Dr. Kozhi Makai's blog

My least favorite course in high school was Physics. Mr. Jacob, from India, was a good man with a very distinctive accent. Yet, because this course was required, I sat through many classes learning about Newton’s Laws and other components of the course. As I think about the direction that this post (and others over the next few weeks) will take, I am drawn to…”energy”. According to my physics class, energy is the capacity to do work.

If that is truly the case, it is safe to say that energy is the currency we use to “pay” for life. As I have mentioned before, “time” isn’t what we must manage from day to day; it is energy. How we manage our energy (replenish it, use it, and conserve it) determines how successful and whole our days are.

"We survive on too little sleep, wolf down fast foods on the run, fuel up with coffee and cool down with alcohol and sleeping pills. Faced with relentless demands at work, we become short-tempered and easily distracted. We return home from long days at work feeling exhausted and often experience our families not as a source of joy and renewal, but as one more demand in an already overburdened life"
- Loehr & Schwartz in 'The Power of Full Engagement'

...the only way out, is through!!

I woke up this morning thinking about the challenges I have faced in the last ten years. As I prepared my decaf Chai Tea, I considered my response to every storm that has come in the last 120 months: death, loss, pain, betrayal, financial tornadoes...
I decided to take inventory because I was concerned about my progress; I wondered if I had grown at all. I wondered whether I was responding to every storm in the same way. I asked myself if I was avoiding the storms again...

"In the confrontation between the stream and the rock, the stream always wins - not through strength, but by perseverence."
- H. Jackson Brown, Jr., Author of "Life's Little Instruction Book"

"Feeling inadequate has a universal zip code"

I'd like to meet anyone who does not have "crises of quality" - OK, fine; this is a phrase I use to mask the feelings of "inadequacy" or "impotence" we all get to feel at some point(s) in our lives. This is a time when we doubt the quality of God's workmanship in us and feel completely useless and lacking in viability. For many of us, this is a tough season marked by picking through the rubble of the financial tornado that has hit many of our businesses and homes...

I have to say, however, that the great challenge of our age is not at the bank or on the job, but in the mind

"Stress is the fertilizer of creativity"
- Jon Voight ("24")

With the global economy as it is, "stress" has become the staple of many minds. If you aren't feeling the pangs as a woman in labor, you are among the fortunate few. Over the weeks, I have been quietly researching and recording the vocal thoughts of both the well-to-do and the middle class. It is amazing how there is stress in each of these classes. The middle class hope to save their homes and vehicles primarily, while the well-to-do hope to stop the hemorraging in their investment accounts. With that precursor, it is quite clear that we are all feeling the stress that comes with an economic downturn...

Bear with me, then, as I play my psychoanalytical role for a few moments. Stress, as a matter of course, is not a bad thing. In fact, stress can be in two forms: