Tag Archives: Life Coaching

counselorssoapbox.com most read posts – March 2013

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Counselorssoapbox.com

counselorssoapbox.com most-read posts March 2013

By David Joel Miller.

Here are the most-read posts here at counselorssoapbox.com  for the month of March 2013.

How much should you tell a therapist? 

Is nicotine a stimulant or a depressant?

What is the difference between Depression and Major Depressive Disorder?

Do people really forget what happened when drinking? – Blackouts

Levels or types of Borderline Personality Disorder  

Which border is Borderline Intellectual Functioning on?    

Why can’t we forget the painful past?

Do therapists have to report a crime?

6 ways to recover from Complex Trauma or Complex PTSD   

Are you Hyperthymic?

Thanks to all of you who have read a post, become a follower, and especially an extra helping of thanks to those who have left a like or comment.

Thanks again.

David Joel Miller

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

Running out of gas, when your self-improvement program stalls.

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

Have you run out of fuel?
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Has your self-improvement plan run out of gas?

We see this in all the creative professions. Writers complain about writer’s block. Artists run out of creative ideas. Businesses become stale and stagnate. Why is it so hard to stay creative, to keep making progress on your recovery? What can you do about those out of gas episodes?

As a counselor, I see a similar phenomenon. The client who is making lots of progress and then suddenly after one particularly great session they return and this subsequent session seems to go nowhere. What happened to the resolve to change?

We have different words to use to describe these occurrences but the common thread is that after a period of successful activity there is a period of needing to rest, relax, and recharge your batteries. One thing we learn in mindfulness is that you can’t fix a car when it is being driven at 65. The creative mind needs some time of rest if the creativity is going to keep coming.

Sometimes when we open up and reveal the true us, in counseling or in relationships, we fear we have gone too far in changing, gotten ahead of where we are comfortable and we need to pull back and reevaluate.

The client who has breakthroughs, who achieves insight, sometimes feels they have overdone, over shared, and the next time they are in the office they retreat to a safer, less involved place. The challenge is to not let this pullback, this need to recharge, become an end to our efforts to make things better.

How, if you are making significant progress on an issue do you sustain that effort? What keeps this uncomfortable place from becoming a place of permanently stuck?

How does the creative person recharge their batteries and pick up the process without long periods of being unproductive? Most writers have had episodes of writer’s block but if those episodes last too long then you stop being a writer. The writer writes, the creative business person conducts business and the parent needs to keep on parenting even when they run out of answers.

One reason that your productivity declines after a period of accomplishment are that your interest in the project or the field has decreased. We see this in college majors frequently. The first year and into the second the student wants to learn all they can. By the last year, they just want to get done and get a job. Somewhere along the way, for many of us, the passion ends long before the relationship.

A novelist starts out wanting to tell the story. Partway through the story, the essential ingredients are all down on paper, the plot the characters, and so on. From then and there the author knows how the characters will respond to events, the outcome becomes more predictable. The writer’s problem is to maintain the level of interest in what will happen and in telling the stories of his characters that he had at the beginning.

This same phenomenon happens to businesses. They grow and expand in the early stages and then the owners, having put in all that effort begin to lose interest, the fire of desire has gone out and the new innovative ideas stop flowing. Recharging brains helps but relighting the fires of interest is what is really needed.

We know that good relationships, romantic, parental, or relationships with self, do not just happen. To keep that relationship alive you need to invest some time and effort in maintaining those relationships.

What we all need to learn to do is to spend some time maintaining that one relationship that will last a lifetime, our relationship with ourselves.

What have you done recently to put the fun back into your life? How will you choose to take care of yourself? What specific actions will you take to maintain your relationship with your partner and with your children? How will you find ways to make that job you do, that career or business you own, fun again.

To put that creative spark back in all you do you first need to put the excitement back into what you are doing and how that will get done.

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 sure are you about that goal?

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

Hitting a target

Goal.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Is your goal taking you in the right direction?

