50 Questions That Will Free Your Mind

http://www.marcandangel.com/2009/07/13/50-questions-that-will-free-your-mind/

These questions have no right or wrong answers.
Because sometimes asking the right questions is the answer.

1. How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you are?
2. Which is worse, failing or never trying?
3. If life is so short, why do we do so many things we don’t like and like so many things we don’t do?
4. When it’s all said and done, will you have said more than you’ve done?
5. What is the one thing you’d most like to change about the world?
6. If happiness was the national currency, what kind of work would make you rich?
7. Are you doing what you believe in, or are you settling for what you are doing?
8. If the average human life span was 40 years, how would you live your life differently?
9. To what degree have you actually controlled the course your life has taken?
10. Are you more worried about doing things right, or doing the right things?
11. You’re having lunch with three people you respect and admire.  They all start criticizing a close friend of yours, not knowing she is your friend.  The criticism is distasteful and unjustified.  What do you do?
12. If you could offer a newborn child only one piece of advice, what would it be?
13. Would you break the law to save a loved one?
14. Have you ever seen insanity where you later saw creativity?
15. What’s something you know you do differently than most people?
16. How come the things that make you happy don’t make everyone happy?
17. What one thing have you not done that you really want to do?  What’s holding you back?
18. Are you holding onto something you need to let go of?
19. If you had to move to a state or country besides the one you currently live in, where would you move and why?
20. Do you push the elevator button more than once?  Do you really believe it makes the elevator faster?
21. Would you rather be a worried genius or a joyful simpleton?
22. Why are you, you?
23. Have you been the kind of friend you want as a friend?
24. Which is worse, when a good friend moves away, or losing touch with a good friend who lives right near you?
25. What are you most grateful for?
26. Would you rather lose all of your old memories, or never be able to make new ones?
27. Is is possible to know the truth without challenging it first?
28. Has your greatest fear ever come true?
29. Do you remember that time 5 years ago when you were extremely upset?  Does it really matter now?
30. What is your happiest childhood memory?  What makes it so special?
31. At what time in your recent past have you felt most passionate and alive?
32. If not now, then when?
33. If you haven’t achieved it yet, what do you have to lose?
34. Have you ever been with someone, said nothing, and walked away feeling like you just had the best conversation ever?
35. Why do religions that support love cause so many wars?
36. Is it possible to know, without a doubt, what is good and what is evil?
37. If you just won a million dollars, would you quit your job?
38. Would you rather have less work to do, or more work you actually enjoy doing?
39. Do you feel like you’ve lived this day a hundred times before?
40. When was the last time you marched into the dark with only the soft glow of an idea you strongly believed in?
41. If you knew that everyone you know was going to die tomorrow, who would you visit today?
42. Would you be willing to reduce your life expectancy by 10 years to become extremely attractive or famous?
43. What is the difference between being alive and truly living?
44. When is it time to stop calculating risk and rewards, and just go ahead and do what you know is right?
45. If we learn from our mistakes, why are we always so afraid to make a mistake?
46. What would you do differently if you knew nobody would judge you?
47. When was the last time you noticed the sound of your own breathing?
48. What do you love?  Have any of your recent actions openly expressed this love?
49. In 5 years from now, will you remember what you did yesterday?  What about the day before that?  Or the day before that?
50. Decisions are being made right now.  The question is:  Are you making them for yourself, or are you letting others make them for you?

OUR Journey Thru Autism: Occupational Therapist Expert, Britt Collin Reports...What is OT?

OUR Journey Thru Autism: Occupational Therapist Expert, Britt Collin Reports...What is OT?

by Britt Collins


It is a pleasure to be invited to write for this amazing website and resource center. As you may have read, October is Sensory Awareness Month and the word is getting out about Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD) and what it’s all about. As an occupational therapist I see children every day that have been diagnosed somewhere on the autism spectrum, or with sensory issues as well as Down syndrome, Cerebral Palsy, developmental delays and many other disabilities as well.

Let me paint a picture of what my daily work life looks like for you so you can understand how a neuromuscular outpatient Occupational Therapists (OT) treats kids day in and day out. Now you must understand that every therapist approaches things differently and every child is different, but here are some examples of what I do every day.

