The flourishing programme of LOVE AND BLISS12 weeks · Practice · Reflection

A 12-week psycho-spiritual flourishing programme of LOVE AND BLISS.

The Bliss Enhancement Programme · Now recruiting

Cultivating Bliss

Practise love. Let bliss settle.

Based on science. Rooted in faith. Informed by adversity.

The Bliss Enhancement Programme is a 12-week psycho-spiritual flourishing programme and pilot study exploring four dimensions of human flourishing.

Relationships
Abundance
Purpose
Resilience

Life isn't always blissful. But can bliss be cultivated?

Check your eligibility Learn about the programme

The question

Life isn’t always blissful

Relationships can hurt.
Plans can fail.
Health can change.
People can disappoint us.
Adversity can arrive without warning.

Flourishing therefore cannot simply mean feeling good when life is good. BEP asks whether certain capacities can be intentionally cultivated within the realities of human life.

The research problem

Why does BEP exist?

Contemporary research increasingly recognises that human flourishing extends beyond the absence of illness or the experience of positive emotions.

Yet important questions remain. What place does spirituality have in human flourishing? What role do our deepest relationships — including our relationship with God — play in security, identity and wellbeing?

And what happens when adversity is not viewed simply as something to escape, but as an experience that, when held within love, meaning and appropriate support, may become a context for growth?

BEP was created to explore these questions.

What is BEP?

A programme and a study, held together

The Bliss Enhancement Programme is a 12-week psycho-spiritual flourishing programme developed by The LAB Institute, currently being evaluated through a pilot study.

A structured twelve-week journey

One 90-minute facilitated online session each week, a short daily practice of roughly 10–20 minutes, a private digital workbook and one clear intention each week.

A psycho-spiritual framework

BEP works across four dimensions — Linkedness, Opulence, Valory and Equanimity — holding psychological science and spiritual formation together rather than choosing between them.

A pilot research study

Alongside the programme, we are evaluating whether BEP is feasible, acceptable and promising enough to justify larger controlled research.

Beyond the usual wellbeing conversation

What BEP adds to the conversation

Spirituality at the centre, not the margin

Flourishing research increasingly recognises meaning and transcendence. BEP goes further and treats spiritual life as a working part of the model, practised within your own tradition.

Attachment taken seriously

Security is relational. BEP attends to connection with self, others, community and God as a foundation for wellbeing rather than an optional extra.

Adversity as possible context for growth

With appropriate resources, meaning and support, difficulty may become a place where flourishing is formed. BEP explores that possibility honestly, without romanticising suffering.

Alongside, not against

BEP is not an alternative to therapy, mindfulness, meditation or medical care, and makes no claim against them. It is a distinct contribution in its own conceptual territory.

Science + spirituality

The theoretical foundations

Five bodies of thought are brought together within the LOVE Model of Bliss.

BEP does not ask participants to choose between psychological science and spiritual faith. It brings them into conversation.

Positive Psychology
Positive functioning, character strengths, gratitude and intentional practice.
Flourishing Science
Multidimensional wellbeing: meaning, relationships, purpose and life evaluation.
Attachment Theory
Security, connection and the relational grounds of psychological wellbeing.
Spiritual Formation
Worship, surrender and practice as forms of sustained inner change.
Adversity-Related Growth
How meaning, resources and support shape what adversity leaves behind.
Science + Spirituality + Attachment + Adversity + Flourishing
This integration is the conceptual territory that distinguishes BEP.

Three open questions

What BEP sets out to explore

Spirituality
How might spirituality contribute to flourishing?
Attachment
How might secure relationships — including spiritual attachment to God — contribute to security, identity and resilience?
Adversity
Can adversity, when navigated with love, meaning and appropriate resources, become a context for growth?

These three questions are held together by the LOVE Model of Bliss, the framework the pilot is designed to explore.

The founder

Why I created BEP

A question born from experience.

Dr Noel Maturlu was born into poverty in Africa and raised in a close-knit, deeply religious family where faith was central to daily life. Illness, hardship and inequality were part of childhood, and they left him with a lasting desire to understand love, prosperity, suffering and human flourishing.

He became a minister from a young age. Faith gave him hope, and it also carried an assumption he absorbed early: that holiness and strong belief should protect a person from serious adversity.

Later he experienced profound personal and professional adversity — serious illness, the breakdown of his marriage, the loss of his ministry and career, homelessness and dependence on food banks and the kindness of others, and a period of deep spiritual crisis and questioning.

Those years showed him that strong religious belief alone had not prepared him for adversity. He turned more deliberately toward prayer, Scripture, study and reflection, and pursued sustained study across theology, psychology and related disciplines.

That work led to the LOVE Model of Bliss, and BEP is the next stage of that intellectual and experiential journey. His experiences did not prove the model; they generated the questions that led him to develop it and to create this pilot study.

“I don't want the model simply to be believed. I want it to be investigated.”
Dr Noel Maturlu, founder and chief investigator

The LOVE model

Four dimensions of flourishing

Relationships · Abundance · Purpose · Resilience

L · Relationships

Linkedness

Relationships and connection with self, others, community, God and the wider world.

