The orthopedic surgeon laughed when I couldn't answer his question. "You don't remember if you had surgery on your rotator cuff? I know you did. It's in your records." Well, when you have had as many surgeries and procedures as I have, they all run together. It's a habit, being used to pain. Like any other practice, you don't always realize that you are doing it until someone else points it out. I am trying to break the pattern. "How long have you lived with this pain?" is a question I have often gotten from doctors. Not anymore. As soon as my shoulder started crunching again, I made an appointment. Diagnosis? Tendinitis of right rotator cuff. A quick shot of steroids, a little physical therapy and I am right as rain. Again. My list of diagnoses (just from the orthopedic offices) include: Contusion of right wrist, Trochanteric bursitis of right hip, Lumbar spondylosis, Rotator cuff (capsule) sprain, Overweight. Oh. Yes, well, that’s the thing about bad habits. You have to WANT to break them.
May 8, 2023·edited May 8, 2023Liked by M Tamara Cutler
Three Christmases ago, my son gave me Gretchen Rubin's book Better Than Before: Mastering the Habits of Our Everyday Lives. People have different tendencies with regard to habits and expectations, she said. I tend to be an Upholder, a rule-follower who likes to meet both outer and inner expectations. The three other tendencies are: Questioner (resists outer, meets inner), Obliger (meets outer, resists inner), and Rebel (resists both outer and inner expectations). Of course, the tendencies overlap; I question, oblige, and rebel, too. As questioner and rebel, I’m not a fan of best-selling, self-help books, but the obliger in me at least skims a book I've been given. Upholders are, as Rubin wrote, “…self-directed and have little trouble meeting commitments, keeping resolutions, or meeting deadlines… They want to understand the rules…” But, she continues, “Upholders may struggle in situations where expectations aren’t clear or the rules aren’t established.” In other words, if I don't schedule an activity, it probably won't happen. Because, like it or not, I am a creature of habit.
May 8, 2023·edited May 8, 2023Liked by M Tamara Cutler
I come from a family of sighers: my father sighed, as did my paternal grandmother. My sister and brother sigh, and so do I and (sigh) my older daughter. We joke about it, because we just do it out of habit.
But it can get me into trouble: non-relatives have interpreted my sigh as an expression of dissatisfaction or criticism with the person/matter at hand, when it was just me releasing tension in general. Thank goodness for yoga, where sighing can be framed as a healthy exhale, and if done right, even a therapeutic practice.
And yet, for all that exhaling, my lung capacity is disappointingly low. I was never an avid swimmer or runner, and for all the yoga, dance, etc. I’ve done in my life, I guess it simply wasn’t enough cardio over the long term. The allergy-induced asthma I’ve developed in the last few years – due to hormones, living on a trafficky street for a decade, smoking in the past, or all of the above – doesn’t help either.
So recently, I decided to finally work on that. I splurged on an overpriced breathing trainer-cum-app and once a day practice inhaling and exhaling – this time with intention.
Habit has always been a word I associate with something negative, like chewing on my fingers, until recent years while trying to help both my mother and my son through some challenges by establishing positive habits. In each case, it would be a changed behaviour through deliberate repetition until it becomes second nature. I think they still claim thirty days can make it happen. In questioning the reality of this, I've examined my own changed behaviours and, although I did not count the days, or even set out to make changes, I must say the evidence is in favor of repetition getting the job done. After 45 years of being nocturnal, I am now a morning person from adopting my husband's schedule. I don't just mean that I turn in and wake up early. I am at my most attentive, productive, and effective in the early part of the day. My keys are always hanging on the same hook and I always know where to find the scissors. Grocery shopping takes place on the same day each week and is done so with a list of items we actually need. Routine never came naturally, it had to be a choice and required a good deal of effort but now that I am changed in that way, the good habits serve me well.
The Gatz showed up and sat down in proper position on the gravel in the front yard. It was Christmas Day. We decided to keep him. Our little Xmas miracle. No other dog but Ragazzo could have replaced Podzy, who we lost to a senseless, indiscriminate murderer who had set a poisoned chorizo trap randomly on the river path, which was subsequently, accidentally, chomped down by my mother-in-law’s beloved eleven-year-old podenco.
Gatz is the first puppy I’ve had from an early age because he arrived as an abandoned eight-month-old. I never grew up with dogs as my mom is a cat lover. He looks like Chief from Wes Anderson’s “Isle of Dogs”.
I have become the dealer in our house. I’m the designated giver-of-treats. My ritual has become his habit. Or is it his ritual has become my habit? He gets four in the morning, three before dinner, and three for dessert. Occasionally more. Each tiny treat broken even smaller into bitesize pieces. I never let him down when he asks at the right time of day. We bond. Just like Podzy before.
Having played in bands for over 30 years created a habit with alcohol.
