Post Archives

Month: March 2011

What Can We Do About the Past?

Recently one of the heartfelt comments on one of our blog entries inspired me to write about regret. Regret can weigh so heavily on us, nearly paralyze us at times, and can so negatively impact and color our lives, that, in essence, we get stuck in the past. And yet… there is not one thing we can do to change the past.

Click here to hear Stephanie Schmidt, an inspiring Procovery Circle Facilitator in St. Louis, MO speak about this.

In essence what we can do is to look at the past, learn from the past, but not LIVE in the past. Instead, live today, right now, this moment. And in doing so, we plant the much needed seeds for growth and change. By living in the moment and being truly present we can honor “mistakes” we have made by learning from them, by not repeating them and by being different now because of them.

Letting go of regret and getting unstuck can be so very difficult. It can feel overwhelmingly complicated at times, and very heavy and sad. But by learning to let go and by living today, we can honor yesterday and contribute to a brighter tomorrow.

“The best revenge is living well.”

–The Talmud

Quote Unscramble Procovery Contest Winner Announcement!

Procovery Prize Winner Alert!
We would like to congratulate Darrin Kissinger of Kansas City, MO as our Quote Unscramble Procovery Contest winner!
Darrin was the first to submit the correctly unscrambled quote by Helen De Rosis:
“When you put yourself wholeheartedly into something, energy grows. It seems inexhaustible.”

It was brought to our attention, by a wonderful friend of Procovery Institute, that there was a small typo in one of the words of the unscramble. We apologize for the typo and appreciate that our friend so graciously pointed out that we, too, are human. The word wholeheartedly was missing an “L” and we applaud all who correctly submitted, despite our oversight!
The Procovery prize basket (below) will ship out from our office in Los Angeles, CA tomorrow!

Procovery Prize for Contest Winner Darrin Kissinger of Kansas City, MO!

Included in the Procovery prize basket:

A portable CD player (batteries included!)
6 Songs of Procovery CD
Procovery Podcast Sampler CD
Procovery Journal and Pen
Procovery Pup
Procovery Mug with Hot Chocolate Packets
Believe Bookmark
We look forward to all of you participating again in the next contest and hope to see you back around the blog often!
Congratulations again, Darrin!
-Procovery Institute

Day 21 – Making Hope a Priority!

Today concludes our Rekindling Hope: Making Hope a Priority blog series, and during our 21 days of hope we have explored questions about hope that have run the gamut. Some have been “lighter” in topic while others a bit “heavier” and along the way we have vowed to stick with it, and we have been MORE than pleasantly surprised that you have as well! To stick with hope in our interactions, in our lives, to keep hope for someone else when they aren’t in a place to do it for themselves. Sometimes it isn’t so easy to stick with hope – to hold hope when we don’t feel particularly hopeful. And that is why we need to create steps for ourselves to learn ways of MAKING THIS HAPPEN. Something that we have been discussing lately, that we felt would round out our 21 days of hope, and has potential to help transform our relationships, our work, our days… our lives… is our last question of the series:

What steps can you take to trade cynicism and paralysis, for hope and real change?

Whether it is that you make a vow to schedule time each day to restore and renew yourself, so you have the energy and focus to value hope…

Or you vow to take more chances, play a more active – rather than reactive – role in your life…

Or you vow to dream bigger…

What can you do, what will you do to hold more hope and create real change?


What steps will you take?
 
Let’s break some of the silence today and get talking! Let’s share, let’s listen, let’s disagree and let’s learn from each other!

Day 20 – Making Hope a Priority!

Is a sustainable health care reform fix likely?


Given the complexities of the current systemic challenges we face, a sustainable fix for health care reform isn’t seeming likely anytime soon.


And partly because of this, and because in many ways it feels as though we are increasingly facing complicated, seemingly insurmountable crises and challenges these days, people often find themselves abandoning what matters most and escaping in to what doesn’t.

“It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.”

— Albert Einstein 

Sometimes the day to day drudgery of putting one foot in front of the other, and working hard in the direction of our dreams can seem both exhausting and unrewarding and ultimately, unachievable. But that is really one of the core issues with real health care reform. We need to take the long view to achieve real transformational health care reform.

“The very least you can do in your life is to figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope.”

–Barbara Kingsolver

Happy Monday – Quote Unscramble!

Happy Monday Everyone!


Unscramble the quote below and send an email to support@procovery.com with the subject line “Quote Unscramble” for a chance to be entered into a special Procovery Institute Drawing! The first correct unscramble sent to the email address above wins a Procovery prize!!

Unscramble the following quote:

“nhwe ouy upt lfreusoy yeereoaltdhhw noti gnhieotms, yenreg ogwrs. ti essem hseteainxuibl.”


Good luck!

And remember, there are various ways to subscribe to our new blog!

When visiting www.procovery.blogspot.com:

– Look for the “Subscribe Here!” section to the right of your screen
– Click on “Posts” to receive blog posts to your daily Google, My Yahoo, netvibes, newsgator, and RSS feeds
– Click on “Comments” to receive comments submitted on blogs to your daily Google, My Yahoo, netvibes, newsgator, and RSS feeds

OR


To subscribe to comments posted on a specific blog post:

– Click on the blog post you are interested in
– Scroll down to the bottom of the post
– Click on “Subscribe by email”

We encourage you to subscribe to keep in touch with the exciting new things happening daily on www.procovery.blogspot.com!


Until next time…

Procovery Institute

Day 19 – Making Hope a Priority!

What will you plant in your soul today?


Healing, like so much in life, is a non-linear process. Often that is because of the complexity of the healing process, but it can also be due to the simple fact that very little is only forward-moving! Below is an excerpt (paraphrased) from pages 12 & 13 from The Power of Procovery in Healing related to “backsliding.”

The process of healing is often two steps forward and one backward—or sometimes one step forward and two back. If we don’t expect someone to make a perfect soufflé the first time, or win a marathon, or play a song on the piano, how can we expect an individual to heal without setbacks or relapses? Backsliding is to be expected in any really difficult matter; it can be an indication of the difficulty of the task. Society applauds a persistent person who succeeds after repeated failure, “against all odds,” but beats the heck out of people while they are “failing.”

Signs of “healing” are not always recognized as such, unfortunately. The “system” often does not recognize, support or sustain healing. Sometimes when people are working hard to heal, the “system” sees their actions as “trying to kick their illness under the rug”, denial or delusions of grandeur. All along the way, healthy, positive actions can be seen as all kinds of things other than healing. But this is where listening to your heart, getting in touch with what YOU think and feel, talking with others who you trust will be honest with you, who see your potential and whose opinion you value, can pay off.

Remember, if you do what everybody else does, you will likely get what everybody else gets. The system, unfortunately, is not (yet!) successfully providing the care and services people need to heal and exit the system. But it can! Click here to hear Dr. Felix Vincenz discuss what attracted him to Procovery and his choice to bring hope to people who, so often, are systemically deprived of hope. Since we are all part of the system, our actions can impact it. As a plant reaches for light, we all reach for the same. And together, we move forward, but not without hope and focus and action… and each other.

To learn more about Missouri’s experience with Procovery (by Dr. Joseph Parks), please click here.

“Every moment and every event of every man’s life on earth plants something in his soul.” –Thomas Merton

What will you plant in your soul today?

Procovery Circle Facilitator Featured on New Radio Show!

Hello Everyone!

We are very excited to have the opportunity to share with you about an informative new radio show which will feature a segment with Procovery Circle Facilitator Gary Gougis from Los Angeles County!

The “Free Your Mind Projects Radio Show” airs on Sunday mornings at 7:30AM PDT on KTLK AM1150. Tomorrow’s segment will feature longtime Procovery Circle Facilitator and Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health Community Worker, Gary Gougis! The radio show can be streamed live at www.ktlkam1150.com or, If you miss the broadcast, you can also catch the podcast on the Free Your Mind Projects Web site, www.freeyourmindproject.com. Just click on the upper right and then on the latest show.

Also, we are so appreciative of the wonderful feedback we are getting on our blog, and will soon be expanding our topics. We will still write about hope, always. But we will also begin to write about many other topics as well. Thank you for your ongoing interest and support!

Have a wonderful Saturday and check back tomorrow for Day 19 of our Rekindling Hope: Making Hope a Priority blog series!

Until next time…

Procovery Institute

Day 18 – Making Hope a Priority!

What will you do to celebrate you this weekend?

“Give fools their gold, and knaves their power; let fortune’s bubbles rise and fall; who sows a field, or trains a flower, or plants a tree, is more than all.”

–John Greenleaf Whittier
So many of us find, or make sure we take, the time to do things for others, but we so often neglect ourselves. We “say” things to ourselves we would never say to others. We push ourselves in ways we wouldn’t push others and we take ourselves for granted.
But you have the power to STOP right now and begin to do things differently. Even just five minutes a day can get the ball rolling!
What will you do to celebrate the wonder of you this weekend?

Day 17 – Making Hope a Priority!

What do you do to positively impact your feelings?

Sometimes feelings have a bad reputation, like change. People sometimes feel a victim of their feelings and view them as they do the weather. They come, they go, sometimes they are bright, sometimes not. But feelings can be powerful fuel!

You can actively create feelings rather than only responding to them! The Procovery Note™ below, from page 158 of The Power of Procovery in Healing, talks about this:

Create moods. Start your own running list of mood enhancers – specific books, movies, music, people, places, hobbies or specific actions, such as exercising, straightening up your place, wearing your favorite hat or scarf or helping someone else.

“What is changed by my feelings is not what is out there but what I think I and others may be able to do about them.”

–John Holt

What will you do today to create feelings rather than only respond to them?

Day 16 – Making Hope a Priority!

Where do the light and energy go sometimes? On the hard days, during the difficult times?

The light and energy are still here. They are always here, but so is the darkness. Some days we are more in tune with energy and life and possibilities than other days and we have or find or make more time to view and appreciate what is right with the world. Other days we may be drowning in day to day responsibilities and realities and be in more of a gray or dark place.

Even if you don’t feel physically as though you can do something – maybe you can do something in your thoughts or in your dreams. Can you THINK of a time when things will be better and take a moment to visualize and feel and appreciate what that will feel like?

The secret is not to feel guilty that you are down or guilty that you are joyful. The secret is to understand where you are, and in what direction you want to move, and then do something – anything – to move in that direction.


“Change your thoughts and you change your world.”

–Norman Vincent Peale