Power For Positive Living

Each generation receives input from previous generations on the important behaviors, values and beliefs that make our relationships and life journey have meaning. One recommendation from Ann Landers in a previous decade focuses on the important words to be used in relating to others. Wellness psychology also offers relationship guidelines to be considered and evaluated for use in one's life jo...

 Active and passive acts of suicide continue to be a behavioral option for many who struggle with the hurts and pains of their life issues.  Active suicide can offer the appeal of being a quick and spontaneous decision to end the inner pain of life circumstances. For others, reaching this same decision can take more passive and indirect forms evolving over many days, weeks or months. The processes...

Whether we choose an active or passive pattern in spending our time currency, the connection and disconnection choices we make with our human relationships tend to strongly affect our physical and emotional health.   Wellness psychology encourages us to better understand our daily personal time currency expenditures with an active introspective evaluation of our choices to connect and/or disconnec...

Our interactions with others in our society take many forms.   When society embraces polarization of absolutes like "either/or" or "winner/loser" as a valued behavior, we are likely to find ourselves with many invitations to participate in various types of life drama frequently known as culture wars. Since the various culture war dynamics can be important to many family/friends...

Two topics seem to be most difficult for many in our society:  the wealth we have accumulated on our life journey and the various ways of confronting and managing the last days of our life chapter.   Some individuals seem to determine the value of their life journey by the amount of wealth they have accumulated.   Many other factors such as generosity and kindness in sharing may take a secondary r...

Research indicates that most people tend to accept and agree with new people and information when they are similar to what we have recorded as being positive on mental 'tapes' from our previous experiences.    People or information that do not 'fit' into our previous experiences tend to be viewed with some degree of apprehension or suspicion.   This behavior makes it most difficult...

People like to be with people they perceive as being similar to themselves in beliefs, values and behaviors. Are we being dishonest when we choose not to disclose certain information about ourselves to our family and friends so as to maintain personal privacy? Can we understand and accept what others need to know about us within an honest relationship?  Can too much shared information be harmful t...

One of the most significant decisions that each of us makes during our life journey is how and to what degree we want to share our inner self with individuals with whom we have created various types of relationships.   Humans do choose many types of personal secrets which can vary throughout our life journey.  The individual criteria you and I select for being open and/or closed to others with var...

One of the major choices we each make in developing positive mental health for ourselves is discovering various ways to understand and assign responsibility for various mental blame games.   When we decide to assign some degree of blame for our thoughts, feelings and behaviors we can choose to place responsibility for them entirely on ourselves or on some continuum to the other extreme of placing...

Friend Print processes were developed for those persons who seek information to better answer the introspective question of "Who Am I?".  Friend Prints are structured to better understand the value of psychological exercising in developing and maintaining ones personal mental health.   Using an initial list of five persons that a listener calls friend,  one is encouraged to create their...

If we are fortunate with our friendships we encourage ourselves and others to adapt to the life changes that are taking place within ourselves and others.  Much of our emotional life is finding healthy ways to handle the frequent changes that we and others make with our daily choices.  Making healthy changes in self tends to be one of the most difficult challenges we humans have.   Some may choose...

As humans we tend to believe that how we see the choices of living and relating to other people tend to be correct and good.   Persons who have a different viewpoint from ours may be seen as misinformed, untruthful or ignorant.   We may be called to correct the errors of other viewpoints with our family and friends by imposing our specific beliefs and values.  We can easily believe that we are hel...

Wellness Psychology's foundation of personal power is that each of us has many individual life choices.  In so many ways the type of life path we choose for ourselves is a result of the internal and external relationship choices we make.  Structuring the personal 'spices' we bring into our life both internally and externally can allow better understanding of our relations with self and...

Many individuals can verbalize that they do have the personal power to frame and reframe their own attitudes, feelings and behaviors.   The human challenge seems to come in making the decision to IMPLEMENT their personal choices.    Without taking action, words remain words.  Possibilities remain possibilities.  Can we support and encourage ourselves along with family and friends to implement acti...

All Things End: What Have I Learned?  At some point, in some way, all living things eventually meet death and our one chance to live this unique gift of life will come to an end.  We each have many choices as we live and our personal choices have consequences throughout our life path.     One personal guideline that can be helpful in pondering positive and healthy choices for our latter days is: ...

Is This My Last Chance?  One of the major assets of living life is knowing that at some point our individual life will come to an end. Knowing that our life will eventually end can give tremendous value to each of us on making our personal decisions for whatever time remains.     One choice that has positively affected my emotional health has been a choice to frame each interaction with another as...

What Do I Choose to Leave Behind?   Our personal life legacy is in a constant state of being created by our daily choices made one hour, one day or one month at a time.  While our life choices are open to varied perceptions by others, do I accept responsibility for expressing my own values and beliefs in actively living what is important to me?    When death does eventually arrive, shall I be cont...

Learning the skills to appreciate our pets with love and caring is important to many individuals.   For some, the lives of our pets may be as important or more important than the skills and beliefs learned to value the lives of fellow humans.   The presence of life also teaches us that at some point and in some manner there is the arrival of death for humans as well as for pets.   The arrival of d...

Managing Expectations of Self and Others Wellness Psychology recognizes that each of us has the power to 'frame' his/her world into the specific perceptions that we choose. We have the personal responsibility for viewing our world along with the power to accept, reject or modify our choices. We frequently need to ventilate our feelings with others. This process of sharing with another tends to red...

Invisible Pain Finding a healthy balance to the joys and pains of living life is a continual process for most of us.  What is hurtful and painful to one person may or may not be the same for another or it may require a different degree to register.  We can often better understand and choose our responses to physical pain like a broken arm, cancer, strokes, etc.    Depression comes in many forms an...

Who Am I? (Part 3)   Some of the most frequent and powerful questions that an individual can ask him are:  Who Am I?   Who is the current 'me' and how is today different from some earlier age?  What decisions shall I choose for today which may alter my self-image in the future?   The questions for personal introspection tend to be endless.  Introspection is hard work.  We each find what works for...

Who Am I? (Part Two)   Wellness Psychology encourages us to explore the personal question of "Who Am I?".   There are many ways for a person to experience this process of introspection.    Using the multiple-question method that is similar to the personal retreat format, one can seek the answers to questions created to go beyond our surface traits.   Questions can be entered in a personal journal,...

Who Am I?   Wellness Psychology encourages us to explore the personal question of "Who Am I?".   There are many ways for a person to experience this process of introspection.    Using the multiple-question method that is similar to the personal retreat format, one can seek the answers to questions created to go beyond our surface traits.   Questions can be entered in a personal journal, verbally s...

Life Risk Choices   Wellness Psychology encourages us to accept that our choice to live life is accepting that this decision comes with some type and degree of risk.  Living life is risky; each of us retains the option on how we manage these risks.  Most of us conclude that the only completely risk-free path is when we die.  We choose to accept risk when we take ownership of our life and do not gi...

Framing My Gift of Life   The personal power that we each have to frame our gift of life is truly awesome!  While there are some aspects of this gift for which we have no control, there are so many others where we do get to make individual choices to make the most of this gift that we have been given.    A thought that may be of value for each of us to ponder in deciding the daily direction we cho...