This is the third in a series of articles on emotional intelligence for personal growth.

Self-awareness is one of the most important benefits we get from spending time in a mindful state. The longer we are able to stay mindful, the more we learn about our selves. We come to recognize the ebb and flow of our thoughts, moods, emotions and impulses. We begin to see relationships between our thoughts and feelings and external events.

One thing we notice is that our thoughts and feelings often contradict each other. Our emotional selves and our rational selves often have conflicting memories, perspectives, and motivations. On the surface, positive emotions seem helpful, and negative emotions seem to be destructive.

There is an old Cherokee folk tale called the "Wolves Within".

An old Grandfather said to his grandson, who came to him with anger at a friend who had done him an injustice, "Let me tell you a story.

I too, at times, have felt a great hate for those that have taken so much, with no sorrow for what they do.

But hate wears you down, and does not hurt your enemy. It is like taking poison and wishing your enemy would die. I have struggled with these feelings many times." He continued, "It is as if there are two wolves inside me. One is good and does no harm. He lives in harmony with all around him, and does not take offense when no offense was intended. He will only fight when it is right to do so, and in the right way.

But the other wolf, ah! He is full of anger. The littlest thing will set him into a fit of temper. He fights everyone, all the time, for no reason. He cannot think because his anger and hate are so great. It is helpless anger,for his anger will change nothing.

Sometimes, it is hard to live with these two wolves inside me, for both of them try to dominate my spirit."

The boy looked intently into his Grandfather's eyes and asked, "Which one wins, Grandfather?"

The Grandfather smiled and quietly said, "The one I feed."

Likewise, many of us grow up with messages that discourage us from expressing anger and other negative emotions. We often learn very young to suppress our anger because it is seen as disrespectful to our parents. There also appears to be a common belief that strong emotions can control our behavior. Indeed, we often hear about people who have a "bad temper" and anger management programs proliferate to treat mostly men who can't seem to manage their anger.

Sadness is another negative feeling that has had a bad rap. Many people feel horribly shameful for crying in front of someone else. The word "depressed" is often used interchangibly with sadness to describe the feeling. This serves to further pathologize normal feelings. Many people I've treated fear becoming sad as the first step of becoming depressed again.

Sadness is a feelling commonly felt whenever someone experiences a loss. Depression is a mental illness characterized by prolonged sadness and impaired function. Depression goes well beyond simple sadness to where the body has begun to shutdown. Symptoms include what is called neuro-vegetative signs that cause interruption of natural sleep and eating patterns as well impairment in concentration, memory, and decision-making.

I've found it useful to conceive of the mind as having two main parts. One part is largely made up by the cortex, or the evolutionary most recently developed brain structure. It's this part of the brain that is largely responsible for manipulating symbols, interpreting and remembering patterns of perceptions, and self-awareness and self-monitoring.

The cortex overlies a phylogenically older part of the brain that largely makes up the autonomic nervous system. [Its sometimes referred to as the "Lizard Brain" because even reptiles have equivalient brain structures.] In this part of the brain, the body functions largely "automatically". Here the heart is stimulated to beat, breath is maintained, pain sensors are monitored, Automatic behaviors like walking and steering a car are monitored, largely without conscious awareness. Here is also the roots of our emotions, the biochemical and hormonal precursors to the thoughts whose symbolic representations we create to understand our emotions.

Roughly speaking, the cortex is the thinking part of the brain, the autonomic nervous system is the emotional and functionally analogic part of the brain. That part of us we imagine as "rational" or "logical" largely resides in the cortex. Those parts of us that are instantly compelled to act out of sheer emotion reside in the autonomic brain. Virtually all of our behavior is in fact the result of BOTH parts of the brain. The cortex retains a veto on most emotionally inspired behaviors beyond basic instinct. So we duck when we hear a loud noise, but we consciously retain the decision whether to run or not. It is equally inaccurate to call our behaviors as rational manifestations or solely emotionally based. Our behavior is largely the result of both parts of us.

Why would we have both kinds of emotions if we didn't need them? Whether your put your faith in natural selection or God, would we expend so much negative energy if we didn't need it? I think it's more useful to think of the body as a functional whole that emerged from generations of development into a amazingly effective organism. We seem to naturally have an amazing ability to heal ourselves.

So which is true, are negative emotions the scourge of our existence? Or do we need both kinds of emotion to make us complete? Are negative emotions always evil, inspiring only the most despicable manifestations of our behavior? Or does the negative serve to differentiate, elaborate and balance the positive?

Our motivations are largely emotionally driven. Negative emotions push us to face and act on those things that make us most uncomfortable. Positive emotions allow us to enjoy success and give us energy to meet new challenges. But negative emotions inspire us to make changes. Misery is perhaps the most creative force in our lives. Seldom do we make major changes in our lives without considerable emotional pain. Each negative emotion comes complete with an intuitive guide to action. Anger pushes us to stand up for ourselves and speak up when we've been treated with disrespect. Fear makes us hyper-vigilant to potential danger and readies us to duck or run away if needed. Sadness makes us review over and over again what we've lost. That ruminative search is for the knowledge to compensate for our loss and meaning and wisdom to understand our lives from a new perspective. Guilt reminds us of our responsibility in the errors we make and motivates us to work to understand our mistakes and learn how to avoid repeating them.

Therefore, ALL parts of us are as necessary to survival as any one. On an experiential basis, this requires a leap of faith. Strong negative emotion or even ambivalence is an uncomfortable condition. Our mind is known to create all sorts of convenient fictional explanations of motives and their behavioral manifestations in attempt to maintain an illusion of rationality. One such example is cognitive dissonance.

