Presented at Pepperdine University, Lifelong Learning Series (November, 2015)

1. Living
Positive Psychology:
Focus, Flow, and Well-Being
Shelly P. Harrell, Ph.D.
Pepperdine University
Graduate School of Education and Psychology
Presented for the Lifelong Learning Series
November 19, 2015

2. My Work
• Understanding Processes that Promote Wellness
• Communal, Contemplative & Empowerment Processes
• “Focus and Flow”
• Understanding the Role of Culture in Wellness
Outcomes
• PEaCE Theory
• Developing Interventions
• Specific Strategies
• “Meditative Moments”
• “What’s In A Name?”
• Resilience-Oriented Stress Management Groups
• Measuring Well-Being (wellbeingresearch.net)
• The Multidimensional Well-Being Assessment (MWA)

3. The Positive Psychology Approach
• Positive psychology is the study of the
conditions and processes that contribute
to optimal functioning for people, groups
and institutions.
• Focuses on the psychological aspects of
what makes life worth living by studying
areas of human experience such as
gratitude, forgiveness, love, meaning,
hope, courage, spirituality, and happiness.

4. The Positive Psychology Approach
Positive psychology is concerned with four
broad topics:
(1) positive experiences
(2) positive psychological traits and processes
(3) positive relationships
(4) positive institutions

5. Positive Mental Health
• Health is more than the absence of
symptoms
• Life is hard so we can expect to experience
difficult times, emotional distress, and
functional impairment
• Underlying goal of my work is to promote
positive well-being in the context of the
inevitable ups and downs of being human

6. Multiple Dimensions of Well-Being
• Physical
• Psychological
• Relational
• Collective
• Transcendent

7. Research Foundations for a
Positive Psychology Approach to
Managing Stress
Positivity and Positive Emotions
Meaning and Meaning-Making
Identifying and Using Strengths

8. Positivity: Broaden and Build
Barbara Fredrickson’s Research
Positivity
Love 2.0
Positive Emotions: Joy, Love, Contentment, Amusement, Interest
Linked to broadened scopes of attention, cognition, and action (“enlarges the
cognitive context”)
Increases brain dopamine levels
Can undo the cardiovascular reactivity that lingers following negative emotions
Enhances physical, intellectual and social resources
Positive Resilience: flexibility in response to changing situational
demands and the ability to bounce back from negative emotional
experiences
Positive Meaning (linked to spiritual and philosophical belief systems)
elicits positive emotions

9. Meaning and Meaning-Making
The Will to Meaning (Viktor Frankl)
Contemporary Research
oMeaning-Focused Coping
oPositive Reappraisal
oStress-Related Growth
oValues in Acceptance and Commitment
Therapy (ACT)

10. Identifying and Using Strengths
Character Strengths and Virtues (VIA)
Using Strengths in the Service of Well-
Being and Meaningful, Empowered Living
Resilience and Strengths-based
Interventions

11. ACTIVITY:
What’s In A Name?

12. Foundations of My Approach:
“PEaCE” Theory
Person-Environment-and-Culture-Emergence
Well-Being emerges from ongoing transactions
within and between
Person, Environment, and Culture Systems
“Person-in-Culture-in-Context Transactions”

14. Systems Thinking:
Multiple Levels of Analysis
PERSON- Culturally-infused biopsychorelational systems
with multiple interconnected dimensions of personhood
 Neurobiological, Somatic, Emotional, Cognitive, Existential, Self-Concept, Relational,
Spiritual
ENVIRONMENT- Culturally-infused socioecological systems with
multiple interconnected levels of contextualization
 Physical, Interpersonal, Microsystemic, Communal, Organizational, Macrosystemic,
Geopolitical, Temporal
CULTURE- Systems of meaning, knowledge, and daily living carried
by multiple intersection social groups and structures
Nationality, Ethnicity, Race, Religion, Gender, Socioeconomic Status, Age, Generation,
Sexual/Attractional Orientation, Organizational, Occupational, Experiential, Disability,
Geographic

15. What Types of Transactions lead to
Wellness Outcomes?
Person-in-Culture-in-Context Transactions
oWellness-Promoting
oPathogenic
Wellness-Promoting Transactions
oCommunal Processes- Strengthen Connectedness
oContemplative Processes- Enhance Awareness
oEmpowerment Processes- Facilitate Transformation

17. COMMUNAL
PROCESSES AND PRACTICES
My humanity is bound up in yours for we can only be human together.”
~Bishop Desmond Tutu
• UBUNTU ethic of interconnectedness
• “I am because we are and because we are I am”
• Research
• Social Support
• “Tend and Befriend” Research- Shelley Taylor, UCLA
• Interventions
• Nurturing and strengthening Healing and Growth Alliances (HGAs)
• Opportunities for Giving Testimony and Bearing Witness

