Glass Half Full with Leslie Krongold, Ed.D.

Tag: coping

  • Uncover the stronger part of yourself…

    Uncover the stronger part of yourself…

    Liz Ann Kurdrna, Pilates instructor, feels like her emotional recovery from a rock climbing injury is ongoing yet “knowing that I have to show up for someone else…by teaching…it helps. It helps you uncover the stronger part of yourself.”

    In this podcast episode, Liz Ann talks about her lifelong love of rock climbing as well as her participation in other outdoor activities such as swimming, snow skiing, and cycling. In Montana, where she’s lived for the past 20+ years, she teaches online and in-person Pilates. Liz Ann has competed in local Triathlon events with the Challenged Athletes Foundation.

    In this video Liz Ann demonstrates a few Pilates Breathwork exercises.

    To learn more about Liz Ann’s online classes, check her website. You can register for her Seated Pilates class sponsored by BORP.

  • “Don’t worry, be happy! It could be worse. It is what it is.” by Toxic Positivity

    “Don’t worry, be happy! It could be worse. It is what it is.” by Toxic Positivity

    I remember years ago when I had a Toyota there was a dealership I’d go to regularly for oil changes and other car repair. You know how you drive into a big open space, like a warehouse? Well, there was a huge banner hanging inside that said SMILE. And maybe it had a smiley face. It kind of pissed me off; like it was a command – come here and spend more money than you need to and dammit, you better have a big fat smile on your face as you wait an inordinate amount of time to be waited on by surly people.

    And maybe Bobby McFerrin’s song was popular around that time or isn’t that song always in vogue – DON’T WORRY, BE HAPPY! I’ve liked the song; hey, it got everyone to know who Bobby McFerrin is but people in San Francisco knew of him and his leadership in a 24-hour acapella song event at Grace Cathedral on New Year’s Eve. That was something to be happy about.

    But I digress. No one wants to be forced to smile or be happy.

    A month or so ago I was on a Zoom chat with one of my new Mendocino friends. We’ve bonded over having chronic health conditions. Hopefully you’ll meet her soon. I can’t recall the context, but she used the term toxic positivity. I’d never heard that term before. But I remember it perfectly described what we were talking about.

    And then I started seeing the term in other places. You know how that is, something is unearthed and then all of a sudden, it’s everywhere!

    So, skip forward to a week or so ago. I was telling someone about a virtual support group I had facilitated. We were sharing coping tools for the holidays which can often be so bittersweet. Especially when you have a chronic health condition and you’re around friends and/or family that just don’t get your condition and challenges.

    It was a good meeting. Several of the people in this group have never attended a support group meeting…and are a little shy about sharing. But it was going well until this one gentleman started saying something like how he didn’t understand why people weren’t happy or joyful. He went on to share how his family and friends help him and he’s just jolly jolly jolly. He, I seem to recall, said something to the effect of DON’T BE NEGATIVE, I don’t like all of this negativity.

    In my 23+ years of facilitating support groups I have vast experience of dealing with negative people bringing a vibe down but rarely had I experienced this kind of behavior.

    It wasn’t a downer meeting…just people honestly sharing what seems to be a difficult time for many people. Like, you don’t have to have a debilitating progressive neuromuscular disease to understand how the holidays are bittersweet for many.

    So, as I said, I was sharing this experience with someone in the patient support community, and he said, “you know I think this is an example of toxic positivity.”

    According to the Mental Health Association in Delaware:

    With toxic positivity, people’s negative emotions and experiences are downplayed and disregarded. Instead, only positive feelings and experiences are encouraged.

    Apparently, this has become more of an issue during the pandemic.

    The website goes on to say:

    Toxic positivity statements can be directed towards others, stated by others, and aimed towards oneself. Some signs of toxic positivity statements may be dismissing emotions, minimizing someone’s experience, giving one’s perspective instead of validating someone’s emotions, shaming someone for expressing frustration, and brushing things off. Some examples include:

    • “Just get on with it.”
    • “It could be worse.”
    • “It is what it is.”
    • “Don’t worry, be happy!”
    • “Positive vibes only!”

    Did you hear that one Mr. Bobby McFerrin?

