Pronoia—is the Universe in Your Favor?

Hi, I’m Paul Krismer. I’m your happiness expert and this week, I’ve got an interesting topic building on what we talked about last week where we were talking about positive thinking as one branch, a sub-branch, of the whole topic of positive psychology which has many other branches that you can study. I came across an interesting word, a word called ‘pronoya.’ Pronoya is this idea that we’re expecting the universe to shower us with many, many blessings. What an interesting perspective, what an interesting contrast with paranoia where we’re expecting bad things to come our way. What if we could, realistically and in a grounded way, be expecting blessings, good things to come our way? That’s what this video is all about.

As a coach, public speaker, and best-selling author, I teach topics just like this one all around the world so stay tuned, and I’ll give you practical tools that you can use to make both yourself and those around you both happier and more successful. So, yeah, I’ve had a really fun day. I’ve been giving presentations and really enjoying the audiences I’m working with, and I love this concept of pronoya. As I found many, many blessings today that were unexpected, just gifts from the universe for me. I have sold all my books that I brought with me, had people wanting to book me for engagements in other places, had incredible kindnesses from people who were organizing the event. We had some AV trouble at one of my talks and they just rescued me right away and were super forgiving of the AV team that was struggling. There was just this relationship dynamic that felt rich, rewarding, and wonderful.

When I started the morning, I had this idea of pronoya in my mind that there is this shower, this river of goodness that’s constantly in my life. Of course, there’s bad things, things I don’t want in my life too, that’s reality. Sometimes when I get stuck in that reality, I’m gripping, I’m averse, pushing stuff away, I’m wanting and so desirous that it’s hard to be happy. But, if I can reorient myself to this idea of pronoya where showers of blessings are going to come my way, I’ll see them. It’s not that they weren’t there before, but by having this positive thinking lens to look through, including this concept of expecting wonderful, rich, genuinely happy-making opportunities, relationships, connections to occur, I will, in fact, find more often than not, they’re in my life.

It isn’t that they weren’t present before, it’s that I’m looking for them. Here’s the interesting thing, really fascinating thing, is that if I’m looking for them, will I, in fact, find that there’s an expansive universe that has more places where good things will, in fact, come to me because I’m looking? Because in the failure to look, when I’m stuck with the aversive, don’t want desires, grinding, gripping too tight, grinding my teeth about it, then my view gets narrower and it’s all about staying within the boundaries of all these bad things and keeping them away. But, in fact, if I can feel that blessings are coming my way because indeed they are in all of our lives, all we have to do is pause for a second and see the richness of the universe, the universe that we live in, in spite of the bad crap that happens. Wars in Ukraine, bad drivers, diseases, people, I love all that stuff, is equally real.

But my opportunity to get more of what I want opens up when I’m looking for it because, in fact, side to side, front and back, top and bottom, there is good stuff around in the universe. And that’s, I guess, a slice of the positive psychology talk I gave, the video I did last week. It’s been a great day. I’m grateful for the people who listen to these videos. I hope they find some value in your lives. And if you like it, click the like button, share it with your friends and family, and we will see you next week.