18. CONTEMPLATIVE
PROCESSES AND PRACTICES
Contemplative practices are practical, radical, and transformative, developing
capacities for deep concentration and quieting the mind in the midst of the
action and distraction that fills everyday life.
This state of calm centeredness is an aid to exploration of meaning, purpose
and values.
Contemplative Practices cultivate a critical, first-person focus, sometimes with
direct experience as the object, while at other times concentrating on complex
ideas or situations.
Incorporated into daily life, they act as a reminder to connect to what we find
most meaningful.
Contemplative practices can help develop greater empathy and communication
skills, improve focus and attention, reduce stress and enhance creativity,
supporting a loving and compassionate approach to life.

20. Meditation is the Prototypical
Contemplative Practice
“One does not practice meditation to become a
great meditator. We meditate to wake up and
live, to become skilled at the art of living.”
~Elizabeth Lesser
Meditation is to see deeply into things, to see
how we can change, how we can transform our
situation.”
~Thich Nhat Hanh

21. Contemplative Practices
as “Focus and Flow”
“Meditation is not to escape from society,
but to come back to ourselves and see what is going on.
Once there is seeing, there must be acting.”
~Thich Nhat Hanh
FOCUS = “Seeing”
(Connection Through Awareness)
FLOW = “Acting”
(Connection Through Congruence)

22. “FOCUS and FLOW”
= Seeing + Acting
Focus = Connected and Conscious “Seeing”
• Conscious and integrated AWARENESS through the intentional regulation
of attention, emotion, and physiological processes
• Increase inner, other, and outer awareness
• Increase connectedness to meaning, purpose, values, identities, strengths
• Identify culturally-syntonic and values-congruent commitments, activities,
and relationships
• Develop strategies for expression of purpose, values, identity, strengths
Flow = Connected and Congruent “Acting”
• Active, committed, and relational ENGAGEMENT with life motivated and
informed by the process and content of focusing
• Release what gets in the way and create space for full experiencing and
immersion in valued life contexts
• Engage in activities that promote physical, psychological, relational,
collective, and transcendent wellness
• Full expression of strengths and passions

23. Living with FOCUS
A “FOCUSandFLOW”
Meditative Moment:
re“CENTER”ing

24. Close your eyes and open your heart-mind.
Exhale into the present here-and-now moment.
Notice your internal experience by observing (without
evaluating) what is going on physically, mentally,
emotionally, and spiritually.
Trust in what matters most to you by connecting to your
inner wisdom using a meaningful word, an affirmation,
proverb, sacred text passage, image, symbol, etc..
Explore what is stressful from the foundation of your
values and inner wisdom.
Release what does not serve your highest purpose and
return to the situation more centered.
Copyright 2015. Shelly P. Harrell, Ph.D. All Rights Reserved.

25. Living with FLOW
“ME AT MY BEST”

26. EMPOWERMENT
PROCESSES AND PRACTICES
The Expression of Communal and Contemplative
Energies Through “Empowered Living”
 “Empowered” means to have the inspiration, commitment, and resources (internal and
external) to turn cognitions, motivations, and values into action through conscious and
connected engagement with self, others, and society.
 Being empowered is activation of individual and collective agency; the capacity to
mobilize and actualize vital energy and resources to move toward a desired result.
 Being empowered can be expressed individually, relationally, or collectively.
 An empowered person will:
 Experience a subjective sense of their own personal agency and capacity to make a
difference
 Contribute to the enhancement of well-being and quality of life personally and
collectively
 Influence others in the context of an ubuntu consciousness of interconnectedness

27. Living Positive Psychology
In the context of community and the
interconnected nature of our world (“Communal
Processes”) and order to facilitate creative,
transformative, and empowered living
(“Empowerment Processes”) for the ultimate
purpose of personal, relational and collective
wellness, it is important to live with
(“Contemplative Processes”)
•FOCUS=Sustained attention to what is
most meaningful through experiential and
critical awareness
•FLOW= The experience of being
“energized within” through positive and
congruent engagement with life

28. Living Positive Psychology
I am
_____________________________
And I will live this by
______________________________

29. Final Thought on the Interconnected
Nature of Wellness and Well-Being
I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all
communities… We are caught in an
inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a
single garment of destiny. Whatever affects
one directly, affects all indirectly."
~Martin Luther King, Jr.

30. DISCUSSION
Q & A

31. Thank You!
Shelly.Harrell@pepperdine.edu
www.wellbeingresearch.net