value yourself, value your time!

Value yourself. It is so easy to say, but not so easy to live by especially for women. Many women are often happier when those around them are happy. This is especially true for most highly sensitive women who often have to learn to say no.

Being highly sensitive myself, it is something that I have had to learn myself. In the old days I never used to say no, but over the years I have become good at putting me first and trusting that good friends will understand your no, and they do! I have come to listen to my body better and to know when enough is enough.

And yet I had another eye-opener just a few days ago. As a small business owner I am carefull where I spend my money. This means that I try to do as much as possible myself and not hire people to do it for me. At the moment I am building a new version of my website. With new platforms like wordpress it is getting easier to do so and I like being in control and able to change my own content and add new pages.

Yet it was taking me a long time to get the basics down. I would be adding graphics and text without it looking very professional, and as a perfectionist that did not sit well with me either.

It took a friend to open my eyes about what I was doing. She and I had had a discussion on another topic about the value of my time. When I work with clients I of course charge an amount of money per hour. It had taken me many hours to get things done on wordpress and still it was not to my liking. Hours I could also have spend earning money instead of wasting time. So I was actually wasting valuable time. It was much wiser and [in the end counting that way] cheaper to get some help.


This example also shows that sometimes we need help to see things clearly. That can be a good friend or a coach or counsellor. We all need sparring partners for the occasional reality check to see if we are really doing what we are good at.


As always I would love to hear your stories!

login2life living in a virtual world

I first became aware of this documentary during the 3rd virtual conference on counseling organised by Counselor Education in Second Life. Immediatly I was enthusiastic and noted down the air date of the documentary. It aired on ZDF [german tv] on monday the 17th of october. The reason that I am blogging a day early this week is that you can still watch it online for free until sunday evening. This is the link. If this subject interests you at all, I would urge you to do so. It's nearly 90 minutes long and don't be put off by the fact that it is German. Most of the documentary is in English, so you will be able to follow most of what is going on.
 
Now what is it all about? Filmmaker Daniel Moshel followed some people from all over the world who spend parts of their lives in virtual worlds and made a documentary about them. Last year I watched a documentary that highlighted the negative aspects of such a lifestyle and it was refreshing to see that login2life stresses the postives.

The focus is on two virtual worlds. One a gaming environment, World of Warcraft [WoW] and  Second Life [SL]. For those who don't know. SL allows you to make an avatar and then explore the many many worlds with that avatar. So it really comes close to a 'second life' especially with how fast technology is growing.

The documentary follows a few people active on WoW and doing more than just gaming. There is someone who makes movies involving Wow characters. Another swedish gamer talks about being in one of the best guilds in the game and what that means in his life. 2 stories moved me the most. A young chinese man who was up in the middle of the night collecting gold which he sold to other people and who actually made a living in the real world this way. He was just scraping by and his whole bio rythm was disturbed because he was online most nights. The other was a young man from the US who had been paralyzed in a car accident and could only work the computer with his mouth. It made me smile that he would tell those he defeated that they were defeated by a criple and the joy it gave him to be able to do this with his avatar. He was able to live out dreams that he would never be able again in the 'real' world.

The other part focussed on SL. Here the mother of the paralyzed young man would read parts of the story she had written about her life as a caregiver. There was a German musician giving great concerts to an audience all over the world. A man selling sex aides on SL, it was very funny to see how they had to make the movements so it could be translated digitally. :) The most moving part of the whole documentary for me was the story of Alice, gentle heron in SL. She is a woman from the US with MS. This makes life in the 'real' world harder and harder and movement gets harder with this disease. But she lives another life online, making friends and doing much more than that! She has actually set up a community in SL where people with disability can meet and learn how to enjoy themselves in SL. If you are interested to learn more follow this link.

This shows that even if you cannot move much or are bedridden, there is a world out there on the computer where you can make new friends and even live out some of your dreams if you are open to it!



So if you have time before monday, please go and have a look at this extraordinary documentary.

budget tips

I read an article in the local newspaper [Gouda] this morning that prompted this blog post.

I think money is a significant topic for people with chronic pain. They are sometimes hampered by not being able to work full time or not be able to work at all. So some of you are going to run into the problem of having to cut the expenses.

Debt? Doesn’t it frighten us all, to not have enough money to make it to the end of the month? More and more people get into trouble because of the current economic situation. But is that all?

I think not. Whole generations grew up in a land of plenty. For almost twenty years you could switch jobs when it suited you and employers wanted to have you. During this time the world we lived in changed drastically as well. Older generations were happy with so much less. They had a tv, a landline phone and a car, that was pretty much it. Nowadays we want and expect so much more from life. At least one computer in the house, a mobile phone for every family member[smartphone of course] I-pods, e-readers the list goes on.

At the same time many of us were not taught to really handle money well. Another difference with olden days is that we all have bank passes and credit cards. Isn’t it easy to spend that money and completely forgot we did so, only to come in for a nasty shock at the end of the month.  How many people would know what they spend each month if you ask them on the street?

There are a few key points to sticking to a budget:

• ·         Know how much you have coming in each month

• ·         Calculate how much you need to spend each month on essentials, so you know how much you have left over to indulge yourself with or maybe put it away for emergencies

• ·         Keep a record on everything you spend.

• ·         Try to use cash and not your cards when you spend money. For example give yourself a weekly budget, if the cash is gone, you know you need to stop.

• ·         Do not go over the limit on your bank cards or credit cards. Being overdrawn on those cards is one of the most expensive things there is.

• ·         Do not buy anything on a credit card if you know you will not be able to pay for it.

Another tip:

Every year at the end of the year I print out my bank statements of the previous year and go through them item for item. You would be amazed how many things creep up that you don’t really use or are not interested in any more.

I then spend some time cancelling my subscriptions to all such items earning myself a little more pocket cash each year.

Emotional shopping:

This is where it gets really hard. Some people react to hard times by rewarding themselves with goods or food. This helps for a short while but in the end it only makes matters worse when they realise how much they have spend. Money they did not have in the first place.

So helping people stick to a budget should involve more than just learning how to handle the figures. It should also involve looking at the reasons behind the spending. Helping them find healthier methods of coping with hard times besides spending the money.

 If you have any other tips on how to save money, please share them by leaving comments. I love to hear back from you.

how much to share with clients?

 Irvin Yalom's books inspired me long before I became a counsellor. I think I picked up the first book I read by him during the mid nineties. And since then I have read most of his books. 


One that really struck a cord was "The gift of therapy" which I have reread a couple of times since buying it several years ago. In this book Yalom shares some of his wisdom with therapists who are just starting out.


The great thing about this book is that it shows the therapist as a human being with faults and worries of his own. I like how he writes about himself and dares to be vulnerable. 

There is always the debate of how much therapists should share with clients. Should they share if there is something going on in their life? Should they tell a client if they have been through something similar as the client is facing right now? That is an ever ongoing debate. As I work with client groups who are going through the same thing I have gone through [being highly sensitive & living with chronic pain] I do share when it comes to those areas. Also because it is relevant to therapy. But there is a fine line between not sharing enough and sharing too much about your private life and one that we always have to keep in mind.


And yet I am an admirer of the kinds of books written by therapist who do share some of their lives with us. Another great favoriet of mine is "The unquiet mind" written by Kay Redfield Jamison in which a psychiatrist openly talks about her own struggle with being manic depressive. 


I think that if a therapist is at ease with what has happened in his or her life and worked through it and found balance it can often be a great bonus when this is used in therapy. As long as she is always critical of why she is sharing certain info with clients and to make sure that is has value.