Musing about my Mom and life

Posted on November 21, 2015 by rick_ranum

March 2013

I am sometimes stumped and there is no remedy for my feelings but patience, hope, and some kind of faith.

You see, my mother is now 93 and she is preparing to leave. She had a lifetime of experiences that were unique to her. Did she discover that which she desired to find? Did she have the adventure she sought? Learn what she wanted to learn?

And her passing makes me think about these questions and pause to ask myself these very questions.

As a hypnotherapist I am allowed into peoples memories and it is a sacred space.

These memories, seen in these pictures of my parents, and my parents with me, delight me and soon they will be united to reminisce.

The pictures on the left tell stories for sure. Few pictures of my dad and mom exist as dad was the camera man.

I am leaving for Minnesota the second week of April. and will be there for 11 days. I am hoping to be of help to my mom while I am there

Boyhood

Posted on November 20, 2015 by rick_ranum

Well I was once a little boy and a conversation today reminded me of that fact. It is certainly true that in every life experience there are the aspects of environment, heredity, and some unknown forces that move us to be one way or the other.

If you grow up in Minnesota you learn how to build a snow fort when the snow falls wet and sticky.

And if your dad gardens you learn to use a wheelbarrow.

If you have sisters you grow up a bit different than if you have brothers.

Would I have become an Eagle Scout without my father’s support and encouragement?

I didn’t become what my dad wanted me to become, an accountant or a salesman, as I was not suited to those careers. I suggest people follow their passion in life. It is the most certain path to success. Success being self-fulfillment and satisfaction.

My dad passed away now four years ago. I continue to marvel at his tenacity, commitment, sacrifice and intrinsic morality and ethics.

I liked to lay on the ground in the summer and watch the clouds go by. Some neighbor commented that I seemed lazy, but it is really important to lay down and watch the clouds go by sometimes.

So you grow up and you have experiences. If you are fortunate you have many adventures and if you are fortunate you always remember that you have a special essence within you. You realize you are unique and your path through life is yours to create.

Maybe the best thing to do is to do the best you can with the talents and strengths you have. As the great thinkers have always said “know yourself”.

Anti-depressants and Violence

Posted on November 20, 2015 by rick_ranum

Do you think there is any connection between anti-depressants and violence?

Take a look at the evidence yourself and then decide. It is compelling.

http://www.ssristories.net

Einstein quotes

Posted on November 20, 2015 by rick_ranum

Quotes from Einstein:

“Information is not knowledge. The only source of knowledge is experience”.

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value I never think of the future – it comes soon enough

I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious. It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life’s coming attractions. Imagination is more important than knowledge. A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.”

Addictions

Posted on November 20, 2015 by rick_ranum

My mother’s generation often said, “will wonders ever cease”. I find myself often wondering, I have my entire lifetime wondered about more things than I have had time to research and experience.

These days I wonder much about habits; why we choose certain habits and why we believe our chosen habits have more power than us. Why is that? How can a substance so dominate and eliminate the self-power of people.

Most Americans are addicted to sugar, as the average consumption is almost 130 pounds each year. Certainly it is added to most commercial foods. However, if people stop buying those foods, those very large agribusinesses will change. They are only in it for the money, and shareholders will revolt when no one buys their nutrition less foods.

Amphetamines, heroin, cocaine, cigarettes, alcohol and other such habits, are these just death wishes masquerading as pain relievers? A most interesting theory long ago suggested that the weakness in resistance connected to alcohol was the influence of dead spirits prodding weak minds to have another drink so that they could enjoy the consciousness of drunkenness.

I wonder what the Greeks thought of alcohol? A quick peek at Wikipedia reveals it was a problem then too. Perhaps it is best to say that as greater and greater intelligence and reason permeate future generations, it will be a curiosity, this thing called habits,addictions,these choices, just a curiosity of ancient times.

I know a gambler, and even when a casino explains the odds to him, he still must play. He has as a central life focus, how to beat the odds. Of course, he can’t beat the odds, the odds beat him. And is it really for us to judge those that like to risk against the odds? Why shouldn’t they have the right to bet against the house? They do if they have choice.

I wish I could help everyone change, and I am very helpful to those who do want change. This is their journey through this space and time. Each has free will. To deny free will is an act of free will. So, no matter what the the condition there is hope. This is a bi-polar world and if someone is in the midst of bad habits of body, mind, or mind and body, that means it’s opposite exists and somewhere in between lies a balance, a balance of self-awareness, love, and acceptance.

What might be perceived as preordained in ordinary life, may only be the logical result of habits projected into the future. Hope springs from the realization that something may be discovered, something that unlocks the mystery of habits. Addiction is a habit and addiction is a constant part of the human experience. There are so many kinds of addictions. And we would agree that meth is worse than computer games and we might agree both are undesirable.

Caroline Myss says of the addict: “Every one of us is touched by the Addict archetype. The only question is how much of our lives is consumed by it. Besides the usual suspects–drugs, alcohol, food, and sex–one can be addicted to work, sports, television, exercise, computer games, spiritual practice, negative attitudes, and the kinds of thrills that bring on adrenaline rushes. In its positive aspect, this archetype helps you recognize when an outside substance, habit, relationship, or any expression of life has more authority over your will power than does your inner spirit. Confronting addiction and breaking the hold that a pattern or substance has on you can impart great strength to your psyche. Discovering the empowerment that comes with perseverance has a life-long impact, becoming a reference point for what you are able to accomplish. In the words of one former alcoholic, “I know now that if I can quit drinking, I can do anything.””

Most of the roots of habits are below conscious awareness. There may be many theories in the conscious mind while the answer lies in the unaccessible subconscious mind. This is just how it is, there is a past experience, it was very emotional, and it was powerfully programmed into our subconscious. There it becomes understanding of something and with that understanding our conscious mind reasons forth in a logical fashion. We reason logically from a false premise.

Habits are very very useful. It is nice not to have to think about tying a shoe. Knowing how to tie a shoe is a useful habit.

On the subject of power; who is more powerful, a team of Navy Seals or Mother Teresa? Which one brought more peace to the planet. There are peacemakers and there are the others.

Who is more powerful, the British Army and Navy, or non-violent resistance exemplified by Mahatma Gandhi and India?

The power of love creates far more good than the power of force ever will. Force may kill a body, but love can change a soul. And a changed more loving soul is forever.

“If we really want to love we must learn how to forgive.” Mother Theresa

Rick

January 2013

Posted on November 20, 2015 by rick_ranum

Well, there goes December 2012. It was another year and if you are reading this you got through it. I know of many who did not make it to 2013. it was certainly nice to see December 21st come and go. For the last few years the view of that date has been associated via films and television as a dire date of catastrophe. The media just loves fear and fear is the source of most of our problems in life.

For sometime I have pondered the word faith and been unable to find a definition that really works for me. And though a suitable definition eludes me, I have found the opposite of faith and that is fear.

I came across this idea in something I was reading recently. “Freewill is the most important variable in the geometry of time”. I take this to mean that the choices we make create the future. If the future were fixed we would not really exist as the only real existence is knowing we do exist and our choices have meaning.

When healing or change is required we have the option of palliative medicine that brings a temporary relief from our symptoms. There are many palliatives that make us feel better in our lives and do not correct the core condition.

Anyone reading this blog after a while comes to know that my belief system contains the power of self created miraculous experience. My personal experiences and work as a therapist confirms this, it also confirms the patient’s necessity of choosing true relief. If there is anything that impedes change it is habits, habits of mind and body.

I wish you all a miraculous year, a year where you are very conscious of your choices and the probable outcomes of those choices; a year where you observe yourselves and enjoy yourselves.

Rick

Grief

Posted on November 20, 2015 by rick_ranum

The Five Stages of Grief

These stages appear often in our lives with any loss and many changes.

Denial — “I feel fine.”; “This can’t be happening, not to me.”
Anger — “Why me? It’s not fair!”; “How can this happen to me?”; ‘”Who is to blame?”
Bargaining — “I’ll do anything for a few more years.”; “I will give my life savings if…”
Depression — “I’m so sad, why bother with anything?”; “I miss my loved one(tooth), why go on?”
Acceptance — “It’s going to be okay.”; “I can’t fight it, I may as well prepare for it.”

I would like to add to the Kubler-Ross model, illumination. When something happens in our life there are also unintended opportunities or illumination. The illumination or opportunities come from going past the acceptance into a state of self education.

Distinct or Dissolve

Posted on November 20, 2015 by rick_ranum

“The man who follows the crowd, will usually get not further than the crowd. The man who walks alone is likely to find himself in places no one has ever been before.

Creativity in living is not without its attendant difficulties, for peculiarity breeds contempt. And the unfortunate thing about being ahead of your time is that when people finally realize you were right, they’ll say it was obvious all along.

You have two choices in life: you can dissolve into the mainstream, or you can be distinct. To be distinct you must be different. To be different you must strive to be what no one else but you can be…

Alan Ashley-Pitt

Five Techniques to Improve Life

Posted on November 20, 2015 by rick_ranum

The five techniques: Do one at a time. Do it for 21 days.

Sometime during your day, perhaps best at bedtime, write down three things you are grateful for that have occurred in the past 24 hours. Also, write down why you are grateful. Each day find 3 new ones.
Think of a meaningful experience from you life for two minutes each day. Write down every detail you can remember. As you do this look at the words you used to describe your experience. (The words we use describe us)
Add fifteen minutes of a fun activity each day with energy. This creates a cascading effect over the days. This is to be an active event.
Consciously add three smiles to your day. As you go through your day smile a people until three of them have replied spontaneously with a return smile.
Reconnect to your social network. Each day take two or three minutes to write to a person that you know and tell them how much and why you are grateful to have them in your life.Simple and powerful.

Pain

Posted on November 20, 2015 by rick_ranum

Emotional pain and attachment to life

October 9th 2012

There is no pain worse than emotional pain. Some news about our selves, our friends, our loved ones, or the story of some stranger having a struggle with life, these evoke strong emotions.

One such emotion is a loss of selfhood. A loss of selfhood occurs throughout life. There are many transitions that contain loss, this category of loss includes; becoming a teenager, graduating school, becoming an adult, becoming a couple, any body issue, and, ultimately the dying process.

Becoming a teenager is the loss of childhood, turning 20, the loss of teenage category. Sometimes the loss is a person and usually begins with the loss of the old and gray, or grandparents, great aunts and uncles. There is sometimes the loss of self due to a dis-ease moving from the formulative state of thought into three dimensional matter. Even a cold or the flu has its origins in the way we think and how that thinking impacts our body.

When some part of us is lost, there is a pause, an unusual state of mind. Our “mind” functions differently. You might call it a trance or shock. Now we apprehend everything differently. Things sound “different”, things seem “different”, the world appears “unreal”. We may come to realizations, we may react in fear, either way, it is an altered experience, that is to say, it is again, “different”.

At any age the threat of loss of some part of our selves is very much a reminder of our eventual passing from earth experience. This happens to all of us. We wear out or rundown, we slow down or pass rapidly, and this is a subject that brings most of us pause.

Every life has changes and challenges and the optimum possible reaction is acceptance. The opposite of acceptance might well be attachment. Acceptance has no fear. No fear means no anxiety, no worry, no anger, no saddness. Acceptance is peace, calm, understanding, farsighted, an expectation that the journey is always leading to greater opportunity to radiate outward these attributes.

How to be accepting with each change and challenge. This is truly the mastery.

Such a mastery is the desire of an inner part of us as we reach for selflessness. Selflessness, the desire to help.