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Wednesday 13 July 2011

The importance of vulnerability

This is such an important subject. If you look at nothing else on this blog watch Brene Brown
http://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_on_vulnerability.html

I have found everything she talks about is true, in my own life and with clients.

The relationship of weakness and strength is much more than having the courage to ask for help. It is  about being strong enough to embrace weakness and stand in the hard place and accept and embrace all that we are.

Real weakness, real vulnerability, is something we are uncomfortable and struggle with, but shouldn't stop us from accepting ourselves as we really are. Owning, rather than denying this part of ourselves allows us to accept and love others with true intimacy.

I learned a long time ago that the part of me that I wanted to change and loose, the me I was most ashamed of, was a part of me that people connected to. I still feel useless and vulnerable sometimes, however, the more accepting I am of my own weaknesses the more able I have been to love and accept weakness and vulnerability in others.

Do you love your friends because they are perfect or because they feel safe enough with you to let you see thier flaws?

Something simple

For a happier longer life, try smiling more! http://www.ted.com/talks/ron_gutman_the_hidden_power_of_smiling.html

Monday 11 July 2011

Happiness and a growth mindset

Research is showing that having a growth mindset rather than being fixed in how we see the world is an important distinction between people who thrive and those who don’t.
 
People with a growth mindset never stop learning. Your ability to adapt and learn is a key component of your happiness and well-being. We all face challenges and change, and having an attitude that embraces personal growth happens when we are willing to learn. Setbacks and failure are opportunities to improve and grow.
People with a growth mindset love challenges and new experiences.

In her book, Mindset: The new psychology of success, Carol Dweck explains how having an open mind to both our abilities and the world we live in allows us to grow and develop, and that holding fixed ideas reduces and limits not only our potential, but our potential for happiness. She also says that as a culture we don’t praise enough the effort and struggle people make, especially the young, when facing and overcoming setbacks.

‘Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.’ Albert Einstein,1879–1955

According to Carol Dweck

People with a Growth Mindset:
  • Are open to new ideas.
  • Are always learning (especially from setbacks).
  • Enjoy challenges.
  • Believe that abilities develop.
  • Believe that lives and relationships and other people develop.
  • Work at relationships
People with a Fixed Mindset
  • Believe that ability and intelligence are innate.
  • Are Judgemental.
  • Limit achievement (crumbles in the face of challenge and adversity).
  • Believe that if relationships need work they must be wrong.      
  • Believe that that if they have to work at things they must be stupid – it should come naturally
Research has shown that people with a growth mindset are more likely to be realistic about themselves and their abilities than those with a fixed mindset. Being open to growth, learning and  development does not mean an over-inflated idea of one’s abilities, but openness to possibilities and potential.
 
How open to change and development are you?
 
Think of a time or incident that was hard for you.  

What did you learn?
 
How did you change?
 
What in your life has changed for the better because of this?
 
What, about the experience, are you grateful for?

With a growth mindset we grow intellectually (growing in our knowledge of the world and developing our reasoning powers) and emotionally (growing more emotional intelligence). All experience becomes good as it builds resources and self knowledge for positive growth and change.  The more we know about ourselves the greater are our chances of realising our potential

Find your mindset
Read the statements below and mark whether you agree or disagree with them:

 
1. You are the person you are and you can’t really change that, or
 
2. I believe that everybody can change, every kind of person is able to change.
 
3. The main part of who you are can’t change but you can do things differently, or

4 .You can always change basic things about the kind of person you are.
 
*[Questions 1 and 3 are the fixed mindset questions and 2 and 4 are the growth mindset.]
 
If you are most comfortable with statements 1 and 3, try thinking about what it means to you to believe that people cannot change, and, more importantly, what would change in your life if you chose statements 2 and 4. Then: Make a quick list of where you have opportunities to learn more.

 Carol Dweck (2006). Mindset: The new psychology of success. New York: Ballantine Books

Group Life Coaching Research

My research on the effect attending a life club workshop has on happiness and wellbeing has been published!  Groupwork An Interdisciplinary Journal for Working with Groups, Volume 20, Number 3, 2010 , pp. 51-72(22).

