Category Archives: Self Help

What do you most want in your life?

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

Happy faces

Happiness.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

What do you most want in your life?

What really matters in your life – getting clear about values.

What we do in life is driven by our values. If it matters to you then you will put the effort into making it happen.

The major reason so many people fail to reach their objectives in life is a failure to be clear on their values.

If you are chasing a dream because it matters to others but this is not what you really care about deep down inside your efforts at those critical moments will not be made with all your might.

A first step in having a happier life is to get very clear about your values.

What is really important to you?

Clients in crisis tell us they are confused. They don’t know what to do. Sometimes even a simple choice is overwhelming. This stems from unclear values. Last year I wrote a post about how we might help clarify values in a group setting titled “Clear Values.”

It can be helpful to work on defining values in a group. Friends or fellow group members can help with feedback. But if you don’t have those friends here is a suggestion for working on setting some values.

Take out a piece of paper. Do this, please. Thinking about it without writing it down will result in you forgetting things that should be on the list. After we are done you can destroy the list if you chose, but most people end up keeping this list for a very long time.

Make a list of as many things as you possibly can that are important to you. What would you like if you could have it all! Go wild and be creative. Try to avoid censoring these wants as they come. The point in brainstorming is to get as many ideas as possible.

Go ahead I can wait.

When I do this with clients they end up with lots of things. They want to be rich, have a good-paying job, a great partner that loves them, lots of sex, a new car, a big house, all their bills paid, their health, happiness, a good relationship with their children, their faith or religion, self-respect, their sobriety, getting even with that Ex, and a vacation to Europe. See how this list can go?

Now with that list in hand look the list over again and if you can only have one thing on this list which one will it be?

Be careful with your choices. Having a lot of money is not the same thing as being able to buy the things you want. To buy that new big screen you may have to forgo money in the bank and to have the money in the bank then the vacation, or your child’s school activity may have to go.

Would you want to be rich if it cost you your children and your health? Would you take the car if it cost you your sobriety or your self-respect? Will you pick the great sex if it cost you ever having a partner that loves you?

I can’t tell you what you should pick; it is your life after all. What we do find when we limit people to one thing, most often that item they pick is an intangible like family, self-respect, freedom, or their spiritual faith. If you grew up in poverty then having enough money may have another significance to you. Money is not the same thing as freedom from financial worry.

If you picked money, then your courses are simple. There are things you can do to make lots of money and you will do them even if it costs you family, friends, and self-respect. But if family is at the top, or spiritual faith, then this will influence your actions.

Finding happiness is like chasing a dog in the park. No matter how hard it is to catch that dog, if when you get him, he isn’t your dog, you will be disappointed.

At this point, some of you will be complaining. I made you choose between your family and your self-respect. How can you choose between happiness and sobriety? Do you really have to choose between someone who loves you and great sex? Don’t happiness and spiritual faith go together?

Yes, plenty of the time you can have two or three of these things. But sometimes you have to make a choice. You may have to choose between your partner, your family or your sobriety. You may need to choose between your self-respect and family. So if you had to choose, how you make that decision would really matter.

But let’s make it easier for you. Pick a second choice of things that really matter to you. What would go on your list in the second spot? Did that new car slip in right after your family?

Lastly, pick a third thing. Now you have a list of three things that are really important to you. Happiness for you will involve efforts to improve these three areas of your life. This third choice might well be a more selfish or materialist choice than the first two. That is OK. As long as you set your priorities you will know how to make decisions when it comes to that.

Now that you have a list of the three things that most matter to you, this should guide your search for happiness. Make sure all the things you do this year to increase your happiness are consistent with these values. Keep looking at these values, happiness will be found near them.

Values are not the goals of your life. You want good relationships with your kids. You may not get that. But values should guide your actions because if you reach a goal and it has taken you farther away from your values that will not be consistent with finding happiness.

Goals are about the paths you will travel, values are the way in which you will walk on those paths. In another post, we will talk about setting goals.

