Tag Archives: self esteem

Way 21/Day 21: Make it a great year: Laugh out loud

Depending on the article you pick, children laugh 300-400 times a day (little kids – four or five years old) while adults laugh (again, depending on source, 4 to 18 times a day). Is being a grownup really so awful compared to being a little kid?

Laughing releases endorphins – the body’s natural painkillers and a mood lifter. Sharing humor with other people (not laughing at them) builds connections via shared fun. Throw in some oxytocin, the effect of being in the moment (mindfulness without all that concentration on being mindful) and a lot of other psychology and neurobiology – well, it’s just good for us.

Laughing at people – or being laughed at – is, however, literally poisonous. The habit of feeling and expressing contempt changes the brain to make disdain and a cruel, critical attitude become an ever-easier choice to make. Being the object of contempt batters the human immune system; over time, the person is more susceptible to disease and will experience more, and longer, bouts of even minor illnesses. So for happiness – laugh with, not at, others.

Be around happy people. Let yourself laugh.

Dr. Lori Puterbaugh

© 2016

Posts are for information and entertainment purposes only and should not be construed to be therapeutic advice. If you are in need of mental health assistance, please contact a licensed professional in your area.

Way 20/Day 20: Make it a great year: Mentally stretch

We humans get into ruts.

We decide very early what we’re good at and not good at – probably not accurately. Who knows how many kids decide (wrongly) that they are “not good at math” when the problem is that some well-intended grownup mistakenly tried to force them to understand a concept before their brain was ready for it. Being able to reverse operations, for example (which we need for subtraction) requires children have reached a particular level of brain development, often not attained until age 7.   This is why subtraction used to be 2nd grade material. Abstract thinking – such as in algebra – is attained somewhere between 12 and 14 (if ever – everyone doesn’t get there), so for most kids, doing pre-algebra before that can be pretty discouraging.   After all, if the grownups think you should be able to understand it, and you can’t, well, it can’t be that the grownups are mistaken (or so the child infers). The child decides he or she is dumb. This is not fair.

This sort of experience leads to us cutting ourselves off from whole areas. We have a bad experience in one class and decide history is boring (how can that even be???) or that we “can’t do art,” whatever that might mean.

Make it a great year. Stretch your brain. Try to learn something new; tackle something you once decided you “can’t do” based on some old lesson gone wrong.

Dr. Lori Puterbaugh

© 2016

Posts are for information and entertainment purposes only and should not be construed to be therapeutic advice. If you are in need of mental health assistance, please contact a licensed professional in your area.

Way 19/Day 19: Be creative

Not the “creative type?” Not “artistic?”

Well, if you believe you were created in the image and likeness of God, then you must believe that you also have a small, human version of God’s infinite capacity to create.

Creativity requires skill, freedom to express that skill, and the ability to think outside the box and then narrow those options down to select the one(s) to use. A landscape painter views the landscape: so many choices in terms of perspective, detail, what to emphasize, what to change, what to omit. It takes skill and mental flexibility to narrow those choices and begin executing a landscape painting.

Not everyone’s creativity expresses itself in art. Maybe yours is in cooking, or developing tactical plans, or training programs, or solving engineering problems. All these pursuits require skill, flexibility and the freedom to execute your decisions.

Sometimes people develop a creative block. This can be from fatigue, severe stress, and/or becoming afraid of making a mistake. In the latter, the person has become so focused on the final result being perfect that it’s impossible to move forward because every step might be “wrong.” In these cases, I have often recommended to clients that they indulge in creative play in an area outside their expertise. This way their ego is not invested in the end result. Seriously, even if you are an accomplished professional, can you really take making a sock puppet (or clay animal, or finger-painting or decorating cookies – whatever you might choose) seriously? It’s an old sock, for crying out loud…have fun. Allowing creativity to flourish in one area can lead to it spreading to others.

Have fun!

Dr. Lori Puterbaugh

© 2016

Posts are for information and entertainment purposes only and should not be construed to be therapeutic advice. If you are in need of mental health assistance, please contact a licensed professional in your area.

 

Way 18/Day 18: Realize that sometimes YOU know better

In the film Love and Mercy, based on portions of Beach Boy Brian Wilson’s life, it is apparent that early in the Beach Boys’ success, when the stress of performing, producing, writing – and a history of abuse – were weighing heavily on Brian, that he knew what he needed. He knew and struggled to express to those around him that he needed to pull back – to reduce external stressors and focus on what was most critical. The pressures from others – his family, investors, hangers-on, his manipulative and exploitative father, and, later, the unethical therapist who became a sort of Svengali/mooch, all professed to “know better” what he needed – led to increasingly intense psychological suffering.

(I don’t know how accurately the film represents any of the characters and am describing the characters as portrayed in Love and Mercy, not on the real people)

Sometimes we know better than other people. It’s hard to discern, sometimes, the voices of those who really have our best interest at heart and those who have their own agendas foremost. Too, some people are well-intentioned and, knowing what would be best for them, presume that it must also be best for others.

Seek wise guidance. Perhaps the greatness of the year comes from careful discernment on what is actually right for you.

