What’s wrong with me, that I keep writing posts with similar titles?
What’s wrong with me, that I feel the need to link to those past posts here, here, and here?
What’s wrong with me, that when I read posts I wrote when I was dealing with so many health problems, I cry?
What’s wrong with me, that I’m having so much trouble sleeping as we prepare to move?
What’s wrong with me, that when I write these blog posts, I have to close one eye to see better, unless I’m wearing my glasses?
What’s wrong with me, that I don’t immediately put on my glasses when I start writing these posts?
What’s wrong with me, that I keep catastrophizing about what’s going to go wrong with the move and with our new place?
What’s wrong with me, that I second guess so many of my decisions, including those I’ve made so far in writing this post?
What’s wrong with me, that I’ve taken to heart some critical comments one person made about my writing when I was in college, which I rediscovered when I was going through old papers in the basement?
What’s wrong with me, that I always share photos I took the day before?
What’s wrong with me, that I’ve saved old get-well cards and my son’s old Halloween costumes, like when he dressed up as static cling?
What’s wrong with me, that I try to include relevant music in my posts? What’s wrong with me, that I thought the title of this song was “(What’s wrong with) Peace Love and Understanding?”
What’s wrong with peace, love, and understanding? Nothing.
What’s wrong with ending every post with gratitude, when I’m so grateful to all who help me create these posts and to my readers, too? And I hope you know there’s nothing wrong with you (or with me). ❤
Whenever I facilitate a therapy group, I write all the themes I notice up on the board. Because the discussion is always so rich, the themes I don’t miss will cover the entire board, from top to bottom and side to side. Then, I ask the group, “What’s missing?”
Yesterday, when I asked that question, one of the group members did not hesitate to respond: “Love.” I didn’t miss the opportunity to add “love” to the themes I’d already written on the board.
What’s missing from that photo? Dozens of other themes we discussed yesterday in that therapy group.
What’s missing from this post? Perhaps my other photos from yesterday?
What’s missing from those photos? Captions?
What’s missing for me is an explanation of this photo:
That was an assignment I gave somebody (and myself) yesterday: Whenever you imagine that people are angry at you, visualize that angry face changing into a neutral face. What’s missing for many people is the ability to reality-test their fears that other people are having negative reactions to them.
For me, it’s this: Since I’ll be missing six weeks of work when I go out on medical leave starting September 17, I have not missed opportunities to discuss with my patients how missing people can affect them.
What else is missing from this post?
Gratitude, of course, to all those who helped me create this what’s-missing post and to you, especially, for not being among the missing, today.
Greetings from the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, which has been defying convention for sixty-nine years.
I often follow certain conventions in my blog posts, including choosing a title that relates to a photo I’ve taken the day before. Obviously, I am NOT defying that convention today. However, I’d like to think I’ve been defying convention for almost as long as the Edinburgh Fringe (five and a half years shorter, if I do the maths).
Here are some conventions I defy:
Fearing people who are “different” from me.
Assumptions about how long people born with abnormal hearts (like me) are supposed to live.
Slowing down as I get older.
Judging myself or others.
What conventions do you defy?
Do you see any conventions defied in my other photos from yesterday?
I am unfamiliar with the conventions of shows like The Lady Boys of Bangkok, so I don’t know if they were defying any conventions last night by having people dressed like cats on stage or by using this song as the finale:
If you don’t usually leave a comment, please defy that convention today. If sharing your thoughts here is conventional for you, I suggest you do not defy that convention today.
Many thanks to all who helped me create this defying convention post and to you — of course! — for reading it.
Don’t talk to yourself about this post; instead, share that self-talk in a comment.
I talk to myself all the time about how grateful I am to have this blog. Today is no exception! Talk to yourselves, please, about how much I appreciate you for visiting here today.
Rather than use the words “waitress” and “waiter” these days, I often use the term “wait people.”
You don’t have to wait, people, for me to tell you why. I tend to avoid gender specific labels, like waitress.
If you want more examples of that, you don’t have long to wait, people. Instead of saying “Chairmen,” I’ll say “Chair People.”
You don’t have to wait, people, for me to show you two pictures I took last night, which “Chair People” is now bringing to mind:
Chairs AND people, right?
