When you are looking for something to take your mind of not feeling well, write a limerick. Here is an example to remind you of the rhyming. Of course, there’s always that man from Nantucket.
There once was a lady from Where
Who awoke to finding no hair.
"Oh my," she exclaimed, "I don't look the same.
Who knew my head was shaped like a pear!”
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Breathe
Breathe! One of the first things we do when we are stressed is limit our breathing. Overtime, our breathing becomes worse, as we tend to breathe only using the middle and upper parts of the lungs. Watch a baby and see how their belly rises and falls with each breathe. This is not how we were meant to breathe. Take a cue from these little ones.
You can check to see what type of breather you are by lying down with a book, or your hand, on your stomach. Does it rise and fall with each breathe?
Take time throughout the day and notice where you are drawing your breathes from. Make time for “belly breathes” in order to reduce stress and increase well being. The next time you are sitting in the doctor’s office waiting for test results, just concentrate on breathing from your belly. Inhale, using you belly, for four counts, hold for four, and release for four. Periodically check in with your body. Is your jaw tight? Are you trying to hold in your gut to look thinner? Stop and “belly breath.”
You can check to see what type of breather you are by lying down with a book, or your hand, on your stomach. Does it rise and fall with each breathe?
Take time throughout the day and notice where you are drawing your breathes from. Make time for “belly breathes” in order to reduce stress and increase well being. The next time you are sitting in the doctor’s office waiting for test results, just concentrate on breathing from your belly. Inhale, using you belly, for four counts, hold for four, and release for four. Periodically check in with your body. Is your jaw tight? Are you trying to hold in your gut to look thinner? Stop and “belly breath.”
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Blame, Complain and Feeling Sorry for Yourself are not productive
There’s little benefit in blaming yourself or others for your present situation. Blame is a wasted emotion. I’ve sat through countless workshops where people blame and complain. At the end of the day, did it really change anything? In all the years I ran retreats and workshops, I never saw the blaming and bashing to be helpful. However, when spouses and partners were present, blaming became issue discussions and then positive changes occurred.
Regardless of how you came to be in your current situation, dwelling endlessly on why did I do this or that, or “how could I have been so stupid,” doesn’t change the present, let alone prepare for the future. You can’t go back and change things, so why spend good energy dwelling on it?
Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, a Harvard based brain scientist, suffered a massive stroke in the left side of her brain and detailed the her experience, and how it has improved her quality of life in the book “My Stroke of Insight.” Millions have probably seen her 18 minute presentation for the TED Conference. If you haven't seen it, take the time to watch it and/or read the transcript.
One of Taylor's messages is that the brain is basically circuitry. There is an approximately 90 second chemical process that happens in the body when you have a strong emotional reaction-be it joyful or negative. “When you stay stuck in an emotional response, you’re choosing it by choosing to continue thinking the same thoughts that retrigger it. We have this incredible ability in our minds to replay but as soon as you replay, you’re not here, you’re not in the present moment. You’re still back in something else and if you continue to replay the exact same line and loop, then you have a predictable result. You can continue to make yourself mad all day and the more you obsess over whatever it is, the more you run that loop, then the more that loop gets energy of it’s own to manifest itself with minimal amounts of thought, so it will then start on automatic. And it keeps reminding you, “Oh yeah, I was mad, I have to rethink that thought.”
Taylor also noted I’m so clear that my brain chatter is a tiny group of cells that perform a magnificent function and I have a say in whether or not that circuitry runs. So all I have to do is make the decision that in this moment, I’m not going to think those thoughts. I’m not going to run that particular circuitry, and I’m going to focus my mind on the bigger picture and think about other things and block those clouds from being there.”
One of the mantras in patient care is, “start where the patient is at.” In essence accept where things are and work from there. If your car has a flat tire and can’t be driven, denying the situation, talking endlessly about why you got the flat or blaming another driver for causing the accident, isn’t going to get you on the road anytime soon. In fact, it’s going to probably make it a lot worse.
Our most current prolific speaker on the topic of acceptance is Eckart Tolle, who writes “for now, this is what this situation requires me to do, and so I do it willingly.” It is a lot better to work in tandem with your abilities and treatments then constantly being at odds with them.
Spending time trying to compare the woes of your life with other people is a waste of energy. Every one has “something” to deal with. This is your something.
