Use it or Lose it

As a runner, I know full well the effects of conditioning and de-conditioning. Every spring, summer, and fall, when I am established in a consistent training schedule, I run farther and faster with less effort. Every winter, as I wind down and run much less, I get consistently slower and slower and slower....When I "use it" (my cardiovascular system), I grow stronger. When I don't, I "lose it" (my fitness level).
As a therapist, I understand the power of mental conditioning, or changing our thoughts. Do you know that every time we have a thought, an electrochemical process occurs in our brain? If you could look at the brain when the "thought" occurs, you would see chemicals being released and electrical impulses carrying those chemicals between the nerve synapses. And so, a neural "pathway" occurs in the brain and becomes established. How does that thought become stronger? You "use it"- repeat the thought over and over and over and strengthen the pathway in the brain. The more you "use it" (that pathway), the stronger it becomes. Many of our thoughts are automatic. We've been thinking them for years and years and decades and they become engrained in our sense of self and how we define the world.
WE CAN CHANGE OUR THOUGHTS. When we decide to think something new, we begin establishing a new neural pathway in our brain. In order for that thought to become more "natural" or second nature to us, we have to practice the thought - create it over and over. The more we "use" that pathway in the brain, the stronger it becomes. So, when we are trying to eliminate a negative thought and substitute a positive one, the old thought (which we think less and less often) starts to extinguish itself and the new thought, (which we practice over and over), becomes stronger and stronger.

I'm working on extinguishing certain negative thoughts. The thoughts are about the world and people and how it "should" be and how I wish people were. The new thoughts I am substituting are about how things ARE. What people DO. And I'm moving more toward objectivity and noticing how things are and what people do and not judging it so much. It FEELS very different. I am noticing less stress because I don't allow the world or people to determine the quality of my moment.
When I drive, I try to "notice" what other drivers do instead of determining that they are terrible drivers. The other day, A patient shared with me her experience of having a conversation with her mother and thinking to herself "That's just how she thinks, I think differently" and noticing she felt compassion toward her mother instead of the usual anger. I have patients with panic disorders who are gaining control over their symptoms when they think, "That's just my anxiety. I've felt it before, I'll feel it again. It doesn't feel good but it's just a feeling and it will pass" instead of "Oh my God....It's happening again...I can't handle this...This is terrible"..."
The choice is about which path you want to go down. You establish the neural pathway in your brain. If you don't like where that path is going, change the thought. Many times people feel so much more empowered when they say "I choose not to go down that road". They choose a new path and practice going down that path over and over.
Use it or lose it. What thoughts do you choose to use and wire your brain to continue to produce? And what thoughts do you abandon, and what wiring do you extinguish in your brain? I choose to go down the pathway of compassion and tolerance. It feels great.

Self Forgiveness - Part II

Yesterday I saw the movie "Eat, Pray, Love" and have been pondering the messages the movie brings. One of the central themes, it seems to me, is self forgiveness. In the movie, Liz is desperately trying to come to terms with the end of her marriage and embarks on this journey in attempt to reclaim parts of herself. At the ashram, she meets "Richard from Texas", who is also needing to forgive himself big time. Obviously, they learn about this process from each other.
In my clinical work, I treat people who want to heal. The themes of forgiveness and especially self forgiveness permeate the work. Central elements of self forgiveness are recognizing the impact of our actions on others, and making amends, of sorts, in any way we can. This is how we "let go"; otherwise we stay stuck in guilt.
In my experience, religion has been a strong influence in evoking guilt and self blame in very unhealthy ways. This has seemed to be a dilemma for many people. Even the concept of "grace" does little to dispel the guilt for many people. They say they are "forgiven" yet reiterate that they are "sinners" and continue to berate themselves for "falling short". Sometimes I wonder if God looks at this with tears in his eyes and says, "You just aren't getting it, are you?". We say we want to be like God, yet we hold on to self reproach and can't forgive ourselves, as God has. And if God expects us to follow his example, then he expects us to forgive ourselves.
Maybe we forget the part about making amends......and if we are angry with ourselves, how in the world do we make amends to ourselves???? Religion typically teaches us to be contrite, confess, FEEL BAD. But religion is not very good at teaching us how to compassionately treat ourselves when we screw up. And we do screw up, sometimes a lot.....
Being compassionate with oneself and forgiving oneself is major. It's a LIFE SKILL. You hear all these cliches "practice random acts of kindness", "practice forgiveness". You NEVER hear "practice self kindness' or "practice self forgiveness". It all starts with us, folks. Not in a narcissistic way but in a healing, healthy, spiritual way.