Just because we have identified values does not mean you will be able to instantly move to having a happy life. There are obstacles in your way. This journey takes a lifetime. So far we are working on packing a small travel bag to take with us on the journey. The list of values goes in our travel bag.

But be careful. There is still that huge trunk full of baggage from our unhappy past that is sitting by the door. All that stuff from the past will surely be a lot to carry on this happy life journey.

First, we will need some other tools for our travel kit and then we need to lighten that baggage.

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia

Related articles

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

Who are you? Who do you want to be?

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

Self-Exploration

Self-Exploration
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Planning the destination for your life’s journey.

We are now into the new year.

Some of you made resolutions for New Year and some of you didn’t.

Either way, these first breaths of the new year are a good time to take a look at yourself, your life, and what you want it to be.

A first place to start is to take a hard look at ourselves. Most of us are used to muddling along, trying to remember those directions in our head but never really putting them down on paper and being sure of the direction we need to take. Now is a time to change that.

We have talked about happiness and over this year defining happiness and finding ways to get there are high on our agenda. But you can’t start any journey until you know where you are. In twelve-step terms, this is called an inventory and there are specific directions in the books on how to do this. In the language of therapy, we might call this an assessment.

I am not suggesting that you need to become an expert on diagnosis to move to happiness. Guess what? There are counselors who are not happy. The precise definition of your issue is not as important as your own appraisal of where you have been and how can you move forward from that place. We will break this process up into some steps.

One way to begin work on this life improvement project would be to begin creating a manual for your life. While we are all willing to contribute to this work, you as the expert on your life need to do the work of assembling this manual. Personally, I use a loose-leaf binder and paper to keep this record. This allows me to make lists, revise them, and move them around. This is sometimes called a sectional journal.

Some of the things you will have thought about so far are:

1. What will make you really truly happy?

This is all about finding real lasting happiness. As you will probably soon find, this is not about taking shortcuts and momentary pleasures. Your life journey should include some of those “right now” fun times, but it needs a longer range goal to give it meaning and purpose.

2. What does success mean to you?

Lots of us find we are taking someone else’s journey and therefore never get where we wanted to go. You need to decide for yourself what would make you happy and what success means to you. That is the destination part of the process.

You may begin by deciding to do something that you have never done before. For some people, they will find they have never finished a project they started, never completed school. They will decide that is where they need to go – for now. You may decide to finish your high school diploma or get a GED.

Later, once you get to this destination, it does not mean the journey is over. In life, we keep reevaluating and then setting new goals.

3. How will you know if your life changes?

Therapists call this the “miracle question.” If one morning a miracle was to occur and your life’s problems were all solved, how would we know this? What would be different?

All last year we talked about diseases and disorders, the problems of living. Maybe for a good part of your life, you have had nothing but struggles. So my asking you to imagine a happy successful life, that may be a bit of a stretch.

Give it a try anyway.

Make up a list of things that would be different. Write this list down if it is safe to do so. If you don’t feel safe in making lists and writing them down, then tackling that lack of safety is the first thing you need to do.

Is this fear about you or about them? If it is only about you then take a chance, write down anything. It does not need to be complete or even right. It just needs to reflect how you feel right now. Tomorrow is a new day and you can revise these lists at any point.

If you find that the fear is about them, the others in your life, then you either need to reword the things you write so you will not care if they read them or you may really need to consider if this is such a bad relationship that you need to run not walk away. In that case, reach out for professional help.

So you write down that first provisional list. Things that I would like to be different in my life. Try to keep that list between 3 and 10 things. If it gets longer than that take the list and save it but makeup draft number two by combining things down.

Say your list came up with 8 bills you want to pay off and 3 things you would like to replace you might simplify this by saying 1. Reduce my bills 2. Save up enough money to replace some things. Now you have two doable goals.

There may be some other things that some of you need to do.

