JUST FOR THE RECORD
Dale A. Lombardi
When I’ve reached that certain age
and you wonder about my mental fitness . . .
Don’t ask me
who's President
or what year it is
or even what month
Ask me
what finches are drawn
to the thistle feeder
or what color the fire
when the hardenbergia blooms
in March
or how Willie-dog
spent his final hours
lying in the cool morning grass,
face tipped toward heaven
to receive the last of this earth’s sunshine
as a final blessing
Don’t ask me
to count backwards
by sevens
or to draw you a clock
or to tell you the time
Ask me
to tell you
when time stood still
or if I want more time
or how time passed so quickly
Don’t ask me
to take a deep breath
or to breathe normally
Ask me
what took my breath away
or when I knew beauty
so clear and pure and true
I couldn’t catch my breath
Don’t ask
to listen to my heart
Put your stethoscope away
and listen to what set my heart
on fire, what frayed
its very edges, or when pride and awe and love
nearly broke my heart
open
Ask me
What really matters
Was it all worthwhile
Who I’ve loved
and how
Ask
What binds us to all eternity
What’s at the very center
when all else is peeled away,
What will last—really last—
not anger or grief,
but music and art and poetry
and trees
Ask me
if I have hope,
not for myself
but for the world
And if I don’t answer . . .
Set down your hurry
Bring me a slice of calm
with some tea
Then pull your chair close,
take the pale wither
of my hand in yours,
and just sit, sit
with me
awhile
(text as posted at this link)
Maybe it’s not so much for what we reach for as what stretches out for us; sometimes that’s a hand, sometimes it’s an idea, a thought, a story, a poem, but it’s undeniable when it makes contact and causes not even ever so slightly to move us ever so powerfully.
Recently, the adage “Money can’t buy happiness” was given a leg to stand on by a study suggesting a raise won’t have a real impact on your state of mind. But a different study claims that in regard to your income, there is totally a financial sweet spot for optimal satisfaction.
The expansive study, published in the journal, Nature Human Behaviour, used a Gallup World Poll to evaluate the income and happiness of 1.7 million people around the world. The authors of the research found monetary averages associated with satisfaction: For daily emotional well-being, people were generally best off earning $60,000 to $75,000 a year, but for long-term satisfaction, the mark was $95,000.
In North America (and most “wealthy” countries), for daily emotional well-being, the sweet spot is an annual income of $65,000 to $95,000, and for long-term satisfaction that number is $105,000.
Those numbers are the worldwide average, however; the averages vary from country to country, and in North America (and most “wealthy” countries) they are higher. For daily emotional well-being, the sweet spot here is $65,000 to $95,000, and for long-term satisfaction that number is $105,000. The area with the lowest income marker for long-term satisfaction is Latin America, at $35,000, and Australia and New Zealand report the highest, at $125,000.
People were likely to see decreased happiness if they achieved more than the optimal income for long-term satisfaction, partially due to a phenomenon Money described as the “hedonic treadmill,” in which people adjust to increases in income.
But happiness does peak at a certain point, according to the researchers. If people achieved more than the optimal income for long-term satisfaction, they were likely to see decreased happiness, partially due to a phenomenon Money described as the “hedonic treadmill.” This describes when people very quickly adjust to increases in income.
Still, the study has its shortcomings: Gauging and measuring happiness is a subjective practice that often relies on self-reporting. Additionally, the study examined individual income instead of household income, which might have skewed conclusions about how much money someone needs in order to be happy. Not to mention that the concept of happiness itself is contentious, and many nations don’t place as much weight on it as Americans do.
It’s kind of amazing isn’t it. . .
It’s Valentine’s Day week,
Which means it’s a great day for people who really love each other
but not so great day for people that are grieving
or folks who have lost
or others who are alone. . .
Wonder if it
WASN’T
about that kind of love
Wonder if Valentine’s Day
was actually a gift that you give to somebody,
that includes Everybody
no matter
race
creed
religion
sex
no matter alone
no matter grieving
no matter sad or happy
What if it was a day that you just loved just to love
and maybe even better
Wonder if it was just a day to love
the way a person deserves to be loved
now that would be quite a day
we’re celebrating, right
and guess what
. . .not just on February 14
How about let’s make it that kind of a day
not only on Wednesday
but each day
how about
T O D A Y
before the 14th of February (or the 14th of any other month) S E E. . .
When Valentine’s Day is more than just a day
it has the greatest opportunity to become a l i f e s t y l e
THE EMPTY CHAIR Will stare you down Glare back Blink not Because it holds the h a l l o w e d power of M E M O R I E S
ANGUISH: The lack of Blindness that illuminates The Empty Chair at a Holiday Table
The best thing about an EMPTY CHAIR At the Table Is that it has a Meaning No other Emptiness Could ever hold or Capture
It WHISPERS: I’m still here It SHOUTS: Remember When
The Blessing of an EMPTY CHAIR Is it cradles what can’t be held No Hurt No Grief No Pain No Loss No Emptiness That’s caused by a power Much stronger than all of those things Together: L O V E
There’s nothing that shouts louder Than a Silent Space There’s nothing more full Than an EMPTY CHAIR A heart will always Shout What a mouth can’t Whisper EMPTY CHAIR That reminds of scents That holds little sense That makes no cents But always keeps us To what Was Tortured to what Is Foreigners to what For an Ever Will always be
And the worst of the worst The baddest of the bad The grievous of the grief isn’t THE EMPTY CHAIR
It’s the s m a l l e s t slow rusting rotting EMPTY CHAIR that holds what never was reminding us painfully of all of the memories that’ll never be created experienced imagined
Leaving us not only Empty Chair’d But Spilled OUT Off our Rocker POURED OUT
The only thing worse than getting EMPTY CHAIR’D is being NO CHAIR’D
Forever leaving blank the phrases: I REMEMBER THE TIME: I’LL NEVER FORGET THE TIME: or better yet, WHAT ABOUT THE TIME: . . .because the worst memories of all ARE THOSE NEVER CREATED. . . EMPTY CHAIR’D
Ever since his death, all of the pictures and all of the tributes have been nonstop on Facebook, and so many other forms of social media. It’s almost as if he’s bigger than life, and in many ways he is, but in many ways, we don’t realize, so are we!
What we bring to this world continues way after we are gone, even if a name is not attached to it. I am not, and most likely you aren’t either, as famous as Jimmy Buffett, or ever will be, but each and everyone of us brings a song to this life. The world may never recognize it as easily as CHEESEBURGER IN PARADISE or MARGARITAVILLE, but it’s still our’s not just to sing, but to share even with a very few limited but intimate ears. Jimmy, admitted, even in his own band, he wasn’t the best singer or musician, but he knew how to share what he had and share he did, share he still does. THAT is the lesson in itself, and also to grieve that what we have had is still very much what we still have if we but notice it in the new form it has taken.
So LISTEN HUM ALONG SING S H A R E RINSE AND REPEAT OFTEN
and now if you’ll join me
how about we
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS UP
and go on a little
E X P L O R A T I O N. . .
LET’S GO
When Erin and I got married 37 years ago tomorrow, we knew that it might be a very long shot if we would ever be old enough to make 50 years, but we also talked about it not making a difference as long as we could make our days and years count more than counting the days and the years.
37 years ago we were not the people, the couple, we are now or maybe the ones we might become in the next 13 years, but we knew way ahead of the research and the evidence-based data that what we have more than makes our daysso much more than any daze. . .
Moments of Love and Connection May Help You Live Longer
A new study finds that couples who show more warmth, concern, and affection for each other live longer, healthier lives.
Hold back on the bickering. Couples who share sweet moments filled with humor and affection, and sync up biologically—two hearts beating as one—enjoy better health prospects and live longer than their more quarrelsome counterparts, suggests new UC Berkeley research. The findings, recently published online in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, are based on laboratory observations of 154 middle-aged and older married couples as each engaged in an intimate conversation about a conflict in their relationship.
“We focused on those fleeting moments when you light up together and experience sudden joy, closeness, and intimacy,” said study author Robert Levenson, a UC Berkeley professor of psychology.
“What we found is that having these brief shared moments, known as ‘positivity resonance,’ is a powerful predictor of how healthy we’re going to be in the future and how long we’ll live,” he added.
Positivity resonance occurs when two people momentarily experience a mutual biological and behavioral surge of warmth, humor, and affection and achieve a sense of oneness. Fear, anxiety, and self-doubt can block this sense of connectedness.
“Couples in the study varied greatly in these measures of positivity resonance, with some couples showing dozens of moments of emotional and physiological synchrony and others showing few or none,” Levenson said.
Science of long-lasting love
These micro-moments are a key ingredient in healthy, long-lasting relationships, according to study senior author Barbara Fredrickson, a psychology professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and leading scholar of the science of love.
Researchers in Levenson’s Berkeley Psychophysiology Laboratory worked with Fredrickson to test the effect of positivity resonance on long-term health and longevity. They used data from Levenson’s longitudinal study that tracked the marriages of a representative sample of middle-aged and older heterosexual couples in the San Francisco Bay Area from 1989 to 2009.
Every five years, the couples came to Levenson’s Berkeley laboratory to be observed as they discussed recent events in their relationships, as well as areas of enjoyment and disagreement. They also completed questionnaires about marital satisfaction, health problems, and other issues. Just over half of the study’s original spouses are now in their 70s, 80s, and 90s. Others have died.
For this latest study, researchers meticulously coded hundreds of videotaped conversations to track the extent to which the couples exhibited positivity resonance.
“We took a fine-grained, comprehensive approach to measuring positivity resonance in couples by capturing their shared positive emotions, mutual expressions of care, and biological synchrony,” said study lead author Jenna Wells, a UC Berkeley Ph.D. candidate in clinical science.
How they conducted the study
Two different statistical models were used to predict long-term health and longevity, one that included the full range of biological and behavioral measures of positivity resonance that couples showed, and another that analyzed only their positivity resonance behaviors.
Among other factors and influences, the study controlled for health-related behaviors such as smoking, alcohol consumption, exercise, and caffeine consumption.
First, trained behavioral coders objectively rated the couples’ 15-minute conflict conversations, identifying individual and shared positive and negative emotions based on what the spouses were saying and their facial expressions, tone of voice, and body language.
Next, they identified moments of positive synchrony between the spouses based on the couples’ own recollections of how they were feeling as they watched videotapes of their conversations.
36 Questions for Increasing Closeness
To feel more connected, skip the small talk and ask these questions instead
The 15-minute video recordings were then analyzed for signs of nonverbal synchrony and unconscious “mirroring,” which are gestures that signal love, caring, and connectedness, such as smiles, head nods, and leaning forward.
The researchers also identified moments in which both partners’ heart rates simultaneously slowed down or sped up when they were expressing positive emotions.
For the second part of the study, they moved to a faster coding system to rate displays of synchrony vis-a-vis mutual warmth, concern, and affection in 30-second video segments. Both statistical models indicated that higher rates of positivity resonance predicted better future health outcomes and longer lives.
“Regardless of whether we used the full range of biological and behavioral measures of positivity resonance or the single holistic measure, we found that spouses in relationships that were high on positivity resonance had milder declines in their health over the next 13 years and were more likely to still be alive after 30 years,” Levenson said.
As for how couples can apply these findings to build relationships that are filled with positivity resonance, psychologist Art Aron’s 36 questions or Barbara Fredrickson’s Love 2.0 might be good places to start, Levenson said. We know about how it takes a village to not just raise a child, but also to support and enrich each of us. We all have the capacity to be better Caring Catalysts and without a doubt, the world desperately needs that from each of us. There is no Caring Catalyst in me without Erin. She is not my better half. Erin is my 90% because everything I am and do, she makes better and more, an excellent motivation to be better. . .
I severely love how our Each makes our Other
Our Better makes up for any Worse
Our Richer banishes Poornessess
Our Sicknesses can’t compete with our well-beingnesses
because our love and cherishings
only has one goal:
To last one moment past a For Everness. . . (or any calendar every created)
DO UNTO OTHERS AS YOU’D LIKE TO BE DONE UNTO YOU. . .RIGHT
Or better, DO UNTO OTHERS AS THEY REALLY WANT DONE UNTO THEM. . . I mean these are really great aspirations for yourself
FOR OTHERS
. . .or are they the worst?
it’s real close to liking you to break open the
Butterfly Cocoon
before it’s ready
. . .seemingly to make it easier
But actually doing it the most harm ever. . . THE SAVIOR COMPLEX I’ve always had one
and thought it noble
and even sometimes wore it as a
Badge of Honor
until I saw I was actually doing more harm
than any kind of well intended G O O D so when an article about SAVIOR COMPLEXING comes across my attention
I SOAK IT UP
and ok, fine, here’s the truest of true Confessions:
I end up making this Complex even more C O M P L E X I N G and yet, I read on and invite you to do the same now with this article from a recent Psychology Today by Mark Travers, Ph.D., an American psychologist with degrees from Cornell University and the University of Colorado Boulder.
Source: Aamir Suhail / Unsplash
3 Ways to Control the Urge to Save
Everyone. . .
Dr. Travers shares that many people come to therapy troubled by their inability to help someone in need. They may say things like:
“Why do I always feel attracted to people who have had lots of troubles in life?”
“I make every sacrifice possible to help him, but he still doesn’t change.”
“If I’m constantly trying to change my significant other for the better, does that mean I’m not accepting of them?”
If you relate to any of these questions, you may have a savior complex. At first glance, your behaviors might point to your helpful nature. But, when examined more closely, your savior complex can be psychologically unhealthy as it can give you an external outlet to focus on instead of addressing your own problems.
Helpfulness is a valued and pro-social trait, but there is a difference between helping and saving. A savior complex goes beyond our ability to help people, crossing into the realm of trying to be a hero in someone else’s life for your benefit more than theirs.
Here I’ll talk about three ways you can manage your instinct to want to “save” people.
1. Practice active listening
When people confide in you, they are often looking for an outlet to let out pent-up emotions instead of wanting to “be fixed.” A big problem for many “saviors” is the mistaken assumption that people are incapable of solving their own issues. If you take up the practice of listening more actively, you may learn that this person is perhaps just looking for a supportive shoulder and someone who will listen.
A study published in the Journal of Positive Psychology finds that listening carefully and attentively increases the level of humility in any conversation, resulting in a positive feedback loop of increased humility and better listening.
Here are two ways to up your listening skills, according to the researchers:
Don’t be afraid of silence. Silent moments are essential for building a good conversation. Allow yourself to be silent to enable the other person to speak. For instance, when a friend comes to you with a problem, aim to understand rather than immediately reply. Instead, watch for their body language, which speaks volumes (e.g., tensed shoulders may express fear or hesitation).
Believe in the benefits of listening. Familiarize yourself with the benefits of listening. This will motivate you to become a better listener.
2. Wait it out before stepping in
Aside from practicing active listening, resist your urge to intervene. You may find that people can often come to their own aid when helping themselves is the only real way out.
If you try to be the fixer of all their problems, you run the risk of unintentionally pushing them towards a sense of learned helplessness, where they lose the perspective to be able to diagnose and address their own issues.
When a loved one comes to you with an issue, refrain from offering assistance or suggestions right off the bat. Remind yourself that you can be present for someone without having to rescue them. Instead, you can offer validation that shows that you understand and empathize with them and are there for them whenever they need to vent.
3. Hold in your urge to help until you are asked for it
One key aspect of the savior complex is the ingrained desire to help even when it’s not wanted or requested. Assuming that the other person is incapable of helping themselves may reflect or be perceived as a superiority complex on your end.
Instead, you can offer assistance in low-pressure ways that keeps the ball in their court. For instance, ask the other person questions like, “This situation seems quite tough. Is there any way I can help?”
Follow their guidance if they ask you to help in a certain way instead of assuming that you know what’s best.
Now READING and Article and even remotely trying to implement it makes not an expert but. . .
It’s a beginning (a g a i n)
Managing your savior instincts may seem difficult at first, but it’s a learnable skill. Even though you may believe you are doing someone a favor, saving someone who doesn’t want to be saved may backfire. Wait until this person asks for your assistance since it’s likely that someone who truly needs it will ask you for it directly. And remember
Even as you’re Reaching Out To REACH IN
f i r s t IS THIS HELPING THEM MORE THAN APPEASING ME. . . ?
