Is There A Doctor In The White House?

Sit down, the White House has lost its mind. First, watch the video of Obama speaking here on public health issues arising from "climate change."

http://youtu.be/M16-YepUY1A

Mr. President, your campaign that asthma is caused by climate change is, pardon my French, HOCKUM. Please do everyone who suffers from asthma a favor and tell the truth. That's all. As in what's on your own National Instutites of Health, where it says:

"The exact cause of asthma isn't known. Researchers think some genetic and environmental factors interact to cause asthma, most often early in life. These factors include:

• An inherited tendency to develop allergies, called atopy (AT-o-pe)
• Parents who have asthma
• Certain respiratory infections during childhood
• Contact with some airborne allergens or exposure to some viral infections in infancy or in early childhood when the immune system is developing
• If asthma or atopy runs in your family, exposure to irritants (for example, tobacco smoke) may make your airways more reactive to substances in the air.

Some factors may be more likely to cause asthma in some people than in others. Researchers continue to explore what causes asthma.^*

*National Institutes of Health, Causes of Asthma, sourced April 20, 2015

No, asthma is not a "preventable" disease, as you can't prevent something when you don't know how it starts! Asthma is a disease that HOPEFULLY can be managed, but no one is given that promise. DO NOT BLAME THE VICTIM FOR THE SAKE OF YOUR PR. I refuse to crawl up on that cross for you. Quit LYING to the public for your political ends, and shame on you for putting us on your so-called "climate change" propaganda posters.

Sincerely,
Asthmatic folowing a case of Antibiotic-Resistant Pertussis,
Pamela Curtis
Westminster, Colorado

The Dangers of "Positive Psychology"

Everyone wants to be happy. At least, that's what we believe, especially in the U.S., where all our movies have happy endings. The proponents of positive psychology will tell you that a happy brain performs better on tests, better than neutral or stressed, and can help us live longer, more productive and enjoyable lives. Sounds pretty wonderful, right? Except when you try to out it into practice, there are some drawbacks that appear. One major drawback is when things fall apart. Positive psychology has no better answer than, "look on the bright side! Find the good in this! Don't put your happiness off as something that will happen after you reach a goal... have it right now AND reach your goal!" Except that life doesn't work that way, and now studies are showing what I suspected: happiness can be hazardous to your health.

It's simple, really. Who goes about solving problems when they're happy? What's to fix? When we feel great, the world is a wonderful place. Who complains when they're happy? Who watches out for bad things coming our way when everything is fine now? Why be such a Negative Nancy or Gloomy Gus, when we can be joyful in everything we do? there are no problems when your happy! It's easy to see how things are not a problem, and therefore no solution is necessary. What, me worry?

The truth is pessimists live on average TEN YEARS longer than happy people. And the truth is a pessimistic or realistic outlook is MUCH better at handling stress and misfortune. And when you have a chronic illness, there's a lot of stress and misfortune. Worrying when you *know* something is wrong is NOT a bad thing!! Oh, sure, other people might not like my attitude, but they don't have to live my life, do they?

Leslie Martin, co-author of the 2011 book "The Longevity Project: Surprising Discoveries for Health and Long Life from the Landmark Eight-Decade Study," found similar results in a long-term study that followed 1,528 people over eight decades. Among other health-related findings, the study showed that the subjects who were identified as most optimistic as children were the ones who died the soonest.

What most people haven't experienced, and therefore they do not know, is YEARS OF FAILURE while surrounded by some of the best and brightest minds our society has to offer (doctors & nurses). That would make anyone pessimistic. Every time I was given a new medication, I was told, "This time, it will work and you'll get better!" I would pray and hope as much as I could, I would send out good energy to the Universe and work hard to accumulate good karma so that THIS TIME, it would work. I would meditate for hours, visualizing a healthy me, so that reality would manifest that outcome. I'm betting you can guess how well that worked!

I got tired of the roller coaster. I got tired of trying to keep my spirits up while enduring one failure of a medication after another. Nothing was working, and I mean nothing. I was kicked out of no fewer than five doctors offices, being told, "I'm sorry, we have nothing left for you." I mean, I know there are people who claim they've tried everything, but I actually was IN an experimental study whose protocol demanded that, "all other therapies had failed." So I am one of the few people who indeed HAS "tried everything," including Eastern and alternative medicines. It is not pessimism when it's the TRUTH.

When I gave up hoping, I freed myself from all that misery. No more would I be slammed to the ground in despair and disappointment. If a medication worked, fantastic! I would be happy then, but there was NO use to getting all worked up ahead of time. All that was doing was setting myself up. And then, when I wasn't able to maintain my good mood in the face of bad news, positive psychology made me feel like a failure because I couldn't hope. To me, hoping became a sign that I didn't know what was going on, but whatever it was, it wasn't going to turn out well for me. Hope became a feeling associated with my powerlessness to keep bad things from happening to me. Hope was the veil I threw over my head, trying to make the world soft and dreamlike, only to find that all it did was cloud my vision and keep me from seeing the potentially bad things headed my way.

So it was a HUGE relief to find out that indeed, pessimism is actually better at handling stressful situations. My experience with happiness and hope being liabilities instead of support is absolutely correct! I was NOT a failure for my negative attitude, in fact, that was the best attitude I could adopt for my situation. People who are negative and worry more are more apt to take care of the little problems before they become HUGE problems. They are more cautious and don't take risks like happy people do. They can see the problems before they happen (because they're on the lookout for the negative) and therefore live an average of TEN YEARS LONGER than happy people. Take that, positive psychology!

People think that happiness is a good idea because it feels good. But I can tell you from my own hypomanic (that happy & creative stage before full-blown, hallucinating mania) experiences, feeling good does not mean thinking good. In fact, feeling good can be quite dangerous, and can cause me to be sexually aggressive, fiscally irresponsible, and insensitive to other people's feelings. I feel good, and you feel good, so let's feel even better together. Hey, it's okay for me to spend this money! It will all work out somehow, I don't have to worry, I'll find a way to get more. Oh, come on... why did that hurt your feelings? It's all in good fun, right? We're all happy here, why are you upset? Don't be so serious all the time!

For me, trying to maintain happy all the time is also very stressful, but not in the way most people view stress. See, the body doesn't care if the stress is bad (an upcoming exam) or good (winning the lottery), BOTH times are periods of increased heart rate and a stimulated body. That means a greater drain on cortisol (the hormone that allows us to cope with stress), the hormone that my body doesn't make. It doesn't matter whether the stress is good or bad, either way, I crash! And when I have an adrenal crash, that triggers a migraine, which means hours or days of pain. I've learned over the years that the Buddhists and Goldilocks have it right: not too hot, not too cold — the middle path is the best.

