We are human

Many are good

Some are evil

Value life

Cherish ideas

Protest injustice

Respect property

Love each other

Pray for Peace

Dr. Julie Cappel

  

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”

― Martin Luther King Jr.

Focus on your Family Circus

Today is Sunday, Memorial Day weekend and we are over three months into the Covid-19 virus shutdown of my state of Michigan. The United States is cautiously starting to open back up, but we here in Michigan keep having our “Stay at Home” order lengthened.    We work remotely if we are able, shop online, wear masks in public when we have to go out and spend the majority of our time trying to figure out what to do with our time.  Those with young children, bless their hearts, are supremely challenged with the task of keeping up with home schooling and also trying to keep a bunch of young people contained in their homes or if the weather permits in their yard.  My children are grown, so I do not have this struggle, but God bless those who do. 

As tempers flare and political divides grow deeper it may become difficult to maintain our mental, physical and emotional health. We are dealing with so many emotions that need to be processed in a healthy way in order for us to thrive. Changing our outlook to focus on family and normalcy is a way to process the emotion.  We have the ability to plan for our day, future gatherings with family and friends, and find things to enjoy in the present routine. 

Try playing family trivia on Zoom every Sunday. 

My favorite thing that has come out of the pandemic is Sunday afternoon trivia games with my family.  We started weeks ago and have maintained this new zoom call tradition each week. The participants are my husband and I, my parents, my daughter and son-in-law (Texas) my son (New York) and my sister, her husband and son (New Mexico.)   The stay at home orders have kept us from traveling but has allowed us to create a new relationship each week on the call.  The calls give us time to see each other and catch up on the week’s events.  There are many laughs as the generations struggle to navigate the trivia and the technology.  

Plan video calls regularly to connect with friends and family. The calls will provide a positive focus for your days and weeks. Remembering that no one is going through this alone will help you to feel part of a community to decrease your loneliness.

Maintain your daily routine as normally as possible.  If you continue to make your life feel as normal as possible it will help your brain stay positive.  Get up at your normal time and go through your daily routine as it was before the pandemic.  Staying at home will require that you adjust your routine, but you can try to create as much normalcy as possible for your day.  Be purposeful in your planning and enjoy the free time.  Maintaining your normal habits will help you to develop a more positive outlook and a healthy routine.  

Taking care of yourself by creating a routine and spending time with your family (and friends) will allow you to process and create better emotions as you move through the pandemic. 

Enjoy your family circus.

Dr. Julie Cappel

“Family is not an important thing. It’s everything.” –Michael J. Fox

Joy in the time of Covid-19

 Today was a joyful day!

It was a joyful day because my very good friend was finally released from the hospital after 7+ weeks suffering with Covid-19.  She was in ICU for many of those weeks, and on a ventilator twice!  By some great miracle and the grace of God she survived to return home to her husband, two sons, and very happy Golden Retrievers.  Today a large group of friends got together in a parking lot and formed a parade to drive by her house with signs, honking horns, and balloons.  She was sitting in a lawn chair in her driveway watching us all go by.  It was such a great celebration of life and friendship.  Seeing her and my other friends, that I have not seen in months, was a huge blessing.  A truly joyful day.

In this time of our nation’s quarantine lockdown, there may seem very little to be joyful about.   Many people have had their lives and livelihoods slowly stripped away and destroyed by rules that seem to make very little common sense.  When faced with the choice of working with risk of possible illness from Covid-19 and staying home with the guarantee of bankruptcy, we humans need something to feel joyful about. 

 

So how do we create more joy?

Realize that you have control of your mind.  When faced with so many negative seemingly impossible circumstances in your life, remember that joy is a choice that you can make.  You may really have to dig at times to see it, but there are always things to be thankful for.  For example, today I will meet with my family over zoom to play trivia.  For a couple of hours, we will get together, talk, and compete in an epic trivia battle from all corners of the United States.  It will break up an otherwise long rainy day of quarantine and allow me to see my family.  My adult children will make fun of me and my parents when we get a wrong answer, but seeing our stupidity bring them joy is also joyful for me.

