by Carolyn Thomas ♥ @HeartSisters
While clinical psychologist Susan Silk was recuperating from surgery, she decided that she wasn’t feeling up to having any visitors. But when one of her work colleagues who really, really wanted to visit was asked to respect Susan’s request for privacy, her astonishing response to Susan was:
“This isn’t just about you!”
Well, actually, it was all about Susan, and only about Susan. Yet sometimes, our friends, family and other visitors seem to forget what to say – and what never to say – to people suffering a trauma, as Susan described in a Los Angeles Times article co-written with Barry Goldman last year.
In fact, her own experience as a patient prompted Susan to come up with a deceptively simple technique to help others avoid doing or saying the wrong thing. She claims that this technique works for all kinds of crises: medical, legal, financial, romantic, even existential. Susan calls it the Ring Theory: Continue reading “What (not) to say when you’re visiting the sick”
A heart attack is a life-changing event. For some people, surviving a heart attack brings renewed appreciation for life. For others, the event is so traumatic that worrying about having a second heart attack consumes their lives.
Gripped in the throes of sweet nostalgia recently, I spent part of an enjoyable morning making a version of my mother’s homemade mea
Heart Sisters 