On Being Annoying, Part 1

One of the funny elements about complaining as a way of managing anxiety…is that when someone points out we’re complaining or being negative, we actually DENY we’re complaining at all.  I mean, that’s funny.  We people are funny.

*Woman A: “The way the seating is arranged in this restaurant is really stupid.”

*Woman B: “There you go, complaining.”

*Woman A: “No I’m not.  I just think they could do what they are doing better.”

     **Man: “I bet your sister is going to bring that slimy carrot and orange Jello salad, again.”

     **Woman: “There you go, being negative before we even get there.”

     **Man: “I’m not being negative, I just making the observation that your sister has brought the same disgusting salad to every meal since I’ve been in the family.”

 Or my personal favorite ‘gripe and deny’ method—

      ***Woman: “I can’t believe you wore that to the party.”

      ***Man: “There you go, being negative.”

      ***Woman: “No, I’m not. I’m just trying to help.”

Variations on the Complaining Re-direct include:

      Person A:  “There you go being negative.”

      The ‘Popeye Response’:  “I y’am the way I y’am.”  or,   The Competitive Complaining Response: “You’re the one keeping me awake last night going on about your sister.”

Part Two on Complaining as a way of Annoying People … will give you the chance to determine your dominant complaining method.  For now, let’s understand how negative remarks change our lives.  Remember we people are not just funny, we are predictable.  We move toward positive experiences; we move away from punishing experiences. 

Let’s say each of us is surrounded by a bubble of atoms or air we’ll call our atmosphere.  Our ‘atmosphere’ often overlaps with others so that we have sort of a couple or a group ‘atmosphere’.  Each word and expression has a plus or minus quality that jiggles the atoms either in a ‘feel better’ way or a ‘feel worse’ way.  Or, think of the ‘atmosphere’ as having a plus or minus rating on a graph, such as the kind used to follow the ups and downs of a stock.  Every expression, every word, ticks the line on the graph up or down…sometimes a little, sometimes a lot. 

This means, as we study the art of negativity further, we can choose how to affect the systems of which we are a part.  Our Emotional Guidance System, however, does not agree.  That wimpy tyrant exaggerates the influence of others… “You made me depressed, angry, and complaining.”  And minimizes personal choice…. “After he complained about me, I did what I had to do.  I drove my motor cycle into a ditch.”

Note: Okay, I hear you five star complainers out there already saying:  “But whyis the ambience, the ‘feel’ of my relationship altered just because I point out a problem?…It shouldn’t be….He should be tougher….No one should be bothered by what I say….Oh, and you shouldn’t be correcting me. You should be paying more attention to your own negative behavior.” …….All of which is COMPLAINING, by the way.

Could we humans be any funnier? 

Since complaining…that someone is complaining….is actually complaining….

Let’s say there’s a continuum of Emotional Maturity….a continuum where ‘0’ represents a person who employs her Emotional Guidance System at all times, in all situations….without any interference from her Thinking Guidance System whats-so-ever…

In other words, ‘0’ represents a person whose momentary feelings determine all decisions in her life….Let’s say…the Octamom.

And ‘100’ represents the person who confers with the Thinking Guidance System, a human who considers the long term results, when making decisions….Let’s say….Gandi.

Remember, feelings are not bad….feelings make life rich and deep.  But if you use transient feelings to decide long term issues for you….Your life will not turn out so well.  Which brings us back to our continuum. 

Where the ‘0’ end is headed up by the Octamom.  And the ‘100’ end, is represented by Gandi.

Notice, particularly, to what degree each person takes the welfare of others into account.  One person draws attention to herself by sacrificing eight (14 children in all)… The other person sacrifices himself to call attention to the plight of his people.

Now, if you’re still thinking, uh, FEELING, there’s a new miracle diet out there….You should know that the Octamom is coming out with a book on….Yep….on the special weight-loss secrets she employed to take off that extra baby (X8) weight.

Personally, I can do without her advice.  Just hand me a couple more of those Hollywood Cookie Diet goodies, would you please?

