On Being Annoying, Part 1

One of the funny elements about complaining as a way of managing anxiety…is that when someone points out we’re complaining or being negative, we actually DENY we’re complaining at all.  I mean, that’s funny.  We people are funny.

*Woman A: “The way the seating is arranged in this restaurant is really stupid.”

*Woman B: “There you go, complaining.”

*Woman A: “No I’m not.  I just think they could do what they are doing better.”

     **Man: “I bet your sister is going to bring that slimy carrot and orange Jello salad, again.”

     **Woman: “There you go, being negative before we even get there.”

     **Man: “I’m not being negative, I just making the observation that your sister has brought the same disgusting salad to every meal since I’ve been in the family.”

 Or my personal favorite ‘gripe and deny’ method—

      ***Woman: “I can’t believe you wore that to the party.”

      ***Man: “There you go, being negative.”

      ***Woman: “No, I’m not. I’m just trying to help.”

Variations on the Complaining Re-direct include:

      Person A:  “There you go being negative.”

      The ‘Popeye Response’:  “I y’am the way I y’am.”  or,   The Competitive Complaining Response: “You’re the one keeping me awake last night going on about your sister.”

Part Two on Complaining as a way of Annoying People … will give you the chance to determine your dominant complaining method.  For now, let’s understand how negative remarks change our lives.  Remember we people are not just funny, we are predictable.  We move toward positive experiences; we move away from punishing experiences. 

Let’s say each of us is surrounded by a bubble of atoms or air we’ll call our atmosphere.  Our ‘atmosphere’ often overlaps with others so that we have sort of a couple or a group ‘atmosphere’.  Each word and expression has a plus or minus quality that jiggles the atoms either in a ‘feel better’ way or a ‘feel worse’ way.  Or, think of the ‘atmosphere’ as having a plus or minus rating on a graph, such as the kind used to follow the ups and downs of a stock.  Every expression, every word, ticks the line on the graph up or down…sometimes a little, sometimes a lot. 

This means, as we study the art of negativity further, we can choose how to affect the systems of which we are a part.  Our Emotional Guidance System, however, does not agree.  That wimpy tyrant exaggerates the influence of others… “You made me depressed, angry, and complaining.”  And minimizes personal choice…. “After he complained about me, I did what I had to do.  I drove my motor cycle into a ditch.”

Note: Okay, I hear you five star complainers out there already saying:  “But whyis the ambience, the ‘feel’ of my relationship altered just because I point out a problem?…It shouldn’t be….He should be tougher….No one should be bothered by what I say….Oh, and you shouldn’t be correcting me. You should be paying more attention to your own negative behavior.” …….All of which is COMPLAINING, by the way.

Could we humans be any funnier? 

Since complaining…that someone is complaining….is actually complaining….

When I left Austin for Columbia, South Carolina, expecting a three hour flight, I’d already begun salivating on the lovely room service I’d order around 7.  Filet, medium, Caesar side salad, and a baked potato. The restaurant in the Hilton, I knew was a Ruth’s Chris…so…ah… (sound of trumpets).

When I arrived in Columbia, South Carolina, at 3:45 in the morning—starving because I’d had too much pride (which usually translates to ‘I was too stubborn’) to fall for Denial Danny’s ‘free’ granola bars—what I actually had for dinner was a Lean Cuisine shrimp and noodles.  Yes, some hotels have this little pantry and a microwave near the front desk.  I hit four minutes on the micro cooking my dinner while I checked in.  I stumbled up to my room, threw my belongings about, found a re-run of Nancy Grace and opened my cuisine.

The only way I can account for the horror under the plastic lid is that the ‘meal’ required at least twice the prep time I allowed.  We’re talking cold shrimps looking like gray worms.  I stabbed my plastic fork into the ‘pasta’ and all three tines popped off when they hit the frozen chunk in the middle. 

I went from a Ruth’s Chris steak to this…. Oh, I know…if my Emotional Guidance System hadn’t been in full hysterical charge of my actions… I might have bothered to read cooking instructions or test the food before….

Changes in my plans are unfortunate, unpleasant, and inconvenient…but not a disaster unless I decide to make it one.   I DECIDE.  YEEEEEEK….THIS IS UNBELIVABLE……….

Remember, our goal is to work toward improved emotional functioning…to have our actions (inward and outward) be more and more determined by our Best Thinking…that is our Thinking Guidance System…and less and less have our actions determined by emotional pressure from other people or from within ourselves…our Emotional Guidance System.

And this continuing example represents one, feeble psychologist’s reminder of how tough efforts toward maturity can be.  My goal is that my own humiliating lack of mature functioning will inspire some other soul to do better…

Dateline:  Chicago O’Hare. Second leg of re-routed trip to Columbia, South Carolina. (See ‘A Case of Attempted Maturity at 30,000 Feet’).

Technically, the journey to Columbia was supposed to be completed three hours ago, and I was supposed to be enjoying a club sandwich and a glass of iced fume blanc from room service.  But, I’ve adjusted.  I’m doing great.  I’ll make good use of having an extra three hours in the airport.  I’ve proved something to myself and, hopefully, showed you guys what can be done if you give your Thinking Guidance System a chance.  After several determined minutes of repeated saying to myself: “While the changes in my plans… are unfortunate, uncomfortable, and inconvenient ….this is not a disaster unless I decide to make it one….”  I was almost giddy, I felt so ‘in charge’ of my emotions. 

I enjoy a sandwich while standing since no chairs are available in the jammed food court.  But, I’m cool.  My special person called on his way to the basketball game, asked me how I thought it would turn out, and I LAUGHED and remarked I was sure it would be great fun.  There had been a pause, then he asked, “Wow. Where did you get this enthusiasm, missing the game and all yourself?”  

Not knowing what awaited, I twittered back something nice, something airy and sophisticated, showing off my hard-fought managing of my Emotional Guidance System.

United Express 6960 boards right on time.  Swell.  Things are looking up, I pat myself on the back for handling the inconveniences of air travel with the maturity of a guru.  I smile at my fellow travelers.  Behind me are two young men heading to Ft. Jackson for basic training and then to who-knows-where.  I thank them for their service.  One, we’ll call him Arnold, since he’s joining the Army, mentions that he’s never flown before.  His seatmate from the same small Ohio town, cuffs him on the back.  I add reassurances….because I’m such a seasoned and easy-going flyer.  Because I can read the future and everything’s going to be just fine, I say, motherly like.

Army Arnold is the first one of us to crack after we’d sat unmoving, the door not closed for over an hour.  “What if something wrong with the plane?”Arnold asks.  “Oh, not to fret,” I say. ”This kind of hold-up happens all the time.  They can make up the time in the air.” 

“Good,” Army Arnold says, because they have a bus to catch and a two-hour ride to Ft. Jackson.  “Not to worry,” I patter on, “you’ll be there before midnight.”  Now right here, some sort of survival instinct should have kicked in. Why do I have to make things worse for myself by talking about things I know nothing about? 

Ten minutes later, the pilot, Positive Pete a voice who I will come to know well, comes on to ‘update’ our adventure party.  It seems the airport computers usually sending pre-flight data are down…Thus, the needed paperwork, as we speak, is being hand-carried… and, as soon as the paperwork arrives, we’ll be off in a jiff.  Of course. This is not a disaster…unless I decide to make it one.

That word, ‘jiff’… a jiff.  A JIFF.  So innocent, so reassuring.   Our flight attendant, Denial Danny, passes out free granola bars.  Now, I’m not bitching about the granola bars….it just seemed a bit of a reach when Denial Danny’s emphasized the word ‘free’ as if an ounce of sugared oats should make us even with the airline for being late. …Sometimes, late at night, in one of my many branch Hiltons…a cruel voice calls to me out of the darkness…taunting me with just one word over and over.  JIFF.

Maybe I’m just too immature to fly.  The ticket agent in Austin telling me my flight was three hours late and I’d need some serious re-routing…she seemed to be of that opinion.  She kept saying, “Would you stop saying I’m ruining your day….I am not personally doing anything to you…Also, would you mind picking your forehead up off the counter, ma’am?”  What did she want from me?  I’d already stopped crying.

Dateline: American Flight 2486  Austin to Chicago.  Right now I am high above the clouds after an on-time departure at 1:15.  Sounds simple enough, right?  Well, not really.  Since I wasn’t planning on going to Chicago…Or, for that matter any further north than Dallas.   But I am not captain of my fate.

Instead of the trip I booked—Austin (Leave at 10:43a.m.) –Dallas (an hour later)-Columbia, South Carolina-Arrive Columbia at 2:00. 

My current routing is —Austin-Chicago (Yes, I actually lose ground)-Wait 4 hours, then Arrive Columbia at 10:00 tonight.  

Now I’m squeezed into a middle seat in the back by the toilet on American Flight 2486 to Chicago (instead of the exit leg-room seat I’d so carefully reserved in that little ole thirty minute leap to DFW) I am surrounded by a family of five adults and one child from one of those less hygienically obsessed nations.  Boarding of the plane was held up when this family attempted to board with ten freight-sized luggage carriers way beyond the size of carry-on.  In all, the six were coming aboard with thirteen bags thinking they’d discovered a loophole in Americans policy of charging for extra checked bags. Apparently, my seatmates were moving to Chicago and hoping to save on the moving van. …I don’t want to be rude…you of all people know how desperately I wish I wasn’t noticing any of this stuff.  But I want you to know what I’m working with here.  This is more than my usual what-no-almonds-only-peanuts flying trauma.

Knowing that these six people dressed in a manner uncommon among U.S. citizens…actually drug all these bags through security without a flicker…well, it’s scary, that’s all I’m saying.   Usually, security spots overage issues.  Once preparing to board flight from Kansas City to Tulsa to attend a wedding…I attempted to board with a computer, a book bag, and the dress for the wedding in a plastic laundry bag.  I was stopped and told—“Two carry-ons, one which must fit under your seat, ma’am,”…forcing me to….while in line… remove the dress from its hanger slide it up over my jeans…wiggle out of my jeans…then holding the dress up as best I could over my top half, pull my T-shirt over my head, catching the sleeves up and re-covering myself…all of this while walking and not holding up the line… as I stuffed my jeans and shirt into the book bag.

Oh well.  Refreshments….Sometimes the flight attendants start the beverage cart at the back, sometimes the front, even the middle once in a while for variety. Wanna take your best shot at where they’re starting beverage service on this flight?

