Connections

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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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Believe And Pursue Magic

Heart beat

Image via Wikipedia

Believe and pursue Magic.

Eternity frightens me.  When I go to see what stone is in my shoe, that fear, I find the absence of lines.  I am afraid of living without boundaries, without the beginnings and endings that bring so much quality to our suffering lives.

Time is a line that comforts me.  It gives form to my experiences.  However, to give eternity a “go” means to, in this dimension, allow myself that a (possibly) vacuous shapeless Me will still be a Me that I can live with.  It is to believe and pursue Magic.

Today while reading The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak, I tensed over the beauty of it. What a mastery of language the author had.  How I wish to have enough time to carve a work like that out of my life.  But the awareness of what I have done, what I have already chosen to spend my life on, scolds me.  My thoughts are slower than they were.  I am half used up.  My time is parceled and I know that if it happens, it won’t be enough to satisfy me.  My container will seal closed.

מנא ,מנא, תקל, ופרסין

Mene, Mene, Tekel u-Pharsin

– Daniel at Belshazzar’s Feast

I never watched much TV but I remember a commercial about Tupperware.  The lid coming down on it and the corner lifting just enough to burp out the last bit of air, sealing it’s freshness.  I feel a lid closing.

My daughter, six years old has taken to grabbing my head and pressing my ear against her chest.

What do you hear, Mommy? 

Spoiled by medicine, I stupidly answer, 

Lub-dub, lub-dub.

Now my turn, she says.

I feel the pressure as she tries to hear.

Do you know what Love does?  Our lives are that something-of-value enclosed in plastic Tupperware – or Time you could say.

Our “Me,” surrounded by what seems to us undegradable Time, like plastic, comes down in waves of sunlight.  Layering us.  Containing us the moment we are conceived.  We walk the line of life toward the inevitable.

A Toad, can die of Light –
Death is the Common Right
Of Toads and Men –
Of Earl and Midge
The privilege –
Why swagger, then?
The Gnat’s supremacy is large as Thine –

  –Emily Dickinson.

But my daughter is teaching me that all that I know, my perceived reality, is just happening inside that Tupperware.  And because of Love, this other “inevitable” becomes apparent.  Me connected to Love with no lines.  Magic.

Suddenly time folds and I am a little girl myself, riding bike like this,

Look!  No hands!

Love is Time-corrosive, I’ve come to understand.  The particles lift off of me and I am in that space that I started out by saying I feared.

The sound my daughter is looking for is the sound of Love.  Something that is stronger than what separates us.  And although it scares me still, I can now believe and pursue Magic.  I know I can trust that even without Time, the Me that brings me pleasure in part because of the boundaries that contain it, will bring me pleasure even when Time is gone.  I can trust Love.  Intentionally being held by Love, I can say with more confidence than before to my girl, I will never leave you.  Because of Love.

My ear against my daughter’s drumming heart, I answered,

I-love-you, I-love-you, –

…Finally.  Took you long enough. –  She didn’t say it.  She’s too good of a teacher to have to.

I’m less afraid.  And I like myself better believing in magic.  And I’m less hurried.

Question:  What would connect you if there were no Time?  How does that affect your friendship with yourself?  Please tell me your story.

Self-Care:  Believe and pursue Magic.

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Social-Media as Self-Care

Image representing Twitter as depicted in Crun...

Image via CrunchBase

Hello Friends.

Introducing you to mutually interested others in being a friend to yourself:

#MHON is a supportive Twitter chat led by credentialed Mental Health professionals around Mental Health issues. Every week or so, a different licensed mental health professional is featured, who discusses his or her specialty and takes questions from the participants.

#MHON runs weekly on Wednesdays  at 12 Noon – 1 PM EST. #MHON is co-moderated by Kathy Morelli, LPC, Tammy Whitten, LMFT, and Ann Becker-Schutte, PhD.  Contact them

via Twitter: @KathyAMorelli  @WomenAndStress  @DrBeckerSchutte

You can participate in chat and also as a host if you are a licensed mental health professional.  Since this is good for Me/you, yours truly put myself out there, and have happily been “invited” (okay, self-invited) to be a guest host on May 16.  Yay!

Join in in any way you like.  Also if you have any other sources of self-care like this that you’d like to share, please let us know.  More “Yays!”

Disclaimer: #MHON  is not intended to be a substitute for ongoing care by your personal doctor or therapist, but is informational and psycho-educational in nature.

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Purposefully Harness The Power of Social Influence

A piece of chocolate candy.

Image via Wikipedia

Hello Friends.

I’m starting the 4-week detox for sugar addicts.

I know I’m more empowered with your company, so join in if interested.  And because it is friendly to you/Me too, spread this around to others.

(#Obesity – Abstract of article: social influence affect #weight loss http://bit.ly/xn1Bjq #selfcare #community #service.)

This is my list of reasons re: my choice today as part of step 1:

Reasons why I am cutting back on sugar

  • inflammation,
  • clarity of thought and subsequent depth of experience,
  • #obesity and related illnesses (comorbidities,)
  • appearance and social stigma,
  • social influence,
  • self-esteem,
  • quality of life and
  • longevity

If you choose to participate, and are interested in what the power of social influence can do for you, please post your own reasons here.

Looking forward to connecting with you. Keep on.

Self-Care Tip – Deliberately and purposefully harness the power of social influence in becoming a friend to yourself.

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I Am A Poster Child For Sinners

IMG_4706 Leather pants

I am a poster child for sinners.

Sitting with a respected mentor, a leader of women in medicine, I couldn’t stop myself as usual from playing with the ideas of being a friend to yourself.  She caught on quick with where I was going and I felt wishes winging in.

I wished I could have practiced with her, have had her for a peer, a voice in the room that gets me, a mind that might even have resonated and crescendoed the healing process that comes from being a friend to Me.

Oh that guy is as stiff as they come!  She knew.

He always made me feel like I was a poster child for sinners.  …And I knew I loved her.  It wasn’t just me.

Sometimes, remembering that “it’s not just me” seems like reciting folklore.  The longer that Time clutters up between real encounters with like-minded folk, the more magical the thoughts brew of being chosen to suffer, I am alone and I am special for what hurts me.   However, perhaps a good this or that can come out of even things such as these (insert, “human connection.”)  Is that so much to ask?  Do I really have to sacrifice a chicken on a full moon over whitened unicorn bones to make it happen?

In becoming a Friend to Yourself, we know there are many times when living with not much more than our better choices for company is almost more than that stringy thin young muscle of self-care can sustain.  But know this.  Just when you think you might collapse, the Truth that “you are not alone” will wing in.  More than a wish or a perception of reality, “you are not alone” is Truth.  Something great comes to us, like,

I am a poster child for sinners.  

Stigma comes from ignorance after all and in being a friend to Me, well, our community has undeveloped awareness about it.  Some who don’t know that everything starts and ends with Me feel threatened, angry and even verbally aggressive toward us.  But, just when we think that the whole world is touched with ignorance and cruel responses except for Me, we find Thee.  (Yet another variation on the  quote by a Yorkshireman –  “Everyone in the world is quite mad, except for me and thee.  And sometimes I have my doubts about thee.”.)  Me finds Thee, just in time.

Suddenly we see ourselves for the stud-muffins that we are, courageous and in company.  Leather pants may be included if you like.

Self-Care Tip – Remember the Truth – you are not alone, even in being a friend to yourself.  Keep on.

Questions:  How’s your company these days?  Do people ever treat you like you are a wrong-doer for loving yourself?  How does that go over?  Please tell us your story.

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Surrender To Help

GrassesWhen I was a just a bit, dirty feet and pig-tails, spending the summer on my grandparents farm with my three similarly dirty big brothers, we took grandpa’s two green John Deer out for a drive. We all delighted in the enormous strength in those beasts. The tires were taller than me, which meant nothing but fun at the time. I never thought about falling out, but I could have.

I rode with one brother and the other two were up ahead. We were toward pasture and hoped for a long run of it. The boys were yelling at each other, provoking and jocular. I was, as usual, amazed at my luck to have them for my own.

Somewhere before we lost interest and after we lost sense, the boys ahead hit mud. My goodness, but we, coming up from behind hollered laughter. Jeering, we watched them whiz those monster tires deeper and deeper. Oh the tears! right up until we followed them into our own mud-sink. Humiliating.

My grandpa farmed corn and hay and some other grains but all I remember about that field is that the ground was really wet beneath tall grass. The green came up almost to the middle of the tractors and the blades were wide and thick. We got to business pulling grass out and feeding it to the muddy tires, thinking to build traction. About an hour later and after the grass had taught our hands a lesson, we tramped back to the barn-house. Nothing to do but tell Grandpa.

That was the last day of our vacation and we heard later that he had pulled them out with his truck, gracious as ever. Grandpa Jack was such a kind and gentle man.

I remember the grass when I’m with Eilene. She is my patient with moderately treated mood and anxiety disease. The rest of her though is not well. Eilene is pulling grass to help her move. The best I can do is stand beside her.

I wonder what I’m missing in my life now. Where am I stuck? When will I get over to the barn house to surrender?

And you? Please tell us your story.

