Jellybeans….Jellybeans were everywhere…and I didn’t have time or energy for the clumsy interruption. Who does have the time for messy interuptions?

Trudging my computer case across the tiled floor of my office and out to my car, I bent over to pick up a Coke can I’d earlier set by a chair…

When the opened box of Ike and Mike’s (tube-shaped jellybeans for those into adult foods) tucked into one of the case’s pockets splattered everywhere… I snarled, I cursed, I bent over to pick up the flying pieces….Of course, in the process, I spilled more as, in my hurry and misery, I hadn’t secured the box. I snarled and cursed some more.

Always ready to take control, my Emotional Guidance System, (search site, if unfamiliar) SAID: “Great! Just what I needed!  I’ve had it!  This is too much. My knees are alreadykilling me, I’m late for an appointment…. Crazy dog will be in here hogging these jellies down any second…and I’ll have multi-colored poop to deal with for days!

This is terrible, horrible, and unbelievable! I drop my computer case…on my foot… “%#@&”… This is just great.
That’s when “the moment” happened without any warning. After years of training in psychology, Eastern meditation, libraries of books, and many hours instructing others in emotional life….

The moment occurred without effort on my part.

Some little creature inside my brain hit me square between my squinty eyes. “What keeps you…from enjoying this moment just as much as you enjoyed playing fetch with Crazy Dog last night?”
What? Is it possible that all those psychologists saying each person is in charge or his or her own happiness…actually have something? And, if they (we) have…why is it so difficult If being alive is being in each and every second?

What is keeping me…you… from enjoying this moment….the one NOW… as much as the favorite moment you are planning this holiday?

I don’t have an answer.  When the ‘moment’ occurred, I felt something loosen.  And I smiled, just a little.
I know, this is heady stuff.   To think all this could come from splattered jellybeans.

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…

Fusion:  the naturally occuring process when what goes on emotionally inside one person is influenced by what is going on inside another person.

Let’s take what happens when one person is angry toward another person.  Fusion is the automatic transfer of anger and upset.  The degree to which this occurs depends on several elements.  One element is how important the angry person is to be person on the receiving end.  

Which leads me to report a minor victory in this project of becoming a person able to function according to my own BEST THINKING, instead of having my functioning TOTALLY DETERMINED by WHATEVER EMOTIONAL CHARGE  is pinging my way.

Now this is a minor victory, but, for me, it’s a start.  Have you ever pulled out on a busy street, in what you thought was plenty of time, only to see, looming in your rear view mirror as you accelerate….a young man in a baseball cap driving a pickup truck jacked up like a rabbit caught in mid-scare on seeing a snake….and the guy in the cap is shooting you the bird?  

 Usually, that sneering face and flicking finger stirs something in me.  Maybe something defensive and angry, like a comment or a hot face.  Sometimes I blame myself and WHAT’S GOING ON INSIDE me is a guilty, a wanna-slink-away sinking feeling.

Here’s the thing.  I got the sneer and the bird twice yesterday and I didn’t FEEL anything.  I only noticed… that I didn’t notice.  It was as if their opinions of my behavior didn’t matter anymore.  …Because their opinions didn’t matter anymore.  I realized my EMOTIONAL Guidance System was a little less in charge.  That my THINKING Guidance System’s statement that… the opinion of random strangers did not need my attention… was running the show.

One small step ahead for my Thinking System and emotional freedom…. maybe not real good news for the driving public.

The Air Conditioning Controversy that Ended True Love

Our Emotional Guidance System is designed to rid us of anxiety.  Differences of opinion often, maybe even usually, generate anxiety.  Thus our Emotional Guidance Systemwill do whatever is necessary to obliterate differences of opinion.  The simplest method of disposing with differences of opinion is to insist on DUALISTIC thinking.  That is….Either I am right and you are wrong or….You are right and…naah…that’s unthinkable.

A woman was dating a fellow she really liked and he seemingly felt the same.  As they were leaving her house for their fifth date,

The lady paused and said, “Wait. I need to go back and turn up the air-conditioning.”

