Sunday Inspiration Post By David Joel Miller.
Possibilities
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com
“If we all did the things we are really capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves.”
― Thomas A. Edison
Wanted to share some inspirational quotes with you. Sunday seemed like a good time to do this. If any of these quotes strike a chord with you please share them.
Sunday Inspiration Post By David Joel Miller.
Loving yourself.
Love yourself
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com
“You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection”
― Gautama Buddha
Wanted to share some inspirational quotes with you. Sunday seemed like a good time to do this. If any of these quotes strike a chord with you please share them.
Sunday Inspiration Post By David Joel Miller.
Self-Confidence
Believe in yourself.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com
“Believe you can and you’re halfway there.”
― Theodore Roosevelt
“Once we believe in ourselves, we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight, or any experience that reveals the human spirit”
― E.E. Cummings
“Be sure you put your feet in the right place, then stand firm.”
― Abraham Lincoln
Wanted to share some inspirational quotes with you. Sunday seemed like a good time to do this. If any of these quotes strike a chord with you please share them.
Thanksgiving Day.
Post by David Joel Miller.
Happy Thanksgiving.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com
Today is the traditional Thanksgiving Day celebration here in America. Mostly it is celebrated with lots of food, some family, and assorted other traditions.
For some people, this is a time to eat a lot and watch sports. Other people are planning their “Black Friday” Christmas shopping for tomorrow. A few of us old dinosaurs are remembering that today was created to think about all the things that we have to be grateful for and how this country almost didn’t make it, a couple of times.
Below are a few quotes that remind me of things to think about today.
“After a good dinner, one can forgive anybody, even one’s own relations.”
― Oscar Wilde, A Woman of No Importance
As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them. ~John Fitzgerald Kennedy
An optimist is a person who starts a new diet on Thanksgiving Day. ~Irv Kupcinet
We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures. ~Thornton Wilder
None is more impoverished than the one who has no gratitude. Gratitude is a currency that we can mint for ourselves, and spend without fear of bankruptcy. ~Fred De Witt Van Amburgh
Thanksgiving is an emotional holiday. People travel thousands of miles to be with people they only see once a year. And then discover once a year is way too often. ~Johnny Carson
Wanted to share some inspirational quotes with you. But these were all I could find. Today seemed like a good time to do this. If any of these quotes strike a chord with you please share them.
By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Licensed Counselor.
When you’re old you just sit.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com
Recently I have been talking with and hearing from an increasing number of “older people.” In the past, I have steadfastly avoided learning about the elderly in the belief that I did not know any of them. This belief, that neither I nor anyone I know is yet in that elderly class is constantly getting challenged by people who ask “How old are you?” with an incredulous look.
Those annoying people who sell medical insurance continue to force this topic on me by sending me advertisements asking me to switch my old-age insurance to their company. Worse yet they have been sending those notices to me for some years now. One of my life goals has become to outlive some of these annoying insurance companies.
My thinking, at this junction, is that being old is a combination of the effects of the physical process of aging and the mental attitude one takes towards this process. Self-care along the way is certainly a factor. Unfortunately, I learned that life lesson later rather than earlier. While my body may be accumulating aches and pains, defects of the body, I continue to work on keeping my mental faculties working.
This was reported in an article about a woman who had passed her hundredth birthday. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? I can see that it might be nice to be relaxed and no longer stressed running hither and yon. But then it might also be that once you stop moving, at least mentally, your life loses purpose.
I have forgotten who that woman was or what age milestone she had just passed. This is a shame because I have a long-held belief that once you start school you have to stop counting half-years as in four-and-a-half and you do not get to begin counting those half years again until you pass that hundred mark. Anyone who lives past one hundred years ought to be recognized more than once per year.
You are all invited to my one-hundred-and-a-half birthday celebration. My fervent hope is that I will be able to attend it with you and will be lucid enough to realize what this gathering is for.
It has become apparent to me however that a lot of people entering those golden years have neither gold nor years. In fact, one great loss among the elderly is a loss of purpose. What do you do when you can’t go to school or work?
It is fully understandable that as we age we can accumulate injuries and disorders. As life moves on some people find it hard to get up and move around. For them, life’s high point may well be waking up and being able to watch some video entertainment.
