Flourishing

The art of flourishing encompasses various practices and principles aimed at achieving personal growth, well-being, and success in various aspects of life. It involves cultivating positive emotions, building resilience, fostering meaningful relationships, setting and pursuing goals, and finding a sense of purpose and fulfilment. Flourishing often draws upon psychological research, philosophical insights and practices from from disciplines such as positive psychology and mindfulness. Embracing the art of flourishing we strive to lead flourishing lives characterised by happiness, authenticity and personal fulfilment.

Sounds easy doesn’t it? But I don’t think it is in this hectic world right now, often we might get to one or maybe two elements of flourishing or mind-fullness and then we either see an improvement in our emotional state or experience emotions that we are not ready to unpack yet, difficult emotions or situations and therefore we either stop practicing, or say what a lot of nonsense it is, as it wasn’t working usually quickly enough. What we don’t realise is as humans is that there needs to be a continued effort to experience the benefits from any type of practice. Our inner voices talk us out of doing things, convincing us to take the easier more comfortable path. This is very common, after all we are human and the path of least resistance is easier for us. So how do we motivate ourselves to invest in ourselves, especially in this busy social media life we all seem to be embarking upon a the moment.

I think one of the simple things we can do is to stop and take a look at ourselves, not how we think we should be, or how some influencer thinks should be, but what we really think. Get to know yourself, ask your self questions, and just sit and have some time and space for yourself. Ask yourself simple questions like, what makes me laugh, what is my favourite food, what was my best childhood memory, when you start to get to know yourself again and understand what it is that you want to achieve in your life or what makes you feel joy or happiness, then you can move forward with developing other elements of flourishing. That might be walks in nature or taking up a hobby or just a daily visit to the local park. Allowing yourself to have this time and to enjoy this time is important, none of us knows what the future may bring so having space for yourself will help you mental resilience long term. Get off the treadmill of life and sit and enjoy your own company, phone free preferably and take that step towards flourishing and living a fulfilled life.

Donna x