Tag Archives: Emotions and feelings

Lincoln visits Mardi Gras

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

Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Why these holidays are getting me confused.

My calendar shows that this year Lincoln’s Birthday and Mardi Gras fall on the same day. The juxtaposition has me wondering more than ever about holidays, what they mean anymore, and why they keep changing.

This getting old has its disadvantages, one of which is that I am in a perpetual state of confusion. I might get even more confused if I keep trying to make sense of all this instead of just observing and reflecting on this occurrence.

Do Lincoln’s birthday and Mardi Gras have any connection? Why are they together and the president’s birthday a full seven days later?

One connection clearly is the occurrence of hallucinations. In that way, the two days have something in common. They both also remind us that the modern idea of hallucinations and delusions and the ancient belief in spirits and demons are not all that far apart.

There has been some debate over the years about the state of President Lincoln’s mental health. Clearly, he presided over our country at a very perilous and traumatic time. No war in our history from the colonial days till now has resulted in such universal military service and such horrific loss of life as that war which was fought to keep the union of states together despite unresolvable, for the times, differences.

Lincoln has been described as Melancholy, an old name for what we now call Major Depressive Disorder. Some accounts report he would stay up late at night and believed he saw spirits. Having to make the sort of decisions he did that resulted in such massive suffering, no doubt could drive most any man insane.

So a reasonable case could be made that this President whose policy’s made such profound changes in so many aspects of American life, could easily have suffered from depression with psychotic features, or Bipolar disorder, some have even suggested a more pronounced psychosis. Still, with or without a mental illness, this president was in touch with massive sadness and the mental images of the spirits of those who died in that war.

Personally, from this distance of 150 years, I can tell you that the number of family members on my tree who fought in that great war is too many to count. I also know, though in a more fragmentary manner that many of those ancestors and their offspring developed an addiction to drugs, alcoholism, and a wide variety of serious mental illnesses in the years following that war.

I am not sure we can blame all the insanity in the family tree on that one war, like all families we had black sheep and bizarre behavior before and after that war. But the connections are too specific and close in time for me to not take notice that the effects a horrific war play on the psyche of individuals, families, and countries for a long time after a war officially ends.

As for Mardi Gras, the costumes involved look to me like a tangible representation of a Jungian dream analysis on Hallucinogenic drugs.

My understanding of Mardi Gras is of course imperfect. The most vivid description of this day I recall must have come from a person who had consumed several bottles of high-proof liquor. It is hard sometimes to tell the descriptive part from the current hallucinations.

I am told that his Mardi Gras falls on “Fat Tuesday.” This is the last Tuesday before Lent. Those of the Catholic Influence seem particularly inclined towards lent. I am told that the objective is to get as much sinning done on Fat Tuesday as possible so that you have the pleasure to carry you through the deprivations of Lent.

This did not sound right to me but my highly intoxicated source swears that this is true. He also swears that extraterrestrial aliens have taken over the bodies of our Congress and are passing pro-alien laws.

I found the part about congressmen being possessed by extraterrestrials easier to believe than his account of Mardi Gras, so much for drunken sources.

Participants in Mari Gras wear odd costumes that make them look like, demons, spirits, and assorted creatures. Creecy as quoted in Wikipedia, a customarily sober if not totally reliable source, describes the Mardi Gras costumes as:

grotesque, quizzical, diabolic, horrible, strange masks, and disguises. Human bodies are seen with heads of beasts and birds, beasts and birds with human heads; demi-beasts, demi-fishes, snakes’ heads and bodies with arms of apes; man-bats from the moon; mermaids; satyrs, beggars, monks, and robbers parade and march on foot, on horseback, in wagons, carts, coaches, cars, &c., in rich confusion, up and down the streets, wildly shouting, singing, laughing, drumming, fiddling, fifeing, and all throwing flour broadcast as they wend their reckless way.

Somehow this time of year seems perfect for the strange, bizarre, and the supernatural. Only a short time ago we were watching a groundhog for our weather predictions. Now we are all hoping to get in one last round of sinning before we try giving up our old ways for another brief hiatus. This only days after discarding our New Year’s resolutions.

Which raises the question, “Can you still see the bare breasts, bizarre behavior, and debauchery if you are sober?”

As to the connection between Mardi Gras and Lincoln?

I am inclined to think that Lincoln would have preferred to see this menagerie traipsing through the white house over the specter of the war dead and wounded he had to view in his melancholy nights.

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

Where have all the neurotics gone? – Looking for your neurosis?

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

Confused brain

Mental illness.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Do people still get treated for being neurotic?