Nina Grunfelds Life Clubs are a great way to boost your happiness and wellbeing  www.lifeclubs.com

Thursday 7 July 2011

Everything you do effects everything you do!

In this rather confusing mind map I hope to convey the integrated way we improve happiness and wellbeing. Improving only one of the boxes has the potential to impact on all of your life. Action and focus in any area of your life can positively affect your overall wellbeing, resilience and happiness

The Indians have a saying- that we are a house with four rooms, emotional, physical, mental and spiritual and we need to visit each room every day if only to open the window.

Monday 4 July 2011

Become happier by becoming kinder

You can increase your positive emotion and well-being by
increasing your kindness.
The child psychologist Bernard Rimland, director of the Institute for
Child Behavior Research, found that ‘the happiest people are those
who help others’. In his study, people were asked to list ten people
they knew and then to mark each according to how happy they
thought they were. They were then asked to rate the same people
for how selfish they were. Those who were less selfish were also
more likely to be the happiest.
Why not try this experiment for yourself? Rimland’s criterion for
selfish behaviour was ‘a stable tendency to devote one’s time and
resources to one’s own interests and welfare – an unwillingness to
inconvenience one’s self for others’.

Random acts of kindness can be anything: something
as simple as thanking someone, or stopping to allow a car
to pull out in front of you or letting someone onto a train before
you. All random acts of kindness are a real boost to happiness.

Get inventive with your kindness. It is very important to remember how
much variety matters. We love surprise, so keep your kindness fresh.
In a ten-week experiment Sonja Lyubomirsky asked people to practise
random acts of kindness. What was interesting about this research was that
the effect on happiness depended on the variety and not the frequency.

Don’t let this stop you – the more kindness you show the happier you will feel!
In another study in Japan people were asked to count their kindnesses. The
results showed that happy people became more kind and grateful, and all
participants became happier.

B. Rimland (1982). The altruism paradox. Psychological Reports, 51, 521.
Julia K. Boehm and Sonja Lyubomirsky (2008). The Promise of Sustainable Happiness. University of California, Riverside.
K. Otake, S. Shimai, J. Tanaka-Matsumi, K. Otsui and B. Fredrickson, (2006). Happy people become kinder through kindness: A counting kindness intervention. Journal of Happiness Studies, 7(3), 361–75.

Tuesday 28 June 2011

On Education and Passion

This weekend I attended the Sunday Times Education Festival at Wellington College. A fantastic event that combined all that is good and forward thinking in education today with speakers and presentations on a vast number of subjects and perspectives. Michael Gove was great, however he stuck blindly to research that says the A levels most desired by business are english, maths, a language, the sciences, geography and history. This rather contradicted many of the presentations, workshops and discussions on what motivates and engages the young, which appeared to be much more the creative arts and as Bob Geldof highlighted, the creative industries have kept this country on the road significantly over the last 30 years as manufacturing has declined. The gold standard A’s also do not teach the other vital skills required by business, the importance of emotional, moral and social skills, a topic that permeated virtually everything.

The idea of a career appears to be dead yet we are in a world dominated by narrow expertise, we have a shortage of engineers and no idea what industries and skills we will need twenty years from now- or even ten. How can the business community of today define the ‘gold standard’ subjects that we should be teaching? Of course core knowledge is essential but how narrow or how broad is certainly up for debate.  Antony Seldon has taken this issue head on and was campaigning strongly for the broader potential of the International Baccalaureate and the relevance of teaching all eight aptitudes from Howard Gardner’s model of multiple intelligences, as well as the ability to be silent and mindful. Teaching how to use knowledge, as much as what knowledge children receive, seemed to be the thread.

I am struck by a big discussion in the ted group on LinkedIn that is asking ‘Our educational system is failing to help students understand their passions and prepare for the right career. How many years did it take for you to find the right career and feel engaged at work? Is there a way to avoid the sometimes 20 year detour to career happiness??

