Poetry Writing: Good for Immune Boosting?

When I can, I do hospice work with Livingston Memorial Visiting Nurse Association. They do in home hospice and hospice in board and care facilities as well as nurse services. Volunteers attend a 8 week class. You learn the best ways to interact with with the patients and what to expect. It teaches you far more than you can even imagine. Once a year they have a retreat and I went this year. It’s at a beach home and it’s a lovely time of getting the soul nourished. This year they had a Registered Poet Therapist. I didn’t even know there was such a category. Her name is Dr. Perie Longo and she is amazing. She gave a great talk and did some poetry reading for caregivers. She also taught us exercises on how to write as caregivers. read...

Mindfulness or Meditation – Which Helps with Opinions?

I got an opportunity, a big one, to remind myself that another’s opinion of me is just that ,an opinion. It was their opinion of what I had done and what they thought of my doing it. My instant reaction was to feel hurt, this was someone important to me. Then I stopped and looked again. I reminded myself that this happened to bring up some old tired emotions that needed to be loved, accepted, allowed, forgiven, and released. I also saw this as a great reminder that even though the person is important to me, they were merely sharing their opinion of my actions and that’s all. They are not an expert online or offline on me. I am the only expert of me. read...

Designing Your Own Life Requires Paying Attention to Your Thoughts

Paying attention to your thoughts is so important. It affects your emotions, your feelings and what happens in your life. It’s the run away mind that can wreck much havoc in your life. In addition, have you considered how you talk to your friends when you get together? Are you complaining about things that happen in your life that you don’t find pleasing? Are you aware when you do that, you are drawing more of that to you?  Are you a captive of your own complaining? You are designing your own life whether you believe it or not. read...