Salaams and Good Morning !
Here is your daily dose of Wisdom for Living Your Best Self!
A warm welcome to the new season of Daily Wisdom! Am delighted to have you as a fellow traveller on the journey of self-growth and wellbeing.
We are going to be discussing the science and practice of flourishing and as always, the intention is to share really practical ways that we can take baby steps to improve and optimize ourselves and our lives.
And as always, we start with a tiny bit of theory and background [I am an academic at heart :) ]
So let’s begin today by defining what we mean by flourishing.
When a plant which is healthy and blooming we say it is "flourishing" or thriving and when a business is booming and raking in lots of profit, we say that it is "flourishing." In other words the plant and the business is doing really well, they are thriving.
But what does it mean for a human being to flourish? For this we need a 60 second dive into the history of psychology.
The concept of flourishing is fairly new to the world of psychology which has historically been focused on the model of disease and getting rid of the symptoms of mental illnesses such as depression, anxiety, OCD among others. What psychologists began to discover in the last century however, was that getting rid of mental distresses could bring people to a neutral and semi-functioning state, but it did not always result in wellbeing or happiness. Getting people from a negative 5 or 10 to a 0 did not mean they were mentally and emotionally healthy – just that they were no longer sick. And
thus the search for the keys to human wellbeing or "flourishing" began.
According to the "founding father" of flourishing, Dr. Martin Seligman, to flourish means to find fulfillment in our lives, to accomplish meaningful and worthwhile tasks, and connect with others at a deeper level—in essence, to flourish means to live the "good life" (Seligman, 2011).
Dr. Seligman is also credited with starting the positive psychology movement which aims to operationalize human flourishing and support human beings in living this good life.
Over the next several days, we will explore key aspects and practices of positive psychology and also dispel some myths around it.
PS: If you would like to delve deeper into the subject, I am offering some workshops and programs to master our mental and emotional wellbeing. The first one is coming up later this week. Sign up with the code ANTEB10 to save $10 off by September 13, 2021. Here is the link.
Wishing you a day full of positivity, purpose and peace. 