I am surprised this is not in a coaching or positive psychology group and it is quite a pet subject for me for many reasons- my own school experience and the number of midlife clients I get who realise they followed what they thought they should do rather than their heart and passions. There is no wrong and right here, we change as we mature and experience all that life throws at us, good and bad. It is often not the career path per se that is wrong but the way people are interpreting and valuing what they do. I am not sure if this is an education or a general social issue?

Monday 20 June 2011

Health and a positive attitude to food

Food is one of life’s best pleasures- are you appreciating and savouring what and how you eat?

 
 
A young man on his gap year teaching in India was struggling to connect to the children on his first day. As he groped for a subject, he asked ‘who likes food?’ The class erupted with excitement and he thought he’d cracked it. His next question, ‘what is your favourite food?’, completely baffled them.

 
 
 We have so much food, and choices of types of food, in the West that we have lost the concept of food as something that keeps us alive. What we do have are  unending amounts of research and information on what foods are best for health, happiness and energy. We devote hours of television time watching chefs cooking ever more exotic and exciting recipes and buying an unlimited number of books and magazines on the subject of food. Research shows that we are living longer and healthier but we are also getting fatter and suffering from more diabetes, coronary disease and cancer in the developed world than ever before. We know the effects of an unhealthy diet and yet we continue to eat and drink unhealthily. So much unhappiness is connected to our bodies and what we put into them that there is obviously much more to it.

 
 

 All food is good for us in moderation. What is not good for us is too much worry about what we are or are not eating. We can get all the information and spend hours buying the right things but the process of doing this can be stressful and all the benefit of eating the right stuff is lost to the anxiety. If food is something that controls us it becomes a cause of unhappiness. The same is true when food becomes a substitute for other pleasures and needs, an addiction that we can retreat into.  


 
 
Love your body as much as the food that feeds it.
When did you last stand naked in front of a mirror and really look at yourself? I am old enough for this to be much harder than it was 20 years ago. We live in a youth-obsessed culture and as we get older we can be made to feel that the natural changes to our bodies should somehow be overcome, hidden and even denied. The sexiest people are all shapes, sizes and ages – what they share is confidence and delight in themselves and their bodies.
Really sexy people are at ease with their bodies.
Everybody has flaws and imperfections. If you focus on your physical flaws rather than seeing what is beautiful about yourself, you will stop enjoying your full physical potential. Eating and body image can become so distorted that pleasure in a body that can run, jump and dance is lost along with the pleasure of eating. If you are young, be grateful for your body now. In 20 or 30 years you will long to have it again.

 Food is a pleasure and preparing food is a wonderful way to be mindful and present. Eating with other people is the best way to savour both food and company. The beginning of friendship normally starts with sharing a meal, in fact it is very unlikely that you have any significant relationships with someone you haven’t eaten with.


Here are some ways to eat well for a healthy mind AND body

  • Eat fruit and vegetables daily.
  • Make time to cook; cooking your own food is healthier not just because the ingredients are better but the time you spend preparing it can be mindful or social.
  • Eat more slowly and relish your food. Take time to really enjoy and savour your food. Deny yourself nothing but take longer eating and relishing what you are eating. Notice what the food tastes of and how it feels in your mouth.
  • Eat what you enjoy; keep portions moderate but don’t deny yourself the pleasure of eating.     Eat with someone else.
  • Eat better snacks; nuts, dried fruit or home-made pop corn.
  • Have regular meal times.
  • Bring colour to your plate.
  • Take a minute to be grateful for your food and the body it feeds.
  • Don’t see food as a problem, see it as the source of life that it is.
  • Try finding five physical aspects of yourself that you like, and really take note of what people compliment you for.

 
 
  
Why not give your body a good clean out now and then? Fasting every once in a while is very good for clearing your system both physically and mentally and is still used as a spiritual practice.

 
 
Alternatively give yourself a mindful eating exercise:

Take a piece of chocolate and eat it as slowly as you can, let it melt on your tongue and stay in your mouth as long as you can. Enjoy this exercise with a friend!

