trusting the bladder to do its job

Life sure takes funny turns...

My life, to be sure, does. I have taken a break from blogging for a while, as many things have been happening quick and fast in this world of mine.

Lets not go into details about what they are - but do lets discuss the lessons learnt from this experience of 'living the fast life' - literally hahaha!

Once again, I, like many other people, tried to take control of my life recently. For eg, I stressed about lack of money, I stressed about how to get more money, I stressed about how to control others so that I could reach my own personal goals...

Control freak that I am, or was, now i read back on my prior posts and realise that I missed one thing these past few months in my life - trust. Some people may call it trust of God, some people call it trust of oneself or of others. I dont know. Trust - funny word.

Lets take an example from our own bodies - I know for now i have a full bladder. I need to go to the toilet - that will my MY own way of controlling this uncomfortable feeling of a full bladder. what if i dont indulge in this controlling behaviour - ie bring myself physically to the toilet? Bingo.
You may view the wetting of my pants the "bad" effect of no control - having an acciddent in my pants - eeew! gross! in the daily sense of 'control', if i lose my control over, say, my need to have money, the result? maybe i go broke. maybe i live on the streets. HOKAY.

But You may ALSO view the wetting of the pants as a "good"effect of this so-called "no control". How? Well, it is a release of a very natural bodily function. it is the release of the discomfort of controlling one's bladder. in the daily sense of 'control', it will be the culmination of the universe' way of establishing equilibrium again... if you can look at it that way. 'equilibrium' might mean 'going broke', but it IS equilibrium, a sense of balance before things start to function again.

Back to 'trust', though... what has it got to do? well, obviously, in this case, it is trusting that equilibrium will happen no matter how hard you try to control. whether one ends up peeing in the loo, or in one's pants, equilibrium happened.

As i said earlier, my trust was dodgy for a while there. and i became a major control freak. but that did not stop equilibrium from happening. The lesson in this? it is to trust. when one loses trust and starts to feel as though it is them against the elements, then the journey to reach equilibrium becomes an unnecessary struggle, instead of the wondrous joyful self discovering journey that it could have been.

finally, for all that i've said so far, this picture puts it all into perspective!

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Such random things I write

As my lovely friend Su puts it often - I had an "Ai carumba!" moment just twenty minutes ago taking my walk in the lovely cool night through the suburbs.

Hi people:)

I was listening to a smashing song on the radio, and it went something like, "I don't know what to do with myself *amazing instrumental* I don't know what to do with myself *amazing instrumental*" etc... of course, it made me think of my favourite topic - myself.

But before I get to myself, let me share with you what I heard in the distant night air immediately after that. I heard some crazy dog barking. But before I elucidate on said barking, I wanna say that i then turned my gaze on a beautiful house that I wish I owned.

ADHD tendencies aside, I just want to say that it made me think how wonderful this brain of ours is, that it can make connections between seemingly unrelated things. But that is not my point (it is anyone's guess how i made connections between Myself, Barking Dog and Beautiful House and no, it does not entail images of the Stafford Wives and domestic violence...)



My point is that it made me also think more deeply of this person called Me, Myself. I. I read in my awesome book that there are 3 basic senses of self. The first is the Conceptualized Self, which basically pertains to how you would describe yourself if asked to write an essay on yourself. It would go something like "I am kind, I am lovable, I am nice, I am blah". There is a sense of evaluation towards this "I".

The second is the so-called Self as a Process of Ongoing Self-Awareness. This is the self that goes "Now I am feeling this. Now I am remembering that. Now I am seeing this." This sense of self is important for healthy psychological functioning.

The third sense of self is actually quite mind-blowing to think about. It is the Observing Self. It is what I thought of when I heard the barking dog, then turned my gaze on the spotlight of the beautiful house. The Observing Self, I think, can best be illustrated by asking yourself these questions: "What is an early fond/painful memory of yours? When you relive this memory, who is that sense of self looking out from behind your eyes? And then, who was it who ate your breakfast this morning? And who is reading this blog right now?" When I saw that spotlight and heard that barking dog, I thought of that 'Self', so-called looking out from behind my eyes, out into the darkness and towards the light.

The transcendent Observing Self gives us a lot of leeway to overcome our mental pain and anguish when we experience them. You can choose to not "buy into your thought" or put another way, not "look FROM your thoughts" but rather "look AT your thoughts".

When the next painful thought comes into mind, why don't you just say "Oh thanks for the input, mind" and look AT it instead of looking and living FROM it.


I really do want to elaborate and go into detail about the observing self, but my time is limited as I've got sweet potatoes baking in the oven and my landlady does not like us to waste electricity. So get them out I must, but I think, just to succinctly drive it home that MY unwavering sense of observing self is starting to weaken due to the smells wafting from the kitchen, I will totally deviate from this topic and share a YouTube video of my favourite belly dancer with you all. In a way, there IS something of a connection there. Deepak Chopra and Demi Moore narrating to the music - hmm one's super spiritual and other's super Hollywood. There you go - mind and body. Mind Over Body.

Enjoy!!!

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buttery pineapple tarts - who has the last laugh?

Hi people!

A while ago i blogged about how my landlady was a cleaning freak and that behind my closed door in my messy room i snigger and laugh all-knowingly... hehehe. well this here is an update on my room - during my last visit home two weeks ago, she had jumped at the opportunity to enter (yes enter!) my room and take EVERYTHING apart and clean it from top to bottom, including my thousand and one knick knacks and acessories on my dresser. hah! who's having the last laugh now???

who HAS the last laugh in our lives? is it us? back to that later.

