Tuesday 12 May 2015

Get your gladrags on...your social life is the key to your happiness!




When I was at University doing my Psychology degree, my final year project was an in-depth study of the Benefits of Believing. It looked at whether people who went to church and therefore presumably had a belief in a God of their choosing, received any tangible benefits.

The ultimate conclusion to this study was that churchgoers benefited from regular social interaction with a group of people who shared the same beliefs. It was the social aspect of going to church that increased their levels of happiness rather than their belief. Having said that though, the study also showed that having a belief in anything at all (not just God, I gathered results from atheists and agnostics too) was of benefit to the believer because of the sense of identity it gave you and it's ability to help you identify with others (and integrate with a social group who have a common interest) and find your place in the world.

Having people around you that you identify with and can form your social circle is key to happiness and health. If you think about your social circle you will find that generally the people in it are there because they shared something in common with you. There may be the social circle that you went to school with, the group of parents who have children the same age as yours in common, the people you do Zumba with on a Wednesday evening, the people from work....you generally all have a common interest that you share that binds the group together in some way.

In his book 'Outliers', Malcolm Gladwell recounts the interesting study that looked in the town of Roseto in Pennsylvania. This community of Italians who had relocated to America had an astonishingly low statistic for the incidence of Heart Disease, way below average and Doctors and Physicians were keen to understand why. They looked at a number of factors to see what made the difference and came to an interesting conclusion as you can see in this extract from the book:

'What Wolf slowly realized was that the secret of Roseto wasn't diet or exercise or genes or the region where Roseto was situated. It had to be the Roseto itself. As Bruhn and Wolf walked around the town, they began to realize why. They looked at how the Rosetans visited each other, stopping to chat with each other in Italian on the street, or cooking for each other in their backyards. They learned about the extended family clans that underlay the town's social structure. They saw how many homes had three generations living under one roof, and how much respect grandparents commanded. They went to Mass at Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Church and saw the unifying and calming effect of the church. They counted twenty-two separate civic organizations in a town of just under 2000 people. They picked up on the particular egalitarian ethos of the town, that discouraged the wealthy from flaunting their success and helped the unsuccessful obscure their failures.
In transplanting the paesani culture of southern Italy to the hills of eastern Pennsylvania the Rosetans had created a powerful, protective social structure capable of insulating them from the pressures of the modern world. The Rosetans were healthy because of where they were from, because of the world they had created for themselves in their tiny little town in the hills'. 

Creating this world around you with people who are on your side, who understand you, who have similar ideals, similar positive beliefs and who you can interact with regularly is key to your happiness and also to your long term health. Sense of community is absolutely key.

When looking at this idea of forming social groups to increase happiness, it is also worth mentioning that we see social grouping evidenced in negative ways too - we experience gang culture and groups of people who refuse to interact or integrate with other groups and even actively target other groups or individuals who are not in their social group and engender hate towards others. Whilst the benefits to the members of these groups is the same in terms of finding a strong sense of belonging that serves their need to feel part of something, it works against other members of society and creates a separation from society at large. A key difference here is that the group is operating out of fear and anger - it's beliefs have formed from a sense of non-acceptance from society and an anger towards others because of it. These negative forms of social groupings do not increase happiness overall or long term because of the risks associated with being in a gang (possible incarceration and the risk of being killed or badly injured by another gang being two of the obvious ones). They still provide a much needed sense of belonging though and this is why they are successful.

Robert T Muller PHD, published a study in Psychology Today that looked at 'How the need for community leads some teens to find it in gangs'. This study found the following:

'Experts propose that young adults join gangs because they both act as a surrogate family, as well as provide a sense of belonging, power, control and prestige; all things that are commonly identified as absent in childhood among gang initiates
The idea of a gang acting as a substitute family is supported in interviews conducted by Joe Killian, a writer for the News and Record; Killian spoke with forty gang members from Greensboro, North Carolina. The men he interviewed reported that they considered fellow gang members to be family and that they took care of each other. Killian found that most of the gang members he interviewed had tattoos to publicly show their allegiance to their particular gang, and to show pride in belonging to the group. Several gang members said that being part of a gang meant you were never alone in the world, which is similar to how many people describe being part of a close-knit family or group of friends. Gangs provide members a sense of belonging and protection they do not receive from other relationships or experiences in life'.

We are all able to make a difference to each others lives by creating strong communities, positive communities that not only look out for each other and provide a sense of family but also that also foster a sense of working towards a common good for all - rather than being fearful of others or creating fear in others. If we want our happiness levels to increase an easy way to do this is to GET INVOLVED!
 
So what can we take from all this if we currently don't have an active social life? What if you are a single parent of a young child with very little support network around you? What if you are living in a country where you don't speak the language well yet and you are out there alone? What if you find it hard to feel confident in new social situations in order to go out and meet people? What if you don't have enough money to be able to join groups or go out for coffees all the time? What then? Are you destined to always feel unhappy? No, of course not and there are many ways in which you can increase your social life and create a sense of community around you. Here are some top tips for how to create a more sociable you...


