Ever since April of 2009, I have been working on my Master's in Marriage and Family Therapy (for those that I have told numerous times, yet seem to always forget :) and ever since that day, the work has not stopped! Lately my life has been one filled with a tremendous amount of schoolwork; so much in fact, that I was starting to wonder what it was like to be engaged in something other than academic assignments. Recently I finished compiling a dense project known as a Clinical Competency report and this is essentially the crux of my program. This involved my observations in the assessment and treatment of a client at m practicum site; needless to say, this project took me several months to work on and complete.
With the project finished and graded and my next class starting at a later date, I now find myself wandering aimlessly through the house (or the yard) feeling like I should be studying or typing or doing something to work towards a deadline! I could always be studying up for the next class in a couple of weeks, but lets face it, a chronic procrastinator works better with a tight deadline and 3 weeks is still a much too far away time frame that doesn't deserve my anxiety...yet. This recent turn of events have left me wondering what it will be like after I graduate. Will I wander aimlessly around my neighborhood or will this be the time for me to embark on learning a new hobby? It's been so long since I've had anything remotely close to a hobby, so my doors are open for anything new and exciting. I get the sneaky suspicion thought that I might feel incomplete when not enrolled in school; I mean when I sit down and think about it, I have been involved in institutionalized learning for the past 20 years of my life....that's a big deal...and not a habit that can be easily replaced I'm thinking...oh well.
My thoughts also turn to those in similar situations who end up graduating from higher learning with the feeling that they're incomplete unless they're submitting assignments and engaging in mandatory readings all before a selected deadline. I already have the fear of becoming a "professional student" and the insane thing is, I think sometimes I would be okay with that! Then I'm reminded of the average-sized house that I owe in student loans and reality sets back in....
In correlation, I wonder what would happen- or how different my life would be- if I put as much study and effort into furthering my relationship with Christ as I did with school. Needless to say this realization was met with surprise and yes, even shame when I thought about how my spiritual life could be different. In this fast-paced world, it's so easy to assume that we have more important things to do or we're too busy accomplishing tasks that NEED to done by a certain date, but the fact of the matter is, we become so used to the busyness and habits that it becomes easy to push the important things to a back burner. Remember to slow down.......maybe even stop.....breath.....focus on what's important.
Sunday, November 21, 2010
Friday, May 28, 2010
puppy love
Everyday life is full of asking questions we already know the answers to; directing a statement or action at a person or situation in order to get a specified response. Each situation is an implication of what we experience in our cognitive processing routines; we know what's expected of the situation, therefore we direct our command or question in such a way to illicit the desired response.
There have been many situations in which I felt the pressure of the moment called for a specified reaction; case in point, when a man asks his girl to marry him, the desired response-which he hopefully assumes she will answer to- is of course "yes"; when a thinly-veiled critic comes from a close friend or spouse concerning our appearance, we assume the position that they want us to change and/or stay the way that we are -depending on the situation. Saying, "I like it when you wear your hair that way," assumes that the viewer intends for the viewee to continue wearing his/her way "that way."
This isn't anything new, we've been brought up this way and our culture reeks of predictability and subtly placed commands disguised as hints during interpersonal interactions. Society maintains at times that we remain detached from heart-felt feelings; maybe if we showed we had heart, we would be expected to fix the ache, mend the relationship, comfort the grieving.
My particular and personal beef has recently extended from maintaining a flat affect when in certain situations where expressed emotions might be more accepted or even appropriate. Flat affect is a term that describes a reduction in emotional expressiveness- in layman's terms, it's the person that keeps the stoic expression throughout a funeral or the one that remains straight faced during a a comedy routine. I know this is a feeble attempt at describing the term but it'll have to do.
Over the past few years I've all but reached the conclusion that I was heartless. This stemmed from an uncanny ability to watch or participate in emotionally heavy situations without allowing any heartfelt behaviors to show themselves;these situations included watching touching movies scenes without twitching one facial muscle; sitting through a relative's funeral without coming even remotely close to tears; having a dear sister collapse in my arms expressing nothing but grief about her current life situation...all this and more and still, I felt heartless.
Since I had already resigned myself to lack the feelings that the rest of the world seems to already have, I was unprepared for the situation which I faced today. The Coach and I are preparing to leave town for the weekend with other family members; we enjoy traveling especially since we can usually take our spoiled rotten 10-pound pekapoo along with us. We unknowingly have elevated him to "people status" in our family and he gets his name put in all the Christmas cards now- which is something I originally thought extremely silly and swore that I would never do.
For this weekend, we are going to be gone to a destination that is not doggy-friendly and we had originally planned on leaving him with friends. However, all of the usual dog-sitters that we occasionally leave our pup with are going to be out of town for the holiday leaving us with the only option to board our pride and joy with- yep, his veterinarian. After much deliberation, discussion and anxiety, I suddenly found myself driving to the vet this afternoon with my furry friend who is just happy to be with me even though he doesn't know where we are going.
It all happened so fast.
We arrived. They took. I left.
Walking out of the vet's office and to my car with thoughts of my poor puppy being alone and scared racing through my mind, I suddenly had a strange moment. While it was happening, I had had a sudden vision of Timothy Mouse on Disney's Dumbo, watching Dumbo's mother rock her baby from the inside of her solitary confinement cell. He looked with surprise as a larger-than-life tear appeared on his face and this is undoubtedly the way that I looked at the tear that sneakily appeared on my cheek.
It appeared that I do have heart after all, a misplaced direction of heart it may be, but just the same an emotion-filled experience. The tears lasted for about a mile down the road and throughout my insignificant but still sorrowful grieving process, I couldn't help but feel a small amount of relief and yes, even pride that I, Laura Moore, am after all, not heartless.
There have been many situations in which I felt the pressure of the moment called for a specified reaction; case in point, when a man asks his girl to marry him, the desired response-which he hopefully assumes she will answer to- is of course "yes"; when a thinly-veiled critic comes from a close friend or spouse concerning our appearance, we assume the position that they want us to change and/or stay the way that we are -depending on the situation. Saying, "I like it when you wear your hair that way," assumes that the viewer intends for the viewee to continue wearing his/her way "that way."
This isn't anything new, we've been brought up this way and our culture reeks of predictability and subtly placed commands disguised as hints during interpersonal interactions. Society maintains at times that we remain detached from heart-felt feelings; maybe if we showed we had heart, we would be expected to fix the ache, mend the relationship, comfort the grieving.
My particular and personal beef has recently extended from maintaining a flat affect when in certain situations where expressed emotions might be more accepted or even appropriate. Flat affect is a term that describes a reduction in emotional expressiveness- in layman's terms, it's the person that keeps the stoic expression throughout a funeral or the one that remains straight faced during a a comedy routine. I know this is a feeble attempt at describing the term but it'll have to do.
Over the past few years I've all but reached the conclusion that I was heartless. This stemmed from an uncanny ability to watch or participate in emotionally heavy situations without allowing any heartfelt behaviors to show themselves;these situations included watching touching movies scenes without twitching one facial muscle; sitting through a relative's funeral without coming even remotely close to tears; having a dear sister collapse in my arms expressing nothing but grief about her current life situation...all this and more and still, I felt heartless.
Since I had already resigned myself to lack the feelings that the rest of the world seems to already have, I was unprepared for the situation which I faced today. The Coach and I are preparing to leave town for the weekend with other family members; we enjoy traveling especially since we can usually take our spoiled rotten 10-pound pekapoo along with us. We unknowingly have elevated him to "people status" in our family and he gets his name put in all the Christmas cards now- which is something I originally thought extremely silly and swore that I would never do.
For this weekend, we are going to be gone to a destination that is not doggy-friendly and we had originally planned on leaving him with friends. However, all of the usual dog-sitters that we occasionally leave our pup with are going to be out of town for the holiday leaving us with the only option to board our pride and joy with- yep, his veterinarian. After much deliberation, discussion and anxiety, I suddenly found myself driving to the vet this afternoon with my furry friend who is just happy to be with me even though he doesn't know where we are going.
It all happened so fast.
We arrived. They took. I left.
Walking out of the vet's office and to my car with thoughts of my poor puppy being alone and scared racing through my mind, I suddenly had a strange moment. While it was happening, I had had a sudden vision of Timothy Mouse on Disney's Dumbo, watching Dumbo's mother rock her baby from the inside of her solitary confinement cell. He looked with surprise as a larger-than-life tear appeared on his face and this is undoubtedly the way that I looked at the tear that sneakily appeared on my cheek.
It appeared that I do have heart after all, a misplaced direction of heart it may be, but just the same an emotion-filled experience. The tears lasted for about a mile down the road and throughout my insignificant but still sorrowful grieving process, I couldn't help but feel a small amount of relief and yes, even pride that I, Laura Moore, am after all, not heartless.
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Get Real
About a week ago, a conversation took place between myself and two of the female students that I have in small group; there was an undeniable amount of attention directed towards the authenticity (or lack thereof) of most individuals that we interact with on a regular basis. Needless to say most of these unauthentic and unspoken individuals that we were picturing in our minds all happened to be of the female gender.
A probing question that kept coming up during our conversation was, why is it that people seem to lack a genuine ability to be authentic? There's always something to be revealed or to be kept hidden especially among women. I am of the belief that women are continually undergoing a process of keeping some aspect about themselves hidden. We seem to think we can't let our guard down for fear of discovery or for fear that we will reveal that we actually have fears and doubts and maybe at times moments of irrationality.
I'm not meaning to badger too much on the female gender because men can be just as guilty of unauthenticity as women. Society warrants that we not reveal too much and not care so much for the well-being of others it would seem. Think about the last time you ran into an old friend or an acquaintance in public...perhaps the conversation went something like this: "Hey how are doing?" "Good!" "That's great" "It's good to see you!"and etc....
Think about it...was it really great to see them? Did you really want to know how their job was going or did you feel like you had to ask for the sake of the conversation? On the flip side, maybe you weren't feeling great but saying that you were doing good just happened to be the more socially accepted and most common response to that question...
In my opinion, people need to start getting real with each other. Remember the whole bit on honesty being the best policy? If society and our cultural norms didn't stand in our way, we definitely be a people radiating authenticity and true genuineness comes straight from the heart.
A probing question that kept coming up during our conversation was, why is it that people seem to lack a genuine ability to be authentic? There's always something to be revealed or to be kept hidden especially among women. I am of the belief that women are continually undergoing a process of keeping some aspect about themselves hidden. We seem to think we can't let our guard down for fear of discovery or for fear that we will reveal that we actually have fears and doubts and maybe at times moments of irrationality.
I'm not meaning to badger too much on the female gender because men can be just as guilty of unauthenticity as women. Society warrants that we not reveal too much and not care so much for the well-being of others it would seem. Think about the last time you ran into an old friend or an acquaintance in public...perhaps the conversation went something like this: "Hey how are doing?" "Good!" "That's great" "It's good to see you!"and etc....
Think about it...was it really great to see them? Did you really want to know how their job was going or did you feel like you had to ask for the sake of the conversation? On the flip side, maybe you weren't feeling great but saying that you were doing good just happened to be the more socially accepted and most common response to that question...
In my opinion, people need to start getting real with each other. Remember the whole bit on honesty being the best policy? If society and our cultural norms didn't stand in our way, we definitely be a people radiating authenticity and true genuineness comes straight from the heart.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Honestly?
William Shakespeare once said, “Honesty is the best policy. If I lose mine honor, I lose myself.”
I've often wondered about this infamous quote...recently I've even speculated on whether or not Shakespeare had friends. If he truly were a man who practiced what he preached, then I suppose he managed to tick off his share of acquaintances and friends and possibly even strangers.
You always seem to hear people say, "Tell me honestly," but you have to ask, do they really mean it? Is honesty really the best policy?
Think about the last time you asked some to be honest with you. Depending on whom you were with, you most likely got a not-so-straight answer based off of your question:
“Do these jeans make my butt look fat?”
“I’m not cranky after work am I?”
“Don’t you think she was so rude to me by saying that?”
I tend to doubt there are few “friends” and possibly even family members that would answer these in the most direct and honest form possible. Why do people say they want your honest opinion then are completely offended when they actually get it? Honestly, I am just like those people. I sometimes find myself asking for someone’s honest opinion then metaphorically I’ll duck and shield my face because I know I’m about to receive a nasty blow and it can be quite difficult to accept.
However, it does depend on the person is that is honest with you. I value honesty when it come from a credible and influential source in my life; if the retort comes from any random person or distant coworker, then I might be more apt to dismiss their opinion. I find that I usually can handle the truth when it comes from certain members of my family but it’s still hard to swallow. The truth really does hurt sometimes and I think that is why most people just don’t seek after it.
Society is apparently inferring that we ought to go around intentionally lying to others because in all reality we can’t handle even a smidgen of the truth.
Now there comes a point where being directly honest can come off as being cruel and our opinion can have a detrimental effect on the other individual’s mental state, but if that’s the case shouldn’t the “truth-seeker” consider the possibilities of their answers before they go around asking for an honest opinion?
In a nutshell, if you can’t handle the truth, then don’t demand it from others.
Ephesians 4:25
Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to his neighbor, for we are all members of one body.
Cheers,
Laura
I've often wondered about this infamous quote...recently I've even speculated on whether or not Shakespeare had friends. If he truly were a man who practiced what he preached, then I suppose he managed to tick off his share of acquaintances and friends and possibly even strangers.
You always seem to hear people say, "Tell me honestly," but you have to ask, do they really mean it? Is honesty really the best policy?
Think about the last time you asked some to be honest with you. Depending on whom you were with, you most likely got a not-so-straight answer based off of your question:
“Do these jeans make my butt look fat?”
“I’m not cranky after work am I?”
“Don’t you think she was so rude to me by saying that?”
I tend to doubt there are few “friends” and possibly even family members that would answer these in the most direct and honest form possible. Why do people say they want your honest opinion then are completely offended when they actually get it? Honestly, I am just like those people. I sometimes find myself asking for someone’s honest opinion then metaphorically I’ll duck and shield my face because I know I’m about to receive a nasty blow and it can be quite difficult to accept.
However, it does depend on the person is that is honest with you. I value honesty when it come from a credible and influential source in my life; if the retort comes from any random person or distant coworker, then I might be more apt to dismiss their opinion. I find that I usually can handle the truth when it comes from certain members of my family but it’s still hard to swallow. The truth really does hurt sometimes and I think that is why most people just don’t seek after it.
Society is apparently inferring that we ought to go around intentionally lying to others because in all reality we can’t handle even a smidgen of the truth.
Now there comes a point where being directly honest can come off as being cruel and our opinion can have a detrimental effect on the other individual’s mental state, but if that’s the case shouldn’t the “truth-seeker” consider the possibilities of their answers before they go around asking for an honest opinion?
In a nutshell, if you can’t handle the truth, then don’t demand it from others.
Ephesians 4:25
Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to his neighbor, for we are all members of one body.
Cheers,
Laura
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