Monday?! Do you like Mondays?? “Mon” (my) Day! Recuperating from the week-ends’ busy activity?! Migraine Monday? Meditative Monday? Marvelous Monday? or Manic Monday? (The Bangles come to mind.) Hope You, my Readers, are having a Marvelous Monday!:)

After my long book-of-a-post, was meditating about what could i possibly share of an uplifting, light nature…something fun and/or educational. Thought perhaps of giving you a link to a kid’s story written a while back. Chuck Brown are you out there??…FYI: that’s not the title, but the voice artist who brought, Petie’s Peanut Butter Pizza to life. What a Voice! I wonder how many kids have listened and enjoyed the story through the years? Do you know Mr. Brown? He will “light up your brain!”:)

Anyway, our son was going through an eating phase. Peanut butter. Loved the stuff and not much else. Hubby and I home cook food for our kids daily. We believe in the benefits of family meal time!:) We always try to expose the kids to a variety of healthy food. They like quinoa, eggplant, spinach, hummus, stuffed jalapenos, various veggies and fish, etc. Oh and pizza!:) They enjoy cooking with us as well and trips to the health food/organic store with Dad. (It can be pretty expensive for families to eat healthy–we try the best we can afford.) What about your family? So “thankful” to have food to feed my kids. My heart breaks for less-fortunate folks/families who go hungry!:( Can’t we all SHARE!:)

photo credit: skolbwilliams photo credit 1: oanabefort

Hubby likes to feed our brain while we eat (i.e. sharing encouraging points and things for us to read/discuss together as a family). This helps us stay close and grow spiritually/emotionally/academically as a family unit. When/if eating alone,  …

“True self confidence comes from honing your talents and learning things,” says the book Generation Me, “not from being told you’re great just because you exist.”

“Parents want to make their children happy, and children want stuff,” says the book The Narcissism Epidemic. “Thus parents buy them stuff. And children are happy, but only for a short period of time. Then they want even more stuff.”

“Throwing material goods at problems is a notoriously unsuccessful solution,” says the book The Price of Privilege. “Problems need to be addressed with thought, insight, and empathy, not shoes and purses.” (How many shoes and purses do you own?! or ties and sneakers?! or backpacks and lalaloopsy dolls? or skateboards and legos?:)

Escaping the Endless Adolescence, Dr. Joseph Allen tells of a young man who said to him during a job interview: “I get the sense that sometimes parts of the work can be a little boring, and I don’t want to be bored.” Dr. Allen writes: “He didn’t seem to understand that all jobs have some boring elements. How did one make it to age twenty-three without knowing that?”

Parents face so many varying challenges to raising kids/teens these days. As any busy Mom/Dad of 4 or 3, 2,1…knows it gets overwhelming and exhausting to say the least! Hubby and i chose to have these kids and so, we also chose to raise them ourselves. (i.e. i became a stay-at-home mom and Hubby is self-employed. We tried to maximize our time to be present for our children (and to protect their fleeting childhood) during their tender, formative years.) We all make sacrifices for important reasons. All worthwhile endeavors require hard work and sacrifice…Parenthood is such an endeavor–a daunting one at that!

The above-snipets/quotes are from an article/s i recently read on parenting which explored:

3 Parenting Traps:

1. Overpraising: For example some parents have been caught up in the self-esteem movement. You know, praising their kids say for breathing and totally ignoring any indiscretion or offensive behavior. Lavishing …

Please note: before publishing this I discussed the post with my husband to make sure he was okay/comfortable with me talking about his struggle with suicidal thinking. His response was positive.

As the constant advocate, he feels it will be therapeutic for me as well helpful to others to talk about this difficult topic. The issues of suicide and caregiving, and loving and living with a suicidal partner can be very distressing to say the least. Together, caregivers, partners, family and friends can help each other press on…choose life!
Suicidal Behavior Watch Signs  
My heart and thoughts go out to all the people who have lost a loved one to suicide! Whenever someone in the public eye dies unexpectedly of apparent suicide (like O. J. Murdock and others), it opens up difficult dialogue. As a Caregiver and partner, this is one aspect of my husband’s illness that is very scarey! It just reminds me of the need for constant vigilance and on-going education.

My husband has been a mental health advocate for many years now. His advocacy started in Sarasota, Florida after suffering a major Bipolar episode leading to a suicide attempt and then hospitalization. He has talked about it many times, yet it still scares me.

Nancy’s problems with spending began when her job stress increased. As she felt more anxious and depressed, she found herself turning to shopping as a way to make herself feel better.

