Resolutions

As a new year begins, many of us are preparing for a time-honored tradition of listing our resolutions for change during the upcoming months.  There seems to be something about beginning a new year that brings out the desire for us to plan some type of change for the way we are choosing to live our lives.

At the number one position on many American lists is the resolution to lose some weight.  We know that a very large number of our population is over weight and obese by a significant number of pounds. 

Socially we interact with people using food as a facilitator for our gatherings.   For a wide range of reasons, many of us not only eat too much food quantity, but also eat food that is not especially healthy but tends to taste good and easily puts on the pounds.

For many, if not most, people this resolution to lose weight is not only the first on their list to achieve, it is usually the first one in which a person finds themselves failing even if they had some initial success.   As a resolution that tends to stand alone, the success rate tends to be low.

There are some techniques that may help some better achieve this or any other resolutions.  The first question for someone to ask himself or herself is if they really want to lose weight and why.  Challenging the degree and depth of personal motivation is usually difficult; being honest with self is frequently a life-long struggle.

If one finds that the basis of their resolution is to meet the expectations of others, they usually will experience weaker motivation to achieve.  Contrary to social expectations not all of us are born to be rich, healthy, intelligent, beautiful and thin!   

If the resolution stands alone and is not integrated with other life changes, the chances for success are also weaker.  For example, if the weight-loss resolution does not include commitments to include exercise, a specific pattern of changing one’s eating style and content, not having a support person or group for the tough times, concrete measures to determine success with accountability, etc., the chances of one succeeding in losing weight are remote.

One can also be aware that losing weight might have nothing to do with will-power or motivation.  For example, there many medications we may be taking which have weight gain as a side effect.

Based on this premise one can see that their chances of change increase when one is honestly and deeply committed to working for change rather than just wishing something different would happen.  Yet many people handle their resolutions list as though it were a wish list and that changes in one’s life happen by some form of magic.  

A Hugheyism to recall is:  "If you do what you have always done, you will get what you always have gotten."

While our focus has been on the most popular resolution for the new year, the dynamics for success and failure with other goals for change in one’s life are similar.   A diet usually fails for the long haul, because it is short-term focused and not a real change of permanent behavior.  

The same is true for any other resolutions we have.  To truly work, any resolution needs to focus on the long-term behaviors of how we choose to live.  Until this integration truly takes place, we are short-term focused and can easily slide back to the natural (for us) way of behaving.

This tendency for many of us to focus on the immediate gratification of our wants is one reason the resolutions list we prepare in January seems to have the same goals on them year after year.  Without the input of effort to make a change work as a integral part of who we are, we usually go through our lives making the same choices over and over.

As always, change and choices to manage them remain our personal challenges.

Comments welcome.    Email:  silverchatline@gmail.com

Holiday Expectations 2

A year ago an essay was written about the expectations that each of us carry into this holiday period.  All that was written last year is as true this year, as it was last year and many years before.  Therefore, I encourage you to return to Holiday Expectations  (Dec 2009)  and reread what was written as a preface to this addition.

One of the characteristics of this Power for Positive Living blog series is that almost everything contained in the various blogs remain timeless year after year.  They offer positive guidance for us when we are adolescents all the way through our senior years. 

Even with this knowledge and living experience, it can remain a frequent challenge for each of us to implement what we have learned during our life journey into allowing us to enjoy healthy and positive lives on a daily basis.

Recently I was sharing a feeling of excitement about a blog content with a friend.  Since I had written it, the content was of value to me.  My friend chose to respond with the comment: “I’ve heard it all before; there is nothing new”.

Even with all of my years of professional and personal experience and this person being a historical friend of long standing; I was disappointed at his response.  Yes, the response was true to him, because one cannot know me for long without learning that I have  value, belief and behavior systems which I freely share with others.

After pondering the exchange, I found myself with the typical human responses of wanting to find someway to blame him for disappointing me.  He was not being supportive.  He did not listen to my sense of excitement.  He chose to focus on the repetitive aspect of the content rather than my feelings.

