From Inside The Sane Asylum...give me a break

Every language has its own collection of wise sayings. They offer advice about how to live and also transfer some underlying ideas, principles and values of a given culture / society. These sayings are called "idioms" - or proverbs if they are longer. These combinations of words have (rarely complete sentences) a "figurative meaning" meaning, they basically work with "pictures". Like "birds of a feather flock together."

I don't want to pull any wool over your eyes, but to make a long story short and  please take this with a grain of sand, since it comes from the horses mouth and not hearing this through the grape vine. At times I don't play with a full deck of cards. Off my rocker you could say. There are times I go barking up the wrong tree and at the drop of a hat will beat around the bush. I don't think I have ever cried over spilled milk, but I am guilty of adding insult to injury and I have been known to put all my eggs in one basket...

Enough of this bull shit, I need a break before I taste a dose of my own medicine. I don't want to ever be caught dead...what a visual that is...be back soon...your guess is good as mine. Just experienced a blooming idiom...Doc

From The Road...going home

From The Road...

As I recall it was an early Sunday morning headed for Royal Street. It's hard to tell in New Orleans, where there lives a thin line between Saturday night and Sunday morning.

His appearance and demeanor was a nicely judged blend of bird man and lucky man. But who am I to judge. He looked me straight in the eyes and asked, "Where you been"?

"Between a little rock and a hard place would be my best guess", I replied. "Where you been pilgrim", I asked?

"Never been called a pilgrim, but guess that will do", as he grinned, and quickly let me know that where you going is more important than where you been. Wished I had thought of that line to say to him, but he was right, just not that important for me to know where he had been. Not sure I really wanted to know for I fear I may not understand.

It is in these moments you just see a man. A man getting along the best he can. He had no interest in Wall Street, Real Estate or a retirement plan. Not the least bit concerned what was on tv. He did talk about family, friends and even disclosed to me where I could buy some chicken necks on special. What we talked about did not matter. He hummed in between our human verse. Hummed a tune that had no melody or rhyme. Sounded like echoes coming from another room. Echoes of his past I presume...after all not that important  for me to know where he has been.

It was a brief encounter on that corner between Decauter and Douphine Street and our parting statement went something like this:

"Well Pilgrim, where you going", I asked?
"I'm going home next Wednesday", he replied.
"Where is home", I asked ?
Says he, "I'm not altogether sure yet, but that's where I'm headed on Wednesday."

I still hear his humming in my ear and I often wonder where he lays his head. Home I suppose. Always more important to know where your going and not where you have been...

His name is Ronnie...still holds that corner spot between Decauter and Dauphine Street

Home

Just beyond your imagination
There is a place called home
A place where everything is nothing
And nothing is everything

There is a place where peace exist
It's a place visited by few noted men
It's a place where one magnifies the vision of all
It's a place that we call home... Thank you Ronnie, my friend, for the lesson...Doc

The Wayfarer ...

by Stephen Crane

The wayfarer,
Perceiving the pathway to truth,
Was struck with astonishment.
It was thickly grown with weeds.
"Ha," he said,
"I see that none has passed here
In a long time."
Later he saw that each weed
Was a singular knife.
"Well," he mumbled at last,
"Doubtless there are other roads."

Going to take some time away, enjoy the fall and family...hope you do the same...see you down the road...be well and kind...Doc

From The Far Side Of The Glass...anxiety

One important source is shedding light on anxiety: Google. As reported by economist Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, searches for anxiety have doubled in the past eight years. Certain terms are typed more often: ‘anxiety at night’ is skyrocketing, while ‘anxiety in the morning’ is also on the rise.

A second factor is opiate withdrawal. Stephens-Davidowitz notes that searches for that term are climbing even as prescription rates are falling, which could be accounted for by the black market and increased heroin addiction.

Interestingly, memory plays an important role in both addiction and anxiety disorder. With addiction, positive reinforcement creates an insatiable urge to revisit the experience. An addict’s aggressive nature partly depends on recalling the feeling of the experience. Soon this spirals into negative reinforcement, where a potential inability to return to that state keeps the user focused not on pleasure, but fear of withdrawal.

