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
​
​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.

July 29th, 2018

7/29/2018

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. . .when the self has been confronted, when the hidden has been brought to the surface, the perhaps paradoxical result is not horror and paralysis—they come when the hidden has not yet been faced—but release and new birth. —A. J. Muste

In my philosophy as a psychologist, this describes the fear that can hold us back and the result when we find the courage to reveal our true selves to our own eyes.
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Relationship Killers III

12/14/2016

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From The Science of Trust
by John Gottman,PhD

3. “Turning away . . . . In everyday interaction [and conflict] turning away from bids for emotional connection . . . . attempts to connect or get the partner’s attention, interest, humor, affection, or support.”

(2011). Norton: New York, NY

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Relationship Killers II

12/12/2016

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​
From The Science of Trust
by John Gottman, PhD

“Escalation of negative affect: The ‘Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse’. . . . . Criticism, defensiveness, contempt, and stonewalling.” Reliable predictors of divorce.

     a. Criticism is anything that implies there is something fundamentally wrong with a partner and includes always or never statements and many “why” questions. A complaint merely describes an instance of problematic behavior or event and its impact.

     b. Defensiveness includes an innocent victim stance and re-stating of position (including “yes-but” statements and burying the complaint under facts (evidence).

     c. Contempt is anything that puts one in a superior position to a partner including tone, eye-rolling, facial expression, and -depending on multiple factors - sarcasm and mockery.

     d. Stonewalling is withdrawal and can include silence or minimal response, looking away and/or down, stiff neck and/or shoulders.

(2011). Norton: New York, NY.

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Relationship Killers I

12/11/2016

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From “The Science of Trust” by John M. Gottman, PhD*
​

1. “More negativity than positivity. Ratio of positive to negative emotional expression during conflict . . . . Relationships need to have at least a 5 to 1 ratio of positivity to negativity”. Negativity is “anger, hostility, insult, disgust, contempt, sarcasm, sadness, disappointment, belittling, disagreement, and emotional withdrawal.” Positivity is “warmth, affection, being there for each other, interest, humor, understanding, and empathy.”

*(2011). Norton: New York, NY.

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Scars

8/13/2016

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It's a shallow life that doesn't give a person a few scars.
Garrison Keillor

Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.
Khalil Gibran


Scars remind us where we've been. They don't have to dictate where we're going.
David Rossi, Criminal Minds

Most of us have scars, inside and out. They are varied in origin - some are mementos of adventures, some are left by the thoughtlessness of others, some we inflict upon ourselves with the harsh words we use to describe or judge ourselves. The possibilities are endless. Could avoiding scars require avoiding life - to choose not love, learn, explore, dare, strive, or dream? Perhaps, living the life we want means accepting that hurts will happen and scars will ensue, but the riches we gain in emotional, spiritual, and fulfillment terms are worth enduring the healing process?

http://www.brainyquote.com
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Change

8/12/2016

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Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don't resist them - that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.
​
Lao Tzu


Source:  
http://www.brainyquote.com/search_results.html?q=Lao+tzu
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Individuality

8/10/2016

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The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.

Friedrich Nietzsche


Original source:
 http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/f/friedrich_nietzsche.html


Isn't it interesting that, with all of our expressed respect and appreciation for the uniqueness of the individual, there is so often pressure to conform? Nietzche in this quote noted the high price sometimes paid to be authentic, to stand against popular opinion for your truth and/or your values. Yet, conformity at the expense of one's true self carries an insidious high price, scarcely noticed as it becomes our "normal," doesn't it? What is the cost of constant self-censorship and impression management, living with a true self that is at odds with the self presented to the world in order to "fit in"?




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Quiet kindness

8/9/2016

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This was recently posted on a neighborhood Facebook page:

"My faith in the next generation has been completely restored.
On Thursday, my sister and I went to the * on * [location removed by this poster]. To say I had been having a bad day was an epic understatement.
I ordered first and payed for my meal with my debit card. The boy at the register couldn't have been more than 17 or 18 years old. 
He told me to have a nice day and I went to get my drink and sit down. My sister was behind me and she said that she saw my credit card get declined. She saw the boy look over at me, (I was then sitting down) and then watched him pull out his wallet and pay with his card. 
He didn't say a word to my sister about it.
(My sister later went back to him and told him she saw what he did and told him how much it meant to her that someone would be so kind to me...and gave him a $20 bill.)
I ended up discovering the identity of this 18 year old boy through social media...and I texted him today to thank him and express how much good he did to my heart. His response?
"I'm glad that my actions made a difference in your day. I understand how days can go and I'm glad that I had the opportunity to make yours better.""


