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Beyond the Threshold: What If the Next Stage Is Not About You?
In my last article I asked a deceptively simple question: Who exactly is standing at the threshold? It emerged from my continuing exploration of transition, particularly that strange period in life when something begins to stir. Nothing may be obviously wrong. We may still be successful. Still productive. Still busy. Still valued. And yet the……
Who Exactly Is Standing at the Threshold?
Midlife, Systems, Belonging and Finding Our Place In my last blog, When Something Begins to Stir: Midlife, Thresholds and the Invitation to Become, I explored the idea that the restlessness we sometimes experience in midlife may not necessarily be evidence of a crisis. Perhaps it is an invitation. Drawing on Barbara Waxman’s concept of Middlescence,……
When Something Begins to Stir: Midlife, Thresholds and the Invitation to Become
What if the stirring you feel isn’t a problem to solve, but an invitation to become? There are moments in life when nothing is obviously wrong, yet somehow everything feels slightly different. You may be successful. You may have built a career, raised a family, developed relationships, accumulated experience and achieved many of the things……
Flourishing Is Not Just About Feeling Good: Widening My Perspective on Positive Psychology
Over recent months I have been writing, reading and thinking increasingly about human flourishing. Positive Psychology has inevitably played an important part in that exploration. Seligman’s PERMA model, the work of Deci and Ryan on motivation, Csikszentmihalyi on attention and flow, Kasser on intrinsic and extrinsic values, and the wider literature around meaning, resilience, relationships……
The Art of Flourishing: Creativity, Ageing and the Things That Make Us Feel Alive
I have been thinking a great deal recently about ageing, flourishing and what it really means to continue growing as we move through the second half of life. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I keep finding myself drawn back to the work of gerontologist Barbara Waxman and her concept of Middlescence. Waxman challenges the idea that the years……
“Attention is the currency of consciousness. Wherever we place our attention, we create our experience of life.” Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Attention creates reality Csikszentmihalyi argued that we do not experience the world directly, we experience what we attend to. Every day our senses receive millions of pieces of information, yet our conscious mind can only process a tiny fraction of them. Attention therefore acts like a spotlight, illuminating some aspects of reality while leaving others……
The Goods Life or the Good Life?
What are we really chasing? For much of our lives we are encouraged to believe that success looks a certain way. A bigger salary.A nicer house.A better car.The latest technology.More status.More recognition. Modern society has become remarkably good at convincing us that happiness can be bought, accumulated or displayed. Psychologist Tim Kasser challenged this assumption……