Choices

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Do The Opposite. For Your Self.

Condomaniac

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Self-Care Tip #121 – Do the opposite, do the “un,” and go where you don’t want to go.  Be a friend to yourself.

Frank, accomplished in chess, employed in a 3 digit salary job, married with children, and he heard that things were going well.  From other people.  In his opinion, Frank believed the inside life-details were more destructive than the redemption of the apparent details.  Frank listed himself off to me like a confession, but he got little relief from the exercise.  It didn’t change that he was still addicted to sex, ashamed and the addiction was changing his ability to function in the other areas of his life.  He was taking more risks and realized that if he didn’t get clean, he’d lose “everything” but the addiction.  Not wanting the addiction didn’t make it go away.

How many of us wrinkle our nose at the Frank’s out there!  How we avert.  Either side is not really good or bad.  It just is.  Frank is addicted.  And we are ignorant.  Sex addiction is in the recesses and communes of where any of us live.  And, “we” are no better than they or worse.  It just is that way.  The qualifiers are the stink that kill our connections.  The qualifiers are rotten.

One thing I love about Jesus’ earth-story is that He was always un-everything.  He was Un-segregation, un-rules, un-prejudice, un-divided, and many people thought he was un-qualified.  Wherever these things were, He went there.  I love seeing people who use Him to draw lines between their spaces.  To say, “This is because Jesus wouldn’t…”  Hmm.  Jesus wasn’t scared of mucking up in the chaos of people’s lives.  Jesus not being scared is actually the wrong way to say it.  Let’s say rather, Jesus honed in straight to the muck and chaos, drawn there because He couldn’t and didn’t want to stay away.  We are not so loving as that but who cares about motives?  I also say with confidence that Jesus/God understood biology much better than we did then, now or will.

When we can look at each other objectively, when we don’t personalize what isn’t about us, we can let go of some of what separates us.  It goes both ways.  We are afraid of Frank and what he does.  Frank is afraid of what he does and of us.  But it’s not the fear so much as it is the qualifiers that ruin us.  Bad, good, Clang!  Down go the dividers.

None of this is meant to minimize the pain that these things bring on, such as addiction.  Rather, taking away whatever is dividing us helps us be more present with the pain, with each other, and often leads to healing.  It is another opposite, another “Un,” another Jesus-move.  Doing just the opposite of what we think should be done.  Got to love that Man!

Why would any of “us” want to be connected to the addict, or to whomever is doing something hurtful, scary, negative whatever it may be?  Why?  For your self of course.  Our life is better if we are.  That is a motive I think is worth pursuing.

Question:  How has your life gotten better when you did the opposite of what you felt like doing?  Please tell me your story.

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Who Cares What Your Diagnosis Is?

Wheelchair basketball at the 2008 Summer Paral...

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Self-Care Tip #115 – If it’s not serving you well, don’t waste your time on it.  Be a friend to yourself.

Trixie Hidalgo, advocate to end violence in America, tells me that many of the people engaging in gang crimes tell her that they are put in their life positions (poor, stereotyped, impoverished) by the people who have the power, to keep those people in power and to keep them down.  They have some credible arguments we’ve shared before in history relating to oppression such as race, color, gender, money, or status.  Are these people victims?  Sure, why not.  But is that the point here?

The victims reminded me of a clinic I was in the other day.  I was working with Marcus and his father.  The father was torn about where to go to get his disabled son, Marcus, treatment.  Marcus was disabled with both brain illnesses and severe psychosocial stressors.  Currently we found Marcus, 2 years into treatment with me, and as of yet, father and mother (divorced without amicable terms) had yet to engage in treatment with me.  They wanted to know why Marcus was the way he was.  Father pointed at Mother and Mother pointed at Father.  They blamed other things as well, the schools not providing the right services, the medications for not working, his genes, and more.  Meanwhile, Marcus is tearing up his classroom and his own life.  He is barely functional socially.  Moody and volatile.  Anxious with physical symptoms.  He was having multiple medical work-ups going successively for various physical complaints.

Before I let them go, I told his parents, “Who cares what his diagnoses are?  It’s not about the diagnosis.”  The purpose of a diagnosis is to serve the patient.  The patient doesn’t serve the diagnosis.  Right now, Marcus was serving the quest for his diagnoses.  If all they can see is that, and they miss the fact that their son isn’t functioning, he’s depressed and anxious and violent and no one can stand to be around him, Marcus is worsening continually while they go on debating – they’ve missed “IT.”