On my bookshelves are a whole lot of older books on mental health and mental illness. Many of them talk about neurosis. A couple even has the word Neurotic or neuroses in the title. I mentioned “Be glad you are Neurotic,” by Bisch in a previous post. With all the literature on Neuroses, where have all the neurotics gone?

Neurosis was a pretty inclusive term. In the older psychological literature, you could get three diagnoses, Neurosis, psychosis and that group that seemed to move back and forth across the line got called “Borderline” because they appeared to live at the border between Psychosis and Neurosis.

Today our understanding of the possible mental illnesses is getting much more complicated. For example, one new piece of research from the University of Buffalo seems to suggest to me that over a hundred different genes may be causing schizophrenia because of their effect on one structure in the brain. Eventually, we may diagnose and or treat dozens or even hundreds of different types of psychoses.

The word Neurosis has leaked from psychiatry into the popular vocabulary. It like so many other words mean different things to different people.

Some dictionary definitions include “relating to, involving, affected by, or characteristic of a mild psychiatric disorder characterized by depression, anxiety, or hypochondria” and “overanxious, oversensitive, or obsessive about everyday things.”

So by this definition of neurosis, most of the things that today we break out into anxiety, mood disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and a few other disorders would all be thrown into the category neuroses.

Neuroses have been completely dropped from modern psychiatric diagnosis, largely because neuroses were based on theories of what is going on inside the person like dreams and the unconscious. The current preference is to primarily use symptoms that are visible to others or can be described by the client, like lack of sleep, loss of pleasure, or similar characteristics as the basis of diagnosis.

This older term, neurosis, also included most of the currently recognized personality disorders.

One effect of this move from the simple classifications system, you either had a psychosis or a neurosis, has been that people with many symptoms now may get a number of diagnoses.

Neurosis used to include symptoms of both depression and anxiety. Now that the two are separated and further separated into many types of anxiety disorders and mood disorders, many people qualify for both a depressive diagnosis and an anxiety diagnosis. The overlap is so large that a combined depression and anxiety disorder was considered for the new DSM-5. (It did not become a separate diagnosis but there are specifiers for this.)

All the neurotics now get to have dozens or more of new diseases and disorders that are the result of refining our system of classification rather than in any real change in human behavior or the way in which mental illnesses affect people.

So you can go on feeling you are neurotic if you chose. You can say others are acting neurotic, but the diagnoses that the clinician will give you will have one of the newer disorder names.

Photo courtesy of Wikipedia

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

Hope is contagious

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

Hope

Hope.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Where do you go to get some hope when yours runs out?

There is no doubt in my mind that hope is an essential ingredient for recovery. Without hope, nothing gets done and if you do not change things then nothing changes.

How do you move from being hopeless to having hope? What is up with those people who are consistently full of hope?

One ingredient of Hope is wishing for something. Sometimes we are in misery but if we do not believe that things can get better our only wish is that things not get worse.

The dictionary (Encarta) begins its definition of Hope, as a verb, with the statement:

to have a wish to get or do something or for something to happen or be true, especially something that seems possible or likely

Fundamental to this having of hope is the belief that there is some possibility of it happening. This is why we encourage recovering people to have a support system. Even when you are beset by doubts, having positive people in your support system can increase your levels of hope.

When you go to a meeting and the person next to you tells a story of their hope and their recovery it becomes easier for you to believe that this can happen to you.

To hope requires action. The continued practice of hoping that if you take the necessary action then things can and will get better.

If you continually tell yourself “that can’t happen” or “that will never happen” you are creating that possibility. Your continued telling this tale to your brain results in the brain believing that this thing you desire can never under any circumstance happen. Your brain responds by making sure to please you and prevents this outcome.

But if you can tell yourself that this “could” happen, it “might” happen if you continue to try, this allows the brain to do the actions needed to move towards successes.

Another definition of hope includes the words:

a chance that something desirable will happen or be possible

I have seen this repeatedly in my clients and students. Those who say “I could never go back to school at my age; I could never get a degree.” They don’t.  Those who are willing to move even the short distance to “I do not know if I could do this but I will try” they get going, do the required work, and in a great many cases they succeed.

Our dictionary’s second definition of Hope as a noun moves closer to successes.

a feeling that something desirable is likely to happen

Once you move to the belief that this thing, this outcome you wished for is not only possible but likely the road gets easier. Not that there won’t be obstacles and bumps on this road.

There is a connection between hope, willpower, and determination. Willpower and determination are wasted without hope? With hope, you can develop the willpower and determination needed to keep moving forward.

Many people grew up in non-affirming homes. They were told they would never amount to anything and they were no good. If you hear this often enough you come to believe what you are told. You lose hope.

