Category Archives: Positive Psychology

The four coordinates of self-discovery

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Self

Self-Discovery
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

The four coordinates of self-discovery.

By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Counselor.

Your journey of self-discovery requires a map.

You will spend more time during your life with yourself than with any other person. So it makes sense to spend some of that time exploring yourself, who you are, and what life experiences made you think, feel, and behave the way you do.

One aspect of the self is your personality. It’s important to explore your personality and the life events that may have influenced your development of a sense of self. But the self is not an island. It’s more like a river that is constantly flowing downstream until it finally reaches the sea of destiny.

As you take the journey of self-exploration, there are four cardinal influences, like the four directions found on a map. These four factors influence how your personality develops from early childhood until late adulthood. Examining these factors can help show you where you are and what direction you should go in your effort at self-exploration.

Your relationships shape you.

Relationships are systemic influences. They will affect every other part of your life. The process of getting into and of leaving relationships changes you. By relationships here, I’m not restricting myself to your primary sexual relationship.

For good or bad, we have relationships with everyone we interact with. One of the most challenging relationships you’ll ever have to navigate will be your relationship with your exes. Romantic partners may come and go, but baby’s Mamas and daddies are forever. Even after you end a relationship, that time you spent with that other person leaves its mark on you.

One part of self-examination is to look at the relationships you’ve had, the friendships, the romantic relationships, and the people you met you decided you were better off without. Examine those relationships. Why were you attracted to this person? Was there a reason why you selected them for a friend? Or for a lover? Who you spend your time with and why tells you a lot about yourself.

Those bright shiny objects, meaning, purpose, and mastery.

Just like our attraction to people, we all have objects and activities that grab our attention. One of the most important things to discover about yourself is what gives your life meaning and purpose. Those important characteristics may be grand items like saving the planet are there might be many more personal ones like a collection of photographs of all the places on the planet you have visited.

One crucial human need that is often overlooked is the quest for mastery. Mastering something, no matter what it is, adds to your self-worth. When was the last time you took up a new hobby or practiced a new skill? Think about taking a class just for fun or picking up a new hobby.

Consider also what motivates you.

To understand what drives you get clear on your values. Be very careful about the mountains you choose to climb. A common calamity in life is getting to the top of whatever mountain you decided to climb and realizing you have been climbing the wrong peak.

More time and effort may result in more money in the bank, but it won’t be very satisfying if what you valued the most was the relationships with your partner and your children.

Significant life events can reshape your personality.

Who we are is massively impacted by the times we live in. Growing up during the Great Depression produced a very different group of people than those who grew up during World War Two. Even two people who lived through the same period in history may have experienced it in very different ways.

Consider whether you were in college during the Vietnam War or whether you joined the army and experienced that conflict firsthand. How is your life been altered because your parent or grandparent lived through one of these significant events?

The many aspects of the self.

One exercise I suggest to clients in my therapy practice is to write their autobiography. Start with the very first memory you have in life. Often this will be a picture from the time before you had the words to remember a story. Next, you should think about various events in your life you can reexamine them. Did something someone said to you in elementary school change your opinion of yourself?

As your work on your life review, examine the many roles you’ve played and how they have shaped who you are today. Many of the things that you do today automatically are the result of habits you developed early in life. Do you want to keep those habits? Would your life be better if you created a new habit to replace one of the old habits that are no longer working for you?

Look for one of those lists of 50 questions to ask someone on a first date. Go through the list and see how you would answer each of those questions. Charting where you are now and how you’ve gotten here can help you set a new direction for whichever way you want your life to go in the future.

Does David Joel Miller see clients for counseling and coaching?

Yes, I do. I can see private pay clients if they live in California, where I am licensed. If you’re interested in information about that, please email me or use the contact me form.

Staying in touch with David Joel Miller.

Want the latest blog posts as they publish? Subscribe to this blog.

For more information about my writing journey, my books, and other creative activities, please subscribe to my blog at davidjoelmillerwriter.com

Seven David Joel Miller Books are available on Amazon now! And more are on the way.

