Blessing Of The Gifts on Saturday, Dec. 6

Join us on Saturday for the Blessing Of The Gifts," our annual project that collects toiletries and other small gifts for the Southern Oaks Girls School and other organizations, including HALO, the Women’s Resource Center, Bethany Apartments SAFE Haven and Focus.

We have piles of donations from the CNH Campus Connection, the Olympia Brown Unitarian Universalist Church and other freinds -- various items that can be used to fill the stockings for this project. Items that are still welcome include toiletries of all kinds including hotel-size versions that you may have picked up on your travels plus other small gifts that might include stationery, socks, gloves, mittens, slippers and the like.

We'll be packaging the donations into from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 6, at Lake House Health & Learning Center, 932 Lake Ave. First, we gather for a short mingling program. Then we package and bless the gifts, talk and snack.

Please join us to help - the more hands, the lighter the work - and it's fun, too. One of the attendees told me that the event was the most meaningful holiday event she had been involved with during last year’s holiday season.

If you are able, bring a donation of non-perishable food for the local food bank and/or items for the stockings. Bring a healthy snack if you wish to share. We'll have herbal tea, traditional black tea and hot cider available.

We also welcome the red net bags - the sort that are used to package onions and citrus fruits - which we recycle into "stockings" for the packaging. Please save what you have, and PLEASE cut the bag off at the TOP so that we can make best use of the bag.

If you're attending, call (262) 633-2645 to help us prepare. Above are some of the helpers from last year's event.

Attention, attenton!

Paying attention is a more important skill than you might think - and new evidence suggests it can be taught.

This is interesting information for people who are having a hard time focusing and want to immeidately paint themselves with some kind of attention deficit diagnosis.

See this link from The Boston Globe now.

Getting more energy without caffiene or sugar

As a psychotherapist – including having done work with addicted people – there is a great need for information about learning how to find ways to become more energetic without caffeine and sugar.

Here are ideas that you may wish to try:

Yoga and especially the classic yogic breathing activity called, “The Breath of Fire,” which involves very fast breathing in and out of the nose.

Eating foods that are whole foods, rather than processed foods, including quality protein.

Therapeutic-grade essential oils – a number of oils are especially energizing to the brain, including basil, rosemary, orange, peppermint, lemon.

Practice qigong, an Asian exercise that is similar to – but much easier – than tai chi. Tai chi is also very good for balancing and giving energy if you have the motivation to learn it.

Reduce use of the computer, especially at night before bedtime.

CD guided meditations and imageries, or imageries on your own. When I’m not creatiing my own imageries for my clients, I suggest the wonderful CDs from Health Journeys (http://www.healthjourneys.com/).

Bioenergetic exercises, which are e body exercises that are often amazingly simple and easy and support the flow of the body's energy in more balanced way. One exercise, simply stamping your feet (left, right, left, right), can reduce anger, lift mood and give energy.

Rest. There is no substitute.

Drink water. Plants droop without water, and so do you.

Spend time with people you like, who are positive, caring, fun and supportive.

Is there a person in your life who could benefit from CaringBridge?

Every month, more than 1 million people use the CaringBridge Web site to stay connected during a hospitalization, cancer treatment, surgery and recovery, a significant accident or injury, a premature birth, while waiting for a transplant, or while caring for an elderly parent. These families share information and receive love and support for a wide array of medical conditions.

Right now, I've been receiving updates from my colleague in Arizona who is hospitalized there due to a motorcycle accident. She has a way to communicate with her many friends, colleagues, family members and others, and we have a way to communicate with her, while she also rests and heals.

Spread the word and share www.caringbridge.org with a friend, colleague, or loved one today. They'll be so grateful for your help.

Yoga soothes symptoms of menopause

Yoga is good for so many ailments and conditions -- back pain, depression, insomnia, the list goes on.

Now, here's a new study that suggests that yoga is also very, very good for the harshest symptoms of menopause, especially reducing hot flashes and night sweats. Read more:

Yoga soothes worst symptoms of menopause

What does it mean to grow in recovery?

To grow in recovery – whether from food, drugs, alcohol or another addiction -- we must grow up emotionally.

This means getting honest with ourselves and facing up to the self-defeating thoughts and actions that put our sobriety at risk. In down-to-earth language, "12 Stupid Things That Mess Up Recovery" teaches us to identify our personal limitations, then provides tools for working through those problems in daily life.Learn to avoid confusing self-concern with selfishness, using the program to try to become perfect, ignoring relationship troubles, holding onto the belief that life should be easy.

Read a sample chapter online of 12 Stupid Things That Mess Up Recovery, published by Hazelden.

Lots of good reasons for self pay for psychotherapy

Are there good reasons to bypass your insurance company for psychotherapy benefits and pay directly for your psychotherapy?

In a word, yes.

A few years back, a University of Illinois study of Fortune 50 corporations found that fully half of the companies surveyed used employee medical records in making employment-related decisions. And of those, nearly 20 percent didn’t inform the employee. A 1991 survey of the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment found that almost a third of the employers that maintained employee medical records let their personnel departments read those records without notifying the employee.

If you choose to pay the bill yourself directly to the therapist – the private pay option – you have lots of other benefits:

You may pick the psychotherapist of your choice, rather than having a business telling you who to see.

You will have flexibility in the kind of treatment modality that you receive determine your own goals and length of treatment.

You will not receive a mental health diagnosis because the therapist will not be reporting to your insurance company.

You will be assured of complete confidentiality. Your health records will not be shared with anyone without your written permission. Your spouse, parent, significant other, boss, brother or friend will not know that you are seeking psychotherapy unless you tell them.

You will not "bump into" co-workers who may be seeing the same therapist because that person is the only therapist contracted with your place of employment.