I recently acquired a penchant for eating pineapple tarts for dinner. this is because i had brought many back from my travels home and it was the season to be eating them then. which means that, ahem, my waist line has been quite on the receiving end of the buttery tarts.

let's get to the point of today's blog - weight loss, mind control, blah. i heard about a person who had been trying to lose weight for years and years, and never had any success. this got in the way of her relationship with significant others, of course. to me, the secret to weight loss lies in this: eating and liking to eat is actually a very emotional thing. there is 'emotional eating' and there is simply eating. if you think of someone being under local anesthetic, they feel no pain even when the surgeon is cutting away at their insides. all they feel is a neutral 'sensation'. with eating, the pleasure we feel from the senses/taste etc is the emotion linked to eating, much like the emotion of 'pain' linked to getting our insides cut when we are NOT on local anasthetic. wheh we detach the emotion from the actual act, much like applying anaesthetic on our eating, we realise that we can control our urge and 'greediness' to eat and only eat when we are hungry.

That, of course, is the stuff of saints. and emaciacted yogis from India who derive pleasure only from the 'higher things in life'.

I, on the other hand, choose to h0ver between sainthood and The Matrix, ie our everyday life that i have to be in to help others. which means, sometimes i binge on pineapple tarts for dinner, and sometimes i exercise mind control and do not eat dinner because i feel emotionally full :)

back to the last laugh - i guess the autopsy person will have the last laugh on me when he splits open my guts to find it filled with buttery tarts...

i am thinking of home now, so i will leave you with the tough decision we malaysians face each day about whether to exercise mind control or not. i think not.

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My Unconditional Love

My lovely silkworm friend Rachel(as i call her fondly) made a special request for me to blog about love today. Not ANY love, nooo not any old love. Unconditional love!

*falling off chair, stumped by the magnitude of this topic*

ok, i'll try... here goes. *wink wink*

When we were all students staying in the student hostel back in 1993, lovely rachel was pursued by this boy we nicknamed 'Egg Guy'. Rachel reminded me during our online chat today that he was given this special name cos he borrowed an egg from us in the kitchen one day (and b****y did not return it dammit!!!)

But... unconditional love.... as we know it in everyday life, mainly pertains to the love a parent has for his/her child. So i thought about Egg Guy, and how maybe he is happily married by now with happy little egg children!

goosebumps yet, rachel? :P

Jokes aside, hmmm. In counselling there is a concept that shrinks need to follow called 'unconditional positive regard'. Basically, it means not imposing your own personal values onto your client, even though he may be a mass murderer! rachel and i agreed that this kind of positive regard is similar to the unconditional love a parent has for his/her child.

That got me to think about other kinds of love. ah.... lovelorn me! but again, that aside, I got to thinking about what i described to Rachel as God-given values and human values. the relationship this has to love? Rachel and i agreed that, regardless of one's faith, in a man/woman relationship, a God-given (or universal, if you like) value is that the man, because he is made physically stronger, is meant to protect the woman. and the woman, because the universe/God made her softer and more in touch with her emotions, is meant to be in a supporting/submissive role to the man, substituting her emotional strength what she does not have in physical strength. What about human made values then? well one could say they include all the other rubbish that unreasonable couples expect of each other in order to have a 'happy relationship.' like, for eg, the man must make good money, the woman must wear Chanel, the kids must go to selective schools and become doctors and lawyers, etc etc etc.

But what ABOUT unconditional love then? my interpretation of that is that we owe ourselves the God/universe-given value of loving ourselves unconditionally. simple and sweet. if our interactions with others are a reflection of what we truly are and truly feel (which indeed it is), then for us to show others unconditional love would mean that we need to reflect our own unconditional love to ourselves. to me, without one, the other cannot manifest. trust me, i have seen one too many self-loathing parent who hates their life who proclaim that they 'love' their child and push them to do all sorts of crazy feats like... becoming a doctor or a lawyer. it is sort of like, erm... without the egg, there will be no chicken, and vice versa.

I ended our conversation by teasing lovely silkworm rachel about the bouquet of flowers which the infatuated Egg Guy gave her once. From memory, it had given her major goose bumps, and it did again when i brought it up after more than 15 years!

My teaseful suggestion to rachel prompted her to say goodbye and log off from the chat... because she had said that she hated those flowers, and that she thinks guys who give flowers to girls are so cliched anyway, i suggested that what if... guys giving girls flowers is also a God-given value? because, face it, most girls swoon for flowers? which would mean that she was not in tune with God-values???

*Rachel is now offline*

Adieu my God-given blog fans!!!

"An egg in a second, goosebumps for a lifetime"

~emo-me~

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A Matter of Spock

Today, i was surfing around being my usual voyeur self on facebook, when i came across this coolzzz picture! and i thought to myself, now surely that is a sign that i must blog today? and blog about the brain and the mind? and sound like i am totally in touch with all that brain/mindovermatter/etc etc etc debate that is going on? (i THINK there is some debate going on on this topic, there almost always is some clever observation to make about our brain, no? cos then it shows that the observer's brain is indeed smart and clever - a win-win!)

anyway, here is the picture!

it shows, as you can tell, a strong brain doing strength training!


what makes a strong brain? hmmm maybe i will leave that question to the neuropsychologists, and rephrase that to: "What makes a strong mind?"

i saw someone today whom i think was very strong. but yet, she was oh so weak. in the midst of her upbeat, unaware cheer in spite of her terrible life experiences, i sensed that this aura of cheer she exuded came from being, i am sorry to say, a little bit naive about life. she did not truly see the severity of the injustices that had been done to her, by her husband, by the law enforcers who wrongly accused her, by her scheming lawyers and by the govt authorities who failed to protect her. and there i was, crying silently for her in my heart all the time i was nodding and acknowledging her story.


