Recovering from Emotional Devastation 101

B'SD

26 Cheshvan 5777

Emotions are roiling across the world due to gut-wrenching, heart breaking incidents. Too many to list, and some are intensely private. They might never be recognized by the wider public.

What all of us need to know in the depths of our despair is that a future awaits. We can help to mold it in our favor somehow, even if that means to simply avoid becoming bitter. 

That takes a sense of increasing calm, patience and curiosity. It also means focusing on insight - analyzing what's going wrong and what should be happening instead.

Care to think that through?

Perhaps the thoughts I shared during a public appearance last year can  help you:

Viktor Frankl said "When we are no longer able to change a situation we are challenged to change ourselves." I'd like to add, "When you’re going through hell, don’t stop. Find the exit. Or create it."

All of us are here to heal. It might be from physical, emotional, mental or spiritual issues. As you move through the throngs of people and exhibits, you feel an energy coursing through and around you. Use it. Memorize it. Cradle it. That energy can motivate you when you're feeling drained, clueless, and hopeless.

As we move through our healing experiences, we grow in insights, compassion for ourselves and others. We learn not to assume, but to observe, to wonder, to be in awe. Respect, on many different levels, becomes one with our identities. The universe is filled with answers, and it beckons us to grow, even as we hardly realize that we are growing despite our agony. 

Accept the invitation. Fulfill your destiny as a spiritual creature. Let the wonder fill your soul. Let the wonder heal you. The adventure is a gift from GOD, though it sometimes feels like a punishment. It is not. It is a path. Humanity tends to berate itself. But HaShem's nature, so to speak, is to forgive. Take Her/His lead. Go, find yourself in the universe, with every bit of your pain, doubt and fear. Access its healing powers. GOD put them there. The goal is to grow your soul. Open your eyes, mind, your gut and your heart to healing possibilities. Find the love that awaits you. GOD put it there.

Read a book that medical and mental health professionals recommend. It helps readers past many problems.

Buy the E-book or print edition of EMPOWER Yourself to Cope with a Medical Challenge. 





Face Your Medical Problems with Dignity. Face Your Future with Optimism.

Fill your sense of sadness with self compassion.

Gaining Perspective with an Illness

B'SD

I explain the title of It’s MY Crisis and I’ll Cry if I Need to: EMPOWER Yourself to Cope with a Medical Challenge in the preface: 

"One of the worst reactions people had to my news was saying with a sense of fatalism and religious superiority over me, "You shouldn't cry. GOD only gives people the challenges they can face."  I disagree. Many a good person has experienced a psychological or medical problem, and suffered terribly or not survived it. Some medical and emotional challenges destroy no matter how valiantly we fight to survive them. Other crises can be survived. It isn't fair to lump them all in one "You can do it!" category. It blames the patient, who is suffering already. No one on this planet is authorized to pass judgment on another person's trials and tribulations. That's GOD's job."

Other selections in the book deal with the senses of trauma, of powerlessness. of emasculation, and more, which hit many normal people who are ill.

When I coach people facing their illnesses, struggling to construct a plan for coping with the package, I long to find other models of how to gain healthy perspective about difficult situations.

This paragraph from an online essay captures what I want perfectly: 

"I can’t believe I get to do this work. It keeps me focused not on how low and lonely a person can be when things seem dark and stormy, but how high you can soar if you let God lift you up. I have no shame that I doubted God’s plan, and I no longer wonder if feeling angry and questioning God meant I didn’t really trust Him. I know now that in reality, my personal dialogue with God removed the distance and the interruptions I experienced in our relationship. Dislodging those thoughts brought me closer to Him."


Read the whole story at

God, Stay Where I Can See You

Shattered and made whole. Learning to trust God with everything.

Buy the E-book or print edition of EMPOWER Yourself to Cope with a Medical Challenge. Learn of coping strategies to help you past rude people (including relatives!), financial problems, travel issues and much more.





Face Your Medical Problems with Dignity. Face Your Future with Optimism.

Fill your thoughts with focus and constructive perspective.

Catching Up Before the Gift-Giving Season Holiday Season Gets You Down!

