The Fashion Statement Diet

Lose Weight WITHOUT Changing What You Eat!

Emerging research suggests that the High Fashion Diet could be effective for weight loss (combined with a low calorie menu and exercise). Yes, you can lose weight simply by dressing with the appropriate amazing gadgets.  Or, How to Dress Like a Walking Emotional Guidance System… that is…as if you’ve said….I just give up…I’m never even going to try to think….ever.

Diet Plan:  There are a few purchases required here, but they’re each $19.99!… plus shipping and handling.  Oh, and lots of batteries.   Lots.

First, step into a pair of those Skechers Shape-up roller shoes (See previous Skechers post.).  These babies will take care of whipping your lower half into shape.

Second, strap one of those zapper belts that sends jolts into your abs so to make sure your amazing thigh and butt toning doesn’t get ahead of your tummy.

Certainly, you’ve bought two of those shaker tubes you hold in your hands…the ones that jiggle like crazy up and down and all you have to do is hang on baby… (I know, looks prit-tee pornographic to me….) Okay…put those down for now, you still need your hands.

Now, place the chin squasher torture instrument you bought off television that one time at three in the morning. You know, the one with a coil from a mattress that you place under your jaw.  Then you mash the spring down against your upper chest.  Ten minutes pushing that puppy down and you have a long slender neck and a few hard to explain bruises. 

Now, pick up those shaker tubes again.  You’re set…looking gadget fabulous. Roller shoes, zapper belt, chin squasher, and a tube wiggler in each hand.  Drive to Walmart, step out of your car, hit the on buttons on all your new-found miracle gadgets,  and walk around the perimeter in your new outfit.  This is the perfect weight loss program…unless you get arrested or run into someone from the office.

But Wait!  Just pay separate shipping and handling and you’ll receive the perfect accessory….one of those ball caps with a beer can and a flexible straw on either side.

Let’s say there’s a continuum of Emotional Maturity….a continuum where ‘0’ represents a person who employs her Emotional Guidance System at all times, in all situations….without any interference from her Thinking Guidance System whats-so-ever…

In other words, ‘0’ represents a person whose momentary feelings determine all decisions in her life….Let’s say…the Octamom.

And ‘100’ represents the person who confers with the Thinking Guidance System, a human who considers the long term results, when making decisions….Let’s say….Gandi.

Remember, feelings are not bad….feelings make life rich and deep.  But if you use transient feelings to decide long term issues for you….Your life will not turn out so well.  Which brings us back to our continuum. 

Where the ‘0’ end is headed up by the Octamom.  And the ‘100’ end, is represented by Gandi.

Notice, particularly, to what degree each person takes the welfare of others into account.  One person draws attention to herself by sacrificing eight (14 children in all)… The other person sacrifices himself to call attention to the plight of his people.

Now, if you’re still thinking, uh, FEELING, there’s a new miracle diet out there….You should know that the Octamom is coming out with a book on….Yep….on the special weight-loss secrets she employed to take off that extra baby (X8) weight.

Personally, I can do without her advice.  Just hand me a couple more of those Hollywood Cookie Diet goodies, would you please?

Dateline:  We return to American 875, DFW to Cabo San Lucas and the  Rude Woman in Seat 20B.

As we left our story… (See previous entry on Rude Woman in Seat 20B)…..The RW has planted herself in 20B Exit Row Aisle across from her husband in 20C.  A not-too-with-it flight attendant, in a rush to get the plane off, has shushed the Nice Lady who’d approached the RW saying that RW was in her seat….

And now we’re in the air and you’re thinking things will settle, right? Oh…but, no.   

The Nice Lady who actually has a boarding pass showing her seat assignment in 20B again approaches the RW, showing her the ‘evidence’ and asking, nicely, if perhaps if there has been an error.

Rude Wife responds:  “Oh, I have a seat  up there somewhere…” she says and flutters her hand toward a middle seat up front.  “But, I’m sitting here instead because I want to sit near my husband (Rude Husband in 20D).  Now, if we’d known exactly what sort of liveliness Rude Husband had planned to inflict on those nearby….Nice Lady might have been glad to desert the scene.

Nice Lady tried again. “But, that’s my seat.”

Rude Wife responds, “Well, I’m sitting here because I want to sit here because we are traveling together.”

What?   Nice Lady recognizes that the RW’s boorishness has out-trumped her willingness to cause a scene. Receiving no help from the exhausted flight attendants running double and triple shifts on the holiday…Nice Lady fades into the rows at the front of the plane.  So, now we sit back, right?

Nuuuuu.  Rude Wife who has bullied her way into Seat 20B…now turns to Nice Lady #2 who is seated next to her in 20A, Aisle on the window…and get this...stay with me…this is hard to believe…R.W. says to Nice Lady #2 in 20B: “Say, would you mind switching seats with one of my friends in 12E or 14E.  I want to have my friend sit next to me.”  Remember, I’m tapping keys as we fly, so these are quotes.

“I really don’t want to move,” Nice Lady #2 says. “I appreciate the extra leg room on this aisle and I’d rather not squeeze into a middle seat.”  (Though before it’s all over, after Rude Woman and Rude Husband are joined by a gang of Rude Friends, Nice Woman #2 will give up her seat and gladly.)

“Well, I don’t understand why you won’t help me out. I want to sit with my friends,” RW whines.  Now, as RW and Rude Husband have not been successful in clearing out the entire premium aisle to accommodate their group…the RH and RW kick up the action by yelling back and forth to their friends in the front of the plane.  The poor couple who’d held their ground (sort of ) in 20 Center and Window next to the husband cringe and lean heavily toward the window.

Sweet Lady #1, the legal occupant of 20B, understandably, hasn’t appreciated how the situation was handled by the flight attendant and calls the attendant’s attention to what actually transpired.  The flight attendant asks Rude Wife if she is in her assigned seat.  She lies bigtime, “Oh, yes. I’m in my seat across the aisle from my husband….I’ve lost my boarding pass.”

The over-worked flight attendants slip away to do beverage service.  And to the amazement of her audience, Rude Wife stands up and takes off for the front of the plane.  Special Person and I, along with those in the surrounding seats, breathe a sigh of relief and appreciation.  We’d misjudged RW.  And now,  here RW was doing the right thing, heading back to take her assigned seat…Right?  Ha.

RW returns to her seat (wait…not really her seat).  RW is clearly hacked.  Rude Wife rings her Flight Attendant Call button and the flight attendant returns.  RW is shouting that the flight attendant in First Class was rude to her and she wants to file a report. (Yeah…I know…sheesh.)  The flight attendant says, “No, ma’m.  The flight attendant in First Class was correct.  You cannot just re-seat yourself in First Class because there happens to be an empty seat.”

Rude Wife argues the point and insists on a complaint form.  Rude Husband says to the flight attendant, “As long as you’re here, how about coming back with a couple of beers?”  The flight attendant points out that RH and RW have already been served and she needs to provide drink service first to those on the plane who haven’t had anything.  RH points out he doesn’t care and waves a five dollar bill in her face.

At this point, Nice Lady#2 in 20A, window, deeply regrets holding her ground in the premium seat as she is squashed into the side of the plane with RH and RW yelling over her to their friends. She leaves for any seat away from these brutes.  RW, laughing at how she “showed her”,  hollers at her friends in those middle seats to come on back. One comes to fill 20A and three others plant themselves in the aisle. 

Can’t it get more absurd?  Why it can.  After the second drink service, one of the beleagered flight attendants took a quick run up front and snagged a leftover first class meal. He’s heading back for a much needed short rest on the jump seat in the galley…when…as he passed Rude Husband grabs  the flight attendant’s elbow and demands a hot meal for himself and RW.  The flight attendant explains that there is no meal service in coach and the meal was for his lunch. That he’d been up since six that morning (it’s now eight at night) without a real break or a meal.  The flight attendant promises to return with more beers after his break.  Not good enough for ole RH.  He wants a full meal and he wants it now or he wants another one of those claim forms to fill out.

At this point, Special Person and I are trying to overhear where RH, RW, and their several Rude Friends are staying.  Just in case we need to change our reservations away from whichever hotel the Rude Gang are planning on taking over.

Maybe we should stay on the plane to Puerto Vallarta, just to be safe, we’re thinking. Or, Costa Rica is nice this time of year. 