Self-Care Tip – Surrender to help. Be a friend to yourself.

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In Gratitude. Commenting is good self-care.

In gratitude I move between these letters.  My step is often clomping and loud, but is that what we would name a “sure-step?”  Not always.  Even tripping and clipping corners bruising my legs, with my mistakes returning echoes to remind anyone who wants to know what my shifting sounds like.  Even when, I move gratefully.  And it is for you and Me and God.  We have decided confidently once at least.  At least once we have in like-minded strength chosen to dedicate our force to move us to the purpose of becoming a friend to yourself.  Many, more often than once.  Many have decided as often as they deliberately step, like a recovering spinal cord injury remembers just how to lift the leg, tilt the foot and ease it down.  Many find this purpose we have chosen at least as difficult as that.

How bout you?  More?  Less?  Gratitude is an assist for Me, as are the woven combinations of all that make up my process, my presence or we could say personal journey.  Within that weave, there is this thing that runs on the fuel that only kind feed-back can generate.  You people.  In truth, I can not move very far with out you.

I have two specific thank-you’s of this kind.

Some time ago, Beth Parker, gifted the Liebster Award and more recently, Cathy gave the Versatile blogger Award.  These girls are kind.  They are friendly and they are funny.  They give and some of what they give, specifically incredible generous feedback like this, is essential to Me.  I’m pretty sure it’s on the periodic table of elements.  Without it, I’d poop out, like an old jalopy in the desert.  I am grateful.

There’s a bit of an overlap in some spaces of these awards and I’m going to snip it back a little since the day is spent.  The good stuff really is naming off you wonders out there who have voices that must be heard.  I’m going to remake the to-do’s of these awards, because I can and that’s the kind of girl I am ;).

My deep gratitude compels me to name off the folks who comment.  They talk.  They speak and connect and let themselves know and be known.  What an honor.  You, and to all have had the courage to write your vulnerable self into words and engage – Thank you.

This commenting-thing is more than pom-pom action.  When we speak out loud, we open closet doors, shame is aired, fears are invited for tea and then ushered out more easily.  We hook into the self-care tips and make them our own when we breathe out audibly.  We may not know it but we claim them and the people in this community of “Friend to Yourself-ers” or FTY’s.  (How do you like that?  FTY?)  This is awesome and powerful and free.  As we say here, “speak.”

You may or may not be on this “WordPress” generated statistic of commenters, but either way, you are here with us.  You fuel us in our life journey uniquely and importantly.  For those who read but don’t comment, thank you as well for letting us share ourselves with you.  Comment if you will, but keep coming either way.

In gratitude:

Nancy 64
Carl D’Agostino 50
Col 34
Cindy Taylor 26
duckofindeed 21
livingvictoriously 17

Sincerely, 

Me

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Get You Some Support Where You Are Weak

Prunus armeniaca (Apricot) branch with fruit. ...

Image via Wikipedia

If you’ve ever lived where there is dirt, not New York City or downtown Los Angeles, some place with unpaved hills and bugs, then you’ve seen how fruit grows.  Maybe not exotic fruit.  Maybe nothing from the Amazon, but you’ve seen an apple or an orange most likely, dangling from a stem, light caught in a dew dusted curve around its belly.  Maybe a pear.

You’ve seen a tree, perhaps, on a “good year.”  It was heavy, bushy in all it’s productivity and weighted down with what it was designed to do in life.  If you have lived in a place where your home didn’t require an elevator to get to, you know that fruit can be beautiful just in its waiting-ness to fall.  So beautiful, it feels personal.  The season turned as did your admiration into impatience for picking time.

If you have woken up early to the opening day where air and hour and the absence of sound work on you like a special promise, you have known what it is like to put on your creased and cracked boots, to call your happy dogs and start out into your long work.

You know that every tree has potential and every tree has limits.  You remember when you first came upon the brokenness, the fractured limbs, the long fresh splinters cutting through the morning just so.  Too soon.  “Too soon,” you think and repeat out loud to your tree, trying to explain.  Too soon, fruit still holding the branch like they are drowning.  The last clutch in death.  Oh, shame.

If you have lived where branches so full of fruit break under the weight of their life’s work, you have lived to learn that to be productive, to sustain that kind of strain, to endure, a tree and her branches need support.  You have known forever after to put two-by-fours fashioned into braces under those loads and hope the big winds don’t loose their grip.  You can’t forget the loss.  Sometimes you have even thinned the clustered fruit, maybe peaches, reluctantly pulling out one of three, two of three.  You’ve done what it takes.  Dropping them and knowing that the others will grow. Your fingers, bitten with cold and regret, move between the leaves giving yourself and the tree hope.  You give yourself and you give the tree what is needed to produce well and to live.

