M-Power – Page 28 – Dr. Paul Jenkins

Dec 17

How To Control Your Thoughts

By Cyndi Baker M-Power

Honestly, I don't know if you can control your thoughts. Let's do a little test. Let's just try this out. Think about bananas. Think about the color, texture, and taste of bananas. Imagine what they look like, what they feel like. You got it? Okay, step 2. Do not think about grapefruit. You know the round ones that are sour and they kind of squirt you in the eye when you stick a spoon in them? Do not think about grapefruit. How are you doing? Oh! You're thinking about grapefruit, aren't you? I told you not to. What's wrong? Well, can you control your thoughts? Notice it's not too hard to intentionally think about something on purpose. It's really hard to intentionally not think about something on purpose. There are so many triggers in our environment. I can be driving down the freeway in my car and suddenly I'm thinking…

Dec 17

6 Steps to Avoid Holiday Stress

By Cyndi Baker M-Power

I have 6 holiday stress tips to help you this holiday season. I could probably get away with just one if it's this: Can the shoulds. Can them. Get rid of them. We too often put expectations on ourselves that overwhelm us. We feel frustrated because we are not where we should be. We are not doing things we should do. Do you see where the should creeps in all over the place? What if we were to take everything that's on your should list and just throw it out. Toss it out the window. No more shoulds. What would happen? Oh, you might not get all of that stuff done? But it's okay because it's not a should anymore. Some may say, "Oh, but Dr. Paul, I want to do this." Oh, well, that's different. Do you want to do this stuff? Are you doing it because you should…

Dec 10

10 Things You Should Never Say To Your Child

By Cyndi Baker M-Power

I talk a lot in my positive psychology practice about things you should do, or try to do, or say to your kids. Today, while giving you 10 things to never say to your child, I am not trying to be negative, but help you to understand that what we say matters. I found an article online from Parenting Magazine, written by Michelle Crouch. This was an interesting article and as a psychologist, it caught my attention. Now hopefully, you're already aware of the obvious ones, okay. Like saying "Oh, she's the cute one." Oh really? Be careful with that one. Or "He's the smart one" or "She's the athletic one." Putting these labels on our kids doesn't help. "Why can't you be more like your brother?" These are the obvious. We are not going to go there today. This particular article triggered some thinking for me and I wanted…

Dec 09

Winning A Custody Battle – Four Things You Must Do

By Cyndi Baker M-Power

There are four things that you must do to win a custody battle, but they are probably not what you would expect. As a professional psychologist, 13 years of my career was committed to doing child custody evaluations for the court before I switched over to positive psychology. Here is what I learned. As a professional evaluator for the court, there are two worlds that are created for a child. Before parents separate, the child’s world is just one big whole like a circle. When mom and dad separate, for whatever reason, that world splits. And now we have mom's world and dad's world, and they are very different. Where do the kids belong? Right there in the middle Now, actually the kid’s world is larger than either mom's world or dad's world because the kids world includes both mom’s and dad’s world. Research shows very clearly that the number…

Dec 09

How To Apologize To Your Child For Yelling

By Cyndi Baker M-Power, Uncategorized

Even with our best efforts, sometimes we do it. We lose our cool and yell at our kids. How do you apologize to your child for yelling? We can learn something from our kids. You know when your kids are kind of conflicted with each other and they end up hurting each other they end up yelling or whatever it is. And you tell them, "Okay now, tell your brother you're sorry." And it doesn’t sound sincere at all. Nobody is convinced. Well, let's learn something from that. Be authentic. Be real about this. I don't want you to pretend to apologize to your child or do it with some strings attached. For example, what if I were to say, "I'm sorry that I yelled at you. But you shouldn't have..." You are not really sorry at that point. I gave the apology, then I threw the other party under…

Dec 07