- How you like to receive and show love
- How your significant other likes to receive and show love.
areas of practice
Happy New Year and “Post-Romantic Stress Disorder”
A Chance To Learn More
I will be adding some of the concepts of this book in my class, on 2/28/15. “Successful Romantic and Intimate Relationships: How to Make Them Work”. You can register through Leisure Learning Unlimited, www.llu.com or 713-529-4414. It’s on a Saturday from 10am-12noon. Hope to see you there! Register For “Successful Romantic and Intimate Relationships: How to Make Them Work“Why Aren’t Women Advancing At Work? Ask a Transgender Person
How much has the role of women changed in the workplace in the last few decades? It is drastic, to think of the positions and roles women have created and earned for themselves throughout time. This article brings to light that despite the advancement, there is still discrimination in the attitudes some have towards women regardless of position and title. Very interesting, particularly since the some of the observation is done by someone who has lived both genders….
Fifty years after The Feminine Mystique and 40 years after Title IX, the question of why women lag in the workplace dogs researchers and lay people alike. While women are entering the professions at rates equal to men, they rise more slowly, and rarely advance to the top. They’re represented in smaller numbers at the top in fields from science to arts to business. Some suggest that there is something different about women—women have stalled because of their personal choices, or their cognitive and emotional characteristics, whether innate or socialized. Another possibility is that the obstacles to women’s advancement are located within their environments—that they face barriers unique to their gender.1 But while bias has been experimentally demonstrated, it’s hard to study in the real world: Just as it’s hard to isolate a single environmental pollutant’s effect on human health, it’s been near impossible to isolate gender as a variable in the real world and watch how it affects a person’s day-to-day experience. Until now. Trans people are bringing entirely new ways of approaching the discussion. Because trans people are now staying in the same careers (and sometimes the very same jobs) after they change genders, they are uniquely qualified to discuss the difference between how men and women experience the workplace. Their experience is as close to the scientific method as we can get: By isolating and manipulating gender as a variable and holding all other variables—skill, career, personality, talent—constant, these individuals reveal exactly the way one’s outward appearance of gender affects day-to-day interactions. If we truly want to understand women at work, we should listen carefully to trans men and trans women: They can tell us more about gender in the workplace than just about anyone. Ben Barres is a biologist at Stanford who lived and worked as Barbara Barres until he was in his forties. For most of his career, he experienced bias, but didn’t give much weight to it—seeing incidents as discrete events. (When he solved a tough math problem, for example, a professor said, “You must have had your boyfriend solve it.”) When he became Ben, however, he immediately noticed a difference in his everyday experience: “People who don’t know I am transgendered treat me with much more respect,” he says. He was more carefully listened to and his authority less frequently questioned. He stopped being interrupted in meetings. At one conference, another scientist said, “Ben gave a great seminar today—but then his work is so much better than his sister’s.” (The scientist didn’t know Ben and Barbara were the same person.) “This is why women are not breaking into academic jobs at any appreciable rate,” he wrote in response to Larry Summers’s famous gaffe implying women were less innately capable at the hard sciences. “Not childcare. Not family responsibilities,” he says. “I have had the thought a million times: I am taken more seriously.” This experience, it turns out, is typical for transmen. For her book Just One of the Guys? Transgender Men and the Persistence of Gender Inequality, sociologist Kristen Schilt interviewed dozens of FTM (female to male) transgender individuals. One subject noted that when he expresses an opinion, everyone in a meeting now writes it down. Another noted, “When I was a woman, no matter how many facts I had, people were like, “Are you sure about that?’ It’s so strange not to have to defend your positions.” When they suggested women for promotions, other men said, “Oh! I hadn’t thought about her”—they were able to promote women because their advice was taken more seriously. Personality traits that had been viewed negatively when they were women were now seen as positives. “I used to be considered aggressive,” said one subject. “Now I’m considered ‘take charge.’ People say, ‘I love your take-charge attitude.’” The effects of FTM transition, however, aren’t universally positive. Race, it seems, has the ability to overshadow gender when it comes to others’ esteem. Black transmen, for instance, found they were perceived as a “dangerous” post transition. One subject said he went from being “obnoxious black woman” to “scary black man”—and was now always asked to play the “suspect” in training exercises. What happens when the opposite transformation takes place—when a man becomes a woman? Joan Roughgarden is a biologist at Stanford who lived and worked as Jonathan Roughgarden until her early fifties, and her experience was almost the mirror image of Barres’s. In her words, “men are assumed to be competent until proven otherwise, whereas a woman is assumed to be incompetent until she proves otherwise.” In an interview, Roughgarden also noted that if she questioned a mathematical idea, people assumed it was because she didn’t understand it. Other transwomen have found changes not only in perceptions of their ability, but also their personality. In Schilt’s work with transwomen for a forthcoming book, she found that behaviors transwomen had as men were now seen as off-putting. What was once “take-charge” was now “aggressive.” And they had to adapt; the transwomen quickly learned that “being the same way in the world would be detrimental to your career.” Unlike those of us who have only experienced the world a single gender, Schilt’s subjects were able to see very clearly that “men succeed in the workplace at higher rates than women because of gender stereotypes that privilege masculinity, not because they have greater skill or ability.” Bias is a hard thing to acknowledge. “Until a person has experienced career-harming bias,” wrote Barres in his response to Summers, “they simply don’t believe it exists.” And people tend to think the problem is located elsewhere: “Everyone thinks that there’s bias out there, but ‘I’m not that person,’” says Schilt. But, says Schilt, bias is both more pervasive and less invidious. And addressing it is going to take more than just waiting around for the old guard to retire: The “fantasy of a demographic shift just isn’t true,” Schilt says. ”It’s our culture. It’s how we organize gender, separate by gender, men’s rooms and women’s rooms—it’s so ingrained in us that these things are different. And it’s not just men, it’s also women who have the same ideas.” The experiences of trans people are bringing these factors to light in a wholly new and unclouded way. Of course, the sample size is small here. And there’s no perfect agreement on cause-and-effect. Chris Edwards, a trans advertising executive, says that post-transition, he was given greater levels of responsibility—but he thinks it’s because the testosterone he took changed his behavior. He became less timid and more outspoken—and was seen, at work, as more of a leader. Indeed, some suggest that transmen might experience these workplace benefits partly because, post-transition, they are happier and more comfortable, and that this confidence leads to greater workplace success. But if that’s the case, one would expect that transwomen, armed with this same newfound confidence, would see benefits. The opposite seems to be true. To truly understand trans people’s experiences of workplace gender bias, more research is needed. But the window to do so may be closing, as people are able to change genders at younger and younger ages. Puberty-inhibiting medications are becoming more mainstream, meaning young trans people can choose to suppress the development of secondary sexual characteristics from a relatively early age. (The treatment became available in the U.S. in 2009.) A child who identifies with the opposite gender and seeks treatment is now able to experience the world, for most of their life, as that gender alone. And the group of trans people who are vocal on the subject is already fairly small; many seem to feel they have much larger issues facing them. When asked how people react when she describes the different treatment she receives as a woman, Roughgarden responds simply, “I don’t bring it up.” Ultimately, Schilt says, it’s not trans people’s responsibility fix gender bias. Roughgarden agrees. “We’re trying make a life,” she says. “We have to live in our actual roles, we can’t sit in a coffeehouse and complain about how this is the world. This is the world and we have to live in it. We have to navigate it.” Article Courtesy of NewRepublic.com
3 Ways to Reduce Holiday Stress
Wishing you peace, serenity and joy….Denise3 Ways to Reduce Holiday Stress
With the busy summer holiday season in full force we find that we have very little time to sit still long enough to bring inner peace and calm to our lives. Here are a few ways to help cope with the stress of the holidays while promoting health at the same time.
1. Keep expectations and commitments balanced. It’s important to understand that you cannot get everything that you want to get done and that not everything is going to be perfect. Taking on too much and putting a lot of pressure on ourselves to have everything be perfect is a sure fire way to elevate our cortisol (our stress hormone).
2. Put yourself on a budget. One of the most significant sources of holiday stress is related to the money that we spend on parties and decorations. Setting a budget for yourself ahead of time will help you determine how much you are willing to spend on certain things. With a budget in place, you’re less likely to overspend and therefore will have less stress during and after the holidays.
3. Eat your vegetables and remember to exercise. Most people gain weight during the holidays because there are plenty of sugary treats around and on top of that there’s little time to exercise with all the holiday activities planned. Eating plenty of vegetables which are full in fiber will help to curb cravings for sweets and will help you to pass the treat table without stopping. Without much time to set aside to get to the gym, incorporating as much movement as possible is important in balancing our mood and reducing stress. Taking 10 minutes to go for a walk or organizing a short a dance party with family members to holiday music are a couple of ways to incorporate movement into your busy day without having to go to the gym.
Courtesy of http://www.myvitawellness.com
The Importance of End of Life Planning: Y Collaborative Partnership
Daily Affirmation
Top 10 Tips for Asserting Your Agenda
- Identify your agenda: Ask yourself: “what is it that I really want in this situation?” (be honest!)
- Give yourself permission to go after it: Its OK for you to want something or to have a need, even if others want or need something else. Your need is important too. Ask yourself if it feels like you have permission to want it.
- Give yourself time: Don’t just “give-in” because someone is being persuasive or because you’re in the habit of deferring. You can say “I really need to think about that” or “we need to discuss it”.
- Say what you want: Let yourself say it, don’t assume others know. In a relationship or friendship also say why and what your feeling about it.
- Make sure you’ve been heard: “I want to make sure you’ve understood my point of view, can you tell me what you heard?” Get the other person to reflect it back and if they get it wrong tell them. Keep doing this until you’ve been heard correctly.
- Don’t accept having your thought dismissed: That’s just bad behavior and you can call them on it: “that sounds dismissive” or “you’re being dismissive”, or “it’s not OK to just dismiss my point of view”.
- Beware of manipulation: We don’t always get your way in life but we can require others to negotiate in an honest way – don’t accept emotional blackmail or manipulation – even if you have in the past. Call them on it – “I feel like you’re manipulating me”.
- Know your fears: ask yourself what is it you’re fearing that’s holding you back from going after this thing. What are you afraid will happen if you get your way?
- Do a priority check-up: if you are allowing someone else’s needs to have priority over yours ask yourself if that is really what you want and if its appropriate in this situation.
- Do the best friend check: if your best friend described the situation to you, what would you want him/her to do? Think about this one!
10 Toxic Behaviors that Kill Your Confidence
- Getting caught up in lots of needless drama. – Some people love to stir up controversy and drama for no apparent reason. Don’t buy in to their propaganda. Stay out of other people’s drama and don’t needlessly create your own. Instead, imagine what would happen if you spent this entire day, and every day hereafter, with all your energy directed toward your most positive possibilities. Rather than being annoyed, be amused. Instead of getting angry, become curious. In place of envy, feel admiration. Life is too short to argue, fight or be negative in any way. Count your blessings, value the people who matter and move on from the drama with your head held high.
- Seeking approval from everyone around you. – Confident people have no interest in pleasing everyone they meet. They are aware that not all people agree on things, and that’s just how life works. They focus on the quality of their relationships, instead of the quantity of them. So never let the opinions of the masses define who you are or what you can or can’t do. When you let go of the need to impress everyone, that’s when you begin to be truly impressive to the few people who actually matter. And when you earn the trust and respect of these select few people, no matter where you go or what you try, you will do it with confidence – because you know the people who matter are behind you.
- Making excuse after excuse after excuse. – Have a plan that’s bigger than your excuses. There is so very much to touch, to do, to create, and to experience. Confident people take ownership of their thoughts and actions. They don’t blame the traffic for being tardy at work – they know THEY were late. They don’t excuse their shortcomings with excuses like “I don’t have time” or “I’m just not good enough” – they make the time and they keep on improving until they see results. Even a tiny effort is infinitely more productive than a big, impressive excuse. So stop seeing every obstacle as an excuse and start seeing those obstacles as forming a pathway to your goals.
- Ignoring or second-guessing your intuition. – Intuition is very real and something that is never wise to ignore, because it comes from deep within your subconscious and is derived from your previous life experiences. If everyone else is telling you “yes” but your gut is telling you otherwise, it’s usually for a good reason. When faced with difficult decisions, seek out all the information you can find, become as knowledgeable as you possibly can, and then listen to your God-given instincts. Believe in yourself. Know that trusting your intuition is equivalent to trusting your true self; and the more you trust your true self, the more control you have of making your goals and dreams come true.