In those deciding moments, if you have worked with these trees, you have learned that we also break and lose what our life would put out for the world.  If we could.  If we had support.  If we were buttressed.  No one can put out for long without it.  Not Me.

And so now, we look to see where our hopes have increased.  We identify where to tend, where we habitually, that is to say, or where we have on many other occasions been known to come apart.  Oh, the loss.  The memory with the knowing fear dances like a hologram until we simply or not so simply, this time, acquire help.

Questions:  How are you working to build up support where you are weak?  How do you find support?  What have you seen come out of your life when you have?  Please tell us your story.

Self-Care Tip:  Get you some support where you are weak.  Be a friend to yourself.

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You Are Allied, Chosen and Of High Value to Our Efforts In Self-Care

Squirrel

Image by nsavch via Flickr

I remember starting with my research team about eight years ago. Some of the terrain between then and now returns like a welcoming committee every time I consider a team venture.

My research team and I have learned a rhythm and trust in each other’s talents that constitutes much of the travel pleasure experienced. However, knowing that their excellence is “behind” me, in front, and surrounding has been much of my medium for improvement. It has taken a lot for me to get this far, not absconding what we still hope for. What obstruction a colleague is when they lose their interest in growth. I am thankful they allow me multidimensional space to change, know my flaws and relax to know theirs. The ability to gift this to someone takes a lot of bank.

One of the beauties of having had received this type of gift once, is that it improves our vision to know where we might find it again. You readers have chosen me to work with but I have also chosen you and this is why. You have bank. Thank you for being persons of such high value.

When someone wonders about our talents, they are simultaneously wondering about our flaws. Standing under such scrutiny takes courage, I admit, but courage is improved by a sense of safety. Thank you for being safe. That takes bank.

I am a teacher. I am very good at teaching about emotional quotient, emotional and behavioral insight and interpersonal exchange. I am very good at teaching efficiency and perspective to achieve that. I am a Jedi in intuiting emotional milieu and harnessing that information into the goal at hand. I can do this for others, as well, with empathy and speed. I am talented.

Now. Surely when put this course way, and with your growing familiarity with me over the past one and a half years, you have some knowledge about my flaws. I am inspired that you believe more in my brilliance than in my Achilles. I am inspired that you ally yourself with me to make sure that my flaws do not kill me off and thereby kill the self-care work we endeavor together. That takes a lot of bank.

Your bank is more than you were given in your gene-purse. Your inheritance does not account for your long hard work on the continuum of growth. That is from intersecting personal dimensions that include things like in-process God-deposits, choice and more choice.

It is said that wealth begets wealth of which you are a rich example. Your riches are blessed, just as the men who did not bury their gold. I am happy to be with you, who are getting more bank. I am smart enough to know that after the shower, I will find something in my benefit. Ruth knew that of Boaz. Pond fish know that about the rain. I know that about you.

We are at a turning of seasons now, when creation takes stalk. Like so many squirrels, brown bears, tree frogs and you, I am glad when my pantry and borough reflects that I have a team, (allies to my desire and labor to be a friend to myself,) who are safe and rich and want Me. Wow. That is what they call, “Bank.”

Questions: How does it feel to know that you are known as, “Money-Bags?”

How do you choose allies to your self-care venture?

How has your sense of safety affected your ability to invest in yourself?

Please tell me your story.

Self-Care Tip – Remember that you are chosen and of high value.

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Secure Connections Allow Us to Feel Safe When Proximate or When Distant From our Other

Your romantic partner just left on a distant work related job.  Inside, two days later, you feel a growing chill.

You are not alone in this type of response. Physical separation can challenge intimacy. (Save the snarky comments on the positive influence physical distance can also have Carl. 🙂 )20111013-114942.jpg

We want safe connections. What and how do we get those?

Secure interpersonal connections allow us when together or apart, in any place we find ourselves, we find that we are still connected.

In contrast, when you and I, he and she, her and she are doubting our own self and/or each other, in crisis and unpaired spirits, when together or apart, in any place we find ourselves, we find that we are not. We are not connected. Connection isn’t only about proximity of person to person.

This can be one of the healing forces in victims of abuse. In the discussion of our last post, Col said:

I have been trying to figure out how to connect back to a part of me kind of lost behind….

…Time to build some trust bonds.

Likewise, Antonia reminded me of this.  Although she came in with “her eyes rolling in her head” – her words weren’t always entirely connected, Antonia’s courage in life was undiminished.  I learned a lot from this survivor who spoke with a Sevillian accent, (including the theta sounds.)

I am so pleathed to meet you, Doctora!

