Three digit suicide hotline number - 988

FCC approves new three-digit number, 988, as US suicide prevention hotline!

https://news.yahoo.com/fcc-approves-three-digit-number-003148121.html

PHOTO CREDIT: Dan Meyers, Unsplash

The True Story Of Defying Death In A Swim

When you think you can ... with allot of attention to detail, a focus on what's needed,  asking those you love what they think ... and when you keep going.  #YouCan 

https://www.espn.com/espnw/sport/article/27919764/the-inspiring-true-story-record-breaking-death-defying-54-hour-swim-english-channel

PHOTO CREDIT: Alejandra Ezquerro, Unsplash

Hugging the killer of your brother: biases ignite and they CAN change ...

As a Dallas police officer is sentenced in court and as impact statements of other loved ones are directed to her injurious killing, the brother of the deceased takes a different tone. This podcast look at his ability to focus on the reason for the murder trial, conviction and sentencing (in what may also be an injustice as the mother and other family members make clear too) is a story of great determination, passion, love and internal wherewithall. This young man, barely over the age of adulthood, grabs onto what matters most to him ... what his deceased brother wanted. He therefore finds a way to keep alive the character of his valued older and now gone sibling. Yahoo news reports in a way that captures all sides of relative legal, cultural, moral and political arguments of our day. Their reporting is worth 10 stars for news reporting! From the coverage of crooked systems, faulty investigations and training, faith toting Jesus moments before the jailhouse, seasoned prosecutors and crying judges along with the hug of a victim sibling to a police officer killer are newsworthy moments. Today, as you listen, consider moving your biases to the side. #TalkifUwant

PHOTO CREDIT: Marco Bianchetti, and Unsplash

Inequality has deep deep roots - almost everywhere it seems.

Inequality has deep roots in legal maneuvering.  It seems to me many think it better or worse here or there.   I'm not so sure ... 

An interesting story about Missouri law.  The state district court in this courthouse (lavishly built and now sitting empty for touring publics) ruled that black people were not citizens.  This case went to the Supreme court and was a contributing factor moving people to war - the civil war.  One justice used a seeming state's rights position, saying that another court could not dictate what Missouri wanted for itself in laws.  The state, to openly discuss this heritage (and it is heritage), vulnerably exposes its own path in inequality.  The resilience of the unequal trajectory is evidenced still in American culture,  not only in legalities over race, but also in ethnicity, religion, sexuality, political affilliation, privilege, nationalism, medical care, earnings disparities, homelessness, abortion, pharmaceuticals, credit and interest rates, education.   It seems the one upping movement is not limited to Missouri however ... but maybe to all of "us" who damn all of "them".

PHOTO CREDIT: Me!

Guns and Straws

Photo Credit: Vladimir Palyanov, Unsplash

As Americans get back to normal -again- following a series of mass shootings in the US, there's a 'refreshing news flash' where common ground emerges: plastic straws.  While the number of injured and dying sea turtles is nearly impossible to tally, the number of homegrown mass shooters, the number of people dead and hurt in shootings, well that is known.  In a gutsy and guest rendered podcast my summary today is that all of this non-partisan agreement over straws - (heck even Trump is on board it seems in recycling them) - the gun debate continues as a debate. In not only my view of guns and straws that just sucks.  Listen now on Radio Public.