Today I had a final session with a patient, who is transferring care because of an insurance change. We talked about self forgiveness and the nuts and bolts of how she can compassionately treat herself. While she is not yet at the goal of self forgiveness, she can PRACTICE it. PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE. Don't wait to reach the goal of self forgiveness, start practicing today. Do kind things for yourself.

One of the ways I am compassionate with myself is by being silly or goofy. REALLY. Because it lightens things, helps me to laugh at myself and let go. I stop being so darn serious about life in those moments.

So today, I think we should all practice self forgiveness and self compassion. We should all do kind things for ourselves. We should be silly and goofy. Share your experiences if you wish. I'm still learning this stuff, myself....

The Gift of Fear

August 4......One year ago there was a horrendous shooting at a health club in my community. My daughter was inside. Only a wall separated her from the gunman. Three women died. Three women who had homes and careers and friends and family who loved them deeply. They are irreplaceable. Many others were shot or sustained injuries from bullet fragments. Lives were changed. Everyone who was inside suffered psychological trauma, including staff. First responders experienced emotional trauma as they came upon the scene. Lets not forget family members of all affected. I was one of them. The horror of knowing someone you love so deeply may have been snatched from you in such a violent and senseless way is beyond anything I can describe. I lived that horror in the days and weeks and months that followed. I lived the emotional numbness and sense of everything being surreal. That was a year ago.

One year later....I still feel such a deep sense of sadness for everyone involved. As I sit at my computer now and write, I cry.
One year later....I am so grateful that we are not victims. At least for my daughter and my family, I can say we have moved from victims to survivors to thrivers.
One year later,I still feel the fear, but I am not immobilized by it.
God has shown me a better way...

Pain is an adaptive response. It is the body's way of telling us that something is wrong. Without pain, we often would not even know we are sick or some part of us is malfunctioning. When we have pain, the logical response is to do something about it (self care, seek medical help). It would be irrational to ignore the pain and walk around saying "ouch ouch ouch...it hurts" and do nothing.
I have come to see fear in a similar way. It is like my soul's way of telling me, "something is wrong...it is dark...the world is malfunctioning in some way...go to God" It would be irrational for me to ignore the fear, to walk around saying, "I'm afraid, I'm afraid" and not seek help.

So, I have come to be able to use fear in an adaptive way. My fear is a normal response to an abnormal, maladaptive, crazy world. I can't change the world. But I can change myself and my response to the world. I can acknowledge the fear, allow myself to feel it, but not HANG OUT THERE. I can go elsewhere. I can see the fear as an open door, and invitation to seek God, to find comfort. When I do this, God responds - an unexpected phone call from a friend, a song on the radio as I drive to work, that wonderful feeling of peace that passes all understanding...

In the past year, I have made the decision that I am not going to live in fear any longer. I can see the gift in fear and brings gifts of healing, reconnection, and compassion from it. This is how I move from victim to survivor to thriver.

Peace be with you all.

Fragments of My Day

Sometimes, when I can't sleep despite being so tired, I think about my day. Like today.......
I run through events, try to complete unfinished thoughts, and empty my mind.
-Breakfast with my daughters. So rare they are both home and both available. Their schedules, my schedule....So nice to have the time. In a few weeks, they will both be gone, off to school again.
-my appointments today, my clinical work....A bipolar woman who is appreciating mood stability for the first time ever, and establishing "normal" for herself...a woman struggling with feelings of betrayal and questioning if she can ever trust her spouse again after discovering he is a sex addict....a daughter, grieving the death of her mother and slowly healing as she reconnects with family and friends she had long abandoned....a single father raising a son and daughter under the shadow of an abusive mother he loathes but must still live with.....a couple who never really got to know each other because children came along quickly and interrupted intimacy...
-I had some really good fried rice for dinner...take-out from a restaurant near my office. there's some left and it's in my fridge...hmmmmm...thinking of finishing it off.
-great conversation with a friend on the drive home from work.....we talked about how God appears to us at the oddest of times and how it's so freaky but NICE when that happens..
-walking my dog on the trail at dusk. We owned the trail because no one else was out. It was quiet and a slight fog was setting in. It smelled so nice...pine needles, some sort of wild flowers.
-chatting briefly with some friends on line before going to bed.
-snuggling with my husband(and the cat)in bed.......falling asleep..........only to wake up 20 minutes later....
=oh yeah, and I'm remembering that I forgot to water the plants outside when I got home and it was pretty hot today...it's ok, they'll be fine, It was only in the 80's today, not the 90's...