In order to make use of our incredibly effective brain, we must be aware of as many of it's manifestations as is possible. We must recognize and be able to put into words emotions as complex and varied as our thoughts. We must also accept the fact that our thoughts and emotions OFTEN contradict each other, but in a real and very personal sense, both are right. Both parts of the brain have learned their reactions over years of experience. Both points of view require consideration for a good decision about what must be done. Our rational mind can consider all options, develop all needed strategies, but when it comes to deciding what is best, what is most important and what is the right thing to do, our emotional side steps in to make the final call.

Cognitive learning is the most available for change. We think, therefore we do. If we change how we think, we change what we do. However, everyone knows from their last New Year's resolution that it's not that simple for the many behaviors we want to change. Changing emotional learning is much more difficult. Our emotional side learns by repetition or by another intense emotional experience.

To become truly self-aware, we must understand both parts of us, the rational and the largely hidden emotional part. Each part of us is just as needed as the other part. Once we embrace the notion that all feelings are necessary, we can search for their meaning and purpose. Then we harness them to motivate ourselves and we are pushed in the direction we need to go.

Next time you feel overwhelmed by vile emotions and thoughts, sit with them; make sense of them. Trace them to their origins; understand what they might mean for you today. Then, make a reasoned decision what should be done. As hard as it is to sit with a foul emotion, you will find it an amazingly creative force for change.

To be continued...

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This is the second in a series of articles on emotional intelligence for personal growth. The first part is here.

Mindfulness is a non-judgmental, present-centered awareness in which each thought, feeling, or sensation that arises is acknowledged and accepted as it is. It is a skill that is learned by committed practice. The object is to focus one's attention on thoughts, feelings and events in the present moment while remaining curious, open, and accepting whatever occurs.

The idea is to take on the role of an observer of your own mind. Notice everything that happens without holding onto anything, having a "Teflon Mind". An important part of observing is putting words to the experience. The effect of naming the experience effectively separates you from it. Thoughts are just thoughts, feelings just feelings, all transient experiences that are not necessarily a part of or define who we are.

True mindfulness involves immersing yourself in your experiences so that you actually forget yourself. The idea here is to stop the conversation you have with yourself, or as Eastern traditions put it, letting go of ego. This internal dialogue, while an important skill in the right circumstances, can become a major distraction. Imagine yourself walking through a beautiful park muttering to yourself. Would you remember what you saw in the park? You'd probably remember more about what you were muttering to yourself!

One way to do this is to focus on what is at hand. "See the job, do the job." The idea is NOT to always stay busy, ut to invest all of yourself in everything you do. "Smell the roses." Another thing to watch while doing things judging if this should have happened or whether it's fair, just, or right or wrong. It IS, the only value in questioning why is avoiding a problem in the future. Anything more than that is a waste time and emotional energy. See what you are doing, but don't evaluate it. Focus on the facts without evaluating it. Count on your intuitive self to react appropriately, changing the harmful situation or changing your harmful reaction to the situation.

Another distraction to your experiences is multi-tasking. Doing more than one thing at a time spreads your skills thin so that your product becomes sub-optimal, perhaps even mediocre. If you multi-task regularly, you actually train yourself to be easily distracted. There is some research that suggests that this subtle distraction training contributes significantly to attention deficits that impair your concentration. Research also suggests that training persons with Attention Deficit Disorder with mindfulness techniques can be an effective treatment!

The idea is to keep your mind's eye on the objectives until the task is done having faith that you will do the best job your can and react appropriately should something go wrong. Think about it, if you are preoccupied with what might go wrong while doing something, will your focus be on the job or the fear of what might happen? If you are distracted by fear, how good a job can you do?

Most of us, when not structured and focused on a task at hand, are thinking about past and future events. We either review previous experiences looking for new learnings we might have missed or planning our reactions to anticipated events. We focus on the moment only when there is something immediately presenting that requires a response. Our focus is often divided between what is happening in the moment and the thoughts on which we are focused.

For those of us that have more than our share of regrets and/or worries, being focused on the past or the future becomes a nearly full time job! This is not good. Without your full participation in the moment you are in, you are distracted, your reactions are primed with the emotions of the worry or regret. That means your judgment and decision making ability is impaired by emotionally distorted judgments! Have you ever been startled by someone while preoccupied with regrets or worries? Did you react with an emotion not meant for the other person? Most people have had that experience. It is likely we have all experienced spilling our internal emotion on an unintended other. And if that person was paying attention, he or she probably noticed your emotion and wondered if you were upset with them!

Few of us have the ability to be focused on the moment at will. It is a skill that takes a lot practice and a commitment to follow through. The eventual reward is an incredible feeling of peacefulness, acceptance, and centeredness combined with heightened concentration. You see, a mind uncluttered by regrets or worries has only the moment to focus on. Self-consciousness dissolves into the experience of the moment. Instead our focus is on our senses, our perceptions, punctuated by the thoughts and feelings flowing through our minds. The ultimate state of mindfulness is what is called flow.

Flow is the state in which the person is fully immersed in what he or she is doing with a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and an expectation of success. Flow could be conceived of as being completely focused and motivated in a single-minded immersion. Emotions and thoughts are synchronized in the service of performing and learning. In flow, the emotions are not just contained and channeled, but positive, energized, and aligned with the task at hand. While in flow, we feel a clear sense of direction, confidence, intense concentration, and personal control. We feel a natural and continuous intrinsic reward. Time seems altered, slowed or moving quickly. Feedback for one's actions and focused redirection come easily and painlessly so that action and awareness seem to merge.

One does not have to reach the ultimate form of mindfulness to benefit. With each strengthening of the skill comes with incredible benefits in quality of life. There are many tools available to us that will help us learn. Check out the resources here.

Continued here.

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This is the first in a series of articles on the topic of emotional intelligence for personal growth.

