BouncebackCafe.com » bounce back

Get Out of That Pit

PattiAnn — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 07:01:43 +0000

Lately, my friends have been facing some major challenges. One of my friends is struggling with a breakup – which she initiated. She’s now considering getting back together with the guy because she’s lonely – and her biological clock is ticking. Another friend has both of her grown sons living with her. The older one just lost his job – AGAIN(!!!) – and the younger hasn’t worked in many, many months. She’s heading towards retirement age but still has a house full of kids that she’s supporting. Both of these people are ...Continue reading » Get Out of That Pit

Begin Again

Ellie — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 07:01:06 +0000

How are those resolutions going? Do you, like me, need a fresh start, a new beginning in order to persist in reaching your goals?

It’s Monday morning and I’m dressed, ready to go out for my walk – yet here I am, writing this post instead. Lately it’s been a challenge to get myself out for my morning walk. And an even tougher task to eat in ways that cause me to shed pounds. Not too long ago I was cruising along doing both with ease. No such luck now. I can come up with every excuse in the book for not going out first thing in the morning. And my sweet-tooth plagues me. This has GOT to turn around. Now would be a good time. I need a fresh start at this losing weight and getting fit stuff. I’m barely holding my own here. And it’s waaaaaay too soon to be in maintenance mode. Could writing this post serve as ...Continue reading » Begin Again

Bouncing Back Through Family and Friends

PattiAnn — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 08:01:48 +0000

If you’ve been reading here lately, you probably know that my nuclear family (and nuclear is exactly the right term) has been facing a bit of a crisis. By nuclear I mean me, my siblings and my father. There’s nothing quite like a dance with dementia to get the juices flowing. As you may recall, the Friday before Christmas Dad chose to drive the wrong way down a divided highway. This resulted in a short hospital stay, a tentative diagnosis of Alzheimer’s and a statement by the medical personnel involved that it was no longer safe for Dad to live alone. The advantage/disadvantage of Alzheimer’s is that Dad doesn’t ...Continue reading » Bouncing Back Through Family and Friends

Broken but Beautiful

Ellie — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 07:01:41 +0000

I don’t know about you but I find this photo intriguing. Broken, trampled and bruised, this tattered bloom was captured by a very insightful photographer, Todd Baker, who tells us he “Nearly stumbled over this poor, delicate beauty on my way to work one cold November morning. Dropped right in the middle of the parking lot, it looked to have been given quite a squish by at least a few busy feet. [Feet that were] too busy to stop, too busy to care, too busy to know what they missed.” In my home is a small, red-clay pot that I display prominently because its beauty pleases me. My husband’s brother, a sculptor and artist by trade, lovingly crafted the small vase early in his career in homage to American Indian artistry. But somewhere, sometime, in its travels among households, the pottery was dropped and a large, V-shaped chunk broke off, breeching the narrow opening, leaving a gaping hole. Whenever my brother-in-law visits, he offers to fix it. I am sad that the brokenness displeases him – it offends his creative intent, it’s NOT as he planned. But I always nix the fix. I like it the way it is, broken and beautiful. For you see, he hid a secret inside the vase – he enameled the inside surfaces a stunning blue-sky azure that can only be seen with the side caved in.

Beautiful Imperfections Grace Our Lives

It occurs to me that we move so quickly through our lives that we miss the ordinary but ephemeral gifts that bless our busy lives – lives that often feel broken because things are NOT going as we planned. ...Continue reading » Broken but Beautiful

Scared Silly and Back

Ellie — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 07:01:53 +0000

This week we’ve munched and crunched a few of our FEARs with four flexible solutions that will work for anyone who’s willing to tolerate a little silliness along the way. From research touting an unexpected Botox benefit – it’s easier to be happy when you can’t frown – to reliving a trip to the dentist in living color, we’ve jittered among our funky fears and found funny fixes for getting unstuck and for getting to fear-less. In Monday’s post I linked to research that confirms that a smile can actually make you feel better. And because I don’t think pasting on a forced smile will suffice, I suggested creating your very own “Grins List”… Did you do it? If not, what are you waiting for? Go for the giggles now so you can produce a genuine smile when you need to fake it ’til you make it. And if you need more reasons to crack a smile besides it’ll make you feel better, check out Top 10 Reasons to Smile And smile, smile, smile! Then on Tuesday PattiAnn admitted that she has a “picture problem”. Please don’t ask her to visualize desirable futures – she just can’t see them. Or at least, she couldn’t until she learned about a technique called “virtualization” and gave it a try. But did she “try” it on a desirable future??? Oh no. She intrepidly virtualized a couple of her fears. So, in addition to threatening to vividly virtualize her fear of flying for us, she regaled us with a 5-Senses visit to the dentist in Getting to Fear-Less. Read it and then rescue your runaway hormones by “imagineering” a happy time in your life – pretend you’re in a Star Trek-like Holodeck and, using the 5-Senses virtualization technique, create some good happy-times “memories”. In other words, add more to your Grins-List but this time, see it, hear it, smell it, taste it, and feel it. It’ll make you happy-more and fear-less. And if you’re having a hard time with this virtualizing technique, take a look at one woman’s Wednesday afternoon… or savor a clever bunch of kids’ cool apple poems. ...Continue reading » Scared Silly and Back

Coach Thyself

PattiAnn — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 07:01:57 +0000

For the last two weeks we’ve been giving you ideas on how you can change your response to things that happen to you, thoughts that come into your head, bad moods, etc. The one thing we have neglected to give you is a methodology for learning these new skills. The fact is that learning a new skill can be challenging and one of the reasons that people hesitate to try new things is that they don’t know how to coach themselves. When I was a kid, I never really participated in sports. I was the oldest and until my younger siblings came along, my parents thought that sports were an unnecessary complication of their lives. I went to Catholic school in Illinois. This means that there was no gym period – because we poor Catholics didn’t have a gym and those Illinois winters are brutal. Also, having gone to school in the Pleistocene period, there was no law requiring that we be exposed to physical education of any sort, thus the beginning of “secretary spread” in first grade. ...Continue reading » Coach Thyself

WobblingWeeble vs. Inner Critics

Ellie — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 07:01:01 +0000

Are your inner critics whapping your Best Shot Process a bit off kilter? How do you bounce back when your inner critics are raging?

What in the Heck Is a “WobblingWeeble”???

Well, that would be me bouncing back like the toys in Hasbro’s nostalgic jingle, “Weebles wobble but they don’t fall down.” I whimsically envision myself stalwartly standing up to the antics and attacks of my fierce inner critics:

They go – Whap-Whap-Whap! While I sing – Weebles wobble but they won’t fall down! Ok, ok, I suppose some of you are just too young to remember the jingle so take a listen to the old-time “Weebles Wobble”. Silly as it sounds, this bit of make-believe helps me withstand the onslaught of my very vociferous, willful and shameless inner critics who delight in:

Distracting me when I’m-on-a-roll
Contradicting me when I’m forming opinions
Challenging me when I’ve arrived at a decision
Disparaging my fledgling efforts to try new tactics

And, worst of all:

Criticizing my every effort to “do better”

...Continue reading » WobblingWeeble vs. Inner Critics

Out of a Pickle and into a Pastiche

Ellie — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 07:01:20 +0000

Today I invite you to turn on your sound, click play on the following YouTube video and hum along, let the video play in the background while you read on… ...Continue reading » Out of a Pickle and into a Pastiche

Stumbling Up the Bounce Back Path

Ellie — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 07:01:19 +0000

I’ve got some new mountains to climb. And they’re scaring me. My guess is that many of you are, like me, experiencing the following: just as I encounter a precipice, just when I need to make a leap of faith, I find my bounceback juice is running low. Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m not going to let the bastards get me down! I’m just going to take a deep breath and figure it out as I go. And take it one step, one day, one little win at a time. And gift myself with the occasional wallow without getting stuck in the quicksand. I’ll stumble up the bounceback path, by God I will! ...Continue reading » Stumbling Up the Bounce Back Path

Ellie Just Morphed Into Eeyore – Now What’s That About???

Ellie — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 07:01:48 +0000

What looms large in your mind’s eye? Is it really as big and threatening as it seems? Or has something in your life magnified your negative perception of the situation? Have you ever been cruising through your day when suddenly you morph into Eeyore, Disney’s affectionately animated and sad-eyed, flop-eared donkey who mopes: “A mostly sunny day, to some, can look a lot like partly gray.” I have. And, when that happens, IF I notice the shift, I feel angry, helpless, not in control, puzzled, and, frankly, hijacked by circumstances. How did I get here? What knocked me so low so suddenly??? ...Continue reading » Ellie Just Morphed Into Eeyore – Now What’s That About???