An outpatient/clinic based OT, my focus is to address any issue that a child has related to his or her “occupation”. Occupations of a child are; eating, dressing, brushing their teeth, sleeping, going to school, playing, coloring, cutting, playing on the playground, throwing and catching a ball and more. Anything that you do that has a functional purpose is your occupation. If an infant comes to me with a feeding disorder or low tone or decreased motor skills; I can treat them on a weekly basis for any and all of these issues. If a toddler comes to me with a new diagnosis of autism and is non-verbal, has behavior and sensory issues, is unable to tolerate having her teeth brushed because she hates the feel of it etc.; I can treat her using Sensory Integration and behavioral strategies. We may work on things like transitioning from an activity that she likes to an activity that she may not like quite as much. I would work on helping her be less tactile defensive and learn to tolerate having her teeth brushed. We would play games and swing and jump on the trampoline and crash down to the crash pad for sensory input to help organize the sensory system.

Most children that I see who have an ASD diagnosis also have sensory issues but just because someone has sensory processing disorder or sensory issues, does not mean they have autism. We treat the symptoms of the child not the diagnosis, though having a diagnosis can be helpful in knowing what to look for or expect from the child, though again every child is different and responds differently to OT treatment.

Another example of a child I may treat, is a child going into 1st grade who needs help with his fine and visual motor skills. Maybe he is unable to form letters correctly or cut out simple shapes. We would work on various activities that help strengthen these skills.

OT can be a very complex profession as we see so many various types of patients and can treat from birth to older adults so sometimes it is hard to understand when your child may need OT.

If your child has been diagnosed with ASD, SPD, ADHD or any other developmental disability, they probably need outpatient/clinic based OT. The school and early intervention programming can also provide services but they can only address what is educationally relevant and most of these children really need weekly ongoing more intensive therapy from a medical based model in addition to what the education model can provide. Many times your insurance will cover outpatient services for your child.

Autistic patients’ brains have less communication between regions, study finds

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/home/50459539-76/autistic-brain-patients-regions.html.csp

There is no definitive diagnostic test for autism. Instead, doctors ask questions and observe children to see if they have difficulty communicating and interacting with others.

Those imprecise measures can make the neurological disorder hard to identify, delaying the diagnosis.

Hoping to speed detection, and thus treatment, and distinguish between types of autism, Utah researchers have been scanning the brains of autistic boys and men and comparing them with those without the disorder.

On Tuesday, they published their findings in Cerebral Cortex online, showing there is less communication between regions of the brain in the autistic patients.

The scientists are from the University of Utah and Brigham Young University, along with University of Wisconsin-Madison and Harvard Medical School.

“Our understanding of what causes autism is still in its infancy,” said Jason Druzgal, a neuroradiologst who was working at the U. at the time of the study and now works at the University of Virginia.

One theory targets abnormal connectivity in the brain.

Normally, there are strong connections between the left and right hemispheres of the brain allowing separate regions to work together to perform tasks.

Among autistic patients, the brain scans found less communication among regions associated with facial recognition, language and motor skills.

Druzgal said using MRIs in the diagnosis of autism is about five years away.

Other researchers are looking at different ways to use MRIs. What Druzgal finds promising about the Utah study was how straightforward it was: Instead of requiring patients to perform a task during the brain scan, they simply needed to be still for about 10 minutes.

Copyright 2010 The Salt Lake Tribune. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

7 Tips for an Authentic and Productive Writing Process

http://www.copyblogger.com/authentic-writer/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Copyblogger+%28Copyblogger%29

Does this sound familiar?
You’re sitting in front of your laptop, staring at a blank screen.
The deadline for the article you need to write is approaching, and you’re struggling to get started when you should be in the final editing stages.
As you sit there trying to put your expertise in writing, a strange insecurity creeps up your spine. You see yourself changing before your own eyes, transforming from a confident expert into a self-conscious amateur.
It’s your own Dr. Jekyll to Mr. Hyde transformation experience.
I’ve been there.

I used to hate writing

Well, actually, it was more like loathing than hating.
Anytime I needed to write anything I’d procrastinate, pretending that avoiding the project would make it go away. Needless to say, the procrastination led to a flurry of rushed writing at the last minute to meet my deadlines, resulting in less than my best work.
But my real problem wasn’t the act of writing. It was fear. Fear of making mistakes, fear that what I wrote would sound stupid, fear that my writing wouldn’t make sense to the reader, etc.

My insecurities were turning me into a monster

So there I was, a guy with more than 15 years of experience, who has won some awards and is even a judge for three international design competitions, worried about sounding stupid.
It sounds ridiculous, but my fear of screwing up made writing a miserable experience for me.
I even used to try to compensate for my fears. I’d use stiff, formal sentences and large, important-sounding words to try to “prove” I knew what I was talking about. Unfortunately, all that did was make me sound like a pretentious jerk.
It was like I was changing from Dr. Jekyll into Mr. Hyde anytime I had to write something.

Then one sentence from my college professor changed everything

I had a job that offered tuition reimbursement benefits, so I decided to take some college classes. One of my classes was a composition class, and the professor gave me the best writing advice I’d ever heard.

