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• Essential: the strength feels...

Here is how Seligman puts it:

In other words, when we work, we work. When we play, we play. When we pray, we pray. When we are with loved ones, we connect and be present. We engage in life by being fully present in each moment of our lives and giving it our best.

Today, let us talk about the P in PERMA which stands for positive emotions.

P = Positive emotions.

However we need to remember a couple of things:

Wellbeing does not mean the absence of so-called "negative" emotions such as sadness, distress, anger or grief.

Secondly, as we have mentioned, positive feelings alone are not enough to thrive and we need to work on other aspects of...

Over the next few days, let’s explore the PERMA model of wellbeing as introduced by Martin Seligman who is widely acknowledged as being the founder of positive psychology.

In 1998, Dr. Martin Seligman used his inaugural address as the incoming president of the American Psychological Association to shift the focus of the study and practice of psychology from mental illness and pathology to wellbeing and flourishing.

Seligman’s theory consists of five components that people pursue because they are intrinsically motivating and they contribute to wellbeing. While each of these dimensions can be pursued independently, each works in conjunction with the other elements to produce and sustain wellbeing.

The reason PERMA has become so widely established as a model of wellbeing is because research has shown significant positive associations between each of...

The story is about Kate Hanni, 48, a real estate broker in Napa, California who suffered a horrible trauma on June 21, 2006 when she was lured to a million-dollar home by a man who posed as a home buyer, then attacked her when she arrived. For 25 minutes he beat, stabbed, and tortured her, then left her on the floor to die. "My hair was torn out," Kate says. "The skin on my hands and knees was gone. But worst of all, so was my dignity and my sense of safety in the world."

Kate’s physical injuries healed over time, but the psychic damage she suffered was lasting and profound. "After six months of intensive therapy," she says, "I was still afraid to be alone. If no one else was home, I had a panic attack every time I opened my own front door."

In December of that year, Kate and her husband and sons...

I like to think of it in very simple terms:

• Feeling overwhelmed by your problems? Feeling sorry for yourself? Taken for granted? Unappreciated? Annoyed?
• Take on a larger problem. A cause beyond yourself.
• To put your problems and challenges in perspective, take on bigger ones!
• Social scientists and psychologists call this "the activism cure"

Doctors and psychotherapists have long observed, and scientists can now explain that people who give to others live healthier and happier lives. Studies show that this is true whether a person has suffered trauma, suffers from anxiety and/or depression, or is grappling with a case of the blues, research shows that those who take "the activism cure" find personal healing in their efforts to heal the world.

The first major study to observe this phenomenon in 1986 concluded that people who were in better physical and mental health were...

Victor Frankl also emphasizes the same idea in his seminal book, Man’s Search for Meaning:

"Again and again I therefore admonish my students in Europe and America: Don’t aim at success—the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one’s personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one’s surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to...

"Stoics regard virtue as sufficient to produce happiness on all occasions, and also as necessary for it. The happiness centrally valued by the Stoic is eudaimonia, or well-being—the good life rather than the good mood. . .  the Stoic believes that virtue gives rise to joy and to peace of mind as well. Virtue produces these good consequences as side effects. The primary mission of the Stoics, in other words, is to be helpful to others and serve the greater good, and they don’t do this to make themselves happy. They do it because it is the right and natural way to live. But doing it in that spirit, as it turns out, makes them happy."