The following handout will serve as a guide to developing Wellness Recovery Action Plans (WRAPs). It can be used by people who are experiencing psychiatric symptoms to develop their own guide, or by health care professionals who are helping others to develop Wellness Recovery Action Plans.

This handout, or any part of this handout, may be copied for use in working with individuals or groups.

Getting Started with a WRAP

The following supplies will be needed to develop a Wellness Recovery Action Plan:

1. a three-ring binder, one inch thick
2. a set of five dividers or tabs
3. a package of three-ring filler paper
4. a writing instrument of some kind
5. (optional) a friend or other supporter to give you assistance and feedback

Section 1-Daily Maintenance List

On the first tab write Daily Maintenance List. Insert it in the binder followed by several sheets of filler paper.

On the first page, describe, in list form, yourself when you are feeling alright.

On the next page make a list of things you need to do for yourself every day to keep yourself feeling alright.

On the next page, make a reminder list for things you might need to do. Reading through this list daily helps keep us on track.

Section 2-Triggers

External events or circumstances that, if they happen, may produce serious symptoms that make you feel like you are getting ill. These are normal reactions to events in our lives, but if we don't respond to them and deal with them in some way, they may actually cause a worsening in our symptoms.

On the next tab write "Triggers" and put in several sheets of binder paper.

On the first page, write down those things that, if they happened, might cause an increase in your symptoms. They may have triggered or increased symptoms in the past.

On the next page, write an action plan to use if triggers come up, using the Wellness Toolbox at the end of this handout as a guide.

Section 3-Early Warning Signs

Early warning signs are internal and may be unrelated to reactions to stressful situations. In spite of our best efforts at reducing symptoms, we may begin to experience early warning signs, subtle signs of change that indicate we may need to take some further action.

On the next tab write "Early Warning Signs". On the first page of this section, make a list of early warning signs you have noticed.

On the next page, write an action plan to use if early warning signs come up, using the Wellness Toolbox at the end of this handout as a guide.

Section 4-Things are Breaking Down or Getting Worse

In spite of our best efforts, our psychiatric symptoms may progress to the point where they are very uncomfortable, serious and even dangerous, but we are still able to take some action on our own behalf. This is a very important time. It is necessary to take immediate action to prevent a crisis.

On the next tab write, "When Things are Breaking Down". Then make a list of the symptoms which, for you, mean that things have worsened and are close to the crisis stage.

On the next page, write an action plan to use "When Things are Breaking Down" using the Wellness Toolbox at the end of this handout as a guide.

Section 5 - Crisis Planning

In spite of our best planning and assertive action, we may find ourselves in a crisis situation where others will need to take over responsibility for our care. We may feel like we are totally out of control.

Writing a crisis plan when you are well to instruct others about how to care for you when you are not well, keeps you in control even when it seems like things are out of control. Others will know what to do, saving everyone time and frustration, while insuring that your needs will be met. Develop this plan slowly when you are feeling well. The crisis planning form includes space to write:

• those symptoms that would indicate to others they need to take action in your behalf
• who you would want to take this action
• medications you are currently taking, those that might help in a crisis, and those that should be avoided
• treatments that you prefer and those that should be avoided
• a workable plan for at home care
• acceptable and unacceptable treatment facilities
• actions that others can take that would be helpful
• actions that should be avoided
• instructions on when the plan no longer needs to be used

next: Post-Crisis Planning For After Your Psychiatric Crisis
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Many adult women have eating disorders. Discover how eating disorders therapy works and how to engage in healthy eating.

Most everyone thinks of anorexia, bulimia, and other eating disorders as conditions only young women face, but new evidence shows that many women over 35 suffer from these afflictions throughout their lives.

When I was about 14 years old and just beginning my initiation into the mysterious rites of passage toward becoming a woman, one of the very first "secrets" I learned was how to diet. Here was a way, or so I thought in my innocence, that I could eat whatever I wanted and make up for it later by dieting it all off. How clever were these older women who taught us youngsters how to have our cake and eat it too! As it turned out, not only did I enjoy dieting, with all its deprivations and strict rules, but I had a real talent for it. When I embarked upon a diet, my willpower was resolute and unshakable. But when the diet was over and I'd reached my preferred number on the scale, I couldn't wait to run into the kitchen and start scarfing down all the foods I'd forbidden myself during the diet. That was how I discovered firsthand what so many women have known throughout the ages—forbidden fruits do taste sweeter.

Dangerous Hidden Secrets of Dieting

By the time I'd gotten older, into my late 20s and early 30s, this routine, which had started out as an innocent game, had developed sinister overtones. Now I know the name for what I was doing: yo-yo dieting, which is the practice of losing pounds and regaining them over and over again, moving up and down in weight like a spinning toy on a string. I managed to keep my weight more or less stable into my 40s using this method—it just meant I was perpetually on a diet.

When I looked around at most of the women I knew, both older and younger, I saw a secret society whose members seemed to have the same unspoken agreement (which I personally didn't recall signing) that looks counted above all else. And I realized that the wish I'd long been secretly harboring—that there would be some age limit on this crazy way of looking at food and my body, some point at which I would finally be old enough to opt out of the whole insanity—was not going to come true. I was going to either have to find my own way out or this could easily go on for the rest of my life.

I now know that I was hardly alone in continuing to face serious food and body issues well into midlife. Conventional wisdom in the medical community used to posit that eating disorders were something that happened only to younger girls, and that most women in their mid-30s would certainly have outgrown them. But now those who specialize in the treatment of eating disorders have come to understand that there is no age limit. Eating disorders can and frequently do occur in women that age and beyond. In fact, for the most part, as happened with me, these are eating disorders that women developed as adolescents or young women and never resolved.

This new definition of eating disorders as a condition that can affect any woman at any age may come as a huge relief to the leagues of older women who thought they were all alone, suffering from a disorder they should have outgrown. The good news? When it comes time for treatment, older women bring a mature perspective on life and a resourcefulness to the process that younger women don't yet possess.