In the 90s, while Director of Twin States Women’s Network (TSWN), a non profit organization for women and families affected by HIV/AIDS and/or hepatitis, one of our HIV+ peer counselors was facing a nasty legal situation. While many of us thought the charges were unfair, the woman had to deal with the consequences. After her sentencing, she remarked how rotten she felt. She then added, “If I’m still on the ‘pity pot’ tomorrow, kick me off.” It was this attitude of acceptance that has propelled her to be helpful to the women she counseled, as well as have a very remarkable and healthy life.
Regardless of how you came to be in your current situation, dwelling endlessly on why did I do this or that, or “how could I have been so stupid,” doesn’t change the present, let alone prepare for the future. You can’t go back and change things, so why spend good energy dwelling on it?
Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, a Harvard based brain scientist, suffered a massive stroke in the left side of her brain and detailed the her experience, and how it has improved her quality of life in the book “My Stroke of Insight.” Millions have probably seen her 18 minute presentation for the TED Conference. If you haven't seen it, take the time to watch it and/or read the transcript.
One of Taylor's messages is that the brain is basically circuitry. There is an approximately 90 second chemical process that happens in the body when you have a strong emotional reaction-be it joyful or negative. “When you stay stuck in an emotional response, you’re choosing it by choosing to continue thinking the same thoughts that retrigger it. We have this incredible ability in our minds to replay but as soon as you replay, you’re not here, you’re not in the present moment. You’re still back in something else and if you continue to replay the exact same line and loop, then you have a predictable result. You can continue to make yourself mad all day and the more you obsess over whatever it is, the more you run that loop, then the more that loop gets energy of it’s own to manifest itself with minimal amounts of thought, so it will then start on automatic. And it keeps reminding you, “Oh yeah, I was mad, I have to rethink that thought.”
Taylor also noted I’m so clear that my brain chatter is a tiny group of cells that perform a magnificent function and I have a say in whether or not that circuitry runs. So all I have to do is make the decision that in this moment, I’m not going to think those thoughts. I’m not going to run that particular circuitry, and I’m going to focus my mind on the bigger picture and think about other things and block those clouds from being there.”
One of the mantras in patient care is, “start where the patient is at.” In essence accept where things are and work from there. If your car has a flat tire and can’t be driven, denying the situation, talking endlessly about why you got the flat or blaming another driver for causing the accident, isn’t going to get you on the road anytime soon. In fact, it’s going to probably make it a lot worse.
Our most current prolific speaker on the topic of acceptance is Eckart Tolle, who writes “for now, this is what this situation requires me to do, and so I do it willingly.” It is a lot better to work in tandem with your abilities and treatments then constantly being at odds with them.
Spending time trying to compare the woes of your life with other people is a waste of energy. Every one has “something” to deal with. This is your something.
In the 90s, while Director of Twin States Women’s Network (TSWN), a non profit organization for women and families affected by HIV/AIDS and/or hepatitis, one of our HIV+ peer counselors was facing a nasty legal situation. While many of us thought the charges were unfair, the woman had to deal with the consequences. After her sentencing, she remarked how rotten she felt. She then added, “If I’m still on the ‘pity pot’ tomorrow, kick me off.” It was this attitude of acceptance that has propelled her to be helpful to the women she counseled, as well as have a very remarkable and healthy life.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Take a Break: Art of the Game
Several years ago, I completed a book I had started 20 years before when I was pregnant with my oldest son. Horrible morning sickness, that lasted most of the day for the better part of nine months, put me on a quest to think of things to divert my mind from how sick I felt. Ultimately, this led to "One Hundred Things to Think About and Do When You are Sick of Being Sick." On Wednesdays I will post some of the items from this book, as well as some of the activities I use in my "Art for the Sake of Health" workshops.
Listed below are free on-line resources that help to hone your gaming skills, provide some relaxation and stimulate your mind.
- AARP Game Page www.aarpmagazine.org/games (includes daily Sudoku, crossword and jigsaw puzzles, as well as solitaire, trivia and brainteasers). The site is free and you do not have to be a member to use it.
- Word Plays www.wordplays.com Includes several forms of Boogle, Scrabble and many other word games, along with a help section for cross word puzzlers.
- MiniClips www.miniclips.com Remember Pac Man? Now you can play it on-line along with many other games, including Trivia.
Listed below are free on-line resources that help to hone your gaming skills, provide some relaxation and stimulate your mind.
- AARP Game Page www.aarpmagazine.org/games (includes daily Sudoku, crossword and jigsaw puzzles, as well as solitaire, trivia and brainteasers). The site is free and you do not have to be a member to use it.
