DR. Romance Blog

How to Train Yourself to be Happy

Dr. Romance's invited colleague and friend Debbie Mandel, host of the radio show "Turn On Your Inner Light" and author of several books,  to guest post: 

Yes, by now we have all sighed, “Life isn’t fair;” at those annoyingly cheerful people in our midst lucky enough to be hardwired for happiness genetically. No matter what problems land on their doorstep, they resiliently return to their happiness set point to flow with life’s currents. How wonderful that today’s research community has allocated some of its resources and attention on happiness instead of depression, documenting the observations, reflections and attributes of happy people. The joyously surprising news is that even if you are born to be sad, you can imitate the characteristics of happy people to change your nature. This is a huge emancipation from the leg iron of depression.

What do happy people do? Basically, they are conscientious people working and achieving. They set goals and accomplish them. This is the big secret to happiness: Working towards a goal, achieving it and then moving on to the next goal like a series of small victories.

Many unhappy people commit self-sabotage by setting unrealistic goals or giving up way too soon. Patience is not a quality many of us cultivate. Focused on instant mastery, we get discouraged, labeling ourselves as failures with the “I can’t do it mindset,” or assuming the victim mentality that other people either stand in our way or will never give us a break. No wonder we get depressed and defeated quickly. We stop trying. If we don’t try, we can’t fail and feel disappointed. Ironically, not trying makes us even more depressed and feeling unfulfilled.

Feeling happier entails returning to basic principles, what your grandmother always told you. You reap what you sow. Here are the seeds which will change your nature and allow happiness to take root within you:

• Set small, manageable goals. Achieve and go on to the next. No matter your age, keep advancing your achievements.
• Celebrate each small victory. A shiny kitchen, a clean drawer, getting over a cold, losing two pounds, exercising for 10 minutes, or supervising your children’s homework. Don’t minimize the success, qualify it or dilute the effect.
• Connect with others to network and support your goals with cheer leading and accountability.
• If you are not successful, find out why. Get a reality check from friends, colleagues or professionals. Update your skills. Keep growing and achieving.

Now you can understand why exercise is a major component of stress-management and happiness because it is about meeting physical challenges and achieving mastery over your muscles. People who exercise always set goals and accomplish. For example, weight lifters can quantify their goals and runners can set distance or speed goals. You don’t have to be a professional weight lifter or a marathon runner. You can set a goal of walking for fifteen minutes every day. Instead of verbalizing your goals which invites making excuses, when you exercise, you just do it. This is why exercise is a great way to train your brain to be conscientious for ultimate happiness. While you are training your brain through exercise, you are filling a happiness reservoir. Animate your body and you will begin to feel that you have some control over your genetic predisposition. Let your legs carry you to your next happiness!

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Debbie Mandel, MA is the author of Changing Habits: The Caregivers' Total Workout and Turn On Your Inner Light: Fitness for Body, Mind and Soul, a stress-reduction specialist, motivational speaker, a personal trainer and mind/body lecturer. She is the host of the weekly Turn On Your Inner Light Show on WGBB AM1240 in New York City , produces a weekly wellness newsletter, and has been featured on radio/ TV and print media. To learn more visit: www.turnonyourinnerlight.com

Review of Money, Sex and Kids from Parent talk Today

This was posted on Parent Talk Today:

March 13, 2008

Money, Sex & Kids

It has been a hoot carrying around a copy of the new book Money, Sex and Kids (Adams Media; $14.95) by Tina B. Tessina, Ph.D. for the past week or so. If I'm reading it in the orthodontist's waiting room, for instance, people take a look at the cover and you just know they're wondering, "Hmm. I wonder what her problem is: money, sex or kids?"

Actually, reading the book is a good way to help head off potential problems with all three. For instance, Tessina offers down-to-earth tips on how to resolve fights constructively — and lovingly (it’s possible!).

She's is a psychotherapist in private practice and she isn’t afraid to tackle these three biggies in most marriages. Her tips for understanding each other better during an argument make a lot of sense:

°    Seek first to understand.
°    Pay attention to how your words are landing.
°    Focus on the solution.
°    Separate emotion from solution.
°    Don’t beat dead horses.
°    Be nice.

Come to think of it, doing those things in marriage seems like pretty good preventive medicine, too.

It has been a hoot carrying around a copy of the new book Money, Sex and Kids (Adams Media; $14.95) by Tina B. Tessina, Ph.D. for the past week or so. If I'm reading it in the orthodontist's waiting room, for instance, people take a look at the cover and you just know they're wondering, "Hmm. I wonder what her problem is: money, sex or kids?"

Actually, reading the book is a good way to help head off potential problems with all three. For instance, Tessina offers down-to-earth tips on how to resolve fights constructively — and lovingly (it’s possible!).

She's is a psychotherapist in private practice and she isn’t afraid to tackle these three biggies in most marriages. Her tips for understanding each other better during an argument make a lot of sense:

°    Seek first to understand.
°    Pay attention to how your words are landing.
°    Focus on the solution.
°    Separate emotion from solution.
°    Don’t beat dead horses.
°    Be nice.

