LEAVING THE DREAM

When you wake up in the morning do you wish you didn't have to get out of bed, that you could just close your eyes and sleep because what's in front of you is less than pleasant, like getting ready for work, commuting, working, going home, eating, falling back into bed, to sleep and wake up to the same grind again? If so, it's important that you establish some kind of morning ritual that grounds you in the real world, nature, an animal, fresh air. Try leaving sweats and tennis shoes right next to your bed and taking a quick, fast walk around your block before you do anything else, roll out, throw on the sweats and go, it's fifteen minutes, or put a flower that has a scent, like a rose, in a vase in the room but away from the bed so you can stand up and put your nose into the alive aroma of nature, inhale deeply and exhale, thinking three positive thoughts to counteract the negative. Or make sure you have something you really like ready to eat and waiting for you in the kitchen so you'll be inspired to get up and move to the...

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TAKE TIME, MAKE TIME, SHIFT THOSE PRIORITIES

It looks like summer is finally here so getting outside for a nice brisk walk in the morning is easier and pleasant. Get out and get that blood moving. It will affect your entire day. Just throw on some sweats and take a spin around the block, then next week another block and so on until part of your walking up routine is your walking routine. Do it before you do anything else. If you delay it in order to do "important" things first, you're much less likely to do it. If you have to get up a half an hour earlier, do it. The pay-off to your body and your sense of well being is worth it. Start your day by doing something good for yourself. Love yourself, take care of yourself, first. There's only one of you and you're worth it! You don't have time you say? Yes, I can hear the protests and groans. If you don't have a half an hour a day to take care of yourself, you're not making time and you're allowing the pressures of every day living take you away from what's really important. If you don't love yourself enough to take...

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INTUITION AND ABUSE

Most people experience times when they believe they know what another person is thinking or feeling. Sometimes, you're doing what is called, "projecting." That is you are projecting what you think or feel onto the other person. And sometimes your intuition about a situation is accurate. If what you're attributing to the other person is important, IE. "You're mad at me," it's important to find a way to inquire about it without sounding confrontational or defensive. You can't have good communication skills if you walk around in the world believing you know when, in fact, you might or you might not. An interesting thing about adults who were abused as children, whether emotional or physical, is that they tend to be more intuitive than the general population. That doesn't mean they shouldn't check it out with the other person because it could still be projection or just plain false. It does mean that very often an adult abused as a child can walk into a room and accurately report who is having a good time, who is pretending to have a good time, who is angry, sad, and so on. Adults abused as children are better at "reading" other people...

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WHEN TO STAY AND WHEN TO GO

It’s easy to say when to leave a relationship. Leave if you’re being abused physically or if you’re being abused verbally or psychologically and your partner won’t stop or agree to counseling. If your partner cheats on you and refuses to go to counseling, leave. If your partner has any kind of addiction, drugs, alcohol, gambling, Internet porn you don’t agree to, spending money he/she doesn’t have until the family can’t pay bills, and refuses to seek treatment, or sometimes refuses to even admit there’s a problem, you should leave because, unless someone wants to change, and then actively seeks some sort of support to create change like individual counseling, group therapy, AA, NA, or any other identified form of treatment, it’s unlikely they’ll change. Will power is seldom, if ever, enough to create lasting change. If your partner lies to you repeatedly, not white lies but big lies, for example, “I went to work today,” when he/she actually got fired the week before or “I’m going to my mother’s house,” and he/she doesn’t, instead going somewhere else, which they may or may not deny when you confront them, you should leave if there’s either an unwillingness to admit there’s...

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GETTING UP OR NOT

O.K. It's Saturday morning. You wake up the sun is shining or not, it's raining or not, but you're warm, safe, and there isn't anything you have to do in the next two hours so you don't have to jump up and start hustling toward a work day like most of you do during the week. One would think it would be a time of relaxation, contemplation, or to make plans to do something enjoyable, and it is for some of you. For others, it's the time when depression, despair and confusion reign. To those people: If you're in a relationship, you wonder why you stay and if you're not, you're wondering if you ever will find that special person. If you work forty or more hours a week, you wonder if there's an end to this toiling away just to pay the rent, or maybe you don't have a job and haven't been able to find one. Maybe you have a job but your partner doesn't and you're tired of carrying the load, maybe it's reversed and your partner is tired of carrying the load. Maybe you're old and facing the unbearably sad truth that this culture doesn't value...

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LOVE OR APATHY

If you're in a relationship and have been in one for a while, that would mean longer than a year, you can probably remember how your heart quickened when you saw your loved one. You might even be one of the people who say that they knew as soon as they saw their partner that he/she was the one. And weren't the kisses divine. And the talking, my my it seemed like you'd never run out of things to talk about. You were so happy, you couldn't believe how happy you were and you believed you would be in love with that special person forever. For those of you who didn't eat that bitter pill of disillusionment and walk away, who are still together but feeling like that old spark just isn't there anymore. Where did those kisses on the back of the neck go, those torrid nights, those little things like discovering  a love note on the counter upon awakening? You know, the attention to detail, groomed and perfumed, dressed well and not in fifteen year old sweats and tennis shoes even the Goodwill wouldn't accept. How about those sexy little things that are sexy little things if you're...

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