Seal Beach is a quiet beach community in Southern California. A group of women are relaxing on a sunny afternoon gossiping as they are having their hair done. Suddenly the tranquil scene is disrupted by gunfire and eight women are dead and one is in critical condition. A distraught, estranged father and ex-husband abruptly and without warning forever changes the life of a several families and a community. How could this happen? How does one make sense of such an event?
The TV show, So You Think You Can Dance?, can teach us a lot about lovemaking. As we watch these young dancers perform their various routines, we admire their coordination, agility, determination, and exuberance. They inspire the viewer to want to move along with them. They may even evoke within us a desire to get up and dance.
Bruce Lee, the world renown martial artist, said, “As you think, so shall you become.” Bruce was acknowledging the power of the human mind to affect behavior. He was just as enthusiastic about training the mind as was about training the body. One of the reasons I began studying the martial arts ten years ago was because I recognized that martial art training was based on character training, psychological principles, and personal growth. It provided life lessons as well as physical training.
We often want support from others. Often I hear patients sadly indicate that their family or spouse is not supportive of them. On the other hand, they are happy to report when they feel supported by their friends. We seek people who we feel are on our side. We appreciate those who say ” I have your back.” Sometimes we describe someone as having been very supportive; other times we feel that someone is not being supportive. We use the word support when we contribute to a cause, e.g., I support various charities by making a donation. Psychologists often recommend supportive therapy. Exactly what is support, how do we give it, and how do we ask for it? What is it that we are looking for when we seek support?
A woman tells me that she is pregnant. She is happy and scared. Happy that she is going to have a baby and scared that she won’t be able to control her weight by her usual methods: purging and laxatives. She is anorectic and bulimic. Another young woman tells me that she is getting big as a house from overeating, but she cannot stop herself. She constantly has to buy new clothes, but she is running out of money. She is a compulsive over-eater.
Your success depends on how you live the life you choose. First, you must define what is important to you, your values and principles, and then live your life to the best you can by incorporating those values into your everyday life. The degree to which you are able to live this way determines your success. While we cannot choose the cards we are dealt in life, we can choose how we will play those cards.
It was only for seconds that the earth shook, but for many it seemed like a life time. Whether the people in Japan or those in California who experience an earthquake or other major disaster, folks who live through it will never be the same. It disrupts their way of life and perhaps an entire way of thinking about themselves in the world.
This is an overview of my new book of the same title; the book is available on Amazon in Kindle version and will soon be available in paperback. PROFITS FROM MY BOOK SALES GO TO MAKE A WISH FOUNDATION AND CHRYSALIS: CHANGING LIVES THROUGH JOBS
From a very young age we are asked, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” As adults we get asked all the time “What do you do for a living?” It seems that in our so ciety we are constantly under pressure to identify with our job and use it as the primary way we define ourselves. Throughout our years of schooling and at every step along the way of our careers there is never any room for doubt about our chosen path. That is, until life steps in.
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