Happy Valentines Day & African American History Month!
Welcome to our new, streamlined, smartphone-friendly monthly e-Newsletter. our message brief, friendly, and to the point. We are entering our 16th year of our e-Newsletter and currently have 2,500 subscribers. Thanks you for your interest and Happy Groundhog Day and Leap Year!
If you or a loved one is looking to make positive changes in the new year, please consider contacting us at 248-358-8508 for a free consultation. It might be the best call you’ve made in a while.
UPCOMING SEMINARS. WORKSHOPS, and ITEMS of INTEREST
Tuesday February 2, 2016-Mr. Shulman will appear as a guest expert on HLN (Headline News) Nancy Grace Show to discuss recent case of a Virginia bank manager charged with embezzling over $1 million to fund her shopping addiction.
Friday February 19, 2016-Mr. Shulman presents a 6-hour seminar on ethics (Part 1: How we develop our own ethics and how we teach-or don’t teach-our children; and Part 2: Understanding ethics and ethical dilemmas as social workers). $95 (includes lunch) at Jewish Family Services in W. Bloomfield, Ml. 9am – 3:30pm 6 CEUs) Must register. Contact: www.coreleaminoinc.com
Tuesday March 8, 2016-Mr. Shulman presents on understanding and treating hoarding disorder at The Allen Park, Ml Public Library 6:30-7pm. Free.
Thursday March 10, 2016-Mr. Shulman presents on understanding and treating hoarding disorder at Hannan House in Detroit. 9:30-11:30am. Call for info.
Thursday March 31, 2016-Mr. Shulman will be presenting on “Cultivating Honesty and Integrity in Our Kids and Ourselves” at the Annual Michigan Social Workers Conference in Lansing, Ml. Registration required.
Friday April 1, 2016-Mr. Shulman will be presenting on “Men’s Issues in Therapy and Recovery” at the Annual Michigan Social Workers Conference in Lansing, Ml. Registration required.
Monday May 16, 2016-Mr. Shulman presents on understanding and treating hoarding disorder at The Livonia, MI Public Library 7-8:30pm. Free.
Thursday July 27, 2016-Mr. Shulman presents on understanding and treating hoarding disorder at The Dexter, Ml District Library 7-8:30pm. Free.
Facts, Stats, Quotes & More!
New Apps for Mental Health Therapy:
Moodnotes, Breathing Zone, Pause and Talkspace
The Times They Are A-Changin’:
More Americans Now Use Banking Apps (30%) Than Branches (24%)
Only in America… Man Sues Papa Johns Pizza for 16 Cents He Was Taxed on Delivery
Man Must Be a Martian California Man Steals 7,500 Pounds of Candy from Mars, Inc.
A Quote by Mahatma Gandhi: Manliness consists not in bluff, bravado, or going it alone. It consists in daring to do the right thing and facing the consequences, whether it is in matters social, political, or other. It consists in deeds, not words.
A Quote by Sam Levinson: Any kid who has two parents who are interested in him and has a houseful of books isn’t poor.
A Quote by L.R. Knost: It’s not our job to toughen our children up to face a cruel and heartless world. It’s our job to raise children who will make the world a little less cruel and heartless.
Monthly Articles of Interest
What Was She Thinkina? Bank Manager Embezzled S1 Million to Support Shopping Addiction
Just Say Not 21 Tips To Stop Being A People Pleaser
And Keen It Short! How Should You Manager Your Money?
Oh No She Did Not!
Identity Theft Victim Confronts Starbucks Drive-Thru Cashier in Video
Back to Birkenstocks?
The High Price of Beauty! 4 Women Reveal Their Annual Costs
What Were They Thinkina?
Ohio Sheriff and Deputy-Wife Fired for Shoplifting
Clutterbuas To Bedhuas!
Hoarding Task Forces Attempt to Help Locals
Should Have Already Mastered Everything
Can Shame Be Useful?
The Cult of Marie Knndn Spark Joy and Compassionate Organizing
Smile! You’re On Candid Camera! Shoplifter Turns Self In After Seeing Herself on TV News
This Month’s Featured Article by Terrence Shulman
A Valentine for 2016
Well, we’re one month into the New Year. How are you doing? Do you feel “new”? Did you make any resolutions? Did you break them yet? And here comes Valentine’s Day right around the corner.
