Emotional Training Helps Kids Fight Depression : NPR.
This is a brilliant effort at nipping the downward spiral in the bud when children are at their most formative, and it is definitely running parallel to what I am trying to work on with my son.
» Continue reading “Emotional Training Helps Kids Fight Depression : NPR”
His words make me feel beautiful – CNN.com.
I felt this when I read it. I can only hope that when I have lived as long as the author, my husband will feel the same way.
“I don’t believe that inner beauty is sufficient in this cruel world. That’s the pap one tells a child. I don’t believe that positive thinking improves your skin tone or that loving or being loved changes the shape of your nose or restores the thickness and color of hair, but I do know that there is a way of being beautiful, even as age takes its toll, that has something to do with the spirit filling with joy, something to do with the union with another human being, with the sense of having done well at something enormously important, like making happy a man who has made you happy often enough.”
I have been thinking about mental wellness over the past few days, in response to the idea that a patient might not accept a diagnosis and the role diagnosis plays in mental wellness. I’ve also been thinking about the concept of “reframing” that my therapist has me working on, and the concept of mental illness. I wanted to try to reframe the idea of mental illness to approach it from the perspective of mental wellness instead.
» Continue reading “Four Part Series: Diagnosis, Denial, Treatment, and Personal Accountability”
“Finagle’s Law of Dynamic Negatives (also known as Finagle’s corollary to Murphy’s Law) is usually rendered:
One variant (known as O’Toole’s Corollary of Finagle’s Law) favored among hackers is a takeoff on the second law of thermodynamics (also known as entropy):
» Continue reading “Finagle’s Law of Dynamic Negatives”
When I was in elementary school, I had a falling out with my circle of friends. It is a scene I have since seen played out on many different stages with many different girls in very similar circumstances. The social hierarchy of young people is unstable and unforgiving. My circumstances seemed particularly harsh and I would be dishonest if I didn’t confess that the effects of the treatment I received at the hands of my former friends didn’t leave me traumatized.
» Continue reading “Looking for Injury: A Self-Centered Perspective”
Are you defined by what you lack or by what you have?
In an economy that continues it’s journey up Shit’s Creek with no paddle in sight; in a country that values consumerism and capitalism as fundamental pillars of society; among people who define success according to wealth and status, it’s no wonder a lot of people are depressed. We often define ourselves, or allow others to define us, by the things we lack. We often take what we have for granted.
» Continue reading “Question of the Day”
“Optimists live longer, healthier lives than pessimists, U.S. researchers said on Thursday in a study that may give pessimists one more reason to grumble.” I told you so!
http://www.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUSTRE5247NO20090305?rpc=59
» Continue reading “Pollyanna and the Road to Immortality”
It’s a Tibetan saying. I thought it was doubly apt as the Dalai Lama is set to celebrate 50 years of exile from Tibet and the people of Tibet labor under oppressive restrictions on basic freedoms that we take for granted. But, I also found other meanings to it; I am sure that I could find a million ways to apply this saying to my life. Today, this one application trumped: I wanted to apply this idea of compassion to myself and others who tend to view themselves or others with a critical, skewed, even pessimistic perspective.
» Continue reading ““Who looks not with compassion sees not what the eyes of compassion see. “”
I spent a lot of time today walking, working, talking to a good friend, and talking to my husband. We shared our fears that we are trying to force a square peg into a round hole by staying in an area that is good in theory but much more difficult to reconcile with our urban souls in practice.
The fact is that we want to raise our kids in a decent area, we want to be able to afford a home in a community where people care, but we also want to be close to people our own age and enjoy the urban activities we miss. We want to live in a progressive area and live progressive lives and it’s difficult to do when you’re in a conservative mecca.
» Continue reading “A Full Day”
There is an interview available on NPR.org. She gives her recipe for peas!
