MOVE ON

Choosing Happiness in Our Lives Revisited

By John M. Grohol, Psy.D.

Ten years ago, I wrote how we often make the choice of something else less important over our own and our loved ones’ happiness. This article has generated a lot of positive comments over the years apparently because it resonates with people. With another decade under my belt, I’d like to expand a little on the premise I put forward in that original article.

Our Lives Are Our Choice

At some point in our life, we may forget or give up the responsibility of directing our life to where we want it to go. We sometimes feel buffeted about by the forces of nature, relationships, family, children and more, and feel out of control of our own destinies. We forget to look deep within ourselves and remember who we really are and what really makes us happy and alive. We give that power up, to others, and then place the responsibility (and the blame) when they fail to “make us” happy.
But no one else can make us happy unless we first choose to open ourselves and our lives up to that possibility. Happiness is within each and every one of us. No one else can make us happy unless we first choose that we will place happiness – both our own and our loved ones – above other, less important things in our lives, such as winning an argument or being “right.”

Summary

A big part of “being happy” is all about the choices we make in our everyday lives and in our everyday interactions with those around us. How we say things is just as important as the point we are trying to make. Picking things that are important to us to focus on and letting the unimportant battles fall by the wayside is also helpful to maintain happiness. And remembering that old mantra, “Would you rather be right, or would you rather be happy?” in the middle of a fight never hurts. Sure, it’s not always an either/or proposition. But within each of us is the power to end a fight or argument and try to restore balance and happiness in our lives, and just as importantly, in the lives of the ones we love and adore.
So once again, consider the choice of happiness over being right. You may find yourself pleasantly surprised.
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Read the original article: Choosing Happiness in Our Lives





 

 

Twitter and Facebook Friends

Dear Friends and Acquaintances,

Many of you I have met on Twitter and some I have met on Facebook.  I sincerely want to welcome you to my blog and into my life.  I am a very different person than the Deborah in the book.  you tend to get more mellow as you age and I have really worked through most of my issues through therapy.  I plan to write more books much lighter and more fun to read than DELIVER US FROM EVIL. This coming soon book (Winter 2014/15) is filled with other twists and turns and I think you'll be hooked by the middle of Chapter 1. So I hope to have a long-term relationship with my followers. 

I am disabled and almost bedbound except for short walks into doctor's offices, and I may have to go to a wheelchair even for those.  I have a very painful condition called RSD that is an atypical case of RSD.  I have the lifelong pain of the condition but not the skin color changes.  Whatever I do have I have extreme pain one day and lighter pain another day.  Rarely do I get no pain. 

Well enough about my pain, the only reason I bring it up is it runs my life.  That might be a book too.  it could be called As the Pain Turns. lol  I have a MSW from Portland State College and have worked with the homeless, abused children, County Case Manager, and a VA Hospital Discharge Manager and a Medical Social Worker with 3 different hospices here in San Diego and in Portland, Oregon where I lived for 26 years,  I have loved all of my work because I get to serve others.  I strongly feel we were created to help each other along the way.  I identify with the Buddhist ideals.

I have 3 wonderful daughters and 3 precious grand daughters. Although I've had a pretty tough life I have many blessings.  One of them is "Pierre" or George.  He has been my life partner for 10 years and is the kindest, gentlest, most generous man I have ever met.  He treats me like a Queen.  I have my sister, Rebecca, who was molested and raped for a much longer time period than I.  She is my roommate as well and we are very close.  Of course, my children and grandchildren are a blessing and I love them very much.

I thank you for your time and look forward to any relationship we might have together. I hope, of course, you will all buy my book when it comes out and that, if you are a survivor of sexual abuse or any type of trauma that it may help you in some way.  Please look below to get a look at Dr. Sterling Ellsworth's books and look up his web address under Sterling Ellsworth. There is a book How I Got This way and What to do About It is now an e-book and you can get it for your kindle, IPAD, etc.  from Amazon or Dr. Ellsworth web pages.  May your higher power bless you and may you find peace and happiness in your life. 

Peace,  Deborah Hunter Marsh

P.S.  COMMENTS CAN NOW BE LEFT UNDER EACH ARTICLE OR SAYING.  THANK YOU.

North Fort Myers man arrested for alleged child abuse

Levi Greenup, 24, is accused of inflicting injuries on a 3-year-old boy in his care so severe, the boy had to be life-flighted to a children's hospital. Wednesday Lee County sheriff's detectives arrested the North Fort Myers man responsible and charged him with Aggravated Child Abuse.

According to the investigation, the boy was brought to a local hospital on May 11 where a nurse reported that he looked malnourished, was emaciated and abnormally bloated. Following testing, medical staff determined the child was suffering from excessive fluid build-up in his abdomen which was causing the abdomen to become extremely distended and painful...

http://www.news-press.com/story/news/crime/2014/05/21/north-fort-myers-man-arrested-for-alleged-child-abuse/9398073/

Self forgiveness is first step to healing

Forgiving ourselves for hurting another is easier if we take responsibility and make peace with our inner self.
Researchers say that giving our inner selves a “moral OK” is a significant action toward the healing process.
The study, by Thomas Carpenter, a doctoral student in Baylor University’s College of Arts and Sciences is published in The Journal of Positive Psychology.
Carpenter believes taking responsibility for an action, then making amends with oneself, allows self-restoration.
Experts believe the findings are significant because previous studies show that the inability to self-forgive can be a factor in depression, anxiety, and a weakened immune system.
“One of the barriers people face in forgiving themselves appears to be that people feel morally obligated to hang on to those feelings,” Carpenter said.
“They feel they deserve to feel bad. Our study found that making amends gives us permission to let go.”
The research article was based on two studies. In the first, 269 participants recalled diverse “real-world” offenses they had committed, ranging from romantic betrayals to physical injury to gossip to rejection.
In the second study, 208 participants were asked about a hypothetical wrong.
In the first study, participants were asked how much they have forgiven themselves for an actual offense; how much they had tried such efforts as apology, asking forgiveness and restitution; how much they felt the other person had forgiven them; and how much they saw self-forgiveness as morally appropriate.
The more they made amends, the more they felt self-forgiveness was morally permissible. Further, receiving forgiveness appeared to help people feel it was morally all right to let go.
Researchers said one limitation of the first study was that the offenses varied from person to person.
So to further test their hypotheses, in Study Two they used a standardized hypothetical offense — failing to take the blame for the action that caused a friend’s firing.
This study revealed similar results to the first, although — unlike in Study One — receiving forgiveness from someone else had little effect on whether one forgave oneself.
The research also showed that the guiltier a person felt and the more serious the wrong, the less he or she was likely to self-forgive.
Making amends also appeared to help people self-forgive by reducing those feelings, the researchers found. Also, women were generally less self-forgiving than men.
Self-forgiveness may be “morally ambiguous territory,” researchers wrote, and “individuals may, at times, believe that they deserve to continue to pay for their wrongs.”
But by making amends, they may be able to “tip the scales of justice.”
Source: Baylor University

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