Five Ways to Well Being

My friend Natasha introduced me to the Five Ways to Well Being created by the “Happiness Czar of Britain,” Richard Layard.     She discovered the Five Ways to Well Being while she was in London, attending a conference on shared reading. 

The Five Ways to Well Being:

Connect

Be Active

Take Notice

Keep Learning

Give

Connect

          Social relationships play a prominent part in our well being whether they are with family, friends, or work colleagues.  Foster them and favor them.  In addition, get out into your community of choice—religious, artistic, intramural sports, hobby oriented, yoga class, fitness center, book club, whatever resonates with you because you are with like minded people doing like minded things. 

          This is not to say that being alone does not foster well being.  Some people, like myself, and introvert and introspective, do well with solitude and gain well being from giving myself that solitude.  But I also know that I need to connect with family, friends, and community.  Find the balance for yourself based upon your personality. 

          I reminded of the famous quote by E.M. Forester, “If only we connect.”

 

Be Active

          Exercise is good for us physically and mentally.  The two are interconnected.  Our physical health contributes significantly to our mental health and while it's harder to understand, our mental health contributes to our physical health.  Walk, hike, bike, run, lift weights, participate in a group fitness class-cardio, zumba, pilates, whatever--move on the elliptical or treadmill, swim.  Whatever interests you or works for you. 

          Be active is also tied to connect.  Get out and do something with friends or family.  Find hobbies or activities you enjoy doing with others and do it.  Participate.

Take Notice

          The world is an amazing.  Appreciate it.  Slow down and smell the roses as the cliche goes.  Be grateful for what you have and do.  Gratitude—reflecting at the end of the day—is one of the  key scientific findings in positive psychology that contribute to well being.  In order to be grateful though you first need to take notice.  This means being mindful.  Be mindful—or take notice--of what you see, smell, taste, touch, feel, and hear.  Start there with the five senses.  Then begin to take notice of your own thoughts and emotions.  Strive toward positive thoughts and emotions—optimism, hope, gratitude, perseverance. 

 

Keep Learning

          Again, the world is amazing.  There is so much to learn,  Not only learning knowledge abut learning skill.  Do both.  Learn by reading about topics that interest you and learn to do something you didn't know how to do before or would like to do better,  A wise ninety year old friend of mine said, “When you think there's nothing left to learn or do then you're usually done living.” 

In addition to the five ways to well being, in his book, Happiness:Lessons from a New Science, Richard Layard researched factors affecting happiness and narrowed it to seven factors.  Layard is an economist so he studied the happiness of countries as a whole.  He surveyed people in approximately 70 countries asking them about their level of happiness and from this determined what made them happy and which countries are the happiest.  Happiness here not being cheerfulness and cupcakes and butterflies, but well being.  These seven factors resemble and reiterate Martin Seligman's five areas of well being——positive emotions, engagement, relationships, meaningfulness, and accomplishment—and  Tom Rath and Jim Hartner's five essential elements of well being—career, social, financial, physical, and community.

Laynard's seven factors affecting happiness:

Family relationships

Financial situation

Work

Community and friends

Health

Personal freedom

Personal values

I've explained the first five in my two previous blog entries on well being so I won't explain them here again.  The important point is that numerous research scientists in the field of positive psychology come to the same conclusions about what creates well being.   I do want, however, to briefly touch about the last to of Laynard's seven factors affecting happiness because I believe they are important reminders to all of us living in a first world country.

Personal freedom

          Richard Layard writes, “Happiness also depends on the quality of our government.  In the West [and some Asian countries] we [can] take for granted two factors that are lacking in half the globe: personal freedom and peace.”  Measures of quality of government reflect six different features: the rule of law, stability and lack of violence, voice and accountability, the effectiveness of government services, the absence of corruption,  and the efficiency of the system of regulation.  This is not to imply that Western countries succeed in all these features, but they certainly succeed more and therefore create greater happiness or well being than those countries that fail significantly in all six features of a quality government.  

