Living with Regrets and How to Deal with Them

We all have them and struggle with them. To live fully is to have regrets; they are an unpleasant, though unavoidable part of the human condition.

You may know people who proudly declare that they’ve lived boldly and have no regrets. Believing that we shouldn’t experience regrets places us in double jeopardy: we experience them and wonder what’s wrong with us for having them. If we have no regrets, then we either haven’t been paying attention or are living in denial. We all screw up sometimes.

We might define regrets as carrying sorrow or shame regarding past actions or decisions. There are many things we might regret. Perhaps we regret our partnership choice, decisions around our health, finances, or career, or not having spent enough time with our loved ones. Maybe we regret that we didn’t relish our life enough or take more risks. Perhaps we feel badly for having hurt others and are paralyzed by shame to recognize the harm we’ve caused by our narcissism or insensitivity.

A major challenge of being human is to allow ourselves to have regrets without being debilitated by them. Obsessing on past actions or decisions that we feel badly about can lead to depression and rob us of the joy of living. Replaying scenes in our mind and wishing we had done things differently can keep us spinning our wheels, creating much misery. Caught in the grip of the woulda, coulda, shoudas, we’re hijacked from the present moment and punish ourselves with an excessive barrage of self-incriminations.

Working with Our Regrets

Wisdom rarely arises without realizing how unwise or self-absorbed we’ve been. Good decisions grow out of the muddy waters of our bad decisions. Knowing what we know now, it’s all too easy to look back and wish we’d made different choices. One of the gravest disservices we inflict on ourselves is to judge the decisions we made then based upon what we know now. We only gain such knowledge through the portal of trial and error — and making mistakes.

Making space for regrets and being gentle with them is a step toward softening their hold over us. Affirming that it’s natural to have regrets may relieve some of the shame that keeps us frozen.

In a climate of gentle self-acceptance, we can turn our attention to what we might learn from our miscues. Redemption lies not in trying to eliminate regrets, but in using them as a doorway to increase our understanding of ourselves, others, and life itself.

If we made poor relationship choices in the past, we can make better ones in the future. If we hurt someone due to disrespectful or self-destructive behavior, we can commit ourselves to a path of personal growth and mindfulness that increases respect and sensitivity toward ourselves and others. We can consider making amends if doing so is not an unwelcome intrusion. We can work with a therapist or join a twelve-step program to help us move forward. As we make wiser choices, we will have less regrets.

Embracing Remorse

One category of regrets that can be especially troubling is when we’ve hurt others, especially if we’ve done so intentionally. In most instances, it is unintentional. We were acting from an ignorant or unconscious place. We’re hurting inside, so we lash out. We’re may not be fully aware of our motivation. We may want another to feel the pain that we’re in–a misguided attempt to muster some sense of power or justice. We can use our regrets as an impetus to find healthier ways to affirm ourselves, communicate our needs, and set boundaries in a healthy way.

Recognizing that we did our best with the information or self-awareness we had at the time might relieve a substantial burden of our regrets. But it might also be helpful or necessary for emotional healing to notice and embrace remorse for our actions

Remorse refers to a deep moral or emotional anguish for something we’ve done that we deem to be shameful or wrong. It is comparable to healthy shame (as opposed to toxic shame), which gets our attention and can help us orient to life and people in a more attuned way.

Remorse includes a deep, soulful sorrow. This is different than attacking ourselves or clinging to a core belief that we’re bad and don’t deserve love. In fact, toxic shame is often the main obstacle to allowing ourselves to feel sorrow and remorse. If we equate the sorrow of hurting someone with the conviction that we’re an awful person, we’re unlikely to open to our sadness. But if we recognize that a part of the human condition is that we sometimes hurt each other, mostly without realizing it fully, then we’re more likely to welcome the unavoidable sorrows that are a part of life.

If we can find the courage and wisdom to feel the natural sadness of having hurt someone, then we may find a healing pathway for ourselves, as well as a key to repairing relationship rifts. If our partner senses how sad or badly we feel about a hurtful behavior or betrayal, then they’re more inclined to trust that we really “get” it and are less likely to repeat it. Our apologies, when coupled with a deeply felt remorse, are infinitely more powerful than the mere words, “I’m sorry.”

