Listen to “Betsy Bober Polivy shares, In 2011, I had the crazy idea to walk the entire original Manhattan Grid…” on Spreaker.

In 2011, I had the crazy idea to walk the entire original Manhattan Grid – from 1st Street to 155th. It took six years traversing the streets from the East River to the Hudson as I was visiting each business, meeting the owners and listening to their stories. It was a marvelous adventure that is documented on my website sideways.nyc

Throughout the pandemic, I have continued to be a dedicated advocate for small businesses. In March last year, I made the decision to self-publish Walking Manhattan Sideways – Side Street Businesses That Have Stood the Test of Time gosideways.nyc.

The book showcases the quintessential businesses that have survived over the course of many decades. While some are beloved and well-known establishments that continue to garner recognition, the book also shines a light on the astounding number of places that perennially fly under the radar.

This has been a passion project that people have enjoyed simply flipping through to read stories that spark their interest, or to embrace it from cover to cover. There have been television interviews including NBC, several articles have been written about the book nypost.com and the book was featured in all of the NY taxis!

The flood of gratitude and appreciation for the first book inspired me to begin working on another this past spring. In addition to shining a light on many more scrumptious restaurants, splendid neighborhood bars and one-of-a-kind shops that have survived on the side streets for decades, The Art of Walking Manhattan Sideways features magnificent places of worship, fascinating not-for-profits, and the Arts – in all its forms – galleries, museums, music venues and schools, dance institutes and theaters.

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And here is an article that was published this week. She did a terrific job conveying my mission – my passion.

#new #york #harlem #walk #book #crazy #idea

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Looking for a guest to bring hope to those who may be discouraged from fighting the good fight to help a family member through these debilitating diseases? Faith McDonald, author of On the Loving End of Crazy: Finding Hope and Help to Face Your Loved One’s Crippling Anxiety and Depression, is that guest!
This book offers hope and help to those who love someone who faces anxiety disorder and major depression. The story starts when Faith’s son Matt begins college; however, instead of attending classes and learning to thrive, he flounders and fails. His life becomes a series of arrests and reckless, self-destructive acts culminating in a suicide attempt. In the wake of his bewildering behavior, Faith worries that his life will never get back on track. She longs for her son to thrive. She aches, prays, and wonders how to intervene.
As Faith watches her beloved son self-destruct, she grapples with challenges that will resonate with readers:
• I feel helpless.
• I don’t know where to get the help I need.
• I’m embarrassed that we need help like this.
• I’m angry with my son.
• I feel furious with my husband–can’t he cope more competently?
• I’m worried that our family will fall apart.
• I feel misunderstood by my church friends and pastors.
How will Faith keep her namesake and family when anxiety disorder and depression masked by substance abuse threaten to destroy Matt’s life? With statistics in 2016 showing that 33% of college students felt so depressed that they found it difficult to function, and the number of students seeking help for anxiety has soared, it’s difficult to fathom.
However, as your audience journey’s along with Faith, they will learn that when life seems like a series of heart-wrenching disappointments, God is powerfully present. Matt’s journey is harrowing, but with faith, prayer, support of friends, and psychological help, he begins to thrive. Faith shares the essentials she learned to encourage anyone with a loved one who battles mental illness.
This story helps your audience to:
• Find Comfort–they don’t face the journey alone.
• Persist in seeking professional help for their loved ones.
• Find the courage to endure the dark days of the illness of their loved one.
• Stop blaming themselves or others for the dark days.
• Share their stories to fight stigma and shame.
• Ask for support from those around them.
I look forward to hearing your interview interest for Faith McDonald and On the Loving End of Crazy soon.
“Mental illness can shatter even the most loving and secure family. On the Loving End of Crazy offers real help for anyone who knows the experience–and it’s written by someone who has lived it. Faith Tibbetts McDonald writes from the heart and her compelling story will not only inspire, it will help to heal the broken pieces.”
—Les Parrott, PH.D. New York Times bestselling author of The Good Fight
“Faith McDonald is generous with her story, and she invites us into her experience in navigating the heartbreaking challenges of a loved one’s serious mental illness. She points toward a path for finding help, and her relatable story will offer hope to many.”
—Amy Simpson, Author Troubled Minds Mental Illness and the Church’s Mission and Anxious: Choosing Faith in a World of Worry
“Faith McDonald’s On the Loving End of Crazy brings an authentic and vulnerable contribution to the mental health conversation. Readers will know they aren’t alone and that help and hope do exist for loved ones with mental illness and their care-givers. Faith writes beautifully, bravely, and honestly, and her story will inspire perseverance and faith for families in need of support for mental illness.”
—Heather Holleman, speaker and author of Seated with Christ: Living Freely in a Culture of Comparison (Moody)
On the Loving End of Crazy: Finding Hope and Help to Face Your Loved One’s Crippling Anxiety and Depression
By Faith McDonald
• Paperback: 213 pages
• Publisher: Independently published (February 2, 2020)
• Language: English
• ISBN-13: 979-8600318588
Faith likes to write stories and share them to encourage, entertain, connect, and help people learn. She’s written for many magazines and newspapers. One of her favorite articles “I Just Want to be Happy” was published in Today’s Christian Woman magazine and voted readers’ favorite that month. For many years, she wrote a column about family life for newspapers. She followed that writing gig with a blog. She’s currently an assistant teaching professor at Penn State University, she shares communication and writing principles with students in business and technical writing classes. When she’s not writing or reading, she loves to be outside. Faith likes to bike and hike with friends. She hopes and prays that her family’s story of a young adult son’s struggle with anxiety and chronic depression will help your audience members who are in this same place, as they navigate the challenges of loving someone through mental illness. These audience members’ days aren’t easy, but their loving actions are valiant and necessary. The audience members’ loved one can’t face the struggle alone. Faith wishes them courage and hope! You can visit Faith at her website faithmcdonald.com and on Social Media @ IG, FaceBook, and Twitter.