Did i know too much? or did she know too little? is simple minded good or is ruminating a positive thing? is my writing starting to sound a tad like carrie bradshaw's clever lines? i think my point is this: there IS no point. no point in trying to 'get the better of'. or in thinking 'what if?' she, my client, in all her naivete, is no better or no worse. in other words, she couldn't ever be anything other than herself. which means, when applied to our own situation, whatever we do, whatever happens to us, whatEVER choice we make or dont make, it is ALWAYS meant to be, it is always 'right'. WE are the writers of our own life-books, and WE feature in them. we do not want to be featured in someone else's story, our roles and scripts cast by them.


a friend of mine told me recently that everything can eventually be traced back to patterns in nature. what i mentioned above is sort of like a young seedling, starting to sprout its leaves, stems, tendrils and roots. there are a kazillion million different ways these can sprout, but eventually the plant chooses only one. and whatever it chooses eventually, THAT makes the plant. that determines how much sunlight it gets, how able it is to reach water, and how vulnerable it is to grazing animals.

I will sign off now with a picture of Mr Spock from Star Trek. Simply because...
a) i just heard him mentioned on my faithful radio

b) and Mr Spock is a nice symbol of how when one is rigid and pre-emptive of things in life like him, and decides what IS right and what IS wrong, then eventually one's heart gets broken...


Pic of Mr Spock taking his chances in life...

"I am what I am, Leila, and if there are self-made purgatories, then we all have to live in them. Mine can be no worse than someone else's." ~Spock in 'This Side of Paradise'~




Ta to all!!!

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makeup, dress ups, yoga, and meditation

Hi Friends!

This is a glimpse into my train of thought the past 10 mins as i sat there trying to think of what to blog about today:

clever point no 1 --> analysis no 1 --> follow-on thought --> further padding of follow-on thought --> (frustration starting to creep in as i began to realise it was all very 'staged') --> thought of Sascha Baron Cohen and his staged humour in Bruno --> eyes wandered to the open FB page in front of me --> decided to update status that i am having zero inspiration --> abandoned idea of blogging tonite --> looked at people's posts --> funny! --> played internet voyeur for a bit --> more funny bits --> saw my update again --> INSPIRATION CAME!!!

now i am rocking and waving my arms in the air to the friday nite music celebrating the rebirth of freedom, acceptance, relaxation, non-trying and just-being :)))

my client yesterday had an insomnia problem. of course the more she tried to sleep, the more she was awake. then she berated herself for not sleeping, upping her level of stress hormones, again less likely to sleep.

Now if only she could lobotomise me and look at my thought associations just mentioned. hehe, but lobotomy is so passe and we all know it only works when people can promise that they wont get depressed from managing the pain after getting cut up, otherwise it is a lost cause.

now makeup and playing dress ups. we've all heard of 'effortless chic' and looking nice without looking like you had spent a lot of time on dressing up. And how when women wear makeup they strive to look like they are actually NOT wearing makeup :) 'Being' without trying (but in my case re makeup, hehehe well that will be another post :D)

in meditation, as i understand it, the more you try to clear your mind, the more thoughts come flooding in.

This pose below in yoga is called the Non-trying pose. note that it is quite difficult, and you need help from a more experienced person ;)

Similarly, with my striving for inspiration just now, i didnt get it, and it only came when i did other things and became relaxed.

what am i rambling on about? i think the word i am thinking of is 'by-product'... happiness, love, money and many other things in life come when you dont look for it, when you dont strive for it. like you can't actively LOOK for money but if you do your job properly it is the result/by-product at the end of the month when your salary comes. these things, they pop up when you go about doing the daily necessities, living and enjoying your life in spite of, and simply relaxing and accepting your life.

Thus, I think my slogan for the day will be:

-------->"Why try, when you can simply get by?!"<--------

and to prove my point that I am not trying too hard here, i will simply insert a random doraemon video here for your viewing pleasure :)


Cheers and happy Friday nite everyone!!!

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the strongest man

My lovely friend Rachel remarked to me recently about how she was miffed by a friend of hers who said something without much thinking. We also chatted online today about people, and how it was so tough for her in the corporate world as she felt her soft personality was misaligned with her manager role.

Yesterday I blogged about the 'tough' century egg. today i thought about a coconut tree and how its 'softness' ie bending along with the wind and storm weathers it through the toughest weather, as compared to a stiff and 'strong' oak tree, and how its trunk would easily break in a bad storm.

I then had an inspiring conversation with Rachel about different levels of empathy, with regards to her friend who miffed her. According to Rogers' model,

Level 1 empathy: Friend says "I feel anxious" Your reply "You feel anxious? what the hell for? you have a great life!" You are self centred in your own view and are not really listening to him.

Level 2 empathy: Friend say "I feel anxious" Your reply "Oh you feel anxious? That sucks, but try to get out of it! Let's go shopping!" You try to make him feel better, but are still stuck in your own interpretation.

Level 3 empathy: Friend says "I feel anxious" Your reply "Oh you feel anxious? That must be hard. Tell me more about it." You are doing the most basic active listening and trying to take his view.

Level 4 empathy: Friend says "I feel anxious" Your reply "Oh you feel anxious? That must be hard, especially when you've got to work. I wonder if it is related to the fight you had with Jane this morning?" You not only start to take his view, but also inject your own analysis of the situation which he may not be aware of.

