Today’s Daily Bitch Calendar is about healthy relationships.
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Healthy relationships do take work and I understand why they sound exhausting to the Daily Bitch.
However, unhealthy relationships are MUCH more exhausting, so I’m very grateful for my healthy relationships, especially during unhealthy times.
One of my healthy relationships is with my husband, Michael. He is staying mentally healthy with 24-hour, 7 days-a-week news blackouts. Before the 2024 USA election, with its unhealthy results, part of our healthy relationship was commiserating about the news. In order to maintain our healthy relationship these days, I need to restrict my conversations with him and use other outlets (like this blog) where I can discuss my reactions to the news.
Do you see healthy relationships in my other images for today?
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Here’s what I find when I search for “healthy relationships” on YouTube:
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That reminds me of something I often share about maintaining healthy relationships: The secret to life is three things — Show up, be gentle, and tell the truth.
What are your thoughts and feelings about healthy relationships?
Thanks to all with whom I have healthy relationships, including YOU!
Yesterday, I went to a group therapy demonstration where it was difficult to hear what the group members and the facilitator were saying. That bothered me until I realized that I could still learn a lot by taking in non verbal communication and other signals from those around me.
These days, life can be so confusing that I often wonder “what are they saying?” even when the words are quite clear.
What are they saying in my images for today?
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Here’s what I find on YouTube when I search for “what are they saying?”
Because I’ve been an English Major, a writer, a teacher, and psychotherapist, I am very interested in storytelling.
Here, now, are some of my storytelling thoughts:
We have old, limiting stories we tell about ourselves (some of which are unconscious repetitions of stories others have told about us) that can hold us back from telling new, more expansive, inclusive, and fulfilling stories.
Storytelling can help heal ourselves, others, and the world (that’s my story and I’m sticking to it, as some storytellers say).
Storytelling, whether fact or fiction, always includes important truths.
Every day, in this blog, I am storytelling through words and pictures (which I try to organize into some sort of story).
That’s a very long list to integrate into coherent storytelling, isn’t it?
Here’s something I’m glad to find on YouTube when I look for “storytelling.”
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I look forward to the storytelling in the comments section and thanks to all who read my daily storytelling, including YOU!
Yesterday, I saw this “Message in a Bottle” at a public art installation near the hospital where I work:
Here’s the description of “Message in a Bottle” by Janet Kawada and Bette Ann Libby:
For centuries, bottles have been used for preservation and as vessels to carry thoughts and memories. They have the capacity to last much longer than we anticipate. Finding an unexpected relic of a bygone time gives the discoverer a moment to consider. WHO left it, WHAT was that person doing here and WHERE did they come from? Yearning for peace, love, a better future, frightened, hopeful, adventurous or all of the above. Did we welcome them? Maya Angelou states, The ache for home lives in all of us. The safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned.”
In a way, every blog post is a message in a bottle from me — yearning for peace, love, a better future, frightened, hopeful, etc. Also, my photos often try to capture a message in a bottle from somebody else.
What message in a bottle do you notice here, now?
Because it’s National Tell a Joke Day, here are some “message in a bottle” jokes.
DO even talk to me about what you see in this post.
I can’t even talk about how anxiety-provoking it is when an animal is sick, because they can’t even talk to you about how they’re feeling and I can’t talk to Oscar about the ultrasound he’s having today.
Personally, I’m not bored, at all, and I wonder why so many people worry about being boring. People are SO interesting, as I hope you can see in these photos from yesterday:
I don’t want to bore you with it, but Michael cooked a new fish last night.
I don’t want to bore you with this story, but when I was in my first year at college, one of my professors told us on the first day of class that he would not remember any of our names and quoted a biology professor saying, “Whenever I remember the name of a student, I forget the name of a fish.”
I don’t want to you bore you with this, but I can’t remember the name of that new fish Michael cooked last night.
I don’t want to bore you with this, but
I get my teeth cleaned every three months because I got endocarditis three times in my life,
I don’t want to bore you with it, but I’m in the photo at the beginning of this post:
I don’t want to bore you by quoting more lyrics of the Stevie Wonder song but “I don’t want to bore you with it, but I love you, I love you, I love you.”