At first, the “high” of a new purchase would help her forget her stress, but Nancy found herself spending more and shopping more often. As the bills piled up, she found herself hiding her purchases from her partner, and feeling guilty, too.

We all spend too much money from time to time, but there are some clear signs of compulsive spending:

• Being preoccupied with shopping or spending money
• Shopping when angry, sad, or anxious
• Buying things that are not needed or too expensive for the budget
• Experiencing a “high” after a purchase, but then having a mood crash afterwards
• Having relationship and/or legal problems because of the spending behaviors

Compulsive spending has the double-edged sword of both positive and negative reinforcement. Your partner experiences positive feelings from the purchase, and also relieves the negative feelings that led to the urge to spend in the first place. This can make breaking a spending habit really difficult…but not impossible.

Among the many reasons couples decide to seek therapy—including to learn better communication skills, to improve intimacy, and to heal old wounds—deciding whether or not the relationship is going to survive is the motive for about half.

A recent study from the University of Louisville that studied 249 couples in counseling found that when couples had the goal to improve the relationship, the ultimate outcome was better than those who came to therapy to determine whether or not the relationship could be saved.

Specifically, couples who sought therapy in order to improve their relationship were almost 80% more likely to be together six months later. More than half of those who wanted help deciding about whether or not to split up had indeed broken up six months later.

It is important to know what you want when going into couples therapy.

My client Cathy has a love/hate relationship with her partner, Julia. When Cathy is in a good mood, the world is perfect, their relationship is wonderful, and everything is “kittens and rainbows.” When Cathy gets upset about something—whether it’s related to Julia, work, or something else—everything becomes “doom and gloom and the worst ever!”

Cathy adores her partner, and values their relationship. However, she is very much controlled by her emotions, and allows them to dictate her behavior. She also gets caught up in “all or nothing” thoughts, and needs help with learning how to separate what is real from what her emotions are telling her is the truth. As you will see, those are not always one and the same.

If you have a partner with borderline personality disorder (BPD), the phrase “walking on eggshells” likely defines your life. People with BPD struggle to regulate their emotions, even though the emotions they experience are the same as the rest of us.

The difference is in the intensity of how they feel those emotions. Marsha Linehan, PhD, the founder of dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT), compares those with BPD to third-degree burn victims: “Lacking emotional skin, they feel agony at the slightest touch or movement.” What might just be a small slight for you might mean off-the-charts upset for your partner.

In the DSM-IV-TR, four of the nine criteria required for a diagnosis of BPD have to do with how the person handles emotions. These include:

• frantic efforts to avoid real or perceived abandonment
• intense and quickly changing moods, including irritability and anxiety
• inappropriate anger or the inability to control anger
• chronic feelings of emptiness

What does this mean if your partner has BPD?

Whoa, a professional therapist is giving tips on how to stay out of her office?!? Yes, yes, I am.

Having said that, I always recommend that if you and/or your partner are having serious struggles with mental health, you consult a professional.

The tips that follow may not be enough to resolve your and your partner’s concerns, but they are a good place to start. They can also be used to supplement what you and your partner are working on in couples counseling as well.

Having a spouse with a mental illness can be exhausting and frustrating. And this fatigue and exasperation can spill over into your relationship, slowing chipping away at the love, romance and fun times.

Fortunately, though, couples can reclaim their love and romance each day. In Five Good Minutes with the One You Love: 100 Mindful Practices to Deepen & Renew Your Love Every Day, Jeffrey Brantley, MD, and Wendy Millstine, NC, help you learn to pay attention to your
relationship in a kind and nonjudging way. They offer super simple exercises you can do by yourself or with your partner to strengthen your relationship.

These are three of my favorite activities from their book.

Walk a mile in your partner’s shoes.

Empathy is the foundation of healthy relationships. But all partners can forget to empathize or may have a tough time doing so when frustration and fatigue set in.

Imagine that you had always wanted to go on a dream vacation for your anniversary with your partner, but he is scared of flying, so realizing this dream is impossible.

Or that your partner needs a medical or dental procedure, but her fear of needles and blood is so severe, she chooses to ignore the problem instead.

Or that your partner is afraid of cats, so when you move in together, your beloved cat who has been your companion for many years has to find a new home.

Most people have things they are scared of, but when your partner’s phobia prevents you from being able to live the life you want, confusion, frustration, and anger can ruin an otherwise healthy relationship. While a person generally is not able to “just get over” a phobia, there is help.