Category Archives: Spirituality

31 Days/31 Ways: Make it a great year!

Day 5: Eat something healthy each day.

A lot of people make resolutions that sound like this: “I’m going to give up junk food!” “I’m not going to eat any carbs!” or some such extreme commitment. Then they fail by eating carbs (which we need) or eat something assigned to the “junk” category. It’s a lot easier to achieve success by doing rather than not-doing. Action is empowering; the punitive, goodie-removing approach sets you up for resentment. So turn it around: instead of some sort of mean-parent, “That’s it! No treats for YOU!” in the mirror, promise yourself to eat one healthy snack each day: a piece of fresh fruit, some raw veggies, a handful of nuts – whatever is appropriate for you and your allergies/dietary restrictions. It’s easier and more encouraging to experience success – and the encouragement to keep it going that success engenders – by DOING rather than not-doing.

Dr. Lori Puterbaugh

© 2016

Posts are for information and entertainment purposes only and should not be construed to be therapeutic advice. If you are in need of mental health assistance, please contact a licensed professional in your area.

Day 3/Way 3: Make it a great year!

Back away from the television…or tablet…or computer…or whatever else electronic screen mesmerizes you during non-work/non-school hours.

The average American is consuming 5 hours or more of non-work/non-school related screen time daily. It’s worse for retirees, who average 43 hours a week. There are lots of ways reducing screen time can make it a much better year. I’ll pick one: the fact that much of what’s on there has an ulterior motive of making you feel badly about yourself and your life. If you weren’t dissatisfied, you wouldn’t be tempted to spend money on whatever is being marketed. Your stuff isn’t as new, your face hasn’t been airbrushed and you didn’t have a staff of five fixing up your hair and makeup so, compared to what you see on television, your life and mine look pretty blah. Even if you’re too smart to think so consciously, that subconscious message is hammering away. Make it a great year: just reduce exposure and do something that will make you feel good about your life, instead.

Dr. Lori Puterbaugh

© 2016

Posts are for information and entertainment purposes only and should not be construed to be therapeutic advice. If you are in need of mental health assistance, please contact a licensed professional in your area.

Day 2/Way 2: Make it a great year!

Have a place for quiet and use it daily. Your back steps? Your bedroom window? A chair in the corner? Any place is the right place if it is “your” special place for quiet contemplation every day. The constant beat of artificial lights, mechanical noise and media is an assault on the nervous system. Give yourself a break of quiet. (If you’re addicted to noise and media flashiness, don’t be surprised if 5 or 10 minutes of real quiet makes you feel pretty edgy at first!).

Why this can help make it a great year: it’s refreshing to separate yourself from the racket! Quiet allows us to listen to the subtler messages in life…CS Lewis’ fictional demon, Screwtape, identified constant environmental noise as a means for evil to do its work in our world because the noise numbs us to the quiet stirrings of higher thoughts and feelings.

 

Dr. Lori Puterbaugh

© 2016

Posts are for information and entertainment purposes only and should not be construed to be therapeutic advice. If you are in need of mental health assistance, please contact a licensed professional in your area.

31 Days/31 Ways: Make it a great year!

Today is day 1 of a month’s worth of small steps to make things a little better this year – for you, for others. If you “already do that,” (whichever “that” it may be), maybe you could try to change it a bit: stretch out of your comfort zone.

Way 1: spend some time in prayer every day.

Don’t know where to start? Depending on your faith tradition, there’s an app for that – or a devotional, or books, or a smart person in your environment who would be happy to help you find a source that suits you.

Already a prayer warrior? Try pushing yourself to go deeper. Seek wise guidance.

Not a “prayer person”? Then spend 5 or 10 minutes in complete silence, simply breathing and listening: listen to your breath, listen to your thoughts come and go, and experiment with quiet listening for inspiration.