They’ve missed it.  And so have we when we waste time counting up the offenses we’ve directly or indirectly suffered.  We miss it when we increase our injury by holding ourselves responsible to our history.  I asked Marcus’ parents what the point of what they were doing for Marcus was.  I ask the victims of America, what the point is when they point to history to answer for their present condition.  If it’s not serving you well, if it’s not doing something good for you, than what are you doing with it?  Do good things for yourself.

For the victims, for Marcus, and for Marcus’ parents, 1st make sure we weren’t missing something medical that was keeping them from having life quality.  You can’t give what you don’t have.  Then move on to the psychosocial issues and spiritual and so on.  What ever we ran into that missed our point, we’d walk past it together and on to something that served us well.

If you’d like to read more on this topic, read more in “It’s Time to Grow Up” and “The Whole World Becomes Blind.”

Question:  How have you managed to move past things that weren’t serving you well?  Please tell me your story.

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Toughing It Out! …Is Not What You Think.

Mental Health of our Military

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Self-Care Tip #114 – Tough it out.  Be a friend to yourself.

Trying to tough it out is good it’s just not what most people think.

Many people think that toughing it out means staying med-free and getting through melancholy, anxiety, emotional chaos with gritted teeth.  They gather a degree of commendation from weathering out the behavioral and emotional problems until they either feel better or don’t.

This is not the kind of toughing it out that I’m calling worthy of our life efforts.  It is in fact the opposite.  Toughing it out is doing what may be socially and culturally counterintuitive.  Getting medical care sooner than later.  Not waiting to see what will happen before getting medical care if it is indicated.  Believing the medical data, the physician you trust, the knowledge that mental illness is medical, biological and often PROGRESSIVE over time.

Waiting means you are getting more ill on a cell level and at higher risk for your future and waiting is not being tough.

Toughing it out is digging into your courage bank every day to take that pill when you feel ashamed of it.  Toughing it out is fighting for your brain’s future.  Toughing it out is sacrificing what ever you need to, to give your loved ones and yourself the healthiest you possible.  Even if that means talking yourself into it, going up against your fears, ignoring prejudice, ignoring opposing recommendations from your favorite sources.

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This calls for thick skin.

Candace tells me she still intuitively can’t believe this, even though her mind tells her it is true.  She takes her medication but it still hurts a little every time.  Like she’s betraying herself.  Like she must grieve for herself.  Candace says the apparent calm, decrease in anxiety, improved relationship with her children, and the flowering hope eases her inner psychic pain.  Candace is drawing strength every day from the growing evidence of health.  Candace is tough.

Question:  What are you getting tough with in your life?  How do you do it?  Please tell me your story.

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When Suicide Almost Made Sense

Hello world. Please comment.

nancy says:
November 17, 2010 at 8:01 am (Edit)
I could write a book….but suffice it to say, to the day she died, my mother never even told her best friend that I had had a breakdown and was on medication, my sister said I couldn’t possibly be a Christian and be mentally ill, people at church have told me that they actually walked across pews to avoid talking with me when I was sick, and, even though I’m off all medications but Klonopin and seeing a therapist only every three or four months “just to keep in touch”, I can’t go anywhere or meet anyone new without feeling as if I’m wearing a sign saying “Mentally Ill” around my neck. My attitude about people with emotional problems? God bless them…and I pray that they have a really good connection with HIm. It (and the love of my family) is the only thing that kept me alive.

Question: aside from the obvious nausea and anger that stigma and prejudice bring on, what do you have to say? Please tell me your story.

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When It Is Time To Take Medication

"Yard with Lunatics"

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When is it time to use medications for mental illness?

It is time to consider a medical cause for your behavior and mood when:

1.  you can no longer control them

2.  they affect the various areas of your life

3.  you start having other physical symptoms not accounted for through medical exam and studies, such as:

  • sleep changes (Pearl:  Sleep is known as the vital sign in psychiatry.)
  • change in energy
  • gastrointestinal – stomach upset, nausea/vomiting/diarrhea, change in appetite
  • neurological – headache, numbness, tingling, shaking, change in response time physically or verbally

I’m sure I missed a few things, but roughly, these are guidelines that can apply to most mental illnesses on multiple spectrums, such as anxiety, mood, psychosis, addictions, and even character pathology.

According the numbers count done by NIMH:

…about one in four adults — suffer from a diagnosable mental disorder in a given year. When applied to the 2004 U.S. Census residential population estimate for ages 18 and older, this figure translates to 57.7 million people.  …mental disorders are the leading cause of disability in the U.S. and Canada.

When you next go outside and walk in a crowd, count them.  One, two, three, mental illness.  One, two, three, mental illness.  And so on….  If you suffer from mental illness, you are not alone.

If you buy any of this, if you see these things in yourself, consider seeing a physician for further evaluation and possible medical care.

Self-Care Tip #108 – Take medication if it’s medical.  Be a friend to yourself.

Question:  How has your definition of mental illness affected your ability to get treatment?  Or how has it affected your interaction with those who are in treatment?  Please tell me your story.

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Related Articles from FriendtoYourself.com
  • Mental Illness Relapses When Medications Are Stopped http://bit.ly/pA4kxo
  • Number One Reason For Relapse In Mental Illness  http://bit.ly/rt1qJf
  • Are Your Meds Safe?  http://bit.ly/lh1cBh
  • Say Yes to Medication And No To Drugs  http://bit.ly/oX12i0
  • Fears of Addiction To Medications for Brain Illness http://bit.ly/oWY8i4
  • Other Fears of Medication For Brain Illness  http://bit.ly/qdHksR
  • Afraid of Meds  http://bit.ly/rjt7wY
  • Full Treatment Response Means a Better Future  http://bit.ly/ph84ZU
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It’s Time To Grow Up

 

 

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Fragile Annie writes a blog called, “It’s Time To Get Over How Fragile You Are.”  Isn’t that a great name?  She own’s her frailty, own’s that it has affected her life, and own’s what it’s time to do now.  All in a name and a title.

When I was in psychotherapy, talking on about injustices suffered, my feelings, the rightness of my condition – my therapist said, “It’s time to grow up Sana.”  I still feel the punch in my stomach and the quiet immediately following.  I couldn’t breath for a bit.  Just nodded my head.  “Ok.”  …I said, “Ok” a few times.  I don’t remember much else of what he told me but I don’t think I’ll ever forget that.  He’d be satisfied with his work with me if he knew.

After all, it’s not such a small thing to grow up, or “get over” our frailty.  It’s not such a small thing to see our need.  It’s not so little to act on it.  These are things that champions do.  These are things any coach, parent, therapist, teacher would be proud to be a part of.  These are the things that make the difference between falling victim to your history, or claiming the rights to your now and to your future.

Think about what is upsetting you the most.  What seems to keep at you and trip you and keep you back and keep you right where it left you last?  It’s time to grow up.

Self-Care Tip #106 – In Fragile Annie’s own words, “It’s time to get over how fragile you are.”  Be a friend to yourself.

Question:  What has knocked your breath out in a good way, sending you off towards growth?  Please tell me your story.

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Growing Up Is Not Necessarily The Same as Growing Away

 

cant decide so dance

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Self-Care Tip #105 – Grow up, think on your own, and stay connected.  Be a friend to yourself.

Staying connected doesn’t mean loosing your freedom.  Staying connected doesn’t mean immaturity.  And independent thought doesn’t mean disconnecting from others or your foundation in life.

When we move into adulthood, we move into roles requiring responsibility, autonomous decision-making, teaching like parents.   This is confusing don’t you think when we were designed to be connected?  Well when something feels so wrong inside, listen to it.  There is a incongruence with what you intuitive know.  Independence includes dependence

Adulthood means learning to have creative thought while being willing to learn.  It means disconnecting while remaining connected.  It’s not all-or-none.  It’s seeing the strength in vulnerability.  Part of taking care of “Me” includes choosing dependence.

Dependence never takes away freedom.  Sometimes when I listen to people telling me how I should feel or think, I feel caged and start doing things to make me feel less caged.  Unfortunately sometimes that isn’t a healthy thing, like eating chocolate or… well it’s often eating for some reason.  Other people do this too.  They may cut on themselves or bang their head.  Unnecessary, because we are free no matter.  Drugs.  Whatever it is that in the moment somehow springs you from the phantom cage only to put you in another.

Question:  How do you live free yet connected?  How do you deal with feelings of infancy, immaturity, loosing freedom when it comes?  Please tell me Your story.

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Your Life. Your Choice. Why Are You Still Negotiating?

 

 

Self-Care Tip #102 – Take what is yours and live.  Be a friend to yourself.

Cheri came, still dressed in work scrubs, with her 2 daughters, 8 years old and 3 years old.  Having finished their dinner date, they were swinging by for her appointment before going home.  Cheri told her kids, “Get out now and go sit in the lobby!  If you don’t listen to me I’ll….”  Turning to me, she said, “It’s never enough!  I just took them to dinner and they do this to me!  No matter what I do…!”

1.  Cheri tells me she’d like to cope better with simple stressors such as redirecting her kids

2.  We talk at length about her perception of her kids abusing her.

Cheri is married.  Her husband laughs at her for “…having to take those drugs to be normal!”  “…But he just sleeps his problems away.  He doesn’t deal with them like I do.  He has no idea!”

