“I teach teachers to help children cope with difficult feelings. Difficult emotions can give us important messages if we’re unafraid to hear and them and feel them, without becoming utterly overwhelmed by them.” 

Julie Hurst is a Positive Psychologist and the founder of the Work Life Balance Centre. She was part of a team among the first people to research work life balance and the impact of work on our lives. They ran a national survey every year for 10 years to find out what it took to have a good balance and ultimately a flourishing happy life.

Julie is a wonderful storyteller and in this wide-ranging conversation, she shares;

• The 3-part model developed from their research;
• The ingredients needed for resilience;
• The 3 kinds of ‘skillfulness’ she teaches in schools and the powerful impact it has on behaviour;
• Research showing that one of the biggest dips in children’s wellbeing happens in the first year of secondary, and what to do in primary to reduce or eliminate this dip;
• The ‘recipe’ for the neurochemical mix that most children need and how to get that in your classroom;
• Positive Psychology is not ‘positive thinking’ and how to use this knowledge to help deal with ALL of our emotions;
• And Julie guides us through a lovely practice called the Compassion Break.

“Your experience of work, and indeed life, depends more on what’s going on between your ears than any external circumstance.  And that is a viewpoint that has been upheld over and over and over again.”

You can connect with Julie

Her website is www.thewlbc.com

Email Julie@thewlbc.com

Twitter @juliewlbc

LinkedIn Julie Hurst

Youtube channel is Positive Education with animations explaining Positive Education.

Also mentioned in this podcast

Martin Seligman

Sonja Lyubomirksy

Maya Angelou Poetry Foundation
“Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”

Sharon Salzberg

Joseph Goldstein

Prof Kristin Neff Self-Compassion.org  – loads of free content on this site