B'SD

25 Tishrei, 5773

Sorry I haven't blogged much, lately. I'm preparing to relaunch the Refua Radio Show (Refua means "healing" in Hebrew), and it is one detail-oriented project!

I spent today having fun, meeting with fans of

and learned how the book helps readers with cancer, diabetes, fibromyalgia, brain tumors - and much more - in unexpected ways, as they dined on delicious food and spoke of the emotional and health challenges of holidays plus life in general.

Here's a partial photo of some of who attended the event (see my other Facebook page for details!):

I'm in the orange sundress, holding one of the prayer booklets (tehilim mekhulak) the group used to ask The One Above for the healing and improved coping skills of ill people worldwide.

My trip home left me thinking "What's yummier than pumpkin pie at this time of year? A book that makes you feel better! 

Buy your copy of It’s MY Crisis! And I’ll Cry If I Need To: EMPOWERYourself to Cope with a Medical Challenge  before Hallowe'en, which launches the Thanksgiving and gift-giving holiday seasons. 

Buy the E-book or print edition today for a brighter holiday season: Click on the words EMPOWER Yourself to Cope with a Medical Challenge.

Face Your Medical Problems with Dignity.  
Face Your Future with Optimism.

Sick? Sad? Disabled? Save Your Sanity, Time and MONEY with...

B'SD

26 Elul, 5772

Save your sanity, time and money

with a book medical and 
mental health professionals 

recommend!

The E-book and print edition hold soothing content, exercises and tips for organizing your hectic medical or disability life.

Read the Global Resources section

to learn of conventional medical innovations 
and 

alternative/complementary 
healing modalities worldwide

PLUS

charitable organizations 
willing to pay 

part or all of your specific medical bills.

Medical ethicist Dr. Daniel Eisenberg and Dr. Al Musella (Musella Foundation for Brain Tumor Research and Information) plus other public figures endorse it on and off the cover.

EMPOWER Yourself (or someone you love) to Cope with a Medical Challenge at Booklocker. 

"A wonderful book!  Golani challenges  and energizes us all to seek and savor life to the fullest for our mental and physical health.  EMPOWER Yourself is lifesaving, emotionally rewarding, spiritual, funny and helpful."  -  Dr. Judith Guedalia, PhD. Director Neuropsychology Unit, Chief Medical Psychologist ER Trauma  Shaare Zedek Medical Center

My Facebook pages note how many times EMPOWER Yourself has scooped mainstream media with health-protecting and cost-cutting information. Buy the E-book or print edition today! Click on the words EMPOWER Yourself to Cope with a Medical Challenge. 

Face Your Medical Problems with Dignity.
Face Your Future with Optimism.

Celebrate the Anniversary of Coping with Medical Crises and Challenges!

B'SD

13 Elul 5772

America's Labor Day Weekend is 
the anniversary of the

first edition for

It used to have a coverful of colorful arms 
reaching for each other in a symbol

of hope, help and increased happiness:

Readers around the world have benefited from the information inside (updated in the newer editions). They're saving money, time and their sanity with the helpful content.

The E-book and print edition of EMPOWER Yourself are filled with soothing content, can-do exercises and tips for organizing a hectic medical or disability life. 

There's even an entire Global Resources section to clue you in to charitable organizations willing to pay part or all of your specific medical bills or your loved one's.

Look who's liked the book all this time when you click on Sneak Peek!

Make your long weekend a healthier one, inside and out. Buy the E-book or print edition today for a brighter, more functional look at your medical or disability future: Click on the words EMPOWER Yourself to Cope with a Medical Challenge. 

Buy it today and enjoy your reading time!

Face Your Medical Problems with Dignity.
Face Your Future with Optimism.

How to Start Your Weekend Smiling Despite Your Illness and/or Disability

B'SD

6 Elul, 5772

Of the hardest challenges of illness and/or disabilities is to deal with a sense of disappointment. It feels like a growing pit in your stomach or high blood pressure and sadness. There are ways to override your sense of negativity.

One of the BIG, effective "Developing coping skills" suggestions in EMPOWER Yourself to Cope with a Medical Challenge  is to develop a sense of gratitude for what IS going comfortably, "right" and easily in your medical or disability life.