So while happiness may feel good emotionally, it is NOT good physically! And my attempts at positive psychology led to one of the biggest crashes I've had since I first got sick. We cannot fool ourselves that just because something feels good that means it is good. Of course people will do better on tests when they're amped up on their own internal supply of stimulants... everyone does better on tests on speed! That's how our bodies are able to survive crisis situations, by amping up all our systems to better survive the occasion. But that's not something you want to try and maintain! You'll burn your body out in the process. We need neutral and negative. It's just plain safer and healthier.

I would like to thank Shawn Achor for his work, but I would like to add a word of caution: you pulled off a few magic tricks in your presentation that you failed to mention, and as a result have started down a dangerous path. Of course young children can be talked out of their pain, but we outgrow that at a certain age and that trick stops working. We all get to an age where we realize we're being fooled, and we don't buy the b.s. anymore. And even though there is the tendency for people to think that something bad is going on when it's nothing (cute that the guy thought he was going through menopause, nice joke), but that helped us survive because it's better to assume it's a tiger when it's just the wind, than to assume it's the wind when it's the tiger...

And THAT's the biggest danger of positive psychology— it wants us to assume it's just the wind. Oh sure, it can show you that 90% of the time it's the successful way to go! And they'd be right! But if in that 10% there lies the tiger, and you land on that tiger, you're dinner, and that's 100% failure. Even though the risks are small, the catastrophic results make it such that it's better to "err on the side of caution" and assume things are NOT going to work out. It doesn't pay to be naïve.

There's the saying, "Fools learn from experience. The wise learn from history." And history tells us that the leaders of Rome kept the masses pacified with "bread & circuses." It's a political game as old as history itself: keep the people fed and happy, and they'll let you get away with genocide. It's only during economic stress that people start paying attention to what the people in power are doing. Why question authority when God is in His Heaven and all is right with the world?

We would be wise to be wary.

WSJ Infographic:

Video:


Sources:
WSJ - "A Perfect Dose of Pessimism"
NPR - "Do You Want To Be Happy? Don't Set Your Expectations Too High"

[Video] What is a Migraine? #MHAM

This video, made with @AdobeVoice, is a short educational piece on #migraines for Migraine Headache Awareness Month (#MHAM). Enjoy!

Planet Invisible Disability

What if one day you woke up on a different planet?

Book Report #HAWMC

My favorite book at this point in my life is: Ownership Spirit by Dennis R. Deaton. This book is incredible. It opens by teaching the Owner/Victim Choice. continues by explaining Our Essence, that there is a difference between who we are and the choices we make. "As human beings, we each have a body; but we are not our bodies. We have emotions, but we are not our emotions. And, we have feelings, but we are not our feelings." This book is brilliant. Check out this bit in the chapter "The Thinker of Thoughts":

When we encounter setbacks or loss, we can learn to resist our almost reflexive Victim thoughts like, "Oh, no; here we go again," or, "Why does stuff like this always happen to me?" We can learn to open up the mental interpretative gap and enumerate options [read: we can detach and list our options]. ...When my knee-jerk reaction takes over and I sense myself turning to the "why me" laments... I say to myself, "Stop. What are your options here, Dennis?" The "stop" breaks the negative monologue. The follow-up question... triggers a constructive line of questioning.
[emphasis mine]

I love this bool. I love it because not only is it a call to arms to get up and take responsibility for our lives, but it recognizes that this stuff is difficult to do, and that tough decisions need to be made every step of the way to see the success we want. And this book teaches how to deal with ourselves and our own insecurities that will crop up along the way.

We can either appreciate what we have and build on it, or take it for granted and lose it. "Exercising Tough-Minded Ownership does not guarantee that every poignantly challenging experience will turn out to our liking. But, it does guarantee the way we will experience the [event] and it does determine the degree of strength we will leverage during those times." There are no Polly-Anna's here. This is realistic optimism at its best.

Along those same lines, everyone should watch this TED talk. It talks about how important it is to hold on to who we are no matter what happens. If you haven't tried this exercise before, do so now. Write out 20 sentences on a piece of paper starting with the words "I am..." and finish that sentence. Force yourself to only write positive qualities or qualities you are proud of in yourself. Do not finish any of those sentences negatively. This will help you identify the qualities you find important in yourself. And it will help you remember who you are, no matter what happens to you or the choices you're forced to make. Because as this video shows, both great success and great failure are as equally disorienting to the psyche. It's easy to get lost out there.

This great talk is called, "Success, Failure, and the Drive to Keep Creating":

[ted id=1983]

If you haven't heard of The Ownership Spirit, go check it out. And remember to always come home. I am your host, Pamela Curtis. I was not paid in any way for these endorsements. You can pick up your copy of Ownership Spirit through this link to Amazon.


P.S. I passed on Fitness Friday, because I don't really stay fit right now. I do have a word art picture, but I don't have any image software to capture pictures right now due to technical difficulties. I promise I'll get it up soon!

The Shortest Sentences in the Human Language #HAWMC [LATE]

Wait. That's a word in the 'shortest sentence' in the English language category. The shortest sentence in the English language is: No. I can handle wait. Wait is no problem for me. I can even handle wait at Level 10 pain... and believe me, my Level 10 is no joke. What I don't like is wait...wait...wait... Psych! Just kidding! I really meant: Never. That's some uncool $#!+ right there.

And there have even been studies on it... if you let people know what time the next train arrives, they're less anxious. If you let people know how long the drive will take, they're less likely to speed, even if it means they'll be late... in this age of cell phones you can just call can inform your party.

No is just... no. How do you get around that? No. It's a denial, a wall, a deep dark hole... No. You need more letters to create or even insist! No is just an ending. What comes after no? Silence.

Dealing with no is hard. I know. I have hard time with no. I had a mother who would pull out no first, even if it was something I desperately needed. So I learned how to out stubborn her. That has been a boon and a bane in dealing with doctors. Some react just like my mother and I eventually win them over with facts and evidence. Some are like my ex-boyfriend who take no to a level of extreme heights, you need a telescope and a star chart to see them.

"See that second star on the right?"
"Yeah?"
"You can see a flag that says "NO!" just beyond that horizon."
"Oh yeah, now I see it!"

But no is not always defeat. Our path from our birth to death is rarely a straight line! Or at least you hope it's not... it either means your life was very brief, or it means your life was very boring. Both are horrible outcomes! No, when it's followed by helpful or better information is actually a good thing.

