KarynHallMi Vida Loca: Books and More

July 30, 2010

Writing From Within

Constantina, a dear friend, and I visited the Cenacle today. We’re considering it as a possible site for a writers retreat that we’re hosting for a new group, Writing From Within. The retreat will focus on mindfulness for writers. It seems like a perfect site, offering peaceful surroundings in a forested area with trails and a labyrinth. There is even an art room that offers supplies for painting and other modes of expression.

We’re holding the workshop on February 11 and 12, 2011.

It’s like a writer’s retreat but for inspiration and digging deep rather than solitary writing.

January 23, 2010
Collecting Positive Memories

Positive Psychology researchers say one of the strategies for increasing your overall level of happiness is to collect positive memories. The brain tends to naturally remember negative events more than positive ones so some effort is required to register the positive events in your pleasure bank.

How to do this?

Collect pictures or momentos and look through them.

Savor the experiences when you are having them. Focus on every smell, touch, view, feeling.

Tell others about your experience, share it. That’s part of savoring it.

Experiencing positive feelings is part of our resilency, a time for building our survival skills, extending our awareness, much like lion cubs play fighting. We are able to take in more information when having positive feelings and have a heightened ability to accept new experiences.

Some say it’s evolution at work. For survival, the mind had to narrow and focus during times of crisis. When safe, the mind could relax. But some stay stuck in crisis mode, for lots of reasons. If that happens, rebuilding time is lost.

So play, chatting with friends and having fun is critical to survival. I knew it all along.

January 9, 2010

The Happiness Factor

In the beginning (hmm that sounds familiar) psychology focused on understanding all emotions, not just those related to pathology. The War (you know, the first big one) changed all that. Scientists needed to address post-traumatic stress disorder, understand how to treat it, in order to help veterans suffering flashbacks and depression from their experiences in battle. Psychologists developed a deep understanding of difficult emotions: anxiety, anger, depression. Little attention was paid to contentment, happiness, pleasure, and satisfaction.

Is that part of how cynical became the preferred emotional accessory? Smiling, happy people viewed as dumb, unsophisticated while the brooding skeptic, weary of the world’s offerings, was the intellectual, the realist?

Maybe that’s changing. Psychology has gradually returned to understanding the importance of contentment and happiness. Thank goodness. If emotions are information that we need to live our lives, leaving out the positive surely handicaps us. Indeed it does.

Turns out positive emotions play a critical role in our emotional health. When we’re content, that’s when we build resilency. We bank the positive for use when we need it. It also allows us to think in a broader way, more open to information. We can better build relationships during our happy times.

Happy people, it turns out, tend to be more intelligent and accomplished, not less. They are also realistic in their assessments of the world. Happiness over the long term is not about the joy of the moment, but about building a life with meaning. Meditation, acts of service, relationships are all building blocks.

Though we all have spontaneous moments of happiness, the foundation of a happy life is the result of effort and work. Some people are biologically predisposed to have a higher happiness set point than others and less work will be required to maintain a happy view. Others may have to work to elevate their set point, but it can be done.

Recovering from depression does not necessarily mean happiness. Working on adding meaning to your life may be necessary to prevent relapse and to build the life you want. Understanding happiness can be helpful to those who suffer from depression as well as the person who simply wants to improve their life. Gretchen Rubin’s The Happiness Project is one example of research-based information hitting the general market.

Step One in elevating your happiness set point is to develop an attitude of gratitude. Practice each day listing three events or people you are grateful for in your life. Be as specific as possible. Write them down, track your progress for a couple of months. Thinking of these each night before you go to bed can add significantly to your happiness quotient.

If you are interested in more of the steps to happiness recommended by researchers in positive psychology, try this free ebook:

http://bit.ly/8tnugt

Let’s Make a Difference

October 11, 2009

Each year millions of men, women and children suffer violence by members of their own families. They are beaten, raped, or assaulted. In addition to the damage done to so many individuals, we know that all of the major forms of family violence result in increased utilizaiton of the health care system. Family violence impacts everyone.

Results from research studies show that victims of trauma in general, and family violence in particular, are more likely to engage in risky behaviors than nonvictims. Behaviors such as lack of exercise,illicit drug use, alcohol use, tobacco use, sexual activity with numerous partners, eating disorders, and sexual intercourse earlier in a relationship. Though we’ve understood this is a major threat to public health, little has been done to solve the problem.

