A Psycholgist on the Loose
Posts tagged Relationships
How to Win Friends and De-fuse People
May 18th
Returning to our “television or no television” interchange between the Green and Purple Sisters-in-law. (See “Television, Smellavison”)
Green Sister-in-law: “My husband and I choose not to have a television in our house. We want our children to spend more time reading.”
Purple Sister-in-law: “Really? I’ve heard kids who grow up without the opportunity to watch television are the kids who end up with the problems.”
Now you are the Green Sister-in-law. How do you respond to your sister-in-laws suggestion that your decision to not have a television in your house means you’re children are doomed?
Let’s just put your Emotional Guidance System in charge: “We’re do not have a television because we (unlike less wonderful parents) place our children’s needs ahead of our needs. What’s wrong with America is that parents have used television as a babysitter. Children who have the easy option of turning on the idiot box will not develop into adult readers. Not having a television means our family will eat meals together which is the time you can truly communicate with your children. The reason childhood obesity is such a problem is because of children watching television for hours every day without moving. Most parents wish they had our courage to resist having a television in their home.”
Fun, right?
Now, let’s invite the Thinking Guidance System. Think of the conversation as a tennis match. Once you served (you did that by making the original statement), the ball may be returned lightly or more competitively. In our situation, our sister-in-law opted for a straight shot. {Oh, I know. She would say, “Gee, I was only repeating what I’d heard….somewhere.” She’s correct. Yet, when relaxed, most of us do not usually (I hope) respond to our sister-in-law’s announcement she’s trying a new way of doing things by shooting holes in her plan.}
Your Thinking Guidance System recognizes you still have a choice in how you respond. If you’re totally relaxed, her potshot will land softly, the way a tennis ball hits a bed sheet blowing on a clothes line. You will smile and say something like, “Who knows about these things? For three decades we were told margarine was better for us than butter and that turned out to be whacky.”
And, now, perhaps we can lob the tennis ball gently back and forth. We can do this because we’ve realized we’re not playing in the finals of the French Open…we’re chatting with a person important to us. We realize there’s no need to convince our sister-in-law of anything. This is not life and death. It’s a chat.
The Emotional Guidance System is that part of us urging decisions based on anxiety. (The EGS is telling us IT IS VERY IMPORTANT THAT OTHER PEOPLE AGREE WITH US.)
The Thinking Guidance System is that part of us urging decisions based on facts. (The TGS is telling us that while it would be nice, convenient, and lovely, even, for other people to agree with us, convincing others of our position isn’t the most important element in a conversation.)
Next: How I Learned Everything I Know From Ann Landers.
How to Be Bothered By Everything All the Time
Apr 22nd
Okay, now you’ve been exposed to the heavy-duty complaining of the well-trained and highly experienced psychologist gone nuts in the Lawton, Oklahoma, Value Inn.
The infectiousness and just plain annoying elements of blatant complaining are obvious. Less obvious changes happen when someone more subtly speaks negatively about the less than Disney blue-bird-tweeting perfect elements in our Universe.
Of course, as always, subjectivity rules. The feature being complained about only need be unpleasant to the beholder.
However, the beholder of the negative comment can pass along discomfort. When someone else complains, we are more likely to notice unpleasant features we likely wouldn’t have noticed at all.
How this works to eat away at relationships…is a wonder. Stay tuned for the “’Didn’t You Say She Has a Self Esteem Problem?’ Incident.”
The Very Particular Tea Lady Incident:
The NCIS Los Angeles (television show) team has a tiny, but formidable female leader, Hetty Lange. Hetty is an educated tea drinker. When she wants to confer with one of her staff, she often asks them to join in a cup. On one episode she invites in one of the men in and he arrives prepared with several fresh tea bags of Hetty’s favorite blend. Hetty says “Thanks, but no thanks,” and prepares the tea using leaves and a strainer bowl.
“You can taste the paper,” says Hetty, with slight distaste explaining her behavior.
“Oh,” says the staffer, “I hadn’t noticed.”
Toward the end of the program the same staff member arrives for a meeting, this time with loose tea.
Hetty smiles. The staffer shrugs and admits, “You can taste the paper.”
Now here’s the thing. He didn’t taste the paper before.
Complaining Texan Goes Berserk in Small Oklahoma Town, Part 1
Apr 6th
Before we attempt the gigantic task of noticing our own complaining, we need to know what we’re up against…how the Emotional Guidance System fools us into behaving as if our method of attempting to dump anxiety by complaining…actually works.
