October 3rd, 2016
My mother and I met at Bayshore last Thursday. She told me she was done reading this book so I could have it. I was in the middle of another book but she said there was no rush, "Just take the book and read it when you have time". I was intrigued by this book. I started reading it that very afternoon.
What a roller coaster ride! I couldn't put it down. It is a memoir, the real story of Glennon who has a perfect childhood and finds herself disconnecting from her body at the age of ten. She numbs herself with food and develops an eating disorder. She numbs herself with alcohol and later drugs. She also has sex without any connection to her body or the people who are using it.
No one is able to reach her and help her until she gets pregnant. This is a turning point for her. She never loved herself enough to take care of herself but she can stop drinking and drugging in order to ensure a healthy pregnancy. Her boyfriend marries her. They have a few decent years in the cocoon of their family. Then, they grow apart as they each pull away from the other. When she finds out that her husband has betrayed her, Glennon must decide whether she will ever trust him again and if she even wants to try.
As Glennon and her husband work on their relationship, we learn a great deal about what it means to be authentic, to be real with one another. Glenn takes us along on her exploration of who she is and her discovery of what it means to be someone's intimate partner. She learns to love and accept herself and shed her masks. She connects with her body and discovers intimacy.
This is a truly brave, raw, honest look at her relationship with her Self, her Source, her children and her husband. It is inspiring because what she learns is something we can all apply to our lives and relationships. Here is what I have learned from Glennon:
1-Breathe and pay attention to the still voice inside you
2-You are loved and perfect as you are, nothing you can do will make you more loveable or less loveable
3-When you enter a relationship, both of you are loved and perfect, you can help each other grow by communicating honestly with each other and being present to one another
4-You need to identify your needs, respect them, take care of yourself and, ask your partner for what you need from him/her
5-You can be real and leave your representative (fake self behind)
6-You are a soul, a mind and a body, embrace all three aspects of yourself
7-When something happens to someone, the best thing you can do is acknowledge their pain and offer to be present (not fix or compare to someone else's story)
8-Be prepared to fully live this life, this means you will experience pain at times but you are a Warrior and you will survive it
9-Teach your children that they are loved and perfect as they are, show them how to express love in the world
10-We all suffer, don't pretend with others, be real and they can be real with you, no need to be lonely, reach out and tell the truth
This is one of those books that I inhaled. I will need to go over it again, slowly, because there is so much to learn from it. I feel inspired! If you are looking for a life-changing book, read this one.
Anne Walsh
www.artnsoul.org
Showing posts with label self-growth. Show all posts
Showing posts with label self-growth. Show all posts
Monday, 3 October 2016
Thursday, 19 May 2016
We are not computers
May 19th, 2016
This discussion has come up with so many people lately, I decided I should blog about it. Technology was never meant to speed things up. The intention was to create more time for the important people and activities in our lives by delegating menial, busy work to a machine. However, we did not know how to make the most of this extra time. We didn't spend more time eating meals as a family or reading great books. Instead, we worked longer hours, doubled our workload and multi-tasked. We also moved off the land and created office cubicles.
We can observe the impact of technology on our nutrition. We are less likely to grow our food and roast a meal throughout the day. We are often away from home at the office therefore we are unable to supervise our garden or our roasts. Therefore, we grab fast food or prepared foods on our way home and zap them in our microwaves.
Technology has sped up our lives. We drive through rush hour traffic to get home from our demanding jobs then we shovel mouthfuls of food into our tense bodies before beginning the frenetic activities of the evening: swimming, gymnastics, hockey, soccer, karate, piano etc. By the time we return home, we squeeze in 30 minutes of homework and fall into our beds.
As a mother, I recall being sleep deprived and drinking coffee from the wee hours of the morning onward in order to function throughout the day. That was a very distinct period of my life. However, I see so many people living off coffee, pop or energy drinks. They have meetings, reports, conferences, deadlines etc. All of it is important and, of course, urgent.