Thursday 16 June 2011

Brilliant RSA talks

I love all the RSA illustrated talks, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc this is great.
you can also find Dan Pink at www.ted.com/talks

What does it mean to be good?

What does it mean to be good?

Why do we all agree that the current exposure of the behaviour of the MPs is that they have not behaved ethically? It appears that many were encouraged to see expenses in lieu of the salaries they forfeited, but too many individuals had pushed the collective collusion past a blurred unwritten line. What was acceptable at one level became unequivocal fraud at some unspecified point. The same issue applies to the human rights privacy law becoming a means for a footballer to hide his adultery. It is clear the law was never drafted for such use but a collective collusion has encouraged a general abuse. After the financial collapse in 2008 it is possible to see how far people had pushed the collective collusion behind behaviour that was clearly wrong but technically legal.

Friday 10 June 2011

A flourishing life is an integrated life

The wellbeing community speak of a flourishing life.

Flourishing implies more than being happy it includes the idea of living in a way that involves healthy thought and action, in mind, body and spirit.  The rewards of a full and flourishing life are happiness and wellbeing.

The most interesting and relevant research findings into what contributes to a flourishing life tell us the importance of:
Feeling good, being grateful, being curious and open minded, acting generously, choosing wisely, living meaningfully, having self-acceptance and being sociable.
Research into this subject appears to be confirming old ideas about character and living a ‘good’ life. All traditional stories that teach us about this subject however, are clothed in metaphor or tale, being a ‘good’ person gets rewarded and attending to character traits that endear you to others is the key to a ‘good’ life and reward. Positive psychology has collided with moral philosophy and spiritual practices and the reward is wellbeing and happiness.
All stories are really about good character and the courage to learn and face challenges. This is in essence at the core of every Hollywood story and the ‘reward’ is as likely to be happiness through personal fulfilment and self-discovery as material gain. The guy gets the girl because he wins himself first (or vice versa).
The stuff of tales - courage, generosity, wisdom, and honour depends on self-knowledge and belief combined with the ability to look beyond the self, to the needs of others. Stop for a moment and think about what in your life has given you the most lasting sense of well-being – when you felt truly yourself, a moment or event that caused you to feel great long afterwards. I bet it either affected other people or was something that involved a challenge.
Altruism is not self-denial it is the employment of empathy and imagination. When combined with that horrible word responsibility, we own up to the fact that our lives are not separate but intricately interdependent and our actions matter.
A flourishing live is an integrated life, living a life that is both fulfilling to yourself as well as those around you and beyond. A flourishing life can begin with a smile and always has a story to tell.

Wednesday 8 June 2011

The small and the complex

If you google happiness, well being or positive psychology you will quickly discover the main  subjects and research. The importance of gratitude, meaning, optimism, resilience, kindness, developing your strengths, and finding what you value. You will also hopefully find that variety is important and that exercise and mindful living are as beneficial to the mind as to the body.

Most of what is written on the subject is limited and simplistic and at its heart a 'good' life is not complicated - but it is complex.

There isn’t just one contributing key to a happier, more fulfilled life. Nothing is simple and yet everything is simple, because changing just one small aspect in your life affects something else which in turn has an effect.

The scientist Stephen Wolfram shows very neatly how complexity can arise from the very simple when randomness is one of the factors fed into the most basic computer program. This is not what is interesting; his main point is that it is not always possible to retrieve the simple beginning from the complex or to predict the outcome when randomness is a feature. In a very simple example he creates beautiful and complex patterns from running very basic programs.

In some ways it could be said that positive psychology is attempting to find the code, the initial programme that  produce the most beautiful lives. Philosophers and mystics have attempted similar journeys and come to very similar conclusions. There is no surprise at how much research findings are mirroring some of the teachings of ancient mystics and philosophers. However, it should be remembered that all ancient writings on the practices and behaviours of those who have embodied what has been recognised as the height of human flourishing were written by followers in their name. Buddha, Jesus and Socrates wrote nothing. Their ‘teaching’ was given in practice and through stories and principles that call for reflective action in relationship to the self and others; the best understanding of these teachings is only really revealed in practice.

