TLP Hitting the wall

So the first 4 weeks of listening to The Listening Program went by fast and were quite enjoyable. I noticed an improvement in sleeping. I still don't sleep through the night, but when I fall asleep, I sleep in a deeper state. I also noticed I am calmer and that is a huge bonus.
The problem is sometime in week 5 or 6 I came unglued at the seams. My provider warned me he thought I would have things rise up to the surface and asked me if I had someone I could talk to when they did. I assured him I did, as I had a great friend in mind. However, she hit a rough patch in life herself and I didn't want to add to her current burdens and knew I couldn't chat with her. So what then?
I went to a counselor. Then I went to another counselor and I like her alot. She is a no nonsense type which is perfect for an intelligent woman of my age. First visit I broke down and cried, as I have been doing for 3weeks now. Tears are always just under the surface and errupting at the least little thing. Can not believe the big and little memories bubbling up.
There is a big hole in my memory. I'm missing people's names and my connections to them from when I lived in Vernal UT years ago. Now they are flooding back along with stuff I forgot for good reasons! Like getting punched by my husband in my sleep. Nice one to deal with. Like myriads of ridiculous living situations I allowed myself and my children to live in. So as these things come up I'm also looking at my current life conditions and finding many of them unexceptable too. This has thrown me into a huge life evaluation mode and perhaps it was about time. I have not stopped listening though. I will do this for myself, as after all the things I have been through in my life, I deserve to have some peace and enjoy consistent happiness. Doesn't everyone?!

Difficulties with School

The goal is to complete something I've wanted since high school... a college degree. I'm bright. I have a high IQ. I even have a nice EQi. I'm personable and can write well. In fact in my entire life I have never gotten anything but an 'A' on any paper I have ever written. That's all through school, including over 4 years of college. However, now I'm at Westminster College, where I will get an incredible education IF I can do it!

So why all the angst? When I am qualified, experienced and skilled?

Cuz things don't connect right in my brain. I've had one too many head injuries and way too much stress in my long, long life and it has caught up with me.

Now let me interject right here, that this is NOT due to experimentation with contraband substances, ie: drugs, or overconsumption of alcohol. Although a glass of wine does sound good right now. Many of my generation and other people too, have burned themselves out with either or both of those hobbies. Doing drugs and/or drinking too much is not my excuse for faulty faculties. Just been knocked silly a bunch.

So here is the deal. I started the term January 10th. Pretty excited. Randy told everyone he was dating a college girl which had to upset a few people looking at his silver curly hair! I went to class, took notes, thought I could whip papers out left and right like I always have been able to do. Not this time.

I can't get the campus email to work. I can't find the submissions protocols even though we had a class on it. I can't go back and forth between the web pages without getting lost. I really do not understand what this paper is supposed to look like. I started a grandious version and here is the intro:

"Whether awareness is a factor or not, humans make daily choices, based on their individual codes of ethics. One person may differ from another, and even all others, in their particular code of ethics, but all justify their actions and words by their codes. From Adolf Hitler to Mahatma Ghandi, a personal code gave birth to various courses of action. The outcomes were and are quite different, but all affect some change or lack of change for those in their circles of influence. The difficulty as a society is coming up with a code of ethics all citizens of the group will agree to and within which scope they can abide. A good place to start could be agreement on a definition of ethics and then on its application to said group."

Parts are good, but mostly it just punches you in the face! Simplifying is not what I'm doing here! And then my submissions would not attach to the emails to my professor/coach, Michael Sutton, PhD. He has to think I'm nuts cuz he said no one is interpreting the assignments like I am and suggested a phone consult!

(Now this is where I veer off on the 'Wow Westminster College and the BBA program has outstanding customer service!' track!)

Michael called me this evening and stayed on the phone until we both felt I could complete this current paper on Ethics. I wanted to put a cool poster in it! Even got the author's permission to use it! Michael said to simplify. And I don't need to write for the Universe, just the reader, him. He explained how the paper should look and be laid out. And then, if that wasn't enough, he said we could do this again, chat for 5-10 minutes about the next assignment. So I could get caught up.

This is still excellent customer service. And it is also what it takes to succeed when dealing with head injuries. I do believe it is time for my TLP listening session... Ciao and special thanks to Dr. Michael!

Week 3 of TLP and Why I'm Doing It.

I have 2 theories related to why everyone should use The Listening Program. One is, if you have ever been a child, you have a head injury. Not that I know that, but kids crash and burn all the time and the odds are good. Second, if you are awake, you have ADD/ADHD. Not that I know that, but judging by the uber bright people I hang with, odds are good. That being said, you need to go through The Listening Program!