Working in long-term care, I witnessed first-hand how nurses who trained because they were compassionate and had great bed-side manners, burnt out over and over again. Why? They spend so much time filling out paper work in order to maintain funding, avoid being labelled as redundant and prevent liability issues that they hardly have time to connect with their residents. Furthermore, when residents come to them for comfort, they must turn them away because they are already overwhelmed with work. This is a surefire way to destroy the spirit of a compassionate human being who would like nothing more than to connect with residents, hear their stories and offer support.
Our relationships are also impacted by technology. We juggle impossible schedules and attempt to find some down time to connect and catch up. However, by the end of our filled and fast-paced days at work, we are often too wrung out to do much of anything. Instead, we sit in front of the television set, have a glass of wine, maybe hold hands and go to bed. Our children are exposed to technology early on as they suck on our cell phones, watch television programs at home and videos in the van while on the road. Their toys speak to them in both official languages and emit loud noises. They are overstimulated from a young age. Each toy makes different sounds and lights up, little is left to the imagination. I don't recall anyone saying: "I'm bored", when I was growing up yet it is so common these days.
What should have been progress has become a trap. We work hard, compete to climb the ladder to the jobs with the biggest pay. Then, we buy stuff as a symbol of our success. In order to keep our stuff and get more, we work harder to make more money. We look forward to our retirement when we will be able to do all those things we have wanted to do but have been too pooped to do in our lives. We take a week off to spend quality time together. Then we realize that we are strangers, that we are all so consumed with our Facebook, e-mails and x-boxes that our holiday is not what we hoped it would be or, we do spend time together and truly enjoy it, only to return to the our busy schedules as soon as the trip ends.
The computers were supposed to serve us. Somewhere along the way, we became confused. We started to treat ourselves like computers. We expected everything to happen faster. We wanted immediate gratification. We crammed our calendars, uploaded piles of information, imagined that we could multitask and do it all without error. The problem is we are not computers. We are human beings. We need more than upgrades and we are meant to last more than three years. We crave connection, belonging, meaning, love, growth and time for reflection and rest. We require physical contact and neither Facebook, Skype, E-mail or Text can fulfill that need.
The pendulum has swung too far. The proof is in the litres of caffeine required to keep up, the amount of alcohol consumed to numb ourselves, the excessive purchases needed to fill our void. The answer is a return to simplicity-growing herbs or a garden, spending time eating meals as a family, communing with nature, bonding with our children, having unscheduled play time, valuing people over money and living our lives now, not in the future. Creating or reviving rituals to celebrate pivotal moments on our life cycles can also infuse our lives with meaning and belonging.
It's time to focus on what matters: family, friends, good food, rest, nature, reflection, growth and love.
Anne Walsh
www.artnsoul.org
This discussion has come up with so many people lately, I decided I should blog about it. Technology was never meant to speed things up. The intention was to create more time for the important people and activities in our lives by delegating menial, busy work to a machine. However, we did not know how to make the most of this extra time. We didn't spend more time eating meals as a family or reading great books. Instead, we worked longer hours, doubled our workload and multi-tasked. We also moved off the land and created office cubicles.
We can observe the impact of technology on our nutrition. We are less likely to grow our food and roast a meal throughout the day. We are often away from home at the office therefore we are unable to supervise our garden or our roasts. Therefore, we grab fast food or prepared foods on our way home and zap them in our microwaves.
Technology has sped up our lives. We drive through rush hour traffic to get home from our demanding jobs then we shovel mouthfuls of food into our tense bodies before beginning the frenetic activities of the evening: swimming, gymnastics, hockey, soccer, karate, piano etc. By the time we return home, we squeeze in 30 minutes of homework and fall into our beds.
As a mother, I recall being sleep deprived and drinking coffee from the wee hours of the morning onward in order to function throughout the day. That was a very distinct period of my life. However, I see so many people living off coffee, pop or energy drinks. They have meetings, reports, conferences, deadlines etc. All of it is important and, of course, urgent.