O · Abundance

Opulence

Abundance, gratitude, provision, generosity, stewardship and freedom from scarcity thinking.

V · Purpose

Valory

Purpose, meaning, values, courage, vocation and intentional contribution.

E · Resilience

Equanimity

Resilience, inner peace, emotional balance, self-compassion and flourishing through adversity.

The LOVE Model provides the theoretical framework being explored through the BEP pilot.

Bliss here does not mean constant happiness, pleasure or a life without suffering. In BEP, bliss is a broader conception of flourishing: connection, meaning, purpose, peace, gratitude and spiritual wellbeing.

The twelve-week journey

Each week has its own theme and a single practical challenge. Nothing is rushed, and nothing is added to your life that cannot be carried.

Week 1 · Relationships
What Is Bliss?
Begin your Bliss Profile and reflect daily on what flourishing means to you.
Week 2 · Relationships
Attachment, Resilience and Human Flourishing
Invest in your spiritual attachment daily: prayer, Scripture and quiet reflection.
Week 3 · Relationships
Loneliness, Linkedness and Human Flourishing
Take one step to strengthen a meaningful relationship — a call, visit or act of kindness.
Week 4 · Relationships
Linkedness, Belonging and the Foundation of Flourishing
Practise being known, and create belonging for someone else.
Week 5 · Relationships
Falling in Love with God
Create ten minutes of daily space for presence rather than requests.
Week 6 · Abundance
Opulence: Provision, Stewardship and Abundance
Notice provision daily and steward one resource already in your hand.
Week 7 · Purpose
Valory: Living Your Purpose on Purpose
Take one faithful step toward your purpose using the FIRE framework.
Week 8 · Resilience
Equanimity: Flourishing Through Adversity
Name what is within your control and take the next wise step.
Week 9 · Abundance
Gratitude: Seeing Beyond the Pain
Each day answer both: what am I grateful for, and who am I grateful to?
Week 10 · Relationships
Forgiveness: Healing, Freedom and Restoration
Practise the Daily Release: "I release you. I release myself."
Week 11 · Resilience
Integration: Living the Bliss Lifestyle
Practise all four L.O.V.E. virtues in a single day.
Week 12 · Purpose
My Personal Flourishing Plan
Choose three daily flourishing habits you will keep after the programme ends.

Check your eligibility

Your journey, step by step

Approximately sixteen weeks in total: twelve weeks of programme, then independent practice and a follow-up.

Check eligibility
Five questions, about two minutes.
Register your interest
Your name and a contact email — nothing more.
Participant information & consent
Read the approved information sheet, then give informed consent.
Baseline assessment
T0
Your T0 questionnaires, 15–25 minutes.
12-week BEP programme
Weeks 1–12
Weekly sessions, daily practice, workbook and goals.
Post-programme assessment
T2
Your T2 questionnaires at week 13.
Independent practice
Weeks 13–15
Three weeks keeping the rhythm on your own.
Follow-up assessment
T3
Your T3 questionnaires at week 16.

Why participate?

Six reasons people take part

Explore
Explore your relationships, values, purpose and resilience.
Practise
Engage in structured reflection and practical flourishing activities.
Connect
Explore connection with yourself, others, community and God.
Grow
Develop intentional practices around gratitude, purpose, resilience and flourishing.
Reflect
Learn more about your own experience across the LOVE dimensions.
Contribute
Help generate evidence that can inform future research into psycho-spiritual flourishing.

You are not simply joining a programme. You are helping us investigate a question.

The pilot study

What we are investigating

You experience the journey. We study what happens.

BEP V1.1 is being evaluated through a single-arm longitudinal pilot feasibility study. The research is part of the programme, not hidden behind it.

Around 100 adults will take part. The pilot evaluates how the programme works in practice before any larger controlled study is considered.

Feasibility
Acceptability
Recruitment
Retention
Attendance
Adherence
Delivery fidelity
Preliminary changes in flourishing-related outcomes

This is a pilot study. It is designed to inform future controlled research, and it does not set out to prove that BEP is effective. Any early signals are treated as preliminary evidence.

The recruitment journey

From first visit to follow-up

Discover BEP
Check eligibility
Expression of interest
Screening
Informed consent
Baseline assessment
12-week BEP
Post-programme assessment
Follow-up

Check your eligibility

Five short questions. About two minutes. Nothing is recorded until you choose to register your interest.

This is an initial eligibility check only. Formal study screening happens later, after you have read the participant information sheet and given consent.

Trust and participant rights

What you can expect from us

Participation is voluntary

You may withdraw at any time, without giving a reason, and without any effect on your care or your standing in your community.

Informed consent comes first

You read the approved participant information sheet and give informed consent before any study assessment takes place.

Your data is held under a code

Research data is stored under a participant code rather than your name, and only the principal investigator can link the two.

Facilitators never see your scores

Facilitators can see attendance and anything you choose to share. They have no access to your questionnaire scores or responses.

BEP is not therapy

The programme is not treatment for a mental health condition and does not replace care from your GP or clinician. If you become distressed, we will signpost appropriate support.

Contact details are kept separately

Your contact details are held apart from research data and destroyed after the study closes.