Day 2116: How to respond

Yesterday, people were discussing how to respond to a particular type of comment:

How to respond to my 7 other photos and 1 video from yesterday?

 

 

How to respond to somebody who is letting her hair go gray?

How to respond to this post?  However you choose.

How to respond to the people who helped me create this post and to you for being here? With thanks.

 

Day 1634: Warnings

WARNING:  This post has warnings in it.

Yesterday, my EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) therapist, George, talked to me about my over-developed mental warning system.

WARNING: I keep forgetting what “EMDR” stands for and I have to look it up every time I write about it (like here and here).

George gave me an important warning, yesterday, in our therapy session. He warned that I give myself this warning way too much:

I have to hyper-vigilantly protect myself against the world’s incompetence, ignorance, hostility, lack of understanding, ambivalence, negligence, etc.,  in order to get my needs met and to survive.

WARNING: I write important warnings down so I can remember them.

George warned me that these constant warnings are probably bad for my health. He suggested I tell myself this instead:

I am safe. I have everything I need.

Do you see any warnings in my photos from yesterday?

 

 

WARNING: If children scare you, be warned that The Warning is a hard-rock band of three young sisters from Monterey, Mexico. Here‘s The Warning’s TED talk (and play):

 

WARNING: This writer loves comments on her posts, which you can leave below.

WARNING: I have everything I need, here and now, thanks to all who helped me create this post with warnings and — of course! — to YOU.

Day 1543: Backgrounds

My background includes technical writing, marketing communications, and psychotherapy.

In the background, I’ve been looking up the definition of “background.”

Definition of background

1. a :  the scenery or ground behind something – a picture of her son with mountains in the background – background scenery for the play

   b art :  the part of a painting representing what lies behind objects in the foreground – dark shadows in the background of the painting

   c :  an image that displays on a computer screen underneath the various available icons and windows – As they participate, they earn “Kinetic City Points,” which they can spend on downloadable prizes, such as screensavers and computer backgrounds. — Science

2.  an inconspicuous position  – shy people who try to stay in the background

3. a.  the conditions that form the setting within which something is experienced… set in a background of tropical luxuriance. — Tom Marvel

   b (1) :  the circumstances or events antecedent to a phenomenon or development – the economic background of the American Civil War took place against a background of increasing tension

   (2) :  information essential to understanding of a problem or situation – background information

   c :  the total of a person’s experience, knowledge, and education – comparing the candidates’ backgrounds –  ran a background check to make sure she had no criminal record

4.  a. intrusive sound or radiation  that interferes with received or recorded electronic signals – a recording with a lot of background noise

   b physics :  a more or less steady level of noise above which the effect  being measured by an apparatus is detected;  especially :  a somewhat steady level of radiation in the natural environment (as from cosmic rays)

5.  a level of computer processing at which the processor uses time not required for a primary task to work on an additional task — compare foreground.

In the background, I’ve been inconspicuously trying to correct the inevitable formatting errors and complications that occur whenever I try to bring a definition into the foreground of my blog.

Here’s the background of how I chose the title of today’s post: Yesterday morning I was changing backgrounds while I was self-soothing with a game of on-line solitaire.

Congratulations to me for winning at solitaire and congratulations to worldofsolitaire.com for offering so many backgrounds.  I usually use the first background shown above; perhaps from now on I’ll use different backgrounds, depending on my mood.

After I solitarily photographed all those backgrounds, I noticed other backgrounds throughout my day.

That last photo, with the artwork and books in the background, shows my EMDR therapist, George Sawin, moving some EMDR equipment at the end of our session. George’s background includes psychotherapy, law enforcement, flower shops, and  business management.  When we were discussing the importance of backgrounds, I mentioned this poem to him:

THE INVITATION

It doesn’t interest me

what you do for a living.

I want to know

what you ache for

and if you dare to dream

of meeting your heart’s longing.

 

It doesn’t interest me

how old you are.

I want to know

if you will risk

looking like a fool

for love

for your dream

for the adventure of being alive.