3.  We talk more about her perception that her husband is responsible for her place in life.

Cheri believes if she doesn’t take more than 2 pills a day, she is less “dependent” on drugs.  She says, “I don’t want to go on like this!”  Her tears continue talking when her voice stops.  She is ashamed.

4.  The concepts supporting taking care of yourself as being the kick-off point to caring for anyone else comes up.

5.  We talk some more about who is “The Why” for what we do or don’t do.

Cheri feels less shame, but it’s still there.  She is willing to give a new medication a try but clearly doesn’t buy it all yet.  She’s going home with her girls to her husband with new pills.  And hope?  Yes.  It is all connected.  It all pulses together and is a living negotiation of sorts.

Disease <–> behavioral/emotional negative symptoms <–> victim role <–> self-neglect <–> greater crisis <–> seeking help <–> responsible self-care <–>  healing <–> fewer behavioral/emotional negative symptoms <–> emotional abuse from husband may continue but is no longer seen as responsible for personal choices and self-care <–> less shame <–> further healing and so on….  (Lub-dub…Lub-dub…)

 

hbofamily.com

 

Cheri is still negotiating her deal in life.  She doesn’t realize that it’s already hers for the taking.  Her life.  Her choice.

The deal is already made.  Take it or leave it.  Your life to live.

Question:  How are your negotiations?  Do you see them as still in progress or settled.  Please tell me your story.

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It’s Not All Good

 

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Self-Care Tip # 100 – Don’t forget what you know to be true, when other people don’t keep up with your learning curve.

You have finally started to understand that You take care of you.  You bought into that when you do, you can do more of what you want to do for others.  You believe that the responsibility to be healthy in mind and body starts and ends with the “Me.”  Isn’t that wonderful?  Yes.  Don’t forget it when other people don’t keep up.

Cynthia was on a self-awareness high.  She saw through open eyes her neglected self.  She was astounded looking at her thrashing person giving her last bit of stuff to the jobs she infrequently satisfied.  Instead of feeling defeated, however, she now felt empowered.  She was so ready!

It went well for a time.  Her husband noticed, approved, commended, and encouraged her.  They talked about it.  Her kids, reluctantly let go of her legs so she could leave to exercise.  At work, she personalized less and was not as interested in office politics – contented to do her own job.  Then it slowly started.  People started resenting her for it.  Her peers starting making jabs.  The kids would climax and tantrum just as she was about to leave to exercise.  But what really surprised her, and not in a good way, was when her husband got upset.  Not a lot.  But enough that the guilt she had talked down seized the opportunity to multiply.  It was like gremlins.  When the guilt gets wetted like that, it multiplies!

Doing what is right is not always celebrated.  Cynthia is working through that now and every day, as it is for you and me, she is finding the courage to get past that.

Question:  What has surprised you good or bad in your journey towards self-care?  What have you needed the most courage for?  Please tell me your story.

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Choose Well, What You Will Live For

Self-Care Tip #96 – Choose well, what you will live for.

Yesterday we discussed finding our reference point for why we do what we do.  All day today I found my thoughts returning there and had to spend another blog-post-opportunity on it’s “friendliness.”  I was happy to find that I was not the only one when I got a reader‘s response:

I’m still coming out of the fog of doing anything for survival-as-a-habit.  As in, being in panicked survival mode even when all is calm and safe–that is no way to live, any dog knows better than to live like that.

I contrast her response with my colleague’s:

The intentions of any life is self-serving.  Altruism doesn’t exist except in God, (which I accede not to understand), and people can’t rise above their own genetics.

Now this man is the kindest, sweetest, most generous man you’d ever meet and he doesn’t say these things with any meanness, anger towards a past offense, or to turn people from God.

However, contrast his take on our reference point in life with the reader’s above.  She talks about her choice.  Can a choice transcend our genetics?

You may remember some of a previous post mentioning the work of MIT neuroscientist, Sebastian Seung. His research tells us that memories are stored in our neurons and not in our genes.  Eg. Habits are memories and not genetic therefore not permanent.

There is an interplay between choice and genetics.  YES!!@!!  We aren’t robots!  😉  Nor are we a picture without a frame.  We so often don’t think about all the good that our genetics do for our lives.  There’s just so much talk about how we fight our genetics.  We have been given both a design and free choice.  Of course we can’t change our design, but as our reader later said so well:

For some people it is a process just to ask “why am I doing this?” … AND actually ask that question to themselves. (man-o-man the times I have asked everyone else why I was doing something) Maybe it will take sometime for an answer to come, but asking means we are on our way!

Choice is the gift from God that the apple and the serpent and thousands, or billions of years (what ever is true) can’t take away from us.  Only you can.

Be a friend to yourself.