Lots of self-improvement books talk at length about how to set goals and how to achieve them. Rarely do you see anything about how to test a goal? Is this a goal you should be trying to achieve? Will it really be something you will want once you reach it? Lots of people spend a chunk of their life working towards a goal only to decide once they get there that they picked the wrong objective.

1. Is this goal worth doing?

People set off to accomplish something and never ask themselves if they are successful at getting there will they really feel that this was worth doing.

Many a student signs up for a training program without ever asking if there are any jobs in that field.

If you accomplish this goal will it have been worth the effort? Is this about being selfish? Doing something to be better than someone else? Will you really feel good about yourself if you defeat a one-legged man in a race?

Ever heard the one about the girl who went to great length to take a boyfriend away from a rival only to find out that he was not worth having?

2. Is this goal really possible?

It is possible to devote your life to trying to do something that really can’t be done. Consider if it is possible and consider further getting some advice from people you trust about whether this is a doable goal.

There are those who have accomplished things that the rest of the world told them could never be done. The one thing they had that changed that whole equation was an unshakable belief that this was possible. If you don’t have that belief and can’t convince yourself then you are probably devoting your efforts to a losing cause.

3. Are you the person to do this?

Sometimes there are things that need doing, great important things, but they require giving up other things. If you spend years of your life trying to accomplish something only to find there were other people with more talent already doing this you will be setting yourself up for failure.

We see this often in business. There is an opportunity, there is a need for a product, and this might be profitable. So a small company starts out to do this. But they find that some other much larger company, the one with lots of money behind them, is already opening stores to market this product.

Now if you have a different slant on the problem, you will do it differently, then you have a chance. But if your plan depends on working harder or cheaper, the end result may be that the goal will not be worth doing.

4. What will get in your way?

The first thought in setting off on a journey is how great this will be, how wonderful it will be to accomplish this goal. What we often neglect to consider is what will get in our way.

Does this goal take more money than we have or can raise? Will it take too much time?

5. What will you have to do to get past those obstacles?

Will you need a lot more education? Will you need to raise some money? Will you need to turn over control to someone else? Will you have to do things that violate your morals or ethics to reach this goal? Will it cost you, friends, or family?

Having difficult obstacles in your way should not deter you if the goal is really worth doing, but you need to know what is required to overcome those obstacles.

What you do to get past the obstacles will have a price. You always need to consider if that price is one that is worth paying or having given up that much will you resent the price even if you get to the goal.

6. If you try and don’t get this can you still be happy for having made the effort?

Some goals are only worthwhile if you can be successful. For other people the pursuit of the goal is sufficient. Be clear if doing your best will be good enough or if you need to reach the goal to feel good about your journey.

7. When you get it all done will the pursuit of this goal have been worth the price you had to pay to get there?

Every time you do something there are one or more other things that you can’t do. If you go away to school you spend time away from your family. If you stay at home then you can’t attend that prestigious school somewhere else.

Those lost opportunities, things given up to pursue a life goal can add up after a while. It is worth thinking about all those possible losses before you embark on a course that you can’t easily change.

This Goal testing process is not particularly new or original. It is found in several of the old mental improvement texts. Many of these older self-improvement books are available online and free if you find the right source. They inspired me to think about this subject and to write this post.

What goals have you set for yourself and have you tested them before you embark on the journey to be sure that you will want the result when you get there?

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

Why practice makes perfect is the wrong advice

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

Mistakes and errors

Mistakes.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

What you should be practicing.

Do you think that if you keep practicing you will get better at what you want to improve? There are 2 reasons why this does not work.

1. We tend to practice what we like to do.

We enjoy doing the things we do well. It is human nature to keep practicing the things you are good at over and over trying to improve your game.

What many an Olympic contender or professional athlete knows is that victories are not won by constantly practicing only the things you are good at. Certainly, you need to continue to practice your strengths a little to keep them up to par but there is something more important to practice.

