If you’re not up to speed on the ‘Power Hose’ incident, review ‘How to Ruin a Relationship’, Part 1.

At the close of Part 1, I am standing in my underwear, soaked, and holding a power hose packing enough force to blow asphault off the interstate.  This is not the pretty picture you may be imagining.

Having completed washing the ‘doggie pad’, I now need my special person to do the ONE THING I have asked that he do in the process…I need him to go downstairs and turn off the water at the spigot.  That’s it.  All I ask.  I will do the scrubbing and rinsing (picture a bent woman, gasping for air, working so hard and going unappreciated)….The trip downstairs and what….a couple of twists of the spigot is ALL I ASK.   Twenty minutes earlier my special person had stuck his head out the French doors announcing he was going to run an errand….

At which point I sighed deeply…hoping to remind him of the burdens I bear…then I’d said something gentle, such as:  ”Fine.  Just leave me up here in my underwear to run back and forth …barefoot and soaking wet…through a tile-floored house, slamming into furniture, slipping and crashing into walls, breaking my neck going end-over-endo on the stairs….then sliding out the kitchen door the veranda, where, if I’m lucky I can watch the power hose explode instead of having my face blown off when it detonates in my hand.

….Something sweet like that… 

He said:  “Oops.  Sorry, I forgot.”

I said something (on the inside) straight from the sickest part of my Emotional Guidance System ….Something like, “Perfect.  Just what I needed.  Another reminder of how important I am in your life.”

Back to what’s really happening.  I’ve finished the task.  I open the French doors and call for help with this  just one lee-tle bit of help I’m needing.  “Honey, I’m  ready for your to turn off the hose….Honey?….Honey, I need your help here!  Hey!  Need a little help here!  Help!”

Hmmmm….My special person does not seem to be home.  At this point, I could survey my circumstances and pay attention to the facts….my Thinking Guidance System…but this entry is about how TO RUIN a relationship.  Consulting my Emotional Guidance System, these are the words tripping through my head:  It appears I have been forgotten…standing on the upstairs terrace with a power hose going full blast in my hand…. “OBVIOUSLY, in spite of the years showing me otherwise, my special person does not love me….In spite of years of evidence proving otherwise….in spite of what I would have said about him thirty minutes ago…I now realize he must get a kick out of torturing me.”

I recall our earlier interaction when he mentioned the errand during which I’d been a bit snippy. Using the ‘logic’ of my Emotional Guidance System….and ignoring all facts to the contrary…I conclude that he’s mad at me and his leaving is some kind of punishment.

I know.  Pathetic, but I’m hoping my brutal confession can help someone else….

And then….my tiny, struggling Thinking Guidance System managed to be heard over the noise….Pointing out that my ‘conclusions’ about my special person made NO SENSE given everything I knew about the man.  He is a kind person who goes out of his way often to make my life easier… and, I like to think he does so, not just because I can be really unpleasant when uncomfortable, but because he is a good person and he cares about me and takes our marriage seriously.  Those are the proven facts.

How can you ruin a relationship?  Always expect the worst of the other person.   Always jump to the worst possible conclusion.  Always assume he has no good reason for disappointing you.  Always assume he doesn’t care.  Always assume he doesn’t care if you’re uncomfortable.  Always assume he’s selfish. 

And, after a while, your special person will start to wonder….”Why do I feel like a good person everywhere else in my life…everywhere except when I’m with you?”

When you find yourself in your undies on the second story verandah with a power hose in your hand.  Just maybe he didn’t leave you hanging on purpose. :  Practice words “Don’t worry about it, I’m sure you had a good reason….I have confidence in you….You have good judgment….Everyone has a lapse now and then, I have plenty…”

 And, if you learn that he did leave you hanging on purpose….Well, you still have the power hose.

 

 

 

Dateline:  Laredo.  Restaurant La Posada, hotel backed up to the Rio Grande.  In thirty minutes, my special person and I will walk the long bridge dragging plastic garbage bags full of toothbrushes and toothpaste.  About a thousand of each.  Thank you dentists of Austin!

And I’m anxious as all get out.  I’m not sure our government at work will let us cross with our bounty. Years back dragging school supplies in a similar manner I was turned back before accused of taking mechandise across to sell.  So there’s that.  Then there’s the murder rate in Nuevo Laredo and the fact that there are no longer any police.  (The last police chief lasted three and a half hours.)

But mostly I’m anxious because, at long last, I’m putting myself where my mouth has been.  I’m going in and mingle with the real people with nothing.

As Mark Twain is famous for saying, “I can resist anything but temptation,” I can do anything that doesn’t require any true change or ’stretching’ on my part.  So here goes a wennie under the radar.

Report to follow.  If you never hear from me again, please forward this post to the proper authorities.

Dateline:  Hilton Branch Office, Las Vegas, Nevada.  For lead in to this post see “When Does Escaping Anxiety Work?”

Setup:  It is the last night of a several day trip during which I have been involved with others up and down the Strip, fun, but now I’m tired and looking forward to a couple of nights on my own off Strip in more luxury.  It’s three in the afternoon and, as I drag my luggage on the monorail,  I’m thinking fondly of my upcoming lovely late lunch with my computer at Hilton’s Paradise Café.  

I arrive at the hotel, dump my luggage and head for the Paradise Cafe.  It’s closed until five.  I pace outside, occasionally waving at cafe staff readying to open.  I’m the first one in, and ‘yes’ I could sit in the perfect booth. Ahhh. I flipped open the computer and studied the menu.  I would have the shrimp cocktail and fried shrimp.  I was ready for a couple of hours of editing and seafood…what everyone looks forward to in Vegas, right? 

(For more ideas on what to do in Las Vegas,see the Tourist Tips coming out with Jessica LeFave’s next adventure….What?   Are you thinking that anyone who’d think seafood and computer for two hours represents a good time in Vegas couldn’t possibly have any juicy ‘Tourist Tips’?…There’s a whole section on ‘How to Spot and Follow a Call Girl’, so there.)

But, alas, my joy in the perfect booth with shrimp x two was not to be.  The waitress stepped up to my booth, glared at my computer, and mentioned she’d seen me lurking around waiting for the Cafe to open and didn’t appreciate it….since, to her, the café opening signaled her return to a life of angry, indentured servitude.  I stayed on task.  I ordered the shrimp cocktail and the fried shrimp, asking her if she could wait on putting in the fried order for a while.

“Do What?” the displeased waitress asked.  “You want me to do what?”  I repeated my outrageous request.  She said, “What did you think I was going to do?  You ordered a shrimp cocktail.  I will bring you your shrimp cocktail and at that time I will place your entrée order.”

Well pooty.  I’m disappointed with the atmosphere, but then I’m an approval freak.  And, heck, I must have learned something from teaching all those anxiety management classes…I control what goes on inside my chest cavity….I couldn’t possibly be so ‘pourous’ that one unhappy waitress who clearly hates me and everyone like me….could put a blip in my day…”  

The less than wonderful-for-twenty dollars shrimp cocktail arrives.  Then, three minutes laterthe fried shrimp show up…in a BASKET…tiny little things, like fried catapillers crawling on a pile of soggy fries.   Okay.  Boo. Hiss.  What to do?   What to do?  Does mysteryshrink manage her anxiety and make the best of the situation?  Does making the best of the situation result in food poisoning and a basket phobia?

I looked inside my head for direction.  Both my ‘feelings’ and my ‘thoughts’ begged to direct my behavior.  Which side won?

 

Back in the ‘woo-woo-far-out-living-for-the-moment’ days…the notion that each person draws to her what she needs was bandied about.  Not being the easy-to-woo-woo type, I didn’t buy the idea right away. 

Yet, I couldn’t help but notice that the same day I decided to go to Spain, the woman in the next booth was telling her lunch mate about her trip to Spain, Spanish language magazines started being sold at the grocery store, and Univision carried the Astro games.

I couldn’t help but notice that when I made up my mind that driving home from my in-laws…I would point out one thing my mother-in-law did that I hadn’t appreciated…rather than start in with my usual self ego-massaging fear-based criticism…as if to remind my special person that he was better off married to me than deciding to go back home and live with his mother.  I know, pretty bleak, but why pull any punches?

Dr. L awaits those who need a psychologist who has never made a mistake and was born knowing everything.

What happened, with Spain and my mother-in-law, of course, was that a little pathway into my brain… sealed shut earlier…and not necessarily for any bad reason…a little pathway opened up to receive new information about the world.  And a new world opened.

What does opening a little pathway in your mind have to do with the Rugby Coach Who Changed the World?  Am I hoping to open a little pathway?   You betcha?

Picture a rugby coach.  Now add that this man is the rugby coach for Texas A and M University, a school not that long ago all men and all military trained. (If you have any doubts regarding the stringent masculine, tough-guy reputation of Texas A and M…catch a football game sometime and watch the all male cheerleaders in their hospital whites urging on the crowd with jerky motions, a show best described as what the Karate Kid would look like fighting his way out of coma.)

The rugby coach is on a plane from Missouri back to Texas.  A woman from Austin sits down next to Coach on the plane, a stack of ink-still-damp brochures on her lap.  And this woman is about to change the rugby coaches life forever…Tune in tomorrow  to find out what happened between the rugby coach and the lady…

Mysteryshrink’s You Get What You Pay For Psychology Tip:  It’s best to keep your limitations to yourself for as long as you can.  Once they are out there, they are etched in the minds of others forever.

Think of something you are uncomfortable doing…say, for example…you are one of those otherwise lovely people who has secretly avoided the role of being the candy-the-giver-outer on Halloween…for years and years.  

I’m just saying… maybe you’re one of those people who turn out all the lights and hunker down in a back bedroom with only the light of the television.  Maybe even, one time when your special person promised a certain group of teachers that he would bring a slab of Mississippi Mud Bars to a meeting on Novemeber 1st, maybe you and he whipped up a batch using only the light from the refrigerator…your heads stuck inside the door…

Dateline:  Not quite dark, Halloween Night, family gathering.

I hadn’t spent Halloween with my siblings and clan since we were kids.  When I walked into the house, I noticed the countertop in the den was stacked with all sorts of individually wrapped candy and I knew what that meant.  Now, usually, I could have gotten away with my “gee, I’m so busy doing something” expression and not been faced with wondering who was going to answer the door for the goblins and such.  But not on this night as my sibs had limitations to their mobility and the always faithful niece had her wonderful girls to manage.

I’m good at avoidance, but even I couldn’t pretend to be lost in the football game while my sister, recovering from a knee replacement, hobbled to the front door on her walker.  Or my brother, who had broken his hand, and on pain meds felt his way along the wall to the door.  Yikes.  What to do, What to do? 

I looked so deceptively capable…walking to the door-wise.  Thus, I decided the fairest thing to do was to step up and nip the old bud.  I announced that I would not be doing the giggling, good-neighborly handing out the candy thing as I am not constitutionally capable of the task.  I admitted my years of cowardly hiding and stated that if they were going to leave the porch light on, I would not be responsible.  My choice would be to leave the light off and go on with our evening as if we were a perfectly normal family.

I’d thought I’d done a gentle, firm job of stating my position.  My announcement was met with six sets of squenched eyes and headshakes of disbelief.  “Not my fault,” I claimed, “I thought you guys knew.”

Clearly they’d never even suspected.   My siblings and various other chips of my Danish father’s block were horrified.  Various gasps of distress filled the awkward space I’d created in the evening.   After the ugly truth that I was not kidding sunk in, the questions began.  “Why?”  “Was it some terrible Halloween experience?”  “Did we do something back when you were a kid?”  “Is it the children?”  “Are you against children?”

Now here’s the kicker.  My fellow evening partners were so absorbed in my admission, they forgot to turn on the porch light.  Not one innocent child or anyone else rang the doorbell.

Thus, I am now, and will be forever, the “one who can’t hand out candy on Halloween.”   Not that my reputation for other weirdnesses doesn’t precede me.  It’s just that I threw in a new quirk…when I didn’t have to.

Thus, my friends.  Learn from my mistake and don’t mention any of those odd little fears until you are absolutely positive you are about to be exposed.

But what if I find someone better? …the attractive high school senior asked.  People told him he was a great catch, and most girls would have glowed in his letter jacket.  He had a girlfriend and he’d just confessed that maybe he was in love.   

But he was not a happy fellow.  He obsessively worried that if he made a commitment, even for a month… as soon as  he’d made his move, he’d meet someone prettier, cooler, smarter…someone who’d turn even more heads when she was on his arm.  What the heck was he going to do then?

Ah, yes.  Here is one of the tricks of our old life-sucking enemy, the…you guessed it…the Emotional Guidance System(If you’re not familiar with the terms, search Guidance System on this site.).  One of the ways that Master of Anxiety Building…gets in the way of living.

The name of this trick is:  Exaggeration of  the Alternatives.  The trick has two parts.  The first is simple exaggeration…If I choose A, and learn later that B would have been a better dd choice…Well, that would be awful, terrible, and I can’t stand it!    From now on my only choice is to complain and fret.

Sound trivial?  Hey, don’t tell me you aren’t disappointed when you pick the slowest checkout line in the grocery…again.  And the drive-in bank.  Do you not, everytime, end up behind the guy who doesn’t do his paperwork until he’s number one in line?  What about choosing a job?  Or a career…Do you know anyone saying, “Oh, what I could have, should have done?”  And what about choosing that special person?… What if?  What could have been?

The second important feature of this trick of the EGS…happens because when we live by “What if?“ … “If only…” …and this is the really BIG PIECE. …The Emotional Guidance System, driven to accomplish one thing…get rid of immediate anxiety   …The really dirty part of the EGS trick…

Is that when we focus on the notion that the most important thing is making the RIGHT CHOICE…we are lost to the present.  We are obsessed with the past…”Why didn’t I see this was the wrong choice.”  And, we are obsessed with the future.  “Oh, no.  Woe is me!  Because I made the wrong choice…my future is a mess…and there’s nothing I can do.  Nothing…

We are in a VICTIM position.  We focus on what could have been…in our imagination…and do not pour our energies into what we have.   We spend time being critical of others, critical of ourselves.  “Here I sit, having made the WRONG CHOICE and there’s nothing I can do.”  

The EGS would have us invest our energy in these ‘worrying’ mess rather than dedicate ourselves to the PRESENT.

The Emotional Guidance System is never in favor of ‘doing the best we can with what we have’.  The EGS wants an easier way out than the effort it takes to deal with the present moment.

Think about that one.  I mean, since the present moment is all we have.  Wouldn’t it be a good idea to give the present our attention?

Is it possible our day, our relationship, our career is as great as we make it?  How about Now?…And Now….Whoops…missed a chance….How about now?

“Hi.  I’m in here.  Are you out there?”

Decisions.  I’m doing several posts on decisions.  For starters, it helps in making decisions to know to how our Thinking Guidance System and our Emotional Guidance System are sharing in the duties.

Cut to Brett Farve.  Brett Farve didn’t do anything the rest of us haven’t.  So why am I having such a tough time getting past that retirement speech?  For those of you who still watch the regular news…Brett Farve is that quaterback for the Minnesota Vikings who turned 40 this weekend.  Before quarterbacking for the Vikings he was the many-times-over award winning quarterback for the Green Bay Packers.  In between was a one year run with the NY Jets.

Brett Farve who still looks good in Wranglers and he’s the football player…none of non-Wisconsin people knew all that well…until that speech.

What did Brett say?  Here’s an excerpt:  

“I’ve given everything I possibly can give to this organization, to the game of football, and I don’t think I’ve got anything left to give, and that’s it. I know I can play, but I don’t think I want to. And that’s really what it comes down to. Fishing for different answers and what ifs and will he come back and things like that, what matters is it’s been a great career for me, and it’s over. As hard as that is for me to say, it’s over.”

No big deal,a man retires from a sport and the world pays way too much attention (according to people who still watch the regular news).  But Brett didn’t just retire…he took a bunch of us immature….see it and fuse with it people…down with him.  Brett cried.  To quote a president whose Emotional Guidance System driven decision in the Oval office is the one act most remembered by the general public….I felt Brett’s pain.

I lamented his decision, I was awed by his courage, I re-thought my hard-line refusal to consider moving to Milwaukee with that first great offer with the University of Wisconsin when I was first out of graduate school…

I’m not proud of this…Since people whose level of functioning has some gaps (all of us) are more likely to lose their boundaries and take on the other person’s feelings as if the feelings are their own…and therefore get stuck twisting ourselves into pretzels trying to fix THEIR feelings.  We are driven to fix them, to fix ourselve.

Okay, back to Brett…and the sad truth about taking on other people’s feelings.  You see, I believed Brett.  I invested in what he was saying. 

…And…Brett came back the next year to play with the Jets….and the next year with the Vikings…So, Brett, what am supposed to do with my feelings?  

When we take on other person’s  feelings, we get  over-invested in the future choices that person makes…as if he or she owes us.  

As for  Brett, in reading his bio, I see that he married his girlfriend after 12 years of courtship.  And the world was surprised when he reversed his retirement?

How much trouble can a person get into by speaking ‘off the top of his head’ to a televsion reporter?

Doesn’t talking  ’off the top of your head’  boil down to simply blithering random words as they pop into consciousness?  Yes, ‘off the top of your head’ can, and often does mean, talking without using your head at all.  Using the Thinking Guidance System,you recall, means taking into acount the LONG TERM effects of your actions.

Which brings us to the ’Talkative Guy in Bicycle Shorts Incident’

A few weeks ago, a husband, obviously in the grip of his Emotional Guidance System…shot and killed his wife while she was packing up to leave him.  Now, the actions of the murderer guy aren’t even the actions we’re talking about, but admittedly a good example of not taking LONG TERM effects into consideration. 

But, jump ahead, if you will, to the reporter for a local television station who travelled to the small town outside Austin where the murder happened to provide that ‘on the spot’ illusion for the five o’clock story.

The little town hosting the murder is a rural haven left over from when the railroad first came through that part of Texas, though a few Austinites have moved to Red Rock to fulfill dreams of pastoral peace and to ride their bike instead of burning fossil fuels like the lesser forms of humanity. But, mostly Red Rock is a ranching and agricultural enclave.  Our lively television reporter arrives in Red Rock ready to take the pulse of the townspeople. 

Most of the town’s residents were busy with target practice, baking pies, and herding longhorns, but our reporter did find one unoccupied Red Rock resident who happened to be one of the Austin-transplants, a spry fellow riding his bike.  Somehow the reporter didn’t notice that Red Rock regular residents don’t ride ten-speeds and they certainly don’t wear flashy bicycle pants and bodysuit tops…or red and green banana helmets or earrings, or scraggly beards.  

Our reporter has the camera going and needed just the one clip to go with his story of the murder.  Thus, his brief interview of the guy in bicycle shorts (GIBS)  would come and go in his life without causing undo harm.  The guy in the bicycle shorts, I fear, was not so lucky.

Because, you see, when the reporter asked the GIBS, “Do you find it hard to believe that a murder like this could happen in such a pleasant little town?”

The grinning GIBS looks right into the camera and says,  “Not really.  This town is full of POT-BELLIED, KNUCKLE-DRAGGING REDNECKS.”

Did I mention he LIVED in amongst the people he just so colorfully described?  Or, at least he did.

Now before we get started here, I should describe my effort to engage my THINKING GUIDANCE SYSTEM and let go of something I cannot change. I am giving up arguing with and spewing sarcasm to the ‘virtual people’  (recorded voices, used by any company with more than one employee) trapping me into playing ‘Voice Recognition Hell’.  You know, I say, “Jerry’s Bar and Grill,” and cheerful virtual person says, “Jerrold Barbill?  Did I get that right?”…I am giving up the fight, joining technological reality… Now on to the elementary view.

We humans like to control our space.  Maybe it’s an evolutionary element…maybe those who best managed to get take care of their space …survived.

Now, wait a sec, this doesn’t mean you get to walk on other people’s toes and blame it on evolution.  We have a ‘fight or flight’ stress response hanging around in our psyche to save us from saber-toothed tigers, too.  And, just like our stress response is not all that useful…  (How many times in your life will you actually be called upon to lift a car off a person?)

…Our little desire (desperate need) to control our space can do more harm than good in our lives.  Which brings us to the six houses across from the elementary school and the people who live there.  Houses in the area around the school have sweeping St. Augustine front yards.  Every school day, carloads of parents and children park along the curb across from school. In the morning, parents are busy covering last minute reminders, kids are searching for backpacks, and sliding out of the cars. Every afternoon parents return loading talking kids into cars. Morning and night neighborhood children close enough to walk to school converge from all directions.

So where’s the problem?  Several years ago, one of the home owners with the elementary school view decided to reclaim the slightly beaten down St. Augustine along the curb in front of the house. He or she put up a homemade sign– cardboard tacked to a ruler…which read: “Please stay off the grass.”

The sign was beaten to the turf with the first car door swinging open.  A few days later a larger sign, still cardboard and a Sharpie, but this time nailed to a stake from Home Depot, replaced the first effort.  The homeowner’s efforts stirred the hearts of others along the street who had suffered the patter of little St. Augustine. Two other signs popped up…to no avail.

Homeowner number one then sticks two signs along the curb, this time printed in RED Sharpie.  His or her fellow protesters next door followed suit. Still the kids with more on their mind did not notice the signs.  Blades of grass were trampled.  Little lives were not changed.

Next, the homeowner surrounds the contested strip along the curb with a low white wire Home Depot fence.  Children think the little fence is fun to hop.  More signs, more little wire fences….Until today.  Today the distressed homeowner put up a two foot high white wire fence….about 50 feet long and two feet wide….think about it…this is really ugly…and the homeowner has planted spindly shrubs close together along the fifty feet of weird looking white picket fence.  Children do not step on homeowner’s lawn.

Can we say the homeowner has won?  How much time and money and stomach lining has gone into this project?  Are you glad, as I am that I am not the spouse of the obsessed one?  Can you imagine the evening conversations?

Oh, and yes, I have to say it…the EMOTIONAL GUIDANCE SYSTEM is that part of us that can convince us to persist in a LOSING ACTIVITY.  The THINKING GUIDANCE SYSTEM…is telling us we can’t win this battle….or, that if we do win….(the homeowner still has the ‘sit out in the yard every morning and night with a shotgun’ strategy)…the victory will not be worth the cost.

Marriage and having siblings usually awaken us to the skill of ceding territory…but not always.  We can’t have our territory OUR WAY all the time and share the planet or house with other people.  I’ve awarded my special person the edges of the bed for his shoes…I thought of the ‘sitting watch with a shotgun’ ploy, but he’s sneaky, he’d distract me somehow.  My picture of the world has all shoes in the closet.  I do not get everything I want.

Now, as for giving up territory…let’s talk about Crazy Dog and her pushy ways….

Bumper sticker on the back windshield of a car:  I HATE STUPID PEOPLE.  Ouch.  

In the nonfiction I’ve started (See: Beyond Stress Management, Defining a Self with a Smile), I’ve asked fellow travelers to sign the following pledge.

I,_____________, am as nuts as everyone else on the planet.  As a start on freedom.  To get out from under the burden of a life spent trying to convince ourselves and others that we aren’t.

Is this asking too much?  Maybe.  My special person read the pledge and said, “Whoa!  Lots of people are going to balk at admitting that.”    “That’s just the point,” I say, “the whole point of the book is to quit taking ourselves so seriously all the time.”   He said, ”Maybe that’s what you’re thinking, but I think you will find out most people would rather believe in their superiority.”

“But defending our superiority, defending the idea that we are the only ones who know how to do things right, takes so much time and energy.  We have to be on guard all the time, fending off evidence, arguing, and uselessly trying to convince other people that we are ‘right’ and they are ‘wrong’.  I’m not saying each of us doesn’t have a point of view.  I’m not talking about religious beliefs or political leanings or decisions on how to raise children…I’m talking about the time wasted on issues that don’t matter, time wasted being anxious…whether you should pre-soak stains, avoid sugar, avoid television, drive in the right lane, private school over public school, seek plastic surgery…  I’m talking about letting go of ‘being right’ as a way of life.”

Still, my special person said, “I don’t think your pledge is going to fly.”  Which of course threw me instantly into trying to convince I was right and he was wrong about pledges and how they fly. 

And I held my ground that most people would enjoy the relief of admitting equal nuttiness with our co-inhabitants…I held it until I saw the “I HATE STUPID PEOPLE” sticker.  For sure the owner of the sticker finds stupid people all over the place.  People who spend money, treat their pets, choose professions, choose sports teams, choose books…stupidly.  I wouldn’t want to be married to someone who was ”sensitized” to ”stupid” people, since I’m sure I would fulfill his expectations on a regular basis.  I wouldn’t want to be in his family.  Egad, what if your boss was a “I hate stupid people” fan?   

Maybe “I..H..S..P” guy wouldn’t sign a pledge, maybe IHSPeople guy would say only stupid people would sign such a pledge.  But that’s okay.  I won’t even argue about his choice.  Who has time and energy for that struggle?

Dateline:   October Evening, East Texas Highway.  Driving with myspecial person on the way to visit a relative in Shreveport, Texas.

It’s late, both of us have worked full days before starting on the 250 mile trip.  The purpose of the trip was to comfort an uncle and aunt after uncle was given a diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.  Why am I adding these details?  Because later, when I’m decribing the movie of the world I have chosen to live in…I’m going to need some excuses. 

Looking Cool Tip:  Gaining sympathy is a useful technique when you realize you are being a jerk.  Prepare others for your jerk behavior by beginning every conversation by relaying how much you’ve been working lately, that you haven’t been sleeping well, or eaten in days.  The best excuse…and this is gem, so save it for when you’ve really made a mess of things…The best explanation for your out-of-control emotional spraying of others is…to say, “My doctor (’cardiologist’ has the best pull) has me taking a new medication and I think I’m having a bad reaction…”   The I’m-on-a-new-medication-for (pick important body organ) and I think I’m having a bad reaction is so good…the very people you have been abusing with your immaturity will calm down and try to help you.

The road is a two-lane highway, only one each direction through hilly country.  Thus, the ability to pass was limited and iffy.  Most of the time a “no passing” stripe occupied the center of the highway.  At some point along this lonely stretch of limited visibility…in my rearview I see an enormous truck growing in my rearview of my small sedan.  (Read: economical…this helps with the sympathy factor.)  “I can’t believe this guy!”  I glare in the mirror as if the truck driver is a mass killer who knows me… and has sign in his windshield announcing he hates me and I am his next victim… “What is thabt bozo back there thinking?”  I ask my special person in that little superior lilt that comes so naturally.  

“He can’t be thinking he can pass on this stretch of highway?”

That’s when the roaring started.  When I clutched the steering wheel in disbelief, barely able to hold my economical sedan on the road (at least that’s the way I was acting) as the White Freightliner pulled up alongside and stomped the diesel pedal with all he had.  The White Freightliner Maniac blew by me, then swung back in front of me.  Of course, I yelped and hit the brake as if I could barely avoid hitting him…which clearly wasn’t a problem since he’d outrun me already.  “I can’t believe he just did that!  Can you believe that?”  I ask.  “Get me some paper!  I’m taking down his license plate.  Look, there’s the number for his company.  Can you see that?  Get it down.  Just wait until his company’s going to love to hear what this guy has been doing!”

Armed with the Maniac’s phone contacts, I’m planning my scathing report to end jerko’s truckdriving career, when we stop at a station for fuel and a cold drink.  I notice the White Freightliner parked on the street.  I go in the mart for the drinks. While waiting to pay I notice a man at the pay phone. (It was a while back before cell phones, and of course, before I grew into the totally mature person I am now.)  He’s saying, “Ah, honey, I know it’s hard with the twins both sick. And junior teething and you still recovering from surgery…I’m coming as fast as I can.  Just hang on, I’ll be home soon…and stay up with the kids so you can get some sleep.”

I take the paper with his numbers on it out my pocket, tear it up…and slink back to the car.

Now, back to … as the stomach turns, we return to the hotel dining room in Kansas City (See Previous Post) … and observe the terribly dangerous and relationship-determining autographing incident.

Not only would I never asked for an autograph, I have made an art out of being next to someone famous and pretending I don’t even notice….breathing normally as if being next to celebrity is such a common experience for me. (I had the opportunity to calmly pretend to read my book at a horseshow while Patrick Swayze stood next to me watching horses warm up in the coliseum in Albuquerque. He’s shorter than you’d think.) And here’s the thing.  My special person says he loves me and I’m thinking he probably does.  And he KNOWS I freak out and get all weird and over-excited around famous people or college basketball players and thus it is very important for me to PRETEND I DON’T NOTICE I’m surrounded by famous people or college basketball players.

My special person knows how I need things to go (I’ve certainly told him often enough) … and, yet, he just goes right on being himself.  Nudging and teasing…chuckling, really.  He really likes me, too, so he thinks I’m kind of cute all nervous like that. I give him the Disapproval Death Stare”, which only makes him giggle, nudge, and he hands me a napkin and a pen…”

My Emotional Guidance System is SCREAMING.  I’m tempted to unleash the EGS monster and claim, “You couldn’t possibly care about me and keep doing this!”  To which he’d likely chortle and say, “What are you going to tell the judge?  That you were the victim of forced autograph getting?”

Here’s my 2 percent victory:  First, I recognized the anxiety before I fired shots at my special person.  I recognized my rising anxiety as something I could handle differently than I had in the past.  Usually, I would go on the offense, “What’s wrong with you?” “You‘re acting like a child.”  “You should not be doing this to me.” 

Instead, I was able to take responsibility for once.  I was quiet (but not pouty) for a few minutes.  I engaged my Thinking Guidance System… The facts: no one cares one way or the other how I conduct myself in a hotel dining room in Kansas City; most people asked for autographs are flattered and don’t consider autograph askers to be hicks and fools; there isn’t a ‘right’ and a ‘wrong’ behavior code when in the presence of celebrities and college basketball players. … and I was able to say something like, “I really admire the way you are more comfortable in public than I am.  I get all twitchy and weird even thinking about asking for an autograph, but it’s not your fault that I get all anxious.”

Okay, what I said wasn’t that good, but it was in the ballpark.

You get the idea.

Fusion:  the naturally occuring process when what goes on emotionally inside one person is influenced by what is going on inside another person.

Let’s take what happens when one person is angry toward another person.  Fusion is the automatic transfer of anger and upset.  The degree to which this occurs depends on several elements.  One element is how important the angry person is to be person on the receiving end.  

Which leads me to report a minor victory in this project of becoming a person able to function according to my own BEST THINKING, instead of having my functioning TOTALLY DETERMINED by WHATEVER EMOTIONAL CHARGE  is pinging my way.

Now this is a minor victory, but, for me, it’s a start.  Have you ever pulled out on a busy street, in what you thought was plenty of time, only to see, looming in your rear view mirror as you accelerate….a young man in a baseball cap driving a pickup truck jacked up like a rabbit caught in mid-scare on seeing a snake….and the guy in the cap is shooting you the bird?  

 Usually, that sneering face and flicking finger stirs something in me.  Maybe something defensive and angry, like a comment or a hot face.  Sometimes I blame myself and WHAT’S GOING ON INSIDE me is a guilty, a wanna-slink-away sinking feeling.

Here’s the thing.  I got the sneer and the bird twice yesterday and I didn’t FEEL anything.  I only noticed… that I didn’t notice.  It was as if their opinions of my behavior didn’t matter anymore.  …Because their opinions didn’t matter anymore.  I realized my EMOTIONAL Guidance System was a little less in charge.  That my THINKING Guidance System’s statement that… the opinion of random strangers did not need my attention… was running the show.

One small step ahead for my Thinking System and emotional freedom…. maybe not real good news for the driving public.

FUSION…

What is fusion? ..Think of yourself a bean.  Say, half-cooked pinto bean with your skin in tact.  You are you, you have a skin, your brain is in your body and your brain is running your show.  For our purposes, let’s say at this moment, inside your bean self, your Thinking Guidance System is in charge.  You’re making thoughtful pinto bean choices….enjoying life.

Then another bean sidles up next to you.  This bean’s a little over-cooked (steamed by the catastrophizing of it’s Emotional Guidance System) so that her skin is a bit leaky.  This leakiness is uncomfortable for her…bursting the bean skin a bit…the mushy bean is leaky…out comes the ooze and it lands on you…on your tight skin…your skin which is…or was…keeping you separate, keeping you in charge of you. 

You hold on for a while, then you sense your mood changing, your anxiety going up and up.  You hear yourself complain.  You hear yourself on a defensive tear.  You don’t feel very good anymore.  Not very energetic.  A couple more oozes of anxiety from the anxious bean and…just forget it…you feel your pores opening further.  You topple into the pile of porous over-cooked beans and cease to exist as a separate thinking unit.

Human examples when we can feel our skins getting leaky, when what is going on inside of us is changed by the anxiety of another:  your co-worker tells you something negative about another co-worker… a person on the other side of the political fence gives a little speech suggesting anyone who doesn’t agree is stupid… a driver pulls out in front of you (on purpose, of course)… the fast food ghost inside the speaker gets your order wrong… a friend says she’s worried about your stress level and so are all your friends… the woman on the news says ‘emerging research suggests that maybe’ kids who take medication for ADHD are more likely to be meth addicts; the woman on the news says ‘emerging research suggests that maybe’ kids with ADHD and are not given medication have lower self-esteem…

Notice the question, “How much of ME do I give up to be with YOU? ….does not say….”How much of me do YOU MAKE ME give up … to be with you?”

Like everything else, learning to deal with fusion is a self-focused operation.  (Self-focus is not self-centered.  Self-focused is taking responsibility for what goes on inside of one’s chest, and responsibility for one’s actions.)

The scene is the rolling green lawn of a Southern plantation.  A lovely wedding has just taken place under the moss-dripping oaks and now most of the guests have gone.  The new bride and groom are each spending some time with the stragglers when the bride returns to the table showcasing the cakes and punch.  She’s glowing.  The day is gorgeous.  Her expression is one of complete joy in having this perfect day when she has married the man of her dreams.  The bride notices the saucer holding the leftover wedding cake from when she and her new husband had linked elbows and fed each other a piece in celebration and for photographers.  

The bride picks up the piece of cake and, still moony-eyed, takes a bite. …Her new husband walks up behind her, lightly grabs her hand with the cake, and frowns. “Not with your fingers!”  The glow fades from the bride’s face.  In her eyes is the slightest fear.

The next several entries will be about FUSION.  Fusion is a naturally occuring process, an emotionally intertwining of selves based on management of anxiety. (See “Avoidance Anxiety…Will You Calm Down So I Can Calm Down”)  Fusion is not good or bad.  Fusion just is. 

Whether or not fusion is helpful or self -or other- defeating depends on a number of factors.  Sometimes fusion has a temporary positive effect for the individual (calms anxiety) but a long term negative effect (lessens overall ability to manage anxiety on one’s own).  Programs in which cancer survivors visit recent cancer surgery patients sharing their fears and recovery use fusion toward a positive outcome.  The patient joins up a bit with the survivor and feels better which likely aids in his or her recovery.  Yet, later, if the mentor has a recurrence, the patient initially helped by identifying with the survivor, has a lower ability to work on recovery. The fusion of the audience at a rock concert revs up the good time, but the giving over of self to the group could result in injuries and arrests the individual would not have incurred.  

When you sit down across the table from a man trying to sell you a timeshare, he will ask questions as a way to create a bit of fusion, as a way for you to engage the emotions you experience with people who are actually your friends.  In a highly fused marriage, both partners broker all decisions through the relationship.  In highly fused relationships minor disagreements are experienced as stressful or as threats to the relationship.  In these marriages, sibling relationships, and friendships, the growth of each partner is limited. “We” takes over for “I.” 

Hightened sensitivity to keeping the other person calm… characterises the relationship.  This fusion business is why Crazy Dog and all the little beings like her are so darned popular.  Keeping Crazy Dog happy doesn’t take much of my time and energy.

More next time.

“Which is more important?  The world you can touch?  Or the world you are making up and responding to?

The Thinking Guidance System begs us to use facts.  The Emotional Guidance System uses fears and cheap shot expectations.

An important element in our writing and directing our own little version of the world…is sensitivity.  As you move through the world, what little pieces jump out of the tapestry and grow until they really, really bug you?  Maybe your hyper-awareness even takes on so much power that you MUST splatter your fears and exaggerations on other people. 

For example, yesterday I read an article written by a mental health professional on how ”the media” influences public perception of emotional illness. (We don’t have to guess the direction on this one.) Her example of media irresponsibility was Monk. According to the expert, because Monk has Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and yet sees a therapist regularly…the American people believe that OCD cannot be effectively treated.  Beyond the cry…”It’s entertainment, lady.  Not a public service announcement.”… element, I’m not convinced that her conclusion holds water.  Poor deceived woman was paying so much attention to something that pricked a personal fear, she wrote an article.

Then, this morning, even more proof of how goofy and twisted we are putting together our version of the world… landed in my lap. I’m rubbing the sleep out of my eyes and the spouse has on ESPN.  I’m okay with that, I like sports.  But today…what’s the big feature?  Model Brooklyn Decker, wife of Andy Roddick.  Each segment opened with a video clip of Brooklyn Decker in a bikini on the beach, winking seductively at the camera followed by a variety of revealing poses. 

“Now what does she have to with sports?” I asked the man now diving for the shower like it was a foxhole. “And,” I continued, kindly raising my voice so he could hear me in the other room. Because what I’m saying is not just important, it’s crucial that he understand the gravity of what I’m saying. I went on to say, “It is ridiculous how this is a news story because a tennis player has a wife that looks good naked.  Don’t people get how sick this is?  What kind of message are we sending our kids?  Don’t Brookyn and Andy even GET that the only reason he married her is because she looks good on his arm and she only gave HIM the time of day because he is famous and really, really rich.  What kind of crummy relationship is based on superficial features like that?  I mean, don’t you think those two people are miserable?…Well, don’t you?…”  I heard the shower turn on.  Then I realized my Emotional Guidance System coached folly.  Oops.  …Oh, dear. 

Dateline:  Dallas Hilton Branch Office.  Giant flat-screen television.  Antique remote.  The Sleep Timer can be set by using manual controls.  Whew.  It’s not easy being a walking Emotional Guidance System patsy.

Which is more important?   The world of facts?  Or, the world you are responding to?”

How much of what you are talking so assuredly about….is just made up?   Our Thinking Guidance System would have us get the facts…before we act…but who has time for that?

So we respond to people AS IF they are the people, the characters, we’ve made up.  If we expect them to be kind, we’ll get that.  If we believe he or she is a CONTROL FREAK will we encounter a lot of pushy interfering behavior.

The “Knock Knock Incident”

The scene is the waiting area for those of us needing to have lab work done at a large medical facility.  About thirty of us wait, people coming in and out in this busy area.  There is a unisex bathroom off  to the side which is quite popular.  As the lab is near the hospital exit, some people notice the bathroom on leaving and opt to take advantage. The people come, they leave their blood, the people go. 

One fella decides on the bathroom option on his way out of the hospital and asks his wife to wait.  She has a seat and picks up a magazine.  The man closes the door.  Another man soon spots the bathroom on his way out and tries the door, which is locked, of course.  He shrugs and goes on with his day.  Then a women enters the waiting area on her way to other parts of the hospital.  She spies the bathroom, gives the door handle  an unsuccessful pull, and moves on.  A few minutes later a young woman in a T-shirt and shorts crosses the room and tries the door.

At the moment she twists the lever, the man inside happens to open the door.  He sneers at the lass and says, “What’s wrong with you?  Are you stupid?”
She stares blankly.  He says, “You must be stupid to have to try the door three times to figure out it was occupied!”  Girl looks stunned.  “Abused” man and wife walk out talking about how kids today have been ruined by cell phones and texting.

What if . . . when you die . . . there is an afterlife and that afterlife is this:  You live your same life over…exactly…

Except, instead of living events sequentially….have insomnia, shut off the alarm, get up, go to the kitchen, take out an apple because today’s the day you change how you eat, grab a piece of cold pizza because you just don’t have the energy to deprive yourself today, kiss your spouse, stub your toe on the dog dish, back out of the drive way hitting the garbage can, hit the steering wheel, look down and see that you’re late already….

However….in this afterlife….you live the same life…but each separate activity, no matter how brief.. .is lumped together.  Yep.  In this afterlife, you are talking yourself into climbing out of bed for two years, stubbing your toe for a week, you’re making dentist appointments for six hours, eating birthday cake for two hours, trying to decide whether you should give low-carbohydrate eating another try for a year….four months you spend driving around lost….two months saying you are not lost….six years worrying about thing that didn’t happen….a year with a cold….

And so it goes.  This notion is not my idea but comes from Sum by Dr. David Eagleman in whose audience I was privileged to be a couple of weeks ago.  Dr. Eagleman, a neuroscientist and Head of the Neuroscience Lab at Baylor Medicine, started his book as a way of considering afterlife possibilities but ended up with a wonderful set of forty possibilities that have the effect of directing his readers–not so much to think about afterlife–but about life.

Take a minute.  What if you knew that your afterlife would be everything over in lumps?  Would you choose your life moments more carefully? 

Would you learn to say “No” to the painful, time-robbing, ineffective strategies of your Emotional Guidance System? 

The “what ifs”…” the self torture… the bad decisions serving no purpose except to shake off anxiety?

I don’t have the big answers yet.  But I picked up a few hints from “Lockup/Raw” in the wee hours this morning.  For now, it’s enough to say I left Dr. Eagleman’s lecture a bit thoughtful. I went by Eatzi’s (incredible gormet take-out) which is my habit while bunked in my Hilton Branch Headquarters.  As I did every night, I headed straight for the cocktail shrimp.  Now the word cocktail is a bit miss leading.  These babies go for $39.99 a pound and a half-pound is four to five. I study the size of the shrimp….should I have four…which should be enough…or five…sheesh….what if that’s more than $20 bucks?  For a few shrimp?… Then I rememberd the possible afterlife….and ordered five. 

I didn’t want to spend another second than I already had in the bank under “time spent trying to decide between four or five shrimp.”

I’m going to let this phrase and picture tell the story…. Along w ith the next entries…How do you want to spend your time and energy?

Dateline: Seattle Hilton Branch Headquarters.    

Reasonable success is to be reported from the behind the lines attempt to approach a new experience with the Thinking Guidance System a bit ahead of Emotional Guidance System.  In other words, in the attempt to let the facts, rather than fears, direct behavior.

How many experiences have we not tried because we’ve made up scary barriers that do not exist?  Scary people who do not exist?  Who among us hasn’t approached an educational experience–like graduate school, for example–sure we are the only moron who slipped through the entrance requirements?  Personally, I always enjoyed the fantasy that brain surgeons were in a whole different category of brilliance from rest of us.  If someone is opening my skull, I wanted to think that person had something the rest of us didn’t….I especially wanted to believe their Emotional Guidance Systems never got the best of them.  Then I had to put out that marriage counselor shingle and shot the dickens out of that little fantasy. Oh well.

The ”Cruise People Fantasy,” is shared with the hope that the next time you are facing a new situation with new people, you can think of the Cruise People Fantasy and relax.

We were planning a cruise to celebrate our tenth anniversary.  That same summer the girls had a favorite retro show called “The Love Boat” featuring a cruise ship on which wonderful little romances happened. One evening we’re watching an episode which involved a gathering around the ship’s pool….and intermittently discussing what little tidbits we might need to add to our wardrobes before launching ourselves into the cruise people jet set.  The characters on the Love Boat were one hundred percent… women in bikinis and stilettos and men mostly preening in deck chairs with fancy cocktails siting on their  rock-hard abdomens.  Everyone had great hair and walked with grace. 

We studied the people around the Love Boat pool and concluded that investing in those expensive bathing suit covers was definitely called for.

Now picture what people on a cruise really look like.  Yep.  You got it.   We’re everyone of us…nuts.  Have a school reunion coming up?  Remember the Cruise People Fantasy and go forth.  And, don’t underestimate the value of a swimsuit cover.