It's Officially Breakup Season

If we refer back to historical Facebook status data, we are just about to enter the second major peak in breakups of the year.



The first peak, dubbed the "Spring Clean," occurs in March, but the second largest occurs about two weeks before the winter holidays. Right about now.



Why? It could be a lot of things. Maybe these breakups occur to avoid The Meeting of the Families. Maybe the vacation days are seen as a "good" time to break up because both people will be surrounded by the comforts of home and family. Or maybe it's time for a fresh start, with the new year just around the corner.



Regardless, if this data is any indication of what will happen this year, we are likely to see more breakups in the coming weeks than usual. It's so common, in fact, that breakups this week have their own name: the "turkey drop."



So if you find yourself in this group, know that you are not alone. You are in good company, and you're going to make it through the next few months.



The first thing to acknowledge is that the holiday season may feel different if you're used to spending it with a partner in crime. You might be thinking: Who will save me from the awkward conversation with Jill at Thanksgiving? Who will help me plan the ugly sweater potluck? Who will keep me company on that long red eye home? Who will I kiss at midnight on New Year's Eve?



It's normal to ask these questions and feel anxious about the answers, but if you find yourself stuck in a rut for too long, here are some ideas for getting unstuck.



Focus on family and friends



No family is perfect and many families these days are a melting pot of humans, some related and some not. This is the group that is always there for you, regardless of your relationship status. So take the time this year to focus on giving love and attention to them, especially the ones who are also not in romantic relationships.



Sit down with your older relatives and ask them questions about their lives so that you don't have to make up 50 percent of the story when you try to re-tell it to friends. Go through old photo albums with your cousins and relive funny memories. Learn how to make that life changing bread that your uncle makes from scratch so that you can go home and make it for yourself.



Your attention is the best gift you can give someone this time of year, and you luckily have more attention to dole out at family and friend gatherings this year if you're single. Enjoy it, because you don't know how long it will last.



Focus on those in need



There are a lot of people around you who will have difficulty making it through the holidays too, and it's not because they're going through a breakup. Many people, and the organizations that help those people, could use an extra hand during the holiday season.



Whether you donate your time, talent or money, giving to others is a great tradition to start this holiday season and keep going throughout the year. Many companies get involved with non-profit organizations during the holidays, so ask around the office and see how you can contribute or get something started. If you want to volunteer but don't know where to go, check out the listings at Volunteer Match.



Plan ahead for solo travel



If you usually travel home or go on vacation with your significant other for the holidays, you might find travel plans a bit more daunting this year. Instead of focusing on all of the people who are coupled up around you at the airport or train station, plan ahead and keep yourself occupied.



Make playlists for long rides. Get into a podcast. Write your holiday cards. Read that book you've had on your nightstand for a year, or, even more comforting, download the audio book and listen to it. If you're feeling lonely as you make your way from point A to point B, call a few friends you've been meaning to catch up with and wish them happy holidays.



Most important, make sure that you proactively make plans for the big holiday days in November and December if you are staying local. Even if it's just ordering takeout with a few friends who are also staying in town, it's important that you don't isolate yourself, even if you feel like staying in bed till 2015.



Remember, you have the unique opportunity to shift your focus from your ex to people that you may not have prioritized when you were coupled up (your family, your friends, strangers and yourself). Take it!



from Healthy Living Blog on The Huffington Post http://ift.tt/1vBnVGL

Senior Citizens Change Lives: A Lesson in Love From Working With Our Elders

Spontaneously, one of the elder care facility employees took a woman out into the center of the circle. Pushing her wheelchair around to the beat of the music, two more employees joined her with two more participants.



Asking around the circle of residents, I finally found a man who took me up on my offer:



"Would you like to dance?" I asked him.



"Yes," he replied promptly.



Marc Anthony's passionate salsa song, "Valio La Pena," played on the boom box as other employees came around to the front of participant's wheelchairs and took the residents hands. Dancing and swaying with them to the rhythms of the music, everyone's faces lit up.



The History of Latin Dance, an event I provide for elder care facilities, was in full swing, and I mean really swinging!