However, I finally realized that part of the responsibility for my feelings was placing my own expectations on him.  I had an idea of how he should have responded and he chose to honor his own expectations rather than try to meet mine.  I was the one with the feelings of disappointment.

So, whether it is the holiday season or not, we are continually facing the challenge of placing expectations on ourselves and on others.  If I meet my own expectations of myself, I tend to be happy; if not, then I tend to be disappointed in me. 

The same is true when I choose to place expectations on others; they have the same choice to honor my expectations or not and I experience the resultant feelings.  

During this holiday season, we need to remind ourselves that the world does not revolve around our wants and needs.  People behave to meet their needs, not ours.  Others think about us far less often than we do!

Each of us is free to decide whether to honor the expectations we place on ourselves during the holidays and other times of the year, just as others may want to place on us.  Reality encourages us to realize that often people make choices about our expectations for them that are different than what we prefer.

As with all of our choices, holiday or non-holiday, the way we choose to feel and behave each day is always personal.  When we set expectations for ourselves and other people at a realistic level, we experience the outcomes we actually wish to have happen.

Each day our personal joy and happiness of setting and receiving expectations are waiting to be chosen!

Comments welcome.  Email:  silverchatline@gmail.com

Healing

Since it seems impossible to go through life without being emotionally hurt by self and/or others, we often find ourselves dealing with the various processes of healing.

Handling the lost of family and friends during the holiday season is a special hurt that the season tends to make more difficult for many of us.  The holiday period of Thanksgiving through Christmas tends to focus us on the happiness that comes from being with others who are special to us.  If one does not fit this pattern due to his or her feelings of losing someone close, these days can be most difficult with healthy healing being stressful.

Our world does change when we lose a loved one.  There are many possibilities on the type and degree of change that occurs, but there is no doubt that changes of some type will take place in our world.

Any study of group dynamics will demonstrate that the addition and/or deletion of a person within a group will alter the way the group acts as individuals as well as a group.  How the group and the individuals within it decide to manage this change is usually an evolving process and can be short or long in its implementation.  Our family is in the middle of that process.

This past fall my sister passed away.  The birthday month of October began the process of change for us as a family and as individuals.  The value and manner of celebrating birthdays started to change.  Without the presence of my sister, our group celebration was different as were the feelings of the individual family members.

November brought the ‘family’ holiday of Thanksgiving.  With a key member of our family not present, we appeared to be without a common direction.   There seemed to be no one available to replace the role that my sister has played in how our family celebrated this holiday.  While other family members and friends supported us, our new ways of managing our loss have not evolved.   We still hurt and our healing continues to affect our feelings even in a season where the focus is on family blessings.

December brings the Christmas holiday season, supposedly the most joyous holiday of the year.  As our family’s prime motivator of this season, the loss of my sister is already being felt as we prepare for Christmas.  So many ‘traditions’ that we experienced as a family unit will never be repeated with her absence.  We face the challenge of building new ways of celebrating this holiday. 

December is also a difficult month because this is the time that Evelyn and I lost our mother to cancer on 21 December 1982.    It took us a long time to rebuild our holiday joy after that loss.  I expect a long time to rebuild my emotions managing my sister’s loss.

Part of our family’s healing process is going to be structuring new ways for us to celebrate our blessings and joys during these months of October, November and December.  We will do part of it as a family unit.  Each of us will develop unique and individual ways to heal as we manage our thoughts and feelings during this part of the year.  


The relationships I have with my nephews will evolve as we respond to the changes that come from losing their mother as a member of our family unit.  As her sons, they will decide on what type of relationship they want as brothers without the presence of their mother.

Our family is not alone.  Many of Evelyn’s friends will also be adjusting to life without her presence.  Her Sunday school class will miss her helpful and encouraging spirit.

Our healing for this and other losses is always a personal and usually a private process.  Some of us will use a primarily internal process.  Some will turn to the support and interaction of being with other people.   Others will turn to a spiritual and religious focus. 

Regardless of the time or method that we take to do so, each human seems to have his or her own way of healing from the hurt of loss.  I remain most thankful for this blessing of being able to heal as a human from the hurts I do experience in life.

 Comments Welcome.   Email: silverchatline@gmail.com

Be Like Me!

Even though most of us are honest when we state that we prefer to associate with people who are mostly like us, this attitude can give us comfort as well as conflict in our interactions with others.

One foundation of healthy and growing relationships comes when each of us understands and truly accepts that I cannot make another value/want what I want/value in a relationship.

Each of us has wants/needs/values when we make choices on the people with whom we interact.   Our lives with others tend to be easier when these factors are similar in type and degree.  There is no guarantee that life will be more interesting or safer if we associate with similar persons, but the odds are that it will be easier to handle.

How many parents have grieved when they discovered that their children wanted or valued something different from their parents?

Many counselor offices are full of people who want an important person in their lives (usually a spouse, friend or family member) to change to having similar attitudes and behaviors  

How frustrating it can be for each of us to confront the realization that some of the people who we love and care about actually value and/or want something different in their relationship with us!  Why can't they be like me?  Our lives would be so much easier if those around me behaved like me.

One of the realities in human behavior is that people choose to give only what they are able and willing to give in relationships.  There two important words (able/willing) present in that sentence complete our behavior of choice.  Healthy understanding of relationships encourages us to note these concepts of ability and willingness when we engage in behaviors and attitudes with other people.

First, each of us is confronted with what we are able to give in relating to other people.   We may want to value something that is important to another person but we may not be able for a variety of reasons such as our personal experiences and history.  When this choice becomes apparent to others, some may choose not to have a relationship.

Second, we may be able to give to others what they value, but we may also choose not to give because we are not willing, regardless of whether we are able.  Each of us is continually facing the personal choices of our ability and willingness to give or not give.   Our choices of the price we are able and willing to pay will usually affect what type of relationships we have with people.  One can count on the reality that there will be some type/amount of price to be paid by each person in a relationship.

Even when we are able and willing to want/value in a similar manner for ourselves in relating to another, we may encounter the frustration that the other person has different wants and values in their manner of relating.  Oh, how we often want to change them to see a situation, feel, think, behave, believe to how we see that situation!  And, we ask: why can't they see reality like I do?

If I am healthy, I am realistic in realizing that I cannot make anyone value/want what I want/value in a relationship.  I accept the reality that the people in my world choose to give me only what they are able and/or willing to give me.  And, I do the same in return.

With this realization as a solid foundation, a positive and healthy relationship has the possibility of being formed and maintained.

I can then understand and accept that much of the time during my Life Journey, I do not have to change friends, IF I understand and am comfortable that my friends and I are both changing.  We all will encounter change and make continual choices on how we each wish to manage it in others and ourselves.

Comments welcome.  Email:  silverchatline@gmail.com

Loneliness

How can anyone in the Atlanta metro area feel lonely when there are over 5.4 million people living here?  Based on the number of cars on the roads and the forest lands devastated for homes, it would seem that just the opposite would be the prevailing feeling for anyone living in this area.

As with many areas of personal growth, loneliness is one of those words that people tend to use as though everyone has the same definition for it.  The most common confusion comes when the words loneliness and being alone are used interchangeably.

Being alone is a physical state where an individual is present only to him or herself; there are no other humans, pets or other living things around them.  It is sometimes referred to as the "Walden Pond" (David Thoreau) syndrome where one enjoys and personally grows from just being alone with one’s self.  Yet others dread with fear the situation of not having a pet or human around them most, if not all of the time.

When one is physically alone, one has the opportunity to focus on their personal thoughts, feelings and beliefs.  They can explore their own hopes and fears without the distractions that other people or pets can provide.  There is no need to “act” to meet the expectations of others.

It is unfortunate that being alone is not highly valued in much of our society.  As children we soon learn what the people around us expect.  Sometimes we learn these roles so well that setting them aside for alone time just with ourselves can feel alienating and frightful.  So, we seek to be with others frequently so that we can feel good about ourselves.

And, there are times when individuals totally become the roles they play in everyday society and are unable to separate their self image from the expectations of self and others.  Being alone without an audience can be scary for many and thus avoided.

Loneliness is basically an emotional state and has little to do whether one is with or without the company of humans, pets and other living things.  It is the way an individual feels about him or herself regardless of physical surroundings.  This feeling is the individual’s reality.  

One of the areas of loneliness that many people have difficulty understanding is how an individual can feel lonely and yet be surrounded by family, friends and others who love and care about them.  Loneliness is an internal feeling and has little to do with one's external environment.

It can be so frustrating to the person who continues to feel lonely even when there are many caring people around.  It also can be very frustrating if one is trying to help a lonely person feel better and yet nothing he/she does seems to have an effect for change.

Therefore, we can see the confusion that is present when these two different states are seen as interchangeable.  Being alone only needs a change of external physical change by associating with people. 

Loneliness is an internal emotional state that is built on many aspects of one’s self image and needs the work of counseling (learning different ways to think and believe) and/or aspects of personal growth to have real change.   Of these two behaviors, handling the feelings of loneliness are much more difficult and challenging for an individual to confront and change as they involve extensive and intensive energy and work. 


Managing the feelings of loneliness encourages an individual to learn such skills as accepting and loving themselves as they are even when they practice behaviors to meet goals of personal change.  It can be difficult to overcome loneliness if being happy with ourselves is built on the expectations of others.  Alienation from self can often be the foundation on which many lonely feelings are built.

It is also more difficult for those who care about an individual who is lonely to recognize that much of the work in changing feelings of loneliness is an “inside job” and depends on the internal motivation and emotional work within an individual.  Changing feelings of loneliness involves more effort than just being surrounded by other people.  

Accepting the limitations of what we can and cannot do to alter another’s thoughts, feelings and beliefs continues to be a major challenge for many of us.  Only we can as individuals have the power to formulate and implement the feelings and behaviors that allow us to differenate between being alone versus being lonely.

Comments welcome.   Email:  silverchatline@gmail.com

Assumptions

One of my major daily goals is to exercise by walking.  I have read that this is one of the best things that I can do for myself as the birthdays continue to pass at a rapid rate.  My primary care physician tells me that walking is one thing that keeps me in such good condition for “a man of your age”.

So, I try to walk at least 5 mornings each week.  Last year I walked a total of 1468 miles for which I was very pleased.

Rather than face the changing elements of walking outdoors, I have found myself a place with constant factors; I walk at my local Lowe’s Store.   I have three tracks laid out for me to take depending on the day:  3, 4 or 5 miles.

After 9 years, I have become a familiar face in this store both with the employees and the customers.  I still find myself entertained with the assumptions that people make about me and this process of walking.

Recently we were having one of those gorgeous spring/fall days in Georgia where the sun is out, the temperature is moderate, the humidity is low, etc.  One person approached me and told me that I should be walking outside in the fall weather not inside.

Of course, the word ‘should’ is one of those words that sets off alarms in my head and pushes the button of personal rebellion.  However, in this case, the major reaction was that he had no idea of why I chose to walk inside the building each day regardless of other factors.  


Like many others, he told me what to do based on what he himself would choose to do.  Perhaps being 40 years younger led him to assume that he knew better than myself where I should be walking.

I choose to walk inside Lowes  because the floor is always flat with no ridges or potholes, no sidewalk drop offs, no barking dogs with razor teeth, no tree branches to duck, a constant temperature of 70 degrees with consistent humidity, no blinding sunlight or concern about rain, pleasant chats with people without becoming involved, walking distances that are pre-measured, etc.  These are MY reasons for walking inside, but it is always interesting that people project their assumptions into my behavior.

Whenever we see people doing certain behaviors, it is easy for many of us to assume the reason that they are doing it because of some reason we believe that we know.  This behavior is similar to the human trait of having two people use the same word and yet have different definitions of what that word means to them.