Continue to look for silver linings.  With every challenge comes opportunity for growth.  Think of yourself as a work in progress and look for ways to rise to the challenge.  If you work on choosing growth over defeat, you can create more joy for your life over time.  It may feel like a big effort but challenging yourself daily to find joy and growth will ultimately create a more fulfilling life. I am joyful that I currently have a job and so does my team.  All of us are making less money than we used to – our hands have been tied by our state’s restrictions – but we can continue to work within those restrictions and will not starve.  We have banned together to become more and more creative in our work to create support for our community and our team.  We can choose to feel joy in our work, even if the days are long and exhausting.

Look around yourself right now and choose something to feel joyful about.  As you practice the skill of looking for joy it will become more natural.  Practicing gratitude in the midst of negative circumstance will allow you to create more joy. 

What are you joyful about today?  Please let me know in the comments!

Dr. Julie Cappel

If you carry joy in your heart, you can heal any moment. – Carlos Santana

Find joy in everything you choose to do.  Every job, relationship, home… It’s your responsibility to love it or change it.  – Chuck Palahniuk

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Give to make yourself happy.

Today is Mother’s Day.  The day that we agree to honor mothers and grandmothers. Why do we celebrate Mothers?  Because of all they give.

But mothers also receive something from all of the giving that they do – happiness.   Being a mother is one of the things that brings the most joy to my life.  Giving of yourself and helping others is one of the easiest ways to increase your own happiness.  Mothers give of themselves and in so doing create more happiness.  Happiness often comes as a byproduct of generosity, but you don’t have to be a mother to benefit from generosity.

When you are actively involved with helping others, you will indirectly create more happiness for your life.  Doing things for others – your children, your parents, your friends and even your pets -- makes you happier than spending time and energy on yourself.  There is a strong link between kindness, generosity, and happiness.

With increased giving comes increased happiness.

A study published in the Journal of Happiness Studies asked one group of participants to recall the last time they spent money on themselves, and another group to recall the last time they spent money on someone else.  With each question they completed a scale that measured how happy they felt with the spending.  The participants were then given a small sum of money and two choices.  They could spend it on themselves or on someone else.  They were told to choose whatever would make them happiest.  Their choice was kept anonymous, so they did not feel pressure to give to others. The research found that people feel overall happier when they were asked to remember a time when they gave. The happier they felt when being generous, the more likely they were to want to spend on others again.  Generosity creates a positive feedback loop.  Giving encourages more giving.

If you do one kind act that makes you feel happy, you will be more likely to spend time doing more acts of kindness in order to feel more happiness.

So, whether you are a mother, grandmother, child, or friend, give yourself the gift of giving.  Be generous to others and your life will be better for it.  Create a culture of kindness and give to help yourself feel happier.

And don’t forget to honor your mother today.

Dr. Julie Cappel

“Being happy and being kind are two things we often strive to be in life. ... Doing good deeds can bring untold amounts of happiness; both for the recipient and the benefactor. Nobody loses when it comes to kindness.” – Corey Harnish

“When you look at your mother, you are looking at the purest love you will ever know.” —Mitch Albom

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Create a positivity habit

In the face of any challenge there is always room for growth. That is the message that I want to share with you this week – challenging yourself to create personal growth by adopting a positive mindset. But what if you are finding things difficult and are feeling discouraged?   Your friends seem to have it all together -- posting on Instagram and other social media platforms how great they are doing in quarantine.  They are starting new hobbies, improving skills, and just overall enjoying their newly found free time.  What if you don’t feel that way and you are suffering?  How can you deal with their positivity when you are feeling anything but positive?

I had one of those discouraging days last week.  I am the only doctor scheduled at my veterinary hospital two to three days a week because of changes we made to our schedule in the face of the pandemic.  When we have a particularly busy day, I end up exhausted.  Tuesday was that day.  A state shut down has not really kept people home.  Add to that the fact that we are not bringing clients into the building and we are wearing masks as we work adds to the stress and physical effort needed to care for the patients.  (The emergency nail trim appointments are my favorites.)  Tuesday evening, when I finally got home from work after a grueling day, I had a little melt down.  My husband had to listen to me as I cried and told him how difficult this whole quarantine-working-life is.  My brain was tired and could see nothing but gloom and doom.  Once I had a little pity party, I was able to let it go and start to work to change my mindset.