Working with a counselor, a supportive friend, or a group of peers you can rebuild hope. Small successes will convince you that there are things that you can do if only you try.

Hope is most valuable when times are hard and things are not going your way. The belief that there is something you can do to alter your life course and the hope that if you keep trying you can reach that goal will keep you going.

Hope is more than just a positive attitude. It encompasses the belief in yourself, that if you do the required things then good outcomes are possible.

Where are you on this journey of moving from hopelessness to hope?

Related articles

Staying connected with David Joel Miller

Six David Joel Miller Books are available now!

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: Some family secrets can be deadly.

What if your family secrets put you in danger?

Letters from the Dead The third in the Arthur Mitchell mystery series.

What would you do if you found a letter to a detective describing a crime and you knew the writer and detective were dead?

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

Planned Accidents  The second Arthur Mitchell and Plutus mystery.

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

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

Books are now available on Amazon.

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

For videos see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel

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

Guilt and Shame

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

Guilty

Guilt.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Shame and guilt can cause a lot of problems.

Some authors see these two feelings as interchangeable but others draw a distinction between the two feelings. Learning to know the differences can be important if you are a recovering person. One of these feelings can move you forward and the other can keep you stuck in a prison from the past.

The dictionary definitions of shame and guilt are of course quite different.

Guilt is defined as to be aware you had done wrong or to take the responsibility for doing wrong. This can be a healthy emotion. If you genuinely feel guilty the solution is clear, do not do it again.

Guilt can be protective if it prevents you from doing or continuing to do something that is wrong. The emphasis here is on the action, not the person. The legal system uses this word in the sense that someone has done an act that is forbidden or has failed to do something that was required. The person is then guilty of a specific illegal act.

Some people try to use guilt to manipulate others into doing things they want them to do. We hear the expression “guilt-trip” to describe this effort. As in “I can’t believe you wouldn’t want to spend Sunday with your parents.” The effort here is to get people to do what you want by trying to make them feel guilty if they don’t comply with your request.

Shame is about the person, not the act.

Shame, to my way of thinking, is a lot more destructive than guilt. It is also harder to get loose from.

Some dictionary definitions of Shame include things like, shame is a negative emotion. It includes feelings of dishonor, unworthiness, and embarrassment. People who experience shame feel disgraced or dishonored.

The focus of shame is on the person, not the act.

Families may try to get compliance with their wishes by shaming a person, telling them that because they have not lived up to the shamer’s expectations, they are worthless or inherently defective.

While many parents may use shame with their children occasionally, some families are “shame-based” and everyone tries to shame everyone else on a regular basis.

The parent in a functional family might say something like “you did not tell me the truth and that makes me disappointed in you.” The child then can feel guilty about lying but believe they are capable of telling the truth. The shaming parent will tell the child “you are such a liar, I should have known not to believe anything you said.”

With guilt, you have the opportunity to remedy the situation. You stop doing wrong or start doing right. With shame, there is no cure for being a “defective” person.  There is always that nagging fear you are being judged and will not measure up.

Being raised in a shame-based family can result in the child maturing into an adult who is helpless and hopeless. Being taught that who you are is shameful can leave permanent emotional scars.

Believing that you are inherently shameful results in adults that hide their inner selves from significant others. They fear that if their partner ever finds out who they truly are they will be rejected or abandoned. It becomes necessary to avoid revealing yourself to others. They can be profoundly lonely in the midst of family and friends.

People who see themselves as shameful are often shy, withdrawn, and excessively introverted.

Middleton-Moz in her book Shame and Guilt describes people who grew up in shame-based homes as avoiding intimacy and believing that they don’t make mistakes, they are mistakes.

They, like Adult Children of Alcoholics, (see Woititz, 1990) believe they need to be better than others to be any good. Absolute perfection is the goal or nothing at all. The result is fluctuating between being super responsible and super irresponsible.

Those who feel the heavy burden of shame are often defensive and unable to take criticism. They need to blame others in order to feel good about themselves. They may deny responsibility while apologizing profusely.

They may be over-responsible people taking on the responsibilities of others and becoming a parent to their parent. Paretified children are common in most forms of dysfunctional families.

As adults children of dysfunction, they never fit in and feel like they do not belong no matter where they go. They are at high risk to become alcoholics, addicts, or engage in some other compulsive behavior as ways to try to make themselves feel acceptable.

If you have guilt over something you did in the past, clean up the wreckage where you can let it go and move on to do better.

If you came from a shame-based background the sooner you toss that shame and move on the better. If you need help in getting past that burden of shame consider working with a counselor or other helping person.

Letting go of shame is one step on the road to a happy life.

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 to turn anxiety into paranoia

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By David Joel Miller.

Grim Reaper

Paranoia.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.

