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

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

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

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

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

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

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

No one answers.

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

If your Christmas late evening was marred by a relative knocking over the Christmas tree (again) after too much eggnog…if or you ended up dodging flying turkey bones as one of those always charming inter-family political debates blew up….you likely looked out the bay window at the stars thinking….”Next year, I’m jetting out of the country as soon as the presents are opened.”

Ahh….not so fast.  You were only able to imagine the bliss of escape on a jet to faraway, because you’d not yet heard of the Rude Lady in Seat 20B, American Airlines 875, Dallas-Ft.Worth to Cabo San Lucas.  Prior to experiencing RL20B, I’d been considering working on being less judgmental as my New Year’s Resolution.  By the time we were over Juarez, RL20B had proven ”being less judgmental” was too big a reach for a weenie like me in 2010.

Everything started out okay.  My special one and I are seated in 21 E&F, middle and window, exit row.  The exit rows (20 and 21) are much prized for the extended leg-room.  The exit rows can only be pre-reserved…by very frequent fliers (sort of a hazard pay) and only by signing up very early for the flight.  Which is to say…a passenger goes to a lot of trouble to reserve an exit row seat…like say…Seat 20B…Aisle, Exit Row.  The plane is fairly empty on the ground in DFW until the last five minutes when crowds came aboard.  The flight attendants immediately started in prompting people to quickly take their seats to try and make an on-time take-off.

In front of us a nice older couple has taken their months-ago reserved exit row seats–Seats 20 D and E (Aisle and Middle).  Across the aisle, a young blonde woman travelling solo, has taken her long ago reserved Exit Row seat, Seat 20A against the window.  Thus, Row 20 is full except for the 20B on the aisle and 20F, across the aisle.   (Now you can forget Row 21, since all of the outrageousness has to do with Row 20.)

Move 1:  A loud young man and his wife roar up the aisle.  The man stops at Row 20, starts waving his hand over the couple in front of us as says, “Hey!  You guys don’t mind moving over to the window and middle do you?  I’d like to have this aisle seat so I can (this is a quote) “Holler up to my friends up there?…And, this way I can sit with my wife.”  Not knowing what was to come, the sweet couple said, “Sure. We’d prefer the aisle and middle, but if it’s important to you, we’ll move over.”  Which they did…thinking the Rude Guy was through messing with them. 

But, they’d be wrong.  Once settled across from each other on the aisle, Row 20, the husband turns to the nice couple to his right who’d accommodated him by switching from their preferred aisle and middle, to a middle and window on Row 20.  Now, this guy makes a fresh proposal: “Say, you guys wouldn’t mind getting up and switching with my friends up in Seat 14E (center) and 12E (center), would you guys? Me and my friends, we’d like to talk on the trip.”  (I’m taking down the quotes as we fly).

The sweet man in 20E answers in an admirable tone,  “But sir, you’re asking us to give up extra leg-room Exit Row seats for middle seats…” he said, thinking that would be enough.

But no.  The Rude Guy says, “Come on, now.  Me and my friends, we just want to sit together.  See we’re traveling with our friends.”

Nice guy points out, “But, sir, the seats you want us to switch to are not even close to each other. My wife and I would like to sit together.”

“Gee, Mister,” says Rude Guy, “I thought you’d want to help out.”

At this point, particularly if you’re not a frequent flier, you may be thinking….this doesn’t sound like all that big of a deal. 

But then, of course…. You are assuming what the rest of us on the plane (and this party of six had by this point buried all other conversations with their ‘hollering’ back and forth from the front to the back of the plane)….we, like you, are assuming that the Rude Woman who plunked down in 20B across the aisle from her Rude Guy husband….we’re assuming that the Rude Woman had actually been assigned Seat 20B…that she had pre-reserved the premium seat.  But we…like you….like the flight attendant would be wrong.  And when the woman who had the assignment of 20B, who’d been given a temporary seat by a flight attendant who’d been in a hurry to get the plane off and who had assumed she’d been mistaken about her seat….when this woman shows up to claim her seat 20B….that’s when the fun starts.

Tune in for Part Two: Rumble in the Skies Over Mexico.

 

There I was in Vegas… with a surly waitress and some crummy little shrimp and… I was as disappointed as a four-year-old staring out the window at the rain.  See the “Surly Waitress” incident. 

What to do?  What to do? sought direction.  I called on my two guidance systems.  

The Emotional Guidance System said:  You are being a brat here.  This meal costs twenty-five dollars, you CANNOT just leave an expensive meal.  You’re making too much of this!  You are too picky.  Hundreds of thousands, no, millions of people around the world, are going to bed hungry, and you, you are turning away from an expensive meal of shrimp.  There was a time when you and the special person travelled with a steno pad and wrote down every penny spent, staying in ratty motels and able to get lunch for a dollar (loaf of bread and a can of bean dip).  What’s happened that you are now such a brat?  It’s your fault for ordering seafood in the middle of the desert. These shrimp were flown in over many miles.  Think of it, woman.  These shrimp have given you their lives!

The Thinking Guidance System said:  Okay, probably life would be easier if you were a bit more adaptable, but the FACTS ARE…you can afford to walk this joint and find a cozier place with a happier staff. While there was a time when you would have to do without something else that day if you spent five dollars extra on a meal…but that was then.  This is now. You can afford to escape. The reality is, no one but you will be inconvenienced by your changing restaurants.  No one. 

I decided to split.  I asked for a to-go box and packed up the shrimp. (Which I dumped in the trash on my way to the next restaurant, as intended…but I thought taking the shrimp to-go and faking a mild emergency made me look less foolish….Okay, I know…I didn’t say I escaped the waitress from the frowny side of the street and her tiny shrimp without some concessions to my Emotional Guidance System.)

I left the waitress a ten dollar tip and a smile, hoping her day might pick up and headed for the buffet and a really perfect booth where I computed and piddled for hours. (Did you know the buffets in Las Vegas now have all day passes for tourists wanted to have it all and often?  I ask you, could this be a good thing?)

The Point:  Sometimes you can escape.  Remember the people who grew up in the depression and couldn’t spend money in accord with current circumstances?  Of course, many people attempt to spend themselves out of anxious situations when they cannot afford the cost … and end up causing all sorts of long-term problems.

An important contribution of the Thinking Guidance System is in avoiding generalizations.  The Emotional Guidance System lumps situations together saying, “If you allow yourself to switch restaurants and end up paying for two meals, what’s going to keep you from buying a bunch of timeshares in Tahiti you can’t use?”

What?

Dateline:  Hilton Branch Office, Las Vegas, Nevada.  For lead in to this post see “When Does Escaping Anxiety Work?”

Setup:  It is the last night of a several day trip during which I have been involved with others up and down the Strip, fun, but now I’m tired and looking forward to a couple of nights on my own off Strip in more luxury.  It’s three in the afternoon and, as I drag my luggage on the monorail,  I’m thinking fondly of my upcoming lovely late lunch with my computer at Hilton’s Paradise Café.  

I arrive at the hotel, dump my luggage and head for the Paradise Cafe.  It’s closed until five.  I pace outside, occasionally waving at cafe staff readying to open.  I’m the first one in, and ‘yes’ I could sit in the perfect booth. Ahhh. I flipped open the computer and studied the menu.  I would have the shrimp cocktail and fried shrimp.  I was ready for a couple of hours of editing and seafood…what everyone looks forward to in Vegas, right? 

(For more ideas on what to do in Las Vegas,see the Tourist Tips coming out with Jessica LeFave’s next adventure….What?   Are you thinking that anyone who’d think seafood and computer for two hours represents a good time in Vegas couldn’t possibly have any juicy ‘Tourist Tips’?…There’s a whole section on ‘How to Spot and Follow a Call Girl’, so there.)

But, alas, my joy in the perfect booth with shrimp x two was not to be.  The waitress stepped up to my booth, glared at my computer, and mentioned she’d seen me lurking around waiting for the Cafe to open and didn’t appreciate it….since, to her, the café opening signaled her return to a life of angry, indentured servitude.  I stayed on task.  I ordered the shrimp cocktail and the fried shrimp, asking her if she could wait on putting in the fried order for a while.

“Do What?” the displeased waitress asked.  “You want me to do what?”  I repeated my outrageous request.  She said, “What did you think I was going to do?  You ordered a shrimp cocktail.  I will bring you your shrimp cocktail and at that time I will place your entrée order.”

Well pooty.  I’m disappointed with the atmosphere, but then I’m an approval freak.  And, heck, I must have learned something from teaching all those anxiety management classes…I control what goes on inside my chest cavity….I couldn’t possibly be so ‘pourous’ that one unhappy waitress who clearly hates me and everyone like me….could put a blip in my day…”  

The less than wonderful-for-twenty dollars shrimp cocktail arrives.  Then, three minutes laterthe fried shrimp show up…in a BASKET…tiny little things, like fried catapillers crawling on a pile of soggy fries.   Okay.  Boo. Hiss.  What to do?   What to do?  Does mysteryshrink manage her anxiety and make the best of the situation?  Does making the best of the situation result in food poisoning and a basket phobia?