There are many ideas about why survivors of trauma are more prone to engage in such risky behaviors, including two basic beliefs. One is that the survivor is numbing herself, so that she doesn’t feel the chronic fear and emotional pain that results from abuse. The other is that the survivor sees herself as unworthy of good care and so treats herself accordingly, at times joining with the perpetrator and abusing her own body. Interestingly, while seemingly not caring about the pain of self-abuse, survivors seem more sensitive to pain from illnesses and injuries not self-inflicted.

The cost of family violence in loss of bright young women and men who could contribute to our nation is unmeasureable. The cost in terms of health care costs and disability payments is massive. To stop the violence, we must take decisive action. We must be willing to do what is necessary to solve the problem. And we have to know what to do.

One of the first steps is education. Education is essential in overcoming the strong need family violence victims often feel to protect the abuser. Drug education has taught many youngsters that alcohol and drug abuse is dangerous and has been successful to the point that some youngsters report their parents for driving under the influence and for smoking marijuana. We need a similar program to stop the violence and end the silence. We need to educate victims that the self-blame they feel is not the truth, but one of the symptoms of being abused.

A second type of education is to help survivors understand the long-term symptoms of trauma and the dangers of not getting treatment.

Another step is for health care workers to collaborate. Physicians and nurses are most likely to see repetitive symptoms related to trauma and the risky behavior that is typical. Every patient seen should be asked about their trauma history and a referral made if appropriate. Our healthcare is set up in a way that divides the person into mind or body. Physicians and mental health professionals, including psychiatrists, rarely consult. Effective treatment of the psychological causes of risky behaviors which result in physical health issues may never occur despite numerous trips to the ER.

Finally, mental health providers must learn the effective treatments available for trauma. Sometimes the treatments used further traumatize the individual and result in the patient dropping out of care or becoming a permanent patient, dependent on the therapist.

Let’s get started. What can you do?

September 19, 2009
Healthcare issues and Violence in the Home

With the increasing dilemma of how to responsibly provide quality healthcare to those who need it, I hope those in power will consider long-term corrective solutions as well as urgently needed acute remedies. For many years we have known prevention is the best intervention. Consider this excerpt from a World Health Organization (WHO) fact sheet revised in 1972:

Not only are chronic conditions projected to be the leading cause of disability throughout the world by the year 2020; if not successfully prevented and managed, they will become the most expensive problems faced by our health care systems.

This same fact sheet identified the following as essential elements for action:

Support a paradigm shift towards integrated, preventive health care
Promote financing systems and policies that support prevention in health care
Equip patients with needed information, motivation, and skills in prevention and self-management
Make prevention an element of every health care interaction

In the thirty-seven years since this was written, how are we doing?
In some areas, such as smoking, there are significant efforts being made. An emphasis on healthy diet and exercise is also more evident in the media now. Yet we still are not applying critical knowledge about prevention to difficult areas such as abuse.

Estimates are that women in their rate 40s who were physically or sexually abused as children may spend up to 36% more on hearth care, according to a February 19, 2008, news release from The Ohio State University, Columbus. After accounting for other factors (eg, age, education), researchers concluded that childhood abuse correlated with increased spending on health care later in life.

Plichta (Womens Health Issues – 01-OCT-1992; 2(3): 154-63) completed a literature review on the effects of abuse on health care utilization and health status of women in the US. The abuse of women was defined as any physical abuse of a woman by an intimate male partner. She reported that

Victims are more likely to have poor health, chronic pain problems, depression, suicide attempts, addiction, and pregnancy problems. Abused women were found to use a disproportionate amount of health care services including emergency rooms visits, primary care, and community mental health center visits. Despite its high prevalence and the disproportionate use of health care services it causes, woman abuse is rarely recognized by health care providers. Even when health care professionals detect woman abuse, they often provide inappropriate or harmful treatment. Thus, health providers need to educate themselves about women abuse, know community and legal sources to which to refer abused women, and develop protocols for identifying and caring for such women.

More than one third of all partner-committed rapes and physical assaults result in injury requiring medical care (NVAW Survey, July 2000). According to the CDC, there are 2 million injuries and 1,300 deaths caused by intimate partner violence. Medical expenses from domestic abuse totaled $3-5 billion (Domestic Violence for Health Care Providers, 3rd Edition, Colorado Domestic Violence Coalition, 1991).

