THE PROMISES WE MAKE BUT OFTEN BREAK

With the New Year approaching, I was asked to write about New Year’s resolutions.

From a lifetime of experiences and from the stories shared with me by others, I believe there is a TRAP in that tradition, a recipe for failure. The good news is that there’s another recipe, one that’s more likely to get you the promises that you hope to fulfill.

To achieve your goals:

1- They must be realistic! That is to say you must be CONSCIOUSLY aware of what you’re capable of doing and likely to do, and that which you’re not.

2- It is also helpful to write out a plan for each day including the time during the day that you will set aside to accomplish each goal. DON’T set out to accomplish too many goals, as that will only overwhelm and defeat your intended desire. PRIORITIZE!

3- If, on any given day, you don’t succeed or follow through, forgive yourself and remember there is always tomorrow to start over again. ONE DAY AT A TIME is an attitude that does help and is very effective.

There seems to be three TOP categories for resolutions:

1-HEALTH RELATED: Weight is on the top of many people's list.

•Here,too,one must follow or create a realistic program. Not every program works for everyone. In fact, most do not.

•Learn to better understand your body and your lifestyle before attempting to set yourself up for failure.

2- RELATIONSHIP ISSUES: (This, too, seems to be high up on many people’s list.)

•Remember always to respect yourself.

•Trust your instincts, your gut reactions.

•Value all that you have to offer.

•Forgive others only for what they do or say that is worthy of being forgiven - and NEVER accept abuse of any kind - subtle or obvious, physical or verbal.

3- PROFESSIONAL LIFE: (And that certainly includes stay-at- home moms!)

•Conserve your energy by teaching yourself to be as organized as possible. This will help not to sabotage what you need to accomplish, not simply what you'd like to accomplish.

•Act respectfully toward your colleagues and expect to be respected in return.

•Do your job using all available resources - those gained from being educated/trained, as well as those gained from experience and wisdom.

•Allow yourself to feel proud of whatever you do accomplish whether or not you are praised for doing so by others.
•Most importantly, remember there is always tomorrow to do what you may not have been able to do today.

Just as I believe that psychotherapy is the best education of the SELF when it offers tools that teach how to live life CONSCIOUSLY, I also believe the degree to which we are able to succeed in keeping resolutions is directly related to being CONSCIOUS about all that we think, plan for, and act upon.

With heart-felt gratitude to all the loyal readers of this blog, I hope these suggestions will help you to have a wonderful, healthy and love-filled 2010!!

~ Linda

HOW TO AVOID THE HOLIDAY “BLUES” ISN’T THE QUESTION!

We’re inundated these days with advertisements, TV commercials, and the whole Hallmark hullabaloo stressing the fun in family traditions and the celebration of holidays. We’re then exposed to “studies” telling us how the holidays can breed depression, accentuating the negative aspects of what is to come.

This combination of media madness sets us up, I believe, for the very depression we’d most like to avoid. What would help, though, is to anticipate the possible difficulties that holidays often present. In so doing, we’d be better prepared when many of them do occur.

Some children can enjoy the obvious magic of the holidays when the surprise of gifts trumps all else. Adults, however, know that holidays can be a lonely time. They have a way of creeping up on us as ghosts from our past, taking us back in time, remembering loved ones who are no longer with us. Now we’re left to “celebrate” without them, and for many this is a time that evokes great sadness.

Ask most adults and I believe they’re likely to tell you that their memories of family holidays were seldom the picture perfect “Brady Bunch” bash! More often, their family was - as most families - complex when it came to the interactions of siblings, parents, extended family members and friends. Holiday celebrations were not always pleasant! Often, in fact, they brought with them more stress than joy.

There are also those families in which some members don’t speak to others and if someone opts to host a gathering, he or she then has to decide whom to invite and whom to omit. In families where parents are divorced (to say nothing of when one or both have re-married), decisions have to be made as to which day which parent gets to be with which kids and which day they don’t. When the children are grown, then they have to decide for themselves where to go, whom to honor at the expense of hurting others. Any way you look at it, it’s rare to find a family where everyone is cozy and feels good about celebrating in the true spirit of joy that holidays – in the best possible world – should provide, though they don’t seem to do so often enough.

So, I don’t believe that the question should be HOW TO AVOID THE HOLIDAY BLUES. I do think it should be HOW BEST TO PREPARE FOR THE EMOTIONAL UPS AND DOWNS OF THE HOLIDAYS!

Personal experience, as well as the myriad of stories I’ve heard from my patients over the years, affirms that when we are able to acknowledge the realty of all that’s likely to happen as opposed to buying into an illusion imposed upon us, we are less likely to become victims of the media with its portraits of family bliss and are better prepared to accept whatever our particular family’s dynamics may be.

Expecting what is real allows us to be “in the moment” and enjoy what IS enjoyable, lessening the degree of whatever feelings of anxiety, sadness, and/or actual depression we may experience.

The recipe for such enjoyment is to change one’s FOCUS and one's EXPECTATIONS.

When we FOCUS on reality and not fantasy, the here and now is a place where we’re able to exist with greater comfort. In doing so, we’re also able to feel grateful for what and whom we DO have in our lives.

It’s amazing how powerful words are when we prepare ourselves with positive self-talk rather than by giving ourselves negative messages about what might happen.

On a personal note, those of you who have read my memoir, FOUR ROOMS, UPSTAIRS, will appreciate why I feel so committed to helping people change negative expectations which so often become self-fulfilling. In doing so myself, I have been far happier and I wish that for each of you.

Also, I send best wishes and enormous gratitude to all who are loyal readers of my blog, and to those who voted for me in Wellsphere’s BEST BLOGGER contest. As many of you know by now, I won the THE TOP BLOGGER award in the field of Mental Health and was in the company of the Top 20 Bloggers from the hundreds of those entered.

I celebrate both with humility and much appreciation to all of you.

May you all stay focused and enjoy your holidays!

Warm regards ~ Linda

"HELP IS ON THE WAY" 
             A tribute to Nancy LaMott

                            
I do not believe in coincidences. I believe that our minds somehow connect to seemingly unrelated matters. It’s a synchronicity of sorts, an intangible, illogical, but no less meaningful phenomenon.

I say this to let you know that I had one such experience last night while thinking about a topic for today’s blog.

While my husband and I were returning home from a holiday party, we listened to one of my favorite CDs, Nancy LaMott singing at Tavern on The Green.

As with any artist, when what he or she creates touches my soul - and, in LaMott's case, it’s the absolute beauty of her voice and the tenderness of her spirit – there’s hardly a time when I don’t listen to her and become teary.

It is a tragedy that she died far too young from cancer at age forty-three, but my tears are ones of joy at the absolute beauty of her voice and her particular interpretation of every song she sings. My tears are never tears of pity, because LaMott’s courage and ability to become one of the leading cabaret singers of the 1990s did not prevent the CDs of her performances from being an incredible gift that was left to us. When I listen, she remains more than alive. She is a living treasure.

I never saw her in concert. In fact, I didn't discover her until a few years ago, yet she has become a staple for my heart, a comfort to my being. To honor her best, I choose to remember her as she described herself, a woman who deeply believed in life’s infinite possibilities. The fact that she is extremely popular today is a testimony to that belief as well as to her infinite talent. For me, personally, she never ceases to feed my soul and warm my heart when singing my favorite Irving Berlin, Ira Gershwin, Johnny Mercer, Stephen Sondheim, and Cole Porter songs, to name a few.

In that spirit, I want to share the message of a song written for her by the film and theatre composer and lyricist David Friedman. “HELP IS ON THE WAY” As she says in her introductory remarks, she asked Friedman to create a song that would give people HOPE.

It was while listening to that particular song - during this holiday season and with the New Year approaching - that I felt compelled to pay a personal tribute to her in my blog today.

What I didn’t know – until I looked up her bio before writing this – is that she passed away on December 13th 1995. December 13th, the day I am choosing to honor her. So, once again, I believe there is nothing coincidental about my listening to her for the umpteenth time last night and deciding that today would be the day I wished to thank her ... and to share with you Friedman’s song. (I hope you will now feel propelled to gift yourself and listen to her sing it):

HELP IS ON THE WAY
“Don't give up the ship even when you think it's sinking ... and you don't know what to do .

Don't give up your dream even though you may be thinking it never will come true . Life has its own ideas of how things come about; and if you just hang in there, life is gonna work it out .

Help is on the way from places you don't know about today. From friends you may not have met yet. Believe me when I say ... I know. Help is on the way.
You don't have to know where the path you're on is leading . You just have to walk along, dreaming as you go, asking for the things you're needing; you never can go wrong . If you have faith that things are happening as they should and just believe each step you take is leading you to something good ...

Help is on the way from places you don't know about today . From friends you may not have met yet . Believe me when I say ... I know. Help is on the way.
So open your heart . Open your mind . No matter how you've tried and failed , tomorrow you could turn and find that ... Help is on the way from places you don't know about today. From friends you may not have met yet. Believe me when I say ... I know. Help is on the way!”

With thanks to David Friedman for writing the song and, most importantly, to Nancy LaMott for enriching my life and giving me hope, I pass that hope along to you with wishes that you enjoy your holidays, count your blessings, and appreciate the talent of those who have shared and others who continue to share their artistry with us.

Have a great week!

~ Linda

THE CONTAGION OF MENTAL DIS-EASE

If only we could discover an anti-hate vaccine to prevent the HATRED that seems to be mutating from country to country, from adults to children alike, not only in the far reaches of the world but here at home in the good, old United States of America!

Some argue that there is no increase in crimes on college campuses, that there’s no increase in crimes against women, that there’s no increase in hatred toward any minority group, and these same folks also believe that there were always wars being fought and that we, in the 21st century, are experiencing all that those who have preceded us have experienced throughout the ages. Their favorite argument is that we just read more about it because of the easy access to news via the internet and the media in general.

While I’m not unaware of the power of the media and of course it is true that it does make everything more accessible to us these days, I don’t believe that’s the whole story. Because I don't, and because I believe it's a subject we must address, I will also say that it saddens me to write a blog about HATRED and what it says about us as people, no matter what our racial, religious, or economic status may be.

Unfortunately, statistics do support my belief about the spread of this disease.

The F.B.I. reported that “the incidence of hate crimes in the United States during 2008 hit a seven-year high ... The 7783 documented hate crimes in 2008 represented a 2.1 per cent increase from 2007 and the highest since 2001. The 1519 religion/biased hate crimes were also at a seven year high.”

I don’t take it lightly when I read about so-called “incidents” in schools where students attack other students. Case in point: In late October pupils from a suburban St. Louis middle school allegedly hit Jewish classmates during what they called HIT A JEW DAY. Apparently, it began harmlessly enough with a HUG A FRIEND DAY. Then, prior to HIT A JEW DAY there was a HIGH FIVE DAY and HIT A TALL PERSON DAY.

In other schools there was a KICK A GINGER DAY (referring to all red headed students), and the latest incident was in Naples, Florida, where yet another HIT A JEW DAY occurred, injuring several Jewish students.

I don’t consider such acts to be merely childhood pranks, and I do fault the principals and schools that have decided to slap the hands of the perpetrators and do little else except in some instances to offer classes in tolerance or one-day of in-house suspension.

Tolerance? Such classes are, in my opinion, preaching to the choir. The message will not register with the the perpetrators as they represent a societal symptom, a fast spreading disease, a hot hatred, and one that I believe is contagious. The offenders may be – for any combination of reasons - ripe for mischief and attracted to receiving negative attention, even at the expense of their peers. They are not, though, simple mischief-makers or bullies. They may have their ideas spurred on by the movies they watch, the video games they see which have graphic scenes of violence, or the endless media coverage of crimes, all of which gives them the impetus to “play” copy-cat, but what they suffer from is not necessarily a genetically inherited disease or one due to a mob mentality which believes it’s simply pulling an un-punishable prank. It’s HATRED, outright HATRED perpetrated against any one or any group that's different from them and whom they consciously decide to target and attack. The students in Naples, Florida are a symptom of a wider dis-ease. Let’s not forget Columbine!

However few or many they may be in numbers, those who seek to “HIT” are in desperate need of attention. with no conscience and no thought or care about possible consequences for their victims or for themselves.

The good news, though, is that the mental health of our children and the generations that will follow ours is still – though limited – in our hands. Just as it is currently every family’s right to decide on choices for their children’s physical health, such as the administration of the Swine Flu vaccination, it’s also every family’s responsibility to monitor their children’s mental health. We can’t take on the world, but we can commit ourselves to being role models for those in our care, teaching them above all else respect for others, as well as self-respect. Only then will our best and brightest devote their lives to the betterment of our world and to eradicating or at very least minimizing the numbers of people afflicted by this DISEASE of HATRED.

I see that as being our only hope for lessening the power of the few over the many, the diseased over the healthy, the productive over the destructive.

Do let me know if you agree or disagree with me.

~ Linda