California

by

Give Because You Want To, Not Because You Are a Victim To Their Taking

Giving

Self-Care Tip – Give to others because you want to and have so much to give.

People who live in chaos, generally do because they want it. They are the ones who think you are the best one day and are screaming you down in the next. They pit team-members against each other. Without the team-members knowing what happened they are now distrustful of people they used to trust, feeling suspicious and defensive. The people who live in chaos have their own gravitational force for extremes. Extreme behavior finds them. They are suffering. No doubt, but at the same time, they thrive on this in some way. They choose it. Even so, they don’t know their choices and are ever the victim in any crime scene.

I have seen a few amazing life-stories unfold where these habits were reorganized into friendly behavior. It took years but every time I see these people, knowing where they came from, my mouth is open, my soul lays in splayed humility and I have new hope in the Love that heals us.

Clara was one such as this. I’m not going to tell you all of her story but let you know that now she has woven a net of support around her, people she spends time with, peer groups she attends. She takes her medications and doesn’t change the doses without discussing them first with me. She feels pleasure without having to be at an extreme.

Clara still has some people in her life who haven’t done this for themselves. Who haven’t worked on themselves and become their own friend and she has been tempted to “save” them at times. Clara just told me the other day,

I am not responsible for the fact that she doesn’t have any one else but me.

Clara has been tempted to stop investing in herself to invest more time caring for those who don’t care for themselves. But she didn’t. She maintains her health and investing in herself and she is still living. She gives to others because she has so much to give. Not because she is a victim to their taking. Clara continues to fight for herself and I respect her. I am learning still about doing this for myself and hope you are too. Out.

Questions: Have you ever seen these kinds of miracles in people’s lives around or in you? What was it like? Please tell me your story.

Related articles
by

Codependent,… Or Something?!

Inquisition condemned (Francisco de Goya).

Image via Wikipedia

Codependent.

It’s a term a lot of people use but I don’t think we are all using it to mean the same thing.  It is poorly defined and confusing.  If codependency were a medication, we would call it a “dirty medicine,” because it hits so many “receptors.”  It is nonspecific.

Who hasn’t ever been shamed by the fear that they are codependent?

You are codependent! 

Am I codependent!!!??

The word implies blame.  Blame for what?  And that is one of the places we walk away without benefit.  Was the word useful to any of us in any way?

In general, vaguely, codependence implies awareness and participation with mal-behavior that we are powerless to.  Treatment preferably includes a twelve-step program that includes the surrender of what we don’t have power over to our Higher Power.  Codependence may incidentally be combined with brain disease and of course that would need medication therapy.

There are however a few things that must be cleared up.

  1. There is nothing shameful about being married, the child of or of any relation to an addict.  That position doesn’t diagnose us with codependency unless that’s what that word is being used to define.  You never know.
  2. There is no shame in wanting to be with people, depend on people, seek people out to problem-solve and get energy from being with people.  That position does not diagnose codependency unless that’s what the word is being used to define.  You never know.

However,

  1. There may be a relationship to family of addicts
  2. There may be a relationship to anger problems
  3. There may be a relationship to kids of parents who expected perfect kids, spouses of spouses who expect perfect spouses, pet-owners who… (Oh wait.  That’s not right.)

BUT, per Dr. Q, if we find ourselves…

  1. in recurring negativity – perhaps an argument that happens over and over
  2. with an increasingly limited ability to participate in life
  3. powerless
  4. doing things we wouldn’t normally do/out of character
  5. tied into someone else’s mal-behavior
  6. consciously aware of that someone’s mal-behavior

IT’S WORTH THINKING ABOUT IT.  We might not be codependent, whatever that means, but we do need help.

Questions:  How do you identify this in your life or someone you know?  How have you been able to stop being dependent on someone you knew was repeatedly doing mal-behavior?  Please tell me your story.

Self-Care Tip #275 – Forget the shame and just get about your work to figure this out.

Related articles
by

When Things Get Heated, Remember to Ask Your Friend’s Opinion. You.

Check the Meaning

Image via Wikipedia

Self-Care Tip #237 – When things get heated, get a second opinion with your friend.

What would my friend say?

When in question, ask.  And who is the friend we are referred to here?  The “Me.”

This is a great check point to give ourselves.  Things get heated between her and him, she gets a second opinion.

Barbara had read this blog and tucked something of its fabric away in her blended space between conscious and sub.  Then one day, while zoning out listening to her husband yell and criticize her, she saw herself.  It was as if she split into the participating Barbara and the observing Barbara.  The participating Barbara suddenly didn’t feel so alone.  The word, or more the concept of “friend” came to mind and she put it together.