I looked inside my head for direction.  Both my ‘feelings’ and my ‘thoughts’ begged to direct my behavior.  Which side won?

 

Bumper sticker on the back windshield of a car:  I HATE STUPID PEOPLE.  Ouch.  

In the nonfiction I’ve started (See: Beyond Stress Management, Defining a Self with a Smile), I’ve asked fellow travelers to sign the following pledge.

I,_____________, am as nuts as everyone else on the planet.  As a start on freedom.  To get out from under the burden of a life spent trying to convince ourselves and others that we aren’t.

Is this asking too much?  Maybe.  My special person read the pledge and said, “Whoa!  Lots of people are going to balk at admitting that.”    “That’s just the point,” I say, “the whole point of the book is to quit taking ourselves so seriously all the time.”   He said, ”Maybe that’s what you’re thinking, but I think you will find out most people would rather believe in their superiority.”

“But defending our superiority, defending the idea that we are the only ones who know how to do things right, takes so much time and energy.  We have to be on guard all the time, fending off evidence, arguing, and uselessly trying to convince other people that we are ‘right’ and they are ‘wrong’.  I’m not saying each of us doesn’t have a point of view.  I’m not talking about religious beliefs or political leanings or decisions on how to raise children…I’m talking about the time wasted on issues that don’t matter, time wasted being anxious…whether you should pre-soak stains, avoid sugar, avoid television, drive in the right lane, private school over public school, seek plastic surgery…  I’m talking about letting go of ‘being right’ as a way of life.”

Still, my special person said, “I don’t think your pledge is going to fly.”  Which of course threw me instantly into trying to convince I was right and he was wrong about pledges and how they fly. 

And I held my ground that most people would enjoy the relief of admitting equal nuttiness with our co-inhabitants…I held it until I saw the “I HATE STUPID PEOPLE” sticker.  For sure the owner of the sticker finds stupid people all over the place.  People who spend money, treat their pets, choose professions, choose sports teams, choose books…stupidly.  I wouldn’t want to be married to someone who was ”sensitized” to ”stupid” people, since I’m sure I would fulfill his expectations on a regular basis.  I wouldn’t want to be in his family.  Egad, what if your boss was a “I hate stupid people” fan?   

Maybe “I..H..S..P” guy wouldn’t sign a pledge, maybe IHSPeople guy would say only stupid people would sign such a pledge.  But that’s okay.  I won’t even argue about his choice.  Who has time and energy for that struggle?

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.

 

 

It’s Your Movie, and Welcome to It

“Which is more important?  The world that exists?  Or, the world you are responding to?”

Consider this situation.  You are tired, though the day is young. In your hand or in your mind, have a list of tasks for the day.  You’re going to exercise, finish up several home projects and eatat least two servings of fresh fruits. The truth be told, you’ve had the same list for days, maybe weeks. When you wrote the list, you were optimistic, you were confident you would follow through. But today, with the way you feel, you’ll be lucky to not lose ground on every front of your life. You certainly do not have the positive outlook and enthusiasm to tackle new projects, no matter how over due. You have a slight headache. You reach for a cola and a couple of cookies. Maybe you’re coming down with something. You dread interacting with other people….Maybe a coffee or one of those energy drinks would help. Maybe one of each.

Then you pick up your email.  The children’s story you wrote is being published in a major magazine!  Your favorite friend is coming for a visit!

Power, energy, and ideas swell up in your body. The muscles of your legs and arms, a moment earlier weighing you down like slabs of concrete, are now warm with vigor. Ideas, plans, and actions take over your mind. You jump into shorts and a T-shirt. You can get in a half hour of walking before you start your work day.  You grab a pad of paper, creative ideas are whirling in your brain and you don’t want to chance missing a one. You back out of your driveway waving to your neighbors and singing alone with the radio.

What happened?  The world—you, other people, events, and all the other parts of life—did not change.  The effort to “Define a Self with a Smile” is about trying to catch the power of that little moment when the energy changed.  To join the journey toward a self with a smile takes a willingness to smile at yourself.

If you’d like to jump on the fast track, here’s step one.  Fill in the blank below and you’re signed on for the trip.

Pledge 1:  I, ______________, am as nuts as every other person on the planet. 

The good news in the reality that we make up our world…is that…while our anxieties can make the world and people scarier than they are…We’re in charge of the process!  We can change our experience.  The effort, however, is not for sissies.