Some days it is a short trip from anxiety to paranoia.

The higher the volume is turned up on your anxiety control the greater the risk that this could lead to paranoia.

Some caveats here. In this context, I am not talking about one of the paranoia’s that are currently diagnosable as a mental illness. Most people say Paranoid-schizophrenia as if it was all one word. There are lots of people with schizophrenia that are not paranoid. There are also people who suffer from paranoid personality disorder who do not have schizophrenia.

This discussion is about people without those two diagnosable illnesses who have some feeling that looks like paranoia during the course of another illness or even without meeting the criteria for a diagnosis. In other words, this is about the dictionary definition of paranoia not the DSM definition of a paranoid mental illness.

Yes, in my opinion, you can have paranoid thoughts and not have a mental illness with the word paranoia in it.

One definition of Paranoia is an unfounded, exaggerated, or unreasonable distrust of others not based on facts. This is fear-based and makes you question other’s motives.

Here is how a case of paranoia might begin.

You are very fearful, sensitive, and worried about what others think of you. You have “trust issues” and are not sure if people are really your friends or might want to harm you.

People who have been victimized in the past are especially at risk for these kinds of trust issues and for good reason. They have been harmed by someone in the past and may feel that they were too trusting.

One day this anxious person, let’s call her Annid. This is one of those made-up names contracted from her mother’s name Ann and her father’s name, David. I don’t know an Annid or an Ann and David combination so I think I am safe here.

One day Annid is walking down the street and she hears footsteps behind her. She walks faster but the footsteps are still there. She looks over her shoulder and there is someone there. Let’s make this person a man. She is afraid of men because she was attacked by a man in an alley. This would be even worse if the man who attacked her was a member of a particular race and the man behind her was the same race.

At the corner, she decides to cross the street to get away from this man. She notices out of the corner of her eye he stops at the corner to talk to another man. She is becoming more anxious.

When the light changes the second man turns and follows her across the street. She walks faster but every time she looks back there is a man back there. She is not sure if this is either of the two men she saw before but there is always one behind her.

Eventually, she ducks into a coffee place and has some coffee. She decides to wait a bit to get rid of those men who are following her. But when she leaves the coffee place there across the street are 5 or 6, men all standing together and one of them looks like that man who was following her. Same sports team shirt and everything.

At this point, convinced she is being followed by a gang of men she ducks back into the coffee place and calls a friend who comes to pick her up and take her home.

Unchecked this fear that men are following her can grow until she is unable to leave the house.

One problem for this woman is that no matter where in this town she may walk there may be a man walking behind her.

Is this an irrational fear? Maybe, maybe not. Having been the victim of an assault once there is proof that a man could assault her. Is this fear excessive? Probably. The chances that every man on the street is following her and plans to assault her are very low, most of the time.

The challenge for this person and other people with paranoid symptoms is to reasonably evaluate the situation, assess for danger, and still keep this fear of another assault from keeping her a prisoner in her home.

Now so far in this example, I have said that Annid has a history of being a victim. What if she has never been victimized?

She might have had a friend who was assaulted or heard a story on T. V. about assaults in her town. If she had a preexisting anxiety disorder even if nothing had ever happened to her she might keep looking over her shoulder believing that constant vigilance will keep her safe. And if you keep looking for something you will begin to see it.

See how easy it is to turn fear in your mind into a belief that there is a real danger. We have even had cases where someone believes they were in danger pulled out a gun and shot a person who just happened to be going in the same direction they were. Family members have killed other family members in the mistaken belief that there was an intruder in the house.

High levels of fear can create a situation in which everything becomes scary.

If you have anxiety issues or feel threatened and unsafe, consider getting professional assistance both in determining if this is a real threat and in learning to manage your anxiety or other issues before that emotional problem turns you into a paranoid person.

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

That’s not what I meant – Words can interfere with communication – Denotative and connotative meanings

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By David Joel Miller MS Licensed Therapist & Licensed Counselor.

Dictionary

Looking it up in the dictionary won’t help.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Why what you thought I meant and what I meant to say get so far apart.

Even when we talk with someone in the same language and we think we should both know what the other one is talking about, we can walk away shaking our heads about how far apart our understandings are of the conversation.

These misunderstandings often get attributed to other people lying to us. It is not unusual for two people both engaged in an argument to accuse each other of lying. To the outside observer, it sounds like they are talking about two unrelated topics.

One cause of these disagreements is the different meanings we ascribe to the words we use. The things we say begin as thoughts in our heads. We can make a strong argument that thoughts are largely mental words or self-talk. Those thoughts are strongly influenced by our feelings before they leave our bodies via speech and action.