A certain sadness rises with the thought that somewhere back in the US, there could be RH and RW offspring, young people who will no doubt end up burdening the prison system… and be glad for the opportunity to be housed with felons over contact with their Rude Family

According to the evil announcer behind the televion and computer screen, Snuggies are perfect for the whole family.   Now, there’s a way to shorten up your Christmas list in a hurry.

Also, the evil voice informs us that Snuggies are great for wearing to football games.  Okay, let’s see how strong you are.  One of our local teams is going to play in the State Champion game….Your mother walks in and says:  “Guess what?  Everyone in the family gets to open one of their presents early!”

Each member of the family is given a Snuggie…one red, one leopard print, two zebras, one blue polka dot.  You go to the high school playing the game.  Can you take one for the family?

What could be worse than this new ‘disease’?   What is this epidemic, no this plague, not until now identified?  Up to now, the ugly disease whose name good people could not even speak was known as ”I don’t have as many eyelashes as I would like…”  (hypo, meaning ‘not enough’ and trichosis meaning ‘hair’…I mean, if you can handle all this complicated medical stuff.)

You go to the doctor, you get a prescription… also you might want to check out those clinics offering cosmetic surgery on your feet…and if you’re short on funds for treating your horrid hypotrichosis…from what I can tell (I’ve had a virus and watched way too much tv.) the best way to get some cash is to switch your car insurance…these companies are promising cash all over the place.

T-Shirt caption: If you can’t be happy in life, can you at least work on making it less miserable for the rest of us?

Dateline:  A woman took her seat on the plane beside the Texas A and M Rugby Coach (See The Rugby Coach that Changed the World).

The woman was bubbling over with excitement as she looked through the stack of brochures she’d picked up on the way to the airport. “Sorry, sir,” she said, “I don’t mean to bother you, but I just have to show these to someone. They turned out so well….Can I show you?”

“Okay….” the coach said.

The woman smiled and showed the coach …the brochures for Bridginghope.org.  Mostly the pages were filled with photographs taken at the home for abandoned girls in Nuevo Laredo. The coach would smile politely, then dive back into his Sports Illustrated, right?

Of course, a rugby coach isn’t going to be interested in a project to bring hope to throw-away girls crowded together in Nueveo Laredo, Texas.  Of course not.

The next thing Coach knew, he was setting up a schedule for the A and M rugby team to visit the home.  But this is still a joke, right?  College jocks on a mercy mission in Nuevo Laredo?  Come on.

How could he know that the woman with the pictures would change his life forever.  The rugby team’s been involved ever since.  Two young men changed their majors to service careers.

One player took the next semester off to work full time in the home because, he said,  “I can go to college anytime.  I couldn’t stop thinking about what the girls needed now and how I could help make their lives better.”

Anyone who’s been involved with Bridginghope.org had left saying, “I got so much more from being with the girls than I could ever give back.”

With Christmas coming, the girls each (there’s almost 700) were asked to make a ‘wish list’.   And, the number one request?  As any kid you know if he or she can guess what a poor girl in Nuevo Laredo would want for Christmas and I’m betting no one guesses.

The number one request?  A toothbrush.  

Please check out the website.  And, oh yeah, I’m hitting you up, but not for money.  PREPARE for a mysteryshrink contest.  No cost to you, not even shipping and handling.  When you win, I contribute in your name, so how’s that for everyone wins…. A toothbrush…

What I didn’t expect was the direction the discussion took.  The trim fellow across from me, who’d grilled the waiter for ten minutes regarding the no-fat preparation of his vegan pasta…leaned over the table to ask me, “You’re a psychologist, don’t you agree that drug laws will never be effective in this Hollywood-adoring, lazy society?”

“Hollywood?” I asked.

“Surely you agree that drug addicts, fat people, and slobs spending weekends on their cans watching football…they’re all simply morally weak people?

I pushed my fries to outer edges of my plate.  “I beg your pardon?” I asked. I think. Could be I didn’t say anything out loud.  Anyway, I didn’t want to get in a long discussion the Texas-Oklahoma game started in fifteen minutes.

“Sugar’s an addiction, too,” the lady with the herbal tea suggestion added. “Along with caffeine.  I don’t know what makes all these people drinking diet drinks think they’ve kicked their addictions.”

