Power For Positive Living

What Is The Problem?   One of the entertaining and challenging aspects of human behavior can be when we learn how various people can all look at the same object or situation and yet see it completely differently.   Wondering why others cannot see our 'reality' can create so much frustration in our relationships.

Our Assumptions and Expectations   Since we usually like to associate with people who have similar thoughts, feelings, attitudes, and behaviors, it can be very easy to make inaccurate assumptions and place difficult expectations for these individuals.   Our challenge can be to avoid viewpoints such as these people should be more like me in almost everything of importance.   Since our values and be...

Teaching Pigs to Sing   One of the valuable guidelines that we can find in our relationships with other people is recognizing that people tend to think, feel and behave in ways that work best for them (not us) or at least are the most familiar.   While the idea of teaching a pig to sing may bring a smile to our face, the frustrations we encounter in trying to change others to be more like us usual...

Culture War Stresses   Everyone has an opinion!  With wide diversity in our society, we often face the many stresses that occur when individuals choose to strongly impose their viewpoints on others.   While no topic is "safe" from the different perspectives of those around us, some areas of our life seem to attract conflict more easily than others.  Some views tend to attract the belief that other...

Healthy Aging With Friends   This episode continues the self-study of one's friendship circle    Many of the characteristics of the building and maintaining our friendship family continues to change as we age.   We may be fortunate to have "historical friends" who have been friends for decades.    Like any critical part of our lives, friendships need our attention and support to remain living and...

Can I Choose Happiness While Aging? Believing strongly in the power of choice, Dr. Hughey comments on his current views of the numerous options we each have as the decades pass.   Yes, we do change as we age with each birthday.   However, regardless of our age, we continue with opportunities to choose our own personal attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors toward others and ourselves.

Aging Psychologically   We often tend to place most of our attention on the physical aspects of aging which are usually visual.  Often overlooked are the less visual aspects of emotional, social, financial, spiritual, etc.  Usually, the aging process is more positive for all concerned when active planning takes place for both physical and psychological aspects.   Personalizing the various processe...

Celebrating My Personal Holiday Month   Each year we have the opportunity to make personal choices on how we wish to mark the arrival of our birthday.   Many choose the path of celebration and joy.  Others choose to add various burdens to this aspect of their Life Journey.  Others make the choice of ignoring the entire event.      Since your host believes in the power of personal choice, a celebra...

My Pandemic Birthday Letter   2020 has introduced many life changes for most people.  Taking time to ponder and reflect on the many stresses and challenges we each face during this period allows us to make healthy physical and mental choices for ourselves.     One stress can be "Plexiglas Loneliness" where we are touch deprived of active intervention with other humans.  Another can be trying to pl...

The Power of Prayer   How one chooses to create and implement their personal prayer life often results in powerful effects on our emotional mental health as well as our spiritual lives.   Prayer can be the ultimate gift of listening hospitality that you and I receive as we manage various personal issues and choices.       

Am I Rich? One of the most valuable insights for an individual to discover is to become aware of how they see the various roles of wealth and money in their perceptions of self-worth. Additional knowledge is gained when one learns how perceptions of wealth affect their views on the worth of others in their world. Another valuable insight for self-growth is to learn the unique 'pricing system' he/s...

Personal Currencies for Living   While financial currency is structured by the political/governmental unit in which we live, each of us has the option to earn and spend currencies that are individualized to us.  We choose how we earn and spend such currencies as time, socialization, emotional, etc.  Unlike financial currency, these tend to be personalized by our individual choices of earning and s...

My 24 Hours of Time Currency   One major way that we humans are equal is the gift of receiving 24 hours each and every day as our individual quota of time currency.  We have the personal power to choose how we will use and manage this time of life.   The personal choices we make to assume responsibility for how we each spend this time currency tends to reflect our values, beliefs, attitudes and co...

Expectations Beyond the Holidays    Each day of our life allows us many choices on how we manage the numerous expectations we have placed on ourselves and the expectations we have accepted from others. While a  daily  occurrence for us, it seems that the holiday periods of the year allow these expectations to multiply and intensify.  Christmas may be the holiday season where we can most easily see...

Psychological Intimacy   One of life's major challenges can be developing a true state of psychological intimacy with ourselves and others.  Much of our time is usually framed so that we are emotionally safe and comfortable with any psychological self-disclosure or connection.     Our interactions are usually scripted over the years and we practice them with little or no surprise from ourselves or...

Giving My Life A Good Name   Life is a gift that each of us is free to accept with healthy personal decisions or reject the burdens of "the shoulds", imposing "labels" on self and others or seeking to blame our circumstances on other people for the paths we choose.     We are also free to build the personal guidelines or foundations on which we wish to live this gift of life.   We have the individ...

Old and Still Helpful There are many ways for us to learn. One of the early ways that most of us discover is through the varied information that books can provide. Even though we now frequently tend to use electronic methods to read, the knowledge presented in a book format can still be most helpful with the many opportunities to acquire information. In our culture, we may be tempted to discount k...

Forgiving Self and Others The interpersonal difficulties in giving and receiving forgiveness can lead to challenges with our own self-esteem as well as offer win-win/lose-lose interactions with others.   In addition to being heard and understood by another human being, it seems many people are also seeking the behavior of forgiveness.   This forgiving behavior frequently focuses on giving and rece...

Distortions to Clear Thinking It appears that almost everyone has some type and degree of distortion when it comes to thinking clearly about a life situation. This podcast has various possibilities to be evaluated. While the temptation may be to eliminate these handicaps, experience teaches us that we are usually more successful when we understand the distortions used in our own personal thinking...

Self Talk The methods that we each choose to dialogue with ourselves can have a powerful effect on how we feel, think, and behave each day in our world.   The words that are chosen in our talks with self often frame our attitudes and abilities to view ourselves and others in a positive and healthy manner.    So many words can affect us on our self-image and the way we relate to others.  Examples o...

Framing and Personal Secrets   One of the most powerful traits for humans is being able to frame and reframe our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors on a continual basis.   Using the power of choice we are able to determine how we wish to perceive our lives and make changes when circumstances change.   Accepting personal responsibility for our choices can be a continuing life challenge regardless of...

Call Me If You Need Anything   There are times when the speaker and listener hear different things even when the same words are used in similar or different situations.    "Call me if you need anything" is an example of where individuals may understand the words and their context in completely different ways.   As is usual in life, each person tends to hear what fits their personal understanding. ...

Letting Go   Season 4 of this podcast series begins by exploring an aspect of the life process we all experience during our life journey.   Each of us is confronted with life changes that require us to find healthy ways to let go of some aspects of our past and prepare to embrace the changes in our future.     We each find an individual path of letting go of memories, physical 'stuff', places, peo...

Hugheyisms   Developing personal guidelines was the focus of this live presentation in Atlanta, Georgia. Many people have found these guidelines to be very useful as they developed better relationships with themselves and with others.   The decision to call them "Hugheyisms" referred to his early teaching days when many of his students believed that his wellness psychology lessons frequently seeme...

To Thine Own Self Be True   By the time we have become adults, our society has put forth great effort to teach us how to live as human beings.   We have been taught to be likable/lovable, responsible, communicative, mature, honest, develop expectations, how to learn, etc.   What "price" do we pay to meet the expectations that others strive to impose on us?   How much of our true thoughts, feelings...