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Posts Tagged ‘psychology’

  1. How to Soothe Body, Mind and Soul to Promote Healing

    November 15, 2015 by Diane

     

    Comfortable homey scene: Book on a tray with a candle

    I spent all of last week fighting a severe cold.

    Not fighting, really. Just lying in bed while it pummeled me.

    Some folks are masters at riding out a cold. Me? I’m cowed by the swagger of it. I crumble under its weight, pinned to the mattress, my world narrowed to the confines of my anxious mind. Without defenses to act as filter, the “what if” thoughts gain traction and I lie curled in my warm blanket believing that all of those books I’ve read on mindfulness and healing and treatments and nutrition are bunk. All of those words of wisdom didn’t slay the dragon. The dragon won.

    Oh, boo hoo. Cue the violin. The cello. The bass, for cryin’ out loud.

    Disgusted, I rise up. I’m done being sick! The surge of anger propels me to my feet, fumbling for thick socks, tucking a muffler around my throat, unwrapping a menthol lozenge, pulling on boots and jacket, flinging open the door and blinking at the thin winter sun, grateful for the blue sky. I walk the neighborhood and fill my senses with the signs of life. Life is bigger than the dragon. Life is everywhere. It’s in the oak trees that hold onto their stiff curled leaves. It’s in the squirrels dashing though fence holes carrying acorns in their jaws. It’s in the carload of children shoving each other in the back seat. It’s in the mossy roofs and the falcon cruising overhead with an eye for a thick brown mouse. It’s in the free little library stuffed with worn paperbacks that lean on each other for support. I saunter through the neighborhood and return home renewed in spirit but tired in body, my lymph glands swollen and painful from the work of draining, draining, draining.

    There is always something to buckle our knees from behind. We prepare ourselves for the worst and hope for the best. It’s the only way.

    When you’re feeling under the weather, here are ten steps to soothe your body, mind and soul as you weather the storm:

    1. Watch your thinking. Are your thoughts of the dreadful variety? Dwell on the opposite. For five minutes. Then ten. Then twenty. Be Shirley Temple at heart, Scarlett O’Hara in determination. Tell yourself: “I can choose to focus on my anxious thoughts, or I can choose to do what I can for myself in this moment to feel better.” Tell yourself: “I can choose to worry about this or I can be mindful of these thoughts and not spiral into the bottomless pit of anxiety.”
    2. Infuse yourself with healing energy. Here’s a short Qigong exercise to cleanse your lungs and clear away feelings of lethargy and sadness. Or try some of Donna Eden’s healing techniques, like this one to help a sore throat. If nothing else, her joyous vibe is a balm.
    3. Focus on what you love. The scruffy cat curled next to you. The man in the kitchen washing dishes. That kid who dreams of becoming an astronaut.
    4. Surround yourself with comfort. A soft blanket, your terrycloth robe, a book within arm’s reach, a fuzzy teddybear.
    5. Distract yourself. Watch funny movies. Read feel-good novels. I recommend The Rosie Project, anything by P.G. Wodehouse, or anything by Rosamunde Pilcher. Listen to audio books. Anything to distract you, to lift you from your lonely self.
    6. Take in nourishment. Warm broths. Herbal teas. Oatmeal. A protein smoothie. When you read, take in the inspirational words. When you walk, take in the abundance of life. Take in the memory of that fine day at the beach when a seagull kept you company and the waves rolled gently on the white sand.
    7. Let go. There’s nothing you need to do except allow your body to heal. You’re tired, so give in to the mattress. Let go of the body tension. Let go of those depressing thoughts that scratch at your throat.
    8. Drink up. Lots of water to flush away the virus lingering in the hallways of your immune system.
    9. Do self-soothing activities. Nap. Draw. Doodle. Write without regard to a finished product. Do crossword puzzles. Sip warm water. Meditate. Pray. Talk to someone who cares: your mother, your sister, your best friend, your lover, your spouse, your inner wise self, God. Whatever soothes the soul is good medicine.
    10. Look to the future. Tell yourself: “I look forward to feeling strong and healthy again.” Tell yourself: “This is a temporary situation and I will rise again.” Tell yourself: “I’m healing. I’m mending. I’m so over this friggin’ cold.” Buckle the knees of that dragon and gouge out it’s red eyes. The dragon is a bit player in your life’s comedy. Refuse to give it a starring role.

     

    And you? How do you soothe yourself when feeling under the weather?

    Category Fer Cryin' Out Loud | Tags: ,,,,,,,,,,, | 10 Comments

  2. The Upside To Being an Introvert

    August 30, 2015 by Diane

     

    Hipster girl holding a stack of books

    In junior high, I had a physical education teacher who doubled as drama coach. Mrs. Wattenberger, a stout woman with calves like footballs, whose goal was to make us “sweat like pigs” (an odd and impossible feat), directed the school play. I don’t recall the name of the play; it was the sort of melodrama you’d find in a volume titled Best Plays for Junior High School Students Who Need to Sweat Like Pigs, requiring zero royalties and minimal scenery. We performed this low-budget flop in my seventh year of formal education, and I landed the choice role of “The Curtain,” along with eleven other boys and girls.