Did my father die of a heart attack at sixty? No, he got to a cardiologist and they were able to put stints in, avoiding the heart attack. Were we able to make our flight? No, it got canceled due to weather, but we met this marvelous couple in the lounge while waiting for your next flight. They were going elsewhere, so we never would have crossed paths otherwise! Did you graduate with a chemistry degree? No, I got an English degree, but I combined it with my love of computers and became a technical writer instead of a doctor. I can still practice my craft, even if I'm not employable in the traditional sense. I could feel a lot more useless than this! lol

No can also mean no, not yet. But as I mentioned before, that's just means waiting, and I'm cool with that, as long as there's a payoff. Some say, A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush! And while that may be true, there's also the marshmallow study which shows children who can resist temptation are more successful later in life. And I've seen that in my life on the daily. When I'm able to be patient with others, they relax and are more willing to work with me. Patience is an amazingly powerful skill. I may want things to be Right Now! and Quick Like A Bunny!!! But that doesn't mean everyone else wants it at that speed. Some people just don't move at that speed. Others just prefer to savor life's moments. Still more just can't go that fast, and that's okay. So no can mean, no wait a minute, let me explain.

My apologies for the lateness of this post, I meant to write yesterday, but the muse had not yet arrived. Thank you for being so patient! ^_^

[ted id=553]

Theme Song #HAWMC [LATE]

"Don't give up, You Only Get What You Give... by the New Radicals has been my theme song for the longest time. (video: http://youtu.be/DL7-CKirWZE) It's a great, lift-me-up tune with positive reinforcement: If I want great things to happen, I've got to put great effort into the project. If I want if to be funny, if I want it to be me, I have to be willing to out those things out there for others to works with. If I want it to be wonderful and full of whimsy, I need to bring that to the table. If I want it to soothe, I need to be soothing. If I want to learn, I need to teach. If I want to teach, I need to learn. The rule is: Don't give up-- forget the losses-- if you want, you must be willing to give of yourself.

I used to play this song whenever I was feeling down to remind myself why I need to pick myself back up again. As long as I keep going, and keep trying, and keep improving what I do... As long as I practice and remain teachable, and just keep at my goal, I will get back the effort I put in. This does not mean I have to be the loudest voice in the room. Rather, it's that if I want something, I've got to be willing to put in the work. I've got to be willing to take small steps forward over a long period of time. There is no "get rich quick" scheme, no easy launch to success.

But the fun side is, I get it back! When I put in the hard work, I get back the results of that work. Even if the results right now aren't what I want, it's a start, and I can build from there. If I want to build a mountain! I need to expect a mountain of effort, and I'm not Hercules, so that's either going to take time, help, and probably both! Lol

I know we can do great things if we put our minds to it. This blog started with a single post and an idea. I'm actually blown away by what it's become and the people I've reached, and who have reached back to me. There is such an amazing community out there for those of us who must live with a chronic illness. I feel so fortunate to have you all (and all the friends & family too!) as a part of my life! "You've got a reason to live!"

I used to wonder how I would fit in if I no longer had work as a part of my life. I knew I didn't want to just waste away reading the Internet or staring at the TV. So I made my time on the Internet productive, and kept writing and honing my professional skills in essays, even though I wasn't paid for it. Later that blossomed into the idea of the blog, and now I've turned what was a detriment into a positive force in my life! Oh sure, I still suffer the bad days, but bad day or good, it's all material I can use to help myself and all of you!

Very early in my illness I saw a sign, "Truth brings relief to the voice that speaks it, and hope to the mind that hears it." I have learned on here that I am not alone. I may still be a little weird and misunderstood at times (har, har), but I'm not alone. And my feelings are understood, even if my words aren't. There are so many people out there who care for me, and I wasn't even trying! They like me for me, and the whimsy that I bring just from sharing the things I like with them! I didn't have to perform, or acheive, or prove myself. I just had to be myself and that was plenty enough.

I may be at the mercy of a chronic illness, but that doesn't diminish my spirit!

Crossing the Streams

I like to #compartmentalize. I don't like keeping secrets, because secrets kill, but I know that not everyone understands, not everyone believes, and not everyone wants to hear what I've got to say ALL the time, no matter what. (I'd either think you a bit strange or want to marry you, depending on the moon.) As such, I have all sorts of different personas out on the Internet. There's my personal side, my professional side, my family side, my private bedroom side, my health side, my artist side... Lots of little compartments where I can stick all my stuff and not have it overwhelm my audience. Unfortunately, sometimes those streams get crossed, and all the boundaries I set up so nice and neat come crashing down, exposing me to all the world.

To quote Tech N9ne, I'm fragile. I never thought I'd be this way, and in fact tried my best not to be! My father used to constantly tell me "grow a thicker skin!" As an adult, I finally got the chance to snap back, "Be a little more considerate!" We never had that argument again! Lol

It's so difficult to explain to people that while, yes, I do come off bipolar some times, no it is not that (not that there's anything *wrong* with being bipolar, that's just not the right diagnosis). It's my migraines causing hypomania and mini-depressions when my supply of serotonin is flushed from my body. It's difficult to explain that, yes, though my case is unbelievably horrible, that doesn't mean it's fiction, or that I'm exaggerating....

I'm sensitive!! Not just emotionally.... I mean, quite literally, I am extra-sensitive, even more than most folk, at a physical level. I also have, strangely enough, a super high tolerance. So while most people would normally keel over, I'm able to sail on as though nothing is wrong, even though the tests all come back supporting my claims. Once again, I was told that I would not have an abnormal test result. Once again, I did. And not only that, but I was right in thinking I had kidney damage when everyone else was telling me "no way." There are some more tests that need to come back, but on the whole, I *should* be able to move forward with this... But yet again, I'm getting nothing from my doctors.

Does an MD carry with it an allergy to admitting "I was wrong"? I mean, seriously! Science teaches us if the theory doesn't fit the facts, change the THEORY. Don't deny the facts! The cortisol stim test showed an abnormal response. The thyroid tests once again showed an abnormal response. My kidney tests and my salts all showed abnormal results. And I can't get an endocrinologist to return my phone calls.

Understand this: I did not make things this way because it's how I wanted it, but I am certainly going to try to make the best out of a bad situation. It's infuriating how nonchalantly other people can destroy our lives with a simple comment. You wouldn't think that one person's opinion could have that much impact, but given the right circumstances, oh yes it can.

I guess we all make fools of ourselves every once in a while. It's okay to crash & burn, so long as you can recover from it too. I am certainly no exception to that rule!

Paws Off My LOLcats!!!

I watch a lot of TED talks as inspiration for my research. And I was impressed by Clay Shirky's introduction of idea that we've been couch potatoes not because we want to be consumers, but because we didn't have many other options. But then he had to call my beloved LOLcats as "throw-away creationism." Excuse me, sir, but I think you have vastly underestimated the importance of spontaneous and surprising humor in one of the most democratic memes of the Interwebs, which has itself spawned its own form of spelling, grammar and (pardon the pun) copy-cat memes! Take it back! ;)

What saddens me the most, however, is your total disregard for the life-giving force that is humor. Humility is most easy to gain when we are able to laugh at ourselves, and humor---particularly free humor on the Internet---has kept me going through the worst of chronic pain. It helped me survive. And we can't forget personal favorites like #chronicillnesscat! Tell me you can now see the real human good that can come from seeing the most trivial of memes! It may not be saving people from violence, but at the very least it provides hope in the darkest times: "Ah, I can still laugh... I'm not dead yet!"