Level 5 empathy: Friend says "I feel anxious" Your reply "Oh you feel anxious? That must be so hard when you've got to work too. But you know, I have seen you being very resilient in the past, and I know it is hard now but i believe in you. What do you say we sit down and brainstorm about some things that can help you?" You actually start to INSPIRE him to help himself.

Now we all need to really walk in the other person's shoes, like the Level 5 empathy shown below.

Click here for more information on great radical (i think) psychologist Carl Rogers. He even supports my idea on the coconut tree! wow!

Which led me to think, often people think that being strong means being set/sure in your opinions, and not showing your emotions. Rachel's friend had miffed her by using Level 1 empathy, imposing her own views on her problems, instead of really listening. And i wonder how many managers out there are like this, thinking if they 'soften', they are being vulnerable to their subordinates and thus will not earn respect.

Then I thought of the most powerful and great people we have known - people like Jesus, Buddha, and all the great saints (incidentally i did not think of the President of the United States!). And i realised that the greatest strength, the greatest leadership, is portrayed by people who are gentle and soft, and who are not afraid to admit their own vulnerability. in other words, a person who is stuck to their own opinions, indicates they are not confident enough to admit their mistakes. which means it is a false sense of strength, much like the dictators of our time.

Their own weaknesses are hard for some people to admit, but this is exactly the point. Seems to be so obvious, yet it remains elusive to most people! We all think of a strong oak tree when told to think of a sturdy tree, but in actual fact, the coconut tree is much stronger. I think our society needs a paradigm shift in terms of what we actually mean when we tell people "Be Strong!"

I will finish with the part of the lyrics from a song i am listening to now on the radio. It reminds me of how we tend to perceive a 'weak, crying, vulnerable person' and how we really should be perceiving him!

"Some people think I'm bonkers, But I think I am free!
Some people think I'm bonkers, But I think I am free!"
~heard on triple J radio hottest 100 this fine Australia Day of 2010~

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Burger Time!

I love this arcade game called Space Invaders. it is quite a classic, and i am sure many of you out there know about it. Now for many years of my life, because i am quite a visual person and think in pictures, i have pictured myself to be somewhat like that lone spaceship at the bottom of the screen, quite literally exposed and vulnerable to an attack at any time by the invaders advancing from above. I felt like there was nothing i could do to control it, and life was one big fight, trying to fend off invaders, and you never really know when they would attack.

I have come a long way from there, but recently, i came across a client who had suffered a series of 'attacks' after another throughout her life. the way she fought back brought into my mind the image of a century egg. Now a century egg is a kind of chinese food delicacy, which in its raw form, is a duck egg which has an ugly straw encrusted layer of mud covering its shell. inside though, is the most exquisite, tender and, interestingly, black coloured (from a fermenting process) egg flesh. this client tried to appear 'tough' to her perpetrators, by purposely doing 'tough' things. but as we all know, that off-putting tough exterior of the egg is nothing but a brittle and weak shell, that actually covers the real exquisite egg inside. so she was actually making it even more obvious that she was brittle and weak by putting up a tough muddy crust, try as she did to achieve otherwise.

another funny game i found at the arcade is hilarious - it is called Burger Time, where this little chef person runs around trying to stack meat patties and cheese and tomato in order to make a hamburger. but whenever the chef gets threatened by the giant evil sausages, he can thwart them by throwing a dash of pepper at them! This is that funny game i played! (note the twisted evil sausages...ooooh)

I liken this tactic to what the lone spaceship in space invaders does when he gets a special point and becomes temporarily invincible against the attacks. reseach has shown that people who tend to think that a negative event is specific, non permanent and externalise it are happier people. that is, if your boss criticises you, it is better to think that he is only angry at you for that specific problem, he will not always criticise you, and that the problem is caused by a host of other extenuating factors other than yourself. it is a bit like throwing pepper at sausages or having an invincible layer to protect yourself.

The century egg client saw my point. She agreed to let go of her put-on toughness, and just shine and show others the exquisite 'delicacy' that she is. Thus she is accepting her own frailties, opening to others, and experiencing life instead of fighting it.

And what a beautiful thing that is, quite like the lovely century egg in the image below (you can tell that this is a favourite food of mine!)


For those of you out there who are still that lone spaceship, I share your loneliness and fear, but if you want to escape from evil sausages, have a think about letting go of your brittle fragile crust.

"We cannot change anything until we accept it. Condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses" ~C. G. Jung~

"Century eggs are best eaten with a dip of fresh red chilli sauce"~unknown food connoisseur~

You may find a recipe for making your own century eggs here :P

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Angels amongst us

A phone conversation with my cousin from Malaysia, Lambi (not her real name!) sparked the idea for today's post. Lambi is a virtuous gem of a girl, and i salute her dedication to helping the underpriviledged community. thinking of people who do good led me to think of one of my boss/good friend's metaphors for a phenomenon called, in her words, "Angel Addiction".

Most of us have been afflicted before at some stage by Angel Addiction. When I was 12, my favourite story (and it still is) is called A Little Princess. Some of you may have heard of it. One of the parts of this story that i constantly re-read was when Sarah, the main character, in her most wretched state, cold, starving, miserable and abused, found a dollar in the gutter and after asking around for its owner, was offered 6 warm buns for it by the baker to eat. However, she passed by a beggar girl who was even more wretched than her, and in all her kind angelness, she decided to give one, then two, then three four and finally all five of her buns to her, leaving only one for herself.

