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I was personally very touched by this inspiring story as I watched it on
television last night (2/27/07); especially after I experienced a life altering injury which took me 2 years to recover from.
What I want to ask you is...
If you can't help out with the helmets, below for our military men, can
you volunteer or help our returning soldiers who are recovering with extreme traumatic brain injury?
Here are some links!
Check them out, I know that my family will be searching for a way we can help!
Remember, extreme or traumatic physical injuries affect mental health as well.
What is Operation Helmet?
Founded in 2003 by Dr. Robert H. Meaders whose grandson is an active duty Marine in Iraq, Operation Helmet is a nonpartisan 501(c)(3) organization dedicated
to providing safer helmet pad upgrade kits to the troops in Iraq & Afghanistan.
To date, more than 6,000 kits have been shipped to the troops in the field.
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 feature #1: underlined link words
I believe & work very hard to offer this special feature within all of the emotional feelings network of sites webpages because I also believe with all my heart that all of you are special as well. When you read thru the articles, definitions or quotations - you'll see the underlined link words (all emotion & feeling words, as well as other specifically pertinent to recovery & personal growth words) that are offered for you to delve even further into the meaning
of the information being displayed.
The reason I believe this so important for you in recovery from many dysfunctions or personal growth efforts is that often we can't make progress until we allow
ourselves to be open to all possibilities & allow ourselves to develop a sense of curiosity.
When you click on the underlined link words - a new window will always
open - leaving you with the original window of information that you began with. You don't have to delete your original window,
just minimize it until you have looked over your new & additional information concerning the emotion or feeling underlined link word you clicked on.
There are also underlined link words for additional resources offered
to you as in:
- It's in the News... article titles you can click on that will open in a
new browser window as well - that are pertinent & up to date with information concerning the emotion or feeling word featured on the page
- Very Important Additional Resources....article titles or website addresses for additional resource information that's very valuable - no need to search the web on a search engine - these sites are pertinent & timely in their presentations
- Article & Book Titles within an article.... you'll find article links
for articles copyrighted & not posted at the authors request, but too valuable to leave out, additional referred to articles as posted by the author of the article & links to websites that the
author refers to within the articles.
 
feature #2: the
emotional feelings network of sites
Throughout the 3 years I've been working on these sites, the information base has grown immensely. I found that personally, while my research
began with learning about mental illness, I progressed in my personal growth & recovery until I realized that it was essential that I work on my unresolved feelings & emotions - learning to identify what I've been feeling & not dealing with throughout my life - to begin to resolve dysfunctional events in my life.
In beginning to
study emotions & feelings I found that so many emotions & feelings were intertwined with each other that I began to have to add more emotions & feelings to my original "one" emotional feelings site.
Then I discovered
as well that our unresolved emotions & feelings are directly tied into our mental illnesses, dysfunctional thinking, false or misguided beliefs, eating disorders, lifestyle habits, etc. until I realized that the only possible option was to include a network of sites that would link
everything together.
This is another
reason why the underlined link word system is so important. the underlined link words will take you throughout a network of sites that pertain to many important subjects.
See the index of
sites included within the emotional feelings network of sites directly over in the right
hand column!
feature #3: special word definitions!
some authors use some pretty strange words in their articles,
so i highlight words that may be difficult to understand with the color pink! the definition is then included at the bottom
of that page!
feature #4:
at the bottom of each page there is a link to
the site where the articles displayed on each page came from, unless, of course, i have accessed that information somewhere
& an unknown source was listed.
feature # 5: some articles by yours truly!
you'll find the notation, "personal note:" or sometimes just an article with my
name, "kathleen," or "kathleen howe" as the author. i try to write on each homepage an article entitled, "i just gotta say it!" all participation by yours truly
is totally dependent on how much time i have available for it...
Subjects covered in The Layer Down Under....
Addictions - Drug & Alcohol Abuse, Gambling, Smoking, and more... Becoming addicted to something is a negative coping
mechanism that we use to keep us from feeling the pain we have inside us...
Attitudes... What's yours?
We all have attitudes. Learn more about how your attitude affects your daily life & impedes your progress in self
growth & discover.....
Beliefs - Extracting False Ones....
We all have beliefs.
Most of our belief systems were formed when we were children living in a dysfunctional world... often times learned from our parents who were
dysfunctional themselves....
Body Image.... I myself have lived w/an eating disorder for most of my life, "night eating syndrome." Professionals
aren't quite sure what to do with this disorder yet. Although it was discovered in the 1950's, professionals haven't
studied much about it.... I believe that my negative body image sold me on eating at night for comfort among other things....
Read more about what people are facing these days w/their own body image issues....
Accepting Change....
Change isn't
easy. We all get used to doing things a certain way & although we may know it's not the "best" way for us that we do these
things... it's so hard to accept that we have to change. Acceptance is the first detail to work on when we're talking about
changing ourselves....
Emotions
This page is just about emotions, not one in particular, but about how we deal with our emotions, the importance of
emotions, what happens to our emotions if we don't feel them & end up stuffing them - also about kids & their emotions
as well as teens!
Feelings
The same goes
for this "feelings page." About feelings generally, why we experience feelings, what we do with them, what we don't do with
them that we should as well as other general information concerning feelings... it's an interesting page!
Insight While professionals & experts,
well - you know - those educated people, maybe like you, are out their in their worlds of business, finance, and other mainstays
of our modern world, there seems to be an elemnet of doubt concerning some of the subjects contained in The Layer Down Under...
