“In the beginning of a change the patriot is a scarce man, and brave, and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot.”
― Mark Twain
“I have made a ceaseless effort not to ridicule, not to bewail, not to scorn human actions, but to understand them.”
― Baruch Spinoza
“There is no fate which cannot be surmounted by scorn.”
― Albert Camus
Wanted to share some inspirational quotes with you. Today seemed like a good time to do this. There are an estimated 100,000 words in the English language that are feelings related. Some emotions are pleasant, and some are unpleasant, but all feelings can provide useful information. If any of these quotes strike a chord with you, please share them.
Look at these related posts for more on this topic and other feelings.
By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Licensed Counselor.
What makes your life exciting?
Excitements can contribute a lot to the quality of your life. By excitements here we are not talking about the kind of excitement you might experience watching a close sporting event where what someone else is doing excites you. What I mean by excitement are those times in your life where what you’re doing excites you and you become fully absorbed in the activity. When what you’re doing excites you, time passes before you know it.
Excitement is not the same thing as pleasure. Though experiencing excitement can bring you a great deal of pleasure. Pleasures are consumption, whereas excitements are creation. Creating these excitements is engaging and requires an investment of your time and energy.
The exciting life grows out of a life which is based on meaning and purpose. If you find your meaning in life, find that your life has a purpose, getting up every day can be a joy.
Some psychologists describe engagement as flow.
Flow is that state in which you lose all sense of time. Someone who loves to play music will sit down to practice a piece only to realize that hours have passed. Have you ever engaged in an activity you were so into, that it seemed as if hours had passed in minutes? That’s the state of flow.
What makes a task exciting and creates flow?
Researchers have discovered specific characteristics of activities that create flow when matched with people who were into those activities. If you can design activities that take you into this state, the time you put in will always feel too short. People who regularly engage in activities that create the flow state describe their lives as full of meaning and purpose.
It requires skill and is challenging.
To routine, an activity can become dull over time. An activity that is challenging and requires you to develop ever-increasing skill can quickly put you into the flow state. This activity should not be beyond your abilities but only at the edge or limit of them. Many people rapidly reached the state of flow when playing video games and can become so engaged in them that they lose all sense of time and forget other activities.
When you concentrate you enter a flow state.
While easy tasks may be enjoyable, maintaining a state in which you are excited in a pleasant way requires that the task be challenging enough that you need to concentrate. The more you focus on this preferred task the more the rest of the world seems to disappear.
Tasks with clear goals are more enjoyable.
The more well-defined the goals the more likely you are to feel enjoyment as you accomplish them. This is one reason why video game players become so engrossed in the game. As they play the game, they are able to achieve increasingly difficult goals. Each time they reach a goal the activity there engaging in is reinforced.
Challenging activities provide immediate feedback.
While there are few people who can work for years on a project not knowing if it will be successful, most people are much more motivated when the task before them provides immediate feedback. When the task is set just a little harder in the last thing you’ve accomplished there’s an incentive to continue to learn and practice. The more immediate feedback the more likely you are to continue with that activity.
Exciting, flow state activities provide deep, effortless involvement.
What you get into the activity you get carried along. Your concentration improves as you become more and more focused on the activity. Seems an amazingly simple solution that many people who say they suffer from ADHD find no difficulty in continuing to pay attention to and engaging tasks such as video gaming or a sports activity.
Challenging experiences should include a sense of control.
When an activity feels out of your control when no matter what you do results seem to be dictated by someone else it rapidly moves from being enjoyable to being unpleasant. If you want to achieve that ultimate feeling of engagement look for opportunities to challenge yourself.
Our sense of self vanishes.
When you get really into any activity you lose yourself in what you are doing. As you move along in this exciting and enjoyable activity is stopped being self-conscious or worrying about what others think about what you’re doing. You continue the activity for the pure pleasure of accomplishment.
Time stops when you’re in a flow state.
Once you find an activity that really engages you and provides this level of excitement and passion there never seems to be enough time to engage in this activity. Hours can pass in what seems like only minutes. When you have to stop you feel like you have just barely begun.
I know I’ve interchanged some terminology here. But I’ve come to believe that happiness involves a lot more than not being depressed. I genuinely happy life reaches far beyond temporary bursts of pleasure. Engagement or flow is one of those ways that people reach genuine happiness.
Have you found something which adds excitement to your life? Is your life full of meaning and purpose? How would your life be different if you found your passion?
Staying connected with David Joel Miller
Seven David Joel Miller Books are available now! And more are on the way.
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.
“The trouble with some women is that they get all excited about nothing – and then marry him.”
― Cher
“Beauty of whatever kind, in its supreme development, invariably excites the sensitive soul to tears.”
― Edgar Allan Poe
“Do not stop thinking of life as an adventure. You have no security unless you can live bravely, excitingly, imaginatively; unless you can choose a challenge instead of competence.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt, The Autobiography of Eleanor Roosevelt
“Respond to every call
that excites your spirit.”