My posts are like the New England weather. If you want them to change, just wait, people. And you don’t need to wait, people, for some more photos from yesterday.
That’s the first photo I took yesterday, after some people waited to see me for therapy. I saw that at the hospital gift shop, where there’s often a short wait, people. If you want me to explain exactly what a “Littlest Red Sox Fan Den” is, you’ve got a long time to wait, people.
People I work with in therapy sometimes wait, people, before letting go of unhelpful, critical, and judgmental things other people have said about them — like “She is taking up too much space.” Yesterday, people waited no more and let go of some of those internalized, toxic messages. Why wait, people?
Wait, people! I usually don’t swear in these posts, but that was a helpful phrase for a person I waited for in therapy, yesterday.
Good health care is not something people should wait for, people.
Those waiting for fall around here don’t have too much longer to wait, people.
Bostonians need to wait, people, for reasonably priced parking for events. If you ask me what event people were waiting for at Fenway Park last night, you have a long time to wait, people. But wait, people! Our friendly fellow-blogger Mark Bialczak might look that up and tell us, after a short wait.
Speaking of reasonably priced parking, last night I found a free parking space in Harvard Square without a wait, people! I went to Harvard Square to see this new musical.
take several adult education classes, including percussion, jazz theory, cartooning, and “Stand Up Comedy” with Ron Lynch (and if you can’t wait, people, to read more posts about Ron Lynch, see here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here).
I rarely wait, people, to get chocolate or to connect with sweet people.
That’s Lina. She was kind enough, as she waiting on me, to tell me she took the job at L.A. Burdick in Harvard Square because “I like the way people talk about chocolate here.” As I was waiting for her to ring up my purchases, I took this photo:
and said to Lina, “I’m always taking photos for my blog.” Lina didn’t wait to say this, “That’s the way art works.”
I didn’t wait, people, to eat the chocolate Lina sold me …
… while I was waiting for Waitress to begin.
After I saw Waitress, I couldn’t wait, people, to see my boyfriend Michael, who was waiting for me in Harvard Square after helping his brother wait on people for five long days. While I was waiting for Michael last night, I took pictures of places we waited and where wait people had waited on us on our first date, five years ago:
Wait, people! There’s one more thing I want to say, before I publish this Wait People post.
Tonight, after five months of planning and 45 years of some people waiting to see each other, I’m going to my high school reunion.
No more wait, people!
I won’t wait, people, to thank all those people who made this post possible. And special thanks to you — of course! — for waiting, people, for the end of this post.
Do you ever get stuck in a behavior, a feeling, or a thought? Do you ever repeat patterns of acting or thinking you KNOW are neither positive nor helpful?
If you answered “yes,” you are NOT alone in your stuck-ness.
If you answered “no,” could you let the rest of us know how you stick to being unstuck?
Here’s why I’m stuck thinking about getting unstuck today:
Tomorrow I go back to work helping others get unstuck in their lives, after two weeks of being wonderfully unstuck from my regular routines, on vacation.
One article I read while in Social Work graduate school — that has stuck with me for decades — suggested that all mental/behavioral health diagnoses could be replaced with a single, one-word diagnosis: “Stuck.”
While I’ve made a lot of progress in my own life, I still get stuck in certain ways of thinking, reacting, and behaving I KNOW are unhelpful, outdated, and automatic.
Let’s stick to the title of this post — “Getting Unstuck.” How do those of us who know we get stuck start unsticking from old, unhelpful habits of thinking and behaving?
What’s one thing you’ve learned in your life about getting unstuck, even temporarily?
Stick with that question, for a moment. What memories, images, or other associations about getting unstuck are sticking with you, now? If you stick any of those in a comment here, you might help others get unstuck, too.
Because I’m stuck with that promise I made to share something I have learned, in my long life, about getting unstuck, here it is:
When you feel stuck, get in touch with your experience and your intuition and do ONE THING differently. Then, notice the other changes that one simple change creates.
With all of you as my witnesses, I now pledge to do one thing differently when I return to work tomorrow. In order to get unstuck from old and unhelpful post-vacation habits, I am going to consciously allow the many wonderful feelings, thoughts, and images from eight glorious days in Edinburgh, Scotland to stick around, for a long time.
We’ll see how long I can stick with that.