One thing that would be wise to do is think about these goals. Will accomplishing them really take you to a place of happiness? We should talk soon about values. These goals of your happy life should be consistent with your values, religious and spiritual as well as material. It won’t do to achieve your happy life goals only to find that to reach them you needed to turn into a person even you don’t like.

By now most of you who are reading this have lived a while. You may have a lot of pain from your life so far. In popular language, you may have some baggage that will hold you back on this happy life journey. We will need to talk about how to leave some baggage behind and how to unpack some to lighten the load.

So let’s go there next.

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

Are you successful?

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

Success

Success.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

What is success – How will you know when you get there?

Lots of people would say success is having some amount of money or material things. We might each have a different idea of just how much that would be.

Some people would say they want to be a millionaire. Other people will tell us that they just want to have enough to get by, though their definition of getting by may vary widely. So how will you know when you get there?

A million dollars you say? Is that “have a million in the bank to spend” or earn a million this year? People who earn more find they have to spend more. This is a cycle that never ends. At $25,000 per year over the 45 years most Americans work, you will earn 1 and ¼ million dollars.  Yet most people will tell you that in America it is hard to live on $25,000 per year.

Still, there are people in other places on earth that live on $500 per year or less. While they are poor and they have to struggle for food and medical care, are we really sure they are any less happy in their lives than we are? Some of you are aware that an expensive cage does not make for freedom; it only makes for a fancier cage.

So besides just an absolute amount of money in life, something else may determine if we consider ourselves successful.

Who is more successful, the man with a lot of money whom everyone hates and disrespects or the man of moderate means who has lots of friends and everyone likes? Do the opinions of others influence your idea of success?

How many home runs do you need to hit to be a success? Does it matter if you had to take steroids to hit that many?

What makes us feel successful may be a gender thing. Men are traditionally considered successful and they rate themselves based on the things they have and the things they have accomplished in their lives. Women traditionally rated themselves on their relationships. Had they done a good job of raising their children? Does their partner love them?

Women have told me that they would be OK living in a car as long as they knew their partner loved them. Men say if their family had to live in a car they would feel like a failure.

What is your definition of success? What things, tangible, and intangible do you need to have to be successful?

Now, as we are starting this new year, might be a good time to sit down and make up a list of the things that you feel you need to make you feel successful. Do you already have those things? What is missing?

The point of writing this list down on paper is to make those thoughts in your head real and tangible. As we go through the year and talk about happiness and success you can pull that list out and review it. Are you making progress on changing yourself and your life? Are you moving towards being a success and away from any other way of being?

Related articles

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

Annual Happiness Drive – Please contribute some happiness

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2

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

Happy children

Happy.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Could you spare a cup of happiness?

Just when you thought the holidays were over and you had seen an end to charity requests, here comes another one.

Wait – don’t go. This one will not cost you a dime.

That’s right, don’t want your money, not now anyway. Later when or if my book comes out you can buy one if you are so inclined. But for now, I am asking –

“Do you have any happiness that you can spare?”

Here is the thing we learn about happiness, when you share it you do not have less. Every time you share your happiness with others there is more until there is more than enough to go around.

So if you can spare a little happiness and send it to me, then I promise to pass it on.

Now you can’t wrap it up and ship it. True happiness is not a thing you can put in a box, it is a feeling. So while you can’t ship happiness to me, you might be able to tell me about it in an email, and then I will be able to share that happiness with you. Then I can pass it on to others.

Now some people mistake things for happiness. They will tell us that they are happy that they got a new car. Sometimes they mistake happiness for having something that is better than what others have.

Please don’t share that “I am happy because I have more than you” with me. Eventually, someone else will come along and have more than you, and then all of us will be unhappy.

What I especially am hoping for during this “Happiness Drive,” are the people who can share with me that one thing that someone said or did for them this year that made them truly happy.

So this might be a kind word or a sunset you shared with a friend. It may be a goal accomplished in your life or a problem solved. For many of you, it will be a new person in your life, a child, grandchild, or friend.