Personal values

          Richard Layard writes,” Our happiness depends on our inner self and philosophy of life.  Obviously, people are happier if they are able to appreciate what they have, whatever it is; if they do not always compare themselves with others; and if they can school their own moods....People find comfort from within from all sorts of ways, but these generally include some system of relying for help on the deep positive part of oneself....Some people call this source of comfort “divine” ...One of the most robust finds of happiness research [is] that people who believe in God are happier.  On the individual level one cannot be sure whether belief causes happiness or happiness causes belief.”

This Winter in Minnesota-Part Two

As I mentioned in “This Winter in Minnesota”, the solitary retreat of this winter has kept me well and been a wonderful experiment and experience.  It's been cold, it's snowed a lot, and the cold and snow is still here, despite the fact that we're five days into spring; and yet, I've enjoyed winter this year, if winter for me means going within to explore the solace of myself.  As my friend Henry wrote, “Winter was not given to us for no purpose.  We must thaw its cold with our genialness.  We are tasked to find out and appropriate all the nutrients it yields.  If it is a cold and hard season, its fruit, no doubt, is the more concentrated and nutty.”

I may have implied that the only time I was outside this winter was when I walked from the car to a building or a building to my car. In fact, I took several short walks, including three full moon mindfulness walks.  I know that getting outside in the beauty of winter is good for me, and I know that winter in Minnesota is beautiful.  It's just so cold to me that I don't enjoy staying in the coldness for long.  As a result, I limit my time outside and spend most of it inside my house.

Being inside physically affords me the opportunity to go inside psychically.  I stay at home and in my home I find the home inside myself.  As Keizan Jokin stated, “Meditation is returning home and sitting in peace.”  My home this winter has provided the refuge and retreat from an incredibly extroverted environment—the middle school where I teach—and this winter in Minnesota in particular has provided the impetus to stay at home.  As such, I've found the time to meditate and contemplate.   And what is meditation and contemplation if not the awareness of my true nature, my original self, and the present moment?  And what is the present moment if not the home of our existence?  

Essential Elements of Well Being

In a previous blog entry I explained Martin Seligman's five areas of well being: positive emotions, engagement, relationships, meaningfulness, and accomplishment.  They can be easily remembered by the acronym PERMA. 

Complementing his ideas are Tom Rath and Jim Hartner's five essential elements of well being from their book of the same name.  The five essential elements are:

Career

Social

Financial

Physical

Community

Career

We spend the majority of our lives at work so work should be something that rewards us, stimulates us, and satisfies us.  That's not always easy to obtain from work, but if we consider that one of Seligman's qualities of well being is meaningfulness than applying meaningfulness to the largest part of our lives is essential to our well being.  We just need to ask ourselves am I enjoying my work?  If not, what can we do to enjoy it more?  Can we accept and appreciate it for what it is and what it gives us outside of the work day?  Or is it perhaps time that we pursue something else that meets more of our needs? 

Social

This is similar to Seligman's relationships.  Caring about others and being cared about by others, and loving others and being loved by others make us emotionally and psychologically well.  It's also important to surround yourself with people who you feel are people who manifest well being in the form of PERMA or the essential elements.  There's a lot of research in the field of positive psychology that proves our friends and even the friends of our friends influence us more than our own selves. 

Financial

We assume that career means financial success.  We assume that financial success means wealth.  Neither is true.  There's a cliché in our culture: do what you love and the money will follow, which is encouraged by the law of attraction and the spirituality of abundance.  Rath and Hartner state, however, that “security is more important than income.”  We all know of people who make twice as much as we do and yet are in more debt or have less in savings or want more money than they have.  Money can be such a complicated issue, and yet, including it as an essential element of well being highlights our need to understand it.  We need financial security to meet our basic needs and when we don't have this financial security it is difficult to obtain well being.  The tricky part is understanding what constitutes security.  Is it thirty thousand?  Is it sixty thousand? Is it a hundred and twenty thousand?  Are these numbers for one person, a couple, or parents with a child or children?  In our country, those numbers might seem reasonable to many people.  In a third world country, they would seem like the epitome of wealth.  It's all relative, of course.  It's important, nonetheless, to constantly question our relationship to money.  What do we need? What do we want?  How does what we've always “needed” or “wanted” influence us on our assumptions about what we need and want?

