I know this is a tricky one. People do dreadful things to each other and some of them it's hard to imagine how they could possibly be forgiven. 

 

Yet there is a lot of evidence showing that when you do forgive, you also release yourself. Here's just one reference out of many, and I could also mention Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu in South Africa, Gordon Wilson in Northern Ireland, who all put this into practice with wonderful results. 

 

How does this sound to you? Is there something you could perhaps forgive and let go of? 

 

F for Friends - Close relationships are essential for our well-being. We have seen this very painfully since March 2020 by the enforced absence of most of the closeness we took for granted. I can't get out of my mind the scenes of older people dying alone and thinking they had been forgotten...it must have hastened the deaths of many. 

 

In our society we hear a lot about the importance of the individual, but you could say this is a very modern idea and not widely shared throughout human history. I do believe that each individual is of value in and of themselves - but I'm also emphasising the importance to us all of our close relationships. 

 

In lockdown it's easy to just let the days flow by, and I had begun to notice that I might not have called a friend for weeks! So now I make a point of contacting at least one friend every day, and that feels better. 

 

Who could you call today? 

 

F for Flourishing - this is what Positive Psychology is all about - the study of what human beings actually need in order to thrive. Relationships is certainly one of them, as I've just been saying. Dr Martin Seligmann pioneered this approach and summarises it as PERMA,

• P for Positive Emotion,
• E for Engagement,
• R for Relationships,
• M for Meaning, and
• A for Accomplishment

Does anything stand out for you from this list, that could use some attention?