Defining eating disorders

The most common eating disorders include anorexia nervosa—in which a person consumes too little food and suffers extreme weight loss—and bulimia—in which a person repeatedly forces herself to vomit after eating, typically after binge eating. Bulimics may also use laxatives to purge themselves. A more general category is binge eating disorder, which, according to Diane Mickley, MD, director of the Wilkins Center for Eating Disorders in Greenwich, Connecticut, shares features with bulimic behavior, such as binging, placing too high a value on food and body issues, and having increased anxiety around food. The general category known as "EDNOS" (Eating Disorders Not Otherwise Specified) includes a wide variety of eating behaviors that don't otherwise have a name but have one thing in common: spending an inordinate amount of time and energy obsessing about food and body. Overexercising, overemphasizing thinness, obsessive thinking, repeated "cleansing," yo-yo dieting, and other forms of excessively restricted eating fall into this catchall category.

One of the worrisome new eating disorders to which women in midlife and beyond may be especially susceptible is orthoexia nervosa, which is defined as a "fixation on righteous eating." This occurs when an obsession with healthy eating begins to dominate a person's thoughts and life to the point where the behavior itself becomes unhealthy. According to Tacie Vergara, clinical supervisor at the Renfrew Center's Thirty-Something and Beyond Group (an inpatient eating disorders program in Philadelphia and other East Coast locations), orthoexia "can start for older women when they've got a life crisis—fear of mortality, a cancer diagnosis, or maybe their husband just got diagnosed with a cardiac problem," Vergara explains. "It starts out as a healthy impulse to eat better, but before you know it, it's out of control."

Whatever the eating disorder, experts agree that most of these conditions don't just come out of nowhere in midlife. "The vast majority of affected people have their first onset in adolescence," says Mickley. "Some may have had longtime food and weight concerns; they may have had low-grade problems that hid out under the radar for a long time. But it's extremely rare for an eating disorder to manifest for the first time in middle age."

Most afflicted women manage to cope for years with the many different forms of eating disorders, and many of them don't even realize that they're suffering from one.

"It didn't dawn on me I had any kind of eating disorder until I was in my 30s," says Karen Franklin, a woman who has struggled off and on with anorexia since she was a young girl. "I thought that I was just some kind of freak around food—I didn't know how to nourish myself. But then I came across some articles on anorexia, and I had an amazing awakening that I was like those girls."

Franklin thought her problem was behind her until she saw her child develop an eating disorder of her own. "I felt like I had things under control—my life felt really full—but when my daughter started having eating problems, something really clicked for me," Karen recalls. "All my old body issues came tumbling back."

Sorelle Marsh also saw her long-standing eating disorder spin out of control in midlife. "I started out as an anorexic when I was about 17 or 18," Marsh explains. "But then I learned about bulimia, and I thought, 'Wow, this is a great way to have it all and still be thin!'" Marsh says the bulimia continued off and on until, at age 41, she found it increasingly difficult to hide her behavior from her husband and children. She went to see a therapist who gave her some drugs to help with her anxiety and depression. However, the drugs sent her into a suicidal depression.

"I was very depleted in every way, shape, and form from the binging and purging," says Marsh. "I thought to myself, 'You can't go on like this,, you need help,' and I decided that I needed to go somewhere, away from my life, to get help."

According to Mickley, eating disorders reassert themselves in midlife for myriad reasons. "Number one is if you feel that your self-worth is heavily based on your appearance, as you get older it inevitably means the loss of your youthful appearance," she says, "and there are so many other kinds of losses that can occur in midlife, such as the end of a relationship or a divorce, the stress of remaining in an unhappy relationship, or a medical illness. There are also so many issues around kids—kids growing up, kids with problems, or kids going off to college."

Whatever the cause of a relapse, the number of women over 35 seeking help for eating disorders is rapidly increasing. According to Vergara, from 1985 to 2000 approximately 3 to 5 percent of those seeking treatment at the Renfrew Center were over 35. From 2003 on, that number skyrocketed to 30 percent. Vergara credits this in part to Renfrew creating a special program called the Thirty-Something and Beyond Group. "We'd always served these women but never specifically targeted them before," Vergara explains. "Once we gave them permission and let them know there was a place for them to come, they were there waiting and hungry for our services."

Getting help for an Eating Disorder

Eating disorder clinics and specialists generally don't use any special therapeutic tricks when treating older women with eating disorders. The same techniques and approaches work with younger and older women alike. "In treating eating disorders in general, one of the common myths is that there are underlying psychological problems, you work them out, and the illness will evaporate," says Mickley. "But it's the reverse. If you have an eating disorder, you must first manage food, weight, and eating symptoms if you want to do good work in therapy. The notion that you'll take someone who is throwing up all day and build her confidence makes no sense—that act of vomiting provides her with emotional Novocaine, and if you numb your feelings, how are you going to learn what you feel? So the first line of defense in folks of all ages is symptom management."

Still, peer-group programs work especially well for women in midlife. "These women have lost so much in midlife that they're not going to get back," says the Renfrew Center's Vergara. "So we have groups specifically geared for their unique life situations, such as how do you be a mom on the go and also provide sound nutrition for you and your family, how do you learn to care for yourself as well as others, and all the unique issues that come up over not being fed and being out of balance in midlife."

The Renfrew program has given Marsh a new outlook on life, food, and her own journey. "The first thing the Renfrew program did for me was get me out of my home and environment and stop the binging and purging," Marsh recalls. "I knew my time at Renfrew was my only and last chance. It causes me a lot of sadness that I couldn't have done this when I was 20 or 25 or any other time—but I've realized this is now my time to do it."

For all of us working with eating issues in midlife, it's important above all to remember that each of us is a work in progress. Life will continue to change, with new challenges, new joys, and new wrinkles—including those that line our skin. The point isn't to get it all figured out once and for all and rest on your laurels. Rather, you can achieve many levels of success and many levels of satisfaction. Waking up to all of the richness that life can offer when you are conscious can help you heal your eating disorder, as well as live a life with purpose and passion.

