Sharon Stewart, PsyD
INTENTIONAL ENRICHMENT COUNSELING
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Intentional Enrichment Blog

This blog is intended to provoke thought, smiles, perhaps even the occasional chuckle. It is composed of quotes, poems, articles, and pictures that I find thought-provoking, encouraging, or informative. They may or may not reflect my personal experience or, necessarily, my views. Nonetheless, I found them interesting and hope you will as well. I believe an intentional life requires awareness, introspection, compassion, and effort to exercise the freedom to choose. These are some of my navigational beacons for psychotherapy.

March 3, 2019
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​Reported on goodnewsnetwork.org on February 19, 2019:

​Hearing impairment can often serve as a social barrier for those who don’t know how to speak sign language – but in this little Massachusetts town, sign language has actually brought the community together. 2-year-old Samantha Savitz is deaf, but that doesn’t stop her from being an outgoing little toddler. Whenever Samantha is out with her parents in their town of Newton, she tries to chat up everyone she meets.

As the youngster got older, she continuously tried to befriend her neighbors – and they were all heartbroken when they were unable to respond because they did not know sign language.

​Ra
ther than giving up, the entire community started attending sign language classes so they could communicate with Samantha.

February 24, 2019

“A man receives only what he is ready to receive… We hear and apprehend only what we already half know. If there is something which does not concern me, which is out of my line, which by experience or by genius my attention is not drawn to, however novel and remarkable it may be, if it is spoken we hear it not, if it is written, we read it not, or if we read it, it does not detain us. Every man thus tracks himself through life, in all his hearing and reading and observation and traveling. His observations make a chain. The phenomenon or fact that cannot in any wise be linked with the rest which he has observed, he does not observe. By and by we may be ready to receive what we cannot receive now.” Henry David Thoreau

Here is an eloquent expression of what I see as a source of much pain - our tendency as human beings to perceive that which is consistent with what we expect to see in others, the world, and ourselves while not giving our attention to that which might suggest an alternate theory about our experience or existence. Shaping reality to confirm expectations or beliefs that are painful or shameful pales before the fear of reconfiguring what we think we know or what we predict to be true. I believe that part of the stones that form the path to making life better is exposing those beliefs and expectation to the light of day, then to draw on our courage to test them.

A perspective on acceptance

7/21/2016

1 Comment

 
Acceptance is the hardest part of living
 
Jon Westenberg
Medium
July 19, 2016
 
I didn’t want this life. I didn’t want to be who I am today. I wanted more. I wanted to be in a huge band, touring and playing arena shows, I wanted to be a celebrity, I wanted to be huge. I wanted more money, more success, more everything. I wanted.
 
But the life I’m living isn’t like that. The life I’m living doesn’t look anything like the one I wanted. Every now and then, when I look at who I am and what I have, I’m disappointed. I feel let down, and I feel like I missed my chance.
 
The thing is, I also know that I’m happy. I rolled the dice on a bunch of dreams, and I’ll roll the dice on a bunch more. The hard part isn’t trying to make it, it’s reaching acceptance, and being happy with wherever I am.
 
I’ve always struggled with acceptance, with being able to just look at things the way they are, and be okay with it. Unfortunately, it’s an almost essential skill.
 
We don’t have to accept everything in the world -- but we do have to be able to accept when we fail, or accept when success doesn’t look the way we thought it would.
 
I worry sometimes that we’ve put too much weight on success. That we’ve sacrificed everything else to make success our religion and our creed, as though that’s where we can measure a life.
That’s where we get this idea that we’ve got to hack everything, or we’ve got to do everything. That’s where we get the incredibly misguided idea that people who are successful in one area must be experts in all others. We listen Jim Carey talk about vaccination like a few hit movies make him a medical expert.
 
Idolizing success just makes me unhappy with my life, and it makes it harder for me to practice acceptance, and be content with the path I’m walking.
 
I look at people who’ve “made it” -- the musicians and the entrepreneurs and the writers who are miles ahead of where I am, and I often struggle to enjoy their work. I’m too busy feeling jealous.
 
That’s pretty poisonous. It’s unhealthy.
I know that the life I have is a pretty fucking good one. It’s not filled with glamour and glitz, and I don’t own a Maserati, but I’m happy. Focusing on what I don’t have, or what I could have one day, is only going to challenge everything that I have of value right now and make it seem worthless.
 
And it’s not worthless. I’m really glad I am where I am. When I get stuck into comparisons, I can always find a way to feel shit about myself, but the closer I get to accepting what I do and don’t have, the happier I am.
 
For me, acceptance is the hardest part of being alive. I’m trying to balance that acceptance of my life, with the drive to change it, work harder, and make it better. One without the other will never work, but the two are often at odds.
 
I don’t want acceptance to mean I just give up on my dreams, that’s not what I’m looking for. But I do want it to give me a baseline, where I can exercise some pride and contentment. I want to be able to build on that.
 
I know what acceptance will look like, when I reach it. I’ll be able to read tech news sites and listen to music without feeling a screaming inadequacy. I hope I reach it soon, and I can’t wait to feel a little more satisfied.
 
“Sometimes people let the same problem make them miserable for years when they could just say, So what. That’s one of my favorite things to say. So what.” 
 
― Andy Warhol
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https://medium.com/hi-my-name-is-jon/acceptance-is-the-hardest-part-of-living-2859a0b7deba#.vwiln3s85
1 Comment
Drain Service Virginia link
1/13/2023 10:24:40 am

Great post thankyou

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