Hello and Hi!!

[manuel_moe_g]

I suppose human intelligence has the capacity to keep the commercial advertisement toxins of an entire lifetime under some kind of control, but what a fucking DRAG on the natural rise and play of human happiness. If Madison avenue is to be trusted, fat girls, amputees and those with beater cars and modest incomes are incapable of giving and receiving joy. Add the cruel peer pressure of American adolescence and then the harsh pecking orders of employment scenarios, all supported by the media lust to create and maintain an American consumers' desire...

Very good points, as usual. Think about all the things that a person would need to rise out of depression and become a giving part of a community - all those things will never be modeled in the commercial media, unless it is merely taking a pill. The end result is so isolating.

Thank you for writing this, to help keep perspective positive and human.

Thank you for you holiday wishes, algernon, right back atcha! All the best, cheers!

[dare i say it]

I was once concerned with forgetfulness in reading all this psyche self help content, but not anymore.......I do retain the core information. I like bullet point passages.
Re-reading is important too, because, I find, I cannot "hear" a message or technique that I am not ready for yet.

I can definitely relate to "not being ready" to hear certain self-help messages. [sidenote: I always hated that phrase. I thought, "What the hell! I'm suffering terribly here and you're going to sit there and tell me that I'm not ready. Screw you!" Maybe it's more fair to say that my broken brain made it seem like no outside force could ever truly help me and what I really needed to do was just sit down and figure it all out. Unfortunately, a broken brain usually doesn't fix itself without outside input. At least mine didn't.] It's kind of sad how often that holds me back from giving things a full chance to work. It is SO hard for me to accept help, especially when that help doesn't conform to my preconceived notions of what help should look like. I'm not an addict, but I think I hear a lot of that same story when people talk about their journey to get clean or sober.

Aside from not always being 100% receptive, I think there might be something else going on in what algernon is saying. I just finished reading a book (shocking ) called "The Shallows" by Nicholas Carr. Good book. Best-seller. Not just some crazy theory. He talks about the effect of modern technology on how our brains work. One of his points is that the ability to receive and process a stream of information for more than a few seconds at a time is a learned skill, and that our modern way of life with its hyperlinked webpages, phones, email, social media, etc. tends to undermine that skill by the shear force of interruption. There is value in the ability to focus my attention, and I wish I were better at it. If there is a hopeful undertone to all of this, it's that I can limit some of the interruptedness in my life. I can set aside moments in my day when I turn off all the gadgets, stop trying to multi-task, and just pay attention to one thing at a time.

[algernon]

HELLO!
I've been away for awhile and just today I ordered something from Amazon being sure to use the link on Mentalpod home page.

I hope everyone is doing well. For me, I've become injured with tenosynovitis in ONLY the middle finger of my right hand (the flip the bird digit). This injury has kept me home from trucking since around Christmas and though I was offered light duty work, I declined this to take a break from a very busy 2011 while I did therapy and addressed loose ends here at the hacienda. I will return to work trucking in about 9 days when I "graduate" from therapy.

It's almost two months now and much has taken place and not all good. There was a few days with some kind of stomach flu thing that had me feverish and bathroom bound for 50 hours. A trip to the Emergency Room with my mother for geriatric issues was another event. Ma's ER event was OK and she was not admitted, but rather returned to her nursing home bed and has been in a sluggish depression for most of the time since. One additional item was that a health aid, new in her facility was found to have physically abused my mom resulting in bruises on her arm and leg. The facility reported the event to the board of health and the local police and the individual has been discharged with apparently more consequences for his action than just the dismissal. Ma's pretty content with the responsive actions that took place regarding the abusive health aid person and not at all traumatized fortunately.

I have great respect for her nursing home and the occasional bad apple is understood as possible sooner or later. There is no other place on earth better for my mom that where she is at now and I'm most grateful that she has this fine care. I try to absorb her world when I visit and imagine a modern nation without such an institution. The compassion for elderly and frail people in a nursing home setting is one of the most re-assuring things I've ever come to know. I took two unused picture tube TV sets and donated them to Ma's facility a few weeks back. It's a little village where she is and I urge all of you to discount the fear you may have over such places.....nursing homes. We need them because we are not animals.

