Posts Tagged With: growth

Day 204: Top Ten

Posted on July 23, 2013 by Ann Koplow

I like to put together Top Ten Lists.

Perhaps that’s because I loved watching David Letterman shows in the 1980s and 1990s.

My Personal Top Ten Lists

For every therapy group program I’ve helped create, I’ve put together “The Top Ten Things to Know” about these programs, as a way to introduce the groups to new participants.

While there are often more than Ten Things I want to tell new people, I appreciate the discipline of restricting myself to that number. And Ten Things usually gives me enough room to fit all the necessary information to help somebody feel welcome, comfortable, and safe enough to participate.

I also put together Top Ten Lists every year, on December 31st. As the national and local media are showcasing a kashmillion end-of-year Top Ten Bests and Worsts (e.g.,Top Ten Best and Worst Movies, Top Ten Best and Worst TV Shows, Top 10 Best and Worst Top Ten Lists), I join in by compiling Ann’s 10 Best and 10 Worst of the year, which can include movies, activities, people, or anything else. For example, my Top 10 Worst of 2013 will definitely include the Boston Marathon bombings; My Top 10 Best of 2013 will almost definitely include writing this blog and my 60th birthday celebration trip to South Carolina.

The Latest Personal Top Ten List: The Year of Living Non-Judgmentally Blog Posts

For whatever reason — probably because I’ve passed the half-way mark of this Year of Posting — I’ve been hankering to do a solipsistic* Top Ten List of my own blog posts. I considered compiling a list of personal favorites, but really, how am I supposed to choose ten among 203 of my own creations? It’s like choosing among children, if you will. (And if I had 203 children, I would be hard pressed to keep track of them, much less choose among them.)

So, instead, I’m going to take the easy — ahem! — the logical route to choosing Top Ten TYOLN-J Posts. (Excuse me. I just have to interrupt here to observe — with amazement — that it’s taken me 204 days to use a short-hand acronym for The Year of Living Non-Judgmentally.)

Where was I? Oh, yes, how to do a Top 10 list of my own posts. Here’s my solution: I’m going to simply present The Top Ten Blog Posts according to readership for the year so far. And, actually, that list does have some of my favorite children on there.

So, without further ado ….

The Top Ten TYOLN-J Posts

(in reverse order, of course):

#10 Day 77: Try this one weird trick

#9 Day 109: 7:09 AM. These guys are turning my world into a violent movie

#8 Day 17: I think I wake up most mornings feeling uneasy

#7 Day 106: Beautiful, wounded Boston

#6 Day 127: Reasons why somebody hasn’t e-mailed you back yet

#5 Day 108: Kindness can make me cry, even harder

#4 Day 69: To Do Lists (How NOT to get overwhelmed)

#3 Day 1 in The Year of Living Non-Judgmentally

#2 Day110: Arrrghh! I might still be in this guy’s movie

And ….

(I picked this drumroll (1) for a change and (2) because of its sophisticated echo to Letterman’s “Stupid Pet Tricks.”)

The Number 1 Year of Living Non-Judgmentally post is ….

Day 38: Reasons why I should move to Charleston, SC

Thanks so much for reading, today.

________________________

* One of my top ten favorite big words, meaning “self-centered.”

Categories: personal growth | Tags: blogging, Boston, connection, David Letterman, growth, self improvement, Solipsism, Solipsistic, Stupid Pet Tricks, Ten Best Lists, Ten Worst Lists, Top Ten Lists, writing | 4 Comments

Day 202: Looks

Posted on July 21, 2013 by Ann Koplow

I went to my 43rd high school reunion last night.

Here are some random thoughts about that.

When I entered junior high school (from a really small, religion-based elementary school), I knew very few of the over 200 people in my new class.

I started junior high school the year after my whole world turned around — when I had my first cardiac pacemaker implanted (on the same day that John F. Kennedy was shot, which turned everybody else’s world around, too).

I didn’t know many people in my 7th grade class. Nevertheless, I remember being happy to be entering that big world of more diverse, interesting people. I remember observing people, with fascination and with gratitude to be there among them.

It felt like an adventure and a relief, in a way.

Some people were kinder than others back then. 13-year-old kids aren’t very far along in the process of developing empathy to others. (Developing empathy is a growth process in human beings, which sometimes gets short circuited by unfortunate circumstances.)

But for the most part, I remember a lot of people who showed kindness to me. And I could have been a prime target for bullying — (1) I was unfamiliar to lots of people and (2) I had a medical condition that a lot of people knew about. (Because cardiac pacemakers were so new, and because the one I had implanted was so big and stuck so far out, the doctors thought I needed to wear a brace and leave early from class, with somebody carrying my books for me.)

