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.

First, DIETBABBLE ALERT: New Scientific Breakthrough! The reason you’ve had a hard time losing weight is because you haven’t been eating according to your DNA!  That’s right, folks.  Now you can send in a saliva swab, the “lab” reads your “sample” and POOF… the exciting secret foods you need to avoid will be revealed and the weight just falls off.  Of course, you have to coordinate this amazing scientific breakthrough with dieting according to your blood type and the phases of the moon.

Also, a thermos maker cashing in on “going green” by showing piles of plastic bottles (gallons) lists both ’saving the planet’ and ‘weight loss’ as results you can expect by using the thermos.

Still the favorite in my heart:  the man walking along the beach with a split piece of metal, ending his spiel saying, “And my wife can’t stop talking about the weight I’ve lost since I’ve had my new metal detector.”

Anxiety. How far will you go to push down your anxiety?

It’s interesting to notice that recent celebrity drug deaths are overdoses … not of a drug that would make a person ‘high’… their deaths have not been the result of going too far with a substance known to make a person ‘happy’.  Their deaths have been the result of taking drugs which make a person numb, even unconcious.

Anxiety. 

Anxiety is the fuel and the product of the Emotional Guidance System.  Anxiety is powerful, powerful enough to make a mess of a person’s life.  We are all anxious.  Dogs and cats and cows are anxious, too.  Some dogs chew through doors when left alone, some cats hide even when hungry, cows stampede sometimes.  People chew (overeat), hide (avoid), and stampede (run away), too.

The goal of this mysteryshrink journey we are on is to get a little better hold on anxiety. (See Wildebeest entry)..2 percent…a shift of only 2 percent can improve life experience.

What would happen if you could manage a 2 percent improvement in your ability to manage your anxiety when someone else is saying something that makes you anxious?  Aha!  Of course, no one can “make you anxious”… No one else can even reach your EMOTIONAL GUIDANCE SYSTEM button… I was just giving you a little test…

Situation: The spouse and I are having breakfast in Kansas City during the Big Twelve Basketball tournament.  As it happens, several team members are enjoying the same hotel buffet.  My special other, being much better than I at realizing his importance or lack of importance in the world, is nudging me in the shin and teasingly suggesting I make up some story about a young nephew and collect a bunch of Texas Longhorn autographs.  Since my Emotional Guidance System is always ready to exaggerate things, always ready with the caution, ”Don’t call attention to yourself!  People will think you’re crazy! Your complete hick-dom background is going to show and you’ll never recover!  What complete strangers think of you is incredibly important!  A frown from a stranger will ruin your whole day!”  “When your special person does something that he thinks is cute and you think is embarrassing after you’ve TOLD him how he’s supposed to behave to keep you calmed down…his continuing to be himself means he doesn’t love you!” 

Okay, there I am, exposed for the sucker FUSION (See Fusion, think ropes twisted together.)  And how do I FEEL?  To what degree do the actions of another change (signal you to change) what’s going on inside you?

Anxiety 101.  Tune in tomorrow for miraculous 2 percent victory in the terrifying autographing incident!

 

 

“Do you know where the remote is?”

How can you ruin everything…before anything thing even happens?  What are the thoughts you use to prepare yourself for the day?

Dateline:  Jim’s Restaurant Local International World Headquarters

Event:  More shameless eavesdropping.  Remember the E-Harmony Lady…(See April 1…”Guts, the e-Harmony Lady”)…

E Harmony Lady is amazing because instead of allowing her Emotional Guidance System to clog up the highways of her life…even though her figure doesn’t fit the American ideal…she puts herself out there, day after day.  Had her Emotional Guidance System been in charge…terrifying her with images of what terrible things ‘could’ happen… slide shows of potential humiliations…no way she’d keep trying.  But e-Harmony lady listened to her Thinking Guidance System telling her just the facts:  “If you don’t put yourself out there and meet people, you have no chance of making a match or finding a new friend.” and “Nothing really horrible can happen.  You can always walk away. It’s not a disaster unless you decide to make it one.”

Now the other side of the human guidance network.  Today, e-Harmony lady isn’t in her booth behind me.  Instead two ladies between 40 and 50, one in a yellow polo shirt and the other in a denim jacket, are sharing lunch. 

Yellow Polo Shirt says:  “It’s June….I guess you know what that means.”

Demim Jacket:  “Your anniversary’s coming up?”

Yellow Polo Shirt:  “Our 31st, in two weeks.  And I can tell already he’s not going to do anything special.  He remembers, and he’s already avoiding me.”

DJ:  “He hasn’t said anything?”