I got this quote in one of those anonymous emails that has been forwarded through thousands of inboxes all over the planet:

Life's journey is not to arrive at the grave safely in a well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, totally worn out, shouting '..holy sh*t ....what a ride!' Enjoy the ride. There is no return ticket.

I had heard something like this decades ago and remember that it had a profound effect on me. It was one of those "Aha!" moments we all have from time to time. I had always been a cautious man and taken great pains to avoid unnecessary risks on my way to building a career.

While this new perspective didn't change a lot about what I did, it did change how I thought of myself. I had been holding myself back, reviewing everything I was about to say or do before I considered acting. I'd also review everything I had done over and over again hoping to pull one more insight from each act in my past. It was exhausting! I was focused totally on the past and the future and I was often miserable with self-imposed anxiety. And my life was passing me by. I experienced a shortage of joy. My only fun was in many escapist activities I engaged in, luckily none were particularly self-destructive. My life had become driven by regret, worry and escape. This little saying made me acutely aware that I was living life all wrong. I was totally focused on going somewhere and never stopping to enjoy where I was. It took a number of years to figure out just what I had to do to change things. New understanding of this task still comes to me every day.

"Full Impact Living℠" is what I call my life philosophy. It's a set of key concepts that I have developed over the more than thirty years I've practiced as a psychotherapist and manager of mental health programs and applying those concepts to my own life.

The term "full impact" is borrowed from the concept of full impact aerobics or karate. Life is not something that should be lived in a restricted and totally safe manner. Life is designed to be spent liberally until you are done. You can't take any savings through over-done caution with you or will it to your children. Life can involve going for the gusto in a way beer could never do for you. Full Impact Living℠ is about living life with passion, relishing the entire experience from beginning to end, the good, the bad, the ugly and the beautiful.

Each concept of Full Impact Living℠ builds on the previous one in a step by step developmental process. We all travel through these steps many times in our lives. But without our awareness and proactive participation, the full benefit of the process can never be realized. Each skill builds on the other. Each new mastery of knowledge feeds the basic skills with new forms of awareness and the process of further development begins anew.

Mindfulness is the basic skill. Awareness of the flow of thoughts and feelings through ones mind is critical to self-awareness. Careful observation of one's internal awareness matched with observing the environment and one's behavior leads to self-knowledge. Self-knowledge applied to life's challenges leads to experience and wisdom. The wisdom of experience allows one to build meaning for one's life that manifests in a focus on creating one's legacy based on one's basic values. Balance ensures that every manifestations of one's life receives its due investment of time, effort and focus. Then each new insight is fed back into the learning process by mindful awareness.

Continued here.

Tonight the New York Times reported on very sad story about an Australian woman who went to a self-help course called Turning Point with her husband in hopes of improving their marriage. Over the next few days, according to her husband, her behavior became increasingly strange until without warning, she jumped out of her office window and successfully committed suicide while stunned paramedics watched unable to move fast enough.

According to the article, the Turning Point program by People Knowhow run by unlicensed staff and includes group induction of hypnosis and/or regression where persons in the audience are encouraged to imagine themselves as children and encouraged to re-experience trauma.

Hypnosis and regression are powerful therapeutic techniques I have come to respect. One of my training experiences included a demonstration of group hypnotic induction. Most in the audience were thoroughly amazed including myself because in no way did we cooperate with an induction. We didn't even know it happened until we went on break and became acutely aware of the change in perceptions in the beautiful atrium of the hotel.

After the break, the workshop leader told the story of the previous conference he taught when a woman in the class was found after the break psychotic and nearly incoherent. The leader had to suspend the conference while the woman was hospitalized. Gradually, the reality of what happened dawned on me. The workshop leader, though highly regarded, was taking an unnecessary risk with conference attendees. Although, such an extreme reaction may be rare, in my experience, the techniques are so powerful that it is necessary to screen participants in this sort of workshop. But according to an inquest now in progress in Sydney, leaders had no relevant formal qualifications, the screening process to complete the course, and the support offered during and after the course as "woefully inadequate".

A member of the volunteer support staff present during the five-day Turning Point program attended by Ms Lawrence told the inquest the course was like a "pressure cooker".

This program uses techniques that should be reserved for intensive treatment programs like the one where I work. We screen people with a complete diagnostic work up, and then work with them intensively six hours a day for 16 days. I have witnessed amazing progress in some people. But without a daily intensive setting with psychiatric staff readily available, I would never attempt this sort of work with people who are already unstable. While it may be true that most healthy people could benefit from this sort of fearless self-review, some people cannot readily integrate this sort of experience.

There have been three deaths associated with this program, the first 18 years ago in a group lead by the program's founder, Walter Belin.

These deaths were avoidable.

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Many of the boomer adults were raised with a lot of TV. It would appear things have gotten worse. We know a lot more about what TV does to children, but it doesn't appear to have had much effect. Simple logic will tell us that the experience of TV will decrease a child's ability to tolerate a delay in gratification of desires. Certainly, the TV ads are designed to create the desire for things we didn't know we needed, a certain frustration that we can't have it all, now. But it's much worse than that.

John M Grohol PsyD owner of PsychCentral.com is usually a man who politely understates things. But, he pulls no punches in a recent article.

Most child psychologists and child development experts recommend no TV whatsoever for a child before the age of 2 or 3. None. Yet a whopping 43 percent of parents plop their toddler down in front of the television set, apparently blind to the consequence of their actions.

[..]There are also the studies that show that teens who watch more sexual content on TV are twice as likely to be involved in a pregnancy over the next three years than their peers.

