Please be careful with me...

lyrics provided by Jewel

I've known for a long time that I am a sensitive soul, or as some like to say "dramatic" and I've believed it's something I might need to change about myself. I get my feelings hurt really easily, I cry over commercials and even sitcoms or the occasional (read:every) Disney movie, more than once a song or watching dance makes me tear up, and I even sometimes realize I'm about to cry in situations where no one else seems affected - on the other hand I have a big temper that I have worked very hard over the years to control because yelling and nastiness is hurtful and can't really ever be taken back. I've learned that some people are completely okay with me and all my waterworks, and that others will hold it against me and believe that they can write me off because I'm "just overly sensitive."   But then tonight I ran across this article and I felt like I needed to share it because maybe there are other sensitive people out there who may also like to know that being sensitive actually means we are actually pretty awesome and that we should never ever feel the need to apologize or make excuses for who we are or what we feel.


What being highly sensitive is NOT:
1. Emotionally immature
2. Self-centered
3.Unpredictable and unstable emotions
4. Over-dependent
5. Demanding and attention thirsty

Characteristics of highly sensitive people:
1. Have great imagination
2. Have great intellectual abilities
3. Are creative
4. Have a curious mind
5. Are hard workers
6. Are good problem solvers
7. Are extremely conscious and compassionate
8. Are intuitive, caring, and spiritual
9. Have a strong sense of aesthetic awareness
10. Respect nature, art, and music greatly
11. Have profound and intense sensations
12. Can access important information from the unconscious mind
13. Have a depth of understanding and feelings
14. Are objective and can see the bigger picture

I learned a lot about myself while reading this article and it couldn't have come to me at a better time.

Pod Club: Healing Places

This week our podcast pick of the week comes to us from On Being, I've listened to a few of the older ones and really enjoyed them so I'm excited to listen to this new one this week and then share my thoughts on Friday. Would you care to join me? I wish you would. 

The Science of Healing Places

It's free and it's fun so jump on in Rachael and I would love to know your thoughts as well. 

Let's go back in time

Best Friend, blog writer extraordinaire, and general life inspiration Rachael has started this thing on her wonderful blog where she posts pages from her old diaries. And because I too have been a diary keeper my entire life I am going to copy her. Imitation is a form of flattery right? Hopefully, plus I think it will be fun to go back through the diaries I have and let you in on the journey as well. First off, here is a picture of the exterior of my first diary:

Diary #1

Pretty right? Very Victorian and proper - fitting for a young girl in her preteens. And now, here is the very first entry: (I know that I started keeping a diary before this but I don't know where those ones are...this is the first one in my possession.)

I loved cursive.

Dear Diary,
It's January 1, 1991. I got you for Christmas 1990. My Grandma and Grandpa gave you to me. I am eleven years old and in April I will be 12. Some of my goals this year are try to be nice to everyone, to try to keep keep my room clean, and to make my bed every morning. I'm reading Black Beaty right now and it's very good. I really like horses now. The book is kind of weird because it wrote by the horses point of view. Tomorrow we go back to school I can hardly wait to see my friends again!
See ya
Jill

I can tell you right now I failed at all three of those goals I set for myself. I was an 11 almost 12 year old girl who sometimes got left to babysit her younger brothers and sisters...I was not always nice to them and I'm assuming they would be a part of the "everyone". As far as keeping my room clean and making my bed every morning? That really is quite laughable, I probably failed that one by the very next day.

To tell you the truth, I just don't know.

Can the same be said for truth? Is the truth different from person to person? After listening to this podcast I've had to readjust and reexamine how I think about truth. Based on who you are, what you've come from and I think even what you want, the truth about any given subject can vary greatly from one person to the next. Then that raises the question does it even matter? Does it create problems if the truth for me is different from your truth?
I'm going to stray from our pod cast pick of the week and reference another podcast I listened to just yesterday from This American Life called Send a Message, in it there is a story about a man who finds tapes in his father's house after his father passed away. They were recordings of phone conversations the two of them had had for years and years after the parent's divorce. The man in the story always remembered that he had been a sort of advocate and protector for his mother, always standing up strong against his father. That was his truth, how he saw himself - however when he listened back to the tapes he discovered that he didn't sound nearly as forceful or protecting as he'd remembered himself being, in fact he often didn't say much - there were long pauses and subdued responses. Does that make what he'd thought about himself a lie? The truth for him at the time was that he was protecting his mom but I'm sure the truth for his dad would have been much different. Two people in the same situation, and their truths were far from the same.
Okay, back to Radiolab and our scheduled podcast of the week. In the first segment a photograph was discussed at length. Was it staged? No one seemed to have a good explanation for years and years experts went back and forth on whether or not it was a real or a fake. In the end it was decided that the photographer had come across this deserted road and decided to move cannonballs from the surrounding areas onto the road to attain this shot:

The Valley of the Shadow of Death by Roger Fenton 1855

Now, to me, I would have looked at those cannonballs on the road and said "yep it's faked." I mean look how spaced out they are, it's like they're marching in formation down the road to the next spot they're going to attack. But there was something said about this photograph that really stood out to me - is this photograph a lie if was seeking an emotional truth? The truth of how it felt for the people in this area at the time of this war? And that got me thinking to even simple photographs taken throughout someone's life, how many of them are really the truth of what they are feeling or going through? Aren't most photographs staged? We're told to smile, say cheese, and no matter how we are feeling at that particular moment all anyone will see when they look at it later is someone, or a group of people, who are pleased as punch to be blowing out candles, taking a hike, saying goodbye at the airport, carving pumpkins, leaving for college...etc...etc...etc...Looking back on those photographs the people in them will remember what they were feeling in that moment but one photograph could contain multiple truths in it depending on who is doing the looking.
Am I making sense? I think what I'm coming to is that truth maybe is not the same thing as fact. I was hollowed out in the second part of the podcast while listening to the facts about the "yellow rain" that fell in Laos during the Cold War. I don't really want to discuss it much because it seems to me as though there isn't a good explanation for what happened to those people during that time and it seems like something horrifying has been swept under the rug with an inadequate answer. The truth of what the Hmong were feeling and experiencing is not the truth that American scientists decided upon to be the facts. I sat on the bus listening to this interview and almost broke down in tears with the translator as she realized her truth was yet again going to be out-powered by a truth decided on by a country more powerful than hers.
Truth and Fact, are they one and the same? Or are facts the bare bone details with truth the ligaments, cartilage and tendons that hold them together - a little more flexible and movable? I don't know, I don't have the answers for you but hopefully you have some for yourself. I am now going to go check out what Rachael had to say on her very truthful blog Just Me Actually and I think you should do the same.

Obsessed Much?

I read this recently and loved it. Although I do have to admit that I have had it in my collection now for quite a while and always dismissed it because I thought the title and cover were a bit...uhm, lacking. However, everything has it's time and place so I believe I picked it up at exactly the right time. I think it was one of the first books that had lines I loved so much I underlined them, in pencil, so I could go back and love on them some more. It wasn't one of those books that I sat down and read all in one sitting but I think that made it even more delicious for me. I very rarely am able to draw out a reading experience for longer than a couple of days and then I am regretful at the end that I have to say goodbye to my new friends. Even still, I am sad that this book came to an end and that there is no chance of a follow up because not only would it take away some of the magic but, the author has died, so for her to write a second book would be quite magical after all.
If you run across this book somewhere, pick it up and read it. I hope you'll love it like I did.

Some favorite lines: (don't worry they won't ruin it for you)

• I much prefer whining to counting my blessings.  
• I think you learn more if you're laughing at the same time. 
•  If I could believe I had a soul, all by myself, then I could listen to its tidings all by myself.
• This obsession with dignity can ruin your life if you let it.

 Four is a good sampling I believe. I tried starting another book after this one and haven't been able to read it, I just keep thinking about the characters in this one. I need to finish saying goodbye to them before I can allow new characters into my heart. Reading is a serious business for me.

 I may be one of the last people in America to watch this show but I had to come to it in my own time. I wasn't convinced it was a show I was going to like and then because it was so seemingly popular I dug my feet in even more. I like to be the discoverer of things, not the follower. Even so, there came a day in the past week that I needed something new to watch and the first season was on Netflix instant and so I started. And then I couldn't stop. (Luckily I didn't have to because the second season in on Hulu.) And then I started thinking and speaking to myself in their awesome accents and saying ridiculous phrases aloud like "it really is quite dreadful" when I accidentally spilled water all over. It also makes me wonder the same wonder I always have when watching period pieces...would I have been able to pull off all the fancy attire and a face with no make-up? (I mean assuming I was one of the fancy ladies otherwise it would be no make-up and drab attire.) And I've come to the conclusion I usually come to (assuming I was fancy - and it's all make believe so I can assume anything I want), I would want to always have long hair and a fancy hat because my face can be rather boyish and I would want no mistakes. Plus I would want to be British so that everything that came out of my mouth would sound interesting and sophisticated. I am almost finished with the second season and I've discovered today that the third season doesn't start again until January. What am I supposed to do until then?

Little Words

Have you watched the show What Would You Do? I really like it, but it also sort of scares me because it forces me to think about what I would do in the situations laid out. Would I speak up or shrink away hoping to not be noticed? I'm ashamed to admit, even to myself, that I don't think I'd be brave enough to speak up in most of the situations. And I feel like that makes me a bad human. Then yesterday on the bus I got the chance to test out that theory on a very small scale.
As usual I had my headphones in listening to a podcast, but even over the talking in my ear I could tell there was a commotion on the bus. The people around me were making faces at each other in general astonishment and disgust. So, because I'm curious and nosy I paused my podcast to find out what was happening. A couple rows ahead of me there was a man preaching about Jesus - he sounded like he was on a break from his place in a park screaming out over people's heads as they pass by, I walked by plenty of those people in Portland but really don't see them much here in Tri-Cities. He was being fairly loud and definitely annoying but I almost started my podcast again until I heard him start bashing on Mormons using all sorts of bad language in the process.
Now, I know that I no longer attend church or align myself with the religion but I have a lot of respect for it and have always been glad I was raised the way I was. Everyone is entitled to their own beliefs but they should not be offensive about it so it was at that point that I decided to raise my voice to try to make it stop. I didn't say much, something along the lines of You should be careful with what you say, you might be offending someone. You're offending me. You should stop. After saying my piece other people spoke up also asking him to be quiet and to watch his language but if anything he got louder until the bus driver told him he needed to be quiet or he'd be kicked off the bus.
I know I didn't say much but even so my heart was pounding afterwards. I was glad I'd spoken up, and it gives me hope that should I be put in an even more difficult position in the future I'd have the courage to act out then as well.

As a matter of fact...

Happy Monday everyone and welcome to October! All September I kept saying "I just want it to stay warm through September, I'm not ready for fall yet." But now here it is October and I'm still not ready, luckily it's supposed to get up to 80 today so my short-sleeves and flip-flops can stay in heavy rotation.

Anyhow, back to the business of the day, it's  Monday which means you get to find out what our new Pod Club listen of the week is. Rachael and I were both excited to see a new podcast from Radiolab so it was easy to pick:

The Fact of the Matter 

It's never to late to join in on this adventure, we welcome you! As always, I highly encourage you to go over and see what is said at Just Me Actually since I often feels she says what I'm thinking better than I can.