THOUGHTS ABOUT TROUBLE INDICATORS - IN PEOPLE IN MATIONS

THOUGHTS ABOUT TROUBLE INDICATORS – the health of a people a nation Even as a child I asked WHY; I’d ask a lot of adults WHY about a lot of things. It soon became clear to me that I had and would always have far more WHYS than answers. Also clear to me was that I would have to search and find answers to my WHYS and that adults accessible to me didn’t have all the answers. Yesterday’s Google was my city library; you could often find me there trying to find answers to my WHYS. That’s where I developed my love for reading. I found that many of my questions had been asked and answered and were available in books. It’s probably through reading that I learned to find answers to my WHYS through observation. That brings me to the point of this post. I once revisited the neighborhood I grew up in. I could no longer see the pride and wellbeing I had known growing up. Walking around the neighborhood I began the see the trouble indicators that screamed its ill health. Whatever my point of view there were dominant clusters of liquor stores and little churches; these are not the cause of the ill health. The causes rest in the factory closing leaving a field of weeds; they rest in the freeway ripping the heart out the neighborhood taking with it little businesses owner-occupied homes and the sense of pride and wellbeing. I find a comparison between my old neighborhood and our country, America. From any perspective more and more Americans are finding it impossible to keep bread on a table, to provide their children with an education and a roof over their heads. There is a desperation a pain in America that can be seen in the increase of drug and alcohol consumption and the desperate pleas to a perceived God for relief – a desperate and incessant plea for help. www.adolphusward.net

THOUGHTS ABOUT EMBRACING PAIN

THOUGHTS ABOUT EMBRACING STRESS – forms of coping My education training and experience have enabled me to develop and teach others coping skills to manage stress. Most mature adults are well aware that stress is ever present in everyday life. What few mature adults realize is that stress is not a cause but a reaction; the stress we experience is our reaction to stressors. Stressors are those irritating circumstances that lead to what I call pain; I don’t use pain to mean just physical pain but includes all circumstances which ultimately bring discomfort to an individual. It is a natural reflex reaction to get rid of pain as quickly as possible, but too often we do nothing but cover it up; we take a pain killer and go to bed hoping the pain is gone by morning. When we mask pain we also hide the cause of the pain. When we embrace our stress (pain) we examine it until we discover the stressor(s) that caused it: we then take action to eliminate, mitigate, or cope. When we can’t eliminate a stressor we try and mitigate it; failing to reduce the severity of it we develop coping strategies – but we never stop exploring ways to rid ourselves of stressors. I think people who feel that power rest within themselves have a better chance of successfully embracing stress. On the other hand, people who feel that power resides somewhere outside of them have little or no chance of embracing pain. People who mask their pain with drugs, alcohol, or religious belief will find it difficult if not impossible to identify the stressors in their lives. www.adolphusward.net