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.

Back in the ‘woo-woo-far-out-living-for-the-moment’ days…the notion that each person draws to her what she needs was bandied about.  Not being the easy-to-woo-woo type, I didn’t buy the idea right away. 

Yet, I couldn’t help but notice that the same day I decided to go to Spain, the woman in the next booth was telling her lunch mate about her trip to Spain, Spanish language magazines started being sold at the grocery store, and Univision carried the Astro games.

I couldn’t help but notice that when I made up my mind that driving home from my in-laws…I would point out one thing my mother-in-law did that I hadn’t appreciated…rather than start in with my usual self ego-massaging fear-based criticism…as if to remind my special person that he was better off married to me than deciding to go back home and live with his mother.  I know, pretty bleak, but why pull any punches?

Dr. L awaits those who need a psychologist who has never made a mistake and was born knowing everything.

What happened, with Spain and my mother-in-law, of course, was that a little pathway into my brain… sealed shut earlier…and not necessarily for any bad reason…a little pathway opened up to receive new information about the world.  And a new world opened.

What does opening a little pathway in your mind have to do with the Rugby Coach Who Changed the World?  Am I hoping to open a little pathway?   You betcha?

Picture a rugby coach.  Now add that this man is the rugby coach for Texas A and M University, a school not that long ago all men and all military trained. (If you have any doubts regarding the stringent masculine, tough-guy reputation of Texas A and M…catch a football game sometime and watch the all male cheerleaders in their hospital whites urging on the crowd with jerky motions, a show best described as what the Karate Kid would look like fighting his way out of coma.)

The rugby coach is on a plane from Missouri back to Texas.  A woman from Austin sits down next to Coach on the plane, a stack of ink-still-damp brochures on her lap.  And this woman is about to change the rugby coaches life forever…Tune in tomorrow  to find out what happened between the rugby coach and the lady…

The Air Conditioning Controversy that Ended True Love

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

While on the topic of  not wasting so much time and energy wishing other people weren’t themselves, why not really go for it and give parents permission to be themselves?

Which brings us to the infamous Triple Blame Whammy.

And, no, you don’t get the Triple Blame Whammy at Dairy Queen.

Part one of the Triple Blame Whammy:  “If only my parents had loved me enough… (and showed me appropriately)…I wouldn’t have the problems I do now.”

Take a look at the photo.  See how young these people are?  Your parents were them.  Yikes!

There was a time a few years out of graduate school when I was ready to switch professions.  This was the era when ’hospitals’ sprang up in every neighborhood for the treatment of addictions and insurance paid big money for 28 day programs for ’co-dependents’, ‘family jesters’, and ’scapegoats’.  Each family member was given a title to identify with and each was encouraged to take time out to remember all the ways they’d been wronged by family members… and how these wrongs caused their current problems.  The ‘theory’ was that by family members (courageously) taking turns describing just how they’d been terribly wronged, some sort of change miracle was supposed to happen.

And, as is true in lynch mob behavior, most participants do, for the moment, feel as if something life-changing has occured(I guess for the lynch-ees, something life-changing events has taken place), when all that’s happened is a big burst of emotional togetherness (momentary closeness based on fusion and group think) and…people swinging in nooses.

**Self-loathing alert!  I’ve vented with the best of them, justifying myself the whole time.  Pitching my version of victimhood…ala the family from my point of view…Oh, my view isn’t reality?  This is not a case to pretend nothing bad happen–our goal is to get free of  the powerless position of hanging on to ‘reasons’ we are the way we are…that define us into mindsets wasting time and energy and even hope.**

After all, can we really buy that we are the first generation of adults having children who have tried their hardest and done the best they could by the children?  Are we so arrogant as to think such a thing?  Are we really so different?

Of course, the relentless Emotional Guidance System encourages false superiority.  Could be…parents are products out their emotional systems just as we are.  Not that much worse, not that much better.  If this is too scary, you can cheat a little and hang on to the illusion of functioning way up the ladder from your parents. But it is kind of annoying.

Cheater phrase when others or self tempts you into discussing what messes your parents are and how they messed up your life….” Oh well. I guess everyone comes by who they are naturally. Say, did you here about that guy who tied a bunch of weather balloons to his aluminum lawn chair and floated up into the flight path at the local airport?”

The answer is, “Of course you are. We all are.”   The question is only a matter of degree.  But to what degree you are being “Gaslighted” depends on many factors and is incredibly important. We’ll start with family.

“Gaslighting,” taken from the movie by that name, refers to one person convincing another that something is true about them, which isn’t true.  In the movie, a husband convinces his new bride that she is losing her mind in order to have control of her fortune.  I’m quite convinced that certain demented dogs are capable of “Gaslighting” their owners which I am writing about this away from my home computer.  Crazy Dog has been staring over my shoulder like a starving child watching Krispy Kreme doughnuts sugared up by one of those amazing glazing machines.

You are being “Gaslighted” just as I am, everyday, as other people–especially those who love us and fear for us–try to convince us that WE ARE WHO THEY THINK WE ARE.

We are “Gaslighting” others, everyday, as we convince others–especially those we love–that they are WHO WE THINK THEY ARE.

This is huge. Too huge for just one day. “Gaslighting” doesn’t happen because other people are evil or don’t love us. I had a brief former life as a teenage wife, an effort to grow up that was a smashing, and luckily for both of us, a matter of only months. I’ve been asked many times, “How did you know to get out?”  “Why didn’t you end up spending years trying to make the relationship work?”

My answer: The young man I was married to had a view of me, and what I was capable of accomplishing, that was very different from the picture of me my father had. I was lucky. Had I been raised by a parent who saw me as weak and incapable, who knows? 

So the first place we’re “Gaslighted” is in the family growing up.   Note: Mysteryshrink is not a parent-blamer. Each of us comes by who we are through a natural process. The idea that one generation can look back at another and “blame” their problems on the generation before is simply ridiculous. Do you think our generation is the first to run this scam? Do you honestly believe your parents represented a new species of disturbance that hasn’t been seen before?”  (See, The Triplicate Myth.) Still, it is in the family that “Gaslighting” takes root, not because a parent or sibling wants us to turn out a certain way… but because parents and siblings react automatically to fit our behavior with expectations… and then mold their expectations to direct our new behaviors.

Whew. Think of it like this. In doing family work, clients are always quick to point out how different they are from their siblings. But, how much of that came with the package into the world, and to what degree are those differences playing out expectations?  Think of a family like a car.  If the car already has an accelerator when you are born into it, you will take up another role.  “She’s the one who’ll make a great mother.” “She’ll be the career woman in the family.”  “She’ll always be in trouble.”  “He’ll be the rebel.”  “He’ll end up in jail.”

Here’s where we get back to the importance of “degree.”  How much room was there for you to wriggle around and become someone different from expectations?  Will I one day be able to go to sleep without locating all seven of Crazy Dog’s squeaky toys and lining them up on the bed as she expects?

 

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What happens to get you off your mark? 

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

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

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

When you are in your  ”zone:”

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

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

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

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

Now, technically, if you have a decent psychologist on your weekly schedule, you are IMMUNE  to the DOWNER  kick.  But, let’s face it, if you had those kind of bucks you’d be at the opera right now.

So, let’s work with what we have. 

The human has two guidance systems:  The EMOTIONAL GUIDANCE SYSTEM is dedicated to one purpose–to get rid of ANXIETY.  The E.G.S. operates AUTOMATICALLY and does not consider the FACTS of a situation.  The THINKING GUIDANCE SYSTEM does consider facts. 

Examples of the E.G.S. in charge:  educating (screaming at) other drivers, defending yourself claiming nothing bad that has ever happened to you is YOUR FAULT, not exercising because “if you don’t have an hour, it’s pointless”, procrastination in all its many forms, overspending, overeating, over-drinking, oversleeping, doing whatever is necessary to have the approval of certain people, who IF THEY GET ANXIOUS–YOU automatically GET ANXIOUS.

Posting Live:  My husband is working on his laptop across the room (practicing bridge hands).  When his screen does something he doesn’t expect (which happens often with the new wireless server I set up), he let’s out this big sigh and complains about his computer.  Of course, what I hear him saying is “I wish you’d just leave things the way they are and stop messing with my computer, overdoing it, like you always do.”  “Hearing” this I lose my “zone.”  I do what most of us do when picking up prickly signals from other people.  I TELL HIM WHAT HE SHOULD STOP DOING.  I make it very clear HE’s RUINING my mood.  That if HE CARED at all, he’d stifle himself.  Wise psychologist he is, he JUST KEEPS ON BEING HIMSELF.  Which is really annoying.  From here I usually start quoting people who agree with me or lay out an argument comparing his sighing to being laid waste by Hitler.  Of course, I just made that example up.  Okay, I didn’t.  So the DOWNER is when you react, when you put your EMOTIONAL GUIDANCE SYSTEM in charge and EXAGGERATE the affect someone else’s behavior has on you.    When you CLAIM what the other person does AUTOMATICALLY    changes your “zone.”

