friend

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Imagine If You Were Your Own Friend, And Take Your Advice

Postcard - Sexy Woman writing a letter

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

Self-Care Tip #234 – Imagine if you were your own friend, and take your advice.

Joana Johnson, author of CreatingBrains.com, full-time mom of six, part-time University history teacher, student, wife, confidant, friend and sister-in-law… (no she’s not running for president) …Joana asked me today,

Write a letter to someone you love sharing what you want them to do to take better care of themselves.  You don’t have to give it to them or you can.

Now imagine what letter with what self-care requests would someone who loved you write to you?

…You’re right.  I’m going to have to talk her into running for president.

And so, I offer this challenge to you.  I wonder after you.  I am sitting in waiting.  Please tell us this part or more of your story.

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Self-Care Is About More Than “Me”

Self-Care Tip #208 – If for no other reason, get friendly with yourself simply to survive and you’ll see what that means later.

my self care reminders

Image by CatrinaZ via Flickr

It is not unusual to think of “selfish-care” when we hear “self-care.”  I can imagine children gripping their mother’s skirts more tightly, husbands pulling their helpmate’s hands away from this influence, church-folk sniffing over rejections to service-calls or friends personalizing the way their phone doesn’t ring as much as it used to.  This is a natural response, although it is a false perception.  Think – feeling suffocated by her penance, he’s wearing a martyr’s cross or she’s giving to us from victimhood.  Those are the times we would rather not receive the gifts of time, person or anything dripping with that kind of guilt and implied debt. This kind of service comes from someone impoverished, giving on credit.

I’ve been known to say, “We can’t give what we don’t have.”  Or as Jasmine said,

You can’t give someone a ride if you’re all out of gas!

So when is self-care selfish?  To be true to what self-care is, I’d say almost never.  However, because the question comes from such an intuitive fear in any of us, “never” can’t be an entirely fair answer.  To answer it best though, we need to turn it over and go back to trying to discover why we wanted self-care first.  What brought us here?  Jacqui said it well in yesterday’s post-comments:

Ditto about ‘self-care boot camp’. I may steal that one. You’ve given me permission to be selfish if need be. It’s all about self-preservation.

Sometimes we are reduced to self-preservation.  It has an intensity to it, a survival mode of live or die, which may be appropriate to a desperate condition in life.   Many of us know what that feels like.  So in this context, self-care is in part about survival.  Alright.  But is survival a selfish need?  Are we worth that little?  Does the life in us hold value only at that level?

rejuvenation.self.care.logo

Image by guttersnipe.76 via Flickr

You hear the clomping my words are making and can follow that I answer, no.  Survival has far reaching significance.  I matter.  You matter.  We have value beyond our own selves and Me booting up to live better also ripples over those same infinite number of connections.

I am confident that if for no other reason than getting friendly with yourself simply to survive, you will still see at least some of what more that means later.  Self-care is about more than Me.

Question:  When do you think self-care is selfish?  Why do you think self-care is not?  Please tell me your story.

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Tell People When You Fall

It's no laughing matter ladies... Monthly brea...

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Self-Care Tip #171 – Tell people when you fall.

Driving today, I was slowed by a driver ahead of me.  I started to get irritated, (I know, “I can’t control this“), but then I noticed the car had bumper stickers supporting breast cancer.  In less than a moment my mind grabbed memories of faces, feelings, conversations, stories and personal experiences in my memory relating to breast cancer and I suddenly felt a sense of empathy and some sadness.  It left me a bit surprised and I reminded myself I was irritated at this driver.  While trying to tease apart these seemingly opposing reactions, I realized I didn’t care much any more about the slowness.  Mainly I wondered how there was breast cancer connected and I cared.

Providentially, Erin posted today on her blog-site, Healthy, Unwealthy, and Becoming Wise,

Falling finds friends.

I remembered the driver and you readers and thought, “It sure does.  Especially when we let others know.”

My Ecuadorian sister, Joana Johnson, often tells me one of the biggest contrasts she see’s between our cultures,

connection.

