Wednesday Challenge: Ownership & Psychological Position

When one lives life inside one’s head, caught up in our thoughts, our inner world and merging past and present as a consequence, one’s world view becomes very narrow and closed. Today becomes a replay of the past, maybe with variations, but for the most part the same. People who struggle with self-destructive urges and patterns are often in such pain and anguish, have such little faith, their emotions color and distort the truth about their power, their potential and abilities. If you are someone who is struggling, own your life, reclaim it, build it, join others moving in the same direction. This is about owning the psychological position, taking a survivor position in one’s own life.

When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves. Victor Frankl

People who engage in self injury and self destructive coping often experience the world as though it is random, when in fact, much of it is not. But, to take that psychological survivor position, one needs to be willing to be present, own your part in your life, and pay attention to data-based patterns more often than not.

What is a psychological survivor position? (taken from Daily Journaling for Self-Injury Recovery:
A Therapists’ Guide for Clients, Juzwin, AuthorHouse Publishing)

This is the attitude or POSITION that is an active psychological role you take as you go through every moment of every day. It involves how you think about and react to your world.
• A mindful psychological position one takes in their life
• It involves HOW you approach your life, how you think about your life
• That means are you:
• Reactive, emotional and avoidant?
• Explosive?
• Sensitive, passive, accepting responsibility for things that aren’t yours?
• Always expecting others to punish or hurt you?
• Someone who uses self-injury to avoid the pain that you think is coming?
• In this framework one take a psychological position or role to interact with their life as a psychological Victim or Survivor. This is a MINDFUL choice you CAN make.
• Victim: Reactive, passive, sees only a limited range of options, gives authority away, makes decisions based on “wants”, doesn’t tolerate feelings
• Survivor: Active, proactive, generates range of options, owns authority for self, makes decisions based on “needs” and “goals,” tolerates feelings, uses THINKING and self-management of reactions
• You can choose how you react. It involves thinking your way through your world, being open to new information.
• Taking a psychological SURVIVOR POSITION means:
• Thinking about what is happening around you.
• Recognizing patterns around you.
• Tolerating feelings, they tell you something is important; AND then using your thinking and keeping your eye on your goal.
• Accepting responsibility for your actions, choices and decisions.
• KNOWING WHERE YOU ARE GOING AND WHAT YOU WANT
• Making goal and value based decisions, and having your behavior match (congruency).
• Actively making decisions that are in your own best interest and help you make it to your daily goal.
• Learning from your experiences, being a student of yourself and the world around you.
• Being mindful, aware and connected in your present.
• Taking an active role in your life.

We change our behavior when the pain of staying the same becomes greater than the pain of changing. Consequences give us the pain that motivates us to change. Henry Cloud

Patterns are difficult to break. This is especially true when emotions and our perceived value and self-esteem are some how connected.

There is an objective reality out there, but we view it through the spectacles of our beliefs, attitudes, and values. David G. Myers

Very often the urges and reactions to the internal emotional intensity keep us from actively choosing to be grounded, connected and present. If you are reading this because you want to be in active creation of your life or involved in the recovery-process, then you are faced with a challenge or choice point that involves you being willing to own your choices, your opinions, your actions, and in the management style you use.

Your choice, your life, your course, your mind, your body, your soul, your experience…………..

The past is a reference point; the present, a decision point; and the future, your destination point. Benjamin Disraeli said, The secret of success is constancy of purpose. What is it your eye is focused upon? What is the purpose YOU (YOU) are creating today? How are you doing it?

What are you willing to own as yours? Without judgment, without criticism, without punishment, what is yours?

Life can be pulled by goals just as surely as it can be pushed by drives.
Viktor Frankl

To reach a port, we must sail—Sail, not tie at anchor—Sail, not drift.
Franklin Roosevelt

It is not enough to take steps which may some day lead to a goal; each step must be itself a goal and a step likewise.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

So my friends, here is the challenge for Wednesday, own your life, own your present, own your choices, own the consequences of your choices. Consider what you are trying to move towards, is what you are engaged in actually in line with what you are trying to accomplish? Do you live by your values? Can you articulate what values you stand upon in your life? What are they? How does your behavior demonstrate these core values?

So a recap of the challenge:
1. Own your present, own your choices, own the consequences of your choices.
2. Identify what you are trying to create or move towards.
3. Identify at least a couple of VALUES that you want to stand upon as your foundation, and identify how your behavior demonstrates these.

Stand for a moment and be present, think your way through your life. Manage your feelings, use them as data, AND never take your eye off what you are trying to CREATE for yourself. Create a moment that is in line with your desired outcome.

Create your luck, create peace. Live with dignity, respect, honor and integrity for more than just one minute tomorrow. It is yours if you are willing to own your right to be human. Create peace, kammie

PS – Please help us reach the 5000 followers goal by March 1, 2013. No one need struggle or be in pain alone. Let’s become advocates for each other, and for those who can not or are not able yet, to speak for themselves. If you are someone who engages in self-destructive behaviors, loves or cares about someone who does, or is a provider, is in recovery, has created a new life, PLEASE PLEASE join us. No one need struggle or be in pain alone. You are more powerful than you know. Today there are 71 followers, please help us reach at least 5000. You are more powerful than you know. We are more powerful than we know. Thanks!

Wednesday Challenge: “Need” versus “Want”…

Sigh, so much new material in my head…….I went to a conference last week and heard some amazing presenters. Regardless of who spoke, the message was repeated over and over and over. Different speakers, all voicing the same message, regardless of their training, professional function or theoretical philosophy: OUR BRAINS CAN CHANGE AT THE CELLULAR LEVEL THROUGH OUR ACTIONS, PRACTICES AND HABITS.

And, if that isn’t enough to make you stand and think, consider this: NEW CONNECTIONS CAN BE MADE AND THE ACTIVITY OF THE BRAIN CAN BE ALTERED THROUGH PRACTICING NEW BEHAVIORS AND ATTITUDES. We know that even two minutes of paced, slowed focused breathing can change blood pressure, brain activity and pulse. It changes the biochemistry in the brain, and moves the individual from the flight-fight-fear-freeze mode, to being calmer, more focused, alert and aware. YOU my friend are capable of it, but you have to be willing to tolerate going against your inclination to stay the course and repeat over and over the behavior that keeps the brain (and you) stuck.

Here is what we don’t want as a status quo:

Here is what we want to create as a new status quo:

These dramatic changes can occur at a cellular level, when we change our thoughts, practices and attitudes. Joyce Hawkes is someone who has researched extensively in this area, and practices healing through changing the brain, through practice of meditation, breathwork and movement. Dr. Hawkes discusses brain changes that can occur as a result of practicing meditation and relaxation as part of daily life, habit and practice. I know, the stuff we struggle to implement. Sorry, but this kind of true change can not generally occur through one trial learning for us, but through repeated practice and incorporation into our lives. Hey, you can’t protect your teeth from cavities by brusing just once, it is a more than one time practice DAILY, across the years that creates health in that area right?
(See also Joyce Hawkes, Ph.D. just amazing stuff on Cellular Resonance http://www.celllevelhealing.com/index.html).

Ok, to reiterate:
1. OUR BRAINS CAN CHANGE AT THE CELLULAR LEVEL THROUGH OUR ACTIONS, PRACTICES AND HABITS.
2. NEW CONNECTIONS CAN BE MADE AND THE ACTIVITY OF THE BRAIN CAN BE ALTERED THROUGH PRACTICING NEW BEHAVIORS AND ATTITUDES.

The last significant point, related to our brain chemistry, is this (BIG BREATH!): we often are driven by our brain (urges) to pursue what is not good for us, BECAUSE IT “FEELS” GOOD. The other pattern we can easily get stuck in is AVOIDANCE of things we consider too painful or risky. So we have this system that is primed (PRIMED!!!!) to seek more of what FEELS GOOD, and when we attempt to change course, the brains wiring wants more of what “FEELS GOOD” regardless of the consequences, regardless of conscious thought – UNTIL WE CHANGE THE WIRING TO OVERWRITE THAT PUSHES US TO FEED THE DESIRE OF WANT TO NEED,WE WILL BE COMPELLED TO REPEAT THE ACTIONS REGARDLESS OF THE CONSEQUENCES. PERMANENT BRAIN CHANGE CAN ONLY OCCUR THROUGH REPEATED PRACTICE, ATTITUDE CHANGE, AND MORE PRACTICE! See points 1 & 2 above.

The speaker in this case, Joel Robertson, PharmD, discussed how we as humans tend to fall into two categories (I’m going to spare you all the talk on dopamine, and all its buddiesserotonin and all those brain things), where the brain is “GAS ON” or “BREAK ON” in its general make up, and how it constantly sends messages to keep on this course of full speed ahead or shut down. It does what, in essence, “FEELS GOOD” when in fact, it isn’t “GOOD” for us AT ALL!!! And it does this automatically when we lose focus of our NEEDS, our goals, and our conscious choices.

So what is the take away here for you readers and experiencers of “GAS ON” or “BREAK ON”? Here it is, in order to create a different course of action, you must be willing (my words, not his) to:
1. Recognize that what “FEELS GOOD” is actually a cue to pay attention to data, and think your way through through the urge to clarify and keep focused on WHAT YOU NEED.
2. Know what it is you are trying to create for yourself, center your mind on it, know what it is you are doing and be willing to tolerate the difficulty you will face in that battle of WANT VERSUS NEED.
3. Have a plan for what MANAGING your urges will look like. In the way we’ve talked in other posts, the metaphor is to know how you will SIT THROUGH THE SUCK, and stay focused on safety and focused on creating peace, health and hope in your life.
4. Know that what you are doing is CREATING something you not only need, but want. Or, want and absolutely need. Know that it is worthwhile and important.

When you know your focus, you can move in that direction. When you are taking in data that is not emotion based, you can change course and correct minor slips off course. What these amazing speakers where addressing what that behavioral change, which we all know sucks and is tough, over time and time and time, repeatedly practiced actually changes brain waves and creates new connections. Healing at the cellular level, changing the brain, the body, the emotional center of the brain, so that the pain is lessened, healing is occuring. And, the brain chemistry is altered. Seriously, the brain can rewire itself through your conscious efforts and actions. How great to have a different experience, creating a new present?

