The Happiness Foundation

Kath Temple is many things. She is a psychologist, educator, coach, mother, and even a grandmother. But one role which affects all her others is being an inspirational example of how, in spite of all life can throw your way, you can choose happiness. THE HAPPINESS FOUNDATION

BY SOPHIE CLIFTON-TUCKER

Kath Temple, The Success & Happiness Psychologist is a warm and inspiring modern-day Jedi who knows the art and science of radical transformation. She understands the mind and how to change them, and how to shift behaviour. Her work awakens and ignites deeper potential and higher possibilities for all. As a coach, mentor, and trainer, some of her clients call her The Queen of Empowering Others, whilst Jacqui Footman, the Chair of EFT International, calls her ‘a miracle worker’.

From the Lake District, Kath worked in media and PR for Tenneco, Alcan, and British Nuclear at Sellafield where she represented her companies on both TV and radio. She also worked freelance for BBC Radio Cumbria. Moving to Suffolk, she worked for Suffolk Education, Norfolk Education and the Department for Education, where the Secretary for State appointed her as one of the original Specialist Members for the Special Needs & Disability Tribunal. An entrepreneur, and social entrepreneur, Kath set up The Lifelong Learning Company – offering training, coaching, mentoring and 1-to-1 therapeutic interventions – in 1995. Kath has worked with business leaders, headteachers and teachers, doctors and psychiatrists, celebrities, Olympians, Paralympians, footballers, children, young offenders, and prison governors and staff, helping them to win the inner game and enhance their performance and their lives.

Kath has presented at the BBC with Dragon’s Den entrepreneurs and has presented a webinar with another of the original Dragons. Her work has been featured on the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, GBC, and she is a regular on BBC Radio. She invented The Phucket Bucket in 2008 which was featured in Happiness Magazine that year, and in 2010 it was featured on the BBC’s Have I Got News for You. She presented for TEDx at the Great Wall of China in 2012 with the Director of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for China. She was named one of Norfolk & Suffolk’s Most Inspiring Women, and is a former Business Person of the Year Award winner. The Happiness Foundation in the UK won the Business with Community Impact Award in 2014.

And if that’s not enough for you, David Bowie’s signed Thierry Mugler designer blue suit from his film Absolute Beginners hangs in her wardrobe, and a Damien Hirst signed original drawing hangs in her office.

We sit down with Kath to speak about one of her biggest projects to date, The Happiness Foundation.

What exactly is The Happiness Foundation, and how did it come about?

My younger brother, John Black, who was Community Relations Manager at the University of Manchester Institute for Science & Technology for many years, died suddenly in 2007. Following his death, my sister Anne and I

Kath is a warm and inspiring modern-day Jedi.

set up The Happiness Foundation to honour his memory and to transform and transmute negative energy into positive, and put something good in the world.

Initially it was set up as a voluntary organisation and then in 2009 we registered it as a social enterprise not-for-profit organisation. We received NHS funds to run mental health courses in doctor’s surgeries in Suffolk for our community. We specialised in Breaking the Cycle of Depression, and Overcoming Anxiety. Depression and anxiety account for 87% of all mental illness. Our other specialism is in recoding and releasing PTSD and Trauma.

In 2012 following the Sandy Hook School shooting of 21 children and 6 teachers, I re-envisioned and re-purposed The Happiness Foundation. I recognised that it wasn’t enough to offer reactive services when people developed problems. What was also needed was a proactive approach to prevent mental health problems from happening, and to help young people deal with big feelings so they didn’t have to turn to external violence and attack people, or to internal violence and self-harm or commit suicide.

From then we also began promoting Positive Psychology to help children and adults develop emotional intelligence and be able to emotionally self-regulate,

PEACE OF MIND: EQ matters more than IQ - Emotional Intelligence matters greatly. The ability to emotionally self-soothe and self-regulate. To be able to delay gratification and stop acting on impulses. It isn’t always about what is happening on the outside, it’s about your response to what is happening, and your ability to run your own emotions and run your own brain. The first peace is self-peace.

