Total Health Breakthroughs: Free Natural Health Newsletter and Alternative Health Articles

I started my adult life jumping out of airplanes at age 17 as a member of the US Army Airborne and then went on to Special Forces Green Beret training. Talk about learning to live with passion. Everything we did, we did all out. This experience was where I learned the philosophy of work hard and play hard! It was also where I adopted the philosophy of “physical fitness: the difference between self confidence and self doubt,” which I still believe to this day.

I have maintained this philosophy through my adult life and it has served me well. I still love working hard and I still love playing hard.

Since becoming a physician, I have had the privilege to interact with many people and even impact their lives. I have noticed a huge difference between those who live with passion and those who simply live from day to day and how it affects their health. Those who face each day as an adventure and are excited about opportunities coming their way are definitely in better health. They miss fewer work days and are happier about what they do.

Here’s an example. In my clinic we handle many cases related to occupational medicine and workman’s compensation. It is interesting to watch someone with a workman’s comp injury and see how their philosophy of life affects their ability to get back to work. Those who live their lives with passion and are happy with their lives heal their injuries more quickly and get back to full duties in a much more judicious fashion.

On the other hand, those whose life’s philosophy is “what can others do for me?” or “how little work can I do and still get paid?” tend to milk the same injury for as long as possible. In fact, they will begin to become their disease or illness. As they try to get more time off and prove that they are in fact injured, they start to take on the characteristics of a person with that injury even if there is no physical evidence they actually have the injury.

For many years, our family’s Christmas seemed to be about shopping, stuff, stress, and slush. There is not much we in the northeast can do about the slush, but our family has gotten away from the other three.

One Christmas morning I sat receiving hugs, kisses, and thanks from my two children as they unwrapped gifts “from Mom and Dad.” I was terribly unhappy. Why? I learned several years ago that the best place to look for that answer is within me. It’s not always easy to pin down the cause of unhappiness, but I’m pretty sure blaming someone else is not helpful.

Are you an adult who still believes in fairy tales? Like the ones that say we will fall in love with the romantic partner of our dreams and live happily ever after. It’s hard not to think this way. Books, movies, and even some TV shows keep the fairy tale going. They entertain us with dramas of romantic partners who overcome some sort of obstacle to their love.

How do you know if, say, starting a new business will really make you happier? Here’s how — with the final step in my plan for forecasting your happiness.

In past articles I encouraged you to evaluate your own emotional well-being by taking my General Inventory of Life Satisfaction (GILS). This week I want to show how to use the results of your self-assessment to move toward achieving real and lasting happiness, contentment and satisfaction with life.

Many psychology professors who are recognized as experts on happiness refer to a set point for happiness. They believe this set point imposes an upper limit on our ability to find real and lasting emotional well-being.

Training to be a life coach, I learned that for most coaches the first step in personal strategic planning is encouraging a person to clarify his or her set of core values. Once these values are clarified, you next develop a set of goals based on those values.

As a practicing clinical psychologist I am often astounded by how little insight people have into their emotions. For many, emotions are inexplicable and somewhat mysterious aspects of human nature. Some believe their emotions should be ignored. Others assume that by following their feelings they will find happiness, contentment and satisfaction with life.

Do you have an Attitude of Gratitude? You should. Let me tell you why.

Happiness is a hot topic these days. Over the past couple of years, it has been a headline in virtually every major magazine and newspaper, and it has been the subject of several televisions shows, including Oprah. Yet, the interest in happiness is nothing really new.