How not to be a Bitch June 11, 2009
Posted by tkneller in Health Related.Tags: bitchy, hag, hormones, hypoglycemia, loved ones, mood, mood swings, PMS
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Ok, I admit… I’ve been a bit of a hag lately. A bitch even, at times. Just for a few minutes, usually. Maybe longer. (Don’t ask Darren.) And I feel so bad when I am bitchy, I try to stop as quickly as I can, and then later, I wonder why it is I acted so hag-ishly, so that I can prevent it. I mean, my sweetheart doesn’t deserve bad treatment (no one does), so I’ve got to get a handle on why it happens and stop it!
So… what makes a woman into a hag? Is it purely chemical, from hormones? No, I don’t think so, although they can be a factor. I get pretty snippy when I’m hungry, so I usually try not to let myself get past “peckish.” But what about other times, when I’m not hungry? I’m sure there are some attitudes or thoughts that contribute to it. I’ve been thinking about this for a while, and have some observations to share, not just about myself, but about others too (who shall all remain nameless)!
It sometimes begins when a woman starts to think and feel that she has to be the “responsible one” in the relationship. This could be because the man’s boyish qualities are well-developed — he likes his toys, wants to play with them, shirks any chores, avoids responsibility, doesn’t work around the house or whatever. A woman with this sort of partner subconsciously sees him as a child and then thinks she has to be the adult, enough for both of them. This makes her angry, because she feels she is pulling the load and may even start to “discipline” the man because of the child-view she has of him (and that he may have even worked hard to create).
In addition to this, a woman may just suddenly start to (or perhaps all along) see herself as better than her mate. If this happens, look out! Put-downs (subtle and not-so-subtle) abound… bad-talking her man in front of others… very nasty behaviour!
If the relationship is lop-sided in the guilty department, hagishness evolves almost automatically. What I mean is — some people naturally blame themselves for things that go wrong, and some people are inclined to blame others. If the man is the first and the woman the second… it’s a bad scene. She’ll blame him and he’ll readily accept it, even when the fault is at least half hers. The opposite is also true, and can be a precursor to domestic abuse. If only everyone would take responsibility for their part, and stop fretting over what everyone else is doing or not doing!?!
Another thing that happens a lot is a woman punishing a man for something a different man did. Or if something bad happened in her past and she hasn’t dealt with it, she is likely to have pent-up anger that gets unleashed on the nearest and dearest one to her… or at least the nearest. There’s a lot of domestic violence of women towards men, but the men have a harder time coming forward, or they simply put up with it. Not good. But it doesn’t have to be this way!
So, what can we do to prevent ourselves from becoming this way? Remember that we’re all adults, and spouses are supposed to be partners, or team players, working together. Don’t take responsibility or blame for the other person’s problems, and equally, don’t put yours on him/her. Deal with your own stuff — be selfish about this — and focus on what you are doing and thinking about what is happening. Deal with crap from your past, and live in the present — don’t drag shtuff from the past into the now.
I have found it helpful to remember that my sweetheart’s boyish traits, while sometimes annoying, are also what I love about him… and I wouldn’t want him to be without any boyishness, because then he’d be a grumpy old man. So I try to appreciate him and love him just as he is, quirks and all, because God knows, I’ve got quirks, and maybe some of them annoy him too (but he’s quite nice about not mentioning them, usually). 
And even if he did bug me about them, that’s his doing and I don’t have to do it back to him. Resisting revenge… not easy, but great if you can do it. And I basically try to have compassion, and see things from his point of view a little. And then I remember that if he died, how much I would miss him! Who cares care about his quirks!!