Ahh, depression in the nursing home population is common, yes. I wish the residents can all experience MIHH for ideas to get along and find the joy that even sad days can hold. I try to wave and smile and say hello to everyone in Ma's nursing home. If you age enough, there is a return to a child-like state of vulnerability that this time lacks the bounce and laughter of boundlessly energetic children. Be prepared the best you can and that includes the humor and acceptance characteristics of rational thinking. There is nothing you or I will go through that countless human beings of every level of cowardice and courage haven't already. There's a comfort in that thought for me.

I would love to have become an occupational therapist. I'm seeing one for my hand now for maybe 18 sessions and with only 4 more to go before I return to the rigors of trucking. This is the second time in my life I've had therapy and the work is another priceless profession. My injury is almost comical in severity next to everyone else at the hand therapy table. I have one middle finger swelled and hurting and with limited motion (80% improved now) while the others have crushed hands/fingers and broken wrists and cut to the bone fingers. One man is an ex-trucker with a collection of trauma from six years ago when a large drum fell on him inside his trailer. Many surgeries on arms and shoulders and all the uncertainty of results still after six years are his. My experience is like being in a classroom again. We've all become mates in our therapy experience. I'm humbled that my single middle finger is all I've suffered when my therapy-fellows have their very considerable ordeals. All ages are my mates, men and women including teens and thankfully no children, but children sooner or later must come through the door.

I have many books stacked up again for mental health: 'The Little Book of Courage"..."The Noticer" by Andy Andrews..."Getting Bitter or Getting Better"..."The Real Thirteenth Step"..."Your Own Worst Enemy".... and a few more including one or two that I learned about in this forum.

I continue to be with my girlfriend and the time off over the holidays with her was quite nice. I hope your holiday span was nice too as I do know it's often a sad time for many people......

I'm so sorry about Whitney Houston dying. I remember a benchmark performance of our national anthem that she did back in the 1980s. Her traditional yet stunning rendition of Key's masterpiece was cited in the many words written over the weekend about her passing. I come to dislike immensely the ravaging manner by which some singers stylize the national anthem, like that one guy with the stretched facelift and long hair from that iconic band I never cared for. I wasn't a particular fan of Whitney Houston but she made me remember her not for her mental breakdowns and decline, but for her artistic magnificence when she made her name indelible in music. I wish she had come to this forum if she hadn't anonymously.

Wow....lookit all the text! I received just yesterday a typing instruction software program and I've done 71 lesson runs in the 24 hours since! It was a peeve to begin to learn how to formally type in the late 90s only to abandon the pursuit and return to the vulgar manner of fingers flying everywhere while I eye the keyboard and not the screen, because the right way to type was not learned well enough to displace the wrong way. So I DID SOMETHING ABOUT IT! It's curious how what I learned long ago was not entirely lost......so I'm feeling pretty good about removing that peeve of not finishing my typing training. Activity is a great answer for feeling blue or depressed and such. Thomas Jefferson was a depressed guy and he advised just such thing......DO SOMETHING to create value, help or improve the scene. I like that idea.

Once I get back to long trucking hours I'll catch up with the wonderful humanity that MIHH delivers through my iPod. I miss the experience and the wonderful companionship I receive from it all. Please be good to yourself and stay busy doing!

[manuel_moe_g]

Great great great to hear from you again, Algernon!

Hope your finger feels better, and wish the very best for your Ma. Bleh, the stomach flu - I have a gut like a goat, but sometimes even I get laid low, know it isn't fun, so glad you are feeling better.

Glad to hear you enjoyed your holidays, and glad to hear you are working full helpful books.

All the best, don't be a stranger, please don't take such a long break from the forum next time!

[algernon]

Hello from Saturday’s desk!
My Internet addiction continues and for now I’m proud of it, manic me.

