Science is Proving Religion is Right!

A homily by Danny Enright

Let me start with a story about gods and creation.

An incomprehensibly long time ago, everything that is, got started somehow. Out of all this came primates and some of them began to walk on two legs, developed a pre-frontal cortex and starting asking each other out on dates.

These were humans.

At that point, we began to wonder about things, and because we didn’t have all the answers to some of the great mysteries, we figured that someone must be in control, so we created gods….

Read the rest at the link to a PDF document, below:

http://heyuu.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Science-is-Proving-Religion-is-Right-28-Sep-2014.pdf

Use Successful Marketing Technique to Help With Habits

We are subjected daily to dozens, hundreds or even thousands of marketing messages to get us to buy something.

The industry uses environmental triggers to trick us into associating one thing with the need to buy their products, so why couldn't we use the same concept to remind ourselves to accomplish our objectives.

The marketing industry has spend billions of dollars figuring out what works! Let's really benefit from that knowledge!

http://m.fastcompany.com/3039467/how-i-get-it-done/how-to-change-your-habits-with-the-help-of-one-clever-marketing-trick

A Brief Hug and 10 Minutes of Hand-holding Protects Your Health

Study results revealed by the American Psychosomatic Society indicates that hugs and hand-holding "could carry over and protect you throughout the day," says psychologist Karen Grewen with the School of Medicine at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.

The effects of touch from anybody is beneficial, but the better you know somebody and the more intimate you are with them, the bigger the benefits.

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/health/2003-03-09-hug-usat_x.htm

Negative Emotions Can Be "Positive"... or Useful

There is a general misconception that "Positive Psychology" means everything is "free ice-cream", "meerkats wearing tweed jackets serving you drinks" or "looking at a nuclear mushroom cloud through rose-coloured, radioactive resistant glasses."  That's why I prefer to use the term "Enriching Psychology" as a title for this blog, because what enriches us doesn't always start from a purely positive place.

For example, I discovered that as I enter my middle-aged years, working out is not as easy, productive and pain-free as it once was.  I really did use to be easy, and I enjoyed it.  Now I enjoy it just as much, but it's more work... and I kept thinking under the Positive Psychology model, I was doing something wrong that it felt like work.

Then I realized that the RESULTS are what matter, and yes, sometimes I had to put in a little bit of work, and the payoff was even more meaningful.

In "The Positive Side of Negative Emotions", the authors propose that "...anger is, or can be anyway, a positive emotion., mobilizing energy and focusing attention, especially to write a perceived wrong, perhaps as a sign of strength.   Negative social emotions may have positive consequences, examining embarrassment, shame, guilt, jealousy and envy in the hands of Henniger and Harris. In an analogy to pain, in social settings, this may be useful to us, to avoid further damage or discomfort, with personal and social benefits.

http://metapsychology.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?type=book&id=7343&cn=396