This image captures wonderfully the labor of brick making. The detail of the wooden cast that was formed and now becomes the mold for clay, brought about from the mixing of the water and the dirt, specifically located to be sufficient as a cold stone or a fired stone masonry, the filling and moving about such that air bubbles pop now (instead of later) and even the movement of the hands that manipulate the environment for one future brick. It is a labor - maybe of love, maybe of necessity, maybe of challenge - and certainly of skill. Labor Day is, in part, a celebration and memorialization of a movement where workers take on the impact of what it is that they (not their employers, or their government or their earnings even) contribute to make the lives of others better. Labor Day seems to be about a view that takes the "top down" mentality, flips it upside down ironically enough, and says to the world - if it were not for OUR labor you (society) would not be where you are and you would not have what you have. I often hear the stories (and so do you) of how it is various laboring folks of all professions and disciplines are explicitly and implicitly "expected to be grateful" for their jobs as if the job is all that there is to have. In American culture it is not uncommon for people of their work - to become it - and this too is often celebrated with accolades of accomplishment, pay, prominence and even notoriety. A job is something to have indeed - ask anyone who doesn't have one as they sit in some deprivation. The point of Labor Day is that a greater community CAN liken what laborers and workers do everyday besides it being their jobs. Regardless of who gives the job and who takes it away, the position of power is not nearly as significant as the labor of those who are commissioned to do the work of some quality such that a larger society want a product and therefore many lives are improved. The boss cannot be successful because of position. The work must be included - and even more real, more personal, and more alive than work - are the laborers who produce in every single detail and that IS celebrated.

- K. LaRose @ TalkifUwant.com

Photo Credit: Estaban Castle, Unsplash

Walk boldly and plan boldly. 

When history says "boldly" was folly, 

then walk forward in a new way ---- boldly still! 

K. LaRose @ TalkifUwant.com. 

PHOTO: Meagan Carsience, Unsplash

Changing centuries in one action ...

If you think you cannot change a century or two, just count the years. I did ... 200 plus!  If you think a single cut has little power to effect some mind of defeat, look closely.  In a single action, one cut, the lifetime of 200 years is altered.  For the good, you say?  That would depend on your view, your judgements and the power you presume is right,  of course.  A parallel here to consider, besides the life of a tree, the environment or even altering the generations who kissed in its shade, who carved into its bark ... are the words we use ... words that cut and change a lifetime as well.  How you and I speak, condemns or builds, and sadly more and more in my work, more and more in the media, more and more in moral inequality, more and more in creating narratives and sides, all supposed justified forms of cutting we wonder why it is we cannot connect.  In cutting, however it is spun, many fall - just as centuries old trees. #talkifuwant #cut #words #trees #centuries
PHOTO CREDIT: Me!

Not enough motivation to exercise?

I think being 52 years old and running three and a half miles in just under 29 minutes is okay... an 8.50 mile isn't bad in one mile and it's pretty okay too at near 3.5 miles.  No it's not the half marathon I ran a few years back or the near 16 miles just prior ... but it is exercise!  Exercise, nutrition, fluid intake, self nurturing, time with loved ones, decent sleep ... these are all key parts of mental health.  Motivation?  It's not a psychological phenomenon to search for ... it's dopamine.  Do you know what activates dopamine (aka: motivation)? Exercise!  If you're missing motivation,  besides a symptom of mental illness, besides a symptom of unhappiness, besides "just not feeling like it" check to see if you are also not missing exercise time.  It clears inflammation, reduces self medication behavior AND produces motivation! #mentalhealth

Healthy eats and cheats in one!

Bring sea shell pasta (cheat one) to a boil and drain.  In separate pan, bring 1/2 cup water and 1/2 cup olive oil to a boil.   In the boil add 1 teaspoon of better than bullion (veggie blend).  Next add fresh mushrooms.  Stirring as you go add carrots next, then celery and the celery leaf.  Next mix in whole and raw almonds ... keep stirring as you go.  Now add fresh garlic cloves, then fresh basil leaves.  Now,  chop a bit of green peppers and add them.   Keep stirring.  Finally add some hearts of palm.  And the last cheat?  2 shots of Evan Williams (or your bourbon choice). As this is all mixed,  the water cooks out, the oil and bullion cooks in, the whiskey adds a mild zing and a mild sweetness.  Combine the noodles and gently toss a bit.  Now for a high protein boost and more tummy / muscle joy, place a plain egg omelette on the plate (olive oil fried and a bit runny ... minimally so), sprinkle fresh raw spinach over the egg and then top it with this delightful mushroom/almond/veggie/pasta paradise!  Your body,  your brain and your soul can be treated in one clever meal!  The carbs, the sweets, the salt, the veggies, nuts, proteins and greens are all here ... YUMMEEEE! 