I will not comment on the appropriateness of her 'virtue', if virtue can ever be inappropriate in the first place. However, Angel Addiction is when one is addicted to the idea of, in my opinion, how OTHERS view at and admire their long sufferingness and lack-of-self-care-in-lieu-of-othersness, and this drives them forward to continue their virtuous acts. in fact, many of us act for charity with a little bit of this addiction driving us. many long suffering mothers also unconsciously subscribe to Angel Addiction. i find it hard to admit, but sometimes, if not most times, i do good, unconsciously EXPECTING some kind of admiration from others. after all, i was Sarah's No. 1 fan, and still am :P Needless to say, some forms of addiction are actually positive!

However, addicted or not, I am learning to take better care of myself. Like a tree, sometimes she nurtures her leaves, and keeps them close by, on her branches. But when winter comes, and she herself needs some TLC, she very wisely lets go of her leaves, and builds her strength up in winter. When spring comes, she is fully able and strong to protect, grow and nurture her leaves again, even bearing fruit! Nature is great telling us these stories eh?

Without an emotionally solid, stable mother, chidren grow up psychologically unstable. If we view the people we help as our wards or children, we need to also be solid and stable ourselves first, especially if one works in a caring/helping profession. No pressure, though, and by no pressure that means if we falter, we have to be like the tree in winter, and accept our own frailties and protect ourselves first.

Lambi, this blog is dedicated to all the good work you do, and also to YOU! Boy am I glad that the same white angel blood runs in both of us! Sarah's joys knows no bounds ;) Go have a cone and celebrate, Christie!

With love from your addicted cousin :)))

A sleeping baby Ganesh... taking care of himself! I love!

You may like to read a related topic on taking care of yourself here

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Fruit loops

I think i redefined the term fruit loop today. My friend Celia asked me today what shrinks like us tend to write in our 'notes'... I had many impulsive (and not very politically correct) replies that came into my head, but of course i refrained. back to that later though...

Later in the day, I came across a client who described a significant person in his life who asked him to remove all the loose nails on the outer walls of their house... now what loose nails were doing hanging randomly off their wall in the first place, I dont know, but the word 'paranoid' did come into my head. much later, I came home to be confronted by yet another striking sight. words do not suffice, so here is the picture.

When it came to this, the loose (pun intended) ends finally tied themselves together. Paranoia, roughly, is a term used to describe people whose internal scanning device is too highly activated. Just like when comparing a pristinely clean glass of water, and a glass of drain water, a highly paranoid person's values is like a pure glass of water. a single drop of ink will tarnish its whole pureness, but a drop of ink hardly affects the already murky drain water. I told this client that this significant person is, metaphorically, tailing him, stuck to him like a siamese twin for 24 hours a day. in this case, if you put an object too close to your eyes, you are unable to see it for its true self. just like pure water and ink, the more tightly defined (read: unreasonable) your expectations are, the 'cleaner' your life is, the more likely you are to be hurt.

So, I would like to finish by 'letting it all out', as living with a paranoid person does cause a build up of nervous energy. thank goodness for the internet! So Celia, here's a glimpse into a lesser known world :P

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triple J magic

I heard this great freaky song on triple J the other day. it finished with the artiste going repetitively "animal animal animal animal animal animal animal animal..." then the song ended.

I was thinking of how to link my past few days' experiences to my idea for today's blog. there were many things that i thought of, but i thought animal animal animal song was AWESOME! anyway, before i get to that, it was funny that just yesterday, i saw a new client and she used to work as a quality control officer. now we all know quality controllers, much like accountants, auditors, actuarists and dysfunctional mothers (!!!) find fault for a living. this person was not only good at finding fault with the product she managed, but also with her own inner life/thoughts.

hey i found some good accountant jokes!

What do accountants suffer from that ordinary people don't?

Depreciation.

When does a person decide to become an accountant?

When he realizes he doesn't have the charisma to succeed as an undertaker.

(wouldnt you just love to have your faults found by this accountant)

What's an accountant's idea of trashing his hotel room?

Refusing to fill out the guest comment card.

Now, a conveyor belt, where quality controllers find their fun, is where the faulty 'item' gets pulled out from the batch and scrutinised. this can be likened to our human brain - our brains are hardwired to only pull out and scrutinise negative/bad thoughts, ignoring the positive/good thoughts. it is hardwired since cavemen times, when cavemen actually NEED to focus on their 'problems' (eg that it will be nightfall soon, the predators are coming out and i've got no shelter or fire so i damn well better start looking for one or i die). and of course, there is the somewhat startling finding that 80% of our self-talk/thoughts are negative ones, at any given time.

Back to animal animal animal song... it just stood out cos it reminded me of how perseverative and chronic our negative thoughts can be if not kept in check. now as i write this, my (very perseverative) landlady has just boomed across the hall to me for the umpteenth time to collect my washing. her booming loud voice is starting to perseverate in my brain, so here's my solution for those of you out there with perseverative (negative) thoughts - SHUT THE DAMN DOOR, turn up the Triple J radio in your room and continue perseverating, but instead to the tune of "animal animal animal animal animal animal animal animal animal aimal aimal aimal aimal aiiia aiiia aiiia aiiiiaaaaaaaaaaaa aiiiiiiiiiiaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.........!" ok ok ok...

*goes and collects her washing sheepishly...*

Go to http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/music/hitlist_artist.htm for the triple J hitlist, i still cannot find animal animal animal song, any help would be great!

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the laws of attraction

When I was in Malaysia (my home country) recently, i did the unspeakable and went off-road mountain bike riding in one of the rainforest reserves there. unspeakable cos i knew that it would involve a lot of pain and sweat and discomfort, things which repel me, being a creature of comfort myself...

At certain points in the trail, the sides of the trail were pretty steep and if one was not careful, would veer off the edge and into the deep unknown rainforest below. this i mentioned to my brother, who was the one who convinced me to mountain bike. he said, "well US mountain bikers know that when faced with this kinda danger, we need to only THINK of where we ARE headed to, NOT where we MIGHT CRASH into."

Words of wisdom indeed!!!

similarly in life, it is all one big self fulfilling prophecy. You need to focus and visualise and fantasise on a daily basis about what/how/where you want your life to head. some people call it positive living. my brother calls it his do or die maxim, quite literally. hahaha!

quite simply, taking ownership of our life and being personally responsible for creating a happy life is an EVERYDAY business. if we cook our own fresh food everyday to feed our physical bodies, how could we ever neglect to feed, something as important as our mind, fresh, happy mind-food every day? it is one of life's paradoxes, i think, that humans neglect the very thing which, intuitively, we should know to be doing. maybe this is because, like the mountain bike riding, it would involve quite a bit of pain, discomfort and sweat. but my observation is that mountain bikers are by nature pretty masochistic, putting themselves thru this all the time, yet they are a pretty happy bunch of folk. so, there's my evidence for you. be a bit of a masochist. it is worthwhile sometimes.

Below are some tips i found online for cooking fresh pasta. there are many ideas you can get here on how to cook your own happy food, like washing, draining, stirring, making from scratch, using a slotted spoon, using fresh ingredients, etc.

You might want to visit http://san-remo.com.au/ for more fresh ideas!

Cooking Tips

Whipping up a San Remo fresh pasta meal is easy. All pasta varieties cook in 6 minutes or less, whilst our fresh sauces can be ready in just 3 minutes.
We’ve offered a few tips below but if you have any more, we’d be delighted to hear about them or any questions you may have atmailto:atinfo@san-remo.com.au

How much water should I use? The general guide is 1 litre per 100g of pasta. This ensures the pasta won’t stick together and will cook in the quickest time possible. For 375g of pasta, use 3-4 litres. For 625g of pasta, use 6 litres.

Salt – to add or not to add? When cooking dry pasta it is generally recommended to salt the water to add flavour. However, with fresh pasta there is so much flavour in the filling that salt is not necessary. It is really a matter of personal choice.

How can I bring the water to boil more quickly? Cover the pot with a lid while you are heating the water. However, do not cover the pot while cooking the pasta.

Should I stir the pasta every now and again? Stir the pasta as soon as it’s placed in the water and every now and again during cooking. This ensures all sides cook evenly.

How do I prevent pasta from boiling over? A good trick is to place a wooden spoon across the top of the pot while the pasta is boiling.

How do I drain the pasta? It’s always best to scoop the pasta out using a slotted spoon. However, if you don’t have one, gently pour the water into a colander and shake gently to remove excess water.

What’s the quickest way to make lasagna? With our Traditional Fresh Egg Lasagna Sheets. There’s no need to cook them first so you can place them in the baking dish as they are. First make sure the dish is covered in a layer of tomato sauce (San Remo Beef Bolognese is ideal) then layer with the fillings and remaining lasagna sheets. Cover the top of the lasagna with more sauce.

I love cannelloni, but they’re always so hard to make! Did you know you can use San Remo Fresh Lasagna sheets to make cannelloni? Place the lasagna sheets in warm water for 15 seconds then place on a clean towel. Prepare your favourite filling, then spoon a heaped tablespoon onto the centre of the sheet. Lay a slice of mozzarella cheese on top of the filling then roll up. Spoon a layer of tomato sauce into a baking dish, place cannelloni on top, spoon more sauce over the top then cover with aluminium foil. Bake in a hot oven 40 minutes.

My friend Su commented recently that her cats would surely scratch her cos she forgot their fresh cat food and they had to eat dry packet cat food. why, even cats know this wisdom of fresh food!!! too much stale, unfresh food for our minds, and watch how your mind eventually turns around and scratches YOU!!!

I'll leave y'all with this great quote i read recently about true power, which i have forgotten the verbatim but i'll give you the gist of it. here it is:

~ True power is knowing that you have problems in your life, and having the guts to do something about it~ (or something to that effect, you get my drift)

PS if any of you need further convincing re the benefits of being a masochist, try dating a mountain biker. here is the FB link:

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=1365973&id=738985757#/group.php?gid=2339018334

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reaction formation and pizza

Hi friends!

I just had to blog about this today! i was busy facebooking today and had a moment of truth. one of my close friends, who has a lot of personal suffering, once commented that FB is such a bane cos in spite of our networks becoming wider and more accessible these days, people are becoming more and more isolated. comments about this later...

Now my ex-boyfriend, he's a pretty switched-on fella. he once helped me tremendously in my 'wisdom-ity' by giving me a link to a wikipedia page about something called 'reaction formation'. essentially, reaction formation pertains to how humankind tends to 'love' (albeit unconsciously) something which they hate. for example, a little girl who has been sexually abused would engage in masturbation, the very thing which she abhored happen to her.

when i eventuallybroke off with my ex-boyfriend, BOY did i have a bad case of reaction formation. not that i hated HIM but i hated the fact that we had broken off. so i had to literally tie my hands together to prevent myself from texting him continuously.

Somehow i have this image of me as Ren being irritating like that... ;P

why does reaction formation occur? in the anxiety that we face having something traumatic happen to us, we paradoxically seek out that very thing, in our human need to understand more about that thing which caused us pain but which we did not understand the reason for. so, a child masturbating would tell us that this child is unconsciously trying to make sense of that confusing and horrible thing which had happened to her. or, a needy and desperate woman who continuously texts her ex is actually trying to get a proper explanation for why they broke off (incidentally, i only texted my ex ONCE after we broke off, so this does not refer to me LOL!)

