Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom

Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom by Christiane Northrup is an excellent book. I highly recommend it to any women, but especially to women who believe in alternative therapies and healing. She mentions a healing intuitive a few times. If that’s not your thing, then skip those parts and read the rest. She is a doctor, and the biological information alone is worth checking out. However, the advice on diet, health, and other parts of a woman’s life is very much worth the read.

Pessimism

If we can recognize that change and uncertainty are basic principles, we can greet the future and the transformation we are undergoing with the understanding that we do not know enough to be pessimistic. - Hazel Henderson

According to this quote, pessimism is rather egotistical. You believe that there will be a particular outcome, something in the future is set in stone. But you can’t know that. You may be right. There may be things that happen just as you thought they would, but you aren’t right 100% of the time. “The country is going to hell in a handbasket.” Really? Are you sure? We have survived a great deal throughout our history, and we can survive this. “Morality is going downhill.” Perhaps, perhaps not. There are still many people helping others. Mainstream media certain has more swearing and nudity than it used to, but does that mean that we as a society are less moral than we were 50 years ago? And whose morals are we talking about? Yours? Why do you get to judge the entire country?

Pessimism means that you believe you know, that you out of everybody on this planet have knowledge of the future. Not just that, not only do you have knowledge, but you have the right to judge that future as bad. Sorry to break it to you, but you don’t. You have your rights to have opinions on things, but you don’t get to judge the future or me or anyone else. You simply don’t know. So why not hope for the best? It costs the same amount of energy, and it certainly makes life more fun.

Be the Change

You must be the change you wish to see in the world. - Mahatma Gandhi

This quote has been on numerous posters and bumper stickers, so it’s probably familiar to people who read this blog. It’s still valid, no matter how many times or in how many places you’ve seen it. People who complain about things but do nothing to make changes are negative for no reason, and they should have no place in your life. You deserve better than negativity. People who make changes in the world are worth knowing. Some people go overboard and recruit everyone they can get their hands on for their cause. There are many worthwhile causes. Don’t let them drag into something that doesn’t meet your personal goals or would take more time than you can afford.

What if you don’t have time for anything? What if you’re booked solid for your entire life? First, declutter your life. Check out flylady or numerous other places and sources for decluttering advice. Second, check out your priorities. If you are placing a high priority on something about which you’re doing nothing, you’re either lying to yourself about its importance, or you’re not living your life in congruence to your beliefs. Neither of those things will help you get what you truly want out of life.

You don’t have to make huge changes in order to begin or to make a change. You want the world to be a cleaner place? Recycle a little more. Pick up a little trash you see in the park. Clean up your own messes. If everyone did that, the world would be so much cleaner. You want to see more money donated to worthy causes? Donate a dollar a week – figure out what you can do without, something little. Talk about worthy causes with friends and coworkers, see what they think about different charities; bring it to their attention. See if your employer has a matching program; if you make a donation, will they make one of the same amount. You want to see more love in the world? Be more loving. Give more hugs. Give more praise, but only if its sincere. Smile more often, and complain and criticize less.

You can make small changes that add up to big changes, when you keep doing them. You can be that change you want to see in the world.

The Bisexual Spouse

I was going to read this and do a book review on it, but I had to put it down after starting the third chapter. I was going to throw it down after the introduction, but I decided to give it a fair shot and read five chapters. No. I have better things to do with my life than to read this piece of garbage. I don't know where I got the recommendation from, but I wish I hadn't picked this up.

Short version of why I think this book sucks - the "bisexuals" in the interviews aren't bisexual. They are homosexuals who had heterosexual marriages for a while. That's the author's definition of bisexual - gays who thought they were straight but then came out as gay.

This upsets me, ticks me off, to use more "polite" language. I'd rather not swear in my blog, but this really gets to me.

I am bisexual. I am not gay. I am not straight. To declare that all bisexuals are really one or the other who dabbled or were mistaken is insulting to an extreme. I am attracted to women. I am attracted to men. I am also attracted to different physical aspects in men versus women. I like my women to be curvy and soft. I like my men to be fit and solid. A woman can be soft and solid, curvy and fit. So can a man. But, I am not attracted to androgynous people, or rather not just, because the physical has never been my main attraction to people. I am in no way monosexual. I am bisexual, and to be told that I don't exist or that I don't know myself as well as this author does is condescending and extremely upsetting.

