• Love and Relationships,  Personal Growth,  Psychology of Life,  Wise Words

    Decisions from the Funeral

    March 24, 2024

    It’s another day for a funeral.

    Today is overcast and wet. Not quite raining, more, just wet. It is not a life-changing funeral for us. I send a prayer to the heavens for that.

    Gulf of Corinth by Mary Newbold Sargent

    Nevertheless, it is an important funeral for us. My husband’s best friend is being laid to rest today.

    It is a tradition that I agree with. I believe it helps us with our many and varied feelings about life. We need the time to work through our relationship with the person who has passed away.

    For some, it is an interruption in a conversation. The interruption could have been a furious argument, or it may have been a soul-searching declaration of love. For any interruption there will remain a sense of incompletion.

    For others it is an end to a time in a life. For the child of, for the spouse of, it is an end to a time. It could be the end of a certain structure, a way of a family’s life. A central figure in the life of the family is gone and the family doesn’t know how to proceed.

    For others it can feel like the end to life itself. Nothing will ever be the same again. Life is unalterably changed, different than it has ever been. And these are those who suffer the most with this grief, with this moment in time. These are those who have lost it all. Most can recover, some will not, instead will follow to the space of darkness, never to return.

    We make the journey to meet all those affected in each different way. For us it is a struggle with mortality. Must death always win? Sometimes death comes with a plan, but other times it is all so sudden and cravenly wrong. Death can steal life in the brightness of day with no warning whatsoever.

    We come to make our peace with the dead man. For this time, we are the lucky ones. Our life will not change with the passing of this man. He will be missed, but the missing will make no change here.

    This funeral demands action

    What we must do in this moment is to grapple with mortality. We must see our own death and our own plans for the day that we pass and thus change our family completely.

    Mrika Selimi from Unsplash

    The finality of death looms over us. It changes our experience of life. If we acknowledge death, we must admit that our denial and anger separate us from each other. Our separation becomes a decision that must be reviewed. Can we really live this life in full resentment of each other? Can we really abide without ever having a conversation with our loved one about our relationship or our pain?

    We have to review our relationship decisions. We must acknowledge the gravity of our treatment of each other. It is a thoughtful time. It is a time of grief.

    Read More
  • Economy of Effort,  Fibromyalgia,  Mental Illness,  Personal Growth,  Psychology of Life,  Womens Issues

    Life Energy and Illness

    February 16, 2024

    I often wonder that our life energy is a finite resource. You are born with an amount of energy, and you cannot have more, no matter how you live. You can definitely get less, but never more. It makes me think that I must be careful with the energy that I have. Some events take huge amounts of energy without conscious expenditure. People don’t realize that life is taking their energy, stealing it to pay for healing a damaged body, or even a damaged heart. Research tells us that stress and the fight or flight response increases cortisol in our bodies.

    These responses to life’s challenges consume our life energy. Instead of a day of life energy, we may lose a month of energy to an awful stressor. Pain can consume us. It can burn through our energy stores like a forest fire on steroids. Great emotional pain is not an exception.

    Life Energy as a Commodity

    As teenagers, we have no awareness of our own energy and certainly none of anyone else’s energy. We believe that all things in our lives are there forever. We don’t believe in our own ability to change and transform. Our lives are permanent as is our constellation of others that we live and love with. This ignorance leads us to spend our energy recklessly.

    We are often fearless and don’t acknowledge a future of aging and our own mortality. The biggest challenge is aging into Fibromyalgia and looking back at those levels of energy and that standard of living.

    There is a well-established link between childhood trauma and chronic illness. Life energy is stolen by childhood trauma, whatever that trauma is / was, the expenditure of life energy to manage the trauma is life altering for the victims.

    teddy bear worn and torn lying on the concrete
    Lost Childhood by trym-nilsen from Unsplash

    These life beginnings are stored deep within our bodies and stay lurking in the shadows. They haven’t gone anywhere, but you couldn’t tell 22 year old me that my life energy had been drained away by the vampires of my childhood. I would have told you that all of that was behind me and that my future was my own.

    As my youth unfurled in front of me. I used my life energy mercilessly. Mothering took 31 years from beginning to the last 18-year-old completed high school. Those years were no holds barred, I worked as hard as necessary to provide everything I could to each and every one of them. That is what made me proud and happy, trying anything to give my children what they needed. I worked full time and went to school at night and when I became single I worked two jobs often.

