Month: August 2012

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The Fifteen Minute Warning

KIDS HAVE FUN....ME WISH TO BE KID AGAIN TOO

(Photo credit: Kenny Teo (zoompict))

The five-minute warning wasn’t enough for my daughter.

Mommy, please tell me when it is fifteen minutes before it’s time to leave.  So I have time to finish my game.

The truth is, sometimes I forget to give a warning at all and we just have to go when we have to go!  Warning or no warning.  But my daughter had a point that reminded me how often we take for granted or even assume we have a right to be warned.  Oh the rights we possess!  Or not.  Well, not really.  We don’t have many rights in life and “the fifteen minute warning” isn’t one of them.

We have the right to love and friendship, (with who is another discussion,) but not much else.  Yet even without the right, many of us have the privilege of “the fifteen minute warning.”  And time tics away and what have we done with it?

At work we are told about working better as a team member.

At home we are asked to stop yelling when we are upset.

We are warned.  Time passes.  Pride keeps us from being friendly to ourselves often enough.  Friendly would be to forget about how we are right and hear the warning.  Being right is over-rated.  Friendly is the crisis.  Friendly is to go toward the wanting.

If we can’t do this even though we know we hear, maybe we don’t have what it takes?  That’s a turn in the warning to get an opinion of “why” from a medical professional and then to respond to the recommendations.  “The fifteen minute warning” is designed to improve our experience and readiness.  If we can’t, than shift gears into finding out why.

Questions:  What warnings have you heard that improved your experience and readiness?  Please tell us your story

Self-Care Tip:  Deliberately use warnings as the privilege that they are, rather than entitlement, to be friendlier to yourself.

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Connecting to Celebrate

Really Big Pumpkin

Really Big Pumpkin (Photo credit: alansheaven)

Hello friends.

I’m just back from two weeks of travel through four states involving lots of family, too much food and the large Iowa State Fair experience.

I spilled yellow mustard on my new clothes.  Mustard stains.

In both Iowa and Missouri, I had the honor and pleasure of conducting two workshops on being a friend to yourself.  They were well received and seemed to be considered a message most in attendance hadn’t previously considered.  I was and am really grateful to be a part of this.

I said some inappropriate things as I look back.

In Iowa approximately 45 of us processed being a friend to yourself specifically as related to “Sleep.”

In Missouri about 30 of us kept it more general, covering the foundational concepts of using the tools: Simplicity, Starting and ending with Me, Using our freedom to choose more deliberately, and Working for Me as responsibly as working to earn money at our day job.

In Iowa, the workshop was recorded, but I regret that in Missouri I forgot.  My Toastmaster friends are more awake now I am sure.  I have yet to get a hold of the video to view and critique but am hoping it will surface soon.

I am eager to see my dog now, who has been boarded at the fine Dogtopia of Temecula.  This is the first time we’ve ever boarded an animal.  The threat of repeating history of his escape from our property when we are gone has influenced our choice.  I can’t wait to see how he is.

This is a little of what I’ve been doing lately including imperfect behaviors.  Connecting with you is a way of celebrating.  Thank you.

How bout you?  Please tell us your story.

Keep on.

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Everything starts and ends with Me ….Still talking about it

You make your own definitions of Me, self, and friendship. This is mine I share because it is friendly to Me. It is not meant to be a template.

I am the bride of Christ. When I speak of Me, I speak as one claimed by Love and in Love. When I speak of Me, I speak of this person I am in that complex union, dynamic and without lines. My self is the same as to say, Me with Christ and Christ with Me.

Using the term, Me, is a general term for that part that remains in each of us that is timeless, unchanged by trauma or indignity. The Me describes who you or I are still in any dimension or medical condition. The Me does not depend on a heart beat.

Being a friend to yourself means believing and treating yourself in ways that are consistent with your belief that although we are victimized in life, being the victim is a free choice. We are free to choose.

Out of this, our friendship grows to include the truth that we accountable to ourselves. We don’t look for nidus of control outside of our friend, Me.

Our friendship grows further to include presence with our personal journey, which in turn heightens our presence with what connections we share with others. These connections naturally require bank to generate and maintain and bank, as in any country, requires hard work. To serve others demands funds, even emotional and behavioral funds, physical funds and sociological.

Everything starts and ends with Me. (Refer to above.)

Question: What is your “Me, self, and friendship?” Please tell us. I’d love love to hear.

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Consider Sleep as a Symptom of Brain Health

English: Lou Ruvo Brain Institute

English: Lou Ruvo Brain Institute (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

When the brain gets sick, what does it look like?  Do we grow warts, or turn purple or loose our thumbs?  How does our brain say,

Help!

Through emotions and behaviors.  That’s how.

If we were an internist, a primary care physician, we would look at the vital signs.  We’d put our fingers on the wrist, count beats of the heart and breathing, and measure the pressure in the blood filled arteries.  This would tell us some of the story, the introduction to the body.

A church secretary came in complaining of indigestion times two weeks….

Or,

In a far off land, there once was a young maiden who by chance came to a magic filled glade…

Smile.

How does one do this in psychiatry though?  We start with the vital sign of SLEEP.

A farmer in the vast expanse of corn fields went each night to his bed with determination, gritted teeth and racing thoughts.  He worried over things that others thought were insignificant.  He ruminated and chewed over information.  Making decisions followed him around as if each were a crisis life balanced on.  The farmer was awake in the night for hours before his mind turned off.  And when he awakened, he was not refreshed….

Question:  Are you comfortable with considering sleep as a symptom of brain health?  When do you decide to look for medical reasons for poor sleep verses adjustment issues?  Please tell us your story.

Self-care tip:  Get to know your story to know better about your health.

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