There are times when a person is too close to something to see it clearly. We've all had friends (or been that friend) who ends up in the same situation over and over again, though we think it's a completely different thing each time. Our friends see it, but we don't. This is not one of those things. I've done a lot of thinking about this. I've done over two decades of thinking about this. I've gone through all kinds of labels and "what if"'s and things like that. I know what I am, and I know who I am. This author can go stuff himself.

Another thing that ticks me off about this is that other people will read this and think that the author is correct, that that is the real definition of bisexual. I have an ex-boyfriend who thought that way. There is enough derision and societal pressure about being bisexual without this spreading it around.

So, whoever recommended this book, please stop. And for anyone who was thinking about reading this book, don't. Not if you're looking for something about bisexuals. If you want to read about homosexuals who married people of the opposite gender, this is for you. But it sure isn't what it claims to be.

What You Want

"I want what I can't have." Are you sure?

You've run into this situation. I know I have. Multiple times. There's a great guy (or gal or job or whatever). He's great - smart, funny, energetic, or whatever it is that makes you tingle. But he's unavailable. He's married or dating or your best friend's ex or has an incredibly annoying habit that you can't live with or lives in another state or whatever it is. Because of X, you cannot have him. So, you can't have what you want, right? Wrong.

You want someone who's smart, someone who's funny, someone who's energetic. You can have it. You don't need him. You can get what you want in a different package. He is not the only smart, funny, energetic person out there.

Likewise, there's more than one great job, more than one place to live, more than one solution to your problem. But when you're focused on X, you don't see the rest of the alphabet. So take a closer look at X. What is it about X that you really want? How else can you get it? Hershey kisses aren't the only way to get chocolate. A Snickers bar works too.

You can have what you want provided you're more concerned with the substance than the packaging.

Change

Things change. People change. You change. And what worked for you five years ago may not work for you now. It's not a matter of being dissatisfied or about being never satisfied, despite what some people may say. It's about being a dynamic, growing, changing being. You, your body, your beliefs, your life - they are all always changing. Some things will never change, but there will always be something.

So what do you do? Do you ignore change? Do you actively fight against it? Do you insist that things are or remain exactly the same as five years ago? That won't help you. People are born. People die. People get new jobs. People retire. Laws change. Wars start. Wars end. Things change, and you cannot change that.

You adapt. You adjust what needs to be. You see the new situation and life, and you turn it to your advantage as best you can. You can always change your thoughts and your attitudes. No matter what change life/fate/the outside world forces upon you, you still have a choice.

Choose your Future, over and over again.

What If?

What if life was infinitely precious? What if the choices you make today affect not only your own future but those of others? What if you were more important than you could possibly know? What if fewer people are looking at you, judging you, than you think? What if someone found something to admire in you, every day, even on your worst day? What if? Then what?

Change Can Be Scary

All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another. - Anatole France

We are constantly changing people, mostly. There are some people who have stubbornly insisted on remaining the same day after day, year after year. But most of us grow and change. We aren’t the same people we were a decade ago, and acknowledging that can be a scary thing. One of the worst accusations a friend can make is “You’re changed”. You may try to deny it, but it’s probably true, even without you thinking about it.

It’s the unconscious changes that are the scariest, in my opinion, once you realize them, that is. So long they remain unknown, then how can you be scared? But once you’ve woken up to the fact that your life and your actions are now what you would have expected from who you were “back then”, the change is scary. “How did this happen?” “When did this happen?” “Why did this happen?” Why? Because you weren’t changing intentionally, so you changed as life wanted to shape you.

You’re going to change. It’s inevitable. You can spend a ton of time and energy in never changing, and that’s you’re choice, but things will just change around you instead. The question is, are you going to direct your change, manage it, make certain that you come out on the other side where you want to be? Or are you just going to let the winds of fate take you?

The second choice isn’t so bad, so long as you have enough inner strength to withstand the bad times, but most people who resign themselves to fate do so because they lack the inner strength to bother taking control of their own lives. Either option can be taken to extremes, of course. But are you now where you want to be? And if not, what are you going to do about it?

What’s scarier to you – the effort of making a change where you don’t know the outcome, or the thought of you being exactly like you are 5 or 10 years from now? Change can be scary, but being out of control of yourself can be scarier still.