As soon as the footrests were taken off the wheelchair of the man I was going to dance with, I began to push him out into the center of the room. Wheeling him up to the first participant I saw, the nurse wheeling her around and I exclaimed: "They can dance together!"



Pushing them up as close as we could to face each other, they reached out their hands. In a magical moment, the man grasped the ladies hands and they swayed back and forth to the music. Eagerly looking at each other, the woman's eyes gleamed, as they smiled brightly at each other.



In all the events I've done at elder care facilities, this is the first time I've seen this kind of enthusiasm and connection between staff and residents.



After Marc Anthony took his bow on the boom box and we finished the event, I spoke with a couple of female residents, who sat at the opposite end of the room. One loved to dance when she was younger, "Any kind of dancing," she replied when I asked which styles she liked.



Sitting close by was another woman, dressed sharply with a yellow knit sweater and red scarf with white polka dots around her neck. During the event, she didn't look so enthused and didn't seem to be participating much.



I walked over to her. "How are you?" I asked tentatively.



"I'm fine," she responded with a quiet, but sure voice.



I walked up closer and we started to talk.



"My brother and I danced together. We were a dance team," she said smiling. "My husband and I were the Cha Cha Kings," she exclaimed! "I'm 95 years old. No dancing now," she said with a wry smile.



"Wow," I responded, taken aback.



Memories of Abram, a man who was a professional ballroom and Latin dancer, who literally danced circles around me at the first elder care facility I led this event at, flooded my mind.



"Well, I've got to play a Cha Cha for you," I said, as I turned to the boom box to cue up one of my favorites by Elito Reve y Su Charangon: "El Martes."



The Cha Cha rhythm moved me into the basic step. The Cha Cha Queen instantly perked up. I could see she wanted to move her feet, as she agitatedly tried to move them atop the footrests.



"Can someone take off these footrests?" I asked excitedly at the nearest staff member.



With two clicks, the footrests were off and her feet were stepping side to side as she said, "Cha, cha, cha. Cha, cha, cha. Cha, cha, cha."



Holding her hands, we danced for a few moments together as a huge smile spread across her face. She looked at me with reverie.



"We danced on the stage at Shea's," The Cha Cha Queen told me later.



Once The Cha Cha Queen had her fill of dancing, I went over to the woman sitting next to her who said she loved to dance, just moments before, and would "love to dance in the circle."



Most of the participants were still waiting for their escorts to their next location, so I figured, "This is her time!"



"You wanna go dance around the room?" I asked her.



"Oh, yes," she replied with a wide, toothy grin!



Freeing up her breaks, I pushed her out into the open circle and wheeled her around by all the other participants. Liveliness filled the room and she smiled as I brought her over to the gentleman who had danced with the other woman in the circle earlier.



"Are we gonna eat lunch after this?" He asked the employee standing next to me.



"Yes, you're going to eat lunch," she replied, smiling.



"Would you two like to dance together?" I butt in.



"Sure," they both replied.



Wheeling the jovial woman as close to him as possible, they held each other's hands, smiling, as the man looked at the woman.



After a few short moments, they were finished and as I wheeled her away from him, he said, "Nice meeting you."



I was struck with this thought: "They don't even know each other even though they live in the same facility?!"



It was such a beautiful moment of connection, spontaneity and love.



Just as I was packing my things to leave, a man came in to take one of the last male residents out of the room. He looked like he could have been a family member, but I wasn't sure. The man rubbed the elders head lovingly with his hand and then unhooked the breaks on his wheel chair. As he pushed him out of the room, he rubbed his shoulder with such unconditional love, I was struck by that gesture and the sentiment of not being afraid to love.



Throughout that morning's event, I saw unconditional love all around me. No matter the state of the participant, staff walked up and called everyone by name, look them in the eye, touched them lovingly.



I wonder: What will our world be like when we're unafraid to love? When we're brave enough to look someone we don't know in the eye and ask, "How are you?" and really want to know. When it's ok to be human and it's ok to say no and it's ok to be grumpy once in a while and still feel and be loved?



I saw this kind of world being created in front of my eyes on this very special, sunny day in Western New York.



Can you remember a time when you put everything aside and loved, even in the face of fear or possible rejection?



And, if so, what was the result?



Share your story below. I want to know.



