by Sarah Monk | March, 2024 | Uncategorized
Introduction In this blog I hope to explore how awareness and acceptance of the messages our emotions bring us can influence our resilience. I contrast this with our natural tendency to resist, struggle with, control or rationalise our emotional experiences. Psychology has great difficulty in defining what we mean by emotion. In this context I am characterising it as a combination of iteratively interactive internal experiences associated with physiological changes in the body plus associated cognitions and action tendencies. Many psychological approaches distinguish between cognitions and emotions and indeed we experience our thoughts and feelings differently but in practice they are usually closely linked and hard to separate. The ideas of acceptance discussed here apply equally to feelings, thoughts and sensations. Our information alert systems I describe these three elements of physiological symptoms or sensations (such as anxiety “butterflies in the tummy”), emotions and cognitions as different types of messages about something in our environment that our biological, evolutionary and personal learning histories want to draw our attention to. These are our incoming data alerts, rather like different types of pop ups we might see from email, messaging, social media etc when we are working on a document. Our challenge is to decide how to relate to these messages, (which alerts have important information, which are unhelpful) and how we respond to them in a flexible and considered way that helps us live a full and meaningful life rather than being hijacked by them. What we do know about emotions is that they are generally short lived experiences that pass in their own time and they are not easily...
by Lisa Jones | August, 2023 | Lisa Jones, Uncategorized
The powerful self-question in midlife As a coach I used to think that powerful questions were ‘clever’ questions you learn by rote, but a powerful question emerges from the relationship, from being there with the coachee, curious and genuinely interested in their story from their perspective. A question is only powerful when it is used in the right context and has been formed from the unique moment between coach and coachee during their coaching partnership. This got me thinking about how someone in their mid-life could use this skill on themselves. In my previous posts I have suggested we spend more time reflecting and being mindful. This is not easy for everyone. We often do not listen to ourselves and like to be distracted from too much time alone with our thoughts, yet the powerful self-question in midlife might be just the wake up needed. So what might happen if we asked ourselves some powerful questions, and actually listened to the answer? Here I offer some reflective approaches to help you tune into your own powerful question. Why midlife? A powerful question can be profound at any stage in life but here I am thinking of those who are on their journey of discovery, have lived a life where they have (I hope) been successful but may now think that they want something different. Midlife has so much opportunity in it but we can be overcome by the changes we do not ask for- health, family dependency, or career dissatisfaction. When we ask ourselves what we do want we can push through the challenges and turn them into opportunities....
by Bryony Shaw | December, 2022 | Bryony Shaw, compassion, Uncategorized
Having self-compassion is the ability to recognise our own suffering and take action to comfort and care for ourselves. Traditionally, some may think that this is the road to complacency, but research from Kristen Neff (2011) shows us that it is the road to responsibility and action. She proposes that there are three components to self-compassion, which work to soothe us and place us in a more adaptive state to deal with stressors that may arise. The three components Kristen Neff has identified are self-kindness, common humanity and mindfulness. In my recent work with a sports team, I taught them how to use self-compassion to develop deeper connection as a team, as well as developing personal resources to deal with stresses such as competition anxiety or fear of failure. Self-Kindness Encouraging the athletes to be kind to themselves and not harshly judge themselves, helps to reduce fear and anxiety. Encouraging them to treat themselves as they would treat a friend is a valuable tool because we are often harder on ourselves than we are on others. Common Humanity Helping the athletes to accept that it is normal to experience fear, and that failure is a crucial part of becoming a successful team because you can learn from it. This helps to dampen the stress response and allows the athlete to fully focus on their game. Mindfulness Guiding the athletes to acknowledge and turn towards their painful emotions such as fear, anxiety or shame which can arise when reliving a missed shot or poor pass. This helps them to make an intentional act to stay with these...
by Bryony Shaw | August, 2022 | Bryony Shaw, Positive Psychology, Uncategorized
Congratulations to Bucks New University as this year was the 10th year of their Masters of Applied Positive Psychology (MAPP). I was fortunate to be a member of their very first cohort and I feel gratitude for having Applied Positive Psychology come into my life. Like many students on the course, I saw and am still seeing, a positive change in my own life as a result of studying Positive Psychology theory and experimenting with Positive Psychology interventions. As we know, Positive Psychology is not a spectator sport, to reap its benefits, Positive Psychology demands that it be integrated into our own lived experience. 10 years old To celebrate the 10-year birthday, Bucks New University’s annual symposium returned, after a break due to Covid. I gave a talk at Bucks first ever symposium based on my dissertation which researched practical ways to bring Growth Mindset into the sixth form curriculum. At that time the symposium was a relatively small affair with a single talk being given at one time and running for just one day. Now it has grown into a 2-day event with parallel sessions being held, and researchers from different universities giving talking and running workshops. Far-reaching impact It was inspiring to see other students from later cohorts and witness their enthusiasm and hear about the positive impact of taking Positive Psychology out into their own specialist fields. This meant it was hard to decide which talks and workshops to attend as they were so compelling. The themes were varied and topical including talks on the impact of Covid and the role of Positive Psychology...
by Lisa Jones | June, 2022 | Lisa Jones, Loneliness, Uncategorized
There is a common view that introverts don’t like interacting too much and would rather spend time alone, whilst extroverts spend all their time socialising and hate being alone. Is this a simplistic view of these personality traits? Could there be more to understand when considering who does and does not like spending time alone? Recent research has explored self-determined motivation for solitude and a preference for solitude, including how it relates to socialising. This post contributes to the discussion by also sharing some insights from my own research into qualities of time alone in midlife and how time alone is an undervalued activity in contemporary society. The Common Myth Society has a tendency to generalise a great deal. We often forget that the variation in people is far broader than the ‘average’ that we rely on as a measure of behaviour. The concept of introverts and extroverts was first presented by Carl Gustav Jung in the early 1900s. In very simple terms, Jung differentiated the types into those who tend to engage with the outside world in an active way (extroverts) and those that were more often engaged in the internal world of reflection (introverts). However, as the concept of personality was developed it became more and more defined as those who are outgoing and sociable (extroverts) and those who are inhibited and shy (introverts). This starts to put value judgements onto the traits as through the lens of sociability. Being an introvert myself I take umbradge at this! I am a sociable person and can be quite outgoing at times. True I am not the life...
by Steve Emery | February, 2022 | Life, Steve Emery, Uncategorized
Did you know using to your local shops may improve your wellbeing? A few years ago I made a decision to stop using the major supermarket in the town and start using the local shops instead. There were a couple of reasons for this; I felt quite strongly that suppliers were being unfairly treated by a lot of the big names, and having had to deal with a couple of big-name stores, I felt they were acting in ways which didn’t align with my core values, But the main reason was that I simply hated it. By far the worst hour of my week was the weekly shop. What distressed me most was how many people shopping looked so miserable, I lost count of how many times I was bumped into and there were long queues at check-out. Then having to try and pack my back as quickly as the stuff was coming off the conveyor as the completely uninterested looking checkout operator moved my goods over the scanner. I would barely get half the stuff in my bag before I got “that will “£103.97”, which was followed by a look which could have said “Now hurry up, can’t you see there’s a queue” Hated it! Hated it! Hated it! The Decision to Change It was a week or so before Christmas and I’d just finished a Christmas party, and standing outside waiting for a taxi I bumped into a friend of mine, a dairy farmer, who has to be said, didn’t seem full of Christmas cheer. “ I don’t know what I am to do” he told...
