Just pleasantly floundering around.....

I remember reading an article about happiness some time ago. It identified many criteria that those with a generally happy disposition tended to have. There were not many surprises. It stated, for example, that severe poverty can have a negative impact on happiness but once all basic needs are met, there is no correlation between increased wealth and an increase in happiness (although many strive for wealth, I assume, with the idea it will make them happier which is not surprising considering the conditioning we receive in the capitalist western world!). It spoke about 'flow', personal 'wiring' and health and so on. However, the one happiness criteria that stood out for me was, 'the ability to transcend pettiness.' It is remarkable how we can sometimes let something that is, in the large scheme of things, quite insignificant, annoy or upset us to the point of it being detrimental to our happiness and wellbeing. Which brings me to one of my more serious catchphra...

I love the work of Carl Jung. O.K. there are places where he becomes a little abstract and consequently different descriptions of his work seem not entirely to be in agreement with each other (particularly around archetypes and complexes) but there's some great and simple learning to be had in his basic description of the Self. Unlike Freud, who was completely sex obsessed and linked every single human complex or motivation to sex, Jung saw a bigger picture.  The part that I find particularly fascinating, is his teachings about the unconscious. Those that continue to keep their conscious and unconscious separate for the duration of their lives describe feeling flat and listless and feel a sense of dissatisfaction. This is because they, in effect, remain significantly less than the full person that they really are. To 'receive' Jung's teachings does take a mindset in the first place that I suspect many won't want/have - which is fine - we are all on our own journe...

Emotional literacy is definitely something we would never have had on the timetable in the 70s and there are still those that scathingly label it 'navel gazing'. Those people also make remarks about kids just needing to toughen up but then go on to recount the single bullying incident that has stayed with and haunted them for their entire life! No kidding...this happens a lot! No, back in the seventies the biggest fear for our guiding adults appeared to be the slim chance that we might just get a little 'too big for our boots' and therefore a general breaking of the spirit was seen as the most effective means of child control. When I was a child, adults didn't tend to listen to me describe anything much, let alone indulging me telling them how I felt! Clearly I am making up for all that enforced bottling up now. There are still a few teachers that have yet to be convinced about emotional literacy. As always, the first part of 'change management' is the '...

When it comes to psychology, my interest is aroused very quickly. Some of you might have noticed this. I read a book about the big five personality traits this year and I was grabbed because it explained each of the traits in terms of evolutionary psychology – in other words, why it would be beneficial to (those living in a primitive society) to have people with greater and lesser amounts of each of these personality traits. For me, that made this particular model more substantial and valid and less like a wafty science! Personally I can cope with waft, but when I am persuading others, I am always aware that a dollop of logic goes a long way. O.C.E.A.N. – is how the five traits are remembered. Unlike Myers Briggs, these traits do not have ‘opposites,’ you just have a greater or lesser amount of each one. Openness to experience – to me this has strong links with creativity and hyper-connectivity of the brain. Those that score high on openness are more receptive to unusual ideas, creativ...

A pub Brawl from Jung – A very short introduction by Anthony Stevens I could have written my own version of this but have chosen to use this fine illustration out of 1) laziness and 2) having no need to reinvent this fine wheel. Please note the views in the recounts are not shared exactly by all thinkers/feelers/intuitives/sensors of course, they are just illustrative!!!! We all have either,   • Sensation  • Thinking  • Feeling or  • Intuition   as our dominant function. Imagine one of each type witnessed the following scene: Two men came staggering out of a bar. They are shouting and swearing at one another. There is a struggle. One of them falls to the ground and bangs his head on the pavement. Each witness will respond to what is before them in a manner typical of his/her type:  The sensation type will give the clearest account of what happened. S/he will have noted the height, build and general appearance of the two men: one was ove...

One of the best applications of Myers Briggs is understanding the communication difficulties that arise as a result of different 'preferences' communicating. As I wrote in my last post, if people have strong preferences, they are more likely to have 'blind spots' and it is these that can cause difficulties in communication. I will take each spectrum one at a time and talk in terms of the difficulties that sometimes arise when an extreme version of one end of the spectrum converses with the opposite extremity. EXTRAVERTS and INTROVERTS The greatest difficulties in communication can arise in this spectrum. Extraverts can annoy everyone, even other extraverts because everything is just pumped out with no filtering process - from brain to mouth in 0.000003 seconds! Extraverts speak expressively (they often make gestures and wave their arms around a lot) and are prone to repeating themselves (usually to really emphasise a point) much to the irritation of the introver...