If you are having difficulty right now, cut yourself some slack.  It is okay to feel sad and grieve the things that you have lost.  The life that you thought you would have this spring turned into something else entirely.  Once you allow yourself a little compassion you will be better equipped to start working towards a more positive mindset.

If you want to be happier, you absolutely can.   Shaun Achor, author of “The Happiness Advantage” says that working to become happy will cause you to be more successful in work and life.  So, working on your mind and creating a positivity habit will allow you to handle the current situation better and anything that comes in the future. It is all up to you to start working towards your new positive thinking habit. My husband has studied leadership for the past 30 years and he reminded me yesterday of something he learned called the 21/90 rule.  The idea behind this rule is that it takes about twenty-one days to adopt a new habit and ninety days to solidify it. 

If you want to become more positive in life, make positive thinking a habit. 

Choose a time of day to work on your brain and teach it positive thoughts.  I like to work on my thoughts first thing in the morning when my brain is fresh and nothing difficult has happened to me yet.  I can write down feelings of gratitude from the day before and thoughts to get my mind in a positive place.  If you set aside a little time every day for 21 days, you will start to change your negative thoughts to more positive optimistic thoughts.  

Start simple.  If your brain loves pessimism, it may take a while to become fully optimistic.  If you decide to practice one positive thought per day for a consistent 21 days, you will start to feel more optimism.

Remind yourself to be happy throughout the day.  Post a positive saying or mantra where you can easily read it during your day.  Practice repeating your positive thoughts when you feel that you are getting negative or stressed. 

Allow for mistakes in your thinking.  Remember that your brain loves drama and dislikes change.  That’s why it is so much easier to continue thinking negative thoughts than positive ones.  If you have a bad day or need to be sad allow yourself to go there.  Once you process that negative emotion, do some work to get back into your positive thinking.

Try using a “but” statement.  When you think or say something negative, use the word “but” to interrupt yourself, then change the end of the statement to something better.  Say something like, “Today was a difficult day, but I handled it very well.”

Allow yourself grace when you are feeling down but start today to create a new habit.  Use the next twenty-one days to start your new mindset and positivity habit.

Dr. Julie Cappel

“In times of great stress or adversity, it’s always best to keep busy, to plow your anger and your energy into something positive.”– Lee Iacocca

Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day, saying, “I will try again tomorrow.”– Mary Anne Radmacher

“Even if happiness forgets you a little bit, never completely forget about it.” – Jacques Prevert

Concerned not consumed.

Today is Sunday and we are over 6 weeks into the Corona virus shutdown of Michigan, the United States and much of the world.  This new way of life has definitely affected the way I see almost everything.  Today we had a Zoom call with my family to play team trivia.  It is something that we started a few weeks ago to get the family together to virtually visit, as we are all quarantined in our different states.  This is the highlight of my week.  I love seeing my adult children, my parents, and my sister’s family all gathered on the screen of my laptop - if only for an hour or two.   

I had so many plans for April and May, as so many of us did.   I planned to visit New York City to see my son and get a tour of his apartment and the area that he loves in Brooklyn.  I planned to visit Texas to see my daughter and her husband perform with Fort Worth Opera.  I have my opera tickets for their shows which were supposed to be this week.  We have all had things that have been postponed or cancelled which is disappointing. I have concerns that this shutdown will drag on and I will continue to miss in-person visits with all of my family. 

In this uncertain environment, we all have concerns about our families’ safety and health. We have concerns about our veterinary team’s safety, health and financial stability.  We have concerns about the terrible economy and all of us regaining the ability to earn a living.  

We can have concerns, but we do not have to be consumed by it all.

When worry starts to consume your thoughts, think about scheduling a specific time to process those worries and thoughts.  All the “what if” scenarios can be constrained to a short period of time. This will allow you to think about your situation, process the thoughts, and then move on with the rest of your day.  Practice writing out a thought download to help you work the through the thoughts that are threatening to consume you. If concerns come up throughout the day, write them down then resolve to think about them during your “worry time”.  Restraining your worries and concerns to a specific time of day will allow you to process them and live in the moment.

