Gratitude

by

A Tiffany Diamond Isn’t This Good

Patient-noncompliance-terrorism

I’m in San Bernardino today, working in a small community clinic. I am in the company of four licensed and practicing physicians who are donating their time. I am blessed.

One physician I’m working with tells me he has taken care of himself in his medical practice, “basically by not being a hypocrite.” He describes this by lifestyle choices of diet, exercise, etc… He likes surfing, which surprised me! “That’s why I’m skinny.” The man is not wearing california-traditional surf-wear. He’s wearing a general Sears-white button up with black slacks and comfort shoes. And he is old! He is in disguise. The age-disguise. I judge people too often by what I “see,” and this guy is a total surprise. Mr. cool.

There are medical students, college students, and nursing students here as well. One of them is a phenomenally gorgeous import to the US with a magical accent. Currently she’s eating a large bagel with cream cheese, dressed in a pencil skirt, stethoscope slung around her neck. Maybe I hate her just a little. She told me about her own “really good” personal experience with psychiatry and counselling. Her parents divorced when she was in college and “it helped” her get what she needed to get through it. Maybe I love her a lot. A woman of courage.

A patient I saw is a mother of seven. You may think, “Let’s just stop right there.” Anyone who wants to use “all her eggs” would need “help.” This woman has had to be sooooo strong! She’s been abused, used, neglected, and more since she came into this world. Even so, she pushes forward. She demonstrates self-value and Love. Where did this come from, I wondered.  Who taught her or gave her that? Today, she has even finally come into a willingness to get in the space of cultural dissonance, and consider for the first time, medical care for her emotional and behavioral needs. “I need it! I will do anything to get out of all ‘this.'” These words should come in a velvet lined blue and ribboned box. Gimme. Gimme.

We are talking now in the break room about patient and self-experienced medical health care stories. A hospitalist is explaining the difference he sees in his patients between noncompliance versus nonadherence to clinical directives. It’s a like a rocket just shot off! Every one is bothered in some way. You may remember from previous posts in this blog site about the “Number one Reason for Relapse” – treatment noncompliance. I now renege. Let it be known, I was wrong. I’d like to say, “nonadherence.” Forgive me! Noncompliance is an arrogant judgment, implying a decrease of mal intent or purposeful disobedience. There are many paradigms of reasons that interplay into any of our choices and performance in our personal medical care. I love that! Yes.

My colleagues here today, our patients, we all have much to teach each other, much to learn from each other. Today I came here thinking, I want to treasure the person in front of me “right now.” It makes a difference when I engage that way in “whatever.” #Gratitude for one more day where that happened. Those day are surrounded too often by many others when I forget.

Self-care Tip: Treasure the person in front of you.

Question: Who is in front of you right now? How can you treasure this person, this experience, this…? What are you getting from it? How is this perspective and what you get, kind to you?

Be a friend to yourself. Keep on!

by

Baby Nurse, Day One

The very first day I put on my scrubs I knew they were the right fit. I  look forward to connecting with patients. I find it to be a true honor and privilege to care for them at a difficult time in their life. I care for patients in pain. I advocate for the mentally ill. Most importantly, I make it my priority to make people feel like they matter. 

Below is a guest post…a small piece of my own blog at  theloshow.weebly.com

Keeping with ‘Friend To Yourself’ tips, remember to believe in yourself enough to make the smallest difference in someone’s day. The rewards are shared. 

 

It was orientation day. My family had taken a flight out ahead of me to attend wedding ceremonies. I stayed behind, pressed my clothes, prepared notebooks, and set out for a day I had been waiting for, for a long time.
Approximately 50 eager nursing students sat behind desks and quieted as the lights were lowered. The instructor played a film, introducing us to our chosen field and wanted to fill our bodies with motivation and inspiration.
‘You will have an opportunity to care for people that do not have the means or capacity to ever repay you.’
The film ended and my eyes were heavy with tears. I tried to open them wide, hoping the air conditioning would dry them up before my neighbors noticed.
I was so very grateful. I was excited and hopeful. I would live out my life being so very proud of my job. I couldn’t wait.
I was terrified. I barely slept the night before. I sat in my car watching the clock, hoping time would barely pass by if I watched every minute tic. It was my first patient interaction. I was at a skilled nursing facility and I was to interview an elderly patient, and gain experience obtaining a thorough health history.

