Dr James Hughey Podcasts

Saying Goodbye While some of us may have difficulty saying 'hello' to people, it is often the external and internal goodbyes that provide most of us the biggest challenges by invoking anxiety and stress. Learning to say goodbye in a healthy manner is a significant part of the grieving process when we lose someone or something important to us. --- S…

Many of us have topics that are difficult to openly discuss with others. Two of these sensitive topics seem to be the 'wealth game' of self-worth and the exploring/sharing with others the diversity we wish to live during the final days of our life. Whether we see ourselves as more winners or losers in life games, being able to relate our experience…

All Things End: What Have I Learned? At some point, in some way, all living things eventually meet death and our one chance to live this unique gift of life will come to an end. We each have many choices as we live and our personal choices have consequences throughout our life path. One personal guideline that can be helpful in pondering positive a…

Is This My Last Chance? One of the major assets of living life is knowing that at some point our individual life will come to an end. Knowing that our life will eventually end can give tremendous value to each of us on making our personal decisions for whatever time remains. One choice that has positively affected my emotional health has been a cho…

What Do I Choose to Leave Behind? Our personal life legacy is in a constant state of being created by our daily choices made one hour, one day or one month at a time. While our life choices are open to varied perceptions by others, do I accept responsibility for expressing my own values and beliefs in actively living what is important to me? When d…

Learning the skills to appreciate our pets with love and caring is important to many individuals. For some, the lives of our pets may be as important or more important than the skills and beliefs learned to value the lives of fellow humans. The presence of life also teaches us that at some point and in some manner there is the arrival of death for …

Managing Expectations of Self and Others Wellness Psychology recognizes that each of us has the power to 'frame' his/her world into the specific perceptions that we choose. We have the personal responsibility for viewing our world along with the power to accept, reject or modify our choices. We frequently need to ventilate our feelings with others.…

Presence: Best Gift for Human Connection Our in-person presence can often be the most valuable and useful gift that we have to give to others as we build and maintain our human connections. The emotionally healthy person recognizes the presence or absence of other humans can significantly affect one's mental health. Each of us comes into life with …

One + One = One or Two? Inherent in our relationships is that the participants have a set of assumptions and expectations for themselves as well as for the other person. Whether in marriage or friendship we rely on these assumptions and expectations to healthfully maximize the connection we have with each other. We have choices in our degree of con…

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall-Part 2 Wellness Psychology encourages each of us to more fully understand and appreciate the choices we make in developing and implementing our own individual self-esteem beginning as a child to becoming a senior citizen. Special interest is paid to the emotional cancer of perfectionist tyranny and the ways we can re-deci…

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall-Part 1 Wellness Psychology encourages each of us to more fully understand and appreciate the choices we make in developing and implementing our own individual self-esteem beginning as a child to becoming a senior citizen. Beginning with words from the Book of Proverbs, "As he thinks in his heart, so is he", various approa…

Invisible Pain Finding a healthy balance to the joys and pains of living life is a continual process for most of us. What is hurtful and painful to one person may or may not be the same for another or it may require a different degree to register. We can often better understand and choose our responses to physical pain like a broken arm, cancer, st…

Who Am I? (Part Four) One of the most frequent and powerful questions that an individual can ask him or herself during their life journey is: Who Am I? Who is the current 'me' and how is today different from some earlier age? What choices shall I make for today which may alter my self-image in the future? The questions for personal introspection te…

Who Am I? (Part 3) Some of the most frequent and powerful questions that an individual can ask him are: Who Am I? Who is the current 'me' and how is today different from some earlier age? What decisions shall I choose for today which may alter my self-image in the future? The questions for personal introspection tend to be endless. Introspection is…

Who Am I? (Part Two) Wellness Psychology encourages us to explore the personal question of "Who Am I?". There are many ways for a person to experience this process of introspection. Using the multiple-question method that is similar to the personal retreat format, one can seek the answers to questions created to go beyond our surface traits. Questi…

Who Am I? Wellness Psychology encourages us to explore the personal question of "Who Am I?". There are many ways for a person to experience this process of introspection. Using the multiple-question method that is similar to the personal retreat format, one can seek the answers to questions created to go beyond our surface traits. Questions can be …

