Invisible made visible

I stole the title of this entry straight from this week's This American Life podcast (which I am not really going to write about, other than to say, it was very entertaining! I actually laughed to myself on my jog today.) I am mostly using it to refer to myself! During the semester, you couldn't see me, but now you can! Hooray! I am back in the land of the living. Maybe I should just go ahead and call myself a summer blogger. Lord knows I probably will always be too busy during the school year to construct a proper sentence. (Well, a proper sentence that has nothing to do with the WISC or the WRAML or the BASC or any of the other alphabet soup tests I will spend my life writing about. I digress, already!...before I've even gotten started!)

It has been nice to have more free time! I am slowly regaining my executive functioning skills, getting some more exercise, cooking healthy meals, and - most exciting of all - reading fiction again! I have already finished The Tiger's Wife by Téa Obreht (the first book club book I have completed on time in approximately one million years), and 22 Britannia Road by Amanda Hodgkinson. Both were good! The Tiger's Wife was a great book to do for book club, and would probably be even better in an English class, because there is so much awesome literary stuff in it.

I also just started a book called The Illumination by Kevin Brockmeier. I'm only a short way into it, but the basic premise is that it takes place during what becomes known as The Illumination - a period of time when suddenly, pain is visible as a light emanating from the person's body. Pain includes physical pain - the first character accidentally cuts off the tip of her thumb and goes through a painful surgery and then later amputation of the thumb above the joint. She and her doctors and everyone around her can see just how much it hurts her by the intensity of the light. Psychological pain is also evident, which as a person in the mental health field, I appreciate. In the novel, you see this especially as a glow in a grieving young man who lost his wife in a car accident.

It is an interesting concept. I'm curious to see where the novel goes. How would we treat each other differently if each person's pain was clearly visible to us? Would we be nicer? I have to say, if I walked up to someone who otherwise appeared to be fine, but then noticed they had the glow of Depression or the light of Anxiety, or a stubborn chronic pain in their knee that showed as a pulsating light...I would probably be nicer.

Even though other people's pain is generally invisible to us here in the real world, chances are good that many of the people we come across in our day-to-day lives are experiencing some kind of suffering. Really, if pain became visible as bright light, we would probably all go blind. In yoga, we are taught to practice Karuna, or compassion. Other translations indicate that Karuna consists of actions we take to diminish the suffering of others through gentle kindness and active sympathy. So let's try to do it just by being nice. If someone is rude to you, go ahead and assume that there is something hurting them that you can't see, and forgive them. Give them your gentle kindness. Give them your compassion. Even though we can't make pain visible, we can make our kindness visible! I think that's probably a better way to go, anyway!

Just getting through

If you couldn't tell from the complete lack of posts, this semester has been an unbelievably busy one. There are only 3 weeks left (I've been counting down) and I am just trying to keep my sanity together long enough to make it. Needless to say, I have not been graceful, or poised, or organized, or any of the other things I resolved to be in January. But I have been getting through. So that's something.

More cheerfulness to come, in 3 weeks....

A brilliant idea

Love this -a brilliant classroom management technique for teachers! http://www.newmanagement.com/music/tvthemesongs.html

A few resolutions

Happy 2012, dear blog reader(s)!

I find that I am always surprised that another year has passed. I marvel at the simultaneous fast-slowness of Time, and our strange relationship to it. I do love the yearly reminder to reflect on what has been accomplished and what can be improved. If anything, I think we should be doing this kind of reflection more often. I think it's silly how many people buy gym memberships on January 2nd, but stop going by February 1st...but I do think that setting goals and intentions is important! I read a smart idea in the Everything Yoga blog that instead of setting outside-oriented goals, one might achieve more success by setting "inside" goals - how do I want to be? How do I want to feel? What do I want to experience in my day-to-day life? By searching for these internal goals, positive outside goals will usually happen naturally.

I want to be more graceful and poised in my day to day life. I want to feel less rushed and more mindful of the joy in simple things. I will achieve this by...actually *using* the tools that I know work for me: Creating daily to-do lists with small, manageable goals, and realistic timelines. I will keep my calendar updated. I will use my executive functioning skills to plan ahead and prepare ahead (packing my lunch the night before, so the morning is less harried.) I will get exercise, even if it is just walking the dog, and finding sensations to be grateful for.

Another goal is to be more mindful in my yoga practice. I am very proud of myself in that I have a much more regular home practice than I ever did in past years. However, I've started to notice that I am just going through the motions, so I can tell myself that I practiced, and check it off the list. While that is still better than not practicing at all, I am still allowing my mind to race and wander with no attempt to be more mindful internally. To focus on a meditation, or practice progressive relaxation, or remind myself to let those thoughts float by. I'd like to make more of an effort to really engage during my time spent doing yoga, and be more able to let my mind truly rest.

Finally, I'd like to set more frequent goals for myself. I want to take a few minutes each Sunday to set an intention for the week. Lay out a tentative schedule for myself, that includes time for yoga, meditation, journaling, cooking...all the things I love, but often don't do when things get busy. Or, if the schedule is really jam-packed, setting an intention to be mindful and poised. To use the opportunity to practice yoga off the mat, to remain graceful in the midst of chaos.

What are your resolutions for this year?

The shortest day of the year

For those of you who know me, you know that I really love Christmas. I try to restrain myself (well, maybe not really), but as soon as Thanksgiving is over, I dive right into Christmas - the tree, the decorations, the peppermint flavored things, the music! Part of it is because I find that December is a super busy month, especially in grad school, and especially in the mental health field. So if I don't get into the holiday spirit early, it feels like the whole season just blows past me, and I miss the whole thing! And what can be sadder than "missing" Christmas, and having to wait a whole year for it to come back?

