Day 3074: Death is But a Dream

Yesterday, during Memorial Day in the USA, I watched the PBS documentary “Death is But a Dream.” Here is the official trailer of “Death is But a Dream”:

I plan to tell people I work with who are dying about “Death is But a Dream,” which movingly describes the dreams of terminally ill people.

My life near the ocean is but a dream, as you might see in today’s photos.

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I hope that peace is not just a dream

Twitter is but a dream.

Edinburgh feels like a dream to me now.

Here is the TED talk by Dr. Christopher Kerr of “Death is But a Dream”:

I expect that when I am dying I will dream about my father, my mother, my friends Hillel, Eleanor, Tony, and Michelle, Oscar and several other cats, and maybe some of my patients. I find this dreamily comforting, here and now.

What are your thoughts and feelings about this death-is-but-a-dream post?

Thanks to all who help me fulfill my dream of blogging every day that I am still on this earth, including YOU.

Day 3049: Trust

Because of experiences in my past, I sometimes find it difficult to trust. I trust that I am not alone in that.

Trust — in myself and in others — is especially important when I’m doing something new, like traveling to Nashville on my own in three days.

Do you see trust in my photos for today?

Harley, like the rest of us, needs to feel safe enough to trust.

Here’s “How to build (and rebuild) trust” with Frances Frei.

I trust that you will find value and inspiration in that TED talk.

Please trust your thoughts and feelings enough to express them in a comment, below.

Trust me to end these daily posts with gratitude for all who trust my blog, including YOU.

Day 3029: Talk

Let’s talk about today’s title, which is inspired by this …

… and this:

Let’s talk about my other images for today.

Let’s talk about my trip to Nashville. I hope to

• meet up with my friend Jenn who lives six hours away,
• meet up with fellow blogger Christopher Waldrop,
• explore new places,
• enjoy great food,
• perform some of my original songs at open mics, and
• be around people without fear.

Here’s some talk about the best things to do in Nashville:

Please talk to me about Nashville (or anything else) in a comment, below.

As always, I talk about gratitude when I end each of these daily blog posts.

Day 3027: Therapy

This daily blog is therapy for me and, I hope, therapy for you.

Lately, in therapy, I’ve been asking some patients if a letter from a therapist would be helpful. For example, yesterday I wrote somebody this one:

To whom it may concern:

Please get your act together or leave ______ alone.

Signed,

Her therapist

My patient plans to put that on a t-shirt before we meet again in person for therapy.

Are any of today’s images therapy for you?

The Daily Bitch has her own ideas about therapy.

Travel used to be therapy for me but I’m really out of practice, like all of us. Therefore, I’m thinking of traveling to Nashville in May for a few days, which leads me to this:

To whom it may concern:

Any ideas about fun things to do and great places to eat in Nashville? Also, is the Fairlane a good place to stay?

Signed,

Your blogger

Singing along to music is great therapy, so try singing along to this as loudly as possible no matter who is listening:

Gratitude is therapy, so thanks to all who help me do therapy every day, including YOU!

Day 3019: Terrified

Yesterday, I was thinking about how terrified I’ve been over the last five years, starting with medical experts in May 2016 insisting I needed something that had terrified me for decades — open heart surgery. Terrified as I was, I survived that, only to encounter U.S. political developments that terrified the world as well as many personal losses.

Now that I’m feeling safer, I’m allowing myself to admit how terrified I really was, letting go of terror I’ve been holding, day by day.

Here are my images from yesterday, including photos of an often terrified cat.

Here is “Terrified” by Childish Gambino:

Here is “Terrified” coupled with Disney’s “The Haunted House.”

Please don’t be terrified about commenting, below.

No matter how terrified I am, I always remember to express gratitude, so thanks to all, including YOU.

Day 3011: What would you like to clear from your system?

Yesterday, on Twitter and Facebook, I got this out of my system:

Responses included

• worrying,
• anxiety,
• guilt,
• perfectionism,
• panicking,
• urgency,
• uncertainty,
• repression,
• resentment,
• too much busyness, and
• my own prejudices.

Every day, I clear those from my system by blogging first thing in the morning.

Now I’m going to clear images from my iPhone system by sharing them with you.

Decades ago, when I was dealing with upsetting medical news about my very unusual heart, I went to a percussion class and cleared fear, anger, resentment, panicking, uncertainty, and worry from my system by wildly drumming along to “The Dancer” by Stanley Clarke.

If you want to clear unexpressed thoughts or feelings from your system, you can do so in the comments section, below.

As always, I’ve got a lot of gratitude in my system.

Day 3008: Safe enough spaces

Yesterday, I mentioned safe enough spaces at the end of my post. I deliberately did not write “safe spaces” because no spaces are completely safe. In every space, we take risks if we expose our vulnerability and humanity. The more we do that, the more we make the space safe enough for others.

