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January 23, 2007

Interesting site: Positive Psychology

http://www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu/

"Dr. Martin Seligman is Chairman of the University of Pennsylvania Positive Psychology Center and founder of Positive Psychology, a new branch of psychology which focuses on the empirical study of such things as positive emotions, strengths-based character, and healthy institutions. His research has demonstrated that it is possible to be happier — to feel more satisfied, to be more engaged with life, find more meaning, have higher hopes, and probably even laugh and smile more, regardless of one’s circumstances. Positive psychology interventions can also lastingly decrease depression symptoms. The research underlying these rigorously tested interventions is presented in the July/August edition of the American Psychologist, the journal of the American Psychology Association."

Now, my interest in this site sparked because of the questionnaires it offers, but the idea behind the site is interesting and theoretically, I am on board but I must warn that I have not extensively studied the site and cannot therefore endorse it, per se. But feel free to email me what you think at lunasmom at luna-fish dot com.

Posted by lunasmom at 7:32 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Are optimists made or conceived?

I was reading another blog on management here (which references a question posed by this blog here). Interesting to note is that the question is posed in response to reading Kay Redfield Jamison's newest book "Exuberance" which I have not read. I will say that in general I have had several issues with the opinions of Ms. Jamison mostly because I think she brings a very strong opinion to the bipolar table, uses her status as an authority to speak as though all bipolar people have one voice, and that she speaks from the background of someone who is bipolar I, and does not adequately, in my opinion, address the issues faced by those of us with treatment resistant forms of bipolar disorder, like rapid cycling bipolar type II. That said! I thought it was an interesting question: Are optimists born or made?


I think optimism or pessimism is often defined by self-esteem and confidence. I think often by the end of adolescence our core sense of self is usually developed and with it our relative sense of self-esteem. However, if you work on issues in your life, and work to develop self-esteem you can sometimes overcome your environment, upbringing, genetics, and natural pessimism and transform yourself into a reflexive, if not necessarily "natural" optimist.

I am bipolar, I write a blog about bipolar parenting. I would not count my childhood as a happy one, and my adolescence could probably be characterized as "angry" or "tumultuous." My first year of college saw a complete breakdown of my ability to function without external stimuli to force my feet on a particular path and I cycled through moods wildly.

For a while I tried medication and it was determined that my form of bipolar disorder is medication resistant. I am very sensitive to drugs in general and could never manage to find the panacea to normality that some manic-depressives discover. I decided to stop the medications and make changes to my life instead, to try to learn to manage my cycles with mindfulness.

After a series of bad interpersonal relationships, I embarked on a self-help kick that started out as an effort to get out of the house more and get more exercise. I joined a martial arts class near my house. I had several crying jags in the middle of class that stymied my instructors, but the instructor in charge always said "let her work it out, she's got something to work out" and I did.

My instructors pointed out how I avoided eye contact; like a typical New Yorker, I walked with my head down and took eye contact like a wild animal, like a form of aggression. I was defensive, overly sensitive, hyperaware of body language, and I looked for the insult in everything. I had friends tell me that I picked up on things other people ignored in order to survive: eye rolls, facial expressions, little things other people glaze over, I stopped to pick apart and analyze, all in an effort to protect myself from harm.

With my instructors I worked on making eye contact--that simple exercise, of being forced to look someone in the eye while speaking made a huge difference in my life. I had no idea I had low self esteem, I was always a very loud and boisterous person. My instructors always picked me to speak to people at demonstrations, because they knew that talking to strangers set me outside of my comfort zone. They used me as the target in demos because they knew having all eyes on me was outside of my comfort zone. They forced me to analyze, acknowledge, and then challenge my comfort zone, every day.

I went from wanting other people to make all my decisions, to setting goals, real, attainable, measurable goals, in two years. I learned how to function in ways I didn't even realize were dysfunctional before. From no longer avoiding take out because I didn't want to have to give an order over the phone, to advocating for myself at work, to speaking up for myself in abusive situations...I had all unknowingly changed my perspective regarding my sense of self, and improved a self-esteem I didn't know was damaged, in the span of two years. I met my husband, have a family, go to school part-time (for free), and work full time. I negotiated with my job for the things I need to be happy and I GOT them. I went from quiet despair over my life and feeling out of control, to feeling empowered, capable, and yes, like maybe the glass is half full if you want to look at it that way.