What surprises me is the number of very young people who are resigned to sitting worshiping a talking box or a moving wall image. Have you all not heard the more time you spend seated the sooner that chair may become attached to your anatomy?
Despite all the encouragement to get up, out and exercise, more and more people past the age of 5 seem most motivated to sit as much as possible.
Lots of people drive in their cars (seated) to a sporting event where they can watch (seated) athletes perform. This is sometimes called “playing” a game. Though most sporting events past preschool take on all the playfulness of gladiator bouts.
An oft-heard life plan is to work hard enough to make enough money to be able to sit around and do nothing. Once you retire from the active world of work, it would appear that you have to join a gym, take up golf, or otherwise pay others to allow you to exercise.
There was a time when old people figured prominently in our culture. Think of father time and the Greek god Zeus. Now that I think of it the Christian deity, when he gets any consideration at all is depicted as an elderly man.
It will soon be Christmas. Santa Clause used to be a prominent personality at this time of year. The last few years Saint Nick, and his propensity for generosity has been losing ground to Ghosts, vampires, turkeys, the babies of the New Year, and cupid. Getting the latest entertainment device has supplanted giving the gift of happiness in our common lives.
My suspicion is that one reason for our cultural shift from old people and wisdom to preschool heroes is that giving required getting up and doing, while receiving can be done passively in a seated position.
If, at this time of year you find yourself “just sitting”, my hope for you is that this is a reward for a lot of lifetime doing, not the beginning of your resignation to spending the rest of your life in the not doing, seated position.
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 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
Sunday Inspiration Post By David Joel Miller.
Living the Future
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com
“It’s time to start living the life you’ve imagined.”
― Henry James
Wanted to share some inspirational quotes with you. Sunday seemed like a good time to do this. If any of these quotes strike a chord with you please share them.
By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Licensed Counselor.
Goal.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com
You’re told that people who accomplish things pick goals and stick to them. We also hear plenty of stories about those who pursue life goals that take them nowhere and could never have been possible. How can you tell if the goals you are considering are worthwhile goals and the right goals for you?
Goals set the direction for your life. How viable are those goals? To measure anything you need a good ruler. Here is a set of measurement standards to help you decide if the goal you are considering is the right goal for you.
You can pick a goal because it is popular or because you are told that is the thing you should be wanting, but you need to consider if when you reach this goal will you still like yourself. Will you be the person you would like to be?
It is easy to get caught up in the quest for someone else’s goal. Society talks about goals like popularity and financial wealth. If those goals work for you then go for it. But you need to take a good look at what really makes you happy and what you are all about. It is not success if what you value most is family, but you spend your life making money and mailing it home so your family can live without you.
There are lots of goals that you could accomplish. Ask yourself if this goal is something you would want your children to share at school. Would you be proud that you accomplished this thing or is this a goal that needs to remain in the secret darkness?
There are lots of things you might devote your life to. You could set all kinds of world records. But which records will make you feel like you have accomplished something and which are simply records for having done something a minute longer than someone else.
Do you really believe in your heart that this is a possible goal? It is possible to trick yourself into believing that if you do this or that then you will be happy. If you are not happy in the process of getting there then you are unlikely to be happy when you reach that goal. Don’t be the little kid in you spending your life digging a tunnel to China. Do find better ways to open up connections to far off places.
Are you the right person to accomplish this goal? To reach goals you need to believe in yourself. Are you that person now or will you need to change yourself to get there? You may need more schooling or have to develop an underdeveloped strength.
Is it possible for you? Pursuing a sports goal when you are physically ill-suited for the sport may set yourself up for failure. You can hate music and practice but be pursuing a goal of fame by being the rock star on stage. Consider other ways you might achieve that goal of fame that are better suited to who you truly are.
If you find that you are not the right person for pursuing this goal then it is also likely that giving your life in pursuit of this goal is not the right thing for you.
In selecting goals for yourself one often overlooked factor is the obstacles that will get in your way. How much money will this take? How much time will be needed? Do you have those resources or how will you raise the required money? Are you starting on a goal that will take several lifetimes to finish? What part of your plan will need to be modified or given up in order to overcome this obstacle?
When you develop this plan to overcome the obstacle will you find the effort in overcoming that barrier will have reduced the value of reaching that goal to the point you no longer want to pursue it?