I try to make my Coping and Healing groups safe enough spaces, and yesterday people felt safe enough to share conflicting opinions about getting the COVID vaccines. We all survived our differences and people felt safe enough to stay connected with each other.

Later in the day, I felt safe enough to finally make it to the safe enough sand bar I can see from my home (and which I felt safe enough to write about earlier this week in this post).

Many times, I have tried to get to that safe enough sand bar by unsuccessfully trying to locate its starting point across the safe-enough bay. Yesterday, I had the brilliant and long-overdue idea to walk through some water during low tide and access the sand bar from its end point near me.

Instead of telling myself, “WHY DIDN’T YOU THINK OF THIS BEFORE?”, I made my mind a safe enough space by enjoying the experience, moment by moment.

I hope you feel safe enough to accompany me on this adventure through safe enough spaces.

I discovered that I had been SO CLOSE to discovering the beginning point of the sand bar on a previous exploration, but had turned back when I saw that “no trespassing sign, which made the space not safe enough.

If I had felt safe enough to keep exploring past that scary sign (which referred to something else), I would have discovered the beginning of the sand bar months ago. I feel safe enough to share, here and now, that I trust my process and am happy it happened exactly the way it did.

Do you see safe enough spaces in the rest of my images today?

I assume that this is a safe enough space to share that I am Jewish and that I will start celebrating Passover in an unconventional way starting at sundown tonight.

The Israel Philharmonic was in a safe enough space to create this Passover greeting for 2021:

Contrast this with last year’s greeting from separate safe-enough spaces:

I invite you to leave a comment in the safe enough space, below.

I always feel safe enough to express gratitude to those who help me create these safe enough posts, including YOU!

Day 2898: Waiting for the other shoe to drop

Over the years, I have heard many people say they are waiting for the other shoe to drop, meaning “to await a seemingly inevitable event, especially one that is not desirable.”

If you’re waiting for more information to drop about “waiting for the other shoe to drop,” here it is:

I know I wrote about waiting for the other shoe to drop before, here at the Year(s) of Living Non-Judgmentally. I’m not going to wait to drop the sole important point of one of those posts, as follows:

Waiting for the other shoe to drop is another form of fortune-telling and catastrophizing, human cognitive distortions we all do. When I realize that I am waiting for the other shoe to drop, I ask myself, “What am I so afraid of? It’s just a SHOE.”

If you are waiting for my other images of the day to drop, here they are:

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I’m sick of waiting for my 2019 tax refund to drop, so I’ll be waiting on hold today for the other shoe to drop about that.

Here’s Roger Bartlett with “Waiting for the Other Shoe to Drop.”

While I’m waiting for your comments to drop, I’ll drop some more gratitude on you.

Day 2894: One Thing That Frightens You

These days, it’s difficult to identify one thing that frightens me, because there are so many frightening things out there.

What frightens me on this day includes

• the increase in COVID cases and death,
• COVID deniers,
• anti-maskers,
• large gatherings of people,
• systemic racism,
• climate change,
• the state of the world,
• the state of my country,
• crazy conspiracy theories,
• the number of people who believe crazy conspiracy theories,
• Trump’s increasingly outrageous behaviors, and
• people who do not call out outrageous behaviors.

Is there one thing that frightens you in my latest photos?

Has that cow been frightened off of its base?

Things that frighten you, me, and others have inspired my new song, entitled “What’s Your Fear, My Dear?” for my frighteningly ambitious new project, Therapy: The Musical. I plan to work on my first musical during the dark and frightening weeks of the New England winter.

One thing that does NOT frighten me is sharing my ideas here, so here are some lyrics from “What’s Your Fear, My Dear?”

What’s Your Fear, My Dear?

by Ann Koplow

What’s your fear, my dear?

I really want to hear, my dear.

Do not fear sharing that

Now and here.

Flying?

It’s not so much a fear of flying

As it is a fear of dying

or falling too far,

Or of the danger of how high up you are.

Public speaking?

That’s a fear of your voice squeaking

Of your confidence leaking

In front of them all,

As your dignity suffers a fall.

Dying?

Well, my dear, I would be lying

If I said I wasn’t afraid of that too.

Does it help if I join that with you?

© Ann Koplow, 2020

Here’s “Why I do something everyday that scares me,” a 2016 TED talk by Emma Van Der Merwe at the University of Edinburgh.

I fear you will miss out if you don’t watch that video.

I assume gratitude is one thing that doesn’t frighten you, so thanks to all who help me do one blogging thing each day, including YOU!

Day 2735: The light

As I’ve said to several people lately, “I think I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. I just hope it’s not a train coming in the opposite direction.”

Can you see the light in my photos from yesterday?

Here‘s “I Saw the Light” by Todd Rundgren:

I look forward to seeing the light in the comments section, below.

There’s always the light of gratitude at the end of these posts (and I don’t think it’s a train coming in the other direction!).