To improve your game, practice the things you are poor at. The consistently successful people find the things that they do poorly and work on improving them. A small amount of improvement in a flaw will result in a significant improvement in your overall performance.

Are there things you don’t do well and therefore avoid? Anything you feel you are not good at should be an opportunity to improve your overall game. Work on your weaknesses to build more strength.

2. You will not improve if you practice doing things incorrectly.

This is where we can be our own worst enemies. We tend to know what we do well and as we saw in point one above, we practice those things repeatedly. What we fail to recognize are the things we are doing that are not up to par.

Highly successful people frequently have a coach or adviser that can spot the areas that need improvement and get you motivated to work on those areas.

Even the best at things frequently have flaws that they never notice. One of the worst things you can do is to repeatedly practice doing something incorrectly. If you don’t get advice from others who know how it should be done you are at risk to continue practicing your mistakes until they become an integral part of the way you do things.

So if you want to take your game to the next level, whether that game is business, your recovery, or your relationships, you need to listen to advice from people who can help you improve and you need to be willing to tackle the things you do not do correctly. This way you can spot your flaws and work to improve the things that are not up to par.

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

Why you want them to criticize you.

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

president

Important people s day.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Do people criticize you? A little or a lot?

Having people criticize you may be a better thing than you think. I have concluded that having people out there criticizing me is a good thing much of the time.

I know that this idea that “being criticized is a good thing” will trouble some people. They are used to thinking that they need to be perfect all the time. So for them, any criticism is unsettling. We looked in a previous post at why being ordinary has its advantages and being original may get you in trouble.

Let’s look at how being criticized factors into success and happiness.

Did you know that we have a president here in America? Anyone know his name? Did someone in the last row say, President Obama? Do you ever hear anyone say anything bad about him? Does he get criticized?

Did he have to run against someone else to get that job? This may be trickier. Fewer people will remember that other candidate’s name. Try Mitt Romney?  Did anyone say anything bad about him? Did he get criticized?

Did both the major party candidates have to run against other people to get nominated? And did all those people get criticized? Being criticized must be part of being a politician.

Ever hear about that guy that lives near Rome Italy, in a place called the Vatican? What do they call him again? Oh, yeah “The Pope?” If you are a non-Catholic you may remember Pope John Paul II and not many other popes but you get my point.

Has anyone ever said anything bad about a pope? Do the leaders of the world’s religions ever get criticized?

So when you tell me that people should not criticize you, that you can’t take criticism, are you trying to tell me and yourself that you are more important or special than the Pope or the President?

Doesn’t it follow that people who do great things, who rise to high offices, they all get criticized? The only people who escape criticism most of the time are people who do nothing.

Are you willing to do things, valuable things, even if you get criticized?

One trainer who teaches marketing people how to be successful said one time that if no one is telling you that your prices are too high then your prices are too low. Even if you sell things below cost there are still people who would complain.

So consider that if you are not getting your fair share of criticism you just might not be doing enough of anything worthwhile for anyone to care enough to criticize you.

Is what you are doing important enough to get you criticized?

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

Five ways to sabotage your self-improvement or recovery program

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

Inebriated people.

Alcoholism.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.

Five ways to sabotage your self-improvement or recovery program.

1. Giving up undermines recovery.

Nothing will so surely end any self-change effort as to lose hope. Highly successful people will often tell you that they kept going when others stopped trying.

It pays to do your homework before tackling a project. Is this what you really want, can it succeed, and are you committed? But once that decision is made, stick to your efforts and believe that this can happen for you if you just keep moving forward.

It is also helpful if you make sure you are on the right path.

2. Telling yourself you can’t prevents recovery.

Negative self-talk will end any chance of success. The mind believes what we tell ourselves repeatedly. You can even make yourself sick by believing that you will get sick and acting accordingly. (See the Nocebo effect.)

3. Making excuses sabotages recovery.

Saying you are too old or too sick, any form of excuse-making, will prevent you from moving forward on your efforts to change. Tell yourself you can, but be realistic about your progress. Going too fast can set you up for failure and so can saying you can’t.

