The new "normal" - Part 2...

I have been through the stages of bereavement and I have settled on the final stage. I have finally accepted the new "normal". It's a dramatic change from the previous version and I'm hesitant to call it an upgrade. The point of an upgrade is to make things better than they were. I'm still looking for the silver lining! Maybe I'm looking for it in the wrong place. Meanwhile, life goes on. I'm still trying to find the User's Manual for my life and I don't think that I received one. I have found other people's User's Manual, but not mine. I certainly would have read this chapter twice!

At what age do you cease to be old?

My oldest son celebrated his birthday on Sunday and my nephew asked him how old he would be last Friday, twenty-five? My son looked at him and shook his head vigorously no with an almost painful expression on his face. "No!" he said. "Don't make me older than I am!" On Saturday my sister asked him the same question when we were at the movies. Again, he shook his head vigorously and said, "No!" (as if being twenty-five was old) I instantly thought of little kids and how they always want to be older than they are. They will even tell a fib to add years to their age. At some point we try to reverse the trend and make ourselves younger. At what age do we start to do that and why?

Mind Over Matter

I think about how fragile our physical body is. Athletes spend years training for an event only to be sidelined by an unexpected injury or illness. Our physical body is susceptible to injury, but so is our spiritual body otherwise known as our mind. There has been a lot of talk in the news lately about mental health in the wake of the mass shootings around the country. It makes me wonder why you don't hear about these things happening in other countries. Does our society make us more susceptible to mental illness? In spite of our frailties there is a lot that we can do to combat mental illness and improve our mental health. We learn to work out and make our bodies stronger, but we're never taught how to make our mind stronger. The book The Happiness Advantage by Shawn Achor addresses this subject head on and provides some insight into this topic.

Not Impossible

I just watched a video from Not Impossible Labs about a profoundly deaf young lady named Mandy who used some software created by Not Impossible Labs that allows her to hear herself sing. The video caused two things to happen. First, I wept with joy watching Mandy sing and exclaim,"Wow! That's cool!" The second thing was the realization that human beings can literally do anything that they set their minds to. They showed graffiti artist, Tempt One who has ALS continue painting after being paralyzed using a device controlled by his eye movements. As long as the person isn't dead, any obstacle can be overcome with the power of the imagination

Love expressed by laughter

There are many ways to express love. Some of the most common involve affection, affirmation and intimacy. Another way to show that you love someone is to laugh with them and not at them. Laughter is a very powerful emotion and human beings are the only animals that laugh to demonstrate comraderie. You usually laugh with someone who you genuinely care about (unless you are a sociopath). This laughter is often accompanied by affection. This is one of the obvious clues that someone likes another person. You see this all the time in movies and television shows that if a person can cause the other person to laugh on a regular basis that is a good sign. I call myself the "Minister of Mirth" and tell women that it is my job to make them laugh and smile. People usually smile when they are enjoying themselves. Make it your job to make someone smile today.

Solitude vs. Loneliness

As I sit here and write this post I think about the difference between solitude and loneliness. It is quiet and no one else is around. I enjoy times like this. I am at peace and serene. I heard someone describe themselves on the Steve Harvey Show once as an extroverted introvert. I think that he made it up, but that describes me accurately. I like to be around people sometimes and other times l like to be alone. This is solitude. Don't confuse this feeling with loneliness because they are very different from other. You can be in a room full of people and be lonely. I've been there before. I felt as if I couldn't relate to any of them and I felt lonely. I like the feeling that I have now. Peace.

Inclusion

I wrote about human beings as social animals in an earlier blog post. I'd like to delve more into the subject. Inclusion and socialization is so important that hospitals have volunteer senior citizens come in the hospital to hold the babies and talk to them. There is a dual benefit to this relationship. Both parties get companionship which is vital to people. Many times theroot ccause of depression is the lack of communication and companionship with others. People have pets for this very reason.