Resting in the cauldron of our sorrow without denigrating ourselves can allow us to become a deeper person, and also to cultivate a more soulful empathy toward others. The redemption of self-forgiveness dawns as we bring gentleness to our sorrow, learn lessons in a deeply felt way, and dedicate our lives to living with greater integrity, honesty, and mindfulness. We can have regrets without being their prisoner. We can make wiser choices and thereby have less regrets going forward.

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from World of Psychology https://psychcentral.com/blog/living-with-regrets-and-how-to-deal-with-them/

Simple Strategies to Help Your Life Run Smoother (And Stress Less)

Sometimes the smallest things can drain our energy. Trying to find something you can’t find—a document, an email. Remembering a recipe. Wrangling a crowded to-do list. Checking and rechecking our phones. Prioritizing tasks (and totally overthinking it). A routine-less morning.

That also means that the smallest things can make a big difference in our energy and stress levels.

As Alice Boyes, Ph.D, writes in her latest book The Healthy Mind Toolkit: Simple Strategies to Get Out of Your Own Way and Enjoy Your Life, “very small changes in workflow can make previously effortful behaviors effortless.”

In other words, we don’t need to overhaul our lives to feel significant benefits (and ease). We can think (and do) small. Below, you’ll find tweaks, tools and approaches to help your days run smoother and your stress levels to go down.

Start with your needs. Entrepreneur Gregg Carey has four essential components to his morning routine: energy, body, mind and soul. For him, this includes eating breakfast, working out, playing the piano, connecting to his purpose, focusing on gratitude, feeding his cats and kissing his wife.

While these details sometimes vary, the components, he tells Benjamin Spall and Michael Xander in their book My Morning Routine: How Successful People Start Every Day Inspired, “are constant and critical to my happiness.”

Reflect on what you need first thing in the morning. Maybe consider what you need to feel calm, energized and fulfilled. How can you add or subtract certain activities from your days to meet these needs?

Create a master list for tasks. “Master lists save unnecessary thinking and prevent forgetting,” writes Boyes in The Healthy Mind Toolkit. She suggests writing your master list after you’ve completed an activity, such as writing down what to take on a trip as you unpack. You might consider: the items you’re glad you took; what you wish you would have brought; and what you wish you’d left behind.

Boyes also notes that your master list can be as simple as snapping a photo with your smartphone. For instance, she writes, you might snap a photo of your grocery receipt for Thanksgiving dinner. You might snap a photo of your work wardrobe, or different business cards you need (and tend to lose).

Go with simple habits. Sometimes, our days are hectic and hurried because we unwittingly complicate them. “The biggest complication we noticed while interviewing people for our book is that so many of us are trying to do too much at once,” said Spall, also co-founder of the website My Morning Routine.

This is true for everything from work to morning routines. Which is why Spall always suggests keeping your daily habits, including your a.m., short and easy to accomplish. For instance, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone starts his mornings by playing with his 5-year-old son for an hour. Before the sun rises, author Jenny Blake lights a candle and reads non-fiction books for one or two hours. Then she meditates for 20 to 45 minutes.

Write a how-to for infrequent tasks. We tend to think that we’ll remember how to do tasks that we do infrequently (e.g., every few months, seasonally or once a year). But we usually forget. Which means we have to figure out how to perform the same task. All over again. Repeatedly. Which means we waste time and energy and likely get frustrated.

This can happen with everything from cleaning the printer to making a certain meal. For instance, Boyes keeps a saved email she wrote herself with instructions and the subject line: “How to Clean Printer Drum.” She’s also taken a few minutes to jot down recipes she’s perfected.

Boyes suggests reflecting on these categories to see what might require writing instructions down: computer/technology; home/garden maintenance; holiday-related tasks, or any equipment you forget how to use.”