I feel so grateful for the elders I work with. It's magic to learn from them, to encourage them, meet them in the eyes with a warm, genuine smile, and receive theirs in return; to remember them, to fuel the next phase of their lives, to honor them, and to exchange and add more joy to this life with them, together.



To the Elders in our lives:



Thank you for living.



Thank you for existing.



Thank you for being here.



With Love and Gratitude,



Sarah Haykel

TheSensualBodyMovement.com



from Healthy Living Blog on The Huffington Post http://ift.tt/1vBnVGB

What's Not Making My Holiday Card (But Should)

By Kate Rope, editorial director of the Seleni Institute, a nonprofit mental health and wellness center for women and mothers in New York City.



It's the time of year when I start getting holiday cards from my really organized friends. You know, the ones who scheduled a professional photographer or snagged a few minutes with a talented friend, wrestled their kids into festive duds and clicked enough shots to get the one that makes their family look pretty darn perfect. We put them up on our front door to begin our holiday decorating season.



Later, the letters start coming in -- two-page typed missives that fill me in on all the things my friends and family were doing over the past year while we were too busy to talk. These highlight reels are wonderful -- and terrible -- because in their polished, thoughtful reflection, they turn the life of a frenzied, imperfect woman and family into the portfolio of SuperMom and her SuperBrood.



Like a browse through a peppy Facebook feed or a college alumni magazine, accomplishments at the speed of bullet points can be downright intimidating. They are also only one way to view the year you have had.



Given our evolutionary bias to remember negative experiences, walking back through the last 12 months to find all the things you can feel proud about is a good psychic exercise for any family to go through. As a member of the easy to self-criticize species Modernus motherus, I know how beneficial that can be.



But it's also not the whole picture. Equally important is acknowledging the mess and muck of life and normalizing the lows we all go through as an inevitable (and sometimes even beautiful) part of being (or raising) a human being.



As I look back on the year I've had, I'd like to think that embracing the hard times along with the good will bring me closer to accepting my entire experience and to making the struggle as natural a part of life as the accomplishments.



One of the primary goals of all mental health organizations such as Seleni is to lower the stigma of needing help. And one of the first steps is to normalize difficulty. If we could all openly admit to -- and share -- the times when we are having trouble, then it's much easier for everyone to ask for help when it's needed.



To that end, here's a few lowlights from the year that will probably not make it into my holiday card:

1. Urgent care trip #1: Split my chin open and wrenched my thumb on a dry Texas riverbed during a girls' weekend away. (See pic!)
   
   
   


2. Accidentally booking a Thanksgiving vacation that made my older daughter miss three days of school.
   
   
   


3. Bed Buggedon 2014: filled more than 60 hefty bags with our belongings, gave our home over to exterminators and had to (embarrassingly) turn away playdates for a month.
   

Your turn: What happened this year that was not the stuff of holiday cards? What moments in your life -- funny, scary, sad, unexpected -- are a part of the person you are at the end of 2014 and will shape the direction you take in 2015?



We invite you to take a moment to think of one or find a pic and join me and the Seleni Institute in putting together an altogether different kind of holiday memory: #holidaycardcut. See how here.



This article was originally published on the Seleni Institute website. Seleni is a nonprofit mental health and wellness center providing clinical services, research funding, and online information and support for women and mothers. You can follow Seleni on Twitter @selenidotorg and the author @katerope.



from Healthy Living Blog on The Huffington Post http://ift.tt/1vJV2a9

My Favorite Things: Strengthening the Rule of Law and Victims' Rights in America

Its holiday time and that means special gifts for family and people in your life. I am preparing to teach for winter semester, Nova Southeastern University, an interdisciplinary (doctoral) course in law, forensic psychology and criminal justice. The topic is mental health courts, therapeutic justice and creating system change through behavioral health and problem solving justice strategies. A long title for a broad subject, which deepens as the year's progress.



