Category: Emotions

Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids Online Course and Book Review

2/28/2023

I just finished taking an in-depth 12 week parenting course, Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids, that I have really benefited from, and I'd like to share more about it with you. Laura Markham, PhD, is a clinical psychologist, and founder of the Aha! Parenting website, based her approach "Peaceful Parenting." As a longtime reader of Dr. Laura's website, I'm very excited to be able to review both the course and Dr. Laura's book!

The Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids course teaches parents to coach and connect with their children while better regulating their own (parental) emotions. Both course and book provide many strategies on how to have a more positive, cooperative relationship with your children. The course offers detailed strategies and information, plus weekly audio lectures, daily meditations to help rewire your brain, and homework. Interestingly, this parenting philosophy is very compatible with Stoicism, which also seeks better emotional regulation.

In this post, I've written a full review of the course including key concepts, who will benefit from it, plus benefits and drawbacks of this parenting approach. If you're interested, but not enough to commit to a 12 week course, the key concepts are all addressed in Dr. Laura's book, Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids: How to Stop Yelling and Start Connecting available on Amazon.*

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What Can Philosophers Tell Us About Mental Health Challenges and Stigmatization?

6/1/2022

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This month's excellent guest post is contributed by Heidi Bitsoli, a writer and editor for Sunshine Behavioral Health. We hope this original post will bring awareness to mental health challenges and the stigmatization sometimes faced by people experiencing them:

The debate as to whether mental disorders are biological diseases or whether they are merely deviations from social norms is not new. Plato takes on this question in the Phaedrus, a dialog dating back to ancient Greece.

In 2013, C.D. Herrera pointed out that philosophical discourse about mental illness started with the Greeks: “Meaningful talk about inclusion and justice has, since Plato and Aristotle, included observation and speculation which have been directed towards answering questions of what we should do when people reason differently, when they manage emotions differently, and when they resist attempts to bring them into line.”

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7 Common End of Life Regrets - And How to Avoid Having Them

10/29/2019

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When we are children, we can't even imagine the end of our lives. As we grow up, we are often so busy with daily tasks that we forget to notice how quickly life is passing by. We don't allow ourselves to think much about death, because we imagine that we a still have time.

But the truth is that life is short. None of us knows how much time we have. In Plato's Phaedo, he introduces the idea that philosophy is "about nothing else but dying and being dead". The Stoics were also fond of this discipline, and Seneca's letters are full of injunctions to meditate on death. Thinking about death need not be negative. On the contrary, it may inspire us to live betters lives in the here and now.

According to Bronnie Ware, a hospice nurse from Australia, many of her dying patients expressed regrets over how their lives had played out. I've gone on to list 7 of these regrets below. Meditating on common regrets of the dying can help us to put our own lives into perspective before our time is up.

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A Meditation on Courage: 2 Techniques for Overcoming Anxiety

10/16/2018

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In an interview with the World Ethical Data Forum, Julian Assange warned that the generation being born now is the last to be free. The message is quite disturbing. After all, it does seem as though we are headed that way, that long shadows are falling. "Look back over the past with its changing empires that rose and fell, and you can forsee the future too," Marcus Aureluis declares. Is this period of time similar to the fall of Rome? Maybe just the end of the Republic?

Anxiety seems to be at the root of the modern condition. Besides the stress that we deal with in our private lives, there are always political and geopolitical concerns (like the above) that stress us as well. Given all of this, I actually don't think that anxiety is by any means an irrational response. It's only when our response is disproportionate to the threat or when anxiety starts to take over our lives that it really becomes a problem.

I can honestly say that with each new child that we have added to our family, my own anxiety has increased. After all, I have my family's wellbeing to look after, not just my own. Courage however, is a decision. It's how we respond to anxiety provoking thoughts that we have control over, not the external situation. Let me share with you the 2 best techniques that I use to overcome anxiety.

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You Must Master the Media or the Media Will Master You

6/13/2017

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Being angry or depressed over news, politics, Donald Trump and so on, is extremely common at present. Emotions can be useful - they often tell us when something is wrong. But when we are angry or fearful we can't think critically; we just react. It takes intellect to actually break down information piece by piece (critical thinking) and find solutions. Emotionalism overrides proper intellectual process.

Even worse, when we allow ourselves to get upset or angry, we are no longer in control. The Stoic philosopher Epictetus reminds us that "Whoever is capable of angering you becomes your master." We can either master our response to information in the media, or allow it to take control of us via our emotions.

I'm a big fan of Lenon Honor and his work on positive relationships and raising emotionally healthy families. While listening to his channel on Youtube, I was struck by the Stoic overtones in this video (embedded below) and the similarities to my media series, especially 4 Pieces of Stoic Wisdom for Dealing With Negative News Media. While I wouldn't call him a Stoic, Lenon certainly has some philosophical things to say. Technically the video is about race, but overall it's about emotions and dealing with negative media and the subject matter is relevant to everyone. Give it watch!

