INNER HURTS TAKE AN OUTWARD TURN....

By Olivene Godfrey

F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote in The Last Tycoon, " It is not a slam at you when people are rude-- it's a slam at the people
they've met before." Those are thought- provoking words that sent me to the psychology books in my home library.

I learned through reading and personal experience that people who seem to enjoy hurting others are usually people who are hurting themselves. They have suffered some deep and lasting hurt that causes them to inflict pain on others as an attempt to get revenge on society for what it has done to them.

Such people may be unaware of the cause of their inner anguish and it may be difficult to trace and to relieve. The problems may have started in childhood before they were old enough to know either what to do with their problems or what the problems are doing to hem.

A destructive falsehood is that children have no serious problems, that childhood is the happiest time of life. Even with all the clinical evidence, many people still refuse to believe in the importance of early conditioning and the small child does have very real problems to solve.

Some thinker said that the weight of a problem is the significance it has for the person, whether child or adult.
Paradoxically, the adult who dismisses problems of a child as of little consequence, may be one who is still unconsciously
wrestling with the unsolved problems of his own childhood.

He may remember his own childhood lovingly and longs to return to it because he reached adulthood unprepared for its responsibilities. For this person, adulthood is a time of friction, anxieties and disappointed hoped.

When an adult is consistently rude, projecting an image of a fearful person, we may wonder: When did he first began to hate his existence? He didn't just wake up one morning hating the world. Nor did it happen yesterday. He may be preoccupied with some emotional problem that beset him in those years of childhood which he now believes was his "Happiest time of life."

The world today is full of worried adults. So, it is bound to be full of uneasy children. The moods and attitudes of the care taking adult constitutes the most important single factor in his child's climate of emotional growth.

Our culture today emphasizes a high standard of material living.
And in many homes parental time and energy are spent in ways that no small child can recognize as important.

A child can survive a fair amount of dirt better than he can emotionally survive the presence of a mother harassed by a constant battle against dirt. Psychiatrist tell us the only sound self-image for a child to build is that of a person of worth. He must believe he is valued by others even though he makes his share of mistakes. To escape the hazards of acute self-preoccupation he must have enough self-liking and self trust to make him feel safe to turn his attention from himself and invest it in the outer real world.

One thing we can do to increase human self-respect is to stop trying to command good will into existence. We can't make anyone feel an emotion. We can only provide the sort of experience from which that emotion will grow of its own accord.
See you next time.

MUSIC OF PAST & PRESENT REVIEWED....

By Olivene Godfrey

True folk music is music that has grown up among the people as an important part of their daily lives. Much of it is very old and was never written or printed until recent years. The folk music of a locality remains about the same even though its boundaries or nationality may change.

As a child growing up in Tennessee, I remember my mother singing, " She'll be coming around the mountain..." And my whole family would often sing that song as we drove along the Tennessee mountain roads. Another favorite of the family was, "Billy Boy" which I sang to my son when he was a little boy.

Perhaps the true form of folk music for this area is country or western music. When I was a teen-ager this form of music was called, "hillbilly" and for me it was very definitely
"Out!" As a child I was exposed to many forms of music. I studied piano and accordion for about ten years. But, as a teenager my favorite music was "popular music." In those days of World War II, pop music had sentimental words and sweet sounding melodies as well as the dance music of the Big Band era.

On a recent trip to nearby Dalton, son Barry who is intrigued by gadgets brought along one of his favorite gadgets, a small digital jukebox which holds allot of music in its small case.
He played a selection of songs through the car radio speakers on our trip which evoked sweet memories for me. The recordings were of the Big Bands of my youth. As I listened to "In the Mood", I recalled the day a friend taught me how to do the jitterbug dance of that day. And, "Chattanooga Choo Choo" reminded me of when my cute little twin sisters would sing that number at school functions. They don't like to be reminded of those acts now. Then, some of the other songs reminded me of the day of when my late husband and I were courting and would attend live performances of big bands at the Memorial Auditorium in Chattanooga.

Back in the 1970s, I became a fan of country music which at that time had tunes that were sentimentally nostalgic and in a sense reflected life. People are all basically the same. We all have moments when we laugh and we have moments when we ache and moments of joy. The music played on most contemporary country radio stations has changed and not for the better in my opinion. I still like the "old country” songs. I told Barry recently when I watched a T.V. program featuring the Texas swing band, Asleep at the Wheel, which I do like that if a band doesn't have a steel guitar (this band has two!), I don't like it.

