Dr Sangeetha Madhu - Mindful Memoirs

Positive Psychology – wellness within

Positive psychology deals with past subjective well-being, happiness in the present moment and flow, hope, and optimism in the future. Dr. Martin Seligman, the father of Positive psychology, refers to flourishing (as opposed to surviving) as happiness, optimism, personal growth, strengths, flow, wisdom, authenticity, creativity, and imagination. Western research statistics indicate that 18 % of the population is flourishing, 17 % are languishing and 65% are moderately mentally healthy. The benefits of flourishing are mastery, goal setting, achievement and perseverance

John Stuart Mill, William James, and other philosophers have been on a pursuit of happiness. How do we flourish and build a shared vision in bringing the good life to achieve ‘authentic happiness’. We can enrich our lives by seeking positive experiences( not in a hedonistic way ), enhancing positive character traits such as love, courage, forgiveness, originality, perseverance, future mindedness, and honoring institutions that deliberate on citizenship, responsibility, altruism, civility, tolerance and work ethic.

We can build happiness into our daily lives through positive emotions, random acts of kindness, meaningful relationships, writing a gratitude journal, or practicing forgiveness consciously. We have a choice of making minor progress towards a good life of being positive, engaged, and deriving purpose and meaning with a sense of accomplishment at work and home. When professionals from the scientific community, technology, art and creativity, health, and well-being join hands in creating new neural pathways, we can establish collective well-being for future generations.

‘Happiness is like a butterfly, the more you chase it the more it will elude you, but if you turn your attention to other things, it will come and sit quietly on your shoulders ‘

Henry Thoreau 

Being grateful has immense benefits in improving our overall sense of well-being. Find out your gratitude quotient and wishing you well to take the journey of self- discovery and reaching your highest potential by tapping into the deepest resources of your mind.

 The Gratitude Questionnaire-Six Item Form (GQ-6) (McCullough, Emmons and Tsang, 2002) Directions Using the scale below as a guide, write a number on the line preceding each statement to indicate how much you agree with it.

1 strongly disagree

2 disagree

 3 slightly disagree

4 neutral

 5 slightly agree

 6 agree

7 strongly agree on ____

1. I have so much in life to be thankful for. ____

2. If I had to list everything that I felt grateful for, it would be a very long list. ____

 3. When I look at the world, I don’t see much to be grateful for. ____

 4. I am grateful to a wide variety of people. ____

5. As I get older I find myself more able to appreciate the people, events, and situations that have been part of my life history. ____

6. Long periods can go by before I feel grateful to something or someone.

Scoring

Add together your scores for items 1, 2, 4, and 5. Reverse your scores for items 3 and 6. Add the reversed scores for items 3 and 6 to those for items 1, 2, 4, and 5. This is your total GQ-6 score. This number should be between 6 and 42. Interpretation If you scored 35 you scored higher than 25 percent of the 1224 individuals who took the GQ-6 on the Spirituality and Health website. If you scored 38 out of 42, you scored higher than 50 percent of them. If you scored 41 out of 42, you scored higher than 75 percent. If you scored 42 or higher, you scored among the top 13 percent.