There Are No Trees At Sea (part 2) Who am I? How did I develop into the person I am? Who were the people and what were the major events that led me to make healthy and unhealthy choices which bring happiness or sadness into my current life? Am I ready to study and understand the internal compass that guides me when I enter the emotional fogs of dai…

There Are No Trees At Sea (part 1) Who am I? How did I develop into the person I am? Who were the people and what were the major events that led me to make healthy and unhealthy choices which bring happiness or sadness into my current life? Am I ready to study and understand the internal compass that guides me when I enter the emotional fogs of dai…

Life Risk Choices Wellness Psychology encourages us to accept that our choice to live life is accepting that this decision comes with some type and degree of risk. Living life is risky; each of us retains the option on how we manage these risks. Most of us conclude that the only completely risk-free path is when we die. We choose to accept risk whe…

Framing My Gift of Life The personal power that we each have to frame our gift of life is truly awesome! While there are some aspects of this gift for which we have no control, there are so many others where we do get to make individual choices to make the most of this gift that we have been given. A thought that may be of value for each of us to p…

Can I Help Others With Their Needs, Not Mine? Your host pays a repeat visit to "Hello Henry" on WBT, AM 1110, in Charlotte, NC, before his move to the Atlanta area in Georgia. This conversation with Henry Bogan is primarily responding to individuals who call into the radio station to share their questions about relationships with others. One questi…

Same Messages, Different Words Most of us wish to communicate effectively with others. To accomplish this goal, we often use the same core of our beliefs, values, attitudes, and experiences. Like an artist who can convey artistic viewpoints using different mediums or a pastor who chooses to focus on varied aspects of his/her faith, a psychologist w…

Conversational Boundaries While some persons thrive on the conflict of participating in culture wars, we can choose alternate paths for ourselves. Handling the stresses of diversity in our society can be a challenge, but is always a personal choice. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/power-for-positive/message…

Conversational Ritual and Boundaries Do we really listen or do we rely on the ritualized behaviors of greetings? Are we content with "just fine" or are we willing to invest more energy and time to hear more from others? --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/power-for-positive/message…

Do I Want A Real Conversation? Most of us spend much of our awake-time talking with other people. If one is ever exploring the questions associated with feelings of loneliness, one helpful way is to consider what makes a conversation with others 'real'. We can also explore the degree of 'connection' we wish to have with others and for them to have …

Do We Understand Each Other? Effective human communication remains one of the major challenges we each face during our Life Journey. The assumptions and expectations that each of us personally takes into a dialogue with another have a powerful effect on whether our communication is successful. Seeking to understand our own ways of "broadcasting" to…

What Is A Positive Attitude? Using various emotional tools like a positive-view camera or a positive magnifying glass, we each make choices on how we see various aspects of our world and the people in it. What we choose to see generally will translate into the attitudes we develop. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/sho…

Mourning Our Loss of Yesterday Life seems to be a constant parade of gain and loss. Many cannot fully appreciate their present-day choices since they are still focusing on an inability to let go of their past. Yesterday is gone as are any changes we wish to make about it. We hopefully can learn from the assets and liabilities of living our personal…

Opportunity Learning with Deprivation Much of our daily life is lived by implementing the choices we have made during previous days. We tend to accept these situations as normal and they become our personal habits in thoughts, feelings and behaviors. There are times when we are deprived of what we consider normal and have the opportunity to make ne…

Everyone Has An Opinion! It is clear to most people that each individual tends to have many opinions about various areas of their life. We choose experiential perspectives that work for us and frequently may label our opinions as facts for everyone. Challenges for many are not the large number of opinions which may be presented as objective facts, …

What Am I Living For? Every minute that you and I are alive we are making and implementing personal choices for answering the question: What am I living for? Our answers to this basic life question are constantly evolving as the years pass by adding our own unique experiences and incorporating diverse viewpoints from interacting with other people. …

Physical Versus Mental Health Choices A foundation belief of Wellness Psychology is that we each have the personal power of the verb "to choose" in laying out our individual life path. Our life is constantly changing; our choices often determine the consequences that characterize us as humans. A recent viral pandemic provided new options for many. …

Choosing Healthy Words Wellness Psychology believes that our personal power of choice is one of the most significant aspects of us being human individuals. With each and every hour of life, this power of choice often determines the degree of success for how you and I live with ourselves and with others. The word choice each person makes tends to de…

