Power For Positive Living

Same Messages, Different Words   Most of us wish to communicate effectively with others.  To accomplish this goal, we often use the same core of our beliefs, values, attitudes, and experiences.    Like an artist who can convey artistic viewpoints using different mediums or a pastor who chooses to focus on varied aspects of his/her faith, a psychologist will use his knowledge and experiences within...

Conversational Boundaries While some persons thrive on the conflict of participating in culture wars, we can choose alternate paths for ourselves. Handling the stresses of diversity in our society can be a challenge, but is always a personal choice.

Conversational Ritual and Boundaries   Do we really listen or do we rely on the ritualized behaviors of greetings?   Are we content with "just fine" or are we willing to invest more energy and time to hear more from others?

Do I Want A Real Conversation?   Most of us spend much of our awake-time talking with other people.   If one is ever exploring the questions associated with feelings of loneliness, one helpful way is to consider what makes a  conversation with others 'real' .   We can also explore the degree of 'connection' we wish to have with others and for them to have with us. Do we need to explore how much of...

Do We Understand Each Other?   Effective human communication remains one of the major challenges we each face during our Life Journey.  The assumptions and expectations that each of us personally takes into a dialogue with another have a powerful effect on whether our communication is successful.   Seeking to understand our own ways of "broadcasting" to others is as critical as being able to tune...

Mourning Our Loss of Yesterday Life seems to be a constant parade of gain and loss.  Many cannot fully appreciate their present-day choices since they are still focusing on an inability to let go of their past.  Yesterday is gone as are any changes we wish to make about it.    We hopefully can learn from the assets and liabilities of living our personal history, but any change whether positive or...

Opportunity Learning with Deprivation Much of our daily life is lived by implementing the choices we have made during previous days.  We tend to accept these situations as normal and they become our personal habits in thoughts, feelings and behaviors.    There are times when we are deprived of what we consider normal and have the opportunity to make new choices from our habitual patterns.  What we...

Everyone Has An Opinion! It is clear to most people that each individual tends to have many opinions about various areas of their life.  We choose experiential perspectives that work for us and frequently may label our opinions as facts for everyone.   Challenges for many are not the large number of opinions which may be presented as objective facts, but that so many people have opinions which are...

What Am I Living For? Every minute that you and I are alive we are making and implementing personal choices for answering the question:  What am I living for?   Our answers to this basic life question are constantly evolving as the years pass by adding our own unique experiences and incorporating diverse viewpoints from interacting with other people.   Embracing the processes of emotional introspe...

Physical Versus Mental Health Choices   A foundation belief of Wellness Psychology is that we each have the personal power of the verb "to choose" in laying out our individual life path.  Our life is constantly changing; our choices often determine the consequences that characterize us as humans.    A recent viral pandemic provided new options for many.  There were often stark choices between supp...

Choosing Healthy Words Wellness Psychology believes that our personal power of choice is one of the most significant aspects of us being human individuals.   With each and every hour of life, this power of choice often determines the degree of success for how you and I live with ourselves and with others.    The word choice each person makes tends to determine many of our personal thoughts, feelin...

Self-Learning With Social Media    There are many ways for us to understand our personal beliefs and values systems.  One way for many is evaluating the choices we make with the various participation options available on social media.    With the choice of participation frequency, sharing of chosen content types and our selection of the specific individuals with whom we choose to interact, we tell...

Describing and Interpreting Behavior    Whether we are talking and communicating with ourselves or others, the challenges to be accurate and effective remain for most of us.   Learning how to differentiate between the objective description of behavior, thought, attitude or feeling with the individualized interpretations we add can significantly improve our understandings and effectiveness.   Descr...

Our Fear Triggers  Survival tends to be the most basic of our human instincts.  Our ability to create and manage our personal fear triggers allows us to improve our chances for survival.  Our lives change from childhood to becoming seniors.  We choose whether we retain our individual fear triggers from an earlier age as we grow older.    Fear is the alert mechanism that allows us to become aware o...

Needing Human Touch    We all arrive in this world with a strong need to be touched by other human beings.  The amount and type of human touch we receive as children can have a strong impact on our emotional and physical health as we grow into adulthood.   Also, as we each age and prepare to depart from this world, this strong need and desire to have touch contact with other humans becomes very ev...

Being Alone  Many persons use the terms loneliness and being alone as interchangeable.  The first is missing an emotional connection with the people in one's environment.  The second is not having other humans or living things around self. Being alone is easily changed: add people or pets.  Loneliness is a more complex combination of factors to effectively connect with others such as self-esteem,...

Learning With Solitude and Isolation  As humans, we tend to need the presence and active interaction with other humans to feel complete during our life journey.  There are also times when we can learn much about ourselves as individuals when we structure periods of isolation or solitude.  These experiences allow us to better understand ourselves and strengthen the unique friendship that each of us...

Personal Holiday Celebration    Our birthdays can be a time for reflecting on the choices we have made during the past year as well as choosing the direction we wish to go during the coming year.  The past is gone except for our memories.  We each have the opportunity to take what we have learned in previous years of living life and focus our individual power of choice to produce a positive and he...

Understanding My Personal Counseling Choices   There are many factors to consider when we seek counseling assistance for some of the emotional challenges each of us faces during life.  Whatever choices we make, each will bring its own 'price' to be paid.  The more information we have on ourselves and what we are seeking, the more likely a positive outcome will occur.

I Have the Choice!   One of the cornerstones of wellness psychology is acknowledging the power of choice that each of us implements every day of our lives.  A key to a better understanding of who we are is learning how we choose our attitudes, expectations, and create our personal definitions.    We also make choices on deciding what we do with certain feelings and situations. Your host's experien...

Change and Choice   Each day of our lives brings some type and degree of change in our world.  This is a constant of living with each breath that we take.   The personal challenge each of us faces is how do we decide to manage our reactions to this constant parade of change.  What choices will each of us make to have the most healthy outcomes in our lives?  Will we allow ourselves to believe that...

Making Resolutions Which Are Real Many individuals begin the new year with wishes and hopes that the days ahead will be better and a change from their past.   Year after year, these resolutions become little more than "wish lists" and very little changes as the days pass.   This podcast series believes that "If you do what you have always done, you will get what you have always gotten."  Change is...

Gifting Self  Whatever personal values and beliefs we each have on the process of giving to others or ourselves are conveyed when we create a gift.  Whether our gift is concrete or is a thought, feeling, or behavior, we tell ourselves and others who we are as unique individuals by the gifts we choose to give.  Gifting ourselves can often be the most personal, important, and valuable gift we are ab...

Is Helping Being Helpful?   Most of us encounter times and situations where we do benefit from various types of assistance from others.  We also are presented with many opportunities to assist others in a wide variety of ways with their diverse life difficulties.   There are a number of areas for each individual to consider when they make the choice to offer help to another.  Questions can include...

Give What You Are Able and Willing   Almost all relationships are built on the processes of giving and receiving, making assumptions and having expectations of each other.   Our relationships tend to be more harmonious when these processes are fully understood and acted upon honestly by the individuals involved.    When a person understands what degree they are able to give to another as well as t...