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This week in my yard a tiny little white snow drop flower budded out announcing that spring is right around the corner. I also see crocus coming up and the very tops of my daffodils are protruding above the ground! The earth is very slowly beginning to come alive once more.
Generally, I get pretty excited when I see the first flowers making their debut! It means we’ve all survived yet another winter. I appreciate the sunshine, color and warmth these early arrivals bring. They see me through the rest of what Mother Nature brings us as winter winds itself down and out. There is hope.
Nothing is forever or stays the same.
When we see tragedies unfolding as they all too often do these days we can use it as a reminder to be grateful for all that we have in this one very moment. We never do know what a day will bring do we?
Each day unfolds as it does. We can make gratitude be a constant in a sea of constant change.
We can ride out all the winters that living brings our way by observing the hints of spring that each day offers us too. And relish in the fresh awareness that gratitude brings.
Just what are you grateful for today?
Image by Freepik
But what differs in Australia is that their law makers actually did something to stop it from happening again.
“Within just weeks of that tragedy, elected officials in each of Australia’s six states and two mainland territories—pressed forward by police chiefs across the continent and by the then-newly elected prime minister— banned semi-automatic and other military style weapons across the country. The federal government of Australia prohibited their import, and lawmakers introduced a generous nationwide gun buyback program, funded with a Medicare tax, to encourage Australians to freely give up their assault-style weapons. Amazingly, many of them did,” according to a 2018 Time article.
The people of Australia a land of tough outback survivors that had never embraced government regulations especially about guns did just that. And in the 22 years since there have been no further mass shootings in Australia!
“In 2002, a student at Monash University in Melbourne shot two people dead and injured five others. He came to his rampage with six handguns, not an assault rifle. Australian lawmakers added a new National Handgun Agreement, a separate buyback act, and a reformulated gun trafficking policy to their legislative arsenal,” according to a 2018 Time article.
And guess what—there hasn’t been a similar shooting spree since!
“Gun violence in general declined over the following two decades to a nearly unimaginable degree. In 2014, the latest year for which final statistics are available, Australia’s murder rate fell to less than 1 killing per 100,000 people—a murder rate one-fifth the size of America’s. “ according to 2018 article in Time.
Imagine that! Australia is a place that kids can go to school without wondering if they will be safe. Families can go to church and public events without looking over their shoulders with worry. We can’t do that here in the US can we?
We obviously can learn a lot from the Australian people about what works to end gun violence.
The White House proposes a way to keep kids safe in schools is to have teachers carry concealed guns in schools and shoot to kill.
There are roughly 3,200,000 teachers in the US. The cheapest hand gun I noticed on line was selling for $127, a Cobra Arms Freedom .380 model. It would cost $406,400,000 to arm that many teachers with this gun. It costs $95 for the cheapest a one day training course necessary to carry a concealed weapon in Michigan that I noticed on line. It would cost $304,000,000 for all these teachers to attend that training. Keep in mind however that law enforcement officers receive 60 hours of fire arm skills training and 51 hours of self-defense training at a police academy. I highly doubt that after a very basic training course one is prepared and skilled enough to shoot to kill in a highly stressful situation. It costs $115 for a permit in Michigan to carry a concealed weapon which each teacher would need to have or $368,000,000 for that number of permits assuming all states have the same fee as Michigan. The grand total of this measure could cost us tax payers an estimated hefty: $1,078,400,000.
If this were a measure that would ensure an end to gun violence nationwide it would certainly be worth any price tag. But it’s not. It just adds more not less guns into a Nation already saturated.
Who stands to gain once again are gun manufacturers and the NRA! They continue to line the pockets of our politicians who seemingly work for them!
We need legislation that will put an end to the selling and distribution of weapons that keep killing us like they instituted in Australia. We need to stand up to our law makers and make our voices heard before yet another mass shooting occurs!
Will you write or call your Congressional Representatives and Senators today to make your voice heard and demand that they learn from our Australian friends?
You can use this address to find contact information for your elected officials:
https://www.usa.gov/elected-officials
This week I’ve been wondering just how many more people need to die before this country does SOMETHING to curb gun violence.
2996 people died on 9/11 and we did something about that…
2403 people died at Pearl Harbor and we did something about that…
From 2004 to 2014, 303 Americans were killed in terrorist attacks worldwide, according to State Department reports and we’ve tried to so something about that… But during that same time frame, 320,523 Americans were killed because of gun violence and we’ve not really done anything about that… ( http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/oct/05/viral-image/fact-checking-comparison-gun-deaths-and-terrorism-/ )
In 2015 some 13,286 people were killed in the US by firearms, according to the Gun Violence Archive…we’ve really not done anything to make this number who die each year go down rather than up.