Have rules for good enough decisions. This is really helpful if you tend to overthink or avoid. Boyes has created these guidelines for herself:

• If she’s spending a ridiculously long time writing a particular section, that usually means she needs to delete it instead of reworking it.
• She works on tasks that are worth over $100 before tasks that are worth less than $100.
• She only interrupts what she’s doing if forgetting a task will stress her out in the future, such as putting something important in her purse.
• When she’s overwhelmed by her to-do list, she asks herself, “Would I pay someone to do this?” to see if a task is worth doing. “If the expected return from doing a task is so low it wouldn’t warrant paying someone to do it, that’s a good indicator it’s not worth doing myself.”

She also uses a travel tip from Chris Guillebeau: “If paying more, but by less than $10, saves stress, that’s an automatic yes.”

Boyes’s friend uses this strategy: If she’s having a tough time finding what she wants, such as an apartment for a getaway, she removes one of her criteria. “She says this helps her prioritize and makes her realize that what seemed necessary may actually just be desirable.”

Think super easy and convenient. For instance, Boyes keeps a paper-recycling bin and her mailbox next to her front door, so she can toss junk mail directly into the bin instead of bringing it inside her house. One of her friends lives in a two-story home with an upstairs bathroom. She has her kids undress downstairs where the laundry is before going up to take their baths, saving herself a step. Where can you simplify? What systems can you put in place to make certain activities easier or even effortless?

Keep smartphones outside your sanctuary. Our bedrooms are our sanctuaries. It’s where we go to unwind and savor restful sleep. It’s also where many of us bring our smartphones. Many of the people Spall and Xander interviewed struggled with technology every single day.

Spall noted that because of how disruptive smartphones can be, we can dramatically reduce our stress levels by keeping our phones outside of the bedroom overnight. Then pick up your phone in the morning only when you really need to, he said. “Better still, keep it on airplane mode overnight, and only turn it off airplane mode when you leave your home.”

The tiniest things can become bothersome, and thankfully, the tiniest things also can boost our days. Think about what’s been irritating you lately, and brainstorm the systems and processes you can implement to help things run a little bit smoother. Give yourself the opportunity to get creative, and even entertain playful solutions. Just be sure to think small and simple. Often, it’s where you’ll find the biggest benefits.

from World of Psychology https://psychcentral.com/blog/simple-strategies-to-help-your-life-run-smoother-and-stress-less/

Science Says: Having a Pet Can Help Support Your Mental Health

The relationship between man and animal dates back centuries. Time has transformed this relationship from being one based on utility to one based on love and family.

Now more than ever, pets are kept for companionship over all else; they are an important and valued part of the family. Dogs and cats have moved from sleeping outside to sleeping next to us in bed.

Through the advancement of scientific research focused on human-animal interaction, we know that this companionship provides a host of benefits – both to the people and animals involved. The Human Animal Bond Research Institute (HABRI) is a non-profit organization that funds research into the health benefits of pets and human-animal interaction. HABRI’s vision is for the human-animal bond – the mutually beneficial relationship between pets and people – to become universally embraced as an essential element of human wellness, for quality of life, physical and mental health.

For Mental Health Month, HABRI summarized the latest scientific findings on the mental health benefits of the human-animal bond to raise awareness for people who may benefit directly from animal companionship or animal-assisted therapy.

Recent research exploring the benefits of pets and human-animal interaction for mental health has uncovered new benefits for stress, depression, post-traumatic stress and for managing mental health. Now, we have peer-reviewed scientific evidence that tells us:

• Service dogs can help alleviate symptoms in veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD);
• Pets help owners manage their feelings and provide a powerful distraction from the stress of having a mental health problem; and
• Therapy dogs help reduce stress in college students.

Additionally, a recent HABRI-funded study (1) found that veterans living with PTSD exhibited better mental health and well-being if they had a service dog, including:

• Lower overall symptoms of post-traumatic stress.
• Lower levels of depression.
• Higher levels of life satisfaction.
• Higher overall psychological well-being.
• Lower levels of social isolation and greater ability to participate in social activities.
• Higher levels of resilience.
• Higher levels of companionship.