Sunday 5 June 2011

Being judgmental and the misery of social comparison

Why are we often so judgemental?

The psychologist Jonathan Haidt says it is because this is part of the essential glue that holds us socially cohesive. He argues that ‘tit for tat’, or ‘do as you would be done by’, is the most successful way we have to work as an individual within a group; policing, or monitoring, this tension works through our common public judgement of each other. Because we assess and judge people, we hold them accountable and are in turn held accountable. We are constantly judging who is deserving of what reward or punishment, and we are naturally programmed to reciprocate like for like.


In his book Women are from Mars, Men are from Venus, John Gray talks about how we are doing this in relationships all the time, subconsciously awarding points to ourselves and our partner and we judge others through our own award system.

There are many different award systems associated to gender, personality, class, culture, age, and most especially beliefs and values. What you believe, what you most value, reflects and governs how you make sense of the world and therefore affects your judgement and can govern your emotions. We feel the world through what we value and we judge others through this veil of emotion. brilliant

Answer the following questions with a score of 1–10 to get an idea of how much you judge people.
  • How much do you feel let down by people?
  • How much do you criticise?
  • How much does it matter to you to be acknowledged?
  • How much do you believe only some people are worth spending time with?
  • How much do you look for praise?
Judging other people is one thing, judging yourself in reference to others is a first-class ticket to unhappiness.

  • How much do you worry about how much fun or success other people are having compared to yourself?
  • How much do you want other people to think you have an interesting or exciting life?
The new charity Action for Happiness  http://www.actionforhappiness.org/ has a wonderful poster that says it very neatly.
 
Notice if you are constantly evaluating yourself in respect to other people. Your social support is part of who you are and those around you can have a great influence on how you feel about yourself. Being dependent on the opinions of others affects your own self-regard which is then fed back into your relationships with other people.  
Comparing ourselves and judging others is only bad when it is done negatively or makes us feel bad. We all need to feel we belong and we all love to belong to a ‘tribe’ we identify with, who share similar outlooks, pleasures and activities. Belonging to a football club, church community, sharing a school or geography, life experience or social class is part of who we are, and people who share these things with us share a part of our identity and make us feel we belong and are connected.

What is your identity?
Wanting to have another identity from the one we ‘think’ we have is different from growing and developing an identity that is authentic and comfortable;  that incorporates who we have been into who we are and who we can be. Comparing yourself to others in a way that becomes unhealthy can develop from a belief that your identity comes only from external expression;- who we want to be seen to be by others. This can lead to a life of constant neediness and judgement.

Here are three ways to become less judgemental.

Be authentic rather than sincere
We are increasingly identified by our sincerity of belief, which is rewarded by outside approval of our adherence to the 'popular' or ‘right’ way to think or behave. You can be high-minded and sincerely so, but to be authentic you must also be rooted in reality, which can require restraint, compromise, and full responsibility to both yourself and other people.
·         Who are you when you are being sincere?
·         Who are you when you are being authentic?
·         How is this different?
Develop your self-regard.
Develop your self-regard through acceptance, love, curiosity, gratitude and fun. Learn to be and celebrate ALL that you are, your weaknesses and your strengths, and you will find yourself enjoying all your relationships better, especially with yourself.
Learning self-acceptance is part of growing your self-regard, the best way to reduce the misery of social comparison and being too judgmental.

Make friends who share your values
Choosing relationships and friends that complement rather than compete with your own abilities and strengths stops you being competitive and envious. Choosing partners and friends who have qualities and strengths you can admire and celebrate encourages reciprocal respect and admiration.


Thursday 2 June 2011

Curiosity- a key ingredient to wellbeing


Are you open and curious or do you hold on to rigid expectations.?

Being open to new (and old) experiences and open to continuous learning, having a growth as opposed to a fixed mind-set, has a great effect on every aspect of your happiness and well-being.

Research is showing that having a growth mind-set rather than being fixed in how we see the world is an important distinction between people who thrive and those who don’t.