Words are symbolic and there is not a direct one to one correlation between thoughts and words. We can and often do disagree about what word best describes a thing or a feeling. Then our thoughts need to be transferred into words sent to the other person and then decoded. There is plenty of room for error in this process.

Consider the common two-finger gesture. Sometimes this is interpreted as a “peace sign” and other times as the sign for victory. Words frequently have multiple meanings.

Four discrepancies in the way we attach meanings to words can result in garbled communication even when we think we are being clear and that we understand what the other person is saying. Those four communication traps are the differences between “denotative” meanings and “connotative” meanings, personal idiosyncratic meanings, and slang.

What slang words mean.

Slang words require both people using them to attach the same meaning to the expression. They change over time and vary between subcultures.

Consider the word “hot.” To a weatherman, it could mean an above-average temperature or a day in the hundreds. To the scientist, this may be a statement about the amount of energy the item contains. To someone else, this may mean something that is new, in fashion, or desirable.

So the person in the shop points to an item on the table and says “that new part is really hot.” The apprentice quickly picks it up and then screams in pain. He expected this new part to be something novel that he might want. His coworker was warning him about the item’s temperature and potential to harm. See how using a word in multiple ways can obscure communication?

Denotative meanings.

Denotative meaning is what the dictionary says the word means. Look up most words in a dictionary and you will find that there are multiple definitions for the same word. Check many dictionaries and you get alternative meanings.

Most of us have learned a large number of words from hearing others use them in speech. We haven’t looked up every word and while we can feel pretty sure we know what we mean when we say the word we can’t be sure someone else has the same meaning in mind.

If I were to say that someone had been staring at the moon too long – what might you think I meant? That they are in love from too much time in the moonlight? That they had gone crazy as in becoming a “lunatic.” Or do we mean that they and their friends have been exposing their naked rear-ends a lot? It would make a lot of difference in our conversation.

What is a connotative meaning?

Connotation is when a meaning is implied or attached to something in addition to its basic denotative meaning. For a long time, black has been attached to bad, evil, or another negative opinion. If I describe someone’s character as black, it makes a lot of difference whether I am talking about someone from the African-American community who exemplifies what an African-American should be or if I were describing a Caucasian who is doing some evil things.

Idiosyncratic meanings.

Sometimes words develop a specific meaning for a person or group of people because of a particular experience.

Say a man came from a family that had a dog when he was a young child. For whatever reason he had difficulty saying the word dog and used its name, Spot to called the pet. From then on all dogs became “Spot.”  To this day if someone uses the word spot in a conversation this family will laugh and think of that dog. This has resulted in some embarrassing moments at the dry cleaners.

Other people might hear the word spot and think of a place they had visited, a stain on the carpet or an ad on T. V. The online dictionary I use listed 21 meanings for the word spot.

So when we consider that words can have so many different meanings, is it any wonder that we can have a conversation, think we have conveyed some meaning and then later find that what we said was totally misconstrued.

The real wonder is that with all this confusion we are able to communicate at all.

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

Why Controlling Anger does not work

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

Angry person

Anger.
Picture courtesy of Pixabay.

Some anger management programs make things worse.

Some common prescriptions for anger management do not work and can make things worse. There are things that work quickly and efficiently to eliminate anger but we try to wait till you have used up all your insurance and savings before we teach you these techniques.

Counting to ten is a prescription for disaster.

I do not know about you, but for me trying to count to ten when I am angry is a really bad idea. By the time I get to ten, I will have thought of ten new ways to dispose of your body. Counting to ten just gives me the time to leave my anger on the heat long enough to let it explode.

The trick here is not to learn to control your anger. The key is to learn techniques to not anger yourself in the first place. No anger – nothing to control. You think this sounds crazy, don’t you?

Albert Ellis one of the founders of REBT and CBT therapies wrote about this in a book titled “Anger: Living with it and living without it.”  It is in plenty of other books by Ellis and others. This formulation is so simple that once you get it, you almost instantly stop getting angry unless you chose to do so.

This model sometimes referred to as the A-B-C-D-E method has even made its way into an official government publication. This anger workbook is available free from the SAMHSA website. A free self-help book that also works? What a deal.

Here is my brief example of a way I use this model.

One night while teaching a class at the local college, a student in the very front row suddenly slams her books shut, grabs her stuff, and goes running for the door. No phone call, no explanation, she just runs from my class. We had a break coming up, couldn’t she wait till then?

This is clearly very rude. I feel disrespected. She has really made me angry. I vow that next week before I start class I am going to have a talk with this impolite person.

What she did, running out of my class, has disrespected me and made me angry.

A = activating event.

Which is what she did. She did it and she made me angry.

C = is the consequence, my anger.

So A caused C. Her action made me angry. With me so far? In class when I explain this, the students usually argue with me as we go along, trying to make me angrier. I am hoping you will hang in to the end.

The following week this same student is waiting at the door for me to unlock the classroom. Before I can read her the riot act she begins apologizing. She explains that she is so sorry that she ran from the room last week. She ate some food she bought from a street vendor on the way to class last week and she had a sudden attack of diarrhea.

Am I still angry at her? Probably not. See in between the “A” the Activating event, in this case, her running from the classroom and the “C” my anger, there is this other thing a “B.”

B = Belief as in “my belief about why people do things.”

If I believe that the reason people do things is to be mean and disrespectful to me then I will be angry. If I think that they did it because of some problem they have, then I do not take it personally.

Note that it does not matter whether it is true or not. I do not need to know if she is telling the truth to either become angry or feel sorry for her. If she really just was bored and chose to leave the class and make a scene but later decided to apologize and make up a story, I will still not get angry if “I believe” that she was not being rude.

Also if I chose to not believe her, even if she did have an attack of food poisoning, I will be mad at her despite the apology and the excuse.

The key to my anger is not in her actions or her apology. It is in what I chose to believe.

So anytime I feel myself getting angry I can –

D = dispute that belief.

If I can think of other reasons that people do things, then I can come up with alternative feelings. The result of this revelation is that I can disconnect those buttons and thereafter no one can ever “make me angry” by what they do.

The result of all this D (Disputing) is that I can choose to believe what I want and create an:

E = Effective new belief.

Now there may still be times that people do things that I find unacceptable and I will allow myself to get angry even if they did those things out of an acceptable reason. Or I can choose to never anger myself about what people do because if I anger myself I am likely to be the one who reacts out of anger and gets in trouble.

Now some of you are resisting this idea. You would like to hang onto your belief that other people make you angry because they don’t do things they “should do.” Or they refuse to do things they “must” do. Ellis had a lot to say about the dangers of “shoulding on yourself” and “Musterbation.”  I will let you read him for that.

Consider that there are evil people in the world and they do evil things. There are “stupid people” and they, of course, do “stupid” things. I do not need to like those things. I may even resist or oppose those things, but I do not need to anger myself when stupid people do stupid things. That is, after all, what they are supposed to be doing right?

Once you grasp this principle you do not ever need to allow anyone to make you feel any way other than the one way you chose. You may, however, need to cut some stupid or inconsiderate people out of your life because you choose not to put up with their behavior towards you.

If your ex continues to make you angry then you are choosing to continue to be in a dysfunctional relationship with them.

Consider this idea and maybe check out the SAMHSA anger management book or one of Albert Ellis’s books. If this idea makes sense to you let me know. If this post made you angry because you continue to believe that other people control your emotions and you chose to comment and tell me so, I may choose to delete your comment so I do not anger or upset myself over hostile comments.

Hope you have a happy and anger free day.

Give this process a try and see if you don’t find that you can anger yourself or not anger yourself depending on what you chose to do.

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

Alexithymia – the disease of feeling labels

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

Man with feelings

Managing feelings.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

So you have a feeling but what is it?

Alexithymia is defined as the inability to recognize feelings or to be able to identify what it is that you are feeling. Texts report that this is largely a disorder characterized by men who the authors tell us, prefer taking action over having feelings.

This personality disorder has not yet risen to the level of a recognized disease that insurance will cover but I expect that as soon as a researcher does enough work in the area it may well be.

This is not a disorder of numbing. We do believe that a normal response of the brain to severe physical and emotional pain is to numb out and not feel. Numbing is related to dissociative identity disorder and trauma.

Alexithymia is NOT related to dissociation in any meaningful way I am aware of. I put NOT in the sentence to confuse those people who like to leave comments saying “you said A was the same as B.” I also put that in tests for my students some of whom insist on missing the question anyway and tell me they missed the word “NOT.”

So since we now know what Alexithymia is Not – what is it.

Well, it is best described as the inability to know what you are feeling and if you do feel something, then you just don’t have a word to describe that feeling. Men are mostly prone to this disorder.

Most men have three feelings. They also have about 6 colors. For men, it is either Red, Blue, or maybe a shade of purple. Women have wisteria, plum, fuchsia, and a whole lot more colors between Red and Purple. Also Red, for the record, is a lot closer to Crimson than to the blood color we men think it is.

So men recognize three feelings GOOD, BAD, and Pissed off. Pissed off comes in three shades loud, louder, and loudest. This results in a lot of conflict between men and women. Women want men to share how they are feeling. Men believed “we shared that on the first night we were together when we said we felt GOOD.” There should be no need to report on a feeling again until that GOOD turns into BAD or pissed off.