Her teeth were stained and overlapped each other and the right side of her face and right arm I saw were in a ruin of tumbled scars. Story unfolded that she was molested as a child by her brother for years. Her mother had died young and her father had helped her understand that that was what girls were for. Escaping from Spain to France, she married in hopes to be given a “start-over.” Her husband was violent though and finally when he lit her on fire, she was hospitalized long enough to grow some scars; inside and out. She threw herself into another “start-over,” this time including God and three years later, landed in Temecula.

Throughout the progress of her story I was sounding dismay at her suffering. However, I couldn’t for very long at any time before she’d offer me comfort to me!

No no! That was all before….

…I am thankful for my life!

I hab so much! God is really good to me. He sabed me!…  Her scars were tight around her soft smile and eyes.

I know in my boots that Antonia is not all that she is today because of her medications, psychotherapy and life-saving skin grafts.  She is connected.  She is connected to her Me and to her Other.  She has security that is bigger to her than her insecurities.  (Remember yesterday when Suzicate described the friendliness of that?  Thank you Suzicate.)

This ties us in to one of our premises of what it takes to be our own friend – accountability to Me.  Although we are all victimized, being the victim is our choice and we have the power.

Questions: What has grown your sense of safety in your connections? How does your perception of abuse, victimization and maltreatment relate to this? Please tell us your story.

Self-Care Tip:  You have the power to have safe connections to self and others.

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Know When to Stand and When to Lean – Getting is Giving

Guest Blogger:  Asia Sharif-Clark

If I could compare us to part of a tree, it would be a solid trunk.  We stand firm, strong, and tall securing the roots beneath and the leaves above.

There’s only one problem and it’s a big one, most trunks don’t lean.  Leaning symbolizes receiving support from others, standing means giving support from oneself.  We’ve got standing perfected.

Now we must allow ourselves to lean. That’s where the branches comes in.  They move with the wind, sway in the rain; giving to leaves, yet receiving from the trunk.  Giving and receiving.  Standing and leaning.

I’ve learned to lean more and more over the years and am amazed at the immense joy others experience from giving to me.  I am open and happy to receiving.

Self-Care Tip – Wishing you more moments to lean.

Question:  Can you tell us about the leaning motion in your life?

I’m Asia Sharif-Clark, founder of Centered Self Worldwide, the Glow Weekend, and the Glow Circle. In 90 days, I take women from overworked and overwhelmed to empowered and energized. And, that’s just the beginning.   I invite you to Raise Your Joy!

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Rotate Your Picture To Connect And Grow Presence In Your Life

Hello Dear Friends.

Seems I’m heading toward a different blog-site level of productivity.  Wasn’t deliberately turning that way, but turn I have.  I’m just saying this so you know that I acknowledge the change in flow and am thunking, thinking on it.

I will post a minimum of one to two times a week.  In between, I hope to develop the material we have now, clean it up and share it again, integrated with your comments and what we’ve worked over this past year.

_______________________________________

That done, I can chat about other stuffy stuff.

20080726 - Melanie's Birthday party - DSCN1530...

Image by Rev. Xanatos Satanicos Bombasticos (ClintJCL) via Flickr

Today, I was thinking about our interpersonal connections we believe so strongly improve our ability to be our own friend.  However, that is not the same as pairing with someone who is bad to us.  We’ve talked about how abuse, any kind, disables us from connecting.  “Get off of me!” is self-care when there is an unequal sense of power being used and we are trying to gain accountability for where we are at in life now.

In my mind’s eye, imagining that, I saw a figure lying on her side and someone heavy lying on top.  “Get off of me!” could mean, “Get off and get away.”  It could also mean, “Rotate the picture.”

See the picture turn 90-degrees?  Now the two figures are standing beside each other rather than subjected.  The two figures are connected, proximate and present to each other’s experiences.  “Get off of me!” doesn’t have to mean, “Get out of my life.”  It might be able to mean, “Rotate.  Stand beside me.  I choose connection in my life and not subjugation.”

Insight isn’t everything though.  If saying, “Get off of me and stand beside me.  Stay connected.  Stop controlling.” doesn’t happen despite insight, we might be looking at behaviors and emotions that are symptoms of brain disease of Me or of the other person(s).  Medical illness needs more than word play and adjusting picture frames.

Questions:  Have you been able to rotate any pictures in your life in any ways that have helped you be a better friend to yourself?  What?  Has that improved your sense of connection with people you didn’t want to lose?  Please tell us your story.

Self-Care Tip – Rotate your picture to connect and grow presence in your life.