Okay.  Instead of focusing on the unpleasantries of my situation, that is, instead of listening to my Emotional Guidance System… which is screaming: “This is ridiculous!  Overwhelming! This should not be happening!” …I am going to attempt a leap…a little hop…in functioning.  I am going to play around with a few sentences I have heard represent the internal dialogue of more mature persons.

Therefore I shall use this screen to practice saying to myself:

Okay, I can’t just leap into this.

I need to make a couple of things clear at this point.  The changes in my plans include: triple time in the air, nine and a half hour later arrival, almost six hours on layover, another night of vending machine food instead of a nice bounty from Hilton room service, crap television watching prison reality shows heavily dosed with infomercials instead of watching the University of Texas basketball game at 8 o’clock and AROUND WHICH I CAREFULLY SCHEDULED THIS WHOLE TRIP, stand-by seat assignments over preferred seating, who knows what kind of hotel room, since the only rooms left will, for sure, be dingy closets next to the clanking ice machine [Okay, I’m not totally sure this will happen. It’s possible I’m judging the future on my own history of switching rooms.]…And, since I will have passed up my usual go-to-sleep window by the time I’m settled in my shabby hole-in-the-wall with my stale peanuts and staring at violent prisoners throwing body fluids on staff…I will end up taking some Benadryl to drop off…which means waking up tomorrow with dry mouth and slight memory loss.

I just arrived in Chicago.  I asked the agent where I could find the gate for the next flight since it was another airline.  The flight attendant looked at me and asked, “Are you going to WALK the whole way?” 

“I guess,” I said.  “Is there a bus or train?” I asked.  The attendant said, “No.”        

To be continued when I can stop the shaking.  All did not go well.

In my more mature Thinking Guidance System moments, I have admitted…even, gasp, … pointed out that our most frequent response to anxiety is criticism. 

Thus, if I were able to learn from such an obvious statement…you’d never hear about the naked lunch.  Because I’d be too cool to have been part of it…or at least I’d be cool enough to fake that I was too cool to have slid down the slope of maturity, totally in the grip of my Emotional Guidance System…but I’m not that good.

Oh forget it.  I’m not even cool enough to stick with a pre-emptive apology for my anxiety-run-amok naked lunch….If you feel saddened and ache for a psychogist who’s perfect…(not a psychologist, really)…Dr. L’s out there, more than ready to tell you how much better she would handle absolutely everything…perfectly…and, for sure, better than I did.

I sat down for the luncheon.  Just when I thought I could relax, unbutton that metal snap digging me a second naval…and enjoy sharing lunch with new buddies…the whole plan went dark.  Just when I thought I could relax, unbutton that metal snap digging me a second naval…and enjoy sharing lunch with new buddies…the whole plan went dark.

When I slipped into this fiction writing gig, I imagined one of the pluses would be that I’d have the opportunity to hang with other writers…that we’d wile away the hours sharing our foibles over endless margaritas…confessing the dark transgressions inspiring our stories.

I pictured something rich like Hemingway leaning against the bar in a Madrid alley tavern, one arm around Scott Fitzgerald while F. Scott cried and admitted his wife’s Zelda’s insanity, one arm around a whiskey bottle.  I thought it was a rule:  To be a writer, you must be riddled with flaws.

Apparently, my expectation was no more than wishful thinking…and, perhaps, my rationalizing that my many spectacular screw-ups bring something useful into my life.  Lunch went thusly.  I sat down with other writers at the sponsored conference lunch….I looked around…right away I knew the black cowboy hat was a mistake….but, heck, I know my sneaky, anxiety-fueled Emotional Guidance System usually convinces me that I have nothing in common with new people I meet…people I love once I’ve calmed down.  I settled in.

I ordered coffee.  The man across from me began a lecture on why he’d given up all caffeine.  The woman next to him suggested several herbal teas she enjoyed now that she had advanced from being a vegetarian to the more green-friendly lifestyle of a vegan.  The man next to me took out his bottle of water to replace his iced water goblet…

Cue up the background music now…the soundtrack from Jaws…growing louder and louder. Cue up the killer shark, circling.  I am but foolish tiny fish, so insignificant, I’m about to be sucked through the shark’s grinding digestive system without notice, spit out along with the plankton and algae.

I’ve had many people ask, “Don’t you think the best writers are depressed?”

Well, I’m not depressed that often, but I am the proud owner of many vices and disturbing failures acquired on this journey.  I guess my mistake was thinking that among other mystery and thriller writers there were others whose characters and stories began with scarred knees and best forgotten nights on the border, and not just the Texas-Mexico border…the borders of love, law, sanity, and overindulgence.  But, as usual, I gravely misread what I was up against.

Okay, back to the banquet luncheon.  (Jaws soundtrack…picture yours truly as Tweety Bird in a black cowboy hat.)  The subject of drugs and the border came up and, since border mayhem was a subject I knew something about, a readily jumped in.  I mentioned the hardship of my friends in Mexico losing businesses built over generations because of the hideous actions of the drug cartels. I described how the police at the Mexico City Benito Juarez Airport wear masks because if a man is identified as working for the authorities, he will return home to find his family…wife, grandma, the babies…everyone dead.

I expected a cool reception since most strangers to the border have strong feelings about Texans and Mexicans.  But, I was in no way prepared for what happened next…manana, promise.