 

It doesn’t interest me

what planets are

squaring your moon…

I want to know

if you have touched

the centre of your own sorrow

if you have been opened

by life’s betrayals

or have become shrivelled and closed

from fear of further pain.

 

I want to know

if you can sit with pain

mine or your own

without moving to hide it

or fade it

or fix it.

 

I want to know

if you can be with joy

mine or your own

if you can dance with wildness

and let the ecstasy fill you

to the tips of your fingers and toes

without cautioning us

to be careful

to be realistic

to remember the limitations

of being human.

 

It doesn’t interest me

if the story you are telling me

is true.

I want to know if you can

disappoint another

to be true to yourself.

If you can bear

the accusation of betrayal

and not betray your own soul.

If you can be faithless

and therefore trustworthy.

 

I want to know if you can see Beauty

even when it is not pretty

every day.

And if you can source your own life

from its presence.

 

I want to know

if you can live with failure

yours and mine

and still stand at the edge of the lake

and shout to the silver of the full moon,

“Yes.”

 

It doesn’t interest me

to know where you live

or how much money you have.

I want to know if you can get up

after the night of grief and despair

weary and bruised to the bone

and do what needs to be done

to feed the children.

 

It doesn’t interest me

who you know

or how you came to be here.

I want to know if you will stand

in the centre of the fire

with me

and not shrink back.

 

It doesn’t interest me

where or what or with whom

you have studied.

I want to know

what sustains you

from the inside

when all else falls away.

 

I want to know

if you can be alone

with yourself

and if you truly like

the company you keep

in the empty moments.

–Oriah 

.

Want to know the background of this background, shown above?

Somebody in my therapy group yesterday morning suggested we project a YouTube video of a beach in Hawaii on the screen in the group room. We used that for our mindfulness exercise and then we left it running in the background throughout the group.

 .

What’s your background? Are backgrounds important to you?

 .

Please don’t stay in the background; instead, leave a comment below.

 .

My background includes an appreciation for acknowledging and expressing gratitude, so thanks to all who helped me create today’s post and to you — of course! — no matter what your background.

Day 1508: A quiet home

Yesterday, I returned to the quiet home of my EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) therapist George after a long, disquieting absence. George and I talked quietly about how difficult it’s been for me to find a quiet home after the multiple traumas of open heart surgery, my pacemaker getting recalled, complications with the pacemaker replacement surgery, all the noise around the U.S. election, the loudness of my mechanical heart valve at night, and the fear and discomfort I’ve been experiencing internally and externally. During my quiet time with George, I realized I could create a quiet home wherever I am, by focusing on whatever helps quiet my mind and my soul.

Soon after that quieting session, I saw this:

I’d love a quiet home, too.  How about you?

Can you see any quiet homes in my other photos from yesterday?

 

 

 

While I was looking through windows of hope for quiet homes yesterday, I quietly heard this quiet music from Hamilton:

 

Thanks to all who helped me create  this quiet home today and to you — of course! — wherever your quiet homes are.

Day 1354: See the love in everything

Yesterday, after facilitating a therapy group I loved at work, I went to see my lovely Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapist, George.  I love EMDR, because it has helped me reduce my anxiety about very unlovely experiences I had in the hospital when I was a child.

Because I’m having open heart surgery at the Mayo Clinic next Wednesday, I loved the opportunity  to work with George in reducing my anxiety about that.  George and I tried  several lovely images to use when I’m going into surgery on September 21, including floating on the top of lovely water or being held by loving hands.   I love that I came up with this idea at the end of the session: I said to George, “I shall just see the love in everything.” George loved that, too.

I love reporting to you that after the session, I saw the love in everything and everybody.  I love that next week I shall also see the love in:

• the lovely Deb, who will drive us to the airport in her lovely Honda Fit,
• the security personnel at the airport,
• the plane that takes my boyfriend Michael and me to Minneapolis,
• the shuttle that transports us to Rochester,
• the hotel where we’ll be staying across the street from the hospital before my admission,
• all the staff at the Mayo Clinic,
• all the tests they’ll give me,
• the needles and other things they’ll poke me with,
• the questions they’ll ask me,
• the operating room,
• the hands of my surgeon,
• the cardiac care unit,
• the machines I’ll be attached to,
• the medications they’ll give me,
• the tubes going in and out of my body,  and
• everything and everybody else during my recovery.