1. If no community seems to exist, create your own. When I was living abroad and didn't know anyone I started a magazine that listed all the places you could go with a young child and brought together issues that parents of young children had so that I could meet new people who had that in common. Another friend of mine started a toddler group when she had children and wanted to get to know other parents. Yet another person I know loved Amateur Dramatics but couldn't find a group so they started one themselves.
2. If money is an issue, find free events that appeal to who you are and what you enjoy and see if you can attend or volunteer to help at events or in places that require volunteers. Lots of events, festivals, local tourist places etc have schemes where you can get involved and even get free tickets or free entry as a result of giving your time for free.
3. If childcare is an issue start an old fashioned babysitting circle, not only will you get free babysitting (the idea is you help each other in turns) you will also connect with other parents. Alternatively start something in your own home, do you enjoy reading? Why not host a book group once a week? Or a craft club or a discussion group or just a 'Glass of Wine at 9' type evening for local people who want to come together just to meet and be sociable?
4. If confidence is an issue look at taking a few classes or going to some talks on this first, you will meet others there too and increase your confidence to carry on meeting others at the same time. Start small and work up to bigger social occasions. Begin with maybe saying hello to the guy you see walking his dog every morning and work up to starting a conversation with a new mum at the school gates.
5. If finding like minded people is an issue list the things you are interested in, do you like politics? Why not get involved with your party of choice by joining them and helping with a campaign? Do you like walking? Why not join a local ramblers association? Find out what you enjoy and look for groups that do these types of activities. Start online if needs be but be sure to move your group online into an offline group too as some studies have shown that whilst popularity in online communities increases, there is actually a slight decrease in subjective well-being that goes hand in hand with this.

It would seem that our social life, our sense of community and therefore our sense of belonging is a key player on our path to happiness. So get yourself out there, find people you connect with and enjoy time with them...all else will follow.

Monday 11 May 2015

Self Belief...the most important gift you can give to yourself.



'Tell Out My Soul'....

For some reason I have had that hymn in my head since I woke up this morning and I have no idea why! I haven't sung a hymn since I was in school as far as I recall but those four words were stuck in my mind like a broken tape recorder. Sometimes words come into your head for a reason though and when I sat down to write this piece I suddenly knew exactly why!

Self Belief is all about telling others what is in your soul without fear of rejection or shame...it is being confident enough to say 'this is who I am'.

Self belief is such an on-going battle for many of us, we know our own failures and failings like the back of our hand...we have intimate knowledge of how many times we have messed up, of how many things we said that we shouldn't have, of how many horrible thoughts we have had and it all adds up to wondering if we aren't therefore, the worst person we know. Who would want to believe in someone who is basically making life up as they go along, who often feels out of their depth, or worried, or afraid, or unsure? At the core of self belief is the battle between the fear that we are not good enough and the love that we have for ourselves because we know how good our intentions always are. When it is only yourself that you are battling with how do you know which part of you to believe?

Our self belief can be affected by many things, our childhoods, our experiences, what we were told by the influential people in our lives over the years and also what we tell ourselves. What is the script that runs through your head? Are you nice to yourself? Or do you run over your failures and short comings in a punishing way? It's worth having a listen to your self talk sometimes...I bet you are far harder on yourself than you would dream of being to anyone else.

Monitoring your self talk is one of the best things you can do for your self belief. Every time you catch yourself saying something negative about yourself try to imagine what you would say to someone else if they told you that thought about themselves. If your friend told you they thought they were useless and bound to fail would you let them carry on with this belief or would you try to offer them a different belief? You might point out a time that you know of when this clearly wasn't true...that time they listened to you and made you feel better...that wasn't useless, that was the thing that made your day better! Try doing this for yourself and over time you will start to remember that the negative self talk just doesn't serve you.

Doing what serves you is another important thing to remember - does it serve you to be down on yourself? Does it serve you to stay within a negative thought pattern about yourself or does it only serve to keep you where you are and reinforce that belief that you are not good enough? Would it serve you better to instead believe that you are just as good as, just as capable as, just as wonderful as the people around you? Yes, of course, and in turn it serves others too because you allow them to feel ok with having self belief too. Think of the child who has been brought up never to boast but never really understood the difference between what is seen as boasting and what is simple self belief - it's possible that with this underlying their self worth they will pass on to others the idea that self belief is unattractive, unwanted and bad - we need to show our children the difference between confidence and arrogance, self belief and boasting, honesty and cruelty....

How can you make the often tricky transition between feeling more confident without slipping into arrogance (which is often a sign of lack of true self belief)? Is confidence an outward or an inward thing? Do you need to appear confident to have a sure sense of self? We often hear that confidence comes from within but what does that really mean and how do we start? The best way to start is to give confidence to someone else, to boost the self esteem and self belief of another.

When you give confidence to someone else you are also giving that gift to yourself, it takes someone who is comfortable in their own skin to give a genuine compliment to another, to help someone along the way to success, to say 'wow, you are really great at that' and mean it. The more you can help others feel good the better you will feel yourself and you side step the worry of appearing arrogant.

Try it, see how it feels, watch how your own self belief grows when you are able to see and comment on how well others are doing it. This is not about putting yourself down either, it doesn't work to say 'God you are so lucky, I wish I could be as good as you'...this is about stating who you are by reminding others how great they are too.

My top tips for increasing self belief without arrogance are:

1. Cause someone else to have greater self belief
2. Watch the self talk in your head and tell yourself a different truth
3. Ask yourself how well your beliefs are serving your life and let go of those that hold you back.
4. Remember there is a difference between being honest with yourself and being cruel.
5. Know that there is also a difference between stating who you are and stating that you are better than another (confidence V arrogance).
6. Remember that you are not the only one...we all have times of deep self doubt, we all know we have messed up sometimes, the difference comes when you decide whether to hold on to this or to let it go and forgive yourself. Self belief is knowing that you are human and can make mistakes without thinking you are less worthy because of it.

We have a talk coming up soon for how to understand confidence and how to increase your own confidence. If you would like to attend and see the wonderful Charlie Wardle then you can book below or link to the website page www.lovelivingevents.co.uk to find out more.

It's time to 'Tell out' your soul...