Physical

Our physical health might be the most important factor toward our well being. When we are sick or in pain it affects our emotional and mental well being.  Similarly, when we are healthy, our health affects our emotional and mental well being.  The opposite holds true also: when we are in emotionally and mentally healthy we tend to have better physical health.  It's the mind-body connection.  It's why eating well and exercising is important. 

Community

Similarly to Seligman's relationships and meaningfulness.  Getting together with other people is important.  A lot of research shows that people who participate in a religious, recreational, creative, or sports related groups have more well being.  It's not necessarily the nature of the group that's important—find something that suits you—it's the commitment and connection you make with other people.  

This Winter in Minnesota

I've gone within this winter. I mean this both physically and metaphysically.

Winter in Minnesota fits my disposition like a poorly tailored suit. I need a haberdasher who dresses me in the sunny garments of a desert climate during this season. And yet, I know that I am that draper of my own reality.

 
So I've stayed inside my house this winter, in the coziness and comfort and warmth of my own home. I've minimized the amount of time I'm outside, going only from my house to my car and my car to work and work to the gym or the grocery store or the library and then home again. While home I savor my solitude. I light my electric fireplace. I bask in the glow of good Zen books. I drink Chai tea, Wild Berry Zinger tea, and Tangerine Orange Zinger tea, all from Celestial Seasonings. I write. I meditate. I do yoga. I cook. I eat. I sleep. I nap.

 
I've kept my weekends to myself. Except for three outings to friends' homes and four solo outings to three plays, two movies, and one musical, I've stayed home. While at home, I prefer to be alone, and except for Jen spending a Friday evening with me in late January I've maintained and honored that desire since the New Year when I gave myself the good gift of four days of solitude.


I enjoy winter in Minnesota best from inside my own home. I like to sit on the couch in my living room, blanket on my lap, book in hand, tea on table, flames in fireplace, and watch the snow falling softly. I like to look at the bare branches of the trees, stripped to their essence, the gray gray sky behind them. I like to stand in my second floor master bedroom and gaze into the dark evenings and nights, the suburban lights illuminating the sullen sky, the stillness palpable. I like to watch the jets as they soar through the air, north to south, leaving the airport; south to north, arriving.


When I appreciate the present moment I realize I've come a long way and lived a full life—from small town Holdingford where pastures of stillness and silence lay on the horizon to suburban Eagan where loud jets of sonic speed light up the sky.

 
When I appreciate the present moment I realize I've got a long way and more full life ahead of me.

When I appreciate the present moment I realize I've gone within. I've thought a lot. I've imagined a lot. I've contemplated a lot. I've meditated not a lot but more than I have in several years. I've written in my journal. I've written for this blog. I've read Walden again. I've developed even more of a Thoreauvian mindset of my self and the world. I'm feeling transcendental and thinking zenexistential

To my knowledge, I just created that word. Zenexistential. I like it.

 
And I like this going within, this feeling transcendental, this thinking zenexistential. It suits me.

Perhaps, to my surprise and delight, this winter in Minnesota has been good to me after all and dressed me handsomely in the warm clothes of introspection, solitude, and well being.

Five Areas of Well Being

Zen, positive psychology, and neuroscience illuminate our search for happiness, contentment, meaning, and love, and as such, are compatible with other.  Positive psychology lights the path without the religious or cultural spotlight of Buddhism.  Neuroscience validates any metaphysical or transpersonal suppositions with quantifiable research based scientific proof. 

The best encapsulation of positive psychology I've read is from Martin Seligman's book Flourish.  He explains that when he first started writing about positive psychology he called it happiness.  Almost twenty years later, however, he realizes that happiness isn't the right idea for what positive psychology advocates.  Well being is. 

This is also true of Zen.  Zen isn't about enlightenment unless enlightenment is about well being.  Zen isn't about mindfulness, meditation, and meaningfulness unless mindfulness, meditation, and meaningfulness are about well being. The contentment, acceptance, and peace we seek in Zen are all names for the well being we seek. 

So what is well being? 