I spent some time in Ecuador doing some clinical work and learning more Spanish between my second and third year of medical school.  I was rarely alone, which frankly creeped me out a little.  Being westernized, I was used to a huge amount of independence and anonymity.  I wonder who I would be if I had grown up knowing someone was always involved in my life.

You might have heard the proverb asking,

If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?

Or,

Water, water everywhere and nothing to drink.

I don’t want to be surrounded but not witnessed, connected or heard.

Telling people about our “falls,” cancer, depression, assault or what not, can feel creepy too, just like I felt loosing some of my anonymity in Ecuador.  However, I now tell myself, “It’s just culture and I can grow.  And I want to.”  Culturally in the “West,” we think of telling about our falls as whining.  That’s a misperception however and a disservice to all of us.  Telling people when we fall is not whining.  The act of telling and the act of whining aren’t contiguous unless we design them to be.

This morning when I saw those bumper stickers, it brought me into the drivers life and connected us.  We are both a little less alone than we were.  These last six months for me have been about taking down boundaries in my well defended life, and I am growing into the difference.  Thank you readers and commenters for that.

Questions:  What has telling others about your “falls” done for you?  How has your culture influenced you in finding friends?  Please tell me your story.

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No Matter Why, Where, or What Happens, Self-Care Starts and Ends With Me

Cover of "To Kill a Mockingbird: 50th Ann...

Cover via Amazon

Self-Care Tip #158 – No matter why, where or what happens, self-care still starts and ends with Me.

It’s no secret that I look at behavior through many paradigms.  Most of what I’ve shared on this blog is medical because I’m a physician.  That’s my specialty.  I’m not a physicist and don’t spend my posts on explaining how physics influences our behaviors – although I believe it does.  However, I don’t want you to think that I think behaviors and emotions exist within only the medical paradigm, even though that’s what you hear me talk mostly about.

According to Dr. Q, the roughly sketched breakdown of how stress intersects with medicine:

1.  Stress influences how we behave and feel. We “see” the stressors, and we see the emotional and behavioral responses, and we know their sources.  We know that emotions and behaviors are produced by a human.  Where else?  Anything magical or otherwise comes from Someone from another place.

2.  Stress influences our medical condition. Stress will awaken sleeping genes that carry the names of different diseases; cancer, major depressive disorder, schizophrenia, and so on.  Would those genes have awakened on their own without the external trigger flipping the switch?  We don’t always know.

3.  Because there are so many factors that influence the reasons a disease process demonstrates itself, we cannot say that it is causally related to the stressors.  Many people try to do this, and sometimes the disease’s labeled cause comes down to the jury’s decision.  But we don’t have to have read, “To Kill A Mockingbird” by Harper Lee to know that people’s opinions and judgments are biased.

4.  People try to find the reasons why.  This is natural and in my opinion appropriate.  However, where we look for the reasons for the feeling and behaviors is equally important.  Seeking accountability for how we feel and behave to come from outside of ourselves, to come from external reasons, to come from a source to fault is more often missing our chance to get friendly with ourselves.

“It just is,” as many say, and the 12-Steps would say “Surrender what is out of your control to your Higher Power.”  These are not inconsistent with owning that mental health begins and ends with Me.

Sure, there are the despicable situations of abuse, trauma, violence and other horrible biology changing events.  These are known to cause the one non-genetically related psychiatric disease process called post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD.)  These are situations consistent with our previous post on not being responsible for our history but being responsible for our futures.

5.  Stress, other than in situations of PTSD, is not causal for the progression of mental illness.  Everyone has stress, but how we deal with it, how we cope makes the difference.  Even horrible events, such as losing ones wealth and the sequelae of it are not causal for the continuance of brain disease.

6.  Medications, lifestyle change, Love and various other therapies effectively influences the way genes express themselves, our biology, and our medical condition….

7.  …In so doing, medications, lifestyle change, spirituality and various other therapies effectively influence our emotions and behaviors.

Question: How has your understanding of how stress intersects with with how you feel and behave affected you?  Please tell me your story.