My visual acuity literally changes each time I blink. Yes, I see differently with every wave of my eyelashes. That complicates things a bit. So I'm going to (alphabetically) model to you how I focus on what's going "right" in my life. I'm grateful for:

• Books
• Fresh air
• Friends
• Good food filled with nutrition and flavors I enjoy
• Knowing that my vision is improving over time (the evidence is in the "Blink of my eyes" phenom)
• Music
• My garden of flowers and veggies
• PAID bills (in today's wobbling global economy that's a BIG blessing)
• Social time with people I value
• Spiritual insights
• That I can communicate in writing (that takes me a while but thank GOD I can persevere)
• That I can do favors for other people
• That people appreciate my input in their healing efforts
• The ability to laugh

I'm grateful for far more 
but you don't have all day 
to read about it ;^ D

Start listing the stuff that makes you smile. Consider what else goes well in your life and helps you along. Sometimes we mortals overlook those realities. LIST THEM in some sort of journal each day. When you're feeling down and defeated, those reminders can make a mighty big difference in your life.

Don't believe me? Listen to this shrink explain The Secret to Better (and BEYOND Average)...

Change the lens through which you view your realities. Start your weekend getting your grin back.



Click on the title to buy the E-book or print edition to EMPOWER Yourself to Cope with a Medical Challenge today. And let me know how the book helps you.

Face Your Medical Problems with Dignity.
Face Your Future with Optimism.

If You Want to Tell People the Truth, Make Them Laugh...

B'SD

2 Elul, 5772

One of those most difficult things about facing a medical or disability challenge is the utter humorlessness of the situation: anger, fear, frustration, embarrassment, hard work, PAIN, just name the complication!

But there are ways to deal with all that 

so that you do not fall apart. 

Sounds preachy and goody-goody silly, right?

Oscar Wilde taught an important lesson: "If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh. Otherwise, they'll kill you."

Suppose a former English major who actually studied Oscar Wilde had considered his advice when writing

Yes, I'm that writer. Here's an outtake of some of the humor in the book, about how to change the way you did things before your diagnosis and after learning it:

Organization
Doctors appointments, insurance papers, calls to make, child care issues, nosy neighbors, relatives who just don’t "Get it," have you seen the baby, meals to prepare, pills and potions to swallow or shots to inject, omigawd we need a really BIG bank account, where are my keys, did anyone see the remote and why is the dog making noise like that?

Ever feel as if your inner PC and its memory banks just went and shut down on you? Read on and find some solutions to the problem.

Many people facing medical crises have so much to remember that their inner filing cabinets overflow. They reach a point where they wonder if they’re losing their minds! Know the feeling? You forget almost everything? Even how old you are?

As you read earlier, I experienced no less than five benign brain tumors and their surgical removal. A human head does not have much space for tolerating all that intrusion and banging around upon soft brains. People who’ve experienced brain injury often suffer memory problems. So can anyone facing any type medical crisis. Stress hurts. And medical intervention messes up the insides of your body even more! I lost some memorization ability after my treatments. I benefited from a rehabilitation program for the brain injured. Students of every age in my program learned many tips for vastly improving our memory power. Here are a few tips I'll share with you:

Keep a reasonably sized notebook or day-planner with you all the time. Record upcoming: appointments, social events, PTA meetings and other important scheduled stuff as soon as you commit to it or even hear of it.

Keep repeating a person's name in the conversation as normally as possible when you first meet.

Collect business cards when offered to you. On the back, make notes of where you met and what they look like, your 1st impressions of the person, anything remarkable they said, e.g., Redhead, skinny, laughs a lot. Met at Joe's celebration dinner

Put your stuff away in the same place all the time. NO LAZY SHORTCUTS! Shoes and clothes go in closets, not in chairs, the wrong room or atop doors.

Kitchenware gets washed, dried and immediately put away. When you're cooking, ALWAYS use a timer to alert you to shut off the heat.

Me, I keep my keys in the front door once I lock it from inside. I wear them on a cloth strap, a key strip around my neck, when I leave home. I never lose keys anymore.

Ever seen the funky new chains for holding your glasses around your neck? Use the one of your affordable choice. No need to feel like a moth-eaten relic. The new styles are super-trendy. And you won't lose your glasses.

