Vacation Notice

I will be away from my desk,

from September 16, 2012 through October 1, 2012.

See you then!

Subject: Fwd: A gift from the US Post Office

What a thoughtful heart.


This will truly touch your heart.

We don't know who replied, but there is a beautiful soul working in the dead letter office of the US postal service.

Our 14-year-old dog Abbey died last month. The day after she passed away my 4-year-old daughter Meredith was crying and talking about how much she missed Abbey. She asked if we could write a letter to God so that when Abbey got to heaven, God would recognize her. I told her that I thought we could so, and she dictated these words: 

Dear God,
Will you please take care of my dog? She died yesterday and is with you in heaven. I miss her very much. I am happy that you let me have her as my dog even though she got sick.
I hope you will play with her. She likes to swim and play with balls. I am sending a picture of her so when you see her you will know that she is my dog. I really miss her.
Love, Meredith

We put the letter in an envelope with a picture of Abbey and Meredith and addressed it to God/Heaven. We put our return address on it. Then Meredith pasted several stamps on the front of the envelope because she said it would take lots of stamps to get the letter all the way to heaven. That afternoon she dropped it into the letter box at the post office. A few days later, she asked if God had gotten the letter yet. I told her that I thought He had.

Yesterday, there was a package wrapped in gold paper on our front porch addressed, 'To Meredith' in an unfamiliar hand. Meredith opened it. Inside was a book by Mr. Rogers called, 'When a Pet Dies.' Taped to the inside front cover was the letter we had written to God in its opened envelope. On the opposite page was the picture of Abbey & Meredith and this note: 

Dear Meredith,
Abbey arrived safely in heaven. Having the picture was a big help and I recognized her right away.
Abbey isn't sick anymore. Her spirit is here with me just like it stays in your heart. Abbey loved being your dog. Since we don't need our bodies in heaven, I don't have any pockets to keep your picture in so I am sending it back to you in this little book for you to keep and have something to remember Abbey by.
Thank you for the beautiful letter and thank your mother for helping you write it and sending it to me. What a wonderful mother you have. I picked her especially for you. I send my blessings every day and remember that I love you very much. By the way, I'm easy to find. I am wherever there is love.

Love, God

Perfection

The Ballerina by Mary Tying 

Perfection is careful but not cautious.  She burned her hands many times before she learned to pay attention.  She says that hers is the most difficult job in the world.  The post was vacant for nearly three years.  Most people do not even make it past the first interview, and retirement is mandatory after nine years.  About halfway through the fifth year Perfection started feeling like she was falling apart and dissolving into space.  This recent episode humbled her.  She had never realized how strongly we resist being broken open.  She discovered that her greatest strengths grew out of her strongest weaknesses.

Perfection needs to keep moving.  Otherwise she becomes swollen with her obsessions.  She has learned to dance into the very center of her fears.  She is not impressed by false modesty and the fronts we develop to hide our beauty.  She is grieved by how fiercely we hate ourselves and yet refuse to change.  She honors our flaws.

Excerpt from, The Book of Qualities, by J. Ruth Gendler

Non Sequitur

The Making of an Optimist

Wine Country Afternoon by Leon Roulette

Promise Yourself
 
To be so strong that nothing can disturb your peace of mind.

To talk health, happiness, and prosperity to every person you meet.

To make all your friends feel that there is something in them.

To look at the sunny side of everything and make your optimism come true.

To think only the best, to work only for the best and expect only the best.

To be just as enthusiastic about the success of others as you are about your own.

To forget the mistakes of the past and press on to the greater achievements of the future.

To give so much time to the improvement of yourself that you have no time to criticize others.

To be too large for worry, too noble for anger, too strong for fear,
and too happy to permit the presence of trouble.

The Optimist Clubs Of America

Guilt

Conception Mission Doorway by Jess Thompson

From, The Book of Qualities, by J. Ruth Gendler

Guilt is the prosecutor who knows how to make every victim feel like the criminal.  She follows the scent of doubt and self-hatred to its sources.  She will not tell you what you have done wrong.  Her silence is brutal.  Her disapproval surrounds you in an envelope of cold nameless terror.