You will not have to worry that a record of a mental health diagnosis may affect your future capacity to obtain health or life insurance.

You will be able to stay with your psychotherapist, even if your insurance plan coverage changes.

At first glance, some folks may have difficulty believing that private pay is a realistic option. Yet counseling or therapy compares well with the price of other important services and personal needs – auto repairs, health club memberships, dental work – and is related to present and future happiness and life satisfaction. People who genuinely want to make changes in their lives manage to identify priorities and budget their money differently.

Here are some ways people are able to afford to pay privately for therapy:

Examine your budget closely and determine what expenses you can defer in your life for six months or a year. Fewer new shoes and faraway airline tickets? Less stops at your favorite coffee shop or big-ticket restaurant? More modest gifts at Christmas, weddings and other holidays?

Ask about a payment installment plan. Ask your psychotherapist of choice if he or she is able to identify other payment plans for you.

Some psychotherapists offer reduced fees to students and others, such as activists, artists and low-income people. Sometimes reduced fees are also available for highly motivated people who can come to daytime appointments or other off-hours times rather than evening hours, which are usually at a premium.

Discuss with your therapist how you can extend the value of your psychotherapy treatment. This may mean that you will have fewer appointments (perhaps once every three weeks) and participate in other activities such as journal writing, self-help groups, reading and structured talks with a trusted friend or mentor) to keep the momentum going.

Keep in mind that psychotherapy can also save you MORE money in the long run. Benefits can include less money spent on stress-related illness, less problems at home that may cause a financial drain and improve your job performance. For more on specific benefits of therapy, click here.

One last note regarding confidentiality and special circumstances to consider:

There are a handful of situations where therapists are “required to act” that apply whether you have signed a release of information or not and whether insurance is utilized or not. These include: court-subpoenaed records, in the case of child or elder abuse or in the case of harm to yourself or others. In these cases, the therapist is required legally and ethically to protect the involved parties. In most cases, you and your therapist will be discussing these situations as a part of your treatment to decide how best to handle each individual case.

Breathing -- we can't live without it!

Breathing is always a good thing to do. When we talk about breathing, the recommendation is for CONSCIOUS breathing – bringing the air in and letting the air out, slowly and deliberately. It is one of the easiest and most simple ways of feeling more autonomy with our emotions and relaxing ourselves, especially under stress.

When you learn more about the stress that you experience, it is good to begin to experiment with ways that you can feel that you have some resources in dealing with your stress –rather than feeling the stress is controlling you.

Helping the person with addiction or eating disorders

One of the most common questions that I get is how to get help for a person who is suffering addiction to drugs or alcohol -- or to disordered eating.

Educate yourself as much as possible at the nature of these illnesses. You can find excellent information online about eating disorders at www.edap.org and www.something-fishy.org and many other sites.

The site www.gurze.com has a wonderful selection of books. For substance abuse, see www.soberrecovery.com -- one of many sites. All of this will help you understand the illnesses, the tasks involved in recovery and wellness AND allow you to communicate with your person accurately and with understanding.

Attend Al-Anon or Alateen meetings in your local area to learn how to identify any enabling behaviors that you have used with your person in the past and help you to respond to him or her in an appropriate way. See www.alanon.org for information, meetings, philosophy.

Read "The Language of Letting Go" by Melody Beattie to learn how to detach from a person's problems with love and compassion - and without fixing, blaming, enabling, manipulating, forcing, rescuing or abandoning. It's available in paperback at most book stores and online at www.amazon.com.

When your person gets to treatment, attend family sessions, which should bepart of the treatment experience. Allow yourself to learn how you havebeen affected by the person's illness and how you can respond differently tosupport HIS OR HER health and YOUR health.

In case your person decides later that he or she doesn't want to stay in treatment and asks someone to take him or her home, stand firm. NEVER make decisions inisolation; contact the other members of the family team to discuss these decisions. Say, "I will have to get back to you," if she asks for yourhelp in leaving treatment.

Consider professional help for yourself. Stay connected as a team of people continuing to learn and grow.

Continue to send love and caring to your person who is ill.

A final accounting of the Blessing Of The Gifts

It’s Valentine’s Day, and the last of the blessed gifts have been delivered.

“The Blessing Of The Gifts” is an annual holiday project of the Lake House Health & Learning Center in cooperation with the members of Olympia Brown Unitarian Universalist Church.

Each year for six years we have collected toiletries, stationery and other small gifts for the Christmas holidays for the incarcerated teen girls at the Southern Oaks Girls School as well as other places where poor and needy people typically seek services, such as the Women’s Resource Center, Bethany Apartments, SAFE Haven and HALO, the area’s homeless shelter.

This year we had so many generous donations from members of the church, clients at Lake House, the Racine Campus Connection at Case New Holland and others that we expanded our gift-giving to the Health Care Network and Next Generation Now.

In all, we donated 198 “stockings” or packages with toiletries and other gifts to these organizations, plus a big box of new toys to the children at HALO before Christmas. After the new year, a very large bag of condoms, plus other generic drug store items, went to the Health Care Network for the start of the new year. Today, Valentine’s Day, we brought the final delivery to Next Generation Now – a brown paper bag of warm gloves, candy and 2008 calendars.

Volunteers gather before Christmas to sort, clean and package the gifts, but the very best part is the blessing. We gather, standing in a circle, and meditate on the non-tangible gifts that we want to imbue. We raise our hands and focus our energies on all the wishes for the recipients of our gifts and speak these blessings aloud:

Faith. Courage. Love. Purpose. Believing people are good. Joy. Beauty. Trust. Confidence. Laughter. Hope.

Then the blessings...

The gifts are blessed!

The sorting of the gifts

First, the sorting of the gifts...

Then they will be packaged, blessed and delivered.