Category Archives: Life Skills

The Impact of “Invisible” Illness

When he was writing his book, Starting Points for a Healthy Habitat, Carl Grimes interviewed me for one of his chapters. Although Mr. Grimes was addressing the emotional and psychological impacts of someone with an environmental illness, what I said to him easily could be describing someone with a head injury or any other invisible condition such as chronic fatigue syndrome. The following is a quote from his book.

“Carl Grimes: What happens to someone when they have an ailment that is not obvious to others, such as one they believe to be caused by an exposure to an environmental contaminant?

David Pasikov: The ailment is not obvious because its symptoms and attributes are not familiar to others. A common example is a person with a broken leg who requires a cast and crutches. The cast and crutches are not only readily visible but also provide an obvious and generally acceptable excuse for that person’s behavior deviating from the accepted standards of their family, friends and peers. Also, because the healing requirements of a broken leg are fairly well known, that person’s behavior – although now much different than their peers – is fairly predictable and acceptable. No real surprises.

However if the ailment is not visible or not immediately accepted as a legitimate excuse for not meeting common standards of performance, then that person is expected – even demanded – to stop misbehaving. If they don’t, then they are assumed to be malingering – meaning that their own behavior is controllable by themselves, but they aren’t willing to do so.

Carl Grimes: What effect does this have on the person with the ailment?

David Pasikov: Their self-esteem suffers and their stress level increases. The experience usually retards their recovery process because they are now focused on, among other things, meeting the expectations of others at the expense of doing what is necessary for themself.

Carl Grimes: What happens socially?

David Pasikov: If their illness continues, they will gradually lose their friends. They won’t be much fun anymore. Furthermore, as you retreat to “lick your wounds” so to speak, you are also removing yourself from society. Your world becomes smaller and you increase your chances of becoming depressed.”

Choosing Happiness is Good for your Brain

The other day I was at Denver International Airport (DIA) on my way to fly to Jerusalem to visit my sister. I was sitting at a table outside of a coffee shop at the airport enjoying a sandwich before boarding for the first leg of my journey because nowadays you can starve on an airplane. To explore a wider range of options and find the perfect design for your business, click here for more aluminium shop front solutions.

The upside of being a therapist is that you learn to read people’s body language and demeanor. That also is the downside as I couldn’t help but notice that the man a few tables away had an interesting facial expression. The corners of his mouth were turned down in a permanent scowl. A few moments later, his wife arrived with their lunch and as I glanced from time to time to look around, not once did I see him smile as they interacted. His wife did not look any happier than he did.

Fast forward to yesterday when I was on a bus with my sister going from her home to downtown Jerusalem. Being on a bus in Jerusalem is not as scary or brave as it sounds. You keep living or the terrorists win. The arrangement of the seats in buses here isn’t theater style; half the seats are faced to the front and half are faced to the rear.

Across the bus from me was a woman who was the opposite of the man at DIA. She had a wonderful look of happiness on her face and you could tell from the lines in her face that a slight smile was her natural expression instead of the scowl that the man had.

Before I left for this trip I was in L.A. doing a corporate training where we were teaching an advanced communications course to managers at a major software company. During part of the course we play a segment from the movie, “What the Bleep Do We Know”. The movie excerpt illustrates that neural pathways are established when we repeatedly do certain things or express particular emotions. There are chemicals for every emotion and as we express those emotions, neurons move and link, forming new neural pathways.

This process facilitates learning. For example, when we were learning to drive, it took a lot of concentration to steer, brake, park etc. and now we do all that while talking on cellphones, checking our gpses, changing channels and daydreaming. We have established the neural pathways necessary to drive.

Now, back to the man at DIA and the woman on the bus. If I read them correctly, he has well established neural pathways around being miserable (and broadcasting negativity to those around him) and it shows on his face. She has well established pathways of kindness and love and she not only radiated that but her facial expression reflected it.

So it appers to me that choosing happiness not only is good for your brain chemistry, it seems it could also save money on plastic surgery.

State of Grace

For years I have been helping people with stress management. A lot of the tools that I use have been ways that I have helped myself through life’s challenges. I began my career as a science teacher in the inner city of Detroit and the first tool I added to my stress management toolbox was a sketch of a tornado that I kept in my desk drawer. It symbolized to me that if I stayed in the center, I had sanctuary in the midst of the turbulence around me and from that place I could center the chaos.

About four months ago, I began to develop thoughts around “Fear Management” as I feel fear management is at the root of stress management. Giving thought to this I began to see that a significant antidote to fear is what I would call a “state of grace”. Einstein was once asked what he thought the most important question was that you could ask another person and his response was, “Do we live in a friendly universe?” In other words is the universe or Life conspiring to support you.

I just spent a month in Jerusalem along with my sister supporting our 85 year old mother as she was combating a dreadful, rare auto immune disease. My sister had a month in the hospital with our mother before I arrived and when the doctor described the treatment which was massive doses of steroids, she asked if our mother could survive the cure. As it turns out she was unable to and recently passed away. I flew back to Jerusalem for the traditional week long period of mourning called “Shiva” in the Jewish religion and just got back home.

Throughout this whole ordeal (as it was very challenging on every level) I was able to see the “state of grace” playing out against the backdrop of the medical challenges. I would define the “state of grace” as a synchronous event or circumstance that is very comforting and can support you in a breakthrough.

Sometimes you have to dig below the surface to see it. As an example, on the way home from the airport, my wife was driving through a construction zone and, in the dark of night, did not notice the reduced speed signs. This resulted in a speeding ticket and a 15 minute delay. This certainly did not look like the state of grace. Our next stop however was the grocery store. The parking spot was congested and the spot she found was right next to very kind friends of ours who were just about to pull out. If we had not been delayed we would have missed them and their compassion was very useful for me to transition back to my life here at home.

Perhaps as you face your current challenges, looking for the state of grace may be helpful to you. I am finding that it can help me be empowered instead of victimized and can help me replace resentment with gratitude. All the best, David

Copyright © David Pasikov 2009