This blog is devoted to presenting ideas to help in the strugge each of us has to function as a more joyful and more emotionally mature person.  To make every moment of the life we’ve been given “better” and to empower others to experience greater joy in life.

            Those of you who’ve been here all along know we’re NOT talking some kind of simplistic hedonism–”if it feels good, do it”-routine.  Because that way of going about life does not result in long term satisfaction.  “If it feels good, do it,” means doing whatever is necessary at the moment to keep ourselves comfortable.  To escape anxiety. 

Now, of course, we have great rationalizations to justify our lack of thoughtful functioning.  

So, this won’t be easy. 

Here’s a place to start.  While breathing in, say out loud or to yourself, but you must SAY the words, “COOL AIR IN.” 

Hold that air a moment, then saying to yourself or out loud, but SAY the words, “WARM AIR OUT,” as you empty your lungs.  Sit quietly and repeat this “mini-mediation.”

There, you’re already more emotionally grown up than five minutes ago, because you have proven that YOU ARE IN CHARGE OF YOUR ANXIETY.    You changed your anxiety level by changing what you were thinking about. 

                                 All the body changes were bonuses.

Does it mean she’s, INFLEXIBLE, FEARFUL, LIKELY TO EXAGGERATE, LIKELY TO TURN ON HERSELF, LIKELY TO TURN ON OTHERS?  (Fearful of what you ask?  All those bad things, those waiting-to-get-you thought-streams in your imaginary lint tube.  See yesterday.)

Ouch.  “Sensitive” doesn’t sound so good.  

When others see you as “sensitive,” in what ways do others change their behavior so that YOU DO NOT GET ANXIOUS?

   We’ve lived in the same house for years which has a large laundry room on the second level.  The dryer, like all, has a removable lint filter (cleaned often) which has behind it a tube leading through the wall to the outside.  Sometime during growing up I was told that if you didn’t keep that tube clean, it was a fire hazard.  Then I’ve seen thirty foot wire brushes designed to clear that pipe.  (Okay, it was that Air Mall catalog always in the front pocket of your seat with the marshmellow gun.)  Then there is the occasional unexplained house fire.

   Think of this pipe as a room in your brain.  This room is full of bad stuff about yourself that you remind yourself about and worry that if enough lint accumulates . . . Oh, who knows?  But it will be awful.  So we need to worry.  

  On the occasion of a new dryer I called in a chimney sweep to clear out the pipe, which after all these years, had to be disgusting.  I left him to pull the old dryer away from the wall and get to work.

   He called me in a few minutes later.

   ”Clear already?” I asked.

   “Yep.”   He stepped to the side of the pipe hole in the wall.  “Do you see that light, ma’am?”

   “Yes.”

   “That’s daylight.  There’s no pipe here accumulating anything.”

  Turns out I made the whole story up.

    And, sense YOU’RE IN CHARGE, you can force feed something new into your brain and blast those nasty little put down thoughts OUT.  When I was showing jumping horses I had a bad crash on a wall.    Okay, now I was freaked.  (I was never a monument to guts to start with.)  But now I was paralyzed.  I’d go around a series of fences, then came the wall.

   The thoughts screaming in my head were:  ”You’re going to crash!  You’re going to mess this up!  You’re going too fast–no too slow–too fast–LOOK OUT!”  Because my Emotional Guidance System was running the show, my THOUGHT STREAM was likely to CAUSE TO HAPPEN what I FEARED would happen.

   My coach’s plan was this, “Barbara, from the instant you come through the In-Gate, I want you to sing Mary Had A Little Lamb at the top of your lungs.  She planted herself on the railing in the coliseum and anytime my voice straggled, she yelled, “I can’t hear you!  Louder!  Louder!”

   It worked. I stopped concentrating on all the terrible “what ifs” and let the horse take care of both of us.  Of course, my singing nursery rhymes at the top of my lungs sort of took the horsy set dignity out of my ride, but it wasn’t like I’d never humiliated myself in the showring before.

  This is a start.  For now, try to collect a few of your “thought streams” that create difficulties in your life. 

Possibles:

      “I know he doesn’t love me.”

        “You are such a control freak!”

      ”You jump on every chance to say I’m wrong.”

      “I’ll never accomplish my goals.” 

     “No one in the world knows how to drive except me.”

If we believe we are not lovable this will be an exhausting 24/7 process.

Good News?  WE ARE NOT HELPLESS choosers of reality.  More later.

Since:  To be married is to be criticized.

To be part of a family   is to be criticized.

To have a job is to be criticized.

A driver yelled out the window while I was crossing the street (okay, not in the crosswalk). 

To be alive is to be criticized.  How criticism affects YOU, now that’s your CHOICE.  Who’s in charge?  Who’s in charge of you?  If you react automatically and defensively to criticism, you are NOT IN CHARGE of you.  If you don’t believe anyone can BE IN CHARGE of themselves, take responsibility, then you’ll have to go back to the old standards.  Defensiveness and negativism.

Now I don’t want to be not in charge of me.  But, it’s tough.  I haven’t been able to stop others from criticizing me.  Or, maybe I have.  How can I know, since when I’m anxious, I can INTERPRET ANYTHING and EVERYTHING as criticism.  Your tone, for example.  “You said, you didn’t mind if I was late, but I COULD TELL by your TONE that you think I’M NOT AS GOOD A PERSON as a woman who’d get home on time.”

Sheesh.  I’m a very good debater, but it hasn’t worked to simply defend myself and try to come up with silly rationales why I shouldn’t be criticized because I am simply NEVER WRONG. 

So, this is what we’re going to do over the next several days.  We’re going to learn to greet criticism (real or perceived) with a big ole sweet kiss.  We’re taking back that power, baby.      Taking it back.  Getting in charge.  We’re going to stop throwing little pieces of life away.

Bonus:  We’re going to be so much fun to be around.  Because we give kisses for criticism.    Let’s go get someone to criticize us!  We’re IN CHARGE.  We’re gonna smoooooooooooooooch you. 

What does this have to do with relationships?  What does this have to do with being a happier person?

When we BELIEVE the other person is noticing us for our IMPERFECTIONS, almost any comment they make is taken as CRITICISM.

More later. 

Effective psychotherapy is not:

FEELING BETTER when you leave the session because you’ve “vented.”    This kind of psychotherapy can make things worse by supporting the following misconceptions:

1.  Venting improves lives and relationships. 

2.  The psychologist, because he can tolerate your venting, is a much better person to be emotionally intimate with than your spouse or family.

3.  If people love you (spouse, family) they should put up with anything, including your venting which is laced with criticisms and claims of victimhood.

4.  Having not been challenged to THINK, you leave your session more convinced than ever that YOUR MADE UP VERSION of the WORLD and EVENTS and the PEOPLE in your relationship system    –is indeed correct. 

That’s where we’re going with this.  REAL CHANGE is difficult because to CHANGE your BEHAVIOR, you must first CHANGE YOUR MIND.

Really.  You have to accept that what you respond to on a daily basis is not THE WORLD, but the STORY YOU’VE MADE UP ABOUT THE WORLD   based on facts plus lots and lots of powerful ANXIETY.

Are you willing to challenge your own mindset? 

Are you willing to consider that your spouse IS NOT the person you’re convinced he is?    (Now, we’re not talking paranoia, but going the other way.  Is it just possible he’s a more caring, kinder, brighter person than you ever thought possible?)

What would your life be like if you gave him the benefit of the doubt?  Jumped to the best possible assumption instead of the worst?  (He’s late because he’s a selfish, disorganized, uncaring person.   Or add in a worse case senario that puts yourself down.  He’s late because he doesn’t respect me, because I’m a doormat, because I’m not attractive.)

Yes.  I know it sounds ridiculous to think a husband would not bother to be on time because his wife was not as attractive as she used to be–but somebody’s buying all those exercise machines, programed meals, four stage cosmetic routines.

And when I review the complaints over my absence, I remind myself of what I tell clients who complain that their spouse or parent or sibling “is always wanting me to spend more time with them.”    I reply, “It could be the opposite, you know.  Think about that.  How would it feel to hear your spouse, sibling, or parent is always saying, ‘Gee, I wish I could spend less time with (your name here)’.”

The spin YOU put on your life as it plays out is UP TO YOU.

Everyday, in every way, work on that ATTITUDE OF GRATITUDE. 

TOMORROW.  YES, TOMORROW:   Back to our efforts toward greater emtional maturity, to our efforts to have more of our actions determined by our best thinking and less determined by EMOTIONAL PRESSURE from others or from within the self.

I know this is hard.  It’s really hard for me and I’ve been training a lot of years.    But that emotional picture of the world I nurture inside my head–the one formed from my fears and anxieties, is one tough and relentless customer.  My EMOTIONAL GUIDANCE SYSTEM wants: to  prove I’m right, to show I’m not more wrong than anyone else, to seek relief by winning approval, to buy things that make me feel better, to eat things that make me feel better, to win over people to keep me safe, and that’s just the tip of the tip of the tip of the shaky self berg.

TOMORROW:  Which is more important?  The world I can touch, the world of facts?  Or the world I am responding to, the one I’ve made up and nuture in my head?

AND, what does the answer to this question have to do with my tendency to feel criticized? 

   Feelings

       Do not waste time trying to get them.

               Do not waste time trying to avoid them.

PAY ATTENTION TO THE FACTS, NOT STORIES BASED ON YOUR ANXIETIES.