It was a good day. It had the main and most important ingredients: time with family, meaningful work, great food, friends, my home and my pets.

Life is good........

Going Home

"I will be still in an instant and go home"

For me, this is a very powerful directive. It is about recognizing who I REALLY am and why I am here in this life. The text that this statement comes from talks about that KNOWING that we all have, that we are in this world but not "of this world", that we came from another place and in our very distant memory, we have a deep longing for that place. I remind myself daily that I am NOT a physical being having a spiritual experience, but rather a spiritual being having a physical experience. "going home" is that remembering of where I came from, my Source, with whom I am still quite connected, even though I don't always recognize it in my daily flurry of activities.

When I follow this directive, everything calms in an instant.

What is the result of this "going home"?. It translates into a dramatic change in how I live the minutes of each day, the days of each week. When I "go home" I don't worry so much about traffic, and bills, and chores. In the stillness is an expansion of my awareness of the freedom I have to make positive choices. In the stillness is an expansion of my awareness of LOVE. In the stillness, I bask in gratitude. It FEELS so freeing.

Someday, for real, we will "go home". We will all die and move on. All of our worrying about this and that and money and stress and responsibilities and oil spills and everything else we all worry about will just......fade......away.....
Sometimes people come to this realization as their lives are ending.
Others are able to grasp this reality and embrace it.

We don't have to wait until we are dying to be kind to someone, to let someone go ahead of us in traffic, to hear the birds sing, to feed the birds, to enjoy the sunshine as we go for a walk, to hug a friend, to practice forgiveness, to encourage someone who seems down, to stifle an impatient desire to hurry someone along, to sing a song. In an instant, we can choose a better response, we can be still and in an instant, go home.....

We don't have to wait until we go home, to "go home"

Again, the choice is in the remembering...

"I will be still and in an instant, go home"

Gratitude

Gratitude is something I am constantly "preaching" to my clients. I consider it a Life Skill. I can't even imagine a life without it!
So, in the practice of "practicing what I preach", I am noticing all of the daily small miracles I experience.

- Tuesday morning I awoke to a thunderstorm. I had planned to run that morning - darn. I rolled over and listened to all the wonderful sounds of the rain... so peaceful, rhythmic and calming....I realized my legs were pretty tight from all the running I had been doing. I thanked God that "there is a time to every purpose under heaven." There definately is a time to rest. I can be a slug today..I smiled and listened to the rain and caught an extra hour of peaceful sleep: NICE
-Tuesday afternoon I arrived at the office to find a newborn fawn near the front door, behind a bush. Apparently mother deer do that to newborns, leaving them in a "safe place" until they return. Those few moments of eye contact were amazing. The fawn was fearless, wide eyed and totally beautiful: PRICELESS
-Tuesday afternoon, in search of the fawn who had run into the woods after a dog appeared in our parking lot, I ventured out. Never realized how thick the patch of woods behind the office was. Geez, I'm usually in and out the back door so quickly. A wonderful midday break, walking in the coolness of the woods and the extra bonus of ripe raspberries I discovered on my jaunt. Now I have a new sanctuary in the midst of hectic days. (Never did spot the fawn):NEAT
-Texting.....I love it! I get these random texts from my daughter (the med student) who is in Tennessee on a 5 week internship. The most recent was "I almost had a baby pee on me today!" Gotta smile: TOO FUNNY
-Yesterday I remembered an interaction with a butterfly on Saturday 6/12 when my friend, Tim, passed. (See previous posting). Someone was talking about butterflies and I instantly remembered coming home Saturday, prior to the onset of the unexplained deep sadness and seeing a butterfly on the ground in the driveway. It was so beautiful and it followed me. When I stopped, it stopped, sitting on a stone. When I walked several feet, it followed. I was talking to it, telling it how beautiful it was and how much I enjoyed it's faithful company. I had sense it was there with me for a purpose. As I went back into the house, I said a loving "goodbye" to the butterfly. The deep sadness descended shortly thereafter. I like to think it was Tim, saying a peaceful and loving "goodbye" "thanks for your friendship": SMILE
-Meeting a "regular" on the trail yesterday morning. I finished my run, he was biking. He is a "trail buddy", one of the group of us "regulars" who frequent the trail. Hadn't seen him in over a year. Had a great conversation. Making new friends after losing an old friend: HEALING