Did you know that:
-Gun homicides are a common cause of death in the United States, killing about as many people as car crashes (not counting van, truck, motorcycle or bus accidents). (https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/14/upshot/compare-these-gun-death-rates-the-us-is-in-a-different-world.html
-Since 1968, more than 1.5 million Americans have died in gun-related incidents, according to data the U.S Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. By comparison, approximately 1.2 million service members have been killed in every war in U.S. history, according to estimates from the Department of Veterans Affairs and iCasualities.org, a website that maintains an ongoing database of casualties from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. ( https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/las-vegas-shooting/more-americans-killed-guns-1968-all-u-s-wars-combined-n807156 )
I find these statistics rather chilling and keep wondering just how many more people need to die before we as a people stand up and say enough is enough to the powerful gun lobby and manufacturers who clearly have a hold on our elected officials.
We rally when yet another mass shooting incident occurs for a brief moment as our hearts go out to those suffering with their losses. Then nothing changes. And another mass shooting unfolds and catches our attention and our hearts yet once again. And then nothing changes…it goes on and on and on. And nothing changes.
The truth is that any one of us could be the next victim in a mass shooting! It could be you or me or someone we love or someone we know…it could happen at the school or church just down the street or the concert you’ve looked forward to attending or the next community event your family goes to. No one is immune or safe from this reality anymore!
What can and will you do to make this stop?
Photo by Bradley Hook: Pexels
The sun making a rare appearance helps me to remember to appreciate it.
I take so much for granted. The absence of something helps me remember to be grateful for it and recognize the value and meaning it has in my life. In this way we do gain from our losses…opportunities to have gratitude for what matters in our lives.
When I feel gratitude I also do connect with feelings of joy. It’s a powerful perspective to be grateful.
For me, even something as simple as seeing the sun is an opportunity for moments of gratitude. It is the simple things in life that bring us joy. It is the little day to day things that mean the most.
So I’ll let the sunshine it and face it with a grin and open up my heart and let the sunshine in!
What simple thing in your life are you grateful for today?
Ain’t what she used to be…ain’t what she used to be…the old gray mare….she ain’t what she used to be…many long years ago!
Boy do I feel that reality! My weekend warrior spring cleaning is taking a toll on this not so young body of mine! The hot pad and topical sore muscle relief cream have become my best friends.
I remember the days when I would vacuum and wash the floors of my house and then go in to work a full day for an afternoon and evening! That would do me in at this stage of the game…ah, youth how quickly you have faded!
I don’t seem to be able to get quite as much done as I once did.
I do need to pace myself, remember that things take me longer to do, and be realistic that I don’t have quite as much endurance and strength as I once did. This is not easy for me to do.
My mind is much younger in its expectations of the rest of my body!
Perhaps it would be helpful if my mind were to catch up with the rest of my body or perhaps not…best be careful what I wish for!
My mind wishes me forever young and I suppose that is what keeps me going and going in pursuit of the good old energizer bunny that I once was!
What do you notice about the changes in your energy level?
I’ve started my winter “spring cleaning” house projects. It’s the time of year I go through drawers and wipe them out, dust the backs of hanging pictures, move the bigger pieces of furniture and clean behind them. That deep kind of cleaning that freshens up the house. I get it done in winter so I can enjoy tending my yard when spring actually comes.
I’ve decided it is time to say goodbye to some of the things I’ve collected over the years that no longer are needed or used. I’m at that point in life that it’s time to let more things go.
It’s interesting how in our early adult lives we work so hard to collect possessions. And in our later adult lives we work hard to let them go.
Our perspective certainly does change during life.
I form attachment to things. They remind me of a time in my life or a person who perhaps gave the thing to me as a gift. This attachment can make it hard for me to let something go.
What once was important isn’t so much at this age and stage of my life. Earlier I was building a life and working hard to do so. I don’t have to build any more.
Attachment to things seems less important as my perspective shifts.
So my winter “spring cleaning” is creating some bigger give away piles and a few less “stuff’s” in closets and on shelves this year. I suspect this is just the beginning of what lies ahead in the next part of my life’s journey too!
What perspectives do you notice changing at this point in your life’s journey?
