Tag: Adults

We often wish someone would show us the whole picture of our lives. It is not always good for us, because seeing everything at once would easily overwhelm us.

The wish to know

Now and then we catch ourselves wanting to know what our lives will look like, and what gifts and difficulties the coming months or years will bring. We want to know whether our present relationship will last, or whether our goals will be reached. Faced with a decision, we want to know in advance which choice will work out best. Some people even turn to fortune-tellers, their dreams and all kinds of other sources, hoping to find out what lies ahead. At most we get fleeting glimpses.

We may believe we want the whole story in full detail. In truth, knowing everything that is going to happen to us would probably leave us swamped and worn out.

Look at what you have already lived

Think about your life so far. Like most people, you have probably done more and faced more than you could ever have pictured. If someone had told you as a child about every job and every relationship you would go through, with all their ups and downs, you would have been overwhelmed. With your head crammed with facts about the future, you would have struggled to live in the present moment, and the present is where everything actually happens.

Not knowing is how we grow

In many ways, not knowing what is coming draws out of us the very qualities we need to grow. It would have been hard to give yourself fully to certain people or projects if you had known they would not work out in the end. Yet it was by sticking with them that you learned the lessons you needed.

Look back over your life and you would struggle to name anything that should not have happened. Your hardest experiences, and the lessons that came with them, may well have brought you your greatest rewards. Not knowing the future keeps us in the right place: wholehearted, and living in the present.

Introspection means looking closely at your own thoughts, feelings and sensations so you can understand yourself better.

In a world obsessed with speed and the urge to keep moving, finding time to sit down and reflect is hard. Yet setting aside even a small part of each day to examine yourself can help far more than you might think. Here are some of the ways it earns its place in daily life.

It shows you your negative patterns

Perhaps you keep going back to a relationship that hurts you, telling yourself that despite all the frustration and inconsistency the other person will change one day. Perhaps you keep covering for a colleague who does not pull their weight, putting your own work on hold and damaging your progress over time. Whatever the pattern, introspection helps you see it, and see how and why it drags down your mood and your outlook. From there you can think about other ways to handle those situations and, in time, move away from the sources of stress altogether.

It keeps the bigger picture in view

Without an overall aim, daily tasks start to feel pointless and more and more frustrating. That is why it matters to have a clear picture of where you want to be in the future.

It stops you fretting over what you cannot control

A maddening traffic jam, or a manager who never listens to your views: however often we are told not to stress over what we cannot change, we do it anyway. Accepting that we are not always in charge of the outcome, and that sometimes we simply have to adapt to poor conditions, is hard. Introspection helps us let go of the things we cannot influence and put our energy into the things about ourselves that we can definitely improve.

It lets you look your fears in the eye

We would all like to be the person who dives into any challenge and comes out on top. But everyone is afraid of something, whether it is rejection, failure or something else entirely. Introspection lets you admit your fears to yourself and, over time, work out how best to deal with them.

It lets you define happiness for yourself

When are you happiest? Whose company do you enjoy most? These questions can sound trite, but they are valuable. When you notice the good things in your life, you can use what you learn to shape your future goals and plans.

It lets you decide by your own conscience

When you face a big decision, the important people in your life will naturally have views. Introspection helps you decide on the basis of a full understanding of what is right or wrong for you. You end up choosing according to what you truly believe, rather than letting other people’s opinions push you around.

PERMA is often described as the simplest, most basic guide to finding happiness. It names five core elements that feed our sense of wellbeing. Here is what you need to know if happiness is what you are after.

The psychologist Martin Seligman, often called the father of positive psychology, argues that happiness has a formula. He sets out five elements that strongly shape how happy and fulfilled a person feels: Positive emotion, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning and Achievement. Together they spell PERMA, and together they give practical pointers towards a happier life.

P for positive emotion: feeling good

A positive attitude is central to happiness. That does not mean smiling all the time. Quite the opposite: it should never mean bottling up any emotion. Building positive emotion means accepting and understanding your negative thoughts and feelings, learning where they come from and why, and gradually getting better at finding the brighter side of each situation.

E for engagement: finding flow

Doing something that truly matters to us keeps us fully in the present. That absorption brings a deep sense of joy, of mattering, of purpose and of happiness. To raise our happiness and keep it there, we need to let ourselves explore and find activities that absorb every one of our senses. Finding our drive and passion also means putting ourselves first sometimes, and saying no to whatever does not leave us immersed, inspired and energised.

R for relationships: real connection

To put this element into practice, look at the relationships you have now and work on their quality. Nurturing close bonds with friends, family, relatives and partners gives us a solid, healthy foundation, and the support and care we need throughout life. Spending real time together, backing one another and taking a genuine interest in each other’s lives builds healthy connections that deepen our sense of purpose, belonging and happiness.