    We moved often (awful landlords) and I could move an entire household in 3 days and return to work on Monday. I was often exhausted but never acknowledged it.

    Back to the Research

    A retrospective study doesn’t prove causation. A retrospectives study is when researchers ask you about your past life. Researchers notice what is called a correlation. That means that wow, a lot of x ends up when people are y. An example of this is Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) which has a correlation with childhood sexual abuse.

    For people who are diagnosed with BPD, we notice that a majority of them have suffered through childhood sexual abuse. There is no proof that childhood sexual abuse causes BPD, but clearly there is a relationship. This is what is true with fibromyalgia, there is no proof that childhood trauma causes fibromyalgia, but a lot of people who have fibromyalgia suffered through childhood trauma.

    Childhood Trauma then Life…

    It is my theory that it is a function of life energy. Life energy that is sucked away by the horrible stressors of being exposed to trauma and pain in childhood. That spent life energy cannot be earned back and so it must be paid for later in life.

    Fibromyalgia can be many things, but it is primarily pain and fatigue. Of course, pain causes fatigue, but again, there is a deep and abiding fatigue that is the basis within which this illness lives.

    This fatigue stops activity dead in its tracks. This fatigue sends the patient to bed often and unwillingly.

    Life energy is not a popular concept because it implies a finite amount of energy. Instead of being scary, perhaps it can be appreciated more for what it is; a valuable commodity for living a beautiful life.

    Ka Age Institution
    Read More
  • Baby Boomers,  Management,  Psychology of Life,  Womens Issues,  Work

    She’s Gone

    February 9, 2024

    There She Goes

    The woman who needs make-up

    She wore it every day

    Her outfits were always to die for

    She never missed a sale.

    There she goes

    The woman who wears stockings

    But Comfortable shoes

    And a pretty hair clip

    With bobby pins to match

    There she goes

    Dane Deaner of Unsplash

    The woman who needs to buy lipstick

    The woman in a hurry to finish laundry

    She sails through the grocery store

    Wishing for the promised nap

    There she goes

    Rushing towards what is next

    Hoping she doesn’t see her ex   

    Finding a make-up remover that’s gentle

    Her fingernails always need help

    There she goes

    Is the phone charged

    Does the car have gas

    Has her oldest found a babysitter

    Will she get some rest

    There She Goes

    There is always something next

    Always somewhere to be

    Always someone to see

    Always a new need

    And There She’s gone

    There’s no need for lipstick

    No need to track down sales

    And why does she need that make up?

    Or those earrings?

    And She’s gone

    No one cares about her shoes, if

    They don’t fit, so what, no one is looking

    There’ll be no more phone calls,

    Because no one is calling

    She’s gone

    Read More
  • Love and Relationships,  Mental Illness,  Personal Growth,  Psychology of Life,  Speaking as a Parent

    Being Manipulated

    January 13, 2024

    Acquaintances as Therapists in your Conversations

    I’ve noticed in a lot of conversations when people disagree, instead of having a conversation about what they disagree about, one or the other of the people will accuse the other of not being capable of having a clear conversation. It’s usually an accusation about mental health. Comments like “you are too close to see clearly” or “you are letting your grief drive your decision making”, or the perennial favorite, “you are taking it personally”.

    Pop Culture as a Reflection of Life

    This tactic is in the books I read and even on TV. We recently watched Harlan Coben’s adaptation for TV. In a critical moment when a detective was caught out doing something very wrong, instead of a conversation about that, the supervisor was accused of taking things personally. While that sounds like it could be sexist because the supervisor is a woman, instead, it was just typical of how people are treating each other now. I’m reading Nelson and Alex DeMille’s Bloodlines and it’s a common tactic in conversations in this book. People are learning that a successful deflection can happen if they prey on the protagonist’s weaknesses. What this means is awful for everyone involved and no one gets to have a successful conversation about the actual issue.

    Mimi Thian on Unsplash

    Mundane and Daily Abuses

    The conversation goes like this between mom and teen kid. “Seriously, Corey quit leaving your shoes in the walkway, we keep tripping over them.” Corey responds with “Mom, you’re so OCD, can you stop nagging me?” Mom is thoughtful and sensitive and suspects that she may be OCD, (which is a serious mental illness). The conversation gets derailed and instead of Corey learning to be respectful of others and take care of his things, he instead learns to be manipulative and mean. To a teenager, this is a win. Later mom wonders why she is constantly picking up after others.