This post has no particular place among the many topic slots throughout the forum so here in my own intro niche it goes.
I had a doldrum yesterday and beat it by taking a shave, a shower and doing the dishes that were neglected.

ADLs or “activities of daily life.” I was introduced to the term when my mother couldn’t return home to live on her own about three years back. The medical pros use the concept as a measurement of quality of life or functionality in a person. I’ve known about slacking off haircuts and shaves and laundry and stuff like that as indicative of mushing out, but since I’ve learned the term ADL as a clinical concept for what I’ve always known casually, it’s now a yardstick with teeth.

So how are your toothsome ADLs? Looking at Wiki for the term it encompasses more than grooming and housekeeping, like bill paying and pet care and more, which I never knew until I looked at the page. I hope to get some thrust from this sense of definition concerning my personal habits as if measured by some clinician. Once something previously known becomes suddenly framed in formality, it may be more influential. ADLs they are.

After I got my ass rolling yesterday “creating value” described above, momentum came. Ideas from endless self-help books and discussions rose in the memory and life lived in the moment happened. Mindfulness me and then maybe manic. I liked the feeling, it was guiltless.

Long ago, I’d been psychologically evaluated in an application process for a small city fire fighter’s job. I was passed over based on that psyche screening which I regarded as the filter mechanism for the nepotism that was a poorly kept secret in that organization. I recall the “shrink” cynical upon my answer to the question, “what do you secretly do?” of which my answer was, “pray.” He called me on that answer implying that I was ashamed to openly pray (which is absurd as I was raised a Catholic with prayer done often with great pomp) and I could never see his point. Aside from being an agnostic now, I recall something somewhere in the Bible instructing one to pray in secret, which was not why I answered that psyche question as I did, but I felt vindicated learning about the Bible tip. “Bible tip!”

Fuck that four eyed municipal payroll stroonce psychologist! (I wear eyeglasses )

Today, I don’t know what a psychologist would find to designate me and I do believe it’s mostly foolish to self-diagnose though I’ll do it for moot fun or in times of self-confrontation when the spirit needs a bridle. I know doctors, lawyers and mental health experts have their bills to pay and thus never a money back guarantee for poor results is assured. How much I’ve seen in others the quest for the “right” doctor or psyche and for that matter drugs and head-shaking me, wondering how it’ll be when my time arrives to search for the right ones. Well, it’s not an issue now and when it is, I’ll remember the best I can what you have said in your own fight for peace inside your head, and go forward for my answers.

I've extracted a long held food recipe from the old computer yesterday and I'm going to the supermarket now to get what I need to make it. A simple comfort food recipe for a simple cook, me. Sheppard's pie! The measurement of mental health concerning this yummy dish is portion control, yes?

[manuel_moe_g]

Hi Algernon!

My hackles got raised by your story of the municipal payroll psychologist. He should be hurled into a cement mixer full of irons!

[algernon]

Thank you for the EMPATHY Manny Moe and Jee! I must rationally allow that perhaps Doctor Brainbite was right that I wouldn't make a good fire fighter, but in any case it's long gone and now only a cute war story.

Referring to some scatterings of profanity common in my postings, I've glimpsed a feel good book that cites the excessive use of harsh tone and curse words in our society and how it contributes to a hostile social atmosphere. I thought I would try to be aware of my own cussing in voice and writing and consider if it's really in excess.

Hope you're knowing inner PEACE, Manny.

[algernon]

Hello One and All!

Deep night solitude for me and I love it so. While the world is asleep.........

I watched a YouTube vid earlier this evening, a lecture by Jon Kabat-Zinn on mindfullness. It was 1 hour and 12 minutes of time well spent. I'm reading a second book of his now with a third requested from our library. The first was "Wherever You Go There You Are" which I found recommended in this forum last year. I am most grateful for that recommendation from whoever did post about it. I just ran through the self help book thread to name and thank the individual that cited the book, but it's buried in another thread apparently.