- Disempowering yourself with weak language. – Confident people use words with intention. Consider the difference between these two aspiring bloggers: One says, “Yes, I am a blogger. You like meditation and yoga too? Excellent! We need to connect – check out my new mindfulness guide I just posted at…” vs. “Well, I am trying to blog but am not sure I am doing it right (nervous giggle). I wish I had started sooner… blah, blah.” Who do you think gets the most views, comments and social shares? Bottom line: If you’re trying to build something or become something, own it and speak like you mean it.
- Thinking, “Why me? Why me?” – On the contrary, confident people think, “Why not me?” Sadly though, many people feel they have to wait: to be hired, to be good enough, to be chosen – like the old Hollywood cliché, to somehow be “discovered.” But confident people know that access is basically universal these days (especially if you’re online reading this article). They can connect with almost anyone through social media. (Everyone you know knows someone you should know.) They know they can attract their own funding, create their own products and services, build their own networks of clients and partners, choose their own path – they can choose to follow their dreams. And very quietly, without calling too much attention to themselves, they go out and do it.
- Needing to always be right. – Confident people take a stand not because they think they’re always right, but because they’re not scared to be wrong. Cocky, conceited people tend to take a position and then preach, argue, and totally disregard differing opinions or points of view. They “know” they’re right (even when they’re wrong) and they want (actually, they need) you to know it too. Their behavior isn’t a sign of confidence, though; it’s the trademark of a bully. Truly confident people don’t mind being proven wrong. They know that finding out what is right is a lot more important than being right. And when they’re wrong, they’re secure enough to back down graciously and appreciate the lesson learned.
- Talking just to hear yourself talk. – Begging for attention by talking constantly is just another mask for insecurity. Thus, confident people are often quiet and unassuming, and they listen as much if not more than they speak. They already know what they think, so they want to know what you think. Follow in their footsteps by asking open-ended questions on the topic of discussion, and give others the freedom to be thoughtful, introspective and resourceful. Ask questions like: What do you do? How do you do it? What have you learned from it? What would you do differently if you were starting over? And so forth. Ask these questions to learn, because you know a lot, but not everything, and the only way to learn more is to listen more.
- Letting success get to your head or failure get to your heart. – If success makes you arrogant, you haven’t really succeeded. If failure makes you determined, you haven’t really failed. Period. Think about success and failure differently. Don’t take everything that goes wrong personally, and don’t get a big head when everything goes right either. Be a humble, life-long learner. Create, enjoy, learn, love, experience, succeed, fail, persevere, make mistakes, make progress, take risks, and find the treasure in each day.
- Hiding from new life experiences. – Get out there. Let life touch you. Yes, it will hurt sometimes. But the pain will be much deeper if you build an impenetrable wall around yourself – your own 100-foot tall wall of comfort – your own self-inflicted prison sentence. Life is too short for that. Don’t let the fear of making the wrong decision prevent you from making any decision at all. You have too many beautiful places to go. Today is full of possibility. Now, do something about it.
We Can Rewire Our Brains To Crave Healthy Foods
Have you ever taken a bite of chocolate cake and just felt… happy? That’s because your brain is being flooded with dopamine–a chemical that helps facilitate the sensation of pleasure. Under an MRI scan, you can actually see the part of the brain where this all goes down. We instinctually seek out things that makes that spot light up. So, do you think your brain would ever light up at the smell of… Brussels sprouts? Dr. Susan B. Roberts of Tufts University thinks so. In a recent study, her research suggested that we can retool our brains to find junk food less appealing and healthy food irresistible. The study consisted of 13 men and women, eight of which were subjected to a modified version of Dr. Roberts’ iDiet system. Participants also attended weekly group sessions for a period of 15 weeks.Read The Original Article HereOver time, subjects associate the “healthy” food with feeling nice and full, retooling their brains.
The idea behind the iDiet system is that foods with high protein, high fiber, and low glycemic-index carbohydrates tend to make you full without lots of excess calories and blood sugar spikes. Over time, subjects associate the “healthy” food with feeling nice and full, retooling their brains. Roberts, who is also a trained chef, leveraged these traits to create meals that tasted good, satisfied hunger, and prevented large fluctuations in blood-sugar levels. Aside from losing weight, MRI scans showed that the participants’ brains actually lit up less for junk food and more for healthy meals. And unlike gastric-bypass surgery, the participants did not report a decline in the enjoyment of eating. “We also use a unique set of behavioral strategies that mesh with our dietary composition to emphasize hunger reduction and craving reduction,” Dr. Roberts told Reviewed in an email. “My ultimate goal is to help slim America down, and I believe this is an important advance.” It should be noted that the study relied on a pretty small sample size, so further research is needed to confirm the results. However, it’s an interesting direction for nutritional science. Since the days of President Taft, people have been relying on unhealthy, sugary foods to give them that nice dopamine rush. But training our brains to light up at the sight of, say, kale is a crucial step in the pursuit of sustainable weight control.
Robin Williams’s Death: A Reminder That Suicide and Depression Are Not Selfish
News of Robin William’s death due to apparent suicide, said to be a result of suffering severe depression, is terribly sad. But to say taking your own life because of such an illness is a ‘selfish’ act does nothing but insult the deceased, potentially cause more harm and reveal a staggering ignorance of mental health problems
Many words can be used to describe Robin Williams. ‘Selfish’ should not be one of them. Photograph: Allstar/Universal PicturesSportsphoto Ltd.
News broke today that Robin Williams had passed away, due to apparent suicide following severe depression. As the vast majority of people will likely have already said, this was terribly heart-breaking news. Such an iconic, talented and beloved figure will have no shortage of tributes paid to him and his incredible legacy. It’s also worth noting that Robin Williams was open about his mental health issues.
However, despite the tremendous amount of love and admiration for Williams being expressed pretty much everywhere right now, there are still those who can’t seem to resist the opportunity to criticize, as they do these days whenever a celebrated or successful person commits suicide. You may have come across this yourself; people who refer to the suicide as “selfish”. People will utter/post phrases such as “to do that to your family is just selfish”, or “to commit suicide when you’ve got so much going for you is pure selfishness”, or variations thereof.
If you are such a person who has expressed these views or similar for whatever reason, here’s why you’re wrong, or at the very least misinformed, and could be doing more harm in the long run.
Depression IS an illness
Depression, the clinical condition, could really use a different name. At present, the word “depressed” can be applied to both people who are a bit miserable and those with a genuine debilitating mood disorder. Ergo, it seems people are often very quick to dismiss depression as a minor, trivial concern. After all, everyone gets depressed now and again, don’t they? Don’t know why these people are complaining so much.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again; dismissing the concerns of a genuine depression sufferer on the grounds that you’ve been miserable and got over it is like dismissing the issues faced by someone who’s had to have their arm amputated because you once had a paper cut and it didn’t bother you. Depression is a genuine debilitating condition, and being in “a bit of a funk” isn’t. The fact that mental illness doesn’t receive the same sympathy/acknowledgement as physical illness is often referenced, and it’s a valid point. If you haven’t had it, you don’t have the right to dismiss those who have/do. You may disagree, and that’s your prerogative, but there are decades’ worth of evidence saying you’re wrong.
Depression doesn’t discriminate
How, many seem to wonder, could someone with so much going for them, possibly feel depressed to the point of suicide? With all the money/fame/family/success they have, to be depressed makes no sense?
Admittedly, there’s a certain amount of logic to this. But, and this is important, depression (like all mental illnesses) typically doesn’t take personal factors into account. Mental illness can affect anyone. We’ve all heard of the “madness” of King George III; if mental illness won’t spare someone who, at the time, was one of the most powerful well-bred humans alive, why would it spare someone just because they have a film career?
Granted, those with worse lives are probably going to be exposed to the greater number of risk factors for depression, but that doesn’t mean those with reduced likelihood of exposure to hardships or tragic events are immune. Smoking may be a major cause of lung cancer, but non-smokers can end up with it. And a person’s lifestyle doesn’t automatically reduce their suffering. Depression doesn’t work like that. And even if it did, where’s the cut-off point? Who would we consider “too successful” to be ill?
Depression is not “logical”
If we’re being optimistic, it could be said that most of those describing suicide from depression as selfish are doing so from a position of ignorance. Perhaps they think that those with depression make some sort of table or chart with the pros and cons of suicide and, despite the pros being far more numerous, selfishly opt for suicide anyway?