“Sugar?” I asked, weakly.

“I know how we can fix the health care crisis.  If you’re overweight and don’t do anything about it—no free health care for you.  If you drink, no liver transplants and no insurance covered medications.  If you smoked, you pay cash for every oxygen cost, and no insurance supported home health care or lung transplants.”

“Wow,” I said.  “I think habits are a little more complicated…maybe…”

“I agree with him,” herbal tea lady said. “Why should I have to pay because someone else doesn’t take care of their body?  I take care of myself.  I make good decisions.  I shouldn’t have to kick in because some fat slob with a weak character gets diabetes.”

“Oh,” I managed.

“If psychologists like you would stand up and admit that smoking, drinking, drugs, and food addiction are moral failures, instead of making excuses, the country would be a much better place to live in.”

“I know, we shrinks are a stubborn lot,” I said, standing up to go.  “I’m going outside for a smoke.”

“Oh, I didn’t realize you used cigarettes,” the thin man said, popping the cap down on his water bottle.

“I don’t,” I said, heading out. “Who smokes tobacco since crack’s been around?”

P.S. Since then I’ve thought of a response……Next….

Psycho Ad Babble Update: We’re used to promises that taking a certain pill ‘could’ have all sorts of results…or ‘could not’. But, the ad babbles are really out there with this one. Michelin tires has a new add that says: Buy Michelen tires and you will (or was it ‘could’) save $109.00. Doesn’t say the 109 comes off the price…or compared to other tires, or if 109 is the pile you’ll save on fuel…over an unspecified time…Or if buying the tires will improve your stock portfolio by 109….or if, just maybe Michelin tested the pitch and learned that $109 is the amount we’ll accept without question?

HOW WE THINK about a PROBLEM directs our TIME, ENERGY, MONEY, and WORRY

Okay…Dangerous water here, I know.  Weight loss is definitely the preoccupation of the nation and, while before we only drove ourselves nuts…the facts are childhood obesity has jumped into ugly focus.  Before a word reaches your eyes…keep in mind… Pledge One:  “I, Barbara DeShong, am as nutty and emotionally driven as anyone on the planet.”  No preaching or “expert” psycho-babbling here.  One of my irresistible Texas favorites is Mexican food which I just enjoyed in Denver, so my “failings” are interstate.

How we think about a symptom directs how we spend our time, energy, money, and heartfelt worry, attempting to make a difference.

Option A:  Childhood obesity is on the rise because of EVENTS and the ENVIRONMENT.

If we believe this, we launch programs to change the events and the environment.  We take soft drink machines out of schools, we force the convenience stores across from schools out of business, we applaud fast food franchises for offering apple slices instead of french fries.  We serve angel food cake at birthday parties. We buy exercise equipment. We IGNORE the fact that soft drink machines and convenience stores across from schools were in place long before the current dilemma. 

Option B:  Childhood obesity is on the rise because of a LACK OF INFORMATION.

If we believe lack of information to be the problem…that is, we believe we are overweight because we just can’t figure out how it happens– we will teach the food pyramid and how calories are used in the body.  We will petition school boards to buy more bulletin board materials on healthy eating. We will buy books on dieting and weight loss.  Since obesity is a highly complicated and cutting edge science, we will buy every new book that promises to have discovered “the secret.”  We will buy magazines with a new diet on the cover and filled with pages models in clothes no one we know could wear.  We IGNORE the fact that, logically, if more information on diet and exercise made a difference…all of us would be thinner and in better shape…since we have way more information (If you count saying the same thing a thousand different ways as information) now that we did in the 1950’s.

Option C:  Childhood obesity, like other “symptoms,” is on the rise due to ANXIETY and DIFFICULTIES in managing ANXIETY …difficulty making choices based on long-term benefit over getting rid of anxiety NOW. 

No blame here.  We got into this shape honestly responding to the emotional systems of which we are a part.  If we believe individual difficulties in managing anxiety…in the parents and the children…is resulting in an increasing pattern of over-eating and under-exercising—we realize we could invest time, energy, and sometimes money into strenthening the child’s, and our own, ability to think and manage anxiety. Remember the migration of the wildebeest (found by searching wildebeest on this site)…We’re just trying to get a little more toward the center of the herd.  Since we as parents know the problem…

Don’t worry, I ducked when you threw that plate at me.  I don’t like it either…focusing on events and information…is so comforting.  Plus, I must go to the vending machines and find some Tums.

“Cold Souls” is a great movie for the first half. The setup is fun–Paul Giamatti playing himself as a depressed theater actor. He learns of a place that helps out depressed people by extracting their souls and keeping them in cold storage for awhile. During this time, the “soul-less” person has some time without being burdened by emotional irrationality (sound familiar?). Not surprisingly, this doesn’t work out so well and Paul returns to have his soul re-infused in his body. His soul, it turns out has been stolen and now resides in the body of a vapid, but beautiful, blond Russian soap star. This set up is great, and I’m not going to feel too bad about giving this much of the story because the story crashes in ambiguity and senseless as if the writer had this great set-up, but no more.  The ending is pitiful. A fog simply comes over the land.  Caput.

For me, the highlight and end of watching came in the scene where Paul explains to his wife that the reason he’s been acting strangely is that he’s had his soul extracted and placed in cold storage, he’d rented the soul of a Russian poet for awhile, but that didn’t work out, he tried to retrieve his soul, but unfortunately his soul now resided in a blond bombshell Russian soap star… Now, can you imagine your husband sitting up in bed and giving you that story?

First, DIETBABBLE ALERT: New Scientific Breakthrough! The reason you’ve had a hard time losing weight is because you haven’t been eating according to your DNA!  That’s right, folks.  Now you can send in a saliva swab, the “lab” reads your “sample” and POOF… the exciting secret foods you need to avoid will be revealed and the weight just falls off.  Of course, you have to coordinate this amazing scientific breakthrough with dieting according to your blood type and the phases of the moon.

Also, a thermos maker cashing in on “going green” by showing piles of plastic bottles (gallons) lists both ’saving the planet’ and ‘weight loss’ as results you can expect by using the thermos.

Still the favorite in my heart:  the man walking along the beach with a split piece of metal, ending his spiel saying, “And my wife can’t stop talking about the weight I’ve lost since I’ve had my new metal detector.”

Anxiety. How far will you go to push down your anxiety?

It’s interesting to notice that recent celebrity drug deaths are overdoses … not of a drug that would make a person ‘high’… their deaths have not been the result of going too far with a substance known to make a person ‘happy’.  Their deaths have been the result of taking drugs which make a person numb, even unconcious.

Anxiety. 

Anxiety is the fuel and the product of the Emotional Guidance System.  Anxiety is powerful, powerful enough to make a mess of a person’s life.  We are all anxious.  Dogs and cats and cows are anxious, too.  Some dogs chew through doors when left alone, some cats hide even when hungry, cows stampede sometimes.  People chew (overeat), hide (avoid), and stampede (run away), too.

The goal of this mysteryshrink journey we are on is to get a little better hold on anxiety. (See Wildebeest entry)..2 percent…a shift of only 2 percent can improve life experience.

What would happen if you could manage a 2 percent improvement in your ability to manage your anxiety when someone else is saying something that makes you anxious?  Aha!  Of course, no one can “make you anxious”… No one else can even reach your EMOTIONAL GUIDANCE SYSTEM button… I was just giving you a little test…

Situation: The spouse and I are having breakfast in Kansas City during the Big Twelve Basketball tournament.  As it happens, several team members are enjoying the same hotel buffet.  My special other, being much better than I at realizing his importance or lack of importance in the world, is nudging me in the shin and teasingly suggesting I make up some story about a young nephew and collect a bunch of Texas Longhorn autographs.  Since my Emotional Guidance System is always ready to exaggerate things, always ready with the caution, ”Don’t call attention to yourself!  People will think you’re crazy! Your complete hick-dom background is going to show and you’ll never recover!  What complete strangers think of you is incredibly important!  A frown from a stranger will ruin your whole day!”  “When your special person does something that he thinks is cute and you think is embarrassing after you’ve TOLD him how he’s supposed to behave to keep you calmed down…his continuing to be himself means he doesn’t love you!” 

Okay, there I am, exposed for the sucker FUSION (See Fusion, think ropes twisted together.)  And how do I FEEL?  To what degree do the actions of another change (signal you to change) what’s going on inside you?