Here's the vid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nwwKbM_vJc

I'm going to make a real commitment to practice mindfullness which I understand to be meditation itself but not in the traditional sense of taking 30 minutes or more (or less) to sit and just be aware of the present moment under conditions of ultra minimized stimulation. Zinn is such a compassionate, well spoken man, a beautiful man and a most superb teacher.

In the video, after the period of still meditating, he drew his class back outwards and asked for some impressions. The very first woman to speak stated she has been meditating for 10 years and she has a problem falling asleep during her practice, even just then. Wow, that has been my own experience which can be most discouraging and here I heard the solutions and the assurance from Zinn! Man, I liked that!

He speaks so warmly and entirely practical about life. His ideas for succeeding in this mysterious endeavor were illuminating to me, the grasp of what this is all about never so clear. For example, to ground myself upon this very moment is the mindfulness practice of constant return, return to the breathing even as I think of words and type them out. He spoke of the inflow of stimulation while actually being busy DOING something, that the sound and smell and sight and touch and THOUGHT events can all be piped through our being and then out, without encumbrance or distress. He spoke of a child's effortless finger popping soap bubbles as an analogy. Just let it come and let it go, all in a way that one personally develops by his own practice.

Oh the breathing of life CONSCIOUSLY should be taught along with the alphabet in our young.......

So at one point in the video late, Zinn advised SOME regular effort at traditional meditation as an anchor for the daily practice of mindfulness, emphasizing the results are best served by doing so.....even if only 5 minutes in the traditional manner......and so I will commit.

He's tied it up nicely for me. I was piqued when long ago I read about "eating meditation" where you stay in the present moment with each cut, fork, bite swallow, napkin swipe and drink and everything else during a meal, but I don't recall the term "mindfulness" in that reference. And long time since then, here I see that EVERYTHING IN OUR DAILY LIVES can be done in the present moment as a practice, which in time (and with more practice) renders POWERLESS the emotionally sad events of the past and the grinding uncertain worries of the future! That is the promise of all this as I understand it, a safe place for us in the NOW moment, this moment here presently, now..............typing all these dots.............

One thing lead to another and for the second time I watched the film, "Sling Blade" yesterday. I love the film immensely and recommend it.

Saturday, tomorrow, I have the 40th anniversary of my high school graduation reunion to attend. I've got a healthy excitement going, a bit of apprehension too. I thought about passing but I would have regretted that. More people have died from my class since the prior reunion as one would expect and more than one close old friend. It's getting interesting this aging process, like a democratic lottery where sooner or later everyone's number gets picked!

My iTunes library music run has now come to play Bing Crosby's, "It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas." Imagine that?

[dare i say it]

Algernon, that's so cool that you've found such value in mindfulness and meditation. I myself have been flirting with mindfulness practices for a few months now. It's hard for me. Every time I learn about a mindfulness skill, I realize just how weak I am at it! I keep telling myself that being very bad at mindfulness is all the more reason to work on it. I'm going to check out that YouTube video tonight. Thanks for the reference.

[algernon]

Hey there, dare I say it!

The moment of awakening from sleep, first thing I did was to "grab" awareness. I was a bit anxious and I began to acknowledge it and the thoughts that carry it, then I let it go with the idea that I have something strong working in my favor. During that awakening from sleep, I did not think about my breathing (but I do now as I type) nor did I feel the feed to all my senses as I'm open to now. It was just not initiated at the moment of awakening, I suppose because I'm new at this. But the awareness decision was quite immediate.

Later, I'll sit to meditate for a short while as Zinn teaches to anchor into the practice. Mindfulness practice throughout the day, now at this moment is what I seek, looking to enter the flow, always returning always returning always returning to the state.

dare I say it, I found the word, "effort" pop up while composing this subject matter, as in "my mindfulness efforts"......but I took the word "practice" instead because "effort" implies force or work or imposition and I know that the entire practice of mindfulness/meditation is simply a practice.

Zinn made a humorous point in the video using the label "bad meditator" at the end to the girl that always falls asleep when a brief discussion was held. Of course he declared there is no such thing as a bad meditator. Can you sense this video calling you, dare I say it?