 Martin Seligman defines well being as emerging from five areas of our life.  We have to pay attention to and develop each of the areas in order to “be well.”  Sometimes we're strong in one area and weak in another area.  That means we up play our strengths and we develop our weaknesses.  Ideally, we want to find balance in our lives and this promotes well being.
 

Five Areas of Well Being
Positive Emotions
Engagement
Relationships
Meaningfulness
Accomplishment

Below is a brief explanation and expansion of each area.

Positive Emotions

The four most important emotions to develop according to numerous scientific studies in the field of positive psychology and neuroscience are optimism, perseverance, gratitude, and forgiveness.

Engagement

Participate, get involved, do it, experience things, create memories, life is for the living.

Relationships

Love and be loved, get social, foster family and friendship, have a support system, have someone you can call your soul friend, and like yourself as much as you like others.

Meaningfulness

Care about something or someone, make a difference, practice kindness and compassion, and  develop “spirituality” whatever that means to you in religious or secular terms.

Accomplishment

Set goals, work toward the goals, and achieve and celebrate goals, remembering that the process is more important the the product.  Well being is the journey, not the destination. That's not just a cute cliché with a picture of a kitten walking down a path.  It's scientific proof: people are happier or “more in a state of well being” for longer and deeper when they are aware of working toward the goal rather than when they actually achieve the goal.

An easy way to remember the five areas of well being is through the acronym PERMA.  I have this as a reminder on a piece of paper in my wallet and on a giant piece of butcher block paper in my classroom. I reflect upon the five areas often and ask myself how I can increase each of them to enhance the well being in my life.  I invite you to do the same. 

Kindness in Our Schools

I teach thirty five sixth graders sixth hour, the last hour of our school day.  The first five minutes students boisterously enter the room after their five minute passing time, bathroom break, and socializing opportunity in the commons area and about ten students, one right after another, ask me a flock of questions and tell me a pack of concerns: “Can I go to the nurse?” “Do you have a pencil I could use?” “What are we doing today?” “Today is my birthday.” “I can't find me folder.” “My mom told me I'm missing an assignment and I turned that in.” “Do you believe in unicorns?” “Do you want to see the  ninja star I made?” “Can I go to the bathroom?” “John is bullying me.” “Can I go to the nurse?”

At some point, I need to stop the students from speaking to me and simply start class or I suspect I could spend twenty minutes answering their questions and comments.  I wish I could give them the one on one time and serve their needs, but behind them await the twenty five other students in my classroom.  It takes several minutes to get this class started as they slowly and reluctantly walk to their seats.  I cajole and coerce several of them.  Some days I feel like a cowboy corralling cattle into their pens.  And then, about a week ago, loudly enough for everyone to hear, a girl blurts across the room: “If you don't stop I'm going to slap the Mexican right out of you!”

“Whoa!” I say loudly.  “Not acceptable.  Everybody sit down right now.  No more questions.  No more comments.  No more talking.  Everybody in their seats.” 

And then a boy shouts to another boy, “Shut up, faggot!”

“Whoa!  Not acceptable,” I say again.  “Everyone in their seats now.” 

The kids seem to know that the word they just heard is not acceptable and they quickly move to their seats, sit down, and are silent.

“I don't know what's going on right now,” I say, “but I just heard two things that are completely unacceptable and inappropriate and I am going to address them right now.” 

I remain remarkably calm. For the past ten years as a reminder I've used a white mug with these wise words on it:

It's been my mantra many times.  I must be channeling this quote when the girl yelled out the racist comment and the boy yelled out the homophobic comment because I stay calm and in control and say something along the lines of this:

“M, everybody heard you say what you said because you said it so loudly, so I'm going to acknowledge that you said it, but I'm going to address it to everyone.  What M said is racist.  She may not think it is. She may think it's just funny. You may think it's funny. But in this context, in a public space, too many people could be offended by that and too many people could consider it a racist comment that I am going to say it is a racist comment. And it is not acceptable.”  I point to the large poster I created that has hung in my room for the past two years.  “Read what it says,” I say.  “We respect everyone's cultural diversity in this classroom.  And look around you, boys and girls.  This classroom, your class, your peers represent a multitude of cultural diversity.  I look out into this classroom and I see African Americans and Hispanic Americans and Asian Americans and Caucasian Americans.  And what do you all have in common?  That you are Americans.  And as Americans you have to respect each others' cultural diversity and you have to be aware that racism is not acceptable and racist comments are a part of that racism.  Our country has had a long and ugly history of racism against people of almost every race and it needs to stop now and it needs to stop here.”