    Okay, I am guilty of using the statement “It is what it is.” But in defense, I’ve used this for minor setbacks like when our cat Abner knocked over our tree and some precious ornaments broke. I was mad for a little bit but my partner was sad and cried. I said It is what it is.

    A more compassionate response, as I’ve learned, would have been:

    • “I see you, and I’m here for you.”
    • “Describe what you’re feeling, I’m listening.”
    • “This is really hard, I’m thinking of you.”
    • “Failure is a part of growth and success.”
    • “I see that you’re stressed, is there anything I can do?”

    But what about the support group? How do I handle the perpetrator of the toxic positivity when it’s not me?

    I think I mentioned to Mr. Positive in Your Face how I’m a big proponent of positivity – after all, I have a podcast called Glass Half Full – but it’s also very common to have a difficult time with the holidays. I cut him off too…because…wouldn’t you know, Mr. Positive attempted to dominate the conversation. I wonder if he listens to my podcast. Hmmm.

    In addition to the website for the Mental Health Association in Delaware another high ranked Google search result was a podcast on KQED. The episode focuses on teachers who have had a particularly rough time during the pandemic – having to change curriculum for remote learning, having a hybrid setup with in-person teaching on one day and remote the next day as well as having real fears of dying and/or separation from their child if exposed.

    In some communities’ teachers were force-fed positive phrases and instructed to do breathing exercises. One woman talks about being shown a TED talk with psychologist Kelly McGonigal talking about making stress your friend. The podcast narrator defines toxic positivity as focusing on the positive and ignoring the negative. This mindset has caused a lot of teachers to feel guilty, stressed, and overwhelmed.

    Ironically, McGonigal is one of the psychologists often featured on one of my favorite websites – the Greater Good Science Center at UC-Berkeley. I decided to see what articles The Center had about toxic positivity. The search results displayed one with the entire phrase; there were many results for “toxic” or “positivity.” The one result was a comment from someone in response to a “Finding Silver Linings” practice. The truncated comment included, “I do wonder how this process starts touching on the territory of toxic positivity. When we’re frustrated and discouraged, how can we own the feelings and…”

    So, toxic positivity has not yet merited much attention from the Greater Good Science Center. Interesting.

    I know how hard it is to hear about someone’s suffering. Even if you are compassionate, you might not know what to say. And often there isn’t any magic phrase to ease their discomfort; maybe they just want to be heard, or witnessed?

    But let’s all agree…when we’re hurting there isn’t anyone that can whisper a few words to snap you out of it. DON’T WORRY, BE HAPPY! Wow, if that worked we’d have no need for psychologists, therapists, counselors, alcohol….You get the point.

    I’m still all about tools and resources to help manage difficult physical and emotional issues. But sometimes you need to sit with something and wait and find the right path out.

    So during this holiday time, please be gentle with yourself as well as others. If someone is hurting, ask them if you can help but don’t assume that what works for you will work for them like a magic pill.

  • If I can’t dance to it, it’s not my pandemic

    If I can’t dance to it, it’s not my pandemic

    If Emma Goldman were alive and experimenting with the virtual life, she may have said something like this. Why not dance through the pandemic? It’s good physical exercise, ignites oxytocin, and can bond you with a community.

    Yagmur Halezeroglu and Tess Hanson from Dance for All Bodies (above) and Ania Flatau from Wheelchair Dancers Organization

    Several accessible dance organizations have brought their talents online and thus expanded their reach nationally and internationally. One organization, Dance for All Bodies, co-founded by two recent UC-Berkeley grads — Yagmur Halezeroglu and Tess Hanson — feature a variety of professional dance instructors teaching accessible dance in a variety of styles from salsa to urban jazz and even chair tap.

    Another group, Wheelchair Dancers Organization, pairs wheelers with walkers, and offers online classes in Island Fusion, Hip Hop, Latin Jazz, and Bollywood. One of their wheeler instructors, Ania Flatau, also offers dance classes on YouTube Live through her Facebook group, Cat Daddy’s n Krew Virtual Fitness with Ania.

    Loose Transcription

    Hello…in this podcast episode I’m sharing more of my pandemic experience with you. A couple of months ago I interviewed two people affiliated with BORP – Bay Area Outreach for Recreational Programs. BORP is an amazing organization that has really stepped it up during this bleak 2020 by providing online classes.

    But BORP is not the only group helping us cope physically and emotionally. Today you’ll learn about two other nonprofit organizations — Dance for all Bodies and the Wheelchair Dancers Organization.

    My first guests are Yagmur Halezeroglu and Tess Hanson. They are the co-founders and directors of Dance for All Bodies which you’ll hear them speak about as the acronym – D FAB.

    I found out about this online dance program through dance friends I met at Rumba with Tina which I attend on Saturday mornings. D FAB is relatively new and features a variety of professional dance instructors teaching accessible dance in a variety of styles – salsa, Flamenco, Brazilian, Hip Hop, Contemporary Ballet, Urban Jazz, Diaspora, and Chair Tap.

    It’s fun, it’s educational, and it’s a good work out.

    I asked Yagmur and Tess how they met.

    Tess

    “…we went to UC Berkeley” – applied for same job – Cal Performances. Ushers, assistant managers. Met fall semester. Yagmur had a lime green backpack. Realized we both loved dance.

    Yagmur

    DfAB started a one-time dance class I organized at hospital. Amputee community. Amputee support groups. There is a gap the way we view dance. Taking action and making change support what you believe in. Tess and I put this idea together. Big Ideas competition. How can we scale this class? Worked with AXIS dance company in Oakland. I ask about her work with the blind. Tess talks about the beginning. One of her brothers is autistic; James is a part of my life.

    Now that both Yagmur and Tess have graduated, I was curious to know how they envision the future of D FAB.

    Yagmur

    We’ll just take It wherever it goes. Tess naively thought we’d need a year to get it sorted out. So many ups and downs. It feels like a good, worthy work in progress. They met at BORP at Ed Roberts. Once the pandemic hit, our lives just changed. Let’s try online…how did you find dance instructors? Judith Smith helped find instructors. Stephanie, Janpi – through word of mouth. Dancers with disabilities. We want to connect these dancers with experience choreographing.

    Yagmur

    Looking for partners and sponsorships. Challenges we’re facing. Initial award. Crowdfunding campaign in late March. We don’t have a source of revenue beyond donations. We want to compensate the team. Bring our classes to new audiences. Spread beyond our little bubble. Partner with a hospital. adaptive dance in schools.

    I asked Yagmur and Tess how they feel about the past year and all of their accomplishments.

    Tess

    Tess talks about how people feel after the class; we get lovely messages that provide the fire to keep going. Can I do this? I’m really proud of the partnership with Wheels of the world – an accessible travel organization. We had a lot of classes in rapid succession.

    As you can tell these young women are quite inspiring. I had just assumed they were both dance majors but they weren’t. Yagmur studied cognitive science and hopes to pursue medical school and Tess studied environmental health and policy and is currently doing field work for a water conservation group.

    You can learn more about their organization by checking the links on the Glass Half Full website.

    My next guest is Ania Flatau. I met Ania earlier this year because she was one of the instructors in an Island Fusion dance class I took offered through the Wheelchair Dancers Organization – or WDO. WDO was founded in 2008 in San Diego, California by Beverly Weurding – a woman who has Limb Girdle Muscular Dystrophy. Ania’s been attending WDO classes for the last four years.

    I first asked Ania about the organization.

    Ania

    The classes are for disabilities…we call them rollers and walkers as partners. All the classes are for all abilities, all levels. Teachers who roll, teachers who walk.

    Ania

    Tell me about your love of dance; what were you drawn to? My parents are from Poland. When I was in high school. I was an athlete. I thought I was a bad ass. I felt so uncomfortable; he was pulling my arm. At the end I was so uncomfortable that I wanted to figure out how to do it right. One summer I took a trip to Poland and my parents found a dance camp for wheelchair ballroom. These dancers…dancing for six hours/day; they were training for the world championship. They kicked my butt. I remember feeling challenged…that’s where my love for wheelchair ballroom started. I started to feel more and more comfortable with my body. I felt a oneness that I had never felt before. I was…a senior in high school. I got into those fields because of the wheelchair dance.

    Ania

    Ever since that dance camp I’ve been doing something dance related. It makes me feel like I am centered in a world. Being a person with a disability…disconnected from your body. I feel present and centered.

    Ania

    I teach a dance fitness program world of dance u jam. We partnered with world of dance – a massive network. The songs are urban, like hip hop. When covid hit I…how am I going to get my fitness on? I was toying with the idea of teaching virtually. I created a Facebook group. the name is cat daddy’s and krew virtual fitness with Ania. A hip hop dance move called a cat daddy looks like you’re rolling a wheelchair. I was trying to find a creative way to honor the culture where hip hop came from and have an ode to the dance…cat daddies are wheelchair users and krew is everyone else.

    So there you go…I learned something about hip hop. You can find out more about Ania’s Cat Daddy and Krew on Facebook; I’ve got a link to her group in the podcast notes and her YouTube Live classes are free. Ania told me she likes the accessibility features  like the captioning that are available on YouTube. If you have any questions about modifications for the dance moves, she’s more than welcome to meet with you – virtually – to suggest options.

    I hope you’ve enjoyed this episode but more important, I hope you check out the dance classes available at Dance for All Bodies, Wheelchair Dancer’s Organization, and Ania’s World of Dance U Jam.

  • When the personal is political and the political is personal: Stress on our Health

    This is part 2 of a conversation with Dalia Kinsey, RD, LD, SNS. We talk about becoming our authentic selves, how trauma impacts our physical and emotional health, and the need for inclusivity and intersectionality in public health messages.

    This is the most stressful year of our lives. We’ve got the pandemic going. We already knew about police brutality, but never have we been to a point where every time you turn on the television, every time you open Facebook, every time you look anywhere, you’re seeing another black or brown body being abused. The trauma is massive and I don’t see anyone really addressing it. And I feel like racism is what I know, that racism and all kinds of systemic abuse, these are public health crises.

    ~ Dalia Kinsey

    The first part of our conversation can be found here. To learn more about Black Joy, check out this article or video series.

  • Coping with a Coronavirus: Trees, Yoga, and Essential Oils

    Coping with a Coronavirus: Trees, Yoga, and Essential Oils

    A retired nurse, physical and yoga therapist, and mental health professional offer strategies for coping with uncertainty, anxiety, and all those other emotions caught up in this season of the pandemic.

    Verla Fortier, author of Take Back Your Outside Mindset: Live Longer, Prevent Dementia, and Control Your Chronic Illness, speaks about her experience diagnosed with systemic lupus and the discovery of the healing power of trees.

    Tianna Meriage-Reiter, DPT, C-IAYT, and owner of the Mind-Body Movement Center talks about her new live streaming yoga classes available at her YouTube channel.

    Lee Greenstein-Wein, MSW, shares how specific essential oils can help with situational anxiety or depression. An earlier podcast episode features other healing benefits of essential oils.

  • No Hugging Allowed: Tales of Covid-19

    How is the threat of Covid-19 (coronavirus) impacting your life? Beyond fierce hand washing, are you changing how you relate to others? Is social distancing keeping you indoors? Are you second-guessing where you go, what you do, and with whom you spend time?

    You’re not alone. People with chronic illness and/or compromised immune systems need to be vigilant as well as mindful.

    For a few practical tips, listen to this podcast episode as well as the earlier episode, The Flu is Not for You. Here’s a recipe to create your own hand sanitizer. And if you’re ready for a little levity, check out this reoccurring segment on The Daily Show.

  • Mindfulness as a Disease Management Strategy

    Mindfulness as a Disease Management Strategy

    Being diagnosed with a chronic, debilitating disease can certainly bring stress to one’s life. In fact, that stress can be significant enough to be called trauma.

    How one handles this stress varies. Some people have amazing coping capacity and are hard-wired for resilience while others have more difficulty. None of it is easy.

    Mary Holt, a Registered Nurse with a Master’s Degree in Counseling Psychology, shares her journey of loss and recovery and the profound impact a mindfulness meditation practice has had on her life and work. She brings this practice to the clinics where she helps patients and their families with neuromuscular and Parkinson’s disease.

    Mentioned in this podcast episode is the annual International Rare Disease Day organized by NORD. Here are two relevant podcast episodes: Rare Disease and the Need for Research and It’s Not that Easy Being Rare.

    Transcript

    welcome to glass half full with leslie krongold she shares her stories experiences and knowledge of living and coping with a chronic health condition learn about tools and resources and hear inspirational interviews that help you to live a life filled with quality and dignity with two decades of support group leadership leslie’s ready to help you make lemonade out of life’s lemons are you ready are you ready

    hello listeners we’re nearing the end of february which means it’s almost international rare disease day i have a rare disease do you there are over 6 000 rare diseases i know i’ve met people with a disease so rare that they’ve never met anyone else with it i can’t even imagine what that would be like recently at my monthly support group we had a family joined us who had never met people outside of their family with myotonic dystrophy if you’re diagnosed and you live in or near a heavily populated city you will hopefully not have to wait too long before you meet others with the disease we have a patient advocacy organization that has an annual conference and this conference has given me the opportunity to meet others with the condition who live throughout the us and other parts of the world we’ve had people in the conference come from new zealand south america and of course you know a few european countries so rare disease day celebrated on february 28th is a day of advocacy getting out in the public to let others know about your disease last year a group of us met at senator dianne feinstein’s office in san francisco this year we’re joining others with rare diseases at a local museum and park so check the gospel website for links to learn more about rare disease day maybe there is an event happening in your neck in the wood and i will also include a couple links to podcasts that i did specifically about rare disease day today though is not about rare disease as i mentioned i’m part of a patient advocacy organization which meets in person annually usually in a different location throughout the country and last year we met in philadelphia and one of the sessions i attended was titled mindfulness as a disease management strategy now you can just imagine how that piqued my interest unfortunately the session was less than 45 minutes but i could tell the presenter had more to offer so i introduced myself gave her my podcast calling card it’s actually a postcard um if you want one let me know anyhow she and i recently had a chance to talk mary hope is a busy woman she works at two different philadelphia clinics and has a private practice in addition to her academic work she’s a registered nurse and has a master’s degree in counseling she has a lot of lived experience mary was a caregiver for her husband and experienced his loss at an early age with two young children to raise she’s also been in recovery from alcoholism for a number of years i have always worked in my nursing career uh with chronic pain and chronic illness that kind had always been my path and then there were actually a series of events that had happened personally in my life and i had not been working for a time while i was pregnant with my second child and yeah it was just knew i had to get back into the workforce my husband had become quite ill and i you know of course he was not able to work so i really had to kind of get back into the workforce um you know kind of help provide for us in a sense in my two children so i saw this job posting that was for a nurse coordinator i loved always being able to kind of have that integrative model so i love the coordination piece and it was neurology so it was it was the mda als center of hope um and at that time it was at diversity in philadelphia and that was back 2005 and then i started there as a nurse coordinator full time and i was probably seven years or so and had had a master’s encounter with a specialization in psychological trauma and bereavement so working with people that had you know a focus of course of chronic illness terminal illness that was really one of my passions so when the mental health specialist left that center then i kind of moved into that role in terms of being able to support the patients and the families yeah all throughout the journey really from time of diagnosis or from the time that we you know began with them and then journeying for as long as they stayed with us you know for a number of years the rest of my time my other full-time work i actually do three things so my other full-time work is working with parkinson’s and i’m a nurse educator a clinical educator with that population so i work with people that have parkinson’s and their families and i work with physicians movement disorder specialists and i do educate food i teach the families and the patients how to use a particular medicine medication and injectable medicine for parkinson’s and really how to live well you know as best as they can with their parkinson’s and then outside of that i am also i have a private practice in terms of life coaching speaking mindfulness practice and things like that so i’ve always had a desire to have uh and my you know goal still one of my goals is to be able to do that more to be able to reach people in a way that to have a greater impact in terms of helping people so i when i was working originally with a neurology team and during that time i had had a meditation practice of my own i’ve been sober for a bit over 12 25 years and i’ve had a meditation practice of my own for a number of years and when i was at jefferson i was working with chronic pain patients and they had a center for uh integrative medicine so i went there and i took a mindfulness course a mindfulness meditation it was actually a stress management course and at that time i fully impacted and shifted my whole experience in my own life my professional work my recovery my own personal health in such dramatic ways that i went on for more training and really have been teaching and doing that practice and really focusing a ton of my work professionally around stress stress management and how it relates to our health and also how mindfulness can be a foundational piece of that in terms of helping people live well in the midst of chronic illness and terminal illness so what is psychological trauma when it’s boiled down it is trauma if we look at just trauma in and of itself is something whether it be an experience a situation or an event that overwhelms the system right overwhelm the system physically of course it could overwhelm the system of course which is my my specialization psychologically and mentally emotionally spiritually as well so that can come from a certain particular event it can also come from chronic exposure to certain things whether they be you know external or potentially internal you know somebody is chronically experiencing anything you know negative perceived as negative to the point where it over overwhelms our ability to kind of integrate our experiences on a healthy level for us to be able to function kind of day in and day out in a healthy way yeah because when i hear the term trauma i think of people with ptsd or um some sort of sexual abuse i generally might and i’m not you know a professional in psychological or mental health but i um i think of it as like an incident or series of incidents that are traumatizing but the way you’ve defined it it sounds as if just the diagnosis of a progressive chronic illness can serve as trauma

    absolutely yes absolutely i’ve experienced that with people you know when we say in particular when we you know potentially give somebody the diagnosis of als or something um what can happen is that i mean on the flip side of this too i you know i don’t know if we’ll talk about it but is also the amazing resiliency of the human spirit in terms of being able to you know kind of integrate and wrap our brains around certain things and being able to function in the midst of these kind of crises these crises that happen in our lives but you know when somebody is you know faced with a situation that is in many ways i’m going to say potentially but can many ways alter their existence and how they perceive that it can absolutely be traumatic i was actually just this weekend i was working with our team our multidisciplinary team and in terms of the and talking about the effects of you know continually working with the population of you know in neuromuscular conditions and neurodegenerative conditions that you know it is a traumatic environment because we’re continually working with emotions that may arise from time to time such as frustration powerlessness not being able to make an effect potentially loss grief sadness you know and that can be incredibly distressing to the you know our mental capacity and our psychological capacity to be able to manage so how do you define resilience so i would define resilience as the amazing capacity which always seems to surprise me the amazing the amazing capacity of the human being and the human spirit to be able to integrate and rise above

    what may be perceived as incredibly negative circumstances and find meaning continue to move forward um serve continue to serve in some way not that all of these are necessary but these are the things that i see in the people that i work with and the families that i really tiny amount like couldn’t even fathom what it’s like yet you are serving the world rising above taking your experience and helping others that is to me incredibly resilient because some people fold i also see a lot of people fold and i don’t believe that there’s a good a right or wrong necessarily we all do with the capacity that we have um but when you ask about resiliency it’s definitely i think you’re a living example of that so the session you read at the conference this year how i met you was titled mindfulness as a disease management strategy so i think we’ve led up to this right you talked about how mindfulness helped you and you your training and i’m assuming you’ve implemented it in all the work you do does a mindfulness training or does it as a strategy help build resilience for me personally you know mindfulness is kind of a buzzword around healthcare around the corporate world somewhat um and it really is a way of it really is a way of relating to the world you know i mean when i so i practice minds when yes there are strategies within mindfulness and from the bigger scheme it really is a way of relating to our life and our life experiences and ourselves and others um so it definitely can build resiliency because what mindfulness gives us is number one it gives us awareness so i’m not a and the other thing i want to say is it’s a practice so it’s something that is certainly cultivated over time i am absolutely not an expert it is something i practice every day um every moment of my life that i can become more aware so it gives us an awareness so we’re not just acting on autopilot so we have some sense of you know when we’re going down the rabbit hole per se so it gives us awareness and then it has this underpinning in terms of non-judgment and compassion so it offers me the opportunity to meet my life and my life experiences to number one become aware of my you know how i’m perceiving something and how i’m relating to it and then it gives me ways of coping with openness and non-judgment and compassion for self for others and for kind of life as a whole which is simple in words yet incredibly in light so yes it can 100 yeah build resiliency how do you do that in the clinic setting i mean i i’ve been to the interdisciplinary clinics in san francisco and at stanford you know for my disease and i imagine they’re kind of similar and you know i went for years i haven’t gone recently but i had a pt who i saw you know uh every year for many years and one of the last times i saw her and unfortunately she had to leave the clinic she moved away but she started talking about mindfulness meditation and i was blown away because it was such a departure from anything she spoke about before so i’m wondering you know is it something that the other clinicians are talking about too or is it just you that’s actually yeah that’s a great question so it is um it just depends on everybody’s level of comfortability uh in our life right now it’s not something that everybody talks about people they are becoming more aware of it and more i would say open to it you know whether that is