“Whether they be young in spirit, or young in age, the members of the Democratic Party must never lose that youthful zest for new ideas and for a better world, which has made us great.”
― John F. Kennedy
“It is in the compelling zest of high adventure and of victory, and in creative action, that man finds his supreme joys.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Wind, Sand and Stars
“the enormous zest for science that I see in first-graders and the lesson from the remnant hunter-gatherers both speak eloquently:”
― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
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.
Is your inner critic so loud, you can’t concentrate?
The term inner critic refers to an inner voice that continually criticizes everything you do and puts you down. Most people know this is not a voice but their thoughts. Still, the negative thoughts are so persistent it feels like you aren’t in control of that inner critic.
Many people, maybe all of us, have an inner critic who tells us we’re not good enough. Your inner critic may tell you that you’re not smart enough. They may even tell you that you are stupid or an idiot. Some people’s inner critic tells them they’re too fat, too short, or too ugly.
People in artistic or competitive fields are particularly prone to attack by their inner critic. Writers and authors are often plagued by doubts about the value of their work. Athletes also know the challenges of having an overactive inner critic.
But anyone, regardless of their life circumstances, can expect a visit from the inner critic who seems to delight in destroying people’s self-esteem. Listening to your inner critic will undermine your confidence. When the inner critic talks about mistakes you’ve made, you may experience shame or guilt. Listening to the inner critic’s voice can lead to “imposter syndrome,” where people expect to be revealed as not worthy of their accomplishments.
Even highly accomplished people are plagued by visits from the inner critic who tells them that their accomplishment was an accident, they’re not that smart, or they’ll never be able to match that past achievement.
Because your inner critic lives in your own mind, you may start believing that what they tell you must be true. Just because you think something doesn’t make it true.
Your inner critic will oppose you.
Your inner critic will tell you that you shouldn’t try. Listening to them in the short run can keep you stuck in inaction. Over the long term listening to the inner critic can cause mental illnesses. Your inner critic would love it if you were too depressed to do anything, too anxious to ever venture out of the house, and too fearful to ever argue with them. Not taking action protects you from both failure and success.
Your thinking style may be magnifying your inner critic.
The voice of the inner critic is magnified by highly negative self-talk. Disparaging yourself, or berating yourself, activates the brain’s threat system or keeps it activated. This can keep you stuck in depression or anxiety.
Your inner critic tries to fool you with a hostile tone of voice.
That tone can be extremely cruel, harsh, and attacking. This can lead to a negative self-opinion. And may even convince you that you don’t deserve any better.
The inner critic uses cognitive distortions to fool you.
Inner critics flood your mind with unhelpful thoughts. They like to use labeling, shoulding, overgeneralizing, and other cognitive distortions to keep you stuck.
How do you fight the inner critic?
Struggling with your inner critic can be a long process. Learn thought-stopping techniques. Try to ignore what they’re saying. When your inner critic gets loud and insistent, tell them to shut up. Sometimes it’s helpful to analyze what your inner critic is saying. Here are some questions you should ask yourself.
What does the inner critic criticize you about?
Pay attention to the things the inner critic says to you. Are these areas where you need to improve your skills? Are these remnants from childhood when you never seem to be good enough? Make up a list of the common complaints of your inner critic and evaluate them for accuracy. You may want to go over this list with a trusted friend or a counselor.
What do you say to yourself?
A significant source of fodder for what your inner critic tells you are your negative self-statements. Stop saying things to yourself that are damaging. There’s no evidence that constantly criticizing yourself will spur you on to do better, and it may cause you to give up on something you could have accomplished.
Who does your inner critic sound like?
Some people’s inner critic is an internalized voice from childhood. Does your inner critic sound like a caregiver or family member? Is your inner critic impersonating a current or former romantic partner, or does it sound like someone who has abused you?
How does your inner critic make you feel?
Pay attention to how you feel when you hear the inner critic’s voice. Do those thoughts make you depressed or anxious? Do they lower your self-esteem? Is there any way in which these thoughts are helpful?
What are the long-term consequences of listening to your inner critic?
An occasional fleeting negative thought about yourself probably doesn’t matter. When the inner critic starts to talk, you can ignore them. But if listening to your inner critic is wearing you out, creating self-doubt, you need to act.
Your inner critic may be the result of mental health problems or may cause them.
Having a vocal inner critic may be a symptom of a severe mental health condition. People with various psychoses may hear voices telling them they are no good or should hurt themselves. If you have a history of trauma, the inner critic may be continuing to perpetuate that trauma. Even if you don’t have a severe mental health challenge, realize that unchallenged that inner critic will wear you out, which may lead to severe depression or anxiety.
