Daily Gratitude

I have been feeling very stressed since the holidays to the point of getting anxiety attacks, which I have to immediately counter with medications so I don’t feel worse.

Exhaustion. Burnt-out. Physically. Mentally. Emotionally. Spiritually.

I know there have been many blessings these past months despite whatever humps I’ve run into. My exhaustion and anxiety, soaring to another level, blind me from appreciating all the recent blessings.

It is so difficult to think and stay positive while you are dealing with anxiety. When all these “what-if” thoughts take control and it takes so much mental effort to fight it down. Of course, the medicine helps to calm those raging and unreasonable anxiousness.

Medications. Another challenge. I have been wanting to reduce taking medications and learning to deal with it through more natural means, but the past weeks have not been good and I needed to. Otherwise, I’d probably be this very irritable and anxious monster.

I know I still have a lot to be thankful for, despite this rollercoaster struggle with anxiety. I am still thankful it is manageable. I am thankful I am sensitive to my body and can feel when an attack seems coming. I am thankful I can still find strength (especially mentally) to fight it. I just wish I can learn more ways to help myself.

My Happiness Style : The Experiencer

You find supreme happiness by engaging in meaningful moments with a sense of adventure, curiosity, and whimsy—at home or on the road. You are in your sweet spot of happiness when you engage the world with your deep sense of wonder.

As an Experiencer, you struggle with overindulging. You are easily distracted. You find it a challenge to get your work done.

Experiencers are most compatible with other Experiencers and Relaters, especially those who are up for a little adventure. You might be challenged in relationships with Doers. 

As an Experiencer, you are a beauty seeker, adventurer, and pay-attentioner. People say you are mindful and fun loving.
Your motto in life is this: “I don’t look for happiness in a store; I look for it in moments.”
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My Score : 

The Doer : 28

The Giver : 23

The Relater : 26

The Thinker : 32

The Experiencer : 35

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The Five Styles of Happiness

When I took this dare toward happiness, I began to explore my theory that God uniquely wired us for happiness. I interviewed people from ages eleven to ninety-two, consulting with psychologists, talking with ministry leaders, and by reading hundreds of studies and articles. I then created an assessment tool to see if we could pinpoint people’s individual happiness styles. Thousands of people have now taken the test, and it’s been thrilling to help people discover what truly makes them happy.

It’s important that I tell you this up front: We have also discovered that the area where you are most wired for happiness, is the exact area where you are most likely to experience burn-out, exhaustion, over-indulgence, and a host of other challenges.

The Doers: Doers find supreme happiness in purposeful activity. They are in their happy place when they are doing what they were created to do—and doing it well. Doers may struggle with perfectionism and workaholism. They find it a challenge to rest.
Their life motto is: “I don’t wait for the weekend to live a happy life.”

The Relaters: Relaters find supreme happiness in positive, meaningful relationships. They thrive in the company of friends and family. Relaters struggle with draining themselves emotionally by taking care of everyone else first. They are challenged when they feel they’ve been left out.

Their life motto is: “Together is what makes us brave when life makes us scared.”

The Experiencers: Experiencers find supreme happiness by engaging in meaningful moments with a sense of adventure, curiosity, and whimsy. Experiencers struggle with overindulging, are easily distracted, and find it a challenge to get their work done.

Their life motto is: “I don’t look for happiness in a store; I look for it in moments.”

The Givers: Givers find supreme happiness by seeking ways to bring delight to others. They believe that a shared happiness is a double happiness. Givers struggle with feeling drained from taking care of others. They are challenged when it seems that others aren’t as generous as they ought to be.

Their life motto is: “The best way to find happiness is to create it for someone else.”

The Thinkers: Thinkers find supreme happiness in the contemplative work of the mind. They take delight in learning, pondering, and dreaming. Thinkers get frustrated with others who don’t see things their way. They are challenged when people make them feel incompetent.

Their life motto is: “My inquisitive, wandering, wild mind doesn’t make me weird; it makes me wonderful.”

Toxic Personalities

Although we like to think that the people in our lives are well-adjusted, happy, healthy minded individuals, we sometimes realize that it just isn’t so.  Personally, I’ve had moments where I’ll be skipping through my day, happy as can be, thinking life is grand and BAM, I’ll be blindsided by someone who manages to knock the happy wind out of my sails.  Sometimes it is easy to write it off and other times, not so much.

Maybe you are a positive person, but when you are around a certain individual, you feel negative.  Or, maybe you have an idealistic view of the world and when you are with certain people, you are made to feel silly, unrealistic or delusional.  Or, maybe you pride yourself in being completely independent and in control of your life, but when you are around a certain family member, you regress into a state of childhood.

Some of these situations, and yes, these people, can have a tremendously negative impact on our lives.  And, although we are all human and have our ‘issues,’ some ‘issues’ are quite frankly, toxic.  They are toxic to our happiness.  They are toxic to our mental outlook.  They are toxic to our self-esteem.  And they are toxic to our lives.  They can suck the life out of us and even shorten our lifespan.

Here are the worst of the toxic personalities out there and how to spot them:

1. Manipulative Mary: These individuals are experts at manipulation tactics.  Is a matter of fact, you may not even realize you have been manipulated until it is too late.  These individuals figure out what your ‘buttons’ are, and push them to get what they want.<
* Why they are toxic: These people have a way of eating away at your belief system and self-esteem.  They find ways to make you do things that you don’t necessarily want to do and before you know it, you lose your sense of identity, your personal priorities and your ability to see the reality of the situation.  The world all of a sudden becomes centered around their needs and their priorities.

2. Narcissistic Nancy: These people have an extreme sense of self-importance and believe that the world revolves around them.  They are often not as sly as the Manipulative Marys of the world, but instead, tend to be a bit overt about getting their needs met.  You often want to say to them “It isn’t always about you.”
* Why they are toxic: They are solely focused on their needs, leaving your needs in the dust.  You are left disappointed and unfulfilled.  Further, they zap your energy by getting you to focus so much on them, that you have nothing left for yourself.

3. Debbie Downers: These people can’t appreciate the positive in life.  If you tell them that it is a beautiful day, they will tell you about the impending dreary forecast.  If you tell them you aced a mid-term, they’ll tell you about how difficult the final is going to be.
* Why they are toxic: They take the joy out of everything.  Your rosy outlook on life continues to get squashed with negativity.  Before you know it, their negativity consumes you and you start looking at things with gray colored glasses yourself.

4. Judgmental Jims: When you see things as cute and quirky, they see things as strange and unattractive.  If you find people’s unique perspectives refreshing, they find them ‘wrong’.  If you like someone’s eclectic taste, they find it ‘disturbing’ or ‘bad’.
* Why they are toxic: Judgmental people are much like Debbie Downers.  In a world where freedom rings, judgment is sooo over.  If the world was a homogeneous place, life would be pretty boring.  Spending a lot of time with these types can inadvertently convert you into a judgmental person as well.

5. Dream Killing Keiths: Every time you have an idea, these people tell you why you can’t do it.  As you achieve, they try to pull you down.  As you dream, they are the first to tell you it is impossible.
* Why they are toxic: These people are stuck in what is instead of what could be.  Further, these individuals eat away at your self-esteem and your belief in yourself.  Progress and change can only occur from doing new things and innovating, dreaming the impossible and reaching for the stars.

6. Insincere Illissas: You never quite feel that these people are being sincere.  You tell a funny story, they give you a polite laugh.  You feel depressed and sad and they give you a ‘there, there’ type response.  You tell them you are excited about something and you get a very ho-hum response.
* Why they are toxic: People who aren’t sincere or genuine build relationships on superficial criteria.  This breeds shallow, meaningless relationships.  When you are really in need of a friend, they won’t be there.  When you really need constructive criticism, they would rather tell you that you are great the way you are.  When you need support, they would rather see you fail or make a fool of yourself.

7. Disrespectful Dannys: These people will say or do things at the most inappropriate times and in the most inappropriate ways.  In essence, they are more subtle, grown up bullies.  Maybe this person is a friend who you confided in and uses your secret against you.  Maybe it is a family member who puts their busy-body nose into your affairs when it is none of their business.  Or maybe, it is a colleague who says demeaning things to you.
* Why they are toxic: These people have no sense of boundaries and don’t respect your feelings or, for that matter, your privacy.  These people will cause you to feel frustrated and disrespected.

8. Never Enough Nellies: You can never give enough to these people to make them happy.  They take you for granted and have unrealistic expectations of you.  They find ways to continually fault you and never take responsibility for anything themselves.
* Why they are toxic: You will spend so much time trying to please them, that you will end up losing yourself in the process.  They will require all of your time and energy, leaving you worn out and your own needs sacrificed.

All of these personalities have several things in common.

1) the more these people get away with their behavior, the more they will continue.

2) Unfortunately, most of these people don’t see that what they do is wrong and as a result, talking to them about it will fall on deaf ears, leaving you wondering if you are the crazy one.

3) Most of these people get worse with age, making their impact on you stronger with time.

Frankly, life is too short to spend your time dealing with toxicity.  If you can, avoid spending mucho time with people who are indicative of these behaviors and you’ll feel a lot happier. Have you encountered these personalities?  What have you done?  Any personalities you would add?

*by Brett Blumenthal

Winner or Loser? You Get To Choose.

I found this article interesting. How much of what we do and who we are  have been based on what others see or tell us?

I had a lot of fun with creative experiments while getting my graduate degrees in Psychology. Students are known for devising interesting experiments to test various human theories. A number of years ago, some students decided to use one of their friends as a guinea pig, to see if false suggestions could cause reactions in the body.

On the chosen day, the guinea pig left the dorm, suspecting nothing unusual. However, a friend greeted him with, “Good Morning, Chuck! How are you doing today? You look a little pale.” Seconds later another friend rounded the corner with “Chuck, are you feeling okay? You look a little sick!” A third friend greeted Chuck and said, “You really shouldn’t be out of bed! You look horrible!” Before the young man could get to his first class, he turned around, went back to the dormitory and fell into bed. He was in fact, sick.

Has anyone been feeding you false information lately? Maybe the newspapers are in on a big joke — telling you no one is hiring. Your “friends” have been misinformed — you really are competent and capable. Your boss is a bozo, not you. Maybe your spouse or your parents haven’t been very encouraging.

What would happen if rather than listening to the feedback, you decided to “see” and create your own future? Isn’t there just as much likelihood that you could create a good, clean, positive future? Are there really limitations in front of you — or are those obstacle just between your own two ears?

– Dan Miller

“As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.” -Proverbs 23:7

“Think you can or think you can’t; either way you’re right.” -Henry Ford

What Dessert Are You?

If all of the desserts below were served in front of you, which would you choose? Pick your dessert, then look to see what Psychiatrists think about you!

(Go to comments to view results)

My choice : Chocolate on Chocolate! Mmmm… I just love chocolate cake!