Merry Christmas Eve!

-
I'm on vacation with my parents, visiting my brother in Anacortes, Washington state.  Anacortes is a small town on Whidby Island.  It's very beautiful, although cold and rainy.  Like the time when I was in Florida earlier this year, I'm going to try to blog everyday...We'll see if that happens!

The view near my brother's house:
I haven't done a lot today, but it's sort of fun to just lounge around sometimes, especially in a nice, warm house with a scenic ocean view and a brother that I don't get to see that often.  The one big thing we did today was do a big grocery store.  I must admit that I got really anxious towards the end and almost started crying.  The place was really crowded and I got overstimulated, plus we were buying a lot of food, which triggers some old eating disorder anxieties.  I decided to use the DBT skill of distraction to get my mind off of the food.  Fortunately, I always have a book with me and so when I got to the car, I read until my mind was focused on the great story - The Diamond of Darkhold by Jeanne DuPrau - instead.
Great book!

I am very happy today doing almost nothing.  In my last couple of posts I've forgotten to leave my recommended links at the bottom of the posts, so there'll be more than usual left there today.  Happy reading and happy holidays!
Recommended Links:

Living My Social Work - Evil. Insane. MentallyIll. Autistic.
Is the philosophy of pulling oneself up by one’s bootstraps more important than a country prioritizing funding for excellent accessible mental health services 

With Love: Dear Good Men Project
I don't think that a feminist man who doesn't understand what privilege is can actually be feminist.
Owldolatrous:

No Shooter’s Name Appears in this Post
 On FOX News and elsewhere, religious political and entertainment entities Bryan Fischer and Mike Huckabee each laid this horror at the feet of secularism, declaring that God didn’t protect the innocent victims of this shooting because we’ve taken God out of schools and “God doesn’t go where he’s not wanted.”
I’ve always known Bryan Fischer was a ghoul, but I didn’t know he thought God needed an invitation, like a vampire waiting on Sookie’s stoop. Since when has God been so small? What is the Bible but the story of God and God’s messengers going precisely where they weren’t wanted?
 Telling the (Queer) Christmas StoryThey’ll hear again the ancient story of the baby, the undocumented foreigner, conceived out of wedlock, child to two dads, born in a filthy shed and laid in an unclean trough, a fugitive from the law from his very first breath. They’ll be told that this baby is God—that there’s something in this world greater and more important than wealth, or political power, or the laws of birth, or even the “laws” of nature, and they will find it worthy of praise. In this act, as much as church leaders would often try to deny it, lie the seeds of revolution.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Review of Unbusy by Andy Dragt

-
Image
Workouts in the gymnasium are useful, but a disciplined life in God is far more so, making you fit both today and forever.  (The Message Bible) Unbusy: How to leverage the physics of flow to accomplish more of what truly matters and feel less busy at the same time by Andy Dragt This is a Speakeasy book , so I got this book for free because I promised to write a book review.  You can do this too! In this short book, Andy Dragt explains how if we structure our lives based on the laws of physics then we will get more accomplished but feel less. busy.  I was very interested in this book, as I am trying to structure my life and it is so hard for me!  Fortunately, Dragt understands how hard this is, as he is also a person who does not naturally come to structure but he has found it very useful in his life.  It certainly is true-I definitely get more accomplished when I structure my time.  I like that he has you build in time that is for being spontaneous.  That m
Read more

Week 2 of DBT Skills: Overcoming Exhaustion

-
Image
The smallness you feel comes from within you.  God rewrote the text of my life when I opened the book of my heart to his eyes.  ~ The Message Bible  We started the DBT session with a mindfulness tapping exercise called EFT .  I had never tried "EFT tapping" before but after practicing the " overcoming exhaustion" exercise , I have actually found it to be pretty useful.  The practice is so easy, it seems like magic, but I know it's just another way of validating my emotions, the first step in healing.  Try it yourself.   We're still in the emotional regulation section of DBT.  Tomorrow is Easter and we talked about how we might ease our stress on this holiday.  The first is by honoring our traditions, for traditions often bring comfort.  I plan to make coffee cake this afternoon, wake up early tomorrow, get dressed up, eat coffee cake for breakfast, and attend church with the people I love. Yes, the church service will be on my computer and tech
Read more

The Keys to Mental Strength

-
Image
Take a good look at me, God, my God, I want to look life in the eye, so no enemy can get the best of me or laugh when I fall on my face.  (The Message Bible) Last week I showed my wellness group the TED Talk by Amy Morin and we were all incredibly touched.  Her story is basically that just when life seemed perfect, tragedy struck, and over a few years her mother, then her husband, and then her new husband's father died.  One of the main ways she dealt with her grief was to create a list of things mentally strong people don't do and look at it and study it every day.  She figured she needed build up her mental strength to get her through as much as she could.  She then wrote the book, 13 Things Mentally Strong People Don't Do , and became a best-selling author.  As she talks in the video, even though she may be "mentally strong," you can still see her grief and it is touching.  The realness of her emotion transforms her rather trite collection of "don&#
Read more