Power For Positive Living

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. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/power-for-positive/message

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. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/power-for-positive/message

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. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/power-for-positive/message

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.    --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/power-for-positive/message

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.    --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/power-for-positive/message

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.   --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/power-for-positive/message

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. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/power-for-positive/message

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. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/power-for-positive/message

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. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/power-for-positive/message

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 experience with Hurricane Jerry is offered as an example to consider in reminding us that each does have the 'power of choice' in our lives; choices that fit the individual we are. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/power-for-positive/message

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 we truly are in charge of what choices we make?   What degree of responsibility are we willing to accept for our choices?   Can we learn from previous choices so that future ones are healthier and support a positive lifestyle?     --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/power-for-positive/message

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.     --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/power-for-positive/message

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 able to create and give.   --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/power-for-positive/message

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 one's willingness and ability to help another in ways that are beneficial to them.  Or, is one's help being given to only reinforce my own generous perceptions of self?  What are the many expectations we each have in the giver-receiver relationship?       We each also have options to consider when we make the choice to open ourselves up to receiving help from others.  What types of limitations do I place on others and myself when assistance is sought and offered?   Have I communicated clearly what I am seeking?   Are ulterior motives present or is the communication honest and open? --- Send in a voice message: ht

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 --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/power-for-positive/message

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. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/power-for-positive/message

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 beliefs generally work well for us, we can often see differences as the problem of others rather than considering the possibility that the conflict is generated within ourselves. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/power-for-positive/message

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 usually are about as effective as if you and I were to actually teach a pig to sing.     However, as long as there are people interacting with others, we shall probably continue to find individuals who strive to "teach a pig to sing".   --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/power-for-positive/message

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 people would be so much wiser and happier if they were to change to fit another perspective, usually the one we have chosen for ourselves.  --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/power-for-positive/message

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 positive aspects of our emotional and physical health systems.   As we age, we often make new choices on how to manage these life changes with those who leave our friendship circle for a variety of reasons. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/power-for-positive/message