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Oxymorons – The Flexibility In Us That Ties Us to Both Sides of Hope

Clara Bohan, wrote about the wise “white buffalo,” sacred to the Lakota as well as other Plains Tribes, such as the Apache and Cheyenne.  White buffalo’s bring us a message.  Read Clara’s blog if you want to know the message, but what we reference here at FriendtoYourself.com, is the embrace of magical thinking with an indian wearing sunglasses beside a plastic banner.  I love it.

The oxymoron is no more inappropriate than the oxymoron we find in becoming our own best friend.  In yesterday’s post, bluebee called it “schizophrenic,” which means a “broken mind.”

Self-care is an oxymoron at every turn.  Love ourselves the way we are.  Love ourselves too much to stay that way.  Are you okay with that?

Sometimes I say that calling myself a “Christian psychiatrist” is an oxymoron because I know emotions and behaviors come from the brain, yet I believe in outside input, or what many call magic and unscientific.  My own white buffalo.

Getting comfortable with the oxymorons in our life is a friendly thing to do.  We are not so perfectly collected, so well-designed and well-defended that we will ever be above the magic each of us consider, quality of life.  We could describe this in part as having a flexible identity for our own safety.  If we take away the oxymoron, we threaten our hope-factor in life.  We die as anything does that doesn’t move.

So there’s our tip.

Questions – What oxymorons are serving you well?  How?

Have you hugged your oxymoron today?

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Become a Better Friend To Yourself In and With Your Culture

"Energy Crisis!" ...

Image by Toban Black via Flickr

A barrier to getting friendly with ourselves might be our culture.  The inverse of course could also be true.  ‘Takes culture to design the flavor of our homes and habits, our communities and the energy between us and them.  Think, TV in the bedroom, alcohol tasters offered to children, books or the absence of books on the floor and shelves.  Think religion and diet, family meals or take-out.  The way we deal with shame.  Culture is a gate-keeper for many of us.

We could call our culture, the way we live together at home, the balance between each family member and the flavor of emotions there.  Culture might be layered, wrapping us from one balance of energy into another into another creating our own galaxy between each point of light.  In any room, if we look we can find culture.  In any space outside, there is a flavor telling us how to maintain the balance between me and thee.

I don’t know if sociologists look at culture this way yet, but I hope they will.  With all that observing, data gathered and surmising, I hope they study how the individual can be a better friend to herself in “this” culture.  And then I hope they tell us.

Becoming an active designer of your culture is not always easy.  But it is friendly.

Questions:  How has your culture introduced you to your friend, “Me?”  How have you been able to develop a more friendly culture for Me to live in and grow in?  What’s still keeping you?  Please tell me your story.

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Let Him “Save Face” Because it is Friendly To Yourself

Your argument is invalid.

Image via Wikipedia

If you’ve argued, here’s what I want to ask you today:

Are you getting what you want?

That argument we had, knowing the pristine rightness of our position, knowing we have taken the fall so many times for reasons as loaded, knowing we’ve been disadvantaged, our pearls were trampled and we knew and we argued because we thought we finally should.  Was it friendly to Me?  Choosing to argue.  (There we’ve already passed up the victim role and claimed accountability for the argument.  We chose it.)

The question is what is most friendly to Me?  To be right?  Hm.  What will we do with the rightness?  Sleep with it at night?  Will it clean our house?  Will we get anything for it?  Will it take us on vacation?  What ever the argument was about.

Most of us think we are right.  Now what?

Ellen had argued.  Not aggressively.  There was no volume or matter flying about.  It was short but potent.  A bit nuclear if you must know.  She was so in the right.  If she were a tooth, she’d be the brightest whitest one in the mouth.  Pearly white.  An incisor perhaps.  She gained ground but lost her goal.  Now, neither of them got what they wanted.  They just got what any one gets when they argue.  Lonely.

Mass General put out a great guideline to conflict resolution I’ve reference below if you want to peruse …or tattoo it to your arm.

Basically, if you want to get something, let the other person save face.  You ain’t getting much by being right.  Think about what is friendly to yourself and remember that friendly is not what is easy, natural or desired many times.  It is what improves you and gets you what you really want in the big picture.

If you can’t do this even though you are deliberately trying, it may be that it is a symptom of brain illness and needs medical care.

So how am I doing in our argument?  Smile.  Are you getting what you want?  Have you ever been mid-stride argument and been able to change the direction of your projection?  Have you ever been able to stop yourself once you started and chose to be friendly with yourself rather than just right?  How?  Please tell me your story.

Self-Care Tip:  You guessed it.  Let him save face.

Related Articles:

Find the Best Route To Your Destination:  Conflict Resolution

How to win Arguments

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Are You Empowered to Start Everything and End Everything With Me?

Yesterdays blog-post brought a few neighborly questions for us to follow-up with.

One is regarding emotions from bluebee.  Is jealousy medical?  Followed by, What part of emotion is under our control?  Indeed.

Second, Sarah quietly slipped the question under our door of how to respond to emotions and behaviors that come from brain illness.  How?  Indeed.

Third, Carl banged a little louder when asking, what keeps him in a relationship with someone who is maltreating him verses leaving?  Indeed.

There is a nice flow to these.  They are leading into the next and circle back.  Emotions and behaviors come from the brain, much which is out of our control and some of which is.  The choice to engage in the life of the ill is like any other choice.  Our own.  If it matters to us if the way the brain is working in the “other” is in their control or not, we can spend more time trying to sus that out.  I’m not sure myself when I get it good from someone mean, but it has become easier to take care of my junk rather than there’s.  For that, I will say a million thanks.  If I’m getting yelled at, I do the checks on myself – anxiety? fear? anger? fatigue? shaking? dizzy? tone of my voice? do I know what this person is yelling about? (most often it has nothing to do with Me), empathy? empowerment? You’ve told me that you are growing in similar refreshing ways.

Face Down w/Laundry and Gwen Stefani

Image by NCM3 via Flickr

I’ve seen this play out a little in my children.  My daughters and son are supposed to do the laundry every morning before they play.  I don’t know how many years now, but their arguments haven’t changed.

I’m doing this all by myself.  No one is helping me!

Mom!  He’s just laying on top of the clothes!  

Mom!  …

These questions above…;

  • where emotions and behaviors come from,
  • control over biological symptoms,
  • do I respond to others with brain illness
  • or do I walk away

These questions don’t mean much if we don’t find where our empowerment comes from.  Me.  Everything starts and ends with Me.

I’m ill for reasons I have nothing to do with, yet I will be accountable for myself and how I affect others.

I feel emotions I didn’t ask for, behaving ways that I am a spectator to rather than a whole person, yet I will do what I can to gain health.  In that, I have control.

I surrender what I don’t control to my Higher Power.  I take medication.  I exercise, guard my sleep hygiene and get regular sleep, eat responsibly, gather and engage community, attend therapy groups and/or individual, I try while at the same time I let go, I love my flaws as I love my perfections, I try to develop my natural genius, try as often as I can to pour any energies I have in that direction as I know I will heal faster, enjoy life more and be more successful at all my efforts when I do.

It reminds me of that saying, that if I have success, it is from standing on the shoulders of giant midgets.  We are all flawed.  We are all wonderful.  We are supported by others who also are full of flawed perfections.

Do I have control?  You bet.  …And no way.  Always, there are both.

Do I talk when someone is mistreating me? or mistreating themselves by neglecting their own self-care? by letting their illnesses shape their lives?  Do I walk away as that may be what my self-care demands.

Everything starts and ends with me.  There are a lot of stops along the way with other forces, but empowerment is mine.  Indeed.  That’s what I hope my kids will learn when doing the laundry.

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No One is Choosing For You – Know Your Choices For Health

Yesterday we asked some pithy questions re: Why Psychiatry?  Your responses were received with gratitude and humility.  It takes courage to understand our connection with psychiatry considering ongoing stigma.  Today we’re reviewing that some and taking it one bit further.

When referred to a psychiatrist for medical care, we can feel confused.

Why is my physician sending me away?  Does this mean I’m at my last resort?  Does this mean I’m that sick?, or,

Does he think I’m crazy?  I’m not insane!, or personalizing with,

Does my physician not want to work with me?  I’m that bad of a patient?  Cast off?

Our expectations when we first see our psychiatrist are often also similarly reactive.  Maybe,

I’ll give this one chance but if she doesn’t fix whatever it is that’s going on, I’m out of here. 

I am not going to be dependent on medications!

I do not want to be made into a zombie!

Are we looking for a cure?

Also, we might be confused by the amount of time that she spent with us the first appointment as compared to our follow-up appointments.

I need to talk about my problems!  I need time!

There’s a lot to take in.

Unfortunately, when we are referred to a specialist, often our referring physician hasn’t effectively communicated as to why we are being sent there.  This is for many possible reasons, including Me not hearing him.  Many other reasons are also understandable with insight but we aren’t always given the opportunity to hear the inside story of why our physician does what he does.  That doesn’t mean we have to accept it.  But if we do, we did and it’s our choice.

