I'm not blogging today. Or so I thought! :)

Today, I'm keeping this very short. Very, very short. It's really a note to say I'm not really blogging today, except this non-blog has turned into a blog, hasn't it? 

You see, something has come up and I'm unable to be here to write to you.

Don't worry. Everything is going to be fine. Just a bit of a blip in my world order. We all have them. Something comes up out of nowhere and throws you a punch. Hits you in the head. You waver a bit. You may even fall down. But you get right back up or you manage to stay upright somehow. 

You're stronger than you think. This is a positive.

You manage to rearrange your life because you have no choice. For me, it's all about resilience. Just having to bend and sway with the ever changing vicissitudes of life. That's life. It's no straight line. It's bends in the road. Hills and Valleys.

Positive psychology is an important branch of psychology. It's the real deal. Martin Seligman is a brilliant man. He's the founder of Positive Psychology. You can watch him talk about it. Get a lovely little lesson from the master. Have a look. It's worth 23 minutes of your time. Trust me!

I refuse to be a victim! You can do that, too! Refuse to be a victim. Refuse to allow psychiatrists to victimize you. Just don't buy their pathology. Their world view. Don't believe it. Learn to believe in yourself. If not yourself, then consider believing in Martin Seligman and Positive Psychology.

Learn to celebrate your life. Whatever it is. I teach a course in community service and leadership. I created this course. I teach my students to "make a difference" for their communities. Any community they choose. For the "greater good. And I love it. 

Teaching this course is an enormous privilege. I love this course. I have a great life. I make my life great. I insist on living a pleasant life, a good life – and my teaching and my own community service give my life enormous meaning. Not to mention the relationships and the people I cultivate in my life. The way I have learned to engage. I work on it. It's glorious work.

It makes me happy. You make me feel happy, too. Knowing you're there, makes me feel my life has meaning. That's what "happy" means to me.

You can feel these things, too. You can learn that. Listen to this short TED.com talk of his. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment and Design. Have a look. And be sure to watch Martin Seligman's talk on positive psychology. Please. For me! Let me know what you think. How you react. I want to know. Share your comments and ideas here in the comments. That's meaningful, too. Let's talk about Positive Psychology, here!

You'll love Martin Seligman. He's a wonderful tonic for life. He's better than any pharmaceutical drug. Martin Seligman can teach you how to feel better about your life. Right now.

The point is, I do everything I can to stay positive. Really positive. In the psychologically positive way. And metaphorically, too. I start manufacturing Lemonade out of Lemons with great gusto. I believe that all will be well. No matter what, all will be well.

This positive energy is very powerful. It's an attitude thing and everything is attitude.

Here's a little exercise I do with my students.

Read this word OUT LOUD: OPPORTUNITYISNOWHERE

What do you see? What did you say?

Opportunity Is Nowhere?

Or...

Opportunity is Now Here?

There's no right or wrong answer. This is just a perceptual exercise. 

I'm a half glass full kind of gal and that's what drives me – this wildly predominant and quite natural "cockeyed optimism" – and I always qualify by stressing the word "cockeyed". ;)

So, let's try to have a positive weekend. Let's try to work on our attitudes, just for today. Just for an hour, if you're feeling low. Today is a new day and I'm sure the sun will rise tomorrow and it will be a new beginning. That's positive in itself. I love mornings. Fresh slates. A clean page with nothing yet written on it. 

I love all the possibility in that. The power of possibility! You can make it positive.

I tell my students that when they go into a job interview, no one will ever ask them for their Grade Point Average, but if they exude a positive attitude, they have a greater chance of success. 

Attitude is everything and I think attitude is something to work on. Go for a walk outside. Breathe the fresh air. Find a nice park with lots of trees and lots of oxygen and fresh air. And breathe. It's good for your head and your soul. And something else. Do something nice for someone else. Anything. 

That's going to make your day!

It's going to be a beautiful sunny day, here in Toronto. Do me a favour. No matter how you're feeling, do something for yourself by doing something for someone else.

Do something nice, for yourself, too.. Something that will make you feel sensational.

Because you know what? You are sensational. You really are, in your own unique and special way. You're you and there's no one else on the planet like you. Never has been. Never will be. Isn't that amazing? 

Celebrate your uniqueness. Engage with someone. Enter into their world. Listen to their story. Lose yourself in another human being. Be there for them!

You'll turn today into a "Be Good To Me Day" – you'll see! Feel positive and enjoy the moment.

Hugs,

(Hugs are very positive, too!)

Speak soon!

sln

Comments

[Jessica]

I'm glad you ended up blogging ;) I needed to read something like this because I had "a blip in my world order" this week as well...and your words in this post were so inspiring and helped me to believe that I am in fact stronger then I think.

Thanks Sandy.

[Sandy Naiman]

Hi Jessica,

I apologize for taking so long to respond to your comment. I'm glad my rather undisciplined warblings the other day were there at the right time for you. I was a little frantic.

My husband had to be taken to the hospital by ambulance and for two days, while he lay in the ER awaiting a room, we didn't know what was wrong with him. Turns out, it's not too serious and a good wake up call for both of us to be more caring about our bodies – eat more carefully, exercise, all that lifestyle stuff it's so easy to let slide.

As I write this, I notice a Weight Watchers ad right next to my comment and guess what? That's where we're headed on Tuesday.

I'm very grateful for this chance to get serious about physical health and to seriously embrace the wholism of health – mind, body and spirit.

If what I wrote reached you at the right time and made a difference to you, I'm thrilled. You are, indeed, "stronger than you think." I'm very happy to hear that you're feeling better.

So am I, and not only because my husband is on the mend, but also because you wrote. Your comment means the world to me and I thank you wholeheartedly.

Take good care.
sln

[brushes9]

Apparently, fundamentalist evangelicals have incorporated positive psychology into their culture such that people who are not always positive are stigmatized.

[Sandy Naiman]

Hi brushes9...

Regarding your comment, if it's true, it's certainly not very positive, is it?

Thanks for weighing in with this "apparent" point. I suspect that Dr. Seligman is not terribly concerned.

Cheers,
sln

[Sandy Naiman]

Hi All,

My friend psychiatrist Ron Pies of Tufts University has drawn my attention in a personal note to a rather unfair "misstep" in my post above. I am very sorry about this. I was wrong.

Please forgive me and let me explain.

You know that I am not "anti-psychiatry" in the least. I know that many psychiatrists really care about their patients. I know mine, Dr. Bob, does, as does Dr. Pies.

You know I'm not a happy camper when it comes to psychiatric diagnostic labels, nor do I believe in pill pushing as a treatment for all psychiatric or emotional disorders – but that's not what I wrote.

I was so frazzled when I was writing on Friday morning as my husband lay on a stretcher in the ER. I was virtually sleepless and exhausted and I wrote something I really don't believe. I do not feel "victimized" by psychiatry. Or by any medical professional. That was a unfair. Untrue.

At that moment of writing, I didn't know what was going on with my husband. He was being tested and checked out for a rather serious condition, which he does not have. But I didn't know that at the time. I wasn't quite as measured and careful as I should have been – not entirely positive to be sure. Mostly frightened out of my mind.

Here's what Ron wrote to me this evening, Monday, September 28 and he really makes a very valid point and very eloquently:

"With your penchant for 'positivity', I was a little puzzled and taken aback by what seemed a rather negative portrait of psychiatrists:

"Refuse to be a victim. Refuse to allow psychiatrists to victimize you. Just don't buy their pathology. Their world view."

He continued: "Knowing a bit of what you went through in your arduous journey through the psychiatric system, I can certainly understand some of those feelings. But it seems to me that your comment, above, is a bit out of character for you--perhaps even a comment that (watch out, here comes that "S" word!) inadvertently stigmatizes all psychiatrists. Or, if you prefer, paints psychiatrists with a very broad brush.

"As you know, there are good and bad psychiatrists, just as there are good and bad heart surgeons, allergists, and family practitioners. And, there are probably as many "world views" from psychiatrists as there are psychiatrists (put two psychiatrists in a room, and you will invariably get three opinions, as the saying goes!). This is not to candy-coat abuses by individual psychiatrists--but surely, most are trying to help their patients, to the best of their abilities, without "victimizing" them, no?"

Ron, I stand corrected. Please forgive me and thank you for pointing this out and for bringing me back to my senses. I wasn't myself. This has been a real ordeal.

And... I am happy to say that my husband is fine, on the mend. I'm recovering, too. Though exhausted.