The Point

I would rather work with five people who really believe in what they are doing rather than five hundred who can't see the point. - Patrick Dixon in Building a Better Business

Ability, efficiency, and passion. Those three things can make something work. It’s tough to get by with only two of them, but of the three, passion may be the most important. When you’re missing passion, no amount of ability or efficiency will get you it. If you’ve got passion, though, you’ll get the ability and efficiency, if you have to, because it’s important to you to do so. This is true in many, many places. Who’s going to practice football plays for hours on end? The one with the ability or the one with the passion? Who’s going to spend their nights learning and relearning business strategies? The one who’s efficient or the one who’s passionate? Ability can be learned. Innate talent cannot, but ability can be. Efficiency can be learned, usually at a high cost if you’re not careful, but it can be learned. Passion cannot be learned.

If you can’t see the point in what you’re doing, do something else. In my opinion, a Future without passion about something, isn’t worth living.

Starting Place

To become different from what we are, we must have some awareness of what we are. - Eric Hoffer

When someone asks you for directions, what’s the first thing you need to know? Where they are. Unless you know where they are, how can you tell them how to get someplace else? You can do vague things like “take this highway south”, but if you don’t know if they’re anywhere near the highway, that doesn’t help. If they’re in Alaska, and you’re in New York, you’re going to tell them different things than if they were in Florida. You need a starting point.

And when you create your Future, you need a starting point, too. If you want to build your Future on today, which is the only way you can build something lasting, you have to know what kind of foundation you’ve got. The way to do that is to know about your life and about yourself. Do you really want X, or is that something you’re going for to please someone else? How important is money to you, really? Any answer is acceptable, so long as it’s the truth. If money is very important to you, then don’t take a job that pays you very little. If money is not important to you, then don’t take the good-paying job that sucks your soul out of your body 60 hours a week. How healthy are you? Can you handle a high stress job? Do you need to move somewhere for your health, or will you in a few years? If you’re going to need to move, starting a business in your current location isn’t such a good idea. Then there’s the people aspect. If you can’t stand Dave, don’t go into business with him, no matter what kind of excellent ideas he has. And definitely don’t date him, even if he “looks good on paper”. Do you dream of going to Tibet for a year? What are you doing about it now? What can you do about it now? How are you arranging your life so that you can accomplish it? You can’t rearrange your life until you know all the pieces, or at the very least some of the pieces, and yet people do it constantly. They want something different, but they don’t realize what they’ve already got.

Before you go changing, find out what is true about you and your Life right now. It’s the best way to create your Future.

Birds of a Feather

Odd, I know, a Wiccan quoting the bible, but I’m not as rabidly anti-Christian as some of my other pagan friends are. Besides, there’s some good advice in there. It’s really the poor way a lot of people interpret things that make live such an “adventure”.

Who you spend your time with says not only a lot about who you are, but also a lot about who you will be. The people we’re around have a lot more influence on us than most people want to believe. Even if you don’t start taking on some of their traits, fighting against following the herd can be exhausting. Also, if you hang around fools, you don’t learn nearly as much as you can from wise people or even mediocre people. Except perhaps negative examples, but you can get enough of those from the media.

You don’t have to hang around smart people in order to be smart, but it can help. You don’t have to hang around wise people in order to be wise, but it can help. Wise people can act foolish at times or at least play the fool when they want, but it’s harder to for a fool to pretend to be wise. Wise people and smart people do not have to be stuffy, and if you’re hanging around stuffy people, perhaps you should find some other wise and smart people to be around.

A lot of life is trial and error. A lot of life is learned by example. Your friends will provide you with examples and with opportunities for trial and error. Choose your friends so what you get is what you want out of life and your Future.

What Are You Made Of?

When you are angry or frustrated, what comes out? Whatever it is, it's a good indication of what you're made of. - H. Jackson Brown Jr

There is a thick veneer or layer of polite/acceptable society that covers the majority of Americans’ personalities. Do you really tell your boss what you think? Do you go up to the woman with three pounds of make up and let her know that it doesn’t make her look alluring, just cheap? Do you fart loudly in a restaurant just because you can? For a lot of you, the answer is no for all of those. But how many of you would like to?

