mysteryshrink.com » body image

Lasagna Ends War on Drugs

mysteryshrink — Mon, 24 May 2010 00:26:26 +0000

The advertising industry depends on the dominance of the Emotional Guidance System over the Thinking Guidance System, which isn’t a tough call. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have a five piece set of luggage for only $39.99 folded into a shoebox in my closet.

The method most often used is the LOOSE CONNECTION ploy. Advertisers use what we call a “loose connection” to establish a FALSE cause and effect. For example: Joe Montana (16 years in the NFL) is in good shape. Joe wears ”rollers” from Sketchers. Therefore: Roller shoes caused Joe Montana’s in-shapeness. Put on those Sketchers, baby, and, you too, will be ready to run onto the field at the new Cowboy Stadium….

Shop at Walmart and watch the pounds drop…and on and on and on….The weight loss industry depends on the EGS, particularly the Emotional Guidance Systems advice: “It won’t hurt to buy all this worthless equipment and all these pills.” Yeah, if you don’t count the soul-sucking loss of personhood.

Ah, but the weight issue can wait. We have the War on Drugs to bust first.

Swanson frozen food commercials suggest that thawing their products and sitting around the table as a family results in closer relationships with your children. As soft hymn-like music rises in the background, a blond family of four laughs and exchanges winning smiles around the table as they dish up lasagna.

According to Swanson, these early lasagna experiences mean you’ll have better relationships with your kids when they’re teenagers than will foolish parents who ignored the Swanson advice. Thus: Swanson Frozen Lasagna=Drug-Free Teens.

Why is thinking about loose cause-effect issues important? Because…cause-effect thinking sends us off onto all sorts of crazy generalizations, such as “I’m late, so I have to be in a bad mood….I’m not beautiful, so I can’t wear a bathing suit….my kid’s in jail because I had a job while he was in high school….even….I’m not happy because I married the wrong person…I know. That’s a biggie.

Swanson should maybe pass their incredible good news up the line, say share their genius with the folks in Washington. Stay with me here, this lasagna solution can solve all sorts of problems:

Swanson Frozen Lasagna=Drug Free Teens=Billions of Dollars Saved=Murders Down 40 Percent=Border Problem Solved=Millions Go Off Welfare=Less Unemployment=Fewer Houses Broken Into=Prisons Emptied…Who knows where lasagne can take us?

Who’s In Charge?

mysteryshrink — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 19:39:35 +0000

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.

I’m A Big Wennie, Too

mysteryshrink — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 00:49:37 +0000

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?