Category Archives: Self-Improvement

Forgetting things may not be a memory problem

Posted on by
9

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

Brain

Memory.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

How well you remember may depend on how you learned.

Memory is important. There is nothing as frustrating as standing there trying to remember someone’s name and come up with a complete blank.

We all blame this on a bad memory. That may not be the problem at all.

How well you remember someone or something may all depend on the very first impression. How well did you grasp the facts the first time you saw or heard them?

We talked in a past post (Why you can’t forget the painful past) about how pain is burned into us and happy memories take time to sink in. But there is more than just your emotional state at work in how well you remember.

That forgetting things, it may not be about old age or the beginning of Alzheimer’s. An example may help explain this.

You attend a social function over the weekend and meet some new people. On your way in past a hoard of noisy people trying to find their dinner table you are introduced to a couple and you shake hands just before you are whisked away to your table. You think that their names are Jane and Tom. Later when you say something to your partner over dinner about meeting Jane and Tom, they say who? You mean Janet and Tim?

Not what were their names?  You are not really sure. Two weeks later you start work at a new company.  The boss, you suddenly recognize him, you met him at the dinner meeting, but what was his name?

The problem here is not that you forgot his name. It is not even that you did not try to remember all those people who you met that night for the first time.

The problem is not in the retrieval part of memory. You never really learned this person’s name in the first place and clearly, you can’t remember something you never knew. You have just learned an important lesson.

How well you remember depends on the first impression something makes on you and on your brain. Hear a name clearly, get a chance to repeat it a few times, maybe even write it down and you will probably remember it. But hear it once, over a lot of noise in a hurried situation and it may well never get stored away in your memory.

Much of what we call forgetting is really a failure to learn things in the first place.

Remember that chemicals in your bloodstream can affect the recording, processing, or retrieval of information. To remember something you need to be able to do all three functions. We have talked in the past about how chemicals in the bloodstream can alter the storage and retrieval of information.

If you need the same chemical in your bloodstream to remember as was there when you learned something this is called State-Dependent Learning. We also talked about Marijuana and how it may interfere both with the storage and the retrieval of information. And of course, alcohol can cause blackouts, the total failure to record information even while you are talking and moving about. See “Do people really forget what happens when drinking.”

You now know that another major source of memory failure is not slowing down and learning things thoroughly enough in the first place.

A good memory is important in life and we could all use some help in improving our memory and our ability to make use of that thing we call our brain. Over the posts to come, I will talk more about how to get the best use and mileage out of that thing we call our brain. Better and clear thinking is a skill that can be learned. It does not benefit from the use of self-prescribed street drugs to boost its functioning.

Oh yes, some memory problems can be organic health problems. If there is a chance of that or you are concerned that this forgetting may be excessive, if you worry about having or getting Alzheimer’s, please see a doctor.

But also in the future work on improving your memory by, slowing it down, letting it sink in, and you will find the things you fully learned you will remember better.

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

If your house is leaning check the blueprint – life plans

Posted on by
3

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

No Roof.

No Roof.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Things we know, that aren’t so, keep life from being happy.

Can you imagine someone building a house with faulty blueprints?

Leave out a couple of braces, a support or two, and cut some boards a little short, and – Wallah – a house that leans precipitously, ready to fall over. There have been a couple of notable cases of this in buildings built by government agencies but that is another topic.

Imagine building your life using a faulty set of blueprints.

This is precisely what a great many clients who come for therapy are trying to do. They keep doing the same thing over and over using a life plan, a set of mental blueprints for living, that the copied down in childhood but there are some mistakes in those plans.

One clinician observed that those life problems that cause us the most difficulty are the things that we learned between five and fifteen that turn out to not be true. The age range may vary but the principle is the same.

Some examples of defective life blueprints may help.

You grew up in a home where alcohol or drugs were readily abused. You grew up thinking that everyone drinks and drugs a lot and this is normal. You may also think that the cops are out to get you because they show up on a regular basis every time you and your family members fight.