I had to put a list together of things I currently deal with before I could get a listening plan to do TLP myself. Here is my list:

*I am missing about a 7 year chunk of memory related to names. I can see faces and recognize them but can't recall their nanmes or where I know them from and some were clients of mine I had relationships with!
*Highly distractable
*Short attention span OR
*So focused I don't hear people talking to me
*I require systems for follow through. Things have to be calendared, written down, coordinated. I choreograph trips to run errands even!
*Things have to be a certain way for me to proceed. The kitchen has to be clean for me to cook. My desk cleared for me to work. Sometimes I wash my hands BEFORE going to the bathroom as I might have ink on them and don't want it on my clothes, stuff like that.
*Impulsive
*Write down directions and prompts. I didn't used to need that. I could picture where I needed to go in my mind and follow it. Not now.
*If things are not calendared or written down, I don't do them. I don't remember to do them.
*I have to problem solve everything, all the time, every day, with or without permission. Don't tell me your troubles unless you want suggestions/advice/solutions.
*I control depression by choice. It's been 17 years since I realized I was depressed. Probably had everything to do with my life at the time, but it is often below the surface and I control it.
*Do not sleep well. I get blocks of 2-4 hours at a time. Seriously bothers me and I think I look tired and older because of it.
*Have less patience for somethings than I used to.
*Nerves get rattled with noise like TV, radio, high pitches, unnecessary noise, like the kind kids make.
*Chronic constant pain, from accidents and injuries.
*Don't eat like I should. Don't even know what that is. Seems like I learn about something good and then it's wrong too. Really would like to droop this excess weight I didn't have 3 years ago.
*Used to exercise and work out consistantly and was in great shape and pretty cocky about it! Don't work out now.
*Have to think too much to spell sometimes when I've been a writer and editor for decades. Notice I start inserting a word that should fall further in the sentence, into the middle of whatever I'm writing at the time. Weird. Has to be from last head injury!
*Wrote this list originally by hand as this is too hard to do, writing this tough stuff and having to think about my problems. Didn't used to think about my writing. I just did it.
*Sometimes my mind just goes somewhere else. I zone off and have to figure out what I was doing before the impromptu trip!
*Randy says I start sentences, don't finish and start new thoughts giving him whiplash of the brain! I do it all the time cuz I can't keep up with my thoughts and they tumble out without balance and purpose.

Okay, that's enough transparency for one blog post. Now you know some of the reasons why I believe I needed help getting my brain to work like it used to!

Creative things to do while Listening!

I am in week 2 of TLP and really enjoy it! I had a 1000 word paper to write on my ethics and did it in barely over an hour Saturday! I hope it will help me do a 3000 word research paper due next weekend for school!

It is a great idea to do something creative with your hands while listening to The Listening Program so here is what I did and laugh all you want, it doesn't bother me!!! I went to the dollar store and Walmart and bought 2 totes and filled them with all kinds of crayons, colored pencils, water paints, brushes, modeling clay and pads of various kinds of paper and some foam stickers of animals, dinosaurs, hearts and stuff and a stack of poster board and fun kid-like activities to play with while listening! http://www.crayola.com/ My teenagers have had a blast coloring and making little roses with the modeling clay and the 30 minutes flies by!

Another thing I do that you could do is write some goals for yourself and add to them when you feel like it in later listening sessions.

Do you have any handiwork hobbies like embroidery, crochet, knitting, bead work, whittling, not counted cross-stitch or things that make you follow a pattern you have to pay close attention to. You look for things that let creativity flow like drawing and sketching, even doodling works.

If you have ideas of things you can do while listening, leave a comment!

