Archives for posts with tag: mindfulness

One hand in Heaven, one foot on the ground

March 12, 2014 //

This morning it was clear and cold. I considered walking to the beach for my daily exercise but saw that the mountains were clouded in. So after I got my coffee, I walked to Fauntleroy Park. My neighborhood is relatively quiet for an urban area but the street that runs along the park boundary gets a fair bit of traffic. There’s a burst of street noise as I cross it and follow the path into the woods. The first thing I notice is the myriad of greens in the trees, the ferns, the mosses, and the woodland plants. Then I start hearing song birds and crows. The street noises fade as I walk further into the interior until all I can hear is the sounds of the forest and of my own footsteps on the trail.

This morning there was mist rising from the ferns. I could see my breath. I looked at the mist as it rose upwards, felt my breathing slow, and noticed that I was smiling, as I often do when I am surrounded by nature. I felt immediately transported, like ice to steam, and that my spirit was rising above the nests in the trees and above the canopy. I stayed in that blissful state as I walked along. Then I looked down and noticed something.

I was off the trail. I had meandered with my eyes on the trees and the new plants growing and had not noticed that I’d lost the trail. I knew that if I walked down hill, I’d eventually find the trail. But it did make me reflect on the way that we live in multiple worlds and both worlds are necessary.

I think this is one of the reasons I don’t like a lot of pithy inspirational sayings. They seem dreamy and overly ethereal. There’s not enough reality to provide ballast. And I also think that it may be one of the reasons that a number of people with cancer do not like to be referred to using idealistic terms like “hero”, “inspirational” or “brave”. Those terms live up in the Heavens. Cancer is isolating and I know for myself, I want to be very much seen as a real human being. I want to be able to connect with other people.

Then there are the attitudes that are all ballast. Those are the stigmatizing attitudes, the view of cancer as a death sentence, the fears that keep our friends away from us because they fear our death as well as their own.

What matters to me more right now than if I am brave, inspirational, or a hero, is that I am still carrying the sounds, sights, and smells of the forest in my heart as I go about my daily chores and consider life’s obstacles and joys in the past, the present and the future.

The trilliums are starting to bloom! This is our native trillium ovatum

The fiddlehead ferns are unfurling. They are edible at this stage.

Tags Breast Cancer, idealizing cancer survivors, mindfulness

Categories Breast cancer, Feelings, Flora and Fauna, Mindfulness

Dead, but not lifeless

February 26, 2014 //

When I walk in the forest, I see many dead trees and other plants. Sometimes even dead animals. Although everything that grows in the forest dies, none of it is lifeless.

That’s my meditation for the day.

Tags life cycle, mindfulness, spirituality, woodlands

Categories Flora and Fauna, Mindfulness

Environmental Encouragement

February 22, 2014 //

I know that a lot of you have experienced great hardship this winter. Some of you have lost loved ones, some of you are sick or have been sick. And then there are the terrifying weather events that are getting increasingly common, most recently the impact of the polar vortex on a substantial portion of North America.

I made all of you a little film of a portion of my walk today along with some of the thoughts I have when I am in the woods. I am hoping this is an encouraging experience and if not, you get to see some very pretty trees and hear some crows having quite a conversation in the woods.

It’s funny to me because although I am surrounded by earth forms and plants so much larger than me when I am in the woods, It’s okay to be small. We don’t need to be big. We can just be.

Tags Breast Cancer, coping with illness, death, global warming, grief, life, mindfulness, natural disasters, Nature, polar vortex, spirituality

Categories Flora and Fauna, Mindfulness

Walking the Camino

February 11, 2014 //

I had a weird dream last night. I went to a photography studio to get my picture taken. It was kind of a combination of high school senior photos and my wedding. Tom Colicchio a famous U.S. chef who can be seen on the show Top Chef was there. My former boss from the University of Washington was there. Once I got to the studio, I realized that I had left my shoes at home. I asked how much time there was left until it was my turn for Senior/wedding photos. I was told 30 minutes. I decided to go back home for the shoes. In an Elizabeth dream first, someone loaned me some sort of jet pack like device and I was able to fly all of the way home and most of the way back to the studio. (My daughter has lots of flying dreams. This was my first. I am growing as a person in my dreams.) Unfortunately, I ran out of fuel and had to run most of the way back. By the time I got to the studio, I realized that I’d again forgotten my shoes. I was also rather disheveled from running and had no make-up to freshen up. And for whatever reason, I was wearing a men’s sport coat over a white wedding dress. (Now that sounds more like a typical dream for me.) My old boss would be thrilled to hear that in my dream he helped me out by fixing my hair. The photographer was a sweet woman who let me borrow some shoes in my size as well as a tube of lipstick that she said was, “just my color.” Friends and strangers helped me out and put me back together again.