Guild thinks I am hopelessly lazy because I won't work the way she does.  Her court cases are scheduled years in advance.  She says horrible things about me to the neighbors.  In self-defense sometimes I tell people what she says about me before she has the chance.  I don't care as much as I did, but I can't pretend I don't care at all.

You may recognize Guilt's footsteps before you see her coming.  She limps like a crippled bird.  Even though her broken ankle is healing, the wound in her heart has become infected.

Brief Reflection on Life

Sunset Daisy by Peter R. Cannon

"Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away."  

Maya Angelou

How CHILDREN SUCCEED

How Children Succeed
Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character
by Paul Tough

A child's success can't be measured in IQ scores, standardized tests or vocabulary quizzes, says author Paul Tough. Success, he argues, is about how young people build character. Tough explores this idea in his new book, How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity and the Hidden Power of Character.

"For some people, [the] path to college is so easy that they can get out into life and they've never really been challenged," he tells NPR's David Greene. "I think they get into their 20s and 30s and they really feel lost — they feel like they never had those character-building experiences as adolescents, as kids, that really make a difference when they get to adulthood."

That wasn't true for the teenagers Tough met during the time he spent in some of Chicago's roughest neighborhoods. There, he worked with teenagers overcoming unimaginable challenges. One young woman he worked with had been sexually abused by a relative, was getting into fights in school and was on the verge of dropping out. But then she entered an intensive mentoring program that changed her life.

"She made it through high school, overcame a lot of obstacles and now is getting a cosmetology degree," Tough says. "For some people, that wouldn't be a huge success. But for her, she overcame obstacles that won't only set her on a path for material success, but also psychological success."

The difference-maker really depends on the person, Tough says. Mentoring programs that focus on goal-setting can be helpful, and he also says parents should try to help their kids manage stress from a very early age.


Paul Tough is also the author of Whatever It Takes: Geoffrey Canada's Quest to Change Harlem and America.

Interview Highlights

On stressed-out baby rats, and what they can tell us about stressed-out baby humans

"When baby rats got stressed out — when they were handled by lab technicians, let's say — there were some mother rats who would lick and groom their baby rats and others who would not. And so the scientists got interested in this one particular behavior, and they tried to figure out what kind of difference it made. As they did a series of experiments, they found out it made a huge difference. The rats who as babies were licked and groomed did much better on all sorts of things when they reached adulthood. They were braver, more curious; it had actually changed the shape of certain parts of their brains.

"I think there's a real parallel there for humans — we don't know for sure that our brains work exactly like rat brains, but I think there's a lot of parallels between that and research on attachment. Psychologists who have studied attachment have found that when human kids have that same kind of licking and grooming-style bonding with their parents, especially in the first year of life, it gives them all sorts of psychological strength, confidence [and] character that, when they reach school age and even into adulthood, will make a huge difference in how well they do."

On being a parent, and knowing when to let go

When kids are really young — when they're in their first year or two of life — my sense from the research is you can't be too loving.
- Author Paul Tough
"There are two stages [of parenthood] and it's hard to tell where the transition goes from one to the other. When kids are really young — when they're in their first year or two of life — my sense from the research is you can't be too loving. ... What kids need at that point is just support, attention, parents who are really attuned to the child's needs. But at some point somewhere around 1, or 2 or 3, that really starts to change and what kids need is independence and challenge. And certainly as kids get into middle childhood and into adolescence, that's exactly what they need. They need less parenting. ... They need parents to really stand back, let them fall and get back up, let them fight their own battles."

On rethinking predictors of success

"Absolutely, cognitive skill and IQ make a big difference; vocabulary matters. But the scientists, the economists and neuroscientists and psychologists who I've been studying and writing about are really challenging the idea that IQ, that standardized test scores, that those are the most important things in a child's success. I think there's lots of evidence out there now that says that these other strengths, these character strengths, these noncognitive skills, are at least as important in a child's success and quite possibly more important."

