I’m glad you tripped over positive psychology – as you’re clearly enjoying your courses why not check out the MAPP programme at the University of East London – I can highly recommend it! If you want to know more about it & what it involves, just email me.

BTW I loved your photos.

Bridget

I come from a more is better background, the previous three generations of my family have all out performed the one before and built multi national businesses and comfortable fortunes. So at the age of 45 I am in uncharted water.

I would say I am around the 7.5 a busy scale but this is an improvement on a year ago, I agree with so much of your article and think that Christmas letters are important, unfortunately too many people use them as a way of saying look how clever I am or I bucked the trend a made so much money I can have another Range Rover for weekends. Honest and sincere letters need to be written with one person in mind and a different one to each person, yes it takes time and yes it takes planning but its worth while and if you care about them enough to write then care enough to give them 10 minutes each.

I tripped over Positive psychology earlier in the year and have become very interested. I studied a short corse at City University London and will do another at Burkbeck in January. I don’t know if psychologist have the right to tell us how to live but I think that there is a lot in it and I am willing to listen before I make my own decisions.

Must go now I have a game of hide and seek booked with the kids!

You’ve hit the nail on the head here. I think a traditional time management approach would recommend cutting out as many non essential chores as possible, and multi-tasking the rest, as the route to feeling in control, and on top of your schedule. Whereas an approach more in line with positive psychology would be to do the chores with mindful attention, rather than rushing through them. Perhaps for most people, particularly at this time of year, it’s a matter of a bit of both.

For me personally, if it’s a choice between spending 20 minutes wrapping gifts perfectly, or playing hide ‘n’ seek with the kids, I’d choose the latter. But, it is possible that wrapping gifts can add to your sense of wellbeing if you do it mindfully!

As a matter of interest, have you tried doing any chores mindfully? Did it make a difference?

Bridget

You’ve raised some very interesting points there; I’ve been doing some work on narrative approaches to consultation recently, and about creating new, more helpful stories in one’s life, and I liked the way you suggested that holiday letters might be about this. Particularly since informal research has found that narrative documentation (in the form of letters, certificates etc) is even more effective that the therapy session itself.

Thanks for making that connection for me.

Bridget

I agree with a lot of what you say.
It’s a shame that many of these articles that we refer to on PPND aren’t available for everyone to read, because inevitably, I have my own perspective on it, and yours may be different. The research starts from the perspective of Heidegger’s theory of Dasein (or human Being), and that the failure to recognise Dasein leads to an inauthentic existence. So when they analysed all the holiday letters they were looking specifically to answer the question ‘How does Heidegger’s notion of Dasein manifest itself in ways that individuals in North American society talk about time in the context of holiday letter?’ The point of using holiday letters is that the writers would not be aware when they wrote their letters that they would be used for this purpose – if they had been, it might have influence what they wrote & therefore would not have been a reflection of authenticity/inauthenticity. Does that make sense?

As for self-reporting – isn’t the vast majority of psych research based on self report?

And TV, well, who was it who said that television is the opiate of the masses? My personal view is that it’s the biggest time waster ever invented. But millions of people get a lot of enjoyment out of watching TV. Again, should positive psychologists dictate what people do or don’t do to find pleasure and enjoyment?

On your second point – do men write letters? ;-> As mentioned in a previous response, the researchers didn’t analyse the demographics so I can’t comment on gender/culture etc. I have also misinformed you if you’ve concluded that authenticity is about displays of emotion. The letters were coded for authenticity based on Heidegger’s Dasein. So for instance, “an authentic letter might have discussed a family member’s illness and death along with acknowledgment of the finite nature of life and provided evidence about how that event altered the writer’s life”. And actually the letter which was thought ‘perhaps the most authentic’ in this research was written by a 76 year old man.

I think you’re right when you say that not everyone wants/is able to reveal all in a holiday letter. But as to whether expression of authenticity is necessarily evidence of authenticity (and vice versa) that’s an interesting conundrum. If you’re authentic but don’t express your authenticity, doesn’t that make you inauthentic? Based on the way the research was set up, this was a logical assumption I think.

Bridget

Good point about reflection. It reminded me very much about being at work, and rarely stopping to celebrate the things that had gone well, the end of projects etc, before rushing on to the next big thing.

As you say, just because you don’t reflect on ‘being’ doesn’t mean that you aren’t ‘being’. And if we stop to notice ‘being’, it stops being ‘being’ anyway.
But reflecting back on the day, and remembering the moments of pleasure, engagement and meaning is an important activity, I think because it helps us to create different stories.

Can you give me the reference for the Vella-Brodick article please and I’ll look it up.

Bridget

That’s a really interesting comment you made, about whether people mean it when they say ‘how are you?’ I wonder what would happen if, next time someone says that to you, you actually tell them how you are? Or, if next time someone replies ‘fine thank you’, and you say, ‘no really, I’d like to know how you’re feeling right now?’, what response you would get?

When people ask me how I am, the word ‘fine’ comes out of my mouth before I’ve even thought about it.

Perhaps we could come up with some new phrases to try in response. How about “I feel good…I knew that I would” (accompanied by a James Brown ‘Whoa-oa-oa!’ or little shuffle). What do you think?

Bridget

I’m sure it’s relative – I too know plenty of people who ‘thrive above five’ (love that phrase!); the important question is how not to let being busy get in the way of being well, or how to stop yourself spiralling off into stress and burn-out. In the same way there will be people who are miserable below 5, who have time (and the inclination) to ruminate.

Have you looked into the research on well-being and time perspectives? (eg Zimbardo & Boniwell)- that might be fruitful avenue to explore further.

Bridget

Interesting question about savouring, thank you – Perhaps Bryant & Veroff’s suggestion that we think of savouring in 3 ways (i) things we’re looking forward to; ii) things we’re doing right now; iii) things we enjoyed doing yesterday/last week/last year) is a good way of finding a method which suits us.

i) visualisation is fantastic, works for kids too. Can you think of an occasion that you’re looking forward to? Close you eyes and imagine what it will be like to be there, the small details of what will happen, who and what you’ll see, how you’ll feel on the day and so on.
ii) mindfulness – really paying attention to the stuff that you’re doing this minute, in the moment – perhaps easier to start with physical things like eating, drinking, stroking the cat etc before working up to the intangibles. Take time to think of every movement you make, every sensation you feel.
iii) keeping a scrapbook or a ‘portfolio’ of some kind, with pictures, letters, certificates etc, and taking the time to browse through it and enjoy it. It doesn’t have to be a grand affair, I’m sure even having a photo in your wallet or purse of a great holiday you had, and then taking a moment to connect with the positive emotions it generates, would count.

If you put ’savoring’ in the search box on this website you’ll find lots of great articles on the subject. Plus there’s also the book: Bryant, F. & Veroff, J. (2007) Savoring: A new model of positive experience.

Bridget