Could Christmas hold the secret to our (un)happiness?

It is our ultimate escape. For one day we forget our worries, how much we’ve spent, the stresses of work, and take great pleasure in indulging in the fantasy and magic of Christmas for our children, and seeing the delight on our family’s faces when they open a gift that they love. Why?

Because Christmas is more than just giving. It is the sentiment. The message that says – you have held me in mind long enough to get me a gift that I really wanted / needed.  It’s the only time of the year when we come together as part of a wider family to all say the same thing to one another.: “I love you, and I want you to know that” 

So, do we have something to learn from Christmas that could impact on our wider happiness and wellbeing?

Research seems to think so. There is now a wide body of evidence to suggest that giving to others improves a person’s wellbeing. There are lots of theories as to why, including a greater sense of connectedness with others. How we feel in relationship to other people – even the ones we are yet to meet.

Why should this have anything to do with you?

What if I told you that how well you were able to connect with other people affects most of your life: Your successes at work, your relationships with other adults, your physical and mental health, and perhaps most importantly, what you leave to the next generation – your children.

Our own experiences of early relationships - whether or not our needs were consistently and sensitively responded to - establishes a ‘blueprint’ within our brains for us to make sense of and understand how to behave in relationships right the way through to our adult lives.

It determines how we feel able to trust others, and importantly how we feel able to experience and express our emotions; communicate them to others to garner support. It’s a blueprint that over time becomes a well-traveled road. It affects our empathy and sense of connection with others, and ultimately our level of compassion.

When we become parents, it affects how we are able to hear our own children’s distress – whether we are able to understand it well enough to help resolve it. If we can’t? Then we help to establish the same ‘blueprint’ for our children.

Before you decide that this is more information than you wanted to know, wait.

Our ‘blueprint’  - call it a relational style, or if you are a Psychologist, an Attachment style  -is adaptive: It is the communication style that worked best for your relationship with your caregivers at the time. It’s not wrong or bad.

But, for around 40% of us, it could be something that in our adult life, leads us to have less fulfilling relationships and reduced ability to regulate our emotions (either to find them overwhelming, or to struggle to comprehend them) This can lead us to feeling less connected with the world around us and arguably, less happy.

So why am I telling you all this?

Well, because I believe (and so does a good amount of research) that there is a way to improve our sense of connectedness, and with it, our happiness.

What if every new expectant parent, in preparation to welcome one of the most important relationships into their lives, spent some time learning how to develop a greater sense of connection with their baby? A connection that will help them to understand and empathise with their baby in a way they may not have been able before.

A connection that will empower parents to feel more confident that they are making the right choices for their baby, without feeling confused by conflicting advice. A connection that ultimately will provide an optimal environment for their baby’s social, emotional, and cognitive development, and support them to reach out to other parents for support and connection too. The kind of connection and support that could really reduce antenatal, and postnatal, depression.

Radical, right? Antenatal classes are about the birth, and the practicalities of the first few weeks. We don’t spend too much time thinking about how we will come to understand our babies.

Parent Perspectives  launched at the end of September 2013. It is a company I am immensely proud to lead. Our mission is to provide support to every parent in their transition to parenthood and beyond; to help parents understand more about their own natural relational style and how it will provide them with great strengths, and sometimes challenges, in their connection and understanding of their baby.

The website has a great range of resources, a published ‘toolkit’, and a forthcoming series of workshops. We also have a great online parent community, who can share with you their own ‘Perspective’ (based on their own experience and relational style) for the times that are more challenging in parenting.

We will host “Parents in the park” events every summer, where, with the help of larger corporations and councils, we will bring together small businesses and voluntary support agencies and entertainment in local communities, to a family event – to help get people more involved and create opportunities for better connections. And, when we are well established, we will be donating up to 20% of our pre-tax profits to our own charitable foundation, to make sure that every parent has the opportunity for support; to create interactive playgrounds; community centres and more.

Our vision is to create  - starting with that first relationship – more connected communities: a healthier society.

If you want to know more, click on the link above – or find a video here . Use our clinically validated tool to discover your own natural relational style, and join our community to lend support to and get support from others in the challenges of parenting.

You can also like us on  Facebook and Twitter to stay up to date with all the developments and when new classes will be launching. By being part of the community, you’ll also get the opportunity to evaluate new baby products being released.

So, whilst you are enjoying Christmas dinner hopefully surrounded by loving friends and family, imagine what it could feel like to help build a community that everyone could feel this connected to and supported by every day, rather than just at Christmas. 

Merry Christmas!
Fin x