It’s a really tiring way to live, or so I’ve heard.

Tomorrow:  The Antidote.  Okay a beginning.

 ”Which is more important?  The world you can touch, or the one you are responding to?”  

While in training and learning to recognize the role of FACTS over FEELINGS, I saw a movie of Shakespeare’s Henry IV (could have been Henry V) in which the King has sent out a scout to check out the strength of the opposing army his troops are to face the next day.  The scout returns to report (Okay, you British lit experts, cut me some slack here on the facts) that Henry’s men are out-numbered four-to-one, that their enemies will charge on horseback while Henry’s men are on foot, that the enemy has many cannons and armaments while Henry’s men have only small bows. The situation is without hope. Henry sends the scout away, thinks through the possibilities for the next day, then calls his men together, I’m thinking, to give them the bad news.  Henry proceeds to give the most Emotional Guidance System-sucking speech I’ve ever heard.

Henry’s side won.  Against impossible odds.  So, whoa.  Now that shot a hole in my new “fact-based” living plans.  I’ve never been able to get that speech out of my mind.  Henry changed the outcome by his sheer will and capacity to capture the collective emotional systems of his men.  That means something about what’s possible. 

Studies show that girls are more often than boys allowed to back away from difficult tasks.  That women are not as much looked down on for wiggling out of unmet goals– if they turn their energies to cleaning up after others. (Breaking news! A sweet happy housewife with blond hair and medium pumps in the last commercial let me in on the news that I don’t have to clean my toilets everyday anymore!  The relief… Then another lass let me in on the news that I no longer have to dust every week. Where have these knowing women been all my life?)  

Where is your King Henry when you give up too easily? 

I know you think the world with it’s venues where you are out-numbered, where you don’t have the talent, exists, but it doesn’t.  It does not exist. 

The people around you?  You’ve made them up, too. You’ve made up how they think about you. 

That world you are responding to, the one that limits where you can go, YOU MADE IT UP. …along with a little help from parents, siblings, the girl next door, and that P.E. teacher who made you dress out in the seventh grade. ….But, phfffffft.  on them.  I’m so full of Henry’s speech that I’m going to do this!   Oooooooooooh. Ouuuch. There’s clearly a limit to the creative thinking process. 

Tomorrow . . . what happens when you think the best of people?  And assume they are crazy about you?

 Do feathers count when they’re invisible?  I’m asking because this morning, I slung a few criticism feathers which went completely unnoticed by the person I was gossiping about. 

Okay, so I’m at the gym on the treadmill.  Yes, I’m burping peppers from the slab of pizza I had for breakfast.  I can take the irony of that.  But then this limber chick in a gold lame (okay, it was red, but, hey, the top and bottom MATCHED), jogging suit hopped up on the treadmill next to me and cranked up the speed to sure-fire heart attack level.    She popped her IPod into her ear and ran halfway across the state.

But I forgave her.  I did not spit one feather at the gym.  I stepped off the treadmill in my orthopedically altered shoes and staggered to my car.  Pretend Gold Lame Lady left at the same time. 

Here’s where, as they say, THE FEATHERS FLEW.  On my way home I turned into the Walgreens parking lot to pick up one of my many life-extending prescriptions. As I gimped to the door a black BMW shot into the handicapped parking spot RIGHT in front of the door. 

As I always do,   I checked to see if the car had the appropriate sticker or tag.  It had neither. And here’s comes the knife in the criticism pillow. 

Out of the BMW sprinted the Gold Lame Lady!!  I know.  The feathers were STUCK ON ME.

The first lesson in becoming more in charge of the EMOTIONAL GUIDANCE SYSTEM is: Let Others Be.

  About the woman told the priest about her dream and asked if gossip was a sin.  He sent her on with instructions to take a pillow up to the roof of her house that night, plunge a knife into it, and return the next day.

She did and the priest asked what happened when she stabbed the pillow.

“Feathers,” she said.  Now we have a little lesson here . . . but hark!  The lesson has nothing to do with the kind of gossip that goes on BETWEEN PEOPLE.  The lesson is that each of us has inside of us an

INNER TORTURER. . .   stabbing our brain and poofing down all sorts of  “WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?”  “YOU CAN’T DO ANYTHING RIGHT,” “YOU ARE JUST NOT UP TO THIS LIFE THING!”

In other words, your EMOTIONAL GUIDANCE SYSTEM is a big, fluffy sack of self-doubting feathers, just waiting for you to jab them into action. 

And, I for one, in 2009 am going to do something about it!

Note:  The reason I do not keep up with or publish comments is because this computer has in it a monster with a pillow full of SPAM which makes life hell.  No where in the ballpark with my lovely

INNER TORTURER,  but them my PERSONAL I.T. has had many more years of, pretty much, uninterrupted experience.

 What can I say?   I’ve talked before about how hard it is, how bloody hard, to truly change daily functioning . . . so that life isn’t completely run by the EMOTIONAL GUIDANCE SYSTEM.  And, boy, is it. I promised to describe a time when my THINKING GUIDANCE SYSTEM was in charge-with the fettucine (see “The Fettucine Incident”-and what did I do? I described one more time when the EGS got the best of me.

That’s how hard this is.  I’ve taken and taught programs taking several years and at the close, some folks (not me, of course, as I’ve proven I have this emotional maturity gig conquered) are not able to describe or “know” the difference between the EGS and the THINKING GUIDANCE system. 

This happens, of course, since the EGS’s role in life is to GET RID OF ANXIETY.  The EGS is always telling us that our feelings are thoughts.  For example: ordering room service fettucine at eleven pm that fateful night, my “thoughts” are telling me there’s no problem having pasta this late.  After all, I’m really hungry (somehow, this fact seems to justify all sorts of ill-conceived actions) . . . . My THINKNG GUIDANCE SYSTEM (had it had a flying chance) would have pondered my predicament and asked, “hmm, and the last time you missed lunch and ended up starving at almost midnight in a hotel room. . . and you ordered the pasta . . . Say, how’d that work out for you?”

 Answer: let’s just say tv at three in the morning in Las Vegas features mostly smirky personal injury law firms and vegetable chopping instruments.

I’m not radio Dr.L.  I mess up a lot.   I’m writing about it because this is maybe a gift I can give. Maybe you guys out there (Welcome A from Canada.) can gain a little ground with me.

Or at least have a little fun. 

  Ever since the first hideous air dryer was planted in a public restroom with a label informing me that the semi-useless contraption was put there FOR MY CONVENIENCE, I’ve gotten a kick out of “spin” signs.  

I mention thatis because I had a topic for today but have come down with something–Oh, wait, that’s not what’s going on.  That would suggest something’s wrong.  I notice at the gym, machines that are broken are given a sign saying, “This machine is currently being serviced.” 

There’s no one around doing the serivicing.  I liked that spin.  I am currently being serviced.  Uh-oh, out at the stable, that has a whole different meaning. 

Later.

 

Yes.     The first time I attended a writers’ conference, I didn’t enter a single meeting room.  I just slinked (word?) past open doors and caught a word or two, pretending to be “just passing through.”  I also had a crying fit every night during the first six months of graduate school.     I was sure that somehow the admittance committee which had allowed a moron, me, to slip through the cracks, would one day realize their error and send me back to my extensive fast food career.    

Are you sure you want to read suggestions from someone who’d admit to such weaknesses?  There’s still Dr. L on the radio    who’s perfect and never would have made the mistakes you and I have.

Nah. 

 

And here come the holidays, marching forward like giant challenges to our maturity. 

Come along, we’ll laugh some, we will survive.

 

Anxiety comes not from the FACTS, but from our “WHAT IF’S.”   Mostly–

    WHAT IF I COME OFF LIKE AN IDIOT? 

   

   Which, of course, they are going to be anyway.  But since we’ve given our precious permission, what that means is that we CANNOT be all surprised when they are themselves.

Remember we expected that.  Gave permission.  Later in evolvement we’ll even recognize that others have THE RIGHT to be themselves.  But, not yet.  For now we’re just being generous.

Which means:

The person who cuts in front of you at the grocery store with 80 items, you said she could do that.

The person who’s late to Thanksgiving dinner–you said that would be fine.

You gave the person who doesn’t return your e-mail for four days–you gave permission.

The person who has too much wine at dinner–you gave them permission.

The one who cannot stop talking about the one who had too much wine–you gave her permission.

The one who spends Thanksgiving talking about how diets–you gave her permission.

The one who undercooks an item and the one who burns one–you gave them permission.

The people who’ve had their Christmas lights up since mid-October–you gave them permission.