You may have a picture, which is fine if you want to share it. Please keep them small if you can. Not sure how much space we have in this old soapbox. But mostly I would like to hear from you, what made you happy in this last year and how might others be able to share that happiness with you.

As we walk through this year we want to look a lot more at happiness, what it is, how you get some, and how you keep it. It will help us in this task if we know what happiness looks like. That is where those of you who chose to share a little of your happiness comes in. By letting us see how happiness has affected you in your life maybe we can increase it in our lives.

Any contributions of happiness will be appreciated.

Related articles

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

Has our diet of self-esteem spoiled?

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

Low Self-esteem

Low Self-esteem.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Is self-esteem making us sick?

We have reached the point, in much of this world, where everyone needs to be above average. What this means for us and for our future is yet to be determined. But it is possible that this constantly forced diet of having more self-esteem is starting to make us all sick.

First, we need to figure out what above average means. Average used to be a mathematical concept, take scores, add them up and divide by the number of people. We also had mathematic concepts for the most common score and the score in the middle.

I have never heard any individual referred to as being a “modal” or “median” person. But lots of people get referred to as “average” and this is customarily used in a derogatory manner as if being average was somehow to be less than acceptable.

There are some huge consequences of this “everyone needs to be above average” theorem.

First, we need to lower the standards until at least half of us can get above that score. So it has become common practice for some years now that everyone in a class needs to get an A. Anyone who did not get an A is now considered a failure. That requirement for perfection has resulted in a culture of giving out lots of A’s. Everyone gets an A now.

Now when I was in school a perfect GPA was a 4.0. If anyone was getting a grade better than that, they never told us. Yes, some really smart kids when over to the college for a few classes the last year in High school but they might get a B or even a C in that college class and we will all very impressed that they were taking college classes.

Today I hear that kids are taking AP classes in high school. This has been going on for a while now. So the good colleges now will not look at a student with a 4.0 GPA which used to be a perfect score. Now you need a 4.2 or 4.3 to get considered.

The result, more kids get A’s but the “average” kid can’t read or write and they get their education from watching television.

We are in fact distorting things so that reality is no longer real. Everyone is above average and anyone who is not perfect is a failure. Life has become a virtual adventure. Homes include virtual pets and virtual parents.

Thank god for prisons. Because the prisons are our great housing project for people who are not above average. Many prison inmates are in fact illiterate. So we are close to making being below average a qualification for being a permanent member of the incarcerated class.

Now if you are above average always, even if they have had to lower the bar so you can always be above it, you might come to think of yourself as better than average, superior, even entitled. We used to call this narcissistic. We have stopped thinking of people who feel superior as narcissistic and we now evaluate them as either “average” or a political candidate. Those who have refined narcissism to a science get to lose other people’s money on Wall Street.

Now if you are above average, and everyone is above average and to be below average means you are a worthless failure, what do you do when you fail to be above average at something.

Why you get angry, very, very angry. You blame the test, the teacher and the whole school system. And if no one agrees with us that being less than average is not fair then we could sue or get violent.

This whole need to be better than others to be OK is at the root of a lot of this world’s problem. My religion needs to be more correct than yours otherwise I may be wrong and less right than you and that would mean that I am defective somehow. So if you do not believe like I do I need to kill you to make me more religiously correct. See how this whole need to always be better than others and more correct can be a rabbit hole down which society may disappear to never be seen again.

Mr. Ellis liked to remind us, I kind of miss that guy these days, that the problem was not low self-esteem. The problem is this whole notion of rating ourselves as if our whole life were some sort of televised bowl game and we needed to die with the highest score.

Rather than this whole truckload of self-esteem and how we need to be better than everyone else, we need to be talking about how to be more accepting, of ourselves and those who are different from us in so many ways.

Higher levels of compassion are desperately needed and the place that most needs an increase in compassion is right in our own homes. Start by having more compassion for yourself and those around you and then when you have some excesses of compassion spread that around. Unlike self-esteem where you dare not give it away or you will run out, compassion has a much better flow rate. You can spread compassion around and it seems to go on forever.