TLP Day 5

http://www.advancedbrain.com/images/stories/TheListeningProgram/tlp_lst2.png Thought I would blog while listening today and see what bubbles up! It's the last day of my first week listening to the first CD in the series. This CD is in full spectrum of high and low and mid-range frequencies. I should come away with a general and overall 'organizing' experience for body, mind and soul or at least emotions! Listening to this high of quality music is a trip. The sound has clarity I have never heard before and I'm picky sometimes. I've been a music person all my life. Grew up in an uber musical family and household. We all sang, danced, played instruments and performed. I started dancing at 3 years old; ballet then modern, then competitive Latin Ballroom. Piano lessons started when I was older. I was 8 when Granddaddy Coy died and we ended up with an upright grand piano. I asked Dad to teach me how to match the notes on the printed page to where they were on the keyboard, which he did before heading out the door to his patients. By the time he got home I played 'Oh Suzannah' for him, having figured it out all day, no doubt! Patient Mom! In 6th grade was when I started piano lessons and at the end of 8th grade I took French Horn lessons and joined the freshman band at Rich East High School in Park Forest IL. Have always and still do love the rich mellow sounds of the French Horn. Soothing and relaxing to me. (Just finished the 1st session of listening and am headed into the 2nd.)
I have to say listening to bone conduction is a trip! You know how your own voice sounds to you and then you hear it recorded and think, that is not what I sound like and yes it is?! Well bone conduction is like that too! It sounds like music and kind of not, which I understand is my perception. So odd or not, I'm doing it! I committed to do this for myself and to blog about it and I am. i am totally aware that I may hit a wall somewhere along the way, as that happens to people and I'm not different, just older! Maybe that will be even odder as I have old issues! Really old ones! Ask my siblings! Most of them are on Facebook and probably happy to vent about their big sis! I am the oldest person in my entire family now. So like it or not I am the biological States Family matriarch and oh well! If you like classical music you would love listening to music from ABT. I do. In reading this later, it will probably be fairly random as that's what my thoughts are doing while I'm listening and I can't possibly write down all the things I'm thinking and i won't do this again as it is distracting from listening!

The Listening Program by ABT

http://www.advancedbrain.com/the-listening-program/the-listening-program. I will continue to share the stories as they bubble up on this journey. But let me share what I've been doing to help myself.

Monday I started the Advanced Brain Technologies The Listening Program. Don't even know how to put this program in a nutshell other than going through TLP will make me a better me. The first 2 weeks of a 5 day on/2 days off listening program will help my whole self organize itself... body, mind and soul. Then I'll do weeks focused on my body, like coordination, balance, large and small motor skills, things like that. The next couple of weeks work on organs, speech and language skills and emotions. I intend to listen with a box of tissues to deal with whatever comes up. I say get out, deal with stuff and heal to move one! The last several weeks are all about my mind! Scary! Actually I can expect greater creativity, idea flow, energy, intuition and such. It is such an amazing program and I am really excited to do this for myself.

So back to Monday. I listened to the first 2 sessions of the first CD and colored pictures with colored pencils while listening! Lots of colorful flowers! (Not allowed to read or check email or anything like that while listening, but you can do a creative thing with your hands.)

Then yesterday when I listened to sessions 3 & 4 of the first CD for 30 minutes I added tons of dots to my Monday picture! After both sessions I was so chillaxed it was odd for me, the hyper ADHD brainiac chick! After work I picked up my grandson Matthew and went home. I was a bit weak and even slightly pale according to my daughter and put my head down on the kitchen table. Danica said I should lay down so I took a book and laid across my bed to read. Didn't even open the book cuz I was out cold for 2 1/2 hours. Totally out! My niece Courtney called me a couple of times on my cell phone before anything woke me up. Then I just went to bed.

Today I feel rested and calm more so than I have ever in my memory! I listened to the third session of TLP today and looked over some goals I set for myself through this program. I'll share some in here sometime. it will be fun to see before and after in several categories. Not only for my own experiences with TLP thus far but with all the stories I hear every day, I have to highly recommend you do this for yourself too. Really!

I believe it was later that same school year, or possibly in 8th grade that we were having a blast in PE again. We were learning gymnastics, a sport I really got into in high school for a brief time. We had heavy mats we hauled off the stage and placed around the uneven bars and the horses and other gymnastic equipment we were using for class. (My favorite was the uneven bars!)

Towards the end of class we had to return the mats to the stage. Since they were heavy and awkward, we would get a running start towards the stage... (I know you're thinking, O Geez us what did she do this time?...) I didn't do anything! Much. I simply helped get the mats up on the stage.

Well, actually, every time I would get a mat up there I would reward my efforts by jumping into an enormous net filled with giant foam cubes! Super fun! I had a blast with that stuff! I was laughing and running and jumping and bouncing in foam and finally I slid off the foam pile onto the stage floor laughing and the last thing I remember was to look on the faces of the kids in my class. I saw horror!

When I came to, it was to look into the face of my father. Now I can only imagine how long I was out and how long it took for someone to run to the office to call, well you get the point, if you read my previous post. Also don't know what Dr. Dad did to help me or anything else about that incident, except hearing what happened.

Pretty simple really. While I was focusing on getting the mats on the stage and frolicking in the net wrapped foam cubes, what I neglected to notice was the 16 foot aluminum extension ladder leaning up against the back wall. At least it WAS leaning up against the wall until the foam cubes bumped it enough for it to lose balance and fall forward, cracking my scull or sounding like it. Hence, head injury #dos in jr. high.