I think I am an imaginative person but I don’t fantasize a great deal. Well actually, I fantasize but my fantasies are usually pretty realistic. They are things that could really happen. I think this is one of the reasons I enjoy documentaries so much, especially those about every day people having meaningful experiences that are in the range of possibility for many. Last night, I saw the documentary, Walking the Camino: Six Ways to Santiago with my former Internet-only friend, Meredyth and her friend, Liz. We belong to a photography group on Facebook. The group includes a couple hundred people from all over the world. Meredyth and Liz live in nearby Vancouver, BC. They came down for the weekend and Meredyth invited me to the movie. We had the best time. There are a lot of lovely and interesting people in the world. Meredyth and Liz are both teachers and I can tell that they are very excellent teachers. It was nice to share our mutual love and commitment to children and their development. Liz, as it turns out, also belongs to the photo group but I have not seen her photos or interacted with her previously. Meredyth posted a photo to the group last night and awoke to a number of charming comments from group members about how happy they were that the three of us had met in “real” life. Most of the people in the group have never met one another in person. Meredyth and Liz were the first group members that I have encountered in the tangible world. I hope to meet more of my cyber friends in the future. It was a very special experience.

The documentary followed a group of people from all over the world, most of whom had never met previously. They were people who traveled to Spain to complete the Camino de Santiago, a long distance spiritual walk from one end of Spain to the other. Pilgrims have been making this walk for over 1000 years. The walk meant different things to each person followed for this documentary. Most of the pilgrims came alone. One set of pilgrims was a young mother, her brother, and her young son. They walked the entire trail, though the mountains, the plains, and the forests, pushing a stroller!

The pilgrims made new friends and were met with great kindness along the trail. People who fed them, housed them, and washed their feet. At one point, one of the pilgrims was so moved by the generosity of at stranger that she cried tears of joy and self-reflection. She was sure that she had never treated another person with the kindness that she had received. It was a beautiful moment because instead of beating herself up for not measuring up, she looked moved and inspired. The pilgrims also experienced ecstasy, times of great mindfulness of their surroundings, love, and lots and lots of struggle with their minds and the rest of their bodies.

A beauty of the film was that not only does the walk serve as a metaphor for life but the film also shows individuals having the day to day experience of transformation over the course of a month or so. I found myself thinking about how different pilgrims might integrate their transformation into the rest of their lives and for how long would they feel transformed and connected to something much larger than themselves or the small worries that consume us on a daily basis. I know that the answer to that question is different for every pilgrim and the answer changes over time.

I am still fighting the treadmill right now. I’m not going to lie to you. I am still feeling the sting of disappointment that my dream of taking my own pilgrimage to see all of my dear friends back East is just not going to happen any time soon due to responsibilities and financial realities. I also told my husband last night that it is unlikely that I will be able to contribute enough to our family income for us to save up for a big trip for our 25th wedding anniversary, which is in 13 months. I know this is a trip on which his heart was set. It was actually supposed to happen last summer so it’s already been postponed once.

Life is like walking the Camino, so is breast cancer. I have experienced both struggle and transformation. I have been the recipient of great kindness and generosity from both old and new loved ones in my life. These are the realities than inspire actual dreams of being unprepared for life and receiving help! (Although I believe I will be able to do my own hair and not need help from my former boss at U.W.) I have learned the powerful and gentle gifts that come from walking outside. As one of the pilgrims in the film commented after having walked for hours through heavy rain (paraphrasing), “I saw the raindrops hanging from blades of grass. Painters paint this and I get to see it.”

I know why I like documentaries. I know why I steep myself in reality. I love life. Life is transformative, powerful, spiritual, inspiring, energizing, exhausting, loud, quiet, painful, scary, and at times very very boring. But life has everything.

Meredyth and me at the movies transforming cyber friendship to something more.

Tags Breast Cancer, coping with breast cancer, gratitude, mindfulness, the Camino, The Camino: Six Ways to Santiago

Categories Feelings, Flora and Fauna, Integrative Health, Mindfulness, Religion, Uncategorized

Rumi-nation

January 18, 2014 //

Today I thought I’d revisit the words of Rumi with a horrible pun! Sorry, I couldn’t resist. But seriously, I’ve been thinking back to a Rumi quote that I encountered at the beginning of my mindfulness practice, also near the beginning of my cancer treatment in 2012.