― Rumi, The Essential Rumi
Wanted to share some inspirational quotes with you. Today seemed like a good time to do this. There are an estimated 100,000 words in the English language that are feelings related. Some emotions are pleasant, and some are unpleasant, but all feelings can provide useful information. If any of these quotes strike a chord with you, please share them.
Look at these related posts for more on this topic and other feelings.
By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Licensed Counselor.
What is a toxic relationship?
Relationships we might describe as toxic lie on the extreme end of unhealthy relationships. The term toxic relationship is commonly used to describe a lot of unhappy and unhealthy relationships. One way of defining a toxic relationship is any relationship that lacks emotional safety. These relationships are characterized by chronic disrespect and frequent personal attacks.
People in these relationships often report that they experience gaslighting, their words are being twisted, and every conversation ends in an argument. If your relationship makes you feel bad about yourself and you are always on edge when you’re around this person, it’s likely that you’re in an unhealthy or toxic relationship.
Toxicity can range from high to low.
Like most aspects of personality, there’s a range for how toxic someone might be. For example, the trait of narcissism ranges from so low that the person has little self-esteem to so high that they’re unable to empathize or see others’ points of view. Some people can handle being around a severe narcissist and not be damaged, but most people can’t.
The same thing is true of many of the personality characteristics associated with toxic relationships. What you may be able to tolerate in a partner might be harmful to some of your other family members. What someone else may be able to put up with in a relationship might damage your self-esteem and ability to have a well-functioning life.
Being in a relationship that you find toxic can leave you chronically unhappy and even depressed. It makes your life feel unstable and unpredictable. Here are some signs you may be in an unhealthy or toxic relationship.
They are dream destroyers.
If your partner constantly belittles you and makes fun of your dreams, this will turn destructive over time. There’s something wrong with a partner who needs to pull you down in order to feel good about themselves. If your partner can’t support you in pursuing your dreams, you better reevaluate that relationship.
Their lives are full of drama that has nothing to do with you.
Some people live in the eye of the hurricane. Their life is always full of drama. If nothing is going wrong, they create more drama. You are constantly being dragged into their drama.
Whatever they want is more important than your wants and needs.
In toxic relationships, one partner will disregard the other wants and needs. Everything becomes about them. A healthy relationship is characterized by give-and-take. If you’ve come to expect that what you want will be disregarded and that your needs don’t matter, you’re in a very unhealthy relationship.
They belittle your accomplishments.
Healthy relationship partners are delighted when the partner accomplishes something. If your partner needs to minimize your accomplishments, this is a sign that your partner is insecure and only able to think about themselves. Having your partner constantly minimize your contribution to the relationship and your individual accomplishments will chip away at your self-esteem. Eventually, this kind of relationship will turn toxic.
You would avoid this person if you could.
Are you ever tempted to stay at work a little longer just to avoid having to go home? But then, when you get home, do you try to busy yourself with something that avoids the person you live with? If you find you would just as soon avoid this person if you could, that’s a sign of an unhealthy relationship.
When you’re around them, you can’t be yourself.
You feel that the person is constantly evaluating you and judging you negatively and that it’s not a healthy relationship. If you have to hide your true self when you’re around someone, it’s not a healthy relationship. If you have to change who you are to please this person, it’s not a healthy relationship.
Being around them makes you physically ill.
There’s a lot of truth to that old saying that someone makes you sick to your stomach. The body reacts to unhealthy or dangerous situations by motivating our defenses to freeze, flee, or fight. If when you’re around someone you chronically have headaches, an upset stomach, or other unpleasant body sensations, and you’re not having those problems when you’re alone or with supportive people, your body is trying to tell you there’s something wrong with this relationship.
Do they avoid hearing about your feelings?
In a healthy relationship, you should feel free to express feelings about things without your partner getting defensive. If your feelings are a taboo subject, it’s an unhealthy relationship. Does your partner get angry whenever you tell them how you feel about something? Not wanting to hear about your feelings, or worse yet, not wanting you to have feelings, is a sign of an unhealthy relationship.
Do they blame you for all the problems in the relationship?
Having a good work relationship requires two people, each caring about the other. Most relationship problems can only be solved by work on both parties’ parts. If your partner won’t look at how they contribute to the issues between you and tell you everything would be fine if you would just change, your relationship is not very healthy.
Relationships in which one person has a significant problem, an addiction, a severe untreated mental illness, or uncontrolled anger issues can’t be made healthy by their partner no matter how hard that partner tries. But if you’ve done your best to be a healthy partner, their problems aren’t all your fault.
Have you become totally dependent on your partner?
A characteristic of unhealthy relationships, particularly abusive relationships, is when your partner insists that you rely solely on them. If your partner doesn’t like your friends and family and doesn’t want you talking to them, it’s an unhealthy relationship. If they don’t want you going anywhere without them, they control all the money; your relationship has become unhealthy.
You disagree on your goals and values.
The things that tear couples apart are often the things that they hadn’t discussed when they got together. Does one of you want to have children, and the other wants to put it off maybe forever? Do you disagree on whether to spend or save? Have you discussed where you want to live and what you want to do when retirement arrives?
Think about all these factors, particularly in your primary intimate relationship. Beware if you see signs of an unhealthy relationship. Recognizing toxic relationships early on can save you years of unhappiness.