Using the above techniques jogs the memory cells. Watch. You'll end up teaching folks who never had tumors, brain injuries or any sort of medical stress how improve THEIR memories!

The human body is full of quirky surprises. Some of them are quite interesting and not life-threatening. Follow the suggestions above and good advice from your therapists and medical team. Not every forgotten thought is a danger sign. Now, on to some techniques for straightening out that mother lode of medical and insurance paperwork…

As you make your way through your medical crisis or that of your loved one, the pile of papers with important phone numbers, addresses and other information will grow. If you fail to organize it, the mess can make a wreck of your get-well efforts.

If you're the sort of person who hasn't yet succeeded at organizing your life, I offer sweet solace with simple advice:

“Habit is habit, and not to be flung out the window but coaxed downstairs one step at a time.” – Mark Twain...

So much for that (I hope you giggled or at least smiled a bit as you read the above) ;^ D 




Buy the E-book or print edition today for a brighter future. Click on the words EMPOWER Yourself to Cope with a Medical Challenge. 

Face Your Medical Problems with Dignity.
Face Your Future with Optimism.

Stick this on Your Mirror and Feel Better for It!

B'SD


29 Tamuz, 5772


I am under time and emotional pressure today with little opportunity to prepare a longer blogpost. My fellow Israelis and I are in agony over the terrorist attack that ended the defenseless lives of people who had never harmed others.


In unrelated matters, my phone is ringing off the hook, my E-mail and Facebook accounts are filled with questions about how to cope with various life-threatening problems. I'm tending to the people with those questions one at a time.


The message I want to share with you today is this:

Read EMPOWER Yourself to learn how. Click on the cover

to buy it.

Buy the E-book or print edition today for a brighter summer holiday season: Click on the words EMPOWER Yourself to Cope with a Medical Challenge.

Face Your Medical Problems with Dignity.
Face Your Future with Optimism.

A Comforting Thought

B'SD


28 Adar 5772


One of the suggestions in EMPOWER Yourself to Cope with a Medical Challenge is to soothe yourself with music and videos that make your soul soar with happiness and a  sense of hope.


Creation Calls is one such outlet. I hope it helps you past an unhappy moment or two.


I sympathize with your tears and heavy hearts over medical problems. And I know what you can tell to critics who insult your honest emotions: "A medical crisis - you'd cry too, if it happened to you."


Use your tissues and handkerchiefs with my blessings borne of experience. GOD gives you Permission to Weep. You can say that to any critics after explaining, "It's MY Crisis! And I'll Cry if I Need To. GOD said I could. Read page 5 of the book. See?"




Buy the E-book or print edition today! Click on the words EMPOWER Yourself to Cope with a Medical Challenge. 


Face Your Medical Problems with Dignity.
Face Your Future with Optimism.

What Would You Do if YOU Were Brave?

B'SD


7 Adar 5772


Today's the anniversary of Moses' birthday and death. You just know I had something special coming up for the occasion ;^ D


Consider what a captive Jewish child - taken from mommy, raised in the palace of an oligarch dedicated to enslaving, then wiping out the nascent Jewish people, and a stutterer - could accomplish against BIG odds.


Watch this and take on your world!







Go ahead, think of the possibilities and see what it does for you. BE the Possible YOU!




Need ideas to accomplish that despite your illness or disability? Find some in EMPOWER Yourself to Cope with a Medical Challenge. Buy it at Booklocker. 


Face Your Medical Problems with Dignity.
Face Your Future with Optimism.

Want to Know What to Say to Someone Ill, Sad, Home-bound or Bereaved?

B'SD


27 Shvat 5772

Want to know what to say to someone ill, sad, home-bound or bereaved? It's quite a challenge to say anything that won't increase the person's pain. But it is possible.

Ponder the "Don't TELL Me" poem on page 6 of EMPOWER Yourself to Cope with a Medical Challenge. Look into a mirror as you say the words and consider the times you'd have have appreciated such thoughtfulness from someone remarking on the suffering in your life.

Pages 27-31 of EMPOWER Yourself  hold tips for making - and listening to - tactful, compassion-filled comments for people going through emotional turmoil.