Dateline: American Airlines flight from DFW to Indianapolis.
Emotional Status: Low. Emotional Guidance System in complete control. I feel like…think that…I don’t want to go to Indianapolis for six days. Slipping into an emotional swimming pool of exaggeration…I’m quite sure every moment of the trip will be a pain and I likely will never recover from the experience. So that’ the back story. Now. The challenge. I’m thinking about ‘decisions’ as I’m writing on decision making…
The flight is late. I lurk around the ticket counter trying to decide if I want to spring for an upgrade. And why would I cough up an extra hundred dollars for a two hour flight? Why because I’m on the edge and I’m hungry.
I ask and learn there is one seat left in first class if I want to upgrade…I wonder down the concourse, my stomach twisting with the decision. I find a Blue Mesa Fast Taco. I have three.
The urge to upgrade is gone. As I board the plane, I pass the empty first class seat. The ajacent seat is occupied with one of the largest men I’ve ever seen. He has two scotch minis on his tray.

I settle into my seat in the exit row. The middle next to me remains empty.
I am a WINNER! I guessed right. I have superpowers!
How pathetic is that? When your Emotional Guidance System is in charge…life is really scary. If the plane had been on time, I would have upgraded, and been a wreck because I guessed wrong. Life isn’t easy when you live it as a weenie.

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.

Dateline: Dallas, Texas.  Hilton Branch Office

Is your desire to avoid something a fear based excuse or is there a factual reason you should avoid the activity?

The Point:  Being able to tell the difference between when you are avoiding something because… you have thoroughly experienced the activity before and determined factually that your participation in the activity makes no sense…and the times when you are avoiding an activity, saying you are operating from facts…but, in truth, you’re just afraid…Telling the difference between these two is important.

Clue:  An example of the first occurs when you eat tacos from a street stand in Mexico City several times and each time become violently ill…An example of the second type occurs when you didn’t have a date to the Eighth Grade Valentine Dance and you told your friends and yourself that you didn’t like dancing.

Code red:  Once again, going against unrelenting screaming evidence against such an endeavor….one more time….I determined that I would fix my website myself.  After all, everyone I ask about the wisdom of such an effort, jumps in with “Oh, yeah.  You can do it.  Anyone can do it.”

What could get me to undertake such foolishness?  Anxiety, of course.  Anxiety because the site isn’t perfect and I want it fixed NOW.  Thus, “I have to do what I have to do to get rid of this anxiety.  Prisons are filled with people having these same thoughts. I did try to listen to My Thinking Guidance System, that part of the mind capable of reviewing the past. 

My Thinking Guidance System said: “Look, you’ve let your anxiety seduce you into this website fixing fantasy before…and it was one step forward and two yards back.  It took days before you were back to where you started…You were a crazy person, a miserable mate, and you PROMISED me, your logical self, that you would never, ever, even with a gun at your head…never, ever…pull the first curtain of mystery code aside from your website and attempt….emphasis on ATTEMPT…to make improvements on your own….

My Emotional Guidance System said:  “You don’t understand.  This time is different.  I’m so anxious, I squeaked.  “I’ll just try a little…”

Thinking Guidance System:  “Nooooooo…save yourself… you WILL regret this…”

Emotional Guidance System:  “No, really, if the project starts to go South, I’ll abort.  I’ll come right back to the beginning and get some help.”

Of course, the above reasoning… if  my pathetic rationalizing and delusional ignoring of the past can be called reasoning…assumed…once I began my project, once I punched that button that said, “Consider your next move carefully as data and programming could be permanently erased from your computer,” ….there would be a way back.

Where ever you are, whatever you might have been doing on your computer at approximately two p.m., Central Standard Time, yesterday…if you experienced a random crash…I’m sure I caused it.  Also, that scream you so faintly heard coming from the central southwest…that was mine, too.

And what do we do when we get anxious?  Yep.  Go random and fling money around.  Yes, dazed and confused, I signed up for a site promising ten thousand website templates anyone can use….which I can’t even bring up.  Another fifty bucks into the Emotional Guidance System kitty.  So, I owe you one.  Go ahead and buy that new “breakthrough in abdominal flattening science”…..the thing that where you get on your hands and knees, lock your knees into these little cups, and whirl side-to-side…and you have the flat belly you’ve always dreamed of without any effort at all!”  Then we’ll be even.

How much of our lives do we spend doing things we don’t want (or need) to do because we say, “Yes” when we meant “No?”   I’m not talking about the things we do that make us uncomfortable, but are the ” right” things, such as family activities or the temptation we humans have to want to give up when we “feel” defeated, and claim we didn’t really choose the goals we’ve set for ourselves.  I’m talking about all the many opportunities when we know our participation is not necessary, but we say ”Yes” to escape the anxiety arousedwith displeasing another person…who by definition…can do without our contribution. 

And, you are never safe.  Never.  When you least expect it, someone else.. whose super-powers are hidden under the disguise of a being a “helper” will recognize your weakness and pounce… taking control of your feelings and your life with the skill of the ’Body Snatchers’.  Helpers.  Yeah, right.  

One of these “helpers” attacked me minutes ago.  She forced me to carry items she knew I couldn’t manage, and almost got me killed in a car accident….Okay, maybe not killed, but I did veer over onto the shoulder at the height of the action.  Also, the scene on the front seat was prit-tee messy.