Staying connected with David Joel Miller
Seven David Joel Miller Books are available now! And more are on the way.
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.
“The most courageous act is still to think for yourself. Aloud.”
― Coco Chanel
“I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre
Normally I share these quotes on Sunday, but since this weekend is 4 July, America’s Independence Day, I thought it might be useful to share some additional quotes about the meanings people attach to independence.
Wanted to share some inspirational quotes with you. Today seemed like a good time to do this. There are an estimated 100,000 words in the English language that are feelings related. Some emotions are pleasant, and some are unpleasant, but all feelings can provide useful information. If any of these quotes strike a chord with you, please share them.
Look at these related posts for more on this topic and other feelings.
Today many of us are celebrating Independence Day. Officially it happens today July 4th here in America. It has not yet happened for everyone everywhere.
Freedom has its life in the hearts, the actions, the spirit of men and so it must be daily earned and refreshed – else like a flower cut from its life-giving roots, it will wither and die. ~Dwight D. Eisenhower
Have you thought about what Independence means to you?
By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Licensed Counselor.
A quick glance at my calendar tells me that the year 2021 is about half over.
Last week was the summer solstice, where we officially moved into the summer season.
This week we moved from June to July, marking the beginning of the second half of our 12-month year.
Seems like a good time to take stock of my progress working on my “things I want to do this year” list.
Relationships.
High on my list of priorities for 2021 has been improving my relationships with family and friends. Covid has certainly got in the way of maintaining relationships. But on balance, I feel pleased with my progress in staying in contact with people who are important to me despite the difficulties.
Creative endeavors.
The year 2021 was one I dedicate to try to improve the quality of my creative work. I have spent some time taking classes on how to teach online, and I have studied ways to improve my writing and my video production. Unfortunately, all that time spent studying has not yet translated into actually producing more creative work. That should probably be the focus of the second half of the year 2021.
Becoming more proficient in using online platforms.
Technology has been a challenge, especially for an old guy like me. Since Covid began and particularly during the early part of 2021, I have taken classes in teaching online, and I have created to complete asynchronous online courses in the field of substance use disorders. I want to finish my certification for online teaching before the end of 2021.
I’ve gotten very used to using Zoom and occasionally some other videoconferencing platforms. I now have a dedicated Zoom room for doing online clinical supervision and seeing some private practice clients.
Improving my skills at creating videos.
I made some progress in learning to make simple videos. My YouTube video Channel recently reached an all-time high in viewers. Most of the videos are related to alcoholism, substance abuse, and counseling for substance use disorders. In addition, I began adding videos about mental health and having a happy life. I hope to expand those before the end of 2021.
Blog posts.
Time has been premium to work on the counselorssoapbox blog. With 1800 posts completed, it’s been getting harder to come up with topics and the time to create new blog posts. So although I haven’t completely abandoned blogging is had to take a back seat to my other longer-form writing.
Writing and publishing new books.
I currently have three novels and one nonfiction self-help book I’m working on. I and doing more research than I had on past books. I’m also taking classes and reading books on how to become a better author. I’ll let you know when the books get completed and published.
Trying to keep my life in balance.
Of all the things I wanted to do for 2021, this goal has proved the most elusive. There are just so many things I want to do every day that keeping things in balance is a constant challenge. While I can’t say that everything in my life is in balance, shifting from a list of things that I “have to do” to lists of “things I want to do” has helped me reduce the pressure to get more done each day and has increased the time that I can simply relax and enjoy the things I choose to do.
Now don’t get the wrong impression here. I’m still teaching two classes per semester, conducting group supervision, and seeing clients in private practice. I enjoy working, so I continue to do it. But I’m trying to increase the time I spend each week doing creative projects and learning new things.
For the rest of this year, I’ll try to keep you updated on what I’m learning and what I’m creating.
There are probably many more things I should reflect on for this midyear review, but I wanted to get this retrospective review completed before we reached the end of 2021.
“A really efficient totalitarian state would be one in which the all-powerful executive of political bosses and their army of managers control a population of slaves who do not have to be coerced, because they love their servitude.”
― Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
“Efficiency is doing the thing right. Effectiveness is doing the right thing.”
― Peter F. Drucker
“Intelligence is based on how efficient a species became at doing the things they need to survive.”
― Charles Darwin
Wanted to share some inspirational quotes with you. Today seemed like a good time to do this. There are an estimated 100,000 words in the English language that are feelings related. Some emotions are pleasant, and some are unpleasant, but all feelings can provide useful information. If any of these quotes strike a chord with you, please share them.
Look at these related posts for more on this topic and other feelings.
“It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.”
― E.E. Cummings
“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”
― Winston S. Churchill
“Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.”
― Lao Tzu
Wanted to share some inspirational quotes with you. Today seemed like a good time to do this. There are an estimated 100,000 words in the English language that are feelings related. Some emotions are pleasant, and some are unpleasant, but all feelings can provide useful information. If any of these quotes strike a chord with you, please share them.
Look at these related posts for more on this topic and other feelings.
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