I so much am a creature of habit who likes things to stay the same. That is unless of course the change is something that I desire, then I go willingly right along with it and pretty easily accept change. But then I don’t want that change to change.
And heaven forbid that a change is unwanted say because it’s hard to deal with…I certainly don’t want THAT kind of change to happen!
And yet our growth or change starts in our mother’s wombs. We are constantly developing, evolving, changing.
I do struggle with the reality of impermanence. I like to cling to what is particularly when it suits me and often letting go is a struggle.
Let’s face it, on a very basic level, we all want pleasant experiences to linger, to hang around; we don’t really want unpleasant things to happen now do we!
So we resist, we fight it and in doing this we create a great deal of suffering for ourselves. My reaction to change makes all the difference. When we accept change, peace follows.
When I pause and recognize my thinking and my struggle–the resistance, the tantrums, the dug in tootsies, it helps me to smile with myself and relax a bit, let go and accept change. Till the next time that is when change hits me between the eyes and I’m knocked off balance once again.
Awareness means I’m a step removed from the thought itself and notice or observe it rather than being consumed or one with it.
It’s not something that comes naturally for me to do either. It’s far more enticing to be all caught up in my thinking than to step back and notice it with some curiosity. My day however tends to go better when I practice noticing my thoughts rather than live in them. I react with more balance to the world around me.
I’m fairly certain the people I encounter appreciate it when I am more in balance with life too!
What happens for you when you take notice of what your thoughts are doing?
Contact Me together in therapy we can explore life coping tools for you to incorporate into your life’s journey!
Image by syarifahbrit on Freepik
If you are at all like me and perhaps the majority of us, fairly often you want things to be different than they are…especially with life’s challenges.
For example, the tea bag I just tossed in my waste basket fell on the outside of it and I grumbled when I got up to pick it up to place it inside. I wanted it to land there to begin with and I was a bit irritated that it didn’t. Now that’s a very minor example of my resistance to what’s transpired and the subsequent emotional results that my resistance created.
But think about it, things happen all day long. When we have a want for life to be different than how it unfolds, we or rather I create a lot of pain for myself when I make evaluations of those unfolding events.
Minutes, hours, days, weeks, years of letting my brain keep doing what our wonderful brains do—evaluate and judge, adds up to a lot of accumulative distress, misery and pain.
Life is hard and painful enough without adding unnecessary misery to it when we don’t accept life as it is.
After all, I can’t change the fact that my tea bag didn’t arrive in the basket when I initially tossed it after the fact can I! I don’t have the power to go back in time to alter my aim. My grumbling about it and the irritation I felt just caused me a bit of distress that I did to myself by making a judgment.
It can help us to become aware of our thinking and label our judging thoughts as we recognize what we’ve just done. It’s important however not to judge our judgments! Be gentle with yourself for having a brain that is actually doing what our brains our designed to do—evaluate.
Simply noticing the judgment thought will help you disengage from the emotional outcome of your judgment.
You may like me find yourself smiling with yourself too for being very human, for catching a behavior that has a costly emotional effect on your life and ultimately have a little less distress in your day!
What happens to you emotionally when you pass a judgment on things that happen in your day?
Contact Me together in therapy we can explore life coping tools for you to incorporate into your life’s journey!
Photo by Pixabay
I say do change because it’s a process that takes a huge commitment to really makes changes happen. It’s easy to say I’m going to change X, Y or Z. It’s the doing for the long haul that is not an easy task.
Many of us fall off the change horse ride after a short time and don’t get back on again until this same time next year for another go at it.
Perhaps a more useful intention would be to commit to restarting again once we lose the forward momentum that gets us started on the process of change. The loss of momentum is after all is part of the process of change itself. It just is. And it’s important not to judge ourselves for being human too when we take a break from what we’ve started.
Once we notice we’ve ventured off the change path we can gently remind ourselves of the importance of the change and pull ourselves back on track to get moving forward once again.
We might also learn from the process what it is that gets in our way…what triggered the shift? Was it an event that made you more vulnerable? Was it some self-talk that got in your way? Was it that your goal is too big or broad and you need to be more realistic?
Learning more about ourselves is something we do life-long after all.
So here’s to resolving to do a change for a happier New Year to you!
What will you do when you fall of the change horse ride to help yourself get back on and keep riding?
Do Contact Me together in therapy we can explore life coping tools for you to incorporate into your life’s journey!
