Anger_Checklist.pdf http://ping.fm/rYUqz via drop.io

Dealing with stress? Here's a freebee ebook for anyone interested: http://ping.fm/oIan4 [pdf] Tell a friend!

I saw this youtube video at the "Art of Experience" blog and was immediately intrigued. Truthfully I am not sure if I can register the difference in facial expression by this speaker but I like his teaching. It resonates with my reading of the "Social Engagement System" by Stephen Porges, MD and how this develops social attachment and bonding between mother and child. The SES is what triggers our fight, flight or freeze reactions to overwhelming stressors. The speaker in this video is coming from a salesmanship orientation and not a clinical psychology/researcher point of view but he is dead on (no pun intended) about how your facial expression can enhance your personal relationship, be they business or social. Try the OPEN Face for a few days and tell me if you see any difference in your life. It will make me smile :)

April is almost here and it is National Poetry Month. I will try to post some original poems based on various poetic forms. To get us in the mood, here is a form called "Abstract/Sound Poetry":

I fell belly flat
made a rat-a-tat-splat
on a ity-bity kitty kat
Good thing it was fat.

Here's a link to more of my poetry: http://rehuxley.livejournal.com/tag/poetry

Try one for yourself...

Break Creative Blocks with our free ecourse: http://parentingtoolbox.com/join.html

I have had a several kids from my clinic involved with "sexting." This is where a child send provocative messages or revealing pictures of themselves to another (sometimes random) person. Not only does it put the child in danger but it can result in one or both of the people being arrested. Learn more about this new social problem from CommonsenseMedia.com:

Kids Send Nude or Revealing Images:

22% of teen girls and 20% of teen boys have sent nude or semi-nude photos of themselves
22% of teens admit that technology makes them personally more forward and aggressive
38% say exchanging sexy content makes dating or hooking up with others more likely
29% believe those exchanging sexy content are “expected” to date or hook up
Revealing photos can be resent to a vast audience
Sending a sexual image to a minor is illegal

There have been some high profile cases of sexting -- including High School Musical star Vanessa Hudgens, who sent a nude picture to her co-star/boyfriend, Zac Efron, that ended up all over the Internet and made headlines. And in July 2008, Cincinnati teen Jesse Logan committed suicide after a nude photo she’d sent to a boyfriend was circulated widely around her high school, resulting in harassment from her classmates.

Why It Matters

In a technology world where anything can be copied, sent, posted, and seen by huge audiences, there's no such thing as being able to control images. Even if a photo was taken and sent as a token of love, the intention doesn’t matter -- the technology makes it possible for everyone to see your child’s most intimate self. And in the hands of teenagers, when revealing photos are made public the subject almost always becomes the object of ridicule and name calling. Furthermore, sending sexual images to minors is against the law, and some states have begun prosecuting kids for child pornography or felony obscenity.

Advice for Parents

Don't wait for an incident to happen to your child or your child’s friend before you talk to your kids about the consequences of sexting. Sure, talking about sex or dating with teens can be really uncomfortable, but better to have the talk before the fact.

Remind them that once an image is sent, it can never be retrieved -- and they will lose control of it. Ask teens how they would feel if their teachers, parents, or the entire school saw the picture, because it happens all the time.

Talk about pressures to send revealing photos. Let teens know that you understand that they can be pushed or dared into sending something. Tell them that no matter how big the social pressure is, the potential social humiliation will be hundreds of times worse.

The buck stops with them. If someone sends them a photo, have them delete it immediately. Better to be part of the solution than the problem. Besides, if they do send it on, they're distributing pornography -- and that’s against the law.

If you can’t deal with this, have your kids go to ThatsNotCool.com (and you should go yourself). It’s a fabulous site that gives kids the language and support to take texting and cell phone power back into their own hands.

My daughter has recently taken up the bag pipes and just learned this song performed here by the Dubliners! Now if she would just move closer to home so I could hear it live...hint, hint!

When I work with traumatized people, I always keep in mind that they have one of three reactions: Fight, Flight and Freeze. These are primal brain mechanisms that manage threats to the self. Each type of reaction has its intervention but at the core of these interventions is the fourth "F": Fusion.

Trauma disrupts relationships and self/other organization. At extreme levels it can cause dissociative disorders (what we used to call Multiple Personality Disorders) splitting off internal parts of the self in an effort to survive and function. At milder levels it can cause us to build defenses or social masks that allow us to get through our days despite feelings of pain or loss. Either we are not acting out of our true self. We also have difficulties with others manifesting by poor intimacy, commitment fears, unmanageable anger, feelings of anxiety and depression.

What we want to achieve is fusion. A fusion of self and personality and a fusion of relationships (self with other). This is easy said than done but it is possible. It is not hopeless as we once thought. The real challenge is trying to help others who are in a state of fight, flight or freeze without ourselves going into a similar state. Staying "fused" ourselves in the face of this is hard!

I will share more thoughts on this over the next few weeks. Share your comments/reactions by clicking the comment link...

Matthew Fox on Chaos and Creativity:

"What do we do with chaos? Creativity has an answer. We are told by those who have studied the processes of nature that creativity happens at the border between chaos and order. Chaos is a prelude to creativity. We need to learn, as every artist needs to learn, to live with chaos and indeed to dance with it as we listen to it and attempt some ordering. Artists wrestle with chaos, take it apart, deconstruct and reconstruct from it. Accept the challenge to convert chaos into some kind of order, respecting the timing of it all, not pushing beyond what is possible—combining holy patience with holy impatience--that is the role of the artist. It is each of our roles as we launch the twenty-first century because we are all called to be artists in our own way. We were all artists as children. We need to study the chaos around us in order to turn it into something beautiful. Something sustainable. Something that remains."

It's the Holy Patience thing I am having the most trouble with...constantly get frustrated with things I know will be or is chaotic.

Do you have a creative block? Bust it now with our free creativity building ecourse at http://parentingtoolbox.com/join.html

When Children Lie

By Ron Huxley, LMFT

A difficult problem for parents is when a child lies. Lying may mean your child has an active imagination, wants to please you, or is seeking attention. Parents can cope with a child who lies by following these simple parenting tools:

1. Provide opportunities for your child to express his
imagination without lying.

2. Point out the differences between fact and fantasy.

3. Practice telling the truth yourself so that your child
does not imitate you lying.

4. Don't overreact to lying. Point out the need to tell the
truth and allow your child to do so without feelings ashamed.

5. Don't push for confessions. These usually lead to bigger lies and more punishment.

6. Look for ways your child can get what they want without lying and reward him for not lying.

Share your thoughts on this post by clicking the comment link...

I want to invite everyone to tune in to my Radio Interview on the Parents Tool Talk Radio Show with Jody Pawel. It will be entitled: "Parenting After Divorce". Here are the details:

This Friday, March 13, 2009 - 12pm Eastern Time

The topic will be single, divorced and remarried parents.

My bio: Ron Huxley is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, Certified Family
Wellness Instructor, national speaker and columnist, web site producer,
community mental health director, family advocate, and father of four! He is
the founder of parentingtoolbox.com and angertoolbox.com. Ron has appeared
as a guest expert for the media in newspapers, magazines, television and radio.
He is also an experienced public speaker, having presented at a host of conferences,
school programs, corporations and professional associations.

Some of the topics we will cover include:

>What research says about divorced parents and how their children fare
>3 simple tools parents (married or not) can use when they disagree
>Some of the most common problems divorced parents face and practical
tips for preventing or resolving each one. (Some examples: how grief and
loss affects children of divorce, how parents can avoid putting children in
the middle of their conflicts or what to do if their ex-spouse does this, etc.)
>Live Q&A with listeners.

Please submit your questions to questions@ParentsToolTalk.com!
We will broadcast LIVE this week on Friday, March 13, 2009
at 12 p.m. Eastern Time.

Call In To Listen Or Ask Questions: (347) 205-9654.
You can call in live on any cellular or land-based line, or through a
VoIP service such as Skype or Windows Live Messenger. Long distance
or other charges from your telephone company or service provider may apply.

Listen live on the Internet: go to www.parentstooltalk.com and click
on this month's show title. Look for the BlogTalkRadio media player above
Jody's picture; the show will begin playing either automatically after 12 p.m.
Eastern Time, or you can start the show by pressing Play. Once you are there,
you can use the chat feature to submit a question during the live show.

Hope you all can join us!

I have been reading the works or Richard Rohr for some time now and find them profound and timely. Here's today's daily reading:

"In solitude, at last we’re able to let the Lord define us the way we are always supposed to be defined: by relationship, the I-thou relationship, in relation to a Presence that demands nothing of us but presence.

If we’ve never lived in the realm of pure presence without our world of achieving, we don’t know how to breathe there at first. And that’s precisely why the Lord has to breathe through us.

The Lord has to be our life. The Lord has to be our identity. At last, we allow ourselves to be defined by relationship instead of by the good—even the holy—things we’ve done."

Source: http://www.cacradicalgrace.org/

I love the last line of the need to be defined in "relationship instead of the good/holy-things..." Time to get the religion OUT and the Spirit IN. Lord define me.

I do a lot of reading on brain research. I don't claim to understand it all but it helps to inform my work with families with behavioral and emotional struggles. It also helps me manage my own brain/life! One of the things that keeps popping out at me (it is important to recognize the "pop ups" in your life when they aren't the internet ads on your computer screen) is the saying "neurons that fire together, wire together." I won't go into a lengthy description of this saying other than to explain that when you have an "experience" your brain fires various neurons in response to that experience. If these experiences are repetitive then your brain will literally rewire itself to accommodate that experience and changes its neuron structure.

Let that soak in for a minute...

The therapeutic value of that saying is huge! You can train your brain by engaging in repetitious experiences. Engage in positive experiences and you reap positive brain structures. Engage in negative experiences and you get negative structures. It is as basic as that. Your action plan to change your thoughts should start to become obvious as you meditate on that idea.

Here's a revelation I had today: I need to stop trying to redo old problems and reworking old issues. I need new experiences to form new brain structures.

Revelation #2: The more I form new brain structures, the more "capacity" I have to experience positive experiences. We will reflect on "capacity" at another time as that is a fascinating idea too....but for today, form your own revelations as you meditate on the saying: "neurons that fire together, wire together."

Share your thoughts by clicking the comment link. I would love to hear your feedback.

I just completed a four day training for level 2 of Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy. DDP was created by Daniel Hughes, Ph.D. and it was a fantastic experience. Here's an excerpt from his website about his model: "I have chosen to call this model of treatment Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy because it is based on the premise that the development of children and youth is dependent upon and highly influenced by the nature of the parent-child relationship. Such a relationship, especially with regard to the child's attachment security and emotional development, requires ongoing, dyadic (reciprocal) experiences between parent and child. The parent is attuned to the child's subjective experience, makes sense of those experiences, and communicates them back to the child. This is done with playfulness, acceptance, curiosity, and empathy. These interactions are contingent, i.e., when the parent initiates an interaction, the child's response determines the parent's subsequent action based on the the feedback of the child's subjective experience of the first action. In that way, the parent constantly fine-tunes his/her interactions to best fit the needs of the child. The primary context in which such dyadic interchanges occur is one of real and felt safety. Without such actual and perceived safety, the child's neurological, emotional, cognitive,a nd behavioral functioning is compromised."

A blind boy sat on the steps of a building with a hat by his feet. He held up a sign which said: 'I am blind, please help.' There were only a few coins in the hat.

A man was walking by. He took a few coins from his pocket and dropped them into the hat. He then took the sign, turned it around, and wrote some words.. He put the sign back so that everyone who walked by would see the new words.

Soon the hat began to fill up. A lot more people were giving money to the blind boy. That afternoon the man who had changed the sign came to see how things were. The boy recognized his footsteps and asked, 'Were you the one who changed my sign this morning? What did you write?'

The man said, 'I only wrote the truth. I said what you said but in a different way.'

What he had written was: 'Today is a beautiful day and I cannot see it.'

Do you think the first sign and the second sign were saying the same thing?

Of course both signs told people the boy was blind. But the first sign simply said the boy was blind. The second sign told people they were so lucky that they were not blind. Should we be surprised that the second sign was more effective?

Moral of the Story: Be thankful for what you have. Be creative. Be innovative. Think differently and positively.

Invite others towards good with wisdom. Live life with no excuse and love with no regrets. When life gives you a 100 reasons to cry, show life that you have 1000 reasons to smile. Face your past without regret. Handle your present with confidence. Prepare for the future without fear. Keep the faith and drop the fear.

Great men say, 'Life has to be an incessant process of repair and reconstruction, of discarding evil and developing goodness. In the journey of life, if you want to travel without fear, you must have the ticket of a good conscience.'

The most beautiful thing is to see a person smiling…
And even more beautiful is, knowing that you are the reason behind it!!!

Source: http://www.oscarmurphy.com

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One of my favorite poetic forms is the Cinquian. Second would be the haiku. I love simplicity of the forms and how they force me to "subtract" rather than "add" to my impression of life around me. This helps me to experience the essence of the world and God. As the rain pours down outside my window, I write:

Rain pours
just and unjust
I cannot afford hate
I cannot pay the price for love
God pours

Try one...The format is 2,4,6,8,2 syllables per line. The last line is often a close repeat of the original first line theme but you can do whatever works for you.

I was listening to a psychologist talk about how thankfulness can improve your brain! I won't go into the details, mainly because I can't remember them all :) Let's just agree to be thankful because it is a good idea and feels so much better than unthankfulness, alright?

Let's also make this easy...

List three things you are thankful for:

1. My health.
2. My spiritual community.
3. My family.

OK, let's make it a little harder. Take the three general things you listed and make them more specific (oh yeah, only state them in positive terms, as in what you like and not what you don't like ("I am glad I don't have a headache"):

1. I am thankful about how caffeine wakes me up and gives me such simple comfort.
2. I am thankful for my friend Larry's willingness to trust me.
3. I am thankful for the soup my wife made for dinner last night (chicken noodle!).

Try it yourself by clicking the comment link below!