Dateline:  We return to American 875, DFW to Cabo San Lucas and the  Rude Woman in Seat 20B.

As we left our story… (See previous entry on Rude Woman in Seat 20B)…..The RW has planted herself in 20B Exit Row Aisle across from her husband in 20C.  A not-too-with-it flight attendant, in a rush to get the plane off, has shushed the Nice Lady who’d approached the RW saying that RW was in her seat….

And now we’re in the air and you’re thinking things will settle, right? Oh…but, no.   

The Nice Lady who actually has a boarding pass showing her seat assignment in 20B again approaches the RW, showing her the ‘evidence’ and asking, nicely, if perhaps if there has been an error.

Rude Wife responds:  “Oh, I have a seat  up there somewhere…” she says and flutters her hand toward a middle seat up front.  “But, I’m sitting here instead because I want to sit near my husband (Rude Husband in 20D).  Now, if we’d known exactly what sort of liveliness Rude Husband had planned to inflict on those nearby….Nice Lady might have been glad to desert the scene.

Nice Lady tried again. “But, that’s my seat.”

Rude Wife responds, “Well, I’m sitting here because I want to sit here because we are traveling together.”

What?   Nice Lady recognizes that the RW’s boorishness has out-trumped her willingness to cause a scene. Receiving no help from the exhausted flight attendants running double and triple shifts on the holiday…Nice Lady fades into the rows at the front of the plane.  So, now we sit back, right?

Nuuuuu.  Rude Wife who has bullied her way into Seat 20B…now turns to Nice Lady #2 who is seated next to her in 20A, Aisle on the window…and get this...stay with me…this is hard to believe…R.W. says to Nice Lady #2 in 20B: “Say, would you mind switching seats with one of my friends in 12E or 14E.  I want to have my friend sit next to me.”  Remember, I’m tapping keys as we fly, so these are quotes.

“I really don’t want to move,” Nice Lady #2 says. “I appreciate the extra leg room on this aisle and I’d rather not squeeze into a middle seat.”  (Though before it’s all over, after Rude Woman and Rude Husband are joined by a gang of Rude Friends, Nice Woman #2 will give up her seat and gladly.)

“Well, I don’t understand why you won’t help me out. I want to sit with my friends,” RW whines.  Now, as RW and Rude Husband have not been successful in clearing out the entire premium aisle to accommodate their group…the RH and RW kick up the action by yelling back and forth to their friends in the front of the plane.  The poor couple who’d held their ground (sort of ) in 20 Center and Window next to the husband cringe and lean heavily toward the window.

Sweet Lady #1, the legal occupant of 20B, understandably, hasn’t appreciated how the situation was handled by the flight attendant and calls the attendant’s attention to what actually transpired.  The flight attendant asks Rude Wife if she is in her assigned seat.  She lies bigtime, “Oh, yes. I’m in my seat across the aisle from my husband….I’ve lost my boarding pass.”

The over-worked flight attendants slip away to do beverage service.  And to the amazement of her audience, Rude Wife stands up and takes off for the front of the plane.  Special Person and I, along with those in the surrounding seats, breathe a sigh of relief and appreciation.  We’d misjudged RW.  And now,  here RW was doing the right thing, heading back to take her assigned seat…Right?  Ha.

RW returns to her seat (wait…not really her seat).  RW is clearly hacked.  Rude Wife rings her Flight Attendant Call button and the flight attendant returns.  RW is shouting that the flight attendant in First Class was rude to her and she wants to file a report. (Yeah…I know…sheesh.)  The flight attendant says, “No, ma’m.  The flight attendant in First Class was correct.  You cannot just re-seat yourself in First Class because there happens to be an empty seat.”

Rude Wife argues the point and insists on a complaint form.  Rude Husband says to the flight attendant, “As long as you’re here, how about coming back with a couple of beers?”  The flight attendant points out that RH and RW have already been served and she needs to provide drink service first to those on the plane who haven’t had anything.  RH points out he doesn’t care and waves a five dollar bill in her face.

