Day 3239: What helps you feel safer?

Last night, as I was feeling safer, I asked this question on Twitter:

What helps me feel safer includes:

• connecting with those I love,
• expressing my fears without fear,
• being appropriately cautious,
• recognizing that perfect safety is not attainable,
• trying out new things,
• committing to the present moment,
• letting go of needless worry,
• self care,
• laughing,
• music,
• being aware of my surroundings,
• remembering how I have survived unsafe situations,
• accepting all my feelings,
• compassion,
• forgiveness,
• self-care, and
• cats.

It also helps that today is World Kindness Day.

Here’s what I find on YouTube when I search for “what helps you feel safer?”

What helps you feel safer?

I believe that gratitude helps people feel safer, so thanks to all who help make this blog-space safer, including YOU!

Day 3174: Nagging questions

I’ve been asking lots of nagging questions lately, including these:

• will you help me do this thing I can’t seem to do on my own?
• can you help me do that now?
• when are you going to replace your missing vaccination card?
• why are technology “improvements” usually so disruptive?
• have you turned on your new phone yet?
• should I go to my high school reunion this Saturday?
• when will people in-person stop looking like germs to me?
• what did so-and-so mean when they said that?
• why does the convection oven never cool down?
• why do I worry so much about stupid things?
• does worry ever help?
• when will I feel safe again?
• what would my late father (born on today’s date) say about the current state of the world if he were alive now?
• why do the cats keep nagging me to feed them when I just fed them?
• what are your plans for today?
• what’s for dinner?

I don’t like being a nag (especially to my son and my husband), but I have all these nagging questions!

I’ve also been asking nagging questions on Twitter. Indeed, one person there called my questions “nosey” (although not about any of these questions):

Here are two more nagging questions: which photo do you like best and why?

Apparently I’m not the only one with nagging questions.

Do you listen to the music I share here on this blog? I don’t mean to nag, but you might really enjoy these two tunes about questions (found here and here on YouTube).

Are you going to comment on this post? When?

No matter what the nagging question, gratitude always seems like a good answer to me, so thanks to all who help me share my nagging questions, including YOU!

Day 3085: What’s the theme of this post?

Very rarely, I look at all the images I’ve gathered during a 24-hour period and have trouble coming up with an underlying or overlying theme. When that happens, I turn to my readers and ask “What’s the theme of this post?”

Who wants to play?

Maybe the theme today is “favorite things”?

In case that’s a possibility, here’s John Coltrane playing “My Favorite Things.”

What do you think the theme of this post is? There are no wrong answers, so please leave a comment, below.

One overlying or underlying theme in all my posts is gratitude, so thanks to all who help me blog every day, including YOU.

Day 2459: Above all

Above all my other photos from yesterday, this one stood out to me:

Above all, we need to respect each other.

Above all, a good enough sense of safety allows us to trust other people and ourselves.

Above all of us is the sky.

Above all, I need to get to work on time today so I can do individual and group therapy for my patients, so here are all my other photos from yesterday:

 

Above all , which is your favorite photo from that batch?

Above all, I’m focusing on this one …

… because I used that image yesterday to reduce the power of a critical person, whom I used to call a “dragon.”  I figured if I could imagine them as a little yappy dog (instead of a dragon who can wreak lots of destruction and fiery havoc),  they would have less power over me. Above all, this technique worked!

Above all, what music should I choose for today’s post?

Above all, I assume my readers might choose Imagine by John Lennon.

 

Above all, I can’t resist also sharing this:

Above all, if you don’t like that, you can always turn it off.

Above all, please accept my gratitude, here and now.

 

 

Day 2147: Bravo!

At our Airbnb home-away-from-home in NYC, I noticed this on a signed photograph:

It says, “Bravo! Great voice!”

In the groups I observed and participated in yesterday (at the Eastern Group Psychotherapy Society annual conference), I heard variations of “Bravo!” when people were brave, authentic, went beneath the surface, and gave great voice to their thoughts and feelings.

What helped people do all this in those groups? Perhaps it was this clear message (which I saw at the church where the conference took place):

“You are safe here.”

Bravo!

Do any of my other photos from yesterday deserve a “Bravo!” ?

Here‘s the Goedicke Concert Etude, played by Julia Bravo:

Thanks to all who helped me create today’s post and — Bravo! — to YOU.

Day 1955: For Safety

As a psychotherapist, I’m concerned about people’s safety.

I work at a Boston hospital, where others also look out for your safety.

For our safety, I wish world leaders would use the negotiating table.

For my safety, I observe what’s going on around me, like this:

 

For our safety and sanity, we’re using our seaside table.