Focus on the positive.  As you move throughout your day, try to notice the little things that are going well for you.  Appreciating what is going well in your life and looking for the positive, will allow your brain to let go of the worry.  Practice gratitude and pass some of your positive energy along to others in your life allowing them to share in your positive energy. Be mindful of your concerns.

Acknowledging your concerns about the virus and your family is normal will allow you to take the appropriate precautions to keep them safe.  When you feel that you are being consumed with worry practice scheduling thought exercises, look for positivity, and practice mindfulness.  Allow yourself to move from consumed to concerned.

Remaining strong in the face of this pandemic does not mean that we must ignore our emotions.  We need to be able to allow ourselves to feel our concerns without allowing them to ruin us.  

Resolve to embrace your concerns without letting your worries consume you. 

Dr. Julie Cappel

“There is a great difference between worry and concern. A worried person sees a problem, and a concerned person solves a problem.” – Harold Stephen

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Time to Move Forward

As we all continue to participate in a worldwide lockdown, it becomes difficult to see what our future will look like.  We spend our days at home with our families, or some are alone, wondering when this will end and what will our lives look like when it is done. 

I have been wondering this myself.   What will mine and my children’s lives look like after Covid-19? 

All of our lives have changed dramatically; entertainment has changed, exercise has changed, travel has changed, and jobs have either been lost or damaged.  I am fortunate that I am considered one of the essential workers.   Veterinarians are considered essential; however, we have less exposure than many in human health care or grocery store workers, because we can keep clients out of our buildings.  We do have damaged businesses because we are limited on what we are allowed to do, so our workers’ salaries and thus our businesses are cut significantly.   

I think most of us have been working so hard to keep busy - to keep our minds off of our troubles - that we have completely ignored the fact that we have been given a tremendous gift.  The gift of time.  We have been given time to think about things differently.  We have been giving time to set goals that we have previously ignored because we did not have time to work on them. 

Let’s think about what we want when we come out of this situation.

What we do not want, is to let fear and uncertainty keep us from doing something constructive and amazing with our time. Do not stop making plans.  This is precisely when we need to keep planning for the future.  Creating a plan helps your brain to stay in a place of constructive thinking and not destructive thinking.

What we want, is to practice loving ourselves first.  It is hard to get motivated or take any action until you choose to care for yourself.  Start with understanding exactly what you need and then getting those needs met.  Eat right, exercise, meditate, and reach out for help if you are struggling.  Make the effort to have compassion and love for yourself as you would a close friend or family member.  Once you are treating yourself well, you will be capable of stepping out of your comfort zone to move forward with new plans and goals.

What we want is to think about new goals.  Take a class, learn a new skill, write a journal, or create some art.   Do things that you have not had the time or energy to do before. I have started taking voice lessons, something that I have been wanting to do for years.  Lucky for me, my daughter is a professional opera singer and is exactly positioned to be my perfect teacher.  With more time off, she is in the position to take new students, and I am in the position to hire a voice teacher.

So, take advantage of this time that you have been offered to set some priorities.  If you are feeling overwhelmed by the things that you want to do, decide what is most important to you.  You can write a list of 10 goals and then pair it down to three.  Then choose the one goal that is most important to you and start your plan.  Decide on all the tasks that you need to do to accomplish the prioritized goal.  Once you have your steps in order, schedule time to accomplish each step until you have accomplished the goal.  Do not move on to the next goal until you finish the first.

Think about how you want to emerge from your quarantine and who you want to be. 

Then take some time and action to move forward.

Dr. Julie Cappel

“Sometimes life knocks you on your ass... get up, get up, get up!!! Happiness is not the absence of problems, it's the ability to deal with them.” ― Steve Maraboli

“Change has to come for life to struggle forward.” ― Helen Hollick

If you want to take voice lessons like me contact Bridget!
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If you want saxophone, flute, clarinet or music theory lessons contact Tristan!
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Choose Love Over Fear

Today is Easter Sunday 2020, and we are experiencing Covid-19 Quarantine.

