From time to time, all of us have to deal with someone who seems determined to make life more difficult.  It might also be good to recognize that, on occasion, every single one of US are guilty of making life more difficult for someone else, too!    There are a few things to think about concerning this matter however, because the way we choose to deal with a particular difficult person may depend more on the situation than on the behavior that seems so frustrating.  Here’s what I mean:

Let’s imagine that you are driving on the freeway and find that another driver consistently passes you, then slows down, requiring you to pass—and then repeats that behavior, or cuts you off at the exit ramp, etc., or that the other driver honks and behaves discourteously to you.  Certainly, these are the behaviors of a difficult person, but what kind of response is appropriate?  I’ll let you think about that question while I outline another kind of situation involving a difficult person. (more…)

Okay, let’s face facts: we all procrastinate sometimes.  There are things we dread doing, things we like to “put on the back burner” because they’re no fun, and so on.  A lot of times, we even fool ourselves into thinking that the task we put off will be completed by magic somehow, requiring no thought—and certainly no effort—from us!  I’ve done it.  You’ve done it.  We all do from time to time.  Often we aren’t even aware that it is procrastination preventing that particular thing from being done.  So what’s going on?

Although someone has probably made a life’s work out of studying procrastination, I am inclined to put off extensive exploration into the topic… That was a joke.  Honestly though, we can understand procrastination quite easily by recognizing that it comes out of a few basic human attitudes and that it can be overcome with specific self-management techniques.  The trick to it all, like in a lot of things, is to increase awareness of when it is happening, and to substitute something new.  Understanding why anyone might procrastinate could be a beginning point: (more…)

Robert Biswas-Diener, a graduate of The Evergreen State College, is known as the “Indiana Jones” of Positive Psychology because of his life satisfaction research from around the globe (Greenland, India, Kenya, etc.). Join us on Friday night, April 17th at 7 p.m. in the Olympia Community Center when Robert will read from and discuss his book, “Happiness: Unlocking the Mysteries of Psychological Wealth” (co-authored with his father Ed Diener, the greatest life satisfaction researcher in psychology). The community center is located at 222 Columbia Street NW in downtown Olympia. This event is sponsored by Mark A. Hurst, Ph.D.

GET OVER YOUR “SELF”! No, really, I mean it. I would say that more than anything I cover in therapy sessions, as well as in my own personal life, is the inevitability of our egos (or our sense of self) to cause most of our problems. When we are hurt, or hurt others, it is often not physical damage that is done, but a psychological bruise.

Did you know that humans process about 150 to 300 (some say up to1000) words a minute in self-talk? This would be great if all that inner conversation was helpful, but studies show that for all humans (whether you realize it or not) most of it is negative and related to regret, worry, or frustration. Another problem is that we spend so much time creating a sense of self, that we get full of ourselves. And then, when that “self” experiences something as a threat (sometimes based on very minor, trivial matters), we get defensive and behave badly. Relationships are often ruined over even minor slights in this way.     These experiences lead us to distance from others, or criticize, berate others, give them the silent treatment, or even resort to overt violence. (more…)