March 2009

31 Mar

Posted at 19:58h in customs, positive emotion, Positive Psychology, Social-Emotional Leadership, Traditions, Uncategorized by

Communitas is a ritual-building process that inspires and revitalizes while reaffirming relationships within a community, state University of Virginia psychologist Jonathan Haidt and his colleagues. According to Anthropologist Victor Turner, building communitas is an essential step to activating a community to healthy family functioning, healthy child development, and other dimensions of well-being.  It also creates positive emotion, which according to psychologist Barbara Fredrickson and mathematician Marcial Losada, builds upward spirals for individuals and groups. Here is an example of some of the work I’ve done with my own family as an action researcher to build communitas and expand positive emotion.  As...

24 Mar

Posted at 14:13h in Coaching, Positive Psychology, Publicity by

Check out a bit of "positive press" on this site. By: Jen Wielgus phillyBurbs.com Louis Alloro works as a life coach, teaching people of all ages and backgrounds how to find success and happiness. Business right now is booming. "People are hungry for this stuff," he says. Aren't we, though? If we didn't have enough stress in our lives prior to the economy going south, we now worry extra hard about our jobs, our mortgages, our bank accounts, our health, our futures -- everything. All that worry can drag even the most optimistic person down, and that's where Alloro comes in. Positivity is his specialty. While studying for one...

19 Mar

Posted at 13:58h in Uncategorized by

Positive Psychology 101: Ready to Own Up? This stuff works people. Description There are scientifically proven ways to be happier & more fulfilled with life. This is not an April Fools joke and yes, it is more than just "being positive". Come hear what all the hype is about concerning a relatively knew field of study which answers age-old questions about “the good life” using applied science. Whereas traditional (not negative) psychology looks at pathology—the weakness—and how to fix it, Positive Psychology looks at what’s right—the strength—and how to build it. Hope, Optimism, Resilience, High Quality Connections, Gratitude, & More. You’ll leave feeling armed with nuggets...

08 Mar

Posted at 20:58h in Uncategorized by

"When your mind is narrow, small things agitate you very easily. Make your mind an ocean." - Lama Thubten Yeshe * Do you have an easy time wallowing in what’s wrong: the negative? * If so, then you’re like most of us. We all filter our experiences – but  most of us pay too much attention to what goes wrong and too little attention to the good things in our lives—to what goes right. The psychological phenomenon is called the NEGATIVITY BIAS: humans pay more attention to and give more weight to negative than positive experiences. Humans are prone to this negativity bias, which shows...

02 Mar

Posted at 14:01h in Positive Psychology, Schools, Social-Emotional Leadership by

Enough is Enough Why does school often feel bad for kids? As a student, I often felt I wasn’t good enough: who I was and what the world expected me to be were at odds. As a result, I felt marginalized and alone at school. I felt voiceless.  Only later did I learn that feelings of “not being good enough (or smart enough, or good looking enough, or whatever enough)” were too common for school children. And then I became a teacher. Finally! On the other side of the desk. A dream I had since as long as I could remember. But there,...

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