This is, of course, nonsensical. One of the main problems with mental illness is that is prevents you from behaving or thinking “normally” (although what that means is a discussion for another time). A depression sufferer is not thinking like a non-sufferer in the same way that someone who’s drowning is not “breathing air” like a person on land is. The situation is different. From the sufferers perspective, their self-worth may be so low, their outlook so bleak, that their families/friends/fans would be a lot better off without them in the world, ergo their suicide is actually intended as an act of generosity? Some might find such a conclusion an offensive assumption, but it is no more so than accusations of selfishness.
The “selfish” accusation also often implies that there are other options the sufferer has, but has chosen suicide. Or that it’s the “easy way out”. There are many ways to describe the sort of suffering that overrides a survival instinct that has evolved over millions of years, but “easy” isn’t an obvious one to go for. Perhaps none of it makes sense from a logical perspective, but insisting on logical thinking from someone in the grips of a mental illness is like insisting that someone with a broken leg walks normally; logically, you shouldn’t do that.
Stephen Fry, in his interview on Richard Herring’s podcast, had a brilliant explanation about how depression doesn’t make you think logically, or automatically confide in friends and family. I won’t spoil it by revealing it here, but I will say it involves genital warts.
Accusations of selfishness are themselves selfish?
Say you don’t agree with any of the above, that you still maintain that for someone with a successful career and family to commit suicide is selfish. Fine. Your opinion, you’re entitled to have it, however much we may disagree.
But why would you want to publicly declare that the recently deceased is selfish? Especially when the news has only just broken, and people are clearly sad about the whole thing? Why is getting in to criticize the deceased when they’ve only just passed so important to you? What service are you providing by doing so, that makes you so justified in throwing accusations of selfishness around?
Do you think that depression is “fashionable?” And by criticizing the sufferers you can deter others from “joining in”? Granted, we hear more about depression than we used to these days, but then we know what it is now. We see a lot more photos from Mars these days, because we have the means of doing so now, not because it’s suddenly trendy.
Perhaps you are trying to deter anyone else who might read your views from considering suicide themselves? Given that statistics suggest that one in four people suffer some sort of mental health problem, this isn’t that unlikely an occurrence. But if someone is genuinely depressed and feels their life is worthless, seeing that others consider their feeling selfish can surely only emphasize their own self-loathing and bleakness? It suggests that people will hate them even in death.
Maybe you know some people who have “attempted” suicide purely for attention? Fair enough; a debatable conclusion, but even if you’re right, so what? Surely someone who succeeds at committing suicide is a genuine sufferer who deserves our sympathy?
Perhaps you feel that those expressing sorrow and sadness are wrong and you need to show them that you know better, no matter how upsetting they may find it? And this is unselfish behavior how, exactly?
A brilliant but tortured individual has taken his own life, and this is a tragedy. But leveling ignorant accusations of selfishness certainly won’t prevent this from happening again. People should never be made to feel worse for suffering from something beyond their control.
If you feel you are dealing with depression, the charity MIND has many helpful sources, but there are many other avenues you can pursue.
As a therapist, I have dealt with family members, particularly adults and children of those who have suicided who ask, “Why didn’t they love me enough to stay alive for me?” It is particularly difficult for close ones to realize that suicide of a parent does not mean that you were not loved. It means that your parent was in so much physical and emotional pain, they couldn’t stand to live any longer. Most people used the word “depression” lightly. Someone may say they are depressed when they are actually sad about something that could pass in a short period of time. Clinical depression is not like that. Clinical depression is when there are sysmptoms that last for a month or more such as 1) not eating or eating too much, 2) not sleeping or sleeping too much, 3) feeling extremely tearful, 4) feeling like you can’t focus or concentrate and 5) feeling like everyone else is out there having fun and you feel numb. When people have 2 or more of these symptoms, for more than one month, doctors usually prescribe antidepressants. People have described their symptoms as, “I feel like there’s a hundred pounds of weight that I carry on each shoulder”, “I feel like I’m swimming in a room full of molasses,” “I feel like there’s a grey cloud around me above me that won’t go away.” Support those with clinical depression to seek professional help. Be empathetic. Depression is a real illness.