#makingbrainshappy #healthyeats #mentalhealth

PHOTO CREDIT: Me!

*This is not a low fat, low sodium, low sugar, low carb, low protein meal.  If you have dietary restrictions consult your nutritionist and MD about foods you eat.

There are no little good things in life ...

Everyday there all kinds of little things in life that seem to be prompting me to pay attention. All of them, once added together, seem to add up to a kind of bigger thing. The precious moments, the sweet whispers, the stranger that smiles, the dad holding his baby, the door opening, the metro working, the water running and the food in the fridge.  I don't know if they're actually such little things,  you know?  Paying attention to the littlest things that make this world a better place is easy if it were not for so many negative distractions.  Why?  The little niceties of these seemingly small tidbits of existence will not make the news - but they will make the life!  Taking a closer look at the wind blowing, looking a bit longer at a loved ones eyes, giving the mind a care about an interest taken in "how was your day?" and hearing your name called by an endearing person. There really are no "little good things." But, they are everywhere.  It's called life. Live it. ~K. LaRose @ TalkifUwant
Photo credit: Caleb Jones, Unsplash.com

Hypnosis: my favorite kind of therapy!

In a few hours beliefs can change, habits can end and new ways of thinking, feeling and even acting are altered!  CHT is not for everybody - what therapy is?  If the method I'm trained in is a good fit it's quite coool!

1 2 3 4 5 Meatless Chilli... A nutritional hack for the mind!

Organic medium salsa, organic stewed tomatoes, light red kidney beans and black beans ...

1 - drain canned items, 2 - combine, 3 - heat to a simmer only,  4 -  stir and 5 - serve! 

It's ready, start to finish 5 minutes! 

Healthy eats are ONE part of mental health.  It doesn't have to be difficult or take forever and it can be delicious even without meat!  And yes,  you can tweak the dish to your desires... it's your food and your body after all!  Here I'm suggesting a clean eat, a simple eat, a healthy eat, a quick eat and one that feeds, feeds, feeds!

Eclectic mental health ... a collective and diverse approach to change!

#TalkifUwant

The "birth" for an imperfect US ...

A special day in the life of a country, a nation, a people group hosted by a land in common celebrating a "birth" of that which was not actually born could be held on July 4th reminiscent of signatures when a few created that which is represented in Old Glory!  Old is old at 200 plus years - at least in the personifications of a country.  In a world of many countries with elders of other aged lands is there wisdom to look up to, I wonder?  The birth of a nation, celebrated without cakes or candles in booms and blasts instead could too remind some of wars and death and trauma in a fight for the free.  The fireworks for the proud - blasted away in every state of the union, in every major city of the states - a fortune no doubt - going up in smoke!  From 1776 comes the honoring of a homeland to become a better "us" in a better time - where oppressions were ended such that freedom was born in the foreseeing of forefathers.  As all of the "works" arrive from shipments big and small, prepped before parades and cookouts and fun times by most - it is later that millions and millions of Americans gather round nightfall to celebrate the memorial and the view.  Birthed in irony, because of those who were already in this land - a non-citizenry they became - even before the pen of declaration made clear the stance of a nation yet unkown. Dreams for equality, dreams for rights, dreams for fair taxes, dreams for us - an imperfect us we are!

Kurt LaRose, July 4th, 2019
Photo Credit: Phillipp Berndt on Unsplash.com

Facades are NOT fake ... Look closer and you'll see ....

Facades are critical to human interaction. Often the facade is underestimated, seen as pretentious or worse, as fake. Nothing is further from the truth. Just as a facade draws a person in, as it attracts the interest of others to engage its role is more than a first impression. While the beauty of a facade from a distance can be favorably misleading, it can be unfavorably misleading too. From what it promotes the facade makes connection possible. From the invitation of imagery desired it is what follows the facade that adds some other things - that which holds it up, makes it possible and therefore carries us to deeper and stronger and more powerful places. There is purpose and meaning in facades. As judging a book by its cover may be mistaken, so it is to over and under estimate the facade. Facades are real too! Being curious about them long enough to get inside is to begin a discovery that promises to be an eye opener. Why not look closer for its benefit? #mentalhealth #facades #look #real #hypnosis

K. LaRose @ TalkifUwant.com 
PHOTO CREDIT: Me in DC!

Specialization in mental healthcare is necessary to be sure. Having a professional that can speak to what makes a brain and a mind healthy is key. Here I write about the impact of specialization with some impact evident in care that overlooks some of the "harder" sciences possibly making LGBTQ treatment unintentionally heteronormative. I am not an expert in brain science; yet a primitive overview of what the real experts in brains do know - might help to streamline mental healthcare in all areas for all client populations. Straight people are not "sick" by coming out. LGBTQ are not either. Society and caregivers must move forward to change the very system that is burdened with mental health care. A tiny bit of science can help. Should the buyer beware? Absolutely. Should the provider be aware? Absolutely.  READ MORE ...

A sense of pride is healthy in the human psyche ... so why not have some of it?

A sense of pride is a bit healthy in the human psyche. Sure it is an event in the United States. As a part of language (long before it was ever an event in the US or the UK) "pride" has been considered a dirty word. History has not served "pride" too well - yet pride might serve history's people - well. How? Having a bit of pride, a bit of "ego strength", being okay with who you are, accepting that not all will approve or like you, and being okay with others as who they are, accepting as well that you may not necessarily like them too - is one way of looking at pride. Pride is not unloving. Pride is not condemning. Pride is inclusive - for the willing - and for those who have the capacity for a change in views. It's just a tweak ... as a culture there is a lot to be learned about and from pride...first of all, having some is healthy. #podcast #pride #mentalhealth #therapy

Share and Follow Us Now on Radio Public!

24/7 Therapist Access - From Your Smart Phone, PC or Tablet - day or night!

Thanks to secure technology asynchronous mental health and behavioral health services CONNECT NOW is available to users 24 hours a day. And to help users who prefer to log in and leave notes, files, and journals for the therapist to review and reply to - at wee hours in the morning or during a coffee break at the office, or maybe right after an argument with a loved one - the time is now with TalkifUwant! For DC and FL residents you can now log in 24/7 and post messages (in a number of digital formats, such as shared journals, chat, secure emails and shared files) from you to the therapist - confidentially. Next, you'll get notified when you have a reply - so you can log in and check out "what the expert suggested." To learn more about this monthly online plan register today and choose the asynchronous option to get started! Have questions? No problem, feel free to call too!    Log in 24 hours a day, click the "asynchronous subscription" option, by and learn more here!

Photo Credit: Charles on Unsplash.com

In an age where "friends" are often little known connections represented by icons, images and even people possibly known, where the prompts to be intertwined with even more who have others in common incessantly appear - the digital gatherings grow.  As vocabularly and definitions expand to include a more modern time - where a wall, a follow, a snap, a post, a chat and an emotion have taken on expanded meanings - the word "friend" has joined the new narrative, the new lexicon and webster's has some catching up to do.  Wouldn't it be neat if the masses included in their friends list - an expanded view too, a new definition of sorts as well in these ever changing times ---an ideal connection indeed with a person who would be famililar, close, and very well known?  This new friend, now being expanded to include the most valuable one of them all -  could be someone endeared and to whom care and regard and affection would appear (maybe as often as the dings, dongs, vibrations and bells remind us of something to check). To the walls we would race looking and seeing what is captured in meaningful pics, vids and feeds of a touching sort - there where our most precious friend checks in from time to time.  There we might find a moment gaining likes and shares of all kinds -- thumbs up abound and a sensational thing that is able to go viral if you will.  And just who is this friend being spoken of?  Ahhh, it's too simple, yet difficult to do, it seems.  You see, if you were a friend to you, if you gave as much attention and time to you as you dedicate in hours online, if you commented as often and checked in with you - maybe half as frequently as you do now with so many others -  a defining friend would almost certainly appear.  For today, "friend" you - and see what happens in this changing view!  #friends #therapy #definitions

K. LaRose
May 2019
TalkifUwant.com

Replacing ingredients in meal prep ... good for the MIND!

