Living Now:  the Power Hose Incident Revisited

What would it take to get you to relax…Now?  What if…this is as good as it gets?

Dateline:  Second story veranda in Texas.  I am in my underwear power-hosing the doggie run…to be sure you have the full picture …see “How to Ruin a Relationship, the Power Hose Incident.”

In my right hand is the power hose.  In my left is a broom.  I am alternating hose spraying and broom pushing water off the edge and I soap and rinse the outdoor carpet.  I am doing my best to hurry, to get the job over.  This isn’t fun.  My arms ache.  Water keeps oozing back toward the wall.  I’m a bit peeved at the whole concept of spending a piece of my life hosing and sweeping…hosing and sweeping…hosing and sweeping.

Which is when a dangerous thought occurred to me….a thought which will change your life…if you ‘get’ it.  It’s a biggie…a toughie…but we can try this together.  In several sections.

What occurred to me was this question:  “Would I be ‘doing’ the job of hosing and sweeping differently if I were being paid for the job?”

Which led to the thought:  “How would my experience of hosing and sweeping be different if I were being paid by the HOUR to do the job?”   That is, I had to out on the veranda hosing and sweeping for a preset number of hours.  How would my internal experience be different if I wasn’t trying so hard to ‘get finished’?

I slowed down.  I stopped pushing the broom as hard and fast.  I danced in long, sweeping movements.  I slipped into a few stanzas of Delta Dawn….I noticed the beyond the balcony.  Corny, I know.  But, that’s what happened.  “Del-ta-uh Dawn…What’s that flower you have on?…”

Which is when I asked myself, “How would my life experience be different… if when my lifetime was assigned to me, God had looked at me and said, “You do realize you have been given an hourly job…that there’s nothing you need to finish?”

“People round Brownsville says she’s crazy…”

The Setup:  Along the upper terrace which goes the width of the house,  we have a section of ‘doggie turf”.   The doggie turf is a layer of heavy plastic sheeting covered with a layer of outdoor grasslike carpet.  Thus, Crazy Dog can be let out in the semi-open when neither of her human buddies  has what it takes to toddle down the stairs and let her out the back on the real greenbelt…which is often on a cool morning or even more often when it’s over a hundred degrees.  

Every couple of months, the doggie patch requires cleaning with a power hose.  This job I could complete without assistance, except the outdoor water spigot is, of course, on the downstairs veranda.  Thus, I need my special person to throw the power hose up to me and turn  the water full blast on once I have the hose pointed in a safe direction…and I need him available to turn the water off when I’m finished.

Without someone to turn the water off, I would be required to close the power valve on the hose (otherwise the nozzel would spin wildly), run (barefoot and in my underwear) the length of the upstairs, go down the stairs, reverse and run the length of the house again through the living room, dining room, and kitchen….then going out the kitchen door, then I’d have to reverse field once again on the lower veranda and run the length of the house again, step into the fountain enclosure, find the spigot, and twist it off.  

That is, if I didn’t slip and kill myself in route as all floors are tile and I would be barefoot with a tinge of soap left on my soles.  Meanwhile, of course, the expensive power hose and nozzle would have exploded.

On the particular day of this incident, my special person had coordinated with me on the first two aid requirements—tossing up the hose and turning the water on.  I am now out on the terrace pouring cleansers and power-washing like crazy….  When my special person sticks his head out the French doors to inform me he’s taking off to run an errand.

“You’re going to do what?…”   I exclaim, as if he’d just told me he was off to climb Mt. Everest in a bikini and taking Crazy Dog with him.  Alas!  I can’t believe he’s thinking about his life and what he needs to get done and not MY life and I have to get done.  I heave one of those I-can’t-believe-you-can-even-say-something-so-thoughtless…sighs….Then I elaborated on what would happen if I was left to finish alone….Reciting with great importance the above paragraph beginning with ‘Without someone to turn the water off….ending with the explosion.

Twenty minutes later, I finish the cleaning  job and open the French doors calling for my special person:  “Honey, I’m done…. Honey?….I’m ready for you to turn the water off….Honey?….Honey?…..Honey!…Hey!…Need some help here!  Help!  I need help here!”

No one answers.

Tune in for the next episode of  “As the Nozzel Turns” and watch the Emotional Guidance System go crazy….

Resolution for 2010:  Start Living Now

Resolution for 2010 in two parts:

1)     Live in the Present.

2)     Take RESPONSIBILITY for the quality of the present moment. 

The plan is to report steps… forward and back…hoping others can learn from my frailties.

Inspiration: A non-so-good French movie set in Monaco.  The female lead has her one room apartment decorated wall-to-wall with Princess Diana memorabilia.

The male lead asks, “Why the overwhelming adoration? Did you love Princess Di that much?”

She says: (paraphrasing) “Yes.  Princess Di had it all…and I have nothing. She was beautiful. She was wealthy beyond anything I can even imagine.  She was loved by everyone.  She was famous.  I think she’s the luckiest woman who ever lived.   I loved her so much my life was nothing but a poor immitation. I didn’t know how to be alive as just me.  When Princess Diana was alive, I lived through her. I spent my simple, unfamous life, wishing I was her.”

He asks: “Why do you keep all these pictures?”

She says: “To remind myself I have something Princess Di does not have.  I am alive.  I can plan things.  I can meet new people.” 

He asked: “So?”

She said: “I keep all these pictures and stories to remind myself I am alive. That one day I won’t have the chance to enjoy the day….but unlike Princess Di…I’m not there yet.  That one day when it’s over …is not TODAY.”

Thus, following these words from a bad French movie, my Resolution for 2010 is to live in the present…instead of ruing the past and worrying about the future.  And to make an honest effort, moment by moment, to take responsibility for the quality of my experience.

Want to come along?  Actually, the present being the way it is…None of us have a choice….as long as we are alive…we can change…we can do better…. Let’s have some fun. 

Next:  The Joy of Strawberries.

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…

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?

Now just about any time a guy bungees off the Rio Grande Bridge in New Mexico…I’ve got to figure his Emotional Guidance System had something to do with that decision.  I can think of no fact-based reason to make such a jump and I can think of about a million fact-based reasons making such a jump is a really bad idea.

One of which is what happened to the guy in the tape I just watched.  The guy that jumped off the bridge….and ever-so-slightly miscalculated the distance from the bridge to the rocks.  Turns out the drop was about twenty feet less than figured…not that you’d expect two guys into this sort of thing to be math geniuses.

So, yes, John, the buddy taping the jump is heard saying something like this, “And there goes Andy!  What a thrill! What a leap!  You da man!……..Oh, God….I just watched Andy die.”  Pan to a blob of jeans and orange jacket on the rocks below.  (Now, I don’t know how you are with your friends, but I have to say…I’m a little troubled that buddy John continues the taping and the play-by-play.)

Later, John is videotaping his bud, Andy, this time from his hospital bed.  John says, “I knew I shouldn’t jump that day, I knew something wasn’t right (so far, we still have the Thinking Guidance System trying to stay in charge)….but then, (here’s where the Emotional Guidance System adds its two cents)…but then…it’s just that we’d driven all that way to get there and everything…”

The point here is that when we decide to do something or to keep doing something just because we’re so far in we don’t want to admit that all the effort thus far has been for naught…that’s our Emotional Guidance System blabbing and blabbing.  Which is how I explain ending up in this hideously over-crowded, over-priced restaurant in some tiny Colorado town over a hundred miles from where I intended to stop for lunch.  I’d driven north from Denver thinking (?) I’d find just what I had in mind…a lodge-looking mountain kind of place with excellent steaks and college football on at least two screens…on the outskirts of the city.

When I didn’t find the lodge/sports bar on the outskirts, I thought…I should turn around because I very hungry…but then saw the sign for Boulder…I thought what the heck…For sure, there’ll be a lodge/sports bar in Boulder…When I didn’t, I thought, I should turn around because I’m starting to get faint with hunger…which made me crave that steak even more….

And, there was the sign pointing to Estes Park which is on the edge of the Rocky Mountain National Park…There’s got to be a lodge/sports bar in Estes Park…what the heck, what’s another thirty-five miles….Of course, I hadn’t factored in the car hauling the double trailer about twenty cars ahead of me that never went over 18 miles per hour.

Thus weak and shaking I arrive in Estes Park….to discover that the place is over-run with tourists in town for Octoberfest (Yes, I noticed it was still September, too.)…I thought, hey, I should just cut my losses, chew another stick of gum and go back to Boulder or even Denver…then I thought “it’s just that I’d driven all that way…” and here I am a hundred miles from my hotel eating corn dogs standing up…

The point:  When you realize you aren’t absolutely sure your bungee cord is shorter than the distance to the rocks, settle for any ole café on the way out of town.

Can AVOIDANCE sometimes be a mistake, even when… factually…every attempt has ended in disaster?

Yes.  Now, I’m not talking about the street tacos in Mexico City or risking your life and endangering the lives of others by continuing to take shots at sliding all-lovely off the ski lift chair… those activities we can do without rather easily.  (See previous post on dangers of tacos and chair lifts.)

But… what about when we are telling ourselves we CANNOT ever succeed at an activity and, though we’ve had many painful failures… we’d really like the rewards of that activity? And, when we calm the heck down…the truth is…other people have done it,so it’s possible.  Again, I’m voting against taking another shot at that ski lift chair death trap.  I know other people hop off the lift bench looking like the coolest people alive… and I even accept that, theoretically, given a long life and all winters devoted to the ski lift chair, I, too, could be successful.

To accomplish even complex tasks, all that usually stands between us and success is a little bit of information and the capacity to manage our anxiety through the “I don’t know how to do this” freakout. Now, I’m not suggesting you attempt to fly the plane on your next trip….you COULD…the only thing holding you back is a lack of information….a lack of a really big chunk of information.

But, to return to a task closer to home that has blackened my days, met with unrelenting failure, and yet…I’d really like to be successful.  Oh, yeah.  I’m talking about my pathetic efforts at website building. I really want to build a website.  I’m not done yet.

First, a simpler example of someone coming to the conclusion that a task is impossible due to lack of simple information.

One summer day when my parents were out of the country, they called back from a remote phone in the Alps asking to have certain information located in a file cabinet inside their house faxed to a cruise line address. Usually, this task would be mine.  However, on this fine summer day…defined in Texas as over a hundred degrees and real sweaty…I was unavailable.  Thus, my special person was up to fulfill the request.  Knowing I’d let myself into their house many times, he first spent twenty minutes going through extra keys.  He picked out a dozen possibles from the pounds of keys in the miscellaneous drawer… and headed for the country.

He spent his first thirty minutes and first bucket of perspiration trying each key in the front door lock without success.  Testing for a possible unlocked window led under walls of English ivy growing in layers since the 1950s.  Now he couldn’t breathe and suspected the allergy attack later on would set a new coughing record. He visited the surrounding six houses hoping a neighbor had a key, only to learn that the lady across the street and the couple on one side of the house were still holding grudges regarding certain high school yard decorating mistakes I hadn’t shared with him. Exhausted and out of ideas, he gave up.  He can’t get in.  He’d call a locksmith if his presence in the family photos taken on the lawn… he’d bring along in the morning would be enough proof to that he had the right to enter the house.

When I strolled in later that night, a day earlier than expected, my special person related his afternoon of woe ending with, “I’m glad you’re here since you know where there’s a key that works.”

“Oh, no…” I say.  “I don’t have a key or know where one is.  I just take a screwdriver and ooch back the little dealie, and wha-la, I’m in.”

Today someone gave me the web address of a do-it-yourself website maker “that anyone can do”….and for once…I couldn’t prove them wrong.

What activities have you given up… when all you needed was the right information? And the capacity to manage anxietythrough the learning curve?

                                                                                           The email links on Mysteryshrink are not functioning.  To send a message please use:   bdeshong@austin.rr.com

Dateline:  Going live here.  Airport, Austin, Texas.  Goal: Chicago and certain unfamiliar spots in eastern Iowa and Illinois.  (I, a product of the hot sidewalks of Falfurrias, Texas, and other near-border villiages, none of which you have ever heard of, I am not disparaging the rural and small town.)

****Remember, I show you my trembling journey because you, too, are working on becoming more of  A SELF-DESIGNED PERSON?  Because you, too, want to better manage the anxiety keeping you in chains and wasting your life?… If this isn’t true… if you don’t have any of these issues…there’s always Dr. Laura.

Random Emotional Guidance System Self-talk:  “I don’t want to go.  I’m too tired.  My special person just had three surgeries in ten days.  (Good surgeries…the kind done to help you function better.)  I’m still not recovered from book launch party as I am congenitally deficit when it comes to hosting crowds….My feet are already are killing me and I didn’t have time to get a pedicure so that my appearance as a street person is complete… I have too much junk to carry…I don’t have any idea where I’m supposed to go…who I’m supposed to meet…and did not I go to graduate school SPECIFICALLY because I’m not good at selling stuff?” 

Emotional Guidance System is now in PRIMAL WHINE mode.

Specific Emotional Guidance System “WHAT IF”  Fear-inducing Statements in order of CRITICAL IMPORTANCE:

1) WHAT IFs concerned with appearing “cool and in-charge”:  (These fearful statements are the fertilizer for ‘blah’ feelings.)

“What if I show up at the book-signing without enough books and come off as silly for going to so much effort?”  Even more tragic, “What if I brought too many books and look silly and amateurish?”… “What if I get a lousy, unimpressive rental car?”  Or worse, “What if Avis only has SUVs left like happened a couple of weeks ago in L.A. and, like then, I underestimate the height of the vehicle and rip out a couple of water pipes out of the ceiling of the Hilton parking garage?  What if I over-react like I did then, back up wildly, and pop off that striped garage entry arm like it was a toothpick?”…  “What if I’m the oldest fattest worst dressed person there…given the chipped toenails and all?”

2} WHAT Ifs concerned with “survival”:  (These fearful statements actually stir up a little energy, though survival is a concern coming in a distant second to the concern to come across cool and sophisticated.) 

“What if I can’t find Galena, Illinois and Dubuque, Iowa?  What if it’s too hot?  What if it’s scary?  What if it’s rush hour traffic when I leave O’Hare in my rental car? What if, if I’m fortunate enough to find Dubuque, but room service is closed down by the time I get there?”

By the way, the need to appear cool and in-charge pretty much ended my ill-fated, short-lived relationship with skiing.  I know, I know…catching the lift seat under your rear is easy (right); and no one crashes off the lift after landing on her face the first four or five times…well, guess what?  I can handle my lack of cool in most circumstances and I looked as hot and with it as anyone else buried in my ski togs, goggles and wooly hat….but….it was the screaming that got to me…not mine…I refused to utter a peep as careened off the lift chair, gave a little swush, then accomplished more triple axels and whirling manuevers than an Olympic figure skater on crack…before sliding on my face until an act of nature ended by journey.  The watchers…the really cool ones…they were screaming in fear.  They screamed, too, everytime I got knocked down by the next lift chair when I tried to get up from my first fall. Bunch of weinnies. 

Okay, Illinois and Iowa.  Here I come.  Be gentle.  My knees are shot.

How much of your life have you spent in activities you said “Yes” to, when you meant “No?”

The world is a constant demand situation.  If you do not define yourself to the world…and other people…the world and other people will define you. 

Could anyone convince you… that you were the sort of person who would like setting your alarm for five in the morning… dressing with a swimsuit as underwear… driving downtown to an ancient university gymnasium and… diving into a chlorine-heavy basement pool?  And that you would do this without someone holding a gun on you? 

….What could get a woman to not only do this once, but agree to do this insane routine five days a week for six weeks?

…Yep. The beast who agreed to the routine was, of course, my Emotional Guidance System.  The same critter that landed me in the Water Tower Place shopping mall.  (See previous post.)  I agreed to the bizarre morning swimming routine because when my special person claimed that something called “aerobic swimming” was not the work of the devil, but something that I’d be glad I’d completed, and that he was leaping on the opportunity…

My brain shot right out the window and, for ever how long it took for me to sign up… 

I ignored “the facts”… 1) I read into the late hours and get up grouchy; 2) I’m a terrible swimmer;  3)  Indoor pools are yucky;  4) There was zero possibility that I would continue ‘aerobic swimming’ if I should be fortunate enough to survive the course.  And the strongest fact of all, that if I had no intention of making ‘aerobic swimming’ part of my lifestyle…there really was no point outside a few weeks of bragging and living in the “lying to myself zone” that is what sells every new diet, new piece of exercise equipment, every project that depends on pretending we are on the verge of a personality transplant.

“Oh no,” he said.  “You’ll like it,” he lied.  “You are too rigid and unwilling to try new things.  This would be good for you.”  And yep. The challenge to my personality perfection along with the “good for you” baloney got me to question what I knew to be the facts about myself.

I did come to my senses.  But it took three times of me quitting…the last departure quite public and spectacular.  I did eventually engage my Thinking Guidance System, but not until I’d suffered through weeks of torture. 

Here’s the picture.  I arrived on the first day and hopped into my lane, ready.  From there it was downhill.  The pool was awful, the water was cold, I sucked royally at swimming, and nearly drowned on at least four occasions. Particularly amusing that first day was my exit when the class was over.  The coach Nazi blew his whistle and said something diabolically cheery and that we were done.  Everyone else, including my special person, bounded out of the pool and headed for the dressing rooms.  Now this is the pool the swim team used early in the last century, which means that the lanes area had no ladder.

Unable to pull myself out of the pool and now surrounded by bouncy college students readying for swimming class…I flopped desperately against the side of the pool, one foot stuck up over the edge.  I’d almost make it, then plop back in.  I supposed that once my special person was dressed and ready, he’d notice I was missing and re-trace steps until he found me half in, half out of the pool. Either that, or he’d find me in two days when the class started up again.

The point here is how persuasion…or FUSION…can get us to waste time and energy in activities that are someone else’s idea, someone else’s challenge.

Each of us has three limited entities–time, energy, and money.  And one boundless entity–love.  Love we can afford to splatter around and we’ll never run out.

How we “use up”  our time, our energy, and our money…is another matter.  How much of your time, your energy, and your money…is thrown away in the service of your Emotional Guidance System?  How much of your time, energy, and money is sacrificed in efforts to rid yourself of anxiety?  (See ‘What Would You Give Not to Feel?)

‘Worrying’ is the king thief of time.  Saying ‘yes’ when we mean ‘no’ and ending up on projects we don’t value takes lots of energy.  And money?  Well, someone’s buying that tape that you place over your chubby spots and it sucks the fat away while you sleep.  Someone’s out there renting a storage locker to escape the anxiety of making decisions.  And, “Yes”  the reason my name is listed with five stars next to it on every company that makes downloadable emergency disk rescue software…is because when my computer crashes in the middle of the night…I thrash around like a big, desperate fish on a sidewalk, clicking “Buy Now” on every rescue offer popping up and promising to save me.    The ‘Water Tower Place Incident’ provides an example of FUSION (when the functioning of one person is determined by the functioning of another person) and how the breakdown of boundaries led to one person (me) almost spending some of my life ‘time’ doing something I had no desire to do.

Dateline: Chicago, a while back, still in graduate school and attending a downtown conference.  Mental state: google-eyed impressed with the opportunity to have my expenses paid in a wonderful, sophisticated city I’d never visited.

Exact place:  I am on the escalator of Water Tower Place, a multi-storied shopping complex with all the best stores…when I realize my physical self has been invaded by the Body Snatchers.  “How did I get here?” I’m asking myself.  “How did I end up on this escalator in a monster shopping mall?”  “This couldn’t be me.  I don’t even like shopping at home, how could I have chosen this place for the afternoon?”  

The fusion:  Earlier that week back in Austin, I’d remarked to a professor–a world-travelled, highly respected researcher and writer, who I greatly over-valued as I did most of my teachers– that I was going to Chicago.  With my excited annoucement, Over-valued World Traveler said, “Oh, you are going to have a great time.  You want to put shopping at Water Tower Place at the very top of your ‘must do’ list!”

I said something like, “Oh, that sounds perfect!  I can’t wait!”  Then it was: fly to Chicago, check into the hotel, and take the first opportunity to check out Water Tower Place.  Had I consulted my Thinking Guidance System, I’d have asked myself, “How did things turn out the last time someone (at least she had been with me, not just in my imagination) talked you into going to a shopping mall?  And I wouldn’t have woken up standing on a crowded escalator wondering how in the hecko I’d gotten there. 

Okay, this example is kind of ‘fusion-lite’, but it’s still fusion.  Fusion of this sort–when you agree with someone because you value them as a person without thinking for yourself–is common.   Careful now, I’m not saying that the ’self-defined’ move…when the professor says ‘you must go shopping at Water Tower Place–is to pop back with “Well, I don’t really don’t enjoy shopping, so I won’t be going to Water Tower Place.”  To respond with an unsolicited negative response is just as much having behavior determined by the other person… as was the ‘unconcious’ following of her advice.

Hang on…Hang on.  Don’t get your hopes up.   Do you think Iwant to teach myself right out a career?

“How to Treat Yourself” is about…okay…how you treat yourself.  We spend a lot of time and energy struggling to get other people treat us well.  With limited success, I might add.  Other people are so resistent to training.  “Here…here’s your script, dear.  When I say this….you say….and never say….Also, you are required to compliment me…and never mention that little, okay, moderate less-than-perfect feature…never, ever and I can tell by your expression you’re thinking about it.”

Not only are other people difficult to train, they often are distracted attending to their own lives….Speaking of annoying habits.

Thus, “How to Treat Yourself” is a self-employment opportunity.

The Show Horse Philosophy.  A friend and I followed had a lead on a horse prospect, a small bay with three white socks.  Outside of the socks, the horse had little to catch the eye or, in my case, hopes for a big future.  We located the scrawny fellow in a field outside of town, trailered him into the show barn, and walked his dusty, a undersized body into the stable.  Disappointed with our find, I leaned against the wall, waiting for a next move.  Not my friend.  To my wonder, she immediately located her grooming tools and set to work on Three Socks. She cross-tied the prospect, brushed out the dust and loose hair, oiled his hooves, trimmed his ears, then stood back to survey Three Socks.

From where I loitered I asked: “Why did you go to all that trouble?”

She said:  “I’m not letting him go without a chance.  What I”ve learned is, treat a horse like a show horse and he acts like a showhorse.”

Did Three Socks end up Hunter Champion of the State?  Did he go on to prove his doubters wrong?  (Theme from Rocky here.)  No, he didn’t. 

Here is the great beauty of the Thinking Guidance System over the Emotional Guidance System.  My friend wasn’t going for future trophies.  While my Emotional System was asking, “Why go to all this trouble and still be a loser?”

Her Thinking Guidance System used facts.  Not “potential happenings” from some mystical future where, apparently, we all expect… if we can make the right decisions..we will be transformed by having more money, a better job, recognition…winning the lottery…whatever we are holding on to that’s going to happen so that we will be happier… My friend operated with the fact that “Every minute you are alive…you can make it great…have fun with it….If you make it great….no way to be a loser.  Or, you can stand on the sidelines (with me) criticizing and thinking of a future which may or may not happen.”

This human is “currently being serviced.” 

When a machine is broken at the gym, instead of a sign saying it’s broken, a placard is placed on the machine explaining, “This equipment is currently being serviced.”

The wording “is currently being serviced” takes into account that the inconvenience is temporary, that with time and tweaking, the equipment will return to regular duties.

Today is a Maintenance Day.   

A Maintenance Day is a day when you don’t try to “get any better” at anything.  When the best you can hope for is to keep from sliding backward…in your work, your relationships, in the journey toward your goals. 

A Maintenance Day is a day when every time you reach for an item, you knock something else over.

A Maintenance Day is a day when you turn corners, and bang your knees.

A Maintenance Day is a day when no good ideas are coming to the front of your brain.

A Maintenance Day is a day when you make a clever remark and realize you’ve hurt someone’s feelings.

A Maintenance Day is a day when the long-term goals you set for yourself mock you as impossible. “Who do you think you are?”

A Maintenance Day is a day when your Emotional Guidance System is running your show….you are taking everything personally….your refection in the mirror is a monster….you are throwing generalizing words—never, always, everyone, those (old, young, leftwing, rightwing, reality-television watchers, people who don’t like reality television, techno-geniuses, techno-duds,)…the guy who ran the yellow light, and the guy who honked when you ran the yellow light….

A Maintenance Day is a day when, first and foremost, you must be your very own very best friend and take care of yourself.  Breathe.  Cool air in, warm air out.  Remind yourself of the facts about you.  You are a hard worker. Most days you have good ideas.  Most days you can take a step toward that distant goal. Most days…but not today.

Today the goal is…to keep from sliding backwards.  To keep from turning everyone we meet into a target.  Sometimes we are the equipment “currently being serviced.”  

Last Saturday afternoon a short, skinny gelding won the Kentucky Derby by the biggest lead in 63 years.  Against every measure this horse is a loser.  But he  won.  Why not you?

Maybe you didn’t have all of Mine the Bird’s avantages.  After all, he was given up as a loser, gelded, rated at 50 to 1, and came out of the starting gate rather badly.

What if Mine the Bird had had a typical human Emotional Guidance System to get in his way?  No way he’d have been in the race.  No way he’d talked himself into showing up at the track.  He certainly didn’t LOOK like a race horse.  Every tipster who’d watched him run said Mine the Bird had no business in the Kentucky Derby.  The owner who sold him dumped him for $9500.

The ultimate show of lack of confidence is gelding a stallion.  For those of you not familiar with the horse world, this means–no million dollar or two dollar stud fees. Gelding is done for a variety of reasons, including behavioral difficulties, ease of handling, and when the owner does not believe the horse has any future value as a stud. 

Sometimes when I’m doing couples counseling, the man will comment on the woman’s emotionality by saying, “Well, you know how women are.”   I nod in agreement, adding that I’d never bought a female showhorse and never will because of their upredictability, particularly around a stallion or when they have babies.   The man always smiles, appreciating that “though I are one” I understand “how women are.”  I continue saying I’ve always showed male horses . . . geldings, of course.  The smile fades and we’re back to even ground.

How much do we let the expectations others determine how far with go with our dreams?  How much do your own expectations hold you back?

Someone’s going to win.  Why not you?  

But you do have to go to racetrack.  No one’s going to knock on your door, whip on a bridle, and lead you to the starting gate.

The answer is, “Of course you are. We all are.”   The question is only a matter of degree.  But to what degree you are being “Gaslighted” depends on many factors and is incredibly important. We’ll start with family.

“Gaslighting,” taken from the movie by that name, refers to one person convincing another that something is true about them, which isn’t true.  In the movie, a husband convinces his new bride that she is losing her mind in order to have control of her fortune.  I’m quite convinced that certain demented dogs are capable of “Gaslighting” their owners which I am writing about this away from my home computer.  Crazy Dog has been staring over my shoulder like a starving child watching Krispy Kreme doughnuts sugared up by one of those amazing glazing machines.

You are being “Gaslighted” just as I am, everyday, as other people–especially those who love us and fear for us–try to convince us that WE ARE WHO THEY THINK WE ARE.

We are “Gaslighting” others, everyday, as we convince others–especially those we love–that they are WHO WE THINK THEY ARE.

This is huge. Too huge for just one day. “Gaslighting” doesn’t happen because other people are evil or don’t love us. I had a brief former life as a teenage wife, an effort to grow up that was a smashing, and luckily for both of us, a matter of only months. I’ve been asked many times, “How did you know to get out?”  “Why didn’t you end up spending years trying to make the relationship work?”

My answer: The young man I was married to had a view of me, and what I was capable of accomplishing, that was very different from the picture of me my father had. I was lucky. Had I been raised by a parent who saw me as weak and incapable, who knows? 

So the first place we’re “Gaslighted” is in the family growing up.   Note: Mysteryshrink is not a parent-blamer. Each of us comes by who we are through a natural process. The idea that one generation can look back at another and “blame” their problems on the generation before is simply ridiculous. Do you think our generation is the first to run this scam? Do you honestly believe your parents represented a new species of disturbance that hasn’t been seen before?”  (See, The Triplicate Myth.) Still, it is in the family that “Gaslighting” takes root, not because a parent or sibling wants us to turn out a certain way… but because parents and siblings react automatically to fit our behavior with expectations… and then mold their expectations to direct our new behaviors.

Whew. Think of it like this. In doing family work, clients are always quick to point out how different they are from their siblings. But, how much of that came with the package into the world, and to what degree are those differences playing out expectations?  Think of a family like a car.  If the car already has an accelerator when you are born into it, you will take up another role.  “She’s the one who’ll make a great mother.” “She’ll be the career woman in the family.”  “She’ll always be in trouble.”  “He’ll be the rebel.”  “He’ll end up in jail.”

Here’s where we get back to the importance of “degree.”  How much room was there for you to wriggle around and become someone different from expectations?  Will I one day be able to go to sleep without locating all seven of Crazy Dog’s squeaky toys and lining them up on the bed as she expects?

 

 

 Well, you do have 45 minutes to live? Starting NOW.

Our Emotional Systems, designed to help us outrun predator, does everything possible to keep us focused on what doesn’t matter. On the “what if’s” and the “what will people think’s?”

Plus, there’s so much to get done before I can enjoy just being in this day. The yard, the writing projects, the birthday cards I’m late on, more money in the bank, get in better shape…before I can just LIVE.

Late one night in my International World Headquarters Mexico City Hilton, I happened to catch a television special featuring the most spectacular plane crashes ever. I know. Real bright choice when you’re alone in Mexico City where the police wear masks and the country’s Secretary of State went down in a rigged LearJet firey crash two nights ago, ten blocks over.

Still, I didn’t click off the channel…which is probably all you need to know to send you running for higher psychological waters.  But, don’t feel bad if you don’t.  I didn’t switch the channel when I had the chance either.

I’ve never seen ”most tragic plane crashes” replayed here in the States, but the same can be said for a lot of what I enjoy in Mexico City, one of my heart places. Painstakingly produced, actual photos and sound bites were used when possible.

The one I’ll never forget involved a jumbo jet in China (or close, I wasn’t paying much attention to the map). The pilots knew there was a control problem, but were unable to pinpoint the cause.  They radioed for a small plane to fly nearby and eyeball the plane to see if they could identify the problem. Oh, yes. The tail of the jumbo jet had come off. The plane could not land. Ever. All that could be done was to let the fuel burn out and then . . . As it happened the flight path was mountainous. The pilots knew that soon, unable to steer, the plane would crash into a mountainside.

The pilots talked with each other and ground crew deciding whether or not to inform the passengers.  What would you want?  45 minutes of oblivion then fade to black? Or would you want to make use of that time? The pilots decided to let the passengers know their fate. After an initial horrified panic, each settled into his or her own space and got busy. No one told anyone else what they SHOULD do, no time for that. Some prayed, many wrote to their loved ones placing the notes inside luggage most like to survive. Recovered letters were filled with assurances of love and that the writer was not afraid, that no one should fear for them, or have nightmares of them swept up in a terrified hell.

Now, my automatic reaction to watching these calm people would be to picture myself in the same circumstances screaming and, since being charged with murder was off the table, likely being shoved out a cargo bay by more mature individuals who frankly didn’t have time for my crap.

But something different happened as I watched. What occurred to me was that these passengers were ordinary people, just like me. No more or less mature, no more or less anxious, no more or less unique. In that moment, I realized that, in those circumstances, I, too, would pull out of the petty worries and neuroses that governed my life before. That I, too, would THINK instead of letting my emotions–those evil torturers always living in the future–take charge of the last minutes of my life.

You would, too. Which means this better life, this life less controlled by run-away emotions…is within your grasp. Onward…big grin.

 

Have you ever wanted to stop time?  Know the future?   Accomplish a complex goal quickly? 

One night a few years ago, I woke up at three a.m., my head whirling with all that I needed to accomplish and all the questions I had about the future.  If I could just know NOW what was around the next corner.  Then I would know how to invest my time and energy. The not knowing was making me (I was making me) crazy and sleepless.

I went into my home office and slipped a book off the shelf, “The Snow Leopard.”  At the moment, I’m in my Dallas International World Headquarters Hilton and thus cannot quote exactly, but the pages opened to a scene in which the narrator was doubting whether or not he could finish his trek into the Himalayas…when a grasshopper in his path spoke to him. ( Remember, not a quote…been years… the important part is the message.)

The narrator asked the grasshopper how he could so bravely bounce up into the air and come down again on the path when the slightest wrong tilt or gust of wind and he’d be in flight for two miles straight down. The grasshopper answered something like this. “What choice do I have or does anyone really have?  I go foward, one step at a time with all my spirit.  What happens, happens.  It’s my path to go one step at a time.”

I was reminded that no matter how we try, this is our job.  To put one foot in front of the other with courage. 

One foot in front of the other, not skittering off the path in fear of what might happen, not taking side paths out of fear, and somehow, some way bringing something to the human struggle.

My goal is to bring  a smile now and then. Two guys are talking.

First Guy: “I saw a clown one street over.”

Second Guy: “Was it a clown, or just someone dressed up like a clown?”

Mexico…

“Everything fun is dangerous.”

This T-Shirt caption had me thinking how each person has their own comfort zone.  How, for example, for some people horses and writing are in that comfort space and website development means stepping just beyond and being anxious like crazy. Anxiety is the body’s response to real or perceived threats. How could learning a skill be threatening? 

Learning a new skill can be threatening if you have the belief you are supposed to already know everything, or have the belief that everything should be easy for you.

