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Deliberately Setting Myself Up To Improve

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Image by samuelalove via Flickr

Self-care is about improving life, not harm.  Even though it includes doing things we don’t enjoy and sometimes hurt, it doesn’t harm us.

That’s a useful meter-stick when we wonder about something in our life.  Is this harming us?  Including people.  Do I feel better about myself when I’m with them?  Do they help me become a better person?  A better friend to myself?  Or, do they turn me toward things that harm me?

When thinking about our days activities, our choice of employment, things we put in our body, put them by this “No-Harm Meter-Stick” and see how they measure.

A deliberate check-point in my life is consistent with a deliberate goal.  …”I want to be  healthy.  Is this improving my health?”  “I want to have good self-esteem.  Does this improve my self-esteem?”  And the journey is consistent with the beginning and the end.  If the goals for the moment isn’t consistent with our big picture goals than they might not be the goals we want.  Like putting substances in our body that feel good for the moment but harm our life.  There are innumerable examples of this but you get the picture.

Questions:  What checks you when you need it?  What has been useful to remind you in this area or that to be friendly to yourself?  Please tell us your story.

Self-Care Tip – Deliberately set up feedback in your life to let you know that you are a friend to yourself.

See blog-Post:  “You” Are The Best Gift

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Choice and Biology – Where Emotions and Behaviors Come From

Three Legged Race

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I left the light on outside, waiting for my husband to come home.  He was gone, though, to a meeting and wouldn’t be back until Friday.  Some bit of automatic thought current made me flip the light switch and before I realized what I’d done, I flushed.

My husband’s eyes aren’t good and he doesn’t see well without a light.  I can.  I don’t “see” so to speak, but somehow I know where things are and can find my way in the dark.  I’m not a bobcat.  I just remember the way things look by the emotions I felt around them.  This is what was happening that night.

I flipped the switch and there he was.  Walking toward the door.  Distracted.  Fitting his key; almost home.  This was all in the moment that it took me to feel happy and then disappointed remembering he was away.

I turned the light off then because I’m not daft.  But it made me think about what sets our behaviors and emotions in motion.  In that moment, finger to the switch, up, anticipation and disappointment – in that moment, I didn’t choose what happened by the cultural definition of choice.  I responded to patterns that many choices I’d made before had laid down.  Tracks in my brain, hedged and maintained by recurring choices, along with design; my emotions and behaviors also an expression of my temperament.  These moved with each other.  But were they moving along the way we generally think of them, like a three-legged race?

Who was leading who?  Trip.  Get up!

One, two, one, two.  Step.  Step.  Step.  Step.  

And in that moment, my layers of choices were counting out with my biology, “One, two!”  There I was, participant and audience.

When we think about where emotions and behaviors come from, culturally we view them as if they are awkwardly related.  As if biology and choice are tied together at the ankles, about to trip each other up.  We call out to them, hoping somehow they might not show the public how little they know of each other’s rhythms.

But you can see the ridiculousness of this.  Choice and biology are in no way separate.  Design forbids it.  The question of where emotions and behaviors come from in itself reveals our confusion.  They come from the same place.

I can hear the concern that this eliminates free-will.  Answer …”But why?”

After these thoughts that night, I turned the light back on.  I preferred how I felt when I thought my husband might arrive soon.  I chose I guess.  What else could I do?

Questions:  What does it mean to you to fuse choice and biology in the discussion of emotions and behaviors?  How does your culture view this?  Does this affect the way you care for yourself?

Self-Care Tip #282 – Don’t deny the choice available to you to feel and behave as you wish, where that wish surfaced from and the tools you use to make them.

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Blog-Jacking By Dogtor Timothy Q (Alias Mr. Rick C.)

This photograph of my dog was taken by me in S...

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Guest Blogger:  Dogtor Timothy Q.


For some time “The Queen”, as we like to refer to her, has asked me to help out with her fine blog.  Technically, she may have never asked directly.  However, I think “Stay in the gosh darn yard before I go bazookas” could be translated into our language as “Please write my blog for me”.  I would like to begin by introducing myself.  My name is Timothy and I am a dog that lives in a magical floating house that is at the top of the bottom of a hill.  (This confuses me, also.  I just go with what I am told.)  As you may have guessed… Our Queen is none other than the very “I’m gifted”, “I’m talented”,  and “shucks I am so fat” … Dr. Q.  This description is not my own, but rather, what she repeats each morning as she looks into the mirror before chasing the fine young prince and princesses around the house as the one we like to call “The Knight” pets us and escapes.

I have worked on this for the last month.  Not because I have a lack of things I would like to say, but because paws and keyboards do not go well together.  This is just one of the many discriminations that we as dogs face.  I am proud to say that, rather than make excuses or bark endlessly about my problems (I tried that once and endured something called mad neighbor with a water hose), I have learned to use my nose.  My tongue worked better but seemed to create issues with the computer.

I grew up with all the comforts a Labradoodle could hope for… Gourmet meals, attendants, a plush customized mini van, grooming at the finest spas.  Yet, I have always felt like I have missed something.  Recently, I discovered a loose patch of grass right next to the fence.  The sign could have been no clearer.  It said to me, “Dig!, Dig!, Dig!… your time to explore the world has come”.  That is just what I did.

I have made many friends during my adventures through the neighborhood.  I have also learned that there are many out there that will lead you astray.  Being a stray is not a bad thing and can happen to the best of dogs.  I have quite a few friends that fit into this classification, even.  Many dogs are born stray, such as the ones they call coyotes.  As my grandfather once told me, Labradoodle translates into “Feared by every single coyote that has ever even come close to us”.  With this in mind, I reached out a paw to the yotes and found out that they’re not so bad.  We have a lot in common… We all dislike cats and agree that they do taste a lot like chicken.  Trust me… after hitching a ride on a banana truck back from Tijuana, I will never ever listen to a cat as long as I live.

Screenshot of Barbra Streisand from the traile...

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Interestingly, people seem to let their guard down when they think that it’s just us dogs watching.  Aside from enduring the occasional really bad rendition of Barbra Streisand, we pick up some pretty interesting information.  Gets kind of complicated sometimes.  Too much of this, not enough of that, need to change,blah, blah, blah, blah, woof.  Believe it or not…. most of the stuff we see and hear as dogs doesn’t change what we have for people that feed us and pet us…. unconditional love.

How has your dog been rewarded today?  What bad things have cats done to you?  Do you know any sweet young female dogs (censorship!) that are looking for a good time?  How does your dog see you and do you really have to dance while you sing the same gosh darn song every single morning?

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It’s Time To Grow Up

 

 

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Fragile Annie writes a blog called, “It’s Time To Get Over How Fragile You Are.”  Isn’t that a great name?  She own’s her frailty, own’s that it has affected her life, and own’s what it’s time to do now.  All in a name and a title.

When I was in psychotherapy, talking on about injustices suffered, my feelings, the rightness of my condition – my therapist said, “It’s time to grow up Sana.”  I still feel the punch in my stomach and the quiet immediately following.  I couldn’t breath for a bit.  Just nodded my head.  “Ok.”  …I said, “Ok” a few times.  I don’t remember much else of what he told me but I don’t think I’ll ever forget that.  He’d be satisfied with his work with me if he knew.

After all, it’s not such a small thing to grow up, or “get over” our frailty.  It’s not such a small thing to see our need.  It’s not so little to act on it.  These are things that champions do.  These are things any coach, parent, therapist, teacher would be proud to be a part of.  These are the things that make the difference between falling victim to your history, or claiming the rights to your now and to your future.

Think about what is upsetting you the most.  What seems to keep at you and trip you and keep you back and keep you right where it left you last?  It’s time to grow up.

Self-Care Tip #106 – In Fragile Annie’s own words, “It’s time to get over how fragile you are.”  Be a friend to yourself.

Question:  What has knocked your breath out in a good way, sending you off towards growth?  Please tell me your story.

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Saying Something Great

 

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Self-Care Tip #104 – Say something that you wouldn’t, but wanted.  Be a friend to yourself.

 

There are those things out there, a pirates booty of words and phrases, that I love to hear or see written in pixels or ink.  Things like, (from the doodling doodlemum,)

clean breast pads.

(Um.  If you don’t know what that both implies and means, you can’t know why that is perfect script.)

Or from the esteemed Posky’s blog,

Nobody wants to change a diaper because they know very well what is going to be in there waiting for them. I have given this a lot of thought and, if this were my world to make, I would change it up so you wouldn’t always know what you were getting. A lot of the time it would still be poop but, every so often, you’d find little treasures like a gold coin or a note from the baby thanking you. How sweet would it be to find a plastic dinosaur, half a sandwich or an autographed photo of Mark Twain in the diaper instead of just business as usual?

(Snort!  Gasp!  Too funny!)

Or how bout a name like, bendedspoon?  I loved reading that name for the first time.  Who hasn’t felt like something still recognizable but barely.  Something changed but beautiful.  That name is brilliant!  Before I consciously said it, my subconscious was already leaping up for a high-five.

Say things with a little less filter, with a little more trust, with words that say, in some form or other, “Will you be my friend?”

Question:  What are some of your own words that have lighted you up?

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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.