Working in long-term care, I witnessed first-hand how nurses who trained because they were compassionate and had great bed-side manners, burnt out over and over again. Why? They spend so much time filling out paper work in order to maintain funding, avoid being labelled as redundant and prevent liability issues that they hardly have time to connect with their residents. Furthermore, when residents come to them for comfort, they must turn them away because they are already overwhelmed with work. This is a surefire way to destroy the spirit of a compassionate human being who would like nothing more than to connect with residents, hear their stories and offer support.
Our relationships are also impacted by technology. We juggle impossible schedules and attempt to find some down time to connect and catch up. However, by the end of our filled and fast-paced days at work, we are often too wrung out to do much of anything. Instead, we sit in front of the television set, have a glass of wine, maybe hold hands and go to bed. Our children are exposed to technology early on as they suck on our cell phones, watch television programs at home and videos in the van while on the road. Their toys speak to them in both official languages and emit loud noises. They are overstimulated from a young age. Each toy makes different sounds and lights up, little is left to the imagination. I don't recall anyone saying: "I'm bored", when I was growing up yet it is so common these days.
What should have been progress has become a trap. We work hard, compete to climb the ladder to the jobs with the biggest pay. Then, we buy stuff as a symbol of our success. In order to keep our stuff and get more, we work harder to make more money. We look forward to our retirement when we will be able to do all those things we have wanted to do but have been too pooped to do in our lives. We take a week off to spend quality time together. Then we realize that we are strangers, that we are all so consumed with our Facebook, e-mails and x-boxes that our holiday is not what we hoped it would be or, we do spend time together and truly enjoy it, only to return to the our busy schedules as soon as the trip ends.
The computers were supposed to serve us. Somewhere along the way, we became confused. We started to treat ourselves like computers. We expected everything to happen faster. We wanted immediate gratification. We crammed our calendars, uploaded piles of information, imagined that we could multitask and do it all without error. The problem is we are not computers. We are human beings. We need more than upgrades and we are meant to last more than three years. We crave connection, belonging, meaning, love, growth and time for reflection and rest. We require physical contact and neither Facebook, Skype, E-mail or Text can fulfill that need.
The pendulum has swung too far. The proof is in the litres of caffeine required to keep up, the amount of alcohol consumed to numb ourselves, the excessive purchases needed to fill our void. The answer is a return to simplicity-growing herbs or a garden, spending time eating meals as a family, communing with nature, bonding with our children, having unscheduled play time, valuing people over money and living our lives now, not in the future. Creating or reviving rituals to celebrate pivotal moments on our life cycles can also infuse our lives with meaning and belonging.
It's time to focus on what matters: family, friends, good food, rest, nature, reflection, growth and love.
Anne Walsh
www.artnsoul.org
Wednesday, 9 March 2016
Why Teens Benefit from Art Therapy
March 7th, 2016
I had the opportunity to offer a stress management art therapy workshop to a group of high school students. I thoroughly enjoyed it and so did the students.
When I started my business, Art & Soul, I was marketing myself to women in midlife. I felt that I could help them because I was also a woman in midlife so I could relate and understand what they were going through. I did get clients in this demographic but many of them asked me to see their children or teenagers.
I ended up with a larger than expected teenage clientèle. Here is what I have noticed about teenagers doing art therapy.
1-Teenagers don't necessarily want to look at an adult while they talk. Have you ever noticed that your teenager talks to you the most when you are driving? Does your teen prefer texting you than talking to you face-to-face even though you are under the same roof? It can feel awkward to talk to an adult while they are looking at you. Eye contact in general can feel intrusive. Art therapy works because the teenage client can get to work painting, drawing or sculpting as we talk.
2-Teenagers are very creative and, it is part of their development to explore ideas, thoughts, beliefs. They are forming their sense of self and naturally turn to creative pursuits to explore different personas, ideas, beliefs and behaviors. The art is a perfect tool for this. Rather than dread the moment when they must meet with an adult and talk about problems, they can look forward to an opportunity to represent issues in a 3D, visual way, externalising and manipulating it.
