Get up, stand up, stand up for your rights.
Get up, stand up, don't give up the fight.
--Bob Marley

Questions for Relationships

What are 3 things that you like or love about yourself?  What is one thing you wish you could change?

What are 3 things that you like or love about your partner?  What is one thing about your partner with which you struggle to deal?

What are 3 things that your partner likes or loves about you?  What is one thing they can't take?

What are 3 things that your partner likes or loves about him/herself?  What is one thing they wish they could change about themselves?

If you looked deep inside and had no fear, that is, confident that your partner would listen with an open heart and mind, what would you say you want?

If your partner looked deep inside and had no fear, would you listen with an open heart and mind when they told you what they want?

When you close your eyes to imagine or daydream, what do you see?  What are you doing together? saying to each other?

Heuristics

I am taking a dissertation proposal writing seminar with renowned scholar, Zeke Hasenfeld.

The first time I took a class with Zeke, I was embarrassed because I did not know what the title of the class meant when I enrolled (Epistemology), but thanks to Zeke, I do now.  I like to use the word all the time now, less to show off my new found knowledge (although that is part of it - it is hard-won, people!) and more because it is such an important word!  How do we know what we know?  What is the nature of reality (ontology)?

Now, we are exploring heuristics, or "tools for invention and social science discovery" - basic tricks for producing ideas.  Zeke teaches me fancy words and the depth of meaning behind them.

What's exciting about heuristics is that these tools are not just useful to social scientists eager to have something to say.  They are tools for inspiring creativity in any field.  In both the arts and sciences, practitioners are motivated by having something to say.

"Imagination proposes and rigor evaluates.  There is a continual exchange between intuition and method."

What is the difference between "imagination and foolishness"?  "Rigor and secure explanation."  The left and right brain working together in concert. Thoughts and feelings cross-checking each other until wholeness and integration are reached.  Elegant. Simple.

Referrals

I used to rely on a trifecta of healers - massage therapist, acupuncturist and chiropractor.

Now, I have found healing and transformation from the following practitioners.  They are too great not to share...

1.  Amanda Foulger, Shamanic Practitioner     (310) 455-3758
Offers spiritual, emotional, mental or physical healing.  Performs soul retrieval (after the soul checks out in traumatic situations/events), spirit helper work (to identify your guide and helper), extractions and clearing (limpia).

2.  Cathy Uribe, Gifted Energy Healer     (323) 332-7928
Conducts clearing and charging of energy.  Excellent for stress management, especially when our history rears its ugly head to haunt us.

3.  Sara Cadena, Reader     (310) 970-1890
Provides insight, validation and support for relationship and career decision-making.  She is very specific.

Finally, I would add that if you are not already in the practice of writing, then begin now, and never stop.

Lips are for smiling, kissing and telling the truth.

Good Life Advice

Sometimes we come across sociopaths in our very own families.  Sometimes they are a boyfriend we dumped in college.  Sometimes they appear as Lotharios when we are in middle age - intent on enticing, seducing and duping us for money, sex or pleasure.

It's not that we're fools.  It is that they are skilled at the con.  We can all be hoodwinked and suckered into their charm.  There is no shame in that.  We get to be human.

You don't see them coming.  They are not branded or carrying signs or festooned with horns.  Then again, they are so good that even if they wore a big ol' sandwich board sign saying, "stay away from me, I will play you, I cannot help myself," we'd still fall. hard.

They will outwit, outplay and outlast you, unless. . .

Experts on anti-social personality disorder advise that the best way to protect ourselves is to "know our vulnerabilities."  The sociopath has an uncanny ability to read you - identify your vulnerabilities - and use them against you.  They advise us to "realize our own potential and maximize our strengths" so that our insecurities don't overcome us.  Because a sociopath is a chameleon who becomes "an image of what you haven't done for yourself."  

Words to live by, even if you never meet a sociopath.

What is your potential?  Are you living at your potential?
What are your strengths?  Are you using them to the fullest everyday?
What do you want for yourself that you have not yet done?  What baby steps can you begin to take now that will get you there eventually?

Godspeed.

(Definition of sociopath from ehow.com: Sociopaths have little regard for the feelings of others and manipulate others in order to get what they desire. The term "sociopath" is no longer used in psychology and psychiatry, and the disorder is now called "antisocial personality disorder." People who have this disorder often have no sense of right or wrong and many only receive treatment when forced to by the judicial system, an employer or family member. The disorder is relatively rare, with approximately 0.6 percent of Americans affected, according to the National Institute of Mental Health.)

A Very Happy New Year

I have enjoyed a leisurely and social Winter break full of requisite hibernation.  I am now ready once again for structure, schedules, classes, teaching, writing, and reading with regularity.

Balance.

I don't worry anymore that I will go back to my previous break neck speed.  The juiciness of balance is too enticing.

Courses on deck for Winter quarter:  Social Marketing, Dissertation Proposal Seminar, Grant Proposal Strategies, Working Papers Seminar.  Notes from the first week of class will be posted this week.

Also, I am scheduled to teach SW 589: Recovery and Empowerment in Mental Health at CSULA.

2012 is a year for transformation.  Where will it take you?  I relish the ride.