When I make mistakes, that affects my self esteem, which is a mistake, because we all make mistakes.
I’ve made mistakes, apparently, dealing with the annoying noises I’ve been hearing in my head for two years whenever I speak or sing. Unless I’m mistaken, other people don’t get annoyed with the noises I make whenever I speak or sing, which is good.
Do you see any mistakes in my images for today?
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I’m still making mistakes when I play my new holiday song, but I’m going to try to create a good enough version of it with GarageBand today.
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Here’s what I find when I search for “mistakes” on YouTube:
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Thanks to all who are here for my mistakes, including YOU!!
For four thousand, seven hundred and seventeen days (but who’s counting?), I have come up with today’s theme, hoping that each daily blog post has something that helps somebody besides me.
What is today’s theme?
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What’s today’s theme? I think it’s our group membership with people who are doing our best to love and accept others and ourselves. Actually, that’s every day’s theme here at The Year(s) of Living Non-Judgmentally.
Here’s what I find when I search for “today’s theme” on YouTube.
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Thanks to all who are here for today’s theme, including YOU!
Self esteem is very often connected to appearances.
Through my appearances in therapy groups, I encourage people to disconnect their sense of self worth from their appearances, practicing unconditional self love NOW.
From all appearances, that is very difficult to do in a culture so obsessed with appearances.
What do you notice about appearances in my images appearing here today?
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Here’s what appears when I search for “appearances” on YouTube:
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That reminds me of my aunt suggesting I get a nose job when I was young and other thoughts and feelings I’ve had about my various appearances at different ages. I appreciate YiWen Fan’s conclusions about appearances, including letting go of comparisons.
Thanks to all who are making appearances here, now, including YOU!
Maybe it’s bragging to say that I’m good at finding things on the internet, including definitions of “bragging.”
It doesn’t surprise me that bragging is defined in a negative way. However, I think there’s something to be said for bragging, especially if you tend to squelch or disbelieve positive things about yourself.
Personally, I grew up in a family where saying anything positive about oneself — much less bragging — was discouraged. Whenever I said something that came close to bragging, I was told “don’t give a kanahari” because that would attract the evil eye.
As a result, I’ve always had some fear about promoting myself, naming my talents, owning my skills, and doing anything else that might attract the evil eye. This is so ingrained that last September, when I fearlessly shared one of my original songs with strangers and then had a mini-stroke the next day, this thought came into my head: “That’s what you get for bragging about yourself.”
Rationally, I know that’s not true. Also, I’ve witnessed the healing power of bragging when I’ve encouraged people in my therapy groups to say something positive about themselves. Last week, I said, “let’s hear some bragging” and witnessed people, who usually put themselves down, allowing themselves to acknowledge and own their positive attributes and accomplishments.
Let’s see if there’s any bragging in my images for today.
Is it bragging, on National Fun Day, to say that I’m really fun? Is it also bragging to say that I made many great decisions about our shower remodel, that I’m an excellent group therapist, or that I write good songs?
Here’s hoping something terrible doesn’t happen to me because of all that bragging.
Here’s the song I was bragging about in September:
Let’s see some bragging in those comments, below!
Is it bragging to say that I have the best readers for my blog, including you?
Last week in one of my therapy groups, we noticed how some members were asking “does this make sense?” when they were making complete sense.
We tried to make sense of this and discussed how people can doubt their ability to make sense when they’ve gotten messages from the culture and/or their families that they make less sense than others.
Does this make sense? That so many people receive undermining messages like that?
An older woman in the group shared how she has learned to stop asking “does this make sense?” when she is speaking, which made sense to the other members.
Does this make sense that I’m sharing these thoughts and images with you today?
To make sense of this reading: My INR is finally back where it needs to be!
Does this makes sense that “Bring Your Kids to Work Day” would be on a WEEKEND?
Here’s what I find on YouTube when I search for “does this make sense?”
It always makes sense for me to end my blog posts with thanks to all who try to make sense of them, including you!
On days like this, I’m looking for moments of peace.
