Is Coping the Answer?

There's a lot of talk about 'coping' in self-help. This is supposed to be a positive topic, how people are taking charge of a negative aspect of their life and learning how to deal with it. Actually, I would say, coping is actually not as grand a feat as one would assume. For many situations, there's nothing you can do. If you have cancer, then yes, you have to cope with cancer. But if you have problems in your life, you don't want to cope with them... you want to attack them and work toward eradicating them. There is a sense of futility in the notion of coping.

With pain and injury and other medical conditions, there are three levels of management. There is palliative care, which means the condition is not going to go away and in fact is going to worsen. Therapy and treatment targets attempts to alleviate the outward pain and keep the patient as comfortable as possible for as long as possible. Then there is managed care. While the condition is not going to go away on its own, it can be dealt with and effects of it can be managed or alleviated so that the condition does not severely disrupt the life of the patient. Then there is therapeutic change. By working on the problem, it can be not only managed but changed and even eradicated.

Coping in many areas of self-help is a giving up any possible chance for therapeutic change and relegating the situation to managed care. How can I manage in this situation? We go too quickly to coping strategies. Too many times the situation is not looked at for the potential of eradication. Remember when 'coping' used to be real... when you asked someone, 'how are you doing,' and they said, 'I'm coping,' it was usually a sad but hopeful situation. Now people consider themselves victors when they say, 'I'm coping.' Careful. As soon as you stop thinking about the fact that you're 'coping,' you suddenly find that you're not coping anymore, and the original problem is still there.

Massage

Well, kids. I'm sorry sorry. 16 days without posting?

I've started a new venture. I'm training to become a massage therapist. So far, so good. We're working on Swedish massage techniques. We've worked on face, scalp, neck, arms, hands, legs, feet, and last night, abs.

Now I've never had a massage therapist work on my abs before. I can't remember any even asking me if I wanted that area incorporated into the massage. Well, certainly like everyone else, I was apprehensive.... for both working on someone in that area and in having my abs worked on.

Let me tell you. This is an area that you should not neglect. And if you ever pay for a Swedish massage, make sure you have the therapist work your abs. Several of the key benefits of massage in general are prevalent in the abs. Today I feel better posture and more relaxed in the areas of my stomach, waist, and sides. I'm holding my abs more erect, giving that better posture, but even more obvious, holding your abs firm means... I'm holding my stomach flatter!

One of our first classes we went over the benefits of massage. There are over a dozen. One is maybe a little bit more... esoteric than the rest, but for me, it seems to be one of the most prevalent. I'm more aware of my body and its parts. Now granted in the training sessions we're doing for class, we are concentrating on a single body part for ten times as long as it would receive attention in a typical one-hour long massage, but today, I'm so aware of my abs and how they are supporting my torso, I am 'aware' of them doing their job, and yet, they feel relaxed, not stressed.

More to come on the topic of massage. New direction for me here and not in keeping with what I named this blog. Perhaps I will end up with another one, rename this one, or heck, just deal with it... :)

Channeling Parents

A friend of mine just channeled my father the other night. It was an amazing thing, particularly since Dad is still alive. Who knew you can channel the thoughts of a living person! I thought it was something that could only be done across the planar boundaries into the other space. No, you can channel from town to town within the same state, too. Or it could be something only possible in New Jersey.

Me: My furnace won't come on.
Friend: Well, what's wrong with it?
Me: Um,... it won't come on.
Friend: Well, did you call somebody?

Office Mentality

We have so many meetings here that require the attendance of so many different people that in order to keep it all straight season after season, we have a meeting to schedule all the regular meetings that take place through the business cycle. It's called the Meeting Meeting. Now of course, you would think that this type of planning would cause less confusion, but we still have conference room booking problems, find out later certain people are unable to attend certain meetings, cancellations, postponements.

At a job I had many years ago for a large corporation that shall remain nameless, we had so many standard forms, there was a form you had to fill out to order standardized forms. One of the listings on the Form Form was a line item to order more Form Forms.

My only question is: what if I'm unable to attend the Meeting Meeting? What if I run out of Form Forms -- how do I get any more?

Sorry Faithful Readers

Went offline there for a while and realized I haven't chimed in in a while. So hello. I haven't had much in the way of inspirations for posts though. I promise I'll try harder to extrapolate meaning from the world at large and disburse my witty insights. But you know, sometimes, I just don't think the world is really that deep at all. Sometimes it's just wake, work, pee, poop, snooze, snore, repeat. And every now and then, I masturbate.