In an article published in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology(Battistutta, et al,1996) a survey of pregnant women who were domestic violence survivors were found to be less healthy than women who had never been abused. The survivors used more prescription medications,required more hospitalizations, experienced asthma at almost twice the rate of the nonabused and were more likely to suffer from epilepsy.

Research supports logical thinking about these issues. Survivors of domestic violence child abuse are more likely to suffer from depression and anxiety as well. (eg, Carlson et al, Journal of Interpersonal Violence,18, 8, 924-941 (2003).

According to recent statistics from the Child Welfare Protection Services, 80% of child abuse and neglect victims developed at least one psychiatric disorder by the age of 21, including depression, anxiety, eating disorders and post-traumatic stress disorder. Moreover, children who experience abuse and neglect are 59% more likely to be arrested as a juvenile, 28% more likely to be arrested as an adult and 30% more likely to commit violent crimes.

Abused children are also 25% more likely to experience teen pregnancy, 2.5 times more likely to develop alcoholism and 3.8 times more likely to develop drug addictions. One third of these abused children will go on to abuse their own children one day (Mike Selvon, Ezine).

There are caring people working hard everyday to address this issue, not because of the monetary cost of the issue but because of the value of life and safety. If part of the reason people don’t address this issue is because it isn’t their business, then perhaps the health care delimnea and the costs of treating the effects of abuse will help them see differently.

Today is the time to make a difference. Mental health practitioners know how to treat the problems, so there is intervention that can be taken. Social media makes the world a small place now and education and awareness can be done easier than ever before. There is even a more accepted understanding of the connection between mental health and physical health. Now is the time. We can’t afford to not address the issues, either morally or financially, any longer. It’s about time. Whatever the motivation for a concerted effort to prevent violence in the home, I’ll be glad to see it done.

September 9, 2009

Social Media and the Internet: The World is a Community

A couple of months ago, I spent a day with young women who were survivors of abuse. They were struggling to establish a life for themselves safe from drugs, promiscuity, and suicide. Their stories were filled with pain and cruelty, often inflicted by family members they loved and they had great difficulty managing daily life as a result. I twittered about my concern about abuse in the home, wondering about how to make a difference. I said I’d thought about writing a book but no one would publish it and no one would read it. There is a wall of silence about abuse.

That’s when social media magic hit. Several people answered me, stating if a book were written that told the stories of survivors along with information about how to address the problem, they would read it. Authors responded stating they believed the right publisher would publish it. And Dr. Stephanie Wright said she’d been thinking about a similar project for some time.

A few weeks later, The Elephant in the Closet: Violence in the Home is in process. People from several different countries are taking time to complete lengthy and detailed questionnaires. Survivors, providers, family members and the general public are all contributing and expressing their wish to make a difference for those who have been abused.

Dr. Wright and I hoped we’d have enough responses to submit a proposal in the next few months. Thanks to the caring people responding and helping get the word out, we may have enough completed questionnaires to write the book in about one-fourth the time we anticipated.

I’ve been a clinician for many years, (Yes, you noticed I didn’t say how many!) yet the responses to this questionnaire educate me about the factors that go into abusive situations, the long term effects and the ways people overcome the trauma. Survivors are heros.

It started with Twitter. I am grateful I found a new friend and colleague with a similar interest. Then blogs, list-servs, and websites all provided a way to get information from people all over America and other countries as well, in just a week or so. Social media can create community. Community can make a difference.

August 31, 2009

Dr. Stephanie Wright and I are doing a research study together. We want to put a face on the pain of abuse victims by writing a book which will tell the stories of women and children who are harmed by intimate others. In addition, we will be considering the commonalities in their situations and the reasons why it is difficult for women to leave abusive spouses. Check out our website (Thank you Dr. Wright!) http://www.theelephantinthecloset.wrighterly.com/. Hopefully we can make a difference.

August 30, 2009

Funerals
We’re all going to die. Now I’ve told you. There’s no way you can say it was a surprise so you didn’t prepare. I strongly suggest you spend some time getting ready.

Let someone know where your safe deposit box key is kept. I’ve spent days tearing a house and cars apart, looking for that special key, hoping to find the will so I’d know the wishes of someone who died. People are not at their emotionally best when they’ve lost someone they love. Don’t make them go on a scavenger hunt with few clues.

Don’t give verbal instructions for your funeral and particularly don’t give those instructions to just one person. There are lots of people who love you and want to honor your life. Their ideas of what is the best way to do that is likely different from yours and from each others’. If you give verbal instructions to one person, that person may face the impossibility of carrying out your wishes and then be left with the guilt of not doing so.

Make a list of your financial assets and liabilities and put it in your safe deposit box or other safe place. No one wants to go through years of files trying to make the inventory required for probate.

If you’ve promised a specific item to someone, no matter how small, write it down. Otherwise the relative you promised it to may not have a chance of getting it because someone else wants it.

Maybe you don’t care. Put something down anyway. You won’t have to face the angry faces of relatives being unhappy with the decisions. Save the people who survive you from having to struggle.

August 15, 2009
Twitter, Again

I’m an official beginner, having used Twitter for about three weeks. I have a reasonable number of people I’m following, about 400, and about the same following me. I’ve learned the meaning of hashtags and use Tweetdeck to manage posts and responses. Not bad, right? I’m getting the hang of it.

In addition to having people encourage me with my writing and offer solutions on the spot to issues I encounter, I have had a couple of amazing experiences.

Earlier this week I twittered about spending a day with young women in a residential facility who had suffered abuse. Out of that simple posting, I developed a book idea (tell the stories of the girls) and found a possible collaborator (a sociologist from North Carolina interested in the cultural causes of abuse). We’ve set a time to talk.

I also learned about a wonderful writers’ conference, Sirenland, to be held in Positano in March 2010. Very expensive for me, but it focuses on the craft of writing and what a vacation it would be. Before I spent valuable time applying, I asked if anyone in Twitterland had attended Sirenland in the past.

Within two hours I had two responses. One from a writer who attended Sirenland in 2008 and 2009. She traded emails with me and encouraged me to apply, stating that they accept writers of all levels. The other was from a writer with Sirenland who promised to be objective in his feedback. When I saw his full name on his email, I realized he is a famous writer and so is his wife. And I have emails from him. To me.

My chances of being accepted are slim, but I’m ready to empty my savings account if I am.

Where else could that happen?

August 2, 2009
For years I didn’t write. For fewer years I started various projects and stopped.

Today I finally finished that novel that kept nagging at me.

I feel some excitement, but more than that, I feel free. I did it, I wrote a novel. I learned a lot about writing and I know I can put 80,000 plus words on paper in some sort of an organized manner. I wrote a suspense/mystery, because that’s what I enjoyed reading for escape. Along the way though, I found my own voice. And it’s not in that genre.

So today, I’m free to start a new book, without the pressure of wondering if I can do it. Somehow my writing is legitimate now, so I’m less bound by genre. A book about people and loss is my next project. The outline’s done. And already I’m having so much fun writing it. This time I’m creating a world I’d like to belong to. My characters are women and men I’d like to know. Maybe writing is my way of escaping, developing a fantasy world where my things go my way. Hmmm. Except they don’t. That’s okay too.

Maybe I’ll try Nano in November. That would be a first draft of a third book. It doesn’t seem to matter. I just want to write.

Nano in November.

July 27, 2009
Learning to Twitter

All authors and wannabes must learn social networking. That’s the advice I’m hearing, so I’ve become a newbie twitterer. At first, this massive instant messaging to people you don’t know and probably never will seemed like a senseless waste of writing and painting time. The worst part is that senseless or not, it’s also addictive. It’s too difficult to not check when you’re notified you have a message. And I can’t resist checking the profile of the sender to learn who they are. When the messages come every few seconds, little writing gets done. Like right now. Two new tweets came in and I stopped writing.

The thought occurred to me that perhaps this is a plot to weed out writers from an overpopulated pool. People can’t write because they are twittering their life away.

