Dear VEMA Members,

As you reflect on 2024, what do you see? I’m sure, like me, you can look back and pick out vivid moments of immense joy, moments of crushing disappointment, moments of pride, and moments of anger where you question everything. Now, what did you learn from those moments that has shaped the person you are stepping out of 2024 and into 2025?

Unfortunately, our greatest learning opportunities are from those challenging moments where we wanted to throw our hands up and say, “I’m out”, or lay in bed and just forget that anything else exists outside of the bedroom door, or throw civility out the window and tell someone what was really on your mind. Those tough moments take a lot of grit to get through, and even more discipline to use them for betterment. I learned a lot about restraint, trust, self-care, boundaries, and patience through those tough moments this year.

As humans, we are hard wired with what is called the Negativity Bias. The Negativity Bias is an internal safety system. When we have a less than pleasant experience, we log that away as “danger”, so we avoid or otherwise think negatively about that or similar experiences. We know that a pan on a stove is hot, we know burns hurt, so we associate that negative outcome with a hot pan. However, when we allow experiences to put our negativity bias into overdrive, it moves away from being a safety system and turns into our general perspective. We become distrusting, closed off, and even start embracing a victim mentality – all of which are the opposite of being resilient.

Building optimism is what can help keep your Negativity Bias working as it should and not rule your life. You can build optimism through gratitude. When you build those skills, you will have the ability to face the negative experiences, learn from them, and not lock yourself out of life – and the best part is with practice, it will come naturally. Sure, the moment will still suck, but you will be able to more easily survive it and then thrive after it, reducing your dwell time.

I would like to share with you a simple exercise to help become naturally more optimistic. It is called Hunting the Good Stuff.

• Step 1: Find 3 things every day that were good. These can be big things or small things.  In fact, you gain the greatest benefit when you have had a crappy day, and you really must hunt for those little bright spots. This is where you learn to spot the good.
• Step 2: For each of those 3 things, reflect on why it was good. This is where you build gratitude.

You can do this exercise with your family, in a journal, silently through prayer or meditation – whatever works for you. With consistency, you will start naturally seeing the rainbows in the storms without having to work too hard. You will learn how to take that experience and use it for your own good.

I hope you have a peaceful and joyous holiday season!  Cheers to 2025!

Jess Robison, VEMA President