I'm proud of that teachable moment turned into a patriotic speech.

But I'm not done:  “And D, the word you said is not acceptable.  Faggot is an ugly and mean word that mean people have called gay people to be mean.  Many people, including myself, find that word is as ugly as the n word.”  I address the entire class: “And when I say the n word I think all of you know what I mean and it's such a mean word that I'm not even going to say it.  The word D just said is like the n word to me when I hear it and I will not tolerate in my classroom and we will not tolerate it our school.  And it is my belief that we shouldn't tolerate it in our families or our society.  It needs to stop.”

I'm proud of that teachable moment turned into a gay acceptance speech. 

I take a deep breath.  The room is silent. Eyes are on me or turned away ashamed and embarrassed.  “Boys and girls,” I continue.  “This year too many of you have been mean to someone else.  Maybe it's something racist or homophobic you said. Maybe it's teasing you did.  Or bullying.  But it's got to stop.  Kids feeling are being hurt.  Be nice to each other.  Be kind to each other.  It's the golden rule that we learned about in our IGH MS values: treat others the way you would want them to treat.  And how do we all want to be treated?  With kindness and respect.  So be kind and be respectful.  It is that simple and that easy and many of you need to start doing it now with your words and actions.  Words hurt.  But words also help and heal and make people feel good.  So choose the ladder.  Be kind.  Be more mindful, more aware of the things you say and make sure what you say is always kind and respectful.”      

I pause.  I take several breaths. No one moves. No one says a word. I said all I needed to say about this particular topic and so I move on to the assignment explanation at hand.

This incident reiterates for me that we as teachers need to teach kindness.  Not that we already aren't, but it seems that more and more students are in our schools are unkind in their words and actions.  It's certainly not all of them, but too many of them to create a true learning environment.  This is not particular to our suburban middle school, but rather indicative of many elementary, middle, and high schools across the country.

I don't know the cause.  Is it parents? Is it lack of spiritual instruction at home or at a place of worship? Is it media bombardment of violence and meanness and  craziness?  Is it poverty?  Whatever the multifaceted and interconnected cause, the symptoms seem rampant and contagious: mean words, mean actions, angry outbursts, insubordination, disrespect, disruption, racist, sexist, and homophobic comments, teasing, bullying, fighting, school shootings.  Whatever that multifacted and interconnected cure, it needs to run deep through the many veins of our society and into our families, places of worship, media, class systems, and education. 

It seems to me we need to deliberately and systematically teach kindness and respect to some of our students.  By this (and I'm in the nascent stage of this idea) I mean full courses with curriculum based standards and rich resources and experiences taught by accredited teachers trained in kindness instruction, experience, and assessment.  Our society—our world—is so complex that we need this simple and profound education and foundation. 

It's a radical idea and a paradigm shift in the way we think about our schools and the classes we teach in our schools, but for the future success our schools and our society, our public school system needs to revision and retool for the twenty first century in so many ways.  Teaching kindness stands like a stalwart sentinel at the forefront of this change, the peaceful warrior promoting kindness and spreading the seeds of love. 

 

As the poster on my classroom door states and which I hope all my students read and understand: 

 

 

Full Moon Mindfulness Walk and Run-February 2013

I left for my full moon mindfulness walk for February 2013 at 5:15 and arrived home at 5:45. I typically go in the evening when it's dark and I can see the full moon, but today there was a blue sky which I needed to see after these many days of gray sky and long hours of darkness. It was also forty three degrees, which is still really cold in my book of temperatures, but is better than the near zero temperatures we've been experiencing. My strategy for winter in Minnesota is to retreat into my warm home and to surrender to the solitude and stillness this season offers us. But I wanted to get outside.