Well, ok, there are a lot of things that are sadder. But that's part of the reason I love Christmas...It tends to be a very "giving" time of year - people are more likely to make donations and do charitable activities. How can you not love a holiday that inspires people to be more generous? (Of course, I know that many people have really valid reasons for not being excited about the holidays. The Christmas season tends to magnify everything, good or bad. And when you've lost someone, or are generally not feeling cheery, the holidays can seem like a personal attack.) But I just really love to hear stories about people acting in kindness to make someone else's life better.

I read this really heart-warming story about "layaway angels" - people who donated money to pay off layaway accounts for kids' toys and clothing on layaway at K-Mart. One man came in to make a payment, and was told that everything was paid for. He started to cry, because he knew that he wasn't going to be able to pay off his kids' presents before Christmas. Some people made big donations, and others were small, but seemed to be extremely meaningful no matter the size of the donation. What a wonderful holiday story!

In a story that's more close to home for me...I've been working with a kiddo whose family doesn't have a lot of financial resources. She's been having a rough year, and all this girl really wants for Christmas is an American Girl doll...but we all know that there is no way her mom is going to get one for her. Our nurse at school took it upon herself to order one, and a lot of the teachers have pitched in to pay for it. The nurse told us that she "accidentally ordered the wrong one for her niece," but I'm pretty certain she just ordered it out of the goodness of her heart. To avoid the complication of knowing that a teacher bought her a pricey gift, our school resource officer is going to deliver it to the girl's house as a mystery gift from "Santa." I can just see her face light up when she gets it! I think, for her, this is really going to feel like a "Christmas miracle," and I can't help but feeling pretty warm and fuzzy inside. :)

Happy Hanukkah, Merry Christmas, and Happy Solstice! Whether you feel like celebrating or not this year, I send my love and wishes to you for peace this season!

A hiatus, apparently, but I'm back now!

Oh, hello there!

I know we are all surprised, but it turns out that when you are in grad school, doing a practicum, working part-time, AND trying to have a life, it can be pretty tough to keep up with writing in a blog. I know, I know - crazy talk, right?!

Well! Tomorrow is my last day at the Middle School until I come back from break in January, and it is the only thing standing between me and VACATION! It's been a weird, slow, unwinding process as my schedule has dwindled from approximately 60 hours of work a week to 20-ish. It has been a relief to not be worried about papers and projects, but when you're a crazy person like me, it can feel weird to not be worrying about something! So that's when I start making things up in my head to worry about, and that's when Alex has to hand me a glass of wine and tell me to stop being a fool.

So, I don't really have a topic for this post, but I wanted to jump back in the saddle and get the momentum going again. Hopefully after a few days of relaxation and Christmas bliss, I will have the brain juices flowing enough to write a coherent, interesting post!

Until then, here is a beautiful picture that is completely unrelated to anything I just wrote, but I happen to like it, so it's going in! Thank you, Yoga Journal!

"No child left...without a big behind."

In the car this morning, I was listening to Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me on NPR, and they made a crack about how apparently now pizza counts as a vegetable in school lunches. Wait...pizza...a vegetable?

I'm not sure I can name anybody who doesn't like pizza. And made a certain way (i.e. with actual vegetables as a topping, lots of tomato sauce, a small amount of cheese, and a whole grain crust) pizza can actually be relatively healthy. But I've seen the pizza they serve in school lunches...It's not exactly vegetable-like.

For the record, I'm not even sure that pizza should be removed from the menu entirely. I've got a kiddo in the middle school who is on the spectrum, and that is the ONLY thing he will eat. Plus, half the time, he picks the fatty cheese off it anyway. I feel disinclined to take away the only thing he will eat for lunch. (But then the other part of me has a little bit of the tough love attitude...If it's not a choice, eventually the kids will get hungry enough to make another choice!)

I've been in meetings with the principal and vice principal at my school where they scoffed at all the new regulations about school lunches and how it's ridiculous what they can and can't offer kids at lunch, or how they can't have vending machines anymore. Again, I'm not sure that legislation and policy changes are the best way to tackle the problem of childhood obesity. (Plus, I recently saw a study that said kids drink about as much soda whether their schools have vending machines or not). But something has to be done. A major argument of the principal was that it doesn't matter what the schools do, because the parents will just give the kids junk at home, or send them into school with junk food. The message he was delivering was that it doesn't matter what the school does, the parents have all the power. Well...That's a little defeatist for me! How can we sit around the table and say that what we do in schools doesn't matter? If we are honest with kids, and really teach them about food and about balance and moderation, there's a good chance that they will bring that information home to their parents. Most kids have a decent amount of sway over their parents...If the kids are home begging for swiss chard, then I think there's a chance their parents will make some kind of change at home.

This also makes me think of the bit in Supersize Me, when they talk about an alternative school for kids with behavior issues in Wisconsin, and what a dramatic change they saw when they changed the food program in the school. I am skeptical that the food program was the ONLY thing that brought about these dramatic changes. I am pretty much never willing to believe that one thing can be a total remedy for any problem. It's likely that they also have a very strong positive behavior support plan, and other behavioral supports. But, I do think that what you eat has a strong effect on how you feel and how you act. Trust me, you don't want to be around me when I've come down off a sugar high.

Plus, after working with adolescents who struggled with obesity, I have a much greater appreciation for just how difficult it is to lose weight once you have gained it. I think the goal should always be prevention-focused. Let's serve kids healthy foods now, so they can feel better and learn better, and be able to enjoy all kinds of foods in moderation, without feeling guilty.

And seriously, guys? Pizza does not count as a vegetable!