    Here is the gist of our performance:

    At the end of every scene, we scuttled single file onstage holding a length of fabric, faced the audience, announced “the curtain falls,” and promptly collapsed to the floor. After several excruciating seconds of silence we announced, “the curtain rises,” scrambled to our feet and scuttled off, stage left.

    Mrs. Wattenberger was over the moon with my debut. “It’s so wonderful to see Diane come out of her shell,” she gushed to my parents after the matinee, as if she and her football-sized calves had booted me from a life doomed as an introvert.

    I’m sure she meant well, but I cringed.

    I cringed every time someone labeled me “shy” or “withdrawn” or some such demeaning adjective aimed to snap me out of my supposed state of suffering. And suffer I did.

    Not because I kept to myself, preferring to read a book rather than socialize, speaking only when I had something of value to say, but because others viewed me as flawed.

    From my perspective, those praised as being “extroverts” were the flawed ones, uncomfortable with their own company, attempting to flee it by surrounding themselves with others, feeding on mass energy like vampires sucking the life force from mortals for survival. I was as unfair in my assessment of them as Mrs. Wattenberger was of me.

    Susan Cain, in her book Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, explodes the myth that introversion is a failing. She reveals the upside of the introverted personality—the positive traits, the contributions to society—and points out how the world benefits by valuing the quiet among us.

    It would be years, cringing from such labels, before I discovered what Susan Cain had uncovered through meticulous research. If I could, I would travel back in time, shove Mrs. Wattenberger aside, look deeply into the eyes of my younger self and say, “Stand proud in who you are.”

    But I can’t.

    I can, however, look deeply into the eyes of my fellow introverts and say this:

    Stand proud, you who keep mystery alive by wearing disguises in your profile photos, you book-lovers and creative forces who listen intently so others may be heard. Stand proud, you who converse in your heads sharing aloud only what adds value to your worlds, who make large talk, not small, thinking fully before speaking. Stand proud, you who live in awareness, form deep friendships, add calm to hectic environments and tremble when revealing yourself—because it’s a gift you give, and it doesn’t come lightly.

    Stand proud in who you are.

    Category Fer Cryin' Out Loud | Tags: ,,,, | 25 Comments

  3. Anxiety Wears a Black Duster

    July 19, 2015 by Diane

    Man walking into light

    In Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, Boo Radley is the mentally disturbed neighbor who everyone views as The Boogeyman. What brilliance to include this character in a story about how people fear, or hate, or distrust a fellow human due to a judgment of skin color or class or…yes, mental illness.

    Anxiety is one of many mental challenges that remains a stigma in our society today. As Atticus points out in Mockingbird, you can’t understand another until you’ve walked in his shoes. So, for the sake of bridging the gap and giving voice to what many of us experience, I’m sharing my take on anxiety, written back when.

    * * *

    Anxiety wears a black duster that whips the air as he strides in tall black boots. Gaunt pale face, curved nose, laser-beam eyes, shocking red lips.

    A salvaged cigarette in the hands of a desperate smoker.

    In the hospital bed, my heart thumps warnings into my back that no one hears. In the hallway, a clipboard tucked under his arm, one doctor says to another, “It’s anxiety. It’s nothing.” Anxiety isn’t nothing, I want to shout, it’s a prison! It’s steel bars in a rundown tenement. It’s the child crouching under the stairs peering with mournful eyes behind spiderweb hair. It’s the last continent under a sky devoid of stars. It’s the tightness in the chest, the warning shot of adrenaline. It’s coffee all jacked up. What’s wrong with me? It’s that question, asked over and over and over again without an answer to soothe it to sleep.

    I ache for that soothing hand, that brush against my cheek, on my forehead, against the small of my back where numbness traces its canyon path. I want to un-crouch from inside, to fly, to be free and soar and run and giggle and pretend and create and believe and have faith again in my own healing power. Why couldn’t the doctor say, “It’s fine, you’re safe, all is well. Nothing to worry about, chum. I can’t explain why you’re feeling what you’re feeling, but I assure you it’s not physical. It’s your brain playing tricks.”

    Anxiety is the brain playing tricks. Thoughts gouging dry riverbeds in the mind.

    When I’m alone in my anxious brain, it’s a dangerous place to be. The brain is a trickster. It thinks it knows the truth, but the truth is only a guess. It takes the bits and pieces I feed it through my eyes, fingers, skin, taste buds, nose, ears, and it sorts them into bins and labels each bin.

    Very organized.

    Very tidy.

    The problem is with the labels.

    Don’t believe everything you think. It’s my mantra. Don’t believe everything you think.

    I hold on, knowing that one day I’ll rear up and grab hold of anxiety’s black duster and rip it off and reveal a bare, huddled creature underneath. Something cringing from the sudden light. And I’ll laugh again.

    Laugh! Again.

    Because the truth is: A shadow can’t survive the light.

    It disappears.

    Category Fer Cryin' Out Loud | Tags: ,, | 10 Comments

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