I believe it is my duty to warn you about this woman.  There I was, all gears running with my Best Thinking in charge, my Emotional Guidance System on the back burner, at about 9:45 PM in Dallas picking up supper at Eatzi’’s to take to my Dallas Hilton branch headquarters.  Okay, just  to cover my bases.  Just maybe… when I had them box up five huge shrimp ($39,99 a pound), my Emotional Guidance System had a bit of influence. 

Back to the Dragon Lady.  She appeared from nowhere, a small woman really.  She was just there in front of me as I exited with her chef’’s desert tray locked and loaded. The Body Snatcher disguised as a chef  offers me a giant chocolate-covered strawberry or perhaps, a whipped cream-loaded mini tart with a strawberry, blueberries and fresh pineapple.  I say, quite nicely and sincerly as I’m  not really big on sweets, and I had my sidesaddle loaded down with shrimp,  ”No, thanks.”  You’d think  a person could see I wasn’t in the market and move on, but she didn’t.  Which only makes the resulting shoulder-veering incident more obviously the responsibility of this demon-disguised-as-helper person. 

You see, she kept on with level two presure…guilt. ”If you don’t take them, we’ll just throw them away.”  What could I do?  I took not one but three, thinking, oh well, I’ll say “yes” to escape the immediate anxiey, then throw them in the trash on my way out.  Did I mention these treats were on flimsy lacy things….maybe what happened is the responsibility of whoever made those lacy doily things…

I head of Eatzi’s for the car balancing the shrimp, two kinds of sauce, a container of coleslaw and now three gooey treats not in containers.  I reach the first trash can….I look back.  The Dragon Lady isn’t watching, but there are several peolple sitting at the outdoor table who saw me accept the goodies.  No way I can throw them away now.  After all,  what kind of person will these Total Strangers  think I am?

Thus I climb in, settle the seafood shotgun and the treats on the dash, handy to throw out when I reach hotel across the street.  Which would have worked maybe,  if they hadn’t started to slide when a car pulled out in front  of me, and I had’t jerked the wheel in a  fruitless attempt atpreveningt the treats sliding onto the seat and the floor.

Who is responsible for this debacle?  Eatzi’s.  They shouldn’t make more items than they can sell each day.  The Dragon Lady.  She should have picked up on my “not a sweets person” vibe and left me alone.  The people sitting at the table outside .  If they hadn’t so obviosly been judging me, I could have rid myself of the problem.  The guy who pulled out of the drive onto the road.  Well, that’s just obvious.  He knew it was me and that I was in a precarious situation,  but decided to pull out in front of me to show his disrespect. 

Me?  Nada….  I’m a victim.  What’s that you say?….I had a choice?  That I could have said “No” and the chef lady would probably gotten over it? 

Oh.  I know I only gave two elements of the Triple Blame Whammy.  Three’s coming.

The more you take personally, the tougher life you’re going to have. 

From an article in one of the many free magazines that come to my office. (Why is it my little practice gets fifteen to twenty free mags a month and all I find in my doc’s offices are vintage Field and Stream and Parents’ Weekly?):

 ”I wish people would stop saying ‘God bless you’ when I sneeze…”  Complaintant goes on to rant about how distressed he is that when he sneezes people he doesn’t even know foul his private space and push their version of religion on him. 

What?

“Which is more important?  The world you can actually touch?  Or the world (full of rude, intrusive, mean religion-force-feeders) you are responding to?”

Now I’m pretty twitchy and quick to expect criticism.  (Especially from those ladies in lab coats at the cosmetic counters.  They see right into me and know about every night I’ve landed in bed without a thought to taking off make-up, which would be would every night).

But, demanding that all the people in the world stop trying to be kind?  Does he really think people ignoring other people is a swell way to go?  Does he really think that when a stranger takes the time out of their day to say “God bless you” their plan is to invade…  This has to be a terrible way to live  if allergies where he lives are anything like they are here.  Maybe this guy should stay in his house or wear a sign, “In case I sneeze, do not say ‘God bless you’.”  That probably won’t work though, because, what are the odds that the same people who see your INSTRUCTIONS ON HOW THEY ARE SUPPOSED TO LIVE their lives will be the same people on the other side of the cereal aisle when that sneeze comes on?  Not too good.

I mean, I can go through the cosmetic department at warp speed with my eyes slotted straight ahead like I’m late for an appointment inside the mall.  But, you can’t time a sneeze like that.  Could happen anywhere, anytime…poof, the guy’s invaded by rude people. 

Oh well.  I’m reminded of a long ago woman who, like the rest of of us, was experiencing major pre-Christmas stress. On this particular day she lamented how she dreaded going to her mother-in-law’s for Christmas because Grandmother always went so overboard buying presents for the children.  “What kind of values are the kids learning?”  (This, save the character of the poor children argument is commonly used to justify what we want. Apparently, if we don’t stop relatives from being themselves, our children will all end up in prison.)  “She’s just ridiculous with the gifts,” she said.

“That’s it?” I asked.  “Grandma’s too generous and must be stopped?  That’s all you got?”

She smiled.

“Which is more important? The world that is made up of facts, or the WORLD AS YOU SEE IT?”

On an afternoon in August, I was mowing the lawn when I ran out of gas.  Whew.  As if perspiration wasn’t already blinding me.  I located the full gas can and returned to the mower in the middle of the back yard.  I opened the gasoline hatch and rotated the handle off the can. 

Great. The gas can had an opening about four inches in diameter and flat on the top of the vessel and the hatch in the mower was less than an inch across.  How was I supposed to do this?  The heat was killing me.  My EMOTIONAL GUIDANCE SYSTEM was launching me into idiot ramblings such as, ”Why am I the one out here in this heat?  I do everything around here! I’m not even supposed to be out in the heat. Who left the mower half empty anyway? My whole life has been just like this.  Me getting stuck with all the hideous jobs.”  And . . . for leading role in Playing Victim, the nominees are . . .

Okay. So fine.  I could make this work.  (Motto as a child:  If at first you don’t succeed, force it.)

I’m not helpless, right?  I go into the house and search for a funnel for twenty minutes. Right. We didn’t have a hammer.  What made me think I could find something as specific as a funnel? “Why am I the one always stuck without the right tools?  I could use the urn from the coffee machine . . . no, that sounds risky as far as future coffee.  I collect several manilla folders from my home office and head out, patting myself on my sweaty back because I am such a genius. 

Back at the mower, I make a funnel out of one folder and pour.  It collapses.  Fine. My hands are shaking like crazy.  I’m blind. A bit dizzy. Yet, clever girl that I am, I persevere.  I made a tiered, graduated funnel using six manilla folders.  And it works!  I stand over the mower wondering exactly what the chances are that a breeze could set the mower, gasoline folders, and me up in a mushroom of flames.  Particularly since I can’t control my body movements my knees being shot and all.  My mood?  Victim has racheted up to snivelling and just wait until . . .

I turn to return the cap to the gasoline can.  Which is when I notice that the “cap” for the tank, which I had unscrewed and set aside, is actually an excellent, pliable funnel.

This is my world, and welcome to it.

Tomorrow: How Much Does Your PERCEPTION determine your life?

 Okay.  Some more on FUSION . . . sticking yourself to someone else’s anxiety.  Making THEIR anxiety about YOU. 

We lose power over ourselves when we cannot operate separately . . . when our “mood” is determined by the “mood” of another person. When our sense of doing okay is dependant on another person (usually a spouse or a child) doing okay . . . we are going to try very hard to keep the other person calm so that we can be calm.  Though, of course, we deny such a motivation.  We say we are twisting into a pretzel to keep them calm . . . because we are just TRYING TO HELP THEM. 

  Operating to keep everyone around you calm is very tiring. 

The “Women in Therapy” Incident:  At last, this example is a time when I actually managed to stay separate, calm, in charge, and barely ruffled.  At least I did in “Women in Therapy, Part 1.”

  Part One.  My husband had an important deposition on this particular afternoon.  I was out at the stable schooling my horse in a jumper ring away from the barn.  The stable phone at the ring chimed several times, but as it was always for the kids that rode and dismounting to pick it up was a real hassle, I paid no attention.  When I finished riding and returned to the main barn the phone continued to ring and, as I was right by it and not on a horse, I answered it.  It was my husband–ballistic.  His car wouldn’t start and he’d been trying to reach me. (We lived near the stable.) I rescued him as quickly as possible. Still he filled the twenty minutes to downtown in a rain of fury . . . of course returning to the faithful topic of the time and money I spent on the horses. 

Here’s the thing.  My big moment of emotional steadiness.  I did not get angry or even particularly anxious. I knew he wasn’t really upset by me. I knew  he was okay with the horses.  He was anxious about the trial to come and providing the best deposition he could for his client.  What he said, for once, didn’t set off defensiveness. I took in my book and read in the lobby during his deposition.  On the way home he apologized as I knew he would.  And I said I was okay, I knew he knew I would never have intentionally left him out to dry.

Okay.  That was Part One.  You did notice the halo and the little blue birdies fluttering about?   Cue up “Whistle While You Work.”

Tomorrow, Part Two.  It’s not nearly as lovely. 

 

It’s really hard to change the way we habitually deal with anxiety.  So celebrate your little victories and do not water the times when your EMOTIONAL GUIDANCE SYSTEM takes charge and you waste time, can’t sleep, make a fool of yourself, irritate someone you love, procrastinate, get into too big a hurry and make a mess… and others. 

Think of the emotional field of people, job, traffic, weather, friends, etc. as the GARDEN IN WHICH YOU LIVE.  And, while we’re MAKING UP THE WORLD IN WHICH WE LIVE (since we humans can’t help it.) Your garden has rows and rows and rows of blooming possibilities. Some rows were planted for you (family) and some you planted yourself.

A garden is a CHANGING ORGANIC ELEMENT.  We tend to the of the SELF as stagnant.  Fixed.  Maybe even broken and stuck that way.  A good part of our SELF GARDEN we keep hidden from others, some from ourselves.  The good news?

A garden CHANGES ALL THE TIME.  Some change is out of our control–weather–so we’re not going to waste energy trying to change what is beyond our power, right?  If you’re short, you’re short. If you’re young you’re young and if you’re not young, you’re not–no matter how many Extenz drinks you buy (Yep, you only pay shipping and handling, of course. But have you really ever thought how much it might cost to receive a soft drink through the mail? And that doesn’t count how much it costs for them to “handle” your drink–another one of those “let’s just make up a figure” expenses.) 

Or creams or surgeries or, God forbid, have you even seen that full-body spandex thing info-mercial? It’s a garment that, somehow, the women in the ad are able to get into and the “before” and “after” shots are prit-tee impressive. I will mention that the photos are all of women standing.  Attempt to sit down or breathe and all bets are off.