When you’re drunk, tired, angry, or frustrated, the layer of “nice nice” gets thinner to non existent. I don’t drink, but I do stay up way too late, and when I do I get very, very honest. Plenty of my friends get the same way when they are drunk or angry or frustrated. That’s one of the reasons why it’s not “nice” to be drunk, angry, or frustrated.

Sometimes, though, it’s the only way to figure out what you’re really thinking. Societal brainwashing can run deep, and sometimes even you don’t know what you’re really thinking because it’s just rude to think that way, so you refuse to acknowledge it. But, you have to do this with some care.

Don’t get drunk and drive, obviously. Don’t get drunk and start calling your exes, either. That’s just begging for trouble. Don’t take your anger out on your boss or your pets or whatever. Yell, scream, etc., but remember that once you calm down, you’re going to have to deal with the consequences of what you said and did.

I am a big fan of journaling, but doing that when drunk or angry doesn’t work very well, so try a recorder, whether you use a tape recorder or your computer or whatever, you’ll be more able to talk than write when you’re upset or drunk enough to cut through the veneer. It’s enlightening, and I highly recommend this to anyone who wants to see a little bit deeper into their own souls.

When Women Stop Hating Their Bodies

When Women Stop Hating Their Bodies: Freeing Yourself from Food and Weight Obsession by Jane R Hirschmann and Carol H. Munter is a good book. These women have worked for years with women who were obsessed with food, their weight, their size, and have figured out a way to help women get past that. Their system is straight forward, though of course not easy. If it was easy, you wouldn’t need a book to do it. The women they quote in their book believe it to be well worth their while. That’s one of the things I like best about the book is the large number of personal examples that they cite. Too many books about women and food and weight are psychoanalytical, dry, and sometimes pompous. This one talks about women on their own level and lets the women’s words speak for themselves.

What You’re Owed

The American dream is, in part, responsible for a great deal of crime and violence because people feel that the country owes them not only a living but a good living. - psychoanalyst David Abrahansen, San Francisco Examiner and Chronicle, November 18, 1975

What are you owed, really, by America? Not a thing, other than what’s dictated by law. You are owed the right to remain silent if you’re arrested. You’re owed freedom of religion. You’re owed the ability to cross a street in a cross walk with the light without getting run over. Other than that, what are you owed?

Are you owed a living? No. Are you owed happiness? Sorry, again no. You’re offered life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, but not happiness itself. And you have life, since you’re reading this, unless you’re dead and reading this, in which case contact me, I’d like to talk to you. And if you don’t have liberty, then either the system screwed up or you did. But you’re not owed a living. You’re not owed a great job. You’re not owed the right to do whatever you want at the expense of other people.

And the sooner you realize this, the happier you’ll be. Or, if you refuse to realize it, then work on making the changes necessary so that you are owed it, because it isn’t true now.

Inertia (epilogue)

For me, those are the four main weapons that inertia has in my life – emotional investment, pride, difficulty, and self perception. Inertia may have other weapons in your life, other things that it holds over you as it shapes your life and your Future. You are stronger than inertia and all of its weapons. You don’t have to tackle the biggest beast on the first go. If you want, you can make little changes, combat inertia on the small scale, before going on to the more important issues. What is important, though, is that the choices you make are because you want to make those choices, not because they’re easy, and inertia can make some otherwise-ugly choices look pretty appealing. You deserve the very best you can give yourself, and the very best Future.

Inertia (self-perception)

I don’t like to consider myself an angry person. Anger was an emotion that only my father was allowed to feel, back in my childhood home. I didn’t like what anger did to him, and I did my best throughout my life not to be angry. And if I was angry, I didn’t show it, sometimes not even to myself. But I do get angry, both legitimately and illegitimately. But what does that mean? Who gets to decide legitimate anger? My definition of legitimate anger has expanded quite a bit throughout time. I’ll save that for another post. But still, I don’t like to think of myself as an angry person.

I used to think of myself as someone who could handle anything, someone very much “go with the flow”. What that translated into was “doormat”. I’m working on that one, but I still like to feel that I am an open-minded person with few prejudices. Uh huh. I have prejudices. I don’t like being reminded of them, though.

Journaling is something that’s been suggested to me by professionals, either through mindfulness classes or support groups or books, but it’s not something I keep going for any length of time. I pick it up now and again, but I drop it readily now. Back when I was still fooling myself about how I felt and what I thought, I wrote in my journal on a much more regular basis. But now that I know myself better, now that I’m no longer lying to myself about what does or doesn’t hurt, about whether or not I feel anger, about whether or not something upsets me, I don’t journal very much any more. If I’m going to lie, I may as well write fiction. If I’m going to talk about someone else, I may as well blog. To journal honestly, I’m going to have to take a look at myself, and my self perception might not match with reality.

That’s another of inertia’s weapons – self perception, closely tied into pride. There are dark spots in everyone’s souls that they just don’t want to peer into very closely. For me, journaling shines a light into those spots. For others, it may be something else. Someone might not exercise because doing so would remind him that he isn’t young any more, that he doesn’t have a 20-year-old’s body any longer. Someone might not try out a sculpting or acting class, because she’s brilliant in her own head and doesn’t want the possibility of seeing something else when doing these things in real life. For others, starting something isn’t the problem. Ending something is. If she stops all her volunteer work, she’ll have to stay home more often with her husband, and she doesn’t want to see that that’s not something she wants to do. Inertia works both ways – it’s the continuation of your level of motion, whether that be not at all or way too much.

Inertia (pride and difficulty)

I like to write. I’ve written quite a bit. No, I’ve never been published, but that’s not the point of my writing. I write things I enjoy reading and things I enjoy writing. Some people don’t see the point of that. Why write if you’re not going to get published? Not every hobby has to make money. Some hobbies are their own rewards.

So, why don’t I write more often? It’s not as easy as a computer game. While exercising has an emotional investment, writing involves two other of inertia’s weapons – pride and difficulty. I write in phases. It used to be poems, then it was short stories, now it’s novellas. I’m going to use novellas (mini-novels) as the example, but it works with any kind of writing.

Writing a good novella is not easy. Writing any novella is, but my pride would prefer that I write a good one. It’s simple to do – you put words onto paper. But, doing it well is not that easy. And I want to do it well. One of the reasons I write is so I can go back and reread it later, and who wants to read something that’s written poorly? Especially if it’s something I’ve written myself. I take pride in my ability to write. I’ve been doing it for decades. It’s something I think I’ve gotten pretty good at. I have a large vocabulary. I have a decent knowledge of grammar. (Yes, I know that two sentences ago I ended a sentence with a preposition.) I can construct an okay plot and somewhat realistic characters. But it’s taken a lot of time and practice to get to this point, and my pride insists that I keep getting better. Getting better is difficult. Writing at this level of proficiency would not be hard. Rewriting the sort of things that I’ve already written would not be hard. But, there are new stories to tell, new plots to make, new characters to describe, and new pieces of fiction to complete. And my pride wants me to do it all well, but it’s not an easy thing to do.

Computer games or movies, on the other hand, are easy things to do, and I have little to no investment of my pride in them. That’s why they win too often. I’ve had more experience combating emotional investment and inertia than I have pride. This is a lesson I’m learning again right now.

Inertia (emotional investment)

It takes time and energy to start a new computer game. New rules to learn, time taken to play it, at least a little bit of concentration (at least for the games I enjoy). Some computer games eat up hours a day. So why don’t I take some time out to exercise or write or post on time or whatever?

It’s because of the emotional investment and the immediate gratification in return. I have no emotional investment in a new computer game or a murder mystery or a movie (usually). All I have to give it is time and attention. That’s not that difficult. On top of which, it immediately rewards me with fun and distraction, often laughter. It’s cotton candy, not nutritious, but sweet to eat. Exercise doesn’t give me an immediate rush. It’s work. And my mind is still free to think while I do it. And what does it think about? Well, I’m exercising, which means I’m trying to reshape my body and work off calories, which means my body isn’t right the way it is, which means my body is wrong, which reminds me of all the people who have told me I’m ugly or unattractive or plain just too fat, and why do I want to do something that’s constantly reminding me I’m fat, even if it is something that will cause me to become less fat, more shapely, and healthier? I’ve been on an exercise regimen that I’ve been following very faithfully for the past few years, despite those thoughts (except for the past horrific month). I keep my mind occupied with other things, trying to be “mindful” of my exercising some days, day dreaming about my favorite TV shows others. I still beat myself up on occasion about exercising – I should do it more often, I should use heavier weights, I should, I should, I should, I should, but really, those are mostly voices from my past, from others, and are judging and/or condemning, and I’ve been working for over a decade to disentangle myself from those kinds of voices, and I’m doing pretty well at it. So I do exercise, because the long-term benefits outweigh the short-term negatives, and because I’ve been doing it long enough that I see some results.

