Kelly Seaward – Ding
Kelly Seaward-Ding completed a MSc Applied Positive Psychology course in 2018 at Buckinghamshire New University (BNU). She continued her studies at BNU and in 2023 was awarded a PG Dip in Mental Health and Wellbeing in Education. Her passion for Mental Health and Wellbeing continued by being awarded a PG Dip in Conversion Psychology from Manchester Metropolitan University in 2023. Kelly became a teacher in 2003, graduating from The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama and she applies her Mental Health and Wellbeing training in her own teaching. Kelly has taken her experiences and training within the fields of teaching, therapy and positive psychology and now specialises in mental health and well-being in Education. www.positiveteachertherapy.weebly.com
Kelly’s Blog
Motherhood and Mental Toughness
It has been a while since writing a blog. Life happened. In the world of motherhood, sometimes you just need to ride the wave of life and see where it takes you. A while ago, my little one took heed to one of those viruses and we ended up in…
Transitioning into Motherhood – Part Five
‘We see our world as we are conditioned to see it’ (Covey, 2013). Exploring Positive Psychology and Therapy over a long period makes you identify, analyse and reflect on your inner world with a greater awareness as you explore the depths of these domains. When…
Transitioning into Motherhood – Part Four
The power of habits While my baby daughter grows, each milestone is important and embeds the foundation of her emotional, psychological, physical and spiritual health. Seligman, the founder of Positive Psychology stated when he searched what parents want the most for…
Transitioning into Motherhood – Part Three
Navigating motherhood for the first time is unknown territory and unique as each one of us is different. But to me the most gracious gift from the divine. My husband and I are mediums and we met in a spiritualist church. Therefore, my blogs will have the essence of…
Transitioning into Motherhood – Part Two
In part one, Transitioning into Motherhood, I explored my pregnancy journey. This blog – December 2022, marks the first anniversary of the death of my beloved cat Bella. She was part of our family for eleven wonderful years and this blog honours her memory. Bella…
Transitioning into Motherhood – Part One
In June 2022, I gave birth to my first child at 42 years of age. The pregnancy was deemed high risk from the start due to my age and I needed to draw on the skills I acquired during my studies on MSc Applied Positive Psychology (MAPP). The medical profession has to…
The Importance of Boundary Setting for Optimising Positive Emotions
‘The only people who get upset about you setting boundaries are the ones who were benefitting from you having none’ I have seen the above quote a few times on Facebook. I usually write in line with empirical research regarding Positive Psychology, but…
Positive Education – Live It
We travel in this world in our bodies, it is our temple and it needs the right nourishment to do all the wonderful things it is capable of doing. The mind-body connection is constantly bringing new depths of research to help us navigate our way to flourishing. I…
Cultivating Positive Thinking in a Pandemic
The Power of Gratitude The Pandemic has refocused our lives. The restrictions have created a different way of living, a new perspective and reflection process. For some of us, the treadmill of life has slowed down, for some, it has stopped completely and for some…
In the Presence of Hope – Is the Power of Everything.
The Foundations of the exploration of Hope: One of my roles is teaching drama and something very interesting took place with my year 11 students. For their GCSE they have to create a devised piece of drama. The requirement is the teacher provides a variety of…
‘Love, as it turns out…’
‘Love, as it turns out, nourishes your body the way the right balance of sunlight, nutrient-rich soil, and water nourishes plants and allows them to flourish’ (Fredrickson, 2014, p. 4). As the schools shut on 20th March 2020 and the teaching world embraced a…
The Power of Goal Setting
In the dawn of time, with the ebb and flow of the rhythm of life, the presence of change whispers. This is the first stirrings of a new beginning. This is the face of the New Year and regarding 2020, also a new decade. The word NEW echoes through as one chapter…
Courage to Brave the Wilderness
In the words of Brené Brown in her book Braving the Wilderness, she embraces the wilderness as ‘the quest for true belonging and the courage to stand alone’. These words of wisdom which Brown shares throughout this book came into my life at the exact time I found…
Echoes of I am good enoug
As I sit in the last year of my 30s, ready to embrace a new decade and becoming 40, I pondered on my life? What I have achieved? Where I am heading? What things do I need to let go of? Question after question transpires as my analytical nature sets this milestone…
Authentic Leadership
In the midst of belief, when you are the only one in the knowing, it can feel like you are wondering in darkness, as everyone you meet doesn’t know your clarity. It is not a form of realisation for everyone to see. It is just a thought, a feeling, a deep sense of…
Finding Me
On the commencement of 2018, I made a New Year’s resolution, I have tried them before and some I stuck to and some I did not. However, this one was different. The pact I made to myself was to spend 2018 finding me, the real me, the authentic me and see how the…
The Emotional Carousel
The Emotional Carousel that encompasses the inner emotional turmoil gathered through the journey of life. It lays in the wake of our existence, sometimes gentle vibrating, sometimes engulfs every essence of you and sometimes it feels like it has vacated somewhere new…
Self-Care The Antidote For Teachers’ Wellbeing!
In the journey of life with the trials and tribulations it is so easy to focus on the heaviness of life, which seems to accumulate momentum as we travel our path. These burdens we carry, like lead weight boulders and the more we focus on them the more they travel with…
Compassion Is…
The vibration of laughter, the experience of joy, the most authentic part of being a human being. A lightness, a soft glow and an expanding energy field which helps us attract our desires, hopes and dreams. It makes you feel like flying, being free and a peacefulness…
Life in the Positive Lane
When we face adversity, I find I get to know myself better. This is because it shines the light onto the areas that cement me in my fears. However, I find these challenging times, which storms my world from peace, is enough on its own, without the well of despair from…
Be The Change
A paradigm shift of consciousness on all levels seems to be gathering momentum. A shift from old habitual negative patterns. Those restrictive patterns that fear bound thinking, emotions and behaviours bring about, to a new positive pattern of adventure, joy and…
When Positive Psychology sets residence in teaching
In a world of increasing pressure on teachers and their students it is very easy to fall into negativity when challenges are never ending and being thrown from all directions. Just as you move through one set of obstacles then the next ones are already in line to…