Whether you are a believer or not, Easter is an important time of the year.  We Christians celebrate the resurrection of our savior Jesus Christ, but even if you don’t believe in Jesus, the day marks happy memories for most of us.  We think of the Easter Bunny, egg and candy hunting, spring clothing, fancy Easter hats, group worship at our churches, and family gatherings.

This year has brought us so much unpredictability that we are tempted to indulge in negativity and fear. Our fearful thoughts change our Easter Sunday into something foreign and confusing. 

How do we celebrate Easter Sunday, and every day, with less fear and uncertainty?

We choose to let love in and fear out.

In order to feel more centered, we need to learn how to let go of the fear that we are feeling and embrace the love that is open to us.  It sounds a little “Pollyanna” of me to say that, but if we work towards letting go of our fear, we can embrace love.  If we look for and embrace love, our lives will improve dramatically even in the face of negative circumstances.  

Choosing love over fear means accepting that you are human, and you will feel all the feelings.  Allow yourself some compassion when you start to feel fearful.   Embracing yourself as a normal human will allow you to feel compassion and love for yourself first.  Once you start to love yourself, and accept your feelings, you will be better able to feel love for everything and everyone around you.   

Accept that you have power over your thoughts.  Your thought world will shape your outer world more than the outer world will affect you.  I saw a great example of this concept as I was watching a story on “20/20” last weekend. They were interviewing holocaust survivors for a historical project.  One man told his story that, as a child, he was forced to hide in an attic for 2 years.  He was totally alone as all of his family had been killed.  He remained hidden, eating only one small meal a day and had to remain totally silent most of the time in order not to be discovered.  He had nothing to entertain himself except his own imagination.  He recounted his story of survival by talking of holding on to hope and love for his family.  He used his thoughts and imagination to help him survive. This is a power that is available to all of us.

Choosing love will pull you forward in life, and fear will hold you back. Choose to love and appreciate what you do have, practicing gratitude.  Looking for things in your life to be thankful for, will allow you to let go of the negative emotion and open your heart up to loving what and who you have in your life.  This gratitude mindset will allow you to attract so much more love into your life.  The Law of Attraction will open up to you when you practice choosing love and appreciation. 

We are all experiencing this Easter Sunday Quarantine together, so what a great time to help each other share love and begin to move forward.  Allow yourself the grace to be human, the space to practice compassion, the openness to be grateful, and the generosity to give aid to those in need.

Then, choose love over fear.

Dr. Julie Cappel

“I don't always make the best choices, but today I choose compassion over intolerance, sympathy over hatred and love over fear.” ― LJ Vanier

The sun will come out tomorrow.

Today is a beautiful sunny day. We are quarantined and cannot really go anywhere except for maybe a walk in the neighborhood or outside to do yard work.  I had some groceries delivered today, which I had done a few times before this all started, but now it is the only way I shop. 

Working, shopping, entertainment, and socializing has changed dramatically. This in our new normal, but it does not feel very normal.  There are so many unknowns.

How do we remain mentally strong when we do not know what our future holds?

Accept reality.  There is no use arguing with reality when something bad happens. Wondering why and arguing with facts is generally a waste of time. The sooner you can choose to accept things as they are, the sooner you can begin to deal with the reality of the current situation.  Our thinking creates our feelings, so accepting things is the first step to dealing with any anxiety or worry that the crisis brings.

Take some time to experience your emotions.  Negative emotions will come in waves during and after a crisis.  If you do not fear your emotions and choose to accept them, you will experience sadness, fear, or anxiety for a short time and then allow them to pass.  Choosing to feel all of your emotions will help you process them in a healthier way. 

Choose a positive mantra to keep with you.  Find a quote, bible verse, or saying that speaks to you.  Keeping positive messaging handy when your mind wants to go negative will allow you to replace the thoughts with more positive messages. 

Help yourself and help others.  Self-care is very important during difficulties.  Practice mindfulness, exercise and sleep well.  Reach out to your friends and relatives to not only get support but give support.  Helping others will help keep you from focusing too much on your worries.  Reaching out and offering assistance to another person in need will allow you to feel more powerful.

Create grace for yourself by feeling your emotions, supporting yourself, and caring for others.  Together we will become stronger and the sun will come out tomorrow.