Paul Tough is also the author of Whatever It Takes: Geoffrey Canada's Quest to Change Harlem and America.

Grief

Living With Grief: How to Survive a Significant Loss
by Dr. Ilona L. Tobin 

One of the hardest things we’ll ever experience is the loss of someone—or something—dear to us. Grieving is a normal and natural response to this loss. While death is one of the most common losses, grief also comes with other big and small life changes, such as a serious illness, the end of a relationship, the loss of a job, relocating to an unfamiliar city, or other lifestyle changes.

Even if you aren’t currently grieving, it can be beneficial to think about the grief process. At its core, grief is a part of the experience of being alive…and human. And while grief isn’t pleasant, it can give us insight, compassion and strength that we wouldn’t otherwise have found.

Here are some ways to access those greater qualities, survive a significant loss or help someone experiencing grief.

1. Expect a process.
In stark contrast to how frequently TV characters talk about “getting closure,” in reality, grief is an ongoing experience. The goal of grieving isn’t to “get to the bottom of it” or to stop feeling a certain way. Instead, it’s a process of learning to live with your emotions every day and every moment. Even years later, reminders like a special day or the smell of a favorite meal may trigger a fresh wave of memories and feelings linked to the loss.

2. Acknowledge the loss.
“When a person is born we rejoice, and when they’re married we jubilate,” wrote Margaret Mead, “but when they die we try to pretend nothing has happened.” If someone in your life is grieving, do your best to acknowledge that something has happened. Avoid clichés. Don’t force a conversation if the person isn’t ready to talk. While it may feel awkward, a simple gesture like a hug or sitting together in silence can have meaning. An offer to help with a household task, such as running errands or making a meal, can also go a long way.

3. Do the grief work.
In our fast-paced world, we tend to expect things to be quick, direct and convenient. Living with grief isn’t any of these things. There is no “one-size-fits-all” solution, no series of steps to make it hurt less, no magical approach that shortens the time it takes to heal. Instead, living with grief requires us to feel our feelings, fully and completely. In the words of poet Emily Dickinson: “The best way out is through.”

4. Ask for help.
Lean on your support system. If you’re not sure how to ask for help, “I’m having a hard time…” is a good way to start. If you need help beyond what your friends and family can provide, seek the support of a grief group as well as your counselor or therapist.

As with any process, it takes time to learn new skills and ways to cope with grief. Be gentle with yourself as you experience strong feelings. That kindness toward yourself can be the important first step toward a broader healing that will have ramifications after the grief has subsided.

Ilona Tobin has been a psychologist and a marriage and family therapist for more than 25 years in Birmingham, Michigan.

Loneliness

Loneliness by Artist Ewa Gawlik

Coping with Loneliness
by Dr. Ilona L. Tobin 
“Loneliness,” writes Abigail Van Buren, “is the ultimate poverty.”

As humans we are social beings, but sometimes we lose touch with that social part of ourselves—or we don’t have enough chances to exercise it. When this happens, we may feel lonely and isolated.

What Loneliness Is—and Isn’t

Loneliness is the feeling that we would like more connection, community and companionship than we think we have.

The curious thing about feeling lonely is that it has roots in a measurement. When we feel lonely, we are measuring the amount of social interaction we have against our ideal of desire for how much we would like to have. That “ideal” differs with each individual and can change over time.

We wish that the phone would ring with invitations from our friends. We want our weekends to include activities with people we like. We long for an intimate relationship that’s loving, stimulating and fun. We’d rather not eat our meals alone. And when those things don’t happen, we may feel lonely.

There are two important distinctions to make when talking about loneliness. The first is that loneliness is different from solitude. If you’ve ever craved “time to yourself,” you know that being alone and enjoying your own company can be a restful, replenishing and even a creative or spiritual experience. Loneliness, in contrast, doesn’t “fill us up” the way solitude can. It drains us.