People with a growth mind-set never stop learning.
Your ability to adapt and learn is a key component of your happiness and well-being.
We all face challenges and change, and having an attitude that embraces personal growth happens when we are willing to learn. Setbacks and failure are opportunities to improve and grow. People with a growth mind-set love challenges and new experiences.

Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.
Albert Einstein,1879–1955


According to the psychologist Carol Dweck someone with a growth mind-set:
·         Is open to new ideas.
·         Enjoys challenges.
·         Believes that abilities develop.
·         Believes that lives and relationships and other people develop.
·         Work at relationships.
·         Is always learning (especially from setbacks)

Whereas people with a fixed mind-set:
·         Believe that ability and intelligence are innate.
·         Are Judgemental.
·         Limit their achievement (crumbles in the face of challenge and adversity). 
·         Believe that that if they have to work at things they must be stupid – it should come naturally.
·         Believe that if relationships need work they must be wrong



How can you become more curious? Curiosity does more than broaden your mind; curiosity is a significant factor in well-being. Research has proved that the more curious we are the happier we are, both in our pleasure and joy in the moment and in our general well-being. The psychologist Todd Kashdan calls curiosity the ‘engine of wellbeing’. Knowing who you are, what you enjoy, how your life can be better, safer, happier or easier is the beginning of making it so. The more curious you are the bigger your world gets, and your knowledge of yourself, others and the world deepens.

Anxiety can be cured with curiosity. Next time you feel anxious you may notice that it is because there is something you don’t know, so why not:
·         Get curious about why you are anxious.
·         Find out what you need to do.
·         Say you don’t understand.

The more open you are to new ideas and perspectives the more you will be able to affect your happiness and well-being.

Why no decide today be open and curious to any and all possibilities and to let go
of any attachment to specific outcomes.

Dweck, C. (2008). Mindset: The new psychology of success – how we
can learn to fulfil our potential. New York: Ballantine Books.

Tuesday 31 May 2011

Choice

“Today I choose life. Every morning when I wake up I can choose joy, happiness, negativity, pain... To feel the freedom that comes from being able to continue to make mistakes and choices - today I choose to feel life, not to deny my humanity but embrace it.” Kevyn Aucoin



What are you choosing? More importantly how and why are choosing how you choose to think and act?

This sounds either mindless or confusing but whenever I get my clients to start to think about the reasons and motivation behind their actions it is always challenging.

We choose differently in different areas of our lives and as we go through life the choices that suited us in our youth are different to those as we get older and at every life change.

In my last blog I touched on the accumulated affect of all the little things. We change and our circumstances change in some ways so gradually and surreptitiously that perhaps we don't notice and if we don't notice we can get 'out of date' with our own life. Sometimes we can even forget to choose fun!

One of the ways we choose is our time perspective.

The psychologist Philip Zimbardo writes and talks about the importance of choosing our time perspective and how our happiness and well being is affected by how much (and in what way) we choose to focus on the past, present and future. You can see him talking about this at http://ted.com/talk/lang/eng/philip_zimbardo_prescribes_a_healthy_take_on_time.html
Zimbardo's conclusion is that he used to be too future orientated (choosing how he lived only in respect to future outcomes) and that he is now much more present focused and consequently much happier. He is making an important point that to be too future orientated is not good for your health and wellbeing. His professional achievements, that he now enjoys, came directly as a result of his choice to be single mindedly future focused but he woke up to the cost of his choice (which I believe has much more to do with his age than his research) and wishes he had done so sooner now he has discovered the joy of choosing to live in the present. -Zimbardo's message is that just choosing one focus and perspective, however successful, can come at a price.

Our choices are often in competition and can be affected by hidden - or at least unacknowledged, motivations. When this happens we can feel out of control.

In my book Brilliant Positive Psychology I have started with the power of choice because we are actually choosing everything- not just our time perspective. We are making many many choices -much more that we realise- in fact happiness itself is a choice. By taking a moment to examine what we are choosing (and why) we can begin to evaluate and change our perspective in all areas of life. How we choose to see other people and events, how we choose to see ourselves, and how and what we choose to do what we do. Choosing to choose can be very empowering.


