Happy Everything!

Two years ago I bought a white bowl with black letters inside touting: Happy Everything!

In January 1990 I published my first-ever article on doing spring cleaning on New Year’s Day. Like always I was the first person writing about something like this.

January is the perfect time to clear the cobwebs from our head as well as the clutter from our house.

To “spring clean” our thoughts and let go of the thinking that holds us back from risking change.

My New Year’s resolution is simple: to give and receive joy. That’s all.

I have no interest in buying things anymore to feel happy. I was given cash as a Christmas present so treated myself to items in a gift shop.

Otherwise I wouldn’t have doled out the money to buy something.

The goal as I see it is to have what you need and love what you have.

Oprah Winfrey gets at this with her quote in the Gratitude issue of Breathe magazine:

“Be thankful for what you have; you’ll end up having more.

If you concentrate on what you don’t have, you will never, ever have enough.”

Giving and receiving joy doesn’t cost a dime. The feeling you and the other person gets is priceless.

I believe that gratitude is like honey that flows freely: We should pour on the gratitude for our fortune in life, for the people we love, and even for whatever struggle we have.

What we learn from going through a hard time we can teach others to instill hope for healing and recovery.

That is my ultimate goal: To bring Joy to the World at Christmas and throughout the year to everyone I meet.

No one should feel like they’re going it alone. No one should feel worthless in the eyes of others either.

Which is why I’ll mix metaphors and say too that Gratitude is like Miracle Glue holding our humanity in place.

My wish is to give others hope for healing the cracked parts and recovering joy.

To enjoy life should be what it’s all about in every season not just at the holidays.

Happy Everything!

Rebel Girl

I checked this book out of the library and read it in one day.

Rebel Girl was disturbing on all counts. First because of the recounting of the endless stories of seedy men who raped young girls.

Second because of how the Riot Grrl movement didn’t witness the experience of Black Indigenous and Women of Color individuals.

Simply reading about these encounters was hard to bear. The book should be read anyway.

Author Kathleen Hanna was the famous singer and frontwoman of the bands Bikini Kill and LeTigre. She had her own band The Julie Ruin.

Hanna is also married to Beastie Boy Adam Horovitz and has a son Julius she adopted with him.

The story turns out better in the end.

Hanna’s narrative of her life as a survivor of trauma and abuse is worth reading.

Every survivor’s story is worth telling and reading and listening to.

We can’t continue to get into fights about whose pain is worse than everyone else’s.

Nor can we act like the pain doesn’t exist when a person says they’re experiencing it.

Just because we can’t see what’s going on from our viewpoint is not proof that there’s no such thing as sexism or racism.

Too often other women (yes!) and Conservative women authors blame women for reporting rape and sexual abuse.

In the climate of no one else believing that a rape survivor is telling the truth. Or in the way the rape is swept under the rug because the man is powerful or allegedly a pillar of the community.

Or in how women are thought to be retaliating over their guilt about having had the sex in the first place.

Too often women silence ourselves. We fear no one will take us seriously. Though it’s not our fault we can feel worthless. Leading to not reporting the crime because we think nothing will be resolved.

Too women have to jump through hoops in a court of law to prove the crime happened. The establishment cries out that the men on trial deserve “due process.”

Of course there’s due process. The old world order doesn’t like when a member of their tribe is held accountable.

I’m a Rebel Girl too who would call herself a Feminist Punk like Hanna does.

If you’re a woman you’re told it’s okay to open your mouth to kiss not speak.

We all of us whatever our orientation must speak our mind or nothing will change in society.

Using Mental Health to Sell Products

too face

The tag line under Different is: It means I’m not like anyone else.

Below right it lists the woman as: Filmmaker, Mental Health Advocate.

On bottom left it reads: Elyse is fearless like that. See why at Olay.com/FaceAnything.

I’m conflicted about using mental health to sell products.

On the one hand using real people models to sell products is an improvement. The standard airbrushed bearers of beauty like Karlie Kloss could use some competition.

On the other hand is it really progress that we’re viewed as consumers to sell products to?

The one specific trend I hope this advertisement heralds is a new openness to talking about mental health issues. Even if the bottom line is selling a product I think this is okay.

We need people like Elyse Fox the model featured in this advertisement who are making a difference in speaking out about mental health.

A lot of women will be motivated to plunk down their dough on Olay’s whipped cream after seeing this advertisement.

I’m OK with doing what makes you feel good about yourself. If buying a cream is going to make a person feel good, that’s OK for them.

What I don’t like mostly is this:

Beauty companies take women with naturally photogenic faces and use them to make the claim that buying the product will make you look as good as the models do.

Will this really happen? Maybe. Maybe not.

Readers: sometimes I don’t like how my natural face looks.

At 53, I could use a little help with foundation and makeup. As said, I don’t leave the house without wearing lipstick.

Yet I’ve stubbornly refused to plunk down my hard-earned money on miracle wrinkle creams.

I’m one of those genetic anomalies who looks 10 years younger than she is.

The most I can manage is some kind of Body Shop Vitamin C Glow moisturizer. I apply this after washing my face with Neutrogena Hydroboost cleanser.