Want a healthier world? Switch from a high self-esteem diet to a high compassion diet.

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

Inner adult vs. inner child

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2

By David Joel Miller MS Licensed Therapist & Licensed Counselor.

Sad child

Sad.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Have your inner people made peace?

Lots of people talk about their need to do “inner child” work. Not many tell me they need to work on their inner adult. You need to get these two parts of you to live in peace. One rule of parenting is that parents need to be parents and children need to be children. Make sure your “inner family” gets its roles straight.

Don’t let your inner child take over running your adult life.

Your inner adult needs to run the adult parts of your life. We all have those childish parts of us. They have their good and their bad. Preserve that childish wonder about life. Children experience everything for the first time. Keep that open spirit. Children can be very creative. They can also be very selfish and hurt.

The inner child may need to cry and grieve over the past. They can stay stuck in the pain and the not wanting things to be the way they are for a long time. That childish part of you wants things to have been different.

The inner adult needs to recognize that now is not then. The past may have made you who you are but you don’t need to continue to live in the past. You need to find ways to stop letting those childhood experiences control your life now when it is the adult in you that needs to take the lead.

The inner child is that unknowing part of us that sees possibilities instead of rules. For a child, the soup dish might also make a good hat. The inner child knows that a box makes a great toy. The inner child can cry for hours over dropping a cookie in the sand.

The inner adult becomes a censor, they know toys are for playing and boxes are containers to put things in. The inner adult may be less creative unless they force themselves to stay open to other possibilities.

The inner adult is the one that picks up the sandy cookie and throws it away. The inner adult is the one that goes and gets another cookie or tells the self that “self you really don’t need another cookie.”

Your inner child does not know how to forgive its self for making mistakes. The inner child can be so afraid of criticism that it punishes itself before an adult can punish it.

Your inner adult will need to tell that inner child that it was OK to make mistakes. Your inner adult is the part that does the forgiving, the letting go, and discovers that you are far more than the sum total of all the errors you have made so far.

The inner adult can have compassion and can care for the whole of you.

One way you know your inner adult is in control is when your behavior begins to become more mature and responsible.

Inner child and inner adult are only two of many possible roles you may enact each and every day. Sometimes you will be a parent or partner. Other times you will be an employee or a boss. None of these roles is the full and total you.

Get all these roles, all these potential inner selves to cooperate and work together on the same team. Just make sure when it is time to be a responsible adult you have the inner adult in control of the actions.

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

Have another helping of stress. Stress can be good for you.

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

Stressed out

Stressed.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

You might need more stress in your diet.

Recently one of my esteemed colleagues wrote a post on the need to avoid stress. I am not sure he is right about that. We have been told so often that we need to avoid stress, that a lot of people are avoiding anything that might be stressful and the result is that they are very low in productivity and lower yet in self-esteem.

More stress in your diet just might be what the doctor ordered.

If your doctor tells you that you are now overweight and you need to lose some weight, he does not prescribe reducing the physical stress in your life. He does not tell you to go home, put your feet up, and avoid anything that might put a stress load on your system.

What the doctor does suggest is that your exercise put a manageable level of stress on your muscles. As you become stronger you increase the level of stress you place on your muscles. The key here is not reducing or avoiding stress but learning how to manage your stress so that it is a growth opportunity rather than being at a breaking point level.

Clients have told me that their work “stresses them out.” Their conclusion is that they should avoid working to reduce the stress. What they fail to recognize often, is that not working will result in a substantial reduction in income. Losing your house to foreclosure, being homeless or even the task of living the rest of your life on the small amount of income available to welfare recipients is a lot more stressful than learning to not stress yourself out over your work.

Writers typically get stressed every time they look at a blank page. We call this writer’s block. You don’t overcome that kind of stress by avoiding the stress of writing and giving up on your dream. You reduce the stress by writing, writing anything to fill up that space, and then you edit and revise until hopefully a piece worth reading comes to life.