Front Porch Psychology...anxiety

Anxiety can be thought of as the workings of a strong healthy brain that’s being a little overprotective. It’s not crazy and it’s not troubled. It’s overprotective. 

From Inside The Sane Asylum...Who Dat Whodunnit

You remember Who Dat post? Well just received this correspondence from Who Dat and wanted to share with you his tale as he saw his behavior this past weekend and my response...

Dear Doc.

Well yes I am a part of the  Who Dat Nation!! and Whodunnit  will try and break this down for ya'll. First the large juice jar is pretty appetizing after a couple of them. And yes my middle name is Hurricane with experience!! 

Moving on, yes I did have the lucky socks on my hands, but it didn't work out the way I wanted it to. But with that being said, I don't remember screaming, must have been the juice jar, yea it was the juice.

This Saturday I will need more than socks on my hands to win, maybe one LARGE GRANDE SOCK to cover my body!!  That's a great idea Whodunnit, yeah that's the ticket!!

With all that being said, thank you Doc for keeping your word and making me my first post!

See you on my next appointment Doc.

Peace, I'm out,

Who Dat Whodunnit

My response...

Dear Who Dat Hurricane Whodunnit...

Always a pleasure making someone a first. I'm not sure about the juice jar elixir evoking primal screams but if that's the way you experience it we will explore that during your next appointment...seems you may have been potty trained much to early, but we will leave that for another discussion. Maybe it was those long trips you took to the out house growing up in Tennessee. I say that from experience. I remember well in the deep woods of Louisiana, hearing similar screams. Usually when the Sears & Robuck catalog was all used up...you may have those experiences blocked in your deep subconscious...a topic for another session. We have made a few changes in our office so when you come for your next appointment the meds will be on the left and the straight jackets on the right. We also need to revisit your day passes and curfew times.

At any rate, just forget the grande sock. You might just try a full body orange spray on. Glow in the dark stuff. The color goes well with the juice jar elixir and hell it makes it easier for us to find you in the dark should you be late for curfew...

Lol...good write Who Dat Hurricane Whodunnit..you are showing great promise...did you really eat those rum pickled eggs?

Kind regards,

Dr Ego Prozac...Underground 

Primate Zoo Keeper

The Sane Asylum

Discovering Ourselves...hold space

What does it mean to “hold space” for someone else?

It means that we are willing to walk alongside another person in whatever journey they’re on without judging them, making them feel inadequate, trying to fix them, or trying to impact the outcome. When we hold space for other people, we open our hearts, offer unconditional support, and let go of judgement and control until they can fly.

Here’s the deal. The human soul doesn’t want to be advised or fixed or saved. It simply wants to be witnessed — to be seen, heard and companioned exactly as it is. When we make that kind of deep bow to the soul of a suffering person, our respect reinforces the soul’s healing resources, the only resources that can help the sufferer make it through.

Entry Note To Self...in this our life

Nov-el a noun...a fictitious prose narrative of book length, typically representing character and action with some degree of realism.

So you see our lives really are a novel...a fictitious prose of some length, representing character and action with some degree of realism...

In This Our Life,

Every person's life is worthy of a novel. One's life is a true novel, and one they can believe in. Philosopher Jonathan Glover, pondering the notion of what he calls "self creation", argues that self creation tends to make life like a novel, penned by a single author. This process begins early. Children themselves are emerging novelist, assembling their life stories from the numerous emotional incidents in their daily lives. They are the tellers of the stories they are, busy assembling it into coherent life histories.

In our daily lives we are ad hoc novelist. We are both the hero of our own plot and it's creator. So in a very real sense, we are the author of our lives. Do we not sense the drama in people's lives, the plots they live through, the suspense they create, the discovery of unique characteristics and the microcosmic commentary each life offers? And what about their inevitable creative passage through problematic experiences?...a novel indeed...What will you name your novel?...Doc

Discovering Ourselves...Focus

Field of llusion...can you find it?

To use the metaphor inspired by the brilliantly forward-thinking 19th Century American psychologist, William James, our visual attention system works a lot like a spotlight that scans the world around us. This ‘attentional spotlight’ represents the finite region of space that is occupied by our focus of attention at any given moment. What falls inside the spotlight is consciously processed while that which is outside is not. By moving our eyes around a visual scene, we can shine our spotlight on any area of the environment we want to inspect in detail. In fact, in-depth processing of an object, a string of text, or a location can’t be carried out unless it is first brought inside the spotlight of attention. Our conscious awareness operates like a spotlight, bringing the details that matter into sharp relief.

We have a localized spotlight of attention because taking in all the visual information from the environment at once would overwhelm the brain, which is a system with limited resources, much like a computer. The spotlight allows your mind to focus only on what's important while ignoring the irrelevant. This makes reality comprehensible.

Now imagine that this attentional behavior is going on all the time. As the threat bias filters out the positive and lets in only the negative, worry and fear flow through the cognitive system. The result is an overly threat-conscious appraisal of the environment. Essentially, to the anxious, the world literally looks like a much scarier, unhappier place.
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Lessons From The Sane Asylum...life

Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won’t either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself you tasted as many as you could.

Louise Erdrich

The Beauty In Humanity

Let us not underestimate how hard it is to be compassionate. Compassion is hard because it requires the inner disposition to go with others to place where they are weak, vulnerable, lonely, and broken. But this is not our spontaneous response to suffering. What we desire most is to do away with suffering by fleeing from it or finding a quick cure for it.” 

Henri J.M. Nouwen

The Beauty In Humanity

The beauty of the human soul is not in the pretty face, it’s found within the heart, and hands of those who look, and stay. With all the daily violence going on around the globe, we might feel that the beauty of the heart and hands are lost. But did humanity really get lost? 

Let us revive our hopes for the human condition, and give each other faith in our fellow humans. Sense beauty, express gratitude and xperience forgiveness...Doc

Be soft. Do not let the world make you hard. Do not let pain make you hate. Do not let the bitterness steal your sweetness. Take pride that even though the rest of the world may disagree, you still believe it to be a beautiful place.

Iain S. Thomas

Lemme Think About It...never thought of that

"What if you do die of anxiety, created by something that didn't happen?"

From Inside The Sane Asylum...Where Y'at?

Who Dat Whodunnit...a cool dude. Shady in a cool way...ran into him at JT's. A little bar along A1A. The soft white sand leads through a screen door to the nearest bar stool. A U shaped bar serving several savory characters. They have this large juice jar at one corner. Filled with pickled eggs and other pieces of mass I could not identify. Anyway, it's not the jar I'm trying to get too. It was the face reflecting through pickled rum juice that captured my attention. It was a neighbor and friend of mine from around Pensacola by way of three or four hurricanes. Originally from Tennessee as I recall.

We were at the same hotel when Matthew blew by. Just happened by his door during the Tennessee-Texas A&M game he was streaming, while wearing these orange socks on his hands. Did I mention he was screaming at the top of his voice? Well he was. Grown man...

I don't think the behavior was as much about the game as it was we both chose this part of the world to inhabit based on our scientific research. Safest place along the coast and here we are. Watching a grown man put socks on his hands to cast a winning spell on a football game in a hurricane...Tennessee lost in overtime by the way...I think the voodoo worked for the game...But it's my opinion that when it goes into overtime you have to take the socks off your hand and put them somewhere else. Not sure where. But hey, don't listen to me, I chose this place to live...

Back to JT's...he poked his head around the pickle jug and said, "Who Dat?" The only thing that came to my mind was Whodunnit? So here's the thing...He wanted me to put him in one of my post. I told him I would as soon as I had a good name for him. An altered selfie of sorts. So Who Dat Whodunnit, this ones for you...Where Y'at?...Doc