I haven’t gotten on the K-Beauty bandwagon or resorted to a 5-Step routine with multiple products.

The real deal is: having an openness to talking about mental health should be encouraged.

I salute people like Elyse Fox who are turning their lens on this topic.

Dare to make a difference–I tell you–dare to make a difference.

Nothing will change in society if everyone’s too scared to rebel what passes as normal.

Accepting ill treatment from others isn’t the way to live. Treating others in an ill way isn’t normal.

Yet too many people don’t have the balls or breasts to speak out against this.

The time has come to tell our stories.

In the coming blog entry I’ll start to talk again about mental health.

Healing Ourselves to Heal Our Planet

After watching the video Normal is Over I was more energized and committed to continue telling my own story.

This is my story–Left of the Dial–it’s the only one I have to give you.

The ultimate purpose in championing living life Left of the Dial was to show how creativity healed me.

Art and music and fashion and writing and exercise have been the 5 things in life that helped me heal from a mental health condition.

I’m not going to back down and I’m not going to give up in advocating for “Recovery for Everyone.”

I don’t want to ever be so mentally or physically ill that I lose my power to take action to create a better world and better options for myself and my fellow human beings.

If we want to heal the planet we first have to heal ourselves.

At the end of a HealthCentral news article I wrote years ago I stated:

I”d rather be dead than psychotic.

If we don’t seek to improve our own lives we’re in no position to help others have a better life.

So the shocking cost of our own ill health is that we’re defenseless and powerless against those in power who control the economy.

Hence those in power will always control our resources of any kind–whether it’s our mental health resources or our natural resources.

Unregulated corporations have been given free reign to destroy our planet in the pursuit of profits.

Standing by while the world collapses is not a good thing.

Allen Frances, M.D. has published this year Twilight of American Sanity. The books details how our collective psyche is in denial about climate change and other pressing issues.

Frances rightly states and I agree with him: Mr. Toupee is not the problem.

The problem is that people have put their trust in beliefs that I would argue along with Frances are insane. They’ve elected a president who plays loose and easy with “facts.”

Not allowing women to control when they want to get pregnant is one such belief.

Overpopulation is the second leading cause of the ravaging of our natural resources.

The collapse of our mental healthcare system has been documented widely. It’s been going on for decades now that people are prevented from getting the right treatment right away.

I will go to my grave telling my story of getting the right treatment right away and being able to recovery fully.

I refuse to remain silent on the things that matter.

In the next blog entry I will talk about how I think mental health advocates can learn a lesson from climate change activists.

The time to act is now. It’s time to wise up and get real.

Everything I’ve written in this blog entry is interconnected. Therein lies what I think would be an effective approach to coming up with solutions.

Honoring Our Individuality is a Human Right

The right of everyone living in recovery to have their own version of a full and robust life is a human rights issue.

Is it not an inviolable human right for everyone living on earth to express, embrace, and celebrate their unique Self–and to have others acknowledge and honor this individual Self?

Honoring and embracing each other’s individuality is the root of resolving human rights issues.

Too many people in American society and in the world judge others who don’t conform to so-called “norms.”

The solution to stigma of any kind is to be your Self, regardless of whether or not other people like and accept your Self.

Each of us must express our Selves freely and without shame. We have nothing to feel guilty about when we act true to our Selves.

The burden is on other people to “deal with it”–to deal with the fact that we don’t conform to what they think is an acceptable Self to promote in the world.

Make no mistake: we can’t live in fear of what people think of us.

We need to honor and embrace each other’s individual Self. Doing this is the foundation upon which all human rights are built.

It’s up to each of us to continue to act true to our Selves. It’s up to each of us to accept, honor, embrace, and celebrate the uniqueness of every other person we meet and interact with.

To not do this is to perpetuate a violation of human rights.

Yet at the same time, we cannot judge and seek to negate the Self of a person who does narrowly define what an acceptable Self looks and acts like for other people.

Hate looks good on no one. “Hating the haters” is not the way to live. Understanding and having compassion for everyone–even for those who hate–is imperative.

The bottom line: compassion is always in fashion. It starts with having self-compassion and self-acceptance. When we like ourselves and embrace and celebrate our individuality, it doesn’t matter if other people don’t like us and lack compassion.

In the next blog entry I’m going to quote a woman who has quickly become my newest role model. She tells it like it is in her own words. I’ve just finished reading her astonishing memoir.

Living Left of the Dial

You’re normal when the whole world’s going off and you can keep your wits about you.

My left of the dial lifestyle is linked to having the needle in the green not the red on a VU meter that measures the intensity of sound on a DJ’s mixing board.

This left of the dial metaphor I employ to signify that your thoughts and feelings are in balance—that you have a healthy body, mind, and life.

It’s keyed into doing your own thing, regardless of whether you conform to the so-called “norms” in society.

Choosing to be your own version of healthy is all that matters when hate, violence, and killing seem to be standard operating procedure in the world.

The comedian Sarah Silverman is quoted: “Humor can change people’s minds more than anger.”

In coming blog entries I’m going to write about positive people who have made a difference in my life.

These Everyday Heroes–and they truly are heroes–deserve recognition.