Things I Learned In Therapy

I don't have all the answers, but Google does, so by proxy we are all brilliant.....

 I want to live in a world where it is ok for us to feel pride in ourselves.  Seemingly, I'm allowed to be smart, resourceful and independent but not allowed to be confident or helpful.... really?

Recently, I was told by someone (a male) that my confidence is off-putting, and people hate it when I "act like I'm smart" and try to help them, and that I am perceived as a cavalier know-it-all who is actually belittling the ones I aim to help, that I am so arrogant that I don't see it, and to top it all off, I purposefully limit my interactions with people who are dumber than me in order to feel good about myself.  This is quite an insult, not only to me but to anyone I ever interact with (including this person I dare say).  Clearly none of these things can be true, or I would've heard it from someone other than him by now, and people would have stopped hitting me up for advice long ago.  I gather that this insult stems from the way this person feels about himself.  Why else would he want me to feel bad about the way I am?  Why would he want me to believe that I should keep my mouth shut lest I go around offending people?  Why would anyone take my behavior personally?  This is an example of bullying, where you want to knock someone down a peg to make yourself feel better, right?  Only it backfired on him, because my peg is still right where it was.  Thanks to years of therapy, I know what is good about me, in a factual sense.  I also know what is bad about me in a factual sense, which is why I have been in therapy for 4 years.   Knowing your own strengths/weaknesses is a GOOD THING, and it is not easy to un-know something you have studied and worked hard for.  I consider myself to be a force of good in the universe, isn't that a good thing?  I like helping people when I can.  I also like being helped by people who know more than me!  And what's wrong with giving advice?  It's GIVING, not taking, it's free to use or to disregard, or even to challenge, so why should it bother anyone?  My opinions are based on my knowledge and experiences, same as yours.  I am not simply a product of how I was raised, or what I was taught in school.  I do not operate on autopilot... anymore, thanks to therapy...  Thanks to therapy I have a sense of organic confidence that I didn't have before.  I pursue knowledge and solutions, I offer to help people whether I know them or not, I challenge people who used to intimidate me.  I am able to feel things like pride and peace.  And you want to hold that against me?  You want to turn it into something it's not, you want to turn it into snobbery and cockery, when it clearly isn't.  I am proud of my ability to see people and things for what they are.  There is no need for comparison when you see things that way, so how can you say I think I am better than you?  What one person is capable of has nothing to do with anyone else, therefore comparisons are simply pointless.  Fish can't climb trees, a smart person would never bother to compare them to squirrels.  Personally, I would be thrilled if everyone decided to be the best person they could be.  People who are okay with themselves are ultimately going to do more for the greater good than someone who has not addressed their self esteem issues.  Low self esteem is the reason people go crazy and think evil thoughts and do evil things.  Low self esteem is the opposite of peace.  I know from personal experience.  When I decided to become the best me possible, I knew my only hope was to get my ass to therapy, and it has resulted in personal growth that I wouldn't have achieved otherwise.  I am going to continue to share myself, my wisdom, my experiences, my knowledge, my mistakes, my ideas, my music....  and I am going to pass my philosophy on to my children and hope nobody tries to make them feel bad for being the best people they can be.  Ideally, you will join me in this, and we will raise the next generation to be intelligent, peaceful, confident people, who aren't cocks.

How I Stay Thin

I am not skinny.  I am not a health nut, or an exercise freak, nor have I ever had a flat, model belly.  However, I'm a thin person.  I am a bit top-heavy but not busty enough to notice really.  Overall I am grateful for the body I have.  I was a little overweight in between each baby, but I managed to snap back (with some stretch marks of course).  I maintain a relatively hot but flawed body (considering I had 3 kids).  I'm telling you this because I want to share my "think thin" philosophy that I learned from my Dad.   Think like a thin person thinks, do what a thin person does.  Catch yourself when you're about do to something a fat person would do.   Develop thin habits.  Now, I used to think thin habits amounted to starving and smoking cigarettes, but in my experience, it is really all about portion control.  Habitually, I don't eat very much in one sitting, or very quickly.  Well, I drink coffee quickly, I almost chug my first cup.  I take my morning pills with my first cup so that might be why.  But coffee in the morning, a slice of raisin toast with butter and a hard boiled egg or a link of sausage, and more coffee...  with whole milk and 3 sugars (it's a big mug), and after that it's just pitcher water til after school.  Bear in mind that this all starts around 6am-ish, and it takes me forever to finish eating my little breakfast.  I take a bite or 2 and walk away, do a chore or go to the store and come back in an hour and have a little more.  Woah did that totally rhyme?  Weird.  Anyway, the good thing is that I don't ever stuff myself.  Well, maybe once in a while, at night.  When I drink red wine I like to snack on cheese and olives, and cheez-its, and occasionally some pepperoni slices but you shouldn't ever feel stuffed if you want a small stomach.  In fact, only eat until you're not hungry.  Leave plenty of room for dessert and then don't have dessert.  I mean, don't eat dessert.  Go have sex instead, and be on top.  A thin person would be on top.  A thin person would have a small stomach and would be completely stuffed by now (that means stop eating now if you want to be a thin person).  And if your portion looks like it's not enough, stop trusting your eyes!  Use your hand as a guideline, eat a handful at a time, drink water in between.  No special diet, just common sense and portion control.  Don't eat crap, and don't eat much, you don't want to stretch out your stomach by stuffing it to the brim.  Even if you are stuffed on celery you are still stretching your stomach out, which means the next time you are hungry it will take more food to sate you.  That's going the wrong way!  Eat less and less, shrink your stomach, need very little to sate your hunger!!!  Create new habits based on thinking and acting thin, that way even if you do occasionally eat crap, you won't eat much of it.  A habit takes only 21 days to develop into the feeling of normal routine.  Just sayin'.

The reason I titled this as a  "controversy" is because:

~ I assume there will be someone who reads this and thinks something like, "well maybe for you but I'm naturally fat"  And to that person I say, "Well then you are thinking like a fat person, and probably acting like one."  Don't use that excuse anymore and see how much easier it is to take that step in the right direction.  Next thing you know, every step you take will be in that direction, out of habit.

~It is taboo to talk about wanting to be thin, isn't it?  Even though we're all thinking it, we're not supposed to talk about it?  Oh, wait, we're not supposed to be obsessed with it, or something....

~It is culturally unacceptable to have the audacity to give advice to anyone about anything ever, especially without credentials.  Well my credentials are as follows:  I've been unhealthily thin, I've been fat, and I've been healthily thin, in that order, and I look good now doing what I'm doing.  Some people have asked me how I do it.  So there ya go.

~ I can think of plenty of reasons to NOT post this......

It's not the singer, it's the song.

  It doesn't matter who you know or what your image is.  A hit song would trump all of that anyway, wouldn't it?

  Considering all the famous bad singers who put out hits, yep.  Although....  I must love that song "breathe" by anna malick for her voice, because the song itself isn't that great.  I covered it once and then I was like, "eh, never mind, this is boring."  I just like singing along with it.

 So, what makes a hit?
 Ingredients like simple, catchy and upbeat maybe?  Motivating, invigorating or nostalgic?
 Evocative lyrics/subject matter or mood?

The thing is, I don't sit down and write songs on purpose.  They just sort of happen while I'm talking to myself.  Well, that's how they start anyway,  I play around with them from there.  It could take hours or months to write a song.  It really depends on how much I like it.  You can tell how much I like a song by how many times I remix it :) 

And if I like it, maybe someone else will, too.  That's the bottom line I guess, put it out there because you never know...

I want to believe that someone, somewhere is listening to "over my head" heartbroken and bawling their eyes out, or walking Baxter Blvd to my dance album...

https://soundcloud.com/nancy-cartonio/sets/dance-music-28.

...... and suddenly it's late and the NyQuil is kicking in!

Been through a blizzard and a storm with no name...

... it felt good to be inside today....  and what better excuse.  The kids left to go visit their other families this morn/noon and ever since I have been lost in computer-land.  And speaking of lost...

I found the original tracks to "without me" which I thought had been long lost- DO YOU REALIZE WHAT THIS MEANS?   Without me is one of my favorites, and I have remixed it a bunch but really it has just been polishing a shit.  What has needed to happen all along can now happen.  I am going to pull out the crappy parts and fix the broken parts and crap dammit !!!  Incidentally I also found my balls in this bottle of wine!  And suddenly it's 10pm and I haven't stayed up this late in ages....

Oh yeah and somewhere along the way today I googled myself and found a fake website that had me listed under Portland, OR.  It turned out to be a ploy to get me to "claim the page" and create a profile on their website.  So I created one for my J-pop subgenre, which I hope to someday flesh out :)

http://www.mtv.com/artists/lidu-makugidu-lil-mcgill

venus and mars

hehe, oh that.....

a little embarrassing, and yet holds a special place in my heart (drunk).

https://soundcloud.com/lil-mcgill/venus-and-mars

Written by Jack Trudel, who is someone I do not know, but who contacted me via email and asked me to produce his song in the style of Taylor Swift, so that he may pitch it to the folks over at Universal, where he has some sort of deal.  So, I say what the hell, and he sends me an mp3 of him singing and playing acoustic guitar, and a lyric sheet with chords.  I brought the song to life by making it my own: adjusting the key, rewriting a few lines...

It is catchy.

hebrew slang remix

Here is the original Hebrew Slang by Aquatronic

http://www.myspace.com/aquatronic/music/songs/hebrew-slang-16266993

It's pretty gross.  But had too many redeeming qualities for me to ignore!  

For instance, the vocal is pretty damn good, sung by Joanna Fitzgerald.  After cleaning up the tracks, rearranging, deleting some old music and creating some new music.....

https://soundcloud.com/nancy-cartonio/hebrew-slang


Now I love it!