Question:  Where are you in process between your choice and your design?  Is the interplay one that is smooth or rocky for you?  Please tell me your story

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Are You a Victim or What?!

 

 

Number Two of Bella’s List – victim or what!?:

Last night I took my 5 year-old daughter on a sleep-over date at a hotel.  Generous I thought …and boy was it!  To me!!  I couldn’t believe how much fun I had.  I quickly realized why I had done this.

A bit of me still wants to float away on wings of the modern-martyred-Mom, and I can, because it did take a lot of time and money and energy and….  But it’s not too friendly to me.  As attractive as that flight may seem, I’ll lose air at some point and take a big fall.  Ouch.  I might fall on my kid too which is against my intuitive effort here.

Being a victim is attractive at some level, no?  My story is a softer example, but we all have tougher ones.  Like Bella’s when “she spoke of her injury.”  The gravity of her injury was created by her perception of things.  Our perception makes our emotional success.  My story about last night with my daughter sounds pretty because that’s how I perceived it.  However, I have other stories that have negative power over me as Bella’s had on her and as yours have on you.

The key here is that when we take the victim role, we aren’t just telling our story or venting.  We are feeling self-pity. But venting is not necessarily self-victimization.  Venting can be healthy.  Venting can be done without taking a victim air-bus to no-where good.  Venting can be a way of being present in your suffering, of going where the pain is and letting it lose power over you.  Self-pity only gives the suffering more power.

The great novelist and philosopher, David Foster Wallace, who courageously lived and died with major depressive disorder, encouraged,

To be just a little less arrogant. To have just a little critical awareness about myself and my certainties.

The willingness to learn or grow is the foot-path away from victim-ville.  Could we even say that being a victim is “arrogant?”  We – Me, my patient Bella, you – have we taken steps to tell our story, to be present, to live with the humility it takes to look at ourselves and not escape/fly-away?

Whatever it is you are going through, it might help to vent it!  Grow and learn and get bigger than that experience.

Self-Care Tip #94 – Get in your own space to choose freedom from self-pity.  Be a friend to Yourself.

Question:  What barriers have you felt to telling your story?  What has made it difficult to be in the space of your own feelings?  Please tell us.

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Walk Away From Your Junk

the rogers park young women's action team

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Number one on Bella’s List:

There are endless new beginnings.  Had a bad day?  Stop right where you are and call-it out.  Then if you want to, if you are willing, if you are able you can start again.

But who is able?  Anyone who wants.  Even the severely disabled can say at some level that they want to end the hurt.  New beginnings are a privilege.  They are the dandelions we pluck and make a wish on.  It reminds me of when Jesus,

walked right through the crowd and went on his way.

The people were trying to push him over the cliff and they just plane didn’t see him walk among them and away.  We do that sometimes with our “start-over” opportunities.

There’s an interplay of forces that make our new beginning possible or impossible.

  • Humility – a willingness to learn.
  • Biology – a physical ability to stop, drop and roll the fire that’s scorching our emotions
  • Insight
  • Choice – choose it

Bella told me more of her story.  After she said, “The day has been ruined!,” her husband took them all to the table.  He told the kids, “Mom’s right.  The day is ruined.  Now who wants to start over?”  And then they all prayed for a new start.  They walked away from the junk.

Self-Care Tip #93 – Start over any time, every time you want.  Be a friend to yourself.

Question:  Do you find this to be true for you?  Is it a real option to start-over when you want?  Please tell me your story.

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    Recipe for Treating Panic Disorder, According to Me

     

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    Recipe for Treating Panic Disorder, According to Me:

    1.  If it’s taking you to the emergency room feeling like you’re going to die, or your spouse can’t peel you off with your phone calls and new needs – you have a medical illness.  Get medication.

    2.  If you are afraid of being humiliated by an episode so much that you avoid public places, or if you are more fearful than not – you have a medical illness.  Get medical treatment.

    3.  If you are panicking out of the blue, without something setting you off/triggers like finding your husband in bed with your dentist – this is biological.  Get a medical physician’s opinion.

    4.  If you are awakening from sleep in a panic attack, when you feel like you have to get out of bed and escape and the episode lasts for about 10+ minutes before you recover yourself – this is not because you’re not trying hard enough.  Get on a serotonerigic therapy and a sleep aid(s).

    5.  If you are drinking more alcohol to relax and out of fear of going to bed – get suspicious and get smart.  Medication therapy or alcohol?  It stumps me when someone says they don’t feel comfortable with taking medication that has beed studied in double-blind studies on thousands of people and reviewed and analyzed and more… but they do feel comfortable with alcohol.  That’s not friendly with yourself.