This is not normal behavior. Did you know that half of the adults in the United States who are old enough to drink have not had a drink in the last thirty days?  Turns out that the twenty percent heaviest drinkers, they drink eighty percent of the alcohol consumed in America.  Not everyone who drinks at home gets violent either, but the people who do get violent seem to drink and drug a lot more than the people who don’t.

So if you formed a plan for life that includes getting drunk and fighting with people who don’t do what you want them to do, this plan may not work well for anything but sending you to jails and institutions or worse.

Other errors you may have made in transcribing your life blueprints besides drugs and alcohol.

You may have been taught and therefore learned that people with emotional problems, they are crazy and so you need to try really hard to pretend you don’t have any emotional problems because if you admit you have them you will fall apart and go crazy.

This turns out to be very untrue. In the course of their lifetime, half of all Americans will have an emotional problem that becomes so severe they need to get help. My suspicion is that this is true in other places on earth also. Those who recognize they have a life problem and get help early; they have a better chance of getting over this problem quickly.

Everyone who sees a counselor is not crazy. Crazy people pretend they don’t have any problems even when those problems have overwhelmed them.  Much of what we do in counseling is helps people find solutions to normal life problems that are right for them.

We may have “learned” that to be wealthy you need to have been born into money, have a stroke of luck like winning the lottery or come up with some new technological innovation like invent the next e-pet. Turns out that there are people in America who are wealthy and do not realize it. There are also a lot of other paths to wealth that people don’t know exist.

Later in the year, I plan to post a series of pieces about financial issues and how a large amount of what we may have learned and are trying to do may be the result of really defective blueprints.

Some people have a blueprint in their head that tells them they are defective, worthless, or stupid.  If you were told a lot of negative things about yourself as a child you may have internalized thoughts about how you are less than others. Turns out there are a whole lot of very bright people out there who never knew they were that smart. Since others put them down, they have never tried to do the things that they were meant to do.

There are plenty of other examples of this faulty blueprint phenomenon. These may have to do with religion, politics, or other values.  Anytime we swallow someone else’s beliefs whole without digesting them and getting a full understanding we are at risk to have gotten them wrong.

This year may be as a good a time as any to take another look at the blueprints in your head, the ones you learned as a child, and see if they are working or is your life house leaning over and about to collapse. If you find beliefs that are holding you back this may be a time to examine them and see if you may have learned things that are not true.

Some of the structures you have added on to your life house, they may be rooms from someone else’s structure that were never intended to fit into your life.

You can’t create a happy life with a set of blueprints that create misery.

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

Would you want to go on a trip with you?

Posted on by
5

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

Taking a trip.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

How much do you really know about you?

Most of us can tell the world quite a lot about others in our lives. If you have a friend and I asked you about that friend you could tell me a whole lot. Why even an enemy, someone you could not stand, you could go on for a long time telling me all about their defects. But let me ask you about yourself and most people could not tell me much about them and what they did say would likely not be very accurate.

Start right now to get to know yourself the way you would come to know a very best friend.

You will spend more time with you than with anyone else you ever meet in your life. Everywhere you go, when you wake up the next morning you will be there. You need to start right now on becoming the world’s expert on you. You should strive to be your own best friend.

It is said that we teach others how to treat us. We need to begin by learning to treat ourselves better. Compassion like charity begins at home. Treat yourself kindly and you will encourage others to treat you better. Is there one thing that you could do today to get to know yourself better?

Learning what makes you happy goes a long way to becoming happier. Make a list of all the things that make you happy. Decide which of those things you want more of. Decide right now that you intend to be that best friend you need.

Some of us have been blessed with true genuine friends. But whether you have had the experience of a trustworthy friend or not you can determine here and now to become that best friend you need. Treat yourself well.

For many of us, empathy for others comes more easily than tender feelings for ourselves. Learn to honor and respect yourself, learn also to identify those things that cause you pain, and resolve to eliminate those causes from your life.

It is difficult for others to care any more about you than you care about yourself.

Learn to accept the defects in yourself in the same way you might accept defects in others. Believe that you are a worthwhile person, not because of some great accomplishment but just because you are a unique individual. You are special in your own way, just like every other person on planet earth is special in their own way.

Some people can’t stand to be alone. They have never become comfortable spending time by themselves. Learn to occupy yourself. Be happy being in your own company. You will be with yourself all your life, start by learning how to mindfully do things with and by yourself.

What is your favorite color? What activities make you happy? What things in your life have made you sad? Hear your own pain and tell yourself it is all right. Learn to give you comfort and reassurance.

What has been the best moment in your life? What was the worst? It may help you to take notes.

What makes you feel loved? Couples tell me they do not feel that their partner loves them but they have never considered what makes them feel loved. How do you show yourself self-love? Loving yourself does not make you vain, it makes you mentally healthy.

If you want your children and your partner to do things that make you feel loved, you need to demonstrate how this love should be displayed.

Often I find clients are unable to tell me anything good about themselves. They have been so concerned about sounding conceited they have been cruel to themselves.

Taking good care of yourself is not being selfish. Giving yourself credit for things well done does not make you conceited. Failure to recognize and give yourself credit for things well done is a form of false modesty and is detrimental to your self-esteem.

I ask them what would a friend say about you. What would they say was your best quality? What do they like about you? If you don’t know, ask that friend, and while you are at it share with them the things you like about them.

In parenting class, one exercise we have used is to have each client sit in the center of the circle and as we go around the circle have each person tell them one thing they really like about that client. People often hear positive comments from their peers that they have never heard before. We often think good things about our friends but fail to tell them.

Tell yourself what you value about you. If you can’t make a list right off then make that a project to work on this year. Find the true value inside you.

Learning to accept praise, thanks and congratulations is a part of beginning to see yourself realistically as a worthwhile person. Accept that you are someone who sometimes does well and sometimes makes mistakes but is always a person worth having as a friend.

What will you say about yourself? What you tell yourself about you will determine the kind of person you become.

Become the kind of friend you will want to spend your life with.

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

Inventorying you baggage.

Posted on by
8

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

Baggage.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Are anger and pain all you got in there?

When people start on the project of inventorying their baggage they customarily find a whole lot of anger, pain and resentment, and a liberal serving of fears. If they find any happiness, joy, or contentment it doesn’t seem to take up much space and is easy to carry so it tends to go unnoticed.

The expression baggage mostly comes from relationship issues, leftover emotions from the last relationship that gets unpacked and used in this relationship even when they are totally inappropriate. The term inventory comes mostly from twelve-step recovery literature. I have combined the two here because they have a whole lot of common elements.

People who unpack their baggage find a whole lot of negative emotions, anger, fear, and resentments, that they need to inventory before they can move on. Any good twelve-stepper can tell you that the big book says that inventories are not only done in red ink. You need to give yourself credit for the good parts of yourself.

That asset taking, the black ink part of the inventory, will come up in a later post.

The big book then goes on to provide specific directions on how to do a fourth step inventory of your anger, fears, and resentments.  I will not try to repeat that explanation here. If you are interested in the full discussion the A.A. big book titled simply enough “Alcoholics Anonymous,” is available inexpensively and most everywhere.

While we have since developed over 300 different therapy schools, each with its own set of initials and applications to various disorders, the A.A. program appears to work no matter what problem it is applied to.

The closest cousin to this A.A. program among the therapy schools is the CBT process and its cousins REBT and DBT.

The short version here is that by one method or another, the way to get recovery is to get a head change. Your thinking needs to change for your feelings to change.

The reason we get hurt in life is that our expectations for others are faulty. We need to reexamine our beliefs about why people do things. What we find is that other people’s behavior is rarely about us. It is usually about them. Sick people do sick things. If we try to hang onto that sickness, stay angry and resentful, we stay just as sick as they are. Maybe sicker, because as we know better we should do better.

So we don’t need to hang on to all that anger and resentment. That does not mean we forget. Those experiences made us who we are, but we do stop ruminating on these old injuries “gnawing on the things that are eating us” as Casey Truffo called it.

So do you have any negative emotions on your inventory list, some anger and fear and resentments, you are ready to let go of? Toss that stuff, lighten your load and let’s get moving on this journey towards a happy life.

If you don’t have the strength to do the tossing, recruit some help, a counselor, sponsor or a friend can help you sort through that pain and become willing to let go of the past.

You need to jettison the past; it is heavy to carry and takes up a lot of room in the baggage. If you intend to get to that new happy life you had better plan to travel light. The joy and the happiness, hold onto that, it never seems to take up any room in the luggage, and the more of it, you spread around, the more you seem to have.

This lightening the load, getting rid of the garbage that is holding us back, some people do it quickly, but most of us need to do it over and over again. Keep coming back to it whenever you need to.

If you get going on this journey towards happiness you will quickly find that you just don’t have room for all that baggage. The closer you get towards your happy life goal the less value you will find in that junk and the easier it will be to get rid of it.

So let’s get moving. One last thing to consider. Who will you be taking along with you on this quest to find your happy life?

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

Your autobiography as therapy.

Posted on by
12

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

Your autobiography as therapy.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Where did all this emotional stuff come from?

Most businesses take inventory every year. It is good to see what you have and also what is missing. For many businesses there is a step that needs to be taken before we can even begin to take that inventory, it involves cleaning up the warehouse.

Businesses accumulate a lot of junk. There are boxes and bags tucked here and there and no one remembers what is in them and where they came from. Our emotional lives get like that also.

We have an “insecurity” here and a “resentment” there. Something that is said at work triggers a memory of another time we were told that same thing and it made us feel really awful. Only we can’t remember when that other time was and how that happened. We have boxes and baggage but we don’t know what it goes to.

Before you get to the point of taking an emotional life experiences inventory, which is coming up soon, it pays to try to figure out what this stuff you are feeling is and where it came from.

In a previous post, I talked about how our minds have at least two memory systems. We have a verbal, story type memory which is stored as words, this happened and then that. We also have an emotional, feelings memory which is stored as pictures and sensations. Very likely there are other memory processes but let’s just work with these two for now.

So you see something, a single fresh flower lying on the floor next to an empty beer bottle. What does this mean? Some people will think nothing of it, pick the bottle and the flower up and maybe put some water in the bottle for the flower. Others of you will get upset, start to cry, and run away without touching a thing.

Past experiences have conditioned a response to this scene. You have learned from experience what this will mean to you emotionally and you have launched into an automatic response.

One way to begin to find these past events, to make some sense of them, and see why those past experiences are continuing to influence you today is to write out your autobiography. In the beginning, it is not necessary to figure out everything.  Just write the memory down.

Some people start trying to interpret things from the start. Do not fall into that trap. You remember being in a room with a particular decor and you were scared. Don’t run for the “was I molested” trap. Just know that you were there and you were scared. That experience increased the risk that when you see that decor again you will feel scared again whether this is a dangerous situation or not.

So write down the first thing you remember in life, then the next. I recommend for this using a loose-leaf book. You may find every time you write about something you will remember something else. There may be gaps in your memory. At this point all that matters are you are exploring you. Finding out what feelings you have had and where they may have originated.

In a later post, I will talk about how to do an inventory of these experiences and emotions. For now just work on getting back in touch with you, who you are what you have felt and how did you come to be you.

Some of these remembered experiences will provide insight. You always knew this; you just never invested the time in yourself to think this through. Some experiences in your life are just that, experiences. No emotional content. Some have left lifelong scars even if you have not been consciously aware of them.

Please don’t only look for the sad, the painful experiences. Along the way find the things that were happy times. Maybe the memory will be of a pet or a special person who was in your life if only for a while. If you had that pet, for a while, and then you lost them, think of the time when you had them. How did you feel? What did you do?

If you can find that reflected crystal of joy from that time then you can tuck it away and recreate it at will. That time you were so happy, that special place, you can get back there again when you need to.

This project, taking a look at you and how you became the person you are, will take some time. We will want to return to it again and again. Tuck those pages away and keep adding to them as you think of more you remember.

In a future post, we will look at the process of inventorying those feelings that these memories and stories produced.

So far this year, we have done a lot of work on finding out who we are, what we value, and how we became the people we are. You have also thought about who you want to be, the place you are going to find that happy life. This might be a place to take a break.

Some posts on other topics are coming up along with some answers to reader questions. But keep working on your autobiography and your other projects in the meantime. We will get back to the self-improvement program soon.

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

How heavy is your baggage – Unpacking your baggage.

Posted on by
9

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

Baggage

Baggage.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Just what do you have packed away in your baggage?

The idea that we all have some baggage, things that connect us to our past, and that we keep carrying around with us, is common currency. We find that if we fill our lives up with that left-over stuff from the past then there is no room for making new experiences and memories in the present.

The result is that people continue to live in the past weighed down by their pain and suffering when they could just pitch some of that stuff and move on. Easy to say, this is really hard to do.

Unpacking that trunk is a task the may require some help. Professional helpers spend a lot of time working with people on healing from the past. Please consider getting some of that help. I don’t want to hear that you can’t afford help. That is an excuse, not a reason. Last year there was a post on “How to get help when you do not have money.”

The short version is that if you are really that impacted by the pain of the past there are those who will help you with this unpacking task. Therapists, peer counselors, religious leaders, and sometimes friends can all be of service here.

Beware of friends who want to take things out oh and ah over how awful that was and then help you put the thing back in the trunk for safekeeping.

If you want to move forward in having a happy life you need to start tossing that garbage.

Unpacking this trunk is a messy business. There may be some things you want to keep. Let’s see what you might find in your trunk.

There is that large bottle of jealousy and anger that you filled up during a series of particularly nasty fights you had with the ex. Your anger has spilled over everything.

Down towards the bottom is a photo album that has the pictures of the birth of your child and their first step. When you look inside there is your ex in those pictures. That is how those kids came about. How do you toss the anger towards your ex without tossing the pictures that remind you of the birth of your children?

So there will be some large things that got all messy and painful that we need to get rid of.  And mixed in there may be some small pieces of treasures we don’t want to toss.

Some trunks wiggle around on their own. Looks like a lion in there. When we open that one up for a peak the lion tries to stick its head out and eat us. We don’t want to face that one. The temptation is to slam the lid shut and never look in there again. The downside to that is that this is a really heavy trunk we have to carry around forever to avoid dealing with that creature in there.

This unpacking time is when you most need help. A good professional lion tamer with a chair and a whip can keep that lion at bay. Sometimes though, once that initial roar is over what we find is that lion, it is a very small scared little house cat. Having a friend look in the trunk with us can help with perspective. We think we have a lion, they laugh and tell us their cat is bigger than that. Now together you can deal with this unruly animal.

There are times that in unpacking the trunk of the past you will find some really awful things. Learn that if a real lion jumps out you can’t solve this problem by trying to put it back in the trunk and pretend it isn’t there.

Sometimes the only way to deal with a really awful creature in the trunk is to open the door; get out-of-the-way and just let it go. Don’t hang onto it anymore, just be glad it is gone.

There may be a few things from the past that you will keep anyway. That photo album of the kids and the good times, you may want to keep that even if it is stained by the anger and hurt of the arguments that came after. Some of those painful things made you who you are and you don’t want to forget how you got to be the person you are today.

Most of the stuff in this baggage is just junk. Stuff you were carrying around that is of no further use to you but you were not sure you were ready to pitch it. Have your friend or helper work with you and toss out everything you no longer need. You are about to take a journey on the road to a new happy life and you will need to get rid of all the baggage you can dispose of.

Repack what’s left along with your list of values and goals in a small overnight bag and let’s get going!