Don’t turn away.
Keep your gaze on
the bandaged place.
That is where the light enters you.

At the beginning, the bandaged places were literal. Dr. Beatty did my first three of surgeries. He left a single 2 inch wide strip of Arglaes film dressing over each surgery site. This was even true of my mastectomy. One piece of adhesive film. I know that it was called, “Arglaes” because he was so excited about using it. And having had subsequent surgeries with more traditional dressings, I could see why. It was comfortable, flexible, didn’t bind, and it was waterproof. I could shower immediately.

I did look at my bandaged places. I know a lot of women don’t like to deal with their surgical drains or to see their mastectomy incisions, especially prior to reconstruction, if reconstruction is chosen. And I know that some women don’t even like to look at themselves after reconstruction. But as a naturally curious person who is trained both as a scientist and as a healthcare provider, I wanted to look. I was calmly fascinated with how surgery is done, about how my body was changed, and about how healing took place. This helped me a great deal in coping with the physical losses and to keep myself from being overwhelmed by the enormity of it all.

I realize now that my training in observation and data gathering helped set a perfect stage for me to start mindfulness practice. I am very good at noticing things in the present as well as noticing patterns across time. The adjustment that I had to make was in minimizing the interpretation and even harder, to let myself have my experiences without trying to immediately change them. I am a very good problem solver. I will continue to solve problems in my life. But sometimes I do it out to avoid feeling anxious, guilty, or sad. And some problems can’t be solved through problem-solving. Some problems just need to breathe. They don’t even need a bandage.

I am a mother, a wife, a psychologist, and a friend. I deal not just with my own hurts but the hurts of my loved ones as well as those of my patients and their families. I am paid to help solve people’s problems and to not only look at their bandaged places but find the sources of the bleeding. And even as early as middle school, boys and girls solicited my advice about relationships and other typical teen issues.

In my professional life, it is a challenging process to adopt an appropriate role with my patients and their families. I can’t solve all problems and ultimately, I can’t solve their problems for them even if I am fairly certain that my recommendations will improve matters considerably. I teach people strategies for coping with life, I offer ways of thinking about things that may be helpful. But I don’t carry out the strategies or do the thinking. And I can’t control every aspect of a child’s internal or external environment. Wow, when I put it that way, I am kind of amazed that I can be effective at my job at all!

What is even more challenging, though is seeing wounds on family members and friends. Even when I am right about it, they may not see these wounds themselves. Or they may be desperately trying to cover them to avoid appearing incompetent or weak to the rest of the world. I remember when I started graduate school, I was pretty open about my anxiety. I flailed openly! A number of my classmates looked incredibly nonplussed. How could they be so confident? When I found out that one of these folks was keeping a running score for how all of us had done on exams and assignments so that he could gauge his place in the pack, the fact that I was always seeing him taking aspirin started making a different sort of sense to me. Those people don’t tend to ask for help even if they need it. They do not want to be exposed for the failures that they fear they are.

Other people in my life have been very open in their distress and instead of having trouble asking for help, they ask for too much. Help to solve problems that don’t really exist. Help to solve problems that are best solved by oneself. Help to avoid solving problems altogether and other types of reassurance seeking.

I am learning more and more with my loved ones when to speak up and when to listen. The hardest for me, however, is to say and to do nothing. To watch someone suffer and want to do something active to help. To turn down requests to bail someone out when I know it would be better for him or her to solve the problem independently.

I am growing a lot as a person. I have so much more to learn and thank Heavens for that as it makes life rich and interesting.

Tags Family, Friendship, helping behavior, mindfulness, psychology, Rumi

Categories Feelings, Mindfulness

Presence

January 7, 2014 //

One of the things I am trying to do in my mindfulness practice is to be engaged and present with both my external and internal worlds. This requires awareness of myself, awareness of my surroundings, and awareness of people around me. When I am very engaged and aware, I have occasionally surprised myself with my behavior.

When I was an intern at the University of Florida, I was asked to interview a woman. She was about 50 years old. I was a child/adolescent track intern but all of us worked with children and adults, as part of our training. I remember that her hair was blonde. She had a nice hair cut but was disheveled in appearance. She was accompanied by her husband.

She cried nonstop. She was expressing suicidal ideation. I was accompanied by my supervising psychologist, who introduced himself and introduced me to the woman. Then he left the room. And then it was my interview to drive unless I made such a mess of it that my supervisor would have to take over for me. He would have to determine this from another room where he and a group of students were observing my interview.

I was nervous. This was not my forte. I write in all sincerity that I would have much preferred doing a four hour long test battery with a hyperactive 4 year-old. Yes, they are a challenge but they have a certain joie de vivre. And they still believe in magic and limitless possibilities. And they love my loud laugh and high energy.

This lady felt hopeless and helpless. She said she wanted to die. She didn’t believe in magic and limitless possibilities. My laugh and high energy were not what was needed. I felt out of my depth and out of my comfort zone. But like every other good trainee, I did my best to adapt and do my job.

In my hand was a writing pad and a pen. I looked at the woman. I saw the way she held my gaze. I heard the distress in her voice and her urgent need to be heard, really heard. I put the pad and pen aside. I looked into her eyes and we had a conversation, a long one for over an hour. The conversation included a suicide assessment, as was appropriate. But I had the strong gut feeling that she needed to talk to a person with free hands. I knew that I had a break right after the interview and at that time, my memory was like a steel trap. After the interview was over, I took my pad and pen and wrote nonstop for 45 minutes.

When I met back with my supervisor (this was my first case with him, by the way), he looked at me with an incredulous but not critical look and asked me why I had not taken notes during the interview. I gave my explanation, which appeared to satisfy him. We also compared our notes and he was impressed that I had gotten everything down. He told me that I’d done a wonderful job interacting with the woman. I worked with him a number of times during that particular rotation and I remember that he rated my skills very highly.

I would have never seen myself doing that before I made that quick but nonetheless considered, decision. I knew that I was supposed to take notes during the interview and depending on the particular question, follow certain interview protocols. I had always taken notes in the past. I knew that there were people watching me, including my supervisor.

I have taken notes during all of the interviews I have done subsequently, with the exception of interviews with young children. Those particular circumstances have never arisen again. And if they presented themselves to me again, I will probably take notes because my mind is no longer like a steel trap. But at that time, it was the right decision and I made it by being as fully engaged with that woman as I could even though I had been initially quite afraid that I didn’t know what I was doing. And perhaps by focusing so much on her, it allowed me to disengage from the anxiety and self-consciousness I had as a young trainee.

Tags clinical psychology, mindfulness, psychological interviewing, suicide assessment

Categories Mindfulness

Protected: Trust fall

December 5, 2013 //

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Tags Breast Cancer, fear, Marriage, mindfulness, trust

Categories Breast cancer, Marriage, Mindfulness

Nature’s Bounty

November 20, 2013 //

I’ve had a couple of difficult days. We all have them. It’s just part of life. Something throws you on your butt, you rally, you still feel kind of bad, maybe another thing knocks you back on your butt, you rally again, and keep inching your way along until you re-right yourself.

Today, I had paperwork to do but did not have to go to the office to see patients. I had been knocked on my butt a couple of days ago and still felt knocked down this morning. I meditated for a long time and thought about my life. My past, my present, and my future. I gained some clarity. I had some really wonderful thoughts about perfectionism, which I had planned to share on my blog, but promptly forgot as soon as I got out of bed. (Darn!)

The sky was blue today. I went out for my walk. The sky was not only blue but the mountains were visible. I walked to Bird on a Wire, my neighborhood coffee shop, which is quite excellent. It was as if the universe knew that I needed to be cheered up. Maddie said, “Oh, Elizabeth I’m glad you came at this time. (It was a slower part of the day.) We hate it when people we like come at busy times and we don’t get to talk to them.” Then Adrian noticed that a gluten-filled biscuit was being prepared for me instead of a gluten-free one. She saved me from some major eczema. Adrian keeps an extra eye on this, I’ve noticed and I very much appreciate it. And finally, Angel told me that I was one of his favorite people. The people who work at the coffee shop are always friendly but this was much more than usual. I told them that they were awesome but I did not let on that I was having a hard day and they have no idea how much their kindness meant to me. I also experienced the incredible kindness of a friend in the past couple of days who knew that I was having a hard time, who has checked in on me periodically over the past couple of days.