So one thing that people with Alexithymia need to do is go to a color mixing class. Not literally but figuratively.

So how many shades of good are there?

I have seen “feelings wheels” and charts but they just do not capture those levels of intensity. There are some differences between being irritated, upset, angry, and ENRAGED.  Men are prone to describe this as moving from Bad to PISSED-OFF.

How does happy look? Is it closer to the color of contentment or ecstasy?  So as we begin to learn new feeling words we increase not only our feelings vocabulary but also our ability to recognize these feelings as they occur.

We do not expect everyone to progress in this getting to know feelings at the same rate. Some of you are in feelings kindergarten and others of you have been to a feelings graduate school. I am aware some of you majored in one feeling, say ANGER, to the exclusion of all others.

I did not say anything about sharing your feelings just yet. You can’t share anything about a subject you don’t understand. So the process goes, feel what you are feeling, identify what this feeling is, decide what to do with this feeling, and lastly, if you chose to share with someone, do so in an appropriate way.

Women complain that men are emotionally unavailable. This is often true. We are also menstrual and makeup unavailable. We are also more willing to learn about makeup than feelings most of the time. If you grew up, as most men do, believing that men are tough and do not have feelings, learning to be emotionally available is like learning to take torture in a foreign language.

Now ladies, don’t go getting superior on me. Remember that the man you are with, the emotionally unavailable one, he learned about feelings and how to deal with them from – did you guess?

We guys learned that stuff mostly from our mothers who were just as quick as our fathers to tell us that men did not cry and that we should just get back into that soccer or football game anyway.

Having not learned to recognize and make use of feelings we guys miss out on a lot of valuable information that we should have recognized. If this business deal feels risky, that may be because our gut is telling us things our brain wants to ignore.

People who do not listen to their feelings can make really bad decisions. We can work or play on an injured limb. You may win this game but permanently harm that joint.

Come to think of it, you ladies do the same thing sometimes. You marry that guy anyway even if something about him feels wrong, thinking that he will change, love will conquer all, and that wishing and trying will make it so. You know you do those things, don’t you?

Some of you are sharpening your pens right now to tell me all men are not like and that there are women who have no feelings. I know all that. These are generalities; sometimes the pumps or work boots are on the other foot.

The point is that if you never learned to identify and make use of feelings this can all seems strange. Believe me, learning to recognize, identify, and then make proper use of feelings can be well worth the effort.

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

Learning to feel

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

Man with feelings

Managing feelings.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

What am I feeling?

Feelings are strange creatures. We are walking along minding our own business and then out of nowhere comes this thing, this sensation and like an attack of diarrhea, we have an episode of feeling.

So before we can even really begin our exploration of feelings we need to establish a habit of paying attention to those times we are having feelings. The expert effect tells us that if you study something you begin to see more of it. If you have ever gone shopping for a truck, suddenly you will see trucks everywhere you go. Same thing with feelings. Look for them and they are everywhere.

There are those people who just don’t feel anything most of the time. This often comes from having been through a serious trauma or having been abused. These people describe their predominant feeling state as “numb.” They may even self-injure or take extra risks in an effort to feel like those they think have feelings. This numbing out appears to be related to dissociation. Even those who are frequently numb can benefit from a careful search for feelings.

So turns out that for most of us, feelings are all around us every day, but if we are not used to looking for them we don’t see them until one of them trips us up.

Mindfulness can be a big help here. Get in the habit of sitting for a few minutes and just observing what is going on with you. You should at this point be working on becoming the world’s expert on you and learning to identify those feeling inside you will help with this.

Some people find that when they try to practice mindfulness or meditation they are overwhelmed with sad or negative feelings. If you have this issue you may need help from a “feelings guide.”  If feelings are overwhelming, a good counselor or therapist can help. In a later post, we will need to talk more about this issue of experiencing intense pain when you try to practice meditation.

The word “Feelings” comes from words that describe the sense of touch. So we feel things with our skin and nerves. The term has become more generally a word to describe all emotional experiences. This makes sense as one definition for emotions is “strong feeling” so the emphasis in working with and experiencing feelings should be on what your body sensations are rather than what your thoughts about that feeling are.

We do find that our thoughts or beliefs are powerful filters that can alter our perceptions of events and affect our feelings.

So a good place to start in looking for feelings is with sensations in our body. That professor who kept asking me about feelings, I talked about him in a previous post; he kept asking us “where in the body is that feeling.”

We use a lot of physical descriptions to help us interpret emotions. People are “a pain in the neck” or we tell someone “you make me sick to my stomach.” This alerts us that if we are feeling a pain in the neck or sick to our stomach we may need to look for a feeling hiding there rather than a physical ailment or injury.

