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Everyone suffers when our streets and credit cards aren’t safe
Our bank called us last Monday to ask about purchases that didn’t look right to their fraud division. They described the suspicious charges and sure enough these were not our purchases — $402.00 for groceries at a chain supermarket and $19.36 at a fast food outlet. We’ve never spent that much money at a chain supermarket. We shop at health food stores and farmer’s markets. We don’t eat at fast food outlets (okay maybe the occasional In&Out Burger.)
My heart started to ache. Of course I didn’t like it that people had stolen our credit card info, but come on, these people were buying food…they were trying to survive. I found myself near tears then as I realized this and I’m tearing up again as I write now. These people weren’t buying jewelry, electronics, or grown up toys…they were trying to feed themselves.
Earlier that very day I’d read David Brook’s column The Great Divorce. In it he describes how the chasm between the haves and have nots in our great country is getting wider and deeper.
I don’t claim to have any political or economic answers here, but I do have a guiding principle. I believe we need to realize we are all in this together. What if we start making cooperation and sharing as important to our way of life as competition and owning ? If we end up living behind walls in guarded communities to keep people from stealing our things for food, we are in deep doo doo. Everyone suffers when our streets and credit cards aren’t safe. Whatever it takes, let’s find a way to work together, play together and pray together to make sure everyone partakes of the American dream.
Posted in News & Media
Tagged american dream, cooperation, credit card fraud, David Brook, hunger, needs & wants, sharing, society, The Great Divorce, unity
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Did 10 yr old boy murder best friend because of wrong medication?
A San Diego 10 year old boy murdered his best friend last week. How could this happen? As a psychotherapist I always seek to understand how such tragic abnormal behaviors occur. From news reports we read this adopted boy was born to an addicted birth mother. Okay, that gives us an indication that his nervous system has had some extra challenges from the time he was in the womb. Reading on, we learn that his adoptive mother was an involved, devoted mother who helped him learn to earn good times at Disneyland and new toys with good behavior. His grandfather lived in the home and was an active father figure. Neighbors, including the mother of the boy who was murdered, said this 10 yr old wasn’t a monster but a soft-spoken, honest child. Not until we get to the end of the article in the San Diego Union Tribune do we learn that this boy was put on a new medication in the days prior to the stabbing. He didn’t react well — his angry outbursts increasing. Neighbors report the mother tried calling his psychiatrist to change the dosage but didn’t get a call back because the Doc was on vacation.
I am now wondering if one of the side effects of this boy’s new medication was homicidal fantasies, impulsive behavior. I also wonder how often that new medication had been used for children…how well tested it was on the developing brain of a child. Was this an off label use of an adult drug? I wonder, too, if the drug representative who pitched this medication, told the psychiatrist who prescribed this drug about any potentially harmful effects on children.
While medication can be a life saver for some, we have seen it implicated in many cases of tragically abnormal behavior. We need much more careful oversight of psychiatric medications than we currently have…and some break in the spell the pharmaceutical industry currently holds over psychotherapy. I am an appreciative follower of Dr. Peter Breggin, the crusading anti-medication psychiatrist and author of the book, Your Drug May Be Your Problem. If this boy’s psychiatrist had read Dr. Breggin’s book, or had access to similar responsible information untainted by Big Pharma’s financial influence, would this tragedy have occurred? If this boy’s mother, obviously responsible and caring, had access to information about handling her son’s issues with diet and alternative health remedies would hers and her son’s life be destroyed now?
Yes, I’m biased. I am the psychotherapist people come to when they want to handle psychiatric issues without medication. I know how to help people manage issues of anxiety and depression without pharmaceuticals. I’ve written a book about it, Emotional Medicine Rx: Cry When You’re Sad, Stop When You’re Done, Feel Good Fast.
And, yes, I occasionally refer people for medication. I’m not doctrinaire. But I am angry that people don’t have easy access to the truth about non medication methods for handling even serious emotional and psychiatric disorders. They don’t learn about these things from their doctors or from TV because most of the non medication methods can’t be patented. They involve tears and touch and sunlight and the right foods for each individual and sometimes alternative medicine options like homeopathy, acupuncture, osteopathy.
Of course I haven’t seen this mother and this boy. I don’t know whether they were ever offered support for a non medication approach, or whether they were warned about the dangers of drugs for such a youngster. But something tells me that with all this family was doing right for this child – to have such a tragic outcome; we need to examine carefully the role medication played here.
http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2012/jan/22/boy-charged-in-stabbing-has-devoted-mom/
Penelope Andrade, L.C.S.W.
Licensed Psychotherapist
One Way To Strengthen Willpower
As a therapist I’ve given lots of thought about what it takes to strengthen willpower. Of course, I’ve been interested in this question personally since I’ve struggled with plenty of self depleting behaviors myself (won some and lost some.) While Dr. Laura’s ‘just stop doing it’ advice makes for snappy broadcasting, I’ve never found it to work well for my clients or myself.
There’s new research indicating willpower can be considered a mental muscle that needs proper exercise and gets fatigued if not rested and replenished with proper nutrition (particularly brain feeding glucose.) While this insight usefully elevates willpower beyond moralizing, it misses the truth about what it really takes to strengthen will.
Of course it’s easier to make better decisions when you’re rested, nourished and have experience exercising your choice muscles effectively. The problem is that it takes will power to make sure you’re doing the things that strengthen willpower. So what is it that enables us to make the healthy choices that make it easier to make healthy choices?
For me, the most important answer is self love. By this I mean the love of self acceptance, forgiveness and deep compassion for yourself. If you don’t love yourself as is, you may be able to change one bad habit with white knuckle will, but soon find another destructive habit arising in its place.
Don’t get me wrong, sometimes it’s necessary to gather grit to save your life whether you love yourself or not. For the long haul, however, if you’re looking to change self negating habits, I suggest starting by focusing on getting the help you need to love yourself better.
One of the reasons I am so inspired by my emotional medicine discoveries is that I’ve seen how crying when sad, stopping when done really does lead to feeling good about yourself—fast. One story from my book, Emotional Medicine Rx, describes a woman’s reaction after she experienced emotional medicine. “For years I’ve read how important it is to love yourself. I never knew what that meant. It was just words. Now for the first time in my life, I know what they’re talking about. Finally I know what it feels like to love myself. I can’t believe it.” This embodied experience of self love helped Rosa take step away from abusive family dynamics. (You can read more about Rosa on page 205 of my book.)
As we enter 2012 the time of great change, I send you a beam of love for yourself and a wish that you find the people, places, books and experiences that help you love yourself ever more tenderly.
I’m interested to hear what has helped you make healthy choices. Please click here to post your reply on my blog. If you’re in San Diego, I’d love to see this Friday for my introduction to Emotional Medicine at Controversial Bookstore, Saturday January 21st for a daylong workshop on Emotional Medicine, or Saturday February 4th for my book event at Warwick’s Bookstore in LaJolla. See calendar below for details. Happy New Year!
Penelope
Posted in Newsletter
Tagged alternative medicine, behaviors, better decision making, diet, exercise, healthy choices, love yourself, psychotherapy, self love, strength, willpower
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December 10th 2011 Newsletter
The other day, I finally understood why the party for my book, Emotional Medicine Rx happens to be occurring in December, the darkest month of the year. (Reminder it’s tomorrow, Sunday December 11th, 3—5PM at eda-mami Restaurant in Del Mar.) As a sun loving Southern Californian with a birthday in August, I’d been secretly wishing my book had been published in the warm light of the summer sun.
It took a profound session with a client last week to understand why this timing is perfect. My client, whom I’ll call Victor, a man at the peak of professional and personal success, was recently diagnosed with inoperable pancreatic cancer. As we wound our way down through layers of grief, anger and unbelievable fear, I could see Victor becoming more radiant before my eyes. It seemed his skin was translucent he was shining so. He kept repeating how kind people were being to him…loved ones, acquaintances, even strangers.
Each time Victor talked of kindness, his eyes filled with tears and he’d ask, “Why does this kindness touch me so much?” Finally he said, “Is this kindness actually God working through people?” As soon as he said that he started sobbing, shaking as waves of gratitude coursed through his body. He said softly, “I’ve always wanted to feel close to God.” I gently asked him whether he was feeling close to God right now and he replied,” Yes, yes I am.” I was so inspired to be a part of this moment. I was overjoyed that Victor had found spiritual solace for his challenging journey.
After that experience, I was filled with appreciation for our human design that enables us to emotionally face our darkest hours – death, dying, unspeakable losses and come back to feel light and warmth again. Whenever we have the courage to surrender (safely, responsibly, briefly) to anger, grief or fear, we take a step of faith. Faith that once again pain will cease, that once again we’ll feel the soft ease of calm spread through our beings. Whether we end up feeling close to God or just resting in a cradle of inner peace, the fact that brief, embodied emotion has the power to transport us through any pain to the lightness of being is gift.
I realized that this month of winter Solstice, when so many spiritual traditions (Hanukah, Christmas, the candles of Kwanza, the Persian Shabe Yalda festival honoring the birth of Mithra, the sun god… just to name a few) proclaim faith and fealty to light during days of darkness, is a natural time to celebrate Emotional Medicine Rx.
I’m ready now! I hope you can join us in spirit if not in flesh on Sunday, December 11, 3—5 PM, eda-mami Restaurant, 2282 Carmel Valley Road, Del Mar, CA 92014 to celebrate not only my book, but the light that awaits when we allow our emotions to help us find our way through any darkness.
Here are excerpts from a favorite essay written by Fra Giovanni in 1513 BCE.
Life is so generous a giver,
but we judging its gifts by their covering
cast them away as ugly, or heavy or hard.
Remove the covering and you will find beneath it
a living splendour, woven of love,by wisdom, with power.
Welcome it, grasp it, and you touch the angel’s hand
that brings it to you.
Everything we call a trial, a sorrow, or a duty,
believe me, that angel’s hand is there;
the gift is there, and the wonder
of an overshadowing Presence.
And so at this time, I greet you.
Not quite as the world sends greetings,
but with profound esteem and with the prayer
that for you, now and forever,
the day breaks and the shadows flee away.
I send you all good wishes for happiness, vitality and peace during this holiday season. I also invite you to consider that every kindness you give or receive might just be divine.
Penelope
Posted in Newsletter
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