I love nature. Any time we step outside we are in nature. My nature today was walking along a sidewalk in the suburb where I live during the last full moon of winter. There were so many bare trees with their branches exposed like arms and fingers stretching toward the sky, praising the universe, grasping for the sunlight. I too wanted that sunlight. 

I also wanted to run and I knew it would be safer in the light. While I meant my full moon walk to resemble walking meditation in a meditation room (in Japanese Zen kinhin in the zendo), which would imply walking slowly and mindfully, I realized today the activity is about mindfulness and I can run mindfully. Everything can be done mindfully. Everything!

So I ran mindfully. I think this was my best run ever. I was aware of my legs running, my feet landing on the concrete, my arms moving rhythmically with my steady and sure stride, my exercise induced breathing. I ran seven times about a half a mile each time. I'm not a runner; I'm a walker. Just like I'm not a fighter; I'm a lover.

When I was seventeen I was in a car accident that left me temporarily paralyzed and I've never felt my legs have been as strong as a man who hasn't experienced an injury like mine. Add to that having genetically thin legs and I've never thought I've had the strength or endurance to run well.

But that's changing. As I've late, I've been focusing on strength, power, and balance training for my legs at my fitness center, and as a result I have more strength, power, and balance in my legs. That has psychologically benefited me in the same capacity of mind: more strength, power, and balance. Strong legs, strong mind. Or as my friend Dale would jokingly and yet wisely say with enthusiasm, “Big thighs!” He knows because he's got them. I would add “big mind” to his proclamation and create my own zen adage: big thighs, big mind.

Our legs take us through our lives. Walking can be viewed as both a necessity that takes us through life and a metaphor for our journey. Although in the case of paraplegics, quadriplegics, and amputees movement of legs isn't necessary to take them through life and wheels might work better as metaphor. Recent media attention on Olympic athletes with prosthetic legs would also challenge the notion of our “legs”.

Nonetheless, there's a rich literary tradition of walking as both a practical activity and a metaphor. Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales with his medieval pilgrims, Robert Frost's “The Road Less Traveled” with his ambling and never rambling narrator, Henry David Thoreau's contemplative essay Walking, and Peter Jenkin's Walk Across America, Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail, and Cheryl Strayed's Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Coast Trail with their contemporary stories of walking long distances are all books that come to mind that I've read on the topic of walking.

I believe I'm more aware of walking than most people because coupled with my mindfulness practice for almost six months when I was seventeen I couldn't walk. I used a wheelchair. For another year I used crutches and canes. There are days I'm walking and I think, “I'm walking! Thank you, thank you, thank you.” I could have had a different reality. I could have been a paraplegic using a wheelchair or a semi-paraplegic using crutches or canes. While I know I would have made the best of my life and forged ahead confidently in the direction of my dreams, as Thoreau advises, with technological ambulatory assistance, I also know that life is easier when you can walk on your own two legs and feet. You also can do more. Or at least I know I would do more than if I needed a wheelchair or crutches or canes. I've been fully aware of not taking my legs and my ability to walk for granted.

This has recently been made more significant with a sixty-nine year old friend of mine getting one of her hips replaced two summers ago and her other one this spring. Not to mention a knee replaced three years ago and her other one probably this fall. Old age can do that to our bodies. On the other hand, old age doesn't have to do that to our bodies. My fitness center has a lot of senior citizens who are in fantastic health both physically and mentally. I see them running with strength, power, and balance around the track or on treadmills. I can and will do the same now and in my old age.

Quiddity of this mindfulness walk and run: Strong legs, strong mind. Big Thighs! Big Mind!

I didn't see the moon when I took my full moon mindfulness walk and run. But at 7:45, after writing this and making and eating chicken vindaloo, I went to the bathroom, and hoping to see the moon, looked out my bathroom window, and there it was: the February full moon. I actually gasped in awe. I hardly believe I did that. I hardly believe I did so many things in my life. Or that I can do so many things. But there was the full moon, a monthly reminder of my potential—our potential—and of the beauty, awe, and impermanence of life.