Is your inner critic out of control?
Take active steps to silence those negative critical voices in your head. If you struggle with an inner critic and haven’t succeeded in silencing them, talk with your support system, and consider getting professional help from a counselor or therapist.
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 seems 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.
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.
“The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.”
― Carl Gustav Jung
“Authenticity is a collection of choices that we have to make every day. It’s about the choice to show up and be real. The choice to be honest. The choice to let our true selves be seen.”
― Brene Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection
“We are all different. Don’t judge, understand instead.”
― Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart
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.
Positive Psychology. Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com.
By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Licensed Counselor.
Taking a deeper look into positive psychology.
In last week’s post, I introduce the topic of Positive Psychology. In today’s post, let’s take a deeper look into the subject of Positive Psychology.
Wikipedia defines Positive Psychology as:
Positive psychology is the study of “positive subjective experience, positive individual traits, and positive institutions and promises to improve quality of life.” Positive psychology focuses on both individual and societal well-being.[1] It is a field of study that has been growing steadily throughout the years as individuals and researchers look for common ground on better well-being.[2]
Many of the models of happiness emphasize pleasure or acquiring tangible goods. The happiness provided by pleasurable events fades quickly and requires a constant stream of pleasurable activities. The pleasure derived from buying things disappears almost instantly and can lead to overspending. Subjective well-being or having a satisfying life requires more than just temporary pleasures.
Positive psychology emphasizes contentment, life satisfaction, feelings of subjective well-being in addition to the ability to experience pleasure. Counselors who work from this perspective frequently believe that finding your meaning and purpose for life leads to an increase in subjective well-being. Having a good life can be described as “flourishing.”
Positive psychology emphasizes your strengths rather than your weaknesses.
Traditionally mental-health treats defects. For your treatment to be covered by your mental health insurance, your provider needs to assign you a diagnosis of what is wrong with you. While medication may help manage the symptoms of mental illness, no medication is known, which cures a mental illness.
The primary route of change for people with a mental health challenge is talk therapy, and several mental illnesses can be cured using talk therapy. There are many theories of what causes specific mental illnesses and how they are to be treated. One highly successful approach has been the positive psychology theory. Positive psychology looks to find your strengths and build on them. You don’t need to have a mental illness to benefit from the positive psychology approach.
Peterson and Seligman developed this classification system for identifying strengths and described it in their book Character Strengths and Virtues. The book describes twenty-four basic character strengths, which seem to be found and valued in varying degrees in all cultures. People may be high or low in any of these strengths. Positive psychology encourages people to make the most of their strengths while also improving those character strengths that may be underdeveloped. The twenty-four primary character strengths are clustered into six categories, which are described as “virtues.”
Character strengths and virtues are personality characteristics.
Many people think of character as a very limited set of values. People described as having “good character” may be described as honest, loyal, thrifty, and obedient. Characteristics such as creativity and curiosity are not usually cited as factors. In positive psychology, character strengths are personality characteristics that may prove beneficial to both the individual and society.
Six primary virtues are described by positive psychology.
The six primary virtues are wisdom, courage, humanity, justice, temperance, and transcendence. These are further subdivided into 24 character strengths.
Components of the virtue of wisdom.
Wisdom is subdivided into five strengths, creativity, curiosity, judgment, love of learning, and perspective.
The components of the virtue of courage.
Courage is subdivided into four components, bravery, perseverance, honesty, and zest.
The parts of the virtue of humanity.
Humanity is further subdivided into three character strengths, love, kindness, and social intelligence.
The virtue of justice.
The components of the virtue of justice are teamwork, fairness, and leadership.
The virtue of temperance.
Four character strengths make up the virtue of temperance. These are forgiveness, humility, prudence, and self-regulation.
The virtue of transcendence is related to religion and spirituality.
This virtue is subdivided into five character strengths, appreciation of beauty and excellence, gratitude, hope, humor, and spirituality.
Researchers have developed specific instruments to assess each of these character strengths and virtues. Because these strengths are described using words, there’s been some variation in the definitions individual researchers used for each character strength. In future blog posts, I want to talk to you about some of these character strengths, what I’ve learned from reading recent research on that strength, and how you might learn to make better use of your strengths to create a flourishing life full of well-being and happiness.
Staying connected with David Joel Miller
Seven David Joel Miller Books are available now!
My newest book is now available. It was my opportunity to try on a new genre. I’ve been working on this book for several years, but now seems 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.