Where is Yoda when I need him?  Manana.

 Picture yourself as having a telephone punch pad on your forehead. 

Each button is a statement or subject that can make you go crazy  (EMOTIONAL GUIDANCE SYSTEM  in charge). 

Which buttons in your system are just waiting to be pushed and you will lose charge of yourself?   For me CRITICISM (real or imagined) is hardest for me to not respond to.  Yep, fling me a criticism and I FUSE with the anxiety of the person doing the flinging.

Yoda Note:  When someone says something ugly about you, it isn’t about you.   It isn’t about you even when it is about you.  Meaning, the other person wouldn’t be pointing out your weak suits if she wasn’t anxious.  So even when the criticism is the truth, the criticism is about the person pointing out your less than perfect parts.

Statements about the right religion or right political party don’t get me going.  I can accept that people, even family members, have the right (the “right,” cute, huh? like I’m running the world) to choose their religion or politics.  No, my buttons have more to do with personal unsteadiness.

  CRITICISM, mostly imagind, gets lead billing on my punch pad.  I can get worked up if some movie star on television makes a crack I don’t agree with, but whoa– I’m much more vulnerable to a “tone” in the voice of my spouse.  I get hooked because, while he’s backing up saying he was joking–I know what his tone meant. He’s really saying I‘m a horrible wife and he should have seen this before we married.

Right…    This is the guy who said, “Hey, you’d look great in a string bikini!” 

  Yesterday, as I walked up to the fancy “to go” window at Mimi’s Restaurant to buy a gift certificate, I noticed flying food.  The lady ahead of me, on receiving her to go salad with a clear plastic top, was screaming, “I said NO croutons!”  She picked off each one (and it was big salad) and threw it into the air.  The little chucks of toast landed in a scatter pattern around her.

I mention the Crouton Lady not to point out how “unevolved” she is next to me, but to say, I can go from cool to food-tossing just as easily.  I’m bringing this up because i still carry some guilt for last week’s “Let’s all just be happy” post.  How flip.  How easy it sounded.    Just smile already.  Someday I may confess my “contract negotiations” on the phone last night with T-Mobile.  Let’s just say for now, during the “conversation” my husband came downstairs because he thought someone must have broken into the house.  And before I hung up, I told the young lady she deserved a gold star and T-Mobile should use the recorded conversation as a training exercise.  That girl was cool in the line of fire  and made the sale. 

We are all working on taking more charge of our lives, working on having less of our lives determined by shear, raging emotions.  But it’s hard.  And we can’t always be successful.  I think of my efforts in terms of the migration of the wildebeests. 

You’ve seen them on Discovery or National Geographic.  There they are thousands, all running full out (I don’t know why they have to migrate at full speed ahead?).  Dust is everywhere, their eyes are wild. Then comes the voice-over of the narrator:

“If you look carefully in that clump of trees off to the side, you’ll catch a glimpse of the lions lying in wait for their prey.  A wildebeest is a good meal.  The lions choose the stragglers, the weak, the slow, the old, the sick wildebeests on the outside edges of the herd.  The easy take-downs.” 

What I’m going for as far as being able to manage my emotions, to not let my feelings, primarily my desire to avoid anxiety, run my life–I just want to work my way a bit into the herd.  I don’t need to lead the pack, I just want to be a tad less vulnerable to my “lions in wait.”

Yes.     The first time I attended a writers’ conference, I didn’t enter a single meeting room.  I just slinked (word?) past open doors and caught a word or two, pretending to be “just passing through.”  I also had a crying fit every night during the first six months of graduate school.     I was sure that somehow the admittance committee which had allowed a moron, me, to slip through the cracks, would one day realize their error and send me back to my extensive fast food career.    

Are you sure you want to read suggestions from someone who’d admit to such weaknesses?  There’s still Dr. L on the radio    who’s perfect and never would have made the mistakes you and I have.

Nah. 

 

And here come the holidays, marching forward like giant challenges to our maturity. 

Come along, we’ll laugh some, we will survive.

 

Anxiety comes not from the FACTS, but from our “WHAT IF’S.”   Mostly–

    WHAT IF I COME OFF LIKE AN IDIOT? 

   

  I’ve been asked to slow down a bit.  Thus–on the subject of FEELINGS. 

You know, those up and down generators and takers-away of energy—those internal operations that mess us up, slow us down, and waste our lives on a regular basis.  Now, I’m not talking about that oozy feeling you get watching a puppy play or the delight at good news.  I’m talking about what happens to your energy when your FEELINGS are hurt, muted, when you’re bored, unmotivated, and anxious.

Think of these feelings as nothing but NOISE.    BLAH, BLAH, BLAH, BLAH!

NOISE.  Reactions designed to keep us from getting eaten from tigers.  Reactions which have gone out of control and KEEP OUR LIVES LESS than they could be. 

When these feelings are in charge we are OVER-FOCUSED on what OTHER PEOPLE are doing and saying or what we think they are doing, saying, and THINKING.

Noise: “I can’t write a short story or novel because real writers will think I’m ridiculous.  I can’t wear a bathing suit in public until others think I look okay, which will be never, so swimming is out.  I’d like to go back to school, but what if I don’t do well?    What if I start writing a novel and never finish?  What if join a dance club to learn salsa and no one asks me to dance?  What if I join a gym and I’m the only one dressed stupidly and who doesn’t know how to use the machines?  I’d like to learn the guitar, but what if I never do anything but sing to myself?”

