
lynneeveratt
Get your hopes up!
Between the years 400AD and 1400AD nothing much happened. Martin Seligman, the father of positive psychology, has a theory: he believes that for those stagnant one thousand years people were hopeless–they didn't believe in the power of their actions to change the world. Perhaps you've heard of learned helplessness, the phenomenon where people who encounter inescapable events believe that nothing they do matters. Initially it was thought that learned helplessness is a conditioned response to trauma. Seligman discovered that the opposite is true: helplessness is our default response to aversive events. We learn, with the help of our pre-frontal cortex, to become hopeful, and to believe that we can take action that will improve the situation so that the future is better than the past. The focus of this week's 5-Minute Recharge is hope, the positive energy that fuels peaceful protests and the only way the world will ever become a better place. We're hopeful that this edition of our newsletter will encourage you to take action to make your world a better place. Let's get started! ONE HOPEFUL QUOTE “Daddy changed the world.” – George Floyd's daughter, Gianna