Most things in our life do not “stress us out” though we would all like to blame our level of negative emotions on some outside force that is producing “stress.” Most of the time we stress ourselves out by ruminating on the thing we would like to avoid until it grows to gigantic proportions. Casey Truffo described this in one of her webinars as “gnawing on the thing that is eating you.”

Should we by some accident find ourselves without stress one morning, why there are plenty of things we could choose to worry about? Start by worrying that you have forgotten to worry about something important. Get really into fear, fear of losing something, fear of not getting what you want. Create so much stress over what might happen that you are unable to do anything.

The stress reaction is our body and our mind’s way of gearing up for a challenging situation. The difficulty here is that so many people can turn up the stress, but don’t know how to turn it back down when the occasion for the stress is over.

Stress hormones are supposed to be temporary events. Some crisis occurs, we need to respond and our body helps out here by pushing out adrenaline and other hormones, we are ready to fight, flee or fight. The problem with humans is that most of us have forgotten how to turn the stress hormones off. Three months later we are still telling anyone who will listen how that incident “stressed us out’ and in the process, we are able to relieve the stress.

Have you ever met someone who was highly productive and seems to thrive on stress? Have you wondered what their secret was?

The thing they have found is how to keep the stress external and maintain their responses internally. They have learned to turn stress to their advantage by using that stress to turn their performance up another notch.

The difference between people who use stress to their advantage and those who are defeated by stress is not in the stress. It is in our attitude to the stress.

The secret is to stop running from the stress monster and to turn towards him and kick his tail.

There are dangers in life that we all should avoid. Most of the things that stress us out every day are not those overwhelming life-threatening kinds of stress. The worst kinds of stress are those times when we upset ourselves over things that are outside our control.

Learn to control your stress, learn mindfulness, breathing control or embrace radical acceptance but don’t try to avoid stress by running from it.

Staying connected with David Joel Miller

Six David Joel Miller Books are available now!

Dark Family Secrets: Some family secrets can be deadly.

What if your family secrets put you in danger?

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?

Casino Robbery is a novel about a man with PTSD who must cope with his symptoms to solve a mystery and create a new life.

Planned Accidents  The second Arthur Mitchell and Plutus mystery.

Sasquatch. Wandering through a hole in time, they encounter Sasquatch. Can they survive?

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.

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

Books are now available on Amazon.

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

For videos see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel

Want the latest on news from recoveryland, the field of counseling, my writing projects, speaking, and teaching? Please sign up for my newsletter at – Newsletter. I promise not to share your email or to send you spam, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

For more about David Joel Miller and my work in the areas of mental health, substance abuse, and Co-occurring disorders see my Facebook author’s page, davidjoelmillerwriter.

Discovering Happiness

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

Happy faces

Happiness.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

The search for Happiness.

Of the thousand goals, you might have in life, finding happiness sums up that one thing most people are looking for. You might label it love or contentment, success or achievement but whatever you call it we all appear to have the hope if we can just find that one elusive thing we are looking for we will finally be happy.

As a professional counselor and therapist, I like to think that basically what I do involves being in the happy life business. I try to help people create a happy life.

What a happy life means to you and what it might mean to me are probably quite different things. The hardest part of helping people find happiness is being able to not know what they should do to find their happiness and still participating in the journey to help them find that happiness.

Cultivating that “not knowing” attitude rather than imposing our version of happiness on others takes practice. Daily I have to think that I know very little about this person and what will make them happy.  I need to create a safe place for them to explore that landscape and find what happiness would be for them.

Generally, I know the landscape of happiness. I have found some things that make me happy, but the journey of discovery continues. I am honored when a client tells me that our time together has helped them find that place of success, love, or whatever they call their happiness.

I have written some blog posts on things I have learned about the search for happiness and they are listed below. Would you care to share some of the things that have led you to your happiness or the things that take you away from that place of fulfillment?