#anxiety #crazy #crippling #depression #end #face #faith #find #help #hope #loved #loving #mcdonald #one #powerful #share #son #thought

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They made us believe that luxury was the rare, the expensive, the exclusive, and everything that seemed unattainable …

Now we realize that luxury were those little things that we did not know how to value when we had them and now that they are gone, we miss them so much …

Luxury is being healthy. Luxury is not stepping in a hospital.
Luxury is being able to walk along the seashore.

Luxury is going out on the streets and breathing without a mask.

Luxury is meeting with your whole family or with your friends.

Smiles are luxury. Luxury is the hugs and kisses.

Luxury is enjoying every sunrise.
Luxury is the privilege of loving and being alive.

All this is a luxury and we did not know …

The post Thought for the Day July 31, 2020 appeared first on Good News!.

See the Faces and Listen to the Stories of Our Society’s Most Overlooked Outcasts:

The Mentally Ill and Homeless http://www.robertokinmd.com

From L.A. to Philly to Miami, they’re out there—pushing their carts, digging through garbage, sleeping on park benches, sometimes ranting about nonsense to no one. They often look and sound crazy, smell bad, and make us uneasy, so we avoid them. We know better intellectually, yet most of us shun people suffering from homelessness and mental illness because we view them as deeply flawed—somehow less human than the rest of us.

As part of his career devoted to the mentally disabled, Dr. Robert Okin decided to use a powerful artistic medium to advocate for these people. In SILENT VOICES: People with Mental Disorders on the Street (Golden Pine Press, October 2014), Dr. Okin invites all of us to get to know the people society treats like pariahs, people who, beneath their symptoms and rags, struggle with feelings and needs similar to those of the rest of us. He shares the striking and evocative photographs and stories—most often, in their own words—of more than 40 mentally ill people he met on the streets of San Francisco. “I wrote this book,” Dr. Okin reflects, “to contribute to making these people known as human beings.”

SILENT VOICES offers a glimpse of the dark pasts—marked by abuse, violation, tragedies, crime, drugs, and addiction—and everyday challenges of homeless men and women suffering from bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and other serious mental disabilities.

Based on his interviews, research, and decades of professional experience, Dr. Okin discusses:

 Staggering facts on how the mentally ill are neglected, mistreated, and discriminated against. In America today, over 200,000 people with mental disorders are abandoned in the streets and another 250,000 are locked up in jails and prisons.

 Measures needed to reduce the widespread, escalating problem of the homeless mentally ill, including increased government funding for affordable housing, partnerships between the public and private sector to provide job training, and legal reform.

 The critical need for well-trained, dedicated professional clinical case managers. “Without excellent clinical case managers, a mental health system will tend to be mechanistic, inaccessible, and exclusively focused on the management of symptoms with medication, rather than also on clients’ human development and rehabilitation,” Dr. Okin asserts.

 What everyone can do to overcome the stigma of mental illness and prevent homelessness, with the goal of not just social acceptance for people with mental illness but genuine inclusion in society. “Treatment cannot occur first and inclusion second,” stresses Dr. Okin.

Robert L. Okin, MD, served as chief of psychiatry at San Francisco General Hospital and professor of clinical psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco, for 17 years. He is also a former state commissioner of mental health for both Vermont and Massachusetts. Throughout his career, he developed crucial services and clinical case management programs to enable mentally ill people to live with dignity in the community. A member of the board of advisors of Disabilities Rights International (DRI), he has provided psychiatric advocacy and consultation for missions to Mexico and Turkey, among many other countries, to investigate human rights violations in mental institutions. He lives in San Francisco.

I hope you will be moved, uplifted, and outraged by the stories in SILENT VOICES.

Dr. Robert Okin, Author of SILENT VOICES

1. You’ve forged relationships with the homeless, but you’re a trained psychiatrist. What can the average person do to help a homeless person they see on the street?

It is true that I was able to forge such relationships, but I don’t think this primarily resulted from any particular skill I had as a psychiatrist. It was more the result of my openness and expressed interest in the people I met. This may sound corny, but saying a simple “Hello, I hope you have a good day” or “I wish you well” is probably the best and easiest thing to do. It won’t change the actual living conditions of the homeless people, but at least it will make them feel that they’re not invisible. It would be great if you could follow up with an e-mail to your city supervisors and congressperson about the need for supportive housing for homeless people. And if you really want to move this project forward, get your friends to send e-mails as well.

2. What is the root of society’s fear and stigmatization of mental illness?

Some of society’s fear comes from the strangeness and unpredictability people associate, sometimes correctly, with mental illness. Because mentally ill people seem strange, it’s hard for us to empathize with them and to remember that they were once children with hopes and dreams like our own. At a deeper level, people have always projected the most feared and hated parts of themselves onto those who have mental illness. Mentally ill people become the living representation of the most disavowed parts of ourselves and thus become stigmatized. Not wanting to be reminded of these parts of ourselves, we, as a society, have burned these people, drowned them, isolated them in mental hospitals, and put them away in jails where we can’t see them. But those who become homeless and aren’t put out of sight evoke in us responses that cause us to avoid them in other ways: basically, we close our eyes to them.

3. Did you have any preconceived ideas about the homeless? What was your biggest misconception about them?

I expected to be dismissed and rejected when I reached out to them. I was a stranger, so I assumed they wouldn’t want to talk with me. I also assumed that if they did, they wouldn’t reveal their feelings. I was wrong on all counts. Most of the people I met genuinely welcomed my overtures and quickly warmed up to me. I was repeatedly surprised at how much grief these people were carrying just under the surface and how willing they were to reveal it to me. More than anything else, I was reminded of just how human and vulnerable these people are. I easily identified with and felt close to them. At the end of a day of talking with them, I felt sad, wrung out, and anxious about my grip on my own financial and emotional security.

4. How did your own opinions change after meeting and getting to know some of them?

I developed an abiding admiration for many of them—I respected how they were willing to continue living, despite the brutal conditions they were dealing with day after day. I often wondered if I would have the grit and the courage to stick it out if I were in their position. I don’t know if I could stand living their lives and dealing with the hopelessness most of them feel.

5. What percentage of the homeless suffer from mental illness?

Approximately 25 percent primarily have severe and chronic mental illness and another 15 percent have significant drug abuse disorders.

6. What can city and state governments do to help the homeless mentally ill integrate back into society?

First, these people need supportive, supervised housing and a sufficient income that allows them to escape the deprivations of poverty. Without housing, any other intervention is ineffective. Second, they need case management from a social worker with a relatively small caseload who has the time to meet them where they live, provide a loving human connection with them, help them with their daily tasks (laundry, shopping, budgeting), help them reduce their drug intake, and when indicated, help them to be evaluated by a psychiatrist to get them on psychiatric medications. These social workers also have to play a major advocacy role in helping their clients rejoin society. And third, the homeless mentally ill need something productive to do during the day—some sort of job.

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Following the break out success of her debut single “New York City Country Girl” – Which reached #15 on the coveted Billboard Hot Singles Chart, 16 year old singer songwriter Ali Isabella will release her new single “Crazy Beautiful Life’ on Friday, August 3rd. Both singles come from her current CD “Say You’ll Be Mine”, released on AIX Records and distributed through Naxos.  more to come…

ring Bells around the World For Peace & a World Without War

UNIVersal PeaCe daY – sunday, august 5th, 2012

CommemoratING the 67th  aNNIVersarY of the BomBINGs of

HIrosHIma and NaGasaKI

WHere:   NEW LOCATION!! UNIoN sQUare ParK by the GaNdHI statUe

located at Union Square West between 14th and 15th Streets

WHeN:       sunday, august 5th, 2012 – 5-7:30Pm

Peace Bell Ceremony at 7:15Pm

PrICe:       Free!

New York, New York – Join in a Peal for Peace Bell ringing Project, a global event of ringing bells around the world for Peace and a World Without War. On sunday, august 5th, join a gathering by the Gandhi statue in Union square Park to commemorate the exact moment of the 67th anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing.

Beginning at 5PM, the public is invited to participate in sharing their visions of Peace with poetry and songs. At

7:15PM, there will be a Bell Ringing Ceremony featuring a 7 foot tall bell from shohola Bells and a Peace Pole from The World Peace Prayer society, with the words, “may Peace Prevail on earth,” in English, Japanese, French and Spanish. Everyone is invited to bring bells to join in. Afterwards, John Lennon’s song, “Imagine,” will be sung.

Bells will ring in numerous places around the world including, Japan, New Zealand, Australia and Mexico. Sharing the moment is the World Peace Bell Association, founded in Japan, which has installed over 20 Peace Bells in 16 countries. Among churches in NYC participating by ringing their bells are: The Riverside Church and St. John the Divine.

This event is organized by Universal Peace Initiative, and co-sponsored by World Peace Bell Association, Search for Common Ground, World Wide Peace Bell Foundation, The World Peace Prayer Society, Good News Broadcast, and Shohola Bells. Printing contributed by Art Institute of New York City.

The concept of Universal Peace Day (UPday) is to bring people around the world together to share their vision of peace and to trans- form a remembrance of horror into a rededication of life. The legacy of UPday, sponsored by Art For The People, began in 1984 in Central Park, where Peter Yarrow and others performed before a candle lighting ceremony at the exact moment of the Hiroshima bomb- ing. Over the years, UPday events have taken place in numerous locations including: Dag Hammerskjold Plaza, Riverside Park, Battery Park, Union Square, The Riverside Church, Church Center of the UN, Church of St. Paul and St. Andrew, and the NY Buddhist Church.

For more information, contact suZen: 917-607-4694 or Barry Gruber: 917-597-6046

ringbells4peace@gmail.com • www.universalpeaceday.com • www.facebook.com/ringbells4peace

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