Tag: cultural standards

Advance Planning on SOD*

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It’s inching into that time of year: the TV commercials, glossy magazines, and local newspaper lifestyle sections are brimming with foodie suggestions for the upcoming holidays. Feel just like Pavlov’s dog reading all the yummy ideas, salivating at will. Along with all that temptation of delicious food comes what one organization has dubbed SOD: seasonal overindulgence disorder*. I think that title has nailed the problem. We certainly want to treat ourselves and indulge in the holiday eating splendor. It’s the OVERindulging that’s a problem.

The way we approach the holiday foodie excesses is laden with black and white, all or nothing thinking. Why not stuff yourself? “I’m having some, so may as well go all out!” Or perhaps, “it’s the holidays–let’s celebrate!” Worry about the excess pounds in January, when austerity on the plate is expected. It’s an uncommon mindset to enjoy the indulgence in small doses–or portions. Indulgence just seems equivalent to excess.

With a small bit of advance planning, you can avoid the 5-7 pound (or more!) holiday pound pack-on. The National Institute for the Clinical Application of Behavioral Medicine (NICABM) is offering practical, concrete strategies to get through this season of heaping plates and ignoring hunger signals. Research has shown that changing just three small habits can make a very big impact on weight maintenance. You can follow the link above, but here’s a sampling of three tips to try. Visit the site and check out the full list if these three don’t speak to you. The most important factor in any behavior change is picking strategies that are a fit for you!

1. Eat in a well-lit room. You eat less when you can see what you’re eating. Not exactly party atmosphere, but you can be prepared!
2. Keep the bones. We have a better sense of how much we’ve eaten when we can see the evidence. This could mean keeping empty beer bottles lined up on the table or hot wing bones on a side plate.
3. Use the 1/2 rule. Aim for 1/2 as much protein and carbohydrates while doubling your servings of vegetables and fruit.

Who says you have to succumb to SOD and too-tight pants in 2012? This is one perfect example of “control what you can.” Just three things! And if you want to really indulge in the science and solutions psychology and medicine have to offer on this topic, consider signing up for NICABM’s free seminar on nutrition. I’ll be listening and hope to share some of the knowledge here, but it’s free to listen at the time of broadcast.

Culture shock, USA style

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First of all, please forgive the quiet around here. Or, to shift perspective as I’m always wont to do, consider it my small October gift to you. My lack of post meant one less thing to do on your list. Excuses, excuses: illness, taking on a new task of teaching at the community college, a never-ending home-redo project, and a real bit of vacation have kept me from posting.

The vacation put me into culture shock. You’d think I’d have to venture to Bhutan, or Siberia, or some other exotic locale to experience a real change of venue. But no, I was in Seattle. Here was the first clue that I was NOT in Texas:

At casual glance, you may ask: so what, iced tea. The perspective got a bit skewed transferring the picture from my phone to the computer, so the glasses look like the quintessential Texas quart size. So note the normal size tea spoon for comparison.

The second behavior change required while walking around Seattle was the stop lights. The guidebook stated that pedestrians could get ticketed for crossing against the light. Must wait for the little white walking-person light that means go! And all the Seattle-ites stop and wait. And breathe, I assume. Most cities I’ve visited, Dallas and NYC in particular, are filled with pedestrians eager to play chicken and dash whenever they can. No time to waste! Ten seconds at stake here!

Then there were the ferries. Line up in your car–and sit and wait some more. We missed the ferry to Whidbey Island and had to wile away the wait, sauntering around to view the scenery. Just a way of life: to wait, rather than hurtle through space at breakneck speed.

And scenery? Mind-boggling after so much time on the Blackland prairie of North Texas. Mt. Rainier here, Mt. Baker there, Olympic mountains over there. Greenery, lakes, sunsets over the water: a view in every direction.

Who says life has to be this hurried pace? We hurry, intent on earning a living, achieving, striving, 168 hours a week. Maybe those quarts of iced tea rev us up too much. Seattle manages a slower pace quite well, as the home to great accomplishments like those of Microsoft, Boeing, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (where the very well-dressed homeless, some equipped with laptop bags, lined up each night for vinyl-covered sleeping pad distribution.)

And the sun was shining every day. I’m now even more intent on sloooowwwwwing down. Pardon me while I stop and breathe.

Give yourself a gift

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Is your iPhone a permanent part of your anatomy? Glued to your hand, or your hip? Can’t walk by a computer without checking the latest Facebook feed? Have to see if your “Words with Friends” pals have responded? Need your dose of “Angry Birds”? We’ve become slaves to our technology–phones, email, iPads. A psychology journal even exists to study the multitude of effects this ever-present technology has on our behavior and well-being. Benefits abound; last night my critique group could Skype with one member who is on sabbatical in England for a year. Very fun stuff.

But if you’re tired of the energy drain of this instant connecting–always having to keep up with the email or keep the cell phone immediately accessible–consider joining Day to Disconnect this weekend. We worry that we might miss something. The kids or sitter might need us. Catastrophe might befall someone. We might fail to nab a great Groupon deal or a must-have-it freebie on Freecycle. Oh well.

Sounds like the kind of all-or-nothing, black and white thinking that I love to diffuse. You can take an hour–or a day–off from your technology, just to test out the theory that the sky might fall. Turn it off. Leave it alone. Connect with a loved one, or nature, or an old-fashioned book. See if the frantic, always-on pace that makes our nervous systems hover about ten degrees below panic mode relents, just a tiny bit.

I dare me. I dare you. We deserve it.

Truth in advertising

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The phone rang. I still have a land line, though callers on that line other than political, nonprofit, and home remodeling solicitors are few. So I check the caller ID before I pick up. And this is what I saw:

I was literally rolling on the floor laughing. How transparent! I didn’t pick it up (hmm, did I really need to clarify that point?). The machine did, promptly recording a message about the super low interest rate I could receive on my credit card if I’d just call promptly. I wondered how this happened. What company lists it’s business name as “phone scam”? Really?!?

The more I pondered, however, the more impressed I became. How freeing, to be able to be completely honest about who you are. Moving through life, how often do we truly embrace this concept? It’s a socially-accepted construct to put our best self forward. Everyone wants to look like they’re breezing through life, no problems, loving their lives, ever-confident. Sounds like another version of pretending to be superman/woman to me.

It takes so much energy to hold up that mask. Exhausting after awhile. It also distances us from each other. We back off on sharing trials, angst-ridden moments, frustrations, fearing that we will look weak. Certainly we are the only ones stumbling, since no one else talks about it. Must be we are deficient. The problem seems our ability to excel–not the less-than-honest story-telling.

When I turned 50, the impact of having lived half a century felt heavy. I no longer wanted to put on a front, hiding my true self. And I ran with the sudden impulse to present myself as I am. Some friends drifted away, confused looks on their faces as I spoke up in matter-of-fact ways they’d never witnessed. Some activities I let slide. I got pretty good at saying “I don’t know” and “I’m sorry, I screwed up” and “I disagree” and “Please don’t treat me that way.” I started honestly living my full warty self.

I’m human. I make mistakes. I’m good at many things and lousy at others. Being honest about who I am is freeing, and while difficult at first, appears to take less energy eventually, leaving more for creating the life I want to live. Proclaiming the equivalent of “phone scam” in my own life is not a single event, however. It’s a step down the path to living the right life. This step for me was important ground work for growth, for embracing self-compassion, for building a life infused with joy.

A Call to dads

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I know I said I’d address expectations for others’ behavior and how others may not have the same rules in their heads that we do in my next post. That will actually be next week. In the meantime, with Father’s Day this weekend, several bits of info popped up from the internet and I just couldn’t resist a comment.

So many couples get locked into the same roles they observed in their parents: mom was the kid and home maven, and dad earned the money. Over at CNN.com this week is a stellar message for stereotypical dads on what they are missing, inviting dads to “wake the hell up.” Even better, there are specific guidelines on how to step up. The benefits for kids of an active, involved father are huge, from increased vocabulary to healthier male-female relationships in adulthood. Read that column here, and please share it widely. And a heartfelt thanks to writer Jeff Pearlman for his honesty.