He said, “How high do you turn your air-conditioner up?”

She said, “I put it on eighty degrees.”

He said, “Eighty? Really?  I’ve heard that it’s actually harder on the system to turn it up that far, that it costs more to re-cool the house when you return, than if you’d just left the temperature down.”

She said, “That makes no sense at all.”

He said, “Well, actually, what I read was… etc.”

She said, “Ridiculous.  Do you believe everything you read?”

He said, “Ha.  Where are you getting your information?”

The rest isn’t hard to imagine.  The relationship ended without a fifth date.  Challenge:  To promote the development of the Thinking Guidance System, find at least one sticky situation today in which someone holds a different opinion, and allow the difference to ‘be’.  Strategy:  Have a freeing phrase handy such as, “That’s what makes for horseraces.”  Or, “That’s one of the things I like about working here, we’re not all alike on every issue.”  Or, “I guess none of us knows what we would really do if we were in someone else’s situation.”

Sometimes it helps to remember that each person has a right to their opinon.  I know, I don’t really buy it, either.  Secretly I believe that the only reason my spouse does not agree with me on absolutely everything is simply that I have not repeated myself often enough.  That one day, I’ll say, “You know, if you’d didn’t feed Crazy Dog from your plate, she’d be a more pleasant dinner companion.”  And, he’ll say, “Wow, you’re right.  I can’t believe I’ve been so thick-headed all these many years….Got any other ideas on how I can improve my life?” 

   These are hard times to work on becoming a bit more emotionally mature.  Worrying about the economy and worrying about the size of our behinds at the same time–this is not easy. There’s only so much time in a day.

“Life isn’t worth living if you don’t take it seriously. Life isn’t worth living if you only take it seriously.”  So here we are, stuck worrying about not taking in enough money and taking in too much food. Somebody’s got to start laughing.  I nominate you.  If an ADDICTION is anything we can’t stop doing, even when it’s become self-destructive…WORRYING fits the bill.  Downward changes in the economy and upward changes in the average weight of a teenager–are facts.  And it’s a fact we NEED to WORRY, right?  It’s our duty as Americans to worry about the economy.  It’s our duty as women to be worried about what we eat.

The EMOTIONAL GUIDANCE SYSTEM says, “We have to worry.  We have to worry all the time because… if we are not deadly seriously fretting about these facts every second of everyday, the bad money news and the fat cells will sneak up on us… and wham! We’ll wake up tomorrow weighing four hundred pounds and living under a bridge!

The EGS is the inventor of the phrase DEADLY SERIOUS. . . .DEADLY.

The THINKING GUIDANCE SYSTEM says, “If there’s something you can do about it, and you want to do that something (get a second job, lose weight)…then do it.  If there isn’t anything you can do, or you choose not to do anything at this time…get off it.”   Grin.  Play.  You might get a response that you’re not taking the situation seriously enough. Which means . . . heh. . . .heh . . . it’s working.

Don’t miss the misadventures and eavesdropping of MysteryShrink :  http://twitter.com/mysteryshrink

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  I believe I am just as big of a pain to others as they may seem to me. I recognize the natural double standard that we humans operate from in our lives.  My brain is in my body with the job of keeping me alive and no one else’s brain has that job. 

In the quest to stay alive, I over-react all the time.  It’s a brain thing.  My EMOTIONAL GUIDANCE SYSTEM  telling me I’m in danger, when I’m not. Telling me I have to be right and other people have to be wrong for me to not feel threatened.  Telling me other people don’t try as hard as I do to make life work. 

I believe I am just as hard to live with as my husband is to live with, that I cause as many anxieties for my sister and brother as they might for me. I recognize that sometimes I’m the goof in the wrong line at the grocery store, I lose count of whose turn it is at a four-way stop. And, yes, I am the devil’s own:  I was in a hurry on the way to the airport and rear-ended someone while I was talking on my cell phone.   believe I am someone’s nightmare as often as I complain about someone else. If you think you don’t have a double standard, you’re really sunk, but hang on to that notion and turn on that radio (see “Miss Lake Superior.”):

All of this is to point out something I was thinking about yesterday.  When I get into an emotional tennis match and say things I don’t mean–with me it’s usually a statement that I will stop doing things I enjoy but don’t come with a lots of ego-massage, or a statement that I’m going to break off communication with someone.  I’m not really going to give up writing mysteries or any important relationship.  My husband knows that.  He knows not to take these EMOTIONAL GUIDANCE SYSTEM threats as real.

Here’s where the double standard comes in. Let’s say we are into a downward emotionally guided spiral and he counters my proclamations with his own EMOTIONAL SYSTEMS statements. . . . Well, I NEVER forget what he says at that moment.  This conversation isn’t going to end until he torturously takes back everything he said. I’ve got the lower lip out until he convinces me that he’s not going to follow through on his threats to cut off activities he enjoys or cut off from an important person. All the while, I expect him to let what I said go, because after all he KNOWS I don’t mean it.

The double standard is: When I say stupid things in emotional moments, other people are supposed to understand and just let them go.  When other people do the same thing . . .

…. And, Mexico?  That was like me having a triple standard… 

  Eight babies. No papa, no job, no brains at all.  Talk about your EMOTIONAL GUIDANCE SYSTEM running the show.  Talk about ignoring the FACTS. 

There is a morning after. There is a statement coming in the mail.

My first (but not last) run in with the administration when I was editor of my high school paper happened when I was called in (undeservedly) after an editorial searing a mandatory assembly organized and presented by a national credit organization. The theme was “learning how to manage your credit to your advantage.” 

FOLKS:  CREDIT is not  “THING.”  It’s not a thing that you can “manage” like you can house train a dog and your life will go better.  CREDIT is just a way to GET MORE of your MONEY. No one’s trying to help you. . . As you’ve probably guessed.  My editorial read pretty similarly to the previous statements.  

Did I mention we were 17 years old?  I admit, that since I was usually able to talk my way out of assemblies, and yet forced to attend this one . . . I did lean from the outset toward an unfavorable review.

Still.  The assembly was my first face-to-face with organizations recommending the ignoring of facts . . . accompanied, of course, by mandatory shots of incredibly attractive, carefree couples cavorting in beach resorts, bronze men behind the wheels of giant boats, and families moving into two-story houses with lots of neighbors bringing cakes cheering them on. 

Other Helpful Facts:  You cannot lose MORE weight by adding Slim Shots, Hydroxycut, Hydroxycut Plus Formula 9, Hydroxycut Super With crushed moon dust. You cannot save money by borrowing more money.  You are not what you drive. There’s not much difference in shampoos, soaps, and cosmetics. The AbRocket doesn’t work without the handy accompanying “food plan.”

An insurance company sending you a brochure for FREE is not a gift, nor is a mattress company sending you a twenty minute DVD sales pitch a sign of good will.

There comes a time in a man’s life when he’s really not so desperate to ignore the facts of life that he will take a pill which just might result in a four hour erection.  Or result in having to go into an emergency room to explain his painful dilemma.  Which brings us back to the opening statement.  Talk about your EMOTIONAL GUIDANCE SYSTEM running the show.

OKAY.  I have a serious, dark side confession on this whole credit card business.    I’m talking DARK, DARK . . . Involving swimming pools and ocean views, and Mexico.  Later.  Probably, I’ll wait a bit.  Give you a chance to forget my raving on the subject.

 First we looked at that spark that gets us going (See “Just One Little Spark”) then we moved on to a closer examination of what it takes for us to LOSE that spark. 

What happens to get you off your mark? 

What does it take before you declare a STATE OF CATASTROPHE? 

Or WHO?   Who’s approval do you need  . . . ALL THE TIME?    Gad. Now you understand why some people solve the DOWNER problem–the problem of your emotions, your forward-seeking energy, your “zone” BEING UP FOR GRABS  . . .  all the time . . . by moving to Alaska and living in an abandoned school bus.

Next best alternative?  I mean, until that brain transplant procedure is perfected?  Work on our own brains.  We can CHANGE our brains by what we think.  When we change our brains, we change what “happens” in our lives.  No magic.  When your in you’re not anxious–

When you are in your  ”zone:”

You have better judgment . . . You see more alternatives . . . You respond less defensively . . . You listen to what the other person is saying . . . You are less “black and white” . . . You do not see one person as all right and one person as all wrong . . . You open the door for better OUTCOMES.  And, I’m just guessing on this, but I imagine I, uh, you would get fewer traffic tickets.

So, how do you get to that calmer place?  For starters, copy the following sentence and keep it handy.

This (whatever) is UNFORTUNATE, UNPLEASANT, and INCONVENIENT, but NOT a CATASROPHE . . .   unless I DECIDE  to make it one.

Perma-weinnies, such as myself, will have to take on responsibility for our own “zone” a little bit at a time.  Manana.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tomorrow: Fear, Part One.

  “Which is more important?  The world you can touch, facts, or the WORLD YOU ARE RESPONDING TO?

The movie “Doubt” is a story about that question.  In it, a priest is accused on very little, no, on no evidence of molesting a boy.  Interesting statements of the accusing nun (not exact quotes):

See he IS who I THOUGHT HE WAS.  Proving that the priest is WHO SHE THINKS HE IS quickly becomes more important than the truth.  The priest: “What proof do you have?”

The nun pounds her chest as says, “None.  But I have my ‘CERTAINTY’.”

The priest:  “Your ‘certainty’ is no more than your ‘feeling’, it is not a fact.”

I’ve always been impressed by how we make other people up as we go along.  How much of WHO WE ARE is our playing out of our parents’ “certainty” of who we would become?  In what ways have we limited our goals playing out the expectations of others? 

Okay, here’s where I usually slip into a guilt bog thinking, “And what about the children I’ve influenced and limited?  And my husband?  He’d probably be president if I didn’t work out my anxiety by being critical of him?

Enough about that.  I have to sleep at night.

Where I end up on this is another interesting question.  If in my head I SEE OTHER PEOPLE AS DANGEROUS and CRITICAL . . .  . . .how much of that is the WORLD I’M RESPONDING TO IN MY HEAD that doesn’t even exist?

In what ways am I LIMITING MYSELF by the ME I’ve CREATED IN MY HEAD that doesn’t REALLY EXIST?

ba-deep, ba-deep, ba-deep.  More hard stuff to come trying to engage the THINKING GUIDANCE SYSTEM ain’t for sissies.

Optimism:  A company running an ad on television which says, “Find all the gold in your house, put it in a brown envelope (that we will send to you for FREE!) and mail it to US!  Then, once we receive your envelope, we’ll pick some random amount of money out of the AIR and send you a CHECK (for however much we decided, while giggling hysterically, we wanted to send!)

Oh, the pillow thing?  Later. I won’t forget.  Cause it’s important and has feathers in it.

  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.”

  First, thanks all of guys for your good words on the news that Murray’s now “traveling” as they say in Jamaica.  What kind of self-esteem must that boy have had.  Everyone who met him loved him.

I’ve been thinking some about that.  Murray wasn’t the brightest or most playful.  He wasn’t the first to meet me at the door.  So what was it?  Murray was kind.    Always kind.  He let anyone who wanted a pat or even a squeeze to take their turn.  If someone in my office cried or even shouted, he’d hop up (back when he could hear) and move over close to them.  He forgave all human emotions without pushing himself on you.

I’ve been thinking about the Holidays and all the anxious pleasing we do in our “togetherness.”   What if we could be the gift of providing for others a “non-anxious” presence?

Notice the word “presence.”  We do not provide the gift of “non-anxious” caring when we are not fully in the presence of others. 

What does a non-anxious presence look like?

A man sits down with a friend and     asks what he thinks about the football rankings.  We women like to make fun of this scene.  But what we have is one man saying to another.  “Hi. I’m ‘in here’ for you.  Are you ‘in there’ for me?”

