Category Archives: Get on your feet

“A Stanford scientist says a simple psychological shift can make you more successful”

A Stanford scientist says a simple psychological shift can make you more successful

The headline left me skeptical. A scientist tells about success?

The article proves to be all about self-love, and backs up everything I’ve said about that subject. It also speaks to the issues I face at this moment in dealing with my feelings and the way I treat myself.

I urge you to read it.

Related:
Chaos overwhelms the poor
A short route to agony
Life in the outer darkness
Self-comfort
Why racism no longer matters to me

Originally posted 2016-01-30.

This program turned me away.

Adapted from a 12/03/15 e-mail to my brothers and some others.

Given instability at the shelter where I’ve been for almost five years, I decided to apply to a certain program affiliated with a major national charity and major local soup kitchen.  This program is residential, has a nice facility, and (as I understood it) was geared toward taking men with histories of addiction or homelessness and rendering them self-supporting.

Since it is a residential program, I would no longer have to carry my bags everywhere I go, vastly increasing the radius within which I can look for work; and, I supposed, I would be able to work any shift.  After all, unlike the shelter where I’ve been, they’ve got a big shove towards self-sufficiency.

They rejected me.

I wrote:

Baptismal grace means: when you get knocked down, you get back up.

Blog post (from October ’14, about getting back up): Life in the outer darkness

In the immediate future, I will be checking out options in transitional housing, and case management services at the clinic where I’m currently in treatment for everything I’m in treatment for.

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What happened?

Continue reading This program turned me away.

Self-management in the face of depression

I am extremely depressed this morning.  This may be a “monthly.”  I find myself hyper-self-critical; ready to take anything someone may say the wrong way; ready to snap.

I’m dealing with various issues in various places that may help explain it, but as opposed to engaging in excuses or blame, I need to deal with what is.

I was in Dunkin’ Donuts at 9:00 and chose to check the library schedule for this week; to chart out what days I would go to the library and what other days I would go to church.

Continue reading Self-management in the face of depression

Bootstraps

Psalm 150:6:  “Let all things that have breath praise the Lord.”

At the homeless shelter where I stay, we’re required to attend chapel every night.  Monday, for the first time in months, Jervis Ray preached.  His text was Psalm 23.  However, he was soon enough back to his same old same old, haranguing us that we’re not grateful enough for our “blessings.”  “God woke you up in your right mind,” with the use of two arms and two legs.

He calls us to praise God that our bootstraps aren’t like others’.  “There are lots of people in hospitals who don’t know where they are.”

That stung me, as my oldest brother will be soon enough in just that state.

Continue reading Bootstraps