by Lesley Lyle | September, 2016 | Relationships, self-growth
I have never been good at dealing with confrontation. It’s something I get from my Mother. I am a very sensitive person and I don’t sit comfortably with any form of aggressive challenge. Thankfully, it is very rare for me to experience these occurrences in my life, particularly in the workplace. It is very different when it comes to me utilising my customer service skills for something that is not about me personally. However, recently, I found myself in a situation where I was dealing with confrontation and this time it was personal. Pride in my Work I take a pride in my work. I am very passionate about what I do and I would like to think that this is reflected in my professionalism and dedication to different roles. I am someone who takes action when things are not as they should be. Feedback is a staple part of my work life and I am confident in doing this. I was therefore, somewhat surprised recently when my behaviour was challenged by a manager, as talking over him and displaying inappropriate behaviour. I felt like a naughty schoolboy who had been sent to see the Headmaster. I am quite certain that I am being falsely accused and find myself in a position of having to challenge the manager concerned and in turn am dealing with confrontation. Agree to Disagree So what happened? How did it come to this? Quite simply, I dared to say that I did not agree on something that my manager said. He repeated his comment, so I said that we should agree to disagree. This...
by Lesley Lyle | August, 2016 | Ageing/Aging, Relationships
There is no doubt that my beloved Nan is in her twilight years. She is fast approaching her 94th birthday and is still going strong although her strength is slowly diminishing. As a family, the last 18 months have made us wonder how many more years will we be blessed with Nan in our lives? Around the world, there will be millions of families in the same position, all cherishing a loved one’s twilight years. It is a poignant time, but a time that we are grateful to have. A Quality of Life Nan has been lucky in so many ways. She has lived a fulfilled life and until recently has always been happy and upbeat. Like everyone, she has had to face difficult times in her life. She was brought up in an orphanage, lived and got married during the Second World War and was sadly widowed almost 32 years ago. She has always embraced life, leading a very social life, supported by the pillars of her faith. When she moved into her sheltered accommodation flat in 1987, she immersed herself into various activities, including volunteer work, knitting, helping my parents with childcare and housework, social committees, keep fit and carpet bowls, to name but a few. Being diagnosed with osteoporosis very late in life and twice breaking her wrist, did not get in her way. As she approached her 80’s and 90’s she readily adapted her life, accepting limitations as they came along. She had her social life, faith and most importantly the love of an ever-growing family. Over the last 18 months, things started to change...
by Lynn Soots | July, 2016 | Relationships, Uncategorized
As a fun communication game, my son and I play “would you rather…”. This usually leads to something disgusting that would have to be eaten or something embarrassing. None-the-less it is funny and we learn a bit more about each other each time we play the game. The other day, my son asked a more serious question “would you rather have me here, or take a million dollars?” Quite honestly I was taken back as the answer should have been obvious. It made me ponder the society we live in and the how we place value accordingly. Teaching positive psychology I often talk about how we value different things in our life, and the idea that positive experiences and positive relationships are often a predictor of our own happiness, but I had not stopped to consider how an eleven-year-old boy developed a sense of value; I quickly grabbed the teaching moment… What is a marble worth? I asked my son how much a marble was worth. His answer was “that depends on the marble, but anywhere from a dime to few dollars”. We agreed on a middle ground of a dollar a piece for each marble. Then I asked him what if each marble was worth a memory? How would you value it then? He quickly responded with “you can’t value it, it is not worth anything”…and the long pause commenced. His next comment was “I just said memories weren’t worth anything didn’t I?” Then I said, remember last week when we went to the movie and when we came out and it was pouring raining and you jumped...
by Dan Collinson | April, 2016 | EMAPP Portugal, Relationships
Resilience was the most researched word in 2015 in the online dictionary Priberam[1] both by the Portuguese and Brazilian users. This clearly shows the curiosity that the concept is causing in people from Lusophone-speaking countries. Resilience can be understood as “the human capacity to deal with, overcome, learn from, or even been transformed by the experiences of adversity”[2]. Crossing paths with resilience… My curiosity about resilience was triggered several years ago when I was working with young people in vulnerable communities; was felt after a very adverse experience in 2014; studied 6 months later in the Executive Master of Applied Positive Psychology and is now being explored as part of my master’s thesis on resilience in teachers that work with students with school failure, truancy and dropout. And why has “resilience” become so important in my life? As the writer and poet Maya Angelou, I believe that “words are things” and, if on one hand they have the power to hurt others, on the other hand they can be enablers. Words such as “resilience” can be a counterweight to others such as “risk”, “adversity”, “stress” or “trauma”. They can help us reframe and restructure our life experiences, rescuing us from the burden of negative labels. Resilience in teachers Going back to my thesis project on teacher resilience, I want to explore the influence of relationships in its construction. Suniya Luthar[3] says “resilience rests, fundamentally, on relationships”. The relationships that teachers establish daily with their students; colleagues and other professionals; with their friends and family contain an amazing potential for the daily construction of their resilience[4,5]. But how? The main...
by Lynn Soots | March, 2016 | Culture, Education, Positive Psychology, Relationships, self-development
I was seeing my friend after many weeks. She’d been away in Kashmir, visiting a Hindu shrine. I knew she’d had a bad experience and I feared it had something to do with the ongoing Hindi-Muslim riots in the region. Little did I guess… A Journey to remember She said that she too had worried about the riots prior to the pilgrimage. But once there, what struck her immediately was the fact that all the porters were Muslim men, who transported the Hindu pilgrims on pony backs or carried them on “palkis”, or palanquins, up the long and arduous trek. She looked everywhere for signs of religious animosity that was reported daily, but found none. She rationalized it by considering the monetary benefits for the porters and stayed on guard for subtle signs of hostility. What happened on the return trek would change her views forever. As they made the dangerous ride back, she and her group got caught in a terrible landslide. The entire ground before them split apart and she desperately watched half her group, including her parents, suddenly disappear from sight. She and a few others were left alone, save for the porters who carried them, injured and distraught. Beautiful surprises along the way These men were their saviors from that moment on. They tended to their cuts and bruises, dried their wet clothes in the frigid cold, cooked them meals from their own meager supplies, and sat guard at night so the distressed pilgrims could get a few hours of sleep. But what touched them the most were the words of comfort these men provided...
by Lynn Soots | February, 2016 | Culture, Positive Psychology, Relationships, self-development
I always had an infatuation with intuition. I saw it as an inner guide, the voice of my true self, with answers to all the questions that befuddled me. If only I could nurture a reliable connection to this secret hideout of wisdom. If only I could tune up its voice in my mental noise. If only, if only… Intuition or Self Talk? And then something happened that made me question my obsession. I was returning from my annual trip to my parent’s home in Pakistan. As I settled my children in their seats and pulled out a book that had sat in my suitcase the past two weeks, I noticed the man diagonally in front of me. Through the slit between the seats, I could see him shuffling uncomfortably, checking his phone constantly, raising his armrest and peering under, and turning back every little while as if to make sure no one was watching. I was highly suspicious. Who was he and why was he so uneasy? Preconceptions of the typical Taliban came to mind, as did the horrors of 9/11. I tried to dismiss it as the unreasonable voice of fear, but could not get it out of my mind. And then the sudden thought. What if it was intuition? What if it was some inner wisdom calling me to act. My heart raced. What was I to do? If it were intuition, I had a huge responsibility to act. Not knowing quite what to do, and typical of my fear response, I dove right into the source of my fear and tapped his shoulder. He turned...