Not only do kids and moms need dads to be equal partners in the muck of day-to-day parenting, it seems that 65% of dads actually want that as well–while admitting that they don’t participate equally. Read a summary of that research here.

Who says dads have to stay stuck in these ancient patterns? Let’s challenge those assumptions this Father’s Day–and throughout the year. And moms, that might mean, when dad steps up, you have to let him do it his way–remembering the mantra “what matters is that it’s done–my way or not.”

Happy Father’s Day!

NOT a happy phrase

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My college daughter has a button on her backpack:

Makes her momma proud! Because this phrase, “that’s so gay,” is another phrase to challenge. Only this time, rather than affecting one’s personal well-being and self-esteem, these words represent an attack on approximately 4% of the population. In current usage, this phrase does not imply that something is happy and carefree. By linking with the accepted usage of “gay” meaning homosexual, “that’s so gay” has been adopted as a derisive term, meaning stupid. In the minds of many, gay and straight, this use is an objectionable slur on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer/questioning (LGBTQ) individuals. Hence the button on my daughter’s backpack.

Let’s call for a little clarity in communication. If something is stupid, call it that. Better yet, find another word. Thesaurus.com found 76, including brainless, dazed, deficient, dense, dim, doltish, dopey, dull, dumb, dummy, foolish, futile, gullible, half-baked, half-witted, idiotic, ill-advised, imbecilic, inane, indiscreet, insensate, irrelevant, laughable, loser, ludicrous, meaningless, mindless, moronic, naive, nonsensical, obtuse, out to lunch, pointless, puerile, rash, senseless, shortsighted, simple, simpleminded, slow, sluggish, stolid, stupefied, thick, thick-headed, trivial, unintelligent, unthinking, witless. So many words with unkind roots! Maybe we could strive to object to stupidity in some other way. A simple “I don’t like that” or “that bothers me” might be an alternative.

Some might argue that words are just words–but much of this blog, and my life’s work, is dedicated to showing the power of words. And questioning phrases such as this, refusing to use them, is one way to challenge the thread of hate that is a cultural undercurrent towards LGBTQ individuals.

Want to challenge hate even more directly? One of my dedicated readers, Debra Boopsingh, has shared a proud moment that I want to pass on. Debra, and the Vision Forum at her church, have arranged for the NO H8 compaign to come to Dallas. If you’re unfamiliar with the campaign, it is an effort to promote and raise awareness for marriage equality and anti-discrimination. Check it out here, and join with us in spreading the word about this powerful campaign for human rights. Mark you calendars and sign up now.

Kindness exercises

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As an addendum to the last post on being kinder to ourselves, here are two exercises to implement the goal of increased self-kindness.

1) Loving-kindness meditation is a classic strategy to open the heart and increase positive feelings toward self. While seemingly simple, this exercise can be incredibly powerful in releasing pent-up negativity toward self, allowing the love in your heart to rush in for YOU. And you only need three minutes.

Settle into a quiet, comfortable spot and close your eyes. Begin to focus on your breath, simply noticing the in and out process. Feel your lungs expand, feel your chest and abdomen rise and fall, notice the air moving past your nostrils. Once you feel the rhythm of your breath, repeat to yourself for several minutes:

May I be safe. May I be happy. May I feel love. May I live with ease.

On Thursday, when I posted the most recent post, I was upset about a decision I’d made, chastising myself for trusting someone else to do a job that I could’ve done. The perfectionist in me was running rampant with insults after the job was NOT done to my satisfaction: “How could you have been so stupid? You could’ve saved the money and done it yourself!” Suddenly, I remembered what I’d just posted about being kind to myself. I still seemed unable to turn it off. I closed my eyes, repeated the above phrases ten times, and was able to let the event go.

