Quote of the Day

"The truth carries a weight that no lie can counterfeit." ~Black Jack Randall, Outlander Series

WWRDJD

I  returned to the vet's office to pick up my cat, Oni from being spayed and this happened:

Vet Tech:  "So Oni has stitches in her belly and you should try to limit her jumping so she doesn't accidentally open anything up.  So if there are places that she likes to jump on, or perch, you should probably shut those areas off."

Me:  (Thinks:  Open concept floor plan.  How do you shut that off? Envisions Oni flying across the living room in slow motion like the replay of your favorite GoT character dying in every conceivable direction and angle.  Oral syringes?  For Three days?  Then I remembered the wise words of Robert Downey Jr. and smiled.)

 Me:  "Sure.  Absolutely."

Pains Me So

How is a skinned knee like an heated argument?  I hope to answer this burning question.

By adulthood most of us have encountered enough skinned knees that we typically know how to successfully treat this wound with a certain degree of skills and knowledge.   We know there will be an injury site and there will be varying degrees of pain and healing, and then in most cases the knee will be returned to its healthy status.

So what happens when I get a skinned up knee?  Well, according to the pain cycle illustration above:

Ouch! Possibly a swear word.  Pain.  Gingerly standing up and gradually putting weight back on the injured side of your body. Guarding.  The area around your knee begins to swell and ache.  Over the next few hours your knee doesn't bend as much as it normally does.  You mentally berate yourself for the poor choice in footwear.....

Most of the time this injury is very minor and very little wound care is needed, but at times you might be required to debride the injury site to help promote healing and keep out infections.  This calls for re-opening the wound, peeling off some of the dead tissue, and putting antiseptic on it--which can be a bit ouchy too FYI.  But all in all, it is assumed most folks will survive this injury without any significant scarring or irreparable damage.


But what if we do not treat that knee properly?  Pain.  Guarding, in this hypothetical case, amounts to a gait change to take weight off the injured knee.  Swelling. Joint restriction.... 
(See the pain cycle illustration above)
If the wound is not properly cleaned and dressed we could potentially have infection and toxicity.
(See the pain cycle illustration above)
Instead of  overcoming this injury, the body is put into a pain cycle and cannot get healthy.  It will spread to other parts of the body by means of compensation, referred pain, lack of mobility, depression, anger, vulnerability.
(See the pain cycle illustration above)

.....Sensing a pattern?

So what happens when our pain is in the form of emotional trauma?

Ouch! Like the knee, our psyche (human mind, soul or spirit) also reacts to painful sensations.  The knee will eventually scab over and the mind will compartmentalize the pain. (A great example of a mind body connection.)  But let's explore emotional pain without a physical mechanism of injury.  What if our pain was due to a disagreement?  Are we as adequately equipped to handle this type of pain?   And if we are, are we really willing to do what is necessary to heal properly?

In the second illustration we can see that PAIN is in the center of this emotional pain cycle.  In my comparison, let's say our parties disagree and the exchange becomes heated.  The initial reaction might be stressful and with that comes tense muscles.  Hurt, frustration, regret, anger or fear could also play parts.  From here the emotional pain might be ignored or buried in hopes of finding a peaceful resolution.  We might mentally replay the disagreement many times to hopefully find clarity or understanding and as we mentally relive the moment, our bodies relive the tension and physical stress we felt during the actual encounter.  Luckily most people are eventually able to look at things rationally and are able to find a mature way of resolving conflict without too much stress or pain.

But what happens when we are unable to handle emotional pain?

Let's revisit that skinned knee.  Sometimes we can find a tolerable level of pain and stick a bandage on it and go.  Then sometimes we see that damn scab and cannot help ourselves--WE MUST PICK THAT SCAB!  We know that it will probably sting, but our OCD tendencies make it impossible to ignore that sore spot.  Other days we might accidentally re-open the wound by barking our shinbone on the coffee table. All of these actions can bring back that dull ache and pain.

Emotional scars are quite similar.  Some days we can look at our lives and understand how we got to this reality.  Other days a song on the radio will send us to places we would rather not be thinking about.  We become guarded.  We vow to never open ourselves up to being vulnerable or hurt again.  Soon we are really examining and re-examining our decisions and feeling the hurt again, the painful memories flow, the anger returns, sadness for our losses, stress becomes physical pain....
(See the FIRST pain cycle illustration above)

Quote of the Day

Pause-ability:  When you are able to stop, breathe, and see all the beautiful possibilities of the moment.   ~ K. Blackwell

Politics and Dating

I recently joined an online dating site and given that I am 53 years old, mostly content in my quiet, peaceful existence and have no desire to change my ways anytime soon, I stated that if you supported Trump then you should probably pass me by.  Simple enough.  But was it?

I started my account roughly two months ago and since then I have received unsolicited messages from SIX different men who felt the need to tell me how ignorant I was because I did not vote for Donald Trump. I did not try to insult them for their ideas about politics, so why did they feel it was okay for them to insult me for not supporting their candidate?  The best guess I have is that by rejecting Trump I somehow ultimately rejected them as well.  I can usually ignore idiots on the internet and did with most of the ugly six, but two had to take their insults to a different level and I decided to show them a wee bit of my wicked side too. 

Now, with that said, I will also tell you that I was not a huge Clinton fan either.  But when I am presented with a highly qualified person and a TV personality with zero qualifications....I vote for the lesser of two evils.  Trump has been a blowhard, morally bankrupt, womanizer with very questionable business ethics for years.  His Twitter fixation, rudeness, constant river of lies...so many things...   I just cannot listen to people making excuses for his actions anymore.  By getting Trump out of the way in advance, I hoped to eliminate a potential obstacle from any connections or relationship possibilities. So not simple enough.

Then came the men who wanted to know if I would really let politics stand in the way of finding true love.  I added the emphasis on "really" as that was how I heard it....hard to know in written form if that was how they meant it or not....   But still, as polite as these fellows were, they were ultimately implying or occasionally outright stating that I was not smart about my political views, and subsequently my love-life was eternally damned.  My answer to them was always polite but with the same sentiment:   When I was asked to describe what I was looking for in a man, I asked for qualities that I envisioned my ideal man would possess and I know that my ideal man could never support Trump.  Most of these messages were polite exchanges.

So this brings me to today.  I received a message from a nice fellow from the latter group of men.  He told me about how his sister voted for Clinton and her husband voted for Trump, politics did not have to come between folks....yadda yadda....abortion bad, guns good, thinks flag burning should be against the law and such.  These millennials.....first time he can ever remember people not dating because they disagree on politics.  So today I had to go really simple.

Oddly enough, about a month ago I saw a piece on political affiliations and online dating sites.  Polled three different dating sites and found that many people have actually decided that they didn't want to date across party lines.  The reason I said what I did about Trump is because I find him a disgusting human being and a certain element that supports him are equally disgusting.....six men have sent me messages insulting me because of my Trump comment.  I am not a straight party voter, but here is what I believe in:  less government, abortion is a woman's choice, marijuana should be legal, churches should pay taxes, healthcare should be reformed, and racists are pigs.  And people who believe "America is the greatest country in the world" have never traveled to other countries.  But millennials are too concerned with kneeling NFL players......Best of luck in your search!

From my Backyard....

A friend told me that these odd lilies are called Magic Lilies.  I had called them Disappearing Lilies, which is cool enough in itself, but MAGIC lilies sounds even more awesome.  So please enjoy my Magic Lilies.

Empath For the Win

I am an empath.  Some of you might wonder what that means exactly.  It can mean several things, but for me,  it mostly means that I have heightened sensitivities to other people's emotions and physical symptoms.  Like some other empaths, I  occasionally take on some of these negative feelings and maladies, whether it is intentional or not.  I  am also keenly intuitive and listen to my gut feelings a lot. (Now whether I act appropriately or inappropriately is another story.)  So today while I was sitting with myself in quiet contemplation I thought about my "gift" and wished that all politicians could have my empathic gift for just one day.

The obvious comical first choice would be for President Trump to get a taste of what it is like to be a tired and over-worked, over-taxed,  middle-aged woman who is slightly overweight and menopausal.  But in all seriousness, if politicians could feel what the people on the receiving end of their political decisions feel, maybe it wouldn't be so easy to make some of these bonehead proposals.  Let's take a look at some of the traits attributed to empaths in a piece I found on PsychologyToday.com (For the complete list see the article  "10 Traits of Empathic People") and see if you agree that my wish should be fulfilled.


Empaths are highly sensitive.
Empaths are naturally giving, spiritually open, and good listeners. If you want heart, empaths have got it. Through thick and thin, these world-class nurturers will be there for you. But they can easily have their feelings hurt, too: Empaths are often told that they are “too sensitive” and need to "toughen up."

Our empathic politicians would hear all Americans, not just the folks who voted for them or made big donations to their campaigns.  The right-winger would feel how the gay couple feels when the law does not accept their marriage as legal.  The liberal would see how welfare is being abused by some folks.  Walk a mile in the other guy's shoes before you judge.



Empaths absorb other people’s emotions.
Empaths are highly attuned to other people’s moods, good and bad. They feel everything, sometimes to an extreme. They take on negativity such as anger or anxiety, which can be exhausting for them. If they are around peace and love, though, their bodies take these on and flourish.

During the election I found that I had to limit myself to essential politics.  I watched the debates and I read the rest of my news to distance myself from all the negativity.  It was during this time that I found a great appreciation for HGTV.  I heard that they did not allow political ads and who doesn't love Fixer Upper?  Gerry Smith penned an article about HGTV ad costs and found that their fees were almost twice what other cable channels charged and their average viewer was a college-educated, suburban woman with a household income of $83,600 annually, with an interest in home improvement.  So apparently no ads were wasted on my demographic!

What if our empath politicians could feel all that negativity directed at them?  Feel anxiety like the elderly person on a pension feels when they realize they cannot afford their medications.   Feel the revulsion and pain a rape victim feels when they hear their leader say he just grabs pussy.  See how angry the middle class folks feel when they hear more taxes for them while the wealthy get more breaks?  Feel the hunger of a child who depended on assistance for their meals.  The positive on this would be that they could feel all that love and admiration when they did something great for the country.



Empaths are targets for energy vampires.
An empath’s sensitivity makes them particularly easy marks for energy vampires, whose fear or rage can sap their energy and peace of mind. These vampires may do more than drain an empath’s physical energy. Especially dangerous ones such as narcissists (who lack empathy and are only concerned with themselves) can make empaths believe they’re unworthy and unlovable.

Our empath politicians would feel how worn out this country is and know how many people feel that their government does not care about them.  Equally draining would be feeling their voter's fear of change amidst hopeful support--the feeling of being pulled apart from multiple directions.


Being an empath is viewed as both a curse and a blessing.  You feel the awesome highs and the disturbing lows.

....I figure 24 hours of it should be enough to scare the shit out of them.