As the pioneer of The Broward County Mental Health Court, the nation's first problem solving court dedicated to the decriminalization of persons arrested with serious mental illnesses. I was privileged to be elected to the judiciary, at a time (1997) when Broward County's criminal justice system was going through a rigorous self -- examination of its own. Our local jail system was over-crowded with persons arrested with serious mental illness and many on minor, non-violent offenses. A federal class action related to local jail conditions and the lack of access to mental health treatment for inmates with serious mental illness was pending. Moreover, a local grand jury had just issued a scathing report on the state of Broward County's community based mental health system. It was a time of great leadership and reform.



A diverse group of leaders gathered from all corners of the criminal justice and mental health treatment system, including mental health and substance addiction providers, local NAMI leaders, Broward Sheriff's Office, mental health consumers and other inter-governmental and human service administrators. The group assembled to review complex system(s) processes and work together to seek solutions through system re-structuring. Its first recommendation would be the creation of the nation's first specialized court, dedicated to the decriminalization of persons with serious mental illness. Those individuals largely being arrested on low-level offenses, including those with serious mental illness who were unable to access needed behavioral health treatment, housing and other services. Individuals who had been revolving endlessly in and out of the jail system, emergency rooms, and streets or languishing in jail.



It was an exceptional time and has provided a terrific roadmap for leading community change and strengthened the rule of law for others to follow. As a judge and adjunct professor in therapeutic law and criminal justice, I think there is nothing more significant than protecting and promoting the rule of law. In both of my criminal divisions I live and breathe this overarching legal principle every day. What does it mean to lose confidence in your legal institutions? It is a valid question to ask this holiday season, in light of significant criminal justice policy reform efforts to reduce mass incarceration in the United States. In witness to the growing protests in Ferguson over the death of Michael Brown, it seems a timely question. When we think of all the efforts which so far have not stemmed the tide of the trend of the criminalization of persons arrested with serious mental illness. Or, victims whose legal rights have not been adequately protected and are left in despair or anger? Why is it essential to maintain and vigorously protect the rule of law?



One of the final reading assignments I give to the students in my therapeutic justice course is a compilation of essays written by diverse legal experts on the future of our criminal justice system. Published by The Sentencing Project, in celebration of its policy organization's 25th Anniversary. This publication is devoted to strengthen the rule of law and sets out a vision for the next 25 years of criminal justice system reform. The essays describe a future system which is science driven and human rights focused, and reinforce basic constitutional rights which are essential to strengthen our rule of law. The concept of the importance of checks and balances of our three separate branches of government. These essays pertain to the criminal justice system and include an emphasis on the constitutional guarantees of a free press, effective legal representation, protection of victims' rights, and a strong public health approach to law enforcement. This includes efforts to reduce institutional bias and social and economic disparities which contribute to incarceration.



According to Boston College of Law Professor Robert Bloom, in his article, "Judicial Integrity: A Call for its Re-Emergence in the Adjudication of Criminal Cases, he quotes Justice Brandeis in, Olmstead v. United States (dissent) who states that "... in a government of laws, existence of the government will be imperiled if it fails to observe the law scrupulously. Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher... For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by example."



In these times, I think about the speech that Senator Robert F. Kennedy gave in Indianapolis on the night Dr. Martin Luther King was killed. We will continue to face many social and legal challenges in our nation. It is important to remember this holiday season that the goal is to always be cognizant and protective of the rule of law. The rule of law is dynamic and omnipotent, and it represents the best of America. This is important as we field situations and social conditions that may challenge our notions of justice and fairness. Yet, it is, as we say in law school, the law in action is ours to promote and protect. The rule of law is basic to our democracy, with judicial integrity at its core. The protection of fundamental civil rights, includes the protection of the victim's rights and we must honor leadership which articulates and promotes confidence in all our governmental institutions. This is the greatest gift of justice for all.



from Healthy Living Blog on The Huffington Post http://ift.tt/1vJV1Ty

Wake Up This World AIDS Day

World AIDS Day 2014 is here and there is an end to AIDS on the horizon. It's a functional end, not a cure, but to have the potential to reduce the number of new transmissions to near zero by 2020 across a nation is amazing. New York State, under Governor Andrew Cuomo's Plan to End AIDS by 2020, seeks to reduce new infections to below 750 per year from 3,316 in 2012.



Exciting and possible.



But, wake up.



Even without a cure HIV medications are helping people with HIV/AIDS live close to normal life spans. A generation of long-term survivors is waking up and finding themselves still alive and still productive. Now the rest of us need to wake up as well.