If you’ve read these posts you’ve probably noticed the repeated encouragement of changing behavior, being aware of the present (so as not to merge the past and present), and being aware of your thinking and action patterns. Ok, nagging is a fair word too! But, the point I’ve been trying to help you become aware of is that YOU can change your experience, your thinking, and your choices, which ultimately, over time, practice and diligent practice CHANGES YOUR BRAIN WIRING.
You heal yourself, building new connections in the brain!

Therapy can guide you to change your perspective, offer you insights to change your thinking, monitor your behaviors, help hold yourself accountable for your choices and behaviors. It can help offer you new experiences and perspectives. BUT IT IS ALL YOURS. You and you alone change your perceptions, which changes your reality. It also offers you an opportunity to CHANGE YOUR BIOLOGY!!!

OKAY. Does that make some sense? Deep breathe, because this week I’m offering you a foundation of change to consider, but you must be willing to practice this throughout the WEEK. If you struggle, that is okay, because it might be new. If you forget, that is okay, do it when you remember. If you mess up, that is ok, you are human, start again once you refocus. It is your life, your choice, your course, your path to be walked. Be present in the moment, breathe deep and start again. Create peace, stop the judgmental, harsh and punative war you wage with your mind and body in the moment.

As one of the wisest sages in the world offer us in terms of our words and wisdom as a focus:
Be the change you want to see in the world. Mahatma Gandhi

A ‘NO’ uttered from deepest conviction is better and greater than a ‘YES’ merely uttered to please, or what is worse, to avoid trouble. Mahatma Gandhi

Men often become what they believe themselves to be. If I believe I cannot do something, it makes me incapable of doing it. But when I believe I can, then I acquire the ability to do it even if I didn’t have it in the beginning. Mahatma Gandhi

Each one has to find his peace from within. And peace to be real must be unaffected by outside circumstances. Mahatma Gandhi

ON A DAILY BASIS for the next week, AT LEAST 2X-4X a day:
1. Breathe deeply, evenly and gently, 4 counts in, imaging a cool wave gently washing over you,
2. Be present in your body, hold the full breathe for a moment
3. Exhale, 4 counts out, imaging the wave, now warm, gently rolling back, taking whatever stress (or tension, or pain, or anger…..) with it. Let it go, and hold empty, just floating gently
4. As you breathe in, Breathe deeply, evenly and gently, 4 counts in, imaging a cool wave gently washing over you, filling you with calmness and peace, and the resources you need
5. Be present in your body, hold the full breathe for a moment
6. Exhale, 4 counts out, imaging the wave, now warm, gently rolling back, taking whatever stress (or tension, or pain, or anger…..) with it. Let it go, and hold empty, just floating gently
7. As you breathe in, Breathe deeply, evenly and gently, 4 counts in, imaging a cool wave gently washing over you, filling you with calmness and peace, and the resources you need
8. Be present in your body, hold the full breathe for a moment
9. Exhale, 4 counts out, imaging the wave, now warm, gently rolling back, taking whatever stress (or tension, or pain, or anger…..) with it. Let it go, and hold empty, just floating gently
10. As you breathe in, Breathe deeply, evenly and gently, 4 counts in, imaging a cool wave gently washing over you, filling you with calmness and peace, and the resources you need

You can do this with your eyes closed, laying in your bed at night, upon wakening, in the shower, in line at a store, in a meeting……anywhere you may be. Focus, breathe, move the energy around your body. Change your breathing patterns, watch your thoughts, feed and nourish your body and soul. Create peace. Over time your brain activity will alter to this change in your patterns.

Watch your thoughts; they become words.
Watch your words; they become actions.
Watch your actions; they become habits.
Watch your habits; they become character.
Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.
Mahatma Gandhi

So in closing, here is a thought:
I offer you peace. I offer you love.
I offer you friendship. I see your beauty. I hear your need.
I feel your feelings.
My wisdom flows from the Highest Source.
I salute that Source in you.
Let us work together for unity and love.
Mahatma Gandhi

Create focus and peace. Be willing to change your patterns, it is all within your hands (and your brain!) to create the life you want. k

Wednesday Challenge: What are we doing about BEING?

It would seem we, by nature of being human, are constantly caught up in thought, mired by worries, negative self-evaluations, seeing life through a fuzzy lens, and seeking few options. So do we by our nature repeat our patterns over and over and over, while we say we are “in recovery” or “trying to change”? We forget that while we are DOING, we are actually losing sight of BEING, and BEING present, understanding how this moment is an opportunity to create a change in our lives, a chance for moving off of the well-worn path to creating something that we keep saying we want. STOP, breathe, take a moment and get grounded, and BE you. No one else, just you. Honestly, with dignity and respect. Breathe in, and choose to let go of the fictions, the lies you tell yourself to try to make the pain “make sense” to you. The past is a reference point, you can use it as such to create a different present. Today, this moment is an opportunity to BE you, proudly, without excuse, and to live as more than you’ve ever done before. Step boldly towards creating something new. Create, renew, reorient, recover, move forward, accept, just be.

I’m not about “recovery”. To mean this implies returning to some previous state. Maybe this is just semenatics, but I am about creation, building, evolving and expanding. I actually think that as people work to heal and work in therapy, they are actually becoming more than they have ever been. Wiser, more thought-filled, more courageous and in-touch with their past and present, moving into their future. The process of growth evolves us, changes us, insulates us protectively, improves our vision. You are in-creation of finding your potential, owning your experiences, seeing the impact of your past on your present and in time to change your future road.

So what are you doing in this moment? If your response is “I’m in recovery” – good for you. If your response is “I’m changing this moment to be different from my past” – good for you too. Your vision, your choices, your words, your experience!

The question for Wednesday is “WHAT AM I DOING AS I MOVE THROUGH MY LIFE, AM I CREATING A PATH THAT I WANT TO BE ON?”

Recovery, or creation, or evolution – whatever you choose to call it, is yours in this moment and the next, and the next.

SOOOOO: For Wednesday, the challenge is to decide if you are in fact IN RECOVERY – or whatever term you want to use. HOW DO YOU KNOW YOU ARE IN RECOVERY (evolving, growing, creating)? What is the data you use as feedback for yourself that you can use as INFORMATION about your choices, actions, thoughts, reactions, etc? Do you know what you are trying to create? Can you name it? Can you define it?

For 5 minutes on Wednesday, ground yourself by checking in HONESTLY with yourself:
1. What actions are you engaging in that move your towards your desired outcome?
2. What thoughts are you using to keep yourself in touch with reality, in line with your goals?
3. How are you demonstrating kindness, compassion, and support for yourself through this process?
4. What data are you using to keep your path on course?
5. What values are you using to guide yourself? Some of them include honesty, integrity, honor, dignity, respect, compassion, kindness.
6. Do you have a mantra you use to help you manage your thoughts and guide your actions like a map?

Below are some suggestions:
What is your psychological position?
A pessimist is one who makes difficulties of his opportunities and an optimist is one who makes opportunities of his difficulties.
Harry S. Truman

Are you able to be focused on your goal and move towards it even if it means doing something different?
When you come to the edge of all the light you know, and are about to step off into the darkness of the unknown, faith is knowing one of two things will happen: There will be something solid to stand on, or you will be taught how to fly.
Barbara J. Winter

Do you recognize unhealthy relationship patterns?
Never allow someone to be your priority while allowing yourself to be their option. Authur Unknown
Actions are the seed of fate deeds grow into destiny.
Harry S. Truman

What data are you taking in? What information are you taking in? Are you missing opportunity?
When one door of happiness closes, another opens, but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one that has been opened for us.
Helen Keller

What data are you taking in? Are you paying attention to emotional intensity which limits our ability to think clearly?
Intense feeling too often obscures the truth.
Harry S. Truman

Change your thoughts and you change your world.
Norman Vincent Peale

Change can either challenge or threaten us. Your beliefs pave your way to success or block you. Marsha Sinetar

The secret of success is constancy of purpose. Benjamin Disraeli
How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg? Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn’t make it a leg. Abraham Lincoln

There is an objective reality out there, but we view it through the spectacles of our beliefs, attitudes, and values. David G. Myers

We change our behavior when the pain of staying the same becomes greater than the pain of changing. Consequences give us the pain that motivates us to change. Henry Cloud

It is easier to be wise for others than for ourselves.
Francois De La Rochefoucauld

We think too small. Like the frog at the bottom of the well. He thinks the sky is only as big as the top of the well. If he surfaced, he would have an entirely different view. Mao TseTung

Most people spend more time and energy going around problems than in trying to solve them. Henry Ford

When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves. Victor Frankl

We would rather be ruined than changed;
We would rather die in our dread
Than climb the cross of the moment
And let our illusions die.
W.H. Auden

In the midst of winter, I found there was within me an invincible summer. Albert Careb

What is important is not that there are uncontrollable events in our lives, but how we respond to them. Hyram W. Smith

Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear. Ambrose Redmoon

Infuse your life with action. Don’t wait for it to happen. Make it happen. Make your own future. Make your own hope. Make your own love. And whatever your beliefs, honor your creator, not by passively waiting for grace to come down from upon high, but by doing what you can to make grace happen… yourself, right now, right down here on Earth. Bradley Whitford

If you don’t have solid beliefs you cannot build a stable life. Beliefs are like the foundation of a building, and they are the foundation to build your life upon. Alfred A. Montapert

Being happy doesn’t mean everything is perfect. It means that you’ve decide to look beyond the imperfections. Author unknown

Always remember that the future comes one day at a time. Dean Acheson

Some succeed because they are destined to, but most succeed because they are determined to – Unknown

Courage does not always roar, sometimes it is a quiet voice at the end of the day saying … ‘I will try again tomorrow.’ – Lara Adio

I find hope in the darkest of days, and focus in the brightest. I do not judge the universe. Dalai Lama