The choices I am talking about are not what to buy, eat or get, but how we choose to think and what we choose to value. In fact one of the best choices you can make for your happiness and wellbeing is to do and have less! Research has told us that having too much choice and always trying to get the most from everything doesn't make us feel good.

In order to change how you think you first have to choose to think!

This is an extract from Brilliant Positive Psychology p.11

Below are some of the ways you are choosing your experience
and well-being; these are some of the factors that govern how
and why you make choices, and, in effect, how you choose to
think and feel. All these influences are part of your complexity
and only you can change or increase what influences your
choices.
1 What you need and value. You choose what you need.
Your basic needs are as individual as you are and what
you need are the things that matter most to you, what you
value.

2 As a response. You choose your response to how others
behave and act, and to outside circumstances. Someone
else’s actions affect your choices. This is often an emotional response

3 To conform as part of a group. You choose because it
is socially appropriate. You choose to do things you feel
you should do because it is considered by others to be the
choice you should make. You choose cultural and social
norms.

4 With autonomy. You choose completely freely and
unrestrained. You choose novelty, excitement and
uncertainty, for your immediate pleasure.

5 With your mind. You choose to do something logically
because it makes sense to you.

6 As a habit. You choose out of habit. You choose
mindlessly, doing what you have always done without
thinking about it.

7 With understanding. You choose what you understand
and is meaningful to you. When you understand why you
want to do something, you have a reason to choose it.

What are you choosing right now?
Are you awake and open to change?
Are you content and grateful for how much you have or do you
want more?
Are you living ‘your’ life or for someone else and have you chosen this?
Are you choosing to see problems or solutions?
Are you learning from your mistakes or do you feel a failure?
Are you looking forward to the future or does the past hold you in
its grip?
Are you choosing safety or adventure?
Are you choosing to be generous with your gifts or do you hold the
best of you only for those who deserve it?
Are you choosing to judge yourself and others or are you choosing
to see the best in yourself and others?

Why not choose to become more aware of the choices you are making today, especially in respect to time.
Look at different areas of your life in the list below and put each area in the middle of the mind map and play with some of the perspectives. Note down which perspective you are choosing and then note down what you might choose from a different perspective.




  1. How or what are you choosing in your career, at work, professionally.


  2. How or what are you choosing to spend your time recreationally, for fun, in your social life.


  3. How or what are you choosing in respect to your romantic life, significant other.


  4. What are you choosing in respect to where you live, your environment.


  5. What or how are you choosing financially, to keep yourself and others.


  6. How or what are you choosing for yourself, your soul.


  7. How or what are you choosing for others, the wider world.


Do let me know if you choose something different and if it changed anything

Friday 20 May 2011

The power of the ironic loop

Try this. I want you NOT to think about a lemon barley sweet. Don’t think about sucking lemon barley for the next two minutes. How is this working?

The mind plays an ironic trick: when we have the thought that we mustn’t think about something it sets up a feedback loop that increases, rather than diminishes, this thing we mustn’t think about in our minds.

Were you able not to think of a lemon barley and did your mouth water by any chance? When we ruminate on something negative or want to stop doing something that is hard, like dieting or smoking, or even when we just feel miserable and want to stop feeling this way, we can set up such a loop.

It is very hard to overcome strong emotion, which can then govern what we think; yet paradoxically what we 'think', may have elicited the strong emotion. Just choosing not to think of the things that make us feel negative may in fact increase those thoughts and feelings, as the above example with the lemon barley sweet shows.

Whatever it is that you want to stop doing or deny yourself try not to be too obsessed.  Acknowledge your cravings/worry/hatred and see the gremlin on your shoulder who is making such a big deal - and then find something to distract you. Chances are that if you embrace your worries and fears; notice and stay with the emotion, it will probably loose some of its grip.  Denying the emotion or fighting it, is the fuel to feeling it more strongly.