For many, this holiday is truly a joyous occasion—an opportunity to make that little (or big) extra effort to show someone you really care, you really love ’em. For others, it’s a dreaded day: whether you don’t have a “significant” other, you’re going through relationship “challenges,” or you just can’t seem to get on board with the whole “Hallmark” feel of it When was the last time you took yourself on a date?
Is it possible the best indicator of whether Valentine’s Day—or any day for that matter—is a joyful opportunity to love is: have I loved myself first? We’ve all paid lip service to the platitude “you have to love yourself before you love someone else.” But do we really believe it? Do we really live it? Or do we live like the famous line in “Jerry Maguire”—waiting for someone to “complete me”? But “I love him/her more than I love myself.” Does that sound noble… or sad?
I’m not speaking as someone who has mastered self-love. I’m speaking as a fellow journeyer. I’ve been married almost five years now and, I can tell you, keeping love alive isn’t always easy. I’m also recognizing that I really want to learn to love others more deeply and to receive others’ love more deeply. If you’re like me and you’ve ever had trouble taking a compliment, accepting help, or letting love in, it’s likely there some residue of unworthiness lodged in our hearts, keeping us from fully loving ourselves and, therefore, from fully loving one another.
We use the term “significant other.” What about “significant self”? Sounds funny, doesn’t it? As if to love ourselves still sounds conceited, self-centered, and narcissistic. I like the saying “I am my only life partner.” In essence, I am married to myself whether I like it or not—there’s no real divorcing myself–so I might as well continue to work on this primary relationship with me… while I continue to offer the best I have of my love to others. There’s also the saying “we are all one, we’re all connected.” To the degree I embrace this as true, it seems to follow as a goal or intention to treat others as I would like to be treated and vice-versa.
We’re not taught much about self-love or self-care. Our bodies, minds and spirits are truly temples. Nobody’s perfect. I don’t love myself perfectly and I haven’t yet loved anybody else perfectly—if I’m perfectly honest. But I’m really starting to get that the degree to which I can love anybody unconditionally is largely contingent on how able I am to love myself unconditionally. Even when it seems I treat others better than I treat myself, it has often felt as if I’ve tried to love someone hard enough to make myself feel good enough, worthy of their love. It’s a sad but common game. Actually, I’ve heard it said that the phrase “unconditional love” is redundant: love, by definition, is unconditional… anything else is not love.
One of my other favorite aphorisms is by Peter Rengel from his book “Living Life in Love”: “Loving yourself is accepting yourself, especially when you are not accepting yourself.” Take addictions, for
example. Who would deny that at some level, addictions are a form of self-destruction, self-punishment, self-hatred? Certainly, we fall into these cycles and have great challenges, pulling themselves out even when we are hurting and claim to want help. But, I believe, what keeps us from stopping smoking, overeating, over-drinking, overspending—you name it—is that the fuel for our madness hasn’t yet been siphoned out of our tanks; that fuel, deep down, is self-loathing. And the more I hate myself for falling into an addiction in the first place, the more my addiction gets a stranglehold on me.
Often, asking for help is the key because someone can lend a hand and remind me I am lovable and assist me in my journey toward greater self-acceptance and self-love. If I am accepting and loving myself at a high level, it is unlikely I would do anything to harm myself physically, emotionally, financially, and spiritually.
We might just take note of the ways in which we recognize we aren’t loving ourselves. The point isn’t to further beat up on ourselves but, to take honest account of where we’re out of integrity. Again, be ready to share with someone or ask for help. Ultimately, the best gift we can give ourselves and our loved ones is taking good care of ourselves. We know this is true.
So, this Valentine’s Day, I plan on doing something special for my wife to let her know I love her. Of course, I hope she knows that already–the holiday is just another opportunity to be creative in expressing it. But even before I put my focus on her, I am already checking in with how I’m loving me. I am giving myself the gift of exercise, eating well, taking down time, asking for help when needed, easing up on my perfectionism, and just patting myself on the back for being a good person at heart. I’m also planning on giving myself some kind of little treat for Valentine’s Day to “pay myself first,” to fill my tank full of love so that it spills over to others.