What was I so afraid of?

I didn’t know what to expect.
I watched “Fried Green Tomatoes” one too many times, and had images of a mean old lady screaming at me, throwing me out of her room, and cursing my ill experience while throwing donuts.
I delayed no more and walked in with confidence. My name badge and clip board screamed target practice. The employed nurses love to watch you squirm.
My instructor gave me my patient’s chart and told me to go to her room and introduce myself after I gathered all the appropriate data. Her binder was thick with life’s journey. Medications, disease processes, and lab work now defined her within those walls.
“Where’s the tab in here that tells me who comes to visit her? Who takes her to the beauty parlor and church? Who tells her Happy Mothers Day?”
No such tab existed.
I walked in her room. She shared it with another lonely woman that mumbled something as I passed the curtain.
She looked old. She looked confused. She looked happy to have someone to talk to.

“Ms. Walker, may I ask you some questions about your health?”

I worked my way down the list that my instructor prepared for me.
Question 11: Do you have any STD’s?
Question 12: How many partners have you been with?
Are you kidding me? What kind of sick bastard wrote these questions for a nursing home? Can I let this lonely old woman have some secrets and dignity please?
Formalities get in the way the sometimes.
I put the clipboard down and just started to talk. I asked her questions like we were sipping tea by the shore.
We laughed. She told me stories about her life that I couldn’t possibly fit onto any sheet of paper.
I knew I’d have to make up some of my material to turn my paper in for a grade. I didn’t care, and knew my instructor wouldn’t care either.

The video your institution showed me on my first day didn’t say anything about caring more about a clip board than a person.
It was about how I made someone feel that day. She wanted to talk to a person that genuinely cared about her answers.
I left that day laughing at myself for being so nervous. I chose this profession because it allowed me to be free of clipboards and formalities. It’s about making people feel good.
In the spirit of Nurse’s Week…Remember how the profession began. It’s about being at a person’s bedside when their loved ones cannot. It’s about giving your attention when someone needs it most.
Be that person, and protect the integrity of the initials that follow your name.

{Nurse Leslie}

by

When we feel whispered about, undervalued and misunderstood

http://bit.ly/14uwdV7

The girl, with her thin lashes and small eyes, looked at her.  What was her name again?  Bee?  Bernice?  Benny?  Something with a B.

Angelica looked back and waited.  “Helloooo?!” she thought to herself, and wanted to knock back as if to say the punchline to a knock-knock joke.

Oh mercy!   This job was getting to her.  She was at the same level as her five-year-old nephew who made up what he thought were jokes, like,

“Knock-knock.

(Mommy say, Whose there?)

‘Whose there?’

Robby.

(Mommy say, Robby who?)

‘Robby who?’  Robby poopy face!”

The kid had a brilliant career in comedy coming.

Brianna was still looking at her and Angelica finally asked her how she could help her.

“It’s your note, Maom.”  Bernice, or was it Brenda, had this way of calling her mom and ma’am all at once, reminding her that she was too young to be either, but she may have well of been since she couldn’t remember the note or many other details about her colleagues.  She’d always been like that though.  It bothered her as she became more aware of how undervalued she thought she was.  All Angelica did notice were the criticisms that came to her from administration.  It made her feel like everyone was talking about her behind her back, but she knew she couldn’t be that special.

Angelica shifted in her chair.

The last boss-message was verbally delivered about when she took her lunches.  She had sat there and taken it.  Wondering, where had all the hard work gone, she gave what she thought was a polite smile.  Where was the appreciation?!  Angelica replied with thanks for the feedback and that she would continue to work on her timeliness.  Yes, she would like to revisit this in a month and how supportive that was, boss-man.

Beonca was holding her hand out and Angelica reflexively shook it.  Wait!  Was she crying?!  Hold on here.  And now she noticed that B was swiping her nose with her sleeve.  Oh hell.  Was she sick?  Great!  Now she’d get it.

“Your note was so sweet!  Thank you for giving that feedback on my job performance in to boss-man!”

Oh yah!  Now Angelica remembered.  After she’d last gotten the pearls thrown at her regarding lunch hour timeliness she had decided to put some words on paper that were good.  Since nobody was noticing her goodli-lishissness she’d notice theirs and start her own powerful paper trail.   Just cuz.

One of their customers who was giving Angelica a hard time was really happy with B and had told Angelica about it.  Instead of losing brain time on wondering what the customer did not like about her, Angelica had put in a note about how much the customer had liked B.

Since then, Angelica kept a stack of customer feedback slips handy to fill out any time she noticed a colleague and/or herself doing “it” right.  She was going to overwhelm boss-man with good stuff and just enjoy knowing that the stuff had been noticed and said.  No more would she be unappreciated.  Even if only by herself.

Angelica looked at the crumpled paper in B’s hand and read,

“Germaine is an excellent worker.  She found merchandise a customer wanted with speedy response today and the customer specifically told me about it.”

Germaine!?  Ah well.

Angelica leaned over and gave her own wet-eyed sticky hug back.

It is universal for all of us to feel whispered about, undervalued and misunderstood.  And then what?  Let us give it the elbow jab and be our own advocate.  Put it on paper.  Say it out loud.  Be grateful about it and ruminate the gratitude.

Personalizing what is not about us gets worse with brain illness.  It is almost pathognomonic for it in fact, when it gets to the point that it cannot be redirected by conscious decision, when it interrupts interpersonal relationships and when it takes away our ability to feel pleasure.  Taking medical treatment can change the way we feel and behave without beating ourselves up over it and moralizing what is not moral.  However, this kind of elbow jabbing Angelica decided to do is just plane friendly.  And if you want…?  Well?

Questions:  Have you felt whispered about, undervalued and misunderstood?  Have you been able to get friendly with it?  Or do you feel the victim?  Please tell us your story.

Self-Care Tip:  Acknowledge yourself and others.

by

Hermes’ Shoes

Repost of sorts.

Today I find myself walking with Hermes’ shoes on. Bits of fairy dust seem to have caught in my hair like shards of light in a forest of tight mountain pines. 3 hours into my day, I discovered I was full of gratitude. Where did it come from? I would like to find this spiriting again. I can’t help but admit, being thankful must be good for me.

People talk about gratitude to the fellow traveller of life as if it were pill, or morning chore to get over before play. But today, it came to me like a music-gram at my door. And there it is, the opening of the door.

Today my kids reminded me that no matter how much we get in life, (the little cherubs!) we will always want more. Coming out of Barnes and Noble post cookies and purchases, they were still listing off their desires. Us adults are not so different, we just package our orders differently. However, wanting more and ingratitude are different and not necessarily related. We agree with Nathaniel Hawthorne in “The Birth-Mark,” that we can have gratitude despite it.

“My poor Aylmer!” murmured she.

“Poor? Nay, richest, happiest, most favored!” exclaimed he. “My peerless bride, it is successful! You are perfect!”

“My poor Aylmer,” she repeated, with a more than human tenderness, “you have aimed loftily; you have done nobly. Do not repent that with so high and pure a feeling, you have rejected the best the earth could offer. Aylmer, dearest Aylmer, I am dying!”

So how do we “open the door” to gratitude amidst the wanting? Open your door any way you can, my friend.  I’ll watch and hope to learn from you.  Today mine opened without me even realizing the part I played.  Thinking back now, I remember that last night I asked my husband to pray for me. I believe that was the way I opened the door. It was a friendly thing to do.

Self Care Tip – Cultivate being thankful. Be a friend to yourself.

Questions:  How do you open the door to gratitude in your life?  How do you want more without losing gratitude?  Please tell us your story.

Related articles
by

Summarizing What You Say About Friendship With Yourself

Friendship

Image by Rickydavid via Flickr

In Summary:

Q1:  What does being “a friend to yourself” mean?

  • self-awareness
  • Acting on that self-awareness
  • Grieving who I wished I was
  • Valuing Me

Q2:  What helps?

  • Knowing where emotions and behaviors come from
  • No self-injury or aggression to others
  • Knowing God
  • Gratitude/self-inventory
  • Support from outside of Me
  • Personal check-points in place to offensively guard again self-sabotage

Q3:  What doesn’t help?

  • Perfectionism
  • Ingratitude
  • Untreated or treatment resistant brain illness
  • Stigma
  • misdirected efforts to feel empowered (such as, preoccupied thoughts = control)
  • isolation
  • habit

Q4:  What helps despite this?

  • Self-forgiveness
  • Realism/Without catastrophizing
  • Tenacity
  • Remembering what your self-care has done
  • Presence

Q5:  What is the relationship between biology and choice when it comes to understanding where emotions and behaviors come from?

  • Biological template determines function
  • Choice is there for using that template
Related articles
by

The 12 Steps To Serenity

Ben‑Enwonwu‑Negritu

Self-Care Tip #154 – Go towards Love.

I realize that many of us talk about the 12-Steps, we know people working the 12-Steps, we even recommend the 12-Steps but have never read them through.  So here they are.  For all of us.  A wonderful walk with and towards love.

The 12 Steps To Serenity

  • Step 1 – We admitted we were powerless over our addiction – that our lives had become unmanageable
  • Step 2 – Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity
  • Step 3 – Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood God
  • Step 4 – Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves
  • Step 5 – Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs
  • Step 6 – Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character
  • Step 7 – Humbly asked God to remove our shortcomings
  • Step 8 – Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all
  • Step 9 – Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others
  • Step 10 – Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it
  • Step 11 – Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood God, praying only for knowledge of God’s will for us and the power to carry that out
  • Step 12 – Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to other addicts, and to practice these principles in all our affairs

Question:  What do you think of these steps?  Please tell me your story.

Related Articles
by

Your Personal Fight For Emotional Freedom

crochetingingeorgia.blogspot.com

Self-Care Tip #151 – Fight to be a friend to yourself.

My friend Carl, after reading yesterday’s blog-post, introduced me to this gorgeous song.  I found it on YouTube connected to a slide show of our soldiers.  Thank you to our courageous American troops fighting for the freedoms we enjoy and take and take and take.  We know that when you fight, there are losses.

We all are soldiers of sorts, fighting in life for our own selves for so many reasons.  But it’s not about the reasons or motives.  God takes care of those.  So regardless of why, thank you to all of you out there fighting for your own selves.  You who want your own emotional freedom.  The good that comes from this courageous fight ripples on the life-waves and reaches us.  Thank you.  We know that when you fight, there are losses.

Carl, thank you.  Your personal fight, your courage, touches all of us.  What you do is self-care, is care for us, is care.

Let There Be Peace on Earth, by Gill Vince

Let there be peace on earth
And let it begin with Me.
Let there be peace on earth
The peace that was meant to be.
With God as our father
Brothers all are we.
Let me walk with my brother
In perfect harmony.

Let peace begin with Me
Let this be the moment now.
With every step I take
Let this be my solemn vow.
To take each moment
And live each moment
With peace eternally.
Let there be peace on earth,
And let it begin with Me.

(child)
Let there be peace on earth
And let it begin with Me.
Let there be peace on earth
The peace that was meant to be.
With god as our father
Brothers all are we.
Let me walk with my brother
In perfect harmony.

Let peace begin with Me
Let this be the moment now.
With every step I take
Let this be my solemn vow.
To take each moment
And live each moment
In peace eternally.
Let there be peace on earth
And let it begin with Me.

Question:  How do you see your personal fight for emotional freedom rippling into the space of others?  Please tell me your story.

by

Think About What You Have. The Season of Epiphany.

the Epiphany

Self-Care Tip #145 – Think about what you’re wanting and waiting for, and then think about what you have.  Be a friend to yourself.

Today my husband told me that it is the season of Epiphany – the climax to our waiting and wanting (or Advent) is celebrating when we find out that God became a human.

I like epiphany’s.  Who doesn’t?  At dinner we talked it over with the kids.  We asked them questions like, “What do you remember from last year that you’re glad about?”  “Did you learn anything that you want to remember in this new year?”  My three-year-old was glad our house isn’t destroyed yet by the rain.  (Yes.  It is raining again.  Blah.  The basement should be filled in with dirt!)

Then, my epiphany came.  Self-care includes being grateful for what and whom we already have in our lives.  Ta-da!  May not seem like much but it hit me strong and soulful.  I have names, including yours on my list.

Self-care for me today was stopping on the bits of life I already have, the people I already know, the gratefuls I don’t habitually spend enough spirit on (generally all of them.)  I get poetic and lumpy thinking about it.  My epiphanies feel like soppy insides, doe-y eyes, choking up over the smell of my husband’s neck, the mysteries of time and such.  Epiphanies generally don’t come without a waiting and a wanting.  It can all be deliberate, which is good news too, because those of us who don’t do that unconsciously have a chance.

As said by Fred Clark, Author of blog “Slacktivist,”

Epiphanies don’t seem like the sort of thing one can schedule ahead of time and plan for.

It isn’t as romantic as I hear it was for Edison, but we can plan.  Waiting, wanting, and the ah-ha’s can be deliberate and are part of self-care.

Question:  In this season, what are your epiphanies?

Related Articles
by

When You Are Hurting, Remember Why You Want To Live, And Live For That

 

greaterlearning.org

Self-Care Tip #133 – When you are hurting, remember why you want to live, and live more purposefully for that.

My daughter has a viral upper respiratory infection.  She is laying on the floor in her sleeping bag that has the stuffed puppy dog head for a pillow.  She just wants to be near me today while I work.  She wakes up and coughs, I check her out and dose her if she’s febrile.  She goes back to sleep.  Awakens.  Trundles up to drink some mango juice, water, eat 3 noodles, comes down again and lays there, pink in the cheeks, red eyes and chafed upper lip.

Sometimes when one of the kids is sick they stay home if I’m here.  It usually stresses me out but I’ve been getting better at believing more that we can take what comes and still get the work done.  Today, in-between patients, I laid down beside her.  Face-to-face.  She leaned in, opened her eyes and smiled!

She is one of the most delicately framed little people I know.  My nuclear family has never had small bones so this must be from someone on my husband’s side.  My daughter swung that tiny arm, warm with fever over my neck, put her face on mine, and fell asleep.

Lying there, thinking I’m so glad I could do this for her, suddenly felt wrong.  It flip-flopped over in my mind and I realized that I was glad.  But for me.

Having her near me while I work is a connecting force.  To both of us but maybe more for me.  My family has been exchanging this virus for 2 weeks now.  It hasn’t been hell but it has not been a delight.  Yet here I find myself delighted.  I wonder how long I’m going carry this gladness around.

Come what may in this world, it is these surprising moments that convince us about the rest.

In psychiatry, I’m required to ask each patient if they have thoughts of wanting to die.  Then I ask, “What do you want to live for?”  That catches some people off guard and I’ve gotten looks that could defend anyone in war.  But we aren’t at war and eventually they tell me why they want to stay alive another day.

At some level we all answer that question even if indirectly.  Everyone suffers.  If I were asked, my daughter’s smile would be on my list.

I am often amazed by good things that come out of bad.  Knowing that, gives hope.  But it also gives purpose and we can choose to angle ourselves more purposefully towards that rather than passively.  We can choose to live for the reasons we think worth living for.

My husband prays, “God please turn my posture toward you today.”  I’ve always loved that.

Question:  Why do you want to stay alive?  What are you living for?  Please tell me your story.

by

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.

Related Articles
by

Enjoy Life.

This morning my children have a wanting that seems to draw energy from lithium batteries.  They are creative in their persistence and for that I suppose I should congratulate someone.  When they are all petitioning, they find harmonics I never knew existed.  What to do?

It’s like stacking blocks.  All the blocks on top depend on their base.  Oh the lessons we can learn from our children’s toys!  There is the swing that pivots from the hinge.  The potential energy in a ball turned active only by the hand that throws it.  The, …well, we get it.  Our kids need us, parents and care-givers, in good working order, dependable, secure and safe.

Further, we show them by example.  It is not about getting more of what we want, but by pleasuring in what we have.  Such as 3 kids that scream a lot and demand for more, shouldn’t turn my subconscious into wanting a 4th fantasy child who looks like me but doesn’t holler as much.  Right?  Er…

So what do we do?  Take care of ourselves.  Appreciate what we have.  Live by example.  Get taught by circumstance.  Choose and then choose and keep on choosing what we chose to appreciate, live, and learn again.

The Gallup Organization has done many sociological studies on happiness.  In one Gallup World Poll more than 136,000 people in 132 countries were surveyed in 2005-2006.  To measure this, they used questions about emotions, perceived respect, family and friends to count on, and freedom to choose their daily activities, learn new things or do what they do best.  (By the way these are questions worth asking ourselves too.)

As Quoted in Bloomberg Businessweek about the results from this study,

The public always wonders: Does money make you happy? This study shows that it all depends on how you define happiness because, if you

look at life satisfaction, how you evaluate your life as a whole, you see a pretty strong correlation around the world between income and happiness… On the other hand, it’s pretty shocking how small the correlation is with positive feelings and enjoying yourself.

This was the first study to differentiate between life satisfaction and day-to-day positive or negative feelings that people experience.  Getting richer may not be the only thing we can do to enjoy life.

This prompts us to understand our own agendas. (A discussion for another blog-post.)

But how do we take care of ourselves?  Per the positive psychology movement, founded in part by Martin E.P. Seligman, PhD – do things that build self-confidence, strengthen character and develop interpersonal skills.

Well that’s a lot to process for today folks ;).  I’ll shut it down for now.  But before you go…

Question!  What do you think?  Does any of this stand out for you in your life?

Self Care Tip #39 – Do things that build self-confidence, strengthen character and interpersonal skills.  Be a friend to yourself.

by

Choose Your Prophesy

A woman today with a frank quick smile found out I wrote FriendtoYourself.com.  She swung open the door to her story.  People like her never bore me.  In brief, she was sad after many life losses.  Then when she made some changes in her life she got better.  “I didn’t know how bad I felt!”  (And who does?)  Now every day has activity she loves.  She gets tearful just telling me about all the gratitude that took her by surprise.

In psychiatry, the way she felt when she was sad is called an Adjustment Reaction.  An Adjustment Reaction doesn’t last long, it is in response to stress, and it goes away when the stressor is removed.

Stress is dangerous to us.  It can affect us for different amounts of time, like measuring cups.  During that time, it can affect us to different depths within ourselves, like a scuba diver exploring a coral reef.  If the sad time in this woman’s life went longer, and if she had gotten more sick, it might have become a Major Depressive Episode.  In that case, medication therapy would be appropriate.

Stress affects different intersecting paradigms that make us into who we are, like storm water over farmland.  It crosses over our biology, our genes, what is done to us in life, what we do to ourselves, what is put in our bodies, and how we cope.

Stress can pass over us like a Jewish holiday or it can stay, working, changing, reshaping, adding and taking away bits, always active and busy.  Ants in the walls of our house.  Most often we don’t know what it is doing, for how long, or where it is at work in us.  Stress mutates our cells, turns sleeping genes into loud cancer, depression, anxiety, heart attacks, dementia, old and wasted faces.

But what to do?  Do we avoid stress?  Do we end it?  Do we cure it?  All of that, of course.  My dad told me, “Everyone has problems.  The difference between you and somebody else, is what you do with your problems.”  Not the number of them.

No.  This woman’s story didn’t bore me at all.  The opposite does.

In the film directed by Adam Shankman, “Bedtime Stories,” the character played by Adam Sandler thinks choices have little effect on inevitable negative outcomes. “Life has no happy endings.”  He lives consistent with that belief, until love finds him.  A happy life story can be chosen.  His fantasies are freed to cross the boundary from imagination into the material world where love was waiting, in the shape of family and strangers.  Love showed him that his life had been a self-fulfilling prophecy.  He hadn’t even realized how unhappy he was.  (And who does?)

Self Care Tip #38 – Choose to go towards your fantasies.  Be a friend to yourself.

Question:  What do you think?  What is your story?

by

Collaboration Between Work and Play

All my options were poking at me like specters and I’ve been distracted.  Sitting in the coffee shop.  2 hours later and I’ve just started to write.  This is the first in eons since I’ve had open space in time during daylight hours.  I vaguely remember doing this in my past lives, but can’t remember how to do it.  I’m awkward.  It’s hard to know how to press into an area without boundaries.  I’ve walked on the moon here, trying to know how to foot my thoughts.  And now that my unbelievably free time is almost over, I realize I’ve procrastinated.  A daily planner all filled up just dropped down and I can see what I should do.  There’s a comfort in it.