One way to break the ironic loop is to name the emotion. 'Hi desire', 'hi fear', 'hi anger' so this is what you feel like.   I am feeling you and  I notice your grip, but you will pass in a while. Then focus on something different and positive. Good luck

Sunday 1 May 2011

Celebrating

This is my first post.
What do I write about?

My oldest daughters happy happy wedding three weeks ago.
My youngest daughters twenty first four months ago.
The publication of my book six months ago - Brilliant Positive Psychology- and the party I had to celebrate it one month ago.
Being married for 30 years, three months ago.
Becoming 50 seven months ago.
The courageous and tragic death of Bunty aged 36 and the wisdom and strength of Ned her son aged six, four months ago.
The last two books I read on holiday- The Junior Officers Reading Club and One Day, one week ago.
The launch of action for happiness two weeks ago.
Consciousness.
The joy of friendship.
The love of family in both grief and joy.
The importance of sisters and sisterhood.
The cost of gardening and sailing - the pleasure of gardening and sailing.
Wisdom and common sense.
Living through the biggest change since the reformation or the fall of Rome .........................
What really matters to me enough to write about it today?
All the above have filled and over filled the last seven months of my life and looking at the above list I think I must focus on the unusual number of celebratory events.

In the last seven months we have had three tents for celebration, the local marquee company in the village thinks our life is one long round of celebration but we have never had a tent in the garden before this year! We also watched, and supported as best we could, my husbands niece die of secondary cancer leaving her sister to bring up her son alongside her own three small children and nothing I could write about that would be adequate except to say her funeral was a perfect celebration and recognition of her unique life.

Life is the measure of the small, shaping and giving strength to the large. When we make the small things good, the big good things are better and the big bad things more bearable. Celebrating and marking the big events in life matters, but it is noticeable how much the big celebrations are an amplification of all the little things.

Relationships are built on numberless small kindnesses and shared moments. Each moment spent well, authentically and generously, whether laughing or crying, listening or sharing, each small intimacy becomes another drop in a pool of love and friendship. What has marked the last seven months for me has been the incredible joy of swimming in the lake that is the sum of all these pools.

Each event was very different, and each lake unique to the event. However each event was without doubt a reflection and celebration of love and friendship, new and old, all valuable and authentic.

The country's celebration on Friday was a wonderful example of swimming in all the good things. A mass celebration of the joy of young love and the hope invested at the start of a marriage. It was a celebration of a national identity, built over time as a nation represented in the pomp and splendor or individually in each person comming together to share in public celebration and joy.

Celebrating is one of the many ingredients of a happy life and as with everything that contributes to a happy life,when combined with other positive ingredients, such as generosity, kindness, recognition, gratitude and meaning (to name a few) it becomes more potent.

I included celebration in the 5th chapter in my book, the chapter on positive relationships, a small paragraph on page 120, on how to positively celebrate someone else's achievement. I am still learning and wish now I had written more but then there are so very many ways to build wellbeing and happiness......................This is that small paragraph;
Celebrating and sharing good things is a very important aspect of positive relationships. Sharing good things can be done well and encourage trust and intimacy. We all know how good it feels when someone says well done, but it can feel even better when the ‘well done’ is well done!
Being positive and supportive involves responding to good news in a genuine constructive reaction that actively acknowledges the other and celebrates the event with them. Psychologist Shelly Gable has shown that this is vital to the health and well-being of all relationships but particularly builds intimacy and trust.
Do’s and don’ts of positive celebrating. DO
Be genuine, and excited
Mark the moment
Be fully attentive and interested in all the details
Really enjoy your friend’s or partner’s achievement
Set your own needs aside.

DON'T
Talk about yourself and your achievements


Look for bad consequences or pour cold water on it: ‘that’s great but how will you cope . . afford it. . . etc.?’
Immediately change the subject or the focus of your attention
Ignore the news or event.
Whatever you are doing today, if you are doing it with someone else, know that however small the kindness or shared joke or small attention you give or receive is adding to a pool of shared moments that will be part of who you are when in celebration together, yours or their celebration. Have you or someone you love a reason for celebration? If so start making the plans