But I only got bullied by one person and it was pretty mild (even though I did witness, at times, other people getting bullied worse, which was awful).

I had a lot of great experiences, learning to know the people in the class, as we grew from ages 13 through 18.

One thing I remember feeling bad about for most of those years of junior high and high school?

My looks.

Not sure why I felt so bad, in retrospect. Actually, I can guess:

I didn’t look like the models of good looks I saw everywhere in the media.
The guys in junior high and high school didn’t seem interested in me, that way.
I had this weird pacemaker sticking out of my body, which affected how I felt about myself.

Last night, at the reunion, some of the guys told me that they were interested in me, back then.

Why didn’t they let me know when we were in school together?

Because they thought I wouldn’t go out with them. They had lots of reasons why they thought I might reject THEM. I was very surprised to hear that.

I think a lot of people hear stories like that — and other surprising stories — when they go to a reunion.

That’s the end of the blog post for today, ladies and gentlemen.

Thanks to people from my high school, everybody who ever felt insecure in school, and — if that doesn’t cover everybody reading today — the rest of you, too.

Categories: personal growth | Tags: bullies, cardiac pacemaker, empathy, growth, healing, high school reunion, insecurity, kindness, looks, models, self esteem, self-judgment | 8 Comments

Day 198: The Balance of The Internal and External

Posted on July 17, 2013 by Ann Koplow

This is what I’m thinking this morning:

It’s helpful to balance the internal world and the external world.

Too much focus on the internal world of my own thoughts, feelings and experience = Out of Balance.

Too much focus on the external world (including the internal worlds of other people) = Out of Balance.

The trick, ladies and gentleman, is to figure out a “good enough” balance.

Another trick is to leave lots of room for good-enough balances (so there’s not a razor-thin edge of sought perfection). (That’s a useful trick, in lots of human endeavors.)

I just looked for a visual aid for this post, by googling “balance.” The one I chose, first, was this:

Hmmmm. Maybe these guys said “Balancing can be simple” because they were trying to sell somebody something.

But maybe they’re right, anyway.

Simple doesn’t mean obvious or easy, though, does it?

Another image that grabbed me, in that Google search, was this:

That image lead me to this page, called “A Very, Very, Very Delicate Balance.” There, RadioLab’s Robert Krulwich writes about the artist, Michael Grab:

These rocks, says the artist, are not glued, not Velcroed. This is not a trick.

Here are some other things I could write about this morning:

NPR’s RadioLab, in particular, is something I’ve been wanting to take some time to listen to, as I re-balance my personal internal and external.
While I was writing this blog post, my cat, who is a much more adept and complex user of my laptop than I am, suddenly made all the components I was using to compose this post disappear — Pooof!
Which resulted in my needing to use a different part of WordPress to finish this post, which made that last picture show up smaller than I wanted (I haven’t figured out, yet, how to fix this).

Perhaps, if I had more time this morning, I could more smoothly and beautifully arrange the pieces of this post, to pull everything together, making a bridge to some amazing conclusion.

But I don’t. So, that concludes our blog post for today.

Thank you, dear reader, for including this as part of your balance, today.

_____

P.S. On January 9, 2014, I re-visited this post, with more knowledge than I had when I first wrote it, on July 17, 2013. So, now, I will present that image in the size I wanted to, back then:

Yay!

Categories: personal growth | Tags: balance, blogging, connection, growth, healing, Michael Grab, NPR, Personal, RadioLab, Robert Krulwich, self improvement, self-judgment | 9 Comments

Day 172: Direct communication

Posted on June 21, 2013 by Ann Koplow

What are the words that are difficult to say to somebody else?

Often, it’s when we fear that the other person will have a negative reaction, like disappointment.

Here’s why this issue is on my mind this morning: Somebody at work had made a difficult decision she needed to tell me about. She was afraid I would be disappointed by what she had to say, so she put off telling me, waiting for the “right time.”

The right time hadn’t come yet.

I asked her about it last night, and found out that way.

That is my least favorite way of finding out something difficult.

So when she answered my question with the disappointing news, I felt stunned. The wind got knocked out of me. I was direct about THAT, by the way. And she and I talked things through. And it’s all okay.

I’ve been on both sides of this situation: being disappointed and disappointing somebody else. (As you have, too, I assume.)

And, I totally relate to the wish to not disappoint somebody. I’ve also experienced reluctance and procrastination about telling somebody something difficult.

However, I am going to make a strong pitch, right now, for direct communication, the sooner the better.

If we have something difficult to tell somebody, if we fear disappointment as a reaction, let’s try this:

Recognize and let go of beliefs that this will damage or destroy the relationship.
Remember that other people are not as fragile as you fear.
Tell yourself you’ve made a difficult decision, and you’ve done the best you can.
Realize that, whatever happens, you’ll learn something.
Take a deep breath.
Say it.