because of you know kind of what i do you know i talk about there so i would love to see it one day as kind of a standard of care um interesting and really offering people ways to manage you know all of i mean you think i’m just thinking about the physical therapist so if your physical therapist is there talking about mindfulness meditation that shows huge kind of integration to me that says you know there’s a lot of integration there in terms of what can help support you that she’s not just just addressing you linearly right with a solo focus you know acknowledging the fact that you are simply as a being right you have a mind you have a body and you have a heart so how then can we because they don’t none of them operate individually so how is it then that we can take our health care management and also approach people you know i really meet people in the sense that you know that we each really do have the capacity within ourselves to kind of answer all the questions that we have and we do have the resources within us um whether we need to find some more outside but we really do have a that within us so i meet people hopefully with that uh intention that you really do have everything that you need um and my role with you is then just to help you uncover that and get clear what’s your relationship with yourself you know that’s a big thing so when i’m seeing people in clinic a lot of our conversation is around um what’s the you know what is the relationship with the illness you know a lot of people are you know fine you know quite they they’re angry they’re and those emotions sometimes are controlling them in ways that they are not even aware of and impacting choices that they make choices that they don’t make whether they’re going to use their walker or not use their walker whether they’re going to accept a feeding tube or not accept the feeding tube so how to how how help them explore the reasons underneath that why is it that you don’t want to use the walker when you’ve fallen three times right no not in a fault-finding way but just to help them explore that oh you know it means that um you know that much worse in my illness or i’m giving into it or you know what will people think of me i’m weak you know all sorts of things so um yeah so i really try to help them you know to provide a space for that to arise because the body does hold you know there’s a book called the body holds the score or keeps the score and it really i mean you know our bodies just like it needs to you know all these negative emotions they all kind of you know they can i mean whether we’re giving a space for them or not they need to come out some way right so especially people that have physical conditions you know like you all the people that i work with i i stress that it’s even more so important and myself you know i it is more so important if we already have a physical condition or a medical condition that we you know somehow manage the stressors and you know negative emotions in our lives when they arise because our body is already kind of working somewhat double time um you know to manage and you know negative emotions build up or not given space can just impact that in a profound way there’s a lot of research around that as well in terms of the cascade of events with the you know neural chemicals that kind of run through our body so i hope to just meet people you know i hope to just provide a space where people feel that they can uh you know be real and really explore what they need to so then they can make the best decisions that they can you know for themselves whether it’s using the walker or not using the walker having the feeding tube or not having the feeding tube so a lot of my work in the clinic is around life choices all the choices we have to make yeah i invite you to check out mary’s website especially if you live anywhere near philadelphia she teaches a variety of classes i wish i could take thanks for listening i hope you’re able to take away something you heard in today’s podcast and apply it to your life take care of yourself and i i hope to see you online in our facebook group on youtube instagram or on the glass f4 website thank you for listening to glass half full leslie invites you to leave a rating and review on itunes this helps spread the word to others dealing with chronic health issues for show notes updates and more visit the website glass half full dot online

    classful.online you

  • Laugher is the Best Medicine: Stand Up Comedy

    Oakland-based comic, Nina G, gets her Edith Ann sock puppet signed by Lily Tomlin

    To kick off Disability Awareness Month, our guest is Nina G – the first female stuttering comedian and dyslexic writer. You’ll get a taste of her stand up material as well as learn about her path to comedy and the educational and advocacy work she’s been engaged in for years.

    For additional information about Nina’s comedy CD with the Comedians for Disabilities Act, visit this webpage.