Day 1581: What’s Happening

No matter what’s happening, I often wonder what’s happening, because there’s usually so much happening at once.

What’s happening with all these pictures?

 

What’s happening now is “What’s the Buzz Tell Me What’s Happening” from Jesus Christ, Superstar.

What’s happening?  I hope you let us know what’s happening in a comment, below.

With gratitude for all who helped me create this happening post and — of course! — for you, here’s the last photo I happened to take yesterday.

Day 1580: Bitch, Bitch, Bitch

Sometimes, life is a bitch.

Sometimes, life is a different kind of bitch.

Sometimes, life is a beach.

 

Here‘s a bitch of a video at YouTube:

 

Feel free to bitch, bitch, bitch in a comment, below.

This bitch is grateful for all the bitches and beaches who helped her create this post and — of course! — she’s very grateful for you.

Day 1579: Action

When people take the action of joining my therapy groups, I recommend these weekly actions:

1.  Do something mindfully, using your senses to stay in the moment.
2. Take one action you think would be helpful.
3. Notice and challenge an unhelpful thought.

For example, I am writing this blog post mindfully, using my senses to stay in the moment. I just took the helpful action of writing an email to my realtor, expressing my thoughts and feelings about a property.  My next action is to notice unhelpful thoughts about an action I took yesterday:

I’ve made another mistake.  I should have known better.

Here’s the action of challenging that unhelpful thought:

 Everybody makes mistakes.  I’m doing the best I can. Every mistake is an opportunity for me to learn and grow.

Yesterday, my actions included:

• Voting for myself to be the next president of a group psychotherapy organization,
• Putting an offer on a house near the water,
• Expressing appreciation for the departing interns at work, and
• Facilitating two therapy groups.

Every day, I take action shots and share the action here.

When I show up at YouTube and gently search for “action” there, it’s true that I find this:

If you think it would be helpful to make a comment below, please take action.

My final action in this post?  Expressing gratitude to all who helped me create it and to you — of course! — for your action of visiting this blog today.

Day 1578: Sharing complex information

Yesterday morning, I saw this on a white board at work:

I’ll be sharing this complex information with you, here and now:

• I wasn’t at the meeting where “Sharing complex information” was discussed.
• I wish I had been at that meeting, because sharing complex information is challenging, complex, and complicated.
• I  am sharing complex information every day — at work, in this blog, and elsewhere.
• I constantly observe other people sharing complex information, with varying degrees of comfort and effectiveness.
• People at that meeting were sharing complex information including this:

In order to facilitate sharing of complex information in my therapy group, I erased the complex information on that white board.

For the rest of the day, I was sharing complex information.

I believe that sharing complex information is an issue for everyone, especially in 2017.

That complex-information-sharing website, YouTube, is sharing complex information here, here, and here.

Will you be sharing complex information in a comment, below?

Finally, I’m sharing this complex information: many thanks to all who helped me share this complex-information post and — of course! — to YOU, no matter what complex information you’re sharing today.

Day 1577: Ingredients

One of the principal ingredients of  life is a calming  cup of tea with a helpful saying.

Do you agree with that teabag and with me that the principal ingredient of life is love?

Another principal ingredient of my  life is quinoa cooked by my love, Michael.

Other ingredients there include salmon, mango, cucumber, and broccoli rabe.

Other principal ingredients of life include …

… flowers bursting forth in spring,  music …

… and faith that we’re gonna make it.

Here’s The Main Ingredient, with the late Cuba Gooding Sr.

 

Another principal ingredient of life is gratitude.  Many thanks to all who helped me put together the ingredients in today’s post and — of course! —  to YOU.

Day 1576: Knowledge

When I search for other posts I’ve written here that have “Knowledge,” there’s none to be found. Consider yourselves warned.

Recently, when I was at the building department in Quincy Massachusetts, investigating the history of a particular property, I said to one of the staff there, “Knowledge is power.”  He replied, “Not at my house.”

Yesterday, knowledge showed up on a teabag.

I wonder what the guy at the Quincy building department would think of that.

Do you agree that knowledge is power and that your strength is your own knowledge?

Regular readers of this blog have the knowledge that I always share my photos from the day before. Let’s see if those pictures include any knowledge.

Those last three photos demonstrate my knowledge of the usefulness of having a helpful phrase ready whenever you need it. If you want more knowledge of the “In Case of Emergency, Break Glass” technique, that knowledge is in this post.

Did you know there are DOZENS of songs about knowledge? Here‘s one I know:

You know and I know that gratitude is important, so thanks to all who helped me create this knowledgeable post and to YOU (of course!)  for all the knowledge you bring, here and now.

Day 1575: Books

Yesterday, not knowing  it was World Book Day, 2017, I took several photos of books,.

When I was younger, I was constantly reading  books. These days, I read more blogs than books. Is there  a World Blog Day on the books? There was one, five years ago, according to Face Book.

Here are some quotes about books from books:

“The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.”  — Jane Austen

“Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read.” — Groucho Marx

“Never trust anyone who has not brought a book with them.” — Lemony Snicket

“If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.” — Haruki Murakami

“What really knocks me out is a book that, when you’re all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. That doesn’t happen much, though.” — J.D. Salinger

There are 3,000 quotes about books at goodreads.com. I am stopping at five quotes about books from books, because I don’t want today’s blog to be a book.

Here are other photos I took on World Book Day:

Here‘s a previous blog post on the books, where I wrote new lyrics for “You’ve Got it Bad, Girl” from Stevie Wonder’s Talking Book.

This girl could write a book about how thankful I am for all who help me blog every day and — of course! — for you. Rather than wait for that book, though,  I’ll end with two more pictures from World Book Day.

 

Day 1574: Others

In all the other posts I’ve written for myself and for others, only two have had the word “others’ in the title —  Day 163: Alone in the presence of others and Day 180: Horror Stories (and  others).

I expected there would be others about “others,” since I (and others) seem to think about others a lot of the time.

My first and last photos from yesterday both captured the word “others” (among others).

Were those two photos about others the only pictures I took yesterday?  No, there were three others:

I spent a lot of time yesterday with seven others, talking about ourselves, others, and group therapy.  As my t-shirt said, I was alone in the presence of others. And because there was mutual respect, trust, and love among me and the others, each of us had the time and space to be alone AND connected with the others in the room.

In other words (written by another therapist and blogger, Dr. Vollmer):

Therapy offers, as Winnicott eloquently says, a patient “to be alone in the presence of another.”  Deep relationships offer this as well. This is the  luxury of experiencing one’s internal world, while a caring person is present in the room, but not intrusive into one’s internal process.

Here‘s what comes up on YouTube when I search for “others”:

I wonder what others might think, feel, and say about today’s blog?

Thanks to all the others who helped me write this post (among others). Special thanks to you and all the others reading this, here and now.

Day 1573: One of those days

This is one of those days that I blog, as I’ve been doing since January 1, 2013.

Yesterday was one of those days that inspired this Facebook post:

Ever have one of those days? I’m having three of them today.

Because yesterday is past, I don’t want to dwell on one of those days. Instead, I’m looking forward to one of those days when I will

• connect with others,
• be myself,
• show up,
• be gentle,
• tell the truth, and
• take pictures.

Happiness IS an accomplishment, when you’re having one of those days.

This is one of those days I share different versions of the same song with you (here, here, and here):

I wonder if this will be one of those days I get lots of comments.

This is definitely one of those days I thank all who helped me create today’s post and — of course! — YOU.

Day 1572: What’s the worst that could happen?

What’s the worst that could happen?

That’s something I ask my patients, to invite them to face their fears and to consider how likely it is that those fears will come true.

What’s the worst that could happen to you, here and now?

Is the worst that could happen to you related to

• money?
• harm coming to somebody you love?
• work?
• technology?
• people in power?
• illness?
• legal issues?
• family?
• friends?
• strangers?
• time?
• transportation?
• the weather?
• sports?
• food?
• expectations?
• language?
• the media?
• the internet?
• local politics?
• national politics?
• global politics?
• natural disasters?
• man-made disasters?
• fire?
• water?
• change?
• taking risks?
• going outside?
• staying inside?
• accidents?
• making mistakes?
• misunderstandings?
• malice?
• something else?

What’s the worst that could happen, at this point, in this post? Would it  be my defining “catastrophizing” AGAIN?

Catastrophizing.
This is a particularly extreme and painful form of fortune telling, where we project a situation into a disaster or the worst-case scenario. You might think catastrophizing helps you prepare and protect yourself, but it usually causes needless anxiety and worry.

Would the worst that could happen in this post be seemingly random pictures?

I hope that the worst that could happen to my son today will be his mother posting a picture of him on her blog.

Here’s  “The Worst that Could Happen” music from YouTube:

 

The worst that could happen, right now, would be my forgetting to thank all who helped me create today’s post and — of course! — YOU.