Why it’s going to make it a great year: if you are a person of faith, opening up broader communication is going to help you better discern what is right, your purpose, and give you more opportunity for worship and awe. If you’re not a person of faith, you will still benefit from quietly reflecting on life and allowing the silence and inner stillness in which inspiration can make itself felt.

Dr. Lori Puterbaugh

© 2016

Posts are for information and entertainment purposes only and should not be construed to be therapeutic advice. If you are in need of mental health assistance, please contact a licensed professional in your area.

New Year’s Resolutions (past tense already?)

Well, it’s not quite the Feast of Epiphany…and a lot of New Year’s resolutions have come and gone. If you have “failed” in some way, you can always start over. To kick off a series on making the new year better, here are some thoughts:

  1. Why do so many people set goals like punitive parents, taking away privileges or pleasures, instead of setting goals of doing something? When you make a goal of dietary changes, why do you have to be a mean parent, taking away your own cheesy poofs, instead of a helpful coach, suggesting you have a serving of fresh fruit or vegetable once a day?
  2. Do you have an old goal – an old hope, or change – that you have postponed making? You keep postponing a particular trip? Never get around to playing the guitar again? A change in hairstyle that’s long overdue (yes, if you had your hair that way in the senior picture, it’s too long overdue if you’re out of college), or some more meaningful change? Maybe you need to revisit that change. It might be time.
  3. Are you picking a fight with someone else’s goals for you? Sometimes failure to reach a goal may be a way of exerting control. Consider carefully if a goal that is really good for you is the smart place to dig in and take a stand for independence…maybe your healthy libertarian streak would be better served taking a stand somewhere else, than resisting making a change that is medically advisable or spiritually essential.

Hoping to chime in often with short, sweet and psychologically healthy changes to make 2016 a great year!

Dr. Lori Puterbaugh

© 2016

Posts are for information and entertainment purposes only and should not be construed to be therapeutic advice. If you are in need of mental health assistance, please contact a licensed professional in your area.

 

Water, Judgment and Stuff

Sometimes Mother Nature takes a swipe at our stuff, and we find out what’s important and what’s not.

We had a little water in our basement – the ground was so saturated from 2+ feet of rain in a few weeks that water began oozing through concrete blocks. After some initial dismay (Really? This is the moment the shop vac decides to die?), I felt relief at some items not damaged and indifferent to most that were. The truth was, I was more than a little relieved to be able to be rid of some of that stuff. Do you have those things, too – piles of stuff that have accumulated and are neither treasured nor useful?

It’s an interesting mental exercise: if a natural disaster took a bunch of my stuff, what would I be most relieved to find still intact, in the wreckage? I suspect that in a real disaster, I would be grateful for anything that was a link to a swept-away past. Any photo, any old Christmas ornament, would be precious under those circumstances.

Flashes of insight come relatively easily; change, not so easily. After the realization that I was not sad that some old drawings and paintings are gone, and realizing how little I really cared about a lot of stuff I’d accumulated, life rolled on and I did nothing substantive to reduce the clutter.

Not content to let me congratulate myself on my bit of awareness, I was given a dream. In my dream, I was dead and being judged, and the Lord took me into my closet and pointed to the many clothes I rarely wore and gently asked me why I still had them when others needed them? Each tired shirt and sweater, dusty on a forgotten hanger, was a reproach against my selfishness and oblivion to others’ needs. Dickens’ Marley was weighed down with chains of money boxes; I fear I will drag chains of little-worn clothing, books and kitsch. It is time, once again, to start purging: cabinets, closets, overflowing shelves. There is a big box next to the closet – 2 x 2 x 3 – and it is rapidly filling with “stuff” that I hope someone really can use.

I am still not exactly grateful for that half-inch of stinky water in my basement, but thanks…I got the hint, and this time, I hope, it will stick.

Dr. Lori Puterbaugh

© 2015

Posts are for information and entertainment purposes only and should not be construed to be therapeutic advice. If you are in need of mental health assistance, please contact a licensed professional in your area.