People seldom see the halting and painful steps by which the most insignificant success is achieved. Anne Sullivan

We would accomplish many more things if we did not think of them as impossible. C. Malesherbes

Start by doing what’s necessary, then what’s possible, and suddenly you are doing the impossible. Francis of Assisi

We can do anything we want to do if we stick to it long enough.
Helen Keller

The world we have created is a product of our thinking; it cannot be changed without changing our thinking. Albert Einstein

If you want to know your past look into your present conditions. If you want to know your future look into your present actions.
Buddhist Saying

One who fears failure limits his activities. Failure is only the opportunity more intelligently to begin again. Henry Ford

Our plans miscarry because they have no aim. When a man does not know what harbor he is making for, no wind is the right wind. Seneca

You must have long term goals to keep you from being frustrated by short term failures. Charles C. Noble

We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts we make the world. Buddha

Destiny is not a matter of chance. It is a matter of choice: it is not to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved. William Jennings Bryan

Your work is to discover your work and then with all your heart to give yourself to it. Buddha

The self is not something that one finds. It’s something one creates.
Thomas Szasz

All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Believe that life is worth living and your belief will help create the fact. William James

By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest. Confucius

Nobody can bring you peace but yourself. Ralph Waldo Emerson

Watch your thoughts; they become words.
Watch your words; they become actions.
Watch your actions; they become habits.
Watch your habits; they become character.
Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.
Author unknown

Your past is a reference point; your present, a decision point; and your future, your decision. krj

Peace to you. You are more powerful than you know. Create the life you want, honor yourself, live with dignity today. Use your wisdom, strength and courage to stay true to your path. Peace, k

Wednesday Challenge: Herding Cats (or…pesky urges)

There are several metaphors I could use today to discuss this weeks’ challenge. The one that seems to fit best really is that old one that starts off with….’it’s like herding cats, one goes here, one goes there, and ya know, cats ain’t too good at doing what you want them to do, they got their own mind about things..’, which is a great metaphor for urges and impulses that we seem to fight.

It would seem that urges or impulses are random. The truth is, they really aren’t. Think about the pattern that exists around them. When do you tend to experience that press to be self-destructive? Seriously, think on that question. Most of the people I know would respond that they tend to ‘randomly’ feel self-destructive when:
1. They feel overwhelmed
2. They feel too quiet, unstimulated, restless, numb
3. They are lonely, isolated
4. They are trying to express something that words alone can’t seem to communicate
5. When they are trying to avoid something.

Urges, like triggers, not only seem random, but they seem to out of our control. They seem to provoke us into some sort of responding. NOW WAIT A MINUTE HERE, please don’ accept those last two statements as FACTS – they are emotional logic, which by now, I hope recognize that emotional logic is actually DISLOGIC and that feelings (while valid) are NEVER to be confused for, or taken as FACT. Feelings just are, they just exist, they are cues that something important is going on. Feelings don’t have to be specific, and you can experience more than one at a time – AND YOU CAN SURVIVE IT! You don’t even have to be able to identify the feeling or feelings either. Just acknowledging that you are having an experience may be enough. Seriously. One doesn’t need to get mired in quicksand to recognize that it is in fact, quicksand. Recognizing that the emotions exist, and that they have a beginning, middle and an end, is…………VALIDATION of your own experience. Honestly, recognizing the cat and letting it be a cat, is the best way to have a relationship WITH A CAT. Forcing it to be a horse, or an elephant, or a TRAINED CAT for that matter, makes you all miserable.

Remember that feelings have a beginning, middle and an end, and the middle often SUCKS. That is the part that you need to problem-solve and manage your way through. Sitting through and managing the sucky middle part is indeed time limited if you are problem-solving, practicing coping, and spending the time moving through it being healthy. Your decisions and actions will define how long and how sucky that middle part might be. But, back to herding cats.

When your thoughts and feelings are running off in different directions, and you are feeling the frustration of all those experiences, you are indeed attempting to herd cats. There’s a reason that cat herding isn’t an olympic sport, although those who participate in recovery and effort at thriving in their lives should really be considered professional athletes. Why you ask? Because it is a life encompassing commitment to a practice, a discipline, and a focus. Managing to do what FEELS impossible, but because of skills, mindset and practice, they master this difficult task as they move through the obstacle course that is their life, towards the end of this round of performance.

I wonder what the team logo would be for a cat herderer (is that a new word?)? Well, each of us has the option of being a cat herder each day, wrangling our urges and keeping them in their place as we problem solve our way through the challenges we face. I’m not saying it is that easy, nothing is THAT easy. But just because it is a challenge or is difficult, you may even mess up. OKAY, so you mess up!!! Get up, get grounded, get focused, set a goal for yourself, and then practice your coping skills through the self-destructive thoughts and urges.

Often times we dwell on the past, the past failures, hurts, losses and disappointments. Do you allow yourself to grieve in a healthy way? Do you nuture and support yourself, care for yourself as you would a good friend? If you don’t, how is that helpful to you (don’t get me started on the ‘I don’t deserve it’ because that is dislogic and will never ever help you heal or move from that pain, but I digress)?

SOOOOOO……………fellow cat wranglers……..here is your challenge for Wednesday. Try it at least ONCE during the day:
1. Recognize when your feelings and thoughts are going in different directions. That could be termed ambivalence, and is actually a normal experience in human beings. JUST NOTICE THE EXPERIENCE.
2. Ask yourself what is it that the feelings are indicating. Are the feelings BIG or small? Are they intense or not? Are you frustrated, angry, sad, scared or anxious? SERIOUSLY – you may not know what the feeling state is, and that doesn’t even matter. Whatever the experience, remember your feelings are data that tell you something important is going on and to PAY ATTENTION TO YOUR WORLD BY GETTING INTO YOUR HEAD AND GATHERING DATA.
3. Get into your data-gathering mode. Look at the world around you, what is going on? Is something important happening? Are you adequately nourished so that your brain can pick up information adequately and accurately? Are you keeping yourself safe, healthy, connected and whole? Are you respecting your body and mind?
4. In your data-gathering mode are you recognizing your reactions to the current situation or with other people around you? Are you using data accurately to keep yourself safe with appropriate boundaries and limits in relationships? Are you having healthy interactions with others? If not, time to move the herd out.
5. What are those urges indicating? Are you overwhelmed, under-whelmed, trying to connect, communicate or trying to avoid something? Would the self-destructive behaviors be in response to those functions? IF SO – then time to change direction and problem-sovle your way around them, and COPE and MANAGE your way through them until they subside. The goal is not to avoid experiencing feelings, but to cope, manage, and live your life through the experience. Like the weather, or todays big gossip event, I promise, they will pass.

So fellow cat herders, hear our meow (now I’m getting cheesy huh?), tomorrow, just recognize the different pulls of your thoughts and emotions, and manage your way through the experience. Just for tomorrow, just for a minute, change your course. You decide how you live your life, how you respond to your urges, and how/if you react to provocative things. YOU DECIDE your own thoughts, reactions and actions. YOU OWN THAT. Your decision. Your choice. Your life.

Good luck. Tomorrow I hope you create moments of success for yourself in managing your way through. Create peace, k

A pessimist is one who makes difficulties of his opportunities and an optimist is one who makes opportunities of his difficulties. Harry S. Truman

The world we have created is a product of our thinking; it cannot be changed without changing our thinking. Albert Einstein

One’s philosophy is not best expressed in words; it is expressed in the choices one makes. In the long run, we shape our lives and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And, the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility.
Eleanor Roosevelt

The great thing in this world is not so much where we are,
but in what direction we are moving.
Oliver Wendell Holmes

Even if you are on the right track, you will get run over if you just sit there. Will Rogers

Our greatest glory is not in never falling but in rising every time we fall. Confucius

Wednesday Challenge: Avoiding Avoidance

Well here we are, daily facing daily challenges, events, moments, interactions, relationships, demands or whatever we face daily. Now, before you groan or have other strong reactions and get back under your covers, take a deep breath. And another. Open your eyes and ground yourself.

A pessimist is one who makes difficulties of his opportunities and an optimist is one who makes opportunities of his difficulties.
Harry S. Truman

Don’t let what you can’t do interfere with what you can do.
Anonymous

Very often people talk about their lives as though they are surprised or confused about the fact that they have reactions to things in their lives. Then they are surprised that they have reactions or feelings. It is as though the goal somehow has come to be about AVOIDING. Yup, that cleanly delineated. Avoiding demands, avoiding challenges, avoiding hard things, avoiding people, avoiding interactions with people, avoiding being in ones own company, avoiding feelings, thoughts, and in general closing off the world and escaping to ones inner world (which often involves the internet ironically).

The world we have created is a product of our thinking; it cannot be changed without changing our thinking. Albert Einstein

It truly ISN’T safer to live like this, avoiding real life and real life demands. I think what helps is perspective. Seriously, on a scale of 1 to 100, how much challenge is this demand? Ask yourself that question? Some things in daily life are mundane, relatively easy to face. But if everytime we perceive that we have a challenge we respond to it as though it were at the top end (near 100), that would be pretty exhausting. So a fair question might be, are we sometimes overestimating the difficulty of challenges AND UNDERESTIMATING OUR CAPABILITY TO MEET THOSE CHALLENGES!

Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does. William James

Somehow, in our heads, we close the outside world away, and live within a narrow world where we don’t take in new information, and rely instead on past memories, playing them over and over like they were the present. We call that merging the past into the present. Additionally, we use feelings as though they are fact. So our internal intensity is often tweaked, which tends to set the whole damn cycle into motion, leading to negative self-talk, urges, negative emotional turmoil, flooding of affect, negative thoughts…………………….. and then ultimately…….the urge to be self-destructive or do what you do to get that moment past. BUT in using self-destructive behaviors, you’ve avoided the real cue that started the whole cycle.

Watch your thoughts; they become words.
Watch your words; they become actions.
Watch your actions; they become habits.
Watch your habits; they become character.
Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.
Author unknown

What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us. Ralph Waldo Emerson

Intense feeling too often obscures the truth.
Harry S. Truman

It is a fair question to ask you if you are facing something in your life that is difficult, hard or challenging. On a scale of 1 – 100, are you facing something difficult? OK. The next fair question is what are the alternatives in addressing and RESOLVING that challenge? Are you willing to directly address that challenge using healthy behaviors?

