i’d like to thank the academy…

okay, i don’t want to thank the academy, i would like to thank you, my readers. i passed a milestone today.

stay alive vs. living

” the mystery of human existence lies not in just staying alive but finding something to live for.”

fyodor dostoyensky

okay, don’t take this post as a despondent, driving off the cliff type of post. instead, think of it as someone in search of a real purpose.

depression has a tendency to hold me down by my throat and tell me i have no reason to live. as time goes on and the struggles waxes and wanes, at times, far to often, i find myself believing the trickster. i fall under his trance and begin to believe his lies.

“Americans are absolutely divorced from nature in a way…”

how much does the dehumanizing behavior of today’s contribute to mental illness? my blog friend shoe1000 shares some thoughts around that.

I Dont Want To Talk About It

“…and that accounts for that drug abuse.”  As I listen to my fellow “recovery” compatriots, I hear the same thing over and over.  We needed at one point in our lives to use our mind to mitigate or dissociate from events that caused us trauma.    This signaled to our mind that it was going to be it’s responsibility to make our lives safe.  Why did we have to do this?  I was talking with my buddy Willem3655 today and we were talking about that there never was an opportunity to go to our elders and tell them how confused, scared and unable to navigate our way through the the confusion and pain we were experiencing  in our life.

I was in a meeting this morning and all of the people attending had long time sobriety.  Yet the topics were shame, fear, confusion and psychological pain.  This is not to…

View original post 422 more words

asking for help to find my blue sky-replies

 in my previous post, asking for help to find my blue sky, i asked one of my sister to practice acknowledgments with me. i explained what they were, gave her some examples and share the benefits with her .i got two replies from her. i  found them to be disappointing. her replies will be indented; my thought will be out-dented. her two replies came within an hour of each other.

asking for help to find my blue sky

my sister sent me yet another email educating me on the mindfulness process. this time it came with a video.

the video has a premise that mindfulness is like living in blue sky. even in a hurricane, the blue sky is still there; it’s only a matter of finding the way back to it.

this is my response on how she could help me find a way back to my patch of blue sky.

a hug by any other name…

my friend, shrewed up wrote on her blog the shaming of the shrew wrote about her recent experience with her dog. to briefly recap, her dog, jetta, nipped a person as my friend and her dog played at a nearby school yard. upon hearing this, the vet nearly declared that there was no hope for this dog. the vet then somewhere between strongly insisted to demanded the dog be put down.

shrewed up did some calling on her own and found a rescue agency that would take jetta. since her history of biting, jetta wouldn’t be adopted out but spend the rest of her life in a doggie “retirement home”.

i replied to her post:

wow! not only are you a good person, a good writer, a good wife and a good mom, you’re a good dog owner to boot. i commend all you did for your dog. i believe because of what you did for your dog, it will help you with your inevitable separation. euthanasia would have been so final. now he’ll have big fields to run out in for the rest of his life. What a better outcome compare to euthanasia. excellent job!

any pet would be lucky to sleep and recreate in your home. if i believed in reincarnation, i’d want to come back as one of your pets.

but, that only sets the back drop for the real story. the real story starts with shrewed up’s reply:

Yet another awesome hug. I needed that one. Thank you.

woooooh, what a concept. i had just given her a hug?? no, i had just given her a hug. no, i had just given her a hug!

what a life lesson. that lesson being a hug can be more than a physical hug. hugs could simply be kind, reassuring words.

shrewed up and i have never met and live a few thousand miles apart from each other, yet my words seemingly gave her comfort as if I were right there in her home. at a time where she dealt with the thought of losing her pet of four years, i pointed out how she display her trait as a loving person. that realization in that troubling time helped her in some way.

the story reminds me of the power of words. so many times, words get used for hurt and pain. our challenge can be encapsulated in the quest to use words for love and for healing.

in this day and age of the internet, where your friends could live a half a world away, remember that words can work to comfort. that comfort can serve to be just like a nice warm hug. and who couldn’t use a hug to boost their day every now and then.

messing up pizza or how i feel emotions deeply and what that means

i took charge of pizzas at a friends house this weekend. we had three pizzas and i figured i’d save a little time by cooking them at the same time and just add a few minutes. final score, 1 pizza burnt, 2 quasi-raw. who knew where the night would go from there.

poll-how do you process feelings?

i’m wonder how people process and feel emotions and how that may or may not contribute to depression. help me with this poll. i have my theory and will share those iin a week or so.

which came first…

everyone knows the question that has baffled humankind for centuries, which came first, the chicken or the egg?

tech support for love

a friend of mine sent me this. it follows a typical call to tech support with someone needing help installing love. is really has a lot to think about.