Heh…heh…Since we make people up….We can even make them up nicer than they are.  (I suspect that everyone is secretly crazy about you and me.  Even though some of them are prit-tee excellent at keeping their feelings hidden.)

Will the real Galena, Illinois, and the REAL Dubuque, Iowa, please stand up?

What?  There isn’t a REAL Galena, Illinois?  At least not ONE that can be seen and reported by a human…because we’re all subjective nuts, you say?

“Which is more important?  The Galena, Illinois that could be captured in a photograph?  Or the Galena, Illinois I made up?”

In the previous full post (there was the ‘quick post’ on my complete failure at being cool)…title, your fearless leader was preparing for a book-signing venture to Galena, Illinois and Dubuque, Iowa.

Now…Was I preparing for the REAL Galena, Illinois, and Dubuque, Iowa?  Was I preparing to meet people like myself with their own imperfect natures?  Of course not.  That sort of preparation would depend on the facts regarding these two spots…and a reasonable way of rating my experiences with humans so far.  Neeeuuuu.  I was preparing for the Galena and Dubuque I constructed in my head.  I was preparing for experiences based on my anxieties, which, given my weinnie nature…well, let’s just say…it ain’t a pretty picture.

Had I visited either place before, or met the people I was working with before, perhaps I’d been slightly more prepared to take in how terrific, exciting, and interesting these places and people are.  But, no guarantee. 

We fit the people we meet into the people we ‘expect’ them to be…and this varies depending on whether or not we’re hungry, down about something at work, reactive to physical traits, oh good grief.

Think of what happens when you visit family in another city.  You do not prepare for them …as they are…you prepare for them as you remember them…even though your memory is a subjective mess based on your anxieties and expectatations….and…

Come on… those people have changed from the people YOU MADE UP last time you visited.  Are you with me here?  Repeat:  We are all nuts making up people and the world as we go along.  And that’s okay, because…We live and work with other people who are all nuts and who are MAKING US UP out of their anxieties and expectations.

We’re all a mess.  Really.

“Which is more important?  The world you can touch?  Or the world you are making up and responding to?

The Thinking Guidance System begs us to use facts.  The Emotional Guidance System uses fears and cheap shot expectations.

An important element in our writing and directing our own little version of the world…is sensitivity.  As you move through the world, what little pieces jump out of the tapestry and grow until they really, really bug you?  Maybe your hyper-awareness even takes on so much power that you MUST splatter your fears and exaggerations on other people. 

For example, yesterday I read an article written by a mental health professional on how ”the media” influences public perception of emotional illness. (We don’t have to guess the direction on this one.) Her example of media irresponsibility was Monk. According to the expert, because Monk has Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and yet sees a therapist regularly…the American people believe that OCD cannot be effectively treated.  Beyond the cry…”It’s entertainment, lady.  Not a public service announcement.”… element, I’m not convinced that her conclusion holds water.  Poor deceived woman was paying so much attention to something that pricked a personal fear, she wrote an article.

Then, this morning, even more proof of how goofy and twisted we are putting together our version of the world… landed in my lap. I’m rubbing the sleep out of my eyes and the spouse has on ESPN.  I’m okay with that, I like sports.  But today…what’s the big feature?  Model Brooklyn Decker, wife of Andy Roddick.  Each segment opened with a video clip of Brooklyn Decker in a bikini on the beach, winking seductively at the camera followed by a variety of revealing poses. 

“Now what does she have to with sports?” I asked the man now diving for the shower like it was a foxhole. “And,” I continued, kindly raising my voice so he could hear me in the other room. Because what I’m saying is not just important, it’s crucial that he understand the gravity of what I’m saying. I went on to say, “It is ridiculous how this is a news story because a tennis player has a wife that looks good naked.  Don’t people get how sick this is?  What kind of message are we sending our kids?  Don’t Brookyn and Andy even GET that the only reason he married her is because she looks good on his arm and she only gave HIM the time of day because he is famous and really, really rich.  What kind of crummy relationship is based on superficial features like that?  I mean, don’t you think those two people are miserable?…Well, don’t you?…”  I heard the shower turn on.  Then I realized my Emotional Guidance System coached folly.  Oops.  …Oh, dear. 

What if . . . when you die . . . there is an afterlife and that afterlife is this:  You live your same life over…exactly…

Except, instead of living events sequentially….have insomnia, shut off the alarm, get up, go to the kitchen, take out an apple because today’s the day you change how you eat, grab a piece of cold pizza because you just don’t have the energy to deprive yourself today, kiss your spouse, stub your toe on the dog dish, back out of the drive way hitting the garbage can, hit the steering wheel, look down and see that you’re late already….

