by Monique Zahavi | March, 2020 | Life, Monique Zahavi
Most of us want to live a life of happiness, joy and flourishing, yet whilst we might actively strive for happiness, life throws us all kinds of challenges so that peace, calm and fulfilment often seem to evade us, no matter what we do. So, is it so bad to be unhappy some of the time? According to many psychological researchers, apparently not. Unhappy times may even be the keys to our happiness; bumps in the road of life can encourage us to draw on our personal resources and character strengths, which leads to increased resilience and satisfaction with life and emotional growth. Pop psychology or positive psychology? In a culture where it is rare to see people openly sharing the messy bits of life, happiness is often seen as the holy grail of being, an ideal emotional state, which if not reached means we are not living our best life. This has led not only to a huge happiness industry; self-help books, workshops, whatever it takes to keep us out of uncomfortable feelings but as a result, many of us feeling that a happy life just isn’t possible, and we can never quite get there. Yet there is no ideal and in reality, all of us fluctuate between periods of joy and periods of difficulty. The pseudoscientific idea that ‘if I think positive and think everything is OK, then it will be OK’ is simply not how life works. Compare or share? Shakespeare’s famous quote from As You Like It, “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players” has never been more apt....
by Stuart Dickson | November, 2019 | Life
I consider myself to be a confident person. I am accustomed to standing in front of a room full of people and speaking. In my work, I deliver training as well as work as cabin crew, so I am always communicating. However, put me in a social situation such as a party and suddenly I start to struggle. I ask myself “Has the cat got your tongue?” I am also involved in a network marketing business. It’s a great company and an amazing opportunity. All I have to do is talk to people about the services the company provides and share the opportunity to make money as a distributor. After six years I have the grand total of twenty- three customers. Hardly groundbreaking additional income. But why have I not made a success of it yet? So, I ask myself again, “Has the cat got your tongue?” Origin There are different suggestions as to the origin of the expression, such as relating to people’s tongues being fed to cats in ancient Egypt or the cat o’ nine tails being used in the Navy. According to the site www.phrases.org.uk there is no evidence to suggest either of these are true. Gary Martin writes that ‘The expression sounds as though it might be old but isn’t especially so. I can find no instances of it in print until the mid 19th century.’ Fear of Rejection and Taking Action Regardless of the origin of “Has the cat got your tongue”, it is time for me to think about why I am like this? I suspect that it boils down to...
by Monique Zahavi | October, 2019 | Life, Monique Zahavi
I have always been curious about why, despite really tough circumstances, many people manage to take the lemons life throws at them and make them into lemonade. I have also always loved this saying. Apart from making me smile at the thought of adodging lemons being lobbed in my direction, for me it represents, through taking something sour and making it sweetly fizz and bubble, the very essence of gratitude and an effervescent joy and love of life. As my journey unfolds, I have often been curious about how the resources I have developed have enabled me to overcome my own challenges and whilst managing life’s difficulties, noticing that I have simultaneously found many moments of joy and happiness. One state does not preclude the other, a finding that appeared to be common to those around me who shared their journeys with me; friends, colleagues and my study participants who faced their own bumpy roads. The balance between triumphs and trauma Whilst positive psychology focuses on how humans flourish, it also fully acknowledges life’s hardships. There is no smooth life path and we all face challenges every day, but often these difficulties become a source of our own personal growth. The human condition is one of constantly trying to maintain the balance, encompassing the duality of our ability to be both happy and struggling at the same time. Yet so many of us appear to triumph over our traumas, finding or maintaining our equilibrium, despite internal and external chaos. As my life has unfolded, I have noticed that psychological strength is not simply pushing through pain, or pretending to...
by Emma Willmer | August, 2019 | Life, Positive Psychology
Poldark is back on our screens with a new, and final, season. Even as a recently new convert to the show I’m finding it is hitting the happiness mark for me yet again. After the latest episode I found myself thinking about the characters and how people lived in those times. The show is set in the 18th century, this was a time period that was extremely harsh compared to today’s standards of living, and yet life is portrayed as being somewhat more straight forward and simpler back then. The show is set before the aftermath of WW1 and WW2 required the medical profession to increasingly focus on mental health problems and for me evidence of Positive Psychology is in every episode. Work, family and community are shown as the most important aspects of people’s life and people supported and helped each other in times of need. In today’s displaced busy lifestyles of commuter careers and families often living great distances from each other, it is easy to lose sight of the simpler side of life and become consumed by the daily hamster wheel of living in the 21st century. In Poldark it seems to me that through their individual stories, the characters in the show display three strong Positive Psychology behaviours that we can all learn from. 1) Resilience In looking back at our ancestors I am always overwhelmingly inspired by how resilient people are. My great grandmother for example, lived through two world wars and outlived two husbands and yet lived until well into her 90’s. I am always in awe of the amount of emotional resilience...
by Sarah Monk | July, 2019 | Life, Sarah Monk, Work
Time for a break As the schools break up in the U.K. for the summer vacation, many people are focussed on their upcoming annual holiday. The nature of “the holiday” varies from something that people spend significant money on and involves travelling to far flung places through to some time at home or visiting relatives. However, the underlying idea is to have a break from work to allow rest, relaxation and recuperation. Research suggests that without such breaks our well-being can suffer. So even though some studies suggest the effect of a holiday on well-being can appear relatively short lived, on some measures, they are good for us (de Bloom, Geurts & Kompier 2013). Can we get more benefit from our holiday? So can Positive Psychology help us to get a better return on our investment of time and money in our holiday? I think so. Let’s look at “the holiday” from the point of view of Seligman’s PERMA model of well-being. This suggests five key features which underpin well-being and flourishing which are; Positive Emotions, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning and Achievement. We will look at each in turn. Positive Emotions De Bloom et al. (2013) found positive and pleasurable experiences to be key to boosting well-being during and after a vacation in their study of 54 employees. Holidays are a time when give ourselves permission to be hedonistic and learning to savour these experiences can promote well-being. Savouring means intensely focussing on a pleasurable experience leading to it being both enhanced and prolonged. This is a skill that can be developed with practice. You can also savour an experience...
by Lisa Jones | July, 2019 | Life, Lisa Jones
Re-framing experiences using our senses: sight, sound, movement and feeling This blog is an exploration into how we experience the world using our senses. It looks at the power of our visual, auditory and kinaesthetic systems to shape how we respond to the world around us. By being aware of this and using our sensory modalities we can re-frame our meaning to improve our reactions. From a personal experience this has helped me understand myself better: why I react as I do, how I learn and how I can take control of my own responses to stimulation and memories. It started with a gory film….. A little while ago I was in front of the television, not paying it much attention as I was reading. The sound was on mute and as I looked up I noticed a particularly gruesome scene involving zombies, fast cars and sharp instruments (oh and a freezer). The genre of film is not my chosen genre and I would normally not even try and watch a film of that type. Why? Partly because I don’t find it entertaining, but mostly because I am one of those people who feel every sensation the actors are portraying. Stab someone and I feel the sharp, burning cut too. But I noticed something about this moment…..I felt nothing. No physical sensation, no emotional reaction. The film was playing out with all its gore and violence, yet I felt not a damn thing. Then I realised: I can’t hear anything. The screaming, the high intensity music, the crash, bang, wallop of the scene was not there. If I can’t...