For more about my books, please visit my Amazon Author Page – David Joel Miller

For information about my work in mental health, substance abuse, and having a happy life, please check out counselorssoapbox.com

For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel

To-do lists cause anxiety and depression

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Picture of a to-do list on a smartphone

Has your to-do list become your enemy.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.

To-do lists cause anxiety and depression

By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Counselor.

Is your to-do list getting you down?

I’ve been struggling with my to-do list for a long time. I probably should say to-do lists, plural. I do a lot of different things in a day. I spend my day teaching classes, doing supervision, and of course, as a licensed mental health professional, I see a lot of clients. To-do lists have become a big problem for me and almost everyone I know. I think I may have found a solution for this problem.

Rattling around in my brain all day are those ideas for creative things I would like to do. There’s a blog post, a YouTube video, and that novel I’m working on. There are also all those topics that pop into my head that I need to research because no matter how long you have been working with clients, someone will present with a new problem that you wish you knew more about.

Trying to remember six things I want to do when I’m done with this session fills my head up so much I can’t concentrate. As a result, I have learned to use a little pad that sits next to me on my desk as a sort of external hard drive.

Every time an idea pops into my head, I quickly write it on the pad, which means I don’t have to remember it. Then, when the list gets full, I tear off the sheet and toss it onto a pile on my desk. That pile has become the home of my to-do lists. Periodically I go through those notes and try to create one or two consolidated to-do lists. The sheer number of things waiting on those pages to be done used to be overwhelming.

The to-do list phobia syndrome.

My pile of to-do lists became so large that I started placing a book on top of them just so I didn’t have to look at them. I’ve learned from the work I’m doing with both counseling and coaching clients that I’m not the only one who struggles with massive to-do lists. Many of my clients tell me that the length of their to-do list is making them anxious, and at the end of the day, when they look at the items they have been able to complete and see how many remain, they become overwhelmed and depressed.

Does the sheer length of your to-do list make you feel like a failure? I do know, of course, that the reality is that many of those things on my to-do list don’t absolutely have to be done. I need to show up for my counseling appointments and my classes. I need to turn in my timesheets and do my billing if I want to get paid. But all those other things that I feel like I “must” or “should” be doing were making me anxious.

Before long, I think we will have to add a diagnosis for a new phenomenon I’m calling “to-do list phobia.”

Do you delete emails with the word “do” in the subject line?

Have you reached the point where as soon as you see the phrase in the subject line containing the word “do,” that email goes straight to the deleted email file? I had begun ignoring any communication which began with “I need you to do something for me” or “please do this as soon as possible.”

In fact, I was beginning to toss to-do lists of my own making directly into the recycle bin in the hopes that having written down the desire to do this at some point in the future would be enough to keep that thought from returning to my brain.

If you’ve reached the point where just looking at your to-do list, knowing that you have one, and seeing how little you have gotten done on it in the course of the day is leading to anxiety or depression, you have probably contracted a case of “to-do phobia syndrome.” By the way, that’s not an official diagnosis. Still, I see enough people obsessed with productivity and terrified by the undone things on their to-do lists that I think it’s helpful to look at the results of too many things on a to-do list as a productivity impairing syndrome.

How to make your to-do list your friend.

I have found one thing that seems to change my to-do lists from adversaries punishing me for my shortcomings into welcoming friends who encourage me to enjoy the things I do.

One reason I think to-do lists become the enemy for many people rather than helpful friends is that they view those lists as things they HAVE to do. That’s the way I had been looking at it. I get to my desk each morning and would find the list with ten or more things I HAD to do today. At the end of the day, looking back at the things I scratched off, I had finished maybe three out of the ten items. Thirty percent of the items completed feel more like a failure than a success.

Start making lists of things you WANT to do.

I stopped thinking about my to-do list as things I should do or must do and started looking at them as things I WANTED to do. Accomplishing three things that I wanted to do today feels pretty good. I know I won’t live forever. However, part of my life philosophy is that I try to keep moving forward rapidly enough to stay ahead of the Grim Reaper. It will never be possible for me to do all the things I want to do in this lifetime, but I’ve sure been able to do a lot of them.

