The Caring Catalyst

Who Cares - What Matters

HAND IN HAND

By 2 Comments

North Royalton Christian Church is a parish I have served since January of 1995 and it has never had any more than 60 members since I’ve been there, in fact, we usually have 25-35 people every Sunday for our 10:00 worship service; we have another 200 that may tune in to watch via FaceBook Live.  It’s small, very small and we usually spend more time drinking coffee and eating in the wonderful goodies folks bring in for Coffee Hour following the worship service.  We may pack in a whopping 45-55 folks if we have a Potluck dinner but we really turn out when it comes to outreach or supporting a cause.  On Christmas morning we’ll take down nearly two hundred pair of new gloves to St Augustine, a saintly place that feeds the homeless and the indigent.  They’ll leave with a full stomach, bags of leftovers and some warm gloves for cold hands.          .          .

My hand shakes
can you still it
My hand is cold
can you warm it
My hand is extended
can you reach it
My hand touches
can you feel it
My hand is empty
can you fill it

A hand in a hand
never leaves it shaking
                           cold
                              unfelt
                              empty

A hand in a hand
a human interwoven tapestry
that completes a single One
to a single Another

Just because a hand is outstretched
doesn’t mean it’s going to be grasped
. . .offer it any
                      ways

or there’s another way to view it:

“Grandma how do you deal with pain?”
“With your hands, dear. When you do it with your mind, the pain hardens even more.”
“With your hands, grandma?”
“Yes, yes. Our hands are the antennas of our Soul. 
When you move them by sewing, cooking, painting, touching the earth or sinking them into the earth, they send signals of caring to the deepest part of you and your Soul calms down. 
This way she doesn’t have to send pain anymore to show it.
“Are hands really that important?”
“Yes my girl. Think of babies: they get to know the world thanks to their touch.
When you look at the hands of older people, they tell more about their lives than any other part of the body.
Everything that is made by hand, so it is said, is made with the heart because it really is like this: hands and heart are connected.
Think of lovers: When their hands touch, they love each other in the most sublime way.”
“My hands grandma… how long since I used them like that!”
“Move them my love, start creating with them and everything in you will move.
The pain will not pass away. But it will be the best masterpiece. And it won’t hurt as much anymore, because you managed to embroider your Essence.”
Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
Just what are you doing with your hands
.            .            .don’t doubt
Some One could
b        e        n        e        f        i        t

Fa-La-La-La-Whaaaaaaat?

By 2 Comments

W     E     L     L.            .            .
are you ready to bring some
B  A  H
to everyone else’s
H  U  M  B  U  G.               .               .

Hold on there, Sparky
before you pull the plug on all of the festivities
there just may be

Two Surprising Ways to Make Your Holidays Less Stressful

We can find joy even if the holiday season doesn’t live up to our expectations.     .     .

Christine Carter, Ph.D. is a Senior Fellow at the Greater Good Science Center. She is the author of The New Adolescence: Raising Happy and Successful Teens in an Age of Anxiety and Distraction (BenBella, 2020), The Sweet Spot: How to Accomplish More by Doing Less (Ballantine Books, 2015), and Raising Happiness: 10 Simple Steps for More Joyful Kids and Happier Parents (Random House, 2010). A former director of the GGSC, she served for many years as author of its parenting blog, Raising Happiness.  She may put some twinkle in your tinsel with some of these simple suggestions to keep you going as A Caring Catalyst during this Holiday Season.

Feeling overwhelmed? Wondering how you’re going to get it all done? Wishing you could just lie down? You aren’t alone.

The holidays can be stressful. Often, there’s a lot to do and a lot to buy and a lot of people to see. Sometimes we get so busy we have a hard time enjoying events that we’re otherwise looking forward to.

But we can make this holiday season less stressful for ourselves. Below are two tips to enjoy the holidays more.

 Accept that the holidays will probably be, at times, disappointing.     .     .

Bet you weren’t expecting that one! But acceptance is a strangely effective strategy for feeling happier and more relaxed at any time of the year. When we accept a person or a situation we find challenging, we let go of the resistance that creates stress and tension. There’s a lot of truth to the adage that “what we resist, persists.”