Dr. Lori Puterbaugh

© 2016

Posts are for information and entertainment purposes only and should not be construed to be therapeutic advice. If you are in need of mental health assistance, please contact a licensed professional in your area.

Way 16/Day 16: Make it a great year – give it 10 minutes

Some tasks are overwhelming and discouraging. Just thinking about tackling that basement, garage or closet can generate a lot of creativity about what you could do instead, right? So, give it 10 minutes. Set the timer and go…just focus on doing what you can in 10 minutes. Maybe on day 1 you set up 3 baskets, boxes or buckets for keep/toss/donate. Day 2 you just pick stuff up and put into one of those piles. Day 3 you do the same…or whatever else makes sense. Just spend 10 minutes and move on. In a week, you’ve spent over an hour. In a month, you’ve given it more than a half-day, made a dent in it, and perhaps feel encouraged to just dig in for a longer time.

Dr. Lori Puterbaugh

© 2016

Posts are for information and entertainment purposes only and should not be construed to be therapeutic advice. If you are in need of mental health assistance, please contact a licensed professional in your area.

Way 15/Day 15: Make it a great year – ask someone to give of themselves

Some people are aching to be asked to share of themselves.

They have stories to share; wisdom to give; experience and skills to pass along.

Instead of letting a parent or grandparent sadly give yet another gift card to add to the pile of gift cards, let them share of themselves: ask for time to record some family stories, for copies of special family photos, or ask for some lessons in their hobby or special area of skill.

Dr. Lori Puterbaugh

© 2016

Posts are for information and entertainment purposes only and should not be construed to be therapeutic advice. If you are in need of mental health assistance, please contact a licensed professional in your area.

Way 14/Day 14: Make it a great year – give of yourself

Give of yourself.

Give your undivided attention (no multi-tasking, no furtive glances at the cell phone – deluding yourself that no one notices).

Give of your talent: teach someone how to do something you know how to do, whether it’s how to tend a plant, bake a type of cookie, or repair a cranky lawnmower.

Dr. Lori Puterbaugh

© 2016

Posts are for information and entertainment purposes only and should not be construed to be therapeutic advice. If you are in need of mental health assistance, please contact a licensed professional in your area.

 

Way 13/Day 13: Make it a great year – listen unselfishly.

Listen unselfishly.

Listen without planning how you will respond.

Listen to hear three important themes:

  1. The content: what is the information being shared with me?
  2. The emotion: how does the information being shared affect the person speaking to me? What can I draw from strong or subtle clues in expression, tone, pace of speech?
  3. What does this mean to the speaker?

Respond with a focus on the person speaking – not turning the focus on you. Unselfish listening – listening that isn’t just focused on planning on what to say next – is a powerful force for good. It’s hard and, as far as I can tell, it takes practice for a lifetime, but it’s worth trying again and again.

Dr. Lori Puterbaugh

© 2016

Posts are for information and entertainment purposes only and should not be construed to be therapeutic advice. If you are in need of mental health assistance, please contact a licensed professional in your area.

Way 12/Day 12: Make it a great year – work hard at something.

Yesterday the message was play – today’s the opposite.

Push yourself at something on an ongoing basis. Not crazy-hard – not without careful consideration of the process of change and development in that particular arena – but consistently. Consult experts for guidance on the particular area so you know how much effort is smart and how much is fruitless and/or dangerous.

Persistent effort changes the brain. Just like stewing over resentments makes one better at being bitter and resentful, persistent rehearsal of a new skill makes us better at it. However, there are limits. The brain develops in the way it develops. Until the brain has reached a certain level of development, for example, it’s not useful to try to pound algebraic concepts into elementary school students. They might memorize stuff to make grownups happy, but the ability to think abstractly that all those pesky “x” and “y” problems require is one related to neurological development, and that happens when it happens, not when competitive parents would like it to be.  That might be age 10 but for other kids, it might not be until age 12 or 14. That’s not a measure of intelligence, it’s just a pace of childhood development.

Staying young-at-brain requires exercising it. Find something interesting and push yourself.

Dr. Lori Puterbaugh

© 2016

Posts are for information and entertainment purposes only and should not be construed to be therapeutic advice. If you are in need of mental health assistance, please contact a licensed professional in your area.

Way 11/Day 11: Make it a great year – play.

Have fun. Play. Every day.

Go down the sliding board. Get on the seesaw. Play tag with your retriever and let your cat chase you while you scamper around dragging a piece of ribbon on the floor like prey. Do things where the end result isn’t anything in particular so you can let go of being focused on producing something “worthwhile.” A laugh that makes your belly hurt is worthwhile.

Playing means: enjoying an activity for the fun of it, not for the end result. That makes “play” different from sticking religiously to an exercise routine, or letting your competitive side take over and turn a game of kickball into some sort of gladiator blood-sport. It’s doing stuff – so watching other people “play” a sport for money isn’t play. It might be fun, but it’s not play.

If you have a pet or a child in your world, it’s easier. Follow their lead for five minutes or a whole lot more.

Go have fun. Go out and play.

Dr. Lori Puterbaugh

© 2016

Posts are for information and entertainment purposes only and should not be construed to be therapeutic advice. If you are in need of mental health assistance, please contact a licensed professional in your area.