Tag Archives: faith

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.

Enjoy yourself! It’s later than you think…

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I can’t accuse my guardian angel of lacking a sense of humor. I woke up this morning – the last dream I recall was one of those “I’m at a conference and can’t even find the registration desk, never mind the place I’m supposed to be after that,” dreams – but the song stuck in my head had nothing to do with the dream. It was the 1940s era song by Sigman and Madigson:

“Enjoy yourself, it’s later than you think,

Enjoy yourself, while you’re still in the pink.

The years go by, more quickly than a wink,

Enjoy yourself, enjoy yourself, it’s later than you think.”

I haven’t heard the song performed since the last time I watched Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadians at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel on New Year’s Eve (via television), necessarily before 1977, so it’s vexing to have it rattling around in my brain.

I don’t subscribe to the Bart Simpson philosophy of life that it’s “just a bunch of stuff that happened,” so I have to assume the song has meaning for me and elbowed its way into my conscious mind for a reason. Is the message actually along the lines of, “Hey! Hey! Apparently the whole week or so of readings from Ecclesiastes during the daily Masses in Ordinary Time didn’t get your attention. How ‘bout this?” Or is it some hiccup from my unconscious, nudging me to live up to my commitment to spend more time on art, reading and writing this summer? Either way, message received. It’s always the right time to discern about priorities, and apparently, it’s the right time, now, to give it some serious reflection.

Meanwhile, don’t forget to enjoy yourself.

Dr. Lori Puterbaugh

© 2015