The Great Realignment
Sometimes where we are isn’t where we are meant to be.
Marriages and Divorces
Births and Deaths
Beginnings and Endings
The collective experience of the past two years has been anything but universal, as varied as our opinions and with our feelings raw as ever. And yet, as last year ended there was a hopeful upward intonation in the conversations I was having, personally and professionally. People were tired, sad, and frustrated — but still hopeful. As last year ended many believed that ‘it’ was ‘over’.
But ‘it’ remains.
And here we are.
The end of this year feels different.
The professional and personal conversations I am having — are different.
The tired hopefulness of last year is gone. It has been replaced by a deeper resolve, an acceptance that the unknown and shifting landscape of our world is indeed the ‘new normal’ that everyone is so eager to define. There is a very human desire to push to regain a sense of control over something we never had control over in the first place. With the new acceptance of the unknown, some are looking for stability in the one thing that we ultimately can control — ourselves.
After 2 years of disconnection, awkward temporary fixes, and hope for external stability we are realizing that how we choose to reengage with the world is largely up to us.
People are moving, leaving companies, careers, relationships — even those that are staying where they are, are making changes within that space. People are changing how they show up to themselves and to others. We’ve been forced to pull back the curtain on our own lives and see what smoke and mirrors we have been creating and believing.
The end of the year emails are filling inboxes like stockings, and there is an interesting theme. My very biased list of mental health and wellbeing authors, psychologists, researchers and influencers, are all turning their focus inwards. Returning to their core values and their core missions. The emails are reflective — looking at where they started, where they currently are, and where they hope to be. But they are also active, talking about where they veered from their track and what they are planning on changing to move forward.
The conversations have made me reflect as well, to question what I can uniquely offer. The answer to that question has shown me where my own realignment needs to happen and what core values I need to refocus on.
In 2010 I graduated from the University of Pennsylvania (UPENN) as only the fifth class to earn the designation of Masters of Applied Positive Psychology (MAPP). In the 11 years since graduation, there has been a proliferation of positive psychology both academically and within popular culture. As with most things that become popular there is the good, the bad, and the downright ugly. #ToxicPositivity is everywhere from our social media feeds to our coffee cups — and it couldn’t be further from the actual science.
The first World Congress on Positive Psychology was held in June 2009. While the science had been around for decades prior (and the philosophies for centuries) this was the first major conference dedicated purely to the research of human well-being. I had just been accepted to the MAPP program and thought that attending the Congress would be a good way to become acquainted with the world I was about to enter.
I had no idea what I was in for.
The conference opened with a talk with my future professor Dr. Martin Seligman and Dr. Philip Zimbardo, whose book The Lucifer Affect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil, had been one of the threads that lead me to positive psychology in the first place.
The conference ended with a talk from another future professor, the late Dr. Christopher Peterson on ‘The Future of Positive Psychology.’
The in-between was filled with more experiences than my brain could possibly contain or remember this many years later.
There are only two that remain crystal clear, and they perfectly represent the extremes of my experiences within the world of positive psychology since that weekend in Philadelphia.
- An elevator conversation with another ‘student’ (as identified on our conference badges) resulted in her rolling her eyes and scoffing at my future studentship at UPENN and MAPP in general. Uttering “don’t drink the Kool-aid”* over her shoulder as the elevator slid closed.
Alone in the elevator, I felt so ‘othered’ and deflated that I lost any social confidence I had and retired to my room instead of attending the student evening social. With one sentence she revealed that even within positive psychology humans were imperfect and flawed. That not everyone in that world was welcoming and friendly. - A quiet beer with Christopher Peterson right before his closing speech. At the time I wasn’t really aware of who he was, much less what he looked like. All I knew was that at that point in a crazy weekend I needed a beer to reflect in before the curtain closed and I moved on to find out what flavour of Kool-Aid was served at UPENN.
“Nice shoes” was all he said as he ordered himself a beer (not for nothing those are still some of my favourite shoes. Yellow Leather Fluevog heels with flower embroidery? I mean come on.)
The conversation that followed made me feel valued and seen. We were interrupted by someone requesting a picture — it was only then that I realized who I was talking with. As he walked off to give his closing speech he smiled and simply said ‘see you soon.’
Those two instances perfectly exemplify the overwhelming feeling of finally finding where I ‘belonged’ while simultaneously feeling like I needed to remain skeptical of those I belonged with. I carried that tension throughout my time in MAPP — and beyond. I don’t know if it was healthy or not, but it certainly gave me a unique fringe perspective. One that I wasn’t afraid to share, as I am sure many of my classmates would attest to. But it was only because I felt like I so genuinely belonged within this world that I was able to vocally critically examine it. I’ve forgotten that. I’ve caught myself focusing my attention too much on the discomfort of the ‘othered’ feelings that I have forgotten that my unique impact comes from my perverse belonging.
As I join the great realignment I want to come back to that fringe, and lovingly challenge where the science has been misinterpreted and in some cases completely been removed from its application in modern culture. To pull the curtain away from what has been social and mass media-ized and bring it back to where it started, at least for me. I was fortunate enough to find some of my papers from MAPP in 2009/2010 — a gift from my past self. I might not be able to tell you what Christopher Peterson would think about the state of Positive Psychology today, or how closely it aligned with his vision back then. But I can show you the foundations of where it came from — with some perspective 11 years later.
You’ll notice a shift in the conversation I bring in my public spaces — the result of actions behind my personal realignment, I hope you’ll feel comfortable sharing your own thoughts and experiences with the topics I bring up. One thing I know for sure is that whatever you are experiencing — you aren’t the only one and even if you exist in the fringe — you still belong here.
*Personally I dislike this term and find it minimizes the very real impact of powerful cult leaders and their victims. I share it here only because it was the exact language used and had the same impact on me then as now.
