Striking the right balance between positivity and negativity is essential in times of adversity
BEING HAPPY not just makes you feel good but makes you far more likely to succeed in what you want to do in life, according to clinical psychologist Dr Maureen Gaffney.
She says that far from being an “accessory in your life”, happiness is a “serious business” that changes the way people think.
“When you’re happy, you’re much more likely to think in a creative way. You’re much more likely to be innovative. You’re much more likely to see opportunities. Being happy is very practical,” says Gaffney.
The importance of happiness in life is just one of a number of topics the adjunct professor of psychology and sociology at UCD will address at an upcoming lecture at the National College of Ireland.
The lecture, entitled Flourishing Under Fire, will consider how some people manage to benefit and grow from adversity, while others struggle to get through.
“When we’re faced with adversity in our own lives, in organisations or companies that are struggling, or even in Ireland as a society, there are three ways we can go,” says Gaffney.
“We can either simply try to survive, we can try to recover or we can try to flourish.
“And what I mean by flourishing is that we don’t just simply say, this has happened and how can we work around it, but to say, is there anything about this situation now that I can use to get to a place I couldn’t have been without it?
“There’s very interesting new evidence that there are some people who actually succeed in benefiting from adversity and growing from it, both personally and in terms of the companies they’re in and in terms of families. They kind of take charge of things in a different way.
“An example most of us would know about are these people who have the kind of catastrophic accidents that would demolish most of us, and they end up not just trying to live their lives as normally as they can, but they do stuff that most of us wouldn’t be capable of.
“And we’re sort of in awe of people like that because they are ordinary people. They are not superhuman.
“I think the same thing happens in some organisations. Some organisations are suffering the same set of stresses as others and yet some of them just turn it around. They flourish under fire.”
Gaffney will be offering people a set of guidelines, which can help them “flourish” under adversity at the talk, one of a series of lectures hosted by the Psychological Society of Ireland (PSI) as it celebrates its 40th anniversary.
“The concept of flourishing is quite a new concept in psychology,” says Gaffney.
“There was never a better time really for it. Most people are struggling at the moment under unprecedented pressures.
“I think now we’re all in an incredibly uncertain environment which brings with it a whole other set of stresses about planning for the future, or even having any confidence in the future.”
The well-known broadcaster and writer says the people who will come out of this crisis flourishing are people who learn resilience.
“Part of this is to begin to get people to refocus their priorities,” says Gaffney.
In periods of crisis, such as unemployment, it’s very important that people give time to the so-called “soft stuff”, which include nurturing their relationships, having a good time occasionally and making sure they have time to relax.
“If you think about a couple and a child in the family is sick or someone has just lost their job. The whole then is on day-to-day survival,” she says.
“And so very often stuff like nurturing the quality of the relationship, all of those things seem superfluous. You think I haven’t time for that now anymore.
“All these things often go out the window when they are never more necessary. Because what happens is stress levels rise . . . there’s then the stress of relationships that aren’t working well anymore, and very often they create more problems in the end than the original stress.
“Our instincts under pressure don’t always serve us well. you’ve lost your job . . . you haven’t time now to go out together. That’s the very time when you have to go out together – you have to focus even more strongly on it.”
Listening to people is the first thing that goes under pressure and that creates a whole other set of problems, she says.
The need for optimism and the practical effect of being optimistic is another subject which Gaffney will address.
We don’t fully understand the effect negativity has on human beings, she says.
“We have really good evidence now that we have a meter going all the time, clocking up every single negative thing; every thought, every feeling, every interaction and also every positive thought, feeling and interaction we have during the day, from the time we wake up to the time we go to bed at night.
“What follows from that is that we have to pay close attention to the amount of positivity and negativity in our lives.
“You need to have very active strategies about how you’re going to maintain the right balance of positivity/negativity in your life.
“There are a whole lot of practical strategies that I’ll be outlining about how people can do that.”
Dr Maureen Gaffney is an adjunct professor of psychology and sociology at UCD and is a broadcaster and writer
The Psychology Matters: Flourishing Under Fire
lecture will take place on Thursday at 6pm at the Kelly Theatre, National College of Ireland, Mayor Street, Dublin 1. The lecture is free of charge.
To attend please register by e-mailing your name, contact details and date to eventregistration@psihq.ie