live on purpose – Page 18 – Dr. Paul Jenkins

May 12

5 Effects Of Bad Parenting

By DrPaul M-Power

As a psychologist, I have seen some of the effects of bad parenting. Having said that, before I get into the top 5, it's a relief to know that most of these things can be fixed. Especially if we jump on it quickly and early. The first thing that came to my mind is one of the effects of bad parenting is the endangerment of children. I'm thinking about a video that we've probably all seen, Home Alone. The parents somehow forgot and left one of their children home alone. Macaulay Culkin plays the child, who at first was a little tipped over but then starts to enjoy himself. Endangerment is one of the issues we need to look out for and especially when it comes to abuse. There is no excuse for the abuse of children. And that's not what this particular video is about. But that's one of…

Apr 10

How To Achieve Peace Of Mind In Daily Life

By DrPaul M-Power

Peace of mind is something that I get asked about a lot and I have one of our Certified Live On Purpose Coaches, Devan Bosch, to help us out. Devan, you've got a lot of reasons for knowing about peace and there's not a lot of peace in the world. Would you agree? Devan: Absolutely. It's all around us. Everywhere to go. On my way here this morning, I was struggling with it, just thoughts about things that have happened over the last couple of days. People that have failed to show up in my life and different things like that. Paul: There's all kinds of negative news out there. It just feels like the world is in turmoil. So we're addressing today this question of how to achieve peace. How to find that or create it as you and I talked about quite a bit in our daily lives?…

Apr 08

How To Do The Right Thing When It’s Hard

By DrPaul M-Power

One of our viewers asked, "Doctor Paul, how do you do the right thing when it's hard?" There's some psychological tricks to this. And I'm going to fill you in on each one of them. First of all, newsflash! The right thing often is hard. Do you remember in Harry Potter where Dumbledore is talking to Harry and he says, "There will come a time when you have to decide between doing what is right and doing what is easy." That implies that the right thing is hard. My friend Art Coombs is just finishing his new book entitled, Hard Easy, Easy Hard, and it's about this concept where if you choose to do the easy thing right now, you probably are going to create a harder life for yourself. And then the converse of that. If you choose to do the hard thing now, you're more likely to set…

Apr 07

How To Help Your Spouse With Depression

By DrPaul M-Power

There are four specific things you can do right now to help your spouse with depression and they may seem to be simple. Just because something seems simple, it doesn’t mean it is easy. First, your job is to love them no matter what and even if… It isn’t to make sure that they anything. Let's take the word love and break it down into 4 steps for each of the letters in the word LOVE. L stands for LISTEN. You have two ears and one mouth. Let's use them in that particular ratio. This is so powerful. Just yesterday, I was meeting with a couple where they both had some things they needed to share. She started to share what was on her mind and he immediately started to speak over her and interrupt her and interject his own thinking and agendas. She immediately closed right down. Can you…

Apr 02

How To Practice Gratitude [Daily Gratitude Practice]

By DrPaul M-Power

Evaluation and creation. These are two processes that constantly go on in our mind and control or set the stage for pretty much everything else. It is important to start from gratitude because gratitude changes the game. I think that there's a real key in the word practice. Scott Wilhite, who wrote the book, The 7 Core Skills Of Everyday Happiness. In Scott's book, he points out that gratitude is like other aspects of positivity or happiness and that it is a skill. If it's a skill then you want to practice, so we put into play practice techniques that allow us to benefit from the principle of gratitude. I'm also thinking of another author and friend of mine, Mr. Kevin Clayson. If you've ever heard Kevin speak, he's a lot of fun and he has a whole lot of energy. Kevin wrote a book called, Flip The Gratitude Switch…

Mar 31

What Can Parents Do To Prevent Childhood Obesity?

By DrPaul M-Power

The rates of obesity worldwide are increasing especially in North America for preschool age children. Some of the studies are estimating that 10% of preschool age children have an obesity problem. By the time they get into school, those numbers double, up to one in 5. And it's trending in a negative direction. It's becoming a health crisis that is only going to get worse if we don't intervene. The simple equation is calories in and calories out. Whatever is greater is going to determine the direction of the weight gain or the weight loss. Now, that's the simple equation and there are a lot of complicating factors. But basically, its calories in versus calories out. What does that mean for our kids? What they eat matters and what kind of activity they engage in matters. We've also learned that restrictive diets are not particularly helpful for children, and they…

Mar 27

How To Be Positive and Confident

By DrPaul M-Power

There's a lot of obvious things that are unnoticed. That brings me to my first tip for how to stay positive and confident. It's called metacognition. Metacognition is simply thinking about thinking. Notice that you can do this. That's really important. Because thinking about thinking actually put you in a higher level of choice and control over your own thinking. I've decided after all of these years in psychology that either we drive our thoughts or our thoughts drive us. Until you go to that metacognitive level, your thoughts will drive you. Think about it. Every time you do something, you had a thought that led you to that behavior. Is this true? Back in psychology school, we talked about the cognitive triad. What you think, what you feel, what you do. Those three things are so interrelated that they all affect and cause each other. What you think is…

Mar 26

Why Is Communication So Challenging?

By DrPaul M-Power

Paul: Vicki, you're a communications expert. There's probably a lot of reasons why communication is so challenging in a marriage. There are a lot of reasons. How about we do the top 5? Vicki: Sounds good. Paul: You good? Should we start with the fifth? Vicki: Yeah. Let's talk. Paul: Number 5. People are different. This is good, actually though differences create conflict. Any time you bring two people together they have different preferences or backgrounds or programming and ways they communicate. Differences are important to relationships because they give meaning to the relationship. They make us relevant and interesting to each other, but that can create conflict as well. That conflict often emerges in the communication patterns. Vicki: Reason number 4, language is tricky. Picking the right word, finding the right emphasis. But here's the thing that I think is so important to remember. I recently read a study…

Mar 25

Should A Husband Listen To His Wife?

By DrPaul M-Power

There's a lot of reasons why you're here today, Vicki. Should a husband listen to his wife? Vicki: Hmm, let's talk about it. Paul: This could be a very short article, seriously. Vicki: Should a husband listen to his wife? Paul: Duh? Only, only if he wants a better marriage. I had a couple, I kid you not, just this past week. His main complaint was, "She won't listen to me. I am trying to fix her problem and she won't listen to me." And I'm thinking, "I know what her problem is." Vicki: Oh, my goodness. Paul: I just came back from a conference not too long ago with doctors John and Julie Gottman. I just respect these people so much. Dr. John and Dr. Julie Gottman have done some of the most influential research on couples that I've ever seen. They have made a big impact on the…

Mar 24

Why Is A Gratitude Journal Important?

By DrPaul M-Power

You've probably heard it 100 times. "Gratitude is really important." Why is a gratitude journal important? Maybe you've had one of those days where you just feel stuck in the muck, and you are not sure how to get out of that. I'll tell you about some almost magical ways to overcome the muck. I do a lot of positivity coaching. Not just from this motivational speaker just-think-positive kind of an approach. I'm a psychologist and I get down to the science behind positivity and how it works. Here's where we start, gratitude. The research is really clear about the positive effects of gratitude on our thinking on our mood and that branches out to affect every single aspect of our life. What is it about journaling that has such a powerful effect? In those days where we are just feeling stuck, the thing that we don't notice is that…