I continued, with coffee and gluten-free biscuit in hand on my walk. It was WAY too nice not to go to the beach. I didn’t have enough time to walk there so I walked a half mile back to my house, jumped into my car, and drove to Lincoln Park, which is on the Puget Sound. There was new snow on the Olympic Mountains. The sun was bright and the sky was a brilliant blue. The wind was strong and it was cold. But it was amazing! The water, the islands, the Olympic Peninsula, and the mountains were glorious. I saw osprey flying over the water and then suddenly drop to the water to fish. I saw cormorants and a few species of duck. At one point, I saw black figures as the waves broke. They were two harbor seals about 20 yards off of the coast. They were swimming along and coming up every several yards. I was able to walk along the beach fast enough to continue to observe them for several minutes. I have seen seals at this beach, but only 2 or 3 times in the past 10 years. The Pacific Madrone, one of my favorite trees, which only grow near salt water, were beautiful. The orange trunks with their peeling bark were beautiful against the blue sky. The towering Douglas fir were majestic.

I’ve had a stressful life for the past many years. The reasons for this are many, most of which I have written about here. One of the ways I deal with the stress as well as to help prevent recurrence of depression is to get a full body massage every three weeks. I have gotten them from the same lovely person, Jann Coons, for the past 13 years. The first massage from Jann was a gift from my husband for my 35th birthday. I got the first one and have never stopped going. I’ve had massages from three or four other people and no one holds a candle to Jann!

Jann surprised me today. She told me that she had a Christmas present for me in her car and noted that she couldn’t keep it in her office. She walked me out to her car and I could see that she was getting ready to open the trunk of her car. I said, “Oh, well I am guessing that you are not giving me a puppy!” She pulled an amazing variety of home grown vegetables, artfully arranged in a basket, from the cool depths of her trunk. The basket contained red chard, two kinds of kale, delicata and other squashes, red and yellow onions, mizuna (a type of green), and beautiful red beets. I’m sure Jann could tell that I was moved by her generosity. I gave her a big hug and a kiss on the cheek. I still can’t believe it. I almost cried.

I am not a traditionally religious person but I believe my faith in the spiritual beliefs I do have is very deep. Today, I experienced an overwhelmingly beautiful display of nature’s bounty. The bounty from the sky, the water, the mountains, dirt, and from other human beings, who are also part of the natural world. And I know this is only a fraction of the bounty that I enjoy. I have so many wonderful people in my life, friends and family. There are so many wonders of the Earth.

I know that Thanksgiving is not for another eight days but today I feel very thankful, very blessed, and so loved. My heart is bursting.

Jann’s Christmas present to me. A basket of health that she grew with her own hands.

Tags Family, Friendship, mindfulness, Nature, Resilience, social support

Categories Feelings, Flora and Fauna, Mindfulness

Opportunities

November 5, 2013 //

Many years ago, I was working with a child with aggressive behavior problems and his parents. As I recall, he was 8 years old at the time. He was so easily angered. Some children are. By the time an 8 year-old child who has trouble regulating anger and has a great deal of trouble with impulse control, they typically have a lot of practice being aggressive and being impatient. There is an automatic reflex for disappointment and frustration.

The boy had been playing with toys, Legos I believe. It was time to clean up. There are children who kind of lose it when they are told to clean up. He was one of those children. Now, I don’t set things up so that kids will blow a fuse. I wrote out the session schedule as a check list. An example of this kind of schedule might be as follows. 1) Grown up talking time, 2) Show and tell, 3) Grown up talking time, 4) Show and tell, 5) Clean-up time, and 6) prize time.

In other words, “clean-up time” did not come out of the blue. But as soon as the words, “It’s time to clean-up” were uttered, I could see the boy’s brow knit and his fist clench. He picked up some Legos and I could tell that he was planning to throw them across the room.

A big part of my job is observing and waiting for little opportunities. Opportunities to offer a child a chance to do something different. An opportunity to be appreciated by an adult in a positive way. Once these opportunities present themselves I have to work extremely quickly.

I picked up the Lego bin, smiled, and said, “Oh you look like you are ready to put those Legos away! Thanks so much for helping!” His face relaxed and he put them in the bin. I said, “Wow, I bet you are really fast at putting things away. Oh look at that! You put all of those away. Oh, there are some more in the corner! There you go, I knew you were fast. Thank you for taking care of the toys. That means that other children will be able to play with them. You have been very kind.”

Did that interchange solve all of the boys problems? No, it didn’t. But I do believe that it opened a window to how things could be different. For how helping can be powerful. For how seeing the positive possibilities in another human being can be powerful rather than naive. And more important than showing this possibility to the boy was the fact that the window was opened for his parents, to see their son as capable of positive growth.

