So many changes

First: I lost my password. So sorry for not posting throughout my exotic, wonderful, shocking and still extraordinarily memorable travels to eastern portions of this world.

Hong Kong is, to quote my traveling friend, a combination of Las Vegas and Rodeo Drive (Beverly Hills, CA) on steroids. It was great, exciting and the location of the Olympics of shopping. The food was amazing and probably the best meal I had was at the home of my host in Hong Kong whose cook prepares meals from her Thai home town.

India was truly awesome. Every day there was another wonderful, overwhelming and breathtaking adventure and now, three weeks after my return, I am beginning to assimilate ALL of my experience throughout that magic land. Again, the food was wonderful. I bought a new wardrobe of stunning formal Kurtis (tunic with pajama pants and flowing scarves). The two most outstanding sights were (needless to say) the Taj Mahal and Ghandi's home.

I am back with my students AND my clients. The stress of our daily lives in 2012 continues to stimulate both pain and challenges AND growth. I will continue to explore all of these topics. Do respond with your own questions.

June Already!

Semester is complete and the schedule for the next semester has been shared. Now I've got to find a spot for a real vacation. Every break I've taken this year has been for family events or for continuing education activities and there has been little time for me to sit and simply breathe. As I suggest, taking time to have "nothing to do" is a true luxury we forget is a key element of good health. I have been running so much, taking care of so many tasks that I have been unable to do more than a brief sitting (meditation) every day.

I wanted to go to Tassajara - a lovely retreat center run by the San Francisco Zen Center located about 60 miles east of Monterey. I was advised that summer is NOT the time to visit - it is HOT and there is no air conditioning. Then I planned to visit my favorite simple and not expensive spa in Mexico. It's closing! Sob. The political situation in Mexico and the economy have impacted the program terribly. They don't plan to re-open.

What does one do when the options are daily becoming more limited? At this moment a "staycation" holds great appeal. Low cost, there are innumerable resources in Los Angeles that I have never explored and I won't have to worry about passport, air fare or hotel rates.

Taking care of the therapist is as essential to providing good services to my clients as it is to supporting my own good health.

Summer Plans!?

Already? I've been told it's important to have an activity or event to anticipate. It could be going to the JPL open house next week and satisfying that part of me that has fantasies of exploring a whole untouched and in known world.

And then there's the plan to take a five-day retreat in the forests near Monterey and Carmel. Such a beautiful area in which to sit quietly with no access to phone or internet.

In today's world of constant conflict, it is important for us to take care of ourselves in every possible way. We live in very stressful times. Our relationships are challenging and the world outside our safety zone is constantly changing. We must be strong enough to tolerate those unknown events that we confront daily.

Even something as simple as listening a a favorite piece of music or looking at a favorite piece of art provide a momentary sanctuary from the intensity of the world in which we are living. Choosing simple pleasures regularly make it possible to manage those challenges that are also thrown at us everyday.

Today as I walked the dog I passed a van for a floor finishing business. The van was covered with a famous impressionist painting that is one of my favorites. What a spark of pleasure and humor viewing that truck gave me. And because I was aware of that moment of positive feelings, I was able to handle the three intense calls I have managed this afternoon.

Be aware of those moments of pleasure when they happen. It is those moments that make the rest of the intensity tolerable.

Back to Basics

Vacation! What a concept! The military assignment at Ft. Lewis would have been a vacation of sorts - away from the stresses of clients and research reports and especially this home office phone.

So I am dreaming of sitting in the 70 degree sun at a lovely spot thirty miles west of Guadalajara. Today in LA the weather is damp, cool and cloudy and there is construction taking place outside with repair people discussing the project in loud Spanish.

So I remind myself: breathe. Make a cup of tea and enjoy the silence between the workers' comments. Maybe there is a vacation on the horizon. I'll aim for a mini vacation at one of the day spas in Korea town here in LA.

And I continue to think good thoughts about healing myself and staying in this quiet place for a few more minutes.

Breathe.

More on Taking Care of the Therapist

I always say, if you can't take care of yourself, how can someone else know how to take care of you? Yesterday, I turned down a really great chance to go to the theater. Now, don't get me wrong, I enjoy being with this friend. she is one of the people with whom I can feel comfortable even when I'm not feeling friendly. And she understood when I told her: I've got to have some time for myself.

We all need quiet time in which to just digest the events in our lives. We don't generally acknowledge how important it is to take time for our selves. It is a fundamental aspect of self-care to respect the hours or even days we spend alone. This time is an essential restorative and healing tool for surviving today's stressful times.