Some obstacles can be overcome and some can’t. Flying to the moon would have been an impossible achievement for someone living in colonial America. This goal required the invention of the airplane, missiles, and lots of other technology before it became possible. It required a large team effort.
Some obstacles can be overcome by you alone, others require help from contemporaries and some goals are just outside the possibilities of things as they are now.
Reaching any goal requires expenditures and sacrifices. Always consider how much time, how much money, and how much pain and effort will be required to reach your objective. Just make sure that once you are there that reaching this goal will have been worth the sacrifices.
You want to be a great author and you write your whole life. No one may read that epic in your lifetime. Will it still be worth it? What if you wanted to play in the majors and you spend years trying. Will the journey be its own reward or will your life be ruined because you never made it to that goal?
If the pursuit of your objective is worth the effort by itself this is a great goal. If only the achieving will be worthwhile consider carefully what you will have given up or have lost in the pursuit of an unattained goal.
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 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
Sunday Inspiration Post By David Joel Miller.
Friendship
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com
“A friend is someone who knows all about you and still loves you.”
― Elbert Hubbard
Wanted to share some inspirational quotes with you. Sunday seemed like a good time to do this. If any of these quotes strike a chord with you please share them.
By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Licensed Counselor.
Baggage.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com
So much emotional baggage around these days. Most of the time when we say baggage, people think about past relationships and the scars left from those relationships. When you reach the point you are ready to move on in your life you might be amazed at all the emotional baggage you have stored away in your cupboards.
If you have reached the time of starting over in life, of reinventing yourself, here are some types of baggage you may need to go through and see what you can dispose of. That extra baggage can weigh you down badly and keep you from ever reaching the happy, recovered life you deserve.
Some people find they can dispose of this unwanted baggage all by themselves. They use acceptance, radical acceptance even, to get rid of unwanted emotional luggage. Other people find that it helps to get professional help. For a house, you might need the help of a cleaning crew or an exterminator. For emotional things consider getting help from a counselor or therapist. Here are a few of the things that people have found they needed to get rid of if they wanted to move on in their lives.
One serious form of emotional baggage that brings people to therapy, or should anyway, is those hurts from childhood or early adulthood that you can’t seem to let go of. If someone let you down, or they were not capable of meeting your needs back then you need to find ways to make sense of this and stop demanding that somehow the past needs to change for you to be able to be happy in the future.
One reason that childhood hurts can linger on is that we learned those pains from the child’s perspective. Now that you are grown you need to take another look at those life lessons and see if you want to reexamine the meaning of things that happened or didn’t happen way back when.
Some of you have life blueprints you learned way back when that are not suited for a happy adult life.
If you have negative beliefs about yourself, that you are not good enough or don’t deserve something, those will drag at you and keep you stuck in place.
We used to talk about self-esteem a lot. There are plenty of ways to boost your self-esteem. One primary way is to do more things you can be proud of.
Other ways to avoid the trap of negative self-beliefs are to work hard on self-acceptance. However, you are is acceptable. Cut out that constant self-evaluation, stop rating yourself, and move on with life.
A counselor can help you with this, so can self-help books and positive affirmations.
If you look at relationships that are no more and see them as failures, then you lose the lessons you needed to have learned. Process this experience with someone trustworthy and then see how much of that pain and suffering you are ready to let go of.
People come into and out of your life, for better or worse. That one relationship ended does not mean another cannot be. What you need to do is take a look at that past relationship. See what you can learn from it and see how it has made you who you are. From that vantage, you can decide where you want to go.
What you need to avoid is thinking that everything that went wrong was someone’s fault. Learn from the experience. Why did you pick them? What should you be looking for in the future?
Stop doubting yourself. You are who you are. You need to try. You will accomplish some things and others will not happen for you. The only way to avoid failure would be to never try and that is the worst form of failure. Pick goals carefully and then aim high.
For a more fulfilling life let go of those doubts. No one knows how the game of life will turn out until it is over. Don’t let ruminating about what might happen to keep you from living in the present.
It is hard to drive looking back over your shoulder. You can’t get on in life if your primary focus is on the past. Shift those experiences into memory and use the major part of your brain to keep your eyes on the present and the future.