Come to think of it, doing those things in marriage seems like pretty good preventive medicine, too.

Money, Sex & Kids

It has been a hoot carrying around a copy of the new book Money, Sex and Kids (Adams Media; $14.95) by Tina B. Tessina, Ph.D. for the past week or so. If I'm reading it in the orthodontist's waiting room, for instance, people take a look at the cover and you just know they're wondering, "Hmm. I wonder what her problem is: money, sex or kids?"

Actually, reading the book is a good way to help head off potential problems with all three. For instance, Tessina offers down-to-earth tips on how to resolve fights constructively — and lovingly (it’s possible!).

She's is a psychotherapist in private practice and she isn’t afraid to tackle these three biggies in most marriages. Her tips for understanding each other better during an argument make a lot of sense:

°    Seek first to understand.
°    Pay attention to how your words are landing.
°    Focus on the solution.
°    Separate emotion from solution.
°    Don’t beat dead horses.
°    Be nice.

Come to think of it, doing those things in marriage seems like pretty good preventive medicine, too.

A point of view

Dr. Romance's very dear friend, colleague and co-author, Riley K. Smith, MFT, sent me this opinion piece and I want to share it with you

A POINT OF VIEW about the state of things, Christmas, 2007

I received a questionnaire pursuant to the celebration of the 50th anniversary of my college graduation. One of the questions was, “What is the most important and surprising event since you graduated college?” It started me thinking. I decided I couldn’t give a simple answer. I’d like to share with you what I came up with.

Important changes: the information age, fall of the iron curtain, fall of the Soviet Union, assassinations of our visionary leaders, introduction of eastern spirituality to the west, environmental crisis, global economy, our American culture of fear, our American culture of consumption.

Meanwhile people do greedy, dumb, angry and hurtful things and people do courageous, smart, kind and loving things. Life goes on unreported in the media.

So, after careful deliberation, I realized that the surprising and important changes for me in the last fifty years are within me.

First is my own disillusionment about my country. When I left Trinity in 1957, I still believed that we were the good guys. I have come to realize that we are both very good and very bad with lots of subtle shades in between.

The good part is in the Bill of Rights – as Lincoln put it, “a nation of the people, by the people and for the people” and the extent to which we practice it. Examples are; a mostly functioning judicial system, a mostly functioning electoral system, a mostly egalitarian culture, mostly freedom of speech and worship as well as a miraculous ability to mostly cooperate for the good of the community.

We and our forebears hold these ideals, yet have so often and profoundly fallen short. Hidden between the lines of our history books are many disastrous acts of ignorance, arrogance and greed – the genocide of the native people, two hundred years of slave labor and another hundred years of Jim Crow, stealing land from Mexico, taking land from Spain in the Caribbean and the Pacific, from Columbia to build the Panama Canal, from Hawaii, dominating the “Banana Republics”, overthrowing elected governments in Iran, Nicaragua and Chile, assassinating foreign leaders, and destroying small countries like Viet Nam and Iraq.

Second is my self-discovery and personal experience of an infinite consciousness that is the benign motivator of EVERYTHING.

That leads me to an often-times uncomfortable “split personality.” On one hand, I’m anguished about the dilemma of us humans. I want a just and peaceful world and I can even see the possibility of it (many are working hard to realize that possibility). Yet, when I see an exponentially-expanding population dependent on finite resources for survival, I feel hopeless and discouraged. When I see the greed and violence of the Haves and the desperation and violence of the Have Nots, I am hopeless and discouraged. When I see human beings polarized (good/evil, right/left, us/them), I am hopeless and discouraged. When I see people paralyzed or passive or complacent, I am hopeless and discouraged. I feel frustrated and, frankly, scared for our grandchildren and the human race.

On the other hand, there is a point of view that I have found. It’s way up on “Mount Olympus.” It’s a place of deep inner peace from which I can see human history. It’s a place from which I can see the ebb and flow of civilizations. From there, I know that everything in creation is born, grows to maturity, declines and dies. Everything. Every single time. Continents, mountain ranges, species, civilizations, empires and humans – you and me.

There is a Rightness about it and I find peace in that. Western culture is in decline. We’ve gone as far as we can go in the direction we’ve chosen. It’s time to make way for something else. Perhaps something better.

There is an old Quaker hymn that goes, “For every thing, turn, turn, turn, there is a season, turn, turn, turn, and a time for every purpose under Heaven.”

So, I do my best to take what comes without taking it personally. I do my best to keep an open heart and an open mind. I do my best to live with integrity and do as little harm as I can. I do my best to hold my “Olympian” point of view. Sometimes I don’t succeed: I had a dream the other night. I dreamed I was looking from a second story window at a downtown street as American soldiers, our young men and women, in crisp, new uniforms with weapons and full packs were embarking for the war. I wept.

And sometimes I do succeed: Within the deep Peace, I experience joy in the love of my family and friends. I see the hope, inspiration and determination of people working to make things right. I experience my therapy clients coming to life and an inner sense of well-being. I feel the exuberance of the cycle of life and death.

God Bless.

Riley

Sex and the City Lesson

Dear Readers: I've invited Daylle Deanna Schwartz, a friend and fellow member of the American Society of Jounalists and Authors, to guest post on Dr. Romance today. I think you'll agree she has a lot to say about self-worth:Sex and the City Lesson Like many people, I watched Sex and the City and related to the Carrie Bradshaw character. She waffled between self-empowered and struggles with men. Her obsession with Big showed her vulnerability. That’s why I was so delighted with her last statement on the final episode: “The most exciting, challenging and significant relationship of all is the one you have with yourself. And if you find someone to love the you YOU love, well, that’s just fabulous.” It really is fabulous. So many people get into relationships looking to receive love from someone else when they don’t give it to themselves. I used to be like that when I thought I needed a man to complete me. Looking outside of myself for love got me used. And hurt. Yet I continued try to please every boyfriend I had in hopes of being loved, until I finally learned I needed to be loving to me first! A majority of people don’t have a good relationship with themselves. We have relationships with money, romantic partners, friends, even stuff we buy. These days, some people have better relationships with their tech toys—computers, Blackberrys, iPhones, etc.—than they have with people, no less themselves. Just today a woman said she stopped dating a guy who practically lived on line. Even his sex life was “satisfied” on porn sites. We’re becoming a society of intimacy disconnect. YOU often come in last when relationships come to mind. Yet a relationship with yourself is most important. It sets a good foundation for all other relationships. I used to be who others wanted me to be. I bought into the hype of chasing what’s touted as a must have or must be. Nobody told me that I was important. It was all about everyone else. Then I discovered the blessing of loving myself. The rest of my lovely life fell into place after that! What does self-loving mean? Showing yourself kindness. Making an effort to do things that are comforting or enjoyable. Taking good care of your health is loving. So is treating yourself to a splurge. The more you treat yourself in ways that make you feel good, the more loving you feel toward YOU. This isn’t about self-absorption. It’s about a conscientious effort to take care of you. That’s self-love and it brings all sorts of goodies! How many times do you go to a mirror and say, “I love you?” Are you spoutin’ zeroes? I do it easily now. Falling in love with YOU means going beyond how you look, your age and how much money you make to appreciate the person YOU ARE and the values YOU’VE chosen. Become conscious of how loving—or not—you are to YOU. Work on that instead of trying to please others. When you define the person you truly want to be, not based on what others expect, you can work on developing a real sense of self. That’s what Carrie finally learned. Each year she became more true to herself and her needs. That led to her becoming a healthier woman, which Big could no longer resist. Loving myself gave me the gift of choice. I no longer feel desperate or needy since I’m happy with who I am, with or without a man. Someone who feels good in his or her own skin is very attractive to others! I’ll repeat this quote: “The most exciting, challenging and significant relationship of all is the one you have with yourself. And if you find someone to love the you YOU love, well, that’s just fabulous.” When you—male or female—have a loving relationship with yourself, and value who you are as a unique individual who’s worthy of love and happiness, it’s harder to settle for a romantic partner who isn’t right for you. That really is just fabulous because it helps you wait to meet someone who does love you for the right reasons—for who you are, not what you can give or become. -------------------

Daylle Deanna Schwartz, M.S. is a speaker, music industry consultant, self-empowerment counselor and author of 9 books, including her popular self-empowerment books, All Men Are Jerks until Proven Otherwise, How to Please a Woman In & Out of Bed and Straight Talk with Gay Guys. She is regularly quoted in publications including the NY Times and has appeared on over 300 TV and radio shows. She speaks for colleges, organizations, and corporations and is on the Panel of Experts for Lifetimetv.com. She is currently writing Nice Girls on Top. Her favorite “work” these days is her blog, Lessons from a Recovering DoorMat.

The blessing of friends

How sweet it is to get responses to the first post!  Thanks, everyone! It's a busy morning, I'm rushing off to Oakland to see Isadora Alman, as I do a few times a year.  She's part of my "family of the heart." As an orphan, with no siblings, friends have become my substitute family.

What would we all do without those who care for and about us?  We have a neighbor in his late 70's who's failing now, his own siblings are two old and ill to come help him, so my saint of a husband is bringing him meals and watching out for him.  We so much need each other, there are so many times in life when we're helpless and/or lost, and only our closest connections, friends, partners or family will pull us through, know what we need, give us the missing piece of information we've been waiting for.  I know I'd never make it through without my friends.

Dr. Romance sees in counseling every day how important friends and loved ones are.  Those without struggle and suffer. Those with have an easier time.  Cherish your connections, and keep up your skills in making new connections.  Yes, loving means we'll lose those we love; but never having had them is much, much worse. 

Dr. Romance wishes you the blessing of love in your life.