BE PRESENT IN THE MOMENT: Each moment is your point of power, your choice point. Too many people live in their pasts or their futures, not in the present moment. When we are present, we have more presence in the world and in our relationships. CONNECTION: We are social beings and we all need to give and receive love and have meaningful connections with others in our lives. We all need good relationships and social support to feel truly happy and to give us a strong sense of belonging. HONOUR: To honour the self, and to honour others. To live with a nobility of heart and spirit. A SENSE OF AGENCY, AUTONOMY AND CONTROL: And a sense of responsibility and accountability for ourselves and others too. A SENSE OF PURPOSE: To bring more meaning and fulfilment into our lives and to make our lives count in the right ways. and build resilience and mental wellness. We build inside of people their own Happiness foundation. In the same year I was invited to run an NLP Business course in Gibraltar and fell in love with Gibraltar and its wonderfully warm good people. In 2019 along with my trusted trustees: Gemma Vasquez, Darren Grech, Yan Delgado, Stephen Reyes, Lourdes Barea, Henry Sacramento, Nick Page, and Lewis Baglietto of The Charities Commission, we set up The Happiness Foundation as a Gibraltar Registered Charity No. 306. His Excellency Lt General Edward Davis, the Governor of Gibraltar, is our Patron. The Governor hosted our launch event at The Convent in October 2019 and our UK Patron Levi Roots from Dragons Den came over to support us. It was a wonderful night supported by so many that we were at full capacity. My aim in all my work is to optimise the inherent potential within all beings, and help people from all walks of life be all they came here to be, be more successful and happier too. Success without happiness really isn’t success at all. What are they key foundations of being happy? I believe the key ingredients of happiness are: I fell in love with Gibraltar and its wonderfully warm good people.

KINDNESS AND CONTRIBUTION: To give back, to make a difference, to do your best to create a kind of heaven on earth right where you are, and further afield if you can too. Bringing others happiness brings happiness to the giver as well as the receiver.

AN ATTITUDE OF GRATITUDE: Gratefulness and appreciation.

TRIUMPH: To triumph as best you can over life’s negatives and where you can to turn them into positives. In every crisis there is a gift. Utilise the gift to allow positive consequences to flow forward.

HEATH AND WELLNESS: Happiness affects both, and it impacts longevity too.

FORGIVENESS: The ability to forgive and to let go.

Do you ever feel sad, or is it a rare occasion?

In my life I have known just about every emotion. I think most human beings have. It’s partly what connects us all. As you look at each person on your life journey it is likely that they have all been through emotionally painful times, whether or not they show it. We all understand and have felt the low frequency emotions of pain, sorrow, sadness, despair, hurt, rejection, betrayal, grief, loss, anger, frustration, hopelessness, overwhelm, disgust, injustice, discrimination, and unfairness. The key questions for me are ‘Am I here to perpetuate

In my life I have known just about every emotion.

those emotions and let them ripple out from me to contaminate the world I live in? Or am I here to experience them as they arise, reflect upon them and then transmute and transform them so that I put something better into my world?’ And from that learned and lived wisdom I teach others.

I have also known the most wonderful high frequency emotions of love, joy, peace, kindness, compassion, freedom, fun, power, confidence, enthusiasm, enlightenment. Sometimes people mistake feelings for who a person is. A feeling is just a feeling. Some feelings are much nicer to hang around with. Some can overstay their welcome. It’s important to know that we run the feelings. And it is just as important to know that the feelings don’t have to run us! Your feelings are a kind of satellite navigation system that show you what you are focusing on. When you shift the focus, the feelings change. You are in charge, not the feelings. If you want to change the feelings you can’t keep focusing on what is creating them. It is a truth well known that if you keep doing what you’re doing, you keep getting what you’re getting. If you want something different, you have to do something different. If you want something better, you have to do something better. And if nothing changes, nothing changes. Some of the wisdoms I have learnt in painful ways, until I got wiser! It’s easier to learn through joy than through pain, but both teach us, if we are open to the learnings and ready to change.

Kath’s top ten tips to inject happiness into your life!

1. Stop making self to other comparisons. Compare yourself only to yourself. Do you know more today than you did yesterday? Are you a better person today than you were yesterday?

2. Find the joy in your life and let your life bring joy to others.

3. Be kinder. Kindness is a key ingredient to happiness. 4. Develop presence, bring your mind to the present moment, appreciate the richness that unfolds before you, and the richness within you.

5. Learn to emotionally selfregulate and self-soothe and teach it to your children too.

6. Smile and laugh more! Smiling and laughter release an avalanche of endorphins - so good for you!

7. Cultivate an attitude of gratitude. It will change your life and the lives of others you connect with.

8. Learn to let go, and to forgive.

9. Live with a sense of purpose, a sense of honour, and develop a vision for your one wild and precious life.

10. Recognise your state of beingness impacts EVERYONE around you. It isn’t just about what you are doing, it’s about who you are being as you do what you do from moment to moment.

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