[From the Boston Globe]

Countless studies have documented the inverse link between devotion to the boob tube and achievement in school. Researchers at Columbia's College of Physicians and Surgeons concluded in 2007, for example, that 14-year-olds who watched one or more hours of television daily "were at elevated risk for poor homework completion, negative attitudes toward school, poor grades, and long-term academic failure.'' Those who watched three or more hours a day were at even greater risk for "subsequent attention and learning difficulties,'' and were the least likely to go to college.

In 2005, a study published in the American Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine found that the harm caused by TV watching shows up even after correcting the data to account for students' intelligence, family conditions, and prior behavioral problems. The bottom line: "Increased time spent watching television during childhood and adolescence was associated with a lower level of educational attainment by early adulthood.''

The baleful effects of TV aren't limited to education. The University of Michigan Health System notes on its extensive website that kids who watch TV are more likely to smoke, to be overweight, to suffer from sleep difficulties, and to have high cholesterol.

From Research Digest Blog, here is an excerpt from an article commenting on the effects of TV on in the background while a young child plays.

Schmidt's team described the disruptive effects of the background TV as "real but small". While the current study doesn't say anything about the possible developmental consequences of TV-disrupted play, previous research has shown that shorter play episodes and less focused attention tend to be associated with poorer developmental outcomes. Moreover, a previous unpublished study by the present team of researchers showed that background TV reduces how often parents interact with their children. "Taken together," the researchers said, the new and previous findings lead us to "hypothesise that background television, as a chronic influence, is by itself an environmental risk factor in children's development."

According to these articles, Visual voodoo: the biological impact of watching TVandThe Psychologist, TV is a cause for attention deficits in children.

Sigman's review in fact only cites two published studies that show direct associations between TV viewing in this age group and negative consequences. The first, a 2004 longitudinal study by Dimitri Christakis and colleagues of 1200 children, found that for every extra hour of average daily TV viewing between birth and three years, the children were 10 per cent more likely to have attentional problems at age seven. The second, a cross-sectional study by Dimitri Christakis and Darcy Thomson, found that among 2068 infants aged between four months and three years, those who watched more television also tended to have less regular afternoon and nighttime sleeping schedules. The research base becomes more substantial when the focus is broadened to include TV viewing in older childhood and adolescence. For example, two studies by Robert Hancox and colleagues reported detrimental associations between TV viewing between the ages of five and 15, and educational attainment and several health measures at 26 years. Sigman's review, which also discusses harmful associations between adult TV viewing and mental and physical health, concludes these 'findings are set to re-cast the role of the television screen as the greatest unacknowledged public health issue of our time'. However, not all experts are sympathetic to Sigman's view. Dr Brian Young at the University of Exeter told us children are active in the way they use TV - they don't just sit on the receiving end of a stream of audiovisual input. 'There certainly are benefits for children interacting with TV,' he said. 'They learn stuff - it's as simple as that. But the best learning environment is where the mother or the family collectively consume television and discuss what's being seen. In that sense it's a 'window on the world'. However, he added: 'Any medium has a downside and unsupervised viewing by very young children - the "TV as a babysitter" - is not helpful.'

Now consider the effects of violence in TV and video games. Are we training our children to tolerate routine violence? I think so. It fact, it would appear that TV is an experiment on our children increasing obesity, tobacco and alcohol use, risky sexual behaviors, violence and social isolation.

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We've all heard about viruses and websites that steal our sensitive private information. Cyberstalking has also become a problem on social media sites. Blogs, Twitter, MySpace and Facebook, in particular, are prone to this sort of abuse.

But even cellphone texting can be a problem since you can forward others details where ever you want. Although there are mixed reviews of just how much of a risk there is, there is agreement there is a risk. Parents should certainly provide supervision for their kids with the youngest getting the most.

John Dvorak, a columnist at MarketWatch.com recently posted an interesting article.

If I were a professional thief, the first thing I would do is get a computer, find the folks out there who document everything they do on social-networking sites and go rob them.

There are a couple of risk that make this particular crime possible. If you tell the world what you are doing and where you are going, you are telling any criminal that might be listening when you've vacated your house. You may have already listed items in your house that might be particularly desirable by the thief, like the computer, PS3, perhaps even the type of car you have in the driveway.

Here are some rules for social media everyone should know about and practice regularly.

1. There is really only one reason to use your real name on the internet: to promote yourself or your business. Do a regular thorough search using Google of your full name, your address, and other identifying data and make sure all that you find is removed. Make sure your phone number and address are unlisted and there is no other way to find where you live. If you do promote yourself, use an email address as your contact point. To prevent misuse, change the @ sign to (at) or -at- to keep the robots from snapping up your email for spam lists. Or, better yet, use a virtual business card that has a contact form like card.ly. Then no one gets your email address until you decide.

2, Be careful about what you put on your site, like where you are, who is home, and when you go to work or go on vacation. Acquaintances who know your nick name on the internet might decide to break into your house while you are gone or share with others who you really are. Remember, personal information becomes permanently available to whomever wants it once you post it. Employers and college admission officers are regularly searching the internet for applicant's antics. Remember if you are protecting your identity in Twitter and refer to your Facebook site that identifies you, you've only delayed someone who might want to hurt you. If you post your picture on the internet, that could identify you to someone you don't want to know or could be used in a faked porn picture.

3. If you say something cruel to someone, remember that it's recorded forever for anyone who looks. Not only have you hurt another person, you have hurt yourself and your reputation forever. Your repeated insults on the internet could be turned against you and used as evidence to charge you with cyberstalking or cyberbullying and turned into civil or criminal charges.