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Applying Stoicism When Life Gets Tough

6/3/2017

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I'm excited to share this guest post written by Travis Hume of Applying Stoicism. Travis is a special education paraprofessional. He writes daily on practical applications of Stoic philosophy for the modern day, based upon first-hand real-world experiences.

This article explores how to implement Stoicism to life’s difficulties, including the nature and origin of emotions, and the judgments that bring rise to them. My primary purpose is a deeper understanding of the psychological process we act upon on a moment-to-moment basis.

The goal, at the very least, is an improvement in control over our reactions to difficulties, and greater inner breathing room to develop a measured response to emotions. Establishing a deeper understanding of our psychological process may lead to life-long changes in behavior that sets us on a path towards Eudaimonia - a state of self-actualization, excellence, fulfillment, and flourishing as a human being.

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Wise Advice on Human Flourishing in 10 Terrific Quotes

5/1/2017

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This guest post was first published at Freedom and Flourishing by my friend Winton Bates, who curated the following wise advice based on his vast knowledge and life experience:

The quotes selected for this post are related specifically to individual flourishing or personal development. I will follow this up later with a selection of quotes relating to the social conditions that favour human flourishing.

Rather than selecting the most inspirational quotes I can think of, I have selected quotes that seem to support what I hope is a coherent set of propositions about human flourishing.

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The Revolution Inside

1/7/2017

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Peace and justice are two goals which the politically inclined often seek, but they are simultaneously inner qualities which a philosophical person must posses, not just external conditions which we would like to see in the world. If we want to see the world change we must first concern ourselves with healing our own lives.

In Xenophon's Memoirs of Socrates, Hippias tells Socrates that instead of always asking questions about justice, he would do better simply to say, once and for all, what justice is. Socrates replies: "If I don't reveal my views on justice in words, I do so by my conduct." A modern parallel to Socrates' statement can be found in Martin Luther King's quote, "Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal.”

What Socrates wanted to show is that we can never understand justice if we do not live it. King similarly noted that we won't achieve peace through our actions if outwardly we are irrationally angry and inwardly we are a mess of anxiety and nuerosis. We can't expect the world to give us better than we give the world.

In antiquity, philosophy was a way of life akin to therapy or care of the soul. Socrates, the Cynics, Aristotle, the Epicureans and the Stoics all stressed that we can achieve autarkia, or inner freedom independent of external events.[1] Autarkia is a self-sufficiency and peace of mind where we feel that we lack nothing, relying on our inner resources. To be liberated, we must turn our attention to the revolution within and to what we can control; our thoughts, emotions, and actions. In order to obtain autarkia or inner freedom, we must train ourselves for it.

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Why Rushing Through Life Makes You Less Likely to Help Others

4/26/2016

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One really daunting aspect of modern life is that we are often busy, harried, and trying to multitask. A distracted state of mind can actually be an impediment to empathy, which forms the basis of our moral convictions.

Psychological studies have shown that people's ethical behavior is often out of sync with their sincerely held moral beliefs. Disturbing examples of this phenomena include the Standford Prison Experiments, where subjects tasked with being prison "guards," became increasingly more brutal towards "inmates." A less well know study conducted by Darley and Batson among seminarians, found that students who said they wanted to enter the ministry in order to help people where likely to ignore a person in distress depending on the circumstances.

Does the Darley and Batson study indicate that people actually aren't as moral as they think they are? Maybe. Or is it that people are just so mindlessly busy and self absorbed that they don't stop to focus on what is happening around them? Does distraction act as an impediment to helping others?

Epictetus argued that mindfullness, also known as prosoche, (which can be translated as ‘attention’) is essential for living an ethical life. Mindfullness is the antidote to the distracted, self-absorbed state that many people walk around in.

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6 Fool-Proof Ways to Create a More Relaxed Mental State

6/7/2014

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One reason that I study philosophy is that I’m a somewhat of a high-strung person by nature. I try to apply the lessons in my life.

What I have found is that when you have a relaxed inner life, you generally have a relaxed outer life. To put it another way, you choose to create the types of conditions in your environment which enhance your sense of relaxation and contentment. Even when stressful events happen, you choose to go with the flow and make the most of a bad situation, rather than panicking or dwelling on the negative aspects.

My experiences living in Hawaii for the past 2 months taught me several important lessons about being more laid back. Let me share what I have learned about creating a more relaxed attitude. Following the six steps listed below will put you firmly on the on the path to a more relaxed mental state.

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<<Previous

Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids Online Course and Book Review

What Can Philosophers Tell Us About Mental Health Challenges and Stigmatization?

7 Common End of Life Regrets - And How to Avoid Having Them

A Meditation on Courage: 2 Techniques for Overcoming Anxiety

You Must Master the Media or the Media Will Master You

Applying Stoicism When Life Gets Tough

Wise Advice on Human Flourishing in 10 Terrific Quotes

The Revolution Inside

Why Rushing Through Life Makes You Less Likely to Help Others

6 Fool-Proof Ways to Create a More Relaxed Mental State

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