At this point, Nice Lady#2 in 20A, window, deeply regrets holding her ground in the premium seat as she is squashed into the side of the plane with RH and RW yelling over her to their friends. She leaves for any seat away from these brutes.  RW, laughing at how she “showed her”,  hollers at her friends in those middle seats to come on back. One comes to fill 20A and three others plant themselves in the aisle. 

Can’t it get more absurd?  Why it can.  After the second drink service, one of the beleagered flight attendants took a quick run up front and snagged a leftover first class meal. He’s heading back for a much needed short rest on the jump seat in the galley…when…as he passed Rude Husband grabs  the flight attendant’s elbow and demands a hot meal for himself and RW.  The flight attendant explains that there is no meal service in coach and the meal was for his lunch. That he’d been up since six that morning (it’s now eight at night) without a real break or a meal.  The flight attendant promises to return with more beers after his break.  Not good enough for ole RH.  He wants a full meal and he wants it now or he wants another one of those claim forms to fill out.

At this point, Special Person and I are trying to overhear where RH, RW, and their several Rude Friends are staying.  Just in case we need to change our reservations away from whichever hotel the Rude Gang are planning on taking over.

Maybe we should stay on the plane to Puerto Vallarta, just to be safe, we’re thinking. Or, Costa Rica is nice this time of year. 

A certain sadness rises with the thought that somewhere back in the US, there could be RH and RW offspring, young people who will no doubt end up burdening the prison system… and be glad for the opportunity to be housed with felons over contact with their Rude Family

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?

 

A while back– before the results of being tossed on my head too many times started to become obvious– a friend and I took to the road following up a tip on a horse who just might turn out to be the next state Green Hunter Champion.  For those engaged in more meaningful pursuits, in the horse world, ‘green’ means ‘new’ and ‘hunter’ means…’horse who jumps over fake gates, walls, and streams, and other obstacles of the sort you’d find on an old English estate’.

My friend and I parked the truck on the edge of a huge pasture and set out to find the five-year-old bay thoroughbred with the official track name of Parker Poker. Parker turned out to be a less-than-stunning boy, as far as I could see under the mud, the snarls, and the choppy mane.  Still, having driven forty miles and walked a couple more through high grass, we led him back to the trailer, loaded him up, and gave him a ride to one of the finest show barns in the Southwest…or at least that’s the label I’ve used for many years to explain away the bizarre proportion on my income I deposited at that location.

Once Parker Poker was out of the trailer and cross-tied in the main barn, he looked more forlorn and out-of-place than ever.  Always ready to absorb the fears of others and queen of the Don’t Expect Much and You Won’t Be Disappointed gang…I plunked down with my own forlorn look, a Coke and a long, knowing sigh.

Not my friend.  Let’s call her N.  N dragged out her best box of grooming tools and went to work.  Heavier equipment was needed for Parker’s matted tail mud-caked hooves.  N dug out shoeing tools, show day yarns, rubber bands, and oils.  While N frittered away her time, energy, and equipment on the lost cause horse…I watched her through the dust, slightly bored, sipping my second Coke, and commenting on N’s commitment… in that way that passes for a compliment, but is really a thinly veiled crack about the other person’s judgment.

My remarks not having the intended effect of discouraging my busy friend, I finally stood and proclaimed, “I have no idea why you’re going to all this trouble.”

And N said, ‘I can’t say what will happen to this horse or if he’ll ever win a prize.  But I have learned that if you want a horse to be a show horse, you have to treat him like a showhorse first.’

“Oh…” the future psychologistsaid, brilliantly.  Thinking…hmm…maybe N has something with this ‘treat a horse like a show horse business’…Maybe N’s theory has something to say about marriage?  What would happen if I treated my special person like a show horse…not the oats and hoof clippers…but with the good faith?

“Anyway, no matter how this horse turns out…I know I’m having a happy afternoon,” N said.

