ARCHIVE - Sue-Marie's blog

ARCHIVE - Beautiful Day Activity

Sue-Marie — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 09:44:57 -0800

Beautiful Day Activity

My beautiful day happened the week before we went to EMP when I was down in the Bay Area on business. I took a side-track from work and drove through the wine country up to Harbin Hot Springs. I hadn’t been to Harbin for about 15 years and it felt good to go back.

My beautiful day started by waking up on a really comfortable bed with soft white sheets in an interesting structure, a Buckminster Fuller style dome. The inside of the dome was curvy and white like an adobe dwelling. There were lots of triangular windows and I could see that it was a beautiful day outside.

ARCHIVE - Forgiveness activity

Sue-Marie — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 12:28:28 -0800

Forgiveness Activity

I find it easier to forgive other people than myself. I am way harder on myself than I ever would be on anyone else. At the risk of sounding like an egomaniac, I decided to do this activity with my biggest ally and my worst foe in all of life, the one who definitely has caused me more heartache than anyone else but who has also given me more joy than anyone else. Myself. This is very personal, but I’ve decided to post it on the off chance it might help someone else. I’ve never really been very private anyway, and I know all my lumps and bumps are pretty standard. I'm not that special except in my own mind! So here goes, a dialog of forgiveness between my Self and my self. The small self is my nemesis who tries to psych me out from time to time. The big Self is my real self, or my higher Self, and she is the one writing the letter.

ARCHIVE - EMP response

Sue-Marie — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 11:33:28 -0800

EMP

When I found out we were going to EMP, my first reaction was cynical. “Been there, done that, I’ve got work to do!” But then the idea of a “field trip” reminded me of all the fun field trips I’d had during my childhood in hippy schools. I was still a little disappointed that we didn’t get to drive up in a yellow school bus, but I got to ride in Sue’s super cool mini-van so that made up for it. It would have been nice to all be together. But hey, were we lucky or what to get such a gorgeous day and incredible views of Mt. Rainier!

ARCHIVE - Response to The Resilience Factor

Sue-Marie — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 10:08:41 -0800

I am more than what I think

The Resilience Factor promises to help readers learn the ABCs of increasing resiliency by teaching seven skills that are grouped together into two subcategories, the "know theyself skills" (p. 66) and the "change skills" (ibid). There are three "know thyself skills," the ABCs of resiliency, Avoiding Thinking Traps, and Detecting Icebergs. There are four "change skills," Challenging Beliefs, Putting it in Perspective, Calming and Focusing, and Real-time Resilience (p. 146).

ARCHIVE - Gratitude Letter and Three Blessings Activities

Sue-Marie — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 14:45:45 -0800

Gratitude Letter and Visit

The challenge for me with the Gratitude Letter and Visit exercise was to think of someone locally for whom I hadn’t already done this because I tend to be quite acknowledging of the people in my life. Then I thought about my former office manager, a woman named Ruth. She still works for the company I used to own and operate, although I’ve since sold out and gone back to school. We have maintained our friendship although we don’t see each other often. As a boss, I was frequently annoyed by her because she moves at a much slower rate than I do and is chronically 15 minutes late to work. She also has a demanding daughter and grandchildren who often called her during the day to talk about things I considered trivial. I never considered Ruth one of my best employees, but she was very loyal and always brought her keen sense of humor to the job with her. My life back then was a crazy roller coaster of high octane stress and I know I was often very difficult to work with but she hung in with me through thick and thin.

ARCHIVE - Compton Response

Sue-Marie — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 15:51:56 -0800

Reader Response

An Introduction to Positive Psychology by William C. Compton

I find it ironic this book is called An Introduction to Positive Psychology because it seems more like a primer on research to date. It is almost a meta-analysis of positive psychology. That being said, I really enjoyed how well Compton summarizes myriad studies on positive psychology, going back to long before the term “positive psychology” even existed. I was particularly impressed by his ability to briefly summarize the work of Csikszentmihalyi, Jung, Adler and Maslow. No small task with any of these psychologists, especially not with Jung. This book provides a true wealth of knowledge, particularly as a leaping point to further investigations into any particular research study or area of focus. The references alone are worth the price of the book.

ARCHIVE - Gemeinschafsgefuhl

Sue-Marie — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 13:31:59 -0800

I didn't focus on one project for one two-hour period of time. Instead I engaged in several activities that all told probably added to more like three or four hours. I don't really like to talk that much about acts of kindness done for others, because I never want to come from an ego place in helping others. I guess it's okay to do it to make yourself feel better, but I find my reasons are usually different than trying to make myself feel better.

What I realized through this process is that I fairly routinely engage in acts of philanthropy and activism in order to help others. I do this because I feel it is my duty as a human being. The writer Alice Walkers says activism is the rent she pays for living on Planet Earth. I agree with her. But this is just one aspect of gemeinschafsegefuhl to me. The other aspect is more difficult, and that is my ongoing work around training my mind to be altruistic. For this, I recite a Buddhist prayer. I either do this aloud while using my prayer beads so that I say the prayer 108 or 216 times (depending on if I go once or twice around my mala). I also recite my prayers when I'm stopped in traffic, or waiting in lines. I will often recite them silently at night while falling asleep. The prayer is: May all sentient beings be happy and endowed with the causes of happiness. May all sentient beings be free from suffering and the causes of suffering. This prayer is also referred to as the four immeasurables. My goal is to recite the prayer 100 times a day, but I don't always meet that goal.

ARCHIVE - Elevator Ride

Sue-Marie — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 13:18:05 -0800

I had resistance to this activity, until I realized I was already doing this activity! Duh. I was starting to get really anxious about my big work load for school last week, so rather than worry about everything I had to do (ruminate), I bought a weekly calendar and wrote out all my assignments, and the homework I needed to do each week. Once I did this, I realized my work load isn't as bad and scary as I was imaginging it to be.

For lifting my mood, I visited with a friend and went for a hike in the woods. It would have been easy for me to not make time for these activities, but I realized they are important and both made me feel really good and more focused on my tasks at hand. I even had some spiritual insights during my hike, which was a nice bonus. I thought about how important air is, and how there is only one body of air around the planet. We are all breathing the same air. I thought about how I was breathing the same air I breathed when I was at 17,000 feet in Tibet last summer. This made me feel really good, because it reminded me that we are all interconnected.