Let’s see if I can practice this — role model it — right now.

(Internal process of preparation.)

(Deep breath.)

I have nothing more to say this morning.

Categories: personal growth | Tags: anxiety, cognitive distortions, communication, connection, courage, disappointment, growth, procrastination, self improvement, self-judgment | 9 Comments

Day 168: A dream of dancing

Posted on June 17, 2013 by Ann Koplow

In Day 148: Dreams I Have Known, I wrote about a dream where I knew I was asleep and dreaming, didn’t like the feeling, and tried to wake up, fighting the typical “dream paralysis.”

Last night, I had a dream that started that same way: that is, I had just fallen asleep and I knew I was dreaming. Usually I don’t like those early-sleep dreams, because I often have a sense of discomfort or foreboding … like there is some danger present. Last night, I didn’t fight the dream or try to wake up, and it quickly shifted into something else. I was in a room that was like a big studio, with mirrors on the walls. I could see myself, and I decided to try some dance moves. Specifically, I wanted to kick my legs way up, to a full extension. Something like this:

Or this:

And I could see myself, and that reflected image looked like me and dressed like me, and — lo and behold — I could do those kicks.

It was great.

I woke up and I thought, “I want to remember that dream. And I want to blog about it tomorrow.”

I did and I am.

I’m enjoying the memory of that dream, right now. It was fun, freeing, and effortless. I felt graceful and centered. I was surprised by my skill and knew that it was the Dream Me, but the movement and expression seemed to come out of the Real Me.

While I might not be able to kick exactly the way I did in that dream, I know I can kick — in other ways — in real life.

Thanks for kicking back with me, here and now.

Categories: personal growth | Tags: adventure, blogging, dance kick, dancing, dreams, growth, high kick, kicking, Personal, self expression, self improvement, sleep | 5 Comments

Day 164: Unfreezing

Posted on June 13, 2013 by Ann Koplow

When I was a kid, I had lots of scary experiences in the hospital, all by myself, because my parents weren’t allowed to be with me.

I remember listening to the beeping sounds of heart monitors, in the darkest part of the night, feeling frozen.

I’m writing this blog post from a cot in a hospital room, next to my amazing 15-year-old son, who is recovering quite nicely from a procedure, this afternoon, to correct a “spontaneous pneumothorax.”

Earlier, this was the view from his hospital room as day turned to night:

It’s the darkest part of the night, right now. The only sounds I hear in this room are reassuring ones, including those of my son’s undisturbed sleep.

Each moment I’m with him now, I’m unfreezing.

Thanks, so much, for witnessing this.

Categories: personal growth, photojournalism | Tags: blogging, change, childhood illness, growth, hospitals, memories, Personal, recovery, reparative experiences, stories | 14 Comments

Day 158: The Ascending Coil (revisited)

Posted on June 7, 2013 by Ann Koplow

The first week I blogged here, back in January, I shared the introduction of a book I’m working on, which described a wonderful, useful way to look at your healing journey through life.

The Ascending Coil

I can use the word “wonderful” with all due modesty, because it’s not my idea. Carl Jung came up with this soulful and true metaphor, which matches so many people’s experience of learning and growth.

This is what Jung said: While we may expect ourselves to learn and proceed through life in a linear fashion, like this:

The human experience is more like this:

(And yes, that is a picture of a Slinky!!) (Which I’m thrilled to have found this morning on-line, especially since several people I work with have bought Slinkies, to remind themselves of this concept.)

Look at that beautiful Slinky. THAT is how we grow. We move around in circles, learning similar lessons over and over again.

Of couse, that kind of path can feel discouraging at times … like we’re moving backwards. Like we’re relearning things we should know already.

But here’s the good news. We’re always moving up. Each time we go around, we have new wisdom and experience. Even when we move back around into periods of pain, confusion, or hopelessness, we will turn another corner and continue to move forward.

We can’t fall back. We can’t unlearn. It’s impossible.

It make take us several go-rounds to learn something “well enough” to change, but we’re always building, in some way, on what we’ve experienced.

Why did I want to revisit this ascending coil, this morning?

Because when I woke up this morning, facing some difficult challenges — some new opportunities that scare me, I had this thought, which helped tremendously:

Today, I am more equipped than I’ve ever been in my life, to tackle what’s ahead of me. Because, no matter what I’m doing, I’m further along, on this mortal coil.

Thanks for reading, wherever you are, today.