However….in this afterlife….you live the same life…but each separate activity, no matter how brief.. .is lumped together.  Yep.  In this afterlife, you are talking yourself into climbing out of bed for two years, stubbing your toe for a week, you’re making dentist appointments for six hours, eating birthday cake for two hours, trying to decide whether you should give low-carbohydrate eating another try for a year….four months you spend driving around lost….two months saying you are not lost….six years worrying about thing that didn’t happen….a year with a cold….

And so it goes.  This notion is not my idea but comes from Sum by Dr. David Eagleman in whose audience I was privileged to be a couple of weeks ago.  Dr. Eagleman, a neuroscientist and Head of the Neuroscience Lab at Baylor Medicine, started his book as a way of considering afterlife possibilities but ended up with a wonderful set of forty possibilities that have the effect of directing his readers–not so much to think about afterlife–but about life.

Take a minute.  What if you knew that your afterlife would be everything over in lumps?  Would you choose your life moments more carefully? 

Would you learn to say “No” to the painful, time-robbing, ineffective strategies of your Emotional Guidance System? 

The “what ifs”…” the self torture… the bad decisions serving no purpose except to shake off anxiety?

I don’t have the big answers yet.  But I picked up a few hints from “Lockup/Raw” in the wee hours this morning.  For now, it’s enough to say I left Dr. Eagleman’s lecture a bit thoughtful. I went by Eatzi’s (incredible gormet take-out) which is my habit while bunked in my Hilton Branch Headquarters.  As I did every night, I headed straight for the cocktail shrimp.  Now the word cocktail is a bit miss leading.  These babies go for $39.99 a pound and a half-pound is four to five. I study the size of the shrimp….should I have four…which should be enough…or five…sheesh….what if that’s more than $20 bucks?  For a few shrimp?… Then I rememberd the possible afterlife….and ordered five. 

I didn’t want to spend another second than I already had in the bank under “time spent trying to decide between four or five shrimp.”

This human is “currently being serviced.” 

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

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

Today is a Maintenance Day.   

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 This is not about “righteous not-eating or dieting.” It’s about chocolate turtle cheesecake, the Emotional Guidance System, and the Thinking Guidance System. The obsession with dieting (that doesn’t work or we would have fixed the problem)…is a product of the Emotional Guidance System.  The EGS drives both the self-torture of repeated starvation-feel artificially great-hate yourself business. The Thinking Guidance System is not about skinny-not-eating-on-a-diet Good Person vs. not-skinny-not-buying-the-latest-Jones-Smith-diet Bad Person. Who needs that?

I admit that I’m too lazy and preoccupied to take an interest in cooking, and luckily my laziness and preoccupation carries over to even going to the trouble to eat. Though I’ve always been the same size, I’m sure if I got into dieting like I do say–writing mysteries–I’d be fat in little time. I’m emphasizing this because clients usually think I’m gearing up to talk about dieting and suffering and self-torture gifts of the Emotional Guidance System that we are trying to tame.

Okay.  I’m at my branch National World Headquarters, the Dallas-Ft. Worth Airport. I’ve had most of a cheese burger   with fries and I want something sweet. I order up the chocolate turtle cheesecake and am brought a small sailboat made out of fudge and sweet cheese and nuts.   Right away I go through the facts, “This is way bigger than I anticipated. If I let my EGS control this situation with statements like, “This is so good I should eat all of it because I’ll never have the chance to have something this special again.” “If I sin by eating it, I might as well eat it all.” And, the worst emotional reasoning, “This cost six bucks, I must eat all of it regardless of the consequences.”

The “Fettucini Incident” when I ignored the gastro-intestinal side effects fresh on my mind, I determined I’d eat the amount equal to what I expected the dessert to be.  I’m not being a good American woman who constantly thinks about her wait and believes chocolate turtle cheesecake is the work of the devil. (or a Dr. L, who has none of the human desires) I am desperately forcing myself to THINK through what I will feel like on the plane having just eaten a crate of sugar and chocolate. That’s it. Chocolate not bad, cheesecake not bad. I’m not bad. I simply do not want to be sick. No halo here.

I won! This doesn’t happen often, but that’s where we’re going, right? A tiny step at a time toward a Self-Defined Life.

Welcome Australia folks.  Sorry about comments impossibility. I’m working on it.

  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.”