4. Never give out personal information that could identify you. This includes:
* full name
* home address
* phone number
* Social Security number
* passwords
* names of family members
* credit card numbers

5. Keep online friendships in the virtual world. Meeting online friends carries more risks than other types of friendships because it's easy for people to pretend to be something they're not when you can't see them or talk in person. Even if you "feel" you know someone, you really can't know them as well as if you had known them face to face. Some people think they have fallen in "love" with an online friend. The only thing you can fall in love with online is your fantasy of who the other person might be. The non-verbal and contextual clues about another person is sometimes the only thing that can keep us safe in a face to face relationship. Our intuitions about trust are truly potential lifesavers. What we know about another persons history from our own and others experiences fill in the picture. These aids to judgment either don't exist online or are clouded by an 'unseen' or undocumented history. If you must meet someone you know from on line, do so as if you are meeting someone for the first time, because you are. Meet only in public preferably with someone else. And don't give out personal information like you would with someone you just met.

Let me know if I missed anything. I'll update as needed.

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Are you shy? Find networking very difficult? Rather stay at home, or watch from a distance? Here is a great slide set and blog post from Sacha Chua. Check it out:

A powerful message that I believe is true. Remember the old idea that a dog can smell fear? I think that a clear headed, alert human can sense ill will in another.

Hat tip to @changeseeker

I caught this article at Psychcentral.com, Positive Thoughts Make Things Worse for Poor Self-Esteem . It struck me as a counter-intuitive finding for a research study. I've been helping clients build self-esteem for over 30 years and while positive thoughts is not a short road to better self-esteem, it certainly does work over the long run. I'd estimate that at least six months is required to make significant progress with self-esteem from solely refocusing on the positive, and some people require much more time. Several things jumped at me as I read the article. First of all, Dr. Grohol quoted an article from the The Economist of all places. Both articles stated the research was published in this month's Psychology Research and authored by Wood et al (2009). A review of the past three months of that journal produced no article.

So I went to the old reliable, I googled the lead author, Joanne Wood. I came up with several mentions of her at academic institutions and emailed the author for a reprint. I also found another review of the same article by Ed Yong writer for the Science Blog Not Exactly Rocket Science dated May 15th.

The next day, the article arrived in my email with a short note from the author saying it hadn't been published yet! Apparently, there have been some pre-publication prints floating about likely for publicity purposes. This is one of my pet peeves. Articles submitted to peer reviewed journals are intended to inform the academic community and allow scholarly review and comment. The object of repeated review is to ensure the research is sound and is appropriately interpreted. When it appears first in lay publications, the writers who are not scientists often inadvertently distort the interpretation of the research, as I've noted before. That really didn't happen this time. Both the Psychcentral.com and The Economist got the research mostly right. But Ed Yong did a much better job of explaining the fine points.

This time, it's the researchers that make a subtle but major error in an assumption involving an interpretation of a key measurement. Its subtle because it's endemic in our culture. It seems like everyone assumes that negative feelings are harmful. In this case, Wood et al (2009) found that their subjects who had low self-esteem, immediately reported a lower mood and self-esteem after telling themselves sixteen times they are a "lovable person." Interestingly, persons with high self-esteem report only slight, non-significant improvement in self-esteem.

I decided to do an anecdotal demonstration of the "intervention" for my own understanding. After saying to my self 16 times "I am a loveable person", I felt annoyed, a little silly, embarrassed, and was reminded of quite a few traits which make me not always so lovable. But I can't imagine how this would have any long term effect on my self-esteem either way.

An even bigger problem is one that I talked about before and called it Dust Bowl Empiricism. Researchers are so enamored with their professional activities, they demonstrate their preference for inductive research. Wood et al. reviewed all the relevant research on their topic quite satisfactorily, but then failed to do a sufficient review of related theory. In previous post, I quoted Michael Schermer, a columnist with Scientific American, who eloquently asserted that the really valuable research, the kind of research that can fairly readily be used to educate the public, "higher-order works of science that synthesize and coalesce primary sources into a unifying whole toward the purpose of testing a general theory or answering a grand question." To be fair, few researchers venture into grand theory, perhaps because of the dearth of recent reviews, and perhaps because of the few notable exceptions have been eviscerated by their colleagues for their efforts. Sigmund Freud comes to mind. I have sometimes wondered if psychology's love-hate relationship with Freud resulted in an over-emphasis on induction and de-emphasis of deduction and construct validity.

Wood et al. appears to be testing a specific intervention using Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT). CBT purports to change feelings by changing thoughts.

While I prefer more psychodynamic conceptualizations, lets approach this issue of negative feelings from cognitive-behavioral point of view for purposes of demonstrating how relevent theory would aide in the interpretation of research. There is conceivable explanation of low self-esteem and associated negative emotion in the concept of "conditioned emotional response" or CER. A person may learn they are not valuable or important by, for example, an invalidating experience. That invalidating experience is remembered in at least two ways, by the facts of the event and by the associated emotions. According to current understanding of neurophysiology, memories of facts and emotions are kept in different part of the brain, presumably by different methods of storage with different processes of recall. The hippocampus and medial temporal lobe are involved in verbalized memories. Emotional memories involve the amygdala.

Sufficient invalidating experiences may lead to low self-esteem. Whenever a sufferer of low self-esteem remembers an invalidating experience or experiences a new one, she is likely to remember the event and feel the emotion associated with the experience.

In the Wood et al. experiment, the lowered mood and self-esteem are experienced after a validating experience. The subject feels the emotions associated with the original invalidating experience of invalidation perhaps because the positive self-talk controdicts the perception of the subject. Wood et al. makes that point. However, what she misses is that the subject is under going extinction of the conditioned emotional response. The subject is experiencing the emotion without the triggering invalidating experience. According to the theory of Classical Conditioning, repeated exposures to the emotion without the associated invalidation will eventually weaken the conditioning. Perhaps this process is complicated by the fact that the alternative experience, validation, is a close opposite to the conditioning stimulus, triggering a strong emotional response.

