There’s been some stress the last few days, but I’m trying not to let it get to me and I’m being as assertive as possible to get my needs met. There’s a skill in DBT to help with communication and getting your needs met and stuff. There are two sides with similar charts; “asking” for something, and “saying no” to something. On both sides, you evaluate what’s most important, getting your needs met, keeping the relationship good, or feeling a sense of self respect. Depending on what your biggest objective is, this can can change how you ask or say no. Like, if you need a favor from someone and you mention it and they sound unsure… if your objective with that person is to keep the relationship good, and you can find someone else to help you, then you decrease the intensity of asking, but if they are the only person who can help and it’s something you really need, then you increase the intensity of asking. There’s a lot more to it. It involves charts and acronyms and all sorts of stuff, and it takes a lot of practice, but learning to use it effectively can really improve your interpersonal relationships. I found myself using it a lot today, and am grateful for it because I’ve had some challenging moments with people and handled most of it a lot better than most people would have in my position. I was proud of myself, but at the same time, I feel a little guilty about “increasing the intensity of asking”; especially with my mental health worker. She’s the best though and I’m grateful. I’m just feeling overwhelmed by all I do in the world for almost nothing in return.
This is a painting I sold at an art show 3 years ago. Here’s a few other photos from that day…
I’ve been doing these shows with the gallery for a few years now. This was when it was located in a house in Medford. Now they’re at the Armory in Somerville, but they need help. You can read about that here…
Please help if you can!
In other news, there isn’t much other news. I’ve just been editing, and I created a LinkedIn account. You can find that here…
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jymi-clich%C3%A9-566a57211/
and here is a picture of my cute best buddy cat…
and a picture I found of myself from 2009
I look about the same, except I had short hair then and wore scally caps.
Here are some songs. This just came on the random playlist; a favorite from 1992…
classic… and because I was wearing a Beastie Boys shirt in that old photo, how about my favorite Beastie Boys song?
and that’s it…