In this modern age, more than ever, people return to school, change careers, and start new lives at ages that would have stopped them in previous generations. I can tell you from experience that some of the best students, the most productive new employees, can be older people who have started a new life direction.

Eventually, the children grow up. Partners may leave, but you will be you. You will live your allotted time whether you try or not.

When someone says they are too old to do something they have always wanted to do, I ask them how old are you now? How old will you be in ten years if you don’t try? Will you be any older if you do try?

I am not a believer that being unhappy and not trying in this life will make you worthier in the next. We all should be seeking to have the happiest life possible and to learn all the life lessons we need to learn. That way you can reach the end of this earthly life with no regrets or fewer ones anyway.

A happy life, for the record, does not mean one that is selfish and self-indulgent. Doing for others can also make you happy. Doing the things you believe to be right adds to that happiness. Doing the right things for all the wrong reasons, helping others for their recognition, does not lead to happiness.

Do not put off doing something good today.

4. Expecting results overnight devalues recovery.

Change takes time. Really changing requires a commitment to keep trying over the long haul. Don’t let your brain overload the rest of you.

People set unrealistic goals for themselves in early recovery. They expect to lose lots of weight that first month. They expect to give up drugs and suddenly get an education, a good job, and the good esteem of all their family or friends. Repairing damaged relationships takes a lot of time.

Take this process of change, one day, one minute at a time. Make little baby steps. And see how far you will have gotten.

5. Going too fast gets you ahead of your recovery.

Anything that you can do in a day can disappear overnight. Slow consistent progress will take you a lot farther than one sprint followed by weeks of inactivity.

Any process of change requires maintenance. You need to change your habits. Habits made you overweight, an alcoholic, or another problem sufferer. It takes time to create a habit. It takes, even more, time to change that habit into a new functional way of living.

There you have the short list: 5 ways to sabotage your recovery. To improve the chances of success don’t do these things.

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

Why worry may not be a bad thing.

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

Man worrying,

Worried.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Do you worry too much or too little?

Self-help books and common wisdom tend to equate worry and anxiety. It would appear that the two are not the same thing and that sometimes a little worry can be good for you.

We saw in previous posts that words, especially words about feelings, do not mean the same thing to everyone. One person’s worry may not be another’s in the same way that my purple may be your fuchsia. While dictionary definitions make the definitions of worry and anxiety much the same, researchers think they are quite different and that sometimes worrying can be good for you.

Anxiety is about heightened awareness or hyper-vigilance. An anxious person is hypersensitive about things and may overreact to things that have little or no real danger. In that sense, anxiety is related to fear. Anxiety’s role is to keep us on the lookout and avoid things that might be dangerous.

Worry has the connotation of constant thinking about something. Researchers think anxiety and fear are more visual or emotional reactions while worry is a mental and verbal rumination.

Worrying about things can keep them in your mind and this can result in perpetuating fear and anxiety. But there can be good results from worry in addition to the bad ones if worry is not accompanied by excessive anxiety or fear.

Think of worry as being like my very old computer. Sometimes my computer slows down because an operation takes a lot of CPU memory. I get those little warning messages in the corner of my screen saying high CPU usage by and it names a program that is using all that memory.

Worry does the same thing to my mind. It uses up a lot of memory capacity, thinking about the thing that is worrying me. The result is that I slow down on what I am doing and devote more of my thinking ability to the task of worrying.  At this point, worrying is impairing my mental efficiency.

As my mind slows down and devotes more resources to the task that worries me, there is increased attention to that one thing and all other mental tasks are neglected. The result is that as a byproduct of worrying I may do fewer things but I am likely to devote more attention to the one thing I am worried about. Worriers make fewer errors on the task they worry about as a result of that increased attention. So worrying can be useful in reducing error rates by having a task fully occupy your mind.