Self-Learning With Social Media There are many ways for us to understand our personal beliefs and values systems. One way for many is evaluating the choices we make with the various participation options available on social media. With the choice of participation frequency, sharing of chosen content types and our selection of the specific individua…

Describing and Interpreting Behavior Whether we are talking and communicating with ourselves or others, the challenges to be accurate and effective remain for most of us. Learning how to differentiate between the objective description of behavior, thought, attitude or feeling with the individualized interpretations we add can significantly improve …

Discounting Behaviors Discounting behavior is when we view someone (ourselves of another) as being of less value. Full value perceptions are often learned early with our childhood history. Society encourages us to accept common standards as to what is or is not valuable. We are encouraged to seek full-valued people in our friends, jobs, social orga…

Our Fear Triggers Survival tends to be the most basic of our human instincts. Our ability to create and manage our personal fear triggers allows us to improve our chances for survival. Our lives change from childhood to becoming seniors. We choose whether we retain our individual fear triggers from an earlier age as we grow older. Fear is the alert…

Needing Human Touch We all arrive in this world with a strong need to be touched by other human beings. The amount and type of human touch we receive as children can have a strong impact on our emotional and physical health as we grow into adulthood. Also, as we each age and prepare to depart from this world, this strong need and desire to have tou…

Being Alone Many persons use the terms loneliness and being alone as interchangeable. The first is missing an emotional connection with the people in one's environment. The second is not having other humans or living things around self. Being alone is easily changed: add people or pets. Loneliness is a more complex combination of factors to effecti…

Learning With Solitude and Isolation As humans, we tend to need the presence and active interaction with other humans to feel complete during our life journey. There are also times when we can learn much about ourselves as individuals when we structure periods of isolation or solitude. These experiences allow us to better understand ourselves and s…

Personal Holiday Celebration Our birthdays can be a time for reflecting on the choices we have made during the past year as well as choosing the direction we wish to go during the coming year. The past is gone except for our memories. We each have the opportunity to take what we have learned in previous years of living life and focus our individual…

Pricing My Life Choices This interview allows each listener to consider knowledge and life options presented from a different point of view. Your host is interviewed by Henry Bogan on WBT-AM in Charlotte, NC, on Friend Ship's focus on wellness psychology. Together they explore the basic concepts of emotional pricing that each of us pays when we mak…

Why Lie to Your Counselor? Truth and lies tend to come in various shades and degrees. Individuals tend to choose to interact with themselves as well as with others by following personal beliefs, values, beliefs, feelings and behaviors on how they see themselves and their world. Many people choose to assist other people with their life journey. Rega…

Understanding My Personal Counseling Choices There are many factors to consider when we seek counseling assistance for some of the emotional challenges each of us faces during life. Whatever choices we make, each will bring its own 'price' to be paid. The more information we have on ourselves and what we are seeking, the more likely a positive outc…

I Have the Choice! One of the cornerstones of wellness psychology is acknowledging the power of choice that each of us implements every day of our lives. A key to a better understanding of who we are is learning how we choose our attitudes, expectations, and create our personal definitions. We also make choices on deciding what we do with certain f…

I Would Be Happy If You... Accepting responsibility for the personal choices that we each make in our lives can be one of the most important aspects of creating positive mental health for ourselves. When we recognize and accept that each of us has this personal power to select options that either increase or decrease our happiness, we tend to be he…

Making Healthy Life Choices As a child, our individual choices for living life are often made by others. Some continue to give that power to others as we become adults. Each of us eventually develops our personal cost/benefit process of choosing what does/does not work for us as we each choose how to live this gift of life. We can ask ourselves int…

Change and Choice Each day of our lives brings some type and degree of change in our world. This is a constant of living with each breath that we take. The personal challenge each of us faces is how do we decide to manage our reactions to this constant parade of change. What choices will each of us make to have the most healthy outcomes in our live…

Making Resolutions Which Are Real Many individuals begin the new year with wishes and hopes that the days ahead will be better and a change from their past. Year after year, these resolutions become little more than "wish lists" and very little changes as the days pass. This podcast series believes that "If you do what you have always done, you wil…

Gifting Self Whatever personal values and beliefs we each have on the process of giving to others or ourselves are conveyed when we create a gift. Whether our gift is concrete or is a thought, feeling, or behavior, we tell ourselves and others who we are as unique individuals by the gifts we choose to give. Gifting ourselves can often be the most p…