What would it look like for you if you stopped beating yourself up with things you had to do and started looking forward to things that you wanted to do? If the things on your to-do list aren’t things you really want to do, maybe it’s time to re-examine the direction your life is going.

Does David Joel Miller see clients for counseling and coaching?

Yes, I do. I can see private pay clients if they live in California, where I am licensed. If you’re interested in information about that, please email me or use the contact me form.

Staying in touch with David Joel Miller.

Want the latest blog posts as they publish? Subscribe to this blog.

For more information about my writing journey, my books, and other creative activities, please subscribe to my blog at davidjoelmillerwriter.com

Seven David Joel Miller Books are available on Amazon now! And more are on the way.

For these and my upcoming books, please visit my Amazon Author Page – David Joel Miller

For information about my work in mental health, substance abuse, and having a happy life, please check out counselorssoapbox.com

For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel

Happiness.

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Happy faces
Happiness. Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Happiness.

Sunday Inspiration.     Post by David Joel Miller.

“Hope

Smiles from the threshold of the year to come,

Whispering ‘it will be happier’…”

― Alfred Lord Tennyson

“Take responsibility of your own happiness, never put it in other people’s hands.”

― Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart

“Many people lose the small joys in the hope for the big happiness.”

― Pearl S. Buck

Wanted to share some inspirational quotes with you.  Today seemed like a good time to do this. There are an estimated 100,000 words in the English language that are feelings related. Some emotions are pleasant, and some are unpleasant, but all feelings can provide useful information. If any of these quotes strike a chord with you, please share them.

Look at these related posts for more on this topic and other feelings.

Emotions and Feelings.

Inspiration

Happiness

Positive Psychology

Happiness.

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Happy faces
Happiness. Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Happiness.

Sunday Inspiration.     Post by David Joel Miller.

“Happiness is a warm puppy.”

― Charles M. Schulz

“Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.”

― Marcel Proust

“Take responsibility of your own happiness, never put it in other people’s hands.”

― Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart

Wanted to share some inspirational quotes with you.  Today seemed like a good time to do this. There are an estimated 100,000 words in the English language that are feelings related. Some emotions are pleasant, and some are unpleasant, but all feelings can provide useful information. If any of these quotes strike a chord with you, please share them.

Look at these related posts for more on this topic and other feelings.

Emotions and Feelings.

Inspiration

Happiness

Positive Psychology

Happiness.

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Happy faces
Happiness. Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Happiness,

Sunday Inspiration.     Post by David Joel Miller.

“Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.”

― Dalai Lama XIV

“The most important thing is to enjoy your life—to be happy—it’s all that matters.”

― Audrey Hepburn

“When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.”

― Helen Keller

Wanted to share some inspirational quotes with you.  Today seemed like a good time to do this. There are an estimated 100,000 words in the English language that are feelings related. Some emotions are pleasant, and some are unpleasant, but all feelings can provide useful information. If any of these quotes strike a chord with you, please share them.

Look at these related posts for more on this topic and other feelings.

Emotions and Feelings.

Inspiration

Happiness

Positive Psychology

How do you create the best life possible?

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Contentment
Contentment Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Licensed Counselor.

Three steps to a flourishing life.

Mental health programs frequently stop at just treating mental illness. We’ve learned that merely treating your depression or anxiety or other mental illness does not create a happy, flourishing life. When I ask people what makes them happy, many people struggle for an answer.

It’s easy to confuse happiness with temporary bursts of pleasure. The only way that many adults know how to have fun is to use drugs, alcohol, or engage in sex or other risky behaviors. It turns out there’s a lot of ways to have a pleasant, contented life that don’t involve the so-called adult pleasures.

Over the last couple of decades, a new movement has emerged in the mental health and wellness field called positive psychology. Positive psychology tries to look beyond reducing pain and temporary bursts of pleasure to the creation of those peak experiences that are sometimes described as the good life, flourishing, or experiencing episodes of flow. Here are some steps to take you to whenever you would subjectively describe as your good, ideal life.

Decrease your negative emotions.