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Get Access to Information – Get a SmartPhone

 

Fast Company magazine cover: April 2010

Image by karen horton via Flickr

 

I read an inspiring blog today on SparkPeople titled, “Could Staying on Track be Addictive?”

SparkPeople is a great site that does what any other lifestyle change/weight loss website does and probably more – free!  I can’t say enough good things about it.  It’s one of those things that has given comparably to what it has taken.  I’m not crystal clear on this, but I think they profit from advertising and publications (The Spark.)

I appreciate the practicality of the phone app especially, which allows us to real-time journal our food.  We often can’t change our lifestyle if we don’t food-journal for at least a week or two to get an honest grip on things.  This ties our journal immediately into our SparkPeople.com member site and all its other benefits.  That is one reason that I like this food-journal phone app better than others.  It has continuity.

How much do many of us spend on weight loss efforts?  Let’s say we simply subscribe to a different on-line weight-loss program such as e-diets.  This plan starts out at $17.96 for 1 month. The cost of a smart phone runs roughly around $100.  The monthly cost for the internet access runs around $30/month more than a plan with just telephone service.  It’s a fair bargain to get a smart phone with internet access just for the apps in my opinion.  We get so much more quality of life from access to information.  SparkPeople is just one of a huge number of potential options on our side.  If affordable in our budgets, it is a friendly thing to have in hand.

Soon I’m going to write more about the idea referred to above, that staying on track can be addictive in a good way.  I liked her blog.  I like SparkPeople.  Having a smart phone helps me be friendly with myself.

Self Care Tip #69 – Think about getting a smart phone.  Be a friend to yourself.

Question:  Has easier access to information helped you take care of yourself?  How?  If not, why?  Please tell me your story.

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Caught in Your Net – Thanks

Connecting more with friends since I started blogging. People I went to school with are knitted together electronically.  The world is smaller than ever.

In school, a people whom we drifted in and out of intimacy with, as kids will do, surrounded us.  Regardless of intimacy, they were generally there the next day and the next day. Familiar faces, personalities, specific laughs, and voices you could pick out in any crowd.  I’m pretty sure with many of them, I still could.

After many years without them there to see me fall off my chair, set a ball, share books, compare bra sizes, whisper, giggle – did I not miss them?  But I did.  Now however, through this technology-net, impossibly dispersed groups of people show their faces on my computer screen daily.  And regardless of degrees of intimacy, they are witnesses again when I fall down and when I stand.  I feel more alive!  Even seeing an angle of someone’s jaw line can take me back to a lawn and a tree and a bench we used to share between classes.  In almost real-time, I am laughing at their jokes, fame and foibles.  Crying with them when they lose.

Certain things are even better than they were when we were in school.  We don’t have as much time for closeting behaviors, hurts, shame.  It leaves more room for the real self to occupy.  Read more about this in the post “Sunshine.”

So to all you old (and new ;)) friends who have given me this privilege, thank you for catching me in your “net.”  Life with you is better.

Self Care Tip #58 – Connect with others to feel more alive.  Be a friend to yourself.

Question: What has helped you feel more connected?  Please tell me your story.

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Criticize if You Love Me.

On the receiving end of criticism.  Different from playing football or tag, no one wants to be chased, i.e. criticized.  If given the choice, which would you choose?  Chase vs. flee?  Humans can be a bit predatory when it comes to offering up feedback.

However, what I’m talking about has nothing to do with abuse.  Verbal emotional abuse is about unequal power.  Abuse of any kind, including spoken abuse, is scary, painful and shameful.

What I’m talking about is simply criticism.  You mismanage something at work and your boss, corrects you.  After coming home from that, tired and feeling beaten up, your children are picking on each other.  Then you get them in bed and find that you forgot to write-up a report and it has to be done.  Your spouse tells you that he misses his time with you.  

It takes a lot of love to deal with something.  Turns out, it’s much easier to let it go.  Walk away.  Examples of trying to promote criticism are the advertisements targeting parents to tell their kids not to use drugs.  It takes love to say no.  Loving yourself as well as love for someone else.  Kids who don’t get this feel neglected and confused.  Adults can also feel lost in so much impersonal space and act out just to get noticed.  Some people might call this “gamey.”  I just call it normal.  It’s a normal instinct to want the boundaries of someone who cares pressing around you.  It’s normal to feel adrift without knowing that you are worth somebody’s bother.

I say,

spare the rod and spoil the child

…at all levels.  At any age or station.  And further more, with your self-to-self included.  If you love yourself, you end up wanting to do and be better.  Coming from any direction, we can take it when we know we are loved.

The best part of Proverbs 12:24 is the second half,

but he who loves him is careful to discipline him.

So now, if given the choice, which would you choose?

Self Care Tip #56 – Bring it!  Take it!  Give it!  You are loved.  Be a friend to yourself.

Question:  Have you been criticized and known you were loved?  What’s your story?

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An Honorable Goal

“I feel things I had no capacity to feel before!  I can’t believe how much better life is for me.”  She was 2 months into medication therapy and she felt like she was back to whom she wanted to be.  Who she thought she really was.

Before medications, she was “making it.”  Although she was irritable, easily activated by simple triggers, edgy, she was mostly not acting on it. Making it to the end of the day every day was a victory.  Now she realized that if someone told her the difference before treatment began, she would have never believed them.  She hadn’t perceived how rough things were for her.  Now that she knew, she felt joy and sadness.

Getting well is never all good.  There is the daily reminder that you need help.  Every time you take a pill, you have to argue down all the reasons not to.  Sometimes that argument doesn’t last long.  Sometimes you spend more time than any one looking at you would guess.

The justifications for medication don’t only come from ourselves.  We have others “in the know” saying how much better we are.  Or what ever their opinion is.

Some of us are entirely on our own.  Hiding our pills so we don’t have to hear it.  When something goes wrong, the pills are to blame.  It reminds me of menarche and listening to the boys saying empathic things like, “She must be on the rag!” Things said about us when we behave or feel in a way others don’t think we should, can be just as humiliating.

Is there anything that draws more public opinion than behavior?  Being your own advocate may be easier said than done.  However, difficult as it is, it has to be done.  It starts with “me.”  If I don’t fight for my own self, choose for my own self, …well, it results in so many things.

What is surprising is how things look so different once we do take action.  Sticks and stones make more sense.  We have the confidence that inevitably comes when we gave our best towards an honorable worthy goal – a healthy self.

Self Care Tip #33 – Accept help.  Be a friend to yourself.

Question: What do you think?  Agree or disagree?

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Journey

“Mumford, The screenplay by Lawrence Kasdan, describes Henry Follet, a man who is living in his fantasies.  The superior problem isn’t that he’s living in his fantasies however.  It is that he has never been a character in them.  They only included other people.  At some point he gets more connected to his own journey, which is when he started appearing in his fantasies.  Or one could say his fantasies became his reality.

Connecting to our journey is multidirectional.  It includes the folding and opening of time.  Someone asked me why I started this blog.  I told him one of the reasons is that so much of what made me who I am was shelved when I went to medical school and then had children.  Time is folding for me when I write now, connecting me here to where this writing-self was last seen then.

When avoiding crucial work, it is as if a broken person’s bits of self are walking their different directions.  There is a divorce and the kids….  What does the father do?  Five years later he is still trying to get the courage to ask them to love him again.  Relapsing negative relationships, and she found herself again with someone abusive.  Overweight, and still buying and bringing binge-foods home.

As Will Rogers said,

When you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop digging.

Lately I’ve enjoyed my journey more since I stopped breaking traffic laws.  Exhale.  Now I can relax when I’m driving and think, pray, listen to podcasts, be with myself.

Immaterial things like our hopes can both connect us and disconnect us.  When a thought like, “I wish I did…” comes, when employment is more a job than an interest, when anger flares often – look at times like this as opportunities to find your path.  I found that this yearning in me was really a portal for my fantasies to come through and join me.

Self Care Tip #29 – Take your opportunity.  Be a friend to yourself.

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This Side of the Fence

When taking care of ourselves, we are taking care of others.  It might be counterintuitive.  There is a circle service can turn us in.  I give to you, I take care of you, I start realizing at some level that I’m not being taken care of, I hold you responsible now for my neglect, and then around again.  Some support this pattern from cultural influences.  Some with intuition.

This can be a place we find ourselves in our relationship to anything or anyone.  Employment or even unemployment.  We may find ourselves saying things like why me, or feeling like we are selected out by some greater force to suffer.  Any time self-reflection whispers anything about the word “victim,” look for the “circle-walk.”

Now some listening to this might say service is the best thing of their lives and imply that without service, life isn’t right.  Sure.  However, that’s not my argument.  Mine is that taking care of one’s own self is also a form of service to others.  In fact, let’s boldly put taking care of one’s self at the top of the service list.  Standing up there can feel awkward, presumptive, selfish, unChristian.  What does it feel like for you?

I’m told 😉 this is hard.  It is.  We just try our best.  Every day we try again.  Every moment we remember, we try.  My husband often says, “God is a God of second chances.”  I think He wants us to treat ourselves with as much courtesy.

In addictions therapy, we tell the addict that a relapse isn’t a failure, it is part of the road to recovery.  When we take care of ourselves, we may find ourselves up against any number of forces, including patterned negative behaviors. We can learn from the brave people fighting the disease of addiction. When we don’t treat ourselves well, we are not a failure.  Rather we are on the road to becoming a better friend to ourselves.  That also takes courage.

Onward and upward my friends!  Let me know what you think.

Self Care Tip #28 – Look at your own side of the fence.  Be a friend to yourself.

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Fewer Choices

We have infinite choices in life but they aren’t necessarily the same choices. I don’t know at what age that starts making sense. It reminds me when J.K. Rowling‘s 9y/o Luna Lovegood witnessed her mother killed, which enabled her to see Thestrals. In story form, saying suffering brings sight. Choices can bring us suffering, which in turn might bring us sight. It’s true that we always have a choice but it’s not true that we can choose the same choice again. Nor is it true that we will have the same quantity of choices.

My sister-in-law Joana Johnson, neuroscientist, says we recruit more areas of our brain as we age but use less brain matter to problem solve and think creatively. We can generally multitask better than we could when we were younger although our short-term memory is less available. It is a biological example of renewed options all the while earlier options are no longer available.

As we mature, the beauty is that we have a greater capacity to work with our options. It is obviously not that we have a greater number of options. But isn’t that marvelous!

Scott Anthony, president of Innosight writes, “You can’t do more with less unless you understand what more means.” Hopefully there comes a time when each of us will look into our choices daily for all they can become. Think plate of chocolate lava cake in front of you. Will we get the gift of sight? Anyone can.

Self Care Tip #25 – Get the gift of site. Be a friend to yourself.

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Good News

Many people see needing to take medication as bad news. But I think about what it would be like without it. Suicide, progressive deteriorating processes in the brain biology, contagious behaviors and moods spreading to those you love, inflammation…. That is bad news. I think about the not so many years ago before most of our medications existed. Before much of our understanding about the brain biology was around. Those times were hard. Misinformed people had ugly ways of looking at others with emotional illnesses. Hearing someone thump out their opinions on the pulpit about human behavior has always been a pleasure for me as well – not! Now we know that our essence isn’t dependent on our brain biology.

But here we are, in the land of milk and honey, depressed economy and all. We have a more informed public opinion (check out NAMI – awesome!), evidenced based medications, etc…. More than ever before in our history, the responsibility to take care of ourselves comes down to us as individuals. The external barriers to treatment are not what they used to be. However, what are the internal barriers? We own our choices. Our beliefs are our own. Letting yourself close off to the good news of medication – that is a tragedy.

Now is the time to fight for yourself. You are worth it. When you see the difference in your life, your perspective on good news and bad news might change a little too. Even public opinion starts with the individual.

Self Care Tip #22 – Be your own advocate. Be a friend to yourself.

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Successful People

“Successful people expand their dreams to move them forward, others shrink their dreams to justify where they are.”
—Sam Meers

How do you see yourself? To be truthful, any of us will find ourselves in a straddle. Which side we think we’re leaning towards will depend on emotional confidence at the time and our perception will flux accordingly. Getting yelled at by a respected mentor may make you see yourself as stalemate, but that doesn’t make it truth.

If we stayed on the exact course of our current, what do we imagine our lives will look like in 5 years? There are bits of tack and turn we influence. No matter the level of abuse suffered, individuals have a sense of their own person. Their separateness. Their choice is there held fast on the buoy of their human right.

While shrinking some dreams to justify condition, the mere courage to persist in life is a form of expansion. You might not agree with this. We all have people we scorn. But this isn’t a matter of opinion. Without expansion, we die, even the grossest of us. There are more obviously lovely examples of expansion, of going towards what is congruent with your inner self, of doing what gives you energy. When someone is in flow, aren’t we all drawn to them? When someone is not, it can be hard to make eye contact, even with yourself.

When getting friendly with yourself, give your straddle a nod of courtesy. Counter intuitive at times, this in fact promotes self-respect. The more we trust the ebb and flow down our river of dreams, the more a part of our own journey we can be.

However, if you can’t look yourself in the eye, if despite setting your jaw and keeping a strangle grip on life you still feel like the ground is sucking you under, think about a medical reason. You always have a choice.

I really liked what Mr. Meers said, but I’ll say it differently for our purposes:
Successful people expand their dreams to move them forward even while they shrink their dreams to justify where they are.

Self Care Tip # 21 – Be a success by joining your journey. Be a friend to yourself.

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Trust What is Inherent

Does loving and liking go together? Not always. I like to think of loving as a constant not entirely dependent on us. Thank goodness!

Waiting to like someone is like waiting to go to the gym until you’re in shape. Or, not getting to know God until you are a good person.

This morning I woke up to the sound of dishes and quiet excited little voices. There was a vibe of energy in the air. My eyes were still blurry and crusty and my mind in a haze of, “What’s happening here?”

Some mornings I wake up to the anxiety of hearing other sounds. Someone wasn’t being nice to someone else. Wondering if I was going to have that job for the rest of the day of refereeing and…. Some mornings I am afraid. Some mornings when I wake up, they know I don’t like them. Because we love each other so, it just hurts all of us.

But today I couldn’t believe it. The kids had folded and put away the laundry and were unloading the dishes! Before I woke up!

Why? They knew the deal. No going to their friend’s house to bake cake until finishing all their chores. So, their motives weren’t all lined up right. They didn’t do it out of largeness. Nor did they do it for me. After licking that wound, I jumped up and down and whooped for them!

We don’t wait to go to school until we have knowledge. That’s the point of school.
God doesn’t care why you go to Him, he just wants you there. He’ll take care of our motives.
We don’t keep off the game field until we already know how to play.

  • …We all get it.

    With my children, I’m hoping some of how I felt was noticed by them. Maybe they’ll remember some of how they felt. There was a joy in the house that a time-out just doesn’t invoke.

    Moving back to loving and liking, well, they don’t always go together either. The inherent goodness in something like that is responsible for drawing forth the other. The same force I’m counting on to move in my children. The same force I’m counting on for me when I wake up scared. When we trust that force, we’re more able to be present with what is already around us. We can say, “This is enough,” without giving up on what we still hope for.

    Self Care tip #20 – Trust what is inherent. 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.

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    My Essence – A Matter of Love

    Betrayal?

    Connecting that behaviors are linked to brain health is often confusing. The distance traveled to reach that point may have been long. It may have involved experiences painful to themselves and their loved ones.

    For example, they may have lost a job because they couldn’t get out of bed in the morning. A divorce might have come after changing into someone irritable and angry. A trucker might no longer be able to drive on the freeway because of panic. But once they connect that this change in personality relates to a change in their brain health, how do they feel about that?

    Some people feel relief. That they didn’t personally fail. That they aren’t a bad Christian. That it wasn’t because they didn’t try hard enough to “feel good,” to stop itching, to get up and do something with their life, to quit gambling, etc… Maybe they feel for a moment that judgment can be suspended for them.

    However there is a group of people, maybe overlapping these, who feel betrayed. Betrayed by their very essence. The question of, if they can’t trust themselves, what is real in life at all? They struggle with the shame of betraying their own person. “Who am I if I’m not…?” and the questions roll on. It must be a question for all of us with changing bodies, Who are you if your mind gets sick?

    There is the temporal line of thought, that if your brain changes, your memories, your personality, than you change. Your human form is different. Like getting your arm cut off, you have to grieve and grow a new picture of how you see yourself. A changing person through the span of life. This is in fact healthy adaptation.

    There is also a thread in this weave of believing that our essence isn’t wholly related to our changing bodies. That somehow when the various curtains of life fall and open and the final curtain comes around, that this bit remains. I don’t think you can believe this unless you believe in a Love which is stronger than death.

    Love is stronger than the death of my neurons, my dendritic connections, stronger than the death of my mind.

    The adaptability needed for this life is a no-brainer. We can’t survive if we don’t. It takes courage to adapt when your person is changing. It takes courage when you are loosing yourself. Such courage, like someone in war or flight or determined movement that others could only imagine.

    But how you define your essence also matters. I see it as a related step, but also apart from these excellent coping skills. I see it as a matter of Love. It’s win-win when Love weaves through you.

    Self Care Tip #16 – Choose Love. Be a friend to yourself.

    by

    The Paradox

    On my mind today are the unfortunate kids I have seen in clinic. One in particular whom I have treated for several years. I now realize the horror of his situation. I’m angry at myself because I have treated him for this long and didn’t realize till last week in clinic that he was being trafficked. I now understand that other kids I work with are also. He’s suffering emotional neglect in his home. It looks like his family despises him. Last week I told his Mom that I wouldn’t see them again in clinic if she didn’t go to parenting classes. I’ve also been recommending regularly that he go to a group home until things get better. I finally heard the reason that for years, she has refused. She said, “If he goes to a group home, we’re going to be homeless.” Ouch. She and hers are living on the government support they get for “taking care” of him.

    Upset, I told my husband about this form of child trafficking and he said he’s seen something similar in his profession. Whole families become homeless once their mother (government supported), dies. They don’t want her to die. It’s not the same though similar. It would be more similar if they were neglecting or abusing their mother while “taking care” of her through the dying process. That probably happens too in other families.

    To make matters more complicated, I found out from my nurse, that now the government requires the families to pay part of the group home placement to offset the costs. And if CPS is called, they just ignore it. She cited one case when CPS was called 13 times, each time stating that there was insufficient evidence. Apparently the funding to CPS has also been cut down significantly.

    Today in my son’s church school after collecting offering, the teacher prayed, “May this money go to help all the children who need You around the world.” I found my prayers were for these people. A handful of coins and dollars to help. And prayer.

    My husband‘s friend, Emilio Russ, quit his work a couple of years ago and went to the Philippines to fight child trafficking. He started a home and school for those prostituted and enslaved kids – “My Refuge House.” When he came back with his pregnant wife and 3 kids, he didn’t have a job. But they were uncomplaining and loud mouthed with praise and hope. Many months later, my husband’s friend has a job and those kids in the Philippines still have their home and school. Wow!

    Madeline L’Engle, says that we’ve forgotten how to walk on water. I’ve seen skeeters do it and I don’t think it’s that many steps away from me being able to do it. But I’ve forgotten how somehow.

    “Madeleine L’Engle understands that real art is only created when the artist gets out of the way and allows himself to be worked through, which, paradoxically, requires work on the artist’s part.”

    — AIDAN GRANO

    These states of horrible suffering call for something amazing to happen. All great work, even on our own selves allows for what I call magic. Magic of letting go, but at the same time giving all your passion and muscle. I am angry at myself for not seeing what is around me. I think in this case, that is the beginning or maybe the continuation of something magical in me. I plan on getting my water feet yet.

