THE FOUR KEY DIMENSIONS OF FLOURISHING
[Michael C. Patterson]
Hi. Welcome to the Flourish As You Age podcast where we examine how to manage our minds to enhance our wellbeing as we grow older. I’m Michael C. Patterson.
In this episode I’m going to introduce a framework for well-being developed by Dr. Richard Davidson’s and his colleagues at his Center for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
Davidson is the neuroscientist who has worked closely with the Dalai Lama and has studied the brains of Tibetan monks to see what is going on when they meditate. He is considered to be the nation’s leading expert on the neuroscience of meditation.
In 2020, Dr. Davidson, Cortland Dahl and Christine Wilson-Mendehall, authored a research paper called, The plasticity of wellbeing: A training based framework for the cultivation of human flourishing.
Ta-Daaa! Just what I am looking for. A framework for the cultivation of human flourishing. In addition to the article, Davidson and his team flesh out the framework on their website and in an online meditation app.
The framework is neatly organized around four key dimensions of well-being. They are:
- Awareness:
- Connection
- Insight
- Purpose
The basic premise is that well-being is itself a kind of mental skill. We can ramp up our capacity to experience well-being by practicing and honing our awareness, our connection, our insight and our purpose.
Davidson is a diligent scientists so he is careful to ground his recommendations in solid scientific evidence. According to Davidson, the evidence shows that each of these areas - awareness, connection, insight and purpose - have been shown to exhibit “training-induced plasticity.”
If you are unfamiliar with the term, “plasticity,” take note. It is a phenomenon that is central to our program of mental management. It means that the structure and function of the brain changes (is plastic) in response to various kinds of stimuli. And Davidson is saying that we can change our brains by learning to enhance our awareness, our connectedness, our insight and our sense of value-driven purpose.
This is the underlying scientific rationale for our mind-management approach. Your brain is plastic. My brain is plastic. They are always changing. But - and this is an important but - they can change for the better or for the worse. And, too often, brain changes as we age a re for the worse.
So, the sensible thing to do is to stimulate our maturing minds in was that are beneficial and contribute to our wellbeing. We need to identify the specific states of mind that help us to flourish, then evoke them and practice them until they become second nature and can be called upon whenever needed. Likewise, we need to identify specific mindsets, like ageist stereotypes, that are limiting and maladaptive and stop doing them.
The trick is to figure out which of our mindsets are helpful and which are injurious. This is where Davidson’s dimensions of flourishing is extremely helpful. He has identified four types of thinking that, according to scientific evidence, contribute to flourishing.
In this episode I’ll introduce the dimensions by giving you Davidson’s definition for each one. Then, in the next episode we will do a deeper dive into Awareness, Connection, Insight and Purpose.
AWARENESS - Here’s Davidson’s definition for Awareness: “Awareness refers to a heightened and flexible attentiveness to perceptual impressions in one’s environment, as well as internal cues, such as bodily sensations.” So, awareness refers to a heightened attention to direct experience, as opposed to ideas about experience.
CONNECTION - The authors say that connection, ”refers to a subjective sense of care and kinship towards other people that promotes supportive relationships and caring interactions.” So this is a pro-social dimension, stressing the importance of connection with other people.
INSIGHT, which Davidson says refers to “self-knowledge concerning the manner in which emotions, though, beliefs and other factors are shaping one’s subjective experience.” So we have insight when we are aware that our mind is generating emotions, thoughts and belief systems and - and - understand how they are shaping our experience of the world and our behaviors.
PURPOSE - Davidson’s final dimension of wellbeing is PURPOSE. This dimension, says Davidson, “refers to a sense of clarity concerning personally meaningful aims and values that one is able to apply in daily life.” In other words, we need to build clear goals around a strong and beneficial value system. We flourish when the way we live our lives is consistent with our positive goals and values.
So, again, this is a quick introduction to Richie Davidson’s four dimensions of flourishing. We will examine the a bit more deeply in the next episode.
You want some homework? Consider Davidson’s four dimensions of flourishing. What role do these dimensions play in your thinking and your behavior? How are they contributing to, or undermining, your sense of wellbeing?
By the way, you can learn more about Dr. Richard Davidson’s work at:
https://centerhealthyminds.org/
Davidson has a Healthy Minds app that works through his four dimensions. It can be downloaded onto your phone
https://hminnovations.org/meditation-app
And, you might want to check out his book, co-written with Dan Goleman called Altered Traits: Science Reveals How Meditation Changes You Mind, Brain and Body.