August 20,2009 Season 5 Opening My Heart

[Shirah Penn]

I am going to spend the next 100 days mindfully focusing on loving myself and others. So for starters I want you all to know about me. I am a very lovable and loving child of God. I am a good girl. I am spiritual and caring of others. I also have a side of me that I discovered through many years of therapy. I have an angry side as well. When I was a little girl I so much wanted and needed the love and approval of my Father and Mother. My dad was a Rabbi. So on Friday nights and Saturday mornings I had to go to Temple and listen to his sermons and behave during services. I had to go all the time. When I was "good" I would be rewarded and if I misbehaved my father wasn't happy with me.I don't want to go into all these issues here just to let you know that I repressed my angry feelings and developed patterns of behaving to make people love me.

My parents stressed education, so it wasn't a surprise that I became a teacher. I taught little kids for 42 years and actually longer than that if you include teaching Religious school, which I still do. So the good news about me is that I persevered through one dysfunctional marriage, divorce, looking for myself in all sorts of places and finally going for Therapy with a psychiatrist. I have been involved in studying and practicing psychology in many different ways.

The very good news about me is that I have a great sense of humor. I love to laugh. I can laugh at myself and my foibles and my desperate ways to achieve notice. I am not putting myself down, I am just observing that this is something I do.I love the work of Marci Shimoff who wrote the book Happy For No Reason. I am learning to love and accept myself as a good person who does make a difference . I like that about me. Love Shirah

[Lisa]

Hi Shirah, great post! Teachers are just wonderful!