2) I’ve addressed bragging before, and how nice girls DON’T. So I thoroughly enjoyed this post over at Inviting Joy last week. Seems like a wonderful way to be nice to yourself, so take a few minutes to compose your own highlight reel today. This week, mine includes that ability to switch gears from perfection-driven harpy to calm self that I refer to above.

Upon being a good citizen

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The big fat “should” parading through my office and my life lately is that “I should be an informed citizen”–and that implies keeping up on the latest world/national events as a key component of good citizenship.

Who says?

Now, caveat emptor, what I’m about to write might sound like one big rationalization coming from me. Oh well. I’m the one that burst out laughing years ago when my spouse was talking about a coworker being shipped off to Kazakhstan on business. My husband is a teasing sort, enjoys making up new words, and I was certain this was a country in that vein. Kazakhstan? Really? I swore he was making it up; he swore it was a real place. I’m also the one that found out about Bin Laden’s capture/death from the tile guy, the next morning. I’m clearly not Ms. Carrie Current Events. Guilty as charged.

But I’m also a fairly sensitive person. Pain imbues much of life sitting in my office each day. I began my career working with emotionally, physically, and sexually-abused children. And I had to make a conscious decision, again years ago, that the news–especially with video involved–was too much on top of all that my work required me to encounter. Ditto for television shows, films, and books that are packed with harm and pain. NOT entertainment, and too much a toll on my emotional equilibrium.

Therefore, I avoid most of the news. I educate myself about issues that I can affect, by voting or writing letters, following through to control what I can within the political process. But aside from practicing loving-kindness meditation for the world’s people and donating to charities which support my philosophy as they do good in the world, what influence do I have? I really don’t think reminding myself about terrorism or natural disasters contributes to my value as a person.

If you’re also a sensitive type, as many are, and this element of our lives, with the 24 hour news cycle that cable TV and the internet have wrought, stresses you, cut yourself some slack. Find another way to contribute to your world and turn off (or tune out) awareness of the violence out there. With no shame.

And if you need fodder for conversation at the next party or even the evening dinner table, check out Good News Daily or, my favorite source of the week’s news, Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me on NPR.

Mother’s Day Movie Fun

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Happy Mother’s Day to all my readers!

Mother’s Day videos abound–to enjoy, personalized or not, and share. So I made one for you, my dear readers. I appreciate you all, moms and nonmoms, and hope you enjoy this selection. Pass it on!

JUST FOR FUN!

If you want to make your own, check it out here. There are two more to choose, from one of the funniest shows on TV.

On failing to ask for help

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“I don’t want to bother her.” “I’ll just drag him down.” “It’s my job to be strong.” “I don’t want to be a burden.” “I can do it myself.” Excuses abound for why we fail to ask for help–whether practical pitching in on chores or emotional support that could ease us through a tough spot in our lives. The cultural press, in this nation that so prizes independence, is to do it ourselves in order to not irk or stress others.

What about the flip side? Think about when you are able to support someone who is dear to you. How do you feel when you can listen, give a hug, or lend a hand? There’s lots of research expounding upon the psychological and health benefits of giving to others–in many forms. I’m sure that you are aware of the bonus for you when you help a friend or loved one. You get a little glow, a boost to your own day, from feeling valuable to another.

So next time you find you are shutting down, failing to ask for help or confide to a loved one because you don’t want to “bother” or “stress” them, ask “who says?” Who are you to deprive another of a chance to feel good by helping you? Put yourself in her shoes. For example, I often hear women say “I can’t ask my mother for help–she has so much on her plate.” Then reverse the scenario. If you had a daughter, wouldn’t you want her to ask you for assistance if she needed it? You’d want to be helpful if you could be–every chance!

Of course, when we are asked for help, it’s healthiest to give freely if we’re able–and to speak up honestly if we really can’t step in with an open heart at the moment. No room here for passive-aggressive giving shrouded with anger or resentment. It’s each person’s job to police her own resources, and say “no” if a request is not possible. That’s the job of the person being asked. It’s not for the person in need to ‘prescreen’ and second guess.

Give your loved ones a chance to show love and support–ask for it! Benefits all around will abound.