By 2015, less than one month from now, 50 percent of the US population infected with HIV will be age 50 and older. By 2020 that number will reach 70 percent.



Wake up.



Here's what the greying epidemic means.



One in six new HIV diagnoses occurs in someone age 50 and older. People 50 and over have sex. You may not want to talk about the sex lives of older adults or recognize that they exist, but it's time to deal with it. Human sexual development is a lifelong process, and though it may ebb and flow in intensity, it does not end. Older adults have the same risk factors as younger adults, from inconsistent condom use to multiple partners to the sharing of injection drug equipment. If you don't talk to them about risk behaviors they won't get needed prevention information.



Adults 50 and older have the largest number of AIDS diagnoses and concurrent diagnoses of HIV and AIDS. This means they're not getting tested until way too late. Health care providers and older adults must understand that age is not a condom, age is not clean injection equipment and age is not PrEP.



Wake up.



HIV care for older adults is complex. These older adults are developing multiple chronic illnesses 10-20 years earlier than would be expected. These include heart disease, cancers, diabetes, hypertension, kidney and liver disorders, osteoporosis and frailty. The key word here is multi-morbidity. Single disease focused treatment does not work; Integrated health care teams and an informed and empowered client does. With multi-morbidity comes the issue of polypharmacy (the use of multiple medications). With polypharmacy there are increases in adverse drug effects and dangerous drug interactions. These dangers increase when over-the-counter drugs are included. Adherence to medications becomes more and more difficult as the number of pills increase. In addition, the complicated aging process for many older adults with HIV requires clinical guidelines be tailored to meet these challenges. ACRIA's research team has been defining the clinical and social challenges of older adults with HIV for the last decade, but it's just a start



Wake up.



Our agency's research has brought into focus the need to address psychosocial issues. Older adults with HIV exhibit depression at five times the rate typically seen in the larger community. Depression is the most accurate predictor of non-adherence to HIV medications, in fact, to all medications. All programs should be screening for depression. The use of a simple screening tool like the PHQ-9 should be routine. Those high rates of depression are reinforced by circumstances. Upwards of 70 percent live alone with less than 20 percent having a spouse or partner. Most often older adults are devoid of family, exhibiting fragile social networks comprised mostly of friends many of whom also have HIV. Depression can be moderated by the support of social networks. But these older adults are more often socially isolated due to the impact of persistent AIDS based stigma. Research into interventions that help older adults develop more lasting social networks needs to be occurring now.



Wake up.



How many times in the history of the AIDS pandemic have we not seen what was right in front of us? If we wait until 2020 to see that the vast majority of people living with HIV are indeed 50 and older we will simply be too late.



from Healthy Living Blog on The Huffington Post http://ift.tt/1rMHIDN

Don't Forget to Set Your Scales Back 10 Pounds This Week

The eating we do at Thanksgiving dinner can be something hard to undo. I don't want to ruin your holiday enjoyment, but a few basic rules as we embark on this holiday season can help you maintain your weight and not gain throughout the holiday season.



I ask my fitness students to weigh themselves early this week and to aim to maintain their weight by just getting right back on track each morning. If you can maintain your weight for Thanksgiving week, by next Friday, you will feel thinner.



Research has shown that small eating habits make a difference in the long run. Try drinking two glasses of water prior to your meal, chewing each bite 20 times, eating slowly, choosing only those foods you really savor and finally, waiting 20 minutes before helping your self to seconds. Or thirds.



If so, do you accept, in advance, the universal terms of Thanksgiving dinner and do you pre-embrace the notion that you'll be incapable of pushing away from the table at the first signs of satiety?

Smart studies have shown that if you pre-contemplate a few of the dinner details, that you will gain less weight than if you come to the table clueless. For example, if you know where to sit at the table and what to eat the day before the big feast, you won't gain weight over the holiday.



This morning when I polled class members to see if they had an eating plan in place, my friend accused me of being curmudgeonly, saying, "It's Thanksgiving! Give us a break, just go for it and we will worry about it later."