Yet, after a while, it starts to make sense. Or is it cognitive dissonance at work? Anyway, most of my emails are just a few words in length, to communicate briefly with someone. Tweeting allows just that and gives you an international audience, full of experts in every field. Build a network of people with your interests and the tweets you get are quite helpful. I have experts at blogging, writing, getting agents, publicity, and publishing as my tweeter friends. My tweetships include news writers and political thinkers from across the globe. If I want, I can ask someone in Dubai what they think of Obama. Or what their day was like. Great opportunities for research for novels and to connections with published authors and agents. Well, not yet a true connection, but I wouldn’t get to exchange daily greetings with them in any other setting.

Besides, where else could I hear from Barbara Walters that she is driving back to Manhattan from the Hamptons or from Jack Johnson that he went to the park with his kids?

July 26, 2009

Some days are magical. I love those moments. When it rained today, the grass shone a bright green and the flowers were extra colorful, like the earth got a bath. I sat in my living room, grateful to be inside, and watched the storm out the window. Coco sat beside me while I played guitar and edited Chapter 34 of my novel. This day goes on my gratitude list.

July 7, 2009

Benefit Performance(Click to hear Wayne play)

I’m going home in September. That’s the time of the Fall Festival in those wonderful Blue Ridge Mountains. I love sitting on the side of a mountain, orange and red leaves surrounding me, listening to fiddlers and banjo players create some true blue grass music. My cousin, Wayne Henderson, is semi-famous for making guitars and mandolins. He’s the only well-known family member we have. One of his creations is in the Smithsonian and others are in the hands of musicians like Eric Clapton and Doc Watson.

Doc Watson plays a guitar made by Wayne Henderson

At the festival there’ll be homemade apple butter made over a wood fire and fried apple pies, straight from an iron skillet.

And then more mountain music.

June 26, 2009

Unwanted Attachments

Being able to attach is a skill. Without attachment, it’s pretty impossible to form relationships so I’m grateful to have that ability. But by cherishing attachments, you sometimes hold on when letting go is the thing you need to do. I get attached to routines, diet Dr. Pepper,my image, age, role in life, peanut butter, and just about anything pleasant that happens on a regular basis.

I like things being as they are. I’d prefer I didn’t get older, the neighbors not to move, or the rules in my office to change. I look down at my hands and wonder when those wrinkles started. I get frustrated when someone else makes a decision that disrupts my world, like they’re moving to France. Do my friends have to join a gym, decreasing the available time we have to get together? My resistance to letting go is not a pretty sight.

I get attached to outcomes. In my head I decide I know what is the best result that could happen and then I’m sure it’s awful if that doesn’t happen. The outcome might turn out to be a disappointment, or it might not, but initially I judge it as pleasant or painful. I manage to forget that colorful leaves need to fall so the snow can coat the mountains and the snow needs to melt so spring flowers can push through the soil. Sometimes the most painful outcome brings about important change. Seems to me there could be a different system.

Getting attached to the way other people see me means I’m hurt when their view of me isn’t what I prefer. When will I learn the way they see me is really none of my business, and in fact actually is more about them than about me. Not to mention I have no control over that anyway.

Change is the way of life, so getting attached to anything is sure to lead to grief, anxiety and upset. I’m working on acceptance.

Feeling the Heat
June 21, 2009

It’s hot in Texas. That’s not news. We tolerate the heat in July and August, it’s expected. That water-logged, so heavy you can’t breathe heat is the price we pay for the beautiful 70′s we have in December. But this is June and already I see the blue burn of heat rising from the road before me when I drive to work. The sun’s rays are so bright they hurt my eyes when I’m out after ten a.m., even through the tinted windshield of my air conditioned car which moves me from one artificially cooled building to another. This weather is unexpected, atypical. So I give myself permission to complain.

It’s times like this I wonder why I live here. I love mountains, they’re bred into me. I love jagged, rock encrusted cliffs and tall, billowing trees. I seek out secluded nooks in forests and meadows filled with flowers. I crave the feel of soft grass under my bare feet, or warm sand with ocean waves washing over. I need stars in the sky to wish on. I delight in chasing lightening bugs and letting them go. I adore open windows with the breeze flowing through the house and the chatter of birds catching my ear. Looking for miles without seeing another building is freeing. My environment can define my mood, and cacti do not warm my heart.

Someone said you grow where you’re planted. Transplanting a root bound life is not easy. Colleges should offer courses on the importance of deciding where to plant yourself.

I’m going to a naturopath on Friday. Maybe she has an answer.

All this because it’s too hot outside.