Childless Parents Newsletter, Spring 2022

Newsletter for Childless Parents | www.tcf.org.uk 8 Do you think you might be languishing? Andrea Corrie What do you think of when you consider the word ‘languishing’? I might picture a pot plant that needs watering, or a discarded toy cast into a dusty corner. But I was recently signposted to an interesting article originally published by psychologist Adam Grant in the NY Times that examines a different way of looking at languishing in the context of mental health. Languishing comes at the midpoint on the scale where flourishing is at the top and depression at the bottom. One of the worst features of grief, that turns out to be common to languishing, is monotony. Every morning you wake up to the realisation that your situation has not changed. In the early days, that hits you the moment you open your eyes like a thump to your solar plexus.