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Life Purpose

For those seeking inner well-being (peace, friendliness, physical health, happiness or a sense of mastery) as their life purpose, there seems to be several paths.  Some attempt to find such inner well-being through the Self, others through Intimacyor Achievement.  Still others through Spirituality.  To build and balance inner well-being one may need to be present in all spheres of life.

Self Sphere

Buddha believed that the mind suffers when we dwell upon past misfortunes or future desires.  According to Buddha, the end of suffering lies in complete awareness of the present, bringing the mind to a state of emptiness.   In this sense, Buddha believed the mind has subjective power over external events.  Although we cannot control what happens to us in life, we can control the way in which we respond to it.  We can accept the present moment for what is and in that manner stop suffering from it.  To attempt that, Buddha found that meditation and breathing helped to achieve a state of emptiness or being.  Meditation in this form can be a vehicle for one’s true self (one’s consciousness) to merge with the universe.

Today, many people attempt this, sometimes with the help of Zen or other spiritual teachings.  Through it, one may feel “at peace,” and “in touch” or “in control” apart from what happens in our intimate relationships and achievements.  In this sense, enlightenment through the Self if achieved can be life transforming.  It may be an ideal path for some.  Refreshed and invigorated the Self can then better reach out to others in closeness and in meaningful achievement.

Achievement Sphere

Some of us feel a sense of peace or being when we achieve.  For most, this means when we are at work.  Although not all aspects of work are enjoyable, there are peak moments when we are one with our work.  We lose a sense of time.  During these moments, we experience peace, friendliness, physical well-being, happiness or mastery.

These peak states are not easy to attain, but as most of us expend much time and effort at work (achievement sphere) most have experienced positive peaks of wellbeing during work — or alternatively when we achieve in a passion, hobby or favorite sport (also a form of achievement).

Peak states often do not last long, but when experienced give a sense of quietness.  Those who experience longer lasting states, often experience them when  they move towards a life goal with a sense of lightness that enables them to enjoy the present moment.

Intimacy Sphere

Most of us want to find love above all else.  As adults, we seek such love in a couple relationship, the most intimate union of two human beings emotionally, intellectually and physically sexually.  Because couple intimacy can provide the strongest sense of oneness with another and with the world, we crave it.  When disappointed, hurt or frustrated, the same couple relationship that provided well-being can provoke peaks of anxiety, anger, physical symptoms, depression or psychosis.

Couple intimacy can provide a sense of peace, friendliness, physical well-being, happiness and mastery.  Yet, like achievement, continued wellbeing in intimacy involves our full attention.  To shortcut effort, some seek a sense of one-ness in sex, where he or she may temporally lose a sense of self and become one with the other and the world.  Yet often such intimacy is fleeting.  Unless intimacy is given the attention and work that we often readily give to achievement or to our sense of self, the sense of connection is lost.

Pleasure and Wellbeing are Different

Well-being or states that can encompass moments of peace, friendliness, physical well-being, happiness and mastery are experienced when we are fully present in any one sphere (self, intimacy, achievement).  Yet, states of wellbeing are not to be sought directly or mistaken as mere pleasure (sex, alcohol, etc).  Of course, sex can be pleasurable but sex without intimacy does not sustain a greater sense of well-being.  Alcohol or drugs may make one feel good by temporarily escaping reality, but there is no mastery.  The self may mistakenly feel ‘at peace,’ but is neither ‘in control,’ nor ‘in touch.’ While well-being brings a background or constance to one’s inner state, pleasure is always fleeting.

Well-being (peace, friendliness, physical health, happiness and mastery) can be experienced as we build and balance our sense of self, intimate relationships and achievement at much higher levels than before.  At higher states of wellbeing one still experiences suffering, yet suffering occurs in the background of a larger sense of inner happiness, peace, friendliness, physical wellbeing and mastery.

Resistance in the form of Stress

Regardless of the sphere one approaches or builds inner well-being, one finds resistance.  As one experiences a challenge or pushes beyond a previous best level of adjustment, one will need to overcomestress or fear (anxiety, anger, physical-symptoms, depression or even for some psychosis).  These defenses can be triggered from a difficult past or may be dormant in people who have had positive experiences.

Fear exists in all of us to differing degrees.  Stress surfaces when we push beyond a previous best level of self, intimacy or achievement or when we are overwhelmed with a current challenge.