So much of what is discussed, written, filmed and photographed today is dark in one way or another - at times almost seeming designed to narrow our perspective to focus on the sad, heinous, and/or cruel occurrences in the world. It can seem  easy to forget that there are millions of quiet acts of kindness and generosity that happen in the world without media attention or fanfare. True perspective, in my opinion, means remembering and engaging in acts of kindness such as this one even or, perhaps, because we have to dig for them despite the awful things that are presented to us on a platter. It's human nature - maybe for survival reasons - to more readily remember what is painful or frightening, so I think that maintaining that broader awareness is effortful, and I think the effort is worth the hope that perspective brings. 
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For contemplation:

7/28/2016

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“We are all visitors to this time, this place. We are just passing through. Our purpose here is to observe, to learn, to grow, to love… and then we return home.”

          Australian Aboriginal saying

"The only real failure in life is not to be true to the best one knows."

         Buddha
         http://www.brainyquote.com/qutes/quotes/b/buddha118090.html

"People often avoid making decisions out of fear of making a mistake. Actually the failure to make decisions is one of life's biggest mistakes."

     Rabbi Noah Weinbe
rg

Look to this day,
for it is life, the very breath of life.
In its brief course lie
all the realities of your existence;
the bliss of growth,
the glory of action,
the splendor of beauty.
For yesterday is only a dream,
and tomorrow is but a vision.
But today, well lived,
makes every yesterday a dream of happiness,
and every tomorrow
a vision of hope.
Look well, therefore, to this day.

       Ancient Sanskrit
       http://chaplaincyinstitute.org/library/blessings-and-prayers/quotes-ancient-
       scriptures-of-hinduism/

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The reliability of logic? Ask the Sophists.

7/27/2016

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Mull on That | The wide world of logical fallacies
August 08, 2014 by 
Benjamin Sylvester

Nobody likes to argue, but when you’re wrong, you’re wrong! Of course, there are many ways to be wrong when we argue, and we call these wrongs “logical fallacies.” There are formal fallacies, where the structure of a person’s argument is wrong despite possibly having a correct conclusion, and there are informal fallacies where the argument might be wrong structurally but is more-so wrong in its assertion of content.

For example, let’s take a person handing out pamphlets about being vegetarian. Someone goes up to the vegetarian and argues (usually impolitely, I might add) that there is no possible way a vegetarian diet could be healthier than an omnivorous diet, because said person cannot imagine that it’s healthy for anybody — an appeal to common sense.
This fallacy is known as “argument from incredulity,” where no matter what the evidence, a personal disbelief causes one to think it’s not healthy in general and therefore vegetarianism is a false solution.

Or let’s say the person that came up to the vegetarian is a college quarterback who just lost the Sugar Bowl and he decides to take the pamphlet from the vegetarian, rip it up in front of him, and insult his very human existence — this is a pleasant little logical fallacy known as “argumentum ad hominem,” where the actual argument is avoided by directly attacking the traits of the argument’s opponents to disprove them.

Some arguments are presented in a way that asserts that one arguer is better than the other for miscellaneous reasons. Let’s say, for instance, a student in class argues that poverty is an unbreakable cycle of poor education, poor nutrition and low employment rates. The student points to sociological research that has shown significant evidence of these dimensions relating to each other, but another student speaks up and asserts that he’s actually been in poverty, and this student has managed to break out of the cycle. Thus, being here now suggests that “you don’t know what you’re talking about because I’ve been there.” There are a couple of logical fallacies produced from this argument. One is the “moral high ground” fallacy: the assumption that a poor upbringing gives the student more real-world experience (which it may certainly have), but that because of this upbringing the student is therefore better as a person for breaking out of the cycle.

This is a logical fallacy — it gives the impression that this student is better than the other for that reason, despite the argument being about poverty’s causes and not who is better. His argument is also fallacious because he uses the mind projection fallacy, which is when people consider the way they see the world as the way it really is. For the other student’s case, this outlook on the world may be very different but nonetheless not totally wrong.

But who could forget the wonderful appeals to emotion? These logical fallacies can be fun, in a sad and meaningless way. For example, a fundamentalist Christian might project his voice on a speaker outside on 33rd and Market streets, near Mario the Magnificent. Let’s say that this speaker exclaims that all homosexuals will go to Hell, because it is a sin and God will punish them.

Despite all religious nonsense in general, this fundamentalist tries to use the appeal to fear; any good God-fearing American might be afraid to go to Hell for their actions. Rather than using valid reasons to decry homosexuality, the speaker argues by trying to instill fear. He might also use an appeal to nature, where he’ll say homosexuality is not natural, since it does not allow procreation. Any appeal to emotion or nature is usually a flawed argument that really doesn’t have solid ground to stand on, so watch out for these nasty ones!

​There are many, many more logical fallacies, and they have fun Latin names like “reductio ad Hitlerum” (take a wild guess as to what that means), “argumentum ad populum” and “ad baculum,” and “post hoc ergo propter hoc!” Each fallacy is better than the next, so read up on all of them, and make sure your next philosophical argument is logical and infallible! Everybody’s doing it!

Benjamin Sylvester is the president of the Drexel Animal Welfare Group. He can be contacted at op-ed@thetriangle.org.
“Mull On That” publishes biweekly.

Original source: Triangle.org
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