I wish more people got my deadpan humor... I'm the dark-dry humor type who doesn't like laughing at her own jokes. What sounds like exacerbation is supposed to be a punchline, but not many people get me. The few who do I adore. I'm lucky enough to have an Aunt who really does, and she's a chronic illness gal herself. We have some real zingers, let me tell you!

And please, let me poke fun at being sick! Let me make something good out of this mess! Don't be so quick to think that be cause it has no value to you that it isn't invaluable to someone else.

Yes, even icanhascheezburger.com

Thank you.

Opportunity of a Lifetime - HappyHealth

For those of you still with me, thank you. My situation has changed, and I can return to more regular updates. But more importantly, I've been given a golden opportunity to finally give back and start serving the community that has helped see me through my darkest times. It's been through grass-roots community efforts that we have been able to help one another. And now those grass-roots ventures have a chance to team up with a company that wants to listen to us and our needs, and find a better way for our doctors to help us, and not give up on chronic cases like ours.

If you're anything like me, you've been fired from a doctor and given that awful send-off: "I'm sorry, we have nothing left for you." It's humiliating, shocking, and can send you into a talespin of self-defeat. But I've learned through my research and experience that when we hear something like that, it has nothing to do with us and everything to do with the doctor's unwillingness to deal with a "heart-sink case." They see no way to make us better, so they give up and hope that some other doctor will take over. But that's incredibly short-sighted: there's still a person in there, who has to live through all this, and it's really difficult not to take it personally when your doctor fires you for you disease. We wonder what we did wrong, when it has nothing to do with us at all and everything to do with the circumstance in which we're trapped.

And studies on happiness show that it's not the chronic illness that makes us unhappy... It's unmanaged symptoms. "If you have manageable health problems, it doesn't really matter [to your overall happiness]." (At the 3 minute mark http://www.ted.com/talks/stefan_sagmeister_7_rules_for_making_more_happiness.html). What does to happiness, as that video goes on to show, it a person's connectivity to others, and it is exactly that connectivity that gets obliterated when a chronic illness strikes.

But I think there's hope. I think if we can show doctors that, while they may not be able to win against our disease, they can still improve our situation so we can be happy despite our disease, we'd have a real winner on our hands, one that could revolutionize the treatment of people with chronic illness. I think if we can present doctors with a tool that gives them the ability to treat our symptoms more successfully, we can help them to help us get better.

I was recently contacted by a health start-up called HappyHealth. They want to work with me in addressing the needs of patients and doctors, improving outcomes where other companies don't even want to try. But they don't know the secret that we do. And that is, if we can make a difference for folk like us, then everything else is a cake-walk. I know that if we work together to make this happen, we could change the world into a better place.

You can help too! We're looking for people with chronic illness and an opinion to share their thoughts on how HappyHealth can best serve YOU. Every other professional health website/app out there has been written by healthy people for sick people, and they often completely miss the boat on our needs. But if we can create a
place that works for us, and one that helps our doctors not give up on us, then we could help out a lot of people in need.

Additionally, I know that there are many of us out there who are trained professionals who would love to work, but our unreliability due to our disease makes living up to normal standards impossible. I want to create a system whereby it doesn't matter if you don't know when you'll be able to work, the work is there when you're ready, and you never have to worry about dropping the ball. If you can't finish, someone else will pick up where you left off. You'd also be advised by the software when you're about to hit your monthly income limit, so as not to interfere with your disability benefits.

I don't know if I'll be able to do this all, but these are my life goals. There are too many people out there, stuck at home, cut off from life, through no fault of their own. We're routinely ignored and forgotten about because of our illness, and without a medical breakthrough, have no way of making our situation better. I want to change that.

Come join us! We're brainstorming and planning right now, so you could be there from the very start... Send me your email address and I'll send you and invitation to our Facebook group!

Oh, and for more information on HappyHealth, here's a video on the first phase of the project....



I look forward to hearing from you!!

This Happiness Project

As a society, we've taught ourselves that if we're successful, we'll then be happy. But with each success, we then place the goal post out farther: I need a better job, better living arrangements, better car, better... whatever. And then we can never be happy, because we never get there. But now science has figured out how to turn that around. From a field called Positive Psychology, I bring you, The Happiness Project Facebook Event.

Based on the work of Harvard Psychologist, Shawn Achor, (http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/shawn_achor_the_happy_secret_to_better_work.html or see the video below) This Happiness Project is about using the latest methods of neuroplasticity to train our brains how to be happier.

There are daily exercises, as well as individual projects we're going to go over that you can do at home, all geared towards making a happier you in a month (though you can continue to participate longer if you wish!).

The Happiness Advantage details out how to take this journey into transforming our minds on seeing the positive, and the opportunities available to us. We can use this event to help each other, because building up new patterns of behavior (like eating well) is easier with moral support!

So this is a no-pressure event. If you miss an assignment, don't worry, just try again the next day. See how much you can do, and if it helps you feel better about your life. I want to keep this fun and low pressure. This is about happiness after all!

Here's This Happiness Project:

1. Say three good things that happened to you that day. Shawn alternates in the book between calling this "Three Good Things," and "three things for which we're grateful for," that day. Either one works. Do this every day, posting at the event, your timeline, or in a paper journal.

2. Blog or paper journal about one positive experience, past or present. Write for 20 minutes, three times a week. If you blog, share links here to spread the positive story goodness!

3. Meditate for 5 minutes, every day; just concentrate on breathing in and out. Meditate on something positive (real or imagined beach vacation) for 20 minutes, 3 times a week.

4. Exercise. (They say 45 minutes 3x/week, but if you have heath issues, be sure to go over any exercise plan with your doctor first.)

5. Do 5 conscious acts of kindness. This can include publicly showing your appreciation for someone else's hard work, paying $3 towards lunch of the stranger behind you in the drive thru, calling up customer service just to say everything is working and that you like your products, letting someone go ahead of you in the grocery check-out line, picking up 5 pices of trash in a public park, whatever... Do these 5 Conscious Acts of Kindness once a week.

Studies have shown that we need 4 positive to counteract every 1 negative. That means, for every awful story of despair on the news, you need four positive stories to balance out. For each negative comment you hear about yourself, you need to hear 4 positive comments to come back up. So, post things that help you with your positivity here, and that will help someone else have a positive story for their day! (Feel free to post anything that restores your faith in humanity, here. That could even count as one of your conscious acts of kindness!)

