The other day someone described
themselves army crawling through their life - they were without question surviving
– they went to work every day, they got their children on the school bus, they filed
their taxes and they managed to keep their household up and running. This is a familiar circumstance for many of
us, we get so consumed with just getting through the day we almost forget to
look up and take stock of how we are living out lives.
In psychology we often talk about
the mental health curve which was originally developed by Huppert in 2005 and beautifully illustrated here by Emma Hepburn.
This curve helps us to appreciate
that our mental health exists on a continuum, sometimes we are ahead and
sometimes we are just trying to stay afloat.
For a very long time the field of
psychology was primarily interested in the in the left-hand side of this curve,
researching, classifying and treating those who were struggling with
significant mental health difficulties.
It is only in the past 25 years that the spot light has moved to the
other end of the continuum in a bid to understand what makes life most worth
living and why a small proportion of our population are managing to
flourish.
One of the most prominent
researchers at this time was Martin Seligman and he and his team developed the
PERMA model. This model identifies the
five essential elements that need to be in place for us to move into a position
of thriving.
Positive Emotions
Engagement
Relationships
Meaning
Accomplishment
Over the next two weeks we are
going to explore each of these elements and think practically about how we can
create more PERMA in both our lives and in the lives of our children.
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