Healthy eats are as good for the body and brain - as it is the mind.  Changing body, brain and mind can be as simple as "garbage in, garbage out."  Simple does not mean cheap, however.  Often one of the challenges in overall health can be boiled down to costs.  Not just healthcare costs or access to premium services - but food costs can impact illness, inlcuding mental illness.  Fish contains natural ingredients that can improve mood, reducing anxiety and improving depression; it can help with necessary fats and can make the skin and the hair look - well - better.  In preparing fish, skin on can add to the health content - and so can upping the flavor by using health replacers!  For example, replacing butter and fat with olive oil from frying pan to oven baked, replacing the flour based bread crumbs with coffee ground almonds, replacing the salt with a splash of soy sauce, reducing "fishy flavors" (if you must) by adding fresh lemon and canned olives, adding delicacy with fresh basil, sweet red peppers and fresh garlic cloves...move it to the oven on a cookie sheet (covered with a second oiled cookie sheet at about 375) .... you see healthy and delicious can be a thing!  What the fish will do for the body and brain, the prep and concentration on healthy alternatives will do for mind. Plus when body and brain work better, mind (ways of thinking) will adapt better.  Plasticity is enhanced.  Youth is enhanced.  Affirmations build. 

In the US April 15th is tax day.  For many it is the culmination of a years worth of inventory - sorting out gains, losses, expenses, earnings and acquisitions of various kinds.  For the "feds" and its many "partners" it is about algorithms that attempt to accommodate wealth and poverty such that some equitable contribution emerges from "standardized" forms (paper and paperless alike).  The business of tax season is held within agencies of revenue and calculating corporations all working in asset management. For lone individuals "my taxes" may be about a "fair share" or

scarce affordability.  With a 60,000 page tax code trickling down "something" to those who pay, to those who don't, to those who get, and to those who are "sheltered," the math seems insurmountable.  Whatever tax day is, maybe an annuity of some other kind, hopefully it generates for "we the people" what is needed.  Yet trillions in debt, and the many who go without - tells another story of a system for its people.  Homeless folks, uninsured folks, untreated and dying folks, the very old, the very young, and infrastructure too - exemplify how taxes may not suffice. Politics, non-profits and the economics pros - benefactors of certainty in this season - may overlook gaping holes of an under-served citizenry - lost in code that hundreds of millions abide yet nearly none comprehend.  If you paid in or if you were refunded - today is the day!   Photo Credit: Kelly Sikkema, on Unsplash

Implicit bias is NOT complicated: It can simply change.

Implicit bias is NOT complicated: It can simply change. 

The idea that implicit bias cannot change is false. Changing implicit bias begins with changing two simple words.  Find.  Better.  Words.  #Bias #ImplicitBias  #CtrlAltDel 

What helping means ...

What Helping Means to me ... Helping means, to begin as if the perspective of the one asking for help (it is not helpful if they do not ask, especially if they are adults), is valid. That is to say, the helper knows that the "helpee" sees things as they do for some good reason (assuming they are not psycho-pathologically injuring others). Helpers must begin as if the "helpees" beliefs have legitimacy, truths, and reasons. From this starting point (they asked, they are adult and safety is assured, and their beliefs are valid) change becomes negotiable. In my practice time and time again, I work with people who hold absolutes, creating seemingly forced existences. My role, with the aforesaid conclusions included, is to usually mirror the "either / or" thinking and then offer third and fourth options. When someone is able to strike through the "OR" of black or white, good or bad, all or nothing ... and replace "OR" with "AND" a third option appears. This begins the path to freedom. When this approach fails (and it does at times), then beliefs are at play. Thoughts, feelings and history (those 3 components of beliefs) must be taken a part scientifically, using neuro-biology psycho-education. For example, explaining to the helpee "here is how your hippocampus works, here's how your amygdala works, here's how adrenaline, cortisol and epinephrine works, here's how testosterone dopamine and oxytocin work, and here's how happiness (in the brain) actually works." My other thought is this: everything outside of safety (and perceived safety is a belief) is negotiable! What I am not, as a helper: I am not the morality police. I do not know my clients' lives better than they do. I am not in a one up position. "Help" cannot come from one up. Help cannot come from inequality. The union of what the client asks for and what the client knows with the offered options that remove all / nothing thinking, along with regard for what the client believes as having some good purpose, meeting the joy of negotiation for better lives .... that is "HELP." ---

K. LaRose, first published May 2018, TalkifUwant.com
Photo credit: Kat Yukawa, Unsplash

Thanksgiving in March?

