North Star Mental Fitness Blog

THE NORTH STAR MENTAL FITNESS PROGRAM

ARE YOU HAPPY?

DO YOU FEEL FREE?

DO YOU HAVE PEACE OF MIND?

DO YOU HAVE POWER OVER YOUR LIFE?

SIMPLIFY AND REVITALIZE YOUR LIFE WITH I LIVE WITHIN THE ENVIRONMENT CREATED BY MY CHOICES AND THE NORTH STAR MENTAL FITNESS PROGRAM!

Mental fitness training can take you from where you are now to where you want to go with your life.  Don't settle for where you are now, when mental fitness trainee can take you where you want to be.  You can be the best you can with these cognitive fitness programs.

You can have the life that you want with programs presented in the two e-books, I LIVE WITHIN THE ENVIRONMENT CREATED BY MY CHOICES and THE NORTH STAR MENTAL FITNESS PROGRAM.  With this training you can better yourself and your life.  If you have a problem, we can provide the tools for you to find your solution.

Do you want a manual to help you remain focused in your life?

Teaching Gentleness in a Violent World

A child will have viewed 8000 murders and 100,000 acts of television violence by the time they are 11 years old (National Television violence study) as reported by the American Psychological Association Help Center.

These statistics are unbelievable and not acceptable.  How can children not unconsciously be influenced by all this violence?  How can children not learned that violence is acceptable, when they are entertained by so much violence?  How can we stop children identifying with violent people, when they are inundated with examples of violent people?

From my perspective it is not just enough to teach children that violence is unacceptable and wrong.  It is also very important to teach values and behavior that are inconsistent with violence.

What Makes Kids Care?  Teaching Gentleness and I Violent World is a very enlightening article with information and findings from studies regarding teaching children how to care.  This article was obtained in its entirety from the American Psychological Association Help Center.

What Options Are You Choosing for Your Life?

  You have a choice in picking out the car you drive. You have a choice in picking out the options on your car.  There are all kinds of options for you to consider.

One of the most basic options is to purchase a car with a manual or automatic transmission.

After you have had mental fitness training, you'll be able to drive through your life with an automatic transmission instead of a manual transmission.

It is your choice to live your life by constantly shifting manually or living your life with an automatic transmission created by your mental fitness training.

What is Detached Involvement?

Every day when I am working, I look into the eyes of mothers and fathers, who are devastated emotionally because of their children's problems.  Their souls are wrenched with emotional pain and anxiety as they wonder out loud "what did I do wrong"?  How could their child turn out the way their child is?

Guilt and sadness fill their hearts and control their minds.  It's much deeper than wanting more for your children than they are or have.  It's being aware that your children have made bad decisions and feeling responsible for your children's inability to make better decisions.

At Intensive Care for the Nurturer's Soul, Hueina Su, MS, BSN, CEC gave a prescription for avoiding parental guilt for children's misfortunes.  She called it "detached involvement". 

25 Things I've Learned about Choices

As I approach 40 years of practice as a clinical psychologist, the power, parameters and magic of choices continues to intrigue and entice me.  I've heard people say I'm getting old.  I smile to myself as I think of the limitations in their thinking.  Little do they know. 

In the 1980s my wife and I named our outpatient, substance abuse facility, Choices Unlimited.  I love that name, because truly people's choices are unlimited. 

Although my body showed signs of aging, I am not in the declining years of my life and practice.  Instead, I choose to see myself entering life's empowering and enlightening years.  In spite of what I see in the mirror in the morning, I am energized with the  rejuvenating thought: My Choices Are Unlimited!

Also I have learned to view my clients as choice makers with unlimited choices.  Choice makers are like artists.  Choice makers began their creations with raw materials created by their genes and past living experiences.  As I looked over my client's shoulders, I saw and heard their choices of mediums, perspectives, colors and shading transform their genetic predispositions and past life experiences into majestic works of art.

Now, I'd like to tell you about 25 things I have learned about choices.   

Psychological Determinism and the Law of Attraction

Psychological Determinism and The Law of Attraction may seem like antagonistic concepts, but they are not. 

From a mental fitness perspective, our choices determine the nature of our lives. 

There are three important characteristics regarding choice making.  These characteristics are important to understand, if you want the Law of Positive Attraction to become real in your life.  These three characteristics are:

The Mental Radio

A few years ago we had him a major remodeling of our home.  Before this project, I would never realized the importance of a radio in re-modeling or renovating a home.

The importance of the radio became clear to me, when the radio was the first tool to be turned on in the morning and the last tool to be turned off at the end of the day.

Today let me tell you about the importance of The Mental Radio for remodeling or renovating your life.

The Mental Sander

"Nothing is so strong as gentleness.  Nothing is so gentle as real strength".  Another quote from Midnight Cafe Maze was

"Never be in a hurry.  Do everything quietly and in a calm spirit.  Do not lose your inner peace for anything whatsoever, even if your whole world seems upset".  These quotations were made by Frances de Sales.

Carpenters have many tools to smooth out the surfaces of wood.  Rough edges and surfaces are not tolerable, when we desire high quality wood products.

Why am I adding The Mental Sander to Dr. Hal's Toolbox for Repairing and Creating Your Life?

The Mental Plan

Design your life!  Before beginning a remodeling project or new construction, architects and builders create blueprints.  Without a blueprint and detailed plans a construction project flounders.

Wily W. Walnut from Unleash Your Genius for Creative Thinking wrote Creating Your Life Purpose The Ultimate Creative Challenge! 

Wily says:  "Your life has no predetermined purpose. If you are waiting for your life purpose to be revealed, you are in for a long wait. You are the Creator. And only you can create the purpose of your life."

The Mental Glue

  Glue is in the carpenter's toolbox. Glue is a substance used to attach  or connect substances to another. 

Glue can also be used to associate thoughts, feelings, perceptions, behaviors and relationship skills with the important people in your life.

The Mental Glue will help you build strong relationships after you have removed the clutter and clogs from your relationships.  Yesterday, I wrote about The Mental Plunger for declogging your life when you are stuck and for removing sources of "messing up in your life".   Declogging your life must be followed by building your life.

Often, relationship conflicts are caused by emotions that rage out of control.  I am convinced that relationship conflicts are associated with  temporary memory deficits.  That is, people react with  destructive expression of emotions, forgetting that they are communicating and relating with somebody  they love.

Let me tell you how The Mental Glue can be used to repair and renovate your  memory and life.