“Oh…” the therapist said.  “Oh,” she said again, thinking…Maybe I’ll write about N and her showhorse theory someday.

Decisions.  I’m doing several posts on decisions.  For starters, it helps in making decisions to know to how our Thinking Guidance System and our Emotional Guidance System are sharing in the duties.

Cut to Brett Farve.  Brett Farve didn’t do anything the rest of us haven’t.  So why am I having such a tough time getting past that retirement speech?  For those of you who still watch the regular news…Brett Farve is that quaterback for the Minnesota Vikings who turned 40 this weekend.  Before quarterbacking for the Vikings he was the many-times-over award winning quarterback for the Green Bay Packers.  In between was a one year run with the NY Jets.

Brett Farve who still looks good in Wranglers and he’s the football player…none of non-Wisconsin people knew all that well…until that speech.

What did Brett say?  Here’s an excerpt:  

“I’ve given everything I possibly can give to this organization, to the game of football, and I don’t think I’ve got anything left to give, and that’s it. I know I can play, but I don’t think I want to. And that’s really what it comes down to. Fishing for different answers and what ifs and will he come back and things like that, what matters is it’s been a great career for me, and it’s over. As hard as that is for me to say, it’s over.”

No big deal,a man retires from a sport and the world pays way too much attention (according to people who still watch the regular news).  But Brett didn’t just retire…he took a bunch of us immature….see it and fuse with it people…down with him.  Brett cried.  To quote a president whose Emotional Guidance System driven decision in the Oval office is the one act most remembered by the general public….I felt Brett’s pain.

I lamented his decision, I was awed by his courage, I re-thought my hard-line refusal to consider moving to Milwaukee with that first great offer with the University of Wisconsin when I was first out of graduate school…

I’m not proud of this…Since people whose level of functioning has some gaps (all of us) are more likely to lose their boundaries and take on the other person’s feelings as if the feelings are their own…and therefore get stuck twisting ourselves into pretzels trying to fix THEIR feelings.  We are driven to fix them, to fix ourselve.

Okay, back to Brett…and the sad truth about taking on other people’s feelings.  You see, I believed Brett.  I invested in what he was saying. 

…And…Brett came back the next year to play with the Jets….and the next year with the Vikings…So, Brett, what am supposed to do with my feelings?  

When we take on other person’s  feelings, we get  over-invested in the future choices that person makes…as if he or she owes us.  

As for  Brett, in reading his bio, I see that he married his girlfriend after 12 years of courtship.  And the world was surprised when he reversed his retirement?

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.

“Cold Souls” is a great movie for the first half. The setup is fun–Paul Giamatti playing himself as a depressed theater actor. He learns of a place that helps out depressed people by extracting their souls and keeping them in cold storage for awhile. During this time, the “soul-less” person has some time without being burdened by emotional irrationality (sound familiar?). Not surprisingly, this doesn’t work out so well and Paul returns to have his soul re-infused in his body. His soul, it turns out has been stolen and now resides in the body of a vapid, but beautiful, blond Russian soap star. This set up is great, and I’m not going to feel too bad about giving this much of the story because the story crashes in ambiguity and senseless as if the writer had this great set-up, but no more.  The ending is pitiful. A fog simply comes over the land.  Caput.

For me, the highlight and end of watching came in the scene where Paul explains to his wife that the reason he’s been acting strangely is that he’s had his soul extracted and placed in cold storage, he’d rented the soul of a Russian poet for awhile, but that didn’t work out, he tried to retrieve his soul, but unfortunately his soul now resided in a blond bombshell Russian soap star… Now, can you imagine your husband sitting up in bed and giving you that story?

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.

How much of your life have you spent in activities you said “Yes” to, when you meant “No?”

The world is a constant demand situation.  If you do not define yourself to the world…and other people…the world and other people will define you. 

Could anyone convince you… that you were the sort of person who would like setting your alarm for five in the morning… dressing with a swimsuit as underwear… driving downtown to an ancient university gymnasium and… diving into a chlorine-heavy basement pool?  And that you would do this without someone holding a gun on you? 

….What could get a woman to not only do this once, but agree to do this insane routine five days a week for six weeks?

…Yep. The beast who agreed to the routine was, of course, my Emotional Guidance System.  The same critter that landed me in the Water Tower Place shopping mall.  (See previous post.)  I agreed to the bizarre morning swimming routine because when my special person claimed that something called “aerobic swimming” was not the work of the devil, but something that I’d be glad I’d completed, and that he was leaping on the opportunity…

My brain shot right out the window and, for ever how long it took for me to sign up… 

I ignored “the facts”… 1) I read into the late hours and get up grouchy; 2) I’m a terrible swimmer;  3)  Indoor pools are yucky;  4) There was zero possibility that I would continue ‘aerobic swimming’ if I should be fortunate enough to survive the course.  And the strongest fact of all, that if I had no intention of making ‘aerobic swimming’ part of my lifestyle…there really was no point outside a few weeks of bragging and living in the “lying to myself zone” that is what sells every new diet, new piece of exercise equipment, every project that depends on pretending we are on the verge of a personality transplant.

“Oh no,” he said.  “You’ll like it,” he lied.  “You are too rigid and unwilling to try new things.  This would be good for you.”  And yep. The challenge to my personality perfection along with the “good for you” baloney got me to question what I knew to be the facts about myself.

I did come to my senses.  But it took three times of me quitting…the last departure quite public and spectacular.  I did eventually engage my Thinking Guidance System, but not until I’d suffered through weeks of torture. 

Here’s the picture.  I arrived on the first day and hopped into my lane, ready.  From there it was downhill.  The pool was awful, the water was cold, I sucked royally at swimming, and nearly drowned on at least four occasions. Particularly amusing that first day was my exit when the class was over.  The coach Nazi blew his whistle and said something diabolically cheery and that we were done.  Everyone else, including my special person, bounded out of the pool and headed for the dressing rooms.  Now this is the pool the swim team used early in the last century, which means that the lanes area had no ladder.

Unable to pull myself out of the pool and now surrounded by bouncy college students readying for swimming class…I flopped desperately against the side of the pool, one foot stuck up over the edge.  I’d almost make it, then plop back in.  I supposed that once my special person was dressed and ready, he’d notice I was missing and re-trace steps until he found me half in, half out of the pool. Either that, or he’d find me in two days when the class started up again.

The point here is how persuasion…or FUSION…can get us to waste time and energy in activities that are someone else’s idea, someone else’s challenge.

Now, back to … as the stomach turns, we return to the hotel dining room in Kansas City (See Previous Post) … and observe the terribly dangerous and relationship-determining autographing incident.

Not only would I never asked for an autograph, I have made an art out of being next to someone famous and pretending I don’t even notice….breathing normally as if being next to celebrity is such a common experience for me. (I had the opportunity to calmly pretend to read my book at a horseshow while Patrick Swayze stood next to me watching horses warm up in the coliseum in Albuquerque. He’s shorter than you’d think.) And here’s the thing.  My special person says he loves me and I’m thinking he probably does.  And he KNOWS I freak out and get all weird and over-excited around famous people or college basketball players and thus it is very important for me to PRETEND I DON’T NOTICE I’m surrounded by famous people or college basketball players.

My special person knows how I need things to go (I’ve certainly told him often enough) … and, yet, he just goes right on being himself.  Nudging and teasing…chuckling, really.  He really likes me, too, so he thinks I’m kind of cute all nervous like that. I give him the Disapproval Death Stare”, which only makes him giggle, nudge, and he hands me a napkin and a pen…”

My Emotional Guidance System is SCREAMING.  I’m tempted to unleash the EGS monster and claim, “You couldn’t possibly care about me and keep doing this!”  To which he’d likely chortle and say, “What are you going to tell the judge?  That you were the victim of forced autograph getting?”

Here’s my 2 percent victory:  First, I recognized the anxiety before I fired shots at my special person.  I recognized my rising anxiety as something I could handle differently than I had in the past.  Usually, I would go on the offense, “What’s wrong with you?” “You‘re acting like a child.”  “You should not be doing this to me.” 

Instead, I was able to take responsibility for once.  I was quiet (but not pouty) for a few minutes.  I engaged my Thinking Guidance System… The facts: no one cares one way or the other how I conduct myself in a hotel dining room in Kansas City; most people asked for autographs are flattered and don’t consider autograph askers to be hicks and fools; there isn’t a ‘right’ and a ‘wrong’ behavior code when in the presence of celebrities and college basketball players. … and I was able to say something like, “I really admire the way you are more comfortable in public than I am.  I get all twitchy and weird even thinking about asking for an autograph, but it’s not your fault that I get all anxious.”

Okay, what I said wasn’t that good, but it was in the ballpark.

You get the idea.

You know what they say…. talk is cheap. 

No where is this truer than in psychobabble-land.  How easy the words…”It’s just your FEELINGS making you crazy….Not the real world… Not the FACTS.”  …roll off the tongue.

Oh, how glibly this truth can be spoken… If  you are not the person who is whacked out at the time.  If you are the Whacked Out One (the WOO), glib is a bit harder to muster.  In fact, the non-WOO could be in danger since their kind pointing out that we are not managing ourselves well … could just be enough for us to turn our WOO-ness toward the pointer-outer.

There was a time when I wasn’t quite sure anyone could really get a handle on strong emotions.   Several incidents convinced me that each of us has within us the power to manage anxiety better.  The first was the ”hot tea incident.”

Remember, just how well you are able to manage your anxiety around anxious people (the degree of FUSION, see recent posts for definition) depends partly on the nature of your relationship to the other.  In this case, the “other” was one of the first couples I saw for marriage counseling.  (Word to the wise… don’t be any psychologist’s third case.)  The nature of my relationship with the couple was… they were important because, like I said, they were my third case and messing up would register as “tragic.”

I seated the couple in a small room in the university health center which had next to it a snack room.  Only a pair of louvered doors separated the snack room from the consultation room, so that clients could clearly hear anything that occurred in the snack room.  Once the couple was comfortable, I went into the snack room to complete making myself a cup of hot tea.  I’d left the teapot boiling on the stove earlier.  I placed a teabag in a mug, brought the teapot over to the sink, and proceded to pour the boiling water into my cup.  Except I’d misjudged how much water was in the teapot, plus my hands were a bit shaky.  The result was that the boiling water raged out of the pot, roiling over my hand holding the cup.  We are talking really, really hot water.     And here’s the thing.  I did not so much as make a peep.  (Okay, if you’d been in the same room and could read lips, you could have picked out a couple of unfriendly pharases.)  In an ordinary situation in which it was not incredibly important for me to make a good impression, I would have screamed.  I would have let loose a few barn-learned epithets.  But I was quiet.  Something flipped in me then.  A knowledge I hadn’t had before.  I’d proved to myself that if a person wanted to badly enough, he or she could change an “automatic” reaction.  During the session, I quietly watched welts grow on my hand.

I re-mention the hot tea incident now, because understanding and dealing with FUSION, is tough sledding.  So tough that most people don’t even give it much of a go.  It’s easier to give other people responsibility for our feelings.  It’s easier to try to get other people to change.  (Not that this works, it’s just easier to focus on changing others than it is to focus on changing self.)  It’s easier to reach for short term anxiety binders-substances, shopping, relationship dependence, worry…

The “hot tea” incident proved there is hope.  Even those of us regular WOOs can manage our emotions better.  Even two percent is a huge gain.

“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. 

I’m going to let this phrase and picture tell the story…. Along w ith the next entries…How do you want to spend your time and energy?

First, a Tribute 

It’s been a year now. 

Last summer a woman I met years ago when she was a new teacher full of ideas, ended her own life. She shot herself after a three hour stand-off with police. I mention the circumstances because it’s important for people to know this woman withstood many a hideous battle all by herself, including her last strugge.  A couple of years ago, she won her battles less often.  As she won less, she fought harder and harder, and with each loss she was more alone.  Doctors tried, but nothing worked and after a while of feeling helpless, professionals sometimes blamed her for her lack of success. I don’t blame them and neither did she.  She knew she was tough to be around.

Even on her last morning, she wanted to find some other way.

She was teacher of the year not that long ago.  She had lots of friends, a church family, and buddies who enjoyed hiking and kayaking and campfires with her. Emotional disorders sometimes come on fast…a manic episode…then the plummet to depression…the boat never quite in sync with the tide again.

What about medication, you ask?  What about therapy?  Why didn’t she try to get better?

She did. Just like everyone I’ve even seen with depression she tried very, very hard for days and weeks and then years. Does anyone really think that a depressed person would say “No!” if offered a way out?  

A person was trying to tell me about her depression once.  After the hour, we stepped outside.  The conference was being held in a beautiful city surrounded by mountains. I breathed in the crisp air at dusk and said, “What a great city, what a gorgeous sunset.”

She said, “That’s what I’m trying to tell you.  I don’t see a gorgeous sunset…ever.”

 

 

“Everything fun is dangerous.”

This T-Shirt caption had me thinking how each person has their own comfort zone.  How, for example, for some people horses and writing are in that comfort space and website development means stepping just beyond and being anxious like crazy. Anxiety is the body’s response to real or perceived threats. How could learning a skill be threatening? 

Learning a new skill can be threatening if you have the belief you are supposed to already know everything, or have the belief that everything should be easy for you.

Which got me to thinking, ”To what degree have I let my choices be determined by my Emotional Guidance System’s desire to avoid anxiety?” To what degree have I held others back, my Emotional Guidance System in charge and tossing out all sorts of scary things like “What if __happens. . . .But, what if__ . . .”

Oh, I probably shoud mention the picture on the T-shirt caption showed a flaming skeleton on a Harley.

The eHarmony Lady.  There is a woman I’ve “overheard” many times but never met, who impresses the flip-flops off me. Being a creature of habit (off the charts obsessed), I have a regular booth at my my local international world headquarters, Jim’s Coffee Shop, and this lady prefers the booth just behind me.

Note: The booth behind me is not a good choice if you want your conversation to remain private.

About three times a week, eHarmony Lady shows up at around 11:45 by herself and with everything perfect–hair, outfit, nails, faint hint of perfume. She watches the front door of Jim’s. Eventually, a man will walk in alone, looking around….eHarmony Lady then jumps up and introduces herself to her latest match. They take a seat right behind me for that horrible first-thirty-minute emotional death march. Which is, no doubt, great for me since by then I’ve been re-working my own stuff for two hours.

And eHarmony Lady is great. She’s not a “ten,” body-wise, but she’s over a ten in her emotional responses. Instead of letting her Emotional Guidance System scare her off with thoughts like, “I’ll never find anyone,” “I’m not attractive enough to get anyone,” or even, “This is humiliating to keep trying and drawing a blank.” Everytime, she has the same positive approach even when it’s clear from the outset we have a mismatch.

She leads with her Thinking Guidance System, making “If you don’t try, it will never happen–” which is a fact … while all the Emotional Guidance System is hawking fears and untruths.

My Hat’s off to you, eHarmony Lady.

If you are what you think…then I am an unemployed wannabe writer with a bleak panhandling career look forward to.

The world you make up in your head, and respond to, is More Real and has more Affect on your life than the factual one. Right?

Following this line of “reasoning,”I’m sad to report that I no longer a writer. No book coming out this summer. No big party. You see, this morning at Jim’s Restaurant (My local international world headquarters) I lost the little case in which I store my flash drives. Yep. All three manuscripts…somewhere out there amongst my friends, the coffee shop people.  Might as well have just emailed the manuscripts to a random guy on the internet who wanted to make a few bucks pirating stories. You are following?…I lost ALL my years of hard work in one quick swoop.

“I’m done,” I tell the spouse. “There’s no point in writing,” I continue, “if I’m too much of a mess to even keep up with my manuscripts.” “I can’t believe I’m such a loser–in more ways than one.”

The little mean replica in my head is saying, “You bet you screwed up. Your career is officially over!”

My spouse, daredevil that he is, tried to suggest that, just maybe, whoever found the drives  wouldn’t immediately open the content and think, “Wow! I’ve hit a gold mine! I’m going to publish these wonderful books and have all the benefits of a writer without a lick of work because I–being the luckiest person in the world–have stumbled across what is Obviously my personal winning lottery ticket!” This had to be said rather delicately.

I was in a tough spot. I either had to keep insisting that my words were unbelivale treasures which made me look grandiose or accept that maybe the finder wouldn’t immediately think dollar signs–which means my words aren’t the next Moby Dick. I settled for skipping that issue and claiming, either way, I’m too big an idiot to carry this author thing off.  Which he, of course, refuted…(But who can trust him? He said I’d look great in a string bikini.)…suggesting that just maybe–since my editors and publishers hadn’t burned what I’d written, I’d already proven myself as a writer…and, just maybe…someone else having a copy would amount to nothing since there are edited copies all over the states.

Fine. He didn’t get it…word theives were hanging around me all the time, mixing with the paparazi. I climbed in my car heading back to my base station. I didn’t allow myself to listen to comedy radio.

I found the flash drive dealie on my desk.  I wonder if I can get my job back?  

Imagine in your head there is a steering wheel directing your life.  Your emotional Guidance System is one pair of hands trying to steer you.  That pair of hands is telling you what?  “Just get out this anxiety, don’t think of the future costs! Do whatever you have to do to get rid of anxiety now. The other set of hands, your Thinking Guidance System, has wider choices–but who has the strength to listen?

More needs to be said clarifying how the Emotional Guidance System (if this is new, go back a few posts) sneaks aboard, takes charge of our functioning, and keeps our life a mess. Now, some people mistake this statement as saying “emotions are bad.” Of course not. Feelings are some of the juiciest elements of life. Memories are made up of feelings. Sometimes our emotions give us motivation. Feelings make watching a basketball game fun. Unless our feelings “carry us away,” we get into a shouting match and end up in jail.

Feelings of love are wonderful, too. Unless, chasing “in love” feelings results in making our “special other” responsible for the way we feel. (”If you loved me you would ___”) Unless, slave to our “in love” feelings we end up not having much of a life. Unless our “love” cripples someone else’s functioning. Unless what we’re calling love- is neediness. “When is it Love and when is it Neediness?” is an upcoming entry.

Absurdity Break: What’s happened to reality? The National Geographic Channel is showing some explorer types deep in Africa. Makes sense. Except the narrator is doing voice over for the ”video” showing himself and his female companion on the trip. He now has dirt on his face and a wild look. The lady is stumbling, sure to not make it. Then the native helpers turn on them, one threating with a knife. The guy is saying how “it could be all over for them,” rushes to help the gal. There’s not enough food. The guy and the gal all alone in the jungle don’t know if… they will survive!… I’m so confused. Why doesn’t one of them ask one of the dozen camera men (maybe the one doing the zoom shots from overhead or the one doing closeups) or one the men on the lighting and costume truck FOR SOME HELP? The caterer’s maybe? Reality’s done this weird thing. Reality is staged. Reality is not reality. And this is the National Geographic Channel.

Back to emotions. There are four factors contributing to the likelihood that your Emotional Guidance System will be in charge of your actions.

1) Your physical functioning.

2) The events in your life, including history.

3) Your basic leveling of functioning.

4) The Emotional System of which you are a part.

Before we go on to the Thinking Guidance System, we need to get familiar with how these factors affect our actions.