Optimists can be made at any point in life if a person can identify and overcome the thought patterns that cause negativity. Some people never get there, some people don't want to. For a long time I thought happiness was a weakness but now I know it's absolutely a strength. It took me almost 15 years of work to get to a point in my life where I can say yes, I am an optimist and I think that's still in good time.

Posted by lunasmom at 7:23 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

January 8, 2007

Sometimes, what we really need is a hug.

My son had a rough morning today. He usually awakens before anyone else in the house, including the dogs (but excepting the cat who has just not gone to bed yet). He usually plays quietly while I lay in bed considering my day ahead of me and enjoying his quiet morning sounds.

Today was a bit different, I heard him wake up then I coasted in and out of consciousness; I just couldn't seem to wake up. He was quiet for a little while, rustled through his toy box and then I heard a *gooooong* sound. The sound my carbon monoxide detector makes when it's testing itself, usually after a power outage. I listened to the house for a while. When I didn't hear my son, I feared the worst--had he caused the power outage?? Stuck a screw driver in a power socket?

I hurried out of bed to check on him. He wasn't anywhere loose in the house, so I checked his bedroom and there he lay, with his blanket wound around his head. My panic levels jump and I whip the blanket off his head, to find him wide-eyed and stammering "What? What? What was that noise???"

Poor kid. The power went out, the carbon monoxide detector made a "scary" noise, so he decided to hide in his room under his blanket. Then I come charging in and tear his blanket off, probably looking slightly crazed too. I was so relieved but then I felt bad for his traumatic morning. I told him not to wrap his blanket around his head and coaxed him back out of his room.

He was obviously feeling a little fragile today. When it was time to get him out the door to daycare, he was crying about something, I'm not even sure what. He seemed so despondent, climbing the stairs to my office to say goodbye, that my first instinct was just "hold him." That's what I did, I got on my knees and I wrapped my arms around him, and I rubbed his back and told him it was okay. He sobbed out his story of woe, something about not wanting to cry in his room (I didn't say it was a coherent story of woe) and clung to me tightly. He was shaking and his grip was so tight, I decided that this was obviously just what he needed so that's what I told him.

"Sometimes a hug is all you need, right?"

His sobbing stopped; he held me tightly and then quietly he said "Yeah."

"Mama, can I just stand here wif you?"

"Yes pumpkin."

"I just want you to hold me."

"OK pumpkin, then that's what I will do."

and that's what I did.

All the craziness of the morning, waking up late, discovering the power outage, tracking down my son, getting him ready for school late, trying to get through my conference call without email access and find a way to reset my equipment in the office so I could get back online...it all melted away in that moment. In that moment, all I felt was the peace of a mom who was needed by a tiny, clinging, shaking little boy who was having a Bad Day. All I felt was the peace of someone who was loved.

When I was growing up, my dad pushed me away. He pushed me out of his lap, he kept physical distance between us. He yelled at me when I sought physical affection from anyone, he taught me that it was an inappropriate intimacy. My mother reinforced this idea by being emotionally inaccessible my entire childhood. My earliest memories are of my mother smoking cigarettes in her bedroom, reading a book. It was never interacting with me.

My father taught me to associate touch with sex, and that sex was bad. I developed an apprehension about sex, and physical contact in general. It took me a long time to get over this aversion to physical contact. I had many boyfriends in high school with whom I refused to hold hands and I was uncomfortable having an arm around me. I never hugged my friends, I was afraid of being labeled a lesbian or somehow giving them the impression that I wanted more than friendship.

As I grew older, I associated a desire for physical contact and affection with a desire for sexual intimacy, and so I became sexually active before I was really ready. My combined need for physical closeness and aversion to physical contact expressed itself as sexual dysfunction, which never stopped me from having sex, but certainly stopped me from enjoying it. It created a coldness between me and even my closest friends and always managed to help sabotage relationships. I was not promiscuous, I had several long-term relationships; i am and have always been a serial monogamer, probably in a quest to love myself by finding someone to love me.