- Word Plays www.wordplays.com Includes several forms of Boogle, Scrabble and many other word games, along with a help section for cross word puzzlers.
- MiniClips www.miniclips.com Remember Pac Man? Now you can play it on-line along with many other games, including Trivia.
Sunday, August 9, 2009
Grieving, Feeling Powerless
Grieving is part of the process: Elizabeth Kubler-Ross may be best noted for her five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. While these stages are often thought of in terms of people dying, that can apply to just about any situation where one feels they have no control over the situation. It could be as simple as your favorite hair stylist of 15 years retiring or as serious as being diagnosed with a terminal disease.
There is no set order for these emotions to take place. Not everyone experiences all of them. Maybe most confusing, you may think you’ve dealt with your anger and are now more accepting of the situation, only to find yourself really angry the next day.
Fear is another emotion that comes into play and is often the underlying factor as to why we become angry, depressed or as I prefer to think, “this can’t be happening to me!” (Denial). Fear can make us feel alone so that we withdraw and isolate ourselves. It can cause us to strike out and say hurtful things to people we love.
Feeling powerless in the face of illness is common. It is easy to define yourself by what you can no longer do and how you appear. You may feel that you have been robbed of everything that makes life worth living. Yet, great things can be achieved by connecting with your inner self and starting the healing from the inside out.
In the early years of the AIDS epidemic, you would learn of someone with the diagnosis and your heart sank because you knew there just weren’t a lot of treatment options. Interestingly, one women saw this very differently. She was very clear that AIDS had saved her life.
Prior to her diagnosis, her life was in a constant state of turmoil because of drug addiction. Once she was diagnosed, it shocked her into treatment and she began helping other women and families with AIDS. When someone commented how sad it was that she had AIDS, she replied, “If it wasn’t for AIDS I’d be dead. I know I wont have a long life, but thanks to AIDS I actually have a life.”
This is just as true for caregivers. When I started working in brain injury, a mother of a brain injured 20 year old told me that she hated to say this but, “our life is much better because of her head injury.” Mom became involved in an organization, which greatly benefited from her extensive abilities, and provided a much needed outlet for her creativity and energy. It also forced her to examine a marriage that wasn’t working. While separating in the months after their daughters injury, she and her husband did reunite, having worked on various issues that had plagued their past relationship.
There is no set order for these emotions to take place. Not everyone experiences all of them. Maybe most confusing, you may think you’ve dealt with your anger and are now more accepting of the situation, only to find yourself really angry the next day.
Fear is another emotion that comes into play and is often the underlying factor as to why we become angry, depressed or as I prefer to think, “this can’t be happening to me!” (Denial). Fear can make us feel alone so that we withdraw and isolate ourselves. It can cause us to strike out and say hurtful things to people we love.
Feeling powerless in the face of illness is common. It is easy to define yourself by what you can no longer do and how you appear. You may feel that you have been robbed of everything that makes life worth living. Yet, great things can be achieved by connecting with your inner self and starting the healing from the inside out.
In the early years of the AIDS epidemic, you would learn of someone with the diagnosis and your heart sank because you knew there just weren’t a lot of treatment options. Interestingly, one women saw this very differently. She was very clear that AIDS had saved her life.
Prior to her diagnosis, her life was in a constant state of turmoil because of drug addiction. Once she was diagnosed, it shocked her into treatment and she began helping other women and families with AIDS. When someone commented how sad it was that she had AIDS, she replied, “If it wasn’t for AIDS I’d be dead. I know I wont have a long life, but thanks to AIDS I actually have a life.”
This is just as true for caregivers. When I started working in brain injury, a mother of a brain injured 20 year old told me that she hated to say this but, “our life is much better because of her head injury.” Mom became involved in an organization, which greatly benefited from her extensive abilities, and provided a much needed outlet for her creativity and energy. It also forced her to examine a marriage that wasn’t working. While separating in the months after their daughters injury, she and her husband did reunite, having worked on various issues that had plagued their past relationship.
Saturday, August 8, 2009
You are more than your diagnosis
Whether you are a caregiver or living with a chronic or life threatening condition, you are more than the diagnosis. Being a person living with cancer, depression, heart disease, Parkinson’s or whatever else is part of your experience but it should not be your sole identity. Ditto if you are a caregiver.
When I first started working in AIDS in 1985, the medical profession as well as the media referred to these patients as “victims.” Many of the gay men were quick to point out that they weren’t victims, rather they were “people living with AIDS” or PLWAs, which evolved to PWAs. A number of the docs, nurses and social workers made light of that, saying, “who are they kidding? They are dying of AIDS.” Interesting that this acronym, DOA, is the same as Dead on Arrival.
The PWA approach struck me as affirming and a lot more accurate . These men were far more than a diagnosis and they recognized that “living with” instead of “dying from” set a more positive place from which they could go about the business of healing. It didn’t mean they were going to “cure” themselves of AIDS, which of course many believed. Instead, it created a more empowering place from which to live.
Healing is often viewed as an interchangeable term for cure. However, we are all mortal and therefore are never cured from death. Consequently, I choose to use the word “healing” in much the same way as others might use the term well being. Essentially, through the art of healing we live our most fulfilled life regardless of how we may appear or sound, or the number of days, months or years we are here. It is our inner core, spirit, soul, or whatever expression you wish to use, that truly defines us as a whole being.
When I first started working in AIDS in 1985, the medical profession as well as the media referred to these patients as “victims.” Many of the gay men were quick to point out that they weren’t victims, rather they were “people living with AIDS” or PLWAs, which evolved to PWAs. A number of the docs, nurses and social workers made light of that, saying, “who are they kidding? They are dying of AIDS.” Interesting that this acronym, DOA, is the same as Dead on Arrival.
The PWA approach struck me as affirming and a lot more accurate . These men were far more than a diagnosis and they recognized that “living with” instead of “dying from” set a more positive place from which they could go about the business of healing. It didn’t mean they were going to “cure” themselves of AIDS, which of course many believed. Instead, it created a more empowering place from which to live.
Healing is often viewed as an interchangeable term for cure. However, we are all mortal and therefore are never cured from death. Consequently, I choose to use the word “healing” in much the same way as others might use the term well being. Essentially, through the art of healing we live our most fulfilled life regardless of how we may appear or sound, or the number of days, months or years we are here. It is our inner core, spirit, soul, or whatever expression you wish to use, that truly defines us as a whole being.
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Healing Soldiers Through Art
This morning, I read an article about how art is being used to heal soldiers. Called Combat Paper , the project teaches soldiers how to make paper from their uniforms, medals etc., which can then be used as a canvas to paint, draw, write or construct their experiences.
The story of the soldier, the Marine, the men and the women and the journeys within the military service in a time of war is the basis for this project. The goal is to utilize art as a means to help veterans reconcile their personal experiences as well as broaden the traditional narrative surrounding service, honor and the military culture.
Through papermaking workshops veterans use their uniforms worn in combat to create cathartic works of art. The uniforms are cut up, beat and formed into sheets of paper. Veterans use the transformative process of papermaking to reclaim their uniform as art and begin to embrace their experiences as a soldier in war.
The Combat Paper Project is based out of Green Door Studio in Burlington, VT and has traveled throughout the United States. This project is made possible by a multifaceted collaboration between artists, art collectors, academic institutions and combat veterans.
Through ongoing participation in the papermaking process, combat papermakers are attempting to progress from creating works specific to their military experiences to expressing a broader vision on militarism and society. The work reflects both the anger of the past and hope for the future. Through this collaboration between civilians and veterans, a much-needed conversation is generated regarding our responsibilities to the returned veteran and an understanding of the dehumanizing effects of warfare.
The story of the soldier, the Marine, the men and the women and the journeys within the military service in a time of war is the basis for this project. The goal is to utilize art as a means to help veterans reconcile their personal experiences as well as broaden the traditional narrative surrounding service, honor and the military culture.
Through papermaking workshops veterans use their uniforms worn in combat to create cathartic works of art. The uniforms are cut up, beat and formed into sheets of paper. Veterans use the transformative process of papermaking to reclaim their uniform as art and begin to embrace their experiences as a soldier in war.
The Combat Paper Project is based out of Green Door Studio in Burlington, VT and has traveled throughout the United States. This project is made possible by a multifaceted collaboration between artists, art collectors, academic institutions and combat veterans.
Through ongoing participation in the papermaking process, combat papermakers are attempting to progress from creating works specific to their military experiences to expressing a broader vision on militarism and society. The work reflects both the anger of the past and hope for the future. Through this collaboration between civilians and veterans, a much-needed conversation is generated regarding our responsibilities to the returned veteran and an understanding of the dehumanizing effects of warfare.
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