Day 2339: Fun for the whole fam

When I was at Marshall’s the other day with my fam but not with my fam-ous cell phone, I took this photo with a fam member’s phone:

The next day, I saw this whole fam of snowy egrets having fun close to where I live with my fam.

I didn’t want to disturb the fun of that whole fam, so I hope I got close enough for you to have fun with those photos.

Here are some fun photos of MY fam:

 

How about sharing a fun photo or story about your fam, below? And remember, it’s your choice who is part of your fam.

Here’s a whole fun song about fam:

Fun thanks for being part of my whole blogging fam, here and now.

Day 2170: How to get back to sleep in the middle of the night

If, like me, you often wake up in the middle of the night and have trouble getting back to sleep, try this before you go to bed:

1. Identify what might preoccupy your mind if you did wake up in the middle of the night (like challenging relationships, unfinished business, politics, heath issues, the holidays, ghosts of the past, the news, an upcoming event, money, food,  your inadequacies, ugliness, global warming, animals, conspiracy theories, etc.).
2. Write down one achievable action for each one.
3. If you can’t identify an achievable action, acknowledge that the situation is beyond your control.
4. Go to sleep.
5. When you wake up, remember that you’ve got plans that won’t work in the middle of the night, so there’s no need for your brain to engage.
6. If your awake-in-the-middle-of-the-night brain comes up another issue you didn’t anticipate, put it on the list of “Things to Do Tomorrow.”
7. Go back to sleep.

I hope none of my recent photos keep you up at night.

Here‘s something else you can try if you can’t get back to sleep at night:

 

You could also focus on gratitude. Sincerely, gratitude always helps.

 

 

Day 2135: Healing factors

A week ago Sunday, I attended a wonderful talk  by J. Scott Rutan, a highly esteemed writer, teacher, and practitioner of group psychotherapy. During the talk — offered by the Northeastern Society for Group Psychotherapy —   Scott handed out a list of healing factors, and invited everybody to rank the healing factors in order.

This was a difficult task, because all of those healing factors are very important. However, I had no difficulty identifying what healing factor I rely on the most: Hope.

I hope it’s okay if I quote from my first blog post with “hope” in the title, written almost exactly three years ago today:

I hope I can express, in my first post about hope, how important hope is for human beings who struggle, cope, bruise, and heal.

I hope you understand that I’m saying that hope is important to all of us.

Hope is:

• a word that comes up in therapy, every day.
• something I hold for every person I encounter.
• according to Emily Dickinson, “the thing with feathers.”

I hope there’s hope in the three photos I took yesterday.

Michael loves raccoons, so I bought him this mug yesterday.  I hoped that he’d like it and he did!

 

 

I hope we all survive the coming winter and don’t swallow too much snow.

 

 

I hope Scott Rutan, everyone else who helps me create these blog posts, and my readers know how thankful I am for them.

I hope this week brings good news to all who hold hope for the USA.

I hope you find hope in this:

I hope you comment about your own healing factors, below,  and accept more thanks from me.