So, let’s assume ALL THE OTHER PEOPLE IN THE WHOLE WORLD are not doing, saying, or even thinking about you.  What do you do now?  All those doors just come flipping open.   

Confession: The first time I went to a writers’ conference, I didn’t attend a single session.  I was sure I was the only one there without the talent and skills to write a bestseller.  The best I could do was walk down the hall past where the meeting was being held.  Last year I sold a book .

  Lest there be any question, I did not intend to put down the struggling wife mentioned yesterday.  Never.  Some people have better “front offices” than the rest of us. 

They hold in their anxiety, and thus they come across cool   instead of HYSTERICAL like the rest of us.  But the husband in the example was no more functional than the wife, just using means other than obvious “relationship dependence” to calm himself down.  Who knows, maybe he had someone on the side (or gets someone) using relationship dependence in spades. 

“Relationship dependence” is when we need        a particular response from a particular other person    to CALM DOWN, START THINKING AND GET BACK IN CHARGE of our lives. 

And what’s particularly interesting and self-destructive about this method of calming ourselves down is that it DRIVES OTHER PEOPLE CRAZY.  It drives AWAY the person we want to keep close. 

How nuts is that?

  There was a time when I was ready to jump the psychology ship.  I’d decided that psychology was about fads and making up stories to fit theories.  Then I studied a way of accounting for human behavior which wasn’t consumed with the battle to prove “what is really going” on in a person’s head.

At that point I became a STRATEGEST.  “Let’s look at what’s going on . . . and your part in it . . . and consider ways YOU CAN MAKE your life better.”

Instead of spinning in circles trying to come up with answers to the question “WHY?” efforts are focused on making changes that work.  Hard, yes.  Slow, yes.

People are not that complex–as much as we like to think we are– and we know what works and doesn’t work.

We know which behaviors attract humans. 

  We know which behaviors repel humans.

So why is change so hard?

Anxiety and habit. 

Upcoming.  What works:  Learning to say what you are thinking.  Having your actions based on your BEST THINKING and NOT ON EMOTIONAL PRESSURE from others or from within yourself–your own fears and anxieties.

   I was nearly broad-sided (and rude) at the stop sign because I was hurrying home.  Because, out of my anxiety, I hadn’t been clear (and kind) with my husband about when I’d be home from the stable.  Details later.

     Remember the social psychology experiment showing that people who rate themselves higher in social desirability than other people rate them actually have the best time? 

    Being a Self Defined Person means basing actions on Best Thinking rather than Emotional Pressure from Other People and EMOTIONAL PRESSURE from WITHIN THE SELF.  

     Enter THE INNER TORTURER.   

     One nasty little personification of our Emotional Guidance System is our INNER TORTURER.  You know her.  She’s the voice of our anxieties and fears. 

    Famous lines booming in our heads that can STOP US IN OUR TRACKS.

    About goals:  “What makes you think you can do that?      Who do you think you are?”

    About love:  “Why would anyone pick you? . . . Why would anyone stay with you?”

Examples upcoming.  Goals:  Horses, Jumps, and Foolish Practices

Love:  Spending all night in a phone booth– dialing his number and smoking cigarrettes.

     Now, it’s important here to say that no one takes our life away from us.  No one slips inside our brains and chests and TAKES OVER our feelings.  The only way to for another person to take charge of your life and your FEELINGS is for you to abandon yourself. 

You must abdicate responsibility for your feelings; you must abdicate responsibility for your goals and actions.  

     You have to get out of the way and turn the steering wheel over to the other.

    ”You always make me feel stupid.”  “Every time you say that I just give up.”     I can’t stand it when you say that.”  “You hurt my feelings.”  “After what you said I didn’t sleep all night.”  “I would have gone back to law school, but my husband didn’t encourage me.”  “I’ve always wanted to write a book, but my father wanted me to stick with medicine.”  “I started writing a book, but quit when I found out that no one is interested in new writers never get published.”  “I wouldn’t be so depressed but my therapist doesn’t validate my feelings.” 

But mostly, “YOU . . .      . . . MADE ME FEEL THIS WAY.”

Thus, the first step in becoming a free woman in marriage and the world, is to take back that steering wheel.  It’s not easy, we are accustomed to seeing ourselves as over-porous beings unable to do anything but soak up criticism, which wouldn’t be so bad.  Problem is, we’re in the habit of taking criticism personally.

And, oh yeah.  We’re even worse about praise.  We take praise WAY too personally.  So personally that we even believe if we could train others to give us those compliments we’d be okay.  (Talk about turning over the wheel.) 

Compliments are supposed to mean that we’re okay.  That we’re going the right direction.  That we’ve passed the audition–for now.  When did we give all that power away?  When did we buy that compliments said anything about whether or not we’re loved or LOVABLE?

“If he’d compliment me once in a while, I wouldn’t mind not having a life,” she said.

 “Does this outfit make me look fat?”         

Ladies, come on.  NO . . . MORE.  The question is a mistake.  You are worth more than that question.  NO MORE.

     The first thing we’re going to do on this journey is to take back responsibility for the way we feel.  “I’ll take care of my feelings, because I’m the only one who can do a good job.”