Here’s how this works. When someone or something is being a pain in your rear, take a deep breath and accept the situation. Say to yourself something like, “I accept that Jane is upset right now; I allow this situation to be as it is.” Then notice how you are feeling, and accept how you are feeling, as well. You can say to yourself, “I accept that I am feeling angry at Jane and disappointed. I allow my feelings to be as they are right now.”

If accepting a disappointing situation or person seems too hard for you, here are the handy alternatives you’re left with:

  • You can judge and criticize others and the disappointing situation in general, and blame others for your own negative feelings. As a bonus, everyone around you will no doubt feel your judgment. Some people will likely feel wrongly accused, or like you are trying to “fix” them. You’ll achieve the dual outcomes of being hurtful to others while simultaneously making yourself feel tense and lonely.
  • Another alternative to acceptance is to nurse your anxiety and despair over the situation through rumination. To ruminate effectively, think about what is wrong with the situation or person as often as possible. Don’t let yourself become distracted from the negative. Tell everyone what you don’t like about the situation or person. This will successfully amplify both your negative feelings and the difficulty of the situation.
  • You can also definitely deny how difficult the situation is by pretending that nothing is bothering you. You can stuff your hard feelings down by drinking too much or by staying really, really busy and stressed. Simply avoid situations and people you don’t want to deal with, because that’s more important than participating in meaningful traditions and events.

Criticism, judgment, rumination, blaming, denial, and avoidance are almost like holiday rituals for some of us. But they are all tactics of resistance, and they won’t protect you. Ironically, these tactics will allow the disappointments or difficulties to further embed themselves into your psyche.

This is a long-winded way of pointing out that resistance doesn’t make us less stressed or more joyful in difficult situations. What does work is to simply accept that the circumstance is currently hard. We can accept a difficult situation, and still make an effort to improve things. This gentle acceptance does not mean that you are resigned to a miserable holiday, or that nothing you do will make the situation better. Maybe it will get better—and maybe it won’t.

Accepting the reality of a difficult situation allows us to soften. This softening opens the door to our own compassion and wisdom; and we all know that over the holidays, we are going to need those things.

 Let go of expectations while turning your attention to what you appreciate.     .     .

Some people (myself included) suffer from what I think of as an abundance paradox: Because we have so much, it becomes easy to take our good fortune for granted. As a result, we are more likely to feel disappointed when we don’t get what we want than to feel grateful when we do.

This tendency can be especially pronounced during the holidays, when we tend to have high hopes that everything will be perfect and wonderful and memorable. You might have a fantasy of a sweet, close relationship with an in-law, for instance, or grand ideas about the perfect Christmas Eve dinner.

This sort of hope, as my dear friend Susie Rinehart has reminded me, can be a slippery slope to unhappiness: Hoping a holiday event will be the best-ever can quickly become a feeling that we won’t be happy unless it is, leading to sadness and disappointment when reality doesn’t live up to our ideal.

Unfortunately, the reality of the holidays is unlikely to ever outdo our fantasies of how great everything could be. So the trick is to ditch our expectations and instead notice what is actually happening in the moment. And then find something about that moment to appreciate.

Can you appreciate that your spouse did a lot of planning (or dishes, or shopping) this week? Do you feel grateful that you have enough food for your holiday table? Are you thankful for your health (or if your health is not great, that you are still here)?

It’s enough to notice and appreciate the small things, but when I’m having trouble with this, I like to practice an extreme form of gratitude that involves contemplating how fleeting our lives may be. There’s nothing like facing death to make us appreciate our lives—and sure enough, research finds that when people visualize their own death in detail, their gratitude increases.

If you feel stuck on what isn’t going well rather than what is, set aside some time to reflect on the following questions. Take each question one at a time, and try journaling an answer to each before moving on to the next one.

  • What would I do if this were the last holiday season I had left to live? What would I do the same, and what would I do differently?
  • What would I do if this were the last holiday season that my spouse, parents, or children had left to live? What would I do the same, and what would I do differently?

It’s a little heavy, I know, but contemplating death does tend to put things in perspective.

As the holidays approach, we will likely feel stressed and exhausted, but we need not feel like victims to this time of year. We often have a great deal of choice about what we do and how we feel. We can choose to bring acceptance to difficult situations and emotions, and we can choose to turn our attention to the things that we appreciate.

This holiday season, may we all see abundance when it is all around us—not an abundance of stuff, necessarily, but rather an abundance of love and connection. Even during the difficult bits.

There’s still a whole lot of
F   A
to go along with your
L    A
L    A
L    A
Hopefully this will help keep your
lights burning
b r i g h t
and bring you some
M E R R Y
M E R R Y
to share your cup of
C  H  E  E  R

 

FREEZE THE FRAME

By Leave a Comment

We all have those
FREEZE THE FRAME MOMENTS
that make memories even more precious than they are
especially this time of the year.         .        .

This is one of my
FREEZE THE FRAME MOMENTS.           .          .
This picture of my sister and I was taken in front of my grandparents fireplace on a Christmas morning. I was two and my sister was 4. It was before my two other brothers were born. I have no idea what I got for Christmas that morning but I know the people who gave me the gifts loved me and even in death, still do which is
THE BEST GIFT OF ALL.      .     .
What’s your
FREEZE THE FRAME MOMENT?
No matter what they may have been
or even if they are in the making
it allows us to know that our
 M          E          M          O           R          I          E          S
mean
N O T H I N G
unless
L          O          V          E
is attached to them
and then they are everything they are
everything they were
and everything they’re to become
FREEZE THE FRAME
and may your greatest memories
be those yet to be
f r a m e a b l e

 

A LITTLE SAINT NICK(Y) IN ALL OF US

By 2 Comments

D     I     S     C     L     A     I     M     E     R
THIS NOT MY STORY
uhhhhh but I’m hoping in someway somehow it just might be!

A very Dear Friend sent this to me, please take a few moments during this busy time  to read it.          .          .

“In 1979, I was managing a Wendy’s in Port Richey, Florida. Unlike today, staffing was never a real problem, but I was searching for a someone to work three hours a day only at lunch. I went thru all my applications and most were all looking for full time or at least 20 hours per week. I found one however, buried at the bottom of a four-inch stack that was only looking for lunch part-time. His name was Nicky. Hadn’t met him but thought I would give him a call and see if he could stop by for an interview. When I called, he wasn’t in but his mom said she would make sure he would be there.

At the accorded time, Nicky walked in. One of those moments when my heart went in my throat. Nicky had Downs Syndrome. His physical appearance was a giveaway and his speech only reinforced the obvious. I was young and sheltered. Had never interacted on a professional level with a developmentally disabled person. I had no clue what to do, so I went ahead and interviewed him. He was a wonderful young man. Great outlook.

Task focused. Excited to be alive. For only reasons God knew at that time, I hired him. 3 hours a day, 3 days a week to run a grill. I let the staff know what to expect. Predictably, the crew made sure I got the message, “no one wants to work with a retard.”

To this day I find that word offensive. We had a crew meeting, cleared the air, and prepared for his arrival. Nicky showed up for work right on time.

He was so excited to be working. He stood at the time clock literally shaking with anticipation. He clocked in and started his training. Couldn’t multi task, but was a machine on the grill. Now for the fascinating part…..

Back in that day, there were no computer screens to work from. Every order was called by the cashier. It required a great deal of concentration on the part of all production staff to get the order right.

While Nicky was training during his first shift, the sandwich maker next to him asked the grillman/trainer what was on the next sandwich. Nicky replied, “single, no pickle no onion.” A few minutes later it happened again. It was then that we discovered Nicky had a hidden and valuable skill.

He memorized everything he heard!  Photographic hearing! WHAT A SKILL SET. It took 3 days and every sandwich maker requested to work with Nicky. He immediately was accepted by the entire crew. After his shift he would join the rest of his crew family, drinking Coke like it was water!

It was then that they discovered another Rainman-esque trait. Nicky was a walking/talking perpetual calendar! With a perpetual calendar as a reference, they would sit for hours asking him what day of the week was December 22, 1847. He never missed. This uncanny trait mesmerized the crew.

His mom would come in at 2 to pick him up. More times than not, the crew would be back there with him hamming it up. As I went to get him from the back, his mom said something I will never forget. “Let him stay there as long as he wants. He has never been accepted anywhere like he has been here.” I excused myself and dried my eyes, humbled and broken-hearted at the lesson I just learned.

Nicky had a profound impact on that store. His presence changed a lot of people. Today I believe with every fiber of my body that Nicky’s hiring was no accident. God’s Timing and Will is Perfect.

This Christmas, I hope we all understand what we are celebrating. We are all like Nicky. We each have our shortcomings. We each have our strong points. But we are all of value. God made us that way and God doesn’t make mistakes. Nicky certainly wasn’t a mistake. He was a valuable gift that I am forever grateful for.

We are celebrating the birth of the ONE that leveled the playing field for all of us. God doesn’t care if you are rich or poor, republican or democrat or black or white. He doesn’t care if your chromosome structure is perfect. He doesn’t care what level of education you have attained.

He cares about your heart. He wants us all to love and appreciate the gift HE gave us on Christmas, His son, the Savior, our salvation. His Son that was born to die for our sins. To pay our debt. To provide us a path for eternity. So this Christmas, let’s check our hearts. There is a little bit of Nicky in all of us and I suspect there is a Nicky somewhere in your life that is looking for the chance to be embraced. Be grateful for that!”
NO
THIS IS NOT MY STORY
it most likely isn’t your’s either.            .             .
but it
COULD BE
Reflect on these words from Donna Cameron:

Being kind—truly kind—is hard. Nice requires little effort. I can be nice while also being indifferent, critical, and even sarcastic. But I can’t be kind and be any of those things. Being kind means caring. It means making an effort. It means thinking about the impact I’m having in an interaction with someone and endeavoring to make it rich and meaningful—giving them what they need at that exact moment, without worrying about whether I get anything in return. It means letting go of my judgments and accepting people as they are. Kindness requires me to do something my upbringing discouraged—it demands that I reach out and that I take a risk . . . [that I] might be rebuffed, ignored, or disrespected. 

A life of kindness is not something that I live only when it suits me. I’m not a kind person if I’m kind only when it’s easy or convenient. A life of kindness means being kind when it’s neither convenient nor easy—in fact, sometimes it might be terribly hard and tremendously inconvenient. That’s when it matters most. That’s when the need is greatest and transformation dances at the edge of possibility. That’s the time to take a deep breath and invite kindness

YES, PLEASE and THANK YOU

By Leave a Comment

T            H            I             S
is a picture that needs no caption
especially TIME of the year
when our already hectic lives go in to
C         H         A         O           S
m o d e
CRAZY ON STEROIDS.             .              .
where calm feels like just a word
but not a feeling
or another WAY.       .      .
which is why I dug deep into my files
and with the help of the
GREATER GOOD Editors
have provided some much needed
r e s p i t e
(IF YOU’LL TAKE IT TO HAVE IT)

Good Resources for Thriving Over the Holidays

Here are some articles that explore holiday stress management, managing conflict, picking gifts, making resolutions, and more.          .         .

The holidays can be rough—really rough at times; so here are literally dozens of articles and that try to help readers navigate the issues that arise when far-flung family members gather, everyone expects a present, and they all have an opinion. There are also some collected articles on making sense of this quickly-almost-gone-previous year and looking ahead to the new one. However you celebrate or are celebrated, here’s wishing you some severely-well-deserved-happy holidays!

Click to jump to a section:

Holiday stress management
New ways to think about gifting and celebration
The psychology of generosity and gratitude
Raising generous, grateful kids
Looking ahead to the new year

Holiday stress management

New ways to think about gifting and celebration

The psychology of generosity and gratitude

Raising generous, grateful kids

Looking ahead to the new year

It’s enough to just not get your wires crossed but to literally,
BLOW A CIRCUIT.            .          .
and here’s the biggest kicker of all,
it’s not that we don’t have the
R E S O U R C E S
of countless
WHAT TO DO’S
(uhhhhhhhhhhhh did you see how long this blog post is, already)
so much as utilizing them
plugging some of them in
and unplugging a few others
B                           U                          T
will you.          .         .

It just may be all of the difference between a really good or a really bad
h    o    l    i    d    a    y
(AND YOU GET TO CHOOSE.  .  .or let it CHOOSE FOR YOU)

SEEING BEAUTY THAT DOESN’T EXIST

By Leave a Comment

Have you ever seen
BEAUTY THAT DOESN’T EXIST?

Let’s face it.         .         .
THE WORLD ISN’T ALWAYS A PRETTY PLACE
especially when it shows us
anything that could ever resemble even remotely
B          E          A          U          T         Y
but maybe it’s time to rub your eyes
and take another look
A DEEPER GAZE
at what’s unblinkingly before us.          .          .
Some 60 days ago
the Israel-Hamas war began waging
to an almost unimaginable comprehension
near and far
FAR, FAR,
from anything we could label
B E A U T Y
but.     .     .

Seeing Beauty Matters,
Even in the Midst of War

When people find themselves displaced from their homes, finding or creating beauty is a human impulse that brings
hope and resilience.     .     .

Stephanie Acker from The Greater Good Magazine recently reported what we hoped but maybe, even now, still can’t comprehend.  She pulls back the curtain to the following story:

A small group of children in Gaza sit on a lavender and white blanket around a small tray of beverages, singing “Happy Birthday” to a young girl. Like kids her age around the world, she wears a sweatshirt with prints of Elsa and Anna, characters from Frozen; unlike most kids, she’s celebrating against a backdrop of a war that, according to United Nations estimates as of November 10, 2023, has already killed more than 4,500 Palestinian children.

Celebrating anything might seem odd or even inappropriate in the face of so much devastation—and in the middle of what many are calling genocide.

However, in the research of refugees that Stephanie  conducted with interdisciplinary artist and scholar Devora Neumark, they found that the urge to beautify one’s surroundings is widespread and profoundly beneficial—particularly so in the harrowing circumstances of loss, displacement, and danger.

When people find themselves displaced from their homes, finding or creating beauty can be just as vital as food, water, and shelter.

Gaza today

In the first six weeks of the Israel-Hamas war, 70% of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents have had to leave or have lost their homes.

Over half crowd into some type of emergency shelter, while others squeeze into relatives’ and neighbors’ homes. Food is scarce and increasingly expensive. According to the U.N., people are getting only 3% of the water they need each day. Much of the water they do have is polluted.

Crops are dying. Moms are not producing breast milk. People are getting sick. There are severe shortages of baby formula, as well as anesthesia for those needing surgery. The lack of space and overwhelming stress and fear add sleep to the list of things that are hard to come by.

These needs are urgent and essential. Without them, people will die. Too many already have, while the conditions for those who live are horrific. They make it hard to see much else.

But the endless images of bombs and blood hide the story of the life, colorand creativity that existed in Gaza. And they hide the beauty that persists despite war.

Beauty is often viewed as a luxury. But this isn’t the case. It’s the opposite.

A human impulse

Beauty has been a hallmark of every human civilization. Art philosopher Arthur Danto wrote that beauty, while optional for art, is not an option for life. Neuroscientists have shown that our brains are biologically wired for beauty: The neural mechanisms that influence attention and perception have adapted to notice color, form, proportion, and pattern.

We’ve found that refugees worldwide, often with limited or no legal rights, still invest considerable effort in beautifying their surroundings. Whether they’re staying in shelters or makeshift apartments, they paint walls, hang pictures, add wallpaper, and carpet the floors. They transform plain and seemingly temporary accommodations into personalized spaces—into semblances of home.

Refugees rearrange spaces to share meals, celebrate holidays, and host parties—to greet friends, hold dances, and say goodbyes. They burn incense, serve tea in decorative porcelain, and recite prayers on ornate mats. These simple acts carry profound significance, even amid challenges.

Urban studies scholars Layla Zibar, Nurhan Abujidi, and Bruno de Meulder have told the story of Um Ibrahim, a Syrian refugee. When she was pregnant, she and her husband transformed the tent they were issued at a refugee camp in the Kurdistan region of Iraq into home. They built brick walls. She planned paint colors and furniture. Around her, neighbors potted plants and set up chairs to create front porches on their temporary shelters to be able to gather with friends. They turned roads into places for celebrating special occasions. They painted a flag at the entrance of the camp.

They made a new home, but they also made it feel like it “used to in Syria.”

Creating hope in a hopeless place

The benefits of beauty are both practical and transformative, especially for refugees.

Many refugees experience trauma. All experience loss. Beautifying is a way to exert agency, grieve, and heal.

Simple acts—rearranging a home, sweeping the floor, or intentionally placing an object—allow refugees to infuse an area with their own identity and taste. They provide a way to cope when one has little control over anything else. Often, once someone is labeled a refugee, all their other identities are overshadowed or disappear.

Neumark’s study of over 200 individuals who experienced forced displacement found that beautifying the home helped heal intergenerational trauma caused by forced displacement.

Neumark observed that as children participated in efforts to beautify their home, it seemed to positively influence their own coping mechanisms and well-being.

Furthermore, if children could imagine their homes prior to displacement through the stories and images shared with them—what scholar Marianne Hirsch calls “postmemories”—then the actions taken to beautify their present-day homes could be transformative. They served as a bridge connecting the past with the present and facilitated the ongoing process of healing and preserving identity.

Ultimately, making a space feel more comfortable, secure, and personalized is a tangible expression of hope for a future.

Cultivating love and life

Even prior to the start of the Israel-Hamas war, Palestinians lived in the face of immense injustice and violence.

Their Palestinian research partner, who must remain anonymous for security reasons, described that their home in the refugee camp feels like living in jail, but that they still make it a beautiful place to live.

Prior to the start of the latest war, neighborhoods featured striking muralsand embellished walls. Intricate mosaics adorned buildings, and paint livened the facades of homes. Neighbors would gather to pray, putting on new clothes, spraying perfume, and burning incense to prepare for the rituals. As Christmas approached, Palestinian Christians, along with some Muslims, would decorate their homes. Both faiths would gather for annual tree lightings.

Geographer David Marshall described how youth living in a Palestinian refugee camp used beauty to focus on the positives in their environment and dream about a future beyond their camp—and the walls that constrained their lives.

In their community-based storytelling project in a Palestinian refugee camp this past summer, they witnessed the commitment to making homes beautiful in the thriving gardens that were created within very crowded quarters. Neighbors shared how their gardens calm them, provide a place to gather with friends, and serve as a reminder of fields they once tended.

In her 2021 research, Corinne Van Emmerick, a Ph.D. candidate in sociology, described Fatena, a Palestinian who was living in a refugee camp. She had flowers on everything—the roof, walls, and windowsills. They were expensive and needed “lots of love.” But, Fatena added, they gave her “love back.”

A form of resistance and resilience

One Guinean refugee interviewed as part of Neumark’s study said, “As refugees we lose our sense of beauty, and when that happens, we lose our sense of everything, of life itself.”

If the opposite of this is true, then clearly beauty cannot be thought of as superficial or an afterthought. One study of Bosnian refugees found that their ability to notice beauty was a sign of improved mental health.

Creating, witnessing, and experiencing beauty offers a connection to the familiar, works to preserve cultural identity, and fosters belonging.

It’s what ensures that a little girl in Gaza not only has her birthday celebrated, but that it is also made as beautiful as possible.
So.            .           .
do you see
BEAUTY
in the
B O T C H E D.          .         .
BRING YOUR PAINT BRUSH
.          .          .let your strokes be broad and bold
SHOW A BEAUTY
that muddied
can still never be besmirched.         .        .

(Devora Neumark, an interdisciplinary artist and researcher whose trauma-informed work explores the intersections between a home beautification and the human experience in the context of displacement, contributed to writing this article.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.)

 

 

YOUR REMEMBER WHEN’ER

By Leave a Comment

This video has been making it’s rounds as the Holiday season is in full force unfolding before us.  No matter what we believe or in what various moods/feelings we are treading or at times, seemingly drowning in, Holidays or not, it goes to the heart of our remembering, our once upon a times, that at times feels like hugging a porcupine and yet we squeeze all the more harder to keep those memories close and to actually do all we can to bring them back to vivid, living color so that we can feel all that is good, all that is love, all that once upon a time was.        .        .

Sometimes it’s not so much
WHAT YOU REMEMBER
as
T     H     A     T
you are
R   E   M   E   M   B   E   R   E   D.      .      .
Memories are precious
and the only things more important:
THE MEMORIES YET TO BE CREATED.       .       .
this holiday season
May your greatest memories
be those you’ve yet to create
(but undoubtedly will)
Let your Remember’er
bring you
what
THE NEW
sometimes can never quite promise
(and may your Remember’er do it often)

 

GREAT-FULL-NESS

By Leave a Comment

piglet_gratitude_(1)

It’s Thanksgiving

A       G       A        I        N

Tomorrow.      .      .
in the middle 
of a world
of a time
that literally feels totally 
O U T
oF
cOnTrOl
I  T
 begs  the 
q  u  e  s  t  i  o  n
(almost in a mocking tone)

Are you full of

G R E A T    F U L L    N E S S ?

Bet the Turkey Farm

YOU   ARE;

ONCE AGAIN 

family and friends will gather together to eat,

watch football,

talk,

remember,

laugh,

cry,

drink,

eat again,

watch movies,

play games,

take naps,

shop and.        .        .

Guess what?

It’ll do more than add pounds or inches.       .       .

Your Gratefulness

will multiply

Your  GREAT – FULL – NESS

in a huge way;

For starters–it’ll make you feel better–literally.

WebMD reports that Gratefulness

is linked with more of a
Full-glass-over the rim

feeling of Optimism,

which boosts your immune system.        .        .

GREAT – FULL – NESS

It lowers your Blood Pressure and Cholesterol so says a 2007 study on the health benefits of giving back and being Thankful.  The American Journal of Cardiology showed that appreciation and positive emotions are linked with changes in heart rate variability.        .        .

GREAT – FULL – NESS

Who doesn’t want to sleep better?

Experts suggests that expressing what you’re Thankful for will help you actually sleep better.   .   .Researchers found that when people spent 15 minutes jotting down what they’re grateful for in a journal before bedtime, they fell asleep faster and stayed asleep longer, Psychology Today, reported.        .        .

GREAT – FULL – NESS

According to The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, gratitude could also boost pro-social behaviors, like helping other people who have problems or lending emotional support to another person.  .  .

GREAT – FULL – NESS

WebMD reported that negative events can boost gratitude, and that gratitude can help to boost feelings of belonging and decrease feelings of stress.  Their survey showed that feelings of gratitude were at high levels after 9/11.       .       .

GREAT – FULL – NESS

Pssssssst: We are all Grateful

for many things.        .        .

We are all

G R E A T  F U L L

for many things.        .        .

So somewhere between the turkey,

dressing,

potatoes

and pie and everything else that comes with it—-

if you find the

Z  I  P  P  E  T  Y

Going  out  of   Your

D O – D A H.        .        .

Sing Anyway !

You’re  Filled  with

G R E A T – F U L L- N E S S

C H E E R S !

A N D. . .
WILL YOU. . . ?

AN OLD MESSAGE IN A NEW WAY

By 2 Comments

W O W
60 years ago Paul Harvey originally aired
A LETTER FROM GOD
and admittedly so, it has been updated a little since those 60 years ago but there’s nothing like hearing an
OLD MESSAGE
IN A NEW WAY
and then again, who knows
if it was heard
THEN
any more than it’s heard
N O W
.           .           .maybe that’s an answer your dealing with right now, November 6, 2023 and maybe even more realizing
IT’S EASY LIVING IN WHAT WAS WORLD
without ever noticing
WHAT IS
or
WHAT CAN BE.                .                .
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
Maybe that’s why it’s so tough not only hearing an
OLD MESSAGE
in a
NEW WAY
but
being different or
actually
L I V I N G 
I T
(Here’s a tip of the hat to Paul and an invitation hear in a new way an old message and to be better because of  it.  .  .)

A LITTLE LISTENING–A LOT OF GOOD

By Leave a Comment

Just a little listening does a lot of good
is more than a nice sentiment
and can be even better than we might be able imagine
IF WE ARE WILLING TO DO MORE OF IT.            .

Where to Seek Help if the
Israel-Hamas War
Is Impacting Your Mental Health Social-Media-News-OveruseIf you feel as though your mental health has been impacted by news of the ongoing conflict, help is available.Getty Images / Stock Photo
The World is literally
S C R E A M I N G
right now, but it also is giving us some resources that lets us know
the SHOUTS
are heard.            .           .

Time Magazine’s Mallory Moench shares with us some of these assurances that the screams and shouts are more than just noises to be heard or worse, ignored.

Since the Israel-Hamas War ignited on Oct. 7, it feels as though we’ve been bombarded online with graphic information and imagery of the horrors unfolding in the Middle East.

The war has flooded news and social media, in some cases, sowing political division. The trauma is heightened for those directly affected by the conflict, but anyone can be impacted and experience vicarious trauma. In the past couple of days, the BBC acknowledged the toll the war is taking on its staff and has offered more mental health support.

If you feel as though your mental health has been negatively impacted by the ongoing conflict, here’s who you can contact for help.

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA)

SAMHSA runs a Disaster Distress Helpline that is toll-free, multilingual and available 24/7 to all residents in the U.S. and its territories who are experiencing emotional distress related to natural or human-caused disasters. This includes survivors of disasters, loved ones of victims, first responders, rescue, recovery, and relief workers, clergy, parents and caregivers calling on behalf of themselves or someone else.

Each Disaster Distress Helpline Core Region Center has crisis counselors who are trained to listen and offer support to people in emotional crisis, the agency says.

You can speak with a counselor immediately by calling or texting 1-800-985-5990. For deaf and hard of hearing callers, you can call the same number from a videophone or access a video conference call online by following this link from the government website.

If you’re looking to receive mental health treatment or therapy, call SAMHSA’s National Helpline at 1-800-662-4357 or TTY: 1-800-487-4889. The confidential, free, 24/7 information service in English and Spanish for individuals and family members facing mental and/or substance use disorders provides referrals to local treatment facilities, support groups and community-based organizations.

You can also visit SAMHSA’s online treatment locator, or send your zip code via text message to 435748 to find help near you.

Crisis Text Line 

Crisis Text Line is a global nonprofit organization that provides text access to a crisis counselor. It is staffed by volunteers who undergo a multi-stage application process, background check and training program, and then are supervised by staff with master’s degrees in a relevant field or commensurate crisis intervention experience, the organization says. The service is available in the U.S., U.K., Canada and Ireland.

If you’re in the U.S., text HOME to 741741 to chat with a crisis counselor, use Whatsapp or message online.

In Canada, text CONNECT to 686868. The line is jointly run with Kids Help Phone.

From the U.K. text SHOUT to 85258. Shout is an affiliate of Crisis Text Line in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

For Ireland, text HOME to 50808.

Find A Helpline HOW ARE YOU DOING?

No matter where you are in the world, use this search engine to find a mental health helpline by country, region and/or topic. Mental healthcare company ThroughLine, which has partnered with Google, verifies and publishes the online tool.

National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) 

In the U.S., you can contact NAMI’s HelpLine to communicate with a volunteer. Connect by phone 1-800-950-6264 or text “HelpLine” to 62640, or chat online. It is available Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Eastern Standard Time.

NAMI also publishes a resource directory where you find help online and in-person help by topic and runs local chapters where you can attend support groups in person.

Find mental health therapy online or in-person 

If you’re in the U.S. and looking for more personalized and ongoing mental health therapy, it can be difficult to find or afford a therapist, especially if you don’t have health insurance.

The American Psychiatric Association runs a database where you can search for a psychiatrist near you. The American Psychological Association refers to its state chapters where you can find therapists by location, including in some states finding those working pro bono or on a sliding scale. If you don’t have insurance, the federal government recommends searching for a community health center near you that might offer free or low-cost mental healthcare.

Nonprofit nationwide network Open Path Psychotherapy Collective is another option that offers therapy at a reduced cost for people who are uninsured or underinsured. Pay a lifetime membership fee of $65, then schedule with a therapist for $40 to $70 a session, with $30 student intern sessions available. You can join the network and find a therapist online.

HOW ARE YOU DOING?

.          .          .such an easy, simple question, yet how significant if you ask it and really listen, maybe even dig, and mostly w a i t  for an answer
A          N          D

in some of the listening over these past 18 or so days, I’ve been hearing this one question:
WHAT CAN I DO TO HELP
the short and significant answer:
HELP SOMEONE ELSE
ANYONE ELSE
make a call
send a text
hold a hand
lend an ear
hold a door
give a gift
and yes.          .          .
Read More: How to Help Victims of the Israel-Hamas War
A DOING SOMETING
is more than NOTHING
that can mean an EVERYTHING
d a r e
to
p r o v e
i  t.    .    .
S          H          O          W
that by reaching out

you’re
TOUCHING
A WITHIN-NESS
that’s worth
c o n n e c t i n g

 

 

 

 

Professional Speaker, Author, Assurance Man