Walking . Thinking . Learning

Yes We Can

Thank you Barack Obama.

Lautrec

Fall Weave

As the season progresses into late fall, it is amazing to watch the colors, textures and forms of nature change everyday. It reminds me that nothing is ever static or frozen and that I must shift and move with nature and never get stuck or frozen.

I have also been thinking allot about mind control. I seem to be moving beyond being careful to remain positive to just telling myself that I do not have the time to be depressed or to entertain morbid or self defeating thoughts.

My walk today was very difficult physically. I got a mile down the path and wanted to turn back just from the pain I felt in my legs, but I knew that it was important for my spirit, my emotions, my mind and my body that I just keep going and complete my 5 mile walk.

50: A number not to be feared

Today is my 50th birthday and I choose to celebrate my own survival and prosperity this day. I claim every good thing for myself. I look forward to a whole new decade of discovery and growth. I thank the universe for helping me to get over my self [self and negative perceptions of my personality and place in the world] and my obsession with failure and poverty. I embrace my new world. I embrace my own personal “new age”.

I thank Louise Hay for helping me to get here. I thank my mother and my father and my entire family for their love and wisdom. I thank my life partner for being here for me and holding my hand for the past year while I walked through the dark valley of my own making in my own despair and self hatred. I am a wonderfully lucky and blessed man. I am grateful for my father’s visit this past summer and his acceptance and love for me. I am grateful for a roof over my head, food in my refrigerator and cupboards, opportunities surrounding me in every direction, for political freedom, the chance to run my own business, the health to be able to walk 5 miles a day, for stopping smoking this year, for wonderful new destinations that I have discovered, and the blessings of technology that make the Internet and this blog possible.

Turning fifty years old is not scary at all. It is the fear of turning fifty that is really scary. It is a fear that can destroy you; It is a fear that can drive you crazy, but only if you let it. Embrace the possibility of this moment and your future. Embrace The Concept and The Reality of Now.

Questions

From B. DeRoes page on test anxiety from Edmund Bourne’s “The Anxiety and Phobia Workbook” I found these Socratic tips on countering negative self talk:

1. What is the evidence for this?
2. Is this always true?
3. Has this been true in the past?
4. What are the odds of this really happening (or being true?)
5. What is the very worst that could happen? What is so bad about that? What would I do if the worst happened?
6. Am I looking at the whole picture?
7. Am I being fully objective?

These are excellent questions to ask yourself when you “get your negative tapes” going in your head.

Happy Sad Faces

When I started this blog, I wanted it to be brutally honest and deeply personal. It is hard to do that sometimes when I am really upset and things look bad in my life. I know that to really help others however I need to share the tough times as well as the good.

I often panic when I have a bad argument with someone I love. I can only describe these incidences as panic attacks because that’s how they feel. When I reach that level, I feel like I am totally out of control. I cannot stop crying and I feel experience an ever increasing, growing and rising sense of anxiety and chaos. In these times it feels like everything is hopeless and blowing apart inside of me.

What I learned today since my panic attack last night is this:

On my spiritual journey, I have to stay focused on changing and improving me - not my loved ones. I cannot drive them away from me with constant nagging and criticism. Here’s a great article on “What You Can Do to Improve Your Marriage”.

I still have a lot to learn about listening. I found a great post by Filipina Mom Blogger about listening to a husband that loves to rant.

About Panic Attacks I found this resource on Negative Self Talk. It is actually about panic attacks that occur when you take a test, but the phenomenon is the same regardless of what causes the behavior.

Fall in the northeast

Today as I took my 5 mile walk I had to clear allot of fallen branches along the path as we have had a lot of heavy winds in the last couple of days. It reminded me that this journal hopefully performs the same purpose in some way. I hope that in relating my own experiences that I can help to remove obstacles along life’s path that might cause someone else to stumble like I did. I am grateful that I can relate my own experiences with depression, self respect and motivation to help others along their own paths.

Mom

I have not always been grateful for my mother and when she died we were not on the best of terms.  Recently my perspective has been changing somewhat as I have been helping a friend whose children keep pushing her away saying they aren’t responsible for taking care of her now that she is getting older and weaker. It has hit me hard how grateful I have to be for my mother and how I want to honor her memory today.

My mother was a wonderfully strange and funny creature. She was very different than any of the women in my family. There was not a woman anywhere in my known universe at the time that was even remotely like this woman. She never had any time for gossip or negative talk about anyone. She never wanted to speak evil of anyone or anything. She loved to read more than any person I have ever met and was always busy with some creative project. She loved working, she loved selling, she loved shopping for her children. She loved people so deeply that when she died it was not just her family that grieved, but her church and her community all felt a deep sense of loss. I miss that woman and today I honor her memory and her hard work to make me the wonderful person that I am today. I am as unique as she was and I am proud of it.

As I help my friend deal with being rejected and abandoned by her children for “being too much trouble” I know now that I must have hurt my own mother deeply at times by not responding when she called out for help. I forgive myself for my own selfishness and I know that my mother in heaven forgives me too.

I affirm for my friend that she will be able to some day be close with her family and have everyone reach out to each other freely without any baggage from the past, without any emotional wounds or resentments and simply love and respect each other in the present moment. I see her with her children and her grandchildren in a warm and happy family gathering of peace and joy.

Dinner

Just a note. When you think your life is hard, take a moment to think what it is like in poorer countries: See this comparison of what families around the world eat in one week. You might feel differently after seeing this.

I am grateful for the roof over my head, for the friends and family in my life, for the food in my refrigerator, for all the blessings that I have living in a beautiful part of the country.

Fall 2008 October in New Jersey

Every day my walks help me to keep my head screwed on straight. I am grateful that I finally decided to get off my ass and start taking care of my mind, my body and my soul. With every step on my walk, I try to remain in an attitude of gratitude. I am a very happy man that my life has changed so much for the better. I encourage all of you to get out and walk as much as you can every day. Do it for yourself. Do it for the universe. Do it for your own peace of mind. Just Do It.

Abundance in Nature

My Depression preceded the Worldwide Economic Crisis of 2008 by a few months and for that I am grateful. I don’t think I could have taken the entire planet writhing in pain at the same time that I was. It would have made “my world” even darker.

It is interesting to compare my own crisis with the worlds right now because at the base there is a striking similarity. Joe Nocera of the New York Times said of the financial crisis this morning:

Similarly, when times are bad, fear and loathing capture our imagination, and we find it equally impossible to see a glimmer of hope.

It is that same irrational fear and loathing that led to my own downfall. I was afraid of the future and I loathed my present and my past. I had come to absolutely hate myself. It was strange this week to see bankers, traders and big wigs acting out the same self destructive fantasies that I had in the midst of my depression. It seemed at times this week that the whole world had gotten a serious gut wrenching flu that was sending it into cold sweats with waves of nausea and pain.

The only way I had out of my crisis was to begin to respect myself again and to look for hope. In some way, that is what the world has to do now too. It has to learn from the mistakes of the recent past and get up off the floor, screaming at the top of its lungs, writing in pain.

The world is no less abundant than it was a few weeks ago.

The universe is not poorer than it was a few weeks ago.

The universe is just as rich as it ever was. Nothing has changed.

Do you have just one thing to be thankful for today? Is there more?