Conditions and Diseases

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Something Decadently Enticing

Oh rotten orange!  I found one stinking up my pantry.  Little fruit flies netting the air above.  Green fur staining my basket below.  The fruit touching it changing colors for no reason other than proximity.

Stay healthy.  Staying healthy is one of the best things we can do for ourselves and for those we “share space” with, those we love.  It is a gift any way you look at it.

Exercise helps, including with emotional health.  Yet, how many of us do?  About 30%.  Some of us use negative self talk to get ourselves out there.  “I’m fat.”  “I’m going to have a heart attack if I don’t.”  “I won’t qualify for that insurance if I don’t.”  All of which may be true.  However, does it work for us?  Apparently 1/3 of the time.

We use the negative feedback to motivate ourselves.  But just as in children, we know it doesn’t work.

If a child lives with approval, he learns to live with himself

-Dorothy Law Nolte

Positive reinforcement is helpful in any context.  Who knows!  Maybe that rotten orange would have tried harder to stay fresh with emotional perks?!

Each of us needs to find our own positive feedback that works.  Our interests are different so it’s not universal.  However, we can be our own behavioral therapist in this.

I have found for myself that I never exercised consistently until I turned exercise into something decadently enticing.  I load up 3 large glasses of water and take them to my bike.   My bike is in an alone place.  In front of my stationary bike is our only television.  There I watch whatever I want!  I don’t allow myself to watch TV at any other time.  It is special.  Reserved for my exercise.  I can’t wait to get back to my show or movie almost every morning!

When I want to hit the streets with a walk or a jog, I listen to audio books that I only listen to when I’m exercising.

I have to set aside some persuasive treats that are now linked in my mind to exercising.  Now when I think of exercising, I am nothing but happy about it.  It is behavioral modification at it’s best.  Hopefully this is helping me and those I touch in life.

Self Care Tip #42 – Turn exercise into something decadently enticing!  Be a friend to yourself.

Question:  What positive reinforcement works for you?

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Do This.

A basic recipe to becoming a friend to yourself:

Before, during and after # 1-6.  Love.  Find it.  Go to it.  Be in it.

1.  Sleep well regularly

2.  Aerobic  exercise at least 5 to 7 days a week.  Try to hit 60 minutes as many days as possible.

3.  Take your supplements:  Omega 3 and vitamin D.

4.  Do what gives you energy.  This means what is congruent with your inner self.  If all stressors disappeared, along with all roadblocks, what would you want to do?  Do what ever that is as regularly as possible.  Is it playing basketball?  Is it playing with children?  Is it canvassing?

5.  More on the above.  Get creative with it.  Grow in that area.  To do this requires work.  So the 5th ingredient is to work.

6.  Reflect on yourself.  Take stock.  Are you feeling more friendly with yourself?  If not or if not enough, consider medications.

This is not a complete recipe.  I didn’t speak about diet, water, air.  Can’t live without them.  But for now, I wonder what this recipe will make for you.  Please let me know.

Self Care Tip #27 – Do this.  Be a friend to yourself.

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Soul and Body

When we get sick, our identity, who we are, our essence might feel threatened.

In “His Dark Materials” trilogy, Philip Pullman says there is no God so we create heaven ourselves. In regards to our spirit, he says we come from and belong to the evolving universe. Perhaps so many have read this trilogy because it openly speaks about our souls. After it won various awards, we could say the man can write. But also that many of us, along with John Milton in Paradise Lost, wonder who our essence belongs to.

Since so much of our culture puts the definition of identity on behavior, it makes it seem that brain patterns define humanness. How do you see yourself? We all agree that our brain is part of our body. The question of soul comes in to play.

Some believe that the soul is a brain pattern. We might not agree that there is a difference between soul and body (or the brain). But if we did, could we even agree that the body is just that, a house for it, as Mr. Pullman says? This inconstant body, this betraying brain, this changing mind?  We’ve got more bank than that.

This is important to sus out. In the immediate sense, it tells us where to go if you need help. Temple? Doctor? Gym? It will affect your self-view when you go through physical loss. It will affect your hope when you haven’t felt like yourself in years.

Who are we if we need to take medication to behave like ourselves? The question I often hear is, am still me? Do I grieve the loss in order to accomodate the new sick me who has tremors and fear of public places? Then when I get better and lose an arm in a car accident do I need to change my view of my identity again? Then after I get better and get to know the new me, I get breast cancer and undergo a mastectomy. Now who am I? Now I’m old and eat with a wooden spoon and my kids take away my drivers license. I get dizzy at the hospital I used to work at and fall and hit my head in front of colleagues I once mentored. Who am I?

Many people I talk to think, like Pullman, that when they die their soul disperses amongst all the spiritual and material matter across the universe.

I have become comfortable with my own answer. My spirit belongs to and is in the care of Love, which is stronger than any change that happens to my body.

Self Care Tip #23 – Find your identity. Be a friend to yourself.

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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.

Mother’s and Sleep
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Mother’s and Sleep

I was speaking with a friend, mother of 3, including a new baby of 3 months.  Any on-looker could say she had it all.  However, she wasn’t feeling happy.  Looker’s on could also guess just as well some of the reasons why.  Especially those of us who’ve raised infants.  It’s called sleep.  Sleep, the elixir of good living.  Without it, color fades.  Sounds and voices take on an edge like the underside of a long fingernail.  Our thoughts swim about in a mire.  Finding words is confusing and speaking them reduces us to… to what?  Well you’ve been there where my friend found herself struggling to say why she wanted to cry and beat her children.  Just to hear her is enough to make your milk let down.

Hearing someone say get sleep is uncomfortable.  It brings up all the cultural reasons why we don’t get sleep, the emotional reasons, the relationship reasons, and the reasons around discipline.  Well, whatever it makes you feel or think, it comes down to biology.  You won’t feel good and be healthy emotionally and be able to do things you want to do for others if your body and brain isn’t getting restored at night.  So losing sleep may feel like a sacrifice you’re doing for your new baby or husband who wants to stay up and watch movies together, and it may.  However it is also other things.  Losing sleep is taking yourself away from them tomorrow.  It takes from your own journey, disconnects you from your own self.  Losing sleep is a biological cascade that leads to deteriorating goals, including your ability to give well.

There is sacrifice also in letting your child cry for 5 more minutes before going to him at night.  There is sacrifice in going to sleep instead of staying up to play with someone you love.  Don’t be fooled in to thinking that you’re getting your child from her crib when she cries for 30 seconds for her sake.  Don’t be fooled into a mother’s martyrdom.  Babies are also healthier when allowed to self soothe.  Babies are healthier when they learn to put themselves to sleep if they awaken at night.  To get good sleep, look past the guilt, look past the immediate pleasure, look past the distraction, look past and see yourself as you will be tomorrow.  Let that be the sacrifice in your life.  A healthy mom, a healthy wife, and healthy individual for those you love.  Sleep for your own valuable self.  You have a chance to live well.

Self Care Tip #3:  Get sleep for any reason that makes sense to you, but sleep.  Be a friend to yourself.

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