When I want to stand up to the forces of injustice, I think, “I can’t do it on my own.”
When I spend a week with other group therapists and explore the ways that groups can heal in a world where groups sometimes destroy, I know that I can’t do it on my own.
While I may value my independent and solitary ways of thinking and acting, I ultimately realize that I can’t do it on my own, no matter what it is.
I want to connect with others and I can’t do it on my own. Are you with me?
I can’t do it on my own without the Daily Bitch.
Here’s what I find on YouTube when I search for “I can’t do it on my own.”
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I can’t do it on my own, so thanks to all who connect with me here, including YOU!
It’s inexplicable to me how I can get so much explicitly positive feedback — at a conference, in my work, on my blog, from my friends, etc. — and still focus on what’s lacking within and around me.
What makes it almost explicable is my theory that our ancestors who survived focused on the negatives, therefore avoiding/outwitting the saber toothed tigers and hostile tribes, while also concentrating on improving any skill defects.
Yesterday, it was inexplicable to me that my Lyft driver told me that you need cash to ride the giant Ferris wheel you’ve been seeing in my photos lately. After we had a long conversation about how inexplicable it was for anything to be cash only these days (especially a tourist attraction), I found out later that the ride has always been credit card only. Inexplicable.
Is there anything inexplicable in my images for today?
It’s inexplicable to me why some of those dates are shaded with purple. It’s inexplicable how I messed up the Daily Bitch Calendar date in yesterday’s post.
Here’s what I find when I search YouTube for “inexplicable.”
Explicable thanks to all who help me deal with the inexplicable, including YOU.
Connections I make here and elsewhere help me decide what I want to be. Yesterday, in a group, I said I didn’t want to be labeled and then I sang this song.
Thanks to all those with whom I have precious connections, including YOU!
Shame is something I feel and think about a great deal and it’s interesting to me how people grapple to define it. For example, the first definition of “shame” I found online this morning …
… didn’t seem to align with the way I think about shame, which may or may not be preceded by “wrong or foolish behavior.” However, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that “consciousness of wrong or foolish behavior” doesn’t necessarily mean that the person feeling shame actually did something “wrong” or “foolish” — they might just think or feel that they had. And, one might argue that any behavior could be seen as wrong or foolish, if one is feeling shame.
A definition I like about shame is “guilt is feeling you’ve done something wrong; shame is feeling there is something wrong with you.”
During my week in NYC at a group therapy conference, I wrote notes on my phone, and here are some notes I wrote about shame:
I have no shame about inviting people to let go of shame in my work as a psychotherapist, even if other people believe that shame can help us grow and develop.
Here is another definition of shame I found online …
My fun facts for today include the fact that The Russian Tea Room in NYC has four floors that hold hidden treasures like a giant glass bear that has fish swimming inside it. I know this fun fact because my friends and fellow group therapists Jen and Patty saw that after I left the restaurant early last night because I was tuckered out after a too-full day with too-little sleep.
Fun fact: Stephen Colbert answers questions from the audience before every show taping, which yesterday included a reveal of the many pencils he throws around as a homage to his admired talk show predecessors David Letterman and Johnny Carson.
You’re bound to discover other fun facts if you click on the links I’ve embedded on this post so far. (Fun fact: when I type “fun facts” it often comes out as “fun cats.”)
Do you see fun facts in the images I captured yesterday?
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Here’s the first thing I find when I search for “fun facts” on YouTube:
Thanks to all who help me share fun facts in this daily blog, including YOU!
A National Day of Unplugging could very well increase eudaimonia, but I’m not going to disconnect from people on WordPress and Twitter who bring me happiness.
When I search for eudaimonia on YouTube, I find this …
As you open today’s daily blog, what are you open to? Are you open to new information? Challenges to your assumptions? Dissenting and different opinions? Difficult experiences? Transforming old and unhelpful patterns of thoughts and behaviors? Balancing your needs with other people’s needs? Self care and care for others? Whimsy? Wonder? Curiosity? Trying new things?
