I recall a song from my youth that encouraged me to maximize giving to persons who I loved while we were both still alive and able to give/receive personal gifts. The song's theme was: "Give me my flowers while I am living so I can enjoy them while I can. Please do not wait until I am in my casket to slip some lilies into my hands." We have the cho…

Life for many seems to be seeking a healthy balance in handling the various stresses and pains of living life. What worked yesterday for us may/may not work today or tomorrow. Pain is pain. How we experience it and the individualistic ways we manage it in our lives are some of our most important life choices. It may be easier for our family/friends…

One of the strongest traits that we humans have when born is having the 'will to live' and survive in our world. This drive to survive gives us motivation to confront and overcome obstacles that arise during our lifetime. While almost totally dependent on support from others at birth, each of us during adulthood develops our own personal ways of im…

One characteristic that we often share with others on our life path is seeking answers to the question: Who am I? During our childhood we become aware that we are individuals who have similarities and differences with the other people in our world. In seeking to better understand ourselves, we may ask questions like: Who am I? Why am I here? What i…

We are constantly facing change in our lives while attempting to make positive and healthy decisions. You and I tend to rely on life experiences in this process with habituation being chosen for managing most of our repetitive decisions. Reaching various life path junctions we may need to evaluate and decide on a new direction or re-decide to conti…

Whether it is a spouse, family member, friend, coworker, or neighbor, many of us know someone who is most eager with their behavior to impose his/her version of what is true and correct for living life.. One of their viewpoints often is that one size fits all and the world would be a better place if everyone thought and behaved in the same way. Com…

Life tends to take on reflective aspects as the years pass. During the latter chapters of our Life Journey, pondering what aspects of my life I'm most proud of can be valuable for introspective learning and sharing with others. Like writing a personal eulogy, this introspective process can provide challenges to consider the specific choices for the…

Two words from the field of psychology frequently make it into our daily dialogues. We use the words 'introvert' and 'extrovert' as labels to quickly convey our perceptions of how we see ourselves. Like many labels we use in our language, these two words tend to be verbal shorthand in communicating quickly and efficiently a part of who we are. Coun…

With so many options available on how we see the world,, many of us tend to gravitate toward 'shortcuts in how we decide what is real or unreal, true or not true, good or bad, right or wrong, etc. Habituation and binary viewpoints from childhood allow us to more quickly make our personal choices without investing time and energy into individual eva…

The physical and emotional currency of time is one significant characteristic that tends to equalize human beings. Each of us is given the gift of 24 hours, 1440 minutes or 86,400 seconds each day to spend and invest in living our lives by the choices we make. Unlike many other gifts, this specific gift requires us to spend and invest as it is rece…

We begin life as children being dependent on others to survive. With adulthood we achieve and maintain the status of being independent. Our society tends to expect us to continue thinking and behaving as independent and productive adults for as long as possible. The longer one lives, the more likely we may realize that with aging we may be returnin…

Teachers expect their students to listen. However, how are we as listeners to our students? Listening is an important skill for educators and it's a skill many of us struggle with. Join us as we discuss the impact of teachers who listen. For Dr. Hughey's “Power For Positive Living” podcast & blog posts visit PFPL.US…

The phrase "I love you" contains some of the most powerful words in our language! The varied choices we make in using "love" as a noun or verb affects our daily attitudes, beliefs, feelings and behaviors as well as our overall physical and emotional health. We have the choice to focus more on the pronoun "I" or on "you" when using this sentence to …

Life for most of us is a series of choices. How do we choose to view what is happening now and select our attitudes/behaviors in preparing for the unknown future? Being a victim of some situation is probably a part of each life path. We choose whether our skills of managing victimhood rise to the level of becoming a professional. A portion of our f…

The frequent appearance of fatigue can be an alert that some system within us needs attention for some degree of healing. Many of us recognize the appearance of physical fatigue and know of attitude and behavioral options to make changes. The appearance of other system symptoms like psychological fatigue frequently leaves many without available pre…

Each generation receives input from previous generations on the important behaviors, values and beliefs that make our relationships and life journey have meaning. One recommendation from Ann Landers in a previous decade focuses on the important words to be used in relating to others. Wellness psychology also offers relationship guidelines to be con…