Way too often we humans confuse emotions with physical problems. There is a good reason for that, emotions are real sensations that occur in our nervous system. The problem is not with the feeling but with our inability to make use of the information these feelings are providing.

The first step in this effort to find, recognize, and tame feelings is simply to be aware that yes, often we are having feelings whether we can name them or not.

Remember the moment during the most recent presidential inauguration when President Obama stopped to take in the crowd on the capital mall? He was pausing to let that moment soak into his mind so that he could hold on to it for the rest of his life.

So often we race past those pleasant feelings and don’t allow time to recognize them. The result is that we are left with a life where we remember the negative emotions clearly but the happy ones are lost in the fog.

Take time to stop and recognize the feelings in your life. The good ones hold on tight to them. The negative emotions, learn the lessons they are trying to teach you, and then learn to reduce your suffering. You may need to feel the pain but you do not have to stay stuck in suffering.

Over the next few days make a conscious effort to feel whatever it is that you are feeling and consider what it is that emotion is trying to teach you.

Any thoughts about feelings or emotions?

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

Groundhog Day – Why it matters

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

Self

Getting to know yourself.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Sometimes our emotional lives depend on the weather.

Today is Groundhog Day in those places that pay attention to that kind of thing. The day has a lot more significance for our emotional and feeling life than the media accounts report.

In America, this holiday began sometime before 1840. It was celebrated in areas that had large numbers of German Immigrants. To this day it is most observed in places that have many people of German and Irish ancestry. The holiday has roots far back into other festivals throughout Northern Europe. It appears to date from a time when our calendar was more dependent on the cycles of the moon and the sun.

The visible part of the holiday is an event when some animal comes from its hole, tunnel or lair and looks around at the state of the weather. This animal, in America a Groundhog, is clearly a contrarian skeptic. If the weather on Groundhog Day is warm and sunny, the Groundhog returns to its lair, expecting 6 more weeks of winter. If on this day the sky is overcast and there is no sun visible the animal, clearly cynical, stays out expecting the sun to appear shortly.

One reason this holiday continues to resonate with so many people despite the advent of modern meteorological forecasting is that the weather remains uncertain and hugely affects our lives.

Groundhog Day is the point when the sun in the northern hemisphere is beginning to make its return known. From the beginning of February until the end of March, each day the period of light will increase and the darkness of night will decline until about March 20, the Vernal Equinox will occur, marking the triumph of day over night. At that point, spring officially occurs under our modern calendar.

These increases in light trigger numerous changes in our human bodies as any person who suffers from seasonal affective disorder will tell you. Animals and plants, as well as humans, will be influenced by this change in the light level.

One effect of the increase in light is to trigger an increase in energy, especially in the area of sexual interest. Just over two weeks after Groundhog Day on February 14th we will celebrate Valentine’s Day, a day devoted to romantic love.

Animals, particularity birds, begin their breeding season by Valentine’s day and have new-born chicks some 6 weeks later on Easter.

People with Bipolar Disorder are prone to see an increase in Manic or Hypomanic symptoms at this time of year. Increased sexual appetites along with a decreased need for sleep are characteristics of this mood shift. People with high anxiety may also be more inclined to take risks at this time of year that they would not take during other seasons.

In the fall time, this shift reverses as the light of the sun decreases and the weather turns cold and stormy. At that time we become more inclined to stay indoors and there is an increased risk of depression and anxiety.

The sun plays a major role in these seasonal changes in our moods, body, and emotions. The role of the moon is somewhat more controversial.

Good news for those of you who are moon watchers. This year from Groundhog Day to Valentine’s Day the moon is waning or going away. Next year in 2014, watch out. The period from Groundhog Day to Valentine’s Day will be a waxing moon and Valentine’s Day will fall on the day of a full moon that year.

For those of you in the Southern Hemisphere, all these dates are reversed. Beginning Feb 2nd you will see the sun receding and your winter blues may be ready to kick off. You will get to see this increase in light behavior during the time from August to December.

There was also a movie some time back titled Groundhog Day in which the lead character had to keep repeating his day trying to get it right. The ancient view of this, so I am told is that the wheel of the year keeps turning, the seasons keep repeating and we creatures on this planet keep having experiences.

It seems like, for me at least, if I don’t learn the lesson the first time, the opportunity to learn continues to be presented to me. Just like there will be a Groundhog Day again next year.

So much for our discussion of Groundhog Day and the effects of weather on our mood and feeling states. Tomorrow we will resume our discussion of feelings and their impact on mental health.

Photo courtesy of Wikipedia

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