How realistic are our memories of early adulthood?

/ Laura Lee Carter / 3 Comments

Now to answer the question: Were we always this stupid, from my last post? The answer is, we were much dumber in high school and college. I have medical proof!

I’ve been reading a FASCINATING BOOK called “The Body” by Bill Bryson. So many new and interesting facts about this crazy body we call home. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND IT!

For example, one of his most memorable moments while researching this book, was when an English surgeon peeled back a sliver of skin a millimeter thick from the arm of a cadaver for him and said:

“That is where all your skin color is. That’s all that race is – a sliver of epidermis.”

But the section on the brain was even more interesting! Brains have always interested me. But then when I got a couple brain injuries, I became even more focused on learning more about how they work.

OK, so here’s why we did some really stupid things in our teens and early twenties and now remember them far too fondly:

“The brain takes a long time to form completely. A teenager’s brain is only about 80% finished…[and] a region of the forebrain associated with pleasure, grows its largest size in one’s teenage years. At the same time, the body produces dopamine, the neurotransmitter that conveys pleasure, more than it ever will again.”

I knew before that our frontal lobe isn’t fully developed until our twenties, thus less impulse-control, but I have never heard that our teens and twenties were our best chance to experience extreme pleasure. Now, as we age, do you ever wonder if your memory is playing tricks on you? Could those early memories be real? This finding suggests our memories of the best sex in our life in our teens and twenties could be correct! Who knew?

This explains a lot. Memories can be so uncertain and unclear. They can also be manipulated and change through time. So find ways to enjoy your memories, but don’t count on them all being correct.

What has happened to my country? Were we always this stupid?

/ Laura Lee Carter / 4 Comments

I cannot remember one time in my 65 years on this planet that I have felt so embarrassed by my own culture and country. Everyday, when I see the latest news, I cringe at how crazy and mindless we have become.

This leaves me wondering: How much can we separate ourselves from our own culture and country? I have never felt this need before…

But when I see how our entertainment has become completely commercialized and mindless, with its obsession with sex and violence. When I see far too many Americans who I might consider intelligent, believing in the craziest conspiracy theories EVER, I feel nothing but disappointment with my culture. It seems, that when faced with true threats to our very existence on this planet, we instead run toward conspiracy theories to obsess about.

Denial runs far too deep in the human race!

How can we not unite to save our home planet and our country?

I feel like I did my part to save our planet. I didn’t have kids in part because I was afraid of our present stupidity as a race. And all those fears about our inability to read, learn and think clearly about the future of our planet have come true. It isn’t because we don’t have the technologies necessary to research and understand things like the warming of our planet or the melting glaciers and ice sheets at our poles. We have plenty of data and scientists telling us about this everyday.

But instead of focusing on the real threats to our world, millions of Americans choose to put their energy into conspiracy theories like

QAnon: “a wide-ranging, unfounded conspiracy theory that says that President Trump is waging a secret war against elite Satan-worshipping pedophiles in government, business and the media, speculating that this fight will lead to a day of reckoning where prominent people such as former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton will be arrested and executed.” Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/53498434

Really??? Is this the best we can do? If this is the level of intelligence of even one quarter of Americans, than we are all in big trouble! I guess our education system has truly failed our population.

Whatever happened to critical thinking? Now say this with me: Everything you read on the Internet is not true!

Pay CLOSE attention to your sources of information!

How to cheer yourself up!

/ Laura Lee Carter / 2 Comments

Here it is 2020 World Mental Health Day in the midst of too many good reasons to feel bad. Mental health is one of the most neglected areas of public health. Close to 1 billion people are living with a mental disorder, 3 million people die every year from the harmful use of alcohol and one person dies every 40 seconds by suicide. And now, billions of people around the world have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, which is having a further impact on people’s mental health.

Five Warning Signs of Mental Illness

Long-lasting sadness or irritability.

Extremely high and low moods.

Excessive fear, worry, or anxiety.

Social withdrawal.

Dramatic changes in eating or sleeping habits.

Unfortunately, I have plenty of experience with these signs, but that also means I have experience in dealing with them successfully. After years of depression, five years of great counseling in my thirties, and a degree in counseling psychology, I have learned how to take better care of my own mental health. That is not to say I don’t have my down days, especially under the present circumstances!

Here are some ways I have learned to combat the blues:

Never underestimate the power of finding a GREAT therapist. I know it isn’t easy shopping for the best therapist for you when you feel bad, but trust your feelings in selecting the right person to help you over this difficult time in your life.

Mental health days have been important to me throughout my life. While in therapy and feeling deeply sad about understanding my past, my therapist encouraged me to take a day off now and then to be with my feelings. This was essential in helping me feel better. I was severely co-dependent at that time. I remember one day I said to my therapist I felt bad about feeling sorry for myself. She quickly responded with:

“At least you are feeling something for yourself!”

Then, when you start feeling better, start taking mental health days to celebrate feeling better! A few times I needed to call in and say: “I’m feeling too good to come to work today!” No not really, but that’s the way I felt… I remember one day I went out and bought myself some great new furniture. Now, every time I look at that dresser, I remember how great it made me feel to give myself a nice gift.

These days I have been trying a new affirmation out. Every morning when I wake up the first thing I see is my little sign across the room that says:

Today I’m going to love my life!

I find that when I focus on what I am grateful for, I truly have so many reasons to love my life. Consider the fact that we are alive in a great country at one of the BEST times in human history. At least you weren’t born in the 17th century, when “life was nasty, short and brutal.” Today many Americans have the opportunity to live long, pain-free lives. We have the benefits of medicine and science helping us to improve our lives and the lives of others. LUCKY US! We truly do have good reasons to love our lives, and if we don’t we are quite free to change them! This is what I learned from my own midlife crisis. Whatever you are not changing, you are choosing.

If none of this works, try chocolate. It works for me!

You’ve got to go crazy sometimes, or you might go crazy!

The history of human use of psychoactive plants: See “The Stoned Ages” and learn more!

/ Laura Lee Carter / Leave a comment

Have you ever thought you would like to learn more about the history of the use of psychoactive plants and botanicals in world history? I just saw a GREAT film about this on the History Channel this week!

Here’s few fun facts from this documentary:

From the beginning of the human race to the present, the human race has been using plants to feel better. From early man (& women), the Egyptians, and the Mayans (Pre-Columbian societies) there has been a constant search for medicinal plants. For example, the Mayans were quite familiar with plants in their environment. They regularly used tobacco in enemas, (bowel is blood rich) and ritual practices. Another example, their use of a solution with ayahuasca done in the presence of a Shaman. It’s purpose was to create a heightened perception of reality, creating a visionary state where one might commune with the gods. They believed these plant rituals gave them a unique gateway to the spiritual realm and the substances used were sacred tools to help them connect. They also used performance enhancing drugs in sports and many other pharmaceutical products.

The Ancient Greeks, especially the philosophers, used pharmaceuticals to create altered states, have out-of-body experiences and to journey to other worlds to meet their gods. Mushrooms and ergot (barley fungus) were used with no moral stigma, with the full realization that plants can heal and harm us. Drugs were about pleasure in the right circumstances and context, not about right and wrong. They felt, if the people were using plants to experience a union with God, what did they need with organized religion?

The Age of Religious Judgment: The Christians

After the Romans were converted to Christianity, their use of psychotropic substances became illegal. Early Christian history shows anxiety and suspicion when it came to pleasures of the body. According to them, faith in Christ is the only road to salvation, therefore an interest in alternative realities became a problem. The sense of puritanical self-denial was an important part of early Christian views. Denial of the pleasures of the body was essential in conversion to Christian spirituality, and this became the dominant value system in the West.

The Age of Discovery

Exploration of new worlds led to the discovery of new psychotropic substances, for example tobacco and cannibis. Since most drugs come from plants, international travel led to a confluence of drug products transferred to Europe in the early modern world. In addition, with the introduction of tobacco to the New World, came a new way to administer drugs, by smoking them… What did the term “patent medicines” mean in the 1800s in the USA? It meant they didn’t need to tell you what was in them. “Medicines” like morphine, cocaine, heroin, and aspirin.

Drink your Coca-Cola and you’ll feel so much better!

How has our society defined some psychoactive plants as “medicines” through the ages, and others as bad for you? Learn more by watching this documentary:

How much progress have American women made in the way we see ourselves in the past 90 years?

/ Laura Lee Carter / 2 Comments

“I ask no favor for my sex. All I ask of our brethren is that they take their feet off our necks.” – Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Ruth Bader Ginsberg

In the wake of the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg on Friday, there have been many wonderful articles written to commemorate her heroic life and legacy. She was a small woman who understood the gigantic progress we as a people needed to make to create an American culture that respected women as equal citizens of the United States of America.

Interestingly, Ms. Ginsburg was born the same year as my own mother, 1933, and to me my mother’s life represents the progress we have made since these two American women were born. I fear the young women of our country today have no idea what America looked and felt like for women born in the first half of the 1900s.

My Mom and me in 2005

I would like to introduce you to my mother, Martha Ann Carter. Born around Kansas City after her mother had had trouble conceiving, my Mom ended up being the eldest of four children. She had her rebellious moments in high school and then met my Dad on a blind date in 1950. He was soon sent to Virginia by the army, but they corresponded for a short period and then they married in 1951. She was only 19 when she got on a train to join him.

She lived in a time when being your husband’s best help mate was what women did. She had kids while also helping her husband advance his career. It was such a struggle in their early lives together. Mom worked to support the family, and had three kids by 1955, while my father finished his PhD in botany at University of Iowa.

College teachers didn’t make much money back then, and they had to move every few years if they weren’t on tenure-track, so we moved around a lot in my early years, but my Mom always kept it together, even when my Dad decided he wanted to go to India for a summer when we kids were quite small. She was supportive of Dad no matter what! That is how she saw herself.

This is the way things were for most women back then. My Mom was just lucky that she had a husband who supported her education and career as a teacher. The first thing my Mom said after my Dad died this past March: “I have lost my leader.”

My views on women’s rights:

Being born in 1955 and raised by a college professor and teacher, my choices were clear to me. I wouldn’t be going to college for my “Mrs.” degree. I also rebelled greatly against the stereotypes of the 1970s where women often married during or right after college. Yes, even back then is was common for women to either get pregnant early or simply follow their man instead of creating their own career for themselves. And the men were quite traditional too!

It took me until age 49 to change enough and then find a life companion who saw me as his equal in every way…

“If you have a caring life partner, you help the other person when that person needs it. I had a life partner who thought my work was as important as his, and I think that made all the difference for me.” – Ruth Bader Ginsberg

My point here is that the life of women born in 1933 and those born today are a WORLD APART! We no longer expect the men to be the “boss” or leader of the family. They no longer dominate us, but they did only one or two generations ago.

I would just like the new generation of women to appreciate all the challenges we have faced, and the amazing progress we have created in the past one hundred years. If the early death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg leads to us moving backwards in terms of women’s rights, shame on our country!

“Feminism [is the] notion that we should each be free to develop our own talents and not be held back by manmade barriers.” – RBG

Today I’m Going To Love My Life!

/ Laura Lee Carter / 1 Comment

I’ve been overwhelmed lately with the idiocy we call American politics. We all go somewhere different to get our “news” and then we spout whatever misinformation we hear wherever. It sounds to me like we have too much free time and too many sources of information and misinformation, and the Internet is responsible for most of this. On top of that we have the worst wildfires in American history and hurricanes coming on shore like never before.

What I hate to see is all of the hatefulness that Trump has succeeded in spreading throughout our country, one that in fact we all love and want to be better. Most of us just want a better country with less death and destruction. Can we all agree on that at least?

To combat this anxiety and hatefulness I am pulling way back from watching the news. In addition, I have been trying a new affirmation out. Every morning when I wake up the first thing I see is my little sign across the room that says:

Today I’m going to love my life!

I find that when I focus this way, I truly have so many reasons to love my life. Politics do not need to consume us. Consider the fact that you are alive in a wonderful country at a glorious time in history. One of my favorite quotes from the 17th century was that “life was nasty, short and brutal.”

Today many Americans have the opportunity to live long, happy and healthy lives. Sure some of us cannot breathe without the assistance of supplementary O2 (like me!) but at least we can access those resources. We have the benefits of science helping us to improve our lives and the lives of others. LUCKY US!

I don’t know about you, but when I look around me, I find so many reasons to love my life. I feel so much gratitude for it all! I feel I have had the proper circumstances to get a good education and then make the kind of choices that have made my life great. Self-improvement has been so important to me, as well as learning that blaming and shaming others for my own faults is toxic. Self -responsibility has been key for me to create the kind of life I can love.

To tell the truth, I never would have imagined that I would end up here in this safe and beautiful (but smoky today!) place with a life I can love.

I can only wish you all the same success.

Just so there’s no global warming…

/ Laura Lee Carter / 2 Comments

On Monday the 7th we broke a record with a high of 92 degrees here in southern Colorado…

On Tuesday we had a high of 35 with a record low for September and rain turning to sleet and then snow this afternoon. The forecast? Snow all night into tomorrow afternoon.

By Wednesday morning we had received six inches of snow on September 8th-9th! Amazing!

Thursday morning, September 10th, snow has returned to the Spanish Peaks!

HAPPY 15th ANNIVERSARY TO MIKE AND I!

This catmint flower is my definition of resilience!

Alternatives to becoming a prisoner of media-created stress & anxiety…

/ Laura Lee Carter / 2 Comments

It struck me the other day, as I was enjoying 20/20 vision for the first time in my entire life (get some cataract surgery!), and feeling particularly relaxed and happy, that most of us don’t realize that we do make perhaps unconscious choices everyday. Do you choose to feel constantly worked up about Covid-19, that crazy guy at the top, upcoming elections, etc.? Would you like to seek more positive distractions?

Think about it this way, most of us have it better than just about everyone else in the world today, AND better than most in human history! I thought, “Do we need to constantly find more to worry about? We’ll all be dead soon, so lighten up!

That same day I received a review copy of a book I can highly recommend to those of you who would like suggestions on how to turn your attention to spiritual things that create space for you to pause and reflect, nourish your mind, and make useful tools to assist you in your personal development journey. The Mind Remedy: Discover and Use Simple Objects to Nourish Your Soul by UK psychologist Ruth Williams allows us to explore our thoughts, ideas, emotions, and memories through objects that are touching, thought-provoking and soul-stretching. From dream catchers to worry beads, this beautifully crafted book shares the origins, meaning and practice of creating 20 different enlightenment tools to increase feelings of well-being. These tools are divided into different headings like “Finding Connection”, “Inner Peace”, “Self-Discovery” and “Finding Your Roots.”

For example, here is a sample of the page on creating your own worry beads. Sometimes we need something tactile to sooth us…

“Simple things really can nourish the mind. When we anchor the unseen processes of the mind to something that we can hold in our hands, then the intangible becomes real. Healing feels within reach because we can touch the object that will carry us there…”

Check out this simple, beautiful book if you are looking for alternatives to worry, stress & anxiety.

Busy wildlife in my Colorado wildflower garden

/ Laura Lee Carter / Leave a comment

Who knew how active and entertaining a wildflower garden could be? All day long we observe all sorts of critters & creatures interacting out there. From gigantic hummingbird moths, to so many bees, beetles, little lizards all over the place and one very long snake at one time!

There are three birds in this photo! Can you find them?

The early morning is dominated by the birds as they wake up and come get some seed and water. Watch out for those dive-bombing hummingbirds!

Then the Cottontail rabbits come out of their safe, cool hiding place under the concrete step right outside my door.

Here come the chipmunks, scurrying around the Blue Mist Spirea to pick up the newly fallen seeds. I better get out there and collect some seeds before they eat them all! Mike has also seen a badger out there once, and a mountain lion attack a deer when he was out on a hike!

But the highlight of our animal observations this summer has been seeing TWO sets of Rocky Mountain Blue Bird chicks fledge from our unique little Blue bird house…

Baby Rocky Mountain Blue Birds in our bird house in June…

And of course our friendly Road Runner (Beep, beep!) who seems to be sticking around to have a family right near here!

How I miss getting together with others to grieve the death of my father, much like Covid deaths

/ Laura Lee Carter / Leave a comment

From time immemorial, we humans have been joining together to mourn or memorialize our dead. This is a tradition we seem to need, to get together and recognize the death of a loved one. In the past this would be called a funeral. Today it can be any kind of ceremony to gather together and grieve the passing of someone special to us.

My father died on March 10th of this year, right before “the virus” began to run and ruin our lives. We had hoped to have a special ceremony for Dad at the Denver Botanic Gardens, a place where he often lectured and was well known as one of our state’s foremost botanists. That could not happen. And now, six months later, we still wish we could do something to get together and commemorate his life and his passing. Then I realized, hundreds of thousands of Americans are feeling the exact same way. Because of this horrible pandemic, so many of us cannot even grieve in the usual ways. At least my Dad did not have to die alone, but we were then left with no way to get together and mourn him. I’m so glad we did at least have a fantastic 90th birthday party for him. That was a wonderful coming together of those who loved my father and knew his was a life worth celebrating!

I am struck again by how fundamentally social we are as a species. From New Orleans jazz funerals to Tibetan sky burials, we always find our own ways to deal with love and loss. We need that time to fully embrace our return to the earth from which we came. What could be more natural than dying, and yet it always seems so sudden and unexpected…

One of my favorite aspects of moving here has been that I finally feel good about my future after death. I now know I wish to have my ashes spread over this peaceful and quiet place, the land below our home here in rural southern Colorado. Perhaps my Dad would like that too, since we live in one of his favorite ecosystems, the Pinon-Juniper woodland.

“Yes, it’s beautiful to exhale after you inhale. At the right time, when the chest is full, breathe out and let go.” – Norman Fischer, “Suffering Opens the Real Path”