Woman Who Thrives is a practical wellbeing initiative created by Dr Taisiia Mukii, PhD, bringing together psychological knowledge, evidence-informed reflective practices, experiential learning, creative methods and facilitated social connection. The programme explores how women can develop greater self-awareness, resilience and personal agency while navigating change, relationships, professional transitions, motherhood, migration and other life challenges.
My approach is grounded in the space between research and everyday life: psychological concepts become meaningful when people have an opportunity to experience, reflect on and explore them in practice.
FROM RESEARCH TO REAL-LIFE EXPERIENCE
Rather than simply discussing psychological concepts, Woman Who Thrives creates structured experiences in which participants can observe, reflect, experiment and connect. Different practices are combined according to the purpose of the session. The aim is not to provide predetermined interpretations or tell women how they should feel or live, but to create a space where they can explore their own experiences and identify resources that may support them.
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Making relationships and personal boundaries visible
One of the practices used during Woman Who Thrives is the Stone Reflection Practice.
The practice invites reflection on questions such as:
An important psychological distinction emerges through this exercise:
Taking responsibility for what we can influence is not the same as blaming ourselves for everything that happens to us.
The practice can therefore support reflection on relationships, boundaries, personal agency and periods of transition or uncertainty.
PRACTICE 2 — METAPHORICAL CARDS
Using imagery to explore personal meaning
Participants also worked with metaphorical cards and personally meaningful questions.
Rather than assigning a fixed psychological meaning to an image, the practice invites each person to explore:
The same image can have completely different meanings for different people.
This makes metaphor a powerful starting point for reflective dialogue and self-exploration: the image does not provide the answer — it helps the participant investigate her own thinking, emotions and associations.
Creative imagery becomes a bridge between experience, emotion, attention and conscious reflection.
PRACTICE 3 — FLOWER MANDALA & COLOUR REFLECTION
Exploring emotions, preferences and personal needs
Participants selected flowers and colours while paying attention to their spontaneous preferences, emotional associations and bodily responses.
The activity encouraged questions such as:
Importantly, colours were not presented as diagnostic categories or as having fixed psychological meanings.
Instead, colour was used as a reflective framework. Participants explored their own associations and emotional responses, using creativity as a way to access thoughts, feelings and needs that may be difficult to articulate directly.
This reflects an important principle of my work:
Psychological tools should create opportunities for exploration rather than impose interpretations on people's experiences.
PRACTICE 4 — REFLECTIVE DIALOGUE & PEER CONNECTION
From individual reflection to shared experience
Individual reflection was complemented by facilitated dialogue and social connection.
The group environment created opportunities for participants to share experiences, recognise similarities and differences, develop new connections and discover that many challenges related to identity, relationships, motherhood, work and life transitions are shared by others.
Connection is therefore not simply an additional element of the event.
It is part of the wellbeing approach itself.
Supportive relationships, community and a sense of belonging can become important resources while navigating change.
PRACTICE 5 — REFLECTION ON RESILIENCE & PERSONAL AGENCY
Moving from “How can I cope?” to “What resources do I have?”
A central concept of Woman Who Thrives is resilience.
Resilience is not understood as simply becoming stronger or learning to tolerate more.
Instead, it is explored as a dynamic capacity involving:
self-awareness · emotional resources · adaptive coping · personal agency · supportive relationships · boundaries · meaning-making · constructive responses to change
The reflection shifts from:
“How can I cope with everything?”
towards:
“What resources do I have, what support do I need, what can I influence, and what choices are available to me?”
This perspective can be particularly relevant during major life transitions such as migration, career change, motherhood, relationship changes, loss, uncertainty or rebuilding one's identity.
THE PRINCIPLE BEHIND THE PRACTICES
The practices used in Woman Who Thrives are not designed to give participants ready-made answers.
They create structured opportunities for exploration.
Through objects, images, colours, creative activities, dialogue and reflection, participants can make aspects of their internal experience more visible and explore their own:
thoughts · emotions · relationships · needs · boundaries · resources · choices
The combination of psychological knowledge, experiential learning, creativity and social connection allows abstract ideas to become tangible and personally meaningful.
FROM EXPERIENCE TO SOCIAL IMPACT
Woman Who Thrives represents a broader approach to developing practical, accessible and scalable wellbeing initiatives for community, educational, organisational and women-focused settings.
My interest as a researcher-practitioner is not only in creating engaging experiences, but also in exploring how such initiatives can be evaluated, adapted and developed further.
Woman Who Thrives is envisioned as a developing platform for research-informed practice, community engagement and knowledge exchange, with potential to grow into workshops, community programmes, organisational wellbeing initiatives, educational resources and research-based evaluation.
A SPACE TO MEET THE WOMAN YOU ARE BECOMING
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Thriving does not necessarily mean returning to who you were before. Life changes us. Sometimes wellbeing means creating enough space to understand who we are becoming, what has changed, what we need, what is within our influence and what choices are available to us.
This is the space I aim to create through Woman Who Thrives: a psychologically informed, practical and human-centred approach to women’s wellbeing, resilience and flourishing.
Dr Taisiia Mukii, PhD