YPS:  “Of course not.  If he did, then he’d know I’m noticing, which he does already, and he’s ignoring me.  Thirty-one years and he treats our marriage like it was nothing.”

DJ:  “That’s how men are.  No deep feelings.  Sometimes I think Ben is sorry he’s married.  He treats his dogs better than he treats me.”

YPS:  “I just know he’s going to act all surprised on the day of our anniversary.  The way he’s snaking around now…”

Alternate Strategy:  Take a stack of copy paper.  On each page write variations of:  “If you forget our anniversary [date], I shall be forced to sing “Delta Dawn” in the shower everyday for a year….I love you.”  Tape up notices all over the house. 

 

.

 

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.

Do you know what today is?    anniversary is coming.  i can tell he doesn’t remember….

Triple Blame Whammy

Part 2:  If my spouse only loved me enough to treat me the way I should be treated, I wouldn’t be having these problems now.

Following this line of reasoning can mean wasting your whole life.  I’ve spent many an hour explaining, I thought quite clearly, the specific personality flaws my spouse needs to work on and how 24 hour happy I would be if he’d cowboy up.  And yet, he goes right on being himself. 

Now, I’m not talking about extremes, where you really should start over–I’m talking about the 98 percent of us married to special someones with the same level of emotional functioning, but turn out to be different from ourselves. 

I know of only one exception so far and that would be my marriage.  My spouse surely must have snagged me during a temporary low functioning moment in my life.  Hey, you were thinking the same thing about your relationship.  I know it’s scary to think we are muddling through along at about the same level as our spouse, and we may have a better “front office,” but people marry people who are similar in level of emotional functioning.

So, what if we fired ourselves from consistently pointing out how our special other could be different and make us feel better?  Notice I said firing ourselves from our consistent efforts.  We’re not stones, we will slip.

Am I saying we should roll over and take whatever other people dish out?  Of course not.  I’m talking about switching our focus to more productive means of changing our lives to better fit what we want. Doing something that works and, just maybe, is less annoying.

Example.  When having friends over, the worst part, anxiety-wise, is the first few minutes.  My special other had the habit of finding himself conveniently occupied during the first fifteen to thirty minutes of a gathering.  Usually, “things came up” which rendered him unable to start his shower until showtime.  After many years of psycho-babbling why he was the way he was (running his parent’s through the wringer, making up all sorts of cute explanations), then trying to convince him to own up to his “problem” and promise to greet guests with me now and forever after.  Which of course he did.  The promise part I mean.  My harranges and psychobabble left him no choice but to promise to change as the trumped up alternative I provided was to admit to acceptance of life-long emotional disorder that was clearly “causing” me too lose my grip.

As for the being present when guests arrived?  You know the answer.  But, rolling over isn’t in my nature.  The next time we had guests coming over, I didn’t say a word and I stayed happy and pleasant.  I did, however, make sure that my getting ready procedures did not get out ahead of his.  If he hadn’t showered and he asked me if I was taking a shower, I’d answer, ”That’s okay, I’ll wait until after you…I’m not sure what I’m going to wear”….”But, people will be arriving soon,” he’d say.  “That’s okay, the door’s open,” I’d say. “I’ll just hollar down….I don’t know…I could wear the black Polo polo with the eagle…or the one with the white collar…what do you think, honey?”….”I think one of us should be downstairs when our guests arrive,” he’d say.  “Me, too,” I’d say, pausing to give him a long kiss that had him totally confused.  “It’s just that I have this eagle-white collar dilemma…”  Smooch, smooch.

Manipulation you say. Darn right, it was.  And exactly what was all that haranguing and psychobabbling?  At least this way, I didn’t have to pretend I didn’t want my way or that my way of doing things was some kind of moral imperative.  I also wasn’t mad. We ended up laughing about it and kind of playing a dare game about who was going to crack first and go down where the guests were helping themselves to hospitality.

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.

 What have I learned studying FAMILY SYSTEMS and the importance of family that can help out people who are dating?

Easy. The key is–get to know his family really well . . . and keep yours hidden in the basement.  I’m kidding.  There are very few basements around here and, if your family’s like mine, something like a cement door to the basement isn’t going to hold them back.   Actually, the key is to listen to what your potential mate has to say about his parents, sisters, and brothers. If he claims he doesn’t have much of a relationship because he has nothing in common with the rest of his family . . . read: “My tastes, interests, and values are superior to theirs” . . . expect to being hearing soon of the ways you do not measure up.  If your man was married to a woman who seemed nice at first, then went crazy (like his sister and his mother),  plan on having a psychiatric history before you’re through. If he believes his only contribution to less than optimal relationships is poor judgment in falling for the wrong women, or because everyone BUT HIM n his family “has problems,” don’t expect much commitment to working on the relationship when things get rough.

What are the people around you like?  Pretty nice or pretty awful?  What would they reveal about themselves in what they would have to say about you? 

Remember, no matter what they might say, IT’S NOT ABOUT YOU, even when it is about you. It’s still them coming out of their day, them telling you or the world what’s going on in their brains and their chests.  If “their world” isn’t lovely, you are not lovely in their sight.

There’s an old joke about a couple driving through the New England countryside planning on moving to a nearby town. Seeing a farmer alongside the road, the couple pulled over and said, “Say, we were thinking about moving to this area. What are the people around here like?”

The farmer replied, “Well, I don’t know.  What were the people like where you came from?” 

  You will be seen through the other’s distorted lense.  So, when he offers to buy you a drink, ask what the people were like where he came from.

 Okay.  Some more on FUSION . . . sticking yourself to someone else’s anxiety.  Making THEIR anxiety about YOU. 

We lose power over ourselves when we cannot operate separately . . . when our “mood” is determined by the “mood” of another person. When our sense of doing okay is dependant on another person (usually a spouse or a child) doing okay . . . we are going to try very hard to keep the other person calm so that we can be calm.  Though, of course, we deny such a motivation.  We say we are twisting into a pretzel to keep them calm . . . because we are just TRYING TO HELP THEM. 

  Operating to keep everyone around you calm is very tiring. 

The “Women in Therapy” Incident:  At last, this example is a time when I actually managed to stay separate, calm, in charge, and barely ruffled.  At least I did in “Women in Therapy, Part 1.”

  Part One.  My husband had an important deposition on this particular afternoon.  I was out at the stable schooling my horse in a jumper ring away from the barn.  The stable phone at the ring chimed several times, but as it was always for the kids that rode and dismounting to pick it up was a real hassle, I paid no attention.  When I finished riding and returned to the main barn the phone continued to ring and, as I was right by it and not on a horse, I answered it.  It was my husband–ballistic.  His car wouldn’t start and he’d been trying to reach me. (We lived near the stable.) I rescued him as quickly as possible. Still he filled the twenty minutes to downtown in a rain of fury . . . of course returning to the faithful topic of the time and money I spent on the horses. 

Here’s the thing.  My big moment of emotional steadiness.  I did not get angry or even particularly anxious. I knew he wasn’t really upset by me. I knew  he was okay with the horses.  He was anxious about the trial to come and providing the best deposition he could for his client.  What he said, for once, didn’t set off defensiveness. I took in my book and read in the lobby during his deposition.  On the way home he apologized as I knew he would.  And I said I was okay, I knew he knew I would never have intentionally left him out to dry.

Okay.  That was Part One.  You did notice the halo and the little blue birdies fluttering about?   Cue up “Whistle While You Work.”

Tomorrow, Part Two.  It’s not nearly as lovely. 

 

It’s really hard to change the way we habitually deal with anxiety.  So celebrate your little victories and do not water the times when your EMOTIONAL GUIDANCE SYSTEM takes charge and you waste time, can’t sleep, make a fool of yourself, irritate someone you love, procrastinate, get into too big a hurry and make a mess… and others. 

Think of the emotional field of people, job, traffic, weather, friends, etc. as the GARDEN IN WHICH YOU LIVE.  And, while we’re MAKING UP THE WORLD IN WHICH WE LIVE (since we humans can’t help it.) Your garden has rows and rows and rows of blooming possibilities. Some rows were planted for you (family) and some you planted yourself.

A garden is a CHANGING ORGANIC ELEMENT.  We tend to the of the SELF as stagnant.  Fixed.  Maybe even broken and stuck that way.  A good part of our SELF GARDEN we keep hidden from others, some from ourselves.  The good news?

A garden CHANGES ALL THE TIME.  Some change is out of our control–weather–so we’re not going to waste energy trying to change what is beyond our power, right?  If you’re short, you’re short. If you’re young you’re young and if you’re not young, you’re not–no matter how many Extenz drinks you buy (Yep, you only pay shipping and handling, of course. But have you really ever thought how much it might cost to receive a soft drink through the mail? And that doesn’t count how much it costs for them to “handle” your drink–another one of those “let’s just make up a figure” expenses.) 

Or creams or surgeries or, God forbid, have you even seen that full-body spandex thing info-mercial? It’s a garment that, somehow, the women in the ad are able to get into and the “before” and “after” shots are prit-tee impressive. I will mention that the photos are all of women standing.  Attempt to sit down or breathe and all bets are off.

Where is Yoda when I need him?  Manana.

   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? 

  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?