The self is not something that one finds. It’s something one creates. Thomas Szasz

NOW for the really tough, but fair, question – what about the internal emotional intensity? Is it uncomfortable or difficult to tolerate? If your answer is no – then do what you need to do to resolve the challenge in a healthy way. But , if your answer is YES – the those internal feelings are data, they are CUES that something important is going on, and instead of engaging in all those negative cycles and patterns and avoiding coping, GET INTO YOUR HEAD and think your way through the challenge or demand.

If we did the things we are capable of, we would astound ourselves.
Thomas Edison

When you automatically jump to self-destructive thinking and actions, you are avoiding opportunities to cope. You end up thinking you are avoiding the hard part, but you actually end up avoiding moving through something that you probably are more than able to manage. The avoidance you might engage in actually causes you more angst, grief, worry, depression, hopelessness, frustration, etc. The avoidance may actually contribute to your negative self-description and negative self-view.

Hey, I’m not saying that people are often very encouraging of your changes. In fact, one way to gage the health of a relationship is to see if people challenge you to remain unhealthy or if they celebrate your efforts at managing your life. Seriously, observe those patterns! They may be very eye opening.

So for one minute (maybe two, maybe three….) are you willing to consider:
1. Acknowledging that avoidance of management doesn’t give you the outcome you want for yourself?
2. Are you willing to look a challenge (any challenge) in the eye, and talk your way through managing it?
3. While you are looking said challenge in the eye, are you willing to acknowledge you may have some feelings about it, AND MAKE A DECISION TO ACT in a way that is helpful, healthy and responsible?
4. AND, while you are doing those things, are you willing to tolerate your emotions, use them as data, and get into your head while making your decision?
5. AND, even while your are tolerating those emotions, are you willing to be kind and respectful to yourself, maybe even acting with dignity and self-respect?

I encourage you to acknowledge and accept that you are more capable than you often give yourself credit for being. You are stronger and more powerful than you know. When you live in that closed existence that doesn’t allow you to connect with the world in a way that allows you to take care of yourself in healthy ways, your avoidance maintains a very self-destructive and negative existence.

Change your day tomorrow, one moment at a time. Give yourself credit that you CAN FIGURE IT OUT.

Meet those challenges and say “HA! YOU DON’T KNOW WHO YOU ARE DEALING WITH TODAY!” Acknowledge your capacities. You are more powerful than you know. Create peace. k

Like water, be gentle and strong. Be gentle enough to follow the natural paths of the earth, and strong enough to rise up and reshape the world. Brenda Peterson

Managing Self-Destructive & Self-Injury Thinking & Urges

Managing Self-Destructive & Self-Injury Thinking & Urges.

Biology & Physiology First: A lesson for living within your own body

Biology & Physiology First: A lesson for living within your own body.

Self-Injury Awareness Day, March 1, 2012

Thursday March 1, 2012 is National Self-Injury Awareness Day, actually, more appropriately, internationally recognized as a day of awareness. This day is usually in the middle of the National Eating Disorders Awareness Week, which is Feb 26-March 4.

These problems are very serious problems, impacting so many people. Research estimates range depending on which groups they look at, but range from 25%-40% of various groups if you look at self-injury stats alone. But these probably underestimate the true prevalence rates.

Self-injury isn’t about the injury, anymore than ED is just about food. We do know that people who engage in self-destructive behaviors and eating disordered behaviors are struggling with creating peace within their bodies, their minds, souls, and within relationships with others and themselves. The brain and biology get changed, and the problems they face are greater than their symptoms. These are people with problems that words alone don’t suffice to express the depth of painful emotions, experiences, memories or thoughts they struggle with daily.

Most importantly, make a decision to be aware of your own habits, tendencies, patterns, choices and behaviors you use:
1. to cope
2. to manage internal intensity, feelings or emotions
3. live within your own skin
4. to stay alive
5. to feel more
6. to feel less
7. to connect
8. to communicate
9. to avoid demands
10. alleviate stress, sadness, grief, guilt
11. to quiet your mind
12. to tolerate frustration
13. to get immediate gratification
14. to tolerate ambiguity
15. to…………………………….

Self-destructive actions are choices driven by urges or conclusions that aren’t based in fact or reality.
Feelings aren’t facts, they are cues that something is important, that you need to pay attention to, and to think your way through the situation.

Feelings have beginnings, middle and ends, and sometimes the middle….well, it often sucks.

Feelings can’t hurt you, what you decide to do about them though, can.

If you are someone who struggles with these problems, please find help and support. Try to practice healthy self-care, respect for your body, and your existance. If you love someone who engages in self-injury or eating disorders, help them by learning from a therapist what you can do, listen, encourage and expect healthy behaviors, and be healthy yourself. It takes a long time to break patterns, so patience, respect, encouragement, structure, limits, and expectations of health are critical foundations for health in relationships and in recovery. It isn’t easy, but recovery, claiming the life you want, is worth it.

Check out the various support (health focused) websites, facebook pages and other social media. Check out the various support groups in your area, such as ANAD. There are programs focusing on ED and SI in some locations, and some therapists are very skilled and experienced in treatment of these problems.

Some good questions to ask yourself about readiness to try something new, or change:
1. Am I willing to consider being different?
2. Am I willing to consider using different ways of coping, or managing?
3. Am I willing to look at how I cope, and consider other alternatives?
4. Can I see myself doing something different?
5. Am I willing to develop my self-definition to include more than my symptomatic behavior, diagnosis, or problems or negative self-evaluations?
6. Am I willing to stay alive and keep myself safe, EVEN (ESPECIALLY) if my feelings are different?

Some good questions to ask a therapist or program (if you are looking for one)(believe it or not, these are great questions to ask, and we often expect them):
1. How did you get your training in working with self-injury, eating disorders and/or trauma?
2. Did you do specialty training or education in these topics? How many other cases have you treated like mine?
3. Are you licensed and registered as a professional therapist? How would I look you up to find out if you have the skills, knowledge and expertise to work with my problem?
4. Do you work with other people who also treat these problems?
5. How do you maintain your competency in the field of ED, SI, and/or trauma?
6. What are your expectations about safety? How do you define safe?
7. What am I supposed to do if I don’t feel like I can keep myself safe? How do you define crisis?
8. How do you make decisions about levels of care (going inpatient, or decreasing frequency of treatment)?
9. What is your treatment philosophy? How do you approach working with people?
10. What if I lapse, like injure myself or don’t follow my meal plan?
11. What will we talk about in sessions?
12. What if I’m scared? What if I’m angry? What if I have a bad day and just don’t want to do what I’m supposed to do? What if I disagree with you? What if I get angry with you?
13. What skills will I learn? How will I learn them? Do you give homework?
14. Can I laugh, cry, grieve, be silent, angry, vent, mourn, celebrate, be frustrated, explore my options, listen, be heard, be safe, take risks, be contained, be respected, be scared? Can I have some human experiences in a safe place with someone who will help me through them? Will you allow me to save face and learn from my mistakes or bad choices?
15. Will you expect me to be safe, will you expect me to be honest, will you challenge me, will you respect me and hold me accountable? Will you provide reasonable expectations and structure this process with and for me so that I can grow? What will that look like?

Well, honestly, there are a lot more, and I’d love to know your favorite questions to ask a therapist or program.

Live in the present, with your eye towards the future you want to create. Otherwise, you relive the past over and over, merging it into your present.

You are more than your past, you are more than what other people may say about you, you are more than you often give yourself credit for, and you probably underestimate how strong, competent, able, wise and adaptive that you are. Self-destructive thinking, action and choices, remove so many options, and blind you to your own potential.

The past is a reference point, the present, a decision point, and the future, is a destination.

Tomorrow, be aware of your full potential to be amazing.
Create peace with yourself in your life, k

Wednesday Challenge: Perspective

We would rather be ruined than changed;
We would rather die in our dread
Than climb the cross of the moment
And let our illusions die.
W.H. Auden

Yesterday in supervision, a therapist I really respect had a comment about perspective, and how we as humans tend to only look at things through the lens of our own core values, (dis)logic and the perspective or translated sense we make out of the world. Her comment was, “if you put 100 people in a room and ask them to provide feedback comment on something specific for you, 99 will say the exact same thing, but 1 will say something totally off base, inappropriate or otherwise. Instead of looking at 99 points of validation, we tend to twist ourselves up and look at the 1 as the truth.” Stop and think about that for a moment.

She went on, “instead of looking at the 99 who spoke similar points of view in their feedback to us, we give away ‘truth’ to that one person…..I on the otherhand wonder who let the idiot in the room?” This isn’t to say that someone with a divergent opinion doesn’t have value, but look at what she is saying, do we truly tend to give away our right to our own thoughts and dignity, our own sense of truth, to one person who may truly have as their only agenda, the goal of hurting, judging, causing pain, put down, etc.? Do we blindly accept other peoples definition of us, or what we think is their definition, while totally ignoring other sources of data?

Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.
Albert Einstein

People who engage in self-destruction do indeed get caught up in this habitual effort to either/or or both please, conform and act out. Trying to be accepted, but trying to develop as individuals. Trying to be liked, but honestly not liking a lot of the people they are trying to please. Trying to please people around them, while at the same time being so damn unhappy. Trying to find peace while waging war on their own body, minds, spirit and soul. Trying to quiet their minds while allowing their thoughts to stew and ferment, going over and over every minute detail over and over. Thinking about living, but staying on the sidelines. Pretending and faking and then angry that no one really knows you. WHEW! That is so exhausting, and unrewarding. No wonder so many of you are exhausted, tired, desparate, and lonely. You are meta-living, having relationships inside your head, and not genuinely being you.

The art of being wise is knowing what to overlook.
William James

When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves. ~Victor Frankl
I think we all struggle with the perspective of not being able to control others around us, not being able to influence some of the people in our lives. Some of them, and some of our circumstances are outside of the ring of influence we truly have (thanks again to the therapist above for this one), and we become like flies stuck on a window sill in the summer. That poor fly is working soooo hard to get through the window. If that poor fly would change its perspective, it might notice the hole in the screen, just a little bit over on the screen door. It will, despite its best efforts throwing itself against that window, never be able to influence that window to give it what it so desperately wants and needs. Please don’t be that fly, destined to have a short, painfilled and narrow existence on that window sill.

We think too small. Like the frog at the bottom of the well. He thinks the sky is only as big as the top of the well. If he surfaced, he would have an entirely different view.
Mao Tse-Tung

What is important is not that there are uncontrollable events in our lives, but how we respond to them. Hyram W. Smith

HERE YOU GO, for tomorrow, just for a minute or two, are you willing to choose something different?
For tomorrow, for just one moment, are you willing to put your eye to the horizon, and see what else is out there?
For tomorrow, for just one moment, are you willing to look at data, take in information, and consider differently?
For tomorrow, for just one moment, are you willing to take a good hard look at who you take in information from and ask yourself if they are truly people who warrent influencing you?
For tomorrow, for just one moment, are you willing to see yourself as a butterfly, coming through the darkness of the cocoon, into your world?
And for tomorrow, for just one moment, are you willing to choose a different perspective? One that allows you to shift your focus, to challenge your thinking, and your core belief system? Are you willing to allow yourself to move towards what you need in your life, and not repeat yesterday over and over?

When one door of happiness closes, another opens, but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one that has been opened for us.
Helen Keller

Wednesday Challenge: Conversing with myself

I’m guessing you might be the person who is ‘the responsible one’ or the ‘good girl’ or ‘good boy’ in your circle of people. You almost always do the right things when asked to, and are the first one to offer to help. You give great advice and support….to everyone but yourself.

I give myself very good advice, but I very seldom take it. Alice, Alice in Wonderland

Likewise you’d love to have the same nurturance and support that you give others, but fear it terribly. You’ve probably been hurt, and trust is an issue. Holding others accountable for the pain they’ve caused you would probably be a fruitless effort. Well to that, here is what I say (well, actually George S. Patton said it first): “Don’t fight a battle if you don’t gain anything by winning.”

So torn between being the responsible child, and not wanting to engage in battles I can’t gain anything by, leaves me in a tough spot. I really need to look at the advice I give, and the advice I am willing to live by daily. This is a principle called CONGRUENCE. It helps create peace, in the long run. In the short run…well honestly, it sucks. Congruence helps me align my desired outcome, with my thoughts, beliefs and behaviors. BUT…you will have to challenge your own long held core values, beliefs, and even memories, and recognize some may be very distorted. Some of those distortions may have helped you survive terrible things, and when you begin to unravel these memories and face truths, the feelings may come to the surface, you may have to accept that you weren’t responsible for some of the terrible things that happened to you, and that other people let you down. Who knows what you will discover as you discover congruence, but if you stick with it (hopefully with a really good therapist), you will create peace, congruence, and recognize a strength that you didn’t know you had. Perhaps you will begin to honor yourself, and give and accept as much nurturance as you give to others.

Here is your challenge for tomorrow. Please try it, once, maybe twice (or more!). Please comment and let me know if any of these worked for you!

Tomorrow, Wednesday, I will:
Create a moment of peace in my heart, spirit and soul
Choose peace, un-choose chaos
Choose calm, being present in my body and mind, and un-choose distractions
Choose self-acceptance, tolerance for my body, mind, spirit and existence, un-choose seeking approval from outside or others
Choose my own course, unchoose fear of following what others dictate, especially if they don’t understand what is in my best interest
Choose acting in my own best interest, without judgment, ridule, doubt or questioning my worth or value
Choose my path, I walk it, I own the consequences of my decisions
I own my destiny, my choosing, my direction, my course, my pace, my path…and understand that I also own the responsibilities of those choices

I will stop making my body and my past and my existance my enemy. I will be my own champion, I choose where I belong. I choose to live with dignity, with respect, with decisions that lead to health and sanity. Live your life in this moment.

Your past is a reference point, your present a decision point, your future is your destination.

Create peace my friends. Live congruently, k

Wednesday Challenge: Your Voice

Today’s focus is on your voice, your words, your messages, the words you speak, the words you think, the words you use to make your place in the world. Your voice is not just the noise that comes out of you when your mouth moves and the air passes over your vocal cords. There is no one like you with the thoughts in your head, the quality of that noise, and the quality of those thoughts expressing your existence and experience. The other part is the voices you allow inside your head from others, other people who perhaps you don’t need to give such weight or credence to in your life. Your voice, your thoughts, your perceptions, your words should dictate your choices, guide your movement. The voices you hear from others should be considered against the yardstick of data, reality, and quite frankly, comparison to whether or not the words their voices use are worthy of considering as important.

So….what about it? Could it really about the way we use our voice? Well, here it is, your voice is the very first thing you own in expressing your thoughts, feelings, and experiences. Your voice, the words you use, creates that first boundary around you. Your voice, SPOKEN OR NOT, creates a position between yourself and the world around you. Do you allow other peoples voices to replace your own? Do you give up your power of your own words and your voice by deferring to other voices? As though their words dictate or create your truth or reality?

Often we don’t use our voice in helpful ways. For example, we use the thoughts and words in our head to beat ourselves up, to judge ourselves, to sentence ourselves to a moment in life that is full of pain, anguish and hurt. Our own voice is used as a weapon against our own existence. We absorb the ugliness from unhealthy peoples’ messages as though it is the truth, then we do mental gymnastics inside our head. The twisting, bending, contorting and distorting of our own experiences, to make their voice and their (poison) into our truth, and in the process silencing our own voice. This is how souls are often damaged, hearts broken, body images become distorted, and your self-destructiveness becomes “logical” as a way to tolerate the pain from absorbing other peoples distortions and poison. Keep in mind that abusive people use their words to hurt, to get inside other peoples heads and souls and slowly kill their self-definition with their poison.

How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg? Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn’t make it a leg. Abraham Lincoln

We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts we make the world. Buddha

It is a man’s own mind not his enemy or foe that lures him to evil ways. Buddha

He is able who thinks he is able. Buddha

We are shaped by our thoughts. We become what we think. Buddha

To keep the body in good health is a duty otherwise we shall not be able to keep our mind strong and clear. Buddha

Why? We certainly are intelligent people, who are generally wise, well-intentioned, people who are just trying to get by. Why would otherwise reasonable people silence their own voices? I know you are probably hoping SOMEONE has the answer. I wish I did. Sorry my friends, but I just don’t.

I do however, have a couple of thoughts. First, I think voices get silenced because we lose clear vision of the person or people who spew poison and ugliness. Voices get silenced because we lose sight of perspective that sometimes we allow ourselves to truly check out reality, to see that maybe other people are not “right.” Their assertions about us, their acts towards us, their words, their values, ….. whatever, do you check your vision out before you change your position, and then your words? The short message is: YOUR VOICE MATTERS. The longer message is YOUR VOICE MATTERS, but first you must honor it yourself.

I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make them think. Socrates

I’m not certainly advocating that we use our words on these individuals, like the proverbial pearls before swine. Why would I do that? I’ve actually stopped attempting to reason with some people in my life. Why? To what end? So do I shut up? (If you know me – that is highly unlikely!!!) No I don’t shut up and shove it all inside. I try to be wise, judical, mindful in who I use the voice of my most precious inner thoughts with in any form of discussion. What I am advocating that you understand that you can have your words, your thoughts and your ideas, your definitions, your VOICE and you give your position credence. Some of my best conversations have occurred inside my head, to no one but me. I won’t cast pearls to these swine because they aren’t listening, they don’t care, they don’t hear. AND (notice, not BUT?), I don’t care!!!! My words and thoughts have validity because they are MY VOICE!!! I choose who I share my voice with, my thoughts, my words. They are mine. They are an extension of my experience.

You have to deal with the fact that your life is your life.
- Alex Hailey

Likewise, when I do share my words, it is more important that I have my SAY, and not necessarily expect to have my WAY. When I share my voice, I understand that just because someone is not hearing what I have to say it doesn’t mean that my words weren’t valuable or that I am not valuable. Why would I allow that individual to define me?

So, for tomorrow, for just one moment tomorrow, Wednesday, HONOR YOUR VOICE. Think for a moment about how your voice, your opinion, your position, your words, thoughts, expressions are extensions of your experience. Own them, honor them, recognize them as extensions of your own experience. Likewise, recognize when your voice doesn’t reflect you, and is about absorbing other peoples poison. In some ways, monitor how you use words and thoughts as you talk to or about yourself. Is your voice honoring, compassionate, kind, supporting of YOU? Do you hold yourseld accountable for the words and messages you send?

To be nobody-but-yourself—in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else— means to fight hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting. e.e. cummings

Just some thoughts. Your voice, your thoughts, your opinions, YOUR LIFE. Will you choose to use your voice with authority, courage and acceptance that they represent you? That your words matter? That you matter?

We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same. Carlos Castaneda

Create peace, use your voice to validate your own experience – to the one that matters – YOU!
k

Wednesday Challenge: Tolerating the middle

It would seem that we seem so surprised when we have reasonable, expectable and human responses to situations in our lives. And people who use self-destructive behaviors to cope, seem to have an intolerance to their own experiences, reactions and feelings. As humans, we often feel that life is random, yet if we think from DATA gathered in our lives, there is less randomness than we think. For those of you who have been struggling with self-destructiveness, self-injury, disordered eating and high risk behaviors, one thing many people attempt to do is to use these behaviors to feel something, to numb out, to connect, to communicate and to stay alive. But here’s the lie – you are feeling something anyway!!! The emotions, the human emotions, are with you even with the behaviors; and you are left with the awful hangover that comes when your clarity returns. So very often the present is then colored by our past experiences, and we get reality from looking inward, comparing it automatically with our past experiences, beliefs and attitudes, that we lose track of the experiences in the present that don’t match our past ones. This is why it is so important to be grounded and in the present moment, connected, taking in information about this moment and this experience.

There is an objective reality out there, but we view it through the spectacles of our beliefs, attitudes, and values. ~David G. Myers

We often wish the feelings would lift and fight them, often directing the energy towards yourself, inward, or onto others, outward. But, time passes, the cycle continues, and hopelessness, despair, and apprehension about continuing sets in. It seems to get worse than better. We are so surprised that we have feelings and reactions, and try to will them away.

So before this continues downward, I would like to offer you somethings to think about today, and apply tomorrow:
1. Feelings are cues, they tell you something important is happening. They tell you that something important enough is happening that you need to get into your head, and evaluate the accuracy of your perceptions and the appropriateness of your reactions.
2. Feelings are NORMAL HUMAN experiences, with reactions taking in information about the world.
3. Your feelings and reactions are okay, it is what you do (your actions)with them that determines if you are safe or not.
4. Feelings have a beginning, middle and an end. The middle often SUCK! Your job is to tolerate the middle, or as I often tell my clients, to sit through the suck. That is the building of TOLERANCE.
Feelings can’t hurt you, what you do about them might though.
5. Perhaps you are having reasonable reactions, and it might be an opportunity to practice something new – allowing yourself to have a human moment. You might be grieving, you might be angry, you might be….. I don’t know, you don’t even have to know what it is.
6. VALIDATING that you are having a human moment is so important. Often we look to others to validate that we are having the “right” experience or reaction. Until you are willing to honor and validate your own experience, your own pain, your own validity as a human, with rights, dignity, boundaries, opinions, worth, thoughts, spirit, soul and body, you will experience your own feelings and emotions and experiences as FOREIGN! HERE IS AN IMPORTANT TRUTH: WHEN YOU BEGIN TO HONOR YOUR OWN FEELINGS, THOUGHTS, AND EXPERIENCES AS VALID AND VALUABLE, YOU WILL ALSO BEGIN TO BE MORE ABLE TO VALUE YOUR BODY, SPIRIT, EXISTANCE AND LIFE. WHEN YOU HONOR AND ACKNOWLEDGE THAT YOUR EXPERIENCES MATTER, YOU CREATE A MOMENT WHERE YOU MATTER. WHEN YOU CREATE A MOMENT WHERE YOU MATTER, AND YOU DO IT OVER AND OVER AND OVER, IT BECOMES A HABIT. WHEN YOU DO A HABIT OVER AND OVER AND OVER, IT BECOMES A LIFE STYLE. A LIFESTYLE OF TOLERANCE, VALIDATION AND HONORING YOURSELF.
7. You have nothing to prove about the intensity of your pain, sorrow, grief, or whatever mood experience is passing through. They just are. Period. They are real, and that is enough. You have nothing to prove to anyone. If other people don’t validate or acknowledge your experiences, that might say something abou them, or about the relationship. You have to communicate clearly and directly though, don’t expeect people to read your mind or just know what is going on with you. Your experiences are your own, get in your head and check them out, give them validity, own them, but check them out to see if they actually match the experience you are in at present. Often we merge past and present, bringing the pain and suffering from past experience in the present moment. This creates a long event, versus separating past and present.

Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending. Maria Robinson

We think too small. Like the frog at the bottom of the well. He thinks the sky is only as big as the top of the well. If he surfaced, he would have an entirely different view.
Mao Tse-Tung

We would rather be ruined than changed;
We would rather die in our dread
Than climb the cross of the moment
And let our illusions die.
W.H. Auden

When one door of happiness closes, another opens, but often we look so long at the closed-door that we do not see the one that has been opened for us.
Helen Keller

So your challenge is to consider allowing yourself to:
1. Acknowledge your own reactions as valid and as cues that something important is going on and you should pay attention to it.
2. Get in your head, and check out the data, do your reactions match the present moment? Are you perhaps merging past into present? Are your reactions reasonable, human, accurate?
4. Are you by chance angry, grieving, sad, disappointed? Are your reactions about things that really are HUMAN to have reactions about, such as abuse, loss, pain, anger or disappointment in something or towards someone? It is ok to have your reactions and not take it out on yourself!
5. So, here is the big one, are you willing to allow yourself to sit through the middle, to be compassionate and honor your experience with kindness, support or taking care of yourself? Are you willing to tolerate your own experience, and honor your body, mind and soul as you allow this to work through?
6. Are you willing to keep your eye on your present moment, with hope and endurance to move through it? Many of you have been through so much, that if you look at it, the real painful and dangerous events you have endured are done. Your goal, now that you have survived into this moment, is to work on embracing the present and create opportunities for healing, for growth and movement. That is hope that you create.

Feelings have a beginning, middle and end. I hope that you will tolerate the middle, you can determine what happens next, you are that powerful.

Create peace for yourself, you are more powerful than you know. k

Wednesday Challenge: Owning your own choices

This week’s challenge focuses on ownership of your choices, your actions, your words and the consequences that come with them. So often my clients act as though they are so surprised about life, and constantly feel like life is random, like they had nothing to do with some of the things in their life. And, that is often the driving force behind self-destructive behaviors, eating disorders, hopelessness, despair, acting out, acting in, and all those impulsive and compulsive efforts at coping. Sadly, those behaviors and actions never really allow you to own your own choices, actions, decisions and ultimately, your own course in life. My encouragement for you is to own your choices, thoughts, feelings, your voice, your space – yourself; and to do it wisely, in your own true best interest. The self-destructive behaviors don’t help you do these things in a way that actually works and allows you true ownership of yourself and your life.

Take calculated risks.
That is quite different from being rash.
George S. Patton

We change our behavior when the pain of staying the same becomes greater than the pain of changing. Consequences give us the pain that motivates us to change. Henry Cloud

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act but a habit.
Aristotle

Life can be pulled by goals just as surely as it can be pushed by drives.
Viktor Frankl

If you aren’t paying attention to what you are saying and doing, and understand the potential outcomes or consequences, then life will feel random. Your acts will be impulsively reactive, and you’ll bounce from moment to moment, with reaction after reaction, trying to survive the moment. The chaos in the present builds upon the chaos being created in the present. But you may be a participant architect of the chaos.

Many time what gets lost is that feelings drive impulsive actions, as though a quick response will help avoid connecting with the immediate moment. So each chaotic moment builds into the next chaotic moment, and it ‘feels’ random.

We would rather be ruined than changed;
We would rather die in our dread
Than climb the cross of the moment
And let our illusions die.
W.H. Auden

So are you honestly owning the responsibility for your own choices? Your own words? Your own actions? Are you fooling yourself, an illusion that the behaviors you choose to use to cope actually are helpful? Are you caught in a cycle of dislogic or disillusion that your self-destructive behaviors are helping you? Seriously? Are you truly ‘happy’ with the outcomes of your life? Those behaviors may help momentarily, but in the longer aspect, are you truly in a better place? Additionally, if you are reading this blog, you know at some level that you are struggling at some level with ambivalence about your choices, your actions, and the consequences of your actions. You are reading because some part of you wants things to be different, even though you might be afraid, scared, angry, resentful, oppositional…or whatever. You probably have ambivalence – but that doesn’t give you permission to avoid responsibility for yourself and your choices IF YOU WANT TO CHANGE YOUR LIFE. If you are going to choose something, be mindful about it, think your way through it before you act. HEY…it is your life, your body, your mind, soul, etc. YOUR CHOICE. But, double HEY here, your choices and actions have consequences. I encourage to think about the consequences of your choices, do you get the outcome you NEED? Think your way through.

What is important is not that there are uncontrollable events in our lives, but how we respond to them. Hyram W. Smith

The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

One of the most powerful emotions my clients express to me is how challenged they feel almost in every minute. When we can stop the spinning in their heads long enough to look at the moment, and really own what is and is not happening, it is amazing at how this present moment is actually much calmer, predictable and managable than random. When they are mindful in their approach, when they adopt that survivor position, the moment becomes one they truly can own and exist in with much more calmness.

Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear. Ambrose Redmoon

While we can’t control what others do and we can’t control a number of things in the world around us, we can control, and own our thoughts, actions, decision, and our reactions. We’re talking about ownership of our movement in life. Some things are in your control, and you can manage how you respond to them.

The secret of success is constancy of purpose. Benjamin Disraeli

So here is the challenge for Wednesday:
1. Can you for one moment own your words?
2. Can you for one moment own your reactions, and think about if they are emotionally reactive or if they are data driven?
3. Can you for one moment own the choices you make, and accept the consequences for those choices?
4. Are you, for one moment, willing to own the choices you make, and consider how they are or potentially aren’t helpful in helping you achieve your desired goal?

Are you willing to OWN your thoughts, feelings and reactions? Are you willing to think your way through a process tomorrow? Are you willing to OWN your life, and make decisions in your own best interests?

Create peace, give up for one moment, the war you might be waging, look at your choices, and see if the consequences of them are ones you wanted. Own yourself. Peace – k

Wednesday Challenge: Motivation

It has been said that most of are willing to change….when we feel better….when we feel stronger….when we feel………..

To have change, really lasting change, one must be willing to change even when we don’t want to, when we don’t ‘feel’ strong, when we ‘feel’ discouraged, and so on.

Actually happiness, health, peace, sanity,….all those intangibles we want, are artifacts of how we CHOOSE to live our life. Happiness, health, peace, sanity, connectedness, etc. are artifacts of our choices, they evolve from continued practices and decisions we make day in and day out. Okay I know constancy and consistency is TOUGH, and none (none, I mean nada, zip, absence of some) nobody I know has ever been 100% perfect in constancy and consistency of practice and intention. Sometimes we take a side trip, we detour, we choose not to act in line with our goals, and sometimes, we slide. OKAY!!! BIG FLIPPIN’ WHOOP!!! What is important is to offer oneself some grace, some error of margin in our humanity, and then decide to get back on your path. Be as constant or consistent as one can, and be full of grace when you need to be so.

Motivation is self-perpetuating if you allow yourself to be your own coach and cheer-squad. I’m not asking you to get pom-poms (unless of course props help), but to be willing to acknowledge your efforts and fairly assess your progress using data. Not distorted self-views, not distorted emotionally driven dislogic which keeps the chaos or pain in the moment – but DATA. And, once again – allowing yourself acknowledgement that you practiced something you intended to do.

People are often afraid of acknowledging any movement, as though, like the Ground Hog on Ground Hog Day, that you will be scared back into the hole. But for many people, the pain of acknowledging a step some how comes to mean something like “OH GOSH NOW I HAVE TO BE PERFECT” and so many other distorted self-schema based dislogical disreality statements. That doesn’t make sense I don’t think, so let me clarify, that kind of thinking is not only not helpful, it isn’t useful, accurate, reasonable, responsible or based in reality.

I encourage to recognize your patterns, and with kindness and support (starting with you towards yourself) look at ways you can begin to interrupt them. Practice kindness, encouragement and support towards yourself. Here is the bonus, if you can offer that to yourself, then you’ll be truly able to offer it, share it and interact with it genuinely, with others.

Motivation comes from within and as a result of being willing to keep your eye on what you want, and then DOING what you give yourself permission to do. The feeling-states, those come later. Your task is to manage your internal intensity in a healthy manner, and keep your eye on creating sanity, peace, safety or what you desire.

I bid you peace in this week, I hope you will keep you eye on one thing, constantly and consistently.

Create peace, have strength, offer yourself hope. Get where you want to go. Peace – k

Wednesday Challenge: Honesty & Integrity

Wednesday Challenge: Honesty & Integrity.

Wednesday Challenge: Honesty & Integrity

How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg? Four.
Calling a tail a leg doesn’t make it a leg. ~Abraham Lincoln

Honesty is when you tell someone else the truth.
Integrity is when you tell yourself the truth.

Why is this important in the context of recovery or reclaiming your own life? We often say we “know” what we “want” and then do so much in that isn’t in line with that desired outcome. THEN we spin, have dialogues which are crazy making, distorted, stirring up emotions, blaming ourselves, our lot in life, spin, spin, spin. And, that pattern often drives the experience of internal intensity way into the overload level, and self-destructive or unhealthy actions are used to “cope” (unhealthily, but coping).

If you were willing to be honest with yourself and acknowledge your true intentions and willingess to interrupt unhealthy patterns you engage in, what might that look like?

If you were willing to use your voice, WITH SOMEONE WHO IS WORTHY OF YOUR TRUST AND RESPECT, and be honest with them about your thoughts or opinions, what might that look like?

If you’ve followed the discussions of late, you might have noticed people finding their voices, acknowledging their fear, and, very importantly, ALLOWING SOMEONE TO WALK WITH THEM ON THEIR JOURNEY.
Take this a step further, they’ve discussed how their own recovery process asked them to look at and consider interrupting unhealthy patterns, and being honest about that struggle in the safety of the therapuetic relationship.

In order for your guide (therapist, counselor, advisor) to help you in YOUR journey, honesty is critical. Tell them what you think, what you fear, what you want to accomplish.

In order for you to help yourself in YOUR journey, INTEGRITY is critical. Without honesty in your relationship with yourself, the honesty needed as a foundation for your relationship with your GUIDE can not happen. We can stay stuck in our own dislogic. How many times does someone with an eating disorder state they must be okay because their labs are within normal limits, when they are also having convulsions, black outs and their hair is falling out? THAT IS A SERIOUS LACK OF INTEGRITY – ignoring data in service of some distorted “fact” which is really a piece of logic that is emotionally driven and not based in reality at all.

We would rather be ruined than changed;
We would rather die in our dread
Than climb the cross of the moment
And let our illusions die.
W.H. Auden

You have courage. You are more powerful than you know. YOU CONTROL THE PACE OF CHANGE!!! You, you, you. IT IS YOUR PROCESS. Not your therapists’, not your friends’, not your anybody else!!! YOURS.

An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor does truth become error because nobody sees it. ~Mahatma Gandhi

Here is your challenge. For just one moment on Wednesday:
1. Are you willing to be honest with yourself about what you are willing to do, what you aren’t, and if you are ready to consider your patterns and your options so that things can be different?
2. Are you willing to be honest with your guide? Are you willing to use your voice to advocate for yourself in that relationship?

All this challenge is doing is to ask you to think about it. If you are willing and able, then do it!
Just think about the possibilities that telling yourself the truth about your intentions might offer you.

We are shaped by our thoughts. We become what we think. Buddha

Use your thoughts, your values, your goals in your true best interest. Live with integrity. Create peace. – k

Wednesday Challenge: Simple Complexity

Hello. I had a great conversation with a young woman whom I adore, respect and cherish. What is so amazing about this person is her thinking about the world, herself and others. She struggles with the same challenges almost all of us struggle with daily – self-esteem, worth, control, “being enough.” Why mention this here and now? Well, because her conclusion was about how things can be so simple and so complicated at the same time.

Simple Complexity…uhmmmm, interesting. Simple. So much of what needs to be done if someone is trying to manage is actually, in and of itself, is simple. Perform these actions, do these skills, practice this behavior. DO DO DO….

The COMPLEX is when we sit with BEING – the after math of recognizing unhealthy patterns and interrupting them, and then living with the emotional intensity, which taps into feelings/emotions, taps into self-doubts, distorted thinking and belief systems. So the escalation and crashing begins.

So what hangs us up from making the shift to the behavior is not the behavior generally, it is about the complexities of the established thoughts, attitudes, beliefs and core definintions which are constantly challenged. The challenges to our core belief systems taps into our insecurities, fears, and sense of control (or lack thereof).

I wonder, if you truly challenged your core beliefs, and recognized and accepted that (much) of your self-talk is based on distorted reality, and you let go of some of responsibility for things that truly weren’t yours or were out of your control – and you may experience – GRIEVING – GRIEF – SADNESS – ANGER – HURT – RAGE…..all human experiences.

Self-destruction acts are handy distractors, but the downside is that the result of behaving self-destructively is actually an emotional reaction, which feeds the distorted reality and belief system. In some cases, the past merges into the present. The cycle grows.

Are you willing to have, to allow yourself that moment of simple complexity, where in your DOING, you allow yourself to BE. You give up judgement, you recognize the automatic dislogic as you engage in it – and challenge it!

1. Yes, ask yourself how is your thinking, your belief system, your set of “definitions” helpful, appropriate, accurate, responsible, reasonable.
2. Next ask yoursel if, IF, if you are willing to let go of being judgmental, harsh, unkind, disrespectful, or unreasonable.
3. Are you willing to allow yourself to grieve, to heal, to mourn, to be mad, to have human emotions and experiences, and let them pass through?
4. Are you willing to recognize that some of the responsibilities you assume you are responsible for, are really, maybe, about other people too? If you loved someone and they left – maybe there was something about them too. If being involved in a relationship where the rules were YOU needed to be unhealthy, and they left, is is reasonable to stay in that relationship at such a cost to you?
5. Are you willing to give yourself a bit of credit – and are you willing to interrupt when you find yourself on the cycle of self-doubt, self-criticism and negative self-appraisals? Are you willing to look at yourself and JUST ACCEPT that you are enough? No value statements, just accept you as you are BEING.
6. Are you willing to JUST BE, to give yourself grace, and just be HUMAN?

I’ve been working with people for a long time, and a couple of things I can tell you that my patients have taught me -
1. No one ever imploded or exploded from dealing with the core emotions and pain. It can just really suck (clinical term here!)
2. No one ever evaporated from crying the pain, rage, hurt, fear or disappointment as it passed through their tear ducts.
3. Anxiety often is more about unrealistic fears and ghosts than real threats. So the fear is often not only not necessary, but is not reasonable in the context of the current moment.
4. Self-injury, eating disorders, self-abuse, high risk behaviors, never solved the problem that caused the pain, hurt, anxiety, loneliness or fear.
5. The real problem is often much easier than people are afraid of in their head.
6. You all ready survived the worst. You can live today, incorporating the wounds from the past, and be stronger because of the way you choose to manage yourself and your life.

If you have emotions, I say, welcome to the human race.
If you are afraid that you aren’t enough, believe it or not, welcome to the human race.
If you are afraid of being alone, welcome to the human race.
If you are willing to treat yourself with the respect and grace you give others, welcome to recovery and healing.
If you are willing to recognize your negative self-talk as distorted and not helpful, you create respect.
If you are willing to walk forward despite your fear, welcome to the human race and the creation of hope.
I hope you will walk with your face in the sun, and allow yourself to BE.
That is simple complexity.
For one moment, or two if you are willing to be courageous, are you willing to BE you with all of your glorious humanity?

That is your challenge: For one moment, or two if you are willing to be courageous, are you willing to BE you with all of your glorious humanity? Willing to recognize that you don’t have to accept negative and judgmental statements and self-evaluations, and acknowledge that those statements are not necessary or helpful and not in line with your desired goal of being healthy and living in a healthy manner?

Have courage, be human. You are greater than you know. BE yourself. Simple complexity. Peace – k

Wednesday Challenge: A New Day

Greetings. A new year, a new month, a new week, a new day, a new moment. Whew. Let’s keep it simple and straightforward here. Most of us run into the new year, dashing desparately from the old one, with high hopes, unrealistic goals and aspirations; which, when they crumble, we blame ourselves for the dismal outcome. OK – THINK IT THROUGH. People who choose to make unhealthy, self-destructive decisions and actions generally act on feelings and distorted thoughts (which ironically produce more distorted feelings and reactions, which drive the distored responses, driving……agggghhhhhh….and the past merges into the present). We act without thinking and without using a foundation and a goal in sight. We wonder why we get lost and why life “feels” so random. If you spend your life reacting and emotionally reactive – you will create your own cycle…..and the past merges into the present.

Life is a series of choice points of decisions. When you make one decision, you move to the next choice point. When you know why you are doing what you are doing, and where you are hoping to go; then, you might be surprised how a lifestyle is formed. People often say they’ve tried something but it doesn’t work for them and ‘things’ go back to the baseline. Yes, that will happen, not because of some random event, but because of choices not made, opportunities not taken, and effort that is directed not in the direction towards change.