Past Posts on the topic of Happiness:

Successes, Happiness, and Contentment

Where Happiness Hides

Buying Happiness

Directions to Happiness

Finding Happiness

Happiness or Misery

How to Be Happy

Happy Enough to Make the Bed?

Should you be happy?

There are lots of posts on my blog and other blogs about unhappiness. It seems unhappiness is easier to find than happiness. One thing I am sure of is that things don’t equate with happiness. Things are symbols. Happiness comes from what things mean to 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

How safe is the neighborhood in your head?

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

Comment

Bad neighborhood.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

When you are alone in your own head – are you in a really dangerous neighborhood?

The idea that your own thinking can be suspect is common among recovering people. One definition of the disease of addiction is that our brains go over to the other side. An alcoholic’s brain will continue to tell you that you need another drink long after the point of intoxication.

What if there was a way to make your head a safe neighborhood to inhabit?

Recovering people are quick to remind the newcomer around those tables that “Your own best thinking got you here.” There is nothing more natural than for an alcoholic to think about drinking. We know that a depressed person’s mind is full of dark and gloomy thoughts.

Some of the triggers for a relapse are of course the places and events of everyday life. But the brooding thoughts in your head can take you back to depression, anxiety, or an active addiction. Relapse triggers are found both inside and outside ourselves.  

But simply avoiding your own thoughts is not enough. Avoiding anxiety-producing situations does not make you less anxious. Not in the long run. As Jon Kabat-Zinn told us “Wherever you go there you are.”

Bill W. seems to agree, telling us that if an alcoholic needs to avoid places where liquor is served then they still have an alcoholic mind.

In the early stages of recovery, the thought of being alone is scary, particularly being alone with nothing to keep you busy. Avoiding your own thoughts is a common way to avoid negative thoughts, but you know they are still there.

Some days it is as if your own mind is out to get you. Your mind may be a scary place but that head of yours is the only home your mind will ever have. Can you learn to live comfortably in that neighborhood?

There are ways to clean up that dangerous neighborhood in your head. Dr. Kelly McGonigal tells us “Your mind can be a safe place to be.”

What is the process you need to undertake to make your own mind a safe place? How might you set up your own internal “Neighborhood Watch” to keep out those unwanted thoughts?

Mind remodeling projects are at the heart of good therapy. Change your thinking to change your life. Working through all those monsters that lurk in your head, cleaning out dysfunctional thoughts, and challenging irrational beliefs can all lead to a healthier mind. But there is more!

In the early days of the recovery movement, before there were twelve steps, they began with just three steps. Back then the first step was “Clean House,” one meaning of which was getting rid of all that mental and emotional garbage that might get you sick again.

The steps also include that last step, “working with others” which tells us that our problems, addictions, and poor mental health, are often because we think too much about ourselves and not enough about others. The reverse side of that coin, codependency, thinking only of others, and not making our mental and emotional health a priority is just as bad.

The part of the mental neighborhood clean-up project that gets neglected is that part about “prayer and meditation.” Somehow it seems a whole lot easier to swallow the prayer part than the meditation. Some of us are inclined to go way off on a religious tangent which can keep us busy and avoid our own heads but it still hasn’t cleaned out the garbage and rebuilt our mental landscape.

That second part “Meditation” is just hard for a westerner to swallow. Some of you probably read that “Medication.” Wouldn’t it be nice if we could find a pill that could cure our addiction or poor mental health? Meds can help some things but they can only go so far. You also need to engage in some mental exercises that strengthen those “right-thinking” muscles.

Why are we westerners so afraid of meditation? Well, it seems like a whole lot of effort, and even then who knows if you are doing it right? It needn’t be that difficult.

Here are some simple thoughts on using meditation to clean out that run-down neighborhood in your head.

Take out the garbage first. Let go of anger, fear, resentments, all those negative emotions, as much as you can at this stage of your recovery. As you learn more you will do better.