And many dieters and exercisers view the holidays as a time for throwing in the towel. Facing 72 straight days of a never-ending barrage of fattening, fabulous foods, the mentality becomes: "I know I can't win; I give up in advance."



Most American adults gain a pound or two in the short time between Thanksgiving and New Year's, and almost always it's not lose-able. What happens on Thanksgiving does not stay on Thanksgiving; Holiday weight-gain becomes your permanent weight.



And I don't know about you, but the older I get, the harder it is to shed extra pounds. It's the butterfly effect; little changes we make today affect how we age (or what we weigh) over the decades. It's not the one sliver of pie that does it, but the cumulative affect of our little decisions that add up (and build up in our arteries).



Did you know that if you have a big crowd for dinner, everyone eats 35 calories more per seated guest? If you eat in front of the football game, you'll consume an additional 140 calories.



Here's the catch about the Thanksgiving meal -- we usually eat around 3,000 calories to kick off the season. Have you heard the myth that your stomach can stretch out if you eat super-sized meals? Or have you ever been sick or limited your food intake for several days then noticed that you got full faster, leading you to think that your stomach shrunk?



Well that's not technically what happens. Your tummy (and your brain) are much smarter than that. If we taper our meals the week prior to the turkey meal, the nerves in your stomach that detect fullness will recalibrate to detect satiety (fullness) with less food so that you feel full faster. This will make it easier to resist the huge piles of food in our presence on that day which might cause unconscious overeating.



Not to mention that the types of food we consume over Thanksgiving tend to be extremely high in calories and low in fiber. They slip down the hatch and land in your behind.



Try leaving the skins on the potatoes, serving whole grain rolls and throwing the broccoli stems in with the florets as well as starting the meal off with a green salad.



Fiber keeps your insulin levels normal, meaning no hunger pangs or needs for a nap, and it helps you feel full for longer as well as slowing down digestion so less calories are absorbed.



Fiber also regulates blood sugar levels. If you consume 24 grams of fiber (12 is average) this would help you absorb 90 fewer calories per day -- all the while eating the same amount!



There's a bran cracker Dr. Oz recommends called Scandinavian Bran Crispbread (and granted, it tastes like stale pressed roofing and is impossible to swallow without 16-oz of water), BUT it has all 24 grams of fiber -- an entire day's amount -- in two small crackers that only have 12 calories. Now that's bang for your fiber buck.



Here are my five tips to make sure that what happens on Thanksgiving stays on Thanksgiving.



1. Get some exercise before Thanksgiving dinner. Even if it's just a walk between bastings, put yourself on your to-do list. The food will taste better, your body will feel alive and you won't feel glutenous guilt. Then take a walk post-dinner. One of my favorite sights on Thanksgiving afternoon is to see families out taking a communal walk.



2. Start early. Add 24 grams of daily fiber and taper the size of your meals leading up to a big meal. Drink at least two cups of water prior to all meals. Recent research has shown that older adults who do this lose more weight than those who don't pre-meal hydrate



3. Table management. Start with a small amount of servings and sit next to the thinnest person at the table. Watch what size portions they eat and try to eat slower than them. Several studies have shown that the proximity of food determines how much you load onto your plate, so stay far away. Move away from the bread basket and the wine bottle. The person sitting closest to their favorite food loses. Use the delay technique on second helpings. Wait 20 minutes before taking more.



4. Move past the mundane morsels. If you don't love it, skip it. Don't waste your calories on foods that are just "okay." This can save you hundreds of calories and help you enjoy your meal more.



5. Get back on track the very next day. If you blow it, it's not the end of the world, nor should it be the end of your diet. It's just a small setback. It's a million times better to get back on track than to continue to allow yourself to eat more. Go on a high-fiber regimen the very next morning by adding high-fiber cereals and see how quickly your urge to overeat diminishes.



Beyond these table tips, the most important advice I can offer you this holiday is this: Before you take your first bite, look around you. Notice your family and friends and all you've been blessed with. Look down at your body and give thanks for the miracle of being alive.

Now let's eat.



from Healthy Living Blog on The Huffington Post http://ift.tt/1yBLlg7

Martha Graham on the Hidden Danger of Comparing Yourself to Others

Agnes de Mille had just achieved the greatest success of her career, but right now the only thing she felt was confusion.



