Power For Positive Living

 We begin life as children being dependent on others to survive. With adulthood we achieve and maintain the status of being independent. Our society tends to expect us to continue thinking and behaving as independent and productive adults for as long as possible.  The longer one lives, the more likely we may realize that with aging we may be returning in some ways to the dependency needs of childhood when the presence and assistance of others were essential for our survival. The individual and personal choices each of us makes on this path will do a great deal to determine our physical and emotional health during the changes taking place with aging and our growing return to dependency on others.  

Teachers expect their students to listen. However, how are we as listeners to our students? Listening is an important skill for educators and it's a skill many of us struggle with. Join us as we discuss the impact of teachers who listen.  For Dr. Hughey's “Power For Positive Living” podcast & blog posts  visit PFPL.US

Life for most of us is a series of choices.  How do we choose to view what is happening now and select our attitudes/behaviors in preparing for the unknown future? Being a victim of some situation is probably a part of each life path.  We choose whether our skills of managing victimhood rise to the level of becoming a professional.  A portion of our future is often unknown.  Our personal power lies in the attitudes, values, beliefs and behaviors we choose to prepare ourselves for whatever lies ahead.   --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/power-for-positive/message

The frequent appearance of fatigue can be an alert that some system within us needs attention for some degree of healing.   Many of us recognize the appearance of physical fatigue and know of attitude and behavioral options to make changes.    The appearance of other system symptoms like psychological fatigue frequently leaves many without available pre-planned options.   Learning and preventively implementing information from a number of sources such as wellness psychology can be most helpful for maintaining one's emotional health. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/power-for-positive/message

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 journey.  --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/power-for-positive/message

 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 of considering and eventually reaching an active or passive suicide decision by others can often be invisible even to the most observant and caring family/friends. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/power-for-positive/message

One of the key foundations of healthy relationships is when the participants can really listen, hear and understand what is being said by each whether there is agreement or a degree of difference.   Being quiet while another speaks physically and emotionally can be a start.   Active listening takes effort and offers understanding of self and others with whom we have built relationships. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/power-for-positive/message

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 disconnect with the persons in our various relationships.  --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/power-for-positive/message

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 with whom we relate, it can be significant for our emotional health to actively choose how and to what degree we personally wish to respond when you and I are invited to play in this type of life drama.   --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/power-for-positive/message

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 role.   The arrival of death gives each of us the opportunity to confront our beliefs and values about ending this gift of life we have been given.   Few areas are more personal than the individual choices we make for our last life chapter. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/power-for-positive/message

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 for us to be truly "open-minded" when faced with new/different people or situations.    Wellness psychology encourages us to learn new ways of learning emotional and behavioral views when approaching different people and situations. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/power-for-positive/message

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 to our relationships?  Can we respect the boundaries others choose for themselves?We tend to be emotionally healthy when we accept that our decisions about privacy tend to be honest and respectful of ourselves and others.  --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/power-for-positive/message

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 various aspects of our emotional nudity tends to be a significant factor for our facade that we share with others and for our personal mental health. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/power-for-positive/message

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 blame entirely on other people and situations.   Reality indicates that most of the responsibility for our thoughts, feelings and behaviors are healthyfully located at some point between the two extremes.  Mental health encourages us to seek to understand the specific ways we assign the responsibility for our personal life choices. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/power-for-positive/message

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 own Friend Print beginning with 25+ categories of description. Having this completed Friend Print allows an individual to see visually in a single place some characteristics of their friendship circle. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/power-for-positive/message

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 to change their friends or seek new friends as our life path varies.    We can build historical friends of many years if we accept that "we do not have to change friends when we accept that our current friends are also changing - just like us."  --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/power-for-positive/message

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 helping another person when we impose the opportunity to see 'the truth' as we see it.   --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/power-for-positive/message

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 others. Comparing and contrasting our relationship choices with the daily spices we make for food preferences can provide valuable insight into our personal emotions, values, beliefs and behavior.   --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/power-for-positive/message

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 actions to reframe our/their attitudes, feelings and behaviors that tend to bring us and them more happiness? --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/power-for-positive/message

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:  I cannot go back and change the beginning.  I can start where I am and change the ending.  Except in our memories, yesterday is gone.     Like doing an eulogy, it is difficult for most of us to summarize both positively and negatively what we have and have not learned on our individual life path.  Each of us will basically answer the questions:   Who Am I?  What have I learned to maximize my remaining days of life to be positive and healthy? --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/power-for-positive/message