Tag: life

Great Teachers

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What makes a teacher great?

For my purpose in this post I am describing a teacher as anyone imparting learning to others as well as formally trained teacher. Teaching is a skill we can all use. It is about imparting knowledge we hold to another person. We all know things that others can learn but what is the difference between someone who does this well compared to someone who just tells you the information.

  • Show passion or the topic
  • Listening skills
  • More detail
  • Give reasons
  • Approachable
  • Individualize the information
  • Explain in simple language—even technical detail.
  • Smile
  • Make people feel like they want to be teaching them the information
  • Set boundaries on unacceptable behaviours
  • Repeat the information 3 times
  • Check understanding of the student before moving on to new information
  • Have fun while learning
  • Teach why the learning is necessary and how it will benefit the student
  • Be transparent to all students
  • Be consistent
  • Be equal
  • Believe the student can learn
  • Be creative
  • Be honest
  • Patience
  • Use different learning styles to keep it interesting and to suit the individual needs of the student

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/we-can-be-taught-2/

Share Your World – 2015 Week 9

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How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you are?

I think I would be a similar age to the one I am now. I am happy to be 52 and starting to count down the years to retirement or working part-time or casual instead of full-time. My life is more stable the older I get—I only need to plan what I want to do with my husband and not around the many children’s activities I had to arrange in my forties.

Are you left or right-handed? 

I am right-handed. I have never really had the need to teach myself to do anything with my left hand although I do admire people who can use both.

If you HAD to change your name, what would you change it to?

I think the name I would choose would depend on what was going on in my life when I had to make the decision. Names are so important and they have to fit the person. My favourite names vary greatly. I don’t write my blog under my real name and choosing a name for it took me about a week—I am happy with it as it works for me.

Where do you hide junk when people come over?

Most of the time people come to our house we know they are coming so we tidy up. I use this as a great opportunity to sort out the papers I was always meaning to get to. If anyone drops by unannounced I am comfortable tidying up around them. My theory is that they have come to visit me—warts and all—not judge the state of my house. I use the closest closed-door to hide the junk and with a new kitten there is plenty of choice as most doors are closed.

Bonus question:  What are you grateful for from last week, and what are you looking forward to in the week coming up?

Last week I was grateful that it was the cleaners week to come as I love coming home from work after they has been as the house smells and looks beautiful. To me as I rarely see the cleaners it is like the fairies come in and fix it up.

During the coming week I am looking forward to starting to work with my new exercise physiologists. I have never had a formal exercise program before and am looking forward to the challenge. I am using the move your body to move your mind premise. It should be fun.

http://ceenphotography.com/2015/03/02/share-your-world-2015-week-9/

Circle of Five

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A writer once said, “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” If this is true, which five people would you like to spend your time with?

I think motivational speaker Jim Rohn is correct with this quote. Actually, I believe it so much that I have used it in my book on eating disorder recover. For this reason I maintain my distance from people, places and things that are destructive or will sabotage my goals and plans.

This year my focus is mostly on finishing my book and handing it over to Balboa Press to complete the self-publishing process. It has been a long journey for me about believing in and backing myself. Starting this blog was part of this plan, as my voice had never been heard online before. Each day I become more comfortable with marketing my brand.

To support this part of my life, the five people I will spend time with are:

  1. Louise Hay – founder of Hay House and author of “You Can Heal Your Life”
  2. Jack Canfield  – author of “The Success Principles and Chicken Soup for the Soul series”
  3. Janet Evanowich – my favourite fiction novelist
  4. Dale Carnegie – author of “How To Win Friends and Influence People”
  5. My husband – my supporter, friend and first editor

Who do you need to spend your time with to meet your goals. Although I may never be able to meet these people in real life and I can always reacquaint myself with them by reading their books and stories again—taking note of the points that are speaking to me.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/circle-of-five/

Boundaries

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What question do you hate to be asked? Why?

I don’t mind what questions people ask me. I have strong boundaries so if I don’t think the person has a right or reason to know the answer I will tell them I am not answering. If I think it is appropriate I will give them a reason but most of the time I don’t. My boundaries—my decisions. No correspondence will be entered into.

Our boundaries are imaginary lines that tell others what behaviours, attitudes and values are acceptable and not acceptable to us. They tell others how close they can come. Think of your boundaries as the fences to your life. Fences have gates that allow certain people to pass and stop others.They ensure your safety because you choose who gets close and whom you keep at a distance.

You get to choose your own boundaries—for your behaviour as well as others. If you don’t like someone’s behaviours—you get to choose your response to their behaviours. Your response can be very effective in changing or stopping the other person’s behaviours.