Categories: personal growth | Tags: adventure, ascending coil, Carl Jung, change, connection, growth, Mortal coil, Personal, self improvement, Slinky | 6 Comments

Day 152: Weighty Matters

Posted on June 1, 2013 by Ann Koplow

Oh, brother. (Oh, sister, too.)

This topic does feel like a weight — on my shoulders and in my gut.

And the topic is …. weight. How much we weigh.

Arrrghhhh!

This is SUCH a loaded topic.

There are so many aspects to it.

Body image.

Self worth.

Health.

Societal messages.

The value of women.

The value of human beings.

Stereotypes and prejudices.

Nutrition.

Food addiction.

Family dynamics.

Advertising.

Food-related politics and policies.

National, cultural, and historical differences in attitudes towards food and weight.

Etc. etc. etc.

(You may want to add to that list, depending upon your experience with this topic.)

Here’s my major point, this morning. All these different thoughts — small and large — floating around in my brain, are inspired by something so trivial … that feels so huge to me:

I weigh more, today, than I ever have in my life.

And it’s difficult for me to feel as valuable and “okay,” once having noticed that.

Which makes me mad, especially since I’ve worked with so many people, over the years, about cultivating self-esteem divorced from appearance, including weight.

So I’m taking the first step, right now, of naming my observation, my confusion, and my reactions.

That’s the beginning of my process — of moving forward, wherever that takes me.

Thank you for reading and witnessing (wherever you are, with all this).

Categories: personal growth | Tags: connection, food, growth, opinion, Personal, self esteem, self improvement, self-judgment, self-worth, weight | 5 Comments

Day 145: Positioning and Payments

Posted on May 25, 2013 by Ann Koplow

Yesterday, I wrote about my attempts to remember an important Message to Self, whenever I’m feeling down, depressed, or discouraged, which involved storing this message in a special place.

Today, I moved the Box With The Message, so it can be closer at hand.

I don’t want to lose track of it.

I needed to pay some bills today. I just finished scheduling some on-line payments.

One of these bills — my electric bill — is going to be late, as usual. Arrghh! I know why this is. It’s because my way of remembering to pay bills is outmoded.

This is the out-dated process of bill-paying I use:

I have it in my head that I should pay all my bills on the 23rd of each month.
Starting around the 18th, I start to ask myself whether it’s time to pay my bills.
I don’t actually pay my bills, I just ask myself that question every day.
On the 23rd, I remember that this technique is based on a time in my life that — if I mailed all my bills on the 23rd — they would all get paid in time.
I delay doing anything about this for a day or two, because I now pay most bills on-line, and the Big Bills are all due by the 1st.
Around the 25th of the month, I schedule the on-line bill payments.
I feel guilty and stoopid, because — as always — I am late with the electric bill, which is actually due in the middle of the month.

Well! That was cathartic (if embarrassing) — to actually write down my Out-Moded and Not Particularly Effective Process for Paying My Bills.

I think I want to make a change in my life, people.

This is what I am proposing: when a bill comes in the mail, I will immediately rip open the bill and schedule the payment on-line.

Wow! That would sure save me a lot of wasted steps, time, and anxious energy.

And now that I’ve committed to doing that, here, I can feel a change coming on.

I will keep you posted.

Thanks for reading (and witnessing my process of change).

Categories: personal growth | Tags: anxiety, change, communication, community, connection, groups, growth, paying bills, Personal, positive messages, self improvement, self-judgment, self-worth, shame | 6 Comments

Day 132: What I learned on my spring vacation.

Posted on May 12, 2013 by Ann Koplow

This post is dedicated to my late mother and to my son.

What I learned on my spring vacation:

Take the time you need.
Trust in your natural impulses to heal, learn, and grow.
Pay attention to everything.
Choose next steps that will benefit you (and those you love).
Everybody makes mistakes, including your iPhone.
You get lots of chances to do it better the next time.
Everything is changing and growing (even if you can’t see it).

This reminds me of another Emo Philips joke:

I was walking down the street and I thought, ‘My gosh, that’s Jimmy Peterson. I haven’t seen him since 3rd grade!’

So I go up to him, slap him on the back and say, “How are you doing, you old moron? You drunken reprobate!” And I knock him down, and he starts crying, “Mommy! Mommy!”

And I realized: Wait a second. If that’s Jimmy Peterson … he would have grown up too.

You promote whatever you perceive — and acknowledge — in others.
Trust the wisdom of those who love you.
Embrace all your feelings — they will give you “juice.”

And last, but not least:

If you’re going to assume ….

… assume the best.

Thanks for reading, everybody.

Categories: personal growth | Tags: assume the best, assumptions, change, Emo Philips, Emo Philips joke about childhood friend, growth, Jimmy Peterson, mind reading, mistakes, self improvement, vacation | 6 Comments