Back to facebook, my friends and i had the most hilarious chat online today about... pizza. i guess it is funny to me cos i had been 'on a diet' for the most of this week, and, in my confusion about why i was doing this to myself, the sight of an oily morrocan lamb pizza screamed out at me to eat it at dinner time.

needless to say, that was when i had my moment of truth...

IT FINALLY MADE BLOODY SENSE!!!

and, FB is the same thing... the more you do not hear from someone (well at least for me), the more you go on FB trying to see if they had messaged you! (this goes for emailing and phone texting as well!!!) which led me to think that FB is one helluva great invention, contrary to what my negatively-inspired friend thinks.

The way I see it, reaction formation plays a major part in our lives. I may have been freed from the 'texting-the-ex' condition, but new ones continue to form every day, whether i like it or not. Such is life!!!

Here's to FB and the internet linking up people all over the world!

<>

*Note: Certain parts of this blog may have been exaggerated and/or downplayed to make it more humourous*

*Note: According to statistics, 4 out of every 5 Australians would have suffered a mental health condition at some stage in their lives*

This blog today is dedicated to Emon and eight months of glorious fun in the Hunter Valley getting to know some amazing people :)))

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a tunnel story

I dont like driving in tunnels because i have a phobia of crashing into the tunnel wall. for this reason, i tend to stick to wide roads in quiet suburbs when i drive around in sydney. i think there is a name for people like me...

DSM-IV presents four subtypes of specific phobia. Claustrophobia belongs to the situational type because the fear is cued by specific situations. Concretely, claustrophobia is a fear of enclosed spaces. The situations that claustrophobics tend to avoid are elevators, tunnels, subway trains, small rooms, medical diagnostic imaging techniques, underground parkings, etc. The person does not fear the situation itself, but the negative consequences of being in that place. The most common fears in this problem is restriction and entrapment and fear of suffocation (Rachman, 1997). Most closed spaces entail a degree of entrapment and a restriction of movements and many claustrophobics feel excessively vulnerable when their movements are restricted (Rachman, 1997). The fear of suffocating may arise from the belief that there is not air enough available in the enclosed space. ~DSM-IV-TR~

My cousin, she emailed me today and told me that she has "Job Depression." I found that quite funny, that word. However, I can empathise that many people out there are stricken with depression, as I was one of them before.

Which brings me to why i mentioned that tunnel thingy. My boss, who is a very clever lady, and very animated in her ways, demonstrated to me what happens if one defines their lives by a narrow set of rules and values. She wobbled around like she was in a very narrow tunnel, and enlightened me by telling me that we are more likely to crash and be hurt.

Depression sometimes happens when people live by a very narrow set of things that define their happiness. If we put all our meaning of happiness into one basket (eg your spouse, your chlidren, your job, etc) then you are more likely to crash into the tunnel wall if one of these things bail out on you. Which made me think that my cousin was pretty clever to label it distinctly as "JOB" depression. which means that her depression was only confined to her job, and she had her happiness defined by many other things outside of her job, which are still safely protected when her job bailed out on her. i can just picture her 'onset' of depression as soon as she enters the office and then gets 'cured' at 5 pm, morphing into Samantha Jones from SATC...

Now my other cousin, she is a funny one. she lives by a set of quite narrow rules, but fortunately for her she has not crashed into any tunnel wall, fingers crossed. for example, she believes that chinese actresses should NOT act as japanese geishas and bluff the rest of the world that a chinese face can actually pass off as a very authentic japanese face. hence, she BANNED herself from watching the movie 'Memories of a Geisha'. some of us really do have issues... but it is so cute! haha. btw i think there is a name for people like her too...

Paranoid personality disorder is a psychiatric diagnosis characterized by paranoia and a pervasive, long-standing suspiciousness and generalized mistrust of others. Those with the condition are hypersensitive, are easily slighted, and habitually relate to the world by vigilant scanning of the environment for clues or suggestions to validate their prejudicial ideas or biases. They tend to be guarded and suspicious and have quite constricted emotional lives. Their incapacity for meaningful emotional involvement and the general pattern of isolated withdrawal often lend a quality of schizoid isolation to their life experience. ~DSM-IV-TR~

anyway, i digress a little. so, the gist of this blog is, keep your life's tunnel nice and wide. this way you are not likely to be hurt all the time. oh and if all else fails, do as i do - only drive on the neighbourhood roads at 50km/hr all the time.

"It is better to be a coward for a minute than dead for the rest of your life"
~Irish saying~

cheers!

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focus focus focus?

Hi everyone:)

Ever had a pimple on your face? It is one of life's metaphors again, but most of us miss this in our perplexed search leafing through beauty magazines trying to look for the perfect pimple cream.

Oh by the way, i realised that dabbing cream does not work, with the variety that these little buggers come in... which kinda summarises the main point of this blog, as you will see.

Next question: Ever had a problem in your life?

If your answer was yes to both of them, then I want you to wonder what they have in common. and no it is not that they both start with the letter P you simpleton! (ps if you really are a simpleton, or if someone has remarked that about you, you really shouldnt be reading this blog. this blog is for the elite sophisticato, but if you are a simpleton, let me recommend you to read my other blog for simple-minded fashionistas)

http://www.bejewelledlikeme.blogspot.com

Ok, a pimple and a problem are alike because... (IQ question no. 56)
A: the more you focus on each, the worse they will become! Bingo. Pop!

I learnt the lesson about the former in my adolescence, when pimples were the fare of the day. squeeze squeeze squuuuueeeeeeeze. there - bang! it became bigger and redder the next day.


