Mindful Living

I am one of these people whose emotions manifest somewhere in their bodies, almost instantaneously! Particularly anxiety or worry will be felt in my stomach usually as a swirling emotion and sadness/grief in my chest or head area. The other part of my body that carries my emotions is my lower back- not all of my back pain is emotionally connected, but when I am feeling down or having relationship issues, my lower back will often hurt. I have learned to use this as a guidance system to what is going on inside of me and to bring things into awareness that I was out of touch about and then take care of the emotions in some way. For me taking care of worry or anxiety is doing soothing self talk and exercise. I am amazed that even a 5 minute walk with almost always reduce any anxiety I feel. When I am sad or feeling down, what helps me is to journal and to connect with others, and then I usually feel the physical sensations subside. With the individuals I have seen in therapy, I have had a ...

We have been back for a few days, and what an interesting trip this was. I experienced a bit of culture shock which I hadn't in my other travels. The first night when we were sitting at a bar outside, I saw a man at the street corner giving hand signals, and assumed it was about the four gringas sipping beer! Looking back, I doubt that was the case, but I had a revved up sense of danger. We were completely safe the entire time, but didn't feel it the first part of the trip. We took a private car about 150 miles or so, and encountered police and military stops. Also a group of children surrounded the car with fake guns, billy cubs and dressed as guerillas- boy did we panic then! But it turned out to be "carnival" and the children were playing! Surprisingly on the ride back to Cartagena, the car ride seemed completely safe and we were all relaxed. It was amazing to me that what appeared very dangerous one day, appeared very safe and natural a few days later, whe...

It can be very difficult to know when it's time to let go of something, whether it be a relationship, a job, a house, etc. As with many things in life there is usually not simple answers and only we can make those decisions. Others can give their advise and support, but our best answers come from within us, not from without. Something I have noticed with myself and others is that changing our perspective is such a helpful tool in our lives, but sometimes we use it as an excuse to stay too long. If the same issue repeatedly presents itself to us, and we try different ways to resolve it, it is possible that it's time to let go, and release this from our lives. Many many things in our lives can be fixed or changed (isn't that what therapy is all about?!), but some situations may not change no matter how hard we try. BUT we always can change our response to the situation, and herein lies the real power, and sometimes that may mean it's time to move on. Oh but it can be so ...

For the past few years I have taken an adventure vacation with my sisters and other women friends/family every year, usually in January or February. The few criterion we have all insisted upon are that it be someplace warm, a different culture, and preferably some beach. This year it is Colombia, the Caribbean coast of Colombia to be exact. There is something about being in a completely different culture to have my mind expanded and energy renewed. The people we encounter have been super kind and have taken good care of us, even when we don't speak each other's language, we find a way to communicate. There are so many different ways to live than how we live! Very refreshing to see. The challenges are usually difficult, from figuring out transportation, to climbing to a waterfall, being scared, having culture shock, doing some fighting amongst ourselves, climbing Mayan ruins, and especially trying to find myself a diet soda! But I have never had an experience like driving in the...

Anger can be a difficult emotion to experience and handle effectively. It is important to take care of our anger or it will come out in other ways- passive/aggressiveness, depression, irritability, self-medicating, etc. So often in my life I have had such difficulty expressing my anger, feeling like I didn't have a "right" to feel the way I do. I had a lot of passive aggressive behavior in my early years, such as agreeing to do something then backing out at the last minute, ignoring someone yet saying I everything was "fine", expressing my anger to others except the person I was angry with, among other ways. The good thing about getting older for me is that I do feel I have a right to my anger, and I take care of it better by listening to what it is saying, expressing it, and soothing myself when needed. Not all the time do I take care of my anger, but certainly much more often than I used to. There have been some times recently when I expressed my anger too...

So what makes a good leader? I have had the good fortune of having some good leaders in my life, and what I liked about them was their ability to "think deeply", evaluate situations, keep a calm head, and bring out the best in people (building on strengths). I strongly believe that knowing who you are and deciding on what type of person you want to be is very important to being a leader. Who do I choose to be? What are my morals and ethics in how I will treat people? Do I choose to see the best in the them or the worst? Anyone else on what makes a good leader?

When reflecting upon mentors in my life, I realized that they all let me down at some point- not deliberately or intentionally, mainly just by being human! It always felt so devastating to start to realize the faults my mentors had and my way of integrating the information was to "awfulize" them and throw the baby out with the bath water. In the beginning of the relationship I usually think they are so great and perfect that I see no fault, and that can last a long time, but not forever. My first therapist, when I was the tender age of 22was one of my first mentors. She was much older- in her 60's. And she gave me great books to read and provided a nurturing and safe place to explore myself. But, she started to tell me what to do and that didn't go over to well with me- I wanted and needed to make my own decisions. I stopped seeing her soon after that. I didn't have another mentor for quite a few years, but when I got into the human services field, I had many...