M for meaning: a life with purpose

Meaning and purpose add hugely to happiness, because we all feel a pull to give our lives to something far larger than ourselves, something beyond the chase for money and passing pleasures. Finding purpose means setting aside small, short-lived rewards and looking at the bigger picture. Write down your dreams and goals. Ask yourself what you want to be remembered for and what you want to leave behind. And do not be alarmed if your dreams look too big for now.

A for achievement: a sense of accomplishment

Reaching our goals adds a great deal to our overall happiness and fulfilment. Achievement is closely tied to meaning and to goal-setting. Meeting a goal of any size confirms our strength, our ability and our staying power. When we stick with a goal and put all our energy, creativity and time into it, our happiness grows because we have given ourselves to something worthwhile.

Putting PERMA to work

• Knowing the model exists is the first step to using it. Keep looking at things from a positive angle.
• Find what makes you happy and fully absorbed.
• Invest in your relationships with family and friends by making time to connect and simply enjoy being together.
• Work out what gives your life meaning and purpose. It is different for everyone.

A negative attitude spreads until it starts to affect how well people work and how well they decide. The remedy is to put enthusiasm and a positive outlook in its place.

Negativity behaves a lot like a common cold. It can start with a single person, and before long the whole team feels it, and morale and performance slide. Unlike a cold, though, it has a cure. Enthusiasm and a good attitude are just as contagious, and they can lift performance just as quickly. Here are five ways to beat negativity at work.

1. Turn obstacles into openings

Rather than dreading problems, you can keep your own outlook positive by choosing how you respond to them. Negativity frequently begins as negative self-talk: the same gloomy messages running on repeat in your head, darkening your view and wearing down your confidence.

2. Swap negative self-talk for positive

Negative thoughts lead to self-doubt, and self-doubt leads to failure. Watch for negative messages, both in your own thinking and in what other people think and do. Then practise turning each one round into something constructive. Positive thinking produces positive action, and positive action produces positive results.

3. Build trust

Use a positive attitude and real enthusiasm to build relationships. Negativity makes it hard to trust people, and without trust you cannot bring about any good change. Taking deliberate steps to build trust makes people more comfortable and makes relationships stronger.

4. Win people over instead of winning arguments

The only way to win an argument is not to have one. Handled well, disagreements and debates are chances to make things better. When one comes up, respect the other person’s opinion, never tell them flatly that they are wrong, and make a real effort to see the matter from where they stand.

5. Disagree pleasantly

The question we all face is how to disagree without being disagreeable, and still get our ideas heard. Keep talking, and keep trying to see the issue through different eyes. Take the time to think carefully about how the other person thinks and why they feel as they do.

Courage is not the absence of fear. It is standing up to fear and learning to master it.

A short guided practice can help you see how cravings rise up in your mind and body. Once you can see them, you have a real chance of breaking free from unhealthy habits.

Our minds are wired to crave. When a craving arrives, we have two options. We can feed it, or we can notice what set it off and work with that. Here is a simple practice for the second option.

Settle into a comfortable position

Start by getting comfortable, in whatever posture suits you at this moment. There is no correct pose. Just let yourself settle.

Tune in to your body

Turn your attention to the physical sensations you can feel. Check in with your body. How does it feel right now? Are you holding tension anywhere? You might start with your feet and the other places where you touch the ground or the chair: your knees, your hips, your hands, your shoulders. Notice your breath, the simple fact of breathing. Be genuinely curious about what is going on inside you right now.

Rest in that awareness

Notice what it is like simply to rest in awareness of your body. Notice, too, what it is like to realise that you can become aware of these sensations at all. That realisation matters. It means you do not have to be ruled by your cravings. You can study them with curiosity, one moment at a time.

Watch for other urges

For the last few minutes, stay aware of your body and look out for any other urges that come up. There may be a pull to drift into daydreams, or a pull to scold yourself over something that happened earlier in the day or the week. Do not push them away. Go straight towards them and explore them, holding each sensation with the same gentle, curious attention.

Why it works

A habit runs on autopilot: the urge appears and we act on it before we have even noticed it. This practice puts a small gap between the urge and the action. In that gap, the craving becomes something you can look at rather than something that simply happens to you, and you get to choose what to do next.

Attachment is a warm word when it describes the bond between a baby and the person who looks after it. As adults, though, many of us stay attached to people as if our survival still depended on them. Family, friends or colleagues, we hold on to them to meet our emotional, financial or practical needs.

That dependence can make you feel safe for a while. Far more often it leads to expectations, attempts at control and, eventually, heartbreak. Leaning too hard on others narrows your view of what is possible and keeps you from the independent person you really are.