In my experience, this triggering of a strong negative emotional response associated with past destructive learning without the presence of the negative stimulus actually quickens the de-conditioning. What this experience amounts to is an abreaction, an emotional re-experiencing of the past event in a supportive and nurturing environment.

One point of the research is well taken. A person with an abysmal self-esteem reading a self-help book will find herself ruminating about how wrong it is that she could be so lovable. Such a person, supported only by herself, is not receiving the necessary nurturing due to her low self-esteem. She is likely re-conditioning the CER with more invalidating self-talk.

The reviews of this article did a fair job of presenting the study. However, there is risk in presenting research to a lay audience. The well written review by Yong had unintended consequences. The comments below the article contained some anquished and angry responses:

As a person with very low self-esteem who has been encouraged to think positively and love myself throughout my life, I can only thank Joanne Wood for publishing this study. Packaged one-size-fits-all programs promoting the personal pep talk only serve to make those people already in touch with their mediocre side more acutely aware of their non-value within society.

...and...

And when I feel unloved by one person even i feel like no one at all loves me or values me. How can I value myself when i feel like that. and after going thru a marriage where my ex always devalued me and everything i did if he did not approve of it. being abusive, verbally, mentally, emotionally, and physically... and even tho i have come a long way past this experience, it haunts me and i feel lower then dirt. no positive self talk makes me feel better, only makes me feel worse, cuz i figure if i don't actually believe what i am saying or thinking how can it possibly be true?

Unfortunately, some people with very low self-esteem have been reinforced in their belief that positive thinking can't help. Self-help is best read by the worried well. People with long standing issues with low self-esteem need psychotherapy. Both the authors, Wood et al., and reviewer, Yong, stated this clearly, the other two articles did not. Even so, this knowledge proved harmful to a few. I certainly do not fault the authors for this problem. Yong especially did a great job. One can't ensure everyone reads the entire article or even correctly understands it.

I believe we as professionals who write about mental health have a duty to be as clear and thorough as possible in an attempt to avoid confusion and inadvertant harm. But knowledge is powerful. Sometimes, knowledge mishandled can lead to worsening of symptoms that hopefully brings those in need to help.

Reference: Wood, J., Perunovic, W. Elaine, & Lee, J. (2009). Positive Self-Statements: Power for Some, Peril for Others Psychological Science DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9280.2009.02370.x

Update 7/15/09: Joanne V. Wood, PhD responds to all the media hype about her research.

Great little exercise on Mindfulness from PsychCentral.com


By Elisha Goldstein, Ph.D.

June 24, 2009

....Here is a process I created and did a national research study around to help us cultivate more of these meaningful moments.

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Overwork in America has become even worse since the latest recession. People are afraid to slow down to take care of themselves because the fear of lay offs. Overwork has led to an epidemic of depression. Even Congress has taken notice. A bill requiring employers to provide paid vacation has been introduced.

Below is a great article from a while ago that I think captures well the phenomena.

AlterNet

"All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy."

Jack Torrance, Jack Nicholson's character in the 1980 film The Shining, should get credit for popularizing (and making terrifying) a proverb that dates as far back as the mid-1600s: "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy."

Nicholson's character sure looked like he could have used a vacation before his psyche disintegrated and he went on a murderous rampage.

In the real world, the danger isn't that we'll start obsessively and repeatedly typing proverbs at the Overlook Hotel before taking an ax to the door (one would hope), but that our country's hard-working denizens will keep getting sicker, sadder, less productive and more miserable.

Medical and poll-based evidence indicates that we seriously need relief. Work-related stress can lead to sudden heart attacks, obesity, anxiety and depression. A World Health Organization and Harvard Medical School study last year put the United States at the top of the list of depressed (or otherwise mentally disordered) countries, while the Gallup Daily Happiness-Stress Index finds that the only consistent upswing in mood occur when Americans get some time off on the weekends or holidays.

As John de Graaf, executive director of the Seattle-based advocacy group Take Back Your Time, puts it, Americans are "time-starved and vacation-starved."

Americans put in more hours at work than any other nation, surpassing even the workaholic Japanese. We average nine more weeks of labor per year than our working counterparts in Western Europe, who get at least 20 paid days of vacation each year.

Finland tops the list of vacation-supporting industrialized nations with 30 paid vacation days per year after the first year of work, plus 14 paid national holidays, according to a July 2007 report from the Center for Economic and Policy Research. (This is in addition to the possibility that the country might soon grant "love holidays" so that some couples can rekindle passions and have kids.)

Canada and Japan are near the bottom of that list, with a legal minimum of 10 vacation days, while the United States has the dubious distinction of being the only industrialized nation that does not have a mandatory minimum of vacation time. In fact, out of the world's 195 independent countries, 137 have some kind of vacation/annual leave legislation in place.

Each year, de Graaf and his U.S. and Canadian colleagues work to get the word out about their annual celebration, Take Back Your Time Day, which occurs Oct. 24.

De Graaf, an independent filmmaker with a long, impressive list of social consciousness-raising documentaries under his belt -- including the popular PBS documentaries Affluenza and Escape from Affluenza -- explains that he started Take Back Your Time to "challenge the epidemic of overwork, over-scheduling and time-famine that now threatens our health, our families and relationships, our communities and our environment."

De Graaf says that the Obama camp responded with "definite interest," although he can't yet share specifics. De Graaf considers time-famine -- and the need for mandatory vacation time for all Americans -- a bipartisan issue, although he says he's aware that Republicans are more likely to object to national legislation.

Even some Democrats, he admits, think he is over-dramatizing the situation: Aren't there more pressing social justice issues for us to worry about? Poverty, healthcare and ethnic/gender disparities, to name a few?