Alone time, personal time is a precious commodity. Sometimes we set time aside for ourselves and end up using this valuable resource for the hard work of paying bills or doing the laundry. It is tough to allow ourselves to choose a gentle way for using those rare personal minutes. And it is important to maintaining our health that we spend time listening to favorite music - not using the music as the sound track for scrubbing the bathroom.

Take a walk on a sunny afternoon, spend time on a beach or beside a lake watching the water. Water is an important healing element. Schedule time for yourself. Arrange your schedule so that you have that rare and precious commodity. You will feel better and live more happily. You can be okay.

Breathe.

Taking Care of the Therapist

Because I have made a commitment to work with challenging clients, I must take care of myself as well. There are the obvious ways in which I care for myself: setting clear boundaries so that the client knows when he/she can reach me and being clear how long I will talk on the phone. There is also the scheduling of appointments, and, of course, there is support and guidance from friends and professional colleagues.

There are also the not so obvious steps of giving myself a vacation. I must watch the red flags to know when I must schedule a day or several days of pampering. During this past week I have been annoyed at small matters and irritable with friends. I saw the warnings. I realized this annoyance is not about the challenges but about needing some self care.

I made arrangements to attend a seminar in a nearby city for a brief vacation. Preparing for this break includes doing the on-line search of restaurants, cultural events and farmers markets. Before I leave, making plans gets me ready to relax.

It is important for people working and/or living with people with challenging symptoms schedule time to be kind to themselves. Planning this brief vacation is pleasurable. Meanwhile, I have my daily routine of self-care: Healthy meals, cookbooks and other fun reading and caring for my dog (an important support system). I also have a regular routine of yoga and meditation.

Self-care involves the everyday tools for maintaining my health as well as breaking the routine with various interventions including travel, massage and conversations with friends.

Keep breathing!

Taking Care of Yourself

Are you looking for support because you haven't found a professional to help you get over your depression? Or attempting to support a client who is unresponsive to your most skillful guidance?

I work with individuals who have struggled with intense psychic pain for years and have developed some tools that have proven effective in lessening their discomfort. I want to share my experience with consumers and clinicians and this blog is an opportunity for me to develop this information into a format for that purpose.

I invite comments from bloggers: as a consumer share the experiences that have not worked for you; as a clinician ask questions about the tools you need to effectively support your own clients.

The very first thing I tell my own clients is: breathe. Feel that calming breath going all the way down the the bottom of your spine and with the exhale feel the tension leaving your belly.

Come back into this room. Feel yourself safely seated and take a deep breath. Breathe and, if you can, softly smile.

Breath. You'll feel Better!

The first place I start when confronted with the facts of a lower income for the coming week is to remind myself that my mortgage is current, that the home owners' dues do not have to reach the management office for another week and I do have food in the fridge and thirty pounds of dog food.

Then I talk myself through a "Three Minute Breathing Exercise". My objective with this exercise is to bring myself back to this very moment and to give myself three minutes of quiet breathing to simply stay right here in this very second.

The three minute exercise (you can make it shorter):First, seated in a comfortable up right position, acknowledge that you have a thought that is disturbing or painful. Breathe

Then sit with that thought and feel the places in your body where this thought is felt. Are your shoulders stiff, do you feel a knot in your stomach, are your fists clinched? Breathe.

Finally, let go of attempting to fix everything and allow your body to feel your breath moving into those tight areas. Let those worry thoughts drift away as you listen to your breath. Breathe.

Take a deep inhale, slowly release. Feel yourself seated and take another deep inhale, then exhale and get back to your day's activities.

What to do when the therapist is away

I was supposed to be away this week. The phone didn't stop ringing. The e-mails kept coming and I was here. There were not classes to teach nor clients to see and I still had calls from people at the office and I was at both USC and UCLA this week.

Everyone needs a break. It's really important to get away from the texting, the phone and the e-mail. It's very easy for me to remind everyone else, my students, my clients to take a break but what about me? Finally, I did it. Yesterday I got an amazing massage that lasted for even more than the hour and a half I had scheduled. And today - no phones only the sounds of the birds cheered by this beautiful day.

Listen to yourself. You usually have the answer to how to take care of yourself if you take the time to really hear what you need. That information comes from that place within yourself called wise mind. You actually do know what you need. The hard part comes from being willing to take the steps you recommend to yourself.

Follow your wise mind. Breathe. Take a break. That break can be something as simple as looking out the window at the bright sunshine and listening to the sounds. Lay on your back on the floor, with your bottom next to the wall and your legs up the wall. Breathe.