Worrying results in a trade-off between the time needed to do the routine tasks I need to do and an increased accuracy as I try to avoid making any errors. If accuracy is imperative worrying makes sense.

Worry is not solely about the task or challenge I am facing, it is also about making plans, contingency plans for what I will do if – and here I may worry about both high probability occurrences as well as low probability ones.

As a result of all this worrying and contingent planning, I may react to situations faster than someone who has not thought about this possibility at all. So if you might be faced with a sudden unexpected need to do something and the risk of making an error would be catastrophic, worrying may be just the ticket to allow you to make an instant lifesaving decision.

Worrying can be seen as a symptom of some mental illnesses. It is especially viewed as a process that maintains Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) in the same way that nightmares maintain Posttraumatic Stress Disorder PTSD.)

If you suffer from an anxiety disorder, then worrying is probably going to do you more harm than good. But if you are a relatively normal person and are faced with some really important life-changing decisions then some worry, thinking through all the possibilities and what could go wrong, may be just what you need.

If your worry has gotten out of hand, if you worry needlessly about small things and things that are very unlikely to happen, then improving your worry ability is not for you. If excessive worry has interfered with your job or fun activities it is a problem. If your friends and family avoid you or are concerned about all the worrying you do, then you may need help sorting out what is important and what is just an unproductive loop of constant worry.

If you have a major life change coming then do a little worrying and planning about what might happen and what you will need to do.

But if worry has gotten excessive and is making your life unhappy and out of control, consider getting some professional help for that out of control worry monster that has taken over your life.

Related articles

Staying connected with David Joel Miller

Seven David Joel Miller Books are available now!

My newest book is now available. It was my opportunity to try on a new genre. I’ve been working on this book for several years, but now seem like the right time to publish it.

Story Bureau.

Story Bureau is a thrilling Dystopian Post-Apocalyptic adventure in the Surviving the Apocalypse series.

Baldwin struggles to survive life in a post-apocalyptic world where the government controls everything.

As society collapses and his family gets plunged into poverty, Baldwin takes a job in the capital city, working for a government agency called the Story Bureau. He discovers the Story Bureau is not a benign news outlet but a sinister government plot to manipulate society.

Bumps on the Road of Life. Whether you struggle with anxiety, depression, low motivation, or addiction, you can recover. Bumps on the Road of Life is the story of how people get off track and how to get your life out of the ditch.

Dark Family Secrets: Doris wants to get her life back, but small-town prejudice could shatter her dreams.

Casino Robbery Arthur Mitchell escapes the trauma of watching his girlfriend die. But the killers know he’s a witness and want him dead.

Planned Accidents  The second Arthur Mitchell and Plutus mystery.

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

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

Sasquatch. Three things about us, you should know. One, we have seen the past. Two, we’re trapped there. Three, I don’t know if we’ll ever get back to our own time.

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

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

For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel

Without the sound can you tell what is going on – Nonverbal communication

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

Angry child

What is he feeling?
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

You hear them talking but you don’t believe them, why?

What do we do when the words don’t match the gut feeling we have? Do you trust yourself or do you think you must be wrong?

Your gut is telling you something and it should be getting more of an audience. In day-to-day life the sound is so overbearing we forget that more than half of all human communication comes via nonverbal channels. If you haven’t practiced paying attention to the other part of communication you are at a serious disadvantage.

Some small children seem to know this. Words telling them to come over here, I just want to talk with you, do not match up with the clenched fists, and the obvious signs of anger. They avoid people like that. Somewhere along the way most of us lose this ability to make use of the non-verbal parts of communication.

Here are some exercises to make you more aware of body language, nonverbal communication, and what the real meaning may be behind the words.

Exercise 1

Find a Television show you do not normally watch or rent a movie of a type that is not on your regular viewing list. Turn the sound down and begin to watch the show. What do you think is happening here? What are people feeling?