Now generally when she is in a situation that hurts and bewilders her, she is remembering to ask her friend what she should do.  Asking used to take longer, but now it comes to mind as quickly as the thought of consulting an intimate partner would.

What would my friend say?

Things weren’t peaceful yet in her life, but just asking her friend what she would do has helped Barbara a lot.  Barbara explained to me that if she were with a girlfriend, say Sally, and Sally gets worked over by her husband, Barbara wouldn’t have any problem thinking of what Sally should do about taking care of herself.  Barbara says that being her own friend is almost the same.

And then for me, it clicked.  I can ask my friend.

What should I do?

Question:  When getting hurt by someone, how can you get friendly with yourself in the moment?  Please tell me your story.

by

What We Get For Our Work

 

 

Number three on Bella’s List:

Farmer Brown hired help to get his crop in.  Half way through the job, he realized he needed more help, so he got some.  This happened at least 3 times before the job was finished.  Come paying time, Farmer Brown gave everyone the same, $100.  “What’s going on here!?” the people who worked the longest complained.  “We should get paid more!”

Farmer Brown, …well you probably know that this is my version of the story from Matthew 20:1-16.  The Farmer gave them more than money.  But what did he give?

What are we getting for what we do?  Intuitively we probably think, like the hired farm-hands, and like my patient Bella, that we aren’t getting what we should at times.

“The day has been ruined!” Bella said.  Her eyes sparkled and flashed as she spoke of her injury.  Bella was not so pleased with her labor’s reward.

The real point of our stories here – the hired farm-hands, Bella’s, and our own story – is figuring out the reference point of why we do things.  Everyone makes their reference point in their own way.  Find your reference point.  Just find it.  You’ll get more for your dollar, so to speak.

You might remember from some earlier posts, about doing what is congruent with our hard-wiring, i.e. our temperament.  This gives us more joy in our work, we are better at what we do, we feel less self-pity, and an energy generated simply by our own natural interest drives our efforts.  As a believer in biology, I’d list temperament not as a reference point, but as an influence of how we search for and how we define our reference point.

Finding our reference point is not impossible if we don’t do what comes natural to us.  Finding our reference point is impossible though if we aren’t looking.

After searching in my special way for why I do what I do in life, I found God.  Is that true?  Just ‘cuz I said God is my reference point, doesn’t make it true.

Self-Care Tip #95 – Find your reference point.  Be a friend to yourself.

Question:  Have you actively, purposefully used your biology (like a hoe in the field) to find why you do what you do?  Is it helpful?  What have you found?  Please tell me your story.

by

There is Room In Our Wanting Selves

Having another child born, our hearts somehow open up and make more love, more space where things once seemed crowed up like hobos in a boxcar.  Our time and energy does that too.  Feeling like you can’t do another thing by 6 PM?  Feeling like watching TV on the couch is an accomplishment at that point?  I’m telling you that this changes.  Do what you want.  You may not realize it yet but you want something special.  You want something that you were designed to do.   When you discover what that is, activity becomes joyful, congruent with your inner self.  Somehow there is more room in your day.  More energy that comes with no strings attached.

My husband just came home from a tech conference.  He was told by famous Silicon Valley junkies, while sitting in an audience of other wannabe’s, “Don’t do a startup.  You’ll fail.”  It was a secondary message that returned intermittently – unless you can’t sleep at night because you need to solve a problem – if you are trying to do a startup company for any other reason than for your own sanity, you won’t make it.  These people were doing what they were doing because they felt like it was their life’s nectar.  It was their pearl of great price.  Their efforts were fueled by their own genetic design.

In medical school, I used to look around me confused by the obvious natural positive responses of other students.  I looked at myself and thought I was a fake.

I looked at them and thought, “There’s the real thing.  I wonder what it feels to be the real thing.”  I know.  Sad huh?  Ah well.  Turns out I’m a flaming extrovert.  I get energy from being with people.  Being alone takes energy from me.  Wether it happens slowly or quickly, either way eventually I have to resurface and connect with someone to re-tank.  Every day when I sat down to study, I felt alone, energy sucked out of me, the ground was going to swallow me up.  And I did it still.  Ground through my long hours long enough to make it to where I belonged.  With you in psychiatry :).

Here’s the news.  We are all “The real thing!”  Yah!  We have our own greatness.

I’m not talking about opportunity to reach that greatness.  Some of that we are given and some of that we make.  I’m just ringing our bells with the idea.  If you want to read more about this, read the blog posts on temperaments.

Question:  Are you doing what you want?  Please tell me your story.

Self Care Tip #64 – There is room in your wanting self for more.  Be a friend to yourself.