Power For Positive Living

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 choose to point our viewpoints for living:  I cannot change the beginning of my life.  I can begin today to determine how it will be at the end.

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 a certain framework/philosophy to assist others with making healthy life choices.   Wellness Psychology is the framework of choice for this Power for Positive Living and Friendship podcast series.   This psychologist, like the artist and pastor, conveys the same message on the power of personal choice in different podcasts while choosing to focus on Wellness Psychology using a variety of words.   The power of the listener to decide what role these messages/words will play in living his/her gift of life remains an individual choice. 

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 negative for the future will be a result of choices we make today.  Wishing for any change in our past is almost certain to be a stressor in some degree for our current and future mental health.

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 choose to learn and implement with changes from periods of deprivation can be informative and provide opportunities.   We are unique individuals and each will decide what these deprivation experiences teach us. 

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 different from our own views.    Our choices may become whether we choose to learn something new from different viewpoints other than our own or whether we prefer to engage in competitive conflict-focused win-lose contests to prove ourselves correct and others wrong.   Our decisions on managing our place in this opinion-filled world conveys information on how we see ourselves and how we choose to relate to other people. 

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 introspection on a frequent basis allows us the opportunity to inject joy and understanding for our future choices.

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 support for balancing our physical health behaviors within a society versus our individualized needs for supporting our own emotional health with in-person human interaction.  We were often asked to evaluate the prices we were able to pay for certain outcomes versus the prices we were willing to pay for supporting our individual physical and emotional health.

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, feelings, attitudes and behaviors.  Encouraging each individual to actively listen to him/herself with kindness and respect can assist many with evaluating what word choices are working well within a personal life journey and what word choices may be candidates for possible changes with redecision.

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 ourselves and others more about the unique person that we are.   Understanding and evaluating the similarities/differences we have with others using social media behaviors supports our own introspective personality processes.

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 of danger in some form or degree.  Becoming aware of danger with fear triggers allows us to develop personal response strategies that strengthen our drive to survive.     The presence of fear in some type or degree is usually typical for all of us as humans.  Sometimes giving ourselves permission to be human can be the strongest fear of all.   

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, interpersonal skills, emotional life history, etc. Feelings of loneliness are more difficult to change and are less noticeable to people in our world.  

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 has with self.

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 healthy lifestyle going forward.     Making our birthday into a personal holiday for celebration allows us to appreciate our previous life path as well as focus on the choices we make for whatever time lies ahead.

Building My Friendship Family Most of us have two major groups in our lives.  One is our biological family and the other is our friendship family.  While our biological family is given to us at birth, each of us makes our own personalized choices for persons we include in our individual family of friends.   Wellness psychology sees friendship as a contract between individuals that contains our beliefs, values, feelings, thoughts, and behaviors.  Most contracts have varied steps in building and maintenance.   As a living relationship, mutual nurturance is needed for a friendship to stay alive.   Our friendships tend to be healthiest when we understand and openly address the mutual expectations and assumptions that we each have with our friends. 

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.

Making Healthy Life Choices   As a child, our individual choices for living life are often made by others.  Some continue to give that power to others as we become adults.   Each of us eventually develops our personal cost/benefit process of choosing what does/does not work for us as we each choose how to live this gift of life.    We can ask ourselves introspective questions such as: What gives my life meaning and value today?   We may eventually reach a point where the quality of life is more/less important to us than the quantity of life for certain situations.   Hopefully avoiding the burdens of perfectionism, we each can make healthy life choices for today and tomorrow while realizing that we each retain the power of re-decision as our situations evolve.  

What Do You Want From Me? Many people like to see themselves as helpers for others in their world.  For this gift to be maximized, it can be important for the giver and receiver of any assistance to understand the expectations of each so that the gift does not come with 'strings' and can really be a win-win relationship.

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 play psychological mind games like "If only.." in an effort to change our past.  The third stress might be trying to change other people as they make decisions different from the ones we choose for ourselves.    Living is risky.  Each of us tends to develop our personal risk meter to determine the risks we are willing to take during a pandemic to maintain our physical and emotional health.   Our choices allow us to live life while being aware that all of our choices do have consequences.  The introspection of Wellness Psychology increases our chances of choosing healthy options.  

Gifting Self Season 5 of this Power for Positive Living podcast series ends with an exploration of gift-giving.  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 able to create and give.  

Why Lie to Your Counselor? Truth and lies tend to come in various shades and degrees.  Individuals tend to choose to interact with themselves as well as with others by following personal beliefs, values, beliefs, feelings and behaviors on how they see themselves and their world.   Many people choose to assist other people with their life journey.  Regardless of being self-defeating, some will choose to interact with these helpers with a degree of untruthfulness.   Many will go to great lengths to present themselves in a positive way to others to avoid personal responsibility for their life choices.   Working through these distortions of dishonesty can frequently be a major challenge of the counseling process. Join the Power For Positive Living Community  Facebook Page

Choosing a Counselor For Me   There can be times when we need an objective, competent and caring person to listen and offer guidance for the many and varied stresses of living.   Sometimes we need more than we can receive from family and friends.    Choosing a counselor is a very personal decision.  One may be lucky with the first choice they try or they find that finding the right person can be a long and challenging road.  Like many significant life choices, it helps to do extensive research on options that match one's own unique personality. 

Challenging Toxic Thinking   Many of the emotional burdens that individuals carry in their lives revolve around the characteristics of toxic thinking.  We tend to accept certain beliefs, values, attitudes, feelings, and behaviors as being "normal" for all of us.  If we accept this one-size-fits-all view, we often choose toxic outcomes like guilt and shame.   Toxicity is often managed by challenging the thinking which declines to change as the situations in our life change.   We each have the personal power to make new choices to encourage the presence of positive mental health by reducing the influence of mental and emotional toxicity.  

I Would Be Happy If You...   Accepting responsibility for the personal choices that we each make in our lives can be one of the most important aspects of creating positive mental health for ourselves.   When we recognize and accept that each of us has this personal power to select options that either increase or decrease our happiness, we tend to be healthier in relating to ourselves and to other people.  This acceptance of personal choosing increases my ability to appreciate and enjoy the diverse relationships I have with myself and others.

Our Differences Make A Difference   For many individuals, the stresses of our differences make a significant impact on their relationships.  Some choose to use the binary format of embracing only similarities or differences so that their relating to others can be easier.   Choosing to understand and integrate into our relationships the various degrees of our differences and similarities allows us maximum healthy interactions.  Embracing our individual differences with honesty and maturity affects us having a positive lifestyle.

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 others.  We tend to be careful in allowing ourselves to be emotionally vulnerable and to encourage others to be cautious in sharing their psychological nudity with us.    Psychological intimacy asks us to strive for openness, honesty, and trustfulness in some meaningful degree as we connect with the people in our lives. 

Listening: Gift of Love   Do you choose to offer the gift of love and caring to family, friends, and others through the gift of listening hospitality?   Do you seek to fully understand what another is saying or do you choose to be content with hearing only words?   Does your understanding of others allow you to reach beyond distractions like speech irritants, content choices, or the repeating of certain words or stories over and over again?   Do we only listen to others who meet our various expectations?   Your host believes we each personally choose to offer this listening gift of love to another in our own unique manner.  A pastoral letter from Texas is shared illustrating how significantly the gift of listening can affect the life of another.  This same letter also offers us a personal challenge to convey our gift of listening to others as well as learning how to really listen to ourselves. 

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?   Also, your host shares his choice to establish conversational boundaries around certain topics that seem to elicit behavior from people who seek to impose their views on verbal bullying and intimidation.  

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 spending.   Understanding these various currencies we use to implement our values can improve our knowledge of self.  

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 contributes to making us unique and special individuals.    

Complex and Simple Thinking Communicating effectively with others generally remains a challenge for many of us throughout life. We are constantly evaluating what works and does not work for us.    Many individuals choose to view and experience their life through the binary system of thinking and feeling.  While many situations do fit this preference, many do not.  The adult world recognizes that we usually face a choice between using only a binary system or also accept the complexity and increased effort of using the prism of degrees.   We learn that there are often many answers or choices to the questions/situations we each face in life.   Our communication with others who choose only the binary approach can bring us many challenges.  

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 our lives requires us to actually make changes, not just wish and hope for them to take place.    

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 these various expectations on full display.  

Expectations and Stress One life challenge that tends to remain the same over the years is the decisions that one makes in how he/she chooses to manage the many expectations and stresses of various holiday periods.    This brief radio interview has your host offering some factors for choosing options on WGBR, Goldsboro, NC, during the Christmas season of 1992.