Have unfinished business? Finish it! Write a letter to the past and then destroy it. Apologize or make amends. Please do not say that you can’t move on until someone else does something. Do your part to solve things and let the past go. Sometimes the only way to finish that unfinished business is to accept that what happened is the whole story and stop insisting that there should be another ending. Write “the end” and find your peace.
If you have an addiction work on ending it. Bad habits will continue to hold you back until you toss them. Overcoming an addiction is not easy, but it has been done over and over. Look for help. Get support from a community of others that are seeking recovery and you will find that letting go of an addiction is the greatest achievement you can have.
Having gone through that baggage and tossed the things that are holding you back you will be ready to move on to the best possible future.
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 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
By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Licensed Counselor.
Recovery and Resiliency.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com
Just returned from a really great training titled “Making Recovery Practical.” The most important part of this training was its clear declaration that recovery is possible. Those of you who have been readers here for a long time know that I am a strong proponent of the concept of recovery.
In my professional life, I have seen many people recover. Unfortunately, many professionals still act as if people do not and should not recover. This prompted me to think I needed to write a few more posts about what recovery is and how it is that people do recover.
The presenter of this training was Dr. Mark Ragins, who is the medical director of the –MHA Villages Integrated Service Agency. Mental Health America Los Angeles is an affiliate of Mental Health America. The particular training I attended was sponsored by the Fresno County Department of Behavioral Health.
Dr. Ragins covered a great amount of material in a very short time. If you ever get a chance to hear Dr. Ragins speak I would highly recommend him. While I won’t be able to say it the way Dr. Ragins did, in this and upcoming posts I would like to explore some of his “Making recovery possible” themes with all of you. What follows are my thoughts on the subject inspired by Dr. Ragins presentation but not specifically the material from his presentation.
Societal responses to problems are most often about reacting to an immediate critical problem. It is much easier to motivate help for people impacted by flooding or hurricane damage than it is to do projects to prevent flooding. We typically do many things to cope with a recession after it happens, bail out the banks, and spend money to create jobs. It is hard to develop the political will to make structural changes that would prevent future bubbles from bursting and creating the next recession or depression. We now know that waiting for a serious mental illness to develop is waiting too long.
Our approach to mental illness has been largely the same. Wait for someone to “get sick” send them to a doctor or hospital and expect that they will “get fixed.” If mental illness is a disease why can’t the doctors “cure” them?
The medical model, like the financial model, the employment model, and so on is based on treating acute problems, not chronic illnesses. Break a leg and you get a cast, maybe surgery and medications and the leg heals. Medicine is good at treating acute problems. It is not so good at treating chronic problems.
Doctors spend most of their time these days managing chronic illness, diabetes, high blood pressure, obesity, and its related complications. Same thing is true of mental illnesses. We are better at treating sudden issues like suicidal thoughts than we are at treating chronic conditions like depression or anxiety. Psychosis is all too often treated by the “put them on meds and then tell them to stay home and let others run their lives approach.”
Helping people manage their symptoms too often turns into professionals trying to manage people.
We, as in professionals, used to think there were two kinds of people, the mentally ill and the “normal” people. Recently we have realized that most of those things we call mental illnesses and substance use disorders are chronic conditions, not acute ones. You may become more depressed or less depressed depending on other factors in your life. Substance abuse gets better if you stop drinking and using but being dry or putting down the drugs is not the same thing as being really sober or recovered.
Recovery from a chronic disease or disorder is not about a cure. It is about managing your life to have the best life possible regardless of whatever challenges someone is facing. The psychiatrist’s idea of recovery might be not hearing the voices and taking their meds as prescribed. Your idea of recovery might be having a relationship, a place of your own, and being able to engage in productive activates regardless of whether you hear the voices or not.
Rather than so much focus on the disease model and what disease does that person have? What is sorely needed is a focus on wellness, resiliency, and recovery. How can someone having had an episode of this thing we are calling mental illness learn to increase their wellness and live the manner of life they chose to live.
For far too long we have focused on what the mentally ill can’t do and the result has been convincing ourselves, the mentally ill, and society that they will never get better. As we shift the focus from expecting a full, complete “cure” to learning how to reduce or manage the symptoms of a chronic condition it becomes increasingly clear that recovery and a full life are possible.
Stay tuned and in future blog posts, we will talk again about wellness tools and how to make recovery possible.
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 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
counselorssoapbox 