If I had brought my Scottish walking stick back with me to U.S., perhaps that stick would help me stick to sustaining and change-inspiring memories of freedom, creativity, beauty, and growth. However, I left that stick behind on the streets of Edinburgh, stuck with the hope that walking stick might help somebody else — who might need support — move forward through that cobble-stoned city.
Because I have no pictures of that stick, I’ll stick to other images, old and new:
What music might help us all stick to those things that help us get unstuck in our lives?
That startles me, every time, because I sometimes call myself
Idiot!
when I make a mistake.
I get so many emails every day (with or without the word
[Idiot]
in the subject), I sometimes miss responding to one, here and there.
If I call myself
Idiot!
when I miss an email (or for any other reason), that is the cognitive distortion of Labeling, defined as follows:
We generate negative global judgments based on little evidence. Instead of accepting errors as inevitable, we attach an unhealthy label to ourselves or others. For example, you make a mistake and call yourself a “loser,” a “failure,” or an “idiot.” Labels are not only self-defeating, they are irrational, simplistic, and untrue. Human beings are complex and fallible, and in truth cannot be reduced to a label. Consider this: we all breathe, but would it make sense to refer to ourselves as “Breathers”?
Yesterday, in a therapy group at work, we talked, at length, about the cognitive distortion of labeling.
I could label myself
Idiot
right now, because
I can never remember if labeling has two or three l’s,
I didn’t take a picture of the topics we discussed in the therapy group (including labeling), and
I haven’t explained why I’m getting emails with the subject heading
[Idiot]
However, instead of calling myself
Idiot
… I would rather
Forgive myself for inevitable mistakes.
Share this antidote for the cognitive distortion of labeling:
If you label yourself negatively, such as “a fool” or “a loser,” remind yourself that such absolute terms are subjective and meaningless, and that human beings are too complex to be reduced that simplistically. Also, consider the possibility that somebody else may have given you that idea about yourself, and that they were wrong.
Explain that those [Idiot] emails refer to my son’s participation in a local production of Green Day’s American Idiot.
Show you these non-labeled photos I snapped yesterday (like the “blogger” that I am):
How might you label those photos? I would much prefer that you label them, instead of negatively labeling yourself.
Is anybody stumped about how I manage to blog here day after day, season after season, through sickness and health?
I’m not stumped about that, but I am stumped about why there is so much snow still around, during the second week of April in my hometown city of Boston. After months and months, this finally reappeared, yesterday morning:
That’s the stump of our tree, out back.
Have I been stumped by any thing else, recently? I am quite easily stumped, it seems.
Why has it taken me so many years to figure out how to make fried matzo that’s almost as good as my mother’s?
Why are there only three players on my 2015 Boston Red Sox, when I could have sworn they need nine players on the field, this Opening Day?
I’ve also been stumped about why I’ve been seeing Coca-Cola everywhere, lately:
If I hadn’t told you what kind of truck that was, would you have been stumped by that photo?
I am stumped by this new Kids Concourse at Fenway Park. If my sister Ellen reads this post, she’ll probably un-stump me, since she knows all the latest about baseball, the Red Sox, and Fenway.
I am stumped by what that bench is doing at that construction site.
People can really stump themselves with unhelpful negative thoughts. In case you are stumped by that last photo, yesterday at work I invited somebody to transform the thought
I’m not doing enough
to
I want to do more.
Are you stumped by why I thought that was so important?
I wonder if anybody at the hospital cafeteria yesterday was stumped by matzo balls. Are you? I was personally stumped because the soup, at first, was matzo-ball-less.
Don’t be stumped by the matzo-ball-less appearance of that soup. The matzo balls were there, but they were sinkers, not floaters. Are you stumped by the concept of floating vs. sinking matzo balls? If so, don’t stay stumped — ask for help, below.
Speaking of sinking, when I told my friend Jan yesterday that I’ll be having surgery next month for synching my heart ventricles, she looked stumped for a second. She thought I’d said “sinking” instead of “synching.” Because she’s a nurse, she realized her mistake immediately.
In case you’re stumped by what might be sustaining me, right now, while I’m creating this stumped post, here it is:
I’m stumped by why I and others don’t eat more apples, rather than junk food. Apples are so yummy. Are you stumped by that photo, in any way?
