Yesterday, when the wonderful hands of Mia from MiAlisa Salon were giving me a hands-down fabulous haircut, Mia told me about a beautiful way she has been self-soothing during these hard times. She holds her own hand.
Mia said that she held and held her mother’s hand in her hand while her mother was dying, and she misses her mother. Now, when she clasps her own two hands together, she feels powerfully comforted, settled, and anchored. Mia said holding hands with herself also helps her fall asleep.
I told Mia that I have been encouraging people in my Coping and Healing groups to give themselves hugs and that I will add clasping their own hands to the self-soothing repertoire.
And I am happy to report, this morning, that holding hands with myself helped me sleep through the night for the first time in months!
My sleep is also being helped by the growing certainty that my country will soon be in better hands. For the past four years, the USA has been in the hands of a toxic narcissist.
Speaking of hands, if anyone wants to see me play the ukulele with my own hands tomorrow evening, please sign up to be in the audience before the end of the day today using this link:
Here’s a recent cartoon by Signe Wilkinson from Philadelphia, where some lawyers have refused to leave off challenging the results of the fall election.
When people don’t leave, you can
Clearly and decisively ask them to leave.
Present a united front with others.
If necessary, call the authorities.
Since people in Washington are doing none of the above, I wonder if they have taken leave of their senses.
Even in the middle of a pandemic, I leave the house to take photos, but I never leave my mask at home.
People leave behind life jackets, balloons, and all sorts of other leavings outside.
Years after leaving high school, my friend Lawry and I were having a conversation about people’s behavior. Lawry (who also has a WordPress blog) expressed frustration that people were acting like they had never left high school. I replied, “Life is always high school,” which left a big impression on him.
Great minds think alike, apparently, because here are some wise words from Barack Obama, who had no trouble leaving the White House graciously four long years ago.
As we enter a cold, dark season of illness and political uncertainties ahead, I feel the need to be vigilant.
I am vigilant about
the health of those I love,
my own health,
other people’s anger and tendencies towards violence,
ignorance,
denial,
misunderstandings,
mistakes,
money,
lies, and
systemic injustices.
I assume I am not alone in feeling vigilant. I’m just trying to figure out how to turn off my vigilant mind at night so I can get more sleep! It’s difficult to be vigilant when you’re exhausted.
I took these photos yesterday while I was being vigilant (and if you’re vigilant you might spot my son Aaron in one of them):
We need to be vigilant, every moment of our lives, to be what we ought to be AND to keep our refrigerators clear of old condiments.
I definitely need some sort of break from all this vigilance.
My vigilant and diligent husband Michael recently introduced me to this wonderful song — “Little Tornado” by Aimee Mann.
I will be vigilant as I look out for your comments, below.
Vigilant thanks to Aimee Mann, Aaron, Michael, Harley, the Daily Bitch, and all those who help me remain vigilant about blogging daily, including YOU.
1: lack of feeling or emotion : IMPASSIVENESS drug abuse leading to apathy and depression 2: lack of interest or concern : INDIFFERENCE political apathy
How Apathy Differs From Impassivity and Indifference Apathy, impassivity, and indifference all denote a lack of responsiveness to something that might normally excite interest or emotion. Apathy suggests a puzzling or deplorable inertness or lack of passion, as in “the problem of continued voter apathy.” Impassivity stresses the absence of any external sign of emotion in action or facial expression, as in “teachers frustrated by the impassivity of their students.” Indifference connotes a lack of interest in or concern about something, as in “the company’s apparent indifference to the needs of its employees.”
The Greek Origins of Apathy There’s no reason to be uncaring about the origins of apathy—though there is a clue to the word’s beginnings in this sentence. Apathy was borrowed into English in the late 16th century from Greek apatheia, which itself comes from the adjective apathēs, meaning “without feeling.” Apathēs, in turn, was formed by combining the negating prefix a- with pathos, meaning “emotion.” Incidentally, if you’ve guessed that pathos is the source of the identically spelled noun in English (meaning either “an element in experience or in artistic representation evoking pity or compassion” or “an emotion of sympathetic pity”), you are correct. Pathos also gave us such words as antipathy, empathy, sympathy, pathetic, and even the archaic word pathematic (“emotional”).