Moving Into Healthy Eating

When I realized that I no longer wanted to spend my days obsessing about food and body, I had no idea how to go about making that change. At this same time I began to do yoga and to meditate. I found that both practices increased my ability to be conscious—not only around food—but also of seeing the kind of habitual thoughts that were etched deep in the recesses of my mind. When I ate consciously, it was very hard to accidentally eat a bag of cookies and wonder where they might have gone to, which enabled me to control my eating without even trying. And consciousness also proved to be the key for actively identifying what held meaning for me in life.

Mind/body practice, such as yoga, tai chi, meditation, or mindful walking can help a person who is struggling with any form of eating disorder learn consciousness in motion. This can directly impact the way one eats, since mind/body practices help us listen to what we're truly hungry for on our physical, emotional, and spiritual planes.The key is to use the mind/ body practice as a tool of self-discovery and as a means to develop consciousness—not as one more opportunity to beat yourself up about what a lousy meditator you are or how bad you look in your yoga outfit.

"Yoga brought me to a place where I could like myself without looking in the mirror," says Karen Franklin, who's struggled with anorexia for years. "It was so clear to me that yoga is about non-judgment and self-reflection, but it's also about action—I act, and then I can let it go. For me yoga is always a fresh start—I messed up today and tomorrow will be better. That's a very different point of view from when I used to think, 'I messed up today, and tomorrow I won't eat.' It's brought me a certain amount of wisdom around my actions and has also helped me discover what will nourish me."

Awakening Conscious Eating

The following practice introduces you to some basic techniques for conscious eating. The seemingly simple act of having the intention to stay conscious as you eat and to maintain attention to the process of eating can completely alter your relationship with food. It will help you break food patterns that may otherwise feel all-powerful, overwhelming, destructive, and out of control.

The following practice introduces you to some basic techniques for conscious eating. The seemingly simple act of having the intention to stay conscious as you eat and to maintain attention to the process of eating can completely alter your relationship with food. It will help you break food patterns that may otherwise feel all-powerful, overwhelming, destructive, and out of control.

• Start out by selecting a food that you enjoy, both for its appearance and taste, but that doesn't hold conflict for you in any way. Place the food on the table and sit facing it. Take a moment to clear your mind and drink in the appearance and aroma of the food.
• Before you eat, set the intention to focus your complete attention on the first and last bites of the food and to note any feedback you receive as you eat. This sounds deceptively simple. Don't be surprised if it's challenging!
• As your teeth sink into the first bite, try to slow down the moment so you experience it fully and consciously. When you finish chewing the bite, savor the sensations, and listen to any feedback you may experience.
• For the rest of the food, just eat as you normally would, but as you prepare to finish the last bite, repeat the previous exercise, trying to focus all of your attention and to remain fully conscious.

After you've finished eating the food, take just a moment to reflect. Consider what percentage of the time you were conscious in between the first and last bites and what percentage of the time your thoughts were elsewhere. Did setting your intention to remain conscious for the first and last bites make you more conscious in between, or just for those bites?

Repeat this simple food practice once a day for a week. You may eat the same food or choose different foods each time. You'll probably notice that the amount of time you spend between bites being consciously aware of your food and the eating experience will increase gradually over the week.

Source: Adapted from the book, What Are You Hungry For? Women, Food and Spirituality, by Lynn Ginsburg and Mary Taylor (St. Martin's Press, 2002).

next: Helping Your Child With Obesity

Getting Off The Rollercoaster

My Youth, my youth.
A verse to Meditate on.

In this dialogue, the subject addresses Life in a moment of serious reflection. From the unintentional prayer, Life responds to the plea to nurture the despondent Spirit.

My youth, my youth...
Oh Life!... what have you done to my youth!
I cradle it in my arms to jealously shield it from your influence, yet my embrace weakens and once more my youth slips quietly away.
With empty arms still eager to caress, I cry out to you on its behalf.
How can it unlearn that which you have taught.
The price of experience and knowledge is innocence, and what I now possess has left me very poor.
Life!...how can my youth and I be happy again?

* * * * * * * * * * *

Troubled one!... listen to me.
I did not cajole your youth from you.
I did not lure it from you or set any trap.
I entered no bargain or bartered for it.
You gave it to me.
It was you who was seeking.
However, be not anxious, for I will tell you where your happiness is to be found.

Tell your youth that it has never lost its innocence.
It is still rich in this, and will always be so in my eyes.
You talk of paying a price, and you are right.
You paid each time you gave away your Truth.
But it was not I in want of a payment, and since you had no need of it yourself, the payment was blown away with the wind.
It went nowhere and served no one.
Can't you see that this is where you are poor?

Yes, I can restore the dignity of your youth, but this time I will demand a payment.
Come... come closer to me and look into this mirror.
Look deeply and tell me what you see.
But only tell me when you are Peaceful.
If then, what you give me is your Truth, then I will hand it back to you draped in a golden
cloak, and you shall hold your head high among all people.
Troubled one, I have no real use of your Truth for I am Truth itself.
Your Truth is your ever loving servant. It cares for you and believes in you.
Keep it with you at all times.
Ask for it's guidance whenever you need to.
It is very wise you know.
Herein your riches will be restored, and you will be united with your youth again.
Your days will be happy once more.

Adrian Newington.

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next: Getting Off the Roller Coaster Apendix II (Inspirational Songs)

Interview with Mike Cohen on the power of connecting with nature.

"Nature is the unseen intelligence that loved us into being."

Elbert Hubbard

Tammie: How would you describe our relationship to the earth?

Mike: People's relationship to Planet Earth is like our leg's relationship to our body. We are ecologically a product and likeness of nature, sharing "one breath" with all species.In each immediate moment of our lives exists the unadulterated creation process of the natural world. It is part of our personal biology, our natural origins and sensitivities including our faculty to register sensations, feelings and spirit. We are human and "Human" has its roots in "humus," a fertile forest soil. This is not a coincidence, biologically, we are like humus. One teaspoon of humus consists of water, minerals and hundreds of other microorganism species: five million bacteria, twenty million fungi, one million protozoa and two hundred thousand algae, all living cooperatively in balance. This coincides with our bodies containing water, minerals and ten times as many cells of non-human microorganism species as human cells, all living cooperatively in balance. Over half our body weight consists of the weight of "foreign" microorganism species in balance with us and each other. They are vital, inextricable parts of every cell in our body. Over 115 different species live on our skin alone.

Tammie: You've observed that our loss of sensory contact with nature creates and sustains our run away disorders. How is that manifested?

Mike: Our lives don't make sense and our problems flourish because industrial society does not teach us to seek, honor and culture nature's sensory contributions to our lives. We learn instead to conquer nature, to separate from and deny the time tested love, intelligence and balance enjoyed by the natural world.

On average, in industrial society we spend over 95% of our lifetime indoors. Early on, at home and school, we learn to stay indoors, to become attached and dependent on indoor fulfillments. We spend 18,000 developmental indoor childhood hours alone doing schoolwork to become literate. During this same period, on average, through our literacy and the media, we witness 18,000 murders. Most of us grow up not recognizing that in every outdoor natural area, like the wild area in a park or backyard, natural life is not murdering life. It is nurturing it. Throughout the eons, natural life has been wise enough not to commit murder as we know it. The natural world has also learned how to nurture and sustain life and diversity without producing garbage, pollution or insensitive abusiveness. Nature is an unimaginable intelligence, a form of love that we inherit but suppress.

As it does with humus, through natural attractions the natural world constantly flows around and through us. Researchers find that every 5-7 years every molecule in our body is replaced, particle by particle, by new molecules attracted in from the environment and vice-versa. The natural environment continually becomes us and we become it; we are to nature and creation as an embryo is to its womb; we are one because we are each other.

Tammie: You've written that the natural environment governs itself with a wisdom that prevents it from producing our unsolvable problems and with an intelligence that sustains it in balance. How possible is it for human beings to acquire this wisdom and balance?

Mike: As natural beings, we genetically inherit the ability to think and feel with this global intelligence. However, from birth and before, we envelope our mentality in a process and society bent on conquering nature. We learn to separate ourselves from our biological, earth bequeathed wisdom. Our underlying problem is the attitude of industrial society. It teaches us to think in stories that emotionally know nature's intelligence as an enemy that exists in people and natural areas. Deep down we know and fear nature as evil. For example, we often portray Satan with a tail, claws, scales, fur, horns, hooves and fangs, seldom in a business suit. To our loss, as our thinking assaults and conquers nature within and around us, we deteriorate our lives and all of life, even as we say we should stop doing that.

Throughout the seasons, I have enjoyably lived the past 37 years in natural areas, researching and teaching how to responsibly relate to them. During this period, I have observed that when people feelingly make thoughtful contact with nature, they become more sensitive to life. They think, feel and build personal, social and environmental relationships in more enjoyable, caring and responsible ways. Their runaway problems subside. This is not a surprise. It results from the intelligent way nature has "wired" us and all of life to relate in supportive balance. For those who are wise enough to desire and teach life in balance, I have developed a natural systems thinking process. It consists of unique, nature connected, sensory techniques. They are activities, materials, courses and distance learning degree programs that enable anybody to beneficially reconnect with nature and teach this skill. They enable people to release themselves from their attachments to the destructive stories of industrial society. Uniquely, the Process allows youngsters or adults to feelingly tap into nature's intelligence and think with it. The beauty and integrity of nature inspires them. Their spiritual relationship with nature empowers and guides them. They let natural areas nurture them. The Process has proven to reverse many runaway troubles.

Tammie: From your perspective, how has our current educational system affected our relationship to the natural world?

Mike: In a society hell bent on conquering nature, it is normally taboo to learn or teach that each of us is born with, and contains, a multitude of intelligent natural sensitivities that wisely govern nature and our inner nature. In our society, where can an individual learn that? Education is a pawn of society. In your school or home, did they teach you how to use nature's multisensory intelligence? Even if we learn this fact cognitively, it does not mean we will actually feel the natural senses we have buried in us. We need to learn how to rejuvenate them and bring them feelingly back into our consciousness. Then we can think with them. Without them, we will continue to lose our joys, sense of wonder and responsibility.

The significant difference between us and nature is that we think and communicate in words, while nature and Earth are illiterate. The natural world achieves its perfection through self-regulating natural sensory interactions, without using or understanding words. We need to learn how to think with our natural senses, to have our thinking tap and incorporate nature's nonverbal ways and wisdom. Then we can verbalize wisely. The reconnecting with nature process teaches this skill because it practices it. Once we learn nature reconnecting techniques that root us in nature's sensory intelligence, we own the activities. We can use and teach them anywhere. Their use becomes a habit, an improved way of thinking. As it restores our deadened natural senses, it provides us with a thoughtful immunity to many of the pitfalls that ordinarily plague us.

Tammie: How does connecting with the natural world empower us?

Mike: Have you ever sat near a roaring brook and felt refreshed, been cheered by the vibrant song of a thrush or renewed by a sea breeze? Does a wildflower's fragrance bring you joy, a whale or snow-capped peak charge your senses? Do you like pets, house plants or heart to heart talks; to be hugged and honored by others; to live in a supportive community? You did not take a class to learn to feel these innate joys. We are born with them. As natural beings, that is how we are designed to know life and our life. Dramatically, new sensory nature activities culturally support and reinforce those intelligent, feelingful natural relationships. In natural areas, backyard to back country, the activities create thoughtful nature-connected moments. In these enjoyable non-language instants our natural attraction senses safely awaken, play and intensify. Additional activities immediately validate and reinforce each natural sensation as it comes into consciousness. Still other activities guide us to speak from these feelings and thereby create nature-connected stories. These stories become part of our conscious thinking. They are as real and intelligent as 2 + 2=4. This reconnecting with nature process connects, fulfills and renews our thinking. It fills us with the natural world's beauty, wisdom and peace. We naturally feel rejuvenated, more colorful and thankful and these feelings give us additional support. They nurture us, they satisfy our deepest natural wants. As we satisfy them and speak their truth, we remove the aggravated stress and pain that fuel our disorders. Greed and disorders dissolve. The process triggers thinking that values natural sensory relationships with people and places. It empowers us to create stories that are congruent with nature. It regenerates natural connections and community within ourselves and with others and the land. We habitually feel content. We actively, safely form relationships from this resiliency. We responsibly seek and sustain our feelings of well being. We learn this by connecting with nature in natural areas and in each other.

Tammie: I'm so often aware of how even our language serves to separate us from the natural world. When we speak of nature, the words we so commonly use seem to imply that nature is one thing and we are another. I'm wondering if there's a remedy for that.

Mike: My remedy is to learn how to bring nature's sensory ways feelingly into consciousness and then think and speak from them. As I've described, this enables people to sensibly articulate from tangible sensory connections that, at will, plug them directly into local and global unity. The Process provides sensory connections, not just information. By using it, the source of how and what we say comes from nature within us in connection with the natural environment. That produces the unity you wonder about. Mind you, now that I have said this and people have read it, does not mean that other folks, or even yourself, are going to learn to use the process, even though it is readily available and makes perfect sense. If you are typical, you know about the activity process but you have not involved yourself in it. You see, information seldom changes the way we think or act. It does not release the psychological bonds that have us marching to our nature conquering drum. Today, less than .000022% of our conscious lives are spent thinking in tune with nature, that's less than 12 hours per lifetime. It's like putting a drop of ink in a swimming pool and expecting to notice a change in the color of the water. We are psychologically addicted to sustaining our polluted intellectual sea. We fear placing nature's "mental purification tablets" into it. We have been taught to think they will remove the gratifications we now depend on without replacing them with something better, however the opposite is true.

I have demonstrated that our psychological disconnectedness from nature underlies our runaway disorders and, for this reason psychologically reconnecting with nature reverses these disorders. I have shown that a relatively simple natural systems thinking process makes reconnecting a readily accessible and usable reality. However, just showing this will not produce unity. Our thinking is so prejudiced against nature that this information is about as useful as telling members of the KKK that they should invite Afro-Americans into their organization. We don't have the power to help them do that. Engaging in nature's sensory attraction process could do it. That process recycles our ununified thinking by safely replacing our destructive bonds with Earth's natural attractions in places and people. After all, no matter the incredible differences between the members of the plant, animal and mineral kingdom, nature unifies them so that nothing is left out, everything belongs. Waste like garbage and pollution is not found in unadulterated natural systems. The state of the world shows that our thinking is polluted. If nothing else, history and common sense show that polluted thinking can not unpollute itself. We need to use a purifier that works. Nature purifies.

Tammie: When you think about the future of this planet, what concerns you the most and what inspires hope?

Mike: No offense, but those are just more of the trick questions you and I have been taught to engage in and thereby, once again, avoid involvement in the process that answers them. Neither nature nor I think about the future of the planet; spirit, peace or hope, or most of the other topics that preoccupy us. What I've learned from nature is to engage in and teach a process that moment by moment produces a healthier future, a process that IS spirit, peace and hope. I have lived the latter half of my life in that process. During the earlier half I was rewarded to think about these questions. In comparing the two halves, I realize that in just thinking and talking about our disorders we trick ourselves into wasting time in arguments and mental amusements that change very little. Nature produces the perfection we seek by practicing the process that produces it. For those looking for a brighter future and hope, I suggest they do likewise. Our troubles exist because the process that resolves them has been a missing link in the way we think. That process is no longer an unknown.

Ecopsychologist, Mike Cohen is an outdoor educator, counselor, author, and traditional folk singer, musician and dancer. He utilizes his background in science, education, and counseling as well as his musical expertise "to catalyze responsible, enjoyable relationships with nature in people and places." He has one several awards including the Distinguished World Citizen Award from the University of Global Education. You can become involved his online articles, courses and degree programs at his Project Nature Connect website, or you can contact him at: nature@pacificrim.net.

The following are comments from those who have engaged in some of Dr. Cohen's sensory ecology activities:

1. Uncontrolled consumerism/materialism:
"As I continued the special forest activity, I found myself attracted to the various songs of the birds and then gradually to the various stones and nuts and shells in the path. I would stop in the path, pick up the stone, admire its beauty and then feel clearly called to return it to its appropriate place. So often other times I have felt I needed to put it in my pocket and carry it home. Now, through the activity, I had a real sense of appreciating each rock, each shell, each leaf in its place for the time I was there. I felt suddenly freed from the need to possess something. I had a growing sense of letting things be and to just be still and glory in the fullness of the moment. As I allowed myself to connect, appreciate, thank and move on with so much of what surrounded me, I felt a letting go into being present. In this transformation, I began to feel I was part of the scene more, not my other self that needed to possess. I learned that I do not need to possess something to have the joy of it."

2. Personal and Global Peace:
"I was never taught to ask permission to relate to people or the environment, I just take that for granted, as we all do. However, this activity required my senses to learn how to ask an attractive tree covered area for its consent for me to walk through it. The area continued to feel attractive, but something changed. It was the first time in my life that I totally felt safe. It felt like Earth's energies were in charge of my life, not me. It gave me a wonderful feeling of having more power to be myself. I felt in balance with nature and the people here because I could distinctly feel their energies consenting to support me. I never experienced nature and people that way before. It was like a powerful law that protected not only my life, but all of life. I felt very secure and nurtured as I walked under those trees and spoke to people. I learned that when I seek permission from the environment and people, I psychologically gain energy and unity, I belong."

3. Destructive stress:
"This morning I was battling the remnants of some depression I had been feeling about my family and life "stuff". I was doing the attraction activity, looking around enjoying the day, the breeze, the sun, the beautiful trees and the sounds of birds chirping. In a flash of good feeling, I realized that these feelings are what is so good about living on earth at this time. It was enough, if for no other reason, to be here, to experience the beauty of this planet. This was a major breakthrough for me, because I battle the reason for being here quite a bit in my recovery work. This happened before noon, and it is now 6 p.m., and I still feel great!!! I wanted to share this because I am so happy!!! Take care, and thanks for listening to the great news!!!"

For additional validations of the Natural Systems Thinking Process please visit: How Nature Works at the Nature Connect website or A Survey of Participants.

next:Flemming Funch on the " New Civilization"

"In this society, in a general sense, the men have been traditionally taught to be primarily aggressive, the 'John Wayne' syndrome, while women have been taught to be self-sacrificing and passive.   But that is a generalization; it is entirely possible that you came from a home where your mother was John Wayne and your father was the self-sacrificing martyr.

The point that I am making is that our understanding of Codependence has evolved to realizing that this is not just about some dysfunctional families - our very role models, our prototypes, are dysfunctional. Our traditional cultural concepts of what a man is, of what a woman is, are twisted, distorted, almost comically bloated stereotypes of what masculine and feminine really are."

"What we traditionally have called normal parenting in this society is abusive because it is emotionally dishonest.   Children learn who they are as emotional beings from the role modeling of their parents.   'Do as I say   not as I do,' does not work with children.   Emotionally dishonest parents cannot be emotionally healthy role models, and cannot provide healthy parenting."

Codependence: The Dance of Wounded Souls   by Robert Burney

Motherhood is a gloriously honorable role - and arguably the most vitally important one that a being can assume in this human dance we are all doing.   It is very fitting and proper that we should honor mothers.   Unfortunately, in a world where women in general are degraded and devalued - and have been for thousands of years - the topic of mothers becomes a very emotionally charged and confusing issue.

How can a society cherish mothers when we don't cherish women?   How can a woman who is not taught to cherish herself teach her children to cherish themselves?

It is somehow appropriate - in a sick, twisted, kind of way - that Earth Day and Mother's Day are so close together.   Civilized society has been raping our mother Earth for as long as it has had the technology to do so.   Women have been raped, not just physically by men, but also emotionally, mentally, and spiritually by the belief systems of civilization (both Western and Eastern) since the dawn of recorded history.

Those belief systems were the effect of planetary conditions which caused the Spiritual beings in human body to have a perspective of life, and therefore a   relationship with life, that was polarized and reversed.     This reversed, black and white, perspective of life caused humans to develop beliefs about the nature and purpose of life that were irrational, insane, and just plain stupid.

As just one small but significant example of this stupid, insane belief system, and the effect it had on determining the course of human development - including the scapegoating of women, consider the myth of Adam and Eve.   Poor Adam, who was just being a man (that is, he just wants to get in Eve's pants) does what Eve wants him to and eats the apple.   So Eve gets the blame. Now is that stupid or what?   And you wondered where Codependence started.

The stupid, insane perspectives that form the foundation of civilized society on this planet dictated the course of human evolution and caused the human condition as we have inherited it.   The human condition was not caused by men, it was caused by planetary conditions! (If you want to know more about those planetary conditions you'll have to read my book.)   Men have been wounded by those planetary conditions just as much as women (albeit in quite different ways.)

So the reason that the topic of mothers and Mother's day is so emotionally charged and confusing is because women have been wounded so grotesquely for so long.   Because they were wounded, our mothers wounded us.

It is important to honor mothers but it is also vitally important not to deny our feelings about them.   Our mothers betrayed and abandoned us (for most of us this was not a physical abandonment but rather an abandonment in terms of: not protecting us from our wounded fathers; not being able to educate us in the realities of life; etc.), they violated our boundaries emotionally by not having boundaries themselves, they abused us in a variety of ways (whether overtly by taking out their anger and hurt on us either directly or indirectly/passive-aggressively, or by allowing us to see them being abused), and they were our female role models who passed on the stupid beliefs about women and about how women relate to men.

We have not only the right but the duty to ourselves to own our rage at our mothers. If we don't we are not owning and being true to ourselves. That does not mean we have to express that rage to our mothers.   The healing that needs to be done is an internal healing.   We need to heal our relationship with the feminine energy within us, which will lead to a healing in our relationship to the feminine energy outside of us.

Our mothers were wounded - that is why they behaved in ways that caused us to be wounded.   We need to forgive them and have compassion for them.   But it does no good to intellectually forgive them unless we deal with the feelings - unless we release the emotional energy that we are still carrying around.   It is because we are still carrying around that emotional energy that they can still push our buttons.   It is because we have not healed the emotional wounds that Mother's Day brings up so much stuff.

So look on this Mother's Day as an opportunity to get in touch with emotional wounds that need your attention.   Look at the feelings that come up as a gift to help you on your path to a healthier and more loving relationship with yourself.

If you are a mother, look on it as a chance to celebrate the Joy of motherhood and to grieve the pain of not having been given the tools and knowledge that you needed.   You were doing the absolute best you could with the tools you had.   You were being the best mother you knew how to be given your history and circumstances.   Forgive yourself and work on letting go of some of the guilt you are carrying (owning your rage at your own mother is a very important part of letting go of that guilt.)

All any human being in the history of the planet has done is the best they knew how to, with the tools they had.   It is not anyone's fault - it was caused by planetary   conditions that have now changed.   We are living in a glorious new age in which we have been given the tools and knowledge that we need to heal our relationships with ourselves, with our mothers (and fathers), with Mother Earth, and with the Holy Mother Source Energy.   We are now breaking the cycles of destructive behavior that have dictated human existence.   We can now access healing energy and Spiritual guidance that has never before been available in recorded human history - if we are willing to feel and release the rage and the grief, to heal the emotional wounds.

So have a happy (sad, angry, joyful, hurt, whatever it takes,) Mother's Day.

next: Fathers

Excellent suggestions for coping with a sibling or parent with a mental illness.

