Clean Your Own Windows First

I read something on a Facebook page recently of someone I don't know.  While I'm not going to reference the Facebook site that they shared, it was a religious one.  Actually this site looked to be a little more balanced than most, but the person sharing it had all kinds of JUDGMENTAL posts on this page.  It is funny to me that people will share things that are so good, but they don't even take to heart what it is that they share.

In the shared item, the story went something along the lines of a person who was critical of the neighbors.  In fact, it was about the neighbors laundry on the clothes line.  The person in this story constantly complained to her husband that the neighbor did not know how to do laundry.  For every time the neighbor did the laundry and hung it on the line, it appeared dirty.  It was not until one day she realized that the neighbor's laundry looked clean and exclaimed to her husband, that they must have figured out how to do laundry.  It was not until her husband told her that he got up early that day and cleaned their windows that she understood who it was that had the problem.

You see, it is easy for us to point out all the things wrong that other people do.  A funny thing happens when we do this though.  We usually are pointing out our own short comings and failure, only we can't even see beyond our disdain for others that we are doing this.  It isn't until we clean our own windows first that we begin to see more clearly in life.  If you think this is not rampant in our society, just read the daily news or look at a comment section on a news website.

Forgiveness Haunts Survivors

For too many survivors, this single issue haunts them every day of their life.  Especially when you have been raised in a religious setting where you were brainwashed while abuse took place, the concept of forgiveness is like a knife being stabbed in your back.  To those that have not experienced this, they make the horrendous mistake of attempting to convince others that they must forgive in order to heal.

While forgiveness is a step of healing when the individual is ready for it, until they are at that point, it can be quite hurtful and harmful.  To clarify my statement, I'm referring to the mix-up in how forgiveness is often perceived and what it actually is to many people.  In all reality, forgiveness is not as cut and dried as people want everyone to believe.  It comes with a great deal of baggage that makes it one of the most difficult aspects of healing.

In my early days of life, I was raised in a church and forgiveness meant something totally different than it does in a healthy situation.  Forgiveness meant that you were to no longer talk about the "transgression or sin" that the person did.  It meant that event never happened of if you know it did, that you are now required to no longer see it as something that once happened.

Tylenol And The Mind Body

One of the most overdosed substances in the world is something you would not even think about.  About 60,000 people in the US are admitted to the hospital for an overdose of acetaminophen.  Before you start scratching your head to figure out what that is, acetaminophen is the active drug in Tylenol and can also be found in Vicodin and Percocet.

In a 2009 research study, it showed that acetaminophen actually dulled social anxiety.  In much the same way that something like alcohol or Xanax might do, this substance acted the same way.  Further research has found that it has an affect on how people make moral judgements.

Physical pain and social anxiety share a common pathway in our nervous system.  So if you stop one, then you have stopped the other.  In other words, by removing physical pain, you are dulling the sense of moral judgment and social anxiety.

At one time I took Tylenol for headaches among a whole host of other over-the-counter medications.  From an early age, if I got a sniffle, then there was some type of medication pushed at me.  In fact, if I didn't take it, I was punished in one form or another.