Walking away is not the answer

The fix lies in how you handle your relationships. Ending one and cutting the other person loose looks like an easy way out, but it solves nothing. You simply move from one relationship to the next, looking for the one special bond where every expectation is finally met.

Going silent does not work either. Shutting down communication only widens the gap and puts more pressure on a relationship that is already cracked. The resentment you carry then closes your heart, and a closed heart cannot take in even the good and happy feelings on offer. The heart is where compassion and love live, and it needs to stay open.

Staying close without clinging

• Recognise that attachment grows out of dependence, whether emotional, physical or financial. Letting go of that dependence is how you find your independent self.
• Talk things through to clear up misunderstandings.
• Forgive people who have wronged you, in whatever way.
• Drop the labels and fixed ideas you hold about how people behave, so you can see them fairly and clearly.
• Practise acceptance, so you can understand when someone sees a situation differently from you.

Where it leads

Together these help you reach the part of you that is independent, loving, understanding and kind. Staying in touch with that true self is what makes relationships joyful without making them clingy.

Two sisters, both in middle age, were making a long train journey from one end of the country to the other. Bad weather forced the train to stop at a small station halfway, where it had to wait until conditions eased and the line was cleared. The passengers were stuck on board for hours.

The older sister

The older sister was irritated and fed up. She complained sharply to the guards, who could do nothing about it either. She sulked without pause and became a nuisance to everyone travelling with her.

The younger sister

The younger sister would not let the hold-up spoil her mood. She moved cheerfully through the train, made friends, swapped jokes, played with the children, got people singing in one carriage after another, and generally lifted everyone’s spirits.

Strangers warmed to her. They shared their food, asked her to join them, and threw themselves into the games she organised to keep everyone amused.

Journey’s end

When the train at last pulled into its final station, the older sister was gloomy, low and worn out. As far as she was concerned, the whole trip had been a waste of time.

The younger sister had enjoyed herself enormously. She had made plenty of new friends, had fresh experiences, and kept her good mood and good humour the whole way.

What made the difference

The younger sister enjoyed the trip in spite of the delay and discomfort because she made the most of the moment she was in. The older sister was unhappy because she was waiting for her surroundings to improve. She had put her happiness off until some later point when everything would be just right.

Every day brings each of us a share of problems, obstacles, rewards and successes. Given that, living in the present opens up the most of what life has to offer. We can pay attention to what is going on around us and enjoy the small pleasures that are available right here, right now. Yet most of us stay caught up in old griefs, regrets and failures, or in worries about the future.

The past is finished. The future has not arrived. The only thing that is real is this moment, so use it well. Take hold of these moments, because none of them will come round again. Take hold of the now.

Much of our energy goes into keeping things out of our lives: illness, disappointment, money trouble. Yet there are plenty of good things we could invite in that would make life richer. Here are ten worth having.

1. Awareness

Use all your senses to take in what surrounds you. The natural world offers a great deal of joy every day, if we pause to look, listen, touch, taste and smell. The reward for this kind of attention is that we worry less about what is churning inside us. It is the gift of being present.

2. Self-love

What use are your talents and strengths to anyone if, at the end of the day, you do not care for yourself? You can succeed at work and still run yourself down about your looks or your qualities, and then you never fully enjoy the work you love. Learn to value yourself. It builds confidence and carries you further than you expected.

3. Self-worth

Few gifts to yourself matter more than recognising your own value. Seeing your worth comes before truly enjoying your life. The measure is not other people’s view or opinion of you; it is how you see yourself.

4. Love

Love may be the most important thing there is. It keeps us moving. It brings relationships alive, deepens friendships and lights a warmth in us that nothing else can replace. Letting love in makes you easier to love.

5. Compassion

Holding kindness and grace towards others is a fine thing. It brings harmony to the world and gentleness to our hearts. Reach out, share in others’ troubles, and help where you can, remembering that we are all part of something larger than ourselves.

6. Humility

Pride is hard to spot in yourself and harder still to fix. Rather than fretting over what you are trying to get rid of, focus on what you would like more of. Part of humility is owning up when you are wrong.

7. Laughter

Make room for it. Whatever kind of day it has been, and whatever else you feel you have failed at, allow yourself a proper laugh.

8. Serendipity

Stay alert to things that happen unexpectedly, even when they first look bad. A happy accident can arrive dressed as a lesson. Take it gratefully.

9. Optimism

The surest way to push out negativity is to bring in more positivity. Look at the brighter side. Things will be all right.

10. Generosity

Whether you give time, money or simply a patient ear, generosity is a wonderful quality to let in. It builds better relationships, keeps your own heart open, and helps someone who needs it.