Healthy boundaries are important for healthy relationships. People not taught effective boundaries—live their lives in chaos—with regular unwanted invasions from others. Learn to work with your personal boundaries as they can help you mange uncomfortable situations and tricky questions.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/plead-the-fifth/

Transition Recovery House

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You’re given a plot of land and have the financial resources to do what you please. What’s the plan?

If I had the resources I would open a transition recovery house for people in the later stages of recovery from their eating disorder. It would be a small facility with 6-8 beds. Its purpose would be to support during the first 90 days after discharge from hospital anyone who was transitioning from their family home to independent living and met the entry criteria. This post discharge is critical for relapse as the stress triggers reverting to old coping skills. By living in a purpose-built facility and continuing to work on recovery—new practical coping skills can be taught in the here and now.

Moving out of home is a right of passage for most young people. For anyone it is a stressful time with a rewarding goal—independence. For people living with an eating disorder without extra support this is even more difficult. Pre-requisites of my transition recovery house would include:

  • a stabilised healthy weight for the individual—based on their bodies natural set point not BMI
  • study and /or working
  • individual and group cooking
  • group food shopping
  • daily recovery work time
  • weekly group work
  • mindfulness
  • body image work including shopping for clothes
  • compulsory participation in the structured house program
  • no alcohol or drugs
  • shared chore roster
  • personal clothes washing
  • keeping psychiatrist, dietitian and  psychology appointments
  • continued control of eating disorder behaviours
  • nightly accountability groups
  • budgeting
  • meal planning
  • volunteer work

I hope that over time my recovery transition house would develop to fill any other individual needs of its housemates and teach them how to do the same.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/a-plot-of-earth/

Life Changing

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Write about anything you’d like, but make sure the post includes this sentence:

“I thought we’d never come back from that one.”

It was 10.27 am on 28th December, 1989. Suddenly I was woken from my night duty slumber by my house shaking violently. I didn’t know what was happening, although the realisation quickly hit—Newcastle had been hit by an 5.6 magnitude earthquake—I thought we’d never come back from that one.

But Newcastle and I both have. See more detail in my earlier post here.

The following week changed my life forever. Not only did my beloved city look like a war zone but, I got engaged—it definitely was a new decade and new life for me. On one hand there was the destruction including my house and on the other hand their was the excitement of what a new life had to offer.

The lessons I learnt working in mental health in Newcastle during this tragic time have never left me—13 people died and most of the city was effected. I learnt anything can happen to anyone at anytime. It’s how you handle it that makes the long-term difference. I know with support I can and will get through anything and when I need to I follow St Francis of Assis’s advice.

St Francis of Assisi quote

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/use-it-or-lose-it/

Clone Myself – Never

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If you could clone yourself, how would you split up your responsibilities?

My life is fairly balanced now—I don’t want a clone. I have spent fifty years trusting my own decisions. I am not about to give over any of my responsibility to a duplicated version of myself. Yes, there are parts of my life I do not like—commuting to work—however, changing this, changes my whole life. I wouldn’t even give this job to my clone as what I do on the train makes up who I am—writing, reading and sleeping.

If I am running short of time to do the things I want—I realise it is time to reassess and prioritse what is important to me. I believe you can have time to do anything if it is important enough to you. I wrote a third of my book on my daily commute. Although now, editing doesn’t work as well on the train.

Now I am looking at ways to make sure I get enough exercise in each week. I haven’t come up with a definitive plan yet but handing this responsibility over to a clone is not going to get it done the best way for me.

The other problem, of course is cloning is an identical copy of my DNA—not of everything I do. My clone would be the age of my daughter unless I was cloned at birth, but would live its own life—like Dolly the sheep—cloned in 1997. For now I will focus on rearranging my time to get what I need done and leave the scientists to worry about the cloning.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/clone-wars/

Our Home

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What do you display on the walls of your home — photos, posters, artwork, nothing? How do you choose what to display? What mood are you trying to create?

Over the years we have gradually decorated our home with a mixture of things that have meaning to us—either as individuals or as a family. There is no theme. When we were married my husband had a collection of Australian paintings that he loved and I had a miniature alcohol bottle collection. These two items have formed the basis of our lounge and dining area decoration in the 8 homes we have lived in.

A small selection

A small selection

Special photos  have a pride of place in our home. We have photos of people, places and activities that have were special to us. I enjoy occasionally studying them closely and letting them take me back in time—bringing a smile to my face as I remember the details surrounding the photo. This is more important when our loved one is no longer with us.