She was a dancer and a choreographer. Early in her career, de Mille had created the choreography for a ballet called Three Virgins and a Devil. She thought it was good work, but nobody made much of it.



A few years later, de Mille choreographed a ballet named Rodeo. Again, she thought her work was solid, but it resulted in little commercial fame.







Agnes de Mille in her outfit for Rodeo. (Photograph by Maurice Seymour. Courtesy of Ronald Seymour/Maurice Seymour Archive.)



Then, in 1943, de Mille choreographed Oklahoma!, a musical show from Rodgers and Hammerstein that enjoyed nearly instant success. In the coming years, Oklahoma! would run for an incredible 2,212 performances, both around the nation and abroad. In 1955, the film version won an Academy Award.



But the success of Oklahoma! confused her. She thought that her work on Oklahoma! was only average compared to some of her other creations. She later said, "After the opening of Oklahoma!, I suddenly had unexpected, flamboyant success for a work I thought was only fairly good, after years of neglect for work I thought was fine. I was bewildered and worried that my entire scale of values was untrustworthy. I talked to Martha."



Martha was Martha Graham, perhaps the most influential dance choreographer of the 20th century. (Although not as well-known by the general public, Graham has been compared to other creative geniuses like Picasso or Frank Lloyd Wright.)



During their conversation, de Mille told Martha Graham about her frustration. "I confessed that I had a burning desire to be excellent, but no faith that I could be." [1]



Graham responded by saying,

There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open.

The Uselessness of Judging Yourself



For nearly two years, I have been publishing blogs every Monday and Thursday on JamesClear.com. Some days the words come easier than others, and there have been plenty of times when I have felt a smaller version of what Agnes de Mille felt.



"I thought this was a good article. Why don't people seem to enjoy it?" Or, I'll feel like I mailed it in on a piece only to see it become the most popular post of the month. Regardless of the outcome, I've realized one thing: We are often terrible judges of our own work.



Martha Graham's advice takes this concept a step further by explaining that not only are you a bad judge of your own work, it is not your job to judge your own work. It is not your place to compare it to others. It is not your responsibility to figure out how valuable it is or how useful it can be. It is not your job to tell yourself, "No."



Instead, your responsibility is to create. Your job is share what you have to offer from where you are right now. To quote Pema Chodron, the Buddhist teacher, your job is to "come as you are." (And then find your inner Sisu and keep coming.)



There are people in nearly every field of work who make each day a work of art by the way they do their craft. In other words, nearly everyone is an artist in one way or another. And every artist will judge their work. The key is to not let your self-judgment keep you from doing your thing. Professionals produce, even when it isn't easy.



Keep Your Eyes on Your Own Paper



In grade school, I remember my teacher passing out an assignment and telling each student to "keep your eyes on your own paper."



Perhaps she was simply trying to teach 8-year-olds to not cheat, but hidden within that phrase is also a deeper message about what really matters. It doesn't make a difference what the person next to you writes down for his answer. This is your race to run. It's your assignment to complete. It's your answer to create. How your paper compares to someone else's is not the point. The point is to fill the paper with your work.



The same can be said of your work today. No matter what you spend your days doing, every morning you wake up and have a blank piece of paper to work with. You get to put your name at the top and fill it with your work.



If what you write on your paper doesn't meet someone else's expectations... it is no concern of yours. The way someone else perceives what you do is a result of their own experiences (which you can't control), their own tastes and preferences (which you can't predict), and their own expectations (which you don't set). If your choices don't match their expectations that is their concern, not yours.



Your concern is to do the work, not to judge it. Your concern is to fall in love with the process, not to grade the outcome. Keep your eyes on your own paper.



James Clear writes at JamesClear.com, where he shares science-based ideas for living a better life and building habits that stick. To get strategies for boosting your mental and physical performance by 10x, join his free newsletter.



This article was originally published on JamesClear.com.





Sources

1. Martha: The Life and Work of Martha Graham by Agnes De Mille. pg. 264.



Thanks to Paul Jun for pointing me to the story of Agnes de Mille and Martha Graham.



from Healthy Living Blog on The Huffington Post http://ift.tt/1v4sPao