It's a habit of both me and my husband. When you are young, and after you have loaded in your band's equipment to play a show, the normal thing to do was to grab a beer or two while you waited to play. Then after the show you would socially drink and possibly head to an after hours hang at someones house and probably grabbing a case of beer for our fellow party goers. This was something we both did on a regular basis. Now, mind you, we were not alcoholics, because we could easily set out to not drink for any amount of time we choose, but because this was a social habit that occured around music, and we played music all the time, it was a regular habit. Now well into our 50's and not playing music live anymore our habit with alcohol has changed.
We no longer stay up all night, now going to bed at 9 or 10 pm most evenings and getting up at 7 am, and hangovers when imbibing a little too much is a killer at this age, but we still have wine every day. We dont drink to the point of getting drunk, but usually just have something nice with dinner, or have a glass at a beautiful outdoor kiosk.
I question this habit with alcohol when I meet people who either don't drink as much or dont drink at all. Why do we attribute alcohol with relaxation? Why do we associate drinking with being social? We have gone without drinking for a month at a time, say for Dry January or if we are sick, but we always return again because, well, water is boring.
My habit of taking jobs that at first glance seemed unsuited for me found me working in the men’s receiving building of the State Mental Hospital as an occupational therapist, for which I had no experience, other than I was an artist and I believed nothing was insurmountable. In this wing of the hospital the men were either murderers, sociopaths or bi-polar and were sent each morning to me and my partner in the woodworking studio to keep them busy. My group had been doing boring little packaged crafty projects, playing cards chewing tobacco and sending a stream of it across the room to a spittoon. I was the only woman there and I wondered how they would treat me, but to my surprise they all became southern gentlemen. One inmate kept the group under control, and we all got along well.
I dispensed with the artsy craft material and quickly turned us into a crafts studio designing tile top tables, hooked rugs, metal work enclosing boxes made in the woodworking area, and a series of beautiful ceramic cats. We then set up the things in the shop and everyone was delighted. They looked forward to our sessions together, and once again my habit of transforming a work environment stood me in good stead. I was delighted at the outcome.
One of my therapy patients is a 4 year old boy who had told me in the past that he hates bedtime, that it is so boring just lying there alone with no people, no toys or even books. This past week he told me he had a new bedtime routine. He explained that it isn't a routine like something you HAVE to do, it's something you CAN do if you WANT to, but that he ALWAYS does it now because he likes it. It is listening to music, specifically Mozart, as he falls asleep. He was so delighted that this new routine totally solved his big nightly bedtime problem. I felt him wondering, in the way young children do, as they discover new and wondrous aspects of how life works, if maybe he was discovering that all problems are quite easy to solve with just some new routine or small adjustment to an old routine.
The orthopedic surgeon laughed when I couldn't answer his question. "You don't remember if you had surgery on your rotator cuff? I know you did. It's in your records." Well, when you have had as many surgeries and procedures as I have, they all run together. It's a habit, being used to pain. Like any other practice, you don't always realize that you are doing it until someone else points it out. I am trying to break the pattern. "How long have you lived with this pain?" is a question I have often gotten from doctors. Not anymore. As soon as my shoulder started crunching again, I made an appointment. Diagnosis? Tendinitis of right rotator cuff. A quick shot of steroids, a little physical therapy and I am right as rain. Again. My list of diagnoses (just from the orthopedic offices) include: Contusion of right wrist, Trochanteric bursitis of right hip, Lumbar spondylosis, Rotator cuff (capsule) sprain, Overweight. Oh. Yes, well, that’s the thing about bad habits. You have to WANT to break them.
Three Christmases ago, my son gave me Gretchen Rubin's book Better Than Before: Mastering the Habits of Our Everyday Lives. People have different tendencies with regard to habits and expectations, she said. I tend to be an Upholder, a rule-follower who likes to meet both outer and inner expectations. The three other tendencies are: Questioner (resists outer, meets inner), Obliger (meets outer, resists inner), and Rebel (resists both outer and inner expectations). Of course, the tendencies overlap; I question, oblige, and rebel, too. As questioner and rebel, I’m not a fan of best-selling, self-help books, but the obliger in me at least skims a book I've been given. Upholders are, as Rubin wrote, “…self-directed and have little trouble meeting commitments, keeping resolutions, or meeting deadlines… They want to understand the rules…” But, she continues, “Upholders may struggle in situations where expectations aren’t clear or the rules aren’t established.” In other words, if I don't schedule an activity, it probably won't happen. Because, like it or not, I am a creature of habit.
I come from a family of sighers: my father sighed, as did my paternal grandmother. My sister and brother sigh, and so do I and (sigh) my older daughter. We joke about it, because we just do it out of habit.
But it can get me into trouble: non-relatives have interpreted my sigh as an expression of dissatisfaction or criticism with the person/matter at hand, when it was just me releasing tension in general. Thank goodness for yoga, where sighing can be framed as a healthy exhale, and if done right, even a therapeutic practice.
And yet, for all that exhaling, my lung capacity is disappointingly low. I was never an avid swimmer or runner, and for all the yoga, dance, etc. I’ve done in my life, I guess it simply wasn’t enough cardio over the long term. The allergy-induced asthma I’ve developed in the last few years – due to hormones, living on a trafficky street for a decade, smoking in the past, or all of the above – doesn’t help either.
So recently, I decided to finally work on that. I splurged on an overpriced breathing trainer-cum-app and once a day practice inhaling and exhaling – this time with intention.
Habit has always been a word I associate with something negative, like chewing on my fingers, until recent years while trying to help both my mother and my son through some challenges by establishing positive habits. In each case, it would be a changed behaviour through deliberate repetition until it becomes second nature. I think they still claim thirty days can make it happen. In questioning the reality of this, I've examined my own changed behaviours and, although I did not count the days, or even set out to make changes, I must say the evidence is in favor of repetition getting the job done. After 45 years of being nocturnal, I am now a morning person from adopting my husband's schedule. I don't just mean that I turn in and wake up early. I am at my most attentive, productive, and effective in the early part of the day. My keys are always hanging on the same hook and I always know where to find the scissors. Grocery shopping takes place on the same day each week and is done so with a list of items we actually need. Routine never came naturally, it had to be a choice and required a good deal of effort but now that I am changed in that way, the good habits serve me well.
The Gatz showed up and sat down in proper position on the gravel in the front yard. It was Christmas Day. We decided to keep him. Our little Xmas miracle. No other dog but Ragazzo could have replaced Podzy, who we lost to a senseless, indiscriminate murderer who had set a poisoned chorizo trap randomly on the river path, which was subsequently, accidentally, chomped down by my mother-in-law’s beloved eleven-year-old podenco.
Gatz is the first puppy I’ve had from an early age because he arrived as an abandoned eight-month-old. I never grew up with dogs as my mom is a cat lover. He looks like Chief from Wes Anderson’s “Isle of Dogs”.
I have become the dealer in our house. I’m the designated giver-of-treats. My ritual has become his habit. Or is it his ritual has become my habit? He gets four in the morning, three before dinner, and three for dessert. Occasionally more. Each tiny treat broken even smaller into bitesize pieces. I never let him down when he asks at the right time of day. We bond. Just like Podzy before.
Having played in bands for over 30 years created a habit with alcohol.
It's a habit of both me and my husband. When you are young, and after you have loaded in your band's equipment to play a show, the normal thing to do was to grab a beer or two while you waited to play. Then after the show you would socially drink and possibly head to an after hours hang at someones house and probably grabbing a case of beer for our fellow party goers. This was something we both did on a regular basis. Now, mind you, we were not alcoholics, because we could easily set out to not drink for any amount of time we choose, but because this was a social habit that occured around music, and we played music all the time, it was a regular habit. Now well into our 50's and not playing music live anymore our habit with alcohol has changed.
We no longer stay up all night, now going to bed at 9 or 10 pm most evenings and getting up at 7 am, and hangovers when imbibing a little too much is a killer at this age, but we still have wine every day. We dont drink to the point of getting drunk, but usually just have something nice with dinner, or have a glass at a beautiful outdoor kiosk.
I question this habit with alcohol when I meet people who either don't drink as much or dont drink at all. Why do we attribute alcohol with relaxation? Why do we associate drinking with being social? We have gone without drinking for a month at a time, say for Dry January or if we are sick, but we always return again because, well, water is boring.
My habit of taking jobs that at first glance seemed unsuited for me found me working in the men’s receiving building of the State Mental Hospital as an occupational therapist, for which I had no experience, other than I was an artist and I believed nothing was insurmountable. In this wing of the hospital the men were either murderers, sociopaths or bi-polar and were sent each morning to me and my partner in the woodworking studio to keep them busy. My group had been doing boring little packaged crafty projects, playing cards chewing tobacco and sending a stream of it across the room to a spittoon. I was the only woman there and I wondered how they would treat me, but to my surprise they all became southern gentlemen. One inmate kept the group under control, and we all got along well.
I dispensed with the artsy craft material and quickly turned us into a crafts studio designing tile top tables, hooked rugs, metal work enclosing boxes made in the woodworking area, and a series of beautiful ceramic cats. We then set up the things in the shop and everyone was delighted. They looked forward to our sessions together, and once again my habit of transforming a work environment stood me in good stead. I was delighted at the outcome.
One of my therapy patients is a 4 year old boy who had told me in the past that he hates bedtime, that it is so boring just lying there alone with no people, no toys or even books. This past week he told me he had a new bedtime routine. He explained that it isn't a routine like something you HAVE to do, it's something you CAN do if you WANT to, but that he ALWAYS does it now because he likes it. It is listening to music, specifically Mozart, as he falls asleep. He was so delighted that this new routine totally solved his big nightly bedtime problem. I felt him wondering, in the way young children do, as they discover new and wondrous aspects of how life works, if maybe he was discovering that all problems are quite easy to solve with just some new routine or small adjustment to an old routine.