Make a few notes as you go along. Can you tell what the emotions being portrayed are from just the pictures? Can you spot when the director introduces a bad guy? How can you tell that? Most shows use a lot of music to cue up the feelings. Watch for a director that can tell the story with the pictures only. Did this come through in the story you are watching, or did you need words to tell if the characters liked each other or were enemies?

Next replay the same story with the sound up. Check what you see now with the notes you made. Do you get the same feelings now? Why or why not?

Exercise 2

Observe a couple or family through a window or in a public place, somewhere where you can be far enough away you can’t hear the words they are saying.

Watch for a while and begin to develop a theory about who these people are and why they are together.

Is this a family? Have they been together a long time? Do they like each other? Or is this the weekly visit from the absent dad? Are all the children from the same family or are some neighbors?

Are mom and dad still very much in love or is this mom or dad’s new partner out to meet the kids?

What do you think the relationships are like between the children? Do they get along normally or are they making an extra effort to get along today?

In this setting, you will probably not be able to confirm or deny your conclusions. Be willing to not know and to entertain possibilities.

A writer could construct a whole novel from this exercise but then the novelist does not need to stick to reality. Can you tell a playful tussle from a case of child abuse?

Conducting a few of these experiments trying to make meaning from situations can greatly improve your skills at reading nonverbal cues. It can also help you see how someone who is not able to read cues could miss read situations completely and acting on these misinterpretations get themselves into trouble.

Certain mental health disorders are characterized by an inability to read other people, not recognizing anger from facial expressions for example. Can you see how misreading what people mean or over-reliance on the words they say but missing the body language and the gestures could result in misunderstandings or even put you at risk for danger?

But poor nonverbal skills can hamper any of us.

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

5 things you need to ask yourself about mistakes to avoid making them again

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

Mistakes and errors

Mistakes.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Why your brain may be hiding things from you.

The theme of this blog is recovery and having a happy life. But we can’t create that happy life by hiding from the pain of the past.  No introspection or inventory would be complete without a look at some of the negative or the less than positive memories.

In a previous post, we explored some of the happy times in your life, now it is time to look deeply at some other aspects of the you and see what is there – deep inside you.

I recommend writing the answers to these questions down if at all possible. Creating a journal or instruction book for your life gives you a reference book to look back at. The process of writing things down helps get things out and often we find that things come out in writing we never realized until they appear before us on paper.

1. How has health and wellness affected your life?

When have you faced prolonged illness or health challenges and how has that affected your happiness? If you haven’t had the experience of being sick how has your good health affected your moods and what have you learned from that?

Many a person’s life has been shaped by a period of illness they experienced in childhood. If you were sick for a while, what did you do during that time? Did you have a caretaker that you spent time with? How did they affect you and how do you remember that time? Did the things that person said and did with you affect who you became.

If you were seriously ill and spent time in the hospital, how have those experiences influence who you became? Did you face those challenges with a family member or friend or did you feel very alone?

Did you have a family member that had health challenges? Did you help care for them? How has being a caregiver in childhood affected you?

What lessons did you learn and what did you tell yourself as a result of these experiences?

2. What are your bad qualities?

What would you say are your flaws?

Some gemstones are made more beautiful by their flaws. Your defects of character are there for a reason and your life task is to see what use you can make of those qualities others may not appreciate.

You can’t change things you are not aware of.

Asking people about their bad characteristics is a common interview question. It is surprising how many people have no idea of either their strengths or their weaknesses. Even fewer people have faced their weaknesses and done something to overcome them.

3. If you could change one thing about yourself what would it be?

Would you change your appearance? Would you change your hair? Would you be taller or shorter? Can you accept you just the way you are?

Would the change you make be on the inside? Would you be willing to give up anger or shyness?

Some recovered people do not regret anything about their past. They have come to terms with their failings and now can see how those problems from their past have made them stronger and better people as a result.

Can you truly say that you do not regret your past, even the mistakes? Can you also say that while you may not regret the past or want to change it, you would not want to repeat those mistakes or have to live through those hard times again?