"I've been told by a few prominent progressive activists that, while they're personally supportive of what we're trying to accomplish, they're not willing to get involved because this is really a white, middle-class issue," he says. " 'You couldn't be more wrong,' is what I tell them."

In July, Take Back Your Time released its findings from a scientific telephone sample of more than 1,000 U.S. adults. The poll revealed that more than two-thirds (69 percent) of Americans would support the passage of a paid vacation law. Most enthusiastic about vacation-time-legislation were people under 35 (83 percent); African Americans (89 percent); Latinos (82 percent); people earning low incomes (82 percent); women (75 percent, versus 63 percent for men); and families with children (74 percent).

De Graaf says he was surprised but not shocked that such strong support came from low-income communities and communities of color. (One hundred percent of African-American respondents indicated that some vacation time was necessary to avoid burn out.)

"When you're poor, you're socially excluded," he says. "And/or when you're working two or three jobs to make ends meet, you know how important it is to have [downtime] with your loved ones."

But that kind of downtime is harder and harder to come by. According to the group's poll, 52 percent of working Americans received less than a week of paid vacation in the past year -- more than half of those received none -- while 65 percent of workers received less than two paid weeks off.

The result? Too much hard work -- whether unpaid or paid overtime -- really does hurt (and kill) people. Unlike the Japanese and Chinese, we haven't given death-by-overwork its own moniker (karoshi and guolaosi, respectively), much less enacted national legislation that allows surviving family members to sue over the workplace conditions that lead to such deaths (as Japan and Korea have).

In Japan, the image of a typical karoshi victim is that of a businessman who dies at his desk after too many 80-hour workweeks. But several international studies (in Finland, Israel, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States) have shown that while both sexes are at high risk for "overwork" consequences -- heart disease, obesity, insomnia and persistent fatigue -- women are far more likely to suffer mental health consequences, especially when they do not take vacations.

A 2005 study funded by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health also noted that roughly one in five women reported taking a vacation only once every six years. (A 2006 "Ask a Working Woman" AFL-CIO survey explains this, in part: Nearly four in 10 women earning less than $40,000 annually receive no paid vacation whatsoever.)

Things haven't always been this bad. Workers' lives have gone from bad to better to bad all over again. The Industrial Revolution brought extreme working conditions and 14-hour days. The late 1800s saw the beginning of an epic workers' battle for the eight-hour workday. As it turns out, Oct. 24 marks the 70th anniversary of the Fair Labor Standards Act, which established the 40-hour workweek and the minimum wage in the United States. Most Americans don't know that the original wording of the bill also guaranteed mandatory vacation time for all workers.

In light of that, de Graaf insists that it's high time to enact a national policy to ensure that we don't have to feel guilty (or fearful about losing our jobs) for taking time off.

"We need the right to have that time off," urges de Graaf. "Otherwise, we won't have the [energy for the] imagination we need to better ourselves and our communities."

This piece was originally written for In These Times, a national, monthly magazine based in Chicago.

Silja J.A. Talvi is an investigative journalist and the author of Women Behind Bars: The Crisis of Women in the U.S. Prison System (Seal Press: 2007). Her work has already appeared in many book anthologies, including It's So You (Seal Press, 2007), Prison Nation (Routledge: 2005), Prison Profiteers (The New Press: 2008), and Body Outlaws (Seal Press: 2004). She is a senior editor at In These Times.
© 2008 In These Times All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/106830/

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With all the bad news floating around, lets hear what science says about happiness. While there is no magic here, statistics show a trend towards this sort of behavior when a person reports they are happy.

Which came first? Happiness or happy behavior? In my experience, happiness is a state of mind relatively unrelated to events. A person who values his life based more on who he is, appreciates what he has, who takes concrete steps towards his goals, and makes a conscious effort to see his glass half full, rather than half empty more often reports being happy.

AlterNet

In the last few years, psychologists and researchers have been digging up hard data on a question previously left to philosophers: What makes us happy? Researchers like the father-son team Ed Diener and Robert Biswas-Diener, Stanford psychologist Sonja Lyubomirsky, and ethicist Stephen Post have studied people all over the world to find out how things like money, attitude, culture, memory, health, altruism, and our day-to-day habits affect our well-being. The emerging field of positive psychology is bursting with new findings that suggest your actions can have a significant effect on your happiness and satisfaction with life. Here are 10 scientifically proven strategies for getting happy.

1. Savor Everyday Moments

Pause now and then to smell a rose or watch children at play. Study participants who took time to "savor" ordinary events that they normally hurried through, or to think back on pleasant moments from their day, "showed significant increases in happiness and reductions in depression," says psychologist Sonja Lyubomirsky.

2. Avoid Comparisons

While keeping up with the Joneses is part of American culture, comparing ourselves with others can be damaging to happiness and self-esteem. Instead of comparing ourselves to others, focusing on our own personal achievement leads to greater satisfaction, according to Lyubomirsky.

3. Put Money Low on the List

People who put money high on their priority list are more at risk for depression, anxiety, and low self-esteem, according to researchers Tim Kasser and Richard Ryan. Their findings hold true across nations and cultures. "The more we seek satisfactions in material goods, the less we find them there," Ryan says. "The satisfaction has a short half-life -- it's very fleeting." Money-seekers also score lower on tests of vitality and self-actualization.

4. Have Meaningful Goals

"People who strive for something significant, whether it's learning a new craft or raising moral children, are far happier than those who don't have strong dreams or aspirations," say Ed Diener and Robert Biswas-Diener. "As humans, we actually require a sense of meaning to thrive." Harvard's resident happiness professor, Tal Ben-Shahar, agrees, "Happiness lies at the intersection between pleasure and meaning. Whether at work or at home, the goal is to engage in activities that are both personally significant and enjoyable."

