Relationship fears

Relationship fears are different than other types of fear in that the fear is not of immediate physical harm, but emotional harm.
The two main types of relationship fears are 1) the fear of being abandoned and, 2) the fear of being smothered. I look at myself and I don't have any fear of being abandoned because I won't let anyone get close enough to me because of my fear of being smothered.
I don't want to give up the freedom that comes from being able to do what I want whenever I want. In the past, I have had people who tried to smother me and I quickly got out of the relationship. The question is whether or not I'll find that special someone who will support me emotionally and yet let me be my own person.

Opt In to life

You may notice that websites give you the option of opting out of receiving emails from the company or organization. They are required to do this by the ICANN organization.
Sometimes the process is easy requiring a few clicks and sometimes it is difficult.
Life can be the same way. Sometimes people choose to opt out of life permanently and other people choose to opt in no matter how difficult it is.
Make the choice to opt in!

Chronic Happiness

I have given much thought to my plight. I have decided to fight this chronic disease with incurable happiness. In the words of author Shawn Achor and comedian Marcus D. Wiley happiness is a choice. If it's a choice then I will select it. I will choose it on purpose as opposed to accidentally choosing it.

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