Wellbeing Insights

The current edition of the International Journal of Wellbeing features an article titled ‘Character Strengths and Inner Peace’, and is written by Lobna Cherif, Ryan Niemiec and Valerie Wood. Earlier this year I completed an eight-week Mindfulness-Based Strengths Practice course led by Dr. Ryan Niemiec, who is the long-term Director of the VIA Institute on Character.… Read More

Kelly McGonigal in her book, The Upside of Stress writes of genuine empathy: “You must be willing to feel their distress and imagine yourself in their experience. You also must be able to see their strength alongside their suffering.” In recent times opportunities arose to practice genuine empathy – as opposed to pity – in… Read More

‘Character Strengths’ are the positive human qualities that support us to bring good into our world, and that support us to live a ‘good’ life.  We view these strengths of character as the fuel to drive our skills and talents.\ The knowledge and use of my character strengths has positively impacted my life over the… Read More

Regretfully, I was proud to share with my family, friends and colleagues that I didn’t need 7 hours sleep a night. Sure, the national and international sleep recommendation is for healthy adults to get between 7 – 9 hours sleep per night, but not for me, I was fine with 6 hours or less if… Read More

When it comes to the formal processes of goal-setting and goal-striving, an individual generally loves the feeling of making progress. With progress we often become more motivated and our commitment to our goal increases. However, according to leading motivational science researcher, Dr. Ayelet Fishbach from the University of Chicago, we need to be wary of… Read More

Recently Kate Halfpenny wrote her column of this title. It is interesting to read that what follows is an awareness that after building the career and acquiring the trappings of material prosperity, comes a need for something more. As Halfpenny pinpoints, “I want to build a second act with meaning which transcends money.” Indeed.  This… Read More

Hope needs to play as central a role in our lives now as much as it may always have in the history of humans. It has been referred to as the antidote to despair and in the Christian context, losing hope is an occasion of sin. Whether you ascribe to this Christian notion of ‘sin’,… Read More

We have Chris Mackey, principal psychologist at Chris Mackey and Associates, to thank for introducing us to the concepts of Acorn Theory and Individuation of Carl Jung. Recently, Chris was the guest speaker at the launch of my manifesto. In correspondence with us, Chris wrote: “[in my address] I’ll likely focus on Jung’s notion of… Read More

Wendy Tuohy of The Age, on 14th March, in Parents warned against ‘carrot and stick’ writes of an insight by Alyce Kirk, (a mental health nurse of thirteen years) when dealing with patients, “Don’t try and manipulate [patients],” she says. “You actually have to have a communication with them and give them a bit of… Read More