Choice

Image by Scarygami via Flickr

We have choices.  Before accepting the referral, we can ask, Why?  Keep asking why until we are satisfied with our level of understanding.  Schedule a follow-up appointment with the referring physician if necessary to gain more time if we think we need it.  Sometimes, despite our physicians best efforts, we won’t understand as well as we’d like and we have to make our choice with the information we have.  We can read up on our symptoms ourselves.  I read in Twitter from @NathanBransford,

The 11th Commandment: Thou shalt not ask someone a question thy could easily Google thyself.

That’s ridiculous although I cracked up.  The World Wide Web comprehensively and including Google or any other source within that World Wide Web are not designed to practice medicine.  When we read something, we need to ask for qualifications behind the author of the print, references and so forth.  The Internet is a tool worth our attention but you decide how far you are willing to take what you read before you consult with your own physician.  I think if Doctor Seuss were alive today, he’d write a book (or many) about health care; Oh The Tools We Can Use!  (Maybe Carl and Thysleroux will do a series or a post on this?  Should be fun.  – Asking, “Why?”  Becoming our own friend.  Connection.  Going towards shame, pain, anxiety.  Growing bank – and more.)

And so that brings us to today’s questions:  What choices do you perceive you have in referrals like these?  In your continuing medical care?  In your ability to collaborate with your physician?  In obtaining an understanding of your illness(es)?  Please tell me your story.

Self-Care Tip – Grow your understanding of your choices for your health and medical care.

Related Articles:

  1. Stay Connected For Your Sake and For Theirs
  2. Connecting To Others Is a Condition of Freedom
  3. Safety in Connections
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Reworking Choices With Your Physician as Part of Your Team

What do you want? 

It is one of my challenges as a physician when someone comes to see me for reasons I’m not able to accommodate.  I can’t validate them.  I can’t tell them what they want to hear.

What can I do?  Help them “realize” that they came to see me for another reason.  Another way to say it is to help them “choose” another agenda.  A part of them realizes their need for help; they came.  A part of them believes I am a person that can help; they came.  A part of them.  A part that I and the patient are responsible to find and shift agendas deliberately or by any wiles possible.

Hands touching

Image via Wikipedia

We are an unusual team in this.  How often do you find another so awkwardly paired?  Yet these are some of my best patient-doctor relationships.

What do you want?

When there is a meeting up, a connection and everyone is working for the same “want,” both presence and movement are natural responses.  It’s like we’re standing still in the moment, senses taking it in, and moving all the while.  The process of moving itself brings pleasure and healing.  It is not always about arriving.  It is not always what we think we want.

Self-Care Tip – Enjoy your re-choices and what you will get from them.

Questions:  Have you every found yourself being “helped” to have a different agenda that improved your presence and movement in your personal journey?  Please tell us your story.

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Eight hugs a Day

Evening friends.  Spent the afternoon enjoying the company of friends and family.  Including enjoying a lecture from the “love doctor,” Paul Zak PhD.  Dr. Zak gave us a practice run on his upcoming lecture for TED in Scotland.  He told us about the amazing hormone, oxytocin, which Dr. Zak tells us is the morality hormone.  It increases any time we have increased social connection.  Oxytocin makes people trust, empathize and have increased moral behaviors.  Dr. Zak’s prescription is eight hugs a day (hugs increase oxytocin).  Awesome.

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basics on Weight Management

A tipped cow. Taken near the Cliffs of Moher i...

cow-tipping

A day or two ago we talked about life-ers.  You and I gave our own.  Whatever yours is, you are not alone.  We share that being a friend to ourself means embracing our flaws, going towards our flaws and letting the shame dissipate in our familiar presence.  Weather it’s cigarettes, weight, yelling or cow-tipping, resisting our instinct to hide it, to ignore it and deny it brings us into a place of friendship and connection.

In all my blah-blah’s, sometimes people just want me to get down to the specifics.  I’ve never found those to be too exciting for me personally, but they do help when afraid.

Today I’m going to hit weight management up.  When hope seems to be leached out by failures, these are my efforts that keep me connected to my journey.  I eventually always go back to these.

Three Things That Have Long Term Influence on Weight Management:

1.  log your food.  For example, Sparkpeople.com or myfitnesspal.com are both wonderful sites that will help with this free, including apps for our smartphone.

2.  weigh yourself every day.  Just weighing in has long-term benefits.  Sweet.  Improves presence with our bodies, awareness, goes towards shame, etc…

3.  compete/support network

4.  the rest of it.  This is for all the other stuff that is critical on many levels.  However, only the three things I’ve mentioned have been shown to have long-term effects.

I know.  Where are my references?  This is my blog, so me.  But there are references if you like.  I don’t have time to pick them off of my under-table unfortunately.  Hope that doesn’t keep you from participating with us.

Self-Care Tip – Know where to go when you feel afraid – towards it and not away.

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