How often do you hear a parental voice in your head that says things like, “You’ve got to lose weight,” or “You should get up earlier every morning and exercise,” or “Today I should get caught up on the bills,” or “I’ve got to get rid of this clutter.” Let’s explore what happens in response to this voice.

We have a very good reason for judging ourselves: the judgmental part of us believes that by judging, criticizing, “shoulding” ourselves, we will motivate ourselves to take action and therefore protect against failure or rejection. We may have been judging ourselves to get ourselves to do things “right” since we were kids, hoping to keep ourselves in line. And we keep on doing it because we believe it works. Read the rest of this entry »

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by Margaret Paul, Ph.D.

All of us have met people who just seem to be happy most of the time. Perhaps you have assumed that these people are just naturally happy, or that they are the lucky people who have an easy life, or they had really loving parents. Most of the time, nothing could be farther from the truth.

Happy people are making specific choices regarding their thinking and behavior. Happy people CONSCIOUSLY choose to think and behave in ways that result in happiness. Unhappy people are UNCONSCIOUSLY thinking and behaving in ways that create unhappiness.

Following are five of the specific choices that happy people make: Read the rest of this entry »

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