Take care and be well.
With enormous gratitude,
sln

[Sandy Naiman]

This came in from Dr. Pies at 12:06 a.m. this morning, September 29, 2009:

"Hi, Sandy--I received your messages, thank you! I fully understand the enormous stress you were under, and I am very grateful for your amended posting. When we are frightened, we are not ourselves...it's that simple. And you have shown great courage and grace in revising your earlier statements (and great courtesy, in posting my own). You are, in short, a "mensch" in the best sense of that term! With fond regards, Ron Pies MD"

[brushes9]

I listened to Seligman's talk and he points out that the problem with the disease model was that it turned medical professionals into victimologists and that it forgot that people made choices, that is, forgot "personal responsibility."

As you know, "personal responsibility" is how fundamentalist evangelicals blame poor people for their poverty. It is not a big leap to blame the mentally ill for being immoral, lacking in personal responsability and, therefore, people crying out that they are victims to get something for nothing. (As you may, or may not know, this is really going on in the U.S. in fundamentalist, religious circles.)

Seligman may not be the person that you want to associate yourself with if you want to appeal to the mental health community. Aaron Beck and his descendants, with Cognitive Therapy, is far more empowering than Dr. Tony Robbins-Seligman ever will be.

Seligman appears to be the doctor-to-the-successful,-healthy-and-sane. In his talk, even he had a hard time explaining "flow" for the grocery store bagging lady. Experiencing "flow" in a dead-end, minimum wage job is still a dead-end, physically and psychologically. Also, when my Bipolar I illness has me in a manic state, do I experience "flow." Of course,...right down the tubes. "Flow" is a term most useful to the economically secure, occupationally adjusted and mentally not-ill person.

For the ill, managing emotional disturbance, not nurturing "flow" forms the imperative of our condition. Cognitive therapy provides a mental road map to follow when we are triggered: note our "automatic thoughts," "underlying assumptions," and "core beliefs" and challenged each one.

You get my point: "positive psychology" is a fashion, not a serious theraputic model and should be approached with caution, given possible political misuse of its tenants.

[Sandy Naiman]

Hi brushes9,

I really found your comment most interesting.

However, I'm afraid we're going to have to agree to disagree.

One can combine a variety of approaches to reach "recovery" from a serious mental illness and I think that Martin Seligman has some interesting perspectives. Worth learning about. I am in a habit of looking at all kinds of approaches to mental wellness. Anything that will help and everybody has different needs and grapples with diverse issues.

We can learn from many people. I tend to be pluralistic in my approach to the world. I learn wherever I go and I'm open to all kinds of ideas and possibilities that intrigue me.

Do I wholly subscribe ONLY to Positive Psychology? No. But according to my friend Tufts University professor and clinical psychiatrist Ron Pies, "much of Seligman's thinking grew out of earlier work by the late psychologist, Dr. Albert Ellis, one of my major influences; he developed the school known as 'Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy', which has much in common with 'positive psychology'."

Even if, as you say, Positive Psychology is a fashion, if it fits some people, works for them and makes them feel better, what's wrong with that? I believe that most people can benefit from psychotherapy. As for sanity or insanity. Well, we all have our moments. With or without a diagnosis. We are human beings. Imperfect, by definition. With all kinds of psychological blemishes and behavioural quirks. All of us are "Next to Normal" as far as I'm concerned.

I'm afraid I know very little about the philosophical tenets of Fundamental Evangelicalism as regards people with mental illnesses or people who are in financial straits. From the way you describe them, they certainly don't sound very Christian, do they?

As for your concerns about the term "flow" – quite frankly, I don't get it. As far as I can tell, anyone can experience "flow" – which means complete immersion in a task or activity. I can't really believe that this feeling is reserved only for people with money and secure jobs. Or that it excludes anyone with a diagnosis of a mental illness.

It's about pursuing "the good life," whatever that means to you? When I'm writing, I experience "flow" and it's very satisfying and invigorating. I'm happy. Work that's productive makes me feel wonderful. So does walking in the fresh air where I find I do some of my best creative thinking.

I'm in recovery from a serious mental illness and I do not have lots of money or a secure job. I work on several contracts.

My mantra?

"To know you have enough is to be rich."

It all depends on your values, I guess. And I suspect Martin Seligman would agree.

Thanks for sharing your ideas with us here at "Coming Out Crazy" and I hope you visit and comment often. You're very thoughtful and provocative. I like engaging with you.

Cheers,
sln