April/May 2009 Newsletter
April 1, 2009
Recession Or Depression – Keep Optimism Alive
In football, like in life, you must learn to play within the rules of the game. – Hayden Fry
No denying it. The economy is in a disastrous nosedive. The situation makes a deep impression on our bank accounts, our options, and our moods.
Somehow this money game reminds me of football? Over the months and years my savings run up and down the field and depending on the economy and market, I win some points and lose some. Recent months represent a long dry spell for my team.
I remember hearing the broadcast of a University of Michigan football game some years ago. The Wolverines were battling the Buckeyes. I do not remember who won. I do remember the radio announcer’s discussion of emotional momentum. It seems there is more to football than muscle and brawn. Football teams fall prey to collective optimism and/or discouragement.
And so do we in this economic game of numbers. Our global team – lenders, investors, consumers, and employers – seems to have lost that collective sense of confidence. When the momentum shifted last fall, we gave the ball to an unseen opponent. The players on the opposing team are Doubt, Discouragement, and Pessimism. As the score grows lopsided, our team’s heart grows heavy. Yet plodding down field in a blue funk will only hinder us from reaching the playoffs or retirement, as the case may be.
More than anything, we need to enlist Optimism, Resiliency, and Humor for our team. Without them we are truly lost. We need a “yes” attitude to win.
Know this: Research shows that a person with a pessimistic disposition is more vulnerable to emotional and physical illness. Why? Because the pessimist is likely to give up too soon. Mr. P quits trying and then more bad things happen. Just as when a discouraged team falls apart after an interception, the momentum switches and the bad guys score more and more points.
If our team is to win, we cannot afford to give up in this economic mess. As optimists we must stay alert when hard times strike. Our team song is “Yes We Can.” We call on creative thought to find solutions to our personal and collective adversity. Although positive thinking may not restore an investment savings account this month, the right attitude will help us stay in the game, make ends meet, even start over if we must. If we stay away from the collective doldrums, I believe the momentum will shift again and our team will be back on the scoreboard.
For more reading on the benefits of an optimistic disposition: Emotional Longevity by Norman B. Anderson and P. Elizabeth Anderson.
~ Susan Reuling Furness
BOOK REVIEW
THE BRAIN CAN CHANGE ITSELF by Norman Doidge, MD
Review by Cheryle Jones Andrews adapted from
I’ve spent an intriguing and stimulating space of time lately reading THE
BRAIN CAN CHANGE ITSELF by Norman Doidge, MD, a psychiatrist and researcher,
who set out to investigate neuroplasticity and met both the brilliant
scientists championing it and the people whose lives they’ve transformed.
Dr. Doidge’s book offers hope to anyone seeking to improve their physical,
mental, emotional, and spiritual quality of life.
This book is a riveting collection of case histories detailing the
astonishing progress of people whose conditions had long been dismissed as
hopeless. We see a woman born with half a brain that rewired itself to work
as a whole, a woman labeled retarded who cured her deficits with brain
exercises and now cures those of others, blind people learning to see,
learning disorders cured, IQs raised, aging brains rejuvenated, painful
phantom limbs erased, stroke patients recovering their faculties, children
with cerebral palsy learning to move more gracefully, entrenched depression
and anxiety disappearing, and lifelong character traits altered.
The brain is a plastic, living organ that can actually change its own
structure and function, even into old age. Arguably the most important
breakthrough in neuroscience since scientists first sketched out the brain’s
basic anatomy, this revolutionary discovery, called neuroplasticity,
promises to overthrow the centuries-old notion that the brain is fixed and
unchanging. The brain is not, as was thought, like a machine, or “hardwired”
like a computer. Neuroplasticity not only gives hope to those with mental
limitations, or what was thought to be incurable brain damage, but expands
our understanding of the healthy brain and the resilience of human nature.
Doidge takes us into terrain that might seem fantastic. We learn that our
thoughts can switch our genes on and off, altering our brain anatomy.
Scientists have developed machines that can follow these physical changes in
order to read people’s thoughts, allowing the paralyzed to control computers
and electronics just by thinking. We learn how people of average
intelligence can, with brain exercises, improve their cognition and
perception in order to become savant calculators, develop muscle strength,
or learn to play a musical instrument, simply by imagining doing so.
Using personal stories from the heart of this neuroplasticity revolution,
Dr. Doidge explores the profound implications of the changing brain for
understanding the mysteries of love, sexual attraction, taste, culture and
education in an immensely moving, inspiring book that will permanently alter
the way we look at human possibility and human nature.
For more information about the book and Dr. Doidge visit
www.normandoidge.com.
To view a film about the book on the web, see
www.cbc.ca/documentaries/natureofthings/2008/brainchangesitself/.
Advice From Our Waiting Room
- Gather more experience and buy fewer things.
- Let go of the past.
- Cook double meals and freeze one for later on.
- The 1st rule of holes…When you are in one, stop digging.
- What I resist, persists.
- It’s better to light a candle then to curse the darkness.