    Self Care Tip #15 – Embrace the paradox. Be a friend to yourself.

    by

    Basic but Effective

    Keeping things simple is easier said than done. When I’d come home from a lecture, confused about what happened in there, I’d think I was the problem. Then my brother told me that someone really needs to know what they’re talking about to be able to teach it clearly. Those mostly innocent professors suffered this silent abuse from me thereafter. Everyone needs a defense.

    We each often find ourselves listening to the instructions of our own internal dialogue. The familiar sarcasm, “Doctor heal thyself” comes to mind.

    Ideally, you would find outside input whenever you could. Ideally you would gather counsel, and education. Ideally you would not be alone with your thoughts. However, being alone with our thoughts is often the reality of our non-ideal circumstance and deserves respect. How does one give their own selves good counsel?

    Keep it simple. Work with your paradigms you know about and try to tease them apart to clarify where your feelings and thoughts are coming from. Am I sleepy? Am I doing something to my body that isn’t healthy? Is someone doing something to me that must stop? Peel away the reasons why these things are happening. Don’t stumble over them at your most basic level. There will be time later. Keep your counsel on basic needs. Simple. The rest comes naturally, of its own invitation – the layers and complications of life.

    To be honest, despite the dangers of taking our own counsel, we do. A friend to yourself does this simply, because that is effective. Like any good teacher, we can.

    Self Care Tip #14 – Basic counsel is effective counsel. Be a friend to yourself.

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    The Whole World Becomes Blind

    Know when to keep your mouth closed.

    Between you and me, and between him and her, between us and them, between is the space from this person to that person – in that space relationships are made or destroyed. That space is the mixing bowl for your relationship-kitchen. What we say and do and feel towards each other is whisked together like meringue. It can be tricky knowing what to do with what enters that space.

    I will address today specifically when someone is criticizing you. Even reading that, how do you feel? Angry or irritated or defensive. Sometimes the criticism isn’t justified, it’s lopsided or lacks understanding. Sometimes it is deserved. Let’s imagine the common scenario that it is all of those. Not clean criticism, but dirty, stilted by some truth and some distortion. It mixes into your space.

    Here enters the only part of that space you control. Your response.

    “Nobody can hurt me without my permission.”
    –Mahatma Gandhi

    Allowing someone to speak without responding is a gift you give them. But it’s also more. It is a gift for yourself. Someone once said that those who live by the sword die by the sword. Protecting the very person that said something hurtful is in fact protecting yourself.

    My own Husband gave me this sweet gift last night. He listened with a heart full of love and in the end, we both felt it. Something good there that might never have been.

    Next time, someone spills charged words and feelings into your space, detach yourself before making the whole world blind. You will feel better and your relationships will be better. It’s a friendly thing to do.

    Self Care Tip #12 – Let it go. Be a friend to yourself.

    by

    Connect

    A salty beach day with lots of kids, today leaves me in the wake of those connections. As we get older it is harder to connect. No more long school days where 90% of the day is spent on the why and how of who. No more band trips sitting in the bus for hours, walking Fisherman’s Warf with the same friends of many other scenarios. River trips with scanty supervision are conducive to creating bonds of friendship that might never be found again, in part because of opportunity. In part because of well, many other possible reasons. I’m sure you have some too.

    Connections are healthy. We live longer and get sick less often when we are connected to others. And if you are someone who gets their energy from being alone or someone who gets energy from being with people, this still includes you. It’s a universal concept. My husband who is hardwired to love his alone time, spends hours connecting with his world through Twitter. Watching him swell with energy and joy through his connections has brought something healthy to our home as well.

    Whatever our barriers are as we age to connecting, it is worth our while to press past those. Conversely, to try every day to open ourselves as well to the efforts pressing in is in our best interest. Maybe understanding something about those barriers in your life will give you the key to removing them. However you can do it, it’s worth it to you. Being friendly with yourself includes finding someone(s) to connect with.

    Self Care Tip #9 – Connect. Be a friend to yourself.