Some of us find this is harder than just cleaning out that one trunk full of baggage. What if you are an emotional hoarder? What if you have not one, but a whole bunch of containers full of baggage? You have accumulated so much emotional wreckage that you just don’t know where to begin.

You may need to do a couple of things before you are ready to move on. Next, we will talk about figuring where all this baggage came from, a look at the past. We will also need to take some inventory of the emotional baggage contents to help with the “what to keep and what to pitch” part. You may decide to keep some parts of you even if they are not fully perfect.

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

Danger at the crossroad – changes you can’t take back.

Posted on by
7

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

Road

Road to a happy life.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Linger at the fork in the road – you won’t come this way again.

So you have reached that fork in the road. You have been in pain or unhappiness too long and have determined to set off on a quest for the happy life you want. You know you do not want to go back and if you wait too long that is exactly what will happen, you will get sucked back into the quagmire of pain and misery. So you are anxious to set off.

Which way should you go?

This is a common problem for people in recovery. People in recovery from depression, anxiety, a bad relationship, or an addiction all reach this place of the crossroad. You will need a warning about the potential danger before you make a choice.

Forks in the road don’t lead off in just two directions. There are three. You could go back the way you came. Given the choice between two potential new lives, many of us will avoid the uncertainty and turn around and return to our misery. Going back is the most common choice and also often the worst one. But that is not the only danger here.

I will not argue with you which path you should take. That is your choice and yours alone. Some people prefer the well-trod path and go that way. Clearly many others have gone that way. Some of you may pick the road less traveled, for better or worse you decide to strike out and explore that route.

Some few of you in the rush to reach a new destination will head out across the wilderness looking for a shortcut. There are no shortcuts to happiness. Occasionally someone tries to make a new path and they are successful. You might be that one, but we find a lot of skeletons in the desert, people who wandered off the trail and got lost far away from civilization.

If you are fortunate there will be an information booth at this fork in the road.  This is one time it pays to ask for directions. The people at the booth can’t tell you which path is right for you, but they can tell you the reports from up ahead on the roads.

Recovery groups will suggest that you linger a while at the fork in the road. They don’t call it that but that is the way I see it.

What you are likely to be told is that during the first year in recovery; do not make any changes that you can’t take back. If you have a job, don’t quit it. If you are in a relationship don’t end it precipitously. And for sure do not jump into a new relationship. Give yourself time to figure this out.

The reason for this advice is that having left where you were before, a place of pain and unhappiness, you will begin to feel all sorts of feelings. One way our emotional memory protects us from pain is to shut down feelings, sometimes called dissociation. I think there are levels or variations in the experience of dissociation.

Having been through a period of time where you tried to avoid feeling because of the pain, or where your mind helped you out and did this for you, you will suddenly begin to feel all kinds of feelings and you may not know what to do with them.

People in substance abuse recovery frequently find that they have suppressed their appetite for all sorts of things and they go seeking to fill those cravings. Sudden sexual feelings are common. So are cravings for excitement and novelty.

So if you are coming from a place of a bad past, linger before committing to an uncertain future. Don’t quit the job that has been stressful right away, but begin to explore ways to make this job less stressful or what else would you want to do.

If you were married young and never got to date be especially careful of the one who comes along and you say they are what I have been missing out on. In this highly emotional state of early recovery what we see in the opportunities are what we want them to be not the reality of what they are.

That new job on the other coast sounds perfect until you give up everything to move there. That new partner, there is a reason their last ex left, and you need to take your time to check this out. Make sure you see things and people as they are not as you want them to be. Explore your options and keep options open as long as you can.

So here you sit, at that fork in the road ready for a whole new life. You are lingering to think things over and getting back reports on the road ahead. You are anxious to be off on the trip to a happy life. Just one thing.

That trunk you are sitting on is full of a lot of very heavy baggage.

What to do with that baggage is the focus of our next post.

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

What do you most want in your life?

Posted on by
7

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

How safe is the neighborhood in your head?