And I thought, how do we send the right message? And what makes a message right? And even if we do figure out how to send the right message, who’s to say how different people will receive and understand our message?
I don’t know if this is the right message, but I wonder what messages our governments and the media are sending these days. I also wonder if anybody is listening to other people’s messages. It seems like most people have decided what messages they are going to hear and they are not open to hearing any new messages, no matter how right they are.
Lately, I’ve been choosing to send the right message mostly through photos, like these:
Since last month, when somebody told me that something I wrote didn’t pass the “Why should I care?” test, I’ve cared too much about that comment. I’ve tried to let go of caring so much about that by
I not only care, I express my caring with gratitude at the end of every post. Thanks to all who helped me create this “Why Should We Care?” post and — of course! — to you, my caring readers.
Yesterday, I witnessed somebody telling a writer that their story did not answer the “Why should I care?” test. Why should I care about that? Well, sometimes I wonder why my loyal and lovely readers should care about the personal words and photos I share in this blog.
Why should you care if I went to the dentist yesterday and got a new dental crown that was created, before my eyes, in a 3-D printer? Why should you care if Michael and I took Oscar to the vet and he got a clean bill of health? Why should you care if Harley escaped going to the vet by scratching Michael, hissing, growling, and making it impossible for us to corral him in time to make the appointment? In other words, why should you care about what I care about?
Why should you care about how I recorded some of yesterday’s moments?
Why should any of us care about allowing cats and people to communicate their stories in an authentic, personal, and full-bodied way?
Why should anybody care about this video I took of the creation of my new dental crown?
Why should I care about the comments you make on this blog? There are SO many reasons I care. I can only hope I convey that caring in every post and every answer, every day.
One of my recurring dreams is to have a show at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Much to my amazement, that will be occurring on August 19 at 13:00 (1 PM) at the Natural Food Kafe basement room. I only have one show this year, but I’m hoping the show will be recurring next year.
My show — “Group ‘Therapy’ with Ann” — is loosely based on the recurring groups that I do five times a week at work. At this point, I’m staying up and having dreams about how to make that work well since there are new and non-recurring elements I’ve never dealt with before, including:
it’s about half the time of my usual groups,
I don’t know how many people will show up,
several of the participants will be total strangers to me, and
it’s a show at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival!
I know that I will be using some recurring elements of my real groups, like mindfulness and a check-in where everybody will have the space and time to speak uninterrupted. In my recurring groups, I always introduce the check-in by saying what I’m curious about in the moment, as a way to suggest what people might want to share. For the purposes of my Edinburgh show, I’m planning on curiously asking people:
why they came to the show,
how they would introduce themselves,
something we might not guess about them,
their experience in the moment,
what keeps them up at night,
what keeps them going,
a favorite saying and/or song, and
a recurring or vivid dream they’ve had.
In my check-in, I plan on singing one of my original songs and also sharing a recurring dream I have, about trying to call somebody on the phone and not getting through.
Last night, what kept me up was my indecision, at this point, about what to do at the mid-point of the show. When I finally fell asleep, I had my recurring dream (which hasn’t occurred in years).
In my dream last night, I was trying to call Michael on my cell phone. It was incredibly difficult, because of new changes to the phone, which I couldn’t figure out. People were trying to help me connect to him, but nothing was working. Eventually, I attempted the tried-and-true method of saying to Siri, “Call Michael!” At that moment, Michael showed up. I was very relieved to see him, but it was too late for me to get to an important appointment. (The dream had other non-recurring elements, including a Trump supporter who kept trying to steal one of my boots as I was putting it on, but never mind.)
Do you have a recurring dream? Would you talk about it if you came to my show? Actually, it would be a dream for me if any of my readers showed up at my Fringe show, no matter what they decided to share.
Certain recurring dreams and themes show up in my photos. Can you spot any today?
Here’s the original song I’m going to sing during my check-in, which has had recurring appearances in this blog:
I have a recurring dream about people leaving comments, and they often do!
Recurring thanks to all who help me create this daily recurring blog, including you!