    6.  If you think you are going crazy and realize your fears and suspicions don’t make sense; if you think you are possibly going psychotic over and over – you’re having a medical illness of the brain and body called panic disorder.  Get to your nearest treating physician and trust them.

     

    juno.cumc.columbia.edu

     

    7.  If this is you, don’t go get insight or supportive psychotherapy at least until you have been on medication therapy for 6-8 weeks.  What you are going through is not because your mom yells at you too much.  It doesn’t have to have a reason.  It is medical.  Treat it medically.  If you go to therapy too soon, you will see that you can’t give what you don’t have.  (I may have offended some people saying this.  Sorry.)

    8.  If you don’t get treatment, expect that depression may likely follow soon.  Anxiety and depression are bedfellows and can’t be apart for long.

      Self-Care Tip #92 – View Panic as a medical illness.  It is.  Be a friend to yourself.

      Question:  Have you or someone you known used a similar recipe or a different one?  Please tell me your story.

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      Escape Self-Loathing

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      Self-Care Tip #91 – Put the fight down and take 2 steps back.  Be a friend to yourself.

      He came in looking really good.  Chris had seen me for many years and he hasn’t always looked this way.  I said

      You look great!

      Chris shrugged and told me he had just had a long messy argument with his partner and somehow still felt alright.  In the past, after they fought and the self-loathing set in, he might have hurt himself – like using alcohol or cutting on himself to

      …just feel something different.

      I was ready to move past the story as he sounded like he was ok with it.  We talked past each other.  Me asking about his sleep, and Chris telling me clips and phrases from the argument.

      But amazingly I’m fine!  If he wanted me out today, I’d be out of there, no problem.  He just needs to say the word!

      Chris was sitting back in his chair, relaxed until then.  His hands came up and took control of his space, thrusting as he spoke.

      Being a psychiatrist, my expertise kicked in and I realized I should turn back.  Chris wasn’t ready to talk about sleep.  You see what all those years of school can do.  Not everyone knows how to pick up on such subtleties.

      Chris, maybe you aren’t so happy you argued.

      We talked more about his energy, appetite and motivation.  Then we came back to his argument.

      It’s none of his f—— business where I am during the day!  I’m not his child.  I’m his partner!  I told him…!

      And so on.  Chris still looked better than when he was in the grip of post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms, or when he was catatonic.  But he didn’t sit comfortably with himself.  And I thought, Chris has fought so hard for himself, why can’t he handle what I want to say?  And I did.  And he did.  Beautifully.  He was a brave knight on a black steed holding his wounded sides.  Life had been a battle for him, but he was making choices to fight less and live more.

      “Ok.  Yes.  You’re right.  I will next time.  That makes sense.”

      When you’re about to engage in something that in the end will make you loath yourself, choose not to.  That’s friendly to you and your other.  Say something like,

      When I was gone you felt jealous?

      Give over stage and anger and open windows and breath.  Just choose not to hurt yourself.  Winning or losing the argument, in the end, you hurt by your own choice.

      Biologically and probably spiritually Chris wouldn’t have known what to do with that years ago.  But he did now.  I saw him relax again and put his hands away.  I knew Chris had a love for Love and this clicked for him.

      I can’t describe how happy I was/am.  Being a part of his journey is a great honor.

      Question:  How have you escaped self-loathing and your mean self in the heat of the moment?  Please tell me your story.

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      Don’t Forget Your Friends Chose You Too

       

       

      Ok folks.  Not much time to write tonight.  My girly girlfriend is moving out-of-state and we’re off soon on something of a Ta-Ta! date.  Why in the world do I feel rejected?!  If I were French I might think it was the language of the heart.  But I’m not French so I can’t say what they’d say.

      Friendship requires ongoing navigation through life.  You can’t ever just sit back and expect safe waters.  The close pals go far away and although they’ll always be friends, here we find ourselves, beached and sifting sand.  Finding gold is thought to be infrequent I think when sifting sand.

      Today my daughter told me her classmate’s father lost his job.  Big ouch.  She told me, “Mommy, I wish money covered the streets everywhere so no one would ever not have enough.”  She hasn’t entirely learned what gives value to the dollar.  Friendship is like that.  Valuable and uncommon.

      My friend told me once that I chose her and she chose me.  It’s awesome to be chosen!

      So I’m off to rub my coins together and be with my friend.  She is a treasure.

      Self-Care Tip #90 – Don’t forget that your friends chose you too.  Be a friend to yourself.

      Questions:  Have you noticed that you’ve been chosen too?  Please tell me your story.

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      Lure Yourself Like a Lover

       

      Art Gallery Bangkok

      Art Joy by Marie Schem

       

      Self-Care Tip #88 – Win yourself over.  Be a friend to yourself.