    So, what do you do when someone deflects? Often, it’s as easy as saying “you’re deflecting”. Other times, not so fast. Especially with those who have been successful in the past and use deflection as a way of life. Many use it as a way to never take accountability of their own actions. Deflect and then move on without ever addressing the real issue. Of course, it’s impossible to have true intimacy in your relationships, nor can you grow professionally if this is your way of doing business with others.

    Helpful Ways of Thinking and Behaving

    It’s important if you are the one who is being accused of an “issue”, that you keep your thoughts on the true issue. Do not allow others to derail you into giving in. It’s so important because it is a matter of having a successful relationship. It’s also a matter of boundaries, no one has the right to tell you how you are thinking or feeling.

    Read More
  • Economic Equality (A Goal),  Hmmm...,  Philosophy,  Psychology of Life

    Everything DOES NOT Happen for a Reason

    January 10, 2024

    The concept that I need to write about is “everything happens for a reason” and what it turns into for people. I just watched a TikTok where a woman discussed how her landlord treated her badly and caused her a lot of distress. Out of that she talked about how she grew as a human and that challenges happen to make you better, blah, blah, blah.

    No! Just like Christians, people who believe in fate are excusing bad people doing bad things. That entire TikTok should have been about how she confronted the landlord and let him know that he behaved quite badly and that he should NOT treat people like that! Why do we keep excusing bad behavior and then later attributing miracles and personal growth to others bad treatment of us?

    Look, I am not denying that fate will bring us growth. Even Eckhart Tolle has commented on the fact that humans who face the greatest challenges are often those that are the most enlightened. What I am saying is quit attributing your growth to the person who caused you pain! I don’t care how much you have grown as a human being, the person who did bad things to you needs to know that they have done bad things and you need to discuss it with them.

    Depending on what they have done to you, they might need punishment, such as in the cases of fraud and violence. There is this grey area out there where something that is NOT illegal turns out to be okay, no, no, it doesn’t.

    If someone lied to you to get you to do something, such as rent their property, then they should be confronted. They should never be given a pass just because your hardship turned out to be good for you.

    Tom Rumble — Unsplash

    This borderline behavior (not illegal, but awful) is becoming normal. Lying is becoming okay, stealing even better. Look at Trump’s many bankruptcies and think about all the economic ruin that he inflicted on others, ruined their lives, just so that he could build hotels. He thinks he is a winner because he got “over-on” all those contractors. Those contractors are people with lives and families that depend on their work. They never got paid. Think on that.

    Let’s stop giving people a pass when they behave badly towards us. Let’s go ahead and tell the world about that bad behavior. Go ahead and press charges if it is at all possible. Go ahead and give some verbal feedback. Sometimes that communication can lead to something good and if it doesn’t that’s fine too.

    Living in the moment requires us to acknowledge the truth of this moment, not some hoped for future, and not some vague personal growth.

    Read More
  • Love and Relationships,  Womens Issues

    Fortyish Women

    January 6, 2024

    Johanna Baynard

    Johanna Baynard

    2 min read

    I am not sure what is happening with women in their 40s, but it looks good. It puts me in mind of myself at that age and I remember it as a time of extreme freedom. That freedom so hard to attain, was from myself. I’ve always believed I am an unusual creature and never gave my thoughts, any thought.

    BB self portrait

    I am looking now at my daughter’s generation, my stepdaughter and their high school groups and I am seeing the same thing in them that I saw in myself.

    They’ve gained something with age. They are gorgeous women, one and all and they don’t fear claiming it. In fact, they are proclaiming that beauty without being braggy or overly conceited, they simply are.

    Rhea

    The inner beauty shines through with an inner prose that tells the story of their own lives. Those lives are well lived.

    There is a coming of age that is occurring in these women’s eyes. It is a coming of age that is well earned. It says, I am a woman, and even with that societal handicap, I am going to come out on top. Even with that handicap, I am going to feel better, do better and earn better and I am going to do it on my own.

    Johanna Jr

    These women will not be cowed. They will call out the BS so commonly dished out by others. They don’t hesitate to defend themselves and each other. Don’t dare to get near to their offspring in a threatening way, you will suffer their ire harshly.

    They love the luxury of a man, but it is a luxury, not a necessity. Being with a man may be divine, they can and will choose the time and place for divinity.

    Society nor man gets to dictate the lives of these women, nor the desires, no, but thank you.

    Women

    Love

    Aging Well

    Relationships

    Read More
  • Congress,  Corporate Greed,  Economic Equality (A Goal),  Politics

    Aw, Come on, Trump?

    December 13, 2023

    Johanna Baynard

    Johanna Baynard

    2 min read

    ·

    1 day ago

    Are there so many people in America disenfranchised from the main stream that Trump is a viable candidate? I mean at first I understood it.

    Trump is the white man’s last stand, I get it! Feminism and women in the work force is taking men down. They are all coming down and if not directly, then indirectly. Toxic masculinity group loves Trump, and they should, he stands for them. The “tragic masculinity” group, according to S.A. Cosby is self-aware, but can’t quite reach sensitivity. Many of them may also be following Trump.

    Yet, seriously, who else is following this guy? There can’t be that many stupid women.

    Aren’t we tired of blaming Biden for everything. Economists have proven that he is NOT responsible for rising prices, in fact now that prices are dropping, I’m not seeing anyone congratulating Biden. It may have been his fault that gas prices were high, but isn’t it Biden who deserves the credit for making gas prices low?

    Even the larger news outlets are reporting that high prices are due to corporate greed run amok. These guys are going overboard with price increases.

    Come on people, quite talking out of both sides of your mouth. Or is everything that is good due to Republicans (cue a picture of Jerry Falwell praising God.)?

    Are folks really listening to Joe Rogan so hot and heavy that there is no other reality? No one acknowledges the billion dollars that Jared Kushner received from Saudi Arabia while Trump was in office? The Republicans are still chasing Hunter Biden. Joe Rogan is obviously one of “those” guarding toxic masculinity with his entire energy.

    Aw Come on! Really, the best you got is Trump?

    JB Collection

    We need democracy in this country, not a dictator, nor do we need aristocracy. What makes us great, what makes us the best, is that every human in the United States (over the age of 18) has an equal right to vote.

    We need democracy in the United States, we need to vote, please vote to maintain your right to vote.

    Politics

    Elections

    Masculinity

    Corporate Greed

    Biden

    Read More
  • Love and Relationships,  Personal Growth,  Psychology of Life,  Speaking as a Parent,  Wise Words

    An Ode to Planning Your Future

    December 10, 2023

    Warning You About Life, Yes Warning for Young People

    This article is for you if you are middle or moving towards middle class.

    Good grief watching people grow into adulthood is difficult. My mother let me be when I was growing up. It is just the way it was. I was fiercely independent (why?) and she accepted my decision making. Even if she didn’t she was too busy working and killing herself by overworking to do anything about my choices as a child.

    Luckily I had some good ideas about where I wanted to go in life and what I wanted to do. I always had the idea that I was going forward, myself, not by directorate but because of my own ideas and wisdom.

    Youth

    I look at the wisdom word now and laugh, I had no wisdom then. Then I made a bad decision and married young and had 2 babies as a teenager. It was a bad decision because I was dumped very shortly after my youngest was born and was immediately in poverty with a real sense of desperation.

    Of course my mother helped me and protected my children. She even covered for me when all the struggling in the world was not enough to feed those children. This was back in the day when a father could abandon his child and get away with it.

    This is one of those decisions with very long term consequences. I can’t tell you how many times (countless) I said to myself: You made the choice to have children first, it precedes this moment, your duty is to them, the preceding decision.

    College is a Good Thing:

    How much more do college graduates earn than high school graduates and then high school dropouts? The margin is wide.

    I was lucky in that my life worked out to give me college. I was even able to go to graduate school. This balanced me and gave me the horizon I needed to continue, to be a professional and therefor to integrate into society. My mother’s family always worked on the edge of society. Patsy was a bartender for thirty years until the day that she died.

    Back to warning: those early decisions set the stage for your entire life, hence the warning. Sure, you can recover, I did. Make no mistake, the 10 years will cost you. The thing about it is, making those decisions at that age is always intense. You want to make decisions for yourself, but you also know that your parents are smart. How do you decide? Youth is hard.

    Photo by Nicolas Lobos on Unsplash

    Adulthood

    You get in the game; you’ve finally made it into adulthood only to discover that the game is rigged. I was 36 years old before I figured this out. I had managed a very successful business, and I was rocketing to the C-Suite when I found out that I would have to play by unethical rules to reap the rewards of the C-Suite.

    I had done all the things. These things that are requirements for successful middle class living only to find out that it doesn’t work for everyone. I was divorced. Shame on me. Then I was stalked. Then nasty things were implied then said and then done to me.

    It brought me to my knees. But it didn’t impoverish me, not this time.

    Get Back to Work

    Of course I got up and got back to work. It cost me. I swore off the C-Suite. My friend hired me, I told him no promotions, never, I would stay where I was. For the most part, I did.

    And you move on, then you move on. You think that you might want love and all the accoutrements. But that doesn’t work out either. And still, you move on.

    Be Thoughtful

    Whatever you do, be thoughtful. If fifty people tell you something about you, you might want to believe it. Don’t turn 40 years old and go “oh shit, how did I get here?” You can go online anytime to https://www.ssa.gov/  to see a perfect recorded history of your work life. That’s important information. My own son did not know that Social Security benefits entitled his wife to widow’s benefits if he passed away.

    Warning: Life Gets You, and not in a good way. Start out slow, trust older people who love you – yeah they have an agenda, but they also have wisdom: something that you don’t have when young.

    Read More
  • Congress,  Corporate Greed,  Economic Equality (A Goal),  Poverty,  Psychology of Life

    The Audacity of Those Who Believe they are above the Law

    December 1, 2023

    and How they Use Meritocracy to Justify

    And they are trained to it. They are trained to believe that they are better. That’s what the myth of Meritocracy is all about.

    This Woman Works 40 hours a week and cannot afford a car.

    If you MERIT more, then you get more. How do you merit more? In America, you have to be a white man. What American slang will say is “right off rip” you get more in life by virtue of being a white man. But wait, that’s not merit! Well yeah, yeah it is~ Google AI says:

    • Noun:
      • Worth or superior quality
      • Excellence
      • A deserving or commendable quality or act
      • Something deserving reward, praise, or gratitude
      • A reward or honor given for superior qualities or conduct
      • A grade in an exam or for a piece of work at school or university that is very good

    Note that the very first line says, “worth or superior quality”. If you have been around any fraternity, you will notice that each and every person in the fraternity feels that they “merit” a better life than others.

    And yet, here is the truth about our American system:

    Twitter:
    @DarrigoMelanie

    Walmart reported $453 million in profits last quarter. They’ve spent $1.3 billion on stock buybacks this year. Their CEO received $24.1 million in compensation last year. More than half of Walmart’s employees still earn less than a living wage.

    Many people believe that this is a just system. Those who are managing this system obviously believe that it is a just system, but what about everyone else? Many of my friends look down on others and they use meritocracy to justify it.

    Work in America, Library of Congress

    People all over the world practice one upmanship on each other. This is a survival skill. Being on the bottom of the “regard” pile is unsafe. Everyone treats you badly and you could be murdered here. Murder can occur without thought and without anyone knowing and without anyone caring.

    This is the danger you are in if you are at the bottom of the humanity pile.

    How do we humans get to safety? How is it possible to make us all safe? Mark ourselves safe from each other: One upmanship, that’s how. If I am “better” than you, I am more valuable to my community, therefore a threat will see YOU (the lesser being) being sacrificed. The people who own Walmart do give money to others. They give money to politicians because they want to make sure that the minimum wage is not increased. That is how they “merit” billions of dollars by keeping the minimum wage very low.

    How do Politicians Control Costs for the Wealthy?

    According to the Fulcrum: “Many of us have worked from home during the pandemic, but not everybody has that luxury. Have you been to your local grocery store? Minimum wage workers who have kept food on our tables have been called “frontline heroes” – and yet when the chance arose to increase their wage to $15 an hour, the proposal was voted down. And the vote was not just along party lines – eight Democrats joined Republicans in rebuffing the bill.”

    You can bet that the majority of those who voted against increasing the minimum wage are: White, Male and people who are not affected by minimum wage, ever. Thank you Congress, for stampeding all over poor people.

    How Does Walmart Do It?

    The formula for American companies is to artificially depress the cost of the service or product by using “slave” labor. This formula allows the company to keep the profits high and those profits go directly into the pockets of owners and shareholders.  The companies can’t control any other costs effectively: Who can control energy costs or the effectively: Who can control energy costs or the cost of plastic?

    To My Friend Mary~

    No Mary, giving people a living wage does not threaten YOU. It threatens the billionaires because their profit decreases. Don’t worry, they will just pay Congress to put more money in their own pockets. There now Mary, rest easy, you can still afford your spa treatments.

    Read More