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.
“I have decided to stick to love…Hate is too great a burden to bear.”
― Martin Luther King Jr., A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches
“If you can’t fly then run, if you can’t run then walk, if you can’t walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.
“We must come to see that the end we seek is a society at peace with itself, a society that can live with its conscience.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.
Wanted to share some inspirational quotes with you. Today seemed like a good time to do this. If any of these quotes strike a chord with you please share them.
“I have decided to stick to love…Hate is too great a burden to bear.”
― Martin Luther King Jr., A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches
“If you can’t fly then run, if you can’t run then walk, if you can’t walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.
“We must come to see that the end we seek is a society at peace with itself, a society that can live with its conscience.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.
Wanted to share some inspirational quotes with you. Today seemed like a good time to do this. If any of these quotes strike a chord with you please share them.
“It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change.”
― Leon C. Megginson
“Those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.”
― George Bernard Shaw
“The measure of intelligence is the ability to change.”
― Albert Einstein
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.
What is Positive Psychology? Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com
By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Licensed Counselor.
Positive psychology offers an alternative to the mental illness model.
Traditional mental health services focus on a deficit model. Initially, only two categories of mental illness were identified. Over time additional “mental illnesses” have been identified and described. Today the DSM-5 (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual fifth edition) lists over four hundred separate recognized mental illnesses. It also provides for at least another four hundred possible conditions that can be diagnosed.
There are many counseling theories that seek to explain what causes these mental illnesses and how they can be treated. With all this focus on what’s wrong with people, there has been very little focus on the positive end of the spectrum until recently. Not enough attention has been paid to what people should do to have a happy, contented, or flourishing life.
Physical health and mental health are organized differently.
Increasingly physical health systems are recognizing the importance of treating chronic illnesses. Preventative care has become a significant part of physical health programs. Mental health continues to be provided only to severely ill clients. With very few exceptions, you will need to be extremely “mentally ill” for insurance companies to pay for treatment. The primary focus is on treating mental illness rather than promoting mental health.
Positive psychology is a separate branch of psychology that began about twenty years ago when Martin Seligman became president of the American Psychological Association and chose positive psychology as his presidency’s theme. The new positive psychology movement builds on numerous past philosophers and psychotherapists. What was new and novel about this movement was its emphasis on identifying ways to increase positive functioning rather than focusing on negative impairments.
Positive psychology emphasizes having a good life.
The “good life,” which is the focus of positive psychology, involves a great deal more than merely increasing temporary “happiness” or pleasure. I should mention here that “anhedonia or loss of pleasure” is one of the primary symptoms for the diagnosis of depression. What we do know about treating depression is that merely adding short bursts of pleasure does not cure depression. I want to talk more about pleasure, happiness, and the many pathways for reaching a good life in future posts.
How many strengths do you have?
One of the things many counselors and therapists are told to do is identify the client’s strengths and encourage people to use those strengths to improve their mental health. What is often missing from that training is any comprehensive list of strengths or ways to identify the client’s strengths. My experience has been that people who have severe mental illness, anxiety, and depression often have difficulty identifying any strengths they may have.
In 2004 Christopher Peterson and Martin Seligman wrote a book which, at over 700 pages, is a very comprehensive compilation of characteristics that are pretty much universally accepted as desirable personality traits. The title of the book was Character Strengths and Virtues. Much of the research in the field of positive psychology is based on this classification system. Unfortunately, defining universal characteristics using words can lead to a lot of misunderstandings.
I remember a very long time ago in elementary school when we were taught how to have “good character.” Those values primarily involved being honest, truthful, and compliant with rules. People who disagreed with authority were thought of as having “bad character.” Virtues, of course, at least back then, took on the connotation of being morally right or wrong.
Neither of those interpretations appears to me to be the things Peterson and Seligman meant by using the words strengths and virtues. Their usage describes characteristics of people’s personalities that were both useful and beneficial to that person.
The book lists twenty-four character-strengths divided into six general categories of “virtues.” For example, the virtue of “wisdom” consists of the character strengths of creativity, curiosity, judgment, love of learning, and perspective. I have spent the last few weeks reading research articles on a couple of these character strengths. As I’m able to digest this information, I plan to write some additional blog posts this year about what’s been learned about these character strengths and how you might utilize and cultivate those strengths.
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 seems 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.
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.
Questions you should ask yourself. Photo courtesy of Pixabay.
By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Licensed Counselor.
The answers to these three questions can change your life.
To figure out your path in life, you need to figure out where you’re going. Some people get lost along the way and end up in therapy, trying to find themselves. I’ve come to believe that the first task ought to be finding the answers to three basic life questions. Throughout this coming year, I want to talk a little bit about those questions and how you go about finding the answers to them.
Resolutions are not the way to go.
This is the time of year a lot of people are making New Year’s resolutions. I fear that if I don’t get this published quickly enough, you will already have broken some of those resolutions. Some of those resolutions are external. Habits you want to change and things you want to accomplish.
Most resolutions fail because they specify a result rather than a process for reaching that result. Resolving to lose a certain number of pounds, get out of debt, get more education all sound like great goals. There will be plenty of articles throughout the universe I how to reach these goals. It’s usually missing from all of that is any discussion about if when you arrive at that goal, if you ever do, will you be happy? Will it have been worth the effort?
For most people paying off the debt only opens the door to creating more debt. Losing the weight may make you healthier if you can keep it off, but most people don’t keep it off because the process of dieting makes them miserable. Many people get more education expecting that to lead to higher income and more happiness only to find they don’t like the job there now qualified for.
Why can’t people find the answers to creating a happy life?
Despite a higher standard of living and more material possessions today than ever before in the history of the world, we also see more mental and physical illness. Looking for something external to make you happy is looking in the wrong place.
The idea that someone who is miserable can achieve happiness by finding the right romantic partner often turns out badly. It’s common for people to go through multiple failed relationships wondering why they always connect with the wrong partners. Eventually, some of those people, by trial and error or as the result of personal counseling and therapy, discovered that the answer to their questions isn’t external, but it’s internal. If you need to change something in your life, that change will need to take place inside you.
As I’m writing this, I’m thinking of all the things I’d like to talk to you about. I hope I’ve learned a few things through the years, and one of the major lessons I’ve learned is that the journey of self-awareness is an ongoing process. So here are the three essential questions I think you need to consider; otherwise, everything else you’re doing may be wasted effort.
Who are you?
Ask most people who they are, and their immediate answer will be a job title. I’m a teacher, an accountant, a clerk in the store, or some other occupation. Take that job away, whether by unemployment or disability, and suddenly the person must figure out who they are when they don’t do that job anymore.
Other people define themselves by their relationships. Traditionally that was more the way women define themselves. Ask a woman who she was, and she would say she was Mrs. so-and-so. Or she might tell you that she was this boy or girl’s mother. This is changing as more men define themselves by their relationships, and more women see themselves as professionals in an occupation. Both things are important for people’s understanding of themselves.
While your occupation and relationships are important, who you are is so much bigger than both of those.
Who do you connect with, and how, and why?
Relationships can enrich your life, but they can also impoverish it. A recurrent theme in therapy is why people keep getting into the same dysfunctional relationships. Someone who grew up in an alcoholic home falls in love with Ethel alcohol or marries an alcoholic.
People from dysfunctional homes frequently enter relationships with other people who have those same dysfunctions. One name for that losing yourself in your relationships is codependency. There’s a lot of codependent people out there. The way they eventually escape their codependency, if they ever do, is not by learning more and more about the dysfunctional person in their life but by learning more about themselves.
What gives your life meaning, and purpose?
Last week I wrote a blog post about what gives your life meaning and purpose. You might want to look at that post. I suppose it’s entirely possible to have several things that fill your life with meaning and purpose. It’s also likely that the thing that gives your life meaning or purpose at various points in your life may change.
What I’m getting at here is it’s far more critical to learn about your relationship with money and debt and decide how that affects the rest of your life than it is to go on a tight budget for a month or two to get out of debt only to end up back in debt again.
As we move through the year 2021, I want to talk to you about some of the implications of these three big life questions and how you might go about finding the answers to them. I’m continuing to learn more about my answers to these questions through research and living life.
If any of this interests you, maybe you will want to subscribe to this blog. Feel free to leave a comment or use the contact me form. Whatever the challenges this year, let’s all work on making 2021 the year to get straight on what matters.
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 seems 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 they want him dead.
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.
“The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche
“Most people do not really want freedom, because freedom involves responsibility, and most people are frightened of responsibility.”
― Sigmund Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents
“Fear isn’t so difficult to understand. After all, weren’t we all frightened as children? Nothing has changed since Little Red Riding Hood faced the big bad wolf. What frightens us today is exactly the same sort of thing that frightened us yesterday. It’s just a different wolf. This fright complex is rooted in every individual.”
― Alfred Hitchcock
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.
counselorssoapbox 