Dr. Julie Cappel

“The ability to continue moving when you are feeling scared, fearful or lazy is the sign of true mental strength.” ― Matthew Donnelly

Practicing gratitude in hard times.

When life is going well it is easy to be grateful.   When we find ourselves in the midst of a life challenge or even disaster, gratitude takes a significant effort.  It does not seem natural to turn to gratitude while we are caught in uncertainty, but that is exactly what we need to do to lessen our fear and improve our outlook. 

In his book Gratitude Works, Robert Emmons says, “…not only will a grateful attitude help – it is essential.  In fact, it is precisely under crisis conditions when we have the most to gain by a grateful perspective on life.”

Gratitude changes our perspective.  No one is grateful for a disease pandemic, but when feelings of helplessness begin to fill our thoughts, deliberately practicing gratitude will bring more feelings of hope. 

How do we practice gratitude when we don’t feel particularly grateful?

Start small.  When many things are going wrong, look for one small blessing and embrace it.  It may be something as small as sunshine on your face, a healthy meal, or a roof over your head.  Try to notice the things that you don’t always notice.  Looking for small blessings during a storm will help you to refocus on something more positive.  Try listing them out on paper and then studying them.  Putting the list in a prominent place to read daily will help keep you focused on things that you can control.  One sentence that I posted on my refrigerator says, “Right now, I have everything that I need.”

Share hope with others in need.  While you are feeling stressed and uncertain, you know others are feeling that way as well.   Reaching out to someone in a similar or worse situation than yours will help you move your mind from thoughts of “poor me” to “how can I help”.  Problem solving and serving others helps bring feelings of hope to the people you help, and to yourself.  When others express their gratitude to you, it will remind you that there is a future together.

Take one small constructive action.  Clean your closet, cook a meal, or make a craft that you have been wanting to make.  Text or call your friends and family and tell them that you are thinking of them or praying for them.  Keeping focused on the things that you can control will allow you to feel more positive and useful.

Practicing gratitude in a deliberate way is an exercise in changing your thoughts. It must be an active pursuit and will not be easy but is the best way to cope with adversity.   So, start small, share hope and do something constructive every day to change your attitude, your mind, and your world.

Dr. Julie Cappel

“Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.” – Melody Beattie

Leadership in Uncertain Times

These have been a rough few weeks dealing with our changing world.  There have always been dangers to contend with, but this seems so much bigger.  The world is fighting the same viral enemy and in order to prevail we have to have strong leaders.  Not just world leaders but thought leaders that give us tools to deal with fear and negativity.  With this in mind I listened today to John Maxwell’s webinar called, “Leadership in Tough Times”.  John is one of my favorite speakers on leadership and he shared some leadership traits that we can all embrace to help us stay strong and positive when things around us feel chaotic. 

Leaders make courageous decisions.  Leaders do not have to know the correct answers, but they need to make strong decisions in spite of the uncertainty. At our veterinary hospital we are trying to balance serving the pet owning public, keeping pet’s healthy, and caring for our team.  There is so much uncertainty in that.    Andy Stanley said, “Uncertainty is not an indication of poor leadership.  Rather it indicates a need for leadership.  The nature of leadership demands that there always be an element of uncertainty.”   

Leaders value teamwork.  We see the evidence daily in the photos of doctors and nurses providing care, risking their own health to save others.  They ban together to provide the services that we all need to combat the enemy. They are truly leaders in every respect.  They remain optimistic and filled with compassion working together for a common goal.   We as their potential patients need to honor and respect them by remaining part of the team; staying as healthy as we can to allow them to do their work. 

Leaders give hope and trust in God.  We can all be leaders by spreading hope, prayers, and love to those around us.  Keep your distance but reach out to family, friends and neighbors and let them know that you care.  If they are in need, offer to help in any way that you can. John W. Gardner said, “The first and last task of a leader is to keep hope alive – the hope that we can finally find our way through to a better world – despite the day’s action, despite our own inertness and shallowness and wavering resolve.” 

So, thank you John Maxwell for sharing your wisdom, reinforcing my hope, and improving my attitude.  With all of us acting as leaders, there is nothing that we can not do. 

Dr. Julie Cappel