A problem - now it gets a bit philosophical from here... the more you focus on it, the more it doesn't go away. But again, like with the worry/amulet example, we somehow magically think that if we concentrate on what's WRONG, things will get better.

I have many competitive and anxious mothers come up to me in clinic and complain, "My son only plays computer games the whole day, and doesn't want to study".

What's wrong here? (and the answer is not that i asked 'what's wrong?') The answer is that she only saw what was 'bad' about her child. Now let's posit that further and think what a mother like that is likely to behave like?
1. nag
2. be unhappy
3. criticise
4. more nag
5. etc etc etc

In the long term, no prizes for guessing what level the child's motivation, self esteem, confidence, attention levels, etc will be at. And how will that impact on the child's ability to study in the end? Bingo again.


These are the options in your child's life if you are this kind of parent.

I tell her, "Congratulations! Your child plays computer games so well!" This is where it gets hard for her because it involves a paradigm shift (see my blog title description). Yank yourself out of that negative state of mind and start catching him being good instead of bad! I sometimes think the best things in life for us is so straighforward and intuitive (eg if you focus on good, you will be good) but it is not that way it seems. People, for some twisted reason, seem to think that if you focus on the bad, the bad will go away! or put another way, if you focus too much on the good, things will be bad.


Instead of prozac, I highly recommend these great 'Happy Pills' for your kid now! they work!

Third question: How is a pimple and a problem the same as poo?
A: The more you try to get rid of the poo (on your shoe), the more embedded in your shoe it gets and eventually you break your shoe.

This is actually a true story! A good friend of mine and her husband were taking a stroll and both stepped on dog poo. She was obsessed about getting it off, it irked her so. Her husband just continued strolling. By the end of the walk, the poo was gone from her husband's shoe but her heels were totally gone from all that rubbing and walking and eventually she had to toss them out. Btw, my friend has OCD, which of course adds to the mental factor of this story (you should see the amount of tissue papers she uses up at meal times, just like the racoons in this picture.)

I think this story speaks for itself. So the remedy? It is not so much as to NOT problem solve, but the idea here is to ACCEPT that you have a problem and then go about doing what is necessary. There is a distinct difference between the two. Acceptance of something takes away the point of impact, which is what hurts when we resist. Think of tai-ji-sparring someone and punching someone real hard. which one hurts your hand? like pimples, many girls i know swear that the best way to heal it is to leave it alone, not dabbing cream. in the case of the mother, her complaining meant that she had not accepted it, which further led her to bad mother behaviour like criticising, emotional blackmail and negative feedback. had she accepted it, though, there would be no 'pain' of knowing that her child does not study well, and she is in a better position to encourage his other good points. In other words, all in all, it is always the mother's fault. hahahaha kidding kidding... (phew that was close)

So, let us all realise this now. focussing on something to make it go away doesnt work. instead, just accept it and go about doing what is necessary.

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what, me worry?

Welcome to emo anal, my blog about my increasing wisdom as i surf through life as a psychologist in private practice with an increasing number of fans and clients alike.

Tthis blog will follow my thoughts, wise and innane as they are simultaneously, on life, suffering, philosophy, excerpts-from-mainstream-psychology-magazines-cliches, and other deep and entertaining topics.

Now, i was taking a walk thru the suburbs today, and the warm breeze made my creative juices bubble. i have written this on my facebook too, so actually i dont promise to be too original in my writings... but hopefully the thoughts and ideas will be :D

This is what i thought of...

An amulet is a sort of superstitious object that superstitious folk hang on to rather nervously to ward off any ill luck. people who are chronic worriers are analagous to a superstitious person clinging on to the hope that the amulet will help them.

A (useless) worry functions like a (useless) amulet. in touching or wearing the amulet, one thinks, rather magically, that doing that will help them. in worrying, the worrier, rather magically, thinks that by worrying things will improve. things DO improve, but only momentarily, in that it gives you a false sense of security. like, you think that the skull-amulet you are wearing around your neck protects you from the sabre toothed tiger charging towards you, but eventually, you gotta do something, like run for your life. the worry, similarly, helps you for a moment, then it becomes a hindrance if you dont do something else to help yourself.

My landlady - she's got a personality disorder (a topic which shall be covered much later) has a worry-amulet that is not manifest in thought-worries but in behaviour-worries. she thinks by cleaning the house endlessly somehow her anxiety and emotional pain will go away. of course she tells US, though, that it's cos us tenants are a bunch of uncivilised dirty smack-on-the-palm-worthy bums. but behind my closed room door (in my messy room), i know the better. haha.

So, worry... it is only useful if it serves its original caveman function, that is to REALISE there's a problem (like the sabre toothed tiger is about to charge at you and you've only got a measely-looking stick of a weapon against it) then move on to problem solving, NOT obsessive worrying!!! imagine where we would be if our cavemen ancestors stopped dead in their tracks and fretted about becoming mincemeat pit with every charging sabre toothed tiger they encounter.
This is what a sabre toothed tiger's mouth looks like up close. Now imagine, WHO on earth would not problem solve (ie RUN RUN RUN!!!) when faced with this? where have our instincts gone to in these modern days?

I will leave you guys with a very cool photo of a very lovely looking amulet that my lovely sister brought for me from her travels to Bhutan. i dont know which evil spirit it is supposed to ward off, but i sure love wearing it. maybe that's why i have been lucky lately. hey i wont promote that idea here and debunk myself, but here's my lovely fashion statement piece anyway!!!
you might be interested to read more about lovely fashion statements too in my jewellery blog. here's the link.

http://www.bejewelledlikeme.blogspot.com/

Lovely amulet. symbolic reminder to NOT worry!

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