Some negative emotions are an essential part of living life. Anxiety can be a productive emotion when it warns you of danger. If something awful happens in your life, when someone you love dies, when you lose a job, or a relationship ends, it’s reasonable and even normal to be sad for a while. But suppose your life is overwhelmed by anxiety and depression. In that case, we diagnose those as mental illnesses, and the first part of the journey to a good life is overcoming those excesses of negative emotions. Unfortunately, treating mental illness is where most mental health treatment programs end.

Increase your positive emotions.

The more you can experience positive emotions, as the quality of your life improves. The human brain is biased. It places a premium on recognizing danger and unhappiness. It’s easy to walk right past beauty and positive experiences without ever noticing them. Learn to become a happiness expert. Stop and smell the roses. Along the way don’t forget to smell all the other flowers and enjoy the beautiful scenery.

Many people can readily recall all the problems they’ve had in relationships. It’s common for couples who come to marriage counseling to have a list of their complaints about their partner. What is usually missing are any memories of the happy occasions. If you want a flourishing life, make sure you collect as many positive feelings and memories as possible.

Create a flourishing life full of zest and vitality.

The people who say that they have a good quality of life are almost uniformly full of zest and vitality. Sometimes these two terms are used interchangeably. Vitality generally refers to physical health. The term zest, more commonly, is applied to emotional enthusiasm. If you enjoy what you do every day, you will have a subjectively more joyous life.

People who lack zest for life drift into inactivity and can become couch potatoes. They may burn out on their work and relationships. The best way to create a life worth living is to engage in the activities that energize you rather than wear you out. When you enjoyed the work you do for a living, it won’t wear you out or pull you down. If you want an exceptionally good life, emphasize the things that energize you.

Increase your life satisfaction.

In all these ways, seek to increase your life satisfaction. You only get one life. You can live each day burdened by your cares, or life can be a grand adventure in which every day adds to your quality of life.

I’ve listed some simple takeaways from the articles I’ve read on positive psychology and having a better life. Does the life you’re living bring you joy? What activities do you engage in which give your life meaning and purpose? Feel free to leave a comment in the box below.

Staying connected with David Joel Miller

Seven David Joel Miller Books are available now!

My newest book is now available. It was my opportunity to try on a new genre. I’ve been working on this book for several years, but now seems like the right time to publish it.

Story Bureau.

Story Bureau is a thrilling Dystopian Post-Apocalyptic adventure in the Surviving the Apocalypse series.

Baldwin struggles to survive life in a post-apocalyptic world where the government controls everything.

As society collapses and his family gets plunged into poverty, Baldwin takes a job in the capital city, working for a government agency called the Story Bureau. He discovers the Story Bureau is not a benign news outlet but a sinister government plot to manipulate society.

Bumps on the Road of Life. Whether you struggle with anxiety, depression, low motivation, or addiction, you can recover. Bumps on the Road of Life is the story of how people get off track and how to get your life out of the ditch.

Dark Family Secrets: Doris wants to get her life back, but small-town prejudice could shatter her dreams.

Casino Robbery Arthur Mitchell escapes the trauma of watching his girlfriend die. But the killers know he’s a witness and want him dead.

Planned Accidents  The second Arthur Mitchell and Plutus mystery.

Letters from the Dead: The third in the Arthur Mitchell mystery series.

What would you do if you found a letter to a detective describing a crime and you knew the writer and detective were dead, and you could be next?

Sasquatch. Three things about us, you should know. One, we have seen the past. Two, we’re trapped there. Three, I don’t know if we’ll ever get back to our own time.

For these and my upcoming books; please visit my Author Page – David Joel Miller

Want the latest blog posts as they publish? Subscribe to this blog.

For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel

The Paradox of Pleasure.

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Pleasure. Photo courtesy of Pixabay.

By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Licensed Counselor.

What’s the connection between pleasure and happiness?

Wikipedia defines pleasure as “a mental experience that humans and other conscious animals find enjoyable, positive, or worthy of seeking. It can be a part of other mental states such as happiness, entertainment, enjoyment, ecstasy, and euphoria.” While pleasure is undoubtedly a part of happiness, it’s not the whole thing.

Positive psychology, a relatively new branch of mental health, tells us that being mentally healthy, having a good life is more than merely a lack of mental illness. If you have a mental illness such as depression or anxiety, it needs to be treated. But the elimination of a mental illness doesn’t equate with a life of fulfillment. How do you move from not being depressed to a life full of joy, happiness, contentment, meaning, and purpose? How far along that path will pleasure take you?

When most people think of happiness, they think of pleasure.

Pleasure is unquestionably a part of having a happy life, but it’s not the only part. A genuinely happy life, a life in which people are flourishing and finding meaning and purpose, needs a lot more than just pleasure. While pleasure may take you part of the way to the good life, it doesn’t take you all the way. Let’s look at how pleasure starts you out in the right direction but can get you stuck on the thing we call the hedonic treadmill.

Sometimes pleasure leads to happiness but not always.

The brain craves pleasure. Pleasure is our nervous system’s way of rewarding us for doing things that might benefit us. In small quantities, pleasure can increase your happiness. Pleasures produce the most happiness when they are unexpected. But too much of a good thing, especially on a regular basis, can be bad for you. The human brain is biased towards novel pleasures. So, each successive dose of a particular pleasure adds smaller and smaller amounts to happiness. The first slice of chocolate cake tastes good. Eating the second chocolate cake can impair your health. Eventually, most pleasures turn on you.

Pleasure wears off quickly, and this can lead to an addiction.

In psychology, this phenomenon is called habituation. The first drink can be enjoyable, but subsequent drinks each produce less pleasure. Each subsequent drink creates less subjective pleasure. When the pleasure fades, this can lead to cravings for more. Farther down the road, people find themselves drinking, using drugs, or engaging in behavioral addictions, not for the pleasure it brings them, but to prevent the cravings that come with withdrawal.

Pleasure must be taken in slowly.

Trying to maximize your happiness by consuming pleasure too quickly doesn’t work. You can’t see much of the scenery when you’re driving 100 miles an hour. Taking in pleasure slowly is a technique sometimes called savoring. In our fast-paced society, people are prone to suck in the pleasure as rapidly as possible and then move on to the next pleasurable event. This frantic search for pleasure results in absorbing very little of the pleasure from the things you do.

You can’t enjoy the taste of food when you swallow it whole.

The human brain seems to be biased to remember negative things. The threat circuits in our brain stem warn us of danger. Positive experiences, on the other hand, require effort to recognize. Modern life is moving at a pace that can be overwhelming. If you want more happiness in your life, you need to become a happiness expert. When positive events happen, we need to slow down and savor them. In this era of fast food and instant gratification savoring life’s positive experiences is becoming a lost art.

Throughout this year want to bring you some additional information about the elements of a good life and how to create a life full of joy, meaning, and purpose. If you have found ways to create a life that is flourishing, please share them by leaving a comment in the box below.

Staying connected with David Joel Miller

Seven David Joel Miller Books are available now!

My newest book is now available. It was my opportunity to try on a new genre. I’ve been working on this book for several years, but now seems like the right time to publish it.

Story Bureau.

Story Bureau is a thrilling Dystopian Post-Apocalyptic adventure in the Surviving the Apocalypse series.

Baldwin struggles to survive life in a post-apocalyptic world where the government controls everything.

As society collapses and his family gets plunged into poverty, Baldwin takes a job in the capital city, working for a government agency called the Story Bureau. He discovers the Story Bureau is not a benign news outlet but a sinister government plot to manipulate society.

Bumps on the Road of Life. Whether you struggle with anxiety, depression, low motivation, or addiction, you can recover. Bumps on the Road of Life is the story of how people get off track and how to get your life out of the ditch.

Dark Family Secrets: Doris wants to get her life back, but small-town prejudice could shatter her dreams.

Casino Robbery Arthur Mitchell escapes the trauma of watching his girlfriend die. But the killers know he’s a witness and want him dead.

Planned Accidents  The second Arthur Mitchell and Plutus mystery.

Letters from the Dead: The third in the Arthur Mitchell mystery series.

What would you do if you found a letter to a detective describing a crime and you knew the writer and detective were dead, and you could be next?

Sasquatch. Three things about us, you should know. One, we have seen the past. Two, we’re trapped there. Three, I don’t know if we’ll ever get back to our own time.

For these and my upcoming books; please visit my Author Page – David Joel Miller

Want the latest blog posts as they publish? Subscribe to this blog.

For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel

What does your happy place look like?

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By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Licensed Counselor.

Can you picture the time you were happy?

Early in life, even before we have the vocabulary to store memories in our brain as stories, those memories are stored as pictures. When you think back over your life, the most positive memories often evoke images.

The exercise of imagining your happy place can be extremely helpful in managing overwhelming emotions. Once you learn to mentally go to your happy place, you can go there whenever you choose. When I think of my happy place, a picture of a particular place and time readily forms in my mind and has a calming effect.

When I try to do this “happy place” exercise with some of my clients, they seem to have difficulty imagining I happy place. If you are high in anxiety or depression, memories of happy times and places may be hard to picture. I thought I’d offer you a few images that might help take you to your happy place.

Which of these pictures most says this is my happy place to you?

The Beach
The Mountains.
Puppies.

A Theme Park
Children Playing
Flowers.

The next time you feel stressed, take a deep breath and remember your happy place. Is there another place that increases your happiness when you think about it? Please share your happy place with others by leaving a comment in the box below.

Staying connected with David Joel Miller

Seven David Joel Miller Books are available now!

My newest book is now available. It was my opportunity to try on a new genre. I’ve been working on this book for several years, but now seems like the right time to publish it.

Story Bureau.

Story Bureau is a thrilling Dystopian Post-Apocalyptic adventure in the Surviving the Apocalypse series.

Baldwin struggles to survive life in a post-apocalyptic world where the government controls everything.

As society collapses and his family gets plunged into poverty, Baldwin takes a job in the capital city, working for a government agency called the Story Bureau. He discovers the Story Bureau is not a benign news outlet but a sinister government plot to manipulate society.

Bumps on the Road of Life. Whether you struggle with anxiety, depression, low motivation, or addiction, you can recover. Bumps on the Road of Life is the story of how people get off track and how to get your life out of the ditch.

Dark Family Secrets: Doris wants to get her life back, but small-town prejudice could shatter her dreams.

Casino Robbery Arthur Mitchell escapes the trauma of watching his girlfriend die. But the killers know he’s a witness and want him dead.

Planned Accidents  The second Arthur Mitchell and Plutus mystery.

Letters from the Dead: The third in the Arthur Mitchell mystery series.

What would you do if you found a letter to a detective describing a crime and you knew the writer and detective were dead, and you could be next?

Sasquatch. Three things about us, you should know. One, we have seen the past. Two, we’re trapped there. Three, I don’t know if we’ll ever get back to our own time.

For these and my upcoming books; please visit my Author Page – David Joel Miller

Want the latest blog posts as they publish? Subscribe to this blog.

For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel

Exploring Positive Psychology.

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Positive Psychology. Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com.

By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Licensed Counselor.

Taking a deeper look into positive psychology.

In last week’s post, I introduce the topic of Positive Psychology. In today’s post, let’s take a deeper look into the subject of Positive Psychology.

Wikipedia defines Positive Psychology as:

Positive psychology is the study of “positive subjective experience, positive individual traits, and positive institutions and promises to improve quality of life.” Positive psychology focuses on both individual and societal well-being.[1] It is a field of study that has been growing steadily throughout the years as individuals and researchers look for common ground on better well-being.[2]

Positive psychology emphasizes subjective well-being.

Many of the models of happiness emphasize pleasure or acquiring tangible goods. The happiness provided by pleasurable events fades quickly and requires a constant stream of pleasurable activities. The pleasure derived from buying things disappears almost instantly and can lead to overspending. Subjective well-being or having a satisfying life requires more than just temporary pleasures.

Positive psychology emphasizes contentment, life satisfaction, feelings of subjective well-being in addition to the ability to experience pleasure. Counselors who work from this perspective frequently believe that finding your meaning and purpose for life leads to an increase in subjective well-being. Having a good life can be described as “flourishing.”

Positive psychology emphasizes your strengths rather than your weaknesses.

Traditionally mental-health treats defects. For your treatment to be covered by your mental health insurance, your provider needs to assign you a diagnosis of what is wrong with you. While medication may help manage the symptoms of mental illness, no medication is known, which cures a mental illness.

The primary route of change for people with a mental health challenge is talk therapy, and several mental illnesses can be cured using talk therapy. There are many theories of what causes specific mental illnesses and how they are to be treated. One highly successful approach has been the positive psychology theory. Positive psychology looks to find your strengths and build on them. You don’t need to have a mental illness to benefit from the positive psychology approach.

Peterson and Seligman developed this classification system for identifying strengths and described it in their book Character Strengths and Virtues. The book describes twenty-four basic character strengths, which seem to be found and valued in varying degrees in all cultures. People may be high or low in any of these strengths. Positive psychology encourages people to make the most of their strengths while also improving those character strengths that may be underdeveloped. The twenty-four primary character strengths are clustered into six categories, which are described as “virtues.”

Character strengths and virtues are personality characteristics.

Many people think of character as a very limited set of values. People described as having “good character” may be described as honest, loyal, thrifty, and obedient. Characteristics such as creativity and curiosity are not usually cited as factors. In positive psychology, character strengths are personality characteristics that may prove beneficial to both the individual and society.

Six primary virtues are described by positive psychology.

The six primary virtues are wisdom, courage, humanity, justice, temperance, and transcendence. These are further subdivided into 24 character strengths.

Components of the virtue of wisdom.

Wisdom is subdivided into five strengths, creativity, curiosity, judgment, love of learning, and perspective.

The components of the virtue of courage.

Courage is subdivided into four components, bravery, perseverance, honesty, and zest.

The parts of the virtue of humanity.

Humanity is further subdivided into three character strengths, love, kindness, and social intelligence.

The virtue of justice.

The components of the virtue of justice are teamwork, fairness, and leadership.

The virtue of temperance.

Four character strengths make up the virtue of temperance. These are forgiveness, humility, prudence, and self-regulation.

The virtue of transcendence is related to religion and spirituality.

This virtue is subdivided into five character strengths, appreciation of beauty and excellence, gratitude, hope, humor, and spirituality.

Researchers have developed specific instruments to assess each of these character strengths and virtues. Because these strengths are described using words, there’s been some variation in the definitions individual researchers used for each character strength. In future blog posts, I want to talk to you about some of these character strengths, what I’ve learned from reading recent research on that strength, and how you might learn to make better use of your strengths to create a flourishing life full of well-being and happiness.

Staying connected with David Joel Miller

Seven David Joel Miller Books are available now!

My newest book is now available. It was my opportunity to try on a new genre. I’ve been working on this book for several years, but now seems like the right time to publish it.

Story Bureau.

Story Bureau is a thrilling Dystopian Post-Apocalyptic adventure in the Surviving the Apocalypse series.

Baldwin struggles to survive life in a post-apocalyptic world where the government controls everything.

As society collapses and his family gets plunged into poverty, Baldwin takes a job in the capital city, working for a government agency called the Story Bureau. He discovers the Story Bureau is not a benign news outlet but a sinister government plot to manipulate society.

Bumps on the Road of Life. Whether you struggle with anxiety, depression, low motivation, or addiction, you can recover. Bumps on the Road of Life is the story of how people get off track and how to get your life out of the ditch.

Dark Family Secrets: Doris wants to get her life back, but small-town prejudice could shatter her dreams.

Casino Robbery Arthur Mitchell escapes the trauma of watching his girlfriend die. But the killers know he’s a witness and want him dead.

Planned Accidents  The second Arthur Mitchell and Plutus mystery.

Letters from the Dead: The third in the Arthur Mitchell mystery series.

What would you do if you found a letter to a detective describing a crime and you knew the writer and detective were dead, and you could be next?

Sasquatch. Three things about us, you should know. One, we have seen the past. Two, we’re trapped there. Three, I don’t know if we’ll ever get back to our own time.

For these and my upcoming books; please visit my Author Page – David Joel Miller

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