Also, it occurred to me after one “bitchy moment,” that I hadn’t been taking my Evening Primrose Oil (EPO). I’ve been taking two a day for a while now, to reduce PMS, and WHOA, I think it’s working! Let’s just say when I didn‘t take it, I noticed a difference (or Darren did). So, I can no longer blame a bad mood on hormones*, when I have (what is for me) the cure and just need to remember to take it! And I’m pretty sure I have a little hypoglycemia, which causes mood swings in almost everyone in the western world! So I take care of myself accordingly. I also think much clearer and handle stress much better when I have enough vitamin B (the whole complex of B’s actually). So I need to take that, too, or eat foods with B’s in them (Earl Mindell’s Vitamin Bible tells you what foods are rich in B’s). Could the cure for bitchiness be in a pill, or a food? What if it was? Would it become $3 a pill on the black market, with husbands buying it to sneak into their wife’s food? Or vice versa — men can be bitchy too, make no mistake!
I guess it kind of comes back to being mature… taking care of yourself… not picking on small stuff… and stewing in gratitude instead of just stewing! 
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*I was actually never into doing that… I always tried to be very emotionally steady so that none of my male co-workers could tell when my period was and tease me or make jokes about PMS or whatever. I think I was pretty good at it! Lately, I need the EPO to help…
Snow, Waves, and the Collective Consciousness January 23, 2008
Posted by tkneller in Ponder This.Tags: collective consciousness, duality, fluidity, media, mood, snow, wave-particle duality, waves
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I went cross-country skiing today, for the first time this winter! It’s just been so cold, and combined with my crazy schedule and whatnot, this is the first chance I’ve had to go. It was great! It was so mild out, only about -5, and the trail was nice and all the trees draped in snow looked beautiful. I am so amazed at how snow, which is made of frozen water, can look so much like a liquid! On the edges of roofs, it flows off and hangs like a frozen wave… on the trees, it clumps in such interesting shapes, it looks like the snow is splashing! It’s hard to describe! I am going to have to take my camera next time, and get some photos of the snow on the trees, the trees bent over under the weight of the snow, and the snow clinging to branches of poplar and evergreens alike.
There’s this paradox of nature that thing that are essentially particles–independent like snow flakes–can take on the appearance and even characteristics of waves, behaving like a liquid. It reminds me of physics, where I learned that elementary particles like electrons behave like waves much of the time, and so they are said to have wave-particle duality–indeed, a dual nature. So, as I skied along the trail, I got to thinking about other things that seem to be separate, but are also connected, or fluid. Like people.
I am my own person. I am responsible for my own actions, and no one else’s. I am responsible for my own thoughts, and what those thoughts create, either by way of my mood, attitude, opinions, as well as more concrete things in my life, like what job I have or where I live. In these ways, I am separate from those around me. Yet, with close friends and loved ones, I am in harmony, not separate. I have so much in common with them and although I don’t have any psychic abilities, we seem to read each others’ minds. On a much larger scale, I’ve read about the collective mind or consciousness–where a large group of people share attitudes and are somehow linked. For example, in the tropical paradise of Hawai’i, everyone is miserable! They have collectively decided to ignore their idyllic surroundings and instead focus on things which add to their unhappiness. The mood was quite palpable, and like I said, I’m not psychic, just observant (when I want to be).
When I first read about the collective consciousness, I found it hard to believe. I’m a scientist, after all, and this phenomenon can’t be measured, at least not measured and displayed on an oscilloscope. But, yet, when you look at the US, and the aftermath of 9/11, it’s pretty plain to see that the entire country has adopted a fear-based thought pattern, mixed with revenge, and it’s also pretty clear to see the result. Anxiety, pain, paranoia, violence, disease, and more things to be afraid of! Now, I think the collective consciousness is amplified by the mass media, and that abstaining from any media, as I do from time to time, really helps cushion one from the effects. But, I have lived in a few places in Canada (and wasn’t much of a TV watcher then either), and I have noticed a different “feel in the air” in each place I go.
So what we, as particle-like people, think and do affects absolutely everyone around us. It’s practical; if some people litter, soon everyone’s doing it. It’s mystical; the consciousness of a population practicing Christianity is different from that of Eastern religions. It’s amazing; we aren’t very different from lemmings at all!
Take care everybody!
