On feelings, thoughts and choices
I was in lockdown with a classroom of eighth graders during the Virginia Tech shootings on April 16, 2007. When the intercom announcement ended that our school was in lockdown, although forbidden to have them at school, the girls took out their cell phones from their purses and began texting their mothers. [Read more…]
I believe so passionately that health apps can work – especially when desired behavior change is paired with consciousness – that I and co-founders have developed a behavioral health mobile app. (If interested, here’s more information and how to access it.)
My belief is not intuition-based. In 2010, when we first started developing and founding our app on evidence-based practices and treatments, Margaret Morris of Intel was already at the forefront of pairing personal phones with personal change. Three years later (2013), research abounds on the effectiveness of mobile health technology for behavior change. [Read more…]
“Consider the Zen practice of the koan, the question or problem proposed by Zen masters to each other or by masters to students. The koan is a dilemma, a mystery which the rational mind cannot solve…The key to the resolution of a koan is a shift in the being of the student which allows for a new understanding of the question itself. In presenting a koan, the teacher engages the student with mystery in a highly personal way. The student becomes intimate with the question, and sometimes struggles with it for a very long time.”
– Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D., Kitchen Table Wisdom
I have struggled with the subject of addiction for a very long time.
My struggle has been highly personal, beginning pre-birth. While I was in utero, my mother was smoking, a few years into her multi-decade addiction to nicotine. My brain and nervous system developed in a soup of nicotine with the added ingredient of caffeine and, because of her high stress, probably a spice sachet of adrenalin and cortisol. I am known for my energy. My neurons were born firing. [Read more…]
“Make that change.”
– Michael Jackson, “Man in the Mirror”
Look, the new kitten has jumped up on the lap pillow where I am holding my cat! Will the cat make room?! The kitten has plunked herself beside the cat, their long bodies side by side. I am in heaven – a two-cat lap! I lean over and put my face against their fur, taking in a deep breath of love for them, and feel a slight something in my chest, not quite a burning. What is that? I should exhale, then inhale again. Scanning… I feel it again! Was I able to inhale as much air this time? Oh, no, am I allergic to the new kitten?! Maybe I’m allergic to two cats?! What have I done by adopting a second cat?! Will I have to give the kitten away? What will I tell the friend from whom I adopted her – that I didn’t love her enough to keep her?! People will think I’m stupid and weak if I’m allergic to cats and still keep them! If I keep the cats, will my lungs become so inflamed that I will be unable to breathe? Will I die here, suffocating, alone? The cats will cry and cry and no one will help them! Who will care for the cats?!
These were my thoughts. I had them, they distressed me, I became conscious of my thoughts and distress, I offered myself different thoughts, and soothed my upset self.
“What is your philosophy of why bad things happen to good people?” my supervisor asked.
That’s clichéd, I thought.
I think addictions counseling is my next life’s work to do. I seek a part-time position to complement my continuing, passionate work for our health software startup. I don’t yet have a position, but found a supervisor, Wren Starkey, LPC, with whom to begin the process of becoming a Licensed Professional Counselor and from whom I wanted to learn immediately. [Read more…]
I anticipate needing all of my awareness to help myself with matters at hand. This is a plain language summary of what I know from my reviews of the research literature, training, and experience about … [Read More...]
Before marrying or moving in together, partners may find discussing the following questions of value. People who are individually aware of the traits, skills, and wishes they bring to a relationship … [Read More...]
Humans need connection and protection to thrive but, given either or both may be unavailable, I hypothesize that the central adult human task is to gain the perspective, approach, and skills to be … [Read More...]