These important findings highlight the efficacy of service dogs as a complementary treatment for PTSD, which adversely affects more than 250,000 (30 percent) of post 9/11 war veterans, with an alarming 22 suicides per day (2).

Everyone living with a mental illness should have access to care, services, and supports that would benefit their mental health, including interaction with a companion animal. Research supporting the benefits of pets for people of all ages and health conditions is growing.

The more people learn about the health benefits of the human-animal bond, the more likely we are to see an increase in pet-friendly workplaces, apartment buildings and pets in the classroom, and therapy animals welcome in nursing homes, hospitals, college campuses and beyond.

Just like the relationship between animals and humans has evolved over time, the relationship between pets and human health can grow too.

As society faces mental health issues like loneliness, depression, post-traumatic stress, anxiety and more, the role of companion animals should expand through research, education and advocacy.

References:

(1) Results of the highly-anticipated HABRI-funded study, Preliminary efficacy of service dogs as a complementary treatment for posttraumatic stress disorder in military members and veterans, have been published in the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology.

(2) “Suicide Data Report,” Department of Veterans Affairs, Mental Health Services, Suicide Prevention Program, Janet Kemp, RN PhD & Robert Bossarte, PhD., (Rev. April 2016).

This post courtesy of Mental Health America.

from World of Psychology https://psychcentral.com/blog/science-says-having-a-pet-can-help-support-your-mental-health/

10 Tips on Reaching Your Life Goals

“Having an aim is the key to achieving your best.” – Henry J. Kaiser

It’s normal to wonder what you want to accomplish with your life. Sometimes such thoughts occur only intermittently, typically at milestone events such as high school graduation, entering college, getting a first job, meeting someone who becomes a romantic interest. Other times, though, you might dismiss any focus on future goals due to a more immediate concentration on what’s happening now. Still, life goals are important, for nothing worthwhile can be achieved without having a plan and working to succeed. These 10 tips on reaching your life goals may be helpful to do just that.

1. View goals as growth and aim high.

Having a goal is part of the growth process in becoming an adult. What’s often underappreciated, however, is what it takes to achieve those goals. It is more than merely thinking of the goal, working on it and then succeeding. One point that’s both straightforward and can make the achievement of even the loftiest goal a bit less formidable is to aim high. There can be immense satisfaction in knowing that the process of goal attainment helps you grow. Another crucial aspect of successfully achieving important life goals is to put into place specific plans to help you realize the goals.

2. Include stretch goals.

Why is aiming high recommended? For one thing, it always helps to have stretch goals. Like it sounds, a stretch goal is one that you know is beyond your current reach, yet it is highly desirable. A stretch goal will require you to put in a great deal of thought, time and effort to be successful. It’s not something easily attainable or a goal that you can do with barely any thought or effort. While some successes you have are accomplishments, most aren’t all that memorable. Stretch goals involve challenges, going beyond your comfort zone, entertaining the possibility that you may be in a little over your head – for now. On the other hand, when organizations set stretch goals for employees, it may serve to undermine organizational performance.

3. Always have several goals.

In line with regarding goals as growth is the recommendation to always maintain a list of several goals. These can consist of starter goals, which can be goals you’re just investigating or want to try to see if they hold your interest, intermediate goals, such as a stepped approach to landing a coveted career, or long-term goals that may include where you want to one day retire, how many children to have, whether a one-on-one relationship is what you want. The reason to have several goals is so that you always have something to work toward that you consider valuable and worthwhile. The more a goal interests you, even if it’s considerably far off, the more motivated you’ll be to put in the time and effort required to see it through.

4. Give careful consideration to goals when planning.

To be truly memorable, and worthy of intense concentration and effort, your goal should cause you to think long and hard about how to approach it, when, where and how to revise or adapt it to changing circumstances, and what to take away from it one you either succeed, stumble, or discard it. For there is always a lesson or two to learn. Those who are most successful in achieving their stretch goals are the ones who’ve taken the time to master the lessons they learned during mistakes.