Speaking of food …
That was dinner last night, served by my boyfriend, Michael. Is anybody stumped by why I let him do all of our cooking (except for an occasional fried matzo, by me)?
In case you’re stumped by how to move forward, here’s one answer I saw on a wall last night:
As I was taking one step at a time yesterday on my walk to work, I was stumped by how the universe put the PERFECT music into my earphones.
Are you stumped by what that music might be? I would expect you would be stumped, at this point, so allow me to answer that particular stumper.
It was the full version of “Gotta Dance/Broadway Melody” — from my favorite movie musical Singin’ in the Rain — which lasted every step of my way, until I reached the hospital.
I am stumped in my attempts to share that full version with you now, but here’s part of it from YouTube, with the stumpingly amazing Gene Kelly and Cyd Charisse:
I wonder if anybody, yesterday, was stumped by how happy I looked, walking towards work on a Monday morning!
Stumping and stomping good thanks to Gene Kelly, to Cyd Charisse, to my family, to Jan, to people who do their best to let go of thoughts that might stump them in their attempts to heal and grow, to matzo in all its various manifestations, to synching and sinking hearts, to Fenway Park and Red Sox fans everywhere, and to you — of course! — for stumping your way over here, today.
Yesterday, when I created a blog post with my iPhone, it took less time. I also put less effort into adding links to other posts and references like Wikipedia (because I have less knowledge of how to do that from my phone).
While I want each post to be no less than helpful for me and my readers, I would be less than honest if I did not confess that I enjoyed doing less here yesterday.
I’ve been thinking more about doing less, in general, since returning less than three days ago from my one-day-less-than-two-week vacation in a part of the USA that had way less snow and cold than my hometown of Boston.
Using less words about that: Less is more for me, right now.
Yes, I believe I will get more out of life with less
worry,
perfectionism,
stress,
stuff and clutter,
self-doubt,
over-achieving,
focus on everybody else’s needs,
anxiety about taxes,
anxiety about everything else,
assumptions,
rushing,
regrets,
comparisons,
feeling “less than,”
catastrophizing,
all-or-nothing thinking,
mind reading,
fortune telling
Jumping to conclusions,
fear,
projections onto others,
shoulds,
denial,
self-criticism,
avoidance,
rigidity,
close-mindedness,
judgmental thinking, and
automatic, unhelpful habits.
As I mentioned in my introduction to this less-than-perfect post, I am having less success using links when creating blog posts with my phone. Otherwise, I would have taken up less space in that list, by linking to my handout on cognitive distortions.
However, i am less than upset about how this post is turning out, despite my having less experience and proficiency in phone blogging. Sometimes, less experience has its own benefits and advantages.
Before I write more, what would you like less of, in your life?
It’s time for less words and more pictures! Here are less than a dozen photos I took yesterday, as I was focusing more on less:
Harley is interested in less than five new cat toys.
Oscar is less interested than Harley.
There is less access to that newspaper kiosk than there was two months ago.
I find all this snow less than Irresistible. That’s why I also took this next photo, less than a minute after the one above:
While I’d like to see a lot less snow around here, my boyfriend Michael says there is considerably less now than there was two weeks ago (after my son Aaron and I escaped out of Boston, avoiding yet another big blizzard by less than two hours).
One of those signs says less than the other.
Valentine’s Day stuff couldn’t cost much less, could it?
Truth is beauty and beauty is truth (said the poet Keats, with less words). Truthfully though, WHEN will there be the friggin’ beauty of less snow and cold?
This hydrant could do with less cone protection. Do you agree, more or less?
Here’s a “less” song for you all:
Would I be less than polite if I suggest you leave less than three and more than zero comments, below?
Thanks to Elvis (for “A Little Less Conversation,” which I found on YouTube in less time than expected), to Harley, to Oscar, to Aaron, to Michael, and to all those doing more or less what works for them. And, more thanks to you, for being neither more nor less than yourself, here and now.
Yesterday in my office, somebody in a therapy session described how responsibilities and pressures — at work and at home — seemed endless to them. I asked, “Do you ever get a break from all this?” In response, I thought I saw an endless-yard stare — doubt and worry without end.
