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Author: MJ Klimenko

TOO YOUNG TO KNOW

July 31, 2014
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| Categories: Anxiety, Depression, Life Stress, Personal Growth, Relationships

That extremely thin women weren't considered beautiful or fashionable, even by the fashion world, until a model named Twiggy became very popular in the 1960s. The majority of women in this country were born after 1950 so they're too young to know the history of "skinny vs. fat." The advent of skinny being sexy hadn't existed before Twiggy. I know because my nickname in high school was "Broom." No one thought I was attractive. I think I paid my first date to take me to a high school dance or maybe I blackmailed my brother into doing it.  Everyone thought I was too skinny. Then came Twiggy and she made skinny beautiful. So, without doing a thing I went from being "Broom" and unattractively skinny to an overnight sensation (O.K. That's an exaggeration but you get my point). With a flip of the advertising industry I could stop being embarrassed and start being cool, which, it turned out wasn't that much fun anyway. In the 1950s Marilyn Monroe had the "ideal" body and was considered one of the sexiest women on the planet. Marilyn was a size fourteen. Today she would be considered chubby or even fat. Here is a...

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DEPRESSION, WHAT IT IS, WHAT NOT TO SAY TO SOMEONE WHO HAS IT

July 2, 2014
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| Categories: Anxiety, Depression, Life Stress, Parenting/Children, Personal Growth, Relationships, Seniors, Transitions, Trauma

Here is a link to a blog article about depression and what well intentioned people shouldn't say to anyone who is depressed. The interesting thing about what not to say is that most people will be tempted to say at least one of the eleven listed because they seem so, well, helpful or distracting or humorous. None of these eleven statements are helpful to people suffering from depression. Depression can be situational or a person may have a genetic predisposition for depression and, in either case, there are better things to do. For one, encouraging a depressed person to share with you what they're feeling then listening and responding with empathic statements like, "It sounds like you're having a hard time right now," or "Tell me how you're feeling so I can try to understand." Taking the time to listen without comparing what they're saying to what you feel or your Aunt Gertrude feels can be very comforting and even helpful to a depressed person. Here's the link to what not to say: www.medicalbillingandcoding.org/blog/11-things-you-should-never-say-to-someone-with-depression  

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IS IT WORTH FIGHTING OVER?

June 24, 2014
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| Categories: Personal Growth, Relationships

Nothing is worth fighting over. Fighting has zero sum positive attributes. If you feel angry that means you did or didn’t notice you were hurt or afraid or both before you got angry. Anger is a “masking” emotion and there’s always something behind it. Imagine primitive man parting the tall grass and coming face to face with a tiger. If he feels his fear he’s likely to become paralyzed by it just before he becomes a satisfying tiger lunch. If he moves  quickly past the fear so it doesn’t even register (until later) and finds a way to fight he has just gotten a nice rush of adrenaline that will allow him to survive (since he probably can’t run away fast enough). In today’s world anger is a pretty useless emotion although there are some times when anger helps; your boss has passed you over for a raise three times and you’re afraid you’re going to lose your job if you bring it up to her. Getting angry and then controlling the anger will likely allow you to be assertive and self-promoting in a one on one meeting with her where she feels your energy, which isn’t threatening since it’s...

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COMPLIMENTS ARE GOOD

June 18, 2014
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| Categories: Parenting/Children, Relationships, Seniors

I know. That seems obvious to anyone who is awake. Hold on there. Think about it. When was the last time you complimented your boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, or wife? Girlfriends compliment each other regularly, a lot. That’s part of being a girlfriend. People in other relationships, not so much. When was the last time your partner complimented you? I began thinking about this at the end of my “Tuesdays with grandchildren day” today. Every Tuesday I load up the car and take the youngest grandchildren to the movies or swimming or on a picnic, something to put some grandmother memories into them. As they get older, grandchildren have better things to do than hang out with grandma, especially once they have a drivers license. Fortunately I’ve had a steady stream of young grandchildren for the past twenty-five years so I’ve had the pleasure of seeing a lot of cartoon movies. This afternoon a little voice piped up from the back seat, “Oma, do you know you’re pretty?” Nine year old Logan was either looking for an ice cream before being delivered back home or he’s a natural and he’ll do well in relationships, probably the former but it did make...

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YOU DESERVE

June 4, 2014
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| Categories: Aging, Families, Life Stress, Parenting/Children, Personal Growth, Relationships, Seniors

“you deserve flowers on your doorstep and coffee in the morning you deserve notes left on your dashboard and ice cream sundaes at 3am you deserve honesty every day and to be kissed every hour you deserve to be reminded how beautiful you are” --anonymous Came across this and thought about all of the couples I’ve worked with who did these things for each other when they first met and fell in love. This period is called the “honeymoon” period or the “infatuation” period and doesn’t have to go away. It generally goes away when a baby arrives or shortly after or the couple has been married longer than two years even without children or there’s some sort of family crisis, illness or death in the family or there’s financial hardship. Every event in the list above is stressful. And these are the times when one or both of the partners begins to believe the other doesn’t love them or loves them but isn’t interested in what’s going on with them or says they’re interested but never comes up with any ideas for something fun to do or works late and doesn’t help out much at home and so on....

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BABY BOOMERS, FACTS AND FICTION

May 21, 2014
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| Categories: Aging, Life Stress, Personal Growth, Seniors, Transitions

Some people, mostly women, of a certain age have determined that they prefer living alone and that being in a relationship is not something they yearn for. As my grandmother put it several years after my grandfather died, "I already cooked and cleaned for one man. I don't want to cook and clean for another one." And that's just fine because those people are making a choice and the choice that pleases them. Still, there are many seniors who would like to have a partner and do want to fall in love again. In fact, there are plenty of seniors who will fall in love, and hold hands, kiss, make love, and fall asleep next to someone who makes their heart happy. Unfortunately, there are certain mythologies about seniors that circulate as fact when they’re actually fiction. Many seniors don’t have any expectation that there is a special person for them. So they don’t look, they don’t hope, they don’t aspire to anything but they do feel lonely and depressed. If a senior believes that the only thing to look forward to is going to church to pray to whatever god they believe in that they go quick and without...

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