3-Teenagers don't necessarily trust adults. When teenagers have been beaten or physically/emotionally abused, they may feel very vulnerable during a conversation with their therapist. They have a set amount of time and they are expected to sit down and tell this stranger what they are experiencing. The art provides an option to express information in a progressive way as trust levels grow. The therapist becomes a witness of this creative process, not an interrogator (which is how teen clients have said they feel during verbal therapy).
4-The element of choice is important to everyone, especially teenagers. My teen clients may have chosen to see me, often it is the parent who is sending them. In art therapy, they have many choices which helps them feel empowered. They choose whether to talk or create or do both at the same time. They choose which art material to use and how to apply it. They can add messages in writing on their work to provide additional information to the therapist or parent, something they wouldn't be able to say in person.
Teenagers have told me that they like having a quiet space where they can come and work at their own pace. They are very bright and enjoy observing the progression of their work when we do an art review. They notice the patterns in their work and find journaling helpful in making connections to these patterns. They are in control and feel more and more confident in their creative process. The art miroirs back to them and they gain a strong, grounded sense of who they are and what they are about. Creative exploration should be a valued part of the curriculum in high schools. Once a safe class environment is created, students could learn more compassion for one another as they each work through their issues in a creative way.
Anne Walsh
www.artnsoul.org
I had the opportunity to offer a stress management art therapy workshop to a group of high school students. I thoroughly enjoyed it and so did the students.
When I started my business, Art & Soul, I was marketing myself to women in midlife. I felt that I could help them because I was also a woman in midlife so I could relate and understand what they were going through. I did get clients in this demographic but many of them asked me to see their children or teenagers.
I ended up with a larger than expected teenage clientèle. Here is what I have noticed about teenagers doing art therapy.
1-Teenagers don't necessarily want to look at an adult while they talk. Have you ever noticed that your teenager talks to you the most when you are driving? Does your teen prefer texting you than talking to you face-to-face even though you are under the same roof? It can feel awkward to talk to an adult while they are looking at you. Eye contact in general can feel intrusive. Art therapy works because the teenage client can get to work painting, drawing or sculpting as we talk.
2-Teenagers are very creative and, it is part of their development to explore ideas, thoughts, beliefs. They are forming their sense of self and naturally turn to creative pursuits to explore different personas, ideas, beliefs and behaviors. The art is a perfect tool for this. Rather than dread the moment when they must meet with an adult and talk about problems, they can look forward to an opportunity to represent issues in a 3D, visual way, externalising and manipulating it.
3-Teenagers don't necessarily trust adults. When teenagers have been beaten or physically/emotionally abused, they may feel very vulnerable during a conversation with their therapist. They have a set amount of time and they are expected to sit down and tell this stranger what they are experiencing. The art provides an option to express information in a progressive way as trust levels grow. The therapist becomes a witness of this creative process, not an interrogator (which is how teen clients have said they feel during verbal therapy).
4-The element of choice is important to everyone, especially teenagers. My teen clients may have chosen to see me, often it is the parent who is sending them. In art therapy, they have many choices which helps them feel empowered. They choose whether to talk or create or do both at the same time. They choose which art material to use and how to apply it. They can add messages in writing on their work to provide additional information to the therapist or parent, something they wouldn't be able to say in person.
Teenagers have told me that they like having a quiet space where they can come and work at their own pace. They are very bright and enjoy observing the progression of their work when we do an art review. They notice the patterns in their work and find journaling helpful in making connections to these patterns. They are in control and feel more and more confident in their creative process. The art miroirs back to them and they gain a strong, grounded sense of who they are and what they are about. Creative exploration should be a valued part of the curriculum in high schools. Once a safe class environment is created, students could learn more compassion for one another as they each work through their issues in a creative way.
Anne Walsh
www.artnsoul.org
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