The Theory & Practice of Well-Being: Your Comprehensive & Actionable Guide to the Good Life

By Lee LaMee

What does it mean to live a good life?

Well-being can be a difficult concept to define, but if it's lacking in your life, the absence is undeniable. Perhaps it feels like disillusionment with everyday routines or frustration with basic challenges. Expectations—those of others and your own—can be overwhelming. Maybe it feels like you're simply trying to survive.

Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner Lee LaMee has created a comprehensive process for identifying patterns holding you back and increasing awareness for improved well-being. In The Theory & Practice of Well-Being, Lee examines the intersection of mental, physical, and spiritual health, exploring the components necessary for being—and staying—balanced, healthy, and empowered. With a pragmatic approach, Lee provides a framework for understanding dangerous self-deception, the differences between happiness and enduring contentment, and the five fundamental concepts to master for a foundation you can build upon. With real examples, thought-provoking exercises, and helpful tools, The Theory & Practice of Well-Being is a must-read for anyone searching for enlightenment, growth, and long-lasting wellness.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Aug 2, 2022
• ISBN: 9781544529417

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Copyright © 2022 Lee LaMee

The Theory & Practice of Well-Being: Your Comprehensive & Actionable Guide to the Good Life

All rights reserved.

Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-5445-2939-4

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-5445-2940-0

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-5445-2941-7

To Mike and to Kandye

Contents

Introduction

Part 1: Mental

Chapter 1: The Why and How of Change

Chapter 2: Attachment, Our Personality Makeup, and Impeding Patterns

Chapter 3: Middle and Later Development

Chapter 4: Belief, Self-Deception, Resistance

Chapter 5: Distortions

Chapter 6: Core Beliefs

Chapter 7: Some Consequences of Our Distortions

Chapter 8: Taking Action

Chapter 9: Therapy

Chapter 10: Is It All Negative?

Chapter 11: Happiness vs. Contentment

Chapter 12: More Essential Skills

Chapter 13: Entropy

Chapter 14: Summing Up the Mental: What Is at Stake?

Part 2: Physical

Chapter 15: Mind–Body Connection

Chapter 16: Mental–Physical Physiology

Chapter 17: Inflammation

Chapter 18: How to Get It Right and Feel Better: The Four Pillars

Chapter 19: Summing Up the Physical: What Is at Stake?

Part 3: Spiritual

Chapter 20: Is This All There Is?

Chapter 21: Post-War Figures: Atheism and Theism

Chapter 22: Another Way of Thinking

Chapter 23: Panentheism

Chapter 24: Appreciating Personal Worth, Agency, and Autonomy in Spirituality

Chapter 25: Ability and Aim in Spiritual Thinking

Chapter 26: Summing Up the Spiritual: What Is at Stake?

Conclusion

Further Reading

Introduction

Many people I have known ultimately come to the realization that they, despite their best efforts, feel like they are being held back in life. Consider the confusing, conflicting, distracting messages we receive, and how we work these out and incorporate them into our life. When we look to solutions amid this confounding information, we are confronted with a world that is exponentially separated, compartmentalized, and specialized, missing a coherent whole. Many ask, is this all there is? Some already feel disillusioned with life.

I grew up in a small, blue-collar, midwestern town. My parents taught my sister and me to be decent and kind, work hard, and carry our own weight. Reputation, autonomy, and live and let live played important roles. Most of all, don’t be too fancy—keep things down to earth. We didn’t know or associate with any professionals. Everyone was working class. I inherited the midwestern tendency to be plain-spoken.

Growing up was almost Dickensian: the best of times, the worst of times. Sometimes it was a rough ride. My dad’s idea of comfort was folksy aphorisms like the sun will come out tomorrow or you ain’t dead yet. My mother was a bit more intent on tough love, but was more fluster and bluster with quit your whining and stop crying or I’ll give you something to cry about. This was mostly just verbal—Mom would rarely give us a spanking, and Dad almost never did—but still powerful.

The good part was being given freedom to explore. It was get out of my hair, go outside and play. I had to figure it out on my own, and by the time I was eighteen, I knew I was on my own. I knew not to expect support or guidance, let alone encouragement to go to college. Oh, and I knew pretty early on not to be gay.

I had my own sense of being held back despite my best efforts. My world was full of confusing, conflicting, distracting messages that were often compartmentalized. I was hungry for more knowledge, to make sense of the world and experience something bigger. My habit was to plunge into challenging situations and then work through them. Growing up like this was a double-edged sword, and I was determined not to get cut by it.

Why me, and why am I writing this book? I bring to this my experiences and my training, with a passion for helping people get better and enjoying the gratification from this process.

When I look back, I see that my life has been a series of concentric circles. When I reached legal adulthood, it was like I could finally go outside and play. Three weeks after my birthday, I left for what would be four years in the Air Force, striking out on my own, exploring, learning, and growing. I remember the crisp blue uniforms, snappy salutes, and sense of order and camaraderie. I felt like I belonged, at least for a time. This gave me a sense of connection to something bigger than myself along with a feeling of dedication.

Next up was slaking my long-standing thirst for knowledge. I knew I had to go about it formally—and gain the credentials that go along with it. Humanities and language enthralled me; these were the first subjects I studied in college. They exposed me to the dozens of luminaries over history that have made important contributions to our shared existence. This was a step for me in making sense of the world, finding a world much bigger than the one in which I was raised.

Yet after a year at the University of Amsterdam as an exchange student, I switched my major to nursing and stayed in Amsterdam. Four years later, fluent in Dutch, I graduated.

