Month: October 2025

Talk, talk, communicate, confess.  It’s therapy I’m talking about.

In her twenties, actress Diane Keaton recently deceased, suffered from bulimia, an eating disorder of binging and purging.  She said that she recovered from the disorder after having sought therapy.

Woody Allen, her partner at one time, encouraged Keaton to seek therapy.  So, she did and, in her 2011 memoir, Then Again, Keaton claimed that she slowly replaced the purging of food with purging her anxieties by talking.

Like Woody Allen, I think everyone needs talk therapy.  We’ve all got issues that get purged one way or another.  Therapy seems ideal when compared to the alternative destructive outlets for the bad stuff we accumulate over time and bury deep within.  We take it out on someone or something in some way.

I confess I’ve never been in therapy officially, but I have engaged in an excellent and similar alternative.  One might call it “talk vomit.”  I talk, talk, confess and communicate daily with my husband, who listens – the hallmark of a good therapist.

Having been trained in psychology, sociology and anthropology, I know some things about the mental and emotional health of all kinds of people.  That doesn’t make me mentally healthier than you, it just makes me more aware of my issues, and maybe yours as well.

I can say, now that my father-in-law is long deceased, that he was involved in some covert military goings-on way back when.  And one of his primary skills developed for that purpose, was observation.  “Be aware of your surroundings,” he used to say.

Since both of us trained in observation, we connected with a secret mental handshake, if you will.  It’s a communication of sorts, observation.

This is what therapy does, it trains our minds to observe, thereby gaining extraordinary insights about people, places, things, and our own life’s modus operandi.  Why do we do, say, and behave the way we do?

You can also gain considerable insight from the stories of others.  For this reason, my favorite genre of literature is memoir or biography.

You may do well by accumulating some examples of what some folks have learned, who have already walked the path you seem to be headed down.  Once you know why you are the way you are, then you can proceed to “how do I live my best life with what I’ve got?”

In addition to certified therapists, there are a variety of confessors out there, from professional to amateur.  Notwithstanding family and friends, we can confess and talk things out with priests and pastors, bartenders and barbers, doctors and hairdressers.

You are never too old, too young, too poor, too smart, too dense, or too far gone to start talk therapy.  Even if it’s just between you and God, in the woods or in a chapel, talk it out.  It’s the better alternative.

A saying went around Facebook, encouraging people to “stop blaming your past for how you turned out, it’s time to grow up and take responsibility for how you live as an adult.”  Yes, our past has significantly contributed to who we have become.  But part of “adulting” is to move on and become the best that you can be and stop blaming everybody and his brother for your current lifestyle.

Accept that these are YOUR choices now.  If you want a different outcome in the future, change your choices.  Only you have the power to change your life, unless you want to give God some credit.  Taken out of context, but nonetheless, Jesus said, “heal thyself.”

The saying, “you can’t pour from an empty cup,” refers to the simple fact that we can’t help others, support others, even dwell with others while living in a wounded soul.  First, we have to get whole, then we can share our wholeness with others.

It seems to me that if some talk, talk, and more talk will help one to clear out some of the clutter, don’t wait for Spring for a good clean-out.  Do it now.

 

 

 

After twenty-two years, the most famous dictionary publisher, Merriam-Webster, is updating their print version of the “Collegiate Dictionary.”  This is exciting news for most writers; some yummy new words for us to devour.

I admit that I have succumbed to the modern age where most of my dictionary work is conducted online or on the dictionary app on my phone.  But I miss the days of sitting cross-legged on the floor, surrounded by reference books, dictionaries, and notebooks.  In fact, I miss sitting on the floor like that, in general since I’m coming upon my seventieth birthday, if you know what I mean.

Are you aware that every state in the U.S., Washington D.C., and our territories, have a State Library and archive?   I used to thrive spending time in the Kentucky State Library researching and combing through documents, all spread out on a big conference table in the middle of the “stacks.”  I was preparing preliminary documents for my master’s thesis.

A lexophile in the making, I think I’ve always loved words, especially their origins.  Lexophile, for example, where in the world did that word come from?  Meaning, lover of words, lexophile comes somewhat obviously from two Greek roots: lexis meaning words or speech, and philos meaning loving.

Circa 1993 or so and given the opportunity to critique my teaching at the end of the semester, one college student said, “she uses too many big words.”  Since I love words, what do you think I thought about that criticism?  If I recall accurately after these many years, my thought was, “this is college, get a dictionary.”

Where is the curiosity?  Where is the desire to know more?  Where is the work ethic?

You know, there are people who read the dictionary?  Kostas, the title character in a television show I watched, written in Italian about a Greek detective, with English subtitles, reads the dictionary when he comes home to decompress after work.  Malcolm X, while in prison, was said to have copied entries from the dictionary to teach himself to read and write.

I beg to differ with the nineteenth century children’s rhyme, “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me.”   As it turns out, the relevance of some age-old sayings expires.  This may have been the wisdom in 1862, but in 2025 our wisdom has evolved to stipulate that emotional wounds can last longer than physical ones.

Twentieth century American author, Jessamyn West expressed the contemporary wisdom in her twist of the old rhyme.  “A broken bone can heal, but the wound a word opens can fester forever.”  I’d say “Amen” to that, but that word means “so be it.”

It’s my opinion that we have far too many walking emotional wounds in our midst because of words and their associative actions.  Bullies have inflicted their best on too many people.

Some of the words that we use around children are despicable.  Doesn’t everybody know that children are sponges?  They absorb every word that is uttered in their vicinity.  Do some people really intend to damage a person for life by calling a child disparaging names or using an overabundance of four-letter gutter words?  That’s bullying, pure and simple.

In teaching young children to communicate, a hallmark of civilization and functional mental health, we ask them to “use your words.”   I’m using license to quote Mark Twain in this context, by pointing out that there is a “difference between the almost right word and the right word… ‘tis the difference between the lightning-bug and the lightning.”

Choose the right words!  Every time we open our mouths around children, we’re giving them a gift.  Is your gift a gag gift?  Is it a gift of a lifetime?  Is it a gift they must reach for?  Or are you handing them an empty box decorated like a gift?

Do you know that print dictionaries are now considered gift books, in part?  What a gift it would be.  Maybe we could create a new generation of meditative dictionary readers.

People have been known to “finger drop” onto a dictionary page, or Bible page, to see what pops up.  They let their minds wander a bit and ponder something of the unknown.

William King, trumpet player for the 1968 American funk and soul group, the Commodores, named the band with a dictionary finger drop.  He said in 1978, “We lucked out, we almost became The Commodes.”

Want to have some fun with words?  Try a finger drop on a random dictionary page and let your mind wander.