I'll also be posting other fun, uplifting, positive projects that they mention in the book, like: How to give your job meaning, even if your a janitor! How to have happy dreams about the future. How to help make those happy future dreams a reality. All sorts of goodness!

Anyone is welcome to join any time.... Stay for 30 days or stay for more!

Since some people have been eager to start,
Today I began the Three Good Things part of the exercises.

Here's the format. I'll make a daily "Three Good Things!" post some time in the afternoon. Remember, though, that it's good to wait towards the end of our day before sharing. When you're ready, reply to my post with your three good things that happened to you that day, or three things you're grateful for that day.

It's the act of remembering our day, and looking for the good things, and drawing those memories that is a big part of this. But sharing with others is also an important part.

In the book, it mentions how one powerful executive in China decided to share his Three Good Things with his family at dinner each night. Each member of the family participated, too. When the project was over, he didn't want to keep doing it. (In the book it explains why...) But his children then refused to eat dinner until they did the Three Good Things exercise.

It's not just what happens to us that's important. It's that we share it with others, too. This is what brings people together. When we share about good things, everyone's experience of goodness grows. We can actually experience the other person's happiness when they share, because we are then reminded of similar events of happiness in our own lives (or we can imagine such events and experience the happiness that way). Happiness magnifies happiness.

When you're ready, BEGIN! ^_^

Next: Tips on Building New Habits & Breaking Old Ones P.S. I will be blogging here as part of the event, starting August 1.
[Update]

I had to add a disclaimer... See, I forgot one little thing: the body doesn't care if it's good stress or bad stress. Both include a shot of adrenaline & cortisol. Basically he's exchanging a bad stress for a good stress. But if the problem is with stress itself, regardless of whether it's good or bad, then this system still incurs health costs. I forgot how sick I can get from *good* things happening. I can't lose myself in flow without being really cautious (which is kinda counter-active to flow, so....). While I cannot manage this! I still encourage those with healthier bodies to try!

#NMAM "Day Dream Believer"

Today's blogging challenge for migraine awareness is: Describe your dream day, without a migraine to hold you back. Before we start, let me tell you that I hate this exercise. I don't want to think of how my life would be without migraines. All that's going to do is remind me how much my life is not how I want it. I can't be encouraging feelings of envy like that! I've got to deal with life how is is, not life how it isn't. And life how it is, is difficult enough!

I wanted to grow up, graduate from college, settle into a nice career, get married, have children and raise a family. A simple, accomplishable dream, right? Apparently that was too big of a dream for me. I was able to graduate from college, but I had to switch my major when in the middle of my sophomore year. My studies got interrupted by a ruptured cyst on my ovary. In my Junior year, I caught a series of sinus infections and flus that had me bedridden for months. The only thing that saved me from having to drop out was that I had switched to and English major that wasn't dependent on attending class every day. (My grade was determined by two papers---one at midterms and one at finals. That left a lot of time for me to baby myself and get through.)

I settled into a nice career: I was able to join my English major with a love of computers and become a technical writer. It made good money, and it included a lot of contract work, where I could take off time to raise a family, and not have my income hurt too badly when I decided to return to the workforce. Except that I started getting sicker and sicker. Getting to work from 9 to 5 was becoming impossible. I had companies who would allow me a flexible schedule, but I had to stop working when the migraine went to an every-day ordeal (despite all medical interventions).

I thought I had found a nice man to marry---my college sweetheart. Sure, things hadn't worked out when we were kids, but we were adults now with new perspectives. He'd become a responsible Navy man, like my father. I'd realized that I'd lost a good thing when I had it. We decided to get married, but that was also right when my illness made me unable to work. All our wedding plans got thrown into disarray. We ended up canceling the whole thing, because I just couldn't manage... anything. All of our money was going towards my medical bills, and we still weren't getting any answers. I didn't want to remember my marriage as the time I was sick, and we both thought I could get better. We figured it had to be soon. I'd already been through 9 months... surely a migraine couldn't go on longer than that! But we were wrong.

It soon became apparent that I wasn't getting better. The money was running out. I would need his insurance and income, so we ended up eloping. No white dress... no friends and family... we had to borrow our witnesses from the next camp over---strangers to us, who were going to attest that these two people should get married. Yeah... that should have been a sign. But I was too sick to really pay attention to any omens that didn't involve my own body. The marriage didn't last long, as he quickly discovered he didn't really mean the "in sickness" part of our vows.

I dealt with the divorce, and my lawyer mentions how it's a good thing I don't have kids. I knew he meant with my ex..., but I still had to fight back the tears because I was wrestling with the reality that I could never have kids. That was the one thing I had wanted since I was a little girl: I wanted to be a mom. But my disease was having none of it. We had tried for a year to get pregnant, and I never even got so much as a close call. Turns out that my body doesn't even know that's supposed to be a normal part of a girl's life. The tests later confirmed it.

So I have a really hard time trying to dream up a perfect day. I thought I was dreaming up a normal, pedestrian, average life. Nothing too grandiose... I didn't need trips to Paris and Rome. I just needed my little corner of the world and a family to love. Maybe that's where I went wrong. I didn't dream big enough! Maybe I should have wanted the most extravagant lifestyle with lots of money and power, and little responsibility. Perhaps then I would have been "saddled" with a simple life.

My dreams have to include my illness. When I think of a future me, I have to imagine that it includes my disease, and that I have somehow figured out how to manage it. I simply must include my limitations in my fantasies, otherwise I'm aiming for a part of the map I can never reach. (You can't get 'thar' from here!) If I want to be able to believe in my dreams, it has to take reality into account. Otherwise, I may as well dream I'm an elven princess in a Tolkien paradise, with a life span of thousands of years and nary an illness to worry my pretty heart.

If I want to be a "Day Dream Believer," I have to include the pain and suffering. But I can dream that I'm able to get through the pain and suffering, gracefully, nobly, and perhaps even joyfully---experiencing pain, but able to laugh with a free heart anyway, knowing that the pain will pass and life will soon be sweet again. Having friends and family around me who are fully supportive, helping me to rise above the pain and live life to the fullest despite it. That would be a perfect day, indeed.

"National Migraine Awareness Month is initiated by the National Headache Foundation. The Blogger's Challenge is initiated by www.FightingHeadacheDisorders.com."

#NMAM Name That Tune! - You get what you give

For today's migraine awareness challenge, I'm to "choose a theme song for Migraine disease or your headache disorder. See if you can find a YouTube video of it for your blog post." I always have the hardest time picking songs that have to do with my illnesses. Music is my escape, my way to forget everything that's going on around me, and just get lost in the flow of the harmonies and rhythm. Migraines took one of my favorite activities from me: clubbing. So to give my migraines or my disease a song is almost... unholy. I turned to my friends for suggestions, but still got stuck. That was, until I put in a CD I created when I was in the midst of my migraines... my song is "Get What You Give," by the New Radicals.