Photo by Steve Johnson: Pexels
I feel rather demoralized when I turn on the news and watch the systematic decline of the nation’s progress towards equality, inclusion and respect for human decency unfolding in front of my eyes.
It’s been an ugly time that I’ve been at odds with and fought fiercely against in my mind. And, just when I thought that perhaps, just perhaps some progress was being made towards a healthier future for us all, the rug was yanked out from underneath me. I didn’t see it coming. I’ve lost my balance. I’ve felt genuinely lost too.
I keep wondering how we’ve come to be in this place at this point in time having not learned from past historical mistakes that we appear to be repeating.
Maybe it’s a fear of change, of lost position, power and privilege for some and a fear of scarcity this change could bring that fuels a drive to hold on to a past way of life and thinking that is old, self serving and out dated.
This is a sad reality to me. Beneath my outrage a deep sadness flows. I’d thought better of us as a nation.
It is our need for love and the connections we make with others that allows us to best cope with the vulnerability our very human experience brings for each one of us. We really don’t do so well when we try to go it alone in life whether as an individual or as a nation. People can end up bullying others to pump up their very fragile shame filled ego. We see this being played out on our national stage.
Fortunately as the year winds to an end people are speaking out against the bullies and abuse of power. The “Me Too” movement is evidence of that. And true leaders in this country are speaking out for climate change action by promising to honor the Paris accord regardless of the short sighted “me only” attitudes of our elected officials. We can find a collective voice and bring the possibility of a future that moves us all forward not backwards.
I grew up with the lyrics of Beatle, John Lennon’s song “Imagine” in my mind and obviously in my heart too. It must have influenced me more that I realize.
“…imagine all the people living for today, imagine there’s no countries, it isn’t hard to do, nothing to kill or die for, and no religion too, imagine all the people living life in peace…no need for greed or hunger, a brotherhood of man, imagine all the people sharing all the world…you may say that I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one…”
As Mr. Lennon wrote I too…”hope someday you’ll join us, and the world will live as one!” Just imagine what a wonderful world it would be!
Just what do you “imagine” for the world in 2018 and beyond?
This is a time of year when I reflect on the past and those people who have been a part of my life. This reflection brings sadness and grief to the surface for me too. I do miss those people I’ve lost.
We can make a choice to give ourselves the time and space we need to best handle what ever stress this holiday season brings our way—whether it be the grief that comes bubbling to the surface facing our losses, or the strain of finding the perfect gift, or the reality of dealing with family dynamics, or the need to get all that needs to be done finished, or the want of not disappointing others, or the desire to follow all the traditions, or… the emotional stress list can be endless.
Giving yourself permission to do whatever it takes to handle this season with self care in mind may allow you to experience this season with more patience, joy and compassion. What a wonderful gift that would be!
What will you do to take good care of you these next few weeks?
Do Contact Me together in therapy we can explore life coping tools for you to incorporate into your life’s journey!
Photo by Thirdman: Pexels
I cleaned and refreshed the hummingbird feeders in the yard for likely the last time today. I noticed a couple of hummers earlier in the week but have not noticed anyone the last couple of days. They move south in the fall and return in the spring to our area. Along with the darker mornings, spent flowers in my yard and leaves that have started to fall; I hate to see my little hummer friends go!
The season change is a reminder of the reality that change is a constant.
I have to admit that accepting this reality isn’t always an easy task for me to do. I am a creature of routine and habit. Sameness is easy and comfortable. Change often is not.
On the other hand, sameness can get old, boring and dull and change does bring growth and new opportunity.
Since I don’t have control over the sun and how the earth moves around it, I probably need to adjust myself to that which I can not change and remember that which I can change is my perspective and attitude and way of thinking.
Some things are certainly easier to recognize my lack of control over. Others are not so easy to determine. My wise self the blend of my emotion mind and reasonable mind can help me to make that determination.
The Serenity Prayer offers a useful tool to tap into our wise mind when we need to:
“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.”
Becoming aware of my resistance thinking is the first step towards my acceptance of change. We need some quiet internal space to accurately see where our thoughts are leading us. Once I recognize my resistance I am more capable of making the distinction between what I have and have no control over.
So, ok then, I can change my thoughts to what fall brings rather than what fall takes away: fall brings apples, less weed pulling to do, pretty colored leaves to look at, cooler temps to wear fuzzy warm sweaters in, mom’s yummy apple pie, a brightness in the color of the sun, meals with mashed potatoes and gravy…suddenly fall doesn’t seem all so bad!
What helps you accept change in your life?