Do you see the love in everything I photographed yesterday?

 

 

I see the love in those cats named Stormcloud and Peaches, who are being adopted together by some lovely family today.

I see the love in this lovely tune, which my late father sang with love to my late mother at an anniversary celebration.

I will see the love in everything you leave in a comment.

I see the love in all who helped me create this post and in you, here and now.

Day 1270: Accepting all feelings

People who work with me in therapy accept that I often focus on the importance of accepting all feelings, even uncomfortable ones like fear and sadness. If we accept all feelings, instead of repressing or judging them, then all feelings can naturally flow through us.

These days, I am accepting all feelings –including hope, fear, and sadness — as I feel my way towards open heart surgery on September 21.

Yesterday, I accepted all feelings in an Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing  (EMDR) therapy session. In that session, I transformed all my feelings about this thought:

Strangers are going to split me open, like they’re filleting a fish, and look at my totally exposed heart in a cold and lonely room.

to this thought:

People who want the best for me are going to have the privilege of seeing my unusual  and beautiful heart and making it better. Maybe they’ll even take a picture of my heart so I can finally see it!

Throughout that EMDR exercise, I was accepting all feelings about this image (which I found here):

What feelings are you accepting now?

I am accepting all feelings about that image and about these photos I took yesterday:

I am accepting all feelings about all these songs about feelings (on YouTube here, here,  here, and here):

Whatever feelings you have about this post, I accept them.

I’m accepting all my feelings of gratitude for those who helped me create this post and for you — of course! — no matter what feelings you’re accepting, here and now.

Day 1011: Simplicity

Simplicity came up in a therapy group, yesterday.

After that group, I simply saw simplicity everywhere.

  
  
  


Those last two simple photos are of a simple yet sturdy walking stick at an Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy session. I used that stick to simply beat the stuffing out of some pillows, expressing some old and simple feelings of anger.

How did I feel after that exercise? Simply wonderful. As I told George, my EMDR therapist:

Instead of having a painful tiger inside me, now I am the tiger.

I’ve simply been considering, for over two years, sharing the non-simple song “Simple” from Stephen Sondheim’s 1964 musical Anyone Can Whistle (which features a psychotherapist sorting people into groups).

I prefer the simplicity of a local stage production, sometimes. (“Simple” simply starts at the 4-minute mark in that YouTube video.) If you want the simplicity of “Simple” from the original cast album, here it is, in two simple parts:

If you simply do not have time to watch those videos, I simply understand.

Some more simplicity: there’s no time like the present to do something helpful you’ve been considering for years.

Like simply beating the crap out of some pillows and accepting your own anger.

What do you think of the simplicity of this post?

Sincerely simple thanks to therapy groups, my EMDR therapist, sticks, pillows, Stephen Sondheim, and you — of course!

Day 941: Who would you bring in?

Yesterday, at an EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) session, my therapist George gave me an assignment.

He and I were revisiting a very upsetting incident when I was young and left alone with a lot of pain in a hospital room (which I’ve written about here).  The assignment was this:

Make a list of people —  real and fictional — you can imagine protecting and fighting for you. Next time we meet, we’ll bring them into that hospital room with you.

Here are some people I thought of immediately:

• Fergus (played by Stephen Rea) from the movie The Crying Game.
• Jackie Chan.
• The mother from Terms of Endearment (played by Shirley MacLaine), who screams at the nurses for not giving her dying daughter (Debra Winger) enough pain medication.
• Many of the people who read this blog.

I asked George, “How many people can I bring in to that hospital room with me? I don’t think they’ll all fit.” George told me I could bring as many people as I want.

Now,  I’m really looking forward to next week’s EMDR session.

Let’s see if I have any recent photos on my iPhone of some  people I might bring with me, into that hospital room of so long ago.

That’s a very good start.

What music might I bring in, from YouTube? I thought of the chorus of this song (although many of the lyrics don’t fit):

I also like Bruno Mars’s “Grenade”  because there’s a short version reminding me of a fellow WordPresser:

Here‘s a more relevant song:

Who would you bring in, with you?

Finally, I’m bringing in two photos I took yesterday, before my meeting with George and after a therapy group I facilitated at work:

Now I’d like to bring in thanks to George, Bruno Mars, Buffalo Tom Peabody, the Four Seasons, all the people imagined and real in today’s post,  and — of course! — you, for bringing yourself in, today.

Day 919: The News

Is it news to you that the news in these posts includes what’s news to you and also to me?

New paragraph: What are your associations with “The News”?

Here are some new and old associations of mine, with “The News”:

• When I was growing up, my  family watched and discussed the news.
• I remember Walter Cronkite, Chet Huntley, and David Brinkley delivering the news.
• Recently, I decided to stop watching the news, for my own mental health.
• Yesterday, I heard “I Got the News,” by Steely Dan.

 

Here’s news to me: the Woody Herman Band did a cover version of “I Got the News”!

News flash! As I’m typing this post on my iPhone, Oscar

is chewing on my arm.

The latest news: Taking that photo seemed to stop him.

Before Oscar starts up again, here’s all the news from the photos I snapped yesterday:

                              
What news do you see, in those photos?

More news, before this post becomes old news:

• This morning, I’m facilitating a therapy group in a new room, because there are too many people signed up to fit in my office.
•  This afternoon, I am having an Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy session, to have new, healthier reactions to old memories.
• Tonight, I’m facilitating a planning meeting for my 45th high school reunion.

In case the word “facilitating” is news to anybody, it just means “making an action or process easy or easier.”

Final news of this post: Today, WordPress isn’t facilitating my use of quotes in text the way it usually does. I wonder if that’s headline news to anyone?

New thanks to my family, Walter Cronkite, Chet Huntley, David Brinkley, Steely Dan, Michael McDonald, the Woody Herman band, Oscar, everybody who attends my therapy groups, my high school classmates, the Fenway Park area of Boston, people who practice EMDR, Yarrow and other magicians, dogs, flowers, parkers,  WordPress, facilitators everywhere, and you — of course! — for whatever news you bring here, today.

Day 913: It takes one to know one

When somebody gives me a compliment, I often reply:

It takes one to know one.

I believe that, too. Seeing a positive attribute —  like kindness, generosity, humor, or creativity —  means you have some of that quality, also. Otherwise, you wouldn’t recognize or value it.

Yesterday, at an EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) therapy session. I said

It takes one to know one

in a very different way, about a painful and persistent memory from when I was a child in the hospital.

As I’ve described in a previous post, a very unkind, ungenerous, humorless, and non-creative Doctor Hyatt, in 1963, responded to my telling him I was in excruciating pain by:

• calling me a “spoiled brat”
• refusing to help in any way,
• saying, “You’re just doing this for attention and there are really sick children here!” and
• leaving me alone, in my hospital room.

Then, I was

• still in pain,
• shamed, for expressing pain,
• worried that I had somehow caused  harm to the sick children all around me, and
• horribly confused by why an adult had gotten so angry at me, when  all I had done was try to survive.

In some ways, I have spent my whole life, since then, trying to figure out and let go of that experience.

Yesterday, in EMDR therapy, I revisited that encounter with Dr. Hyatt, and I

• beat the stuffing out of a pillow,
• yelled, “You’re fired!” and
• replied to being labeled a spoiled brat with “It takes one to know one!”

After that session, I hope to be less inclined to fear other people suddenly becoming angry at me, for no reason.

You know?

It took one to know one, yesterday, in these photos I took, one after another:

                                            
It takes one music-lover to know one wonderful piece of music, heard yesterday on one car radio, after that EMDR session:

One performance of Pachelbel‘s Canon on YouTube has taken WAY more than one to know one —  that video has over 24 million views.

One more one thing to know: it takes one blogger to know one (or more) reactions from you, with gratitude.

Knowing thanks to my EMDR therapist, George, to everybody else who contributed to my creating this post, and to you — of course! — for visiting here, today.