Getting to Know You; Getting to Know All About You.

How do you learn about another person when first you meet them?  I have seen many talented and engaging clients who are trying to meet partners for fun and romance.  Often they have trouble figuring out how to know if a date is right for them.   So here are a few conversational questions – not guaranteed to find the person of your dreams, but perhaps helpful in finding our who you’re having dinner with!

• What was the last thing you did “for the first time?”
• What was the last thing you did that you’ll never do again?
• If a good friend wanted to be critical of you, what could they say that would be at least somewhat true?
• If we went on an ideal date what kind of shoes would you  be wearing?
• What is something that only people who have spent a lot of time around you know about you?
• If you were a body of water, would you be an ocean, a river or a lake?  And why?
• What is something you’re proud of that almost nobody knows about?
• What is something you know that I don’t know about you?
• If you could be a different kind of creature, real or imagined, what would it be?  And why?
• What are some of your favorite quotes?

These are questions meant to reveal a person’s thoughts and inner reflections.  They can also be used in job interviews when you want different kinds of information about prospective employees.  “Thank you” to the clients who contributed questions, and to Henning and Showkeir Associates (www.henning-showkeir.com) for their suggestions.

If you have any good “illuminating” questions, I’d appreciate hearing them so i can pass them on to others.

Zugunruhe!

ZUGUNRUHE—  “When a change comes, some species feel the urge to migrate, they call it zugunruhe, a pull of the soul to a far off place. following a scent in the wind, a star in the sky. The ancient message comes calling the kindred to take flight, and gather together.”

Are you beginning, maybe only just beginning to hear the call to follow a rising star into a transformational life change?  I don’t mean visiting a new restaurant or hiking a new trail, but rather the draw to a way of thinking, feeling and being that is fundamentally different from your past.  This emotional state can feel much the same as does generalized anxiety:  a feeling of restlessness, disaffection or dissatisfaction mixed with an undefined yet compelling anticipation.   Sometimes anxiety is fear-based, while other times it may be due to that heightened mental and emotional state that comes just before we stand up to start on a new path toward a new future.  To leap into a worlk of what could be.

If you’re having difficulty deciding whether your anxious feelings arise from avoiding the unknown or from embracing the unknown, perhaps it’s time to schedule some time for a clarifying conversation with a qualified therapist.  You can discover the source of your feelings and get support to move toward resolution… and  toward peace of mind and self-determination.

May you walk safely and confidently by the light of your star.

Tools for Intentional Living: ready or not…

In the game of life, are you playing  “hide” or are you playing “seek”?

Too often one can slowly retreat from trying to intentionally fashion a life they desire and rather begin to live the life that is left over when trying ends.  All explanations become external, as in he made me betray him or they made me lose my confidence at work.  When this happens, when we export the responsibility for our actions and hide from the responsibility for our decisions, we have given up one of the precious things about being alive:  the self-responsibility- and therefore the capacity- to change and improve our lives though intentional conduct.   Hiding becomes a way of living, and a way of explaining why we are not living the life we desire. 

 Seeking on the other hand requires that we first understand and accept that we are indeed responsible for ourselves.   It can be emotionally challenging to truly embrace this responsibility.  After all, our lives may be wanting for many things – love, health, or wealth – that we feel we deserve.  Yet once we take responsibility for NOT having these things we are instantly empowered to actively and intentionally seek, for now we are living intentionally and can harness the personal power and energy to accept our failures as our own, learn from them, then move past them to build new pathways to success.  This does NOT  mean that there are no external influences that may impact our efforts; only that we can, if we choose, take responsibility for the one element that is actually under our control:  ourselves.

Changing ones life begins with accepting responsibility for the way you live now.  Yes, others may have had a negative influence, but some people have also had a positive influence on you.  The most powerful influence has been your own.  By becoming more aware of your power to make things better, or worse, for yourself and those around you, you can turn toward the positive and make the difference.  You can Live Intentionally.

President Barack Obama told us this many times as he showed us its powerful truth:
“Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.”

In the game of life, choose to seek rather than hide.

Medical Procedures: healing hands that sting the spirit.

Most of us visit a physician from time to time for general physical exams, and occassionally for specific procedures.  These visits may occur infrequently and be absorbed as “glancing blows” to our sense of personal privacy and body integrity.   We are able to give ourselves over to being touched, sometimes gently and sometimes not, and while doing so we may enter a special sort of mental zone wherein we are there but not completely.  

At other times, due to a serious acute problem or a chronic condition requiring regular treatment we may need regular and even daily medical intervention.  This then requires us to enter that special zone frequently, and perhaps even stay there for long periods.  Going through a series of hands-on medical exams and procedures…to be touched intimately yet impersonally… can be a deeply dehumanizing experience.  Even when our handlers are aware of their impact on us and strive to be as gentle and compassionate as possible, and to  “normalize” our experience, it may leave us feeling as if our “self” has been quietly removed, displayed, altered and taken apart in some unexplainable way, then put back together… but not quite in the same way, and a little more tattered each time.

Over the course of a series of treatments, manipulations, pokings, prodding and producing samples, you may feel your spirit deflating, like air seeping from a balloon.   You can emotionally “immunize” yourself – to reduce the impact of on-going medical examinations and procedures – by learning relaxation techniques that might include breathing exercises, visualizations and meditation.  You can also relieve some of the stress of these visits by visiting a qualified mental health professional and talking about your experiences. 

Mind and body do work together, play together, learn together and suffer together.  If  you need medical attention that may leave your mind and emotions tattered, call your psychotherapist when you call your medical provider, and engage the healing spirit for both your body and your mind.  They’ll be glad you did.

Need a romantic movie tonight?

Many couple have date nights that are planned because they are so busy that they realize they must also work at their relationship the way they work at their job.  If you’re looking for a movie you both can enjoy, try Julie and Julia, playing now in theaters. It’s sweet, entertaining, and filled with romance – for both the people and food.  And it has one of my favorite songs playing at just the right time in the story:  Time After Time.  And I’m talking about the one written by Sammy Cahn in 1947 and performed by Sinatra- though not in this movie – among many others.  Sorry! to you Cyndi Lauper fans but this version of a song by the same title as hers really is more romantic to some of us 😉

Enjoy the show.  Enjoy the music.  Et Bon Appetit!

Dr. J’s Therapy Blog- name change!

Hello readers.  I’ve changed the name of my blog, mostly because there was another blog with nearly the same name and they were getting confused when readers tried to find my blog, and probably his as well.  So now dr. j’s therapy blog is called Tools for Intentional Living.  If you have a better suggestion let me know!

Thanks for reading, and please feel free to send me comments.

I’m A Live Wire…

“I’m a live wire, but with no insulation!”

This meaningful and insightful statement, said amusingly and bittersweetly, was made by a client who lamented her difficulty in enduring the emotional turmoil that she felt seemed to “find” her when she least expected it.  She realized the she was not emotionally strong enough or secure enough to face the challenging consequences of her tumultuous and impetuous life style choices, yet revelled in the freedom to make these choices and so did – over and over.  After months of therapy, in which she worked hard to use her insights in a way that was more self-affirming, she was able to begin making changes in her thinking and behavior that led to a more satisfying, if slightly less exhilarating, life style. 

It’s important to understand that insight does not necessarily lead to change!  She had at least moderate insight when she first came to therapy, but had not yet learned how to utilize what she knew of herself in a way that would help her make positive changes in her conduct.  

If you think you know yourself yet find that you are having difficulty with personal and professional relationships due to impulsive behavior and/or excessive substance use, consider enhancing and strengthening your self-knowledge and starting on a path of recovery by getting the support and guidance of a qualified therapist.

The First Snowfall of Impossible Change

There are those moments in each of our lives when first we have a glimmer of change…

… in ourselves, deep within where the meanings are; and perhaps even in others – though there are limits to what we can see and know of them.   These can be disconcerting and challenging times, these early drifts of impending evolution which we sense are about to wash over us so softly and yet so completely that they leave a new landscape upon which we will then walk… traveling  through our life differently for ever after.  Often these glimmers are accompanied by a nagging fear that implores us to hold onto the familiar and find solace in what we already know, or at least believe.  It’s then that we are at our most vulnerable for not letting go, for not stepping into a new source of self-illumination that reveals us to ourselves.  Saying “yes” to new possibilities lifts the curtain of denial that all too often shrouds our vision of our potential.

All of us are capable of anything, of everything, and it in those moments of self-seeing that can be found the path to new forms of joy and contentment, to new versions of sadness and acceptance and to new methods for giving, receiving, sacrifice and transformation. 

Embrace the changes as you would accept having to turn on the lights as you enter a dark room.  You can choose to live in one room only, or accept that you have to continuously enter darkened rooms in order to move into the future with time itself, for none of us can know exactly what the next moment may bring.    We breathe, in and out, just as the ocean falls upon the shore, hesitates, then retreats to gather for another surge.  Such is the Way of things.   And our spirits are no different than this when we are as one with the Way.

Bring your fears of what-is-to-come into therapy and find a resting place, and thoughtful planning place, for your inevitable journey. 

The pathway to self-knowledge and self-determination is well-traveled, there are many footsteps to follow.

You will not be alone.