you make it uses the idea that if you adopt the body language associated with an emotion that emotion will become real. Method actors use this mental exercise, mentally contemplating some image or emotion in their head in order to get their body to live that experience in the presentation for their audience, a way to bring a more genuine performance to their acting.

When presenting, never fake it. Mentally prepare yourself every time to present to your prospect with all of the  positive energy you can bring to a passionate message, one which you not only believe in but which you are in the right frame of mind to convey at the time you reveal their new opportunity to them in person.

Get the offer right for them the first time! You may not have another chance to make the necessary first impression they need to see the value of your offer.

In short, it is not just your delivery but your real life positive belief in the group which you must convey, with real meaningful passion but also with sincerity.

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