Category: problems

Keep On

by worrylessjourney, posted in anxiety, consequences, coping, persistence, perspective, problems, safety, strength, Uncategorized

 

persistance

Life can be pretty scary. The news tells us nothing good. There is anger and violence everywhere. That may explain why so many of us have anxiety. Maybe to be anxious is the right response to what is going on around us. Lately I have heard nothing but bad news. People I care about are sick and quite a few have very rare problems. Is this because we have too many people on the earth or because the earth is tired of us and wants to shake us off? Too much to think about.

The trouble with anxiety is that is grows exponentially. It starts small and you can get past it and then it begins growing like a virus and you find that it has taken over. You are no longer living life but just existing. There has to be a way beyond this. It’s understandable that any help has to be started long before the problem arises. If not it’s not strong enough to push the anxiety down. The trouble is when everything is ok we tend to ignore the fact that something has to be done beforehand. Again, we come back to persistence and determination. Just putting one foot in front of the other. We have to keep moving forward.

 

Coping

by worrylessjourney, posted in acceptance, anxiety, balance, choices, control, coping, depression, emotions, feelings, learn, problems

Life can be challenging. Sometimes things become overwhelming and we feel as if we are drowning. The feeling that one more thing will put you over the edge is awful. When that happens we have to use any tools we have in our tool box to bring us back from the edge. Many ideas have been brought up in the blogs on Word Press and I have tried many of them. Some work and some don’t. The good news is that we can try different things and see what works for us.

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My granddaughter says that every school should teach Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. She says that all children need to learn the skills that are taught in that program. I suspect  she is right. There are so many issues cropping up with children today that we have to change something.

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I feel that I was lucky to have learned many coping skills from my mother but I am not sure that many people have that advantage today. We are such a society of quick fix that we don’t learn to cope with anything. One of the doctors that I worked for said that what people want is to come to a drive-in window and have the doctor reach out and say “heal” and it will be done.

Coping is learned when faced with real life. If we think that nothing should ever go wrong we are much mistaken. I worry about people who have never faced up to a major problems as they have not learned how to cope.

Live your beliefs

by worrylessjourney, posted in accountable, belief, choices, compassion, consequences, frustration, misunderstanding, problems, true story

A number of years ago my husband and I had a house that we rented. Some people moved in and at first it was perfect. They paid rent on time and the house (from the outside) looked good.

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As time went on the husband told us that his wife was sick and they would be late with the rent. This went on with them occasionally paying something on the rent. My husband and I felt sorry for them to be going through such a tough time.

Then it got to where they were paying no rent but continued to tell us their many problems. We were worried but we were too kind to put them out. Two of their grown sons came and went along with other relatives. Now we were more worried. Then one day they came and told us they were moving. This actually was a relief. They left and we went into the house. Things were damaged everywhere. It took much money and lots of work on our part to fix the house up to rent again. We later learned that the sons were selling drugs from the house.

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Now we could haunt ourselves with how stupid we were to let this happen. And you are right…we shouldn’t. But here’s the thing…we consider ourselves to be good people….worthy of being called Christian and that is how we live. We wouldn’t let that happen again but they were the bad people not us.

I know that they left saying how dumb we were but being told of the wife’s illness ( and she really was sick) we lived out our commitment to be compassionate. It gives us a twinge once in a while but we lived what we believe.

They must be taught

by worrylessjourney, posted in belief, children, consequences, peacemakers, problems, violence, violence is taught

This week I have been assigned two Community Conference cases. After reading the information on both of them I am amazed at what teachers are dealing with. I don’t know how anyone can teach in an environment with so many problems. From my recent experience I see so much violence erupting in the schools. Students get in arguments and their way of solving them is to get in a fight. This is not high school….this is middle school.

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violence is learned

The environment of violence that we live in today is being played out by children! This is how they have learned to react. They have no experience with other ways to handle disputes and disagreements. We have to find ways to break the cycle. The Mediation Center does have a program that goes into the schools and teaches groups how to mediate a dispute and there are peer groups that are trying to help.

This culture of violence will continue until we teach alternatives to young children and help them to be played out in Elementary School. We have to stop it early.

A government by the people???

by worrylessjourney, posted in aggravations, anxiety, change, control, greed, Immoral, morals, problems, unbelievable, unfixable

A nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.

John F. Kennedy

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People who lived during the Kennedy days know that he was not perfect. We do, however, know how intelligent he was. I don’t think anyone can be a perfect president. It’s not possible.

Today I am distressed and anxious about out government. It is impossible to know what to believe. News is no longer news but opinion. We can’t count on what we hear or read to be the truth. There is so little actual work being done. Time is only spent trying to destroy each other. This is not how our congress is supposed to be.

I find the quote by Kennedy to reflect where we are now. I’m not sure that it the whole nation that is afraid of its people but those in charge. The people are seen as uneducated, unprincipled, undisciplined and unable to think clearly. Those in power see themselves as the only ones who can determine the future path of our nation. They have no desire to follow the pleas of the people begging for changes to set the government in order. What do we do to make them hear and understand?

People matter

by worrylessjourney, posted in acceptance, aggravations, balance, choices, consequences, coping, emotions, expectations, perspective, problems, sadness

expect-e1573855705917.jpgToday is my 79th birthday. I was hoping that it would be a good day but my hope was in vain. While backing out of a parking place my car caught on someones bike rack and pulled loose a part of the side panel on my car.