5. Stagger goals.

When putting your goals into a list, make sure to include a rough timetable for completion. It’s also wise to space out more complex, difficult or time-consuming goals so that you’re not trying to work on more than one of these at once. That’s scattering your focus and depleting your physical, emotional and psychological resources. Besides, if something is worth doing, it’s worth doing well. Sure, you can chip away at some of the easier goals to get some successes to your credit, while still putting in appropriate time, effort and attention before or after the no-brainer goals working on your high-value goals.

6. Be realistic, yet adventurous in goal-setting.

Does aiming high include taking risks? You bet. When a goal is stimulating, gets you excited and eager to begin, it’s also likely to contain an element of risk. You might not achieve it, at least not at first try. On the other hand, the journey toward life goal completion is an adventure, as it should be. Do be realistic about the goals you set, while still seeing yourself successful in some seemingly unattainable goals you’d like to master. Besides, research shows that goals that retain your interest can both improve your work and help reduce burnout.

7. Take note of past goal successes.

No matter what your goal, you’ve likely had some experience already in something similar. If not in totality, at least directionally, by aspiration, training, skill or talent. Such successes are the reservoir you can draw from for inspiration, motivation, and lessons learned. They can and will serve you well in any goal you want to pursue in life. You succeeded because you had a plan, persevered despite obstacles, found the lesson in mistakes, and were flexible enough to quickly adapt to changing circumstances.

8. Be flexible in goal implementation and be sure to monitor progress.

Recognizing that you might not fully realize a goal the first time you attempt it, keep in mind that flexibility in how you proceed with goals is crucial to ultimate success. What appears to be a rock solid plan may turn out to be less than ideal. Revision is not only advisable, but necessary. If you’re locked in and refuse to adapt and adjust, you will not only increase your frustration and stress, but you’re also much more likely to abandon the goal altogether. It’s also good strategy to monitor your progress toward goal achievement, as such regular check-ups increase both motivation and likelihood of success.

9. Allow room for error.

You can’t know everything, nor can you anticipate every possible circumstance before working on your goals. Succeeding in important life goals involves acknowledging, allowing and even accepting that you’ll make errors, mistakes, fall short on some aspects, perhaps undershoot the mark. Seniors with cognitive impairment may find themselves making more errors and mistakes than they did when younger, yet they’re still able to work toward life goals and gain a measure of fulfillment from both the pursuit and completion of goals they deem worthwhile. Practice patience, both if you are older and have trouble with concentration, focus and follow-through, or if you are the adult child, sibling, co-worker, friend or neighbor of someone who’s having a tough time succeeding with their goals.

10. Recognize some goals may feel uncomfortable — and that’s good.

Perhaps the best advice on reaching your life goals is to go for goals that are a little disconcerting. That is, they give you a twinge of uncertainty, even feel a bit uncomfortable. Why is that good? You want to strive to achieve goals that are yet beyond your reach. If they’re too easy, or too quickly achieved, you may not gain as much satisfaction, wisdom or advancement from their completion. That’s not to say that quickly-accomplished goals shouldn’t be on your list, just that the ones you really need to work for may be more meaningful to your life goals.

from World of Psychology https://psychcentral.com/blog/10-tips-on-reaching-your-life-goals/

Psychology Around the Net: June 2, 2018

It’s that time of week again, Psych Central readers! Time to tap into some of the latest in mental health and psychology news.

This week’s Psychology Around the Net brings you the psychology of workplace romances, insight on the people who are most likely to believe in conspiracy theories, how students can maintain their mental health treatment after moving to campus (sure, it’s just June, but now’s the time to start preparing!), and more.

The Psychological Reasons Why You Fall in Love with Your Colleagues: Depending on your work schedule, chances are you spend more time during the days with your co-workers than you do with family and friends, as well as with people who could be potential romantic partners. Usually this leads to creating strong friendships; sometimes it leads to romantic relationships. While no one’s saying you shouldn’t find love in the office (well, actually, your boss might be saying it if it goes against office policy), it’s important to take a minute and figure out if you’re really into the person or if it’s just that the proximity has handed you a pair of rose-colored glasses.