Active and passive acts of suicide continue to be a behavioral option for many who struggle with the hurts and pains of their life issues. Active suicide can offer the appeal of being a quick and spontaneous decision to end the inner pain of life circumstances. For others, reaching this same decision can take more passive and indirect forms evolvin…

One of the key foundations of healthy relationships is when the participants can really listen, hear and understand what is being said by each whether there is agreement or a degree of difference. Being quiet while another speaks physically and emotionally can be a start. Active listening takes effort and offers understanding of self and others wit…

Whether we choose an active or passive pattern in spending our time currency, the connection and disconnection choices we make with our human relationships tend to strongly affect our physical and emotional health. Wellness psychology encourages us to better understand our daily personal time currency expenditures with an active introspective evalu…

Our interactions with others in our society take many forms. When society embraces polarization of absolutes like "either/or" or "winner/loser" as a valued behavior, we are likely to find ourselves with many invitations to participate in various types of life drama frequently known as culture wars. Since the various culture war dynamics can be impo…

Two topics seem to be most difficult for many in our society: the wealth we have accumulated on our life journey and the various ways of confronting and managing the last days of our life chapter. Some individuals seem to determine the value of their life journey by the amount of wealth they have accumulated. Many other factors such as generosity a…

Research indicates that most people tend to accept and agree with new people and information when they are similar to what we have recorded as being positive on mental 'tapes' from our previous experiences. People or information that do not 'fit' into our previous experiences tend to be viewed with some degree of apprehension or suspicion. This beh…

People like to be with people they perceive as being similar to themselves in beliefs, values and behaviors.Are we being dishonest when we choose not to disclose certain information about ourselves to our family and friends so as to maintain personal privacy?Can we understand and accept what others need to know about us within an honest relationshi…

One of the most significant decisions that each of us makes during our life journey is how and to what degree we want to share our inner self with individuals with whom we have created various types of relationships. Humans do choose many types of personal secrets which can vary throughout our life journey. The individual criteria you and I select …

One of the major choices we each make in developing positive mental health for ourselves is discovering various ways to understand and assign responsibility for various mental blame games. When we decide to assign some degree of blame for our thoughts, feelings and behaviors we can choose to place responsibility for them entirely on ourselves or on…

Friend Print processes were developed for those persons who seek information to better answer the introspective question of "Who Am I?". Friend Prints are structured to better understand the value of psychological exercising in developing and maintaining ones personal mental health. Using an initial list of five persons that a listener calls friend…

Seeking and understanding our individual friendship circles can be a powerful contributor to our personal mental health system. One analogy which can be useful is comparing our behavior in a book store with what one might do in their individual Friend Store whether shopping for a book or a friend. Another possibility to consider is what we each wri…

If we are fortunate with our friendships we encourage ourselves and others to adapt to the life changes that are taking place within ourselves and others. Much of our emotional life is finding healthy ways to handle the frequent changes that we and others make with our daily choices. Making healthy changes in self tends to be one of the most diffic…

As humans we tend to believe that how we see the choices of living and relating to other people tend to be correct and good. Persons who have a different viewpoint from ours may be seen as misinformed, untruthful or ignorant. We may be called to correct the errors of other viewpoints with our family and friends by imposing our specific beliefs and …

Wellness Psychology's foundation of personal power is that each of us has many individual life choices. In so many ways the type of life path we choose for ourselves is a result of the internal and external relationship choices we make. Structuring the personal 'spices' we bring into our life both internally and externally can allow better understa…

Many individuals can verbalize that they do have the personal power to frame and reframe their own attitudes, feelings and behaviors. The human challenge seems to come in making the decision to IMPLEMENT their personal choices. Without taking action, words remain words. Possibilities remain possibilities. Can we support and encourage ourselves alon…

The personal path that each of us takes going from childhood to adulthood is unique and challenging. Our parents usually begin our life path by teaching the values of familiarity and safety. Accepting habituation as an attitude and behavior option allows us to grow within the shelter and safety of the home environment. As an adult we often discover…

Where Are The Answers I Seek? Your host completes a trilogy of visits with "Hello, Henry" on WBT, AM 1110, in Charlotte, NC. This broadcast also completes the series of interviews to promote personal retreating with Friend Ship at Sea and was done after the KGBC production of Power for Positive Living. In addition to an active conversation on vario…