Now, I’ve done this in the past. There have been other exercise regimens that I’ve picked up and laid down, usually after a long period of time. So I have personal knowledge that if I keep going with my exercise routine, I would see results. But I had to try and “fail” time and again in order to get that knowledge, in order to have enough of a reason to fight the inertia that would keep me sleeping a little later rather than working out.

Right now, I’m going on about 4 weeks since I last exercised consistently. Tube feeding my cat was much more important than exercising. Taking care of my mourning and (as it turned out) dying second cat was much more important than exercising. Taking time for my own mourning for my two cats was more important, and right now, exercising while I have a bad cold would just exhaust me too much to go to work, which is more important than exercising. But I see the signs that if I don’t start back up again, inertia may decide that I won’t start up again, so it will be soon. While I’m sick, I’ll do just a little, but enough to keep me in the habit of doing something. And then I’ll add it back in slowly but surely. I was able to pick it back up after a long time off after my surgery two years ago. I can pick it back up after a mere month.

Inertia (prelude)

Perhaps I’ve written about this before, perhaps not. But, even if I have, it’s come up again my in own life, one of those lessons you have to learn and learn and learn until you learn it all. I’m not going to say “until you get it right”, because there really is no such thing. I did get it right. I got it right the first time I learned it, right enough to be able to get past the lesson and onto something else. I got it right the second time I learned it. And the third, and the fourth, and the fifth, throughout my life. It’s like math. You learn counting. Then addition. Then subtraction. Then multiplication. And so on and so on. Some people learn calculus. Some don’t. Some people learn quantum physics. Some don’t. I learned my lesson about inertia, and the later I had a new lesson about inertia to learn. That doesn’t mean I didn’t get it right. I do lapse. I do slide backwards, and on occasion I may need a refresher course, but I’m never in the same place as I was back when I got my first lesson. You never really start over. I know I’ve said that before, so I won’t go into that again.

Inertia, the tendency to stay in motion if you are in motion, or to stay still if you are still. It’s also the biggest reason why people stay on their duffs on the couch instead of doing something new that’s good for them. I could fill up a blog, much less a blog post, about all the things I know would be good for me to do but I just ain’t doing them. I’m there right now. I’ve been there for quite a while, but the recent deaths and now this cold I’ve got have put it into perspective for me. Illness has a tendency to do that for me, because I don’t feel like doing any of my normal distractions – going out with friends, computer games, reading. Because I’m not as distracted, my mind actually has time to bring forth those thoughts that have been sitting patiently in the back of my head, and a lot of them are about what I could do that would make my life a greater pleasure to live. It’s time again to take a few out from the “back room” of my mind, dust them off, and add them to my life. Each time I do, they stick for a while. Some stay for a very long time. It makes my life better when I do, but inertia causes me to stay put. Why? Well, let me think…
(to be continued)

Crisis and the Meaning of Life

I said in “Define Living” that a crisis is a lousy time to start thinking about the meaning of life. It’s a great time to think about the meaning of life, but a lousy time to start thinking about it.

A crisis is almost defined by having a good reason to panic. If there is not a good reason to panic, then it isn’t much of a crisis. Not to say that you would panic. After all, that wouldn’t do you any good. But since there is a reason to panic, you will probably be mentally distracted. Not to mention that you still have to deal with whatever caused the crisis in the first place. In short, you have a lot going on and a lot to think about.

It’s better to have some money saved up prior to needing to replace your car. It’s better to have a first aid kit on hand prior to slicing open your finger with a kitchen knife. It’s better to have a spare tire in your trunk prior to getting a flat. And it’s better to think about the meaning of life prior to having your world shaken. Having a definition of living can be a rock for you in times of trouble, even if that definition changes. It’s something you can hang on to for a while, like some people’s faith or friendships or family. It can help you weather the storm. Have just a start so that your mind has a touchstone when it starts wondering “Why me? Why is this happening?” It can help.