Can you find any moments of peace in my images for today?
On September 11, 2011, how can you find moments of peace?
Today, Joan seems to be finding more moments of peace with the cone she needs to wear as she recovers from ongoing mastitis (which we’ve been treating since we adopted her).
Other beings’ moments of peace increase my moments of peace.
Here’s what I find on YouTube when I search for “moments of peace.”
I am grateful for all the moments of peace I can find and I’m grateful for you!
Many people I know — through therapy and elsewhere — are uncomfortable with compliments and often don’t believe or even recognize compliments when they receive them.
I hope wonderful blogger Mark Bialczak and his lovely wife Karen consider it a compliment that I always want to spend time with them when they are visiting Cape Cod. Yesterday, I drove many miles and minutes to spend a delightful few hours with them and their adorable, 10-year-old rescue dog Ellie B.
As we spent time together in beautiful Dennis Port, Mark and I gave each other compliments about our blogs — which both are experiencing dwindling readership. Also, Mark — who used to review music for many years at the big daily newspaper in Syracuse — gave me inspiring and almost- hard-for-me to-believe compliments about my original songs which, honestly, meant the world to me.
I hope everybody considers it a compliment that I wanted to capture all these images of a fabulous day and to share them with you, here and now:
If the noble and irresistible Ellie B read my blog, I assume she’d consider it a compliment that I took so many photos of her yesterday.
I wanted to specifically compliment Karen on her “diamond painting” ..
… which Mark called “my wife’s beading.”
Mark also complimented me yesterday on my Twitter interactions, so I feel more confident sharing these with you today:
It’s more difficult being nice when you’re uncomfortable and our central air conditioning is not working, just in time for a heat wave here. I have to compliment my husband, Michael, who still cooked for me last night …
… and who is going to try to fix our air conditioning system today by locating and replacing the air filter, which is probably somewhere here:
I’m sure our air conditioning system …
… doesn’t consider it a compliment that we’ve never replaced the filter in the FOUR years we’ve been here.
Here’s one of my original songs that I performed at the Edinburgh Fringe, which Mark complimented me on yesterday:
I’ll consider it a great compliment if you comment on this blog post, below.
I’m grateful for all compliments, for great friendships, and, of course, for YOU!
While I used to be afraid of seeming immodest, these days I talk about how awesome I am and I also invite you and others to talk about how awesome you are.
If it’s hard for you to see how awesome you are, keep looking. Ask people you know to talk about how awesome you are. (Many people find it easier to talk about how awesome you are than to talk about how awesome they are.)
It may be difficult to talk about how awesome you are when you’re not feeling your best, but who IS feeling their best these days? Even when you’re not feeling your best, you’re still awesome.
Maybe some of these images will help you talk about how awesome you are.
I won’t stop talking about group therapy, which is an awesome place to talk about how awesome you are.
Here‘s what I find when I search YouTube for “Talk about how awesome you are.”
We all need pep talks, from others (like Kid President) and from ourselves. So please talk about how awesome you are in the comments section, below.
Thanks to all who help me talk about how awesome we are, including YOU!
I’m writing today’s blog post for all of us who are not feeling particularly cute these days.
You are much cuter than you feel.
I’m not being cute — I know this because of all the years I’ve spent being a cute-enough therapist to many cute-enough people who have trouble realizing how cute they are.
Just last week, I was doing a remote therapy session on the phone with a cute-enough person who was feeling sad, depressed, and anxious about many non-cute realities.
Because I cutely and acutely know that shame and self-doubt often increase during crises, I suggested at the end of the session that, once a day, she look in the mirror and say to herself, “Hey, cutie!”
It was cute how dramatically her mood improved after I said this. I could hear the cute lightness in her tone when she promised she would try my cute prescription.
Hey, cutie! What do you think would happen if you tried that same cute prescription?
Hey, cutie! Do you see any cuties in my latest images?
That last image shows my latest cute attempt to get more cute engagements on Twitter.
Hey, cutie! You’re still cute, no matter how many cute people engage with you on social media and elsewhere.
