Think half-cooked Lean Cuisine…not just any fake food…think shrimp and some gluey noodles.  Now imagine it’s 4:30 a.m., hotel room, and you only stopped long enough down at the desk to half cook fabulous meal.  Noodles are semi-frozen in a lump.  Shrimp are gray and slimey.  Travel is so glamorous.

Remember, every fat cell has to go somewhere….There’s another name for the booty lifters.  Wedgies.

The husband leaned in and said, “The reason I have to get away is not because of WHO SHE IS…. she’s great.  I’m leaving because of WHO I AM WHEN I AM AROUND HER.”   He went on to explain….

“I feel pretty good about who I am–at work, with friends, with my family–everywhere but at home….everywhere but when we are together.  She doesn’t think much of me and I’m not strong enough to feel good about myself around her.”

See next post:  How to Ruin a Relationship: Expect the Other Person to Fail You.

On the miracle body that is possible with the “new” Skechers body-shaping shoes—

Prior to purchase you should know that those of us with arthritic knees and ankles have been wearing these for years….You might want to get a good look at us as we are walking away before you invest big bucks in these babies.  Also, see artist babe on the cover of TOO RICH and TOO THIN, Not an Autobiography.

I told my husband I was his trophy wife. He said, “So I didn’t get first place?”
Smoooooooooch.

Yes. It’s official. We’ve gone around some kind of bend as the American television-watching public. I just saw a very thin woman explain how she lost weight by getting her treats at the Taco Bell drive through. I really did. I verify this statement because I’m aware there’s a television public that never goes near the sorts shows I have running…I respect you, but, I gotta let you know what kind of trash is out there….
Taco Bell…hmmm…This is the same company that had a campaign last year which said, “Late night snack? Don’t think of it as a snack, think of it as a fourth meal!”….Now that’s what America needs….a fourth meal.

“Men are anxious to improve their circumstances, but are unwilling to improve themselves;
they therefore remain bound.”
James Allen
The Light of Reason.

Big plans for 2010, and you guys are invited on the journey toward actual personal change. I’m thinking a two-pronged effort toward reducing my Emotional Guidance System’s judging of other people and my Emotional Guidance System’s way of always jumping to the worst conclusions when plans go awry.

I know. Huge. But…before I let go of the judgmental habit…You shall hear of the Rude Woman in Seat 20B on the flight from DFW to Cabo San Lucas…I promise you, you aren’t going to believe her.
….

I now have $165.00 in the donation kitty for Touching Hearts, Bridging Hope. Thanks. Now, if I can just regain the feeling in my feet, I just might make it back over the border. See previous post for details.

Bridging Hope is a group of private citizen sponsors, churches, and other contributors who strive to make a difference in the lives of the poor and less fortunate.  They organize group trips and activities for volunteers to help out in sponsored mission opportunities for the abandoned, abused,and neglected children of Nuevo Laredo, Mexico.  Every penny that is donated to the charity goes directly to the girls, and thanks to the artful negotiations and bargain hunting of Peggy Gerke, the woman who runs the charity, every dollar becomes two! This year we are helping to deliver gifts and essentials so the girls can enjoy the holiday season.  One of the most requested items on their Christmas lists was a toothbrush.  Thanks to the generosity of local Austin dentists, we have plenty for the trip across the border.  More details on the adventure when we get back. If you would like to help out this great organization, this year I will add $5.00 to my donation for each person who buys a copy of Too Rich and Too Thin between now and Christmas. All you need to is tell me you bought a book by posting a comment, or sending an email to bdeshong@austin.rr.com. If you want to make a direct donation, please visit the Bridging Hope website. Thank you!

Good News on the BORDER CROSSING: Well, we made it back in one piece!  Read all the exciting deatails in the update: Fear, Dust, and a Longing Under the Wire.

I will be in Indianapolis next week. I will be eavesdropping and lurking at Bouchercon. Say hello, why don’t you.

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?

So, I’m in Dubuque, Iowa (Full post on what incredible places and people are in Dubuque, Iowa and Galena, Illinois…thanks for coming out.)
….But, anyway. My plan was to satisfy the fears of my Emotional Guidance System (”Oh, God, what if they can see right through you and know that you don’t know everything?”) by being very cool. Suave, even.

This morning, I’m packing my boxes of books and my computer on one of those valet carts for the haul down to the car. #@%# box of books falls off starting a cascade topped off by my computer and about a hundred postcards. I’m “expressing myself” as a spiffed up couple in tennis togs makes their way around me and my mess. The wife looks deftly down her nose and says, “I wouldn’t complain, lady. You’re just lucky you have a job!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You get the idea.

“Do you know where the remote is?”

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.

I haven’t forgotten the third leg of the Triple Blame Whammy….and I haven’t forgotten I owe you the truth about….Mexico.

A while back, I wrote a book on stress which resulted in myself and my spouse booked into separate speaking engagements five days a week in five different cities. I was in charge of travel arrangements, etc. (There is the rumor that I grabbed this position at birth, leaping out of my mother’s belly to complain about the temperature. But those are  rumors.)  This particular morning, the spouse was driving and I was rattling off his literary.

His  Monday keynote was in Brownsville which is the southernmost tip of Texas, his Tuesday was in Kerrville, ninty miles south and west of Austin, from there the week bounced all over the nation.  But we didn’t get to Tuesday before I began with  get resistence from the troops. 

I’d announced the following:  “Drive to Austin airport Sunday afternoon…fly to Brownsville (two hour flight, counting switch in Houston)… fly Brownsville to Austin, pick up car and drive to Kerrville… and…and…

“But wait!” comes from the driver.  “That all sounds efficient and I really appreciate your efforts, but I think I’ll get up Sunday morning and drive to Brownsville.”

I did mention that Brownsville is that little bump of Texas, waaaay down at the very bottom…I recovered from being stunned at having my plan questioned and replied sweetly, “Are you nuts?”

I went on to elaborate on the geography of the state, in case he hadn’t noticed, finishing up rather nicely reminding him how tired I knew he would be on Monday after speaking in Brownsville, and how he couldn’t possibly want to face that drive from Brownsville to Kerrville.  I threw in how I’d grown up in South Texas and he was from Oklahoma–as if this fact made my map skills more accurate.

He persisted.  “I know it’s a long drive back and forth, but I have the new car with all the gadgets and a great sound system. I think I’d enjoy settling for the drive and playing some music I’ve put together.”

“What?”   I repeated the geography lesson on Texas and reminded him that I am much better at determining what will make him tired than he is. I ran by a little scenario involving running out of gas coupled with the lack of good places to eat in the Austin-Brownsville corridor.  He mentioned his favorite Mexican restaurant in San Antonio, his capacity to read the gas gauge, and did he mention, HE WANTED to drive to Brownsville?

Having been married a while, I stuck with it a few more rounds. (Marriage means believing that the only reason your spouse hasn’t agreed with your position is that you have not repeated in enough times.)

Then he said.  “Look.  I know YOU wouldn’t want to drive back and forth from Brownsville.  But we are NOT the SAME PERSON.

Here’s the thing.  I actually knew we weren’t the same person, that his tastes and preferences were different from mine.  It just hadn’t occurred to me that his tastes and preferences were on equal footing with mine.  After all, I work  pretty hard on getting everything right.  The notion that, not only did he have an opinion, but he had a right to his opinion…(If this is too much, remember you can always follow Dr. L on the radio, a woman who has never had a thought or statement she needed to take back.) 

Now, this was quite a bit back, and since I’ve done a little better at letting other people be themselves. 

This is a huge stress relieving strategy.   Not only give others your permission to go on being themselves. Recognize that they have a right to be how they are , as long as no one is harmed. 

That means the Obsessed Stranger Lady gets to keep on hounding laptop openers, that guy in front of you in traffic gets to keep putting those decals on his car, the people next door can leave their Christmas lights up, Taco Bell can advertise late night specials as “the fourth meal America’s been needing”,  Dr. L has my permission to blame every husband’s infidelity of his wife’s whining, Nancy Grace can keep the helmet hair, your co-worker has your full and gracious permission to vote the way she does, your siblings have your permission to choose their lives according to their own distorted (oops!), their own views and determination of the best way for them.

This means you’re going to have a lot of free time on your hands.

   Which, of course, they are going to be anyway.  But since we’ve given our precious permission, what that means is that we CANNOT be all surprised when they are themselves.

Remember we expected that.  Gave permission.  Later in evolvement we’ll even recognize that others have THE RIGHT to be themselves.  But, not yet.  For now we’re just being generous.

Which means:

The person who cuts in front of you at the grocery store with 80 items, you said she could do that.

The person who’s late to Thanksgiving dinner–you said that would be fine.

You gave the person who doesn’t return your e-mail for four days–you gave permission.

The person who has too much wine at dinner–you gave them permission.

The one who cannot stop talking about the one who had too much wine–you gave her permission.

The one who spends Thanksgiving talking about how diets–you gave her permission.

The one who undercooks an item and the one who burns one–you gave them permission.

The people who’ve had their Christmas lights up since mid-October–you gave them permission.

All those people jamming up the roadways–you gave them permission.

The guy who will whack me in the head as he puts his bag in the overhead on the plane–I hereby GIVE HIM PERMISSION.

Are you getting a feel for HOW ABSOLUTELY FREEING IT IS to turn your focus away from CHANGING OTHERS to MANAGING YOURSELF?