“Write the way you talk.”

Wait. What?
It can’t be that easy! Seriously? What a liberating idea! That one piece of advice helped me break free of my fears and relaxed my writing style. No more procrastination. No more using large, unnecessary words to try and impress the reader. I could just relax, be myself, and write.
Now before you get the wrong impression, let me explain something: writing the way you talk does not give you permission to write poorly, or to publish content that sucks.
What it does is help break down the mental barriers of fear and procrastination that keep you from being a more engaging, and more productive writer.
Here’s how to use “write the way you talk” to squash your insecurities and avoid sounding like a pompous idiot:

1. Imagine yourself having a chat with a trusted friend

Good writing is like a conversation between the writer and the reader. So when you’re writing, think about how you would explain your topic to a close friend who was sitting next to you.
If you were having a conversation with that person, what words would you use? What would you talk about first? What examples would you give to help them understand your topic? What questions might they ask?
Approaching your writing this way will help you write copy that’s more informal and conversational in tone, that better engages your audience. As it happens, it’s also the best way to write sales copy.

2. Record yourself talking about your topic.

Not sure what you sound like in a conversation? Try recording yourself talking about your topic.
This is especially helpful for people who have clients they talk to on the phone regularly. The next time you’re explaining something to a client on the phone, record the call and listen to it later (Be sure to check the laws in your state first. Some states require you get the other party’s permission before you record). The easiest way to do this is with one of the many available plugins for Skype that do call recording.

3. Take a deep breath, relax, and just be yourself

By writing the way you talk, you can’t help injecting a little of your personality into what you write. After all, you’ll be writing in your own voice, using plain English everyone can understand, and a tone that makes you seem more human than textbook.
Combine that with a few relevant, well-placed personal stories and you have the makings of some irresistible content.

4. Use the same words that you do in your everyday life.

If you write the way you talk, you’ll be more inclined to use common, everyday words that you would normally use in conversation.
This prevents you from sounding like Captain Jack Sparrow using (in my best Johnny Depp impersonation) obtuse and generally confounding speech that makes your readers wish they were drinking rum.
So keep your writing simple and clear without artificially inflated language. A good rule of thumb is: if the average person would need a dictionary to know what your word means, then you need a different word.

5. Toss out the rule book and just start writing

If all the rules about grammar, writing styles, active versus passive voice, and punctuation are adding to your insecurities about writing, toss out the “rule book” for awhile and just write.
Focus on getting the main points of your idea down in your first draft, and don’t worry about anything else.
Once you’ve done that, you can go back and edit the heck out of what you wrote.
Do you notice any obvious errors? Is there anything that could be rearranged to bring more clarity to what you wrote? If so, now’s the time to fix it along with any grammatical, spelling, or other writing problems.
After you’ve made those corrections, leave the article to sit overnight and look at it again in the morning with fresh eyes. Is there anything you can do to make it even better?

6. Enlist the help of a close friend to keep you honest

Want to make sure that what you write actually sounds like you and not someone else?
Enlist the help of a close friend. Have them read what you write, and tell you if it sounds like someone else wrote it. This will help keep you true to yourself, and will force you to be authentic with your writing.

7. Read what you write out loud

One of the first editing tests I put my writing through is reading it out loud. Doing that makes awkward sentences and bad punctuation become obvious, because as you read, you’ll naturally “stumble” over the parts that need to be fixed.
So as you read your writing aloud, pay attention to those places that tend to trip you up — they may need some additional work.

The moral of the story

Get over the fears of messing up or sounding stupid. Just write the way you talk and you’ll be able to knock out your first draft in no time.
If you’re willing to do that, you’ll find that you’ll dread writing a lot less and be able to get more writing done because you’re working on it instead of fearing it.
I’ve been using these tips to guide my writing for several years now, and today I got the best evidence yet that they work.
I was talking with one of my clients on the phone about blogging, and as we were discussing the content for her blog she told me, “Whenever I read something you wrote, you always sound like such an expert. Like you really know what you’re talking about. ”
Need I say more?
So go ahead. Dive in. Who knows? You may even start to like writing.

Royksopp - What Else Is There (Trentemoller Remix)

Phoenix - If I Ever Feel Better (Clip)

Empire Of The Sun - Walking On A Dream (Johan Baath Remix)

What to Do When a Woman Does This to You

When she stares at your mouth, smile...then kiss her.

When she pushes you or hit's you, hug her tight.

When she starts cursing at you, say I love you.

When she's quiet, hold her hand and ask what's wrong.

When she ignores you, act cute so she'll notice you.

When she pulls away, pull her back.

When you see her at her worst, tell her you love her and she still looks amazing.

When you see her walking, approach her...give a kiss on the cheek.

When she's scared, assure her you're not going to leave her.

When she lays her head on your shoulder, tilt your head too...and hold her hand.

When she steals your favorite hat, let her keep it.

When she teases you, tease her back and make her laugh.

When she says that she likes you, she really does more than you could understand.

When she grabs at your hands, hold hers and play with her fingers.

When she bumps into you, bump into her back and make her laugh.

When she tells you a secret, keep it safe and untold.

When she is sick, stay up all night with her.

When she's bored and sad, hang out with her.

When she's mad, hug her tight and don't let go.

When she wants to see her favorite movie or show, watch it with her even if you think it's stupid.

When she says she's okay, don't believe it…talk to her.

When she looks at you in your eyes, don't look away until she does.

When she doesn't answer for a long time, reassure her that everything is okay.

When she looks at you with doubt, back yourself up.

When she misses you, she's hurting inside.

When you break her heart, the pain never really goes away.

When she says it's over, she still wants you to be hers.

When she's not saying anything, stay on the phone with her.

When you see her start crying, hold her...ask her what's wrong.

When she runs up at you crying, the first thing you'd say is..."Who's ass am I gonna kick baby?"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Call her at 12:00am on her birthday to tell her you love her.

Call her before you sleep and after you wake up.

Treat her like she's all that matters to you.

Let her wear your clothes.

Let her know she's important.

Kiss her in the pouring rain.

Give her the world.

  http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/2Jcvid/www.miacarmel.com/tips-about-relationships/what-to-do-when-a-woman-does-this-to-you-2.html

Imagine...

Imagine...
Enjoying your children more
Parenting without stress, anxiety and guilt
You have more time for fun
You avoid spanking and other forms of corporal punishment
You actually stop bribing, nagging and cajoling
Children in your family learning from their mistakes
Children are responsible for their schoolwork
You don't have to be the referee in your children's squabbles
You find real, practical solutions for tough problems
You respect your kids like your friends
You have the respect of your children

I've learn that

• you cannot make someone love you. All you can do is be someone who can be loved. The rest is up to them.
• no matter how much I care, some people just don't care back.
• it takes years to build up trust, and only seconds to destroy it.
• it's not what you have in your life, but who you have in your life that counts.
• you can do something in an instant that will give you a heartache for life.
• no matter how thin you slice it, there are always two sides.
• you should always leave loved ones with loving words. It may be the last time you see them.
• we are responsible for what we do, no matter how we feel.
• there are people who love you dearly, but just don't know how to show it.
• true friendship continues to grow, even over the longest distance. Same goes for true love.
• just because someone doesnt love you the way you want them to, doesn't mean they don't love you with all they have.
• maturity has more to do with what types of experiences you've had and what you've learned from them and less to do with how many birthdays you've celebrated.
• no matter how good a friend someone is, they're going to hurt you every once in a while and you must forgive them for that.
• no matter how bad your heart is broken the world doesn't stop for your grief.
• just because two people argue, it doesn't mean they don't love each other.And just because they don't argue, it doesn't mean they do.
• we don't have to change friends if we understand that friends change.
• you shouldn't be so eager to find out a secret. It could change your life forever.
• there are many ways of falling and staying in love.
• no matter how many friends you have, if you are their pillar, you will feel lonely and lost at the times you need them most.
• the people you care most about in life are taken from you to soon.
• although the word "love" can have many different meanings, it loses value when overly used.
• love is not for me to keep, but to pass on to the next person I see.
• there are people who love you dearly but just don't know how to show it.
• even when I have pains, I don't have to be one.
• every day you should reach out and touch someone. People love that human touch-holding hands, a warm hug, or just a friendly pat on the back.
• I still have a lot to learn......

- Anonymous

Top 20 - Fun Sites for Kids with Autism!

Below is my revised list of some of the best games/fun sites for kids with autism. My daughter loves these sites. Poisson Rouge has bumped Starfall from the #1 spot around here, but the two are neck and neck for the all around funnest site.

1. Poisson Rouge
2. Starfall
3. Fun with Facial Expressions
4. PBS Kids
5. Literacy Center
6. Aven’s Corner
7. The Wiggles Playground
8. ZAC Browser is the first web browser developed specifically for children with autism!
9. Kinderweb Educational Children Games
10. Playhouse Disney
11. Fun Brain
12. Sensory World
13. Game Goo
14. School Time Games
15. Mouse Trail
16. ABC Learning Games
17. My Little Pony
18. Caillou
19. Gamequarium
20. Tree House TV and Games