If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.

If you fall, get up. Keep your eye on your goal, and get up.
If you get knocked over, get up.
If you get frustrated, scared, angry, sad,……., acknowledge it, and….get up and get on.
You had a bad past, you hurt…., nourish, care for and respect yourself in the present.
You are mourning, acknowledge it, and nourish, care for and respect yourself in the present, and get on.
You hurt or are wounded,….respect your wounds, allow healing.
You have things to say,….use your words, your art, your mind, your soul…….and respect your body. Keep your eye on your health, your sanity, the peace you seek so intently.
ACT AS IF YOU ARE GOING SOMEWHERE………..BECAUSE YOU ARE EVERY MOMENT.
Where you are, is it where you want to be in this moment?
What power do you have, in this moment?
What choice do you have, in this moment?
Do your actions match where are wanting to go, do they match what you are trying to create?
Decide.
Act.
Choose.
If you fall, get up.
Decide.
Act.
Choose.
You can choose to be a student of yourself, a student of the moment.
In this moment, you decide who you are.
You are more than pain, more than angst, more than sorrow.
You are more powerful than you know.

Well, this is a new moment, and today’s challenge is to make decisions that are:
1. Appropriate – I will make decisions based on what is actually appropriate for someone who is moving towards being healthy, sane, and creating peace. My opposite choice is to choose to make inappropriate decisions and then live with those consequences.
2. Accurate - I will make choices that are based on reality; and are data-driven, based on the present information. Otherwise, my decision will likely be inaccurate.
3. Healthy – I choose health. I unchoose unhealthy options. Otherwise, my decisions will lead me to making unhealthy decisions, which move me away from what I say I want. More importantly, away from what I need.
4. Necessary – I will make decisions I need to make so that I am making healthy choices. Otherwise, my choices may be unnecessary, keeping me in an unhealthy cycle.
5. Realistic – I choose making realistic decisions, goals and options. Otherwise, my decisions might be unrealistic, and attainable. I choose to not work against myself.
6. Reasonable – I choose to make reasonable decisions, take reasonable steps towards my desired outcomes. I unchoose making unreasonable decisions, living with unreasonable rules, and creating a patterns that doesn’t reasonable help me create health.

SO, my friends, here is your challenge: IF YOU WERE WILLING JUST ONCE TODAY:
1. Identify what you are trying to create for your life (the big mega goal – which should be first and foremost present)
2. Identify what you are willing to do for that goal, IN THIS MOMENT
3. Be willing to act congruently (in line with) that goal
4. Respect, honor, and nourish your body, mind and soul
5. Act with integrity (honesty with yourself) – Seriously, if you are going to act, own it. If you are unhappy with things in your life, what part do you own that you can say is your part? Do you participate in the patterns? Do you act to recognize the patterns? Can you interrupt them?
6. Be willing to tolerate the emotional intensity, while acting with respect, compassion, dignity, kindness?
7. Think before you act

In this moment, are you willing to create one step? Who knows, maybe you’ll be willing to try another decision, then another. If you fall, keep your eye on your goal, and get up.

Create peace in a moment today that is based on a healthy choice. Choose peace, respect and honor for even a moment today – k

Wednesday Challenge: If you were willing……….

If you were willing………..

If you were willing……….

Nothing contributes so much to tranquilize the mind as a steady purpose-a point on which the soul may fix its intellectual eye. Mary Shelley

This is an out of sequence CHALLENGE, but maybe thought provoking as we enter a new year. Are you willing to create something different? Every moment, every day is an opportunity to create something different or to relive the past experiences. Here is the issue, if you are constantly reliving the past, you are doing it out of sequence, and the past becomes merged into the present. So the past, which you’ve experienced and survived is over, and today you are living in the present, within the context of the past (which doesn’t exist any longer). Many times people do this because of the emotional turmoil they are experiencing and haven’t resolved, they may not be ready to grieve it or to change it. So the present goes on, each day merging past and present. In reality, you may be living with the effects of the past, but living in the present.

The war becomes waged on your body, in your mind, spirit and soul. Self-destructive behaviors, eating disorders, injury, substance abuse, risky behaviors, acting out sexually, and a million other ways……..how are these behaviors AT ALL functional to you in the long run? Have you become your own aggressor, and the one who bares the cost of your actions? You may not realize the cost to your healthy loved ones, trust me, the unhealthy ones need you to remain unhealthy to keep the balance in their world. But your life is not theirs, YOU OWN YOUR OWN LIFE. YOU. You can live it like you are alive, or choose to recreate patterns that cost you more than they are worth. YOU. YOUR CHOICE. But whatever choice you make, realize the consequences of that choice may not move you towards what you really are hoping to create. Surprise….some things, not all, are NOT RANDOM. When you wage war on yourself, the cost is going to not bring you to what you want to create for yourself. And, none of this BS about how you aren’t worth it…..that is a distorted thought and one of the most unkind lies you can tell yourself. You have worth. Period. You have worth….how you choose to define that is up to you. I’d encourage you to think about what you are WILLING to become…….

Sadly, as Henry Ford once said: Most people spend more time and energy going around problems than in trying to solve them. When I read this, I thought, “gosh, its like he knows me!” I try to remind myself of this and challenge myself to meet challenges head on, even if I don’t like them or am scared of it. But, if I want something to be different – I HAVE TO BE THE DIFFERENCE in my own life. Ugggh..such responsibility!

When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves. ~Victor Frankl

Self-destructive behaviors, whatever the form, seem to provide some form of immediate solace or relief, but in the long run just foster the ongoing pain and anguish. At some level, you know this. If you are someone who engages in self-destructive thinking, feeling and action, you know this. You may not however acknowledge the depth of trouble it is causing you, or acknowledge that you have options that you may not take. Ouch, sorry, that sounds so harsh, I don’t mean to be insulting. “But it is so hard to change!” is what I hear a lot, and my response is “ABSOLUTELY!!!” it is hard to change. Honestly though, could it be any harder that what you are doing already, every day, just barely surviving, constantly triggered, hopeless or living with emotional turmoil, dreading tomorrow?

When one door of happiness closes, another opens, but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one that has been opened for us. Helen Keller

I have to wonder if we do that with sadness, angst, anger, rage, grief, …………………….too………

To reach a port, we must sail—Sail, not tie at anchor—Sail, not drift.
Franklin Roosevelt

Seriously, if you were willing to take ownership and live in this moment today, would you consider it? Would you move towards something else you’ve defined that you want/need in your life?

In absence of clearly defined goals, we become strangely loyal to performing daily acts of trivia.Author Unknown

Here is the challenge as we move into the new day and new year, ARE YOU WILLING TO CREATE SOMETHING DIFFERENT FOR YOURSELF?

It is not enough to take steps which may some day lead to a goal; each step must be itself a goal and a step likewise.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

1. If you were willing to challenge a distorted thought (just one), for an entire day, what would that thought be?
What thought would you put in its place? Would you be willing to use a data driven observation, would you be willing to assess if the thought was appropriate, accurate, healthy, necessary, reasonable and/or responsible?
2. If you were willing to challenge an unhealthy act (just one), for an entire day, what act would you challenge?
Would you be willing to use practice, EVEN IF IT DIDN’T BRING YOU IMMEDIATE RELIEF, would you be willing to practice healthy self-soothing or coping behavior was appropriate, accurate, healthy, necessary, reasonable and/or responsible instead?
Would you be willing to sit with uncomfortable feelings, knowing that the FEELINGS CAN’T HURT YOU, ONLY THE ACTIONS YOU ENGAGE IN CAN ACTUALLY CAUSE HARM?
3. If you were willing, would you consider the option to challenge the pattern of automatic thoughtsfeelingsbehaviors, where could you interrupt that pattern?
Would you be willing to recognize the pattern and be willing to interrupt it, perhaps changing just one moment? Maybe two? And, then practice this over and over?
4. If you were willing, would you treat yourself with dignity, respect, integrity, honest, kindness, compassion, patience, tolerance? What might that moment look like? Would you be willing to consider the grace of creating peace towards yourself?
5. If you were willing, would you be courageous, and try something new? This is an opportunity to create something new. Are you willing?
Lastly, if you were willing, would you please share what you are willing to try? Would you be willing to teach us from your experiences, the wisdom or lessons learned?

I’d like to share some thoughts, not my own, but some important thoughts that might help provide a focus, comfort and strength:

We think too small. Like the frog at the bottom of the well. He thinks the sky is only as big as the top of the well. If he surfaced, he would have an entirely different view.
Mao Tse-Tung

Have patience with all things, but chiefly have patience with yourself. Do not lose courage in considering your own imperfections, but instantly set about remedying them – every day begin the task anew.
Saint Francis De Sales

In the midst of winter, I found there was within me an invincible summer. Albert Careb

Take calculated risks.
That is quite different from being rash.
George S. Patton

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act but a habit. Aristotle

There is only one way to happiness, and that is to cease worrying things which are beyond the power of our will. Epictetus

Change can either challenge or threaten us. Your beliefs pave your way to success or block you. Marsha Sinetar

When you come to the edge of all the light you know, and are about to step off into the darkness of the unknown, faith is knowing one of two things will happen: There will be something solid to stand on, or you will be taught how to fly.
Barbara J. Winter

Experience is not what happens to a man; it is what a man does with what happens to him. Aldous Huxley

Don’t fight a battle if you don’t gain anything by winning. George S. Patton I put this here because I’d like to ask you if you are consistently fighting with something in your past and now in your present, is the cost of that action greater than the potential shift in your attitudes and beliefs? Is your self-destructiveness REALLY (REALLY?) helping you to face your life and the challenges in the PRESENT?

People seldom see the halting and painful steps by which the most insignificant success is achieved. Anne Sullivan

Make a step……..change this moment. A step, a step, another step……..a habit is changed…..a lifestyle begins.

It begins with you and your next choice. What are you willing to become?

Thank you for your wisdom here, I hope you create peace and health in your life……k