I learned to appraise everyone in my life in terms of their potential as a mate or sexual partner. I didn't learn to stop doing this until I took steps towards mending my broken self-esteem. I slowly learned to appreciate physical contact, first with my cat, then with my closest friends. Eventually I worked out some of my issues through my martial arts class, where the contact is so obviously not sexual in nature. I became a little more casual about touching people because I had to touch and hit and block and throw people for hours; it was intimate, but definitely not sexual in any way.

My husband met me at the best time in my life to meet me. I was really healing, I was growing, my self-esteem was at an all-time high and I felt that I was grounded enough to want something because I wanted it not because I would get anything out of it, not because I was desperate for validation. I loved him because he was lovable and sweet and treats me like a partner and an equal, and not because I am desperate to be loved. I loved him for all the right reasons.

It's been a difficult battle for me, and I don't always win; I do often worry about propriety and sometimes I still cringe when I have to touch someone, but I have learned, through some really wonderful friends, my fantastic husband, and through increased self-confidence, that sometimes a hug is just a hug. I've learned, as a functional wife and as a mother, just what a joy a hug can be, how restorative human contact can be.

Now, I touch people a lot. I hug my husband, I run my hands through his hair, I fall asleep on his chest or his shoulder or his lap. I sleep curled up with my dogs (and find it harder to sleep in an empty bed). I stroke my son's nose or his cheek, I tousle his hair, I hold his hand, and I hug him as much as he wants or will allow. I hug my friends. I might do a little dance of anxiety beforehand, but I hug my in-laws too. I think it's important that I do that, because they have that place in my life.

Sometimes when I am sad or angry or agitated, I will just sit and pet and hug my dog. Sometimes when my son is mad, too mad to calm down on his own, I will hug him, and he will cry, and relax and let go. Like I told him, sometimes it really is just what you need; there's no explanation and there's no pep talk that can fix a problem like a hug.

We all need physical contact; learn how to hug and accept a hug. Start with a pet if you have to, start by talking it out in therapy if you must, or do what I did and take a martial arts class where you have to touch people, in a way that might not be as threatening. But learn, and then make sure you get steady doses from a willing partner. Sometimes, I don't even speak to my husband, I just fall into his arms and he will hold me for a little while. It's the best medicine.

Posted by lunasmom at 12:40 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 1, 2007

Looking back, looking forward

Happy New Year to the three people who read this blog. The turn of the year has historically been a time of reflection and goal setting. We resolve to lose weight, be kinder, quit smoking...things we didn't accomplish in the previous year. Why is the new year so often a time of resolution?

Many people consider a new year a blank slate where they can forget about past mistakes and focus on their future. Many people need this type of marker in order to stimulate change, shake off inertia. If you're a person who can resolve to affect change in your life at any given time, this is a great talent that will serve you well, but if you're not then New Year's can be a great time to assess, reckon, and set new goals for the upcoming year.

Let's discuss goal-setting. Why do people set goals? Setting goals can help you improve productivity, reduce your stress and anxiety by channeling your energy into a plan of action, and improve your self-confidence. When you achieve goals, you grow happier, you grow more capable and self-sufficient, and the more your self-esteem will grow.

Goal-setting is a valuable skill, both in one's professional life but also in one's personal life. Parents should set goals to attain the things they need for their family's happiness and security. The goals can be physical, tangible things, or they can be intangible, such as resolving to communicate better as a family, find a method of positive discipline that works, or learning to be more accepting or open-minded. It can even be determining your own self-worth so that your family does not take advantage of you!

Categorizing your goals will help you break them down into manageable chunks and best determine a course of action for achieving them. Short-term goals are ones with a sense of urgency, typically must be achieved within a year's time, and can range in size from small to large. A short-term goal might be to find a new therapist or seek marriage counseling.

An intermediate goal, however, will take longer to achieve; for our purposes, let's say between one and five years. An intermediate goal might be to finish a college degree, or celebrate an anniversary of sobriety. Many goals that are immediately relevant to our lives will fall into this intermediate category, both personally and professionally.