  The saying goes, “I’ll believe it when I see it.”  This is not how the human mind works.  We cannot see what we do not “believe.”  We cannot STOP seeing what we DO believe.

What does this have to do with relationships?  What does this have to do with being a happier person?

When we BELIEVE the other person is noticing us for our IMPERFECTIONS, almost any comment they make is taken as CRITICISM.

More later.

  Many people don’t have any idea what goes on when psychotherapy is effective. 

Effective psychotherapy is not:

FEELING BETTER when you leave the session because you’ve “vented.”    This kind of psychotherapy can make things worse by supporting the following misconceptions:

1.  Venting improves lives and relationships. 

2.  The psychologist, because he can tolerate your venting, is a much better person to be emotionally intimate with than your spouse or family.

3.  If people love you (spouse, family) they should put up with anything, including your venting which is laced with criticisms and claims of victimhood.

4.  Having not been challenged to THINK, you leave your session more convinced than ever that YOUR MADE UP VERSION of the WORLD and EVENTS and the PEOPLE in your relationship system    –is indeed correct. 

That’s where we’re going with this.  REAL CHANGE is difficult because to CHANGE your BEHAVIOR, you must first CHANGE YOUR MIND.

Really.  You have to accept that what you respond to on a daily basis is not THE WORLD, but the STORY YOU’VE MADE UP ABOUT THE WORLD   based on facts plus lots and lots of powerful ANXIETY.

Are you willing to challenge your own mindset? 

Are you willing to consider that your spouse IS NOT the person you’re convinced he is?    (Now, we’re not talking paranoia, but going the other way.  Is it just possible he’s a more caring, kinder, brighter person than you ever thought possible?)

What would your life be like if you gave him the benefit of the doubt?  Jumped to the best possible assumption instead of the worst?  (He’s late because he’s a selfish, disorganized, uncaring person.   Or add in a worse case senario that puts yourself down.  He’s late because he doesn’t respect me, because I’m a doormat, because I’m not attractive.)

Yes.  I know it sounds ridiculous to think a husband would not bother to be on time because his wife was not as attractive as she used to be–but somebody’s buying all those exercise machines, programed meals, four stage cosmetic routines.

  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? 

   “Tell me, Doc.  How can I keep doing what I’m already doing, but get a DIFFERENT RESULT?” 

In relationship counseling, each person comes in essentially asking, “How can I keep doing what I’m already doing–but get a different response from by chosen other?”

After thirty years of “practicing” psychology, I don’t know specifically what actions will work to improve a particular relationship.  I do know which behaviors more or less guarantee failure.

Think of it as if you are standing in a clearing in a forest.  Narrow trails sprout from the edges of the clearning into the trees.  I don’t know which of the trails will end up where you want to be, but I do know which trails will lead you to a dead end or worse.

The first of these is the trail that reads:  I can improve this relationship and my pleasure in this relationship by CONVINCING THE OTHER TO CHANGE.

Who’s in charge?  Don’t you want to be in charge? 

I’ve had thirty years of marriage, too.  And, like any good spouse, I have applied this YOU CHANGE approach daily, even giving hour by hour suggestions.  And, yet, the man goes on being himself.  What’s up with that?

Where do I turn.  Then, there’s the mirror.  Eek!   Me?  I have to change me? 

But that’s hard.

Challenge One:  Take charge of what goes on inside your chest cavity.  Your feelings.  That bundle of energy or hope or whatever it is that determines the expression on our faces, the energy and optimism or lack of joy with which we approach each and every situation.

  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.” 

  There was a time when I was ready to jump the psychology ship.  I’d decided that psychology was about fads and making up stories to fit theories.  Then I studied a way of accounting for human behavior which wasn’t consumed with the battle to prove “what is really going” on in a person’s head.

At that point I became a STRATEGEST.  “Let’s look at what’s going on . . . and your part in it . . . and consider ways YOU CAN MAKE your life better.”

Instead of spinning in circles trying to come up with answers to the question “WHY?” efforts are focused on making changes that work.  Hard, yes.  Slow, yes.

People are not that complex–as much as we like to think we are– and we know what works and doesn’t work.

We know which behaviors attract humans. 

  We know which behaviors repel humans.

So why is change so hard?

Anxiety and habit. 

Upcoming.  What works:  Learning to say what you are thinking.  Having your actions based on your BEST THINKING and NOT ON EMOTIONAL PRESSURE from others or from within yourself–your own fears and anxieties.

   I was nearly broad-sided (and rude) at the stop sign because I was hurrying home.  Because, out of my anxiety, I hadn’t been clear (and kind) with my husband about when I’d be home from the stable.  Details later.