Letting in is how we let go

Good things crowd bad things out. Love grows and makes room for more good while it pushes fear aside. Joy outweighs pain. The hard work of letting go gets easier. At the very least it is a matter of balance: taking in the good deserves as much effort as clearing out the bad.

Think of your mind as your home. Open the windows so change can come in. Clear out the loft and keep the rooms in order. Let only the people you choose through the front door, and do not be afraid to build an extension that adds to its worth.

Glance around where you live. Is it tidy? Is your room in order? Would you mind if it were cramped or falling apart? Most likely you would, and if you would not, it is worth asking why. That is where you live and where you spend most of your hours. All of this, of course, is a picture of your mind. Here is how to look after it.

Lay a foundation

You cannot build without a base, and you cannot grow without something to grow from. That base is your core beliefs. Without them, everything else can come apart. So ask what your deepest values are. Whatever they turn out to be, they are the beliefs that matter most to you. Hold them with confidence even when others disagree. If they work for you and keep your house standing, stand firm.

Separate your beliefs from inherited ones

Do you believe something only because you were brought up to? That can come from school, family or friends. Do you behave a certain way because your crowd does? It may be something as small as taste. Perhaps you grew up surrounded by one kind of music and find you love a completely different kind. Do not be afraid to discover who you really are.

Repair the cracks

If your walls cracked, you would not leave them, because untreated cracks spread and worsen. Treat yourself kindly, yes, but above all deal with the worries and problems that sit on your mind and drag you down.

Explore every room

Wander through this inner house and discover something fresh: a new interest or hobby, or an ability you did not know was there. You may never have imagined running five kilometres or cooking a meal from scratch. Do not set limits on yourself. Go outside, too, and explore other people’s minds. Share your ideas and values with them and open yourself to theirs.

Keep harmful guests out

Protecting your house from damage matters. Work out whether anyone in your life is filling your head with negative or poisonous thoughts, and keep them at the door.

Match the outside to the inside

Be true to yourself; this is about being genuine. In the language of the house, do not put a sleek modern front on a dusty old interior. Dress the way you want, say what you mean and share what you feel. Nobody put you here to please everybody. Show people who you truly are.

Mind what you think

Negative thinking only breeds more of the same. Let yourself think about situations, other people or yourself in a belittling way and it spoils the most precious place you have, your mind. Regular quiet reflection, even a few minutes a day, makes it easier to steer the thoughts you produce. Treat your body with the same care and respect you would give any place you hold dear.

Clinging to old injuries and grudges harms nobody except you. Learning to release anger and forgive is how you get your freedom back.

Everyone gets angry now and then. Anger is not wrong in itself. It is an ordinary emotion, and letting it out is healthy. Handled carelessly, though, and especially when it is left unresolved, it causes trouble.

Let the anger out, the right way

Anger rising inside you is frustrating and it hurts. Sometimes the urge is to strike out and wound someone. Other times you push it down and bury it. Both are unhealthy. Anger needs expressing, but in a way that lets you release it, let go and move on.

Give yourself permission to feel it fully. Name the anger, and the hurt beneath it. The usual advice really does help: have a good cry, shout into a pillow, work up a sweat, or write it all down in a journal. These may sound worn out, but they have lasted because they work.

Anger is often aimed at a particular person. Talking to the one who wronged you can help. You cannot control how they react, but you get the chance to say how you feel, and that alone may help you let go.

Work towards forgiveness

Once the anger has been let out, forgiveness can begin. Forgiving does not cancel the other person’s responsibility for what they did. It does bring peace to everyone involved, and it is good for your heart in every sense.

How do you get there when the wound runs deep? Take your time. Forgiveness rarely arrives in a single moment. It is a process, so allow yourself to go slowly. You may still need time to grieve and think over what happened. Saying the words out loud, again and again, can get things moving. It works like an affirmation: repeated often enough, the idea settles into your mind and starts to shape how you feel.

Choose it on purpose

Deciding to forgive shows that you, not the other person, are running your life. It also frees up the energy the grudge was eating. While you withhold forgiveness, you stay tied to the person who hurt you. Even after the anger cools, they keep a place in your thoughts. Forgive, and that tie is cut. The thoughts and feelings knotted around them and the event can finally turn to something better, which frees you both.

Enjoy the freedom

Once you let go and forgive, you are properly free. Your outlook and attitude shift noticeably, as though a heavy load has come off your back. You may even wonder why you held on for so long. If so, do not punish yourself for the delay. It is all part of growing in compassion, understanding and wisdom. Take the lessons with you, along with the new sense of freedom.

Forgiveness gives twice

Forgiving does as much good for the one who forgives as for the one forgiven. The person who was wronged most needs to put down the anger and grief they carry.