After a night out in the pub a while ago I received this e mail in my in-box: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hey, Don't know if you remember our conversation about Myers-Briggs in the pub last friday, but it's definitely intruiging. I think, from googling, that you are right that I am defintely more of an INFP than an INTP. It's really quite surprising how well it seems to fit. Who knew that you could learn so much from just a few questions? The things that can be learnt from such a small insight into the human psyche really are quite fascinating. Anyway, was lovely to meet you, do hope all is well. All the best, Andy **************************************** I did remember but I am starting to realise that I might be over-doing the Myers Briggs stuff a bit! I do a quick Myers Brigg typing of pretty much every teacher or head-teacher I have a one to one with, I've done it to people on trains, all my colleagues, some o...

For years (as a teacher and a teacher trainer) I have pondered on the idea of self esteem and read a variety of books and documents on the subject. The researchers seem to be unable to reach full agreement over many of the finer points (mostly chicken and egg type arguments) but debates tend to consider that low self-esteem could be a contributing factor in: • crime and violence • low academic achievement and engagement • teenage parenthood • alcohol and drug misuse • depression and suicide • poor interpersonal relationships It makes sense to me. If you do have poor self-worth and no pride in who you are and what you can do, life is probably going to be a bit of a struggle. You're likely to: • feel overly challenged at the drop of a hat (because of a real fear of failure and you assume you are always going to fail) and therefore unlikely to attempt much • often become defensive (because of a need to protect yourself from perceived threats) and/or • be unwilling to branch out from t...

I am reading a book about neuro linguistic programming. So far there have been two ideas that have captivated my conceptual imagination. The first is the idea that people can be motivated towards and motivated away from things. For example, a person can want to lose weight because they hate the way they look or because they want to be a picture of vibrant health. The former is motivation away, the latter motivation towards. Of course this can be applied to many things. A person might hate the job they do and be desperate to leave it (motivation away) or a person can apply for a job because it ticks all their boxes (motivation towards). Motivation towards is, of course, better than motivation away. To be motivated towards something means we have to have a vision, an aspiration, a clear idea of what we definitely want. What's more, it's easier to find sustained motivation towards an arrival point as we remain motivated until we get there - especially if we are excited about the...

I woke up this morning all fired up, with a huge list of things I was determined to get done. However, I did only one of the things on my list and several other things that I had not planned to do at all (including collecting 65 medium sized pebbles off a beach - part of a plan I have already abandoned!) Getting distracted is my forte. And this is a debate I have with myself all the time. Would it be better to be a person that makes plans and sticks to them or is it OK to be a person that makes plans and writes lists but then ignores the plans and never finds the list again? Don't get me wrong, I get things done with scarily bullish determination sometimes - but whatever it is is the result of a whim, never a long term plan! Flexibility versus determination. Focus versus expansion. Direct route or wandering aound! It's a hard call! P.S. The one thing I did that was on my first-thing-this-morning plan was line some huge velvet curtains. This is something I never planned to be ab...

Emotional literacy = awareness and appropriate management of your emotions (including difficult ones) Emotional literacy did not exist as a term - let alone a concept - when I was a child and it is apparent that the SEAL curriculum (social and emotional aspects of learning - a curriculum funded by the government) in schools has taught a lot of teachers some basic tools of emotional literacy alongside the children. Those that have bought into it and don't say things like, 'isn't this all just too much navel gazing?' and 'kids just need to toughen up' that is. (Yes being hit, never listened to and having orders regularly shouted at me did wonders for my resilience). The idea that emotions are emotions and you can't stop (and shouldn't stop) yourself from feeling them but that you do have a choice about how you behave in response to what you are feeling is a simple but extremely helpful concept! SEAL also helps children to identify different emotions and l...

What a lie. O.K. I know people.... hate to be pigeon holed - (especially Fs) or things that pry into their psyche (especially Is) or they consider psychology too woolly to be a proper science (espcially Ts) or they cannot see its applications (especially Ss) or dislike the idea that there are so few ways to categories a person (especially Ps) but I think any tool that helps with self-awareness can only deliver a dollop of helpful learning if we are prepared to receive it. All that unconscious stuff we project into the world is one thing but Myers Briggs is a simple starting place to work out what makes a person tick. FREE ONLINE DIAGNOSIS!!!! http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes2.asp There are four spectra and every individual sits somewhere on it - by preference. We struggle if we find ourselves in a situation (in a job, socially, through our parents' style of parenting)that forces us to exist outside our preference. We can doubt our strengths and fail to understand why oth...

It's contradictions having a frenzied battle in your head for 2-3 years..... Finding some meaning in the context of realising that it is all actually meaningless Developing apathy at the same time as panicking because you can see/feel life is finite Questioning how to cut out inane stuff but being drawn to it at times Debating a complete change in direction but nothing appealing very much A feeling no amount of articulation depletes Hoping that it is a storm that just needs to be ridden and that one day, one will wake up and just feel settled inside!!! Looking for an answers that probably doesn't exist I am guessing it amounts to finding pleasures in small things, making people happy, using creativity, learning and teaching...but not feeling it ...yet! xxxxx