See you next week.

NOBODY FEELS GOOD ALL THE TIME

By Olivene Godfrey

The other day I read, "You shouldn't worry if you don't feel good all the time." Well, that's fine, I thought, since at the time I was feeling blah, you know, not anything particularly wrong, just not a fit and healthy feeling.

Age is supposed to bring you wisdom. And, if you aren't the brightest person in the world if you live long enough you have to learn some things. I've learned that from time to time I do have certain ailments and aches and pains but now I just grin and bear it.

The article that said we shouldn't worry if we don't feel so great that nobody feels good all the time. Everybody has his blah periods when he gets more tired than usual and is annoyed and irritated by unclassified aches and pains.

This doesn't mean that unusual symptoms shouldn't be reported to your doctor. But, to be overly concerned by every variety of aches and pains serves little purpose except to guarantee your standing as a hypochondriac. I imagine the waiting rooms of many doctors wouldn't be so crowded if we accepted the fact that there will be times when for no apparent reason we just aren't going to feel well.

I have always had regular medical check-ups. The difference in recent years is that all of my aches and pains aren't imagined anymore. I have real ailments these days. I have an appointment for my yearly physical in the morning. I am keeping my fingers crossed that I don't have any new ailments and that my old ones aren't any worse.

See you next time.

HANDWRITING MAY SHOW TRAITS

By Olivene Godfrey

In psychological studies that compared handwriting characteristics with the results of personality tests, it was found that the handwriting of all people is affected by personality conflicts, emotional crises, neuroses and so forth.

I have found this study interesting because of personal experiences. During a crisis or time of stress I am usually composed, outwardly. In fact, I've usually been able to cope with crises without falling apart. Yet during such times my handwriting obviously reveals inner stress. It is barely legible
and I have trouble keeping a pen steady. For some reason during such times I can still type.

This doesn't happen only during tragic periods in my life. Following the birth of my son I felt marvelous. So, a couple of days after he was born, I decided to address announcements of his birth to relatives and friends. But, I couldn't hold the pen steady enough to write. Physically I felt fine and I was very happy. Yet, childbirth had obviously affected my emotions to the point that it affected my handwriting.

Once I was skeptical of handwriting analysis. But, psychotically studies have shown what simply makes sense, that our emotions and our personality traits do affect our penmanship. Studies have shown that a person reveals more than his name in his signature. The writing of his name, an action performed over and over throughout our lifetime, can be seen as a repeated test that indicates that person's estimation of himself.

Research on groups of people of varying status in life has shown that a person's signature tends to grow larger as his status increases. Studies have also shown, and I've found this true,
that most people talk the way they write. In studies in which samples of subjects' voice recordings were compared with their handwriting, many similarities were noted.

For instance, handwriting of people with loud voices tends to be characterized by bold strokes and heavy pressure. People whose speech is forceful, persuasive, and who try to influence others , often underline words when they write to add extra emphasis.

See you next time.

ANGER & LAUGHTER ARE CONTAGIOUS....

By Olivene Godfrey

If you're around angry people for any length of time you're more likely to be angry, too. So says investigators who made a study of anger a few years ago. They claimed that hostility and aggression are as contagious as any virus.

And, you'll be much more likely to keep your temper if you stay away from people to are constantly on the verge of losing theirs.
I rarely become very angry. And, even then, I try to keep my sense of humor as it helps me cool off. Humor also helps when dealing with an angry person.

As sociologist, Joyce O. Hertzler notes in, Laughter: A SocioScientific Analysis" in such situations, "the laughter of the individual, like profanity, at least momentarily relieves him in a serious situation which threatens his well-being. It keeps him from blowing his fuse."

It's also pointed out that aggressive laughter serves to get the resentments and antipathies, which the other person has generated, out of one's system.

Then, studies have shown us that the person who goes through life with a chip on his shoulder is actually mad at himself.
A person's attitude toward himself tends to be projected to others. As one authority observed, the extent to which a person likes or hates the world around him, depends on the degree to which he likes or hates himself.

Sometimes we read, usually in fiction, that when a person’s gripped by fear, anger, joy, etc... - time "stood still.
Actually, according to studies, time is more likely to "stand still" for you when you're lost in thought. Thinking seems to entail a far greater sense of timelessness than feeling.

See you next time.