The second distinction is that feeling lonely is different from being depressed. Depression is an ongoing state of feeling low and avoiding activity. While loneliness can certainly contribute to depression, feeling lonely once in a while is a normal part of being human. It usually ebbs and flows with what’s going on in our lives, whereas depression doesn’t pass as easily or quickly.

How to Cope When You’re Feeling Lonely

When you’re feeling lonely, here are some things you can do to comfort yourself:

1. Check-in with yourself. Are you waiting for others to take action instead of doing so yourself? Are you worried about what might happen if you reached out, asked for support or made an invitation? As you explore what you’re feeling underneath the loneliness, be gentle with yourself.

2. Reach out. Do you have a friend you can call? You don’t have to share how you’re feeling; sometimes just talking with someone you care about and hearing how they are doing can lift your spirits. (Your reaching out will make them feel cared for, too!)

3. Make a move, make a stretch. Do an activity that nourishes you, such as going for a walk, being in nature or snuggling your pet. Or stretch outside of your comfort zone but without overwhelming yourself. Accept an invitation that sounds fun. Find a book group or a cooking circle. Use your loneliness as an invitation to try something new and meet like-minded people you enjoy.

Loneliness is something we all experience from time to time. But it can also be a call to action, a message that we need more connection in our lives, and that the time has come to seek it out.

Ilona Tobin has been a psychologist and a marriage and family therapist for more than 25 years in Birmingham, Michigan.

Feel Better About Yourself

Passion by Theus Alayo

10 ways to change your life by Dr. Ilona L. Tobin

Too often we take care of other people’s needs, shunning activities that have the most meaning for us. Here are 10 ways to take back your life.

 1.Create goals. Get clear on what you really want, write it down and start to take action toward your goals.

 2.Commit to your own agenda. As much as possible, before helping others each day, complete the tasks that move you toward your goals.

 3.Set boundaries. When you heed your own agenda, you will likely need to set boundaries with the people in your life.

 4.Say no when you want to. Respecting your true desires is liberating.

 5.Do something you’ve always wanted to do. Fulfilling long-held wishes brings joy and empowerment.

 6.Seek balance. Which of these aspects need attention: social/family, spiritual/creative, career or health?

 7.Eat well and exercise. Take charge of your energy by treating your body well.

 8.Clear clutter. Creating an orderly and beautiful physical environment positively affects our sense of internal order and makes space for the new.

 9.Pursue completion. Avoiding unfinished tasks, things that remain unsaid and relationships that need closure, hijacks our thoughts and saps our energy.

10.Get support/find allies. Get help processing uncomfortable feelings and seek friendships with people who appreciate and support your taking charge of your life


Ilona Tobin has been a psychologist and a marriage and family therapist for more than 25 years in Birmingham, Michigan.

Why Politicians Lie

Cutting-Edge Leadership 
The best in current leadership research and theory, from cultivating charisma to transforming your organization. by Ronald E. Riggio, Ph.D.

Why Politicians Lie (and Why We Let Them Get Away With It)What psychological factors cause us to trust lying politicians? 
Published on August 30, 2012 by Ronald E. Riggio, Ph.D. in Cutting-Edge Leadership

There has been a firestorm of editorials discussing politicians’ lying in speeches and interviews. This has been capped by vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan’s speech at the Republican National Convention that has fact-checking reporters and bloggers concerned about the sheer amount of lies and distortions in the speech.

So, the question is why do politicians so often lie, exaggerate, and distort the facts? The short answer is that it works! People are notoriously bad at detecting when others are lying, and there are several psychological reasons for this.

The Trusting Bias. We tend to trust people too much. Our default psychological mechanism is to believe rather than disbelieve (unless we are in law enforcement, or other professions concerned with professional liars). That is why we are such easy targets for con artists, AND politicians. 

Cognitive Laziness. When we hear a claim by a politician, we often don’t (and don’t want to – particularly if the politician is one we support) engage in the mental and physical effort to fact check. Together with the trusting bias, we figure that “he said it, so it must be true.”

