Day 2501: Everything you’re handed

Everything you’re handed includes today’s blog and this image I captured with my hand  yesterday:

Ready to be handed my thoughts about that?

• Eeek!  A talking napkin!
• I appreciate statements that start with “Please.”
• I try to compost when I can and feel guilty when I don’t.
• Unless somebody hands me a napkin, I often forget to get one.
• Something I have in common with my teacher, friend, and  comedian’s comedian Ron Lynch is that napkins don’t like to stay in our laps.  During a restaurant meal, I often have to reach down with my hand and retrieve an escaped or escaping napkin.
• You have to hand it to me: I’m a creative name-dropper (and napkin-dropper).

My hands have now rewritten the title to this post several times …

Day 2537: Everything we hand you

Day 2537: Everything I hand you

Day 2537: Everything I’m handed

Day 2537: Compostable

Day 2537: Hand outs

Day 2537: Everything

… before returning to my original title.  As my fiancé Michael says,  “First guess, best guess.”

Now you’re going to be handed more images my hand, heart, and mind have chosen.

 

Sometimes, everything you’re handed can feel like too much. Please keep these thoughts at hand when you’re overwhelmed:

• Shame and self-judgment don’t help.
• This too shall pass.
• You are not alone.

Here‘s Marc Cohn with “The Things We’ve Handed Down.”

Now it’s time to hand you my gratitude for all who help me create these posts with my own two hands, every day.

Day 2398: I have the right

I have the right to share these opening lines from an email I got from the Edinburgh Free Fringe organizers:

Some of you think you are woefully under-prepared. Some of you think you’ve got it in the bag. Some of you might be right, but I can’t say which.

I have the right to  think I am woefully under-prepared for my Free Fringe Show  (Group “Therapy” with Ann) AND that I’ve got it in the bag,  all in the space of one day.

I have the right to be thinking about rights, here and now, since in yesterday’s two Coping and Healing groups we took turns choosing from The Bowl of Rights:

I have the right to appreciate all the personal rights that were chosen in yesterday’s group, including the two pictured above.  I don’t know if it’s right to use The Bowl of Rights in my Edinburgh Fringe show, but if I do, it’s only right that I use a better bowl.

I have the right to share my other photos from yesterday.

I had the right yesterday to dub the white board in the group room “B.O.I”. — which stands for Board Of Importance. I’m not going to have a Board of Importance in Edinburgh to list the important themes that get shared during my show, which may or may not contribute to whether my show will fail or succeed.

I have the right to share these other important words from that Free Fringe email:

We all get different things out of the fringe, but if you’re looking to get rich or famous you will be disappointed. The best way to approach it is as an experience. If you treat your co-performers and your venue with respect, you will have it returned, and consequently enjoy that experience more.

I have the right to all my feelings (including excitement, disappointment, fear,  hope, and joy) and so do you.

I have the right to share this Fight for Your Right song by the Beastie Boys.

Coincidentally, Michael and I danced to this righteous Beastie Boys song last night:

You have the right to express your thoughts and feelings in a comment, below.

I have the right to express my gratitude for all who help me create these daily posts and — of course! — for YOU.

Day 1926: Taking steps

Yesterday, I started taking steps for a fitness challenge where I work.  I’ve committed to taking at least 10,000 steps every day for the next month.

While I was taking steps yesterday, I was also taking pictures. Now I am taking steps to share those photos.

After taking more than 3,000 steps to get to my office, I took the step to indicate my mood on my new feeling chart.  If you take a few blogging steps back, you’ll see here (in the post Day 1923: Accepting all feelings) that the feeling chart is something people created in a therapy group last week. On Monday morning,  after taking all those steps, I was feeling hope.

After taking about 1,000 more steps at work, I took the step of completing a required online training  — “Security Smart: Keeping Yourself Safe in the Workplace — which included taking steps to deescalate when people are upset.

After taking steps to help many people with many problems (while taking approximately 2,000 more steps around the hospital), I took a step at the end of the day to temporarily change my mood chart.

I believe that taking steps to express and share feelings helps to deescalate those feelings.

After my long work day, I took 3,000 more steps to walk back to my car. At about 9 PM while I was taking steps at home, I reached my daily goal of taking 10,000 steps!

While I was taking steps yesterday, I heard “Steppin’ Out” sung by Kurt Elling.

 

Today, I’ll be taking steps to

• go to work,
• provide individual and group therapy at the Primary Care Practice of a Boston hospital,
• treat people with respect,
• listen to music I love, and
• gather photos for tomorrow’s blog.

If you’d like to take steps to leave a comment, please step down below this blog.

As always, I’m taking steps to express my gratitude to all who help me take the necessary steps to create this daily blog, including YOU.

 

Day 239: Days when confused

I’ve been told that I tend to work towards the positive — hope, connection, possibilities, achievable next steps.

I also like to invite the other side of the positive — let’s call it “the negative,” for now. (I sometimes prefer other terms, like “the shadow” or “disowned feelings”) (including disappointment, which I wrote about here).

We can’t have the positive without the negative, right?

Light is meaningless without dark to help define it.

Up doesn’t exist as a concept without down.

We wouldn’t have the word “day” if not for night. (I suppose that’s arguable, but it sounds good, doesn’t it?)

Okay, I think I’ve made enough deep (if not completely air-tight) justifications to focus on less positive things in this blog today.

Throughout this year, I’ve written some posts about “accelerated learning,” focusing on valuable lessons I’ve been accumulating (including here, here, and here).

Today, I’d like to focus on things I don’t know. Things I can’t seem to figure out. Things that confuse me.

Ready?

Things That Confuse Me

by Ann

1. How busy everybody seems to be (including me). This confuses me when I’m thinking that a lot of the busy work we’re doing isn’t (a) necessary, (b) helpful, (c) as important as we think it is, or (d) what we really want to be doing.
2. Modern packaging. There are soooo many sealed products that I just can’t seem to get open without a swiss army knife or a team of experts on hand. (New occupation for the future: Personal Packaging Manipulation Consultant.)

For example:

At this point in the blog post — rather than discussing endless examples of packages I am confused by and have trouble opening — I will go to the solution-oriented side, and share something I saw on-line this morning:

18 Everyday Products You’ve Been Using Wrong

Even though that title is using a “You Statement — rather than an “I-statement” — thus easily putting me on the defensive ….

… that title is absolutely correct. I have been using all of those things wrong, dammit!

But, on the other hand, look at all I learned today.

Thanks to geeksugar (for the photo and post about opening up clamshell packaging), BuzzFeed, friends on Facebook and elsewhere, and to you, of course, for reading today.