“…and my mother again would say to me you can’t eat beauty, it doesn’t feed you and these words plagued and bothered me; I didn’t really understand them until finally I realized that beauty was not a thing that I could acquire or consume, it was something that I just had to be.”
This woman gets us. Friend to yourself. Keep on.
Sweaty, well-worn, in bike-ware, she was eating comfortably with her friend. I kept trying not to stare and just had to fight it! I wanted to imprint her shiny wrinkled yet blooming geriatric status and break down what I saw into categories of self-care moves to grow old by. She looked really good.
I managed to finish eating at, (Oh my word! Yum! My new binge and bolt location,) Zinc Cafe, without ruining her appetite with a big hug and smooch from crazy-staring-stranger, me. I almost congratulated myself, it was so hard not to do. Nevertheless, when walking out I did stop and tell her she was beautiful and that I wanted to grow up to be her. She bloomed even more, right there and then. It was swell. Good food. Good role-model to remember.
We think it is our best years that people will identify us by. But they do not just do that. They think of us as how we are now too. More importantly is how we think of ourselves – of Me.
It is different for everyone. Why we want to be here. Understanding why, is a universal interest. It is the other side of value in the aging process.
My parents are getting old. I am. My patients and their parents are getting old. We are dying.
My dad is old. He just turned seventy-nine. He is not wearing bike shorts. He is not a blooming geriatric. But I value him and saying why, well, I realize starts with “Me.” It is not because of him thirty years ago. It is about his life these last thirty years. It is about his Me, now.
The present does not prove nor negate the past. Our value is more than that.
Sometimes I visit community practitioners. Please visualize that all of this is in the middle of their busy clinic day, racing between exam rooms to meet patient needs. I am standing at a nurses station perhaps, dressed in something über professional, (to hide the gypsy in me as well as I can. But if it were you, you would not be fooled by the cut of my lapel!) I catch the eye of the clinician and receive a strained smile, almost hearing her say, “Come on! I’m dying here! I have three patients waiting!” But generally they do not actually say it, generally. And sometimes, they are snagged by the magic of connection, take my elbow and draw me away into a private space where they can share their story. In a matter of moments.
We are skilled at shaving moments here and there. Skilled at putting as few words into a fat minute that can convey the large concept needed just Now! We learn this over brow-beating years of managed care medical practice, personal choices, convoluted expectations and need to please – self, other, insurance or what not. When clinicians share stories, we do it like we are late catching the train to heaven.
From these visits, I get more to my quality of practice. I get known, and get to know. Awesome. It is a newer part of my “work,” that I have been doing this, and I am loving it. I meet the people who are the other side of our patient’s treatment team. I meet people who are both human and medical clinicians. Realness surrounds them. Life stories come from them. In a fat minute I hear about their past, gain some understanding of their present and from that, I am given much. One physician told me of his beloved daughter who suicided, another of her husband’s chronic brain illness and how their family struggles. I shared how my young cousin hung himself and that part of me who is groping toward that space and time before he died.
To know who we are despite our changing emotions and behaviors, our changing identities, improves our understanding of life value. Somehow, Dad has known that, without bike shorts. He continues to mentor me in that. I do not know about the beautiful geriatric at breakfast, but who is to say she does not know her value? Not Me. But I am going to explore my own, for my sake. I am getting old.
Self-Care Tip: Look and look some more for why you are valuable.
Questions: What is valuable about you, even though you have lost so much in life? Why are you still alive? Please tell us your story.
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Freedom (Photo credit: Intrepidteacher)
Did someone put a knife in my neck?
Goodbye sex. Goodbye flirting. Goodbye self-esteem. It was a down-right turnoff for life, let alone sex. He could not think of one thing worth living for, but killing yourself turned out to be a lot harder than self-loathing.
Sheez, pain was distracting. Unable to work out in his club with anything that jiggled him waste-line and up, Monty knew he should look for a pool but he could not focus on even that long enough to Google it. He felt guilty and then angry that he felt guilty about something he was trapped by.
Monty told me about how his life was now closed off from everything he found pleasure in. He described his circumstance like a walled in monk with a small envelope-sized window through which he received water and bread. The difference between him and the monk was that he did not choose to be cloistered. He was a victim of his injury and nothing could help.
Feeling trapped is doom. I listened to Monty describe his life without freedom to choose. His life was not there for him to participate in. He was excluded. Monty was doomed, per Monty. So what was the point, indeed? What was the doom-script doing for him? Was he getting anything besides yuck from it?
Monty, the way you describe yourself does not have any place for you. Either you really are trapped, or there is a door, or a false wall, or a sun-roof that you do not know about. Or maybe you have a brick-braking tool available?
People from every point on the spectrum of brain illnesses defend their position of entrapment with more volition than a the red-tailed hawks flying above the groves around my house. Even family members of persons with brain illnesses have defended the perception that their loved one does not have freedom to choose, as if suggestions of freedoms were the essence of social injustice, ignorance and stigma.
But it is not the pursuit of freedom that traps us. It is our fear.
Feeling trapped serves a purpose however. It protects us from something that feels shameful. It protects us from that which invokes fear. Wanting not to feel shame or fear is not so wrong though, is it? Wanting not to go toward what might be unbearable seems reasonable to me. If it were truly unbearable. If it were friendly to Me. If it was not the road out of that hell-existence, out of that bricked in crypt, toward a place of greater safety. If then, it would not be so bad.
Self-care tip: When feeling trapped, do what does not feel safe and go toward your shame and fear.
Question: How have you been able to find freedom in places where you feel trapped? How do you manage to go toward shame when you feel so much fear? Please tell us your story.
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My kids look at fruit as if they are inspecting a diamond for flaws.
Is this a good one Mommy?
My daughter was pointing at a blemish that comes from fruit grown outside in dirt and not genetically engineered.
My huffing sounds are barred by something almost like maturity, just in time. I pick up a different White Sapote with broken skin and beak marks where it is half eaten by whoever got there first.
After spitting out the seeds, I remembered bits of my filthy self as a daddy-chasing kid. The words dusted off and important to me again, I heard Dad say,
Pick the fruit that the birds have pecked at. They know what’s good better than we do. Here Sana. Take this one. This is really sweet.
The fruit turning in my daughter’s hand, the cast-offs still in the basket, her anxiety about finding the best and my dad’s words came at me like the sounds between Broadway and 42nd Street. And out walked Jean.
Jean was a patient I had known, particular to me despite common problems.
Abuse since at least my daughter’s age or younger. Neglect. Disgusting trauma survived.
Jean who, after getting picked on for the first thirty years of her life, came to me, insisting on living. She resisted being a White Sapote in a bowl on the counter, inspected by passerbys. Her community had tried to declare her value, her second chances and hoped to cast her off.
Pick the fruit that the birds have pecked at. They know what’s good better than we do. Here Sana.
Jean’s face was in my memory. Her white scar on her black skin shocked me; a large keloid.
Take this one. This is really sweet.
I gave my daughter a squeeze and told her what Papa had said. I’m so glad my daughter reminded me about this in we who have been hurt. (Okay. That’s all of us, see it or not.) The way Jean grew, looked for light, the courage she answered to, the newness that came out of used up and shabbiness – Jean was teaching me about value.
Even when we are not behaving well, when we don’t look good and when we drop the market price, we have value. Somehow, being chosen for life is more important than being chosen to suffer. I wish I could explain why and how better but it’s just something each of us will have to experience for ourselves. We will have to in humility and wisdom, like Jean’s or my dad’s wisdom, find the sweetness in Me.
Self-Care Tip: Discover your sweetness. Be a friend to yourself
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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
Someone, who has experience fighting for her emotional and behavioral health, advised me to listen to Lady Gaga – Born This Way. She said, “Don’t be scared by it! Just listen!”
So I did. And then I did again. Her message is not, “Don’t stress out. Don’t work hard. Just be who you are.” It is rather, “Figure out who you are and embrace that fully.” By her own example, she tells us to work harder than anything else on embracing that. Gaga says, love this unique self and respect it openly and privately. She tells us that we are all beautiful in mass and individually.
So let us know what you think! Is her message our message here at FriendtoYourself.com? Are you uncomfortable with loving yourself so well? Please tell me your story.
Last night at our self-care workshop, we asked the question,
Where do emotions and behaviors come from?
The answers, were nice and varied; none the same. It’s such a great question though, don’t you think? It would be great to hear from you as well.
Where do emotions and behaviors come from?
Then, would you tell us if it has qualified your worth? self-esteem? confidence?
Has it affected where you go for help with them?
Self-Care Tip #266 – Answer, “Where do emotions and behaviors come from?” for better self-care.
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Some time, I’d like to come back to our bullying series as there is still some help to be had for us. However, today, my cherubs are asleep and it’s only seven PM. My feet are up. I’m sitting by lots of beauty colored in varied hues of sunset, shadow and dusk. Tonight will be short. I will let today end and indulge the coming together of these things. (I am even drinking reheated coffee with lots of whipped cream!)
What I have thought of to share with you my friends, as I’ve enjoyed its friendly work on me today, is the pleasure that should be ours in emotional health.
Bad things will come. We will have anger, lower communication and such. We will wish we hadn’t pushed the call button on the phone by accident when yelling. BUT. But (“Mommy you said a potty word!”). But it will pass. It will not define our day or our perception of self. We won’t catastrophize and we will trust ourselves to show love and mercy to Me in our weakness. This is a pleasure to experience. This is what comes when we have brain health.
If this is what has always been your reality, well great. BUT. But (“Mommy! Why did you say that?). But, many of us know what it is to crave for days when we can say that the blow-ups, outs and ins don’t blot out the sun. They shouldn’t. The pleasure comes with health. Go for it! You are worth it. You were made to feel pleasure.
Questions: When was it that you realized that your emotions and behaviors didn’t rule you or someone you love any more? What did/does that mean to you? Please tell me your story.
(Ah! There goes the last of the sun and the trees are now silhouettes.)
Self-Care Tip #257 – Go for the pleasure of trusting yourself to respond with healthy emotions and behaviors.
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Bullying: Series Continued. (I didn’t even realize I was writing a series until now!)
Bit’s and parts of us are unbelieving in what number of options to self-care that we have, when it comes to being bullied. I don’t say this lightly about terrors. Terrors change us irrevocably and hurt to the brink of our own abyss.
The question is, are we free to do self-care even when we are bullied?
Yesterday, Carl in his candid way, said,
Empathy and forgiveness? You gotta be kidding. Do you know what it is like for a twelve year-old to face this… for an entire school term? Probably not? Cope? Isn’t coping with a chronic negative stimulus as debilitating as being unable to cope…. There may be situations where “book smart” stuff is not applicable because we cannot negotiate with the bully.
Image by SanforaQ8 via Flickr
We cannot negotiate with the bully. True, to the degree that Carl said, if I understand him. (Carl you will surely set me straight soon.)
It is true that people who like to fight, fight well. People who bully generally will bully better than I can ever defend myself. They have had a lot more practice. Have you heard this? You never want to go up against someone who has nothing to lose because the only one that will lose is you.
When someone is agitated, in psychiatry we learn that it is good not to make eye-contact. Avert the body. Keep your voice low and don’t engage as much as possible. It reminds me of letting the mist of early morning dew expire the coals in the camp fire. Getting attacked is something we want to avoid.
Early on in my training, I was rounding on the inpatient psychiatry ward. We often have people who are agitated admitted there and this morning, I remember it was about seven AM on a Sunday…. This particular patient hadn’t slept well. He wasn’t well-groomed and he scowled. All the nurses where in another room in a nurses meeting and I didn’t notice he and I were alone in the hallway. I looked him in the eyes directly. I didn’t concern myself with tempering my interview. I was still sleepy myself and wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible to start my Sunday stuff at home. (I know. Stellar attitude for a resident-physician, right?) He grabbed me around the waist and I nearly lost my water! I screamed at him like a she-dog and he let go. That was all. No big deal right? Well I was ticked at him and at the nurses for not being available. No one was at the nurses station, which is illegal too.
In truth, I was pretty much an idiot on all accounts. It doesn’t condone the assault but I have since been better about not negotiating with the bully.
That probably wasn’t exactly what Carl was talking about but it is related. It is by no means a full year of negative harassment, but when responding to the concept of not being able to negotiate with the bully, I don’t know at what point in degrees of trauma experiences that becomes true for us. Perhaps it isn’t a matter of qualifying them or quantifying them. Perhaps more depends on the victim. I don’t know. Do you?
What I do know, is that Carl and I are both partly wrong. We can. I don’t know about then. We can now. We are free even from those molesting monsters because of who we are. We were created free and those horrors can’t extinguish that bit of us. We are free not because of the protection or lack of protection we’ve lived in life. We are free.
We don’t claim to know all the innumerable forms of suffering out there. That is not what this self-care engages with.
Questions: How do you find yourself free at this time in your life, despite it all? How do you describe your freedom, even with your bully? How have you seen others in this context? Please tell me your story.
Self-Care Tip #254 – Free yourself from your bully.
Additional Resources:
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Self-Care Tip #227 – Find out about your bridge between choosing and being chosen by guilt.
Guilt.
Sometimes we think people who do wrong should feel guilt. But how many of us improve ourselves or others in response to guilt? And because this is a self-care blog (wink), I have tooled around with what it is all about and if it is a positive self-service. In my meanderings I remembered, Schadenfreude. (Isn’t that a marvelous Americanized German word?!)
Schadenfreude is different from guilt, although often in the same company. It is a natural response in which we find pleasure at observing another’s demise or suffering. I speculate that when we see someone feeling guilty and suffering from that guilt, even against our better natures we experience a degree of Schadenfreude, i.e. pleasure. Because we moralize things, we responsibly feel shame when insight dawns on Schadenfreude, but “it just is.” It is a part of who we are in this time of humankind’s history.
However would we go so far as to say that we want people to feel guilty when they do wrong because of the motivating reward that Schadenfreude has on us? For example, Mom is disciplining her children and just won’t stop until someone cries. I remember hearing jokes about this in mommy groups when my kids were a bit younger. …Mom thinks silently,
I’m suffering so I want to see you suffer.
Even though we maturely and grandly empathize (the counterpart to Schadenfreude) with the kids, there is a simultaneous “secret Schadenfreude” (a private feeling) that goes on at their failure. The blend of both can be confusing.
As we continue to travel the bridge between voluntary and involuntary, we are learning more about how choice remains regardless which side we are looking at. For example, if guilt and Schadenfreude are so natural, so biological, so reflexive, we look for our choice.
I become trapped in my own guilt. Yes it is about perspective but what to do when even changing your perspective provides no relief, only a different source of constraint?
Questions: I can’t help but wonder what you think about this? Where and what is your bridge between choosing and being chosen by guilt and other negative emotions? How do you choose when guilt and other negative emotions come involuntarily and inappropriately to context? Please tell me your story.
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Self-Care Tip #183 – Compete to be a friend to yourself.
Competition is not always thought to be a friendly word. Pictures of hair-pulling, whining, learned helplessness, failure or success come to mind. However I’m happy to say that we can put away that old grudge and open our arms to what competition can offer.
We are sharper intellectually when we compete. It is stimulating and good brain exercise.
We feel better when we compete. It releases dopamine, the feel-good neurotransmitter (brain messenger.)
We are more likely to win in self-care when we include competition. Some people call it, “Making a game out of it.” But that is really just saying, get competitive in a friendly way. For example, this is one of the few successful ways to get long-term success with weight loss.
We are able to connect with others easier when we compete, believe it or not. Competition is in fact a way to get out of isolation. Pretty cool.
Competition can increase productivity – a boost to one’s quality of life and self-esteem.
Today I was speaking with my daughter’s teacher about bits of this concept. I am hoping that more competition is integrated into her school curriculum. For example, her daily writing could be shared with two fellow students of like abilities and vice versa. She would read what they wrote, coalesce the information into her own thoughts, and write her response.
She would be working on:
Question: What role has competition played in your own self-care? Please tell me your story.
Self-Care Tip #163 – Name abuse when it is there. Be a friend to yourself.
Alexandria (Alex) was crying a lot. She was trying to divorce her husband but he wouldn’t leave. He wouldn’t speak. He only yelled. He yelled at her, alone, in front of their kids, in the morning, when he came home from work, he yelled. And he never spoke to her any more. It’s been weeks since they spoke. When I asked her if she thought she was abused, she said, “No. He’s never hit me.”
What do I do? I can’t go on like this but everything I try, he won’t listen!
There are so many things many of us would tell Alex. But would any of it make sense if she didn’t know she had rights? If she didn’t know what was happening to her? If she didn’t know, this is abuse.
The “Do You?” questions, per Dr. Quijada, to ask yourself if you aren’t sure if you are abused:
Do you feel good about yourself when you are together?
Do you feel scared?
Do you feel like you have choices?
Do you have effective boundaries; observed boundaries?
Do you say, “No,” and are heard?
Do you have a balance of power?
From the outside looking in, we could answer these questions for Alex. But anyone who is or has been abused in any way knows that from the inside, answering these questions is hard. It was hard for Alex.
Alex missed a few beats. She didn’t want to see herself as abused.
Identifying abuse, naming it, is a start towards the other side of things. It is reaching the peak of a hill or mountain of life-stuff, taking the view in after the fog lifts, and knowing that things are the way they are. This is abuse. A tangible thing. Not the drifting mist of fights or arguments that once stalked you, leaving you bewildered and empty-handed. Simply naming abuse is the start of empowerment. Name it. Name it out loud.
“I am abused.”
Alex said,
Wow. I didn’t know that what he is doing is abuse. I didn’t know.
After we talked about the name of what she was suffering, she talked about what she thought she could do about it, such as:
Call 911 if she feels unsafe.
Record him.
Say the words out loud, “I am valuable and should be treated well.”
Get a restraining order.
…And other things.
Alex didn’t have a lot of extended family support, so for her, that was out.
Alex said,
I feel more empowered. I didn’t know I could do that.
And there it was. A dandelion growing out of the cracked cement. Hope. A redistribution of the unequal power. Alex was growing a plan.
Question: What would you tell Alex, yourself, or anyone else in her position? How do you see words being a form of abuse or not? Please tell me your story.
Self-Care Tip #119 – Remember that you are enough. Be a friend to yourself.
Forrest Gump (after watching his girl Jenny throw rocks at her childhood home of abuse,)
Sometimes, I guess there just aren’t enough rocks.
That movie grabbed almost everyone’s heart-strings. And when I saw my patient Sarah, I kept thinking about Jenny throwing rocks.
Sarah started crying. I’d never seen her do that in the 8 years we’d worked together. She was one who talked in spurts. Sometimes saying nothing for many visits, and then she’d start questioning me about foods, diet questions, or parenting. Then quiet some more. Today out of the blue came her tears and words.
When she started on her disclosure, I tensed up thinking, “What am I supposed to say? She’s never done this before!” I realized that being a psychiatrist, I should know the answer to that question and got even more insecure because nothing came to mind.
Her lovely face crumpled over the story of her “stupid” father. He never let her go to school. He was violent. Sarah is now teaching herself how to read; and more tears, her lovely face trembling. She is a mother and there are no books in her home for her children because she is ashamed of herself. “My dad is an idiot man.”
Post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) can last a lifetime. The horrors that are relived by the survivor can be unspeakable for them. We never know what people are going through really inside. They could be a survivor like Sarah or Jenny.
So far, I hadn’t said other than a few “psychiatry-sounds” like “hmm,” and “Oh.” Don’t be too impressed but I remembered someone somewhere wiser than me put it this way,
Sometimes it’s better not to say anything.
And I really didn’t. She did. And she did it wonderfully. We ended up talking about authors she hoped to read eventually. She’d heard of Isabelle Allende and wanted to get to her books some day. We hadn’t even started talking about medications yet. Sarah left after saying that when she stopped learning and growing, she would be dead.
What hit me was that Sarah wasn’t looking for more than me. I searched, wanting to give her more and came up with what I hoped was an appropriate facial expression. In a way, by not speaking much, I was able to receive and be blessed by her story. I might have missed that.
My mentor, author of blog CreatingBrains.com, encouraged me when I was unsure about teaching others. She said, “Look at your life and who you are. You would be surprised.”
When we are insecure about something, it helps to remember that we are enough for the task at hand. As individuals. We have in us all the days that came before, the experiences, the generations that handed us down, the God who made us and as per my belief, never leaves us. We have so much. Considering all this, be still and know.
Question: When have you been amazed at all that was inside you? Please tell me your story.
happinessinthisworld.com
Self-Care Tip #91 – Put the fight down and take 2 steps back. Be a friend to yourself.
He came in looking really good. Chris had seen me for many years and he hasn’t always looked this way. I said
You look great!
Chris shrugged and told me he had just had a long messy argument with his partner and somehow still felt alright. In the past, after they fought and the self-loathing set in, he might have hurt himself – like using alcohol or cutting on himself to
…just feel something different.
I was ready to move past the story as he sounded like he was ok with it. We talked past each other. Me asking about his sleep, and Chris telling me clips and phrases from the argument.
But amazingly I’m fine! If he wanted me out today, I’d be out of there, no problem. He just needs to say the word!
Chris was sitting back in his chair, relaxed until then. His hands came up and took control of his space, thrusting as he spoke.
Being a psychiatrist, my expertise kicked in and I realized I should turn back. Chris wasn’t ready to talk about sleep. You see what all those years of school can do. Not everyone knows how to pick up on such subtleties.
Chris, maybe you aren’t so happy you argued.
We talked more about his energy, appetite and motivation. Then we came back to his argument.
It’s none of his f—— business where I am during the day! I’m not his child. I’m his partner! I told him…!
And so on. Chris still looked better than when he was in the grip of post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms, or when he was catatonic. But he didn’t sit comfortably with himself. And I thought, Chris has fought so hard for himself, why can’t he handle what I want to say? And I did. And he did. Beautifully. He was a brave knight on a black steed holding his wounded sides. Life had been a battle for him, but he was making choices to fight less and live more.
“Ok. Yes. You’re right. I will next time. That makes sense.”
When you’re about to engage in something that in the end will make you loath yourself, choose not to. That’s friendly to you and your other. Say something like,
When I was gone you felt jealous?
Give over stage and anger and open windows and breath. Just choose not to hurt yourself. Winning or losing the argument, in the end, you hurt by your own choice.
Biologically and probably spiritually Chris wouldn’t have known what to do with that years ago. But he did now. I saw him relax again and put his hands away. I knew Chris had a love for Love and this clicked for him.
I can’t describe how happy I was/am. Being a part of his journey is a great honor.
Question: How have you escaped self-loathing and your mean self in the heat of the moment? Please tell me your story.
Friend to Yourself 