I encourage each of us to be our own Valentine first and then send out whatever love we can to the world… it certainly needs it.
2016: The Future is Upon Us “Be The Change We Wish To See in The World”–Gandhi
I’ve been thinking recently how my personal life mirrors what’s going on in the world and how what’s going on in the world mirrors my life. Maybe it’s just what I’m focusing on.
I’m half-way to my 51st birthday. I’ve been feeling ambivalent. I’m grateful to have lived this long. My self-care has become a lax. I worry at times about the inevitable decline of my body and mind. Part of me wants to fight to stay as healthy as I can- Part of me wants to just let nature take it’s course. My 76-year old mother has been losing her memory and I’ve been noticing my mind isn’t as sharp as it once was either. I tell myself it’s information overload—from the outside as well as self-generating.
I am grieving the loss of two dear friends—my 30-year old godson who died suddenly in a car accident just over a month ago, and another buddy, 53, who wastes away in a local nursing home, unresponsive and kept alive by feeding tubes and respirators since he suffered a diabetic coma six months ago. His family has been talking to Hospice. As Neil Young sang, “It’s better to burn out, than to fade away.”
I think about how fragile life is and how to live (and die) in peace.
The economy has certainly steadied over the last 8 years yet it still feels like something bad could happen at any minute. I often feel this way about my life: I’ve come a long way but feel frustrated at times that my finances aren’t growing larger, faster–just as the story that our country’s economy is much too sluggish. Mush! Mush! We say to the economy. How much is enough?
I think about our planet and how each year keeps getting hotter and how mother nature seems to be screaming at us to pay attention, shape up, grow up. If the earth is like my body–and vice-versa—I notice how I both care and don’t care about it. I feel concerned yet powerless to effect change. I’m not a climate change denier but I don’t drive a Prius either. Do I treat the earth as I treat myself?
Politics… Election year is upon us. A civil war rages in our midst. We seem to become more and more
polarized, our visions of the future so diametrically opposed. Negotiation and compromise are seen as defeats. Civility is all but gone and insults, put downs and lies prevail. I’m reminded of my addict self: run by ego, driven, scorching everything in my path. I complain but am part of the problem when I see the world as right-left, right-wrong, black-white. Do we move always forward or is there some sense in holding firm and reclaiming what seems to have worked in the past?
When we look at the world are we happy? If not, why not? When we look at our own lives, are we joyous? If not, why not? I’m not striving to be perfect but I know that I am responsible for where I put my focus–on the negative or on the positive. I don’t need to turn a blind eye to what concerns me. But I intend to up the ante this year and be the change I wish to see in the world.
Books by Terrence Shulman
Click here to order!
| SOMETHING FOR NOTHING: Shoplifting Addiction & Recovery |
BOUGHT OUT AND WENT! Compulsive $hopping and $pending |
Click here to order!
| CLUTTERED LIVES, EMPTY SOULS: Compulsive Stealing, Spending & Hoarding |
BITING THE HAND THAT FEEDS The Employee Theft Epidemic |
SPOTLIGHTS
Check out the latest from The Shulman Center for Compulsive Theft. Spending and Hoarding
OTHER ASSOCIATES ARE DOING GREAT WORK, TOO!
Younique Wellness for Body, Mind and Spirit
Home
Think Beyond Belief Publishing
http://kevinalexzander.comhttp://zantimekoqwanzi.com
Alabama Court Referral Program
S.T.E.P.: Stop Theft Education Program
3rd Millenium STOPLifting Online Education Course
www.3rdmilclassrooms.com
UnSTEAL.org–A Non-Profit Corporation
http://unsteal.org
Getting Out From Going Under (Debt)
http://gettingoutfromgoinqunder.com
April Benson, PhD and Stopping Overshopping
http://www.shopaholicnomore.com/text-program
Surviving Suicide with Heart and Humor
http://writeonmymind.com
Jack L. Hayes, International, Inc. Loss Prevention
http://hayesinternationalcom
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