Thanksgiving ... in March?   Sure!  Gratitude is a thing in the concept and in the science of happiness!  It is not, however, a spinning of a view for the sake of GETTING happy.  It is actual gratitude  - a true assigned thought, an assigned view and perspective that is genuine to the eys of the beholder.  Why is that?  Well, you don't need someone to TELL you what you already know ... "be grateful!" they say.  And many times it is a politically correct way of also saying "and shut up, I don't want to hear that you are upset about ANYTHING."  Being thankful is finding something, maybe even ONE thing that you hold dear and that you have some degree of thanks for ... whatever that is!  I recall once spending three days with what is called an out of instructional control youth - he had been cursing at me, yelling at me, throwing things through doors and windows and just being so damn tired of it all.  I knew I was at my "wits end" so I called my boss and said something like - "if this doesn't stop I'm going to quit!" She said the most counterintuitive thing of all ... "right now what you need to do is walk into that destroyed room and find one thing that kid is doing right - a real thing - and tell him that you are glad that he is doing it."  In my exasperation I said something that was MOSTLY sarcastic: "okay, like hey, I'm glad that you are breathing?"  My boss said, without missing a beat -"Kurt, if that is all you have then yes, go tell him that you are glad he is breathing. I know it seems like the craziest thing given how awful he's been, but try it."  I was pissed for the chaos, the days of sleep deprivation, the impact on my family and the other youth in the home ... but ... the ONE thing I was okay with  --- it was that this kid was breathing...and at that moment,  it was the ONLY thing.   As I said it to him, conscious of just how stupid this might seem or sound, it was all I had and my angst turned to understanding.  In all of the things that mattered, the material, the time, the interference, the disruptions --- what mattered the most was that he (and I) were alive.  My angst shifted ... just enough to bring a bit of joy.  Today, in hindsight, that view is a memory that contributes to today's happiness.  Getting through, trying something new, and being true about that which I was grateful - reshaped my entire paradigm ... at that time in looking at the moment, in looking forward, in prioritizing, and now in hindsight!  K. LaRose  

PHOTO CREDIT: Amy Reed, Unsplash.

Health: Real. Simple. Healthy. Ingredients.

Real ingredients. Real simple.  Real clean. Real health.  Real happy body.  Get real.

WHAT MIGHT MLK SAY TODAY ...

Within five years of his Lincoln Memorial speech, proclaiming “thank God Almighty I’m free at last!” Martin Luther King Jr. would become the victim of an assassination. The eerie parallels of notoriety in their generations apart and in common positions, both billowing out famous words that would play over and over in a repetitive history that deems them worth repeating, their assassinations of two who become ‘greats’ in the annals of revolutionaries, and then MLK having as his backdrop a statute of Lincoln to now there too is a statute of MLK! As he went about his life addressing ‘the majority’ MLK created iconic moments so that “free at last, free at last” to this day necessarily perpetuates. His task was probably known to be a grand cause, as indicated by other now famous words he spoke - not so long ago attesting to character instead of color as another one example. I wonder if today MLK would be pleased about the changes he and others have forged and the changes that others have assumed since his passing. For all of the 2019 glass ceilings that have ethnic correlations – and - for all of those same ceilings that appear to have been broken – what might MLK say in looking at a city such as this? In looking at a country such as this? Ethnic disparities across various cohorts remain. Also, arguments over whose fault “it” is - remain. Likely the forgone admonition of MLK would be his same call for today: “We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy.” Today sir, you are honored. #talkifuwant Photo Credit: Jeronimo Bernot on Unsplash.