We all have rituals in our lives.  It requires less thinking.  When I wake up I use the bathroom and brush my teeth.  The same before I go to bed.  It takes a while to develop a pattern that becomes a fixed part of our lives.

We moved to California during the drought.  I learned how to reduce the amount of water we used.  When guests came for dinner, whatever water remained in their glasses or the pitcher was poured over the lawn.  We also had a large bucket in the shower and water was collected that was also poured on the lawn. This was called gray water as it had soap in it.  These acts enabled us to sprinkle no more than twice a week (city law) and maintain a green lawn.

We flushed toilets less, showered less, turned faucets off when not needing the water to run, washed larger loads of laundry, did not wash our cars.

California noted that the amount of water consumed dropped dramatically as they educated the public about ways to participate in using less water.

There are many changes that occurred.  Our water lifestyle changed.

Yesterday it was revealed that the North Bay, which includes the area of San Francisco and cities around it, is no longer experiencing a drought.

I choose not to focus on changing my water pattern.  It is a precious commodity and I like these habits.

Humans are intriguing in their patterns and potential to change.  Think about it.

In the month of December, my brother and two friends died.  Another friend was hurt badly in an auto accident. I provided support. I cried briefly. I moved on.

I watch little television, but one program I am dedicated to is Jeopardy.  I like the challenge.  I have watched it for many years and even record it so that I maintain the sequence.

This morning on the CBS Morning Show, a story was told about a contestant I just watched this week.  Today I learned that when she was accepted as a contestant, she informed the producers that she was terminally ill with cancer and needed to compete earlier than they had her scheduled.  They agreed.  She was on six segments. Her illness was never mentioned on the show.  It was disclosed today that she died before she saw her last appearance.

It touched my heart.  I felt like another person I knew had died.  The recent experience of the deaths and injury surfaced.  I cried.

Too much in too close a period of time.

This has been a common theme in therapy the past couple of weeks.  For a couple of people, it emerged as a result of the holiday season, either through the buying of gifts or holiday events to be attended.  For others, it was a vaster theme.

In one situation, a person is always tired.  During sessions, when her partner is talking, her eyes will sometimes close briefly. When I greet her at the door each week and ask how she is, she always responds, “Sleepy.”

Her partner says she takes care of everyone else, but not herself.  She does not agree that this is a problem, and she sees no correlation to being tired.

Another person cancelled an appointment at the last minute because she was training a new employee and felt that was a priority.  When I mentioned she was obligated to pay for the session because she cancelled so soon before the appointment, I received a message from her.  She said that she decided her own needs were important and therapy was helping her address that issue.  She came for her session.

We are each important.  It is valuable to be helpful and caring of others.  It is not often helpful to put them first.  We can develop an underpinning of emotions that can exhaust us.

Take care of yourself.

When I was a teenager, I wrote poems when I was sad, hurt, depressed.  I felt so isolated, so alone, that I needed to find a way to express my pain.  I do not ever recall sharing these feelings or poems with anyone.

When I read them weeks later, I thought they were beautiful, and I was impressed with my ability to express myself.

I did not keep them.  This is not a shock as I have never been a keeper of things.

Over the course of years I discovered, first as a high school teacher, and then as a psychologist, that I was not alone.  Many adolescents expressed their feelings through poetry.  I also learned that much music is written during emotional downs.  I encouraged people to hold on to their writings so they could read them at a later time in their lives.

As an adult I realized I handle sadness, hurt, and depression differently now.  I cry.  I reflect.  I indwell.  I ponder memories.  But I have no interest in creatively expressing feelings.  The pain does not feel as intense.  I do not feel isolated or alone.

As I have in many ways, I have changed.

During the holiday season, there are certain themes I have often heard people express.  One is concern over the cost of gifts, another is concern of what to buy people, and the last is regrets over rituals that have developed over years.

Some rituals grow tiresome for people. There is reluctance to decline an invitation or to start a new one.

Last night I went to my son’s home for the annual Latke Party to celebrate Hanukah.  I have attended this event many times.  Erik, Ellen, Isaac and Ari invite many friends from a variety of venues in their lives.  Some are from school,  athletic activities, neighbors, friends and family.

This year I was focusing on my experience of being there.  The guests are warm and welcoming. I have met many of them before, typically soccer or baseball games.  I observed a warm interaction between the adults and great camaraderie with the children.  The adults smiled, shook hands, engaged in conversation easily, and asked questions which reflected real interest.  There was true engagement.

The children were friendly and interacted with the adults easily.

The feeling was one of comfort, acceptance, and interacting genuinely.

I look forward to next year.

It was a difficult week for me.  My brother died.  He had been a good friend.  His death occurred a day before we were having my family for Thanksgiving and three days before I was having a birthday party for my husband.

I was not able to be with Sandy when he died.  I did have two events to focus on.  And my style is to look forward when I can.  And so I interspersed my grief with planning.

The presence and support of family at Thanksgiving was extraordinary.  Not a surprise.  I adore them.

The presence and support of friends was remarkable.  People we have met since we moved to Alameda five years ago mixed with dear friends from long ago in Michigan.  The interaction of these 15 people, who had never met each other before this party, was a highlight to watch.

Friends are people we select to have in our lives.  When we do it in a way that genuinely compliments who we are, they often like each other too.

Thanks, friends, for reminding me of joy in the future.

A teenage client walked into my office with crutches.  She normally walks to the office, but I noticed her mother had driven her.  She told me the following story.

Her band class had been told to meet at a certain time in the band room.  When they got there, they discovered that the teacher had erred and they were meeting a half hour later.  They had that time to waste.  The room was dark and they started to play.  They were running around the room and another student crashed into my client.  She fell, felt pain in her knee, and discovered later that she passed out for a moment.  When she opened her eyes, students were around her and pointed out that she had hit her head and was bleeding.  The boy who ran into her was very apologetic.

One student took her cell phone and called 911 and my client’s mother.  They put a covering on her head, which turned out to be a small wound.  When the ambulance arrived, the attendees commended the students on how they had handled the situation.  They pointed out the appropriate calls they had made,  covering the wound, and staying with her.

The teacher, once apprised of what happened, yelled at the students for running around the room.  She did not acknowledge how they had handled the situation.

Education can miss the point at times.  It would have been a better learning experience to point out what they had done right.  I suspect they discovered their mistake on their own.

A father of a nine year old client of mine pointed out to me his concern because his children have always lived in Alameda and have not been faced with discrimination of race, religion, or ethnicity because of the diversity of the city.  He asked me whether I thought it was wise for him to discuss it with them.  I found his question to be very reflective and encouraged him to do so.

Another client who is Caucasian visited an African-American potential partner in a southern State. His reluctance to show affection in public angered her.  The fact that people in two restaurants changed tables when they sat down did not irritate her because she did not see this as a reaction to their presence.  She and he talked and she felt he should ignore the reaction of other people and do what he wanted to do.

She does not understand, nor experience, discrimination the way this man has.  She said she does not understand his fears and believes he should behave the way he wants to no matter how others react.

The father of my client has a significant concern about the outcome of naivety.

We have always celebrated Thanksgiving by having relatives and friends for dinner.  Always after the Detroit Lions game, please note.  It was a large group of people.

One year, my oldest daughter, who was nine at the time, stood up spontaneously and said she wanted to thank everyone “for celebrating the rape and pilferage of the Native Americans.”  There was a pause, and then everyone nodded and said they agreed.

Thus explains the politics of our family and friends.  That was thirty-five years ago and the teaching about Thanksgiving has not changed in most families or schools.

What we celebrate is being together.  We moved to California to be with my children, grandchildren and the extended family.  That is who comes to our home for Thanksgiving.  It is a joyful, intimate, loving get together. We are thankful.

Stress is everyone’s experience.  Life has become more complicated and multifaceted.  People have more responsibilities. We take in more data.  We meet more people.  We move around.  We respond to people, messages, phone calls, text, emails.  We also initiate these.  We drive in traffic.  We have appointments and deadlines.

Stress can play out emotionally or physically.  We can be anxious.  We can be overwhelmed.  We can be in pain.  We can have stomach distress.

One client of mine has been to a variety of medical doctors and has been evaluated through lab work and three MRIs.  Shoulder and neck pain.  No source discovered.  No cause discovered.  We focused on feelings he has not fully expressed or dealt with.  He learned relaxation exercises.  He learned to stop trying to focus on the cause and to deal with the symptom.  We met for a couple of months.

Suddenly he came in one day and told me how he had finally internalized the prospect that it was caused by stress.  After reaching this point, the pain disappeared.

Relax and yell (perhaps).