How important is it for us to look for insightful information in our every day lives... After being raised by well educated
parents who didn't know anything about "insight" I can rightfully say that most people are letting their educations get in
the way of an important factor that they are missing out on in their educated lives.... that's right, i said it....
don't be too educated to concentrate on the insightful information you may be missing in your daily life, this page talks
about that abit!
Inspiration
Another blessing
often passed by is the gift of inspiration. How open are you to allowing yourself to be touched by an inspiring message? How
hard do some of you work to look the other way, saying, "this is crap...." instead of pondering on what could be a very inspiring
message?
Intentions
This is an interesting topic that I've wanted to cover from the beginning of my website ventures.... you could
say, "I've had the intention of covering this topic since the beginning of the emotional feelings
network, perhaps because it hits so close to home (being a personal interest) that I've procrastinated a bit about it." Just
what do your intentions say about you as an individual? How come many of us fall short on fulfilling our good intentions?
An interesting topic - are you willing to ask yourself some important questions?
Intuition
Just how intuitive
do you allow yourself to be?
Do you hold any
stock whatsoever in what your intuition tells you? Maybe you should check out this page to find out the importance of
being open & present enough to rely on your intuition for making important decisions.
Letting Go.... Do you know how? After we discover that underneath our anger with life there's an open wound left behind from abandonment, abuse or
some other dysfunction in our past, how willing are you to sit and feel that unresolved emotion or feeling, so you can "let
go" of it & settle that account out of your life? Don't know how? This page lends some insight on that topic.
Listening... Are you an empathetic listener?
This is one of
my personal vices.... I admit it. I'm not a good listener at times, especially when it comes to my husband. I sure want him
to listen to me though. The times do happen though, when I can keep my mouth shut long enough to soak in just what he's trying
to tell me, and believe me.... it's usually a very insightful experience. It's amazing what we can learn about others as well
as ourselves when we choose to keep our mouths shut and empathetically listen to someone.
Mingling with Mindfulness...
Another faux pas of the educated community, is ignoring the fact that most of us are not living "in the present' moment
to allow ourselves to be mindful. It's how we solve some of our most difficult blockages, by being mindful of what is happening
around us, by what we encounter along the journey of self growth. Let yourself become mindful - it takes practice, but well
worth the effort.
Opinion... Everyone seems to have one.... This
is a subject that I have had trouble finding information on believe it or not.... Opinions are everywhere, available to us
everyday whether we want to listen to them or not! I like opinions. I am curious as to why people believe the way they do!
I like to ask some questions after I hear peoples' opinions & try to understand just why they think the way they do. Hoping
to learn something from someone's elses belief system is an interesting opportunity. How curious are you about someone elses'
opinions? Can you say you even care how anyone else thinks?
living in "the present" Are you always thinking ahead or behind? Many of us are stuck
in a rut of a very common avoidance behavior that involves us being preoccupied with what we have experienced in the past,
which hinders our growing in the present moment, or always thinking ahead as to what we want to do in our future. taking the
time to be "present" in your life allows you to use some of the tools you'll find in The Layer Down Under, to be happier in
your life & make some important changes.
Reflections.... how clear is your mirror of opportunity?
That's right,
how clear is your mirror of opportunity? Do you take the time
to reflect on anything? Does your behavior reflect a certain behavior you're stuck in? Do you even want to go there? Be real
with yourself, letting your authentic self be known. Take time to reflect on important subjects, be open, mindful & in
the present moment to reflect on just who you are as a person.
Risk Taking ... How Vulnerable will you allow yourself to be? Pretty good question, isn't it? Life can be extremely hurtful to us at times. I rely on the wisdom
of a great book when I think about taking risks.... it's a book that I read when I was a teenager, it seemed to be all the
craze back then, but it's wisdom is eternal... the author, kahlil gibran in the book - The Prophet - offers such gems as "how
can you know joy if you haven't experienced sorrow?" that's what risk taking is about.... allowing yourself to be open, maybe
to sorrow, but what can you learn from that sorrow is my question to you.... what can you learn from letting down your defensive
outer shell & learning to take some risks?
Self Esteem.... if only my parents had known about this... how different would I be today? I ask myself.... it's the
topic of the moment it seems.... just how much importance do you put into your self esteem? are you just ignoring the craze?
it's not one... it's really an important topic... get where you want to be by learning more about your self esteem on this
page...
spirituality
Another topic that puts us to the test... are you letting your education stand in the way of being open to spirituality?
What do you hold sacred in your belief system? I struggle with this one as well.... 12 steppers are all about their "Higher
Power,"
Christians are all about their "God"... Muslims, Jews, Buddhists are all about who they hold sacred in their beliefs
as well... what do you truly believe?.... do you think that spirituality is only about religion? Take some time to consider
your sense of spirituality in your life...
stress
Now we know that
we can be stressed even in the womb. What about that? Geez o Pete! It's amazing what research can tell us these days about
stress... learn more about keeping stress out of your life here....
Thoughts & Our Thinking Processes
Not Dinnertime conversation for us baby boomers - that's for sure... For us it was always the
line from our parents, "Because that's what I said!" or "Because that's the way it is!" Well for us as adults, we have
to examine how we think, especially us "boomers." What we believed is most likely, not so, and how we think, is
most likely slightly mixed up.... can you be real enough with yourself to really examine & maybe even change how you
think about things?
the three newest pages at the layer down under!
boundaries....: something we need to learn about for healthier relationships!
how miserable is your life because your expectations
never seem to come to fruition? perhaps we need to evaluate those expectations or get rid of them all together!
humor.... how many people do you wish had a better sense of humor?
how about yourself? did you forget that you were supposed to have one?
after spending some time at the layer down under....
you might just find that you can paint with the new colors of your life! and feel
really good about it....
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