Later, I moved to the UK to work and study. In all, I spent eleven years in Europe, which included a lot of informal cultural learning, reaching across divides to understand and clarify a lack of knowledge on both sides. This meant a connection to a larger world, as well as, sometimes painfully, making sense of human behavior.

Some fourteen years of medical and surgical nursing in three countries taught me important lessons. These included applying specialized knowledge and being present with people from all kinds of backgrounds through some of the most difficult times in their lives, comforting, guiding, and helping them with the consequences of their afflictions. Dozens of times it meant being with them as they fought off death, accompanying them when death won, and spending countless hours with them and their loved ones. This meant helping people move forward when they felt held back, clarifying a flurry of messages, and trying to work across multiple boundaries in the medical world. Most importantly, this meant giving people the hope of change. Similarly, it meant the gratification of seeing others get better.

After those eleven years out of the country, I returned. I knew that as a psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner, I could get paid for doing what I love. I went on to do exactly this, now for almost as long as I worked in the medical/surgical floors. I worked in oncology psychiatry, the Veterans Administration, a small urban hospital, a community clinic, and then a private, large group practice. This included inpatient, outpatient, intensive outpatient, and consult-liaison work.

This work has involved being present with others throughout their mental adversity, in whatever form that might present. I am thankful that I was trained in therapy as well as prescribing meds. This further deepened my experience with helping people move forward, find a more coherent whole, make better sense of their world, and hope for change. Most of all, I got to see people get better, more empowered, and more motivated to find well-being.

As far as spirituality, my parents did not pressure us to be religious. I told myself I was an atheist for a while. Later I had a born-again experience and lived in the evangelical Christian camp for about seven years. Finally, the more I learned, the more I couldn’t live authentically with the serious contradictions and flaws in thinking. I left the church but knew I didn’t want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. I did want to live genuinely as a gay man. It’s okay—I’m good now and happily married (to a man).

My spiritual experience awakened something enduring and immeasurable in me. It connected me to something immensely bigger than myself and reinforced my deep hunger for knowledge and learning. I taught myself a lot of theology over the years. Coupled with my work with medical and psychiatric patients in existential distress, this has helped clarify a coherent, holistic way of thinking. It likewise gives me hope for change, for moving into a bigger experience of life, and for empowerment.

Consistent throughout was and is respect for others and the paramount value of working collaboratively. What has become very clear to me is the value of working with someone to find what motivates them, what they can own and take responsibility for. The benefit of this is the pride that comes from seeing the results of working on yourself. I often tell new patients that I’m not selling them a used car; I’m working with them to find what will give them positive change in their lives. This entails working not only with their painful symptoms but also with problem-solving and coping skills that will continue to serve them.

While I do bring my experience, education, and expertise to working with patients, they are the ones who need to make informed decisions about their treatment. I would contend that the most productive work entails gaining patient buy-in and then offering my thoughts, recommendations, gentle challenges, and guidance. When a person generates their own solutions, that person is much more likely to implement them. Similarly paramount is operating from a core belief (more on this later) of each person having inalienable value and dignity worthy of respect.

I have often heard that you should write about what you know, where you feel strongest, and what you feel most passionate about. That said, let me tell you what this book is and is not.

Part of the WHO’s definition of well-being points to having our basic physical survival needs met. That said, these survival aspects of quality of life are not the scope of this book. This book is about a larger notion of well-being, for individuals.

I will provide you with lots of valuable, usable information to assist you to move forward, find a coherent whole, and connect to something bigger than yourself. This is not an academic tome with pretentious jargon and tons of reference materials, though I do attribute authors where necessary. I do aim to speak clearly, nothing too fancy. I have not included endless examples of mock patients—perhaps because I value their privacy a great deal and am more of a big-picture person. What I do include is patterns, exercises to work with new content, and patient scenarios at the end of each section. This book is not the magical pill that will suddenly solve all your problems. I still haven’t found my magic wand. This book will call on you to make your own efforts and implement behavioral change along with the insight you gain.

This is also not a book promoting self-centeredness or self-absorption. It is not about exploiting others or treating them badly. The core concept is: Someone with a solid sense of self, with secure well-being, sees not only their own value and dignity but also that of others. This person has thoughtful, appropriate self-respect and self-compassion, and can extend it to others.

This is not just a book about feeling good, being happy, or seeking pleasure, all of which are fleeting. We waste a lot of time pursuing these when really they should ensue. Instead, I look at the notion of content. Content can be a noun, as in substantive information. Yet it can also be an adjective, as in being satisfied with what we are or have, not wanting more. These lead to the more enduring concept of contentment.

A very important part of mental health work is a similar look at process. As in: a continuous action, operation, or series of changes taking place in a definite manner, while at the same time looking at content as substantive information. I will be providing you with lots of specialized content to help you in your effort to become content.

Epicurus believed that the proper mission of philosophy is to relieve human misery. This was the therapy of his time, and as such, therapy continues to have this mission. I wrote this book to reach thoughtful, open-minded, curious readers who are interested in increasing well-being in their lives. Over the years, I’ve heard many people discuss the concept of well-being, but ask someone to define it, and you’ll likely get a lot of hesitation.

I present a unified and coherent conception of well-being, which is, necessarily, more of a description than a definition. I want you to have a clearer, better, usable understanding of what well-being is and be able to implement it in your life in a powerful way.

While I quote from a fair number of authors, this does not imply that I agree with all of their ideas. I write with a collaborative spirit. So please take from this book what you find helpful, and perhaps hold on to some important part of the rest that could be helpful should your circumstances and outlook change.

I don’t equate well-being solely with mental health. Instead, I present the broader idea that mental health affects everything in our lives. Specifically, how does mental health contribute to and affect physical health? I also find it