God

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Confidence and Humility Go Together

Here is the good and the bad news.  There will always be something we can do better.

The Bible has a group of books called, the books of prophets.  Two of these are Hosea and Amos, named after the men who are narrating them, i.e. the prophets.  They say,

1.  You have a problem
2.  Recognize Me (God)
3.  Come after Me (God)

Amos talks about a roaring lion that is about to consume us.  Apparently sometimes it is not easy to get our attention and it calls for A Roaring-Lion-Intervention.

(Flip page.)

In the culture of the practice of medicine, the physician is expected to know what is going on including anything and everything that can possibly go wrong involved in the treatment offered.  When things do go wrong, what is worse, knowing it was going to happen or not knowing?  Things will always go wrong.

Roaring Lion

Roaring Lion (Photo credit: Martin_Heigan)

It is what it is that a physician finds herself in the position to work with confidence and direction, knowing that she will be wrong.  Does she need a prophet to tell her?  A lion to roar?  Stop!  Look out!  You have a problem! Well if the Israelites needed it, we can sure as not know that she will too.

Sometimes patients get upset at their treatment and roar on behalf of insight and common sense to their practitioner.

We in medicine, on either side of the white coat, will find it is most friendly to know we, (patient: physician: patient: physician…,) have a problem.  We need to know that we are not God and recognize Who is.  Then know that going on humbly does not mean without courage and confidence.  Who ever faced a roaring lion without?

Question:  Have you heard a lion roaring?  How do you grasp confidence and humility simultaneously?  Please tell us your story.

Self-Care Tip:  Go into practice and treatment with confidence and humility.  Be a friend to yourself.

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Tension as a tool for Balance

I wrapped my feet arches with support tape, pulled up my pinkest compression sleeves, had on the leggings, running bra, tank and cap.  I had my dog.  Two bottles of water in my cup-holders and my phone loaded with a dishy novel, I drove to meet my Kaia running group this morning.

Do I sound ready?  Yes I sound ready.  (And old.)

Twenty minutes later, I pulled in to park and get going!  Timothy, my labradoodle, started whining as soon as the car stopped and I pressed down the emergency brake.  He knew he was supposed to be getting out soon and thought his whining might remind me.

Timothy

Then I saw, rather than remembered, what was on my feet.  Slippers.  Sheez.

There are so many ways to react to a time like this.  Reasons why, like wagging fingers, get in our space.  I could be defensive.

I thought I might complain, but Timothy was already whining.  Someone had to be the strong one.

There is a tension between paradigms of any kind.  An ecosystem of microorganisms vs. the human body, the balance resting keeps with labor, this way with that way – and we know that any side is chaos without the other.  Some wonder who could believe in an evil if they don’t believe in God. Or, would there ever be rich if there weren’t the poor, an ugly if not for pretty, happiness without sad?  We could list these through tomorrow if we wanted.

Today, I think my slippers played their own role in this.  I choose to react to them with a knowing appreciation toward balance.

Self-care tip:  Identify what/where your balancers are.
Questions:  

  • Do you think tension is a balancing force?  
  • What is helping you maintain tensions necessary for balance?  
  • Is identifying them useful to your friendship with yourself?  

Please tell us your story.

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Increase awareness of how we are loved

Hearing someone pray to love Sam better put her in that space between forever and never. Enormous awareness that, “Hey! I am loved!”sailed in.

Since then, She prayed more that She is able to see, how.

How? Where? And, “I want to love the Love toward me.” Samantha Gearge, after years of griping loneliness told me in so many words, that she wanted to weave her fantasies into that fine soil. Not pink clouds.

Being able to notice being Loved is infrequently intuitive. Liking how we are loved is also as often, ironically, not.

But, we are. All of us, Loved.

It seems friendly to increase our link to it. It’s a distortion and mispercetion to believe otherwise. A reality perhaps, but not Truth.

Getting to that Truth, shifting our reality, we get with hard work. Recognizing Love also might not come without. Recognizing Love is easier with brain health too.

Hard work and courage come in many ships.  We’ve talked about basics like, sleep, exercise, clean air and clean food.  We’ve talked about further efforts, when we have emotions and behaviors come without asking them to, to seek medical care. Taking medications takes courage over and over again, but it is easier to think clearly with brain health and is worth the press. It is friendly to pursue brain health.

Recognizing how we are Loved is like any other act of friendship in this way. Get deliberate about it. Get friendly.

You are Loved.

Questions: Have you noticed that you are Loved? :).
Do you like how you are loved? How do you get connected to this vitality? It is friendly to do. Keep on! Please tell us your story.

Self-Care Tip: Grow recognition and amity of the Love toward you.

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Tension between camps

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We all have our pet beliefs we collar, “Reality.”

How do we get these? Through our perceptions, built on the foundation of sensory input, such as, sight, hearing, smell, touch, taste, emotion and logic we construct our real world.

Reality is different of course than Truth.  Anything higher than a rutting pig, (Snort! Snuffle!) will say that our reality changes as we grow, as we perceive differently.  That is to say, as we sense otherwise.

Anyone less primitive than a grub, (Munch! Wiggle!) volunteers limitations to our knowledge.  Or else we imagine Truth to be as small as the profound brilliance of our vision.

When one camp of knowledge responds to the natural tension any of us feel when opposed with the cliff wall of the unknown, how to respond?
I’m thinking

  • teen v. parent,
  • church v. science,
  • medication therapy v. homeopathic remedies,
  • to eat off of the floor v. trash what is there,
  • and whatever other contrast you and I contend with in our perceived real worlds,

we have a time, like a stone in a stream we stand on, before we pivot and move into the current.

What do we do while in that place of tension? Do we fight for what we know is right, wielding word, fist and spit in right-ness, or righteousness expected? (Watch it! Here comes a tomato!) How do we respond to the tension between what our senses have built for us and the rightness of the sensory construction of another’s reality?

(Look out! Some mud just splattered in my eye! Well that’s one way of getting to the next stone.)
Or… We could try inspecting the architecture of our beliefs, ask our own Me, “Where is the conflict?” “How did the wall get built?” Then go toward it with the humility that comes from knowing we are at least above a garden grub, if not far, in how we perceive the world around us.

We have a point when we can argue with others or we can look inside ourselves and say, “This is our tension.” “This is coming from the way I perceive things.” “This is about Me.”

One more time, we can go home to Me, where everything starts and finishes.  It’s not very nice if we don’t, to Me.  Because in the process of starting elsewhere than home, we miss the freedom, the presence, and the place of change.  That’s where the tension is, the place of change.

Question:  How does reviewing your sensory input improve your ownership of your reality?  How does owning your reality improve your friendship with yourself?  Please tell us your story.

Self-Care Tip:  Own our reality.

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Tenuous Connections – Where is Our Rock?

Skógafoss waterfall

Skógafoss waterfall (Photo credit: big-ashb)

So thinking more about Alena and her alien psychiatrist-poser…

Why is Alena known, or recognized, by Alien?

Where Alien came from, brain illness isn’t sustained by the stress of living on her planet.  Those with brain illness either adapt to the primitive resources they live in or they, (pause,) “don’t.”  The community doesn’t know this is happening consciously.  They just know that some people are able to do what earthlings consider magic.  Those with brain illness evolved to survive.  Alien was one such benefactors of time and stress on biology.  She was not there for the process, but for the product

Earth was alarming.  It was the first time she’d ever seen someone with a broken mind.  Knowing where she came from gave her mixed feelings….

I’m getting my hands into this Time-play playtime!  Woohoo!  I have been rumbling over the beauty of all the beloved connections I enjoy, the cherished anchors and reflectors that I’ve used so long to stabilize my identity with.  My heritage, my profession, my employments, my interpersonal relationships, family, my body, currencies, and so much more gives me a sense of security.  A sense, however, in truth and not Time-less.  As so many of us know what the other side of that water-fall looks like – divorced parents, physical/sexual/emotional abuse, illicit drugs, loneliness, poverty, a bone spur or arthritis.

If Time is an arrow, what gives the increasingly obvious wispiness of our securities power?  What is our strength from?

I remember back when we discussed our Essence, the bit of Me that isn’t lost to death, suffering or brain illness.  According to, From Eternity to Here: The Quest for the Ultimate Theory of Time, by Sean Carroll, he’d say this can only exist if this Essence in Me is connected to space and Time.

Question:  Where does your connection come from?

Self-Care Tip:  Discover where you security comes from.

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Everything starts and ends with Me ….Still talking about it

You make your own definitions of Me, self, and friendship. This is mine I share because it is friendly to Me. It is not meant to be a template.

I am the bride of Christ. When I speak of Me, I speak as one claimed by Love and in Love. When I speak of Me, I speak of this person I am in that complex union, dynamic and without lines. My self is the same as to say, Me with Christ and Christ with Me.

Using the term, Me, is a general term for that part that remains in each of us that is timeless, unchanged by trauma or indignity. The Me describes who you or I are still in any dimension or medical condition. The Me does not depend on a heart beat.

Being a friend to yourself means believing and treating yourself in ways that are consistent with your belief that although we are victimized in life, being the victim is a free choice. We are free to choose.

Out of this, our friendship grows to include the truth that we accountable to ourselves. We don’t look for nidus of control outside of our friend, Me.

Our friendship grows further to include presence with our personal journey, which in turn heightens our presence with what connections we share with others. These connections naturally require bank to generate and maintain and bank, as in any country, requires hard work. To serve others demands funds, even emotional and behavioral funds, physical funds and sociological.

Everything starts and ends with Me. (Refer to above.)

Question: What is your “Me, self, and friendship?” Please tell us. I’d love love to hear.

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God and being a Friend to Yourself – A Reference of Blog Posts

English: Givers at Downtown Alive, Lafayette, ...

English: Givers at Downtown Alive, Lafayette, Louisiana  (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A Reference of Blog Posts:

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A short story starter

20120702-093516.jpgLeslie tugged on her shirt. Mussing with it didn’t give it or her the laundering they needing. Leslie stank of what you or I would, if we had at fifteen, ran toward a twenty-five year old, running toward something more so than what others might call, running away. He was what she wanted and she had simply responded. But now just one week later, she was for the first time, truly running away. He had been a lot different from she imagined. He had been, brief, let us say. And almost immediately unfaithful.

Leslie pulled on her shirt again. She was running away. But what was she running toward? Her eyes blinked and stung and her anxiety was so high, she couldn’t process. What was she doing again? Running away; not toward anything. Where could she go? Another tug on the stained cotton-T. Her long hair stuck to her damp neck.

No matter how many times she checked, yes, her shirt was down. She had to check again. It was something she might never stop doing. Now where could she go? The car on the corner honked at her and she jumped.

Nice! I like what I see! a voice delivered.

Why some cultures think it’s rude not to ogle women would always be a mystery to her.

Could she go to a friend’s? No. CPS might get called, maybe the police or worse, her parents. Some part of her split off then and asked the other,

Would going home be the worst?

The thought of facing her mom and dad after a week of not telling them, talking to them; after a week of subjecting them to that, she was so ashamed. Shame loomed over her, filled her and all she could think of again was what Jared had done. Leslie’s shirt had stretched out. An uneven hem hung the stains from her dirty hands. She gave it another firm two-handed pull down. No. Jared wasn’t with her now. Pull.

On the bus ride home, Leslie let the static and crackling sounds of her frantic thoughts turn into white snow and obscure and hypnotize her. She finally slept and would have missed her stop at the Stop-and-Go if the bus driver hadn’t used his mic to announce it three times. There was a crust of saliva on her cheek. Why was she doing this? The closer Leslie got to home, the surer she was that they hated her. How did she have the stupidity to even try? What was she doing?

Before she knew it, she was on the front porch. She knew the folks would be home because it was Sunday and Dad was ritualistic about Sunday yard work.

A flat of Freesia beside bags of gardening fro-frou lay around. What was she doing here? Tugging, she felt the threads pull apart in front. Her shirt! Leslie let out an involuntary sound, that was something like a growl. There. That was better. Anger came and stood with her. Some of the fear went away.

But this was suddenly awkward. What in the world does girl-gone-bad do when she comes home? Knock? Walk in? Leslie pulled her shirt down. There was another rip and she tried the door. In that moment, icy panic brought the memory of reading Peter Pan with her mom.

“Long ago,” (Peter) said, “I thought like you that my mother would always keep the window open for me, so I stayed away for moons and moons and moons, and then flew back; but the window was barred…”

Q: What can Louise do to be a friend to herself?

….I heard this hymn and thought I’d share it as an aside,

If you should feel sad and dejected,
When no answer comes to your prayers,
And when it seems you are neglected,
Remember, God knows and He cares.

Refrain:
He knows and He cares,
Your burden He bears;
He drank the whole cup,
While we take but one sup,
Your suff’ring He shares.

And when you get weary with toiling,
When no one your sore burden shares,
When evils your efforts are foiling,
Remember, God knows and He cares.

When confidence has become shaken,
You give Satan place unawares,
The Lord will not leave you forsaken,
He sees you, He knows and He cares.

When feelings of joy have subsided,
When sickness your health so impairs,
Don’t fail in your trust, be decided;
God sees you and tests you, He cares.

See Christ in your furnace of trial,
“I’m with you alway,” He declares;
When suff’ring severe self-denial,
Remember, He knows and He cares.

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Set Your Self-Care And Moral Jailer Free.

Repost

Self Care

Image by Mskadu via Flickr

Self-Care Tip – Set your self-care free.  Be a friend to yourself.

Self-care just is.

The problem about saying self-care starts and ends with Me is that people forget about the journey it travels between here and there.  People become fearful that it means alone-care, apart-from-God-care, selfish-care, and so on.

When we take care of “Me,” we can connect more with others, including God, have more inside of us to give to others, and have more interest in the world around.  The opposite disables our abilities to do those things.  Again we say, “Can’t give what we don’t have.”

God gave us this person, “Me,” to take care of.  He considers “Me” valuable and of high priority.  He celebrates with me and cheers me on.  He stands beside me and He doesn’t see self-care as having exclusionary implications to anyone else.

Please, shake it off.  Self-care is no more of a moral issue than anything else.  It just is.  It is a choice, a freedom, an opportunity.  It is as much about salvation as any other act of good or bad, and has no influence on our worth.  It just is.

Lord, What must I do to be saved?

– Paul’s Jailer.  Me.  Could be you.

Questions:  How do you speak to the stigma in your church, community or self toward being a friend to yourself?  How do you get to Me, despite the pressure to pay-up to all the others around you in emotional and physical energy first?  How is your relationship with God when you are friendly with yourself?  Please tell me your story.

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Is Religion A Barrier In Your Friendship With Yourself?

Hello Friends.

I’d like to introduce to you, my pastor, John K. McGhee, Ed.D., Ed.S., M.S.P.H.  

We met about ten years ago in Boston, and worshiped together there for no more than a couple of months.  In contrast to how quickly I chose him, I’ve been very slow about letting him go.  He lives around the globe, talking about health, Love, God and individuals.  He has been and continues to be an important presence in my life and although I sit in other churches, he’s my pastor.  May God continue to bless him, his family and his work. 

Guest post by Dr. John Kenneth McGhee.

Dr. Sana’s blog is persuasive, and possibly life-changing.  However there may be some spiritually inclined conservative Jewish, Muslim, Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestants who may be uncomfortable with her emphasis on self-care as a vital first-step to healthy interactions. Isn’t it quite selfish and rather ungodly to focus on self-care?  Don’t the great monotheistic faiths teach that people achieve their greatest potential when they unselfishly focus on serving others?

I wonder what God thinks about self-care?  Probably it is impossible to know with certainty.  Who can know God’s thoughts?

However, one can find ample evidence from the Holy Books to support a few principles about self-care.

1.  Self-care is promoted in the Torah.  Genesis 1:28 – 2:3   clearly identifies that God told Adam and Eve to have plenty of sex, and babies; eat nutritious food; and enjoy a delightful weekly rest.

2.  Self-care is promoted in the New Testament.  3 John 2 clearly identifies a principle stated by the human being who was one of Dr. Jesus Christ’s closest friends.  “Beloved I wish above all that you would prosper and be in health.”  Here we recognize God’s concern with finance and health care on a very personal level.  The language implies that there is a direct action involved by God’s friends that they would become financially viable and do what it takes to remain in good health.

3.  Perhaps the most concentrated teaching on self-care is given by Paul who mentored Timothy so effectively.  In I Timothy 4: 7 – 16, I find the following direct commands:

  • Train yourself in godliness – this requires time to read, time to pray, time to think, time to do acts of kindness;
  • Don’t let anyone put you down because you are a young teacher – this requires time to nourish a healthy ego, time to know who you are, time to build character;
  • Do not neglect the gift(s) you have received – this requires time to write; time to develop musical or other artistic talents, time to share gifts with others in a faith fellowship community;
  • And finally Paul counsels Timothy, “Pay close attention to yourself.”

Questions:  What conflicts do you have in becoming your own friend with your religious beliefs?  Is religion a barrier to you being friendly to you?  Or, how has it been otherwise?  Please tell us your story.

Self-Care Tip:  Be aware of barriers to friendship with yourself, even religion.

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The Holidays and Lonely Me

The Holidays and Lonely Me.

Easter’s a-comin’, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, laundry day, everyone gets a day…  Can invoke loneliness though the intent is to draw company.  Oxymorons doing there thing.

I reposted this to celebrate.  Keep on.

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Calibrate the forces in your life

Calibration

Calibration (Photo credit: Kyle McDonald)

I’ve taken this week off, mostly at least. Besides a couple half-days, I’m living the non-income life, otherwise known as “vacation.” In any sort of self-employment, that’s what vacation is – a carefully calibrated force with another opposing, calibrated to keep me from mutating. All for the price of income.

It was getting close there, and just in time, after the significance of making wrong change and missing signatures finally broke through, I found myself here. Vacation. #gratitude.

But what does one do, “relaxing?”

Yesterday, someone asked what Adam and Eve did before the fall. I loved that question. What did they do all day? Reminded me about my thought-thumbing through what a heaven or eternity would be like. Where’s the delicious tension from living this way, dynamic and traveling persons? I’m very interested to know what will keep my attention for eternity.

Anyhow, vacation is like what one patient described as counting the days, either with anxiety or happy anticipation, of when you will be going back to work. I would say that it’s an exercise in calibrating the forces in ones life, before she mutates.

I remember as a little girl, with tangled hair in my eyes and muddied toes, hearing, “At the end of someone’s life, no one ever says they wished they worked more.” It scared me. I sensed the intent behind these words to threaten whoever was out there working and not spending time with their family. I was scared for them and at the same time for myself. This has replayed many times in my mind since then, in shifting sounds and shapes as my thoughts took on the years and experience of what family time offers/takes verses work time. And then finally one day, I said to my sister, “When I’m in the dying stage, I don’t think I will agree with that. I can’t imagine ever not wanting to work more.”

When one gets to do something as fun as work in psychiatry, with heroes and see magic and watch what all that does to their own person in a process no less than what a dreamers canvas would display – they don’t ask for less. They will always want more, and so will I. This is not a qualifying statement of how much of my family I want in my life at all. One of the major problems with the original scare is that it is based on assuming either-or, either work or family. That’s ignorant, same as my fear.

So tonight, after a pajama day cleaning out the toy room, kids and movie time, my flow was interrupted by thoughts of patients’ narratives and personalities, and I missed them. Vacation, against that, makes for a pretty relaxing time. #gratitude.

Self-Care Tip – Calibrate the forces in your life. Be a friend to yourself.

Questions: How do you relax? Do you enjoy your work? What will you still want more of when you are in the dying process? Please tell us your story.

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I Am A Poster Child For Sinners

IMG_4706 Leather pants

I am a poster child for sinners.

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

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

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

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

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

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

I am a poster child for sinners.  

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

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

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

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

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If You Don’t Take Care of Yourself Someone Else Will

Suburban Girl

Image via Wikipedia

If Archie isn’t going to take care of himself someone else will.

Whoever wrote that line, should have written the rest of the script of Suburban Girl (2007).  The movie moved from something I couldn’t believe I was watching, to worth it; just to hear those words.

If Sana isn’t going to take care of herself someone else will.

Taking care of ourselves is what we have to participate in freedom.  Not taking care of ourselves is as much as saying, “Here.  Take my freedom and make my choices for me.”

Self-Care Tip:  Take your freedoms back by taking care of yourself.

Question:  What does your name sound like in this space?  “If _________ isn’t going to take care of herself/himself someone else will.”  And what does that mean when read that way?  Keep on.

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Be as Good To Yourself As You Want Your Loved Ones to Be to Themselves

English: Danboard holding a Christmas gift.

So what brought you here today?  What are you looking for?

Want to parent better?   Kids don’t take care of themselves?  They aren’t responsible?  Accountable for their actions?  They are disobedient?

They don’t realize our loving motives?  If they do, they will be able to find more pleasure in life.  If they …they will have more freedoms, they will have spending power, they will have decision making ability, they will be present in their life, able to connect with others and with their own personal journey, they will.  You name it.  They will find the shortest, most direct route to their brilliance and resources to achieve what they were designed to do – service in any form.  Is this so much to ask?  Wink.

How can we help them see?  By starting with Me.  Do this generosity for ourselves.  How many times do we point outside of Me to find a place of control for Me?  Even to the small about packing lunch – as if forced to pack our children’s lunch, we point out.

Drifting down, how many times does our child complain of what we put in their lunch?  What would happen if they packed it for themselves?  What would happen if they ate what they packed?  Oh, just junk.  …Who purchased the junk food?  Where did it come from?  It swirls on. This reminds me of the musical, “Into the Woods.” “It’s her fault! It’s your fault.!”…

But here’s the anchor.  We are free.  We are free caregivers.

Freedom is like a lovely package wrapped in the most exquisite paper, tied with a bow so lovely that we know it came from God.  It is sitting in front of us.  Like all real gifts, the gift of freedom is free.  It has nothing to do with my bank.  It came because of the Giver, not because of the merit of the recipient – Me.

Me, that is to say any one of us, cannot unearn the gift either.  Freedom is like that gift that keeps reappearing no matter how we try to get away from it.  Does it become a curse?  We are free to make it one because even if we don’t claim it, even if we don’t choose to be accountable to our decisions, it doesn’t change that we are.  And when we are finally able to look in, with insight, and have knowledge – we are accountable to what we see.

Paul said,

For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.  

Job said,

“therefore have I uttered that I understood not; things too wonderful for me, which I knew not.  …but now mine eye seeth thee.”

Does the gift, freedom, turn into a curse?

 Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.

Every person who grows in knowledge and understanding at some point hopefully says that they grow also in understanding how little they know and have yet to learn.  This is what comfort we have in knowing that in the eternity of forever that comes ahead after this life, we won’t run out of things to do.

We all talk as if we know more than we know, with pride and forgotten humility.  I want to turn this over, but repentance in this case cannot be as implied – once and for all.  It is recurrent at best and I surrender the frequency and my degrees of insight to God and you.  Feel free to take Me gently along with you on our travels.  I hope our kids will be that good to Me when given the opportunity.  I have no doubt, they hope the same of us.  But you can see, it starts with Me.

What is a true friend?  It is one who loves.  Starting with Me.  What is parenting better?  It is giving to yourself what you want your kids to have.

The Stoic, Seneca the Elder, wrote,

“What progress, you ask, have I made?  I have begun to be a friend to myself.” That was indeed a great benefit; such a person can never be alone.  You may be sure that such a man is a friend to all mankind.

(And here I thought I was the one who came up with, “Friend to Yourself!!!!”  Oh nasty tumble.)

This is what it is; hard, easy, soft and difficult.  Having each other to help Me be friendlier to myself is a big advantage.  You are so valuable to Me.  Knock Me down and catch Me – whatever pride and forgotten humility leave Me needing.  Thank you.

Question?  How does being a friend to yourself improve your parenting or caregiving of others?  Please tell us your story.

Self-Care Tip:  Be as good to yourself as you want your loved ones to be to themselves.  Be a friend to yourself.

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How To Stop A Relapse Before It Starts

Australian garden orb weaver spider, after hav...

Image via Wikipedia

Baby I have been here before
I know this room, I’ve walked this floor
I used to live alone before I knew you.
I’ve seen your flag on the marble arch
Love is not a victory march
It’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah…

– Leonard Cohen

Relapsing in brain illness is the pits.  The prodrome, as it starts creeping into our awareness, is worse than knowing we are about to walk into a spider web with the spider and his dinner still in it.  It’s so horrible that even before the prodrome hits, imagining a relapse can trigger foreboding and anticipatory anxiety.

What will I do if I…?  

Dear God no…

Recently we did a brief series on ECT and discussed how ECT can improve brain health, signal neurogenesis and trigger healing.  This brought many of us to wonder about what causes brain damage.  It became apparent that many of us had forgotten that brain illness, in fact, damages the brain.  We still have a hard time, despite all our progressive activism and awareness, believing to the core that the brain is human, that emotions and behaviors come from the brain and that a diseased brain is what generates disease symptoms as seen in emotions and behaviors.  We still have a hard time believing that the brain responds to medication, much like the liver does.

What?!  Depression causes brain damage?

What?  

Now compound that with the spider’s cousin, Medication-For-Life, and you’ll see us doing a funny walk-hop-dance in the dark to avoid what we wish we weren’t getting into.

The wonderful bit about all this is that staying on medications, even for life, is the best way to dodge the worst of it.  Sure, even with medications, as prescribed, compliant and all that fluffy five-star behavior, we still relapse.  “Depression should be considered as a continuous rather than an episodic process,” as stated so well by French biomedical expert, Vidailhet P.   But, (this is really good news,) when we relapse, we do not drop as fast, we do not fall as low and we do not hit as hard when medication compliant.  Staying on medication is prophylactic against those miseries.  Staying on medication is protective against progressive brain disease and it’s deteriorating effects.  Staying on medication is friendly.

…Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

–Leonard Cohen

Question:  What have you noticed that staying on your medication has done for you?  How do you manage to stay on it even when you don’t want to?  

When you’ve come off of it and relapsed, how was it different from when you relapsed while still maintaining your medication therapies?  Please tell us your story.

Self-Care Tip – Stay on your medication.

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Take Care of Yourself And You Will Be Taking Care of Others – “Care-Givers”

Caregiver is a name that many of us own.  From basic parenting scenarios to families complicated with end-of-life, spinal cord injuries, congenital diseases or employees of group homes – care-givers is the generically applied term.

Is it difficult to ID care-givers that “did it right.”  Seeing them is a muscle that operates better by practicing the magical and material skills of empathy, doing rather than saying, so to speak.

By the way, I’m on hold right now with the service provider for our currently nonfunctioning internet.  The hold-music is so bad that I had to put the phone in a closed drawer to muffle it.  #selfcare.  Much better.

There are many people who have cared for me and do care for me.  You for starters have cared for and do care for me in your reading, your time, your thoughts, and comments, you are my givers of care.

I am cared for, and you know I get all fluttery when I start talking about you so I’ll stop before you throw-up.  Unless it’s too late.

There are others who gave and give care, obvious names like parents, spouse and friends. And there are many less obvious names – my dogs talking to me when I get home, the lady who came up to me in the 99-cent store and handed me $20.00 to buy treats for my kids, my psychotherapist who told me to “grow up.”  All these and more have and do care for me.

But do we call these people, (or other living creatures,) caregivers?  Is that a name for what you do for me? Not traditionally but it really is.

The differences are found between those who believe they take care of others when they don’t take care of themselves and the inverse – those who take care of themselves, and as part of that effort to be their own friend see caring for others as a natural maturation of their own needs. (Remember, agendas again.) In any other design, taking care of others when we don’t take care of ourselves is not sustainable nor congruent with our intentions.  We become the hare who lost the race to the turtle, angry and confused by our results.

stressful moments stressful moments tired caregiver stock pictures, royalty-free photos & images

I agree that this attempt to share space with the angels who so lovingly nurture and give to those who can’t give to themselves can be perceived as arrogant, ignorant and other names – creep, idiota, a– h—, pompous, fools, bigots, oblivious, uninformed, (this is fun), benighted, blind, old gum under the picnic table jerks.

Be that as it may, please believe that we speak of caregivers without malice.  And if we are ignorant, please let our flaws inspire you to grow us as empathically as you would like us to grow you.  I know it takes a lot of love to deal with someone like us and it is much easier to walk away.

Questions:  Where do you find yourself in the care you give to others?  What helps you remember your intentions to love yourself when stigma or guilt bang you upside the head?  How do you see that caring for yourself is consistent with your goals to serve others?  Please tell us your story.

Self-Care Tip – Care for yourself and you will see yourself giving care to others.

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Find Hope When You Otherwise Must Die – Depression

Jane Eyre

Image by madelinetosh via Flickr

Briggs was crying again.  His wife, who came with him to our first appointment, looked like a peeled fruit beside him.  She was undefended, giving her last layer of self without knowing what would be left.  Briggs was one case of serious depression, but his wife; she was heartbreaking.  Both of them in their own ways would not last long.

It is not unusual in a specialty clinic to work with people such as Briggs who have been around the treatment shops.  Then, finally, in Jane Eyre-style, they appear at my door in the company of death.  They have been through therapies, practitioners and churches, but disease resists treatment.  Everywhere they walk, it is as if Hades (or Neptune) were visiting.  Hope-blossoms wilt as they pass by and those of us who share space, feel like the ground is going to open up and suck us under.  It is not uncommon in specialty-care, to be told, “…I have no strength to go further.”  Like Jane Eyre, they plead, “I must die if….”  (By the way, Charlotte Bronte is the bomb.)

As the person on the other side of this exchange, I have worn down the rainbow of “specialty” options available to offer.  And what are they?

I’m going to write more about those options next, but my questions for you today are:

What has worked for you or your loved one?  Is there any treatment you think is too extreme to consider to get brain health?  Please tell me your story.

Self-Care Tip:  Find your specialty care.

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Personalizing Gossip; It Starts And Ends With Me

“Crying,” by Galway Kinnell

Crying
Crying only a little bit
is no use. You must cry
until your pillow is soaked!
Then you can get up and laugh.
Then you can jump in the shower
and splash-splash-splash!
Then you can throw open your window
and, “Ha ha! ha ha!”
And if people say, “Hey
what’s going on up there?”
“Ha ha!” sing back, “Happiness
was hiding in the last tear!
I wept it! Ha ha!”

I remembered this poem after visiting my friend Paul’s church when Paul told me that at least three of the people there asked him, in one way or another, if I had a disability. Poor Paul.

I’m pretty sure Paul was embarrassed but aside from that and my own begrudging unfortunate shame response, I have to say it made me laugh a lot. (I work with many labeled “disabled” and respect them. This community comment doesn’t come with the knowing of who is behind a simple word like “disabled.”)

Awesome!

I smiled at Paul’s daughter and she smiled back. What fun laughing with her. Apparently it was just that. My laugh.

Loud and disinhibited. (Laughing more.)

In high school a particular peer thought the same. In movie theaters when something hits that note, I have seen the looks. I have had sufficient opportunities to decide what to do with my laugh.

When weighing the risks and benefits of a “loud and disinhibited laugh,” the laugh has won out for Me. I get so much from it. Such pleasure of claiming that moment, that smile, that air passing through me and the intimacy.

Come join me! – “Ha ha!” sing back

One of the funniest kids I've met while travel...

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It doesn’t mean happiness. For me, it is part of presence. Happy or not happy, and that brings me pleasure.

My sweet friend Paul is a sensitive guy in ways that I am not wired to be. He is so beautiful. I know how he cares about the people around him. I know he respects them and considers their thoughts. It is not so much that he would ever be ashamed of me, abled or disabled. Rather he cares and said these things because in his consideration, perhaps if I was more aware then I would make a different choice about the risks and benefits of my laugh. He doesn’t know that I am informed. I have decided with knowledge.

There is no way he would know this about me. No one could. It was, as always, a statement those church folk made that was mostly about them and not me. That is universal. We all say things that are more about Me than anyone or anything else. It’s friendly to remember this, to Me and them.

“Happiness was hiding in the last tear! I wept it! Ha ha!”

Self-Care Tip: To not personalize what isn’t personal, start and end with Me.

Question: What helps you remember that what people say is about them more than about you? Even when those people think they are talking about you? How do you

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Please Get Back on Your Meds!

Please get back on your meds!

Pretha explained that her mom had done better on her medication.  It was the irritability that isolated her.  That and the boredom.

It’s just boring, her daughter said.  It’s boring because there’s just so little there before she falls into her fray.  The venere is so thin.  It’s just boring.  

Pretha’s mom who had taken her medication didn’t see what it was doing for her.  Every day it had hurt her a little, knowing what she knew.  She was better now that she had given it over to God.  Her life without medication was a testimony to the power of God.  She had not been faithful taking medication.

What do you think, doctor?  How am I doing?  Aren’t I doing well?

Pretha’s mom was difficult to maintain eye contact with.  I wanted to please her.  That’s not easy for a physician.  At least for me.  It was more uncomfortable because my thoughts had already skated down the path of what if’s.  Whatever I said, Pretha’s mom wasn’t going to get back on her meds.

Where’s the self-care in this?  Pretha?  Mom?  Physician?  You, reader?  Do you identify with any of us?

Pretha and I have similar jobs.  Keep what is about Me, right there.  Be present with ourselves first and subsequent to that more able to be present with Pretha’s mom.

Pretha’s mom has her job of sifting through her distortions, using her same organ that is diseased to understand her disease.  Pretha’s mom’s job is large.

What is your self-care job reader?  Please tell us your story.