How Your Child Can Maintain Mental Health Treatment When Moving to Campus: Sure, summer hasn’t even officially started yet, but if you have a child leaving for college in a couple of months now is the time to study up on these several tips on how both you and your child can help make sure the student’s mental health care continues.

Pete Davidson Hits Back at Trolls Over Dating with Mental Illness: Last fall, Saturday Night Live star Pete Davidson revealed he’d been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. Now, he’s speaking out against critics who are claiming people who have mental illness shouldn’t be in relationships.

New Psychology Studies Predict Likeliness of Belief in Conspiracy Theories: According to Joseph A. Vitriol, a postdoctoral research associate at Lehigh University and the co-author of two new studies that predict the likelihood that a person will believe conspiracy theories, conspiracy theories about government institutions and officials are widespread (we know) and are rooted in U.S. history (tell me more) and are more likely believed by people who overestimate their understanding of politics (now we’re getting somewhere).

When Someone Mocks Your Mental Illness: Forbes contributor Jeanne Croteau offers insight on handling the anger, shame, defensiveness, and hopelessness a person might experience when others downplay or even mock his or her mental illness, as well as tips on how to regain power and take back control of their life.

Psychologists: Women Are Not to Blame for the Wage Gap: Psychologists at Rice University have drawn upon existing research in order to highlight myths about the wage gap between men and women as well as provide possible explanations for why the gap exists. According to the researchers, we can begin eliminating the wage gap if organizations provide proper training, support, and growth opportunities.

from World of Psychology https://psychcentral.com/blog/psychology-around-the-net-june-2-2018/

Leave Room for Wisdom in Your Intelligent Life

“Intelligence” is all the rage. Students take standardized tests throughout school to measure intelligence, and we build machines powered by artificial intelligence to help us do our jobs. We seem to value intelligence above all else.

This is understandable. After all, “intelligence” in both of those examples is measurable and actionable, and it appears to provide a certain amount of clarity. However, “intelligence” in this sense is not necessarily a prerequisite for success. As psychologist Angela Duckworth points out, all that intelligence tests demonstrate is performance on intelligence tests — they do not reflect fundamental intelligence.

In 1982, psychologist Dr. Vivian Clayton defined intelligence as “the ability to think logically” and to “conceptualize and abstract from reality.” Wisdom, on the other hand, she defined as “the ability to grasp human nature, which is paradoxical, contradictory, and subject to continual change.”

In short, Clayton’s distinction between the two is that intelligence is the understanding of how to do things, whereas wisdom requires understanding that a logical stepwise process rarely works in life without constant iteration. In this age of life hacks and intelligent platforms, we’ve become obsessed with mechanistic thinking — figuring out the best way to do things — but in the course of doing this, we have become blind to the potential of wisdom.

Finding Wisdom’s Worth

Intelligence by itself has mostly unobservable and latent characteristics — it’s useless without context. An “intelligent” system, after all, is only as intelligent as the data it’s processing. Feed an intelligent data processor nonsense, and you will get nonsense out of it, albeit logical nonsense. Also, intelligence doesn’t always account for which factors actually matter. We have to use our intuition and iteration to find solutions to our challenges, so “intelligence” often comes to mean little more than rule-following, and rules by themselves do not always advance our progress or add value.

For example, a friend was recently traveling on an international flight. He was one minute late for checking luggage, and due to the airline’s rules, he had to miss his flight. Outside of context, these rules seem helpful — intelligent, even. You can’t have people checking in late and delaying flights all the time, and rushing them through the ticketing and security process would be a safety hazard. But in this instance, the airline lost a loyal customer.

Intelligent rules are not always wise rules, and the airline industry has suffered because of it. Between 2000 and 2012, prompted by consumer frustration with flying, the passenger rail market between New York and Washington increased by 38 percent, and the rail market between New York and Boston increased by 34 percent. Of course, security is paramount, but airline rules are often random, unexamined, and disconnected from what makes sense. Thus, they are often unwise.

