After Acceptance

“It is certainly true that, when you accept your resentment, moodiness, anger, and so on, you are no longer forced to act them out blindly, and you are less likely to project them onto others. But I wonder if you are not deceiving yourself. When you have been practicing acceptance for a while, as you have, there comes a point when you need to go on to the next stage, where those negative emotions are not created anymore. If you don’t, your ‘acceptance’ just becomes a mental label that allows your ego to continue to indulge in unhappiness and so strengthen your separation from other people, your surroundings, your here and now.” ~ Eckhart Tolle

Welcome to . . . Holland?!?

When my younger daughter was 6, she had a stroke. At age eight, while the doctors were still trying to decide what was wrong, she had another one, bigger and badder, that left her with a number of deficits to overcome. She had to relearn how to walk, how to talk, and how to use her left hand instead of her right. As you can imagine, this was a devastating blow to her and to our family. Continue reading “After Acceptance”

Get Unstuck!

“Status quo, you know, is Latin for ‘the mess we’re in’.” ~ Ronald Reagan

The Way Things Were

Do you know where the term “status quo” comes from? It’s from the Latin phrase, “status quo ante bellum”, or “the state before the war”. This refers to the borders, property boundaries, and other evidence of ownership used to reinstate land when a nation was defeated in war. At times, we can feel defeated, overwhelmed by too much to do or entrenched in negative habits and thought patterns, beaten down by indecision or faced with changes that we feel have been thrust on us. Continue reading “Get Unstuck!”

Step Out Of The Pit

“The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.” ~ Marcus Aurelius

Each of us has Teachers that come into our lives at various times. Each of these Teachers brings an important lesson. Until you learn the lesson, that Teacher comes back again and again. Until you learn the lesson, you can’t move on.

The Farmer and the Donkey

I once heard a story about an old donkey who had outlived it’s usefulness. It was too old to work any more. The farmer who owned the donkey thought about having it put down, but just couldn’t bring himself to do so. However, one day the donkey fell into a deep pit and couldn’t get out. “Well,” thought the farmer, “this is the end. I’ll just fill in the pit with dirt and bury this poor old donkey.” Continue reading “Step Out Of The Pit”

How To Know Your Values . . . And Why

“The ability to subordinate an impulse to a value is the essence of the proactive person. . . Proactive people are driven by values – carefully thought about, selected and internalized values.” ~ Dr. Stephen Covey

“Crossing The I-Beam”

If you have ever read much or listened to presentations by Hyrum Smith, founder of the company that developed the Franklin Planner time management system and co-founder with Stephen Covey of the Franklin Covey company, you have likely heard his “crossing the I-beam” exercise. If you haven’t, I’ll summarize it here. Continue reading “How To Know Your Values . . . And Why”

“Hate Well”: How To Deal With, Not Put Up With, Tolerations

“Don’t just pretend to love others. Really love them. Hate what is wrong. Hold tightly to what is good.” [Romans 12:0 (NLT)]

What do you hate?

What do you hate? We are conditioned to find this question a little uncomfortable. We are generally taught that we shouldn’t hate anyone or anything; that it is somehow bad or anti-social. But before you answer the question, consider this point of view from Dr. Henry Cloud.

“What would you think, for example, about a person who said that he hates the following things: arrogance, lying, innocent people being hurt, harmful schemes, evil practices, telling lies about others, and things that stir up dissension among people? Continue reading ““Hate Well”: How To Deal With, Not Put Up With, Tolerations”

Capacities Clamoring To Be Used

“The muscular person likes to use his muscles, indeed, has to use them in order to self-actualize, and to achieve the subjective feeling of harmonious, uninhibited, satisfying functioning which is so important an aspect of psychological health. People with intelligence must use their intelligence, people with eyes must use their eyes, people with the capacity to love have the impulse to love and the need to love in order to feel healthy. Capacities clamor to be used, and cease their clamor only when they are used sufficiently.” ~ Abraham Maslow  Toward a Psychology of Being

Capacities clamor to be used.

I read this quote from Abraham Maslow’s book in a recent +1 note from Brian Johnson. The capacities that “clamor to be used” remind me of the VIA Character strengths.

Continue reading “Capacities Clamoring To Be Used”

Make a Commitment

“The most meaningful thing you can do is make a promise to yourself and keep it. You start to feel like you can trust yourself and rely on yourself.” ~ Phil Stutz

The path to Lifetime growth.

Do you want to build your self-discipline? Do you want to build trust in yourself and your ability to do what you say you will do? Do you want to practice the virtue of Integrity?  These are valuable steps on the path to lifetime growth.

One way to practice these steps is to instill a daily habit. Make it something that is good for you and makes you feel good about yourself. And once you start, do it every day until it becomes second nature. Discipline improves with practice. Continue reading “Make a Commitment”

Gratification

Want to go for a double win? Find activities that are both pleasurable AND gratifying.

Research from the field of positive psychology indicates that there are certain actions we can take to increase feelings of happiness and well-being. Happiness in the present moment is based on two distinct concepts: pleasures and gratifications. Continue reading “Gratification”

When a Strength is not a strength

Discovering and using your Signature Strengths is one step in creating your Excelerated life, a life of well-being, meaning, and purpose.

What Is A “Strength”?

The VIA Character Strengths originated from a group headed by Dr. Martin E. P. Seligman, the founder of Positive Psychology and Dr. Chris Peterson, a distinguished researcher and scientist. The task they set for themselves was to define and classify human strengths, similar to the way the Diagnostical and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) classifies and defines mental disorders. They envisioned a method to identify the traits that enable people to flourish just as the DSM allowed professionals to identify the traits of mental disorders in order to treat them successfully. [Seligman] Continue reading “When a Strength is not a strength”

“Live For Holiness”

“We don’t live for happiness, we live for holiness. Day to day we seek out pleasure, but deep down, human beings are endowed with moral imagination. All human beings seek to lead lives not just of pleasure, but of purpose, righteousness, and virtue.” ~ David Brooks

What is the purpose of life? What are we living for?

These are deep and important questions. Many books have been written about these very questions and we certainly are not going to answer them in a short essay. Continue reading ““Live For Holiness””