I knew my day, yesterday, would end. Days always do. At times, though, obligations,* concerns,* needs,* unexpected situations,* and unfinished business* can seem endless. Why? Because there’s always more to do and there are always tasks not being done.
That’s why I invite myself and others to focus on what we are doing (instead of those endless things we aren’t).
Another person I saw in therapy — who has been working on improving self-confidence and the ability to experience and express joy — realized something important. This person recognized that despite the mind’s ability to endlessly worry, worry, worry, worry, worry, worry, worry, this was an important, personal truth:
Considering that bad things have happened to this person in the past, I felt endlessly grateful to witness that non-endless, 5-worded sentence. I’m hoping the positive results of healing realizations (like that one and others) can seem as endless to people as
hopelessness*
despair*
powerlessness*
guilt*
shame*
paralyzing self-doubt*
and other non-helpful thoughts and feelings I observe, which can make anybody’s life seem truly endless.
Here were my endless hopes for what the cardiologist might say to me:
Ann, we looked at the results of this stress test measuring the interactions of you, your unusual heart, exercise, and oxygen and …. congratulations! You and your heart are endlessly strong! Well, actually, nobody’s heart is endlessly strong. But your heart, Ann Koplow, is as strong as anybody else’s! You are a WINNER!
However, despite my endless capacity to hope for the best (and, simultaneously, expect the worst), the cardiologist — rather than sounding like an endless series of endlessly enthusiastic game show hosts* I’ve seen in my many years watching TV* — sounded more like a cautious, consulting cardiologist. That is, he said the tests were inconclusive. Then, he gave me his prediction of what I needed, which was major heart surgery, sooner or later.
I just met this cardiologist, so I don’t know if his expertise or his knowledge of me is as endless as I might want it to be. And, I am meeting, tomorrow, with another new — to me — cardiologist for whom people seem to have endless respect, affection, and faith.
However, before my post today seems endless, I want to tell you that the cardiologist yesterday, in our conversation, used this word
weakened
about my heart.
Words, to me, can be endlessly powerful. I reacted to that word with what felt like an endless amount of fear.* Worry, frustration, resentment, and defiance were all in there, too. I don’t like people using words like that about my trusty heart, which has kept me going for so many days, months, years, and amazing experiences.
So I responded, to the cardiologist last night, with questions. Questions are my endlessly useful weapon/protection/instrument/magic. If you ask anybody who knows me well, how many questions I ask, they might answer
Endless!
The questions I asked the cardiologist, after he used the word “weakened” for my endlessly unusual heart, included:
Do we know for sure that my heart is weakened?
If we were able to compare my heart now to what it was a year or two ago, would it seem weakened?
If my heart is weakening, is that happening gradually or quickly?
The cardiologist responded, to every question I asked, with
That’s a good question
which is something I’ve heard, endlessly, for a very long time. And, despite his kind competency, the cardiologist could not end my endless-seeming uncertainty* and confusion* in our conversation, last night.
Here’s a question I did NOT ask that cardiologist:
If my heart is weakened, WHY DO I FEEL SO FRIGGIN’ STRONG?
As I write this post, I am in the middle of compiling a list* of questions to ask Dr. Michael Landzberg, Congenital Cardiology Expert Extraordinaire, when I see him tomorrow morning, at Boston Children’s Hospital.
I resolve, as my readers are my witnesses, to add that last question to my list, now.
And because of the strength of
that question,
my feelings,
my hopes for the future, and
the tiger
I am deciding to keep my profile picture
as it is — if not endlessly — at least, for now.
Because I endlessly hope to avoid hurting and disappointing others — including inanimate objects like PENs, for heaven’s sake — I shall now present a visual series-with-end, taken yesterday by your endlessly humble photographer:
Appearing, above, are Carla, Danise, and Kathy at Cardiac Rehab AND Penny the Pen (who has been appearing in a non-endless number of New Year posts here, here, here, here, and here).
In that last photo, as you can see, Penny is taking a break on one of the workout machines at cardiac rehab. I — even when my workout on that particular machine seemed endless — did not.
Last night, when I started writing this post (which is coming to an end), I thought of this song:
You can find “The Song That Doesn’t End” by Shari Lewis, Lamb Chop, etc. here on YouTube.
Today, as I was ending this post, I thought of this song, too:
