Blog – Page 17 – Dr. Paul Jenkins

Dec 15

How To Celebrate Christmas Alone This Year

By DrPaul M-Power

A reader of my blog recently responded to an article I had written about conducting the Great Christmas Experience Experiment. The post talked about how we can make the holidays in 2020 memorable when so many of our normal activities have been canceled. The reader asked, what about those of us who are alone? A recent statistic said that one in 5 people may be alone this Christmas. This is for a variety of reasons, one major being the pandemic. If you are alone, how can you make this Christmas memorable and not lonely? (Or, if you know someone who will be alone this Christmas, you may get an idea of what you can do for them.) Here are a few ideas to get you started. Celebrate how you want. You can be traditional, or throw traditions out the window and do something you have never done before.Consider having at…

Dec 11

Time To Celebrate Festivus

By DrPaul M-Power

In a Tough Year, There Might Be More Reason to Celebrate This Holiday Than You Know Event after event has been cancelled in 2020 and we could use a reason to celebrate. How about Festivus? Why not? It’s as good as any other reason. If you aren’t familiar with Festivus, is was made popular by an episode of the TV show, Seinfeld, written by Dan O’Keefe. Dan’s father, Daniel O’Keefe was doing research for a book in 1966, and found a reference to a little known holiday called Festivus. He chose to celebrate it on December 23rd as this is the anniversary of his first date with his wife. Before you go all, “Ahhh,” and think it was soooo romantic, the symbol of Festivus is an aluminum pole. That’s right, no golden rings, no aromatic tree or lighted candles. And the celebration starts after a dinner of meatloaf. Following dinner…

Dec 09

2020: A Holiday Experiment

By DrPaul M-Power

In year’s past, many people at this time of year would begin complaining about the stress of the holidays. There are Christmas parties to plan and attend. And, what am I going to wear, add shopping at the mall for new clothes. There are cookies to bake for the neighborhood exchange. There are appointments to make for Santa pictures. There are Holiday concerts to attend. And all the in-laws are coming into town this year. Wait, none of that is happening. Or very little. If you choose, there are still cards to send, gifts to give, lights to put up, homes to decorate. Or not. This year we have a chance to make our holidays less stressful, without looking like the Grinch. What if instead of mourning all the things we can’t do this Christmas or Holiday Season, we viewed it as an opportunity to conduct an experiment? A Christmas…

Nov 11

Family Councils Create Family Culture

By DrPaul M-Power

How did your family conversations go? Did you try any of the “would you rather questions?” Now that we have everyone talking, I want to introduce you to something you may be aware of, Family Councils. This is a time where you come together at a regular time and discuss what is going on in your family. Do your kids ever fight over bathroom time? Do you and your partner ever argue over household matters? What about the bigger issues of discussing drug and alcohol use with your children? This is the beauty of family councils - when they are being held on a regular basis. *Pick a regular day and time, (Thursday at 7:30pm or every other Sunday at 2pm) *Pick a topic for each week *Parents can take turns leading the meeting *Pick a game, an activity, something everyone can do *Talk about a principle *Have a treat…

Nov 10

Be At the Crossroads

By DrPaul M-Power

Hey, I forgot to mention in our last email about family councils that you can do this with whoever is living with you. It could be your spouse and children, or just your children. It could be just you. It could be your roommate. This is about building the relationships that are close to us, that affect us daily. The third tip on creating a stronger family culture has to do with something that my wife, Vicki, introduced me to. I think it made a huge difference in our family culture. She put it this way, “Be there at the crossroads.” She meant that when the kids were coming and going, we should try to be there as much as possible. It could be the kids getting off to school, to their sports, music lessons, or whatever it is they are coming and going from. If mom or dad can…

Nov 05

Improving Family Culture

By DrPaul M-Power

So, if you live in America, you still don’t know who will be our next president. What are you going to do about it? That’s right, nothing. Let’s talk about something we can do something about. In November we talk a lot about things we are grateful for and many of us talk about our families. That doesn’t mean our families are perfect or that they aren’t stressful at times. I have some ideas on how we can make our family culture stronger so we can enjoy our time with our families. #1 Family Meals You have all heard about this, but we find in studies that families are spending less time eating together. Families who eat together have healthier relationships, fewer discipline problems and a stronger family culture. If you sit together, share a meal, and what happened during your day, you will connect with those present. It is…

Nov 03

What is Your “So That”

By DrPaul M-Power

People come to me and say, Dr. Paul, I want to be a better person, a better mom. I want to develop better relationships or people skills. I want to be happier or more positive. And I ask them, so that...? The things they want to accomplish are all good, they are admirable, but the “so that” behind each of these is very important. It tells me what is driving them. If someone comes to me and says I want to be more successful in my job and I ask, “So that…,” they could answer: So that I can make more money. So that I can support my family. So that I can have honors and recognition. So that I can make a difference in people’s lives. None of these are bad, and they are also not mutually exclusive. We can make a difference in lives, earn a living and…

Oct 28

Find the Funny, Find the Pain

By DrPaul M-Power

Welcome Back! How did it go? Did you try the experiment? Did you step back from seeing all the annoying qualities of your coworker and observe them? Did you try to choose to be amused by their antics? It can take some practice, but I hope you tried it out. We are going to get into two other ideas that can help you to get along with a cranky or annoying coworker. Change Your Focus My friend says, “What you focus on, you feel.” What is your focus with this person? How are you seeing them? What are you looking for? Changing your focus might be that you simply find the funny. As a professional speaker, I am on the lookout for funny stuff. It becomes good content for comedy. How about looking for their superpower. I know, their superpower is to annoy you. Maybe they have another one. Your…

Oct 27

Do You Know Someone who is Cranky or Annoying?

By DrPaul M-Power

A lot of people are working in a different way or even in a different environment in 2020, but there are plenty that still work with others on a daily basis. I get asked how to deal with difficult co-workers. Since it is Cranky Coworker Day, I thought we could take this on. I can tell you from my decades of experience in psychology, that I am still really bad at changing people. I can’t make another person behave differently, only myself. I can teach principles, but in terms of changing people, they have to want to do that. So, everything that changes, has to happen with you, internally, inside yourself. That probably wasn’t the answer you were expecting, but stay with me for a minute. When we shift our perception, it changes the focus, and our frustration level drops. The first tip is to CHANGE YOUR GOAL It is…

Oct 22

If Not This, Then What? Using Creation to Live On Purpose

By DrPaul M-Power

How are you doing dealing with your frustration? When we are frustrated, we tend to feel stuck, we are in blaming mode and we aren’t using the executive function of our brains. If you missed our last email on why it is important to deal with the feeling of frustration, you can check it out in our previous post. With our brains calmed and our emotions under control we can move onto creation. Creation is using the feelings of discontent to make something better than we have presently. We do that by imagining something better than we have right now. There is also something else going on as we move into creation. We are evaluating what we have against the thing we are imagining as being better. This is where some people get stuck. They see themselves as victims. I am in the place I am now because (fill…