Yesterday, I was open to meeting wonderful WordPress blogger Debra in Los Angeles during an opening in my group therapy conference schedule. We were both open to hugging each other, even though we had never met outside the blogosphere before. Debra brought me a present which I was happy to open and we were both open to accepting help from a stranger to take a photo. We talked about the importance of remaining open to multitudes of opportunity for change and growth throughout our lives. I opened up with Debra and told her that I look for the word “open” when I’m open to capturing images with my camera.
After I met Debra, I was open to attending the Friday night dance of dozens of group therapists at the conference I’m attending. I expected to be too exhausted to stay long, but I love to dance, so I was open to getting on the dance floor when invited. I was open to the surprising realization that I was able to keep up with the other dancing group therapists for over an hour, despite health challenges and my age.
Are you open to seeing all my photos from yesterday?
That’s Erica, an incoming President from another local affiliate of the American Group Psychotherapy Association, who was open to posing with me and a flamingo last night at the dance. Erica is open to receiving my daily blog in her email but I don’t know how often she opens it. Erica seemed open to the idea that we both use the image above for our official presidential photos.
What YouTube music video would you like to open this morning? I am open to learning that Van Morrison and Pete Townsend wrote and sing different songs about how love can open the door to your heart (here and here).
I am open to reading any comment you make, below.
I may not open these posts with gratitude but I always close with thanks to those who help me create this blog and the sweet wonderful people who read it (including Debra, Erica, and YOU)!
This week, as I travel together with many other group therapists to greater understanding and wisdom at a national conference in Los Angeles, I have this image to share with you:
Because I was traveling fast, alone, when I took that photo yesterday, it’s a little blurry. Here’s what that t-shirt says:
If you want to travel fast, travel alone; if you want to travel far, travel together.
I recently found this in my fast travels online:
In your travels, have you discovered the truth in that African proverb?
Let’s travel together through my other photos from yesterday.
Yesterday afternoon, many of us travelled together in a workshop by Dr. George Bermudez titled “Social Dreaming: An Opportunity for Communal Integration and Healing of Social Fragmentation.” I think traveling together, social dreaming, communal integration, and healing of social fragmentation is especially important in these days of “true” lies. Are you together with me on that, dear readers?
My musician friend, Dave, called me at the conference yesterday to suggest that I travel far, alone, to Venice Beach with my ukulele and play my original songs there. Dave thinks that’s a fast way for me to travel to fame and fortune. For now, I think I’ll continue to travel together with the other participants in this group therapy conference through Saturday.
Let’s travel far together through this video which I just found fast on YouTube:
If you want to make a comment, travel to the comments section, below.
As always, I’m grateful to travel far together with all those who help me create this daily blog and with all my readers who travel here to read it, including YOU.
One thing I consistently relearn in this world (especially when I attend a group psychotherapy conference) is why people respond to you the way they do.
Last week in Houston, I found that people responded to me the way they did because of
assumptions,
memories,
feelings, and
the unconscious.
Here are two examples of people responding to me the way they did:
Example #1.
In a very large group, a woman sitting near me responded to everything I said with hostility, aggression, and opposition. After the group session, I approached her and asked her if I had offended her in some way. She said, “Oh no! I’ve never done one of these large groups before. I just thought that was what you were supposed to do — argue with the person who had just spoken.”
Example #2.
In a different, much smaller group, I was the first to speak up. A man sitting across from me seemed to respond to everything I said with some mild hostility. After about an hour, I let him know, in the group, that I was experiencing some hostility from him and I wondered what that was about. At first he said he wasn’t aware of being hostile towards me. When another group member joined me by telling him she also saw the hostility towards me, he thought about it. Then he said, “I guess there is some hostility there. I saw you yesterday in another group where you spoke up first. When you spoke up first here, I thought, ‘Oh, there’s Ann, doing THAT again.’ I said, “Oh! Now I understand. Thank you!”
I respond to the world the way I do, sometimes through pictures.
