Do you feel like you have the personal power and insight to chart your own course successfully - why or why not?

….can and often does hurt you.

It also hurts others, but mostly it hurts you.

We often spend so much time getting to know others – and the more we love them, the more time we spend.

We might be able to recite our pet’s top 5 favorite foods in perfect order, or our spouse’s exact morning routine from the time they stop hitting “snooze” to the moment their car backs down the driveway.

But how well will we do, and with what tone (on a scale from 1 to 10, with 1 being “adoration” and 10 being “disdain”) will we describe our own?

On average (just a question if you are up for it) how much time would you say you spend studying yourself versus studying others in your life?

On average (ditto above) how much curiosity (loving and open-minded, not judgmental curiosity) would you say you feel towards yourself versus towards someone else in your life whom you especially love or admire?

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That Maria sure was on to something when she sang about "My Favorite Things"!

In recovery, as in life, often the great sensibilities we gather that help us assess our overall quality of life really do boil down to a collection of the littlest things imaginable.

Like – do we live in a beautiful place? (if we love nature)

Do we have at least one close friend we can confide in? (the average number of close confidantes most people have, according to the authors of the book “Connected,” is between 2 and 12)

Do we feel healthy and rested on a regular basis? (an inner sense of well being and life enjoyment go hand in hand)

Do we have some source of inspiration that moves us? (this could be work, family, a cause, etc – it will be different for each of us)

In the same way, your “little things” may be quite different from my “little things.”

For instance, I have a friend who just loves country music, boats, and football games.

We are good friends and I appreciate her. Yet all three of those things – things that she loves enough to spend nearly every available waking minute of her free time doing them – consistently rank right down near the bottom of my favorites list (side by side with root canals and taking my bird to the vet).

I do marvel at how our “little things” can be that different – but then again, thank goodness, right?! My own best friend only begrudgingly attends STING concerts with me, while I plan my year around them. She prefers Train concerts, which I will attend with her, but only because it makes her happy.

We are so different – so interesting – so unique – and our little things will necessarily be unique to us.

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I know exactly where they are going. Every last one of those ants is headed to my house.

….so you do unto me.

I am not well-versed in religion, Christian or otherwise.

I would never presume to attempt to sermonize, or to assume I fully understand the words of those who do.

But I do know this – if by “the least of these” Jesus was meaning bugs, then I’ve got a LONG way to go to earn my “great human being” stripes.

I cannot seem to help myself. I have so much compassion for animals, children, and most adults. I keep my house neat and see my folks at least once a week on average. My bird lives better than some people do (so do my fish and my houseplants for that matter).

But just TRY being a bug in my household and see how you fare.

Splat. Whack. Smush.

At least I don’t stalk them with those electric zapper paddles like my Dad does. But if I’m being honest, that is just because he hasn’t bought me one yet (I hear it is on order).

Since I’ve moved into this place – a 100 year old historic duplex home in the heart of one of Houston’s most historic districts – I have battled roaches (shudder), fleas, both red and black ants, countless spiders of all colors and sizes, one medium sized rodent and a host of black gnats that think houseplants make mighty fine insect residences.

So I suppose I have been provoked.

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When we are recovering from any difficult challenge life throws at us, it is totally normal to feel discombobulated for awhile.

Who am I again? What am I all about? Am I here?

Normal, normal, all too normal.

Oddly, being thrown for a loop is about the only time that a human being can absolutely, with 100% certainty, count on having the experience of being “normal.”

Because while there is nothing normal about struggling, there is everything normal about the experience of the human struggling.

A colleague, Liz Dennery Sanders*, recently resposted a great article on what fellow blogger and author Julien Smith calls “The Cult of Awesomeness.” She also added her own thoughts on what it means to be awesome, and I liked both articles very much.

I liked them so much so, in fact, that I thought they were re-mentioning here as well.

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Brene Brown speaks for TED.com on Shame and Vulnerability

If we are to believe shame and vulnerability researcher Brene Brown, vulnerability can just about cure cancer.

The thing is, I believe her.

I first heard about Brene’s work several years ago. She happens to do her research at the University of Houston, and I happen to live in Houston. So I had visions of sitting down with her over coffee, sharing with her about how shame is a factor for those who develop eating disorders.

But I think (know) that she already knew that.

