“CRUNCH!” What was that? I turned to look forward and saw the emergency phone pole. It suddenly became painfully obvious that I had been wrong. I had thought the pole was put there for someone to use the phone in case of emergency. But no, it looks like the pole was actually put there to create an emergency. I got out of the car to survey the damage…and yes, I had just totaled my car going 10mph through an otherwise empty parking lot.
Self-Talk… Don’t Loose the Argument
We all have self-talk. This is our inner talk…what we say to ourselves, usually quietly unless we look around first to make sure no one else is there. We all do it…well, maybe not all of us, but almost all of us. I’m not sure how the famous Marcel Marceau (the pantomime artist) talks to himself. Maybe he just pictures rooms with invisible walls in his mind. It must be weird to think in terms of clownish cartoons, with people in white painted faces moving very slowly and bumping into obstacles that aren’t really there.
The Benefits of Relationships: Longer Lives
Relationships. We live in a fractured society and it seems
like that is becoming more and more the case. Families are fractured-single parent homes for instance. Liberals vs conservatives. Red states vs blue states. Politically correct vs incorrect. Everywhere public discourse is becoming less and less civil. Disagreement all over the place. Everybody has their own idea of what they think is important.
We see this in the very bizarre political season that we are going through. I was talking to a patient, “Fred”, about this and he agreed, but added that he couldn’t believe that none of the candidates were talking about the most important thing.
Healthy Relationships are Healthy
P
eople are made to have relationships. The amazing thing is how good relationships can have a positive benefit on our physical health. Let’s look at some of the data1:
- Married people have fewer doctor’s visits and shorter hospital stays
- Married people have less depression, substance and alcohol abuse
- Happily married people have lower blood pressure (unhappily married people have the worst blood pressure)
- People with loving, stable relationships have less anxiety
- Long term couples have less headaches and back pain
- Social support helps stress management
- People in loving relationships get less colds and flu
Welcome to the Live, Love and Let Go Website and Blog!
It’s certainly a crazy world we live in, with tremendous changes in the last half century.
There are:
· Strange political characters on both the national and international stages
· Threats of global terrorism and potential chemical, biological and nuclear warfare
· Financial pressures
· Pressure to keep up with rapidly advancing technology
· Changes in social norms
The way we think, talk and act towards each other changed dramatically over the years. Case in point: Back at the beginning of the American Civil War, prisoners were handled by a ‘parole’ system. Prisoners were allowed to go back to their own side – they just had to promise not to go back to fight against their captors.