Posted on by
5

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

How many feelings do you feel? The feelings problem

Posted on by
3

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

Man with feelings

Managing feelings.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Do you let yourself feel too much or too little?

Two types of feelings problems cause people distress.

Some people feel too much. Excesses of fear and sadness keep them from having the happy life they want. Other people have an insatiable appetite for pleasure. They overindulge, damage their relationships, and suffer the consequences. They act impulsively and then regret the result but they tell me they can’t stop themselves even when they try.

Other people tell me they can’t feel anything. They are numb, cut off from their emotions. They don’t know what they feel even when they are feeling it. The numbness robs them of the chance for happiness.

How many feelings are there?

The list of feeling words is immense. Psychologists have looked for ways to make this understandable and have constructed shorter lists of primary feelings. These lists typically include 7 to 11 basic feelings.

1. Joy

2. Interest

3. Surprise

4. Fear (anxiety)

5. Anger

6. Sadness

7. Disgust

All of these feelings have survival value at times. Joy and interest might stimulate us to find and eat food. Fear could help us avoid a man-eating animal. Not everyone experiences these feelings in the same way. We could lump the emotions of fear, anxiety, nervousness, scared, or uncomfortable together. Experience has shown me that teenagers will deny feeling any fear but may have a sizable list of things that make them nervous or uncomfortable.

Individual variation

Not everyone experiences the same event by feeling the same emotion. One person may see a tornado and experience fear, another sadness and a third may experience interest and becomes a storm chaser. Past experience, beliefs about the event, and genetics may all play a role in how we perceive an event.

Negative and Positive Emotions

It may be easier at times to think of feelings as either negative or positive. The seven feelings could be separated into positive and negative lists. Hundreds of other feeling words might be added to the lists as variations or shades of these feelings. We could also use certain words to describe combinations of feelings or the co-occurrence for two feelings at the same time.

Joy, Interest, and Surprise are frequently seen as positive, though too much interest in certain things gets diagnosed as a mental illness if it interferes with your life. Fear or anxiety, anger, sadness, and disgust would form the core negative feelings. Research clearly indicates that while positive feelings are relatives and negative feelings come from the same family there are perceived differences between the feelings on each list.

The gender gap

Men in counseling often report having only three feelings, good, bad, or pissed-off. Women often have very differentiated feelings pallets. Men say Red, Yellow, or Blue, maybe purple. Women talk about things being Wisteria, Fuchsia, Lilac, Plum, and so on. Women typically have more feeling words and they understand the labels differently than most men.

Sometimes this feelings situation is reversed and the woman may report mostly being “numb” or disconnected while the man wants her to be able to express more of her feelings.

We learn our feelings from others

There was a time when expressing feeling was not appropriate. People were expected to be gigantic mechanical creatures who never expressed anything. To have feelings was to give in to the flesh. So some generations grew up unable to express how they feel and experiencing regret if feelings ever leaked out.

Many men remain unable to express feelings appropriately. They “suck it up” and go forward even when it would have been appropriate to show some emotion. The result is that unable to express emotions men lose the ability to name what they are feeling and as a result of not being able to categorize feelings and learn appropriate responses they may do nothing until overwhelmed.

So the feelings that are kept bottled up and unrecognized come exploding out under anger or alcohol. These people, disconnected from their feelings, are forced to reconnect when in anger management class or marriage counseling.

When feelings can protect you

Some feelings are protective. That feeling in your gut that tells you this is dangerous, that feeling we sometimes call intuition is meant to protect you from harm. People who don’t feel anything lose the assistance of feelings that tell you this is something you should not do or that is something good you need to get in on. Courage is not the lack of fear, pretending this is not dangerous. It is the ability to fully feel and appraise the situation, but to take action even in the presence of a real danger.

Positive feelings can help create and expand friendships and working relationships. Negative feelings can warn you to avoid dysfunctional relationships and abusive situations. People who use feeling as sources of information lead happier and more productive lives.

Do you feel your feelings? Are feelings your friends or do they cause you problems?

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

m.