Supporting Someone with Bipolar - For Family and Friends

If you find it difficult to come to terms with your sibling's or parent's mental illness, there are many others who share your difficulty. Most siblings and adult children of people with psychiatric disorders find that mental illness in a brother, sister, or parent is a tragic event that changes everyone's life in many basic ways. Strange, unpredictable behaviors in a loved one can be devastating, and your anxiety can be high as you struggle with each episode of illness and worry about the future. It seems impossible at first, but most siblings and adult children find that over time they do gain the knowledge and skills to cope with mental illness effectively. They do have strengths they never knew they had, and they can meet situations they never even anticipated.

A good start in learning to cope is to find out as much as possible about mental illness, both by reading and talking with other families. NAMI has books, pamphlets, fact sheets, and tapes available about different illnesses, treatments, and issues you may have to deal with, and you can join one of the 1,200 NAMI affiliate groups throughout the nation. (For other resources and contact information about your state and local NAMI affiliates, call the NAMI HelpLine at 1-800/950-6264.)

The following are some things to remember that should help you as you learn to live with mental illness in your family:

• You cannot cure a mental disorder for a parent or sibling.
• No one is to blame for the illness.
• Mental disorders affect more than the person who is ill.
• Despite your best efforts, your loved one's symptoms may get worse, or they may improve.
• If you feel extreme resentment, you are giving too much.
• It is as hard for the parent or sibling to accept the disorder as it is for other family members.
• Acceptance of the disorder by all concerned may be helpful, but it is not necessary.
• A delusion has little or nothing to do with reality, so it needs no discussion.
• Separate the person from the disorder.
• It is not OK for you to be neglected. You have emotional needs and wants, too.
• The illness of a family member is nothing to be ashamed of. The reality is that you will likely encounter stigma from an apprehensive public.
• You may have to revise your expectations of the ill person.
• You may have to renegotiate your emotional relationship with the ill person.
• Acknowledge the remarkable courage your sibling or parents may show when dealing with a mental disorder.
• Generally, those closest in sibling order and gender become emotionally enmeshed while those further out become estranged.
• Grief issues for siblings are about what you had and lost. For adult children, they are about what you never had.
• After denial, sadness, and anger comes acceptance. The addition of understanding yields compassion.
• It is absurd to believe you may correct a biological illness such as diabetes, schizophrenia, or bipolar disorder with talk, although addressing social complications may be helpful.
• Symptoms may change over time while the underlying disorder remains.
• You should request the diagnosis and its explanation from professionals.
• Mental health professionals have varied degrees of competence.
• You have a right to ensure your personal safety.
• Strange behavior is a symptom of the disorder. Don't take it personally.
• Don't be afraid to ask your sibling or parent if he or she is thinking about hurting him- or herself. Suicide is real.
• Don't shoulder the whole responsibility for your mentally disordered relative yourself.
• You are not a paid professional caseworker. Your role is to be a sibling or child, not a parent or caseworker.
• The needs of the ill person do not necessarily always come first.
• If you can't care for yourself, you can't care for another.
• It is important to have boundaries and to set clear limits.
• Just because a person has limited capabilities doesn't mean that you expect nothing of him or her.
• It is natural to experience many and confusing emotions such as grief, guilt, fear, anger, sadness, hurt, confusion, and more. You, not the ill person, are responsible for your own feelings.
• Inability to talk about your feelings may leave you stuck or "frozen."
• You are not alone. Sharing your thoughts and feelings in a support group has been helpful and enlightening for many.
• Eventually you may see the silver lining in the storm clouds: your own increased awareness, sensitivity, receptivity, compassion, and maturity. You may become less judgmental and self-centered, a better person.

Source: NAMI - National Alliance for the Mentally Ill
Colonial Place Three, 2107 Wilson Blvd., Suite 300, Arlington, VA 22201-3042
703-524-7600 / NAMI HelpLine: 1-800-950-NAMI / www.nami.org

next: Empathetic Guidelines
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how to have good sex

1. Being physically fit.

Having sex requires physical energy. Thus, the sexual activities will be modified, compensating for the person who fatigues easily. Being in shape allows you to not only last longer, but to enjoy what you are doing in the moment because you do not have to worry about all the sore muscles which you are developing. Furthermore, having sex with someone who is in shape is more physically appealing. It is nice to know that the person you are with takes good care of themselves. That is appealing. In addition, when a person is in shape, they are often able to maneuver you into a sexual position. They are able to be on top for longer than two minutes, never mind the sweat that drips all over you. To get into better physical shape, you have several options:

1. You could engage in more sex. If sex is a good work out, then why not do more of it?
2. You could also get a membership to a gym and start working out.
3. Or you could start going on long walks, or bike ride with friends.

2. Being physically coordinated.

Sex requires coordination. All good sex, whether it be solo sex (ie. masturbation) two-person sex, or group-sex, requires moving to a rhythm. Those without coordination are awkward. Coordination is not something that people naturally have. Coordination can be improved by practice. So get ready to have a lot of sex. Coordination can also be learned by taking dance classes, yoga classes, tai chi classes and even swim classes. They all focus on centering your energy and using multiple body parts at the same time.

3. Having good communication skills.

Good sex requires sharing with your partner your likes and dislikes, and listening to her / his likes or dislikes. Secondly, good sex (at least in the long term) requires feeling connected. Feeling connected assumes that you feel like your partner understands you, and that you understand her / him. Good communication skills assumes good listening skills.

4. Being insecure.

The best lovers tend to be insecure lovers. Insecure lovers have a tendency to be hyper-aware of how their partner is feeling, reacting, thinking. As a result, the partner tends to go the extra mile to make sure that the other person is happy. This makes for good sex. If the partner is not happy, than she/he is not happy. One example of going the extra mile is: After the man orgasms, he will still voluntarily, without being asked, go down on a woman (i.e. engage in cunnilingus).

5. Being willing to take a risk, to experiment, to test one's own personal boundaries.

and

6. Practice

Practice makes perfect!

Letter to the editor
I read your "The five predictors of having good sex," and I agree with four of the five, but take issue with your comment that "the best lovers tend to be insecure lovers." If that were true, then the best relationships -- from the perspective of trying to "make the other person happy" would be codependent ones! Sure, YOUR needs may be met, but your insecure partner's personal needs would not be.

The only needs that an insecure lover would have met would be the need to please their partner in order to receive pleasure back. Quid pro quo.
Ron Polland, PhD

next: The Psychology of Sex

THE SECRET OF SUCCESS is persistence. But what happens when you hit a setback and feel defeated? When you conclude your goal is impossible, it takes a tremendous amount of willpower to persist.

But when you feel defeated, you have almost surely concluded something that is false: Nobody will ever want my product, I'm just a loser, Everything I touch turns to crap, etc. When a setback occurs, it brings you down. When people are down, their thoughts become overly negative, distorted, and exaggerated.

Learn to seek out the mistakes in your thinking and correct them.

Don't try to persist by forcing yourself to continue even when you feel defeated. Learn to poke holes in your defeated conclusions and you will persist naturally. Without willpower.

To learn more about this kind of
thinking, click here

Here's a conversational chapter on optimism from a future book:
Conversation on Optimism

If worry is a problem for you, or even if you would like to simply worry less even though you don't worry that much, you might like to read this:
The Ocelot Blues

Learn how to prevent yourself from falling into the common traps we are all prone to because of the structure of the human brain:
Thoughtical Illusions

next: Insecurity

how to have good sex

Couples in long term relationships often complain of lagging sexual energy. In fact, over half of the people in my "Retreat for Couples" sexuality workshops attend with the hope of increasing their sexual energy, and others want to know they are not perverts for enjoying sex, especially at midlife and beyond. All want passion and they want it with each other. They want to grow old together as lovers, not roommates.

According to sexual older couples, keeping sexual energy is satisfying but not easy. Hidden sexual energy can be found when people know how and where to look. Most couples search for it where it feels comfortable, not where it is. Couples often act like the drunk searching for his keys under a street light because darkness prevents his looking for them where they are.

Comfort, more than anxiety, obstructs sexual passion; yet, comfort is necessary to relationships. It affirms and sustains partners with closeness, familiarity and predictability. Partners who stay friends for life know how to care about, respect, and complement each other's growth. There is ease in comfort.

Staying exclusively in your personal comfort zone stifles sexual energy. Couples seek comfort (look only under the streetlight) and avoid anxiety (dodge the darkness). Anxiety is hard to bear, but managing it can fuel growth. Relationships without anxiety allow blandness to overshadow intimacy. A "no-growth" agreement prevails when partners avoid tension, discomfort, and knowing each other. The cost of rigidly maintaining comfort is the sacrifice of sexual energy.

Being deeply sexual over time with your life partner produces both joy and anxiety. This means that consciously managed anxiety can promote, even escalate, erotic energy. For example, the ability to soothe your own anxiety instead of expecting your partner to do it for you helps you create a resource for erotic feelings. This is equally true for adult survivors of incest and other traumas.

Anxious tension between partners can push them to develop tolerance, skill, and taste for highly erotic sex: "Am I willing to say how deeply sexual I feel or don't feel, and why?" "Do I say what I really want/don't want,?" "Do I say 'yes' to myself as well as to my partner?" "Do I keep faith with myself when I get upset or disagree?" "Do I have the courage not to fake feelings, not to protect against uncomfortable emotions we both avoid?" "Do I speak the truth about my own experience?"

Managing anxiety in the service of growth means you risk improving yourself in relationship. You demonstrate integrity when you manage yourself. Integrity helps you judge which anxieties to risk, such as getting to know your hidden self with your partner, and which to forego, such as having an affair. By managing anxiety you deepen your relationship as you stay intentionally connected to your partner. For example, you learn to affirm and sustain yourself; you become self-validating without pushing your partner to be different even when you dislike him/her. You can tolerate your partner's intense emotions and you can accept and regulate your own, even when that feels impossible. You compromise neither yourself, your partner, nor your self-respect, and you promise yourself to do all this in relationship. Managing anxiety means you can tolerate intimacy. This is different from closeness. Where closeness is usually anxiety-free, familiar, comfortable, and predictable, intimacy can be anxiety-laden, strange, risky, and surprising. Intimacy is the deep experience of self in relation to a partner. With intimacy, you experience yourself in a different, new, and profound way, not necessarily at the same time your partner does.

Intimacy can be profoundly joyful and penetratingly uncomfortable. The latter happens when you presume your partner will either reject you or smother you (they can do both) and you actually believe you are helpless to handle yourself in the face of either event (as an adult you are, in fact, not helpless and will survive both without ado). It is the former when you finally own your thoughts, feelings, and behavior and are willing to share all this with your partner, with and without anxiety.

Intimacy is not negotiable (behavior is negotiable). People who can risk both integrity and intimacy often stay sexually expressive in some manner throughout life. They struggle successfully to be true to themselves and at the same time face the anxiety inherent in a life that will certainly end no matter what else happens in it. This can be a powerful incentive and deterent to learn to be deeply sexual with the life partner you know you will eventually lose. In a culture that decries death, it takes courage to love a partner for life.

next: Sex Tips For Men: On Being Good In Bed

The following books have been found to provide useful information as well as practical suggestions related to attention deficit disorder also know as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

Books For Parents

ADHD-Hyperactivity: A Consumer's Guide

The Attention Zone: A Parent's Guide to Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder

Daredevils and Daydreamers : New Perspectives on Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder

Books For Kids & Teens

Distant Drums, Different Drummers : A Guide for Young People With Adhd

My Brother's a World-Class Pain: A Sibling's Guide to ADHD-Hyperactivity

Putting on the Brakes: Young People's Guide to Understanding Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

The Only Tortoise in a Two Hare Household

Books For Educators

Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder in the Classroom: A Practical Guide for Teachers

Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder: A Practical Guide for Teachers (Resource Materials for Teachers)

Books For Adults With ADHD

Driven to Distraction: Recognizing and Coping With Attention Deficit Disorder from Childhood Through Adulthood

next: The BAIR Filtering System
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