You can’t fix a car when you are driving it at 65. You need some downtime for the nerve cells in your brain to grow and heal. Quiet meditation is the time for that. This does not require years of practice and a set of robes. No offense to those who have spent years learning meditation but yes even a few minutes a day can pay off big in making you comfortable in your own skin.

The important thing is not to freak every time a bad or negative thought runs through our minds. That though is just out for exercise. Notice the thought, then let it go. Holding on to that thought, wrestling with it, and trying to prevent it from leaving will cause more wreckage in your head.

Check out more on the dangers of trying to avoid thinking about things in “Don’t think about Elephants.”

Don’t rush to get away from negative thoughts. This is called “Distress tolerance.” Most of us ran from our negative thoughts so much that they kept us from being safe in our own heads.

Remind yourself this is a real-life, sometimes I like it and sometimes I don’t. Let the thought come and go. Same with physical discomfort. Most of us are used to scratching every itch, physical, and mental. Most of the time if you leave that pain alone after a bit it will go away. If not, learn that you can feel discomfort and you will not fall apart.

Hope these suggestions get you started on your mind renewal project. If you have done some mental remodeling let the rest of us know how it worked out.

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

What is Situational Memory?

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

Memories.
Photo courtesy of pixabay.

Situational memory.

Situational memory sometimes called “Environmental context-dependent memory” refers to an ability to remember information when in one situation that you are unable to remember in another.

This condition is a lot like state-dependent learning but involves location rather than drug level in the bloodstream as the cause of difficulty in retrieving previously learned information. The existence of situational memory raises the question “Does situational memory influence recovery for those who have been in residential treatment or the hospital?”

Do rehab classes while someone is incarcerated result in knowledge they can use after release?  A simple example of the problem:

During the course of the week, I use several different computers in offices at varying locations. Sitting down at a particular computer workstation “cues” the memory for the password that is needed at that site. From one office I emailed myself a password-protected file that needed more work that night. Once home I found I was unable to remember the password.

The following day, back at the original location I was able to quickly open the file without hesitation despite the lack of anything in the room that contained or reminded me of the password. Simply moving from desk to desk cued my memory for the password.

In a classic example of this phenomenon, researchers found that students who were taught deep-sea diving skills in a classroom on dry land were unable to remember the skill once in the water (Godden, D.R.; Baddeley, 1975). To improve recall the skills needed to be learned under realistic conditions. The effect of context on memory has been one criticism of separating recovering people from their real work environment for treatment.

Do skills learned in rehab or hospitals continue to be remembered after return home?

Current practice is to include ongoing aftercare or relapse-prevention classes after the recovering person returns to the community. Situational memories may also affect those who suffer from PTSD.

Veterans who return to the scene of their service are likely to be “flooded” with returning memories. Watching a motion picture that includes events similar to these memories can also revive painful memories. Treatment for anxiety-based disorders which are triggered by re-exposure to places where a trauma occurred, especially obsessive-compulsive disorder, is likely to use an Exposure and Response Prevention method in which cues to the original memory are invoked while the person is supported in tolerating the distress this causes.

Situations, where we move from one location to another, can result in cases of situational memory or situational forgetting the “Doorway Effect.” Being cognitive misers we humans tend to save memory space by only retrieving knowledge in a situation where it is likely to be needed. Solutions to situational forgetting include over practice and rehearsal of skills and creating secondary memory assistance in the form of written lists or reminders placed where we will see the needed information when needed.

Many people in recovery display the serenity prayer or the twelve steps as a reminder to use their recovery skills in all situations.

It is not just the external situation that affects memory, the internal situation makes a difference also. Depressed people remember mostly negative depressing events. Laughing, smiling, and telling jokes, reduces the ability to access depressing memories. The neighborhood you are in when you are in your own head comes with a landscape full of memories. Since memory has situational components, avoiding the place in which you learned something can result in forgetting of the things learned there.

Recovering people are well-advised to avoid old people, places, and things. Anything that cues urges to use or to engage in other behavior that interferes with recovery can be reduced by substituting new positive cues for the old negative ones.

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