Your spouse (a friend, family member, co-worker) comes in complaining.  You ask them TWO questions about what’s bothering them.  You resist giving your opionion of what she should do or what you are just “so sure” you would do in her shoes. 

Oh, and to be with yourself with passion, compassion, dump your scales (no one needs that kind of detail) and if you find yourself in one of those hotels with three-way mirrors in the bathroom, well closing your eyes, is not only your option, it’s the thoughtful choice.  The way your clothes fit is the only guide you need.

At the gym, the slip of a girl at the front desk is always inviting members up for a free body fat percentage study.  What is she nuts? 

  I was going to lie low until the Spring as I have a book coming out in early summer, timing and all.  But I can’t wait.  Yesterday on the plane the man behind me chastised his wife, “You make decisions based on your emotions while I make decisions based on what I see and hear for myself.”

I had to mention this because so many times this argument is used as if WHAT YOU HEAR and WHAT YOU SEE isn’t determined by your emotions.  Example later.

  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?

  A supreme and successful effort to manage . . .  RELATIONSHIP DEPENDENCE.

I was seeing a couple, both of whom were university professors.  (All descriptions are disguised and combined to not apply to actual persons.  I have enough wacky people in my family to use anyway.)    The husband was frustrated with the marriage and had moved into his own apartment.  Things were improving with therapy as each learned more about their reactivity and anxiety management, but the husband was not ready to re-commit.  The wife had a research report tour scheduled which would take her on the road for two months and require her to make presentations to large groups, a process that was hard for her. 

In the last session before she was to leave, she asked her husband to promise   that their marriage was going to work out.  Though she made it very clear he could cure her current anxiety by saying what she wanted to hear, he held his ground that he was still unsure.  He was particularly worried that if they got back together she would end up leaning on him again for her sense of self.  Prior to separating the wife had suffered panic attacks if left alone and all night bouts of anger insisting that her husband was not caring enough.

She upped the ante saying she couldn’t go on the trip,   couldn’t fulfill her obligations unless he said they were going to make it as a couple.  He did not give in.

The wife headed out on the tour.  During the second week, while she was in New York, the husband called at around eleven to ask how she was doing.  The first few minutes was enjoyable for both.  The husband said “Goodnight,” as was pleasantly signing off when the wife shouted, “Stop!”    He did.  She started crying and saying he’d ruined her tour, that he’d never loved her, and that she was going out to find some man who did.  He pleaded to continue the discussion the next day.  She refused continuing to list his crimes and her own faults.  After several more attempts to close the conversation, the husband hung up.

The wife called him back with more emotional blasting.    After ten minues, he hung up.  She called again.  He hung up.  She called again.  He’d taken the phone off the hook.

The wife threw herself on the bed hysterical, more because she’d made such an absolute mess of things than anything else.  The urge to hear from her husband was almost unbearable.  She “felt” out of control and absolutely hopeless. 

THEN, she remembered a word or two about taking the energy she was using to TRY AND GET A RESPONSE from another person . . .

And using that energy to MANAGE her OWN anxiety. 

Instead of rolling around on the bed, feeling worse and worse, ABSOLUTELY CONVINCED SHE COULD NOT FEEL BETTER, until she got the feedback she wanted from her husband–SHE DECIDED TO TAKE CHARGE. 

As she told me:  “What did I have to lose,” I asked myself.  “I got up, got dressed and went out on the sidewalk and started walking.  I was in Times Square, so there were plenty of interesting people.  Even though every cell in my body (okay, that’s my phrase) wanted to either try to contact my husband or wallow in continuing misery, I started LOOKING at the interesting people.  I looked at the marquees.  I told myself I was going to walk and walk and walk until I WAS IN CHARGE OF MYSELF.    And I did.”

When her husband called, she apologized for dumping her anxiety into the phone call.  He heard, for the first time, that she understood what it meant to be responsible for self.

  Two phrases from two older movies will be the theme for a few days.

“I’M IN CHARGE!”    from Hustle and Flow.  (Think of both of these guys inside your head trying to be in charge.)

    and “I COULDN’T HELP MYSELF!” from a whole bunch of others.     Not to mention, these are the people who spend their lives in prisons — real and fabricated.

It’s about who’s deciding what goes on inside your chest cavity.  Who decides your level of motivation.  Who’s in charge.

Back later.

   What does it mean when a parent says, “She’s so sensitive?”

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?

  I know, I’ve been told.  And, now I’m back. 

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? 

  How do I know when I’m using my BEST THINKING and when I’m making my decision as the result of EMOTIONAL PRESSURE from others or from within myself?

And what does BEST THINKING have to do with a near fatal stop sign incident?

Now, I’m being dreadfully honest here about my emotional immaturity, so do consider this stop sign thing happened a while back.

The incident and the realization that I’d better grow up in my marriage.    Up until a few years ago, I showed horses–jumpers.  I rode five days a week about three hours a day.  Also, I worked full-time at a hospital, had a private practice, wrote a book, read all the time–and did I mention my parents live here?  So, there’s more time from my wifely duties, obligations I filled pitifully, at best, if you go my typical standards.

And, poor soul, I had (still do) a husband.  When the time spent riding issue arose, he didn’t think my defense that at least I spent no time cooking or keeping house was particularly impressive.  Thus, anytime I was asked the question, “So when do you think you’ll be back from the stable tonight? my brain went whooshy.  I’d stumble around for a time, check out his voice tone, and study the clock.  My anxiety rose.  And rose. 

ALERT:  If your first response to solving my anxiety (and huge guilt) problem was for me to sit down, tell my husband how anxious I was, and ASK HIM to change HOW he asked me when I’d be home.    Or emotionally brow beat him until he promised to never again show frustration with my late hours . . . if he really loves me he’d want to help me wouldn’t he?

If these were your first thoughts–the stop sign incident is for you.

On this particular evening I was about forty-five minutes later leaving the barn than I had promised.  And way anxious–about what he was going to say, about what a crappy wife I was.    I approached a four-way stop intersection that I crossed every day.  This time, rehearsing my excuses and my stomach in a knot, (no cell phones yet) I blew through the stop sign and missed T-boning a car by inches.    The guy behind the wheel screamed at me.  I shot him the bird.  It was lovely.  I was lovely.  So together and mature.

ALERT:  If you’re thinking the mean man behind the wheel of the other car shouldn’t have screamed at poor little me–well, I’m not sure I can help. 

As I sat there assessing my situation, it occurred to me that I was not behaving or feeling differently than I had coming home late walking home from the third grade. 

With all the responsibilities that come with adulthood (not to mention a decade of training) it seemed like I could do better if I thought the situation through.

MY BEST THINKING:  Time leaving the barn varied by how many people were there for show coaching, how many horses were backed up on the wash rack, and whether or not my horses were having a good day or a day requiring much remedial riding.   In order to continue in this demanding hobby, I’d have to admit the variability of time required and face the consequences.

Immediately on arriving home, I sat down with the good guy  and said that I had decided to stop making promises about when I’d be home from the stable.  I acknowledged that I wouldn’t want to be married to someone involved in showing horses, but I loved what I was doing.  Instead of being up front, I’d been making promises about when I’d be home when my best thinking was I didn’t have enough control over training to forecast how long coaching would take.   He would have to trust my judgement and accept that I loved him very much and looked forward to being home with him as much as he looked forward to being with me.

Of course, I could and would make exceptions for those evenings when something special was planned or if he had a request.

After a bit of protest, all of which I recognized as valid, he said:  “Well, I don’t like it.   But I love you.  I guess some people come with pianos– you come with horses.” 

  I know, I know.  People like comments and people have questions.  Unfortunately, due to ethical considerations and the large volume of readers, there is no way for me to read and respond to comments. 

          It’s like the woman in the cartoon standing behind the car with the trunk open– suitcases, piles of clothes, and all sorts of recreational equipment piled on the ground.  She’s saying, “Okay.  I can either pack for this trip or go on this trip.  I cannot do both.”