Here’s an old advertisement for safety  I safely remember.

What do you do for safety?

Appreciation and gratitude increase my sense of safety,  so thanks to all who helped me create today’s post for safety  and — of course! — thanks to you.

 

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 1474: Safety

Lately,  people around me seem very concerned about safety.

Last night, safety was the main topic in my therapy group.

Here’s how I expressed myself about safety:

Somebody else in the group made a “safety crown.”

How would you express yourself about the topic “safety”?

I think the other photos I took yesterday relate to safety, too.

 

I guess I feel enough safety on this blog to show myself, open-heart surgery scar and all.

I’m late for cardiac rehab,  so safety dictates that I end my post here, with one more photo.

 

 

Day 1228: Danger

Yesterday morning, when I was facilitating a therapy group, I drew this picture

which shows a fish in danger.

Yesterday afternoon, when I was in historic Lexington, Massachusetts, USA, I took these two photos, one after another:

 

For many reasons, I tend to notice potential danger, in the present and in the near future.  Do you?

In my personal and professional lives, I spend a lot of time trying to figure out how much danger people are in, as well as how to negotiate and respond to fear. It makes sense for us to be Fearful of Danger, but how can we accurately assess how much danger we’re in, during any particular moment?  Fear  of danger can save us to live another day;  it can also paralyze and imprison us.

What dangers are you in danger of seeing in my other photos from yesterday?

 

 

 

With all the danger, destruction, death, and dragons we deal with, I sometimes suggest this helpful phrase:

It’s safer than it feels.

Is there any danger of my forgetting to  express gratitude at the end of this blog post?

 

 

Day 109: 7:09 AM These guys are turning my world into a violent movie

I live in one of those communities, shut down, right now, by the escaped Boston Marathon bomber being on the loose.

I’m writing this as I’m watching this on TV.  I assume many of you share this with me — seeing these scenes.

It’s hard to feel safe right now.  Again, as on Monday, I am getting messages from people who are NOT here, asking me if I’m okay.  I appreciate people reaching out.  That does help.

I just got a phone call from the local police, telling us not to leave our homes.  I am picturing this guy, roaming the streets, becoming more desperate, perhaps about to break in to my home.

My bf came downstairs, while I was in the kitchen, and I jumped. I jumped out of involuntary fear.

Every place that is shut down, right now, is a place where I’ve lived, worked, or gone to school.

As I am writing this, the media are showing “an unfolding scene” in Kenmore Square, another place I’ve spent many, many normal, pre-2013 Marathon Day hours.

The whole world is watching, as the media — right now — is filming this “movie”, this story, filled with speculation and fear, with “tension so high” (I am quoting the TV commentator, as I am watching too, right now).   I’m in a movie I didn’t choose — that I didn’t want — right now.

I recognize all the scenes they are showing, on TV —  as these two guys have been wreaking more havoc– these guys, whose movie I am apparently in, right now.

I’ll say it.

This feels traumatic, on some level.  This is — in the moment — changing my world in ways I cannot control. It is making my world look different  It is making my world — all these familiar touchstones of my entire daily life — look dangerous.

I am in the first stage of trauma, I guess. Shock.  Not understanding.  Trying to make meaning, in the midst of violent chaos which also FEELS VERY FAMILIAR, but in a new way. What’s being reported by the media — more bombings, shooting, escapes, chases — are familiar to me from movies.  The location, the geography, the visuals, are super familiar to me, from every day life.

I don’t know about you, but I get really affected, when I see a local scene I recognize in a friggin’ movie.

This is new, though. Not sure how it’s going to affect me.  I am aware of lots of people, all around me, being affected — being changed by a new experience.

This will have an effect, for a while.  I’ll see it in myself, in others who live where I live. I’ll see it, in my work, as a psychotherapist, who works at one of the affected hospitals.

I don’t know how this story is going to end, but I do know that I’ll be seeing the effects.

I know that I — and lots and lots of other people — will be trying to make meaning of this, in order to regain a sense of “enough safety.”

Like I am trying to make sense, right now.

I wrote on my Facebook page, earlier this week, the following:  “I’m grateful I live in a world where I can blog. Really.”  I wonder if people knew what I meant?  I wonder if that makes sense to you, right now.

When I was working with people in groups, yesterday, we were making lists of “What Helps Right Now.”  People named these things:  “Distracting,”  “Helping Others,” “Taking Care of Myself,”  “Not watching TV”, “Connecting with others.”

My addition to the list?  “Writing about it.”

Here.

Thanks for reading.