All those people jamming up the roadways–you gave them permission.

The guy who will whack me in the head as he puts his bag in the overhead on the plane–I hereby GIVE HIM PERMISSION.

Are you getting a feel for HOW ABSOLUTELY FREEING IT IS to turn your focus away from CHANGING OTHERS to MANAGING YOURSELF? 

Hey, grab a snack.  This exercise is going to be a lot of fun.

As you ready for Thanksgiving and family, comfortable in the knowledge that in spite of what you want from them, they are going to be themselves–

Think of the person you have the most difficulty with (No, you don’t get to defend and say it’s HIS/HER fault)–and

Give him or her YOUR PERSONAL PRECIOUS PERMISSION   to be just who they are. 

Whew.  That’s a relief.  You have your power back.  You’re in charge of what goes on inside your chest cavity no matter what others do.

I have more time and energy now.    And I’m not dreading because I’ve given my permission for my people to stay just the way they are.

The Movie Revolt Incident:  It was Friday afternoon after Thanksgiving.  After lunch, a group of six laws and in-laws in my husband’s family decided to go to a popular horror movie.    On the way, one sister-in-law announced she’d drop off the rest of us and come back to pick us up, as she did not want to see this particular movie.  That’s when things began falling apart.  I opted to skip the movie as well.  A third expressed doubts and the pro-movie people started suggesting other movies.

Yikes.  We stopped to buy a paper and look for another movie, though we three rebels were okay without one.  The start time for the horror movie past, one brother-in-law threw up his hands and criticized his wife for not listening to him when he said they should bring the paper with them from home.  I started apologizing for some random thing (and thinking how these family “togetherness” holidays were overrated).  The original “rebel” launched in on a story from childhood when she didn’t sleep for days after a horror movie.      Her husband added that she was “always like this with his family, but anything goes when they are with her family.”

All because one person attempted a INDIVIDUALITY move.

Thinking in terms of natural systems, each of us operates with a TOGETHERNESS force and a INDIVIDUALITY force. 

What?      Think of it like this when you are anxious and find relief calling a friend, your togetherness force was in affect.  If you feel calmer at Thanksgiving when you escape to the back den and the football game, your individuality force is in action. 

Forget the complexity.  In the next several days we will look at ways to manage anxiety when our force for individuality is overwhelmed by the presence of others, each of whom INSISTS ON BEING THEMSELVES instead of only being in ways to MAKE US COMFORTABLE.

Whew.  I’m tired just thinking about it. 

  Thanksgiving.  Wasn’t it about inviting the natives of this country to a feast?  Well, it’s not anymore.  Now it’s about food, family, and football.  And, at least for me, it’s not that easy.

Maybe you’re different, but I find it easier to tell my goals to a stranger on a plane than it is to talk to a family member?  Why?  Because I care too much what a family member says.  What he or she thinks.

Thus I OVER-LISTEN and OVER-REACT. 

I have a picture in my head as to how my SISTER, MOTHER, BROTHER, BROTHER-IN-LAW, should respond to me.  When they do not . . . and they’re always failing me . . . I lose charge of my emotional steadiness.  In fact, as we all know, any problems I have in my life today are because of their failures.  Ask any psychologist. 

THE TRIPLICATE MYTH:  If I my parents and siblings had properly loved me, I would be an all-happy person now–effortlessly. 

If my spouse properly loved me, i would be an all-happy person, now–effortlessly.

If, you, my therapist could properly loved me, I will be an all-happy person–effortlessly.

Oh no.  I just blew my own cover.  This being IN CHARGE of self is going to be really hard if I can’t convince my family, friends, and casual acquaintances to give me the attention and support I MUST HAVE.

Particularly, since unlike me.  They are nuts. 

    The myth of sibling rivalry–the blanket acceptance that the main preoccupation of children is is garnering attention from their parents–doesn’t even make sense.  

Yet it’s one of the simplistic and convenient drawers we use to account for behavior and sometimes to excuse immature relationships into adulthood and throughout our lives.

Now, everyone wants their way, thus sibs fight like other species, and husbands and wives–to get their ways. Nothing wrong with this.  It’s the institutionalized idea and explainations and rationalizations where we get into trouble.    The problem comes in when  WE BELIEVE AND THEREFORE “CREATE A CORRESPONDING WORLD.”

Our freedom to become is reduced when WE RESPOND TO MEMBERS OF OUR FAMILY AS WHO WE THINK THEY ARE, INSTEAD OF WHO THEY ARE.