5. Take Initiative at Work

How happy you are at work depends in part on how much initiative you take. Researcher Amy Wrzesniewski says that when we express creativity, help others, suggest improvements, or do additional tasks on the job, we make our work more rewarding and feel more in control.

6. Make Friends, Treasure Family

Happier people tend to have good families, friends, and supportive relationships, say Diener and Biswas-Diener. But it's not enough to be the life of the party if you're surrounded by shallow acquaintances. "We don't just need relationships, we need close ones" that involve understanding and caring.

7. Smile Even When You Don't Feel Like It

It sounds simple, but it works. "Happy people...see possibilities, opportunities, and success. When they think of the future, they are optimistic, and when they review the past, they tend to savor the high points," say Diener and Biswas-Diener. Even if you weren't born looking at the glass as half-full, with practice, a positive outlook can become a habit.

8. Say Thank You Like You Mean It

People who keep gratitude journals on a weekly basis are healthier, more optimistic, and more likely to make progress toward achieving personal goals, according to author Robert Emmons. Research by Martin Seligman, founder of positive psychology, revealed that people who write "gratitude letters" to someone who made a difference in their lives score higher on happiness, and lower on depression -- and the effect lasts for weeks.

9. Get Out and Exercise

A Duke University study shows that exercise may be just as effective as drugs in treating depression, without all the side effects and expense. Other research shows that in addition to health benefits, regular exercise offers a sense of accomplishment and opportunity for social interaction, releases feel-good endorphins, and boosts self-esteem.

10. Give It Away, Give It Away Now!

Make altruism and giving part of your life, and be purposeful about it. Researcher Stephen Post says helping a neighbor, volunteering, or donating goods and services results in a "helper's high," and you get more health benefits than you would from exercise or quitting smoking. Listening to a friend, passing on your skills, celebrating others' successes, and forgiveness also contribute to happiness, he says. Researcher Elizabeth Dunn found that those who spend money on others reported much greater happiness than those who spend it on themselves.

Jen Angel wrote this article as part of Sustainable Happiness, the Winter 2009 issue of YES! Magazine. Jen is a contributing editor for YES! Magazine.

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This story is truly astonishing. Jill Bolte Taylor is a Neuroanatomist who had an remarkable experience of self-discovery. In this experience, she found Nirvana, that place of total peacefulness we all seek. At the same time, she discovered it's neuroanatomy. She effectively defined mindfulness.

TED | Talks

Jill Bolte Taylor got a research opportunity few brain scientists would wish for.

One morning, a blood vessel in Jill Bolte Taylor's brain exploded. As a brain scientist, she realized she had a ringside seat to her own stroke. She watched as her brain functions shut down one by one: motion, speech, memory, self-awareness ...

Amazed to find herself alive, Taylor spent eight years recovering her ability to think, walk and talk. She has become a spokesperson for stroke recovery and for the possibility of coming back from brain injury stronger than before. In her case, although the stroke damaged the left side of her brain, her recovery unleashed a torrent of creative energy from her right. From her home base in Indiana, she now travels the country on behalf of the Harvard Brain Bank as the "Singin' Scientist."

"How many brain scientists have been able to study the brain from the inside out? I've gotten as much out of this experience of losing my left mind as I have in my entire academic career." - Jill Bolte Taylor

Mindfulness is a very simple concept, but a skill that escapes a lot of people. Simply put, when we are mindful we act as an observer of our minds, our thoughts and feelings, without judging, or holding onto anything. The object is to be completely present in the moment, mostly focused on our senses, our eyes, ears, nose, and skin. Having complete faith in ourselves, we simply accept whatever comes, assuming we have all we need to cope with anything as best we can. Worry and regret becomes a major distraction from being mindful in that it distracts from our attention to what is happening now.

Jon Kabat-Zinn's stuff in the right sidebar provides great training material.

Mindfulness has wide application in treatment of anxiety, depression, mood regulation as well as crisis stabilization. Now it has been found helpful in managing pain.

HealthSkills Weblog

€˜Mindfulness meditation has a quieting effect on me. It gives me a peaceful feeling while doing it and I am able to reduce my back and leg pain by deflecting the pain and by focusing on other parts of my body€™.

It's also interesting that things like activity planning and exercise were not specifically included in the programme, but activity levels increased. As expected, acceptance of their situation increased, as did quality of life measures. Pain intensity reduced and '€˜global'€™ health and mental health [improved].

This article lists occupations associated with depression. While I don't think that articles spin that these occupations contribute to depression. Rather I think people who are prone to depression also seek out more meaningful work.

PsycPORT.com

People who tend to the elderly, change diapers and serve up food and drinks have the highest rates of depression among U.S. workers.

Overall, 7 percent of full-time workers battled depression in the past year, according to a government report available Saturday.

Women were more likely than men to have had a major bout of depression, and younger workers had higher rates of depression than their older colleagues.

Almost 11 percent of personal care workers -- which includes child care and helping the elderly and severely disabled with their daily needs -- reported depression lasting two weeks or longer.

During such episodes there is loss of interest and pleasure, and at least four other symptoms surface, including problems with sleep, eating, energy, concentration and self-image.

Workers who prepare and serve food -- cooks, bartenders, waiters and waitresses -- had the second highest rate of depression among full-time employees at 10.3 percent.

In a tie for third were health care workers and social workers at 9.6 percent.

The lowest rate of depression, 4.3 percent, occurred in the job category that covers engineers, architects and surveyors.

Government officials tracked depression within 21 major occupational categories. They combined data from 2004 through 2006 to estimate episodes of depression within the past year. That information came from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, which registers lifetime and past-year depression bouts.

Depression leads to $30 billion to $44 billion in lost productivity annually, said the report from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. The report was available Saturday on the agency's Web site at http://oas.samhsa.gov