As we grow, we cannot avoid stress.  Stress is a normal sign that the mind is momentarily overwhelmed.  Either a positive or negative experience can trigger it.  When stressed, we may experience a hierarchy of defense including anxiety, anger, physical symptoms, depression or psychosis.  These are not pleasant states and there are a variety of stress techniques we can use in our daily life to grow from crisis.  Some who hate life itself experience 5 alternatives at his or her threshold of individual stress tolerance.

Building health and happiness is difficult.  When we cannot overcome a challenge, it may be necessary to withdraw from the challenge temporarily.  This allows us to achieve a better perspective.  Once rested, we can return to our life challenge to surpass a previous level of intimacy, self or achievement.   When we feel we can not breakthrough nor withdraw, it is important to reach out to others and when necessary seek professional help.

Spirituality

The Lifetrack model of positive mental health follows the criteria established by Jahodafor robust models of health which can explain the mind at its best and worst.  Such models are demanding in nature, but when adequate can provide insight to individuals in dire distress or at their optimal best.  Perhaps such models should also explain the need for human spirituality.

The Lifetrack model does not espouse any one religion or model of spirituality.  Yet it allows room for them to exist.  To understand the role of spirituality in such a model, one examines how the three spheres inter-act and over-lap to form our personalities.

Each sphere affects all the others.  Outer experience touches the inner and vice-versa.  We do not exist in isolation.  Our self, intimacy and achievement spheres inter-act and influence each other and our experience of the world.  When you have a bad day at work, that influences your relationship.  When your relationship is shaky, that influences your state of mind at work.  When your Self sphere experiences stress (out of touch, not at peace nor in control), your love and work suffers.  Through our senses the outside world influences our inner experience.

Notice, that at the center of the overlap amongst the three spheres is a space.  That center or space can represent inner consciousness.  It embodies our essence that experiences our self, intimacy and achievement spheres.

In other words, some may become aware of this space as they become selfless (the true self becoming one with the universe as in Buddhism), or find and achieve a life task that has an impact on a neighbor or on humanity (meaningful achievement), or experience the love of a spouse, of children, of other human beings, God, nature and the universe (intimacy).  As inner consciousness grows, one might imagine that this inner vortex grows.

Spirituality : An Extension of the Intimacy Sphere

In terms of the Lifetrack model of positive mental health, spirituality is seen as an extension of the intimacy sphere. This is because transcendental love and the love for another human being are not seen as two different quests, but a related one.  That is when we love another human being unconditionally or experience the love of God; each fortifies the experience of the other.  It is as if the door to one, can open the other.

Dr. Ishizuka is himself open to Buddhism, Zen and Christianity. He is agnostic, open to the reality of such existence, without wishing to name one or espouse one over the other.  His work as a therapist remains rooted on the individual and human intimacy.

Because the Lifetrack positive mental health model evolved in the course of working with patients through Dr. Yukio Ishizuka’s work as a psychiatrist, therapy focuses on human relationships, and notably, the most meaningful, inter-dependent and difficult human relationship: the couple.  Although this relationship has the potential for us to experience the greatest joy or ecstasy, it also has the capacity for us to experience the greatest pain.

Dr. Ishizuka teaches a couple to disarm the mutual defenses against closeness (anxiety, anger, physical-symptoms, depression, and psychosis) to breakthrough to a much higher level of intimacy than a couple has ever experienced previously.   A breakthrough in intimacy pervades all areas of one’s life ; including the self and achievement spheres.

Through breakthrough intimacy, Ishizuka helps an individual become and remain closer to an important other person (spouse or equivalent) long after therapy has terminated. This source of unconditional love and happiness in one’s couple relationship (at far higher levels than the individual previously experienced at his or her best), transforms the individual, the couple, and often how they experience their achievement and self spheres.

Interestingly, when one can love another human being such as a spouse or equivalent (love definition), it may also open a door for spirituality.  In the same manner, spiritual intimacy (becoming one with Christ or in Buddhism one with the Universe) also opens the door for greater compassion and love to all human beings.

Cycle of Life and the Growth of Spheres that build Health

Over one’s life one will re-define one’s self, intimacy and achievement spheres.  Through this growth, the circles expand and grow larger.  As an adult, one’s spheres encompass a closer relationship with an important other person such as a spouse or equivalent, with others around us and with the world.

As the spheres expand, the definition of self, intimacy and achievement expands to encompass more of the world.  Many engage in helping a larger cause than oneself, or one’s immediate family.  In this manner, we engage with others and with the world defining our three spheres in a broader sense.

Happiness and Health: Inner Transformation First

The person who wants to change the world (large achievement sphere) but who has not changed himself first, may become overwhelmed.  He or she may outwardly have a large achievement, self or intimacy sphere (and be admired by many), but may not be reaping the full experience of inner peace, friendliness, physical-wellbeing, happiness and mastery which usually accompanies such growth in spheres.

Through effort and self-denial, one can accomplish much (and often be regarded as a genius).  However noble and life changing one’s accomplishments, when one’s achievement remains external, one foregos the present.  Accomplishment gives a sense of joy, friendliness or love — but not for long.  Once one goal is achieved, another larger goal is presented.

Through Breakthrough Intimacy, by becoming far closer to another human being (usually spouse or equivalent), we may experience longer lasting peace, friendliness, physical health, happiness and mastery.  Through a deeper experience of closeness with the most important person in one’s life, we make a fundamental breakthrough in all areas of life and experience longer lasting well-being (peace, friendliness, physical health, happiness and mastery).

In the Lifetrack experience, breakthrough intimacy provides a deep transformation in all spheres of life–including achievement.  It is as if at such higher levels of intimacy, one initiates a transformation process in human personality that is far more profound than any direct work on achievement or superficial work on the Self.

Once breakthrough intimacy is achieved and sustained for a period, the self and achievement spheres rise to meet and balance it at much higher levels of well-being or adjustment.  The breakthrough, initiated in the intimacy sphere, extends to all spheres of life.

The goal of life is to build one’s spheres: to develop a larger sense of self, intimacy and achievement, but with a sense of lightness.

There is no limit to inner growth.  The self at its peak become selfless (the true self becoming one with the universe as in Buddhism).  Achievement (the desire to do something meaningful, well or difficult) impacts not only our neighbor, but potentially humanity. Intimacy, our love for a spouse or equivalent, may encompass children, neighbors, all other human beings, God, nature or the universe.

Inner transformation is possible through any one sphere.  In the context of Lifetrack, the breakthrough point is through the intimacy sphere (couple relationship).  Through this most important and difficult relationship the couple is taught to disarm their defenses (anxiety, anger, physical symptoms, depression and psychosis) that are triggered by rising intimacy.

Other approaches to internal change may attempt to go through the Self (spiritual teachings) or through achievement (aligning one’s inner purpose and outer achievement).

If we grow in all spheres and can do so with playfulness and humor from within (we do not take ourselves too seriously), we may experience true self, intimacy and achievement, and also enjoy each moment.  We can change the world by experiencing change within ourselves.  From this position of inner peace, friendliness, physical wellbeing, happiness and mastery, effective action is strengthened.

As we grow our presence in our self, intimacy and achievement spheres, we can grow to encompass a larger, healthier world.  We incorporate the world in ourselves and experience ourselves in the world.

Copyright © 2010 Lifetrack Corporation

Read our section Happiness and Health, a Science of Health (life way), Criteria for Health Models (science of happiness), Happiness Defined? Quantified?  (cycle of life),  Happier? (fear of the unknown),  Why Positive Mental Health Works (objective subjective), and Applications (international behavior).

Visit http://www.PositiveMentalHealthFoundation.com to understand individuals at their best, happiest, and most creative form.  Link to us to promote health and happiness.

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Life Purpose, Finding Spirituality, Spiritual Living
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A Science of Happiness and Health?

Wellness is not the absence of disease. It is the presence of something — the question is of what?

Certain basic psychological needs, when fulfilled, lead to greater happiness and success.  These basic psychological needs are just as important as the body’s need for food, water, and sex.  Failure to meet and balance them can lead one to experience a variety of stress symptoms, burnout or divorce.  After prolonged neglect of basic psychological needs, one may become physically sick, or experience signs of stress.  At that juncture, it is important to take action.

Health in Positive Terms

Even though our happiness depends on fulfilling basic psychological needs, we know very little about them.

Regrettably, many in the field of psychology and psychiatry still concentrate largely upon the diagnosis and cure of disease: stress symptoms or stress types (anxiety, anger, physical symptoms, depression and psychosis).

We have forgotten that the goal of psychology is to help individuals live healthier, happier lives, as well as identify genius and optimal adjustment in any one sphere of our lives.  The medical field has spent years defining sickness.  It has yet to define what it means to be well.

Defining Psychological Health

Dr. Yukio Ishizuka, a Harvard trained Japanese psychiatrist, however, took a different path.

Instead of focusing on disease and illness, he observed that despite the unique symptoms and backgrounds of his patients, the elements that determined their well-being or distress were strikingly predictable.

This lead to a hypothesis that there may be certain psychological spheres which when fulfilled built successful psychological health, and when unfulfilled or repeatedly neglected, caused stress symptoms and made one vulnerable to disease.

Basic Psychological Needs 

By 1975, Dr. Yukio Ishizuka hypothesized that these three basic psychological needs or spheres that determined psychological health were:  the search for self, the need for intimacy, and the quest for achievement.

The Three Spheres

These three spheres –Self, Intimacy, and Achievement — as defined by the Lifetrack model of Positive Mental Health remain broad enough to encompass nearly all psychological events.

None of the three spheres exist in isolation.  Together they dynamically interact to characterize a person’s personality.

Hence, Dr. Ishizuka’s definition of psychological health is also a personality definition of man’s aspirations in a psychological sense.

Self

Traditionally, the integrity of the Self refers to the entire personality of the individual.  The Lifetrack model defines Self more narrowly as the ability and willingness to be “in touch,” “at peace, ” and “in control, ” of one’s own thoughts, feelings and actions.  Such self-awareness distinguishes human beings from their achievements and from their close relationships.  To be “in touch,” “at peace,” and “in control” of self requires the capacity to recognize and accept both positives and negatives in life, integrating them into a balanced perspective.  It also includes the flexibility to initiate, modify, and control thoughts, feelings, and actions.  We can do this by observing our Self and remaining present in the given moment.

Intimacy

Intimacy requires us to extend our thoughts, feelings, and actions beyond the self and become close to another human being. Many different types of intimate relationships such as those with a parent, spouse, significant other, children, friends, God or the universe bolster the psyche. A couple relationship, however, enables human beings to experience fullest union of personality, in all three dimensions of human intimacy – Intellectual/Social, Emotional, and Physical/Sexual.  It is for this reason, that in Lifetrack therapy, the therapist will focus on marriage intimacy or the development of an equivalent close couple relationship.

Achievement

Achievement is the capacity to reach beyond the self through the productive, creative, and the constructive expression of one’s capacities. It is an indirect way of finding an intimate union or relationship with the world in which one lives. Behind one’s work, career, athletics, hobbies or other intellectual and productive activities is the desire not only to subsist, but also to find meaning and achieve value, acceptance, respect, admiration and deep down love by doing something difficult or meaningful.  A person who is either unable or unwilling to build a relationship with the world through his or her constructive capacities may turn in desperation to destruction – an attempt to be noticed and counted and freed from total insignificance by a forced relationship of dominance.

Positive Mental Health: Balance the Cycle of Life

Regardless of one’s willingness or natural ability, experiencing wellbeing in any one sphere of life requires presence, dedication and perseverance.

There are trade-offs.  There are moments when one sphere becomes dominant.

However, when a person continuously chooses one sphere over the others, efforts become counter-productive.  At the end of one’s life one may regret having leaned too much towards the self, having thrown oneself into a love relationship at any cost, or having been consumed by achievement.

Life Definition : Genius in All Spheres of Life

When balance is forgotten, a love of life is sacrificed.  If one only experiences peace, friendliness, physical well-being, happiness and mastery in one sphere of life, then all time spent in the others spheres feels ‘wasted.’   We are not present and this is a source of great pain and frustration.  To be a genius in inner well-being is to be a genius in all three spheres, to be fully present in our self, intimacy and achievement spheres.

Beyond Work, Love and Play?

Although these three spheres have long been the subject of poets, philosophers, intellectuals, and theologians, Dr. Ishizuka goes beyond saying that health is work, love and play.  He does so by defining a whole model of human personality based on these three psychological aspirations, a method to surpass our own previous best level of adjustment in each of the three spheres, and a means to put our setbacks and fear into perspective by observing the true nature of things (objective subjective), quantifying happiness and tracking our progress.  He does all of that with a great sense of balance, skill and humor.  Rather than pointing to one life way or cycle of life, he has defined spheres of psychological health that define inner health at any given moment.

Life Purpose: A Model of Health Combining East-West

“Everywhere I go, ” wrote Freud, “I find a poet has been there before me.”

We all can and should come up with insights on our own happiness and health.  The advantage of a model based on basic psychological needs that encompass insights from the East and West is that it helps us to better recognize, develop, and fulfill the limits and capabilities of the human psyche.