A collaboration between work and play is healthy.  We slide or trip across the arc that connects them.  The path back can be harder to return to when we stay too long at one pole.  Like an unused muscle.  Sometimes people get sick and need time off work to recover.  They often look at me with bewilderment and ask, “What now?”  It’s like telling a kid, it’s time to nap.  Everyone else who hears desperately wishes you were talking to them.  We can lose the flow and someone or life or a force has to show us how to get back into sync.

Gratitude helps swing the pendulum.  That awareness, gratitude, moves us back and forth to see our options, what we want and what we have.  

Humility is another fair guide.  Kids get this.  I respect that about them.  Their hearts are open flowers, vulnerable, wanting.  They move trusting the momentum and direction from which they pivot.  We get more friction as we age.  It takes humility to accept redirection.  Humility is different from insecurity though.  It takes confidence and trust in something to know when to let go.  Kids do that better than me too!

Today, some of the resistance in my journey left, and I have more gratitude for my work and for my play.  I hope that I respond more easily when I should.  Like Samuel who heard God calling, I hope to know when to answer.  Let me be like a child.

Self Care Tip #33 – Live with gratitude, humility, and confidence.  Be a friend to yourself.

Question: Does this resonate with you?  What do you think?

by

Be Aware

Cover of "The Psychology of Gratitude (Se...

Cover via Amazon

We’re sitting at the piano practicing.  She is smart, reading for a year already, beautiful in a way that scares me at times, has advantages that surround her just because.  She isn’t thinking of these things though.  She thinks about the things she is not.  She says, “I can’t do that.  I don’t know how.”  She is not thankful just now about her opportunities.

I wondered, as I was sitting at the piano, if success and gratitude are collaborators.

Gratitude should not be conceived just in terms of a particular relationship. Gratitude is a philosophical emotion. It is, in a phrase, seeing the bigger picture.  …And so viewed, being grateful for one’s whole life is not a “grateful to whom?” question so much as it is a matter of being aware of one’s whole life, being reflective in a way that most of us are not, most of the time.

-Robert Emmons and Michael McCullough, The Psychology of Gratitude

Seems like a little much to expect out of a 5 year-old?  Maybe, maybe not.  But it definitely is if her parent isn’t practicing awareness, reflection, gratitude.

We will have more success in our life’s ambitions if we practice gratitude.  This much I will do and maybe, my little girl will learn to see herself differently too.

Self Care Tip #30 – Be aware.  Be a friend to yourself.

by

Sunshine

My daughter came out of her room. “I can’t sleep Mommy. I feel lonely.” Part of me wanted to run the shadows down, throttle them and take revenge. Another part of me, stopped at what I saw in her eyes. It was as if she was saying, “Am I ok?” And I felt happy with the question. I knew there was my sunshine.

Am I ok? Am I the only one who feels this way?

My husband and I went to hear Rob Bell talk about suffering. He had us all write down on cards “I am not alone.” Then he asked us questions about suffering. “If you have loved someone who has died, please stand.” “If you or someone you know has had cancer, please stand.” “Who here is struggling with their finances?” “If you…,” and the questions went on. Pretty soon, there wasn’t anyone in the many hundreds of people attendance not standing. We looked at each other, exposed and awkward. Our crusty’s and defenses barely in place. Then Rob Bell asked us to give our card to someone we didn’t know. He did this over and over until we realized materially, that none of us were alone. I don’t know who’s writing is on my card but it reminds me that someone(s) out there share my suffering and I theirs.

For now, my daughter is small. For now, I hold her card. I knew what to say, and it felt like sunshine.

You are not alone. Many people feel that way all the time and feeling that way is normal. But you can’t trust your feelings. When you feel lonely, remember what you know to be true. You are not alone.

My daughter, looked at me and I saw that I got it right for once! We connected through something like a sliver of magic. I was so glad. She nodded, hugged and kissed and went to bed. It was dark outside but there was light in my heart.

Self Care Tip #19 – Share your card and take one – You are not alone! Be a friend to yourself.