We are well served by taking the time and effort to maintain positive, immune-enhancing attitudes and emotions, such as joy, non-judgment, and most of all, love. This does not mean going through life as a Pollyanna; rather it means to make a life- and health-affirming decision to choose positive emotions.

Joy is a sustained sense of well being and internal peace that comes from a connection to what matters. You feel it in direct proportion to how connected you are to living your personal truth. Joy differs from happiness or fun in that it is free of charge and does not change as outside events change. Core joy stays with you always no matter what is or isn’t happening outside of you. Real, long-lasting joy comes from discovering exactly how you were meant to live your life and then spending your energy in that direction.

Professional advisors told a famous talk show host that in order to get good ratings for her show she had to indulge in exposé-type material, catering to the lowest common denominator in human behavior. This felt so wrong to her that she didn’t listen to her “professional” advisors and decided to use her time on the air to broadcast hopeful and helpful information to people, and she has fun doing it. She chose to be a force for good and very frequently says that she lives “in joy from morning till night.” We don’t have to be famous talk show hosts, however, to decide for ourselves what brings us joy and makes us feel good. We have the power to choose every day, and the little choices add up to big choices before long.

Non-judgment is one attitude that totally changes your life. We are not talking about discernment here; judgment is different from discernment. With discernment we look at the possibilities of life with a discerning eye in order to make choices. You can tell the difference by the emotional component. With discernment you are merely noting the information so that you can make the appropriate choice. With judgment you have emotion rising to the surface along with the noting of information, and it’s usually anger or fear.

Try it for yourself. Make an effort not to judge anyone or anything for one day. This may sound simple, but it’s not easy. Don’t judge the person who cuts you off in traffic, the politician holding forth on the T.V. news, your boss, spouse, friend, or co-worker. Look at situations and people with compassion, instead of judgment. If you can do this for just one day, you’ll begin to see how much of your life’s energy is used up in judgment of others. If you decide to make this a practice in your life, it may seem hard to go even ten minutes without judging someone or something. That’s when it becomes apparent how much time and energy is taken up with judging. Bringing it into your consciousness is the first step. The good news is that practice makes perfect and as we practice non-judgment, it gets easier and easier. You’ll be surprised at how much less turmoil you’ll feel and how much more energy you’ll have.

Of all the attitudes and emotions we have, the one that most enhances our immune systems is love. It just plain feels good to love. Love extends beyond just the special people in our lives. There is love of our world, of nature, of art and music, and there is most importantly self-love. What self-love means is that we maintain our self-respect within relationships. It means that we learn to say “no” when we need to, knowing how to gently but firmly let others know where our boundaries are.

Don’t confuse self-love with ego. To love yourself doesn’t mean being a narcissist in front of a mirror. It means being interested in yourself. It means to care for yourself, respect yourself, and be concerned about your welfare. To love yourself is to explore and maintain your uniqueness. It is through love that you can begin to live up to your potential. The degree that you can trust and love yourself will determine the extent you can trust and love others. We have to decide what we have control over, what we don’t have control over, and how we will respond to life’s events.

Your life will speak to you in every moment, in every encounter, and in every feeling. By making responsible choices you can reinvent your life every day. Our attitudes and emotions are the personal highways we choose to travel on. There are good roads and bad roads, some with beautiful scenery and some full of potholes. The choice is always ours.