Here are some of the lyrics:

But when the night is falling
You cannot find the light, light
You feel your dreams are dying
Hold tight

You've got the music in you
Don't let go
You've got the music in you
One dance left
This world is gonna pull through
Don't give up
You've got a reason to live
Can't forget
We only get what we give

To say that my migraines have made me want to give up on life is an understatement. I cannot tell you how many times I have just dreamed of it being OVER. No more worrying, no more trying to hold on, no more sitting, curled up in the bottom of the tub, World War V playing out in my head, wondering how there can be so much pain in the world. Surely, no one has done anything bad enough to deserve this, and I'm no where near the level of a mass-murderer, so why does it have to be me that hurts like this? Such questions would no longer beg for an answer. I'd be gone, and there'd be no more to it. But then these lyrics come through...

You feel your tree is breaking
Just then
You've got the music in you
Don't let go
You've got the music in you...

My migraines disabled me. They stole a decade of my life, and took away even my most basic abilities to take care of myself. I've felt worse than worthless... I've felt like a drain and a detriment to those around me. And yet, when I put in this song, even if I'm screaming the lyrics through clenched teeth with tears streaming down my face, somehow, the message still get through...

Don't give up
You've got a reason to live...

I didn't know what my reason for living was at that point. I knew it had to be for more than just suffering. But I also knew that if I gave up, I'd never be able to find out what that reason was. I knew that if I didn't ride out the dark times, I'd never make it to the light.

"Fly high
What's real can't die
You only get what you give
You gonna get what you give
Just don't be afraid to live"

I got this email the other day and it just broke my heart. "How do you do it? I can barely walk. My thighs won't stop hurting. My hip joints won't stop hurting. The NSAIDs only dull the pain, and they tear my tummy and intestines up. Nauseated and cramped. Can't sleep. Loopy and head-achey from lack of sleep. Can't concentrate. Moods swinging in spite of my lithium and zonisamide. Just want to cry. How do you f***ing do it?"

Let me tell you, some days, I don't. Some days, I do end up a horrible lump of screaming worthlessness. I can do nothing except concentrated on treating one wave of symptoms after the next. The whole world disappears from around me and all I have is my symptoms. There is no quality of life. Life is hell and the best thing I can do is get through. Simple tasks that other people take for granted become nightmare situations. Trying to get from where I am to the bathroom and back is like mountain climbing. Standing on my feet, long enough to feed myself, is like withstanding a prize-fighter cage-match. There's nothing graceful about it. I just try to keep going... white-knuckling my way through the minutes, one after painful other, until I feel better. Sometimes, it's more minutes than I think I can handle. But I keep going, regardless of what I think. I hung on for the last 60 seconds... I can hang on for this next 60 seconds. Repeat, repeat, repeat.

Don't give up
You've got a reason to live...

Chronic pain is soul-stealing. I can't tell you how much I've cried over everything I've lost. I can't tell you how much I've cried about the bitterness of the wisdom I've gained. There shouldn't be this much pain in the world. It shouldn't be able to last so long. And it breaks my heart that I have this in common with anyone else.

But...

If my suffering can be of some good... If my suffering can help ease the suffering of someone else... If I can be there for a friend who feels lost, or for a stranger who feels alone... that's a good thing right?

Don't let go
One dance left
Don't give up
Can't forget

I've got a reason to live.

"National Migraine Awareness Month is initiated by the National Headache Foundation. The Blogger's Challenge is initiated by www.FightingHeadacheDisorders.com."

#HAWMC - Five dinner guests

There is something sacred about having a meal with someone---the breaking of bread, the sharing of sustenance. It is a bonding experience. For today's prompt, I am allowed to invite five guests, living or deceased, to dinner. I would want to invite Dan Ariely, who is absolutely brilliant on human irrationality. Following on that theme, I'd invite Kathryn Schulz, famous Wrongologist. Then I'd want to bring happiness specialists Daniel Kahneman, Nancy Etcoff, and Dan Gilbert. I think after introductions, conversations would start themselves.

I'd want to talk to them about what we understand about the human experience. These are the great minds that have looked at what it means to be human, and the struggles of the human experience, real rubber-meets-the-road stuff. I'd want to discuss how memories, and our relationship to memories, change over time. I'd want to talk about how we seek out happiness and how people can be more successful at finding it. Basically, I'd want to get them started and see how it fell out.

For example, I started this blog post early today, but got so sidetracked that I'm now submitting it with 2 minutes to spare. I think it had a great effect on me, which may have a payout for others in the future, but for today, I kinda flubbed it! Enjoy the links to the videos!

#HAWMC - Book quote inspired post: I am a caveman

"[Your body] is an antique biological machine that evolved in response to a world that no longer exists." (The Time Paradox) Today's prompt is use a sentence from the nearest book as inspiration to write, free-form, for twenty minutes. (I cheated a little and went over on time, and didn't quite do free-form. But that's because I love this book, The Time Paradox, and I wanted to do it justice. It explains so much about how difficult it is for out little human minds to wrap around reality. My body's design hasn't really changed in the last 150,000 years. My environment, however, has changed drastically---largely due to our own efforts! My analog, caveman brain is in a digital, machine-driven world. Let the comedy begin.

For example, did you know that it's actually impossible to live in the present moment? That's simply true because our nervous systems lag behind what's actually going on. It takes time to see, hear, feel and process all those other wonderful senses---from 10 to 250 milliseconds, in fact. My organic brain is designed to anticipate, because that's the only way we can function in the world when we're always lagging behind. However, this is where everyone gets tripped up. What I anticipate is a story I've made up in my head, to try and predict the future, based on my past experiences. It's still a story. Reality is often painfully different. And if, say, I have an extremely traumatic past experience, that can cloud my judgement of the present moment, because I can now anticipate a terrible future that I didn't know existed before.

Further, I can become so wrapped up in avoiding that potential terrible future that I end up sabotaging myself in the present moment. In my anxiety and attempts to make sure that trauma never happens again, I can in fact create the very situation I'm trying to avoid. I anticipate that someone is going to be mad at me, so I get defensive. But then the person does get mad at me, but it's because I got defensive. They get confused because they don't think they've done anything to get me so worked up. And they're right! I'm jumping to conclusions and trying to anticipate moves. But in doing so, I force the situation to take a certain shape; a shape the other person may not want at all!