It doesn’t always work when I try to take these opportunities to make a shift with my patients, with their families, with my loved ones, or with myself. But sometimes it works and works beautifully. As I become more mindful in my own life, I look for these micro-opportunities to make changes in my own life, in the way I think about things or in the way I behave.

I often tell children, “One of the best things about life is that you almost always get another chance. Every day is a new opportunity.”

Tags child psychology, Life changes, mindfulness

Categories Feelings, Mindfulness

Life Semi-Unplugged

September 23, 2013 //

I love to socialize. My kindergarten report card read, “has trouble staying quiet during rest time.” People, I was chatting up the other kid on the carpet square beside me. Never mind that I was 6 years old for most of kindergarten and therefore too old to be napping. Subsequent evidence in my life has suggested that I have trouble stopping when it comes to socializing. I pretty much did not get into trouble in school. But my trigonometry teacher did make me sit by myself away from other students for awhile. And it wasn’t that I didn’t like math. I was actually very good at it. My guess is that I was sitting next to a friend or two and perhaps a really cute boy. So sorry to have disturbed the learning environment, Mr. Wickstrom.

When I was a researcher, I often worked with my door closed so that I would be less likely to start a conversation with someone who walked by my door. If I could orient my desk with my back to the door, that worked even better. I also used email communication when I could so that a simple question and answer would not turn into an extended conversation. I managed to be a productive worker who also had friends at the office. I worked out a balance.

I left research in 2007 and since that time I have been working full-time in private practice. There are two other psychologists that work out of the office. Sometimes our hours overlap and sometimes they do not. And even when they overlap, we are with patients with our doors closed. There is little time for socializing. I can go an entire day without even saying “hi” to one of my office mates because there is no chance to do so. We just don’t have breaks at the same time. I just hear them in the next room for the whole day and vice versa. Now when we need to consult with one another, we can set that up. It’s not like I work somewhere without professional support but consultations typically need to be scheduled.

I have used the Internet for many years now for professional, entertainment, and social purposes. What a medium. I have to say that in seven surgeries, it was a lifesaver during recuperation. And I’ve made so many wonderful friends through this blog, other blogs, and via Facebook. However, my laptop is rarely put away any more. When I am home, it hangs out on my coffee table. I used to keep it in my home office. And if my computer is somehow out of reach, my smartphone can be at my side.

And wow, Facebook allows for real time conversation sometimes with multiple people at once! How exciting is that? On top of that, now that my life is less ridiculous, my blog posts are no longer as humorous as they once were. But Facebook is a different medium and I usually have several humorous thoughts that pop into my head throughout the day that are just right for a little FB post. And over time, there are a number of people who comment on them and tell me that they enjoy my FB humor. I get a lot of attention and guess what, I kind of like it.

Meanwhile, my workplace had no fast Internet connection for the nine years I have worked here. We are old school, that is, until July when a new psychologist came to share space with us. She was the head of a couple of centers at the University of Washington and was used to living in the current decade. So Julie found a sweet deal on high speed Internet and now I am plugged in at all times. This makes many aspects of my job easier, for example, being able to submit and look up insurance claims online whether it’s a clinic day for me or not. (In the past, I saved these tasks for when I was at home.) But just like in kindergarten, I have also found myself talking too much to the kid on the carpet square next to me. And I don’t have to worry about the teacher yelling at me because I am self-employed. At home, I can even have my smartphone on the side of my bed so I don’t miss anything.

As I’ve written in the past, I am frequently reassessing and recalibrating my life according to what my responsibilities are and what I am capable of doing. I don’t regret the fun I’ve had on Facebook. And I will continue to have fun on Facebook as well as continue to write this blog. My life feels more interrupted than I would like. I typically don’t multi-task well. This was one of the bigger hurdles (another being social isolation) for me in adjusting to private practice. I see a lot of kids a year. I have no administrative support, no housekeeping staff, etc. But I had worked out a balance. I am a pretty organized person and a good planner. I can do the mundane as well as the exciting.

Last week I de-installed Facebook from my smartphone. I know better than to be on the Internet and playing with my phone when I’m in bed. I am a psychologist, for goodness sakes. Our treatments for sleep disorders have the best research support of any and that includes Ambien, people! (And if you are happy with your sleep improving strategies, I am not suggesting you change them. I am happy for you.) I know that using electronics in bed is a MAJOR NO-NO. And I have been having trouble sleeping due to stupid menopause and stress.

I miss my frequent Facebook instant gratification but guess what? I have started sleeping well again.

Tags Facebook, Internet use, life balance, mindfulness

Categories Feelings, Mindfulness