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 our talking/conversation is scripted and repeated by rote or do we wish to have deeper 'original' content for our dialogues to be 'real'?

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.

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 individual power to re-decide our foundations if a change is needed to be healthy and happy.   One of the major challenges we each have is to decide the various locations we place ourselves on a continuum of life.   We can value ourselves for just being human at one end through assigning value only for what we do or do not accomplish during our life journey at the other end.   Answering the question of "Who am I?" tells us a great deal about how we personally choose to see this gift of life. 

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 evident.     Our adult years are spent trying to find a positive and healthy way to meet this human need for human touch beyond the behaviors of sexuality.   Few areas in our society seem to produce more complex variations on healthy and appropriate ways to meet this need.    Wellness psychology encourages our individuality in managing these areas through the personal choices we each make.   

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 and how we can learn ways to effectively manage that part of ourselves. None of us is perfect with our thinking or feeling; we generally do the best we can, one day at a time. The opportunity to learn change never seems to end.  

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.   Describing and interpreting go together to make our communications more individual and enjoyable.  Understanding the differences as well as how we combine them can lead us to appreciate a more positive experience when we "talk" with ourselves and/or others.

Saying Goodbye While some of us may have difficulty saying 'hello' to people, it is often the external and internal goodbyes that provide most of us the biggest challenges by invoking anxiety and stress.   Learning to say goodbye in a healthy manner is a significant part of the grieving process when we lose someone or something important to us.  

Loneliness and Discounting   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, interpersonal skills, emotional life history, etc. Feelings of loneliness are more difficult to change and are less noticeable to people in our world.     Discounting behavior is when we view someone (ourselves of another) as being of less value. Full value perceptions are often learned early with our childhood history.   Society encourages us to accept common standards as to what is or is not valuable.   We are encouraged to seek full-valued people in our friends, jobs, social organizations, life goals, etc.    Discounted persons receive fewer gifts like our attention.  These judgments of value seem to be seldom questioned and re-evaluated after they become habitual.   

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.

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 our age and history.   Even when we freely assist others with our various personal gifts, encouraging others to retain ownership of their life choices is usually a healthier way for both of us.     There are many viewpoints within our society on the type and degree of personal information that is best to share with others.   Usually, the type of relationship and individual values determine our choices ranging from telling another "everything" by saying nothing or very little.   As with other areas of personal growth, each person is free to choose, frame and be responsible for what they do. 

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 of small words having a large effect are "if" and "but".   Introspection of our self-talk provides various ways we can understand and frame our choices for living our Life Journey.   Join the Power For Positive Living Community  Facebook Page

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?

Our Passions and Beliefs Maintaining the various passions we often feel during our younger years can be a challenge.  As we live day after day, year after year, we may fall into the patterns of habituation.  Habits may become the motivation for our attitudes, thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.   Examining these emotional and physical habits with passion is usually difficult for us.  This can be especially true if we do our confronting with the idea of making significant changes in these views that we have held for so long.  Unfortunately, many individuals settle into a victim mode and do not see that they are able to choose a different path for themselves.  

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 the degree to which they are willing to give, the relationship is likely to be more positive and without the various mind-games of guilt.   Relationship-building is also strengthened when each person can understand and differentiate between their ability to give and their personal willingness to give.  We tend to be healthier when we create effective ways to give and receive with the various people in our life.   Facebook Page

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.   Many people like to see themselves as helpers for others in their world.  For this gift to be maximized, it can be important for the giver and receiver of any assistance to understand the expectations of each so that the gift does not come with 'strings' and can really be a win-win relationship.

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 receiving between individuals.   Mental health professionals often find that the most difficult experience can be to forgive ourselves for some thought, feeling or behavior. 

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 processes tends to be more helpful for the senior as well as family and friends around him/her.    NEW! Join the Power For Positive Living  Facebook Page

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, people, ages, etc.  If we are successful in letting go of some aspects of our past we can move more healthfully to live fully in the present.   You and I have only had 24 hours each day to manage the diverse aspects of our living; wishing for more or less does not change that we still have only 24 hours each day.   Finding the healthy balance of our past and our present as we prepare for the future increases our chances of enjoyable and positive life.