If I actually want to respond to the situation as it is, and not how I anticipate it to be, what I have to do is slow down, relax, and observe. My caveman brain is trained to look out for the tiger, find food, survive the elements, and maintain my place in my community/family group. I don't have to worry about predators like my caveman ancestor did. Finding food is as easy as going upstairs to my refrigerator. We don't just survive the elements anymore: we make fashion statements with our clothing. My community/family group is scattered across the country. Is it any wonder then, that I sometimes feel isolated, and adrift in a sea of strangers? Is it any wonder that I struggled a long time for a sense of purpose? Is it any wonder that I startle myself and see danger that isn't really there? No... But the awesome thing is when I change my perspective of a situation, I can change my response to that situation. Instead of making driving a competition with me and the other cars on the road, I can instead envision that we're all being carried on one big river, with different currents, and it doesn't matter if that guy gets in front of me. We're all part of the flow.

From an objective point of view, "bad" things are always going to happen in my life. I can't always avoid them. However, so far, I've been able to survive, despite it all. So I should give myself credit for being able to handle these situations as they arise, rather than always being on the defensive. I can do that with my doctors too. It's absolutely paramount that I treat each new doctor as new, and not a repeat of times past. Instead of anticipating for the bad experiences I've had, I can treat each doctor as a brand new opportunity for success. And by doing so, I'm being more fair to them, treating each doctor as an individual, rather than judging them as a group.

My caveman brain wants to make these associations to keep me safe from encountering the traumas of my past. But I'm a stranger to them. When I act defensive, I'm not giving my doctor a fair chance to do right by me. And I want to be as open and honest as possible. One, that helps them learn what's going on in my body more accurately. Two, it's the only way to build that all-important bond of trust. We may be all civilized and technologized, but human relationships still come down to primal rules that existed long before we built cities. Integrity still boils down to saying what you mean, and meaning what you say, backed up by proper action.

Like no other creature on this planet, we have changed our environment to better serve our needs. All animals change their environment to some extent, and a lot of animals do it with a purpose, just like us (building traps for prey, building shelter, nesting, etc.). But no other species has done it with such understanding of what we are going on about. We have taken the reigns of our fate as a species, and changed how we interact with the world. We live according to a clock, rather than the setting and rising of the sun. We are able to treat disease and strengthen fragile bodies that would not survive otherwise. But underneath it all, we're still just animals. We all have animal reactions, animal irrational behavior, and animal weaknesses. I have to remember that if I'm to successfully take responsibility for my life.

How to be happy being broken...

There is no way to insulate ourselves from mistakes. You can memorize everything, you can graduate magna cum laude, and get more degrees than a thermometer... You will still make mistakes. No one is immune. There is no vaccination. There is no pill to make you perfect. Stand up, and know that you are enough anyway. There is no formula for a perfect life. In fact, did you know that there are two types of happiness?! (You do, but you probably weren't even aware of it.) And most of how we go about happiness is all wrong. We go for happiness-in-the-moment, when we should be going for happiness-in-the-memory.

What's amazing (they've measured this), is that my happiness-in-the-moment can be greater, but it's my happiness-in-the-memory that is more important to my overall sense of well-being. That is, I can go through a terrible experience, but if I'm able to remember it in a positive way, it gives the whole experience a feeling of happiness. And it's this memory of happiness that is more important to how I rate my whole life as whether it's happy or not. Conversely, we can be happy for something in the moment, but if we don't remember it in a happy way, it can spoil the whole experience. We know this already. We have a phrases for it: "buyer's remorse." ... "the Honeymoon period" ... "it seemed like a good idea at the time." I can be absolutely thrilled in the moment, but if I remember it in a negative light, all that momentary joy is meaningless. And we can be enjoying and experience and having a grand old time, but if it's ruined at the last second, the whole experience gets ruined. We were happy for 99% of the event. But that 1%, because it was the last one percent, makes or breaks all of it.

Isn't it funny how our minds work? Here's the guy who did the science behind it:



There was a skiing trip that my family got to take one year where everything went wrong. Our plane was delayed by several hours so we didn't get on the ground until around midnight. We were all kids at the time, so we were exhausted. When we finally piled into the rental car, the first one wouldn't start. So we piled everything out, put it in the next rental car, only to discover once we'd left the lot (of course), that the gas gauge didn't work. Third rental car, and we're finally on our way, only to then go through so many other mistakes and injustices on the trip (the hot water heater in our unit self-destructed, the replacement unit they gave us the front door wouldn't close...) that it just got funny. It was so absurd, and so much went wrong that we ended up laughing about the whole thing by the end. It was something out of National Lampoon's Family Vacation. And even though it was the vacation from hell, we still laugh about it to this day. At the time we were miserable. We've been happy about it ever since.

I hold the power to be happy about all my memories, if I want. There are certainly some bad memories that should probably stay bad. Hot does still mean hot, and fire burns... But even if the experience was terrible, I don't have to remember the experience terribly. College was an awfully hard experience for me, constantly filled with stress, financial worry, poor health and near-constant performance anxiety. But I got through. And I can look back on that whole experience proudly, even if I was a wreck at the time. Same goes for my health experiences. They're awful to go through! But when I triumph on the other side, I can look back and be proud of myself for going through all that. I have very visible, bright, white scars on my face from battling MRSA (it nearly killed me). But I never hide those scars with make-up. You should know I went through battle. I'm proud I survived. The scars tell that tale.

I can even help write this story of happiness ahead of time. I can look at my life and imagine, "Now, when I look back on this time, what am I going to be grateful for?" Thinking of my life in those terms, I can set myself up for happiness in the future, and experience a taste of it now. For me, even though I'm desperately trying to get back to a "normal" life, I am going to look back on this time and be grateful for all the research I was able to do. I've had the opportunity to let my curiosity wander and chase after what it finds fascinating, and I have found some amazing things (including the video above). Since I now know the memory is more important than the experience, I can see my life for how I will remember it, and then the experience of it isn't so difficult. Right now, this moment can be broken all it wants, if I can remember it happily, that's what counts. I can be broken in many ways, but if I remember me happily, that's what matters.

How are you going to remember your today, tomorrow?

Sometimes insecure is a perfectly valid way to feel...

[Part 1 of a trilogy, Part 2, Part 3]

We don't like insecurity in this culture. It's a sign of not knowing. And if you don't know, well, how can you tell if you're wrong or right? How do you know what's correct and what's a mistake? How do you know what to think about yourself? Are your efforts good enough? Are you measuring up to the moment? What's the East German judge going to say?!?* Do I have any idea what's going on? Am I even seeing reality?

Have you ever seen a toddler run, without watching where they're going? Invariably they smack their head into some piece of furniture. Then they look at you as if to say, "If only you hadn't been there watching, I wouldn't have hit my head!!!" They are so angry in their pain, so angry that it hurts, so angry that it disrupted the fun they were having just instants ago...

We are all still that toddler inside. When we get sick, when our lives get disrupted by something we did not want, have no power over (besides mitigating the consequences, that is), when it hurts, we get angry. DO. NOT. WANT. It makes us mad that we have to deal with it. We want to escape it. We want a reason why. We can easily fall into blame-the-victim, both towards ourselves and towards each other.