Another major assumption that I have recently encountered is the belief held by some people in my world  that they know how I should be feeling and behaving as I manage to process the grief of my sister's death.  How can anyone know what I should be doing to handle a 68-year old relationship and convey these assumptions of knowledge to me?  How wonderful it is to encounter the person who can offer the gift of non-directive paths by being willing to realize that deep listening is such a treasure.

Since most of us tend to select to associate with people who we believe are similar to ourselves, it is very easy to jump to assumptions on why people make the choices that they do.  When our assumptions are met, we tend to feel positive toward these people.   When our assumptions are not met, we often feel mystified and frustrated with others and wonder what is wrong with them.

One can be encouraged to be cautious in making assumptions about people and/or situations.  An aid to this approach can be the quote: “Blessed are the flexible for they shall not be bent out of shape”.  Being able to listen carefully to others and retain flexibility in what we see can be most helpful in allowing us the positive handling of assumptions within our world.

Comments welcome.    Email:  sillverchatline@gmail.com

Two C's: Change and Choice

One year ago I wrote my first blog; it began the series known as Power for Positive Living.   Since that time a new blog about the power each of us has as individuals to mange the changes in our lives has been written and posted every two weeks.

I thank you for reading these essays and for the responses you have shared with me via email.

All that has been written during this first year reinforces the power of understanding and accepting the two C’s of life:  our lives are constantly changing and we continue to have the choice on how we manage living.

My life has changed during the past year and I have struggled to manage some of the more difficult parts.  My sister of 68 years died last month and my world will never be the same.  Another long-time friend died over the summer.  This summer I also learned that a friend of 30 years decided to take a different path of life and it did not include me; I am still mystified and hurt as no reason was every conveyed.  


As usual, the easier parts of the year were more comfortable in their  management.  The joy of watching my grand nephew grow to his 2^nd birthday, a trip to beautiful Hawaii,  meals and visits with family and friends, etc., all helped make this year most positive.


I know that changes in my life will continue between now and next October.  And, I shall continue to make choices on how I manage these changes.

My first blog is offered again today as a reminder that certain aspects of life continue to evolve and are as solid for our mental health today as anytime from our past.

*********

As a retired counseling psychologist, I have often been asked what are some key things that I have learned about others and myself that can aid one to have a healthy life as a senior. 

One of the key aspects of human behavior that I have observed over the years, and usually is confirmed by conversation, is that there are two basics in our lives that most of us continually struggle with in some form: change and choice, the two C’s.

Everything in our life is constantly in a process of change.  Some times the process is slow, while others times it happens so rapidly that we are stunned and find ourselves wondering what happened.   Sometimes the changes are pleasant, understandable and bring happiness to our world; sometimes the opposite occurs.

By the time we have reached our senior years, we have frequently become very skilled at resisting the changes taking place in ourselves, our friends, our families, our health, our finances, etc.  We invest a great deal of energy in seeking to have our worlds remain in what we see as a ‘normal’ state.  We want the world and the people in it to behave, as we believe they should!

The reality of change is a given in our lives.  The choices we make to manage these continuing changes are frequently the largest personal challenge we each face as individuals.  We have so many varied choices and sometimes lots of people who are eager to tell us what we should choose to think, feel and behave in leading our lives as we get older.  

Usually the major choice for most people is whether to accept or reject responsibility for the individual choices each of us makes.  Frequently we find that our ‘problems’ are usually not the changes that are taking place all around, but what decisions we do make when faced with change in others and ourselves.

As we talk with people in our world, it usually does not take long to learn to what degree an individual has chosen to be responsible for the choices he/she faces.   Many choose healthy, positive and nurturing attitudes and behaviors.   Others may choose to react to change with denial, displacement to others, rebellion, or victimization.

The easiest path is often to choose to not embrace changes and rely on habits and experiences from earlier years.  However, the healthiest route for happiness is usually to accept that we are free as individuals to decide to accept or resist the reality of change by the choices we make in how we feel and think about our world and ourselves.

How we handle these 2 C’s tend to make us the individuals we are at any stage in our lives.  It is an awesome personal power!

Comments are welcome!  Email: silverchatline@gmail.com