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Here are some quotes about apathy:
“Elections belong to the people. It’s their decision. If they decide to turn their backs on the fire and burn their behinds, then they will just have to sit on their behinds.” — Abraham Lincoln
“The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it’s indifference. the opposite of faith is not heresy, it’s indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it’s indifference.” — Elie Wiesel
“If I didn’t care for fun and such, I’d probably amount to much. But I shall stay the way I am, Because I do not give a damn.” — Dorothy Parker
“The refusal to take sides on great moral issues is itself a decision. It is a silent acquiescence to evil. The Tragedy of our time is that those who still believe in honesty lack fire and conviction, while those who believe in dishonesty are full of passionate conviction.” — Fulton Sheen
“I’m terrified at the moral apathy, the death of the heart, which is happening in my country. These people have deluded themselves for so long that they really don’t think I’m human. I base this on their conduct, not on what they say. And this means that they have become, in themselves, moral monsters.” — James Baldwin
“Scientists talk about dark matter, the invisible, mysterious substance that occupies the space between stars. Dark matter makes up 99.99 percent of the universe, and they don’t know what it is. Well I do. It’s apathy. That’s the truth of it; pile together everything we know and care about in the universe and it will still be nothing more than a tiny speck in the middle of a vast black ocean of Who Gives a Fuck.” — David Wong
“… the opposite of love is not hate — it’s apathy. It’s not giving a damn. If somebody hates me, they must “feel” something … or they couldn’t possibly hate. Therefore, there’s some way in which I can get to them.” — Leo Buscaglia
“Compassion is an unstable emotion. It needs to be translated into action, or it withers. The question of what to do with the feelings that have been aroused, the knowledge that has been communicated. If one feels that there is nothing ‘we’ can do — but who is that ‘we’? — and nothing ‘they’ can do either — and who are ‘they’ — then one starts to get bored, cynical, apathetic.” — Susan Sontag
Do you see apathy in any of today’s images?
I don’t know what I was feeling when I took that selfie five years ago, but I know it wasn’t apathy.
I am filled with the opposite of apathy as I look forward to comments about this “Apathy” post, below.
Non-apathetic thanks to Abraham Lincoln, Elie Wiesel, James Baldwin, Fulton Sheen, Dorothy Parker, David Wong, Leo Buscaglia, Susan Sontag, Dan Rather, people on the front line of this pandemic, Merriam, Webster, Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, and everyone else who helps me create these daily posts, including YOU.
At the end of my Coping and Healing groups, I invite people to think about what they didn’t get, because
nobody gets all their needs met in a group therapy session,
if they identify what they didn’t get, they can think about where else they might get those needs met (perhaps in a future Coping and Healing group, perhaps elsewhere),
that’s my way of letting them know that all of their feelings, including disappointment, are welcome, and
identifying what you didn’t get (along with identifying what you DID get) are important parts of getting closure, which allows you to move more smoothly to what’s next.
Whenever there is an election or any other major transitioning point, people don’t get all their needs met. As we can see in the news, reactions to that include
Here’s what I didn’t get from the recent USA election: any indication that the twin threats of the coronavirus and the economic recession will be addressed effectively before the end of the year. I also didn’t get the answer to which party will control the Senate. What I DID get was relief about changes in leadership ahead.
What you haven’t gotten in this post, so far, are my photos from yesterday.
What Harley didn’t get yesterday was all the food he wanted. He seems okay with that, though.
Here’s a recent performance of “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” by The Rolling Stones.
You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you just might get what you need (and I need your comments about this what-you-didn’t-get post).
What you do get here is gratitude, so thanks to all who help me create this daily blog, including YOU.