By defining psychological health in positive terms and developing a means to quantify and track it, Dr. Yukio Ishizuka is contributing to a Science of Health.  In the last 35 years of his work on a model of positive mental health, over two thousand individuals have used his Lifetrack method to go beyond crisis and surpass a previous best level of psychological health.

Building Inner Health: A Life Way?

The experience of over 2000 individuals tracking daily their health in the three spheres of self (self definition), intimacy (love definition) and achievement (work definition) as well as their daily perception of their physical condition, positive peaks of well-being (peace, friendliness, physical well-being, happiness, and mastery) and negative peaks of stress (anxiety, anger, physical symptoms, depression and psychosis) has provided great insight into our desire for happiness and health, and to resistance against it.

Life Questions :  Find Love?  Work first?  Self esteem help?

Most of us do not build inner health.  We just deal with stress and problems as they arise.

The Lifetrack personality model attempts to understand how the three spheres of self, intimacy and achievement grow, interact and influence each other in our experience of health or distress.

The question then becomes what is the best way to achieve a greater sense of well-being (peace, friendliness, physical well-being, happiness, mastery)?

Should one first seek peace in self, the realization of achievement or fulfillment in intimacy?

The answer may depend on where we are in life and who can help us should we be overwhelmed.

Overcome Fear of the Unknown

Experience Positive Mental Health

To experience well-being (peace, friendliness, physical well-being, happiness and mastery) one may attempt to do so through any sphere.

Regardless of the sphere one approaches inner well-being, one has to struggle to overcome stress or fear in the form of anxiety, anger, physical-symptoms, depression or even psychosis.

Fear can be triggered from a difficult past or even be dormant in people who have had positive experiences.  They exist in all of us to differing degrees and can surface when we push beyond a previous best level of self, intimacy or achievement.

Reach Out, Overcome Fear, Recognize Stress Types, UseStress Techniques, Beyond ‘ I hate life ‘ to new Life Purpose

If you are overwhelmed, you may wish to reach out to loved ones or seek professional help.  There is nothing wrong with that.  Often it is the strongest who push themselves beyond areas where most would have given up.  Anyone can reach their threshold of stress if they push themselves too hard, and too long.  Each of us can experience the joy of building in the present, of living fully one’s sense of self, close relationships and meaningful achievement.

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Use the resources on our site to build, fortify, and develop each sphere of life (Self, Intimacy and Achievement) far beyond a previous best or optimal level.

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Personality Test : Tracking Happiness and Health using the Lifetrack Model of Positive Mental Health

For those wishing to track one’s own health and gain insights on one’s Personality or pattern of coping based on love, work and play, download (3MG) Lifetrack Therapy published in the Psychiatry Journal University of Ottawa, Vol 13, No. 4, 1988.  The article contains a summary of the positive mental health approach and a full definition sheet and room to track your inner health.  Criteria for a Science of Happiness and Positive Mental Health Models are provided by the reknown psychologist Jahoda.

You can use such definitions to rate your experience daily.

The Lifetrack model of Positive Mental Health and Lifetrack sheet can be used to take a global look at your inner health or to surpass a previous best level of self, intimacy and achievement.  Be aware as you rate yourself, you may experience resistance in the form of stress.  This is good stress.

The Study of Health and Happiness by the Positive Mental Health Foundation Site and Applications to Sciences

Whether you want to build psychological health in your own life, or understand how assumptions about healthy human beings can change other fields such as economics, join us.

We encourage individuals from all walks of life, including editors, journalists, writers, artists, scientists, housewives, academics, economists, psychologists and the general public to contribute to a deeper understanding of topics such as psychological health, happiness, and optimal adjustment.  Together we hope to better understand healthy human beings and build a new paradigm of personality based on health.

Copyright © 2010 Lifetrack Corporation

Ready Made Links to the Positive Mental Health Foundation:

Happiness and Health, Cycle of Life, Life Way, Life Questions
A Japanese Harvard trained psychiatrist explores happiness and health, cycle of life, life purpose, life questions, stress types, and a life way that integrates both East and West.
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Happiness and Health : Life Way? Positive Mental Health Foundation
Happiness and Health a life way?  Life questions, cycle of life, psychological health by the Positive Mental Health Foundation
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Personality test : life definition as self, intimacy & achievement, happiness and health, self definition, work definition, love definition, by Positive Mental Health Foundation
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Life Questions : Work first ?  Find Love ?  Self Esteem Help ?
Life questions : a life way ?  Happiness and health through work first ?  Self esteem help ? Ability to find love ?, Life through work definition, love definition, self definition
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