But the truth is, just like that toddler, we can't see it coming. The future is something we anticipate, not something we know. Our incredible capacity to imagine is how we compensate for the fact that we're never really living in the moment. It's actually biologically impossible to live in the moment. It takes "it takes the brain at least a tenth of a second to model visual information." That is, it takes 1/10^th of a second for the reality in front of us to reach the vision center of our brain and tell us what we're looking at. Think about this: you're driving in your car, the world is moving around you, things are happening, and you're watching the road. You look away. You look back. Suddenly you have to slam on your brakes. Did you miss seeing the car in front of you? Yes, quite possibly. That could be entirely true. If the movement happens in that 1/10^th of a second window...

Let's think about that in terms of baseball. "At 85mph, it takes a ball approximately .425 seconds to go from the pitcher’s hand to the hitting zone." That's approximately 4/10^th of a second.

More math, the average human reaction time is 3/4 of a second. That’s .750 seconds [7.5/10^ths of a second]. What does that mean if a player simply reacts to the ball from the time it is released? That’s right, if you are good at math, you figured it out. Go have a seat on the bench, strike three went right on by you before you could even swing. Hitting is timing. A batter must begin his swing at the same time the pitcher begins his motion. There is an old saying, and I am not sure which hitting instructor first said it, "When the pitcher shows you his pocket, you show him yours." In other words, when the pitcher kicks his front leg up to begin his delivery to the plate, the hitter should begin his "cocking" or "pre-swing" motion, preparing the bat for a swing at the ball. If he does not, it is physically impossible to react in time.
Be a Better Hitter

We anticipate the world. All the time. For survival. For sport. But sometimes, when our mind is calculating what that future is going to be, we get it wrong. We don't see the table. We strike out. Something happens that we had no intention of happening. We don't get that job. We don't get into our choice of school. We can't afford to live in that neighborhood anymore. We're sick with a disabling disease. Life happens and throws us off our game.

If we're aware we don't have enough information about how to calculate what the future is going to be, we become anxious, worried, and frantic. Where do I stand? What do I do now? What's going to happen to me? My family? My love... Those can be difficult pills to swallow. But it can also give us a sense of wonder, surprise and magic, like not knowing the end of the story or watching a Penn & Teller magic show:



Why do we run from our insecurity? Shouldn't we acknowledge it? Shouldn't we stop for a moment and go, "Hey, I'm feeling insecure. I wonder what's going on here?". Why do we try to insist, "I'm okay! I'm okay! Everything's alright!" even though we're scared? Why don't we stop and identify what's making us insecure? Insecurity lets us know that we don't have all the information we'd like. It identifies places that we should investigate, rather than avoid. It lets us know where the mystery lies.

*(Cold War Olympics humor)
Edited by Brigg Baldwin

Procrastination & Forgiveness

I have a Midwest work ethic. I've never liked taking more than two weeks off from work. It makes me anxious. I should be doing something. Something constructive. Something to take care of business. But that's really difficult to do when our bodies don't cooperate. And it's hard to override those feelings. For me, I struggle daily with feelings of guilt over what I'm not doing but should be doing. To my heart, it doesn't matter that that my body is kaput. I still want to do these things. The wanting hurts. So I've had to learn to slow down.

As Jenny Pettit puts it,

"With chronic illnesses (and pain and fatigue) comes plenty of chronic guilt. We may voice the legitimacy of our limits for the rest of the world...but inside our own heads we hear so much doubt. Do I really need a 4 hour nap? Can't I stay up late and get this task done? Why should I get to claim "brain fog" when other people wouldn't need to stop? (And yes, "brain fog" sounds pretty silly to us, too, even though we live the debilitating effects.)

"Yes, we do. Yes, we need to nap - our bodies are fighting 24-7 battles against themselves. No, we can't stay up late - what little functionality we have is strongly correlated to our ability to adhere to a schedule. We 'get to claim brain fog' - our work is no good when it comes from a low-hanging cloud. We need to forgive ourselves.

"We need to BELIEVE it's ok to live within these limits. We need to allow ourselves compromises with ourselves. We need to accept we aren't going to be able to build the tower of Babel on a 4 day weekend just because "it has to get done somehow", and love ourselves anyway. We need to ask ourselves for forgiveness and give it wholeheartedly and without delay."
(Forgiving Myself - UII - Understanding Invisible Illnesses)

It's not that I won't reach success. It's just that it's going to take me a lot longer to get there. Yes, the laundry will be hung up eventually. Yes, I will be able to finish that blog post. Yes, that task is impossible for me right now. But it may be possible later. I can do things in small, manageable steps. I don't need to complete everything at once. I can accept my limits. I believe I've used this analogy before, but it bears repeating. I like to think of it like driving on the highway. There's a big difference between acceptance and approval. I may not approve or like that the car in front of me has come to a sudden stop, but I accept the fact that it has happened, and slam on my breaks so I don't cause an accident.

There are all sorts of things that can happen to put walls in my way. I need not beat myself up about it in the meantime. In fact, science shows that the act of forgiving ourselves for doing poorly can actually help use do better the next time, as it helps us change our behavior for the better. Beating ourselves up about it makes for poorer performance, as does using forgiveness as a "free pass" to continue the bad behavior. If we're focused on success as our goal, it's better to forgive than punish. This was shown in a recent study of college students and their reaction to procrastinating studying for an exam. If the student did poorly the first time, forgiveness was the key to improve performance.

"Forgiveness allows the individual to move past their maladaptive behavior and focus on the upcoming examination without the burden of past acts to hinder studying. By realizing that procrastination was a transgression against the self and letting go of negative affect associated with the transgression via self-forgiveness, the student is able to constructively approach studying for the next exam."
Timothy A. Pychyl from Psychology Today's Don't Delay

Also, just because there's a wall there now doesn't mean there will always be a wall there. I may have an inspiration and discover a door through the wall, instead of banging my head against it. I may find a way around the wall. The wall may come crumbling down. Sometimes, however, we find a way over, where we're able to use the walls like springboards to success. One of the most inspiring stories I have heard lately is that of Amy Purdy, a woman who lost her legs below the knee and now is a professional snowboarder.



Now, while I may not end up a professional snowboarder (that's not really my thing) I can, and have, used my disability to further my work as a writer. My audience has changed and the pay is lousy (e.g., non-existent...). But I'm still contributing to society in a positive and constructive way. That's why I made this blog. Helping others with problems similar to mine helps me help myself. So it's okay it I have to do it in bits and pieces. I can forgive myself my procrastination and do more when I'm feeling better. The point is I'm eventually able to get it done and delivered. I may not be at the rate it was when I was well, but I still do it. I can accept my shortcomings, manage them best as possible, and forgive myself the rest.

"Perfection is the enemy of good enough." -Russian Proverb