The worst part about complaining? Nobody listens. Actually, there are two worst parts. One: nobody listens…and, Two: as eloquent and observant as I am, I only make myself more miserable. No… three parts. Three: Our complaining annoys people….and being annoying has a price.
Remember: No one has to change. But if you stay the same, expect to get what you are already getting.
The purpose of complaining, of course, is to make known our dislikes and discomforts… so that the people we have enlightened… and the world, in general, will change on hearing our clever comments. Thus, we will experience less of what bothers us in our little world. Right?
Never mind that what complaining actually does…is cause us more distress….Since other people regularly ignore our complaining and the indifferent world can be cold to our pleas to change. What happens when we complain about something is that something grows and grows and bugs us even more….Which is not fair. A case in point–
Dateline: Interstate 44, passing through Lawton, Oklahoma, in route to family gathering in Oklahoma City. The plan is to return to Lawton for our overnight on our way back to Texas. One passenger, a man we shall call Mr. Sensible, mentions he has a reservation at the Motel 6 as we pass his motel of choice. Well, I’m not letting that comment pass.
In a jaunty mood, I call out the names of the many superior motels on either side of Interstate 44….the many deserted, clearly available motel choices… superior to the Motel 6… the obviously better choices I shall select from later… as we whiz through Lawton. Mr. Sensible brushes me off, running on about how ‘Motel 6 is that bad…’ I laugh.
Throughout the remainder of the day, I manage to work into every conversation, say 30 or 40 times, how impressed I am to be with a traveller with a reservation at the Motel 6. After pointing out Mr. Sensible, I, fool that I am, usually ask, “Got a dinner reservation at Denny’s?” I chide, I laugh, I bring up old stories involving money-saving choices made by Mr. Sensible. Others join my capricious dialogue. Mr. Sensible, rather accustomed to my foolishness, is undeterred.
How could I know that…all of it…the pointing, the laughing, the old stories…all of these I shall regret. Deeply regret. Maybe those I charmed with my cute, self-agrandizing stories…maybe they, too, would regret my shameless merry-making at Mr. Sensible’s expense had they known the future. Maybe, but not as much as I, and by default, my special person, would come to regret my remarks.
Alas, the family time in Oklahoma City passed and our little touring group, smiles and caramel pie on our lips, we return to Lawton, Oklahoma. Before reaching the now famous Lawton Motel 6 to drop off Mr. Sensible and wife, we happened upon a lovely Hilton Garden Inn. “You guys won’t mind if we pull in here to register?” I asked. “Go ahead,” they said. I pulled out my various frequent travel, special person cards and sauntered in.
The desk clerk at the Hilton Garden Inn shook his head. “No rooms here, ma’am. There’s a rodeo in town, you see.”
“Oh, sure. A rodeo. How big a deal can a rodeo be?” I asked my fellow travellers as I hopped back into the car.
Next, Part 2, Complaining Texan Spontaneously Combusts in small Oklahoma Town.
698
Apr 2nd
There you tripping through life in your little familiar zone….When someone tears into your bubble insisting on sharing their opinion on what you are doing wrong?
What does it mean when someone is described as ‘opinionated’?
Does it mean he or she has clear ideas about where he or she stands?
Does ‘opinininated’ mean a person has a set of evolved values on which to base decisions?
Or, does ‘opinionated’ mean…. when confronted by people making choices unlike your own….you become anxious….and just have to correct this wayward other?
Well, hang on. Whatever lousy, butt-in-ski thing you’ve done or said when someone didn’t agree with how you thought (felt) something should be handled….your efforts are mere ripples compared to the lady who disagreed with the T-ball coach.
A couple of years ago, at a Little League game in a nearby town, an opinionated mother loudly and frequently complained about the coaching. She particularly complained that the coach did not play her son as often as she believed he should be played. The coach did not let the mother’s public complaining alter his game plan.
Of course, she wasn’t complaining…only pointing out what was fair and what the coach was doing wrong.
This lady complained and complained, and when the coach didn’t change, she informed him that he’d regret not listening to her advice…. He’d regret how bull-headed he was being….Well, for some, words are just not enough.
Disappointed Baseball Mom returned home….and….Okay…hang on…The woman beat herself up. Yep. She beat herself up, seriously…bruises and cuts aplenty. Then she convinced her husband to take her to the hospital emergency room where she reported that the coach had come to