Finally, long-term goals are often the hardest to plan for since they seem so far away and lack immediate relevance. Things like saving for retirement or college always feel like you have another year to put it off. Making plans now, however, will ease the anxiety of discovering you haven't planned well enough and help keep other goals in perspective. Do you need a flashy car with new rims now if it means you won't be able to afford a house in which to retire? Categorizing your goals will help you determine the best plan for achieving them.

Part of categorizing goals is determining whether they are smart goals.

http://www.topachievement.com/smart.html

SMART goals are:

Specific----Measurable----Attainable----Realistic----Tangible

"Specific - A specific goal has a much greater chance of being accomplished than a general goal. To set a specific goal you must answer the six "W" questions:

EXAMPLE: A general goal would be, "Get in shape." But a specific goal would say, "Join a health club and workout 3 days a week."

Measurable - Establish concrete criteria for measuring progress toward the attainment of each goal you set. When you measure your progress, you stay on track, reach your target dates, and experience the exhilaration of achievement that spurs you on to continued effort required to reach your goal.

To determine if your goal is measurable, ask questions such as......How much? How many? How will I know when it is accomplished?

Attainable - When you identify goals that are most important to you, you begin to figure out ways you can make them come true. You develop the attitudes, abilities, skills, and financial capacity to reach them. You begin seeing previously overlooked opportunities to bring yourself closer to the achievement of your goals.

You can attain most any goal you set when you plan your steps wisely and establish a time frame that allows you to carry out those steps. Goals that may have seemed far away and out of reach eventually move closer and become attainable, not because your goals shrink, but because you grow and expand to match them. When you list your goals you build your self-image. You see yourself as worthy of these goals, and develop the traits and personality that allow you to possess them.

Realistic - To be realistic, a goal must represent an objective toward which you are both willing and able to work. A goal can be both high and realistic; you are the only one who can decide just how high your goal should be. But be sure that every goal represents substantial progress. A high goal is frequently easier to reach than a low one because a low goal exerts low motivational force. Some of the hardest jobs you ever accomplished actually seem easy simply because they were a labor of love.

Your goal is probably realistic if you truly believe that it can be accomplished. Additional ways to know if your goal is realistic is to determine if you have accomplished anything similar in the past or ask yourself what conditions would have to exist to accomplish this goal.

Tangible - A goal is tangible when you can experience it with one of the senses, that is, taste, touch, smell, sight or hearing. When your goal is tangible, or when you tie an tangible goal to a intangible goal, you have a better chance of making it specific and measurable and thus attainable.

Intangible goals are your goals for the internal changes required to reach more tangible goals. They are the personality characteristics and the behavior patterns you must develop to pave the way to success in your career or for reaching some other long-term goal. Since intangible goals are vital for improving your effectiveness, give close attention to tangible ways for measuring them." (Meyer, 2006.)

Take a moment this New Year and write down some SMART goals. Then, determine whether they are short-term, intermediate, or long-term. Doing this will help you develop a long range plan for finding the success in your life.

Some cautions/guides:

Set deadlines! Each goal should be timed, not just tangible or tied to something tangible. When do you want to achieve this goal? Decide when you will start the task and decide when you will finish. (Kaplan, 2006.)

Have a variety of goals. It's important not to channel your efforts toward only one goal or one type of goal. The idea is to achieve balance between all aspects of your life over the span of your life, from those urgent items that need immediate attention to those nagging long-term goals that will affect your livelihood later on. Work on finding a positive work-life balance and self-family/relationship balance. (Kaplan, 2006.)

Make your goals your own! Having others set goals for you, even well-meaning people like your parents, spouse, or friends, means your goals are not truly your own. Making your own goals means you will be fully committed to achieving them. (Kaplan, 2006.)


References:
Top Achievement
Meyer, P. J. (2006.) "Creating S.M.A.R.T. Goals" Attitude Is Everything. Retrieved on January 1, 2007 from http://www.topachievement.com/smart.html

Kaplan University (2006.) "Goal Setting" Unit 3 handout from CS-113 Academic Strategies for Business

Posted by lunasmom at 1:51 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack