Remember, our goal is to work toward improved emotional functioning…to have our actions (inward and outward) be more and more determined by our Best Thinking…that is our Thinking Guidance System…and less and less have our actions determined by emotional pressure from other people or from within ourselves…our Emotional Guidance System.

And this continuing example represents one, feeble psychologist’s reminder of how tough efforts toward maturity can be.  My goal is that my own humiliating lack of mature functioning will inspire some other soul to do better…

Dateline:  Chicago O’Hare. Second leg of re-routed trip to Columbia, South Carolina. (See ‘A Case of Attempted Maturity at 30,000 Feet’).

Technically, the journey to Columbia was supposed to be completed three hours ago, and I was supposed to be enjoying a club sandwich and a glass of iced fume blanc from room service.  But, I’ve adjusted.  I’m doing great.  I’ll make good use of having an extra three hours in the airport.  I’ve proved something to myself and, hopefully, showed you guys what can be done if you give your Thinking Guidance System a chance.  After several determined minutes of repeated saying to myself: “While the changes in my plans… are unfortunate, uncomfortable, and inconvenient ….this is not a disaster unless I decide to make it one….”  I was almost giddy, I felt so ‘in charge’ of my emotions. 

I enjoy a sandwich while standing since no chairs are available in the jammed food court.  But, I’m cool.  My special person called on his way to the basketball game, asked me how I thought it would turn out, and I LAUGHED and remarked I was sure it would be great fun.  There had been a pause, then he asked, “Wow. Where did you get this enthusiasm, missing the game and all yourself?”  

Not knowing what awaited, I twittered back something nice, something airy and sophisticated, showing off my hard-fought managing of my Emotional Guidance System.

United Express 6960 boards right on time.  Swell.  Things are looking up, I pat myself on the back for handling the inconveniences of air travel with the maturity of a guru.  I smile at my fellow travelers.  Behind me are two young men heading to Ft. Jackson for basic training and then to who-knows-where.  I thank them for their service.  One, we’ll call him Arnold, since he’s joining the Army, mentions that he’s never flown before.  His seatmate from the same small Ohio town, cuffs him on the back.  I add reassurances….because I’m such a seasoned and easy-going flyer.  Because I can read the future and everything’s going to be just fine, I say, motherly like.

Army Arnold is the first one of us to crack after we’d sat unmoving, the door not closed for over an hour.  “What if something wrong with the plane?”Arnold asks.  “Oh, not to fret,” I say. ”This kind of hold-up happens all the time.  They can make up the time in the air.” 

“Good,” Army Arnold says, because they have a bus to catch and a two-hour ride to Ft. Jackson.  “Not to worry,” I patter on, “you’ll be there before midnight.”  Now right here, some sort of survival instinct should have kicked in. Why do I have to make things worse for myself by talking about things I know nothing about? 

Ten minutes later, the pilot, Positive Pete a voice who I will come to know well, comes on to ‘update’ our adventure party.  It seems the airport computers usually sending pre-flight data are down…Thus, the needed paperwork, as we speak, is being hand-carried… and, as soon as the paperwork arrives, we’ll be off in a jiff.  Of course. This is not a disaster…unless I decide to make it one.

That word, ‘jiff’… a jiff.  A JIFF.  So innocent, so reassuring.   Our flight attendant, Denial Danny, passes out free granola bars.  Now, I’m not bitching about the granola bars….it just seemed a bit of a reach when Denial Danny’s emphasized the word ‘free’ as if an ounce of sugared oats should make us even with the airline for being late. …Sometimes, late at night, in one of my many branch Hiltons…a cruel voice calls to me out of the darkness…taunting me with just one word over and over.  JIFF.

How bright and appealing are the fruits in your future?

What if your participation in the food pyramid is determined by how well you manage anxiety?

I know.  Hello Big Mac.

But really….to what degree are your choices….influenced by your mood?….your current opinion of yourself?  How your career’s going?….heck….how work’s going today?   To what degree are your behavior choices influenced by how your special person is thinking about you? (Or, more correctly….how you THINK he is thinking…and, by the way, you’re wrong.)

“Which is more important?  The world as it exists?   Or the world we’re making up as we go along?”

Symptomatic behavior, from angry outbursts to staying in bed all day…. are a result of a combination of:  physical elements (including genetics and current state of health);   life events (including upbringing experiences);  the individual’s basic level of functioning (typical ability to manage stress and change);  the functional level and availability of the emotional system (family).

And behaving in anything like a healthy, reasonable manner is hard as trying to drag yourself out of a pot of setting taffy.  If it were any easier, no one would miss their daily walk, no one would be overweight, no one would overdrink….there wouldn’t even be a “Latest Stupid Diet Discovery Aisle) in the grocery store.  Oh, and there’s now a separate section called: Anti-Aging.  Now what kind of dream world is that?

I don’t have the answer on how to suddenly function better, how to easily conquer my ever-present, anxiety-driven,  Emotional Guidance System.  I haven’t taken my afternoon walk since….ahhhh…since we returned from Cabo San Lucas….since I returned to real life.  I’ve figured it out how to cure all of us.  If we can all stack up enough hotel and airline points to live permanently in a resort on the tip of Baja…I mean…we’re fixed.  What a miracle.

Let’s start with the symptom of not eating fruit.  Grazing the buffet overlooking the Sea of Cortez, I had no problem filling up my bowl every morning with strawberries, bananas, pineapple, apple slices.  “Beautiful fruit,” I’d exclaim.  “Omelet?” they asked.  “Oh, not for me.  This fruit looks great!” 

Now, I’m back at my Dallas national world headquarters Hilton…and I can hardly look at the fruit.  Gosh, all those healthy behaviors had come so naturally in Mexico.  What happened I ask, as I finish up my bacon and wash down my blood pressure pill with coffee?

Now BEFORE WE BLAME the ENVIRONMENT and slap on all the cliches…”work too hard…traffic…weather…mom late picking you up from kindergarten…”…JUST STOP IT already.

I, like all of you, can take more charge of the world I see and make up.  I can make those strawberries more colorful.  And, there’s a way you can start right now.  Say out loud, “Wow, what a beautiful, interesting sky.  What lovely______.”  Because remember, unlike the unfortunate Princess Diana…YOU ARE ALIVE.  (See post on What Do You Have that Princess Diana Doesn’t?)

And as long as you and I are alive, we’ve got a shot at changing what goes on inside our chest cavities.  We’ve got a shot at joy.

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.

The way I see it, each of us has plenty of uncomfortable situations we cannot, and actually, do not want to avoid.  Situations and relationships that our BEST THINKING tells us we’d better grow up and manage ourselves, if we are to have a long and positive life.

The situations requiring us to “get over it” and manage our anxiety are many, including physical illness and discomfort (yep, we all get sick)…aging (yep, that, too, even if hours at the gym and a little help from the surgeon delays reality)…friends who are not at their best, anxious family members, the anxiety that comes with learning new skills or meeting new people, war, elections, colonoscopies, dental work…the give and take that makes for a solid long-term marriage…

These situations require us to grow rather than run.  And there are plenty of them.

But, then, there’s the occasional uncomfortable situation when we can simply escape rather than grow up.  Now, of course, I’d like to be the Buddha, I’d like to say I am now, or think I could at some point in the future be, completely in charge of my anxiety…that I can or hypothetically could…respond to discomfort, criticism, and all the hard parts of reality without experiencing painful anxiety…but that’s not going to happen… it’s a journey…

Given the non-Buddha probability, a little skill in figuring out when you can afford to duck…that is, when ‘ducking’ has no significant long-term downside….and when ‘ducking’ an unpleasant situation is going to come back to bite you…or peck you.

Which situations can you afford to ‘escape’ or ‘make go away’ with money or a little extra slippery effort?

Example:  When you are on a full flight and an unusually tall or expansive person is assigned the seat next to you…this is one of those situations you’re best off to call on your skills of managing anxiety. 

However, if you are seated in an uncrowded movie theater and an unusually tall person sits down in front of you, all that’s necessary to relieve your discomfort is a little extra effort on your part. 

Of course, your move could still tie you in a knot if you’re not at the theater alone and the other person disagrees with your decision to move… or takes the moment to recite all the ways you are too demanding.  In this situation your decision to escape has sparked an anxiety in your movie-going pal.  If you and your movie-going pal had an argument on the way to the movie, or if your movie-going pal is hungry, the counter-move, sometimes called a ‘change back’ move can be more intense.

Last night I had one of those ‘tall guy sits in front of you at the movies’ events occurred.  And a chance for an example was born. 

Right there in the glitz of Las Vegas.  Yes, even Vegas is no more than fodder for the struggle between the Emotional Guidance System and the Thinking Guidance System….Maybe Las Vegas was the place the Emotional Guidance System was born.

Next Las Vegas, the Playground of the rich and anxious….and the just anxious.

One way you can tell you are making decisions based on baloney from your Emotional Guidance System is…when…with each step of the process, the bleeding gets worse.

One of the features of being crazy humans is that we do not always…maybe even ‘usually’ do what makes sense.   Instead we do something familiar or handy.  I’ve been particularly amazed at our consistency in thinking negative or fearful thoughts… and  when the first negative doesn’t destroy us…we repeat the procedure…until we’re somewhere below the dumps.

We also have this need to tell other people negative things (opinions) about them or people they care about…and when the first piece of information isn’t convincing…we lay on another…and another.  (This is particularly true when talking politics.)

So, as you read about the man below…think of your negative thoughts or statements as big ole long construcktion nails. 

Okay, now I’m not absolutely sure of the exact story, but I did hear this one on the radio (which means it’s true, right?).  The man in the story gives us an excellent lesson on one way to know when we are making a decision using our Emotional Guidance System. 

The story stars a construction worker who was having a pretty good day… until he slipped with the band saw and cut his hand off at the wrist.  Seeing the horror of his stump spraying blood in all directions…our construction worker could see no way to go on with life and decided to kill himself …now…He looked around and spotted a nail gun.  Two inch nails driven into the body in essential places could do it…He picked up the nail gun and fired one into his forehead…but he didn’t die.  He fired a second nail into his forehead.  Damn.  That shot didn’t end his consciousness.  What to do?  What to do? 

What else?  If at first you don’t succeed….He fired a nail into the side of his head…and then two.  Then one on the other side of his head…then two.  Our hero fired a total of twelve nails into his head before he lost conciousness.  But he didn’t die.  He woke up after surgery, his hand sewed on, his head nails removed.  I suspect his family will never let him forget…oh, the cruel nicknames…

Talk about the Emotional Guidance System running the show…Did it not occur to the man after, say, the eighth nail….that, just maybe, his chosen method of suicide had shortcomings?

Think of focusing on fears and reminding others of their weak suits…as you with the nail gun in your hand…the method doesn’t work…and is really messy.

But what if I find someone better? …the attractive high school senior asked.  People told him he was a great catch, and most girls would have glowed in his letter jacket.  He had a girlfriend and he’d just confessed that maybe he was in love.   

But he was not a happy fellow.  He obsessively worried that if he made a commitment, even for a month… as soon as  he’d made his move, he’d meet someone prettier, cooler, smarter…someone who’d turn even more heads when she was on his arm.  What the heck was he going to do then?

Ah, yes.  Here is one of the tricks of our old life-sucking enemy, the…you guessed it…the Emotional Guidance System(If you’re not familiar with the terms, search Guidance System on this site.).  One of the ways that Master of Anxiety Building…gets in the way of living.

The name of this trick is:  Exaggeration of  the Alternatives.  The trick has two parts.  The first is simple exaggeration…If I choose A, and learn later that B would have been a better dd choice…Well, that would be awful, terrible, and I can’t stand it!    From now on my only choice is to complain and fret.

Sound trivial?  Hey, don’t tell me you aren’t disappointed when you pick the slowest checkout line in the grocery…again.  And the drive-in bank.  Do you not, everytime, end up behind the guy who doesn’t do his paperwork until he’s number one in line?  What about choosing a job?  Or a career…Do you know anyone saying, “Oh, what I could have, should have done?”  And what about choosing that special person?… What if?  What could have been?

The second important feature of this trick of the EGS…happens because when we live by “What if?“ … “If only…” …and this is the really BIG PIECE. …The Emotional Guidance System, driven to accomplish one thing…get rid of immediate anxiety   …The really dirty part of the EGS trick…

Is that when we focus on the notion that the most important thing is making the RIGHT CHOICE…we are lost to the present.  We are obsessed with the past…”Why didn’t I see this was the wrong choice.”  And, we are obsessed with the future.  “Oh, no.  Woe is me!  Because I made the wrong choice…my future is a mess…and there’s nothing I can do.  Nothing…

We are in a VICTIM position.  We focus on what could have been…in our imagination…and do not pour our energies into what we have.   We spend time being critical of others, critical of ourselves.  “Here I sit, having made the WRONG CHOICE and there’s nothing I can do.”  

The EGS would have us invest our energy in these ‘worrying’ mess rather than dedicate ourselves to the PRESENT.

The Emotional Guidance System is never in favor of ‘doing the best we can with what we have’.  The EGS wants an easier way out than the effort it takes to deal with the present moment.

Think about that one.  I mean, since the present moment is all we have.  Wouldn’t it be a good idea to give the present our attention?

Is it possible our day, our relationship, our career is as great as we make it?  How about Now?…And Now….Whoops…missed a chance….How about now?

“Hi.  I’m in here.  Are you out there?”

Mysteryshrink’s You-Get-What-You-Pay-For Psychological Tip:  Comparing yourself to wildlife can provide excellent excuses for your bizarre behavior.  In general people feel possitively about the creatures of the forests and the trees…here’s how you can cash in.

Now, the wildlife comparison technique works best if you have already informed people, that, indeed you are nuts.  As a refresher, the rest of your life will go much more pleasantly if you will cease and desist from further defending yourself as a sane person.  Let it go.

When someone says–

What’s wrong wrong with you?  Why do you do it that way?  How could you think like that?  How could you possibly have made the same mistake eight times?

Squench your face into a ‘very puzzled’ expression and answer:  “Because…I think I’ve figured it out…it’s because I’m crazy and I’m getting worse!”

Comparing yourself to wildlife works in all sorts of situations.  When you show up late to an event, you can say:  At least I’m not a middle-aged Schnauzer.  Did you know they sleep twenty hous  a day?  At least I’m not sea slug.  Did you know they can impreganate themselves?  At least I’m not river rat. Did you know they can get up to twenty pounds? 

Now, about the chipmunks.  (This part about chipmunks is factual, the above is just wild guesses, but facts matter so little when you’re defending yourself.)  Chipmunks bury nuts all the time in all sorts of places. However, their memories are only good for three days.  Lucky for the chipmunks, many tend to live in the same areas.  Thus, many of the nuts the chipmunk finds and eats were left by other chipmunks who’d forgotten where they’d buried them… just as  the feasting chipmunk’’s poorly remembered efforts were providing forgotten nuts for others.  Pretty neat system, eh?

Now to the most recent opportunigy for comparing self to wildlife to distract from bizarre behavior.  I’ve been traveling a lot lately (this is my human-based excuse).  Last week, I was returning to town on a Wednesday, thus scheduled a slate of appointments for Thursday.  Groggy and achey, I woke up Thursday and steeled my body with an Excedrin triple-shot.  My special person wished me well as he left for his regular Wednesday bridge game.  After he left, I showered and dressed in what would have to pass for professional togs.

Then I realized that my special person had just left for his WEDNESDAY bridge game.  And, pow!  Right there in front of me was one of those bonus…I didn’t hide it…nuts!  I didn’t put the day aside, I didn’t sacrifice, I didn’t trade a nut for a nut.  I just stumbled on a free nut!

Dateline: Changing Hearts… a a home for abused, abandoned, and neglected girls in Nuevo Laredo (starred project for mysteryshrink)–
Nine year old Christina had come with her mother to “observe” the home as a potential charity recipient of her wealthy and kind parents. Christina’s family lives snuggly and well in the best part of Austin. She has had all the experiences, learning opportunities, resort travel, and material provisions expected in the life to which she was born.

On this day, Christina had joined the girls in the home in their cramped and sparse activities. At the end of the day, Christina was laying on the bare floor with 50 girls she couldn’t understand, watching Spanish T.V., and eating popcorn.  Just moments into the movie she got up off the floor and whispered to her mom, “This is the best day of my life!”

Christina’s mother smiled and tears ran, realizing what she had been able to provide her daughter on this day.

What if Eagleman’s first possibility for the afterlife (Sum) is what happens?  What if, after you depart this life, what happens is that you are required to live your life over exactly as you did the first time…except now, instead of living experiences in sequential fashion…you have experience events in lumps…thirty years sleeping, fourteen having breakfast…so many arguing… (See “Choosing Life…”)

Four solid years of being lost would be tiring…. But imagine if you had to re-experience every moment you ever spent worrying…if you were required to go through every worry again… in one long, tedious, hand-twisting lump?  Yikes.

Worrying is the handiwork of the Emotional Guidance System since our Thinking Guidance System deals with facts, not “What ifs.”

The Emotional Guidance System burns anxiety for fuel to create more anxiety.  The Emotional Guidance System pokes us with, “What if you are wrong?” 

The Thinking Guidance System looks at that question and the facts.  The Thinking Guidance System says:  “You are probably are wrong a lot.  It’s not that big a deal.”

The Emotional Guidance System says:  “If you are wrong…Terrible things will happen!  Being wrong is horrible, embarrassing, and you won’t be able to stand it!”

The Emotional Guidance System applies the same formula of fear-generating anxiety with:  “What if you are late?”  “What if you are early?”  “What if you don’t get the promotion?”  “What if you have cancer?”  “What if she gets mad?”   “What if my kid has problems?”

The little big-mouthed fear-monger sitting on your shoulder, shouting in your ear is specifically tuned to scare you about the possibilites most meaningful to you.  Here’s the challenge.  Each time today when your little “What if” Inner Torturer takes hold and starts going on and on exaggerating consequences….Think about Eagleman’s afterlife idea.  Play with this notion: 

If you knew you were going to have to meticulously repeat every second of every day you spent worrying….would you still CHOOSE to worry today?

Years of training and experience enables those of us who study the mind to read people better and faster than those without such training.  Proof, you ask?  Why just the other day I’m aboard my private executive cubby, Seat 21F  American Airlines, on a long ride from Seattle. 

Previously, I have mentioned that my “employees” serving my executive cubby capsule have tapped right into my Emotional Guidance System (Notice, I, do not dip into my trouble-stirring my Emotional Guidance System—THEY do it.  They reach right inside of my head and give the ole Emotional Guidance System a twist.)… by running out of peanuts before reaching my seat, not to mention other obviously intentional slights involving timing of treats and lack of special treatment.

I was hideously betrayed on this particular four and a half hour flight by a flight attendent who should know how fragile I am and yet, did not consider my needs for special treatment. The doors were about to close.  I’m breathing a sigh of relief because the middle seat is empty.  I consider this treat extremely important.  In fact, when the seat is empty my sense of specialness gets a sick little boost.  Then… they let on a stand-by passenger…the relieved soul staggers down the aisle…clearly so happy to be on board he’s willing to take any seat… Then…this is where I am dastardly betrayed….

The flight attendant, who should be thinking of nothing by my comfort, actually says, “There’s a middle by here on the exit row 21, sir.”

I know.  I, too, was horrified.  What’s wrong with these people?  I force a smile as I remove my computer, three books, mini-computer, pizza in a bag, and miscellaneous equipment from the middle seat.  The inconsiderate passenger plops right in, no apology…nothing.  My Emotional System, that part of my brain designed to get rid of anxiety, launches a rather steamy inner dialogue:  “Why did she have to say that?  Now I won’t be as comfortable, won’t be able to get as much accomplished.  What a waste.  I can’t believe this.  This shouldn’t be happening.”

But I was able to call on my Thinking Guidance System and lay out the facts. I could still work.  The extra room would have been nice, but just possibly the flight attendent’s suggestion had been an innocent attempt to be helpful.  I was cool. AND  THEN….came the discovery that the middle man brought with him the unmistakable fragrance of a young man who’d skipped his shower for several days.  Did I mention this was a long flight? Remarkably, I answered my Emotional Guidance System, which was exaggerating the situation, with facts.  Primarily the fact that we humans habituate to smells quickly.

My orientation toward Middle Seat Guy mellowed further noticing his rather splotchy haircut and that he spent his time carefully and slowly reading the “Sky Mall” catalog.  He read it three times and I became aware that he was studying the pictures and not reading.  In fact, his movements, his haircut, and even his odor made me aware that the man was mentally challenged.  I recalled the blank, rather desperate look on his face as he came on the plane at the last minute.  I understood why the flight attendant had made a special effort to find him a seat.  I forgave her.  Middle Seat Man then took out the safety card and studied the drawings.  Then he dropped his head and looked around for something else with pictures.  I felt badly for him and thought about giving him one of the two mysteries from the seat pocket in front of me, but I didn’t want to embarrass him into admitting the texts were more than he could read.  So I held back to save his pride.

Halfway through the flight Middle Seat Guy retrieved something from his luggage in the overhead bin.  He returned to his seat, flipped open his computer, and worked on electrical engineering plans for the rest of the flight.

I’m going in.

Teaching children with cerebral palsy to ride horses presented many challenges.  One I always remembered was when the child’s skills had advanced to the point she was ready to jump, I’d present the good news, then set a cross-bar.  Often my student would shrink back, saying she wasn’t ready, she was too afraid.  I’d insist, even urging the horse from behind if needed.  I’d explain…and this was a fact born of experience…that I’d push her forward even when she didn’t believe she was ready because I’d taught many students through this stage and… each and every one survived and was happy to have made it over that first jump, no matter how messy.

Now the truth was, in my head I’m thinking… “Take a jump on a horse chosen because he’s safe, a horse maybe not even awake?  You’ve got to be kidding!”  But I’d push, they’d limp over, and all ended up happy.

Often when I’m talking with someone in my office about working on managing anxiety, the picture comes back of the student rider on the ancient steed, and how I expected the rider to do what I didn’t have to do.

Thus, today…I’m going in behind the lines.  I’m going to knock the spider webs off my Thinking Guidance System and see if I can loosen up a self-defeating habit.

The Mission: Infiltrate a group of unknown people and function with an open heart and open mind.

To stretch…instead of allowing my (self protective) Emotional Guidance System’s warnings to run the show:  “You don’t have anything in common with these people.”  ”Just get in and out as quickly as possible, don’t obligate yourself or you will be sorry.”  And the biggee:  ”What if everyone there is a genius, is model thin, actually has spiffy coordinated outfits with scarves and big purses with designer buckles, drives a Bentley, has a house in the South of France, is a perfect wife who cooks and actually decorates her house instead of using the space to collect stuff from Mexico, is a great sister, a medal-winning mom, an acclaimed writer with a has a killer New York agent…What if?

Full Report to come.

How’s your “Own Little World?” 

How great would your own little world be if you were suddenly Star-Trek-rematerialized as a child beggar along a filthy bridge where no prospects came along beyond a few street drunks, a tourist or two from small Pacific Islands where newspapers are scarce….and one dopey blond who ignores the truth about Mexico today because her mother, who died suddenly at forty-two, had, along with Dad, every summer, loaded up the peach-colored van, the blond, her sister, and brother…to spend summers in Colonial cities and Indian villiages, while Mom wrote her travel column on Mexico adventures with children?

How great would your little world be if you were on that bridge?

Dateline: Tijuana, Mexico.  Crossing the riverbed bridge. 

Incident:  The day is hot and windy.  Sand swirls on the bridge stinging those very few of us who still dared to cross the Big Brown Line.  The landscape is grim.  The future looks worse.  The police wear masks to keep the drug lords’ slaves from taking their pictures then going to their homes and murdering their families. 

My Own Little World’s a mess.  My feet are killing me.  What’s wrong with me that I just had to come across?  What was I thinking?  I mean, the armed forces have banned their personnel from crossing into Mexico… Why do I get myself in these ridiculous situations? I hear a siren, and whirl heading back to the USA at a trot.  My head down, charging for the border, I hear a wild squeaking sound and tiny high-pitched shreiking voice.

What?  I spot her.  A little girl, in full Tarahumara modest garb–full-length dress, hightop leather shoes, leggings, and a straw hat.  Maybe five, probably four.  She sits with her back braced on the inner wall of the bridge, her legs stuck out in front of her.  Her blue-black Indian hair squirts off her scalp in pert ponytails.  On her lap she holds a squeezebox.  Her eyes are closed but still she’s grinning big-time.  She’s singing a tune only she knows as loud as she can and clutching her squeezebox in and out with her happy screeching.  She’s having a good time in the middle of all this.  She’s singing her song as if the whole world and all the angels are listening.

How can she do that?    Who knows?   Exactly, I mean.  If there was a formula, if it were as easy as positive thinking, there’d be no exaggerated braking and hand-signalling on the freeway, no relentless dieting and gaining and useless machine buying, no avoiding high school reunions, no picking at the spouse when we know that action never turns out well, no criticizing at all since criticism is only anxiety shot outward and stuck on someone else.

Behind me, in the bar of my San Diego Hilton national world branch office I hear an ESPN story asking if a quarterback with too many interceptions had considered suicide . . . And I see that little girl’s estatic face.  Sure, she had a dirty paper cup between her ankles, hoping.  Sure, her shawled four foot mother was only a block away holding the cheap bead earrings she’d strung last night into the path of every hopeful.

Why this blog?  I want what that little girl with nothing had.  I want you to have it, too.

But ours will not be a journey for the weak or the crowd looking for easy answers.  Take that back.  For I’m certainly among the weak.  However I am determined.  There’s no easy formula for managing what goes on inside our chest cavity….no list of tricks to change our hearts and our energies…  Speaking for myself, of course.  Could be for you…being told to “get over it,” “think positive,” and “Dr. L. on the radio telling you to grow up and do what she–as a descended goddess of all that is ‘right’…maybe that  works for you.  Naaah….

You’ve read this far, so you’re trying along with me.  You’re trying to better understand and learn to manage anxiety. 

“Which is more important?  The world of facts, the world you can touch?  Or the world you are making up to fit your fears?  The world you are responding to?”

Come along….Next we take a look at how we’ve put our own little worlds together….

The goal?  To sing like the world and all the angels are listening.  Nothing less.  I will settle for nothing less.  Yes…I’m going crazy.  Care to join me?  The music’s terrific. 

Note: For those of you still wondering, I haven’t forgotten I still owe a Mexico confession of utter Emotional Guidance System idiocy. 

 

 

 

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.”  

  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.”