Nothing can guarantee the response that distraught people will make to anyone's caring words and efforts. This is a volatile time of strength, shock, comfort, despair, insight and cluelessness. But at some level, everyone will know that compassion is being provided.

Delayed reactions can be very different from immediate replies. Bear with the ill, disabled or bereaved person’s inner pain. Resolve to let them have time to consider the tumultuous thoughts churning in their hearts and minds, and how to cope with all that. Considerate behavior from you can become a turning point for much good.

Pages 42-47 can enlighten you to other unpredictable pieces of life for someone ill and/or heartbroken. Those pages hold sound advice for making the best of a given situation and for preventing it from becoming worse.

There are other passages about sharing a sense of hope, comfort and optimism that can build inner strengths, including courage, in the person who needs that assistance. None of the suggestions are about giving orders such as "Snap out of it!" or "Grow up!" Emotions do not respond favorably to commands.

Let life unfold at the pace most beneficial to the who needs the boost: Gradually. 

There's a very good reason that the book's full title is "It's MY Crisis! And I'll Cry if I Need To: EMPOWER Yourself to Cope with a Medical Challenge." Mental health professionals recommend that you read it.




Buy the E-book or print edition today for more insight into handling delicate situations: Click on the words EMPOWER Yourself to Cope with a Medical Challenge.

Face Your Medical Problems with Dignity.
Face Your Future with Optimism.

How to Face Illness with Courage, Humor and Dignity

B'SD


23 Tevet 5772


I have much to share with you, today. First is this lovely message from the administrator for the Association of Americans and Canadians in Israel (AACI) Netanya location where I interacted with audience members this past Sunday. She responds to my thank you remarks for letting me appear on her stage with the words:


On Wed, Jan 18, 2012 at 10:25 AM, Rachel Rubin Hirsch of Netanyaaaci.org.il wrote:

Thank you- it us who should be giving  you the thanks.

We really appreciate you making the effort to come through and talk to us.

I will pass your details on to our Jerusalem and Tel Aviv offices – your talk is excellent and I hope they will get back to you and arrange a program with you.

Wishing you all the very best. Regards,

Rachel

Secondly, I want to share a though-provoking link to a website about a husband and wife struggling to overcome her illness: http://embraceisrael.com/crossing-the-yarden-i-have-sat-through-many-a-college-and-graduate-course-in-religion-and-philosophy-and-have-never-really-understood-what-religion-is-all-about-until-i-saw-you-and-your-deeds/

Not all of us are this humorous, dignified or courageous about illness. Some of us simply weep. That's normal, at times. As EMPOWER Yourself to Cope with a Medical Challenge and I teach our readers, "A medical crisis - you'd cry too, if it happened to you. Use your tissues and handkerchiefs with my blessings borne of experience. GOD gives you Permission to Weep. And you can say that to any critics after explaining that "It's MY Crisis! And I'll Cry if I Need To."




Build YOUR inner strengths with the E-book or print edition today: Click on the words EMPOWER Yourself to Cope with a Medical Challenge. 


Face Your Medical Problems with Dignity.
Face Your Future with Optimism.

Happy, Hectic and How I Do It!

B'SD


11 Kislev 5772

Whew! I'm having a busy week, let alone a busy month. Tonight I'll be moderating a "Meet the Authors" evening. It's designed to give that much-needed break to new writers.


Tomorrow night I head up not one but TWO community-oriented discussions about cultural needs in my town. I'll be part of a round-robin of conversations dedicated to raising the quality of life in my local and greater neighborhood.

I'm booking ever-more engagements to speak about

on the radio, in libraries and elsewhere.

My daily activities continue as I write feature stories, prepare book reviews and tend the garden (peas are growing fast, as are my flowering vines, turmeric, marigolds (in three different colors!), beets, garlic, parsley, ivies (two kinds), aloe vera and more. The dog already took me for our morning walk ;^ D


Though I remain certifiably disabled, I do what I can to enjoy life. It's all about pacing and choosing to be cheerful. Let me know how you manage with your disability or medical challenge.




Buy the E-book or print edition today for a brighter holiday season: Click on the words EMPOWER Yourself to Cope with a Medical Challenge.

Face Your Medical Problems with Dignity.
Face Your Future with Optimism.