I know things ordinary people don’t know because I
was born with a very unusual heart,
grew up in an Orthodox Jewish household,
had an incredibly funny, creative, and kind father, who loved to make people laugh,
had an incredibly caring, kind, clean and neat mother, who loved to laugh,
realized I had a connection with cats when I was very young,
had my first major heart surgery when I was 10 on the day that President John F. Kennedy was assassinated,
have relied on cardiac pacemakers to keep me alive since that day,
spent a lot of time in hospitals where I met many different types of people,
danced in our basement to musicals when nobody was watching,
read voraciously when I was young,
learned to play the piano, guitar, and ukulele,
attended three schools where everyone there knew I had a heart condition,
travelled across the USA by bus when I was 21,
visited many different countries,
danced, danced, danced in the 1970s even though my heart rate was fixed at 72 beats per minute,
majored in English literature at college,
worked as a technical writer, marketing writer, teacher, manager, and psychotherapist,
volunteered for several years at a suicide hotline,
attended graduate schools for film studies and social work,
love hearing other people’s stories,
married two extraordinary men,
gave birth to an extraordinary son when I was 45 years old,
saw people behave at their best and their worst and everything in between (including me),
survived the coronavirus,
have kept learning from all the people I have encountered in my long life, and
have the Daily Bitch calendar, which knows a lot.
Can you tell that I know things ordinary people don’t know from the rest of today’s photos?
Harley knows things that ordinary cats don’t know, but he’s not telling.
It’s a good thing I know things that ordinary people don’t know, because I’ll be teaching several interns about my Coping and Healing groups this morning at 9.
Here is “I Know Things Now” from Into the Woods by Stephen Sondheim, whom I’ve known I’ve loved for a long, long time.
I also know gratitude that ordinary people don’t know, every day, so thanks to to all the extraordinary people I’ve known, including YOU!
If you have panic attacks, you are not alone, as you can see by today’s Daily Bitch Calendar.
When people have panic attacks, they often share them with me, because I’m a group and individual therapist. When my husband Michael and I have panic attacks, we share them with each other. Luckily, Michael and I often have panic attacks on alternating days — when he’s panicking I’m usually feeling calm and hopeful and when I’m panicking he’s usually feeling hopeful and calm.
To reduce panic attacks, I breathe, blog, take long walks (masked!) , listen to music, read books, watch funny movies and videos, spend time with calming creatures, search for meaning (on the internet and elsewhere), eat delicious nutritious food, dwell on hope, and take photos.
I’m happy to report that for now, thanks to the kindness of strangers, family, and friends, I’ve stopped having panic attacks about
That reminds me … To reduce panic attacks over the upcoming dark and scary months, I’ll be working on something called Therapy: The Musical. Stay tuned.
Reducing panic attacks includes sharing thoughts and feelings, so I hope you share in a comment below.
Also, gratitude attacks beat out panic attacks, so thanks to all who help me attack a new blog post every day, including YOU.
Yesterday, when I was dwelling on Donald Trump, Donald Trump’s supporters, and angry people, I found this quote by Oprah Winfrey:
Oh no! Oprah knows for sure that I will become Donald Trump, a Donald Trump supporter, and/or an angry person unless I dwell on something else. Luckily, there are many other things to dwell on in my other photos from yesterday.
Uh-oh. Now I’m dwelling on the fact that we just lost our internet connection. Also, it’s taking forever for me to upload any more photos that are dwelling on my phone by using cellular data.
Now I’m dwelling on the possibility that if Donald Trump, Donald Trump supporters, and angry people want to take over my countrywith a coup, knocking out the internet of people dwelling in liberal parts of the USA is probably a great way to do that.
Now I’m dwelling on this: a coup in the USA is highly unlikely. Also, the photo I am trying to upload in this precious moment says “Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow; it empties today of its strength.”
Rather than dwelling on worry, I choose to dwell on
hope,
quotes from wise people,
people I love,
people I trust,
cats,
dogs,
the ocean,
things that make me think,
things that make me feel,
things that make me laugh,
delicious nutritious food,
my health and the health of others,
staying safe,
music, and
taking a walk on a beautiful morning.
Therefore, I am going to take a masked walk on this beautiful morning after sharing this one other photo which uploaded successfully:
Dwell on this: In 2019 I bet people cookies that Donald Trump would not win re-election. That box of Mallomars is part of my winnings, with more cookies on the way.
Because it helps me to dwell on music, I’m going to search YouTube for music that dwells there, as I peacefully accept that I can always share my other temporarily unload-able photos tomorrow.
Strangely enough, when I search YouTube for “what we dwell on”, I find another Gameof Thrones video.
Now I’m dwelling on synchronicity and gratitude for all who help me dwell on blogging every day, including YOU!