Saying Goodbye While some of us may have difficulty saying 'hello' to people, it is often the external and internal goodbyes that provide most of us the biggest challenges by invoking anxiety and stress. Learning to say goodbye in a healthy manner is a significant part of the grieving process when we lose someone or something important to us.…

Many of us have topics that are difficult to openly discuss with others. Two of these sensitive topics seem to be the 'wealth game' of self-worth and the exploring/sharing with others the diversity we wish to live during the final days of our life. Whether we see ourselves as more winners or losers in life games, being able to relate our experience…

All Things End: What Have I Learned? At some point, in some way, all living things eventually meet death and our one chance to live this unique gift of life will come to an end. We each have many choices as we live and our personal choices have consequences throughout our life path. One personal guideline that can be helpful in pondering positive a…

Is This My Last Chance? One of the major assets of living life is knowing that at some point our individual life will come to an end. Knowing that our life will eventually end can give tremendous value to each of us on making our personal decisions for whatever time remains. One choice that has positively affected my emotional health has been a cho…

What Do I Choose to Leave Behind? Our personal life legacy is in a constant state of being created by our daily choices made one hour, one day or one month at a time. While our life choices are open to varied perceptions by others, do I accept responsibility for expressing my own values and beliefs in actively living what is important to me? When d…

Learning the skills to appreciate our pets with love and caring is important to many individuals. For some, the lives of our pets may be as important or more important than the skills and beliefs learned to value the lives of fellow humans. The presence of life also teaches us that at some point and in some manner there is the arrival of death for …

Managing Expectations of Self and Others Wellness Psychology recognizes that each of us has the power to 'frame' his/her world into the specific perceptions that we choose. We have the personal responsibility for viewing our world along with the power to accept, reject or modify our choices. We frequently need to ventilate our feelings with others.…

Presence: Best Gift for Human Connection Our in-person presence can often be the most valuable and useful gift that we have to give to others as we build and maintain our human connections. The emotionally healthy person recognizes the presence or absence of other humans can significantly affect one's mental health. Each of us comes into life with …

One + One = One or Two? Inherent in our relationships is that the participants have a set of assumptions and expectations for themselves as well as for the other person. Whether in marriage or friendship we rely on these assumptions and expectations to healthfully maximize the connection we have with each other. We have choices in our degree of con…

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall-Part 2 Wellness Psychology encourages each of us to more fully understand and appreciate the choices we make in developing and implementing our own individual self-esteem beginning as a child to becoming a senior citizen. Special interest is paid to the emotional cancer of perfectionist tyranny and the ways we can re-deci…

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall-Part 1 Wellness Psychology encourages each of us to more fully understand and appreciate the choices we make in developing and implementing our own individual self-esteem beginning as a child to becoming a senior citizen. Beginning with words from the Book of Proverbs, "As he thinks in his heart, so is he", various approa…

Invisible Pain Finding a healthy balance to the joys and pains of living life is a continual process for most of us. What is hurtful and painful to one person may or may not be the same for another or it may require a different degree to register. We can often better understand and choose our responses to physical pain like a broken arm, cancer, st…

Who Am I? (Part Four) One of the most frequent and powerful questions that an individual can ask him or herself during their life journey is: Who Am I? Who is the current 'me' and how is today different from some earlier age? What choices shall I make for today which may alter my self-image in the future? The questions for personal introspection te…

Who Am I? (Part 3) Some of the most frequent and powerful questions that an individual can ask him are: Who Am I? Who is the current 'me' and how is today different from some earlier age? What decisions shall I choose for today which may alter my self-image in the future? The questions for personal introspection tend to be endless. Introspection is…

Who Am I? (Part Two) Wellness Psychology encourages us to explore the personal question of "Who Am I?". There are many ways for a person to experience this process of introspection. Using the multiple-question method that is similar to the personal retreat format, one can seek the answers to questions created to go beyond our surface traits. Questi…

Who Am I? Wellness Psychology encourages us to explore the personal question of "Who Am I?". There are many ways for a person to experience this process of introspection. Using the multiple-question method that is similar to the personal retreat format, one can seek the answers to questions created to go beyond our surface traits. Questions can be …

There Are No Trees At Sea (part 2) Who am I? How did I develop into the person I am? Who were the people and what were the major events that led me to make healthy and unhealthy choices which bring happiness or sadness into my current life? Am I ready to study and understand the internal compass that guides me when I enter the emotional fogs of dai…