Category Archives: Emotions and Feelings

How to be Happy

Posted on by
5

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

Happy faces

Happiness.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

How to Experience Happiness.

Do you have trouble feeling happy? This should be easy right? You would think there is nothing you should have to do to feel happy. Doesn’t it seem as if we should be able to find something, some experience that would make us happy? Then why are so many people looking and so few finding happiness?

The truth is that some of us don’t know happiness when we have it. Pain is easy to find and we always know unhappiness when we see it but happiness, well that is harder to be sure about. One minute it is there and the next it is gone.

In a past post, Why can’t we forget the painful past, I wrote about the reasons it is easier to remember pain than happiness. Remembering pain has an evolutionary value. It keeps us from making the same mistake over and over. You would think that happiness and pleasure should have the same evolutionary advantage, reminding us to do pleasant things over and over.

Pleasure seems to be rewarding. People will repeat behaviors to get more pleasure even when these actions are destructive. Things like addiction, behavioral excess, overspending, and risky sexual activities are all temporarily rewarding even when they don’t result in long-term happiness.

Sharp emotions like pleasure and pain arrive quickly and unannounced. Some feelings are softer and gentler. Feelings like happiness and contentment swell up softly and slowly from our unconscious.

If you want more happiness you need to cultivate the experience of watching for its appearance and you need to look for it. Happiness is not a pushy emotion. It doesn’t force its way into your heart. It waits to be noticed and invited.

Did you ever go looking for a particular style of car, maybe a van or a hatchback? Before you begin your search you didn’t see many of that model. Once you look, they are everywhere.

Happiness is like that. We need to consciously search for it.

Did you look for that car you wanted in the big box store or a department store? No of course not. You looked in places where that model of car might be sold.

So why do we look for happiness by chasing after short-term pleasure or running from pain? Happiness is the result of facing our troubles. It is also the direct product of acceptance. If we are never content with what we have, if we are always chasing more, then happiness gets passed by.

The allusion that if we catch pleasure we will be happy traps many. How easy it is to chase pleasure through the thicket of thorns. If we would just stand still and notice what we have perhaps the butterfly of happiness will land on our outstretched hand.

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 seem 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

Happy enough to make the bed?

Posted on by
3

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

Happy faces

Happiness.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

So how do you know when you are happy?

What things say for you “today I am doing well; today my recovery is on track?” It is most often not the big things, the jobs or relationships. It is easy to feel happy when something great, new, and novel happens. People, most of the time, get happy when something good happens. Not being able to take joy or pleasure out of something that used to make you happy is a sure sign of depression setting in.

Not being able to feel pleasure, professional counselors call that anhedonia is one of the things we look for in diagnosing depression. Happiness is about more than just not being clinically depressed. How do you tell if you are really happy deep down? If someone were visiting with you how would they know today was one of those happy days?

In interviews, I ask clients “What makes you happy.” They tell me not about big things, but mostly about little things, everyday things, that results in them feeling happy. Those things also reflect happiness. Most times it is those little things that are making them happy.

When someone is functioning well, when life is worth living, they take better care of themselves. One way we as outsiders looking in can tell if someone is happy is to look at how they care for themselves. We call these self-care habits “activities of daily life.” Someone who is able to do their “activities of daily life” is headed in a good direction. They are having a good day.

Someone who is unable to do those same activities, we worry about them.

So did you make your bed today? People who get up and make the bed may have a large head start on happiness compared to those who don’t. You need to decide for yourself if making your bed says “happy day” to you. But many people find that on the days they are able to make their bed, this says to them today will be a good day.

It goes farther than making the bed is a barometer for happiness. People tell me that when they get into a habit of doing things to care for themselves it becomes easier to keep up that habit.

Do you feel better or worse on days that you brush your teeth, fix your hair and put on your good clothes? Doing self-care even on days you don’t feel like it can improve your mood.

One client told me he and his partner used to go for walks every morning. He could judge the quality of their relationship by how often they walked. During periods of conflict, they just did not feel like going for the daily walk. If one of them was depressed they did not feel like a morning walk that day. The result was that their communication got worse, the depression increased and the happiness disappeared.

Once we discovered this connection between the morning walk and the feeling of happiness with the relationship, they made a commitment to walk together every morning whether they felt like it or not. They found that more walk time resulted in more and better communication and that created more happiness on both people’s part.

There is an old twelve step expression “fake it till you make it.” That expression is not about being dishonest or showing a false face to others. It is telling us that when we go through the actions of a happy person we become happy. The opposite can happen also. Isolate, avoid others and you become lonely and sad.

So what daily rituals tell you that you are on the right track? Will you commit to yourself to take better care of yourself? Try it for a week and tell us how your commitment to self-care affected your mood and your success.

Are you happy enough to make your bed today?

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 seem 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

Directions to happiness

Posted on by
2

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

Happy faces

Happiness.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Looking for happiness?

It is hard to find something if you don’t know where it is or what to look for. Happiness is a lot like that. Can you remember the name of your elementary school? What was the school mascot? People are able to answer questions like that all the time but they have difficulty describing things that might make them happy.

It is also helpful to know how to avoid going somewhere you do not want to go to. Besides knowing the things that might make you happy it pays to know the things that might make you sad, afraid, or mad. Most of the time we can feel sad when it is inside us but often we can’t remember or describe it even at a few minutes distance.

When asked what things make you happy or sad lots of people can’t tell me or they will list off some things, video games, or a new job to make them happy, and losing their job or not getting something they want will make them sad. Things are easier to describe than relationships and characteristics like love and acceptance. Most times those things are only symbols for the feelings we all would like to experience.

We spend so much time with ourselves, every moment of every day we are there with ourselves. Most of the time we are there but we are not present. We may be physically in our bodies but our minds, our consciousness is not home. We are avoiding feeling what we feel.

You would think that we should know all about ourselves. Most of us never take the time to really get to know ourselves, our wants and desires, until a crisis strikes.

If I asked you about your best friend, what they like what makes them happy or sad, could you tell me?

Many times the person I asked can describe in detail their friend or relatives’ favorite color, flower, movie, or place. But ask them to tell you about themselves and they are out of answers. We ask our friends these questions, talking about you and asking about the other is part of the process of getting acquainted.  Often we are afraid to take the time to get to know ourselves.

Would you want you for a best friend? Lots of people in therapy will say no. I tell them that they need to be their own best friend. How can others treat you better than you treat yourself?

So the first step on the road to happiness is getting to know you. Seeing you realistically but still being able to accept you with all the faults. We often can accept a friend with warts and all but let us be one hair less than perfect and we can judge ourselves unmercifully. Learn to accept yourself.

One question I ask kids is if they were that person in the Aladdin’s lamp story and they found that lamp, what would their three wishes be? Some kids give me a list of things video games and new sneakers. Other kids say they want their parents to stop fighting or to still be together.  Wishes like this tell me about what is really important. What do you think you would wish for?

How might having three magic wishes reveal what you truly value and what direction you need to go to find your happy life?

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 seem 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

Finding happiness or misery

Posted on by
2

Counselorssoapbox.com

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

You get what you look for. Sounds simple, but this basic principle has a huge impact on how happy we are. Take two couples one happy and the other miserable – what is the difference?

Couple one, let’s call then Bob and Sue, for no particular reason. Bob complains that Sue nags him. She never likes the tie he wears. Nothing he ever does is good enough. Sue is sure that Bob doesn’t love her. He never wants to spend time with her. He is always too busy with his job and his studies for his night class to spend time with her. Sue says the only time Bob does things around the house is when she nags him, he always puts off taking the garbage out until the last possible moment. She has to keep at him because he will put off taking out the trash until bedtime if she doesn’t keep on him.

The couple next door, let’s call them Juan and Ann, again for no special reason. Juan says he is so happy in his relationship. Ann is always trying to be helpful. She wants him to be successful and look his best. She is so helpful; she even makes suggestions for which tie will make him look his best. Ann tells me she is so happy to be with Juan. He works so hard to provide for the family. He is even taking a night class to help improve their income. Juan is so helpful around the house, Ann says, sometimes she has to remind him because he is so busy, but he always gets the trash out before he goes to bed.

Now Bob and Sue are sure that their neighbors are very nosy, always minding other people’s business. When the family came to visit that old busybody across the street came over and demanded to know who was there. Sometimes that woman brings over food in an effort to get into the house and spy on them. They have had to tell the neighbors several times to mind their own business. This town is so hostile. The other day one of the people up the street followed Sue all over the grocery store.

Juan and Ann report they feel so safe in their neighborhood. They have a neighborhood watch. One time when Ann’s parents came for a visit, Mrs. Smith across the street came over to check who was going into their house. She almost called the police on Ann’s family. Mrs. Smith brought over a cake she had baked for the family to enjoy. Ann and Juan feel so safe knowing that the people on their street will keep an eye on their house when they are not home. It is such a friendly town. Last week they went shopping and ran into Mrs. Smith in the market. She was going one way and Ann was going the other, they must have run into her ten times that day. They had a good laugh that they just couldn’t stay away from each other.

Why is the experience of these two couples, who live just a few houses apart so different? One couple loves their town and their marriage and the other is miserable. Two important happy life principles are at work here. First, the happy couple has a happy positive belief about the way they are, the way the world is, and how the future will turn out. This illustrates the principle that beliefs about things, not the things themselves create our feelings. But no matter what you believe, life experiences will impact your beliefs and feelings. Both couples have a bias in their thinking.

We call this bias confirmatory bias. If you think your spouse is uncaring or lazy you will watch the things they do and pick out the things that confirm your belief as proof you were right. It is a natural human tendency to look for things that will make us right and to ignore or discard the things that might force us to change our minds.

Happy couples see things their partner does and interpret them as positive. Unhappy couples can find plenty of proof that their partner is unloving and uncaring. Now we know there are bad relationships and uncaring or dishonest people out there. But if you enter a relationship expecting your partner to make you happy they are likely to. If you go into a relationship with the expectation your partner will mistreat you then you will find lots of “proof” for that also.

Much of our news fits this pattern also. Two people hear the same economic report, one sees things in the report to say that the economy is improving; the other person sees things to prove that the economy is getting worse.  Political speeches and debates especially demonstrate this principle. If you are strongly in favor of a candidate you will think they made a great speech. If you dislike that same candidate you will find something in the speech to seize upon and “prove” that person is unfit for public office. If you are wrong about a candidate for office you can complain about them until the next election. If you live with someone it is a bigger problem.

Sometimes it pays to challenge those beliefs. Is your spouse really being uncaring or unloving or do you look for the faults and miss the positive things they really did do for you?

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 seem 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

Finding happiness

Posted on by
3

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

Happy faces

Happiness.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

It is hard to find a thing if you don’t know what it looks like. People who are unhappy can find the pain anywhere but can’t find happiness. A happiness expert can find a happy thing a mile away. Which are you?

Why is it so hard to find happiness, financial security or so many of those other things clients who come to see me say they are looking for? There is a simple phenomenon, called the “expert effect,” which explains one reason it is so hard to find those things were are looking for in life. Let me tell you a story that illustrates a real-world example of “expert effect” that happened to me and then let’s look at how this phenomenon may be keeping you from getting the things you want, like happiness, out of life.

Once I had a friend who was very into antiques. We decided to go antique shopping together. We went from shop to shop and looked around. Several times as we left a store this friend would say to me something like “Did you see that Fenton Glass?” “They had some nice Murano glass in there, did you like it?” Each time I had to admit I had not noticed the glass piece my friend had asked about. This was very frustrating for me.

So over the next few weeks, I checked some books on collectible glass out of the library and read them. This was in the ancient days when people went to buildings called libraries to get books instead of reading books on their e-reader. After reading several of these books about the collectible glass I began to know some of the different kinds of glass that might be in antique and collectible stores.

A few weeks later this friend of mine and I ended up downtown for lunch and decided to check out a couple of antique stores. The same thing happened as last time, they commented on some glass pieces they had liked. Only this time my response was different. I had indeed seen the piece they mentioned and now I even had an opinion on the ones I liked and the ones that did not strike my fancy. I had become enough of an “expert” to at least recognize a piece of glass when I saw one. Please don’t email me with questions on collectible glass. The only thing I may be able to tell you is that piece looks like glass to me. But at least now I know glass when I see it, most of the time.

Now that I am a counselor I realize that for many of my clients this “expert effect” is what is holding them back. How can you find happiness if you don’t know what it looks like?

Lots of people think that if they get a new job or a larger house or say a new romantic partner then they will be happy. They come to see me when they get one or more of these things and then discover they are still not happy. So the first step in finding a happy life would be to find out what it looks like, for you and for others who seem to have a lot of it. See happiness is a feeling, not a thing. Many people know what things look like but they can’t tell a feeling from a piece of collectible glass.

This is a special problem for people in recovery, recovery from substance abuse, dysfunctional relationships, or other problems. To find recovery I believe that you need to get to know three things.

First, you need to really know what your problem looks like. Lots of substance abusers spend years trying to avoid looking at their problems. So what does the disease of addiction look like? How would you know a good relationship from a dysfunctional one? How would you really know if you were happy?

Second, you need to know what recovery looks like. Let me give you a hint here. Recovery is not a list of “things” that you will have. Recovery is not a cure or a cure-all, it is being restored to sanity or restored to a functioning life.

Lastly, you need to get to know yourself. What are you like when you are happy? What makes you sad? What do you like? I tell clients you will spend more time with yourself than with anyone else in your life and you need to really get to know you. You should be the world expert on you.

Have you begun your study of you? Have you started to study the truly happy life? Let me know if you have, and what you have learned about 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 seem 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