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“IT’S THE most powerful question I ever found to ask myself or anybody else, particularly if you’re facing some kind of challenge in your life. ‘Is there anything about this situation that allows me to do something that otherwise I wouldn’t or couldn’t have done?’ I found that the most liberating question. Because the answer is always ‘yes’.”
Psychologist Maureen Gaffney asked herself this question after her role as chair of the National Economic and Social Forum, a job she was doing half-time for nearly 17 years, ended in 2010 due to the economic crisis. Her answer was to write Flourishing, a best selling resource for positive living, which she will speak about at the Ennis Book Club Festival on March 3.
Although Dr Gaffney, a respected broadcaster and commentator, wanted to write the book for 10 years, her new circumstances provided the impetus and her response illustrates an idea central to the book: we frequently thrive not in spite of adversity but very often because of it.
“We all long for ease and comfort and stability in our lives but very often we flourish when we are facing into something that’s difficult, like a family or work crisis,” she says. “It brings out the best in us if we rise to the challenge in the right way.”
Broken into two sections, the first part of Flourishing examines psychological studies on how people maximise their potential and how we are affected by our emotions. The second part offers 10 strategies, such as how to manage your mood, accomplish life projects and control your attention, to help you build the positive and counter the negative in your life.
Before talking about the book, the author emphasises what the book isn’t. “I’m not talking about the way you ‘should be’ or ‘ought to be’. I think that’s a very demoralising way to think about personal change that, somehow, you have to fix yourself,” Dr Gaffney explains. Instead, it’s about the “times in your life when you know that you are operating at your personal best. You’re using all of your talents, your experiences, good and bad, in life and that you’re somehow placed very well to do exactly what you have to do at that time”.
In this way, the essence and the allure of flourishing is recognising the ingredients that combined to produce those moments. “I’m really talking about connecting back to those experiences so that you have a real sense in your heart – as well as your head – about what you’re capable of,” she says. “Because that is what is most motivating about it – that you’re not setting out to do something you’ve never done before, like a new year’s resolution.”
While studies indicate we all want to flourish, only about 20% of us are succeeding. A ratio of 3:1 positive to negative experiences is required to function normally but research suggests a ratio of 5:1 is necessary to flourish. The reason for this imbalance is that negative emotions are much stronger than positive ones. Our survival instincts send powerful negative emotional reactions to our brain during perceived threats to our safety or interests. This is appropriate for critical situations but creates problems when dealing with everyday setbacks.
The author believes the implications of these findings are enormous. “We can’t wait for life to be positive because our brain is wired to keep responding to threat,” Dr Gaffney says. “If we want to really flourish in life, then we have to have a very conscious strategy of actively not waiting for the positive but building the positive in a very active, conscious way in ourselves, in our relationships, the organisations we work in and, I would say, in society. Once you’re alerted to the positives, you’re alerted to opportunity.”
Similarly, Dr Gaffney argues that life circumstances account for only 10% of our happiness and that 40% rests in the choices we make. “It’s not the events or the things that happen to you that determine how happy you are or how much you flourish, it’s very much the things you attend to, the things you decide you’re going to think about, to give your energy to,” she explains. “So we have to be smarter about outsmarting the way our brain is wired.”
Written over 18 months, Flourishing is a timely retort to the daily bombardment of recession headlines and, after reaching and staying at No 1 in the non-fiction list, has found a very receptive readership.
“People know intuitively that they have to keep themselves positive and optimistic, otherwise they won’t be able to face the challenges,” Dr Gaffney says.
“That’s what’s required to find the resources in yourself to keep going and to turn things around in a positive way. The feedback I get most often is that there is such a hunger for inspiration in the country.”
While the book references various studies to support its theories, it’s written in a very accessible way. It addresses the reader directly, uses an active style and includes case studies and examples from Dr Gaffney’s life to illuminate ideas.
“It’s not a conscious thing, it’s just the way I communicate,” she says.
“When I’m working on the radio, I always feel that I’m speaking directly into people’s homes and that they’re listening while having a cup of tea or driving to work. I’m a great believer that you can say very serious things but you can do it in a light-hearted way.”
A regular guest of the Burren Law School each May, Dr Gaffney’s invitation to speak about flourishing at the Ennis Book Club Festival seems fitting given the event celebrates groups who promote positive energy.
“I’m delighted to be going down to Clare because I can’t think of a more beautiful place in the country than the Burren,” she says.
“Book clubs are a really interesting phenomenon, the way they’ve just sprung up. I think they’re very powerful networks and a huge source of connectivity.”