4. If you could change three things about yourself what would these things be?

Are these things like height and appearance that really can’t be changed all that much or are they things like weight and education that you might be able to change if you put in the effort?

You may not be able to make yourself smarter but you can get more education. The smartest people are not always the ones who achieve the most in life. People who take an honest look at themselves and change what they can, while accepting what they can’t change, go a lot further in life.

We often make the mistake of thinking that if we could change things on the outside, where we live, how much money we have, our job or our partner, change that and then we would be happy.

What sometimes happens is that we change ourselves, do the work of real inner change. As a result of those changes on the inside we become happy and content and then the things on the outside, our external things begin to change.

5. What are your greatest life regrets?

If you got some “do-overs” what things would you want to go back and do differently? Are there things that you would not change but that you hope you never have to undergo again? If your today-self could tell your five-year-old-self something what would that be? You can repeat this exercise for various ages and see what advice you can now give to the you’s that used to be.

Lastly ask yourself what the person you will be in the future, at retirement age or beyond, what advice would that older-self give the you that exists now? Consider taking some of these pieces of advice from the current self to the childhood self and from the future older self to the present person you are. How would following that advice change the way you are living now?

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

Why pay a therapist when you can just talk to a friend?

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8

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

Therapist

Therapist.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Therapist or friend – what is the difference?

1. Friends may keep your secrets; therapists are required to keep them.

Some friends are so close you can tell them anything. Well, almost anything. Most of us have secrets which we were sure we could never tell anyone. Friends are usually friends because we have things in common. If you tell them everything can they, will they, keep the secret? What effect might their knowing the secret have on your friendship? What if you two have a falling out? Some things are just too embarrassing to tell a friend.

There are two concepts that keep a therapist from revealing secrets. Confidentiality, which means that they can’t talk about what you say unless it fits those very few exceptions like you are suicidal or talk about abuse of a child. Other than that what you say there stays there.

Also, there is what is called patient-provider privilege. That means some things may be protected even if police or lawyers come around asking questions. Friends don’t get legal protection to keep your secrets.

You are only as sick as your secrets – Friends shouldn’t have to carry some secrets

2. Friends can help you solve today’s problem – counselors can help you learn to solve your own problems.

Counselors often work with clients to help them learn skills to solve life’s problems. Friends may tell you what to do in a given situation but that does not help you with the next problem.

You want help that will help you become more independent not more dependent. Therapists are taught they should help you be independent not foster dependency.

3. Friends may not want to hurt you but sometimes you need to hear the truth.

A professional person can give you their honest opinion. You paid for it and you deserve it. Friends may be afraid to tell you the truth for fear of losing a friend.

4. Friends get tired of listening to your problems, therapists do this for a living.

Ever meet someone who was really needy. Every time you talked to them it was all about their problem of the day? When you are going through something difficult you need to talk about it. Friends can get talked out. Don’t burn out friends and damage friendships by asking friends to become very involved in your problems.

5. Friends have a good heart. They want to help with your problems. That doesn’t mean they always known how.

Therapists have many years of schooling and specific training in how to help people like you with problems. They study not only diagnosis and treatment but how to help with particular problems.
It is that kind of expertise that you need in your corner when that problem overwhelms you.

6. Friends can play the game with you, but counselors and coaches can help you improve your game.

When the team is losing all the players are going to talk to each other. They know what it feels like to lose. What they don’t always know is how to change that losing streak. That is where a new coach can come in and help turn a team around. Counselors, therapists, and professional coaches can do that for your life problems.

That does not mean you should avoid friends or peer support groups. Both are vital parts of your support system. Millions have recovered from alcoholism in A.A. But if you find that when you talk to your friends about your problem, that they don’t know how to help you or that the solutions they offer are not helping, consider that you may have a second problem, a mental health problem and seek professional help.

Those are some reasons that you might decide to see a therapist rather than talk with a friend. What if your friend is a therapist? What if you are a counselor? In the next post, I want to talk about reasons to keep that friendship and that professional relationship separate.

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