I love collections. For me there is something about having a group of similar things. It allows you to continue to make an area unique without spending a lot of money. My belief is that if you gave ten people the same 4 items to start their collection and told them to grow it to 20 items within a six months period—each collection would be different.

We currently have four collections are working on.

  • My little bottle collection that started with 4 bottles about 30 years ago.
  • My Mickey Mouse collection that I have collected for years, however, was only put together in one place earlier this year. It now sits pride of place above my desk and helps me write while at the same time bringing joy to the room.
  • Our cat collection
  • Our travel collection—this collection includes something special from each country we have visited. It is still only a small collection however, I plan on expanding it over the next few years.

For us decorating each of our homes was never a planned thing. It was always a work in progress that took on its own life. I like it this way and it seems to work for us. However you decorate your home, I think they reflect strongly who you are. This is true for us—a fun, happy eclectic mix ready for anything.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/wall-to-wall/

Share Your World – 2015 Week 6

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What was the last time you went to a new place?

At the end of last year, my husband and I left sunny Sydney Australia to spent 6 weeks exploring Eastern Canada. We were hoping for our first white Christmas. But no,  unseasonably high temperatures meant we are still waiting. Many people in Quebec City—where we spent Christmas—because it was one of the top places in the world to have snow falling from the sky as well as snow on the ground— said it was the first green Christmas they had had. They had lived in the city for over twenty years. However, to my excitement, we did receive a very light snowfall walking home from Christmas dinner—so I made my husband turn around and walk in the snow until it stopped.

View over Montreal from Mont Royal

If you were or are a writer do you prefer writing short stories, poems or novels, other?  And what type of genre would you prefer?

I am a writer. I am in the final stages of editing my non-fiction self-help book—Inspiring Hope: How Eating Disorder Recovery Is Possible. It has been along journey and I have enjoyed learning about every step. At some time in the future, however I would love to use my creative ability and write fiction—although I don’t know what genre I would write in although I would like it to appeal to both sexes like Janet Evanovich.

Out of your five senses (touch, taste, sight, smell, hearing) which is your favorite?

I am a visual person. I must see something to understand and remember it. I am attracted to the beauty of things, even the beauty of the less attractive things of this world.

If 100 people your age were chosen at random, how many do you think you’d find leading a more satisfying life than yours?

Despite my daily commute to work, I find my life and job very satisfying. I work with a great team helping people with recovery from an eating disorder, which is rewarding work. I spent my weekend with family or if I am really lucky alone doing the things I love to do—writing and blogging. Every holidays I get to travel and explore the world. For these reasons I think probably only about 10% would lead a more satisfying life than I. When my life doesn’t satisfy me for a period of time, I get to the bottom of it and fix the problem.

Bonus question:  What are you grateful for from last week, and what are you looking forward to in the week coming up?

Last week we had two separate visits from extended family. It was great seeing them and catching up on the latest gossip.

Yesterday my daughter brought home a new member of the family—a kitten she calls Toast. I look forward to getting to know him and possibly coming up with my own name to match his personality.

http://ceenphotography.com/2015/02/09/share-your-world-2015-week-6/

Mental Lists

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Remember when you wrote down the first thought you had this morning? Great. Now write a post about it.

Every morning as I rush to turn the annoying noise of my alarm off—my brain turns on its autopilot. It instantly begins reviewing what happened yesterday and deciding on what needs to be done differently next time. Changes noted, my brain begins to make a mental list of today’s tasks. It is usually about this time my focused brain kicks in—broadening out the detail based on the overall days plan. Questions I ask myself:

  • What time do I need to leave the house by? I have a 1 1/2 hour commute  each way to work, so if I have a deadline I have to make sure I leave on time.
  • Am I going anywhere after work that requires me to pack an extra bag in the car as I won’t be coming home.
  • Have I got time to write, post and visit on my blog before leaving for work? Most days I make it happen.

Practical plans met, I go on to make my mental list for the day. What are my top to goals for today that if I do nothing else must get done? At least one usually pops straight to mind. I then consider the remaining things I am hoping to complete today and decide their order of priority. I am looking for my top 5 things to do each day. These will be my focus.

  • Two must be done—bigger or more important tasks first
  • Three hope to be done—simpler tasks

By limiting my tasks I focus on each day and not attempting to everything, I find I get more done. Sometimes I will  write down my mental list to give it more clarity and focus. My earlier post Hand Brain Connection will give you more information on this. Today I am off to a good start as I have completed one of my three simpler tasks—writing this blog post and visiting several sites in my blogging community—all before leaving for work.

Yes. Thanks to my mental lists it will be a great day. Hope you enjoy yours.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/first-light/