Which got me to thinking, ”To what degree have I let my choices be determined by my Emotional Guidance System’s desire to avoid anxiety?” To what degree have I held others back, my Emotional Guidance System in charge and tossing out all sorts of scary things like “What if __happens. . . .But, what if__ . . .”

Oh, I probably shoud mention the picture on the T-shirt caption showed a flaming skeleton on a Harley.

If you are what you think…then I am an unemployed wannabe writer with a bleak panhandling career look forward to.

The world you make up in your head, and respond to, is More Real and has more Affect on your life than the factual one. Right?

Following this line of “reasoning,”I’m sad to report that I no longer a writer. No book coming out this summer. No big party. You see, this morning at Jim’s Restaurant (My local international world headquarters) I lost the little case in which I store my flash drives. Yep. All three manuscripts…somewhere out there amongst my friends, the coffee shop people.  Might as well have just emailed the manuscripts to a random guy on the internet who wanted to make a few bucks pirating stories. You are following?…I lost ALL my years of hard work in one quick swoop.

“I’m done,” I tell the spouse. “There’s no point in writing,” I continue, “if I’m too much of a mess to even keep up with my manuscripts.” “I can’t believe I’m such a loser–in more ways than one.”

The little mean replica in my head is saying, “You bet you screwed up. Your career is officially over!”

My spouse, daredevil that he is, tried to suggest that, just maybe, whoever found the drives  wouldn’t immediately open the content and think, “Wow! I’ve hit a gold mine! I’m going to publish these wonderful books and have all the benefits of a writer without a lick of work because I–being the luckiest person in the world–have stumbled across what is Obviously my personal winning lottery ticket!” This had to be said rather delicately.

I was in a tough spot. I either had to keep insisting that my words were unbelivale treasures which made me look grandiose or accept that maybe the finder wouldn’t immediately think dollar signs–which means my words aren’t the next Moby Dick. I settled for skipping that issue and claiming, either way, I’m too big an idiot to carry this author thing off.  Which he, of course, refuted…(But who can trust him? He said I’d look great in a string bikini.)…suggesting that just maybe–since my editors and publishers hadn’t burned what I’d written, I’d already proven myself as a writer…and, just maybe…someone else having a copy would amount to nothing since there are edited copies all over the states.

Fine. He didn’t get it…word theives were hanging around me all the time, mixing with the paparazi. I climbed in my car heading back to my base station. I didn’t allow myself to listen to comedy radio.

I found the flash drive dealie on my desk.  I wonder if I can get my job back?  

  I did something right.  As you recall from the Night of the Living Fetticine  (See “The Fetticine Incident”), as a basic start on this idea of working toward a life not quite a hundred percent driven by our EMOTIONAL GUIDANCE SYSTEMS,  I’m starting small.  In this case with something as simple as deciding on what to eat late at night based on something more than the part of my brain screaming, “I WANT WHAT I WANT NOW  and I do not care about later.” 

Why?  Because there is a later.  I mean, unless that screaming I WANT, I WANT, I WANT voice gets me so excited and in a hurry that I choke on an over-robust forkful of that feckless pasta. . . I guess . . . in that case, I’m off the hook on this whole emotional maturity business.

However, assuming I survive my midnight meal, I will have to deal with the “after”, as I did (pitifully with the fetticine) and as I did last night when . . . but, yes, I managed a small victory.

And here’s how I did it.  Honest.  I actually applied something I taught in my classes on Natural Systems Therapy.  

Scene:  It’s midnight and, since I place the importance of meal planning right up there with catching up on my political reading, I am, of course, starving.  I’d picked up some yogurt, blueberries, and nutty granola thinking that would go well, but now I FEEL too hungry for something so simple and something that requires scooping the yogurt from a jar, and taking out and opening and closing two or three other containers–sheesh.  What a lot of trouble. Another option is a leftover kung pao yaki soba shrimp bowl, which is sounding pretty tasty and more satisfying.  Also, all the yaki soba required was one minute in the micro, then I could eat it right out of the bowl.

BUT THEN!    Memories of billowing fetticine whirl in my head.  I decide to take action.

I sat down with a paper napkin and wrote on the left hand side:  Choice of the EMOTIONAL GUIDANCE SYSTEM.  On the right I wrote: Choice of the THINKING GUIDANCE SYSTEM.

Below these I wrote.  What kind of night, all night, do I want to have?    What kind of person do I want to be an hour from now?  In the morning? 

Then I just sat with it for a minute, chatting it over with the Crazy Dog.  Then, I made a LOGICAL, FACT-BASED deal with myself.  I’d fix that nice bowl of yogurt, even though the effort looked like making Thanksgiving dinner.)  If, I was still starving after that, I’d return to my paper napkin exercise with all my options open.

I did it and I survived.  This was like the kids I taught to jump, taking a chance, challenging their fears, jumping over a pole on the ground.  Okay, a bowl of yogurt and fruit is a small step.  But the night didn’t have to go that way.