This is my favorite car that I have ever had. It is not going to be difficult or expensive to fix as it looks as if it just needs to be popped back but it really got to me. I don’t know if it’s because I was expecting a good day or if it is because the car is my favorite.

It is not usual for me to be so upset about something like that but I am. Just one of those days.

 

I have talked to many times about how life is never boring and here it is again. The fact that it is not boring can be because of something good or something bad. Today it was something bad. We will get the car fixed and all will be well. Now all I have to do is get myself back to a better state of mind. By tomorrow this will just be a bump in the road. After all, for me, it is not things that are important but people. Remember that when things go wrong that can be dealt with.

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People matter!

Work place stress

by worrylessjourney, posted in aggravations, consequences, frustration, judging, little things, perspective, problems, stress

One of the joys that I have being retired is that I don’t have to work with bullies or crazy people. Over my years of working I have had to deal with many different types. Fortunately for me the people closest to me were usually wonderful.

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Over my working years I read a lot about how to handle situations at work and sometimes the advice worked and sometimes not. In my last job, as a parish nurse, the major frustration was not the staff but those elected by the congregation to sit on a board. The major headache is a typical one for any workplace in that the people who don’t do the work make decisions for the workers. If you are not the person doing the job you really have no idea how improve the work.

I think they were glad to see me go as in that job I didn’t have to work and was free to bring up any problems. May be why I am not there.

I once heard a consultant who “fixed” major corporations asked how he found out what needed to change. He said that he dressed like the workers, had no one tell anyone he was there, and spent time with those doing the jobs. He asked them how they did their job and how and what they would change to make it better. He took that information, wrote it up as his report and submitted it. I wonder if the companies followed his advice.

 

Choose one of the following options

by worrylessjourney, posted in aggravations, choices, electronic devices, frustration, humor, persistence, problems

If anyone wonders why we use the internet to take care of things then this will help you to understand.

Today I called a Dr’s office. The first thing I got was a voice telling me that I had reached the ”Surgery Center” and to listen carefully to the options offered. The first option told me that if I was a physician to press one. The second offered to take me to the physician’s office where I could make an appointment. Ok, I pressed 2. A voice told me that my call would be answered in the order that it arrived. Fine. So I waited. Voices assured me that my call was important and that someone would be with me soon. This repetition went on for 6 minutes. Finally the phone started ringing. It seemed that someone would actually answer my call. Well…..maybe. The phone rang and rang and rang…………. I watched the clock. It had actually been ringing for 2 minutes when someone picked up.

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This was not my first rodeo. I once called where I was born to get a copy of my birth certificate. That was after I discovered that the original was no longer acceptable. I called the number listed and I was given the multiple choice quiz again. I punched the number for birth certificates and got a nice lady who assured me that I could get a copy. All I had to do was mail a check with the request. I asked her for the address and was told that she didn’t have it. She couldn’t transfer me to the other department instead I had to dial in again and listen to the choices. Fine. After getting the address I had to dial in again to find out how much money to send. Each time I needed something I had to start over. It was a matter of “you can’t get there from here.”

Whenever possible I avoid calling. I email, text, chat, whatever but I don’t call unless it’s 911 for an ambulance.

Good/Bad whatever!

by worrylessjourney, posted in acceptance, aggravations, blessings, consequences, coping, electronic devices, life, perspective, problems, understanding

Life is never boring. I wondered why I was so warm and checked the thermostat and it is  way warm in the house. Obviously the air conditioner is out again. Oh well, it will cool down to the 60’s tonight and we can get cool again. We have a friend who fixes air and he will come tomorrow and see what’s up. At least this time we don’t have company.

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It seems like you can never get ahead. That is the negative side. The positive side is that I think we can manage to pay for a new one. The only problem is that we are retired and on fixed income. We have just finished repairing the bathroom and here we are again. We suspect that the air conditioner has died a natural death. It is, in fact, very old. There are two ways of looking at everything. Hopefully this will be something that my sense of humor can cover….in the future but not right now.

Naturally the upcoming week is showing highs in the 80’s instead of the slightly cool temps we had last week. Also it is so humid the air feels thick. Until Thursday it will not cool much at night so little chance to bring the inside temp down.

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There! I have had my rant for the day. Life goes on and I am actually grateful for so many things that this is just a bump in the road. I will put my gratitude list on my mirror and read it every day.

 

We are a whole being

by worrylessjourney, posted in answers, brain/gut connection, change, connections, emotions, healing, health, medical, needs, perspective, problems, stress, wholeness

For years the common thinking among physicians was that anxiety and depression caused digestive symptoms such as IBS, constipation, diarrhea and possibly even Crohn’s Disease or Ulcerative Colitis. Now the pendulum is falling the other way. the Brain/Gut connection is becoming more important in treating people with such problems. I have long realized that my IBSD causes anxiety and if bad enough depression. I am glad that treating the whole person is becoming part of how medicine thinks.

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We are definitely complex beings and anything that affects us physically or mentally cannot be separated out into one or the other. Physicians have divided up into specialties and seem to focus on that area. It is understandable as medicine has become so complex. You can’t know everything about everything. We need a different specialty the “wholeness doctor” who tries to put the pieces together. I know that there are now DO’s and other categories of people who look more at the whole person but we need more of it.

I hope that in the future we have those physicians who take the information from all of the specialists and put it all together. This is what Internists would like to do but getting the reports and information from other doctors is like pulling teeth. This has to be worked out also.

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We are not parts stuck together but a whole just waiting to be understood.