Anxiety 101.  Tune in tomorrow for miraculous 2 percent victory in the terrifying autographing incident!

 

 

Sign the size of a bumper sticker on the rear of a gigantic gravel truck:
“Do not come within 200 feet of vehicle. Not responsible for windshield cracks.”
…Did I mention you can only read this notice if you close in to 10 feet?

In our consumer culture products are produced–not to be kept as useful–but as fads that really change nothing.  Thus, the latest exercise gadget, diet pill, or “secret food” revealed work on repeating inane simplistic promises.  The producer knows no real change will occur (something lasting less than six months is not a change), but for a while, a critical period, people will buy the product.

I spent and hour and a half on-line and found 473 Diets.   Ladies and gentlemen the problem IS NOT  lack of information.  The problems have to do with our functioning.

Just when I thought the Psychobabble Wall of Shame had reached so far down… into the pit of cliches that we psychologist-diagnosis flingers… were holding up the ladder for journalists climbing up to reach the bottom . . .

The psychologist lady on the History Channel says the notorious, murderous, and scandalous Caligula was the way we was because he had (hold on to your shorts!)– Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. 

I know!  I couldn’t believe it either.  Here’s the thing.  Caligula was Emperor of the Roman Empire . . . that is, Caligua lived from year 14 AD to year 41 AD.  That’s right. Think on that one for a minute.  If that lady could diagnose a man who lived THEN, just think how a professional of her intelligent could help out an ordinary Joe.

Most of the time getting YOUR DIAGNOSIS has plusses and minuses.  Emotional illness is a real thing and the right diagnosis can point you to treatment and appropriate medication.  Those are pluses. 

On the minus side–once you have been awarded your diagnosis   (including PMS) or (PMD which is really PMS+, invented to sell that new pill)–other people will blame everything you do on your diagnosis.

So, you have to be careful how you sling your diagnosis thingee around.  I usually recommend keeping it to yourself along with keeping your medication plans to yourself.  Unless you want to over hear other people at the office or a family gathering whispering, “She has depression, you know.” Or, “She’s on medication, you know.”

There you go. Watch out for Greeks or anyone else bearing diagnoses.

Caligula was a pretty crazy guy–orgies, public murders, the works.  But PTSD?

  Billboard spotted.  Well-dressed miss is talking on her phone and watching her big screen television.  The ad explains that out of the goodness of their cable-laying hearts, if you switch service to them they will guarantee you the same rate for the next two years.  My years of interpreting deep psychological dilemmas enables me to figure out that this means . . . We’ve figured out a way to spin locking you into a contract look like it is a good thing for YOU.

Okay.  But it was the caption over the lady that had me giggling, no gagging, no gig . . . The caption asks you, “What will YOU do with the extra money?” 

That IS THE question on every one’s mind these days when we skip over the news channels holding our ears and singing “la-la-la” as loud as we can… just in case a word more bad news leaks through.

How do we keep our THINKING GUIDANCE SYSTEMS in charge during these hard times?

Manana.  If you can’t wait follow along on: http://twitter.com/mysteryshrink

  Okay, so there I am standing in the back yard, a hundred degrees outside, and a bleeding knuckle from a scrape on the lawnmower (If you’re lost, see “The Mower Fueling Incident.) By now I’ve stopped whining, “Why am I the only one who ever notices what needs to be done around here?” 

I’ve not stopped, but have begun to taper my exaggeration statements, “I canNOT stand this!  This is horrible, terrible, and hideous. My whole day, probably the whole WEEK is shot, now that I’ve got this knuckle BLEEDING ALL OVER THE PLACE.  Okay, a couple of drops hit my shoe.

And, by now I’ver realized that my AUTOMATIC ASSUMPTIONS in the service of my mighty EMOTIONAL GUIDANCE SYSTEM are what caused me to be in this predicatment in the first place. Had I noticed that the cap on the gas can was a funnel . . . but we’ve covered that.  No sense beating myself up, now that I have this gushing bloody finger and messy shoes.

Let’s suppose someone walks up at this moment and points out my disturbing error.  What will be my response? 

Of course.  I’d start dancing some kind of “it’s not my fault” jig.  “Too hot to think . . . stupid lawn mower gas can designers . . . been working too hard . . . I shouldn’t be the one here in this heat mowing to start with . . .”

But here’s the lesson. You’d think there’s no way for me to not come out looking like a nutcase, right?

Here goes, great big ole psychologist’s tip that has taken years to perfect: When some poor soul wanders up and points out your lastest goof, and says,  ”What are you, crazy?” 

You smile and say, “Yes!  As a matter of fact I am CRAZY  and, let me tell you I’m getting WORSE everyday.”

And, there you go.  You don’t have to play that silly, your fault-not my fault game. You’re out. 

Tomorrow: Fear, Part One.

 If you were famous enough to have YOUR OWN ACTION FIGURE would you have Self Confidence and Self Esteem?  More to nail on the Psychobabble Wall of Things that Aren’t True:  If you get enough Praise . . . you will have SELF CONFIDENCE  and SELF ESTEEM. 

But wait!  Praise is a good thing, right? After all, praise makes us FEEL good. We’ve even told parents and teachers that praise (social reinforcement) is the way to get kids to accomplish tasks. We’ve told husbands and wives that praising their spouses can MAKE THEM FEEL LOVED.  Can’t get too much praise, can’t give too much praise . . . right? 

Maybe.  But, What is, “Do these pants make me look fat?”  but one more attempt to suck approval out of another person and duck responsibility for ourselves? (By the way, you regular readers know and have taken the pledge to never, ever, ask anyone that question, or any similar question. You guys remember that any part of your body or personality that you complain about grows to enormous proportions in the eyes of the other.) 

The problem is, if you buy that enough love and praise results in Self Confidence and Self Esteem, it follows then that, if you DO NOT FEEL loaded up with these feathery showstoppers, self-confidence and self-esteem, you must have–somewhere along the line–missed out on sufficient praise.  Now, I wish the worst part of this misguided notion is that we will overblame others (See “What’s Love Got to Do With It?)  . . . but that’s not the worst part.  The most damaging result of this belief is believing –   “I don’t have self confidence and self esteem because I did not get the love and praise I needed AND I did not get the love and praise I needed to be a person with self confidence and self esteem BECAUSE I’M NOT DESERVING OF LOVE and PRAISE”.  And that’s just not right. The whole chase approval, get praise routine is a dead end.  The movie The Wrestler speaks to this issue with clarity, pain, and beauty.   

Warning:  Plot information to follow.  If you haven’t seen The Wrestler and you want to be surprised, stop now. Also, you probably want to avoid the movie if a lot of nudity, a lot, is going to bother you. 

The Wrestler, Randy the Ram (Mickey Rourke), reaches physical maturity to discover he doesn’t know how to participate in adult relationships.  At about the same time he starts spending hours at the gym and learns what body-building enhancing drugs can do for him.  Wha-la!  The Ram is getting noticed.  Being admired.  He even has his own Randy the Ram action toy on the market.

Tomorrow:  Is having an action toy in your image the same as being a real person?

 

 

 

  While we’re tacking up things-that-don’t-exist on our PSYCHOBABBLE WALL OF SHAME, we might as well step up and face the TRIPLE MYTH about LOVE. 

Perhaps, you best snap on some sunshades.  The facts about TAKING RESPONSIBILITY for the WAY WE EXPERIENCE people, ourselves, and the world, are pretty flipping glaring to face.  Isn’t a psychologist supposed to help you out with identifying who messed you up and who’s messing up your experience now?  I know.  I’m disappointed myself. 

Myth One:  If my parents had loved me enough, I wouldn’t be having a hard time with life today. 

Myth Two:  If my spouse loved me enough, I wouldn’t be having a hard time with life today.  Excerpt from the next Jessica LeFave mystery:  “Las Vegas…the city of glitz and irresistable impulses…what better place to talk about love and addiction? After all, while Vegas is selling a dangerous fantasy, so is Cinderella.”

Myth Three:  If YOU (my therapist,   my friend, my sister, my brother, my boss, my teacher, my whomever) loved me enough, I wouldn’t be having a hard time with life today.

Tomorrow:  Self-Confidences, Part 2, Why praise can be the most dangerous thing that can happen to you.