In her latest talk for TED.com, called “Listening to Shame,” Brene implicates the all-too-human experience of shame in the development of just about everything that hurts and kills us.

Addiction.
Eating disorders.
Depression.
Anxiety.
Suicide.
You name it.

Vulnerability, on the other hand, is a necessary ingredient in the antidote to shame.

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Nicholas Cage in "Gone in 60 Seconds"

One of my all-time favorite movies is the Nicholas Cage classic “Gone in 60 Seconds.”

This is not just because Nicholas Cage and my brother Adam could be identical twins, either.

In the movie, Cage plays car thief Randall “Memphis” Raines. His nemesis, Detective Castlebeck (played by Delroy Lindo) and Castlebeck’s sidekick (played by none other than a younger Timothy Olyphant, aka Justified’s Raylan Givens) spend what seems to be every waking minute trying to bust his chops.

Continually throughout the film, you hear Castlebeck muttering, “The easy way or the hard way, Raines….the easy way or the hard way.”

I must have watched the movie a dozen times before I realized that that was my favorite line. It felt like something I’d been asking myself for most of my (now) 41 years.

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Each month I answer recovery questions and share insights in a newsletter I call Good News for Eating Disorders Recovery.

Memorial Park, Houston, TX

The newsletter is just one of the many ways that we can connect together to share the challenges and victories of our complementary recovery journeys. I get so many questions from readers, and I also get to share my favorite movies, books, and “aha moments” that I have discovered in the preceding month.

I thought I would share this month’s message with you here as well, because it is spring, and everywhere we see nature renewing itself….and one of the most amazing examples of that is right here in my hometown of Houston, Texas!

You, Too, Can Renew

No, this month’s title is not a Dr. Suess riddle (although I flatter myself that the late, great Doctor would be proud.)

There is a wonderful park not too far from my house. We Houstonians are very grateful for it, because there isn’t too much green space left for us in a city of more than 6 million folks.

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The future law woman herself at 5 years old.

When I was in college I wanted to be in the FBI.

Yup, that is right. The Federal Bureau of Investigation.

The gal my parents nicknamed “our little flower” wanted to be a pistol packing, trained and dangerous government official.

Looking back now, I think I was just confused….because clearly what I really wanted was to simply marvel at others (real or fictitious) who have those skills from the comfort and safety of my own home.

To date I have plowed my way through the entire five seasons of “Burn Notice,” and I am right smack dab in the middle of season three of “Justified.” I already have season one of “White Collar” loaded into my Netflix queue, and right behind that I plan to watch “Luther.”

I just like folks who don’t waste time that could be spent getting it done.

I like folks, characters or flesh and blood, who aren’t afraid to make a decision, even if it requires pitting doing what’s easy against doing what’s right. In fact, I especially like those kind….the kind who choose option b on a regular basis.

I guess I spent too many years of my own life waffling, and now I’m ready to get a little of my own back, even if it is vicariously.

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I was talking with a friend this past weekend about how easily studying nature can take us back to basics.

My friend mentioned how animals are motivated by instinct – the instinct to eat, to rest, to reproduce. Things seem much simpler in the animal kingdom with no pesky frontal lobe to interfere with their instinct-based decisions.

Then again, at the risk of anthropomorphizing (or giving animals qualities that are typically only associated with humans – I had to look that one up) my beloved bird, Pearl, or others in the animal world, how much do we humans really know about what makes animals tick, why they do the things they do, and how they relate?

Not nearly enough, according to a recent Time magazine article. Called “The Science of Animal Friendships,” this article shares information that is both surprising and not so surprising.

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My landlady and I have had our differences over the years, so when she loaned me the first book in the Dragon Tattoo series, I accepted it more as a mutually desired peace offering than with any real literary enthusiasm.

Truth be told, I was scared of the books. I have a phobia about serial killers (unfortunately realized a good 100 “Medium” episodes too late) and I knew full good and well the book was named “The Man Who Hates Women” in the Swedish edition.

But I was determined to read it anyway – for the aforementioned reason.

I started reading, and promptly started having nightmares. Of course. I have a phobia, the book was addressing the phobia, and certainly there were many other rather awful events that befell the heroine along the way to the end of page 650-I-lost-count.

But, as I am sure the writer intended, by the end of the first book I was also hooked.

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