Audacious Lying is Effective Lying. In politics (and to some extent in social life), the more outlandish or audacious the lie, the more likely people are to believe it if the source is considered at least minimally credible. Even though politicians are on the bottom rungs of “trustworthy” professionals, when it comes to political facts and figures, we give them the benefit of the doubt, and figure, “that seems so crazy that he must be telling the truth,” and cognitive laziness ensures that we don’t check it out.

Win At All Costs. Politicians justify their lies and distortions by using a sort of “gaming” analogy. In the same way that a basketball or soccer player will “flop” to pretend that there was a foul, the politician believes it’s ok to lie or distort, because the ends (getting your detested opponent to lose) justifies the means.

So, what should we as concerned voters and citizens do? Become more informed. Check the facts. Don’t simply believe people who are in power just because of their position or air of authority.

 Follow me on Twitter:

https://twitter.com/ronriggio

Ronald E. Riggio, Ph.D., is the Henry R. Kravis Professor of Leadership and Organizational Psychology and former Director of the Kravis Leadership Institute at Claremont McKenna College. Professor Riggio is the author of over 100 books, book chapters, and research articles in the areas of leadership, assessment centers, organizational psychology and social psychology. His most recent books are Leadership Studies (Elgar, 2011), The Art of Followership and The Practice of Leadership (Jossey-Bass, 2008, 2007), Applications of Nonverbal Behavior (co-edited with Robert S. Feldman; Erlbaum, 2005), and Transformational Leadership (2nd ed.), coauthored with Bernard M. Bass (Erlbaum, 2006). Professor Riggio is an Associate Editor of The Leadership Quarterly, and is on the Editorial Boards of Leadership, Leadership Review, Group Dynamics, and the Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, and he was the originator of the Shoptalk column at the Los Angeles Times, a Q&A column dealing with workplace problems/issues.

A Quote by Ken Wilber

...all the things and events we usually consider as irreconcilable, such as cause and effect, past and future, subject and object, are actually just like the crest and trough of a single wave, a single vibration.  For a wave, although itself a single event, only expresses itself through the opposites of crest and trough, high point and low point.  For that very reason, the reality is not found in the crest nor the trough alone, but in their unity...

Ken Wilber

Political Conventions & Wisdom

A quote from Abraham Lincoln
Posted by F_Neuman_MD |
Posted in Uncategorized |
Posted on 29-08-2012-05-2008 

Listening to the political conventions, I am reminded of something Abraham Lincoln was supposed to have said:

You can fool some of the people all the time.
And you can fool all of the people some of the time.
But you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.
But actually that quote is not quite accurate. Lincoln was in the White House at the time, and there was a great deal of noise coming from the street where ambulances were rushing back from the Second Battle of Bull Run, clattering over the cobblestones. There were the sounds of cannon in the distance. Mrs. Lincoln was in the next room complaining loudly to someone about the new drapes, and one of the kids was yelling in the next room. It was hard to hear. 

What he actually said was this:
You can fool some of the people all the time.
And you can fool all of the people some of the time.
But you can’t fool all of the people all of the time
But you can fool most of the people most of the time—especially if you spend a lot of money. 
(c) Fredric Neuman

Fredric Neuman, M.D. is the Director of the Anxiety and Phobia Treatment Center, the oldest hospital-affiliated program in the country to treat phobias. After serving as Associate Director for 21 years, Dr. Neuman assumed the directorship in 1994. Educated at Princeton University and the NYU College of Medicine, Dr. Neuman specializes in the treatment of anxiety disorders. He is the author of the following books: Caring: Home Treatment for the Emotionally Disturbed, Fighting Fear: An Eight Week Guide to Treating Your Own Phobias, Worried Sick?: The Exaggerated Fear of Physical Illness, and Worried Sick? The Workbook. Dr. Neuman is also the author of numerous magazine and newspaper articles on the efficacy of Cognitive/Behavioral Therapy for the treatment of anxiety disorders. Dr. Neuman is a member of the American Psychiatric Society, The American Association for the Advancement of Science and the New York Academy of Science. Dr. Neuman has published five novels, the first two of which, The Seclusion Room and Maneuvers received international acclaim.