What are you planting in your garden this spring? What seeds are you hoping to grow and develop this year?
I am really focusing on my garden this spring, and also my personal goals of health, vacation travels and continuing to plant seedlings for my retirement. You could be planning for your baby, as are a few friends of mine, while others are developing theirs for college life, or even longing for some grandchildren.
I have a good friend who is anticipating the completion of his lake house and the expected visits of friends and family this summer. Another friend of mine is savoring the anticipation of her Las Vegas Spring trip and breakfast at the Bagel Café. Meeting new friends is the anticipation of another friend and a river trip through Germany another.
The joys of gardening, family events, personal accomplishments and positive experiences can comprise anticipation and savoring. Anticipation brings the expectancy and hope for the future.
Anticipatory Savoring
In the book Savoring, Bryant & Veroff (2007) talk about the implications of anticipatory savoring. While anticipatory savoring can be helpful to enhance the moment in the future, we also have to be careful because anticipatory savoring can create either hopes that are too high, or it can wreak the surprises of the future.
However, I am an optimist and I believe in looking forward to the events in the future with a positive frame of mind, thus allowing for joyful and transformative experiences.
Vision Boards Help to Savor
For years I have been making Vision Boards, Treasure Maps or collages as part of my anticipatory savoring. Realizing that I can never know the future, but that I can put ideas out there for what I would like to have happen, I use this form of creativity to allow for some anticipatory savoring.
I find that I can look at my Vision Board and like to think that my hopes and goals help me create my successes and happiness. This allows me to approach the future with a positive mindset that allows me to relish rather than fear the future. You can read more about this process in my Blog, “Happiness and Dreams Come True When You Use a Vision Board”.
Savoring – the Psychology of Enjoyment
Bryant and Veroff teach us about savoring life—the capacity to attend to the joys, pleasures, and other positive feelings that we experience in our lives. Savoring provides a new theoretical model for conceptualizing and understanding the psychology of enjoyment and the processes through which people manage positive emotions.
I want to encourage you to have awesome anticipatory savoring of the seedlings in your 2015 garden.
P.S. If you want help selecting or planting seeds, please call me at 702-242-4222 or email me.