      Dr. White works with mostly women in primary care medicine.  She tells me that her women so often come in tired, overextended, and they say they don’t feel good.  She wonders why they think they can run 2 full-time jobs (parenting and employment) without suffering for it.  Her counsel is to down scale.

      My patients do so much better when they are working part-time.

      Christie, a mom of 3 who works full-time, tells me tonight,

      It’s hard.

      That’s not new news but nor is it small news.  How many of us nod when on the subject of self-care.  We sagely stroke our chin yet are nowhere to be found on the list of topics of interest.  Do we even get pleasure out of taking care of ourselves?

      I think there’s a misperception here.  The hard part is not doing the 2 jobs that Dr. White’s patients work.  It is working our own person.  Maybe if we found more pleasure in caring for ourselves we would.  Maybe if we connected that caring for ourselves is the minus-1 to the starting point of caring for others.  We can get hooked.  We can.  But it won’t be the same for all of us.   Any way you turn it though, we have to make it sticky, linked to pleasure, and making sense.

      Question: Is there anything specific you can think of that contributes to self-care being a positive thing in your life?  Please tell me your story.

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      Why Are You Walking The Road Alone?

      Part of humility is not isolating.  You have to be able to receive to be a friend.  Dan Allender Ph.D. calls it suffer the kindness.

      From looking at him, I didn’t guess at first that Fink was lonely, but he was.  Under-appreciated, whenever Fink thought about making new friends, he remembered that he wasn’t young any more.  All his “real” friendships were made when he hung-out for hours, had spares in the trunk so to speak.  If one relationship didn’t develop well, he still had time and possibilities that the future offers.  In this sense, Fink had been rich.  He had after all that, maybe 3 friends he considered “real.”  But over the last several years, with real jobs and families of their own, his real friends weren’t returning his calls.  Now, he thought, he may as well as not have given them his special self.  Now he was older and not so rich.  Fink kept picking at that scab, even though he knew it wasn’t so masculine to be upset about your neglected special self.

      At times we are lonely, but have trouble valuing the relationships being offered.  We see ourselves as something set apart.  This might be part of our drive to self-preserve.  Bits of neurons fighting over signals in our brain telling us that we need to dominate to propagate our genes.  Maybe.  But there is that intersection when choice crosses.

      We remember from Sebastian Seung‘s work that our memories are not stored in our genes.  That gives us something tangible to work with.

      I remember walking on the beach with a girlfriend when we were still in medical school.  I told her, “I’m tired of feeling bad about things I never had a choice in!”  It still seems wasteful to moralize things like temperament and our nature.  In fact, we’ve argued the opposite at length in previous blog posts.  Embrace that part of you and run with it! we said.

      So what do we do with Fink?  For starters, tell him that his drives are what they are.  The real question is, what’s he going to do with his genetic drives?  Do good things with that energy?  (If we can call genetic drive an energy.)  Or will he do things that aren’t so good for him.  There comes the choice.  Fink.  Suffer the kindness.  (Thanks Dan Allender!)  In the end you will be happier and healthier for it.  Even if you are half as hot as your genes tell you you are, who cares if you are walking the road alone.

      Self-Care Tip #86 – Suffer the kindess.  Be a friend to yourself.

      Question:  What has been a barrier in your life from connecting with others?  Please tell me your story.

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      Do 3 Things to Be Different

      Self-Care Tip # 85 – When you have problems, find the difference in you.

      The best thing I heard today when I was down and out was, “It’s ok to feel that.”  What a gift!  In one strike, I dumped a load of related concerns because I believed it!  I remembered saying that same thing somewhere… to someone(s) else at other times…. 😉 It is good to remember.  It is good to be reminded if we can’t.  Whatever it takes, just remember or get reminded that it is ok to feel, however we feel.  What matters is what we do with our feelings.  I owe that to my dear Dad.

      Everyone has problems.  The difference between you and someone else is what you do with your problems.

      How I miss the days of my Dad’s young healthy self.  I will always keep his essence and look for him come the new creation.  I will know him.  He will have a body that speaks his essence materially.  He will look like a warm fuzzy I’ve decided.

      It was always ok to feel any way I felt around him.  He mostly didn’t notice, so he had that going for him.  But when he did, he told me these 3 things.

      1. I wasn’t alone in having problematic feelings.
      2. They don’t have to be a problem.
      3. I have a choice of what to do with them.

      When a patient comes in with a strangle hold on feelings that have abused them, I think “Alright!”  They are making a choice.  “Let’s see what they’ll do.”

