Down To Earth Newsletter
Volume 6 – Issue 1 – February, 2007
FIRST TIME EVENT – The Arizona Office of Problem Gambling presents a one-day Symposium: Critical Issues for Youth and Problem Gambling – March 5th. In addition to Dr. Archer, presenters include: Jeffrey L. Derevensky, Ph.D., of McGill University, and Randy Stinchfield, Ph.D., affiliated with the University of Minnesota Medical School. Both are leading experts in the field of youth gambling. Also presenting is Jerry Bauerkemper of the Nebraska Council on Compulsive Gambling. Arizona’s own Michelle Neitch of the Criminal Justice Commission will speak and Bobbe McGinley of ACT Counseling & Education, symposium organizer, will also offer her expertise. Click here for a registration brochure or go to Arizona Office of Problem Gambling website.
Debunking Myths – SuperMoms, How are They Doing it?
Myth: Each week, I meet with mothers who are frazzled. The house is a mess, the kids won’t do their homework, the teenagers are disrespectful and eat the family out of house and home, and there’s no way that the mother has any energy for her spouse at the end of the day, much to his chagrin. They are often quite certain that “other” mothers are managing everything flawlessly and that they are dismal failures for not being able to do so. They are convinced that there are SuperMoms who are “doing it all.”
Fact: It simply isn’t true. Humans have a limited capacity for managing major activities. While it is true that we probably can juggle 1 or 2 things relatively flawlessly and that we can keep 3 or 4 projects going without too much trouble, when we get to 5 major undertakings, we are getting to the end of our rope. Trying to keep 6 or 7 complex jobs running at the same time is basically a recipe for failure, and when we get to trying to do 8, 9, 10, or more things at a time, we are headed for exhaustion, depression, and certain destruction of several of the projects.
For example, if a woman works full-time, has two children, and is married, that’s four major undertakings. She can probably do that without too much trouble, but the house may be a little messy. If she tries to also keep the house clean, that’s 5 undertakings and that’s the start of being overwhelmed. Add an elderly parent (6) and teaching Sunday School (7), and something starts to give. Perhaps she’s not really very available for the kids, or she has to pretty much completely ignore her husband, or she really isn’t very committed at work, but something is most certainly going to suffer.
This concept does not only apply to moms, either. Take a 20-year-old college student (1), and put him in his own apartment (2). Give him a part-time job (3) and a girlfriend (4), and a bunch of guys to hang out with on Fridays (5). That’s about all he has time for. Is his mother and grandmother going to get a weekly call from him (6)? Will he be actively involved in his biology study group (7)? And could he also run a fantasy football league (8)? Probably not. By that time, his girlfriend or his mother will be complaining he doesn’t call often enough, or his grades will be dropping, or his apartment will be infested with roaches. That’ simply too many things to keep going at once.
So, believe it if you want to, but there’s no one out there that is flawlessly keeping 8 or 9 things rolling single-handedly. Give yourself a break and focus on the 3 or 4 most important things in your life.
December Discussion Question: What is something that you really want to avoid in 2007?
Holiday shopping must have been on the minds of some readers.
Karen R. from IA offers this:
I want for my Christmas shopping bills to be paid off by March!
Susan R., from WI, had this to say:
I need to watch my spending next year. I have several trips planned and I don’t want to have to skimp when I am vacationing.
Thanks, Ladies! Your Dr. Marlo prizes are on their way!
February Discussion Question: Who, in your life, has had the most positive influence on you, and why?
E-mail answers to: discussion@drmarlo.com and answers will appear next month. Your state of residence, your first name and last initial will be used unless you tell us not to use them. Anyone who responds and also includes a mailing address will receive one of the “Return to Wellness” Roomerangs as well as temporary tattoos until supplies are exhausted.
Thought For The Day: Pain is temporary.
PERSONAL GROWTH EXERCISE
To spotlight our E-Coaching services, our newsletter includes a personal growth exercise each month. These exercises illustrate the kinds of activities our clients are asked to complete when they are using our E-Coaching services. The exercises printed here are quite general in nature, but the exercises sent to our E-Coaching clients are individualized to meet each client’s specific needs. We currently offer a package of 10 E-Coaching Sessions for $500.
De-Clutter!
This month’s exercise is simple, but difficult. The junk that we keep in our houses is indicative of the junk we keep in our lives. The less junk we have, the more room we have for good stuff.
Get up right now and go grab a garbage bag. Walk through your house until you have put 25 items of garbage into the bag, then walk the bag directly out to your garbage can.
Next, get another garbage bag and go through your house again and find 10 items you can give away to charity. Put that bag into your car and drop it off at a donation center the next time you are out.
Finally, walk through the house once more and collect up 3 items that still have value to you, but you simply do not use, and think of special people in your lives who would appreciate receiving the item as a random gift. Stick a post-it with their name on the item and put it in your car, too, to give to them next time you see them.
Good Luck!
For a FREE 10-Session Trial of E-Coaching, send us a report of how this activity worked for you! Send to FreeSessions@drmarlo.com. (Offer Expires 3-16-07)
E-Coaching! Try it Now!
Not every problem is a mental illness. Not every issue is a trauma. Not every botherment is an emotional disorder. For life’s daily issues and for personal growth, now there is E-Coaching! Dr. Marlo Archer offers a 10-session consultation package for people who are not diagnosed with any mental illness who would just like some coaching, some guidance, or some personal growth. We are offering the 10-Session package for $500. Begin by using PayPal to send a $500 payment to DrMarlo@drmarlo.com, then send an e-mail to that same e-mail address, expressing your specific area of concern to begin!
Dr. Marlo’s Movie Madness – Entertainment and Education
Each month we show a free movie with a mental health theme. Interested parties can stay after the movie for a discussion about the movie. One credit informal CE awarded for a $10 fee. Networking 7:15-7:30pm, Movie at 7:30pm, Discussion until 10pm. Upcoming Features: Thursday, March 29 – Invincible (Suggested by Duane Brickner), Thursday April 19 – Fearless (Suggested by Pat Stacy), Thursday May 17 – In Her Shoes (Suggested by Marcie Edmonds),
Suggest movies for June 21, July 19, or August 30. Sign up for Movie Madness updates by sending a blank e-mail with ‘subscribe’ in the subject line to MovieMadness@drmarlo.com.
Publish Your Work – Promote your Practice – Two ways to publish – for free as a semi-anonymous author (your state of residence, your first name and last initial will be used), or, for $10, as a professional promoting a mental health practice (your full name, with credentials, address, phone number, and e-mail address will be included). We reserve the right to decline to publish any submissions. Current subscribers = 2489. New subscribers this issue = 129. Send creative contributions to: articles@drmarlo.com.
Dr. Marlo in the Media
The Producers of Arizona Together Newspaper, Established 1991, recently launched California Together Newspaper. Read February’s COVER article, “Living Responsibly: It’s a Matter of Choice” online. Arizona Together reaches over 50,000 readers monthly who are interested in recovery from addictions of all kinds and now the good news will spread into California as well.
We also write a monthly article for www.EVLiving.com, Your Guide to the East Valley. Read February’s article, “Don’t Let Gambling Get You” in the Everyday Solutions section.
The Psychology Session – Internet Radio Show – Season Two – We just finished our 50th Show! Go to our archives to download any of our shows. We welcome show suggestions and advertising sales. E-mail suggestions or inquiries to PsychologySession@drmarlo.com. Order SEASON ONE ON CD! Only $10. Send requests to PsychologySession@drmarlo.com.
Thanks to everyone who offered me support last month, when I unexpectedly lost my father. I will continue to ask for help as needed and accept your kind offers of comfort. –Marlo J. Archer, Ph.D.
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TO PODCATCH THE PSYCHOLOGY SESSION:
This is an introduction to the podcatching process, by Techie Jon Archer, translated into English (but very poorly understood) by Dr. Marlo Archer.
Podcasting is the process of broadcasting over the internet and Podcatching is the process of receiving, or subscribing to, such broadcasts. Although these procedures were popularized by the Apple iPod devices, you do not need to own an iPod to have fun with Podcasting and Podcatching.
Devin Jones, M.Ed. and Dr. Marlo have been Podcasting an internet show called The Psychology Session for almost a year now. Now you can learn how to Podcatch it.
However, if you do already own and regularly use an iPod to subscribe to Podcasts, all you need to do is add the following link to your subscriptions to begin receiving our show:
http://www.drmarlo.com/currentevents/index2.php?option=com_podcast&feed=RSS2.0&no_html=1
The rest of you will first need to download a Podcatcher. That is software and we recommend one called, “Juice,” which is free. To download and install Juice:
Go to http://juicereceiver.sourceforge.net/index.php. Download the version of Juice that will work with your machine – either Windows, or Mac, or Linux. You will be asked to ‘select a mirror.’ All that means is that you’re selecting a website from which to download the free software. There are ‘mirrors’ all over the world. Find one that is close to your location and click the “Download” link. When a window opens to ask what you want to do with the program, select “save to disk,” then hit, ‘okay.’
When the program file is done downloading, go to where the file is and open it. That is, go to where your computer puts new downloads and open the program. It will be called something like: JuiceSetup.exe. It will probably have numbers between the words Juice and Setup (e.g. Juice22Setup.exe.), but those numbers may change between today and when you try this process, so I am not going to put exact numbers in there right now. Anyhow, it doesn’t matter, you probably don’t have anything else in your download folder that looks like JuiceSetup anyhow. It will be an ‘executable’ file and your computer may have some concerns about that, but that’s okay and you should reassure your machine that it will be alright.
The Juice Setup Wizard will then take over and help you install the program. For most common folk, all the default settings are fine, just agree with everything and keep hitting, ‘okay’ or ‘next.’ until you get through all the screens. The only thing you may want to change is that you may want for Juice to be installed into your start-up folder, meaning that it would automatically check for new broadcasts every time you power up your machine. If you specifically want that, you have to select that during the installation process. The default is to only put an icon on your desktop. For those of you who are intimidated by this process, the desktop icon alone will be fine, so don’t worry about anything I just said, just let the Wizard install Juice the way it wants to.
You may have a firewall that informs you that Juice is trying to access the internet. You should let it. You then must agree with the licensing agreement to begin using the program.
Then you can follow the ITunes Setup Assistant to configure it for your machine. It will probably inform you that Juice is not set to handle some file types and ask you if you want to set them now. You can hit ‘yes.’ and then hit ‘save’ when it goes to the ‘one-click subscription’ options. The items: .rss and podcast should already be checked, and that’s fine.
Now, to subscribe to our show, The Psychology Session, click on the little green plus sign, to add a subscription. When the window opens, cut and paste this into the URL space:
http://www.drmarlo.com/currentevents/index2.php?option=com_podcast&feed=RSS2.0&no_html=1
and then hit ‘save.’
It will instantly catalog all our past shows for you and only the most recent one will be selected to download. You can download as many or as few as you want. Select the shows you want to download by checking the little box to the left of the show titles. Then, when you are ready to download them, click on the green square button that has two yellow arrows on it. (Hovering over the button reveals the words, “Check for new podcasts”)
Once your selected shows are downloaded, a green ‘play’ button will appear next to each show you downloaded. Click on that ‘play’ button to play the show.
When you’re ready to quit listening and close the Juice program, it will ask you if you want to just leave Juice running in the background. If you do that, it will automatically download new episodes of The Psychology Session if any come out while your computer is still on. To have Juice running constantly, you would have had to let it install itself into your start-up directory during the installation process.
When you return to your computer on another day and you want to check if you have any new podcasts, click on the Juice icon (a yellow lemon) to open the Juice program.
This whole process will create a new directory in the “My Documents” directory, called “My Received Podcasts.” It will even organize each of your subscriptions into it’s own folder. There should be a folder there for The Psychology Session, if you installed it correctly and downloaded at least one show.
There may also be some sort of Adam Curry iPodder Test Channel there, and you can just ignore that. Deleting it probably won’t actually make it go away. If you really don’t want it there, then you have to go into the Juice program and unsubscribe from the Adam Curry iPodder Test Channel, then go delete the folder. Otherwise, it will just keep downloading the welcome message for you. You will also be automatically subscribed to “Juice News” which doesn’t currently have any messages in it. You can unsubscribe from that or ignore it, whichever you prefer.
That’s it. You’d be subscribed to our show and ready to Podcatch!
