Down To Earth Newsletter
Volume 6 – Issue 2 – March, 2007
NAMI WALKS for the mind of America – The National Alliance on Mental Illness is holding a fundraising and awareness-raising walk at the Arizona State Capitol on Saturday, March 31st. If you want to walk, please Join Our Team, Magic Merlin for NAMI. If you can’t participate, please consider making a donation to support important mental health research.
Sponsor Dr. Marlo or Sponsor Jon Archer
Debunking Myths – Is Sacrificing Yourself for Your Job Necessary?
Myth: If I say, “No,” I’ll get fired. Each month, I work with several adults whose jobs have them extremely overwhelmed. Competent, reliable, hard-working people are getting burnt out because they are being assigned task after task after task when their workload is already unmanageable. Why do people continue to take on the tasks? Because they are convinced they’ll be fired if they refuse.
Fact: If an employer is going to fire you for setting what you consider reasonable boundaries, then one of two things is most certainly true: 1 – the employer is unreasonable and abusive, or 2 – you’re not really qualified for the job. Either way, common sense still points towards setting the reasonable boundaries and taking what comes next. Either the employer will realize that he or she is being unreasonable and the boundaries will be honored and you will become less overwhelmed, or the employer will realize that they made a bad hiring decision and they will let you go.
That sounds awfully harsh, doesn’t it? Who wants to lose their job? Who can afford to lose their job? Almost no one really wants to lose their job and many people simply cannot afford to lose their job, but that is how abusive employers keep you sacrificing yourself. They have you convinced that if you don’t do more, you will be out on the street, so you start doing more. Once they see that you can do more, they tell you to do even more and since you are still afraid of being unemployed, you take on more responsibility. Once they see that you can handle that, it’s time for them to heap on more, and soon, you’re at an absolute breaking point and you become unable to do any parts of your job well. Not long after that, you’ll probably be fired anyhow for making some sort of terrible mistake on the job, so you may as well set some reasonable limits on your workload and let your employer decide what he or she is going to do about your limit-setting.
It has been my observation that when reasonable, hard-working, ethical people set limits with their employers, there may be some ruffled feathers at first, but adjustments will be made and people don’t generally lose their jobs over setting reasonable work limits.
February Discussion Question: Who, in your life, has had the most positive influence on you, and why?
Collene Z. from WI credits her friends with positive influence in this thoughtful answer:
For the majority of my life, I’ve struggled with feelings of inadequacy and low self-esteem. My high school and college years were spent thinking, “Why can’t I be as (pretty, popular, athletic, etc.-etc.) as everyone else?” I guess that’s pretty typical. After college and into my 20’s (and, embarrassingly, my 30s), the feelings still lingered and-at times-got worse. It wasn’t until my mid-30s that I realized what a powerfully positive influence I’ve been shown by the combination of friends in my life! Even though I was happy to have these friendships from the very beginning, it was later that I realized how they’ve had such an impact. Now that I’m feeling more comfortable with the person I’ve become, I can see (from their examples) how to be more assertive, confident, independent, and so on. The friends I’ve known for years have seen me in good times and bad; and we’ve had our share of fun moments and heated arguments. All of them, through all our interactions, have played a major role in who I am and how I live my life today.
Way to go, Collene! Your Dr. Marlo prizes are on their way!
March Discussion Question: Do you have any superstitions (lucky socks, favorite number, won’t buy a blue car, etc.)?
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, and it won’t be long until we run out of those. Watch for some new and exciting Dr. Marlo prizes in upcoming months!
Thought For The Day: Ask yourself if it will matter a year from now, and, if not, let it go.
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.
Find and Be a MENTOR!
As most people know, a mentor is a wise and trusted guide, counselor, or teacher. What many people don’t realize, however, is that everyone can be a mentor to someone else. We often think that mentors must be elderly people with many, many decades of experience, but that’s simply not true. Anyone with any sort of specialized skill, knowledge, ideas, or talent can be a mentor – and should. Self-esteem rises for the mentor who finds ways to share his or her gifts and the mentor always learns at least as much, if not more, than the student.
Your mission for this month, should you choose to accept it, is to do two things with regard to mentoring – 1) Find someone who could mentor you, and 2) Find someone that you could mentor.
Don’t let age get in your way. A 10-year-old child could easily mentor you in rollerblading, computer skills, or finding a dozen ways to have fun on a dreary day. A teenager would make a great mentor in internet searches, fashion or make-up, or environmental conservation. Someone your same age could mentor you in anything that they’re good at, if that same thing is a challenge or a struggle for you. This could be anything – sewing, exercise, getting along with a spouse, keeping a neat house, or getting the best gas mileage out of your car.
Likewise, when searching for someone that you could mentor, you don’t have to select someone younger than yourself, although you certainly could. Consider mentoring an elderly person towards understanding new technologies like podcatching, online banking, or searching the web for medical information. Allow yourself to see skills and talents that you have that you know your friends admire and set some time aside to share your gifts with them. Perhaps you’re an excellent scrapbooker, you make a mean tres leches cake, or you can always find the best deals on products. Share your skills with a peer.
The mentoring doesn’t have to be a life-long relationship, although if you do manage to cultivate something very deep, you’re going to be very pleased, but a brief mentoring experience that maybe only lasts a few hours can still be very satisfying to both mentor and student.
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 4-17-07)
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. If your selection is chosen and you have included your mailing address, we will send you a FREE DVD MOVIE from previous years’ Dr. Marlo’s Movie Madness. 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 = 2483. Send creative contributions to: articles@drmarlo.com.
Dr. Marlo in the Media
Arizona Republic writer, Colleen Sparks, interviewed Dr. Marlo for an article about High School Rivalries when Marcos de Niza and Corona del Sol boys basketball teams and their fans were sporting some less than optimal sportsmanship.
EduKid Newspaper spotlights kids and kids’ issues. Jon & Dr. Marlo collaborate to offer discuss important topics in a monthly column. Read our March article online, about what kids can do when parents disagree with each other.
The Psychology Session – Internet Radio Show – Season Two – 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.
Take care to stay hydrated as Phoenix experiences record highs. –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!