Despite the efficiency and productivity that intelligence promises, it is wisdom that leads us into real fulfillment. In 2013, behavioral scientist Igor Grossmann and his colleagues found that there is no correlation between intelligence and well-being; wise reasoning, on the other hand, correlates with greater life satisfaction, better social relationships, more positive words used in speech, less depressive rumination, and greater longevity. Because wisdom contains a number of complex variables, including prosocial attitudes and emotional balance, it’s also associated with a delicate balance in the brain concerning our emotions. Wisdom is what dampens an emotional response when it’s excessive and, through self-awareness, exerts self-control.

The regions of the brain responsible for wisdom overlap with the regions responsible for intelligence, but there are some differences. Wisdom activates brain regions involved in the practical application of knowledge and regions that promote social good. It also involves the integration of emotion and knowledge. Essentially, wisdom adds the context that intelligence needs in order to be useful.

3 Ways to Apply Wisdom to Your Life

If you want to live with greater well-being and have practical and integrated solutions for life’s challenges, make room for more wisdom in your life, not just more intelligence. To ensure you’re making wise decisions, ask yourself these three questions:

1. Is my problem created by something other than itself?
   For example, if you are looking for a life partner and have no intention of moving from your hometown, you probably want to date people who have similar geographic plans. Make sure you’re comparing potential solutions with their ramifications in real life.
2. How does my goal relate to doing social good?
   When thinking about this, make sure you’re not simply doing something because you think people will recognize your virtue. Instead, try to deeply understand how your own passions relate to social good. There’s no need to force it. Authenticity matters.
3. Do I really care? 
   If you’re conflicted about your choices, examine those feelings. Learning how to acknowledge the pros and cons of your life choices can make you more wise, and you can integrate that wisdom into your plan moving forward. Having no strong emotions is a signal that you have not connected with your path forward, and having paradoxical feelings, while wise, should be distinguished from internal conflicts that can be resolved.
   

The decisions that lead to happiness aren’t just the smart decisions; they are the wise decisions, or what we commonly call “good decisions.” Having a psychological strategy that is practical, socially relevant, and authentic will make sure you’re activating your own wisdom more successfully.

from World of Psychology https://psychcentral.com/blog/leave-room-for-wisdom-in-your-intelligent-life/

Best of Our Blogs: June 1, 2018

Have you ever felt completely drained and overwhelmed?

Maybe it’s work or your relationships. Maybe you’re finding it impossible to juggle family and your professional life, let alone a social life.

You realize that as each ball drops, you’re not even enjoying any of it. It’s like one obstacle after another without any respite.

If you’re feeling the burn of burn out, you’re not alone. In fact, one study found 54 percent of survey respondents were stressed in 2017.

What’s the cure?

Slowing down. Single-tasking. Simplifying. Silence. Taking a breath and filtering out the important stuff from the things you think are important.

As you’ll read this week, sometimes discovering what relationships, and even TV shows may be worth ending can reconnect you to what truly matters in your life.

Accepting Death
(Polishing the Fragments) – A personal story of death offers an opportunity to invite presence, acceptance, and meaning in all of our lives.

13 Reasons to Move On
(Sex, Text & What’s Next) – Are gore, horror and violence necessary ingredients to capture a young audience? Does it open the door to conversations or desensitize us more?

Here’s What Happens When You Tell Narcissists They’re Narcissists Revisited
(Narcissism Meets Normalcy) – Should you tell a narcissist they’re a narcissist? Read this first.

How to Help Someone with Anxiety (According to Mental Health Experts)
(Reaching Life Goals) – Here’s why addressing your loved one’s anxiety with rational discussion will be unproductive and what you should do instead.

13 Double Standards Emotional Abusers and Controllers Exhibit in Relationships
(Love Matters) – If you feel anxious, hopeless and trapped in the presence of your partner, you might be a victim of emotional abuse.

from World of Psychology https://psychcentral.com/blog/best-of-our-blogs-june-1-2018/