      This morning my husband told me “It’s ok to feel that.”  He handed me an invitation to not isolate, to feel but not be in trouble because of it, and to choose what I would do next.

      Everyone has problems, after all.

      Self-Care Tip #85 – When you have problems, find the difference in you.  Be a friend to yourself.

      Question:  What has been the difference for you?  Do your feelings cause you problems?  Please tell me your story.

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      Connect With Others to Get Friendly With Yourself

      Self-Care Tip #81 – Connect with others.  Be a friend to yourself.

      So you have bought into the famous, “You are not alone” stock.  After 2 months on psychotropics (medications for emotional illness,) you finally have an interest in people.  You are at least a little motivated and less afraid of things that move.  You don’t feel like you are the reason for original sin and more often than not, you think happiness might be more than what shopping can offer.  What is this strange and unfamiliar sensation?  And what to do with it?

      It is time to connect.  Many of us get to the point where we no longer want to hide, we don’t hate ourselves, and we don’t hate others.  We get to the place of showing our under-belly just a little to the big wide world and are shocked that the only thing we feel is the wind as everyone is rushing by!  Just when we start wanting what we spent so much time hiding from, we seem to have forgotten how to connect with others.

      It is no secret.  America is culturally impoverished.  We have little of cobblestone streets to meander down, dressed in clean clothes after a days work, checking up on neighbors and gossip.  We have few degrees of activity between full throttle and dead/no heart beat.   Come now!  How to connect in a world where our parents expected us to pay rent when we turned 18years old?

      If you find yourself in something of this situation try on one of these basic tools and see what fits.  You can’t expect them all to.  So if you strike out a few times, keep on!

      1.  Volunteer – for example, and in no particular order…

      2.  Meetup.com – an awesome site to find people interested in what you are interested in.  e.g. book clubs, skiing, small business, Italian

      3.  Support groups

      4.  Write!  Although this at first thought may appear isolating, it is not necessarily.

      • Blog!  🙂
      • Journal

      5.  Toastmasters

      There is so much more.  Please let me know your thoughts and I’ll keep adding to this list!

      Self-Care Tip #81 – Connect with others.  Be a friend to yourself.

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      Forgive to Get Friendly With Yourself

       

      Professional baseball bats are typically made ...

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      Self-Care Tip #80 – Forgive.  Be a friend to yourself.

      A reader wrote yesterday

      Always intrigued by the possible connection between empathy and forgiveness….

      Great progression of thought.  From both an anecdotal perspective and some biological considerations, David Mullen PhD and Everett L. Worthington Jr. PhD, are two of my favorites.  Other than Jesus, they have and do say it better than just about anyone.  I heard Dr. Worthington speak when still a resident-physician in psychiatry.  The story he told of his mother’s murder and how he came to forgive her murderers seared into my memory and has ever since been a reference for me in my personal life and medical practice.

      The call came on New Years Day, 1996. His brother’s voice was shaky. “I have some bad news,” he said. “Mama has been murdered.”  …Their mother had been beaten to death. Rage bubbled up in him like lava. He heard himself saying, “I’d like to have that murderer alone in a room with just a baseball bat. I’d beat his brains out.”

      Here’s where the empathy came in

      …He tried to picture the crime scene. He imagined how a pair of youths might feel as they stood in the dark street preparing to rob the house. Perhaps they had been caught at robbery previously. They would have been keyed up. The house was dark; no car was in the driveway. No one’s home, they must have thought. Perhaps one said, “They’re at a New Year’s Eve party.“ They did not know that Worthington’s mother did not drive.  …Worthington imagined their shock when her voice came from behind. “What are you doing in here?”

      “Oh, no!” one must have thought, “I’ll go to jail. She is ruining my life.” He lashed out with his crowbar, slamming his mother three times. Panicked, the youths went crazy, trashing the house, both for having their plans ruined and for the shame of having murdered.

      This is part of the process that led Dr. Worthington to forgive the murder.  You can read more in his book, The Power of Forgiving.

      There is an interplay, between choice and biology/non-choice.  It’s uncomfortable to think and talk about.  I can feel the hackles on the necks of my readers start to stand up just writing it and I humbly acknowledge my limitations in sharing this concept.  It is what I have tried to describe through many of my earlier blog posts.  This unlikely union between such polar concepts.

      Being a Christian, I have awareness of the culture that frowns on taking bad behavior out of the church and into the laboratory.  When I think of empathy and forgiveness, I see party-hoppers moving in and out of those very places irreverently perhaps in some people’s minds.

      Some other time we will broach further the idea of self-care being Christian v. scientific.

      Self-Care Tip #80 – Forgive.  Be a friend to yourself.

      Question:  Does any of this resonate with you?  Please tell me your story.