Another Goodbye

Saturday afternoon a deep sense of sadness seemed to fall upon me. Couldn't figure it out. I had a great morning, volunteering for local 5K and 10K races, working registration and then finish line, supporting fellow runners and socializing. It was fun.
The profound sadness descended later and it didn't make sense. My oldest daughter had left that morning for a 5 week internship, out of state. I felt some sadness about missing her but it didn't explain the depth of what I was feeling. I went about the rest of my day, going to bed early, just to end the day. Sunday was much better and I forgot about the sadness of the previous day and didn't try to figure it out.

wow......This morning as I was getting ready for work, I did a quick check of my email, Facebook, etc. I subscribe to several of these "positive thought of the day" services. I felt pretty good and positive and was in a hurry, so I deleted them without reading them. This one WOULD NOT delete. I deleted it twice and it popped back up. So the quiet voice of wisdom in my head said "you need to read this one, it is not going away". So I read the positive thought, which was about being courageous and strong, not panicking, and trusting God. "uh oh".....I thought, "does that mean something bad is going to happen today?"

My morning was uneventful. I did my usual Monday morning at the nursing home. No surprises there today, no "CTB" beside anyone's name. My patients were all doing fairly well and in pleasant moods.
I had a couple hours until my first appointment in the office, so I purchased the local newspaper and stopped at a restaurant for breakfast. My breakfast was uneventful until I saw the obituary of a dear friend..............wow..............What happened to him?????????
I sat there stunned. This could not be........

My friend Tim was first a colleague, then a friend. We "grew up " together in the early days of our careers, cutting our professional teeth together. We shared our hopes and dreams and supported each others efforts. We cheered for each other, each step along the way and encouraged the other when one of us was discouraged. Then as we both progressed in our careers, he moved across the country and our contacts were briefer. We would meet each summer when he was in town visiting family for a few weeks, and usually during the Christmas holiday as well. Gosh, I was just thinking the other day that I haven't seen him in over a year. He never contacted me last summer and the summer flew by. In late August, I got a frantic phone call. He had seen THE PICTURES in The Denver Post, of the horrendous shooting (I have mentioned in previous posts), and he wanted to know if we were all ok. I called him back, missed him and left a voicemail message, reassuring him we were all ok. You know, that was the last time I heard his voice. He sent me an email in the past few months, about an honor he had received, and I quickly emailed back with warm congratulations and NEVER HEARD ANOTHER WORD FROM HIM.

As I sat in my office this afternoon, I pulled up his obituary online and checked info on the arrangements his family had set up. I read the online condolences......I offered my condolences and memories online and started to cry and cry...That reality hit me, that he was gone and we would never talk again, never laugh together until we cried again, never insult each other again, never encourage each other again, never share a meal together again, never worry about each other again.....no more ever agains, NO MORE AGAINS....wow....

This afternoon I was talking with a friend at work and she was consoling me. When we talked about the "positive message" I received this morning, the one that would not delete, I stated, "maybe that was a message from Tim". My friend commented further, "Maybe that was Tim telling you not to fear, have courage and continue on"......Her words ECHOED in my mind and I had that eerie moment of KNOWING. Tim was with me in the profound sadness Saturday (the day he passed on). He spoke to me this morning in the annoying "positive message" that would not delete, that didn't seem at all positive to me in that moment. He was saying, "I'm ok, have no fear, be courageous, do not panic.....life goes on......"

This evening I will go to the funeral home, because I want to say "goodbye" in that way. I know I will cry, a lot. I will likely laugh too, with his family and other friends as we remember how crazy he could be.

I believe that Tim said his own "goodbye" to me, in his own way - in the sadness of Saturday, and in the encouragement of this morning's "message".

This one is certainly going to take some time.......