Finding interactive: your turn

Dear reader,

I already wrote about what I did once to find my glasses.

After the 11th Doctor had to say good-bye to Amy and Rory and seeing and losing Clara twice, he's sitting depressed on a swing when a little girl comes to sit next to him. Of course she notices that he's sad. She tells him what she's doing when she lost something:

"When I lost something I go to a quiet place and I close my eyes and then I can remember where I put it."

The Doctor agrees that this is a good plan.

A girl cannot seriously help a Time Lord to find something he lost, you might think. But this girl is qualified all right, because "I am always losing things. I lost my best pencil, my school bag, my gran and my mojo."

Here's the whole clip, about 2 1/2 minutes with the Doctor on the swing, english subtitles available, too:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRsCh4dYURA

And you? What do you do when you lost something (or someone?)?

Until next blog,
sarah

Only a Job

Dear reader,

I write the following as a film fan and yet in the belief that it is true. It's true that actors, as much as we like them or their role or the film: for them it's only a job. I have read from several actors that they have been approached by fans on the street saying keywords, which to fans are quite significant to a role they once played. At that moment it doesn't occur to us fans that the actors only learn their lines, film it and then walk on to the next role, the next lines. In fact there are a few actors who out of principle don't watch any films they're in. They haven't seen the film for the umpteenth time like we have. Someone once said that some fans know some of his lines better than the actor who said it did.

From several interviews with Benedict Cumberbatch I know that the role of Sherlock Holmes is a lot of fun to play for him. Especially learning the deductions and talking that fast when he speaks them. One wrong word or one wrong intonation and the whole deduction is messed up. And yet it's only a job. Benedict Cumberbatch is not Sherlock Holmes. Benedict Cumberbatch is Benedict Cumberbatch.

Some years back I read that Robbie Coltrane, who played Hagrid in the Harry Potter films, said in an interview words to the effect of: when the money is right, he'd play anything. The Hagrid actor would play anything for the right money?! And he's the one playing one of Harry Potter's best friends?! What a stupid actor for such a role! And yet it's only a job. Robbie Coltrane is not Hagrid. Robbie Coltrane is Robbie Coltrane.

In the film “State of Grace” Gary Oldman plays the younger brother of Ed Harris. Like probably many other Gary Oldman fans I rued the scene in which Ed Harris shot Gary Oldman to death in that film. Gary Oldman's character was somehow very likeable and didn't deserve dying that way. I needed a few weeks to calm down and not being angry with Ed Harris. Yes, I was angry with Ed Harris. I respect him as an actor and thought it stupid that he'd play such a role in which he'd kill another actor I like. But he only played a role and most of all only went with what the script said. I didn't think of being angry with the script writer. No. Instead I refused to watch any film with Ed Harris in it for weeks. And yet it's only a job. Ed Harris is not Frankie Flannery. Ed Harris is Ed Harris.

Matt Smith. The Eleventh Doctor. My Doctor. David Tennant was the one that got me started watching “Doctor Who” and later, even though it was totally out of order I also watched Christopher Eccleston and certainly some day I'll watch the earlier ones, too. But Matt Smith somehow is my Doctor anyway. He's only one year older than I am. The first actor I like, who's close to my age. From his point of view as an actor I absolutely understand that he wanted to leave. Especially “Doctor Who” is about change. Playing the Doctor requires much time for just this series and not much time for anything else. I'll have much fun watching him in new films. But last Christmas I couldn't help but repeatedly think that the Doctor will regenerate now. It helped me a bit that Matt Smith himself finished filming the last episode months ago already. For him it was over for some time already. Also the Doctor regenerates to a good actor who I like a lot! And yet: as much as I like Peter Capaldi, he's yet another actor, who is very much older than I am. He could be my father! He absolutely fits for the role. After Matt Smith, the youngest Doctor of all, it's the right decision to have a considerably older actor taking over. Especially since Peter Capaldi is a big fan himself. All of that is only fair comfort for the fact that my Doctor is gone now. And yet it's only a job. Matt Smith is not the Doctor. Matt Smith is Matt Smith.

Christopher Eccleston only had one season of playing the Doctor. He didn't want to be stereo-typed and only be seen as the Doctor with roles similar to that of the Doctor. I hardly know him and can't say how great that “danger” really was. I liked what I've seen from him as the Doctor and in other films, too. When David Tennant got offered the role of the Doctor, he thought a long time whether he should accept it or not. He was and still is a big “Doctor Who” fan, but what if fans didn't like him? Or what if he would only be seen as “the Doctor”? And yet it's only a job. Christopher Eccleston and David Tennant are not the Doctor. Christopher Eccleston is Christopher Eccleston and David Tennant is David Tennant.

Until next blog,

sarah

Freedom Today

Dear reader,

in a time today where half of the world seems to be on facebook, I see my freedom exactly in not being on facebook. Although I do have a mobile phone (cell phone, for some of my readers) and even one with a land line number, it's the only way to contact me all the time, if you wanted. The only four exceptions are: 1) when I'm taking a shower, 2) I'm out to do some quick shopping or 3) I don't hear my phone, likely because I'm out and listening to too loud music on my ipod or 4) I can't reach it in time.

It's a bit strange that my mobile phone is the best way to contact me instantly of all possible ways. Because I generally don't like phoning that much and I prefer writing or talking to people directly.

Most people, with whom I have communicated or still am communicating using chat programs, have the decency to write me when they're leaving when they're on invisible status. Many people I know, who use that status, have their good reasons for it. I only feel sorry that they're always the one writing to me and I don't have the possibility to be the one to contact them first. I don't know if they're there or not. For all I know, judging by their status, they could just as well be gone or have turned off their computer all together, just as their status suggests they're “off”. Luckily that only happened to me on few occasions.

For me what tops off the invisible status is being online with (hooray!) smartphones all the time now. That way some people are (almost) constantly online with chat programs, but with away status. Considering their status to be true, I don't write to the very most people in that case. Either they're really not on their phone or computer or don't want to be disturbed. So I don't write to them. Which is fine with me. Honestly. It only makes me wonder, why they're online still.

The answer quite possibly is facebook. Half of the world (at least) is on facebook, so I have to be, too. Ever more people have a smartphone and with that a phone that connects them to the internet. So it's the possibility to be online, especially on facebook, where most people are online almost all the time. Or is it not? Panic, when the battery of the smartphone gives up unexpectedly and one is out somewhere without the possibility to recharge. I can't read anymore what others have written to me on facebook! Boohoo! On the wikipedia page on facebook, under the section Criticisms_and_controversies, you'll find a 2013 study on why people quit using facebook. 48% said it was privacy concerns. It is the main reason why I don't even want to register there. Followed by what can be read under reception, that companies fired employers after keeping an eye on employers facebook accounts and firing them for what they posted there. Thanks, but no thanks. I don't need that. 6% of the study on quitters of facebook said that facebook is addictive. Thanks, I'm happy with the internet as addiction already. Whoever wants to get in touch with me, can call me, write me an e-mail or chat with me with a chat program. I do not need to register on a website, to keep in touch with my friends. The real world is still out there, away from screens, where you can see the whole person and do stuff in the real world.

In the first episode of the 11^th Doctor in “Doctor Who” (The Eleventh Hour), aliens darken the sun for the humans on earth and prepare to incinerate the earth. The Doctor stands outside and watches the people, who have nothing better to do than taking pictures of the sun or filming it on their cameraphones. The comment of the Doctor to all of that personally makes me very sad, “Oh and here they come. The human race. The end comes, as it was always going to... down a video phone.”
Call me egoistic, arrogant, old fashioned or whatever negative description you can think of. But I myself do not want to be part of a society, in which I have to be on call online always and all the time and even though I write this blog here online, I do not have to record every single tiny bit of my life online. In the episode “The Bells of Saint John” (season 7, episode 7) in a quiet moment, the Doctor describes the situation so far, the way he understands it as follows, “This whole world swimming in Wi-Fi. We're living in a Wi-Fi soup! Suppose something got inside it. Suppose there was something living in the Wi-Fi, harvesting human minds, extracting them. Imagine that. Human souls trapped like flies in the World Wide Web, stuck for ever, crying out for help.” Clara's comment on that, “Isn't that basically Twitter?”

Everybody vanish in the internet. Everyone, register yourself on facebook and twitter. I won't know what's going on for you then, because I'm not registered on either of that. But what the heck. If communication today gets reduced to facebook and twitter, then this here is my good-bye to you. Maybe we'll see each other again when the world stops existing or maybe already when the third world war broke out. I have a hunch neither of that might happen online exclusively.

Until next blog,
sarah

Better Be Many

Dear reader,

before the movie "The Silence of The Lambs" there was the same-titled book by Thomas Harris and before that book was the book "Red Dragon". (The latter being filmed twice, by the way, once in 1986 with the title "Manhunter" and William Petersen as the lead role of the investigator and Brian Cox as Dr. Hannibal Lecter. The movie from 2002 has Edward Norton as the investigator and Anthony Hopkins in his staring role as Dr. Hannibal Lecter.) "Red Dragon" is about the former FBI agent Will Graham. He became famous after helping identifying Lecter as the offender and then catching him.

The former supervisor visits Graham and seeks his help in the brutal murder of two families. He notices that during the intense conversation, Graham uses more and more of the rhythm and syntax of his dialogue partner. Graham doesn't do that intentionally to build a good connection between them, but unconsciously.

I noticed that and it happened to me, too. Once I was at my aunt's in Hamburg for about a week and after two or three days, I noticed, that I was talking in a different way. Back home I was talking my own usual way again.

Budding people of the social field, such as therapists, are told to notice the voice, rhythm, speed and use of words of their clients and adjust their own way of speaking accordingly. It creates sympathy on an unconscious level and a connection between the people talking to each other.

There's this saying that dogs often look like the owner. Which is no surprise, especially if they had been living together already for a long time. Adjusting doesn't only happen on a verbal level, but also with looks or gestures and body posture. Sometimes consciously, more often unconsciously.

Trends are set that way, too. We like a person and we like what he or she is wearing or how they are wearing it, so we start to do as they do. For many years I used to wear my wrist watch with the face on the inner side of my wrist. I had seen Bruce Willis wearing his wrist watch that way in many movies and also Matt Smith in his portrayal of the 11th Doctor in "Doctor Who" in at least two episodes, checks his wrist watch with the face on the inner side of his wrist. For some weeks, also analog to the 11th Doctor, I'm wearing a pocket watch. I don't wear my wrist watch anymore at this moment. No, it's not the owl wrist watch I have bought in april. It's a proper pocket watch with clipper to clip it to the brim of the pocket and a chain. I was especially thinking of Derren Brown and hypnotists generally, of whom you'd almost expect to waggle a pocket watch in front of your eyes to make you go into a trance. So my pocket watch has nothing to do with the Doctor!!!

Such things can work like little lucky charms or nervers. At least they do for me. Wearing a scarf the way Benedict Cumberbatch does as Sherlock Holmes for example. Maybe a purple scarf, purple being Milton Erickson's favourite colour...

David Calof was a student of Milton Erickson. In his audio set "Hypnotic Techniques", he starts by saying that "I'm one of those people, who believe that Ericksonianism died in 1980, when Erickson died and that we're actually in a post Erickson era." So he wouldn't stand here saying he was Ericksonian. Although he had the privileg of studying with him. He isn't Ericksonian. He is Calofian, he supposed. For starters, that's a funny thing to say and maybe a bit arrogant, too. One might argue whether or not Ericksonianism could have been done only by Erickson himself and indeed died with Erickson. The most "absolute" form of it certainly did. Erickson as a human and therapist was unbelievably complex and multilayered. Not one single person alone will completely "get" him and internalise it for themselves. To be like him for the sake of his genius and to act like he did, would only be a copy. Erickson was very creative and revolutionised the psyotherapy and hypnotherapy of his time. It's certainly worth checking out his way of working and how he did things. In the end however, everybody should find their own way of doing therapy. It would be sad, only to be a cheap copy of somebody else. Especially since there isn't just Erickson, who did good works with his approaches. Calof said it, too, that he learned the limitations of Erickson's model. (Sadly, for me anyway, he doesn't go on about what those limitations are. I would like to know, where he thinks the limitations are.)

Also, as much as you as a therapist might prefer one therapy over another or one method within a certain therapy over another, not every person responds to this one method the same positive way. That would be boring for therapists, too, because then they would all only learn this one kind of therapy and then treat everyone this same way and heal and help them that way. That would be boring, wouldn't it? As Betty Alice Erickson, one of Milton Erickson's daughters, put it in an interview with Paul Anwandter, " You can't have a rule of psychotherapy that applies to everyone."

Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "Insist on yourself; never imitate. Your own gift you can present every moment with the cumulative force of a whole life's cultivation; but of the adopted talent of another, you have only an extemporaneous, half possession." That same way we should respect the other person's individuality and not want to be like one single other person. At its worst, we'll be a "cheap copy" quite literally and at best people would still talk about as as some one like xy.

When I was a kid I had a blanket with all sorts of squared samples sewed together. One beautiful, colourful patch work blanket. That's what I wold wish for us all, that we become a colourful patch work person in the things we do, our way of thinking and the way we look. Taking individual aspects of many, different people and utilise them in a useful way. Everything else would be boring, cheap copies. Nobody needs those.

Until next blog,

sarah

Hey, do you mind if I tell you a story?

Dear reader,

in the episode "The Rings of Akhaten" (Season 7, Episode 7) of Doctor Who, the Doctor wants to know more about Clara, whom he has met before in previous episodes and who seems somewhat odd. In this episode now they are on a planet where a girl, Merry Galel, is about to be sacrificed to an angry god. The Doctor doesn't give up on people easily, so he is desperate to find ways to help Merry Galel, too. They prepared her for the sacrifice from when she was very small and that's why she knows all the stories and songs of her people. But when she is about to be sacrificed, the Doctor comes and tells her something, which we all should be hearing more often, especially when we are desperate:

Hey, do you mind if I tell you a story? One you might not have heard. All the elements in your body were forged many many millions of years ago in the heart of a faraway star that exploded and died. That explosion scattered those elements across the desolations of deep space. After so, so many millions of years, these elements came together to form new stars and new planets. And on and on it went. The elements came together and burst apart, forming shoes and ships and sealing wax and cabbages and kings. Until, eventually, they came together to make you. You are unique in the universe. There is only one Merry Galel. And there will never be another. Getting rid of that existence isn't a sacrifice, it's a waste!

Until next blog,
sarah

Thinner too: with savvy - weight and see

Dear reader,

you wanted to be thin and cancelled your fitness studio membership, because you don't need it anyway. Now some food for thought to add to that.

I read once that hypnosis is the best way and one of the best possibilities to achieve that. I have no idea how much of what I did to be thin was in a sense “hypnosis” or not. Regardless of that I can see certain parallels between hypnosis and successfully being thin. Many people believe that hypnosis makes you lose your will. That's not correct. Apart from the conscious and the unconscious, there's also a third very important instance, which is often called “the critical factor”. It's the connection between the conscious and the unconscious. The unconscious holds beliefs. The critical factor checks incoming new information with the already existing beliefs. If they are identical, they go into the unconscious, if not they're blocked out and stay in the conscious mind only.

Hypnosis only works when the critical factor is levelled down. Only then are phenomenon like an immobile (cataleptic) hand possible. Of course the person can still move their hand. But at that moment the barriers of the critical factor are at least that much down so what the hypnotist is saying, that the hand is impossible to move and cataleptic, is accepted to be true. This is enhanced even further through a chain of autosuggestion (“I notice that I can't move my hand. So it must be true that I can't move it. Therefore I can't move it.”) and the hand is immobilised, although under normal circumstances, the hand would be possible to move fully and without difficulty.

The critical factor is the reason why (New Year's) resolutions are so difficult to do and to keep doing them. The critical factor finds many more confirmations for the old habits and beliefs. So they are kept in the end. So for being thin you have to use tricks like a hypnotist.

The most important of all is:

1. State goals in the positive!

State your goals in the positive towards what you want. Remember: if you state it in the negative with „not“, you'll have the negative still in your head. That's not helpful in the long run. I'm warning you, if you state in the negative, you'll have an elephant in your head and he's so big, he'll crush all the positive intentions.

Our brain works best with pictures. That's why they keep saying in order to remember a string of things, to connect them to a story. I find a whole story to be difficult and complicated. I find it better to work with other methods and build yourself a memory palace. Do you know the film “The Machinist”? In it Christian Bale is a man, who's tormented with problems he repressed, so he almost doesn't eat at all, has massive sleeping problems and looks just the way someone would in that situation. It certainly wasn't healthy for him as an actor to lose that much weight for that role. Here are two picture of it:

It really does not look healthy at all. But it gives your mind very clear images of what you want. Only watch out, please, please, not to go just that far really. It should only be images, with which to work on your own goal. To have such a physique is sick and very damaging for you in the long run! Nevertheless: overdo it with the images, which you use, be it in your head or those you pick to remind you. (The 10^th Doctor in “Doctor Who”, David Tennant, is probably more of a role model for being thin, and very likeable, too. Although at least one of his companions described him as “just a long streak of nothing. You know, alien nothing.” Right she is.)

2. Find pictures (real or in the head), which are exaggerating, to be clear on what you want.

(Once someone wrote to me on the internet and wanted help with hypnosis so I would make her breasts bigger. I told her that when I wanted to be thinner, I was thinking about Christian Bale's role in The Machinist and advised to her to do the same. So she searched for a picture of a woman with breasts too big, printed it out and used that image then. A couple of weeks later she wrote to me and told me that her breasts actually had gotten bigger. I don't know if what she said was correct. It seemed so to me. In the end the most important thing is, that she was happy and she seemed to be to me.)

Sometimes I tricked myself and picked a bit wider cloths to wear, which wouldn't be so tight on my body. That gives a feeling of being thin. At least thinner for those cloths, which with more weight would have been tighter. Skinny jeans on the other hand sometimes are quite comfortable and make your thighs be a bit tighter than wider jeans would when you sit down.

Once again English seems to be even more extreme, once you start playing with words. To "lose weight" is, if you're saying it out loud, very close to "loose wait". (Not tight waiting, ey?) In English I like to ask then: Waiting for what? But even in German I don't think it's a good choice of words for the wish of “losing weight”. Nobody likes to lose something. You have to find the words that fit best for yourself. In the end all I can do is make you aware that different words also have diverse meanings that come with them.

Also don't underestimate the support from outside. If a child is big and should lose weight, it's best to make it a family project. It's not helping the child if the family keeps eating fastfood as the child is supposed to eat healthy food.

Two “tricks” I still use now and then are the following: often we mistake thirst for hunger and eat something. It can often help to instead first drink a good amount. In the evening it can also help, at a certain time of hour, to go and brush your teeth. As you know, after that you shouldn't eat anymore. So I only drink unsweetened tea or water then.

Until next blog,

sarah

Cracks In My Laptop

Dear reader,

we live in a short-dated world in which technology of 3 years old is old if not outdated. My not quite 3 years old laptop, which was in repair last year, is broken again. Even one or two weeks I had it back from repair, the top with the screen started to go apart somewhat. But I didn't want to send the laptop back for repair for another 4 weeks again, after it had been there - among other things because the top screen parts were going apart a bit, by the way!!! This weekend I'm at my dad's and I asked him to glue the top. He suggested that to me earlier and on Friday the situation was so scary for me that I, still at my place, saved all the data I could think of that I needed and only then did I go to my dad. He glued the top... and it didn't stick. Instead there were even more cracks.

My last blog entry is from end of April. I spent that time, among other things, watching episodes of the series Doctor Who. The episodes from 2005 on, by the way. Derren Brown had David Tennant, the tenth Doctor, in the second season of his series "Trick or Treat". That got me interested in him. He played the Doctor from 2005 to 2010. Matt Smith then took over from season 5 on. One of the main topics there is the crack in the wall of the room of the girl Amelia Pond. What's a sign of having watched too many episodes of Doctor Who? When you start drawing parallels and seeing them in your own life...

Unlike Amy I don't have a Doctor to help me and repair my crack or cracks. So today I ordered a new laptop at amazon and will go back to my place without this laptop here. I don't even dare closing the top anymore. amazon is usually fast sending things. The date they set was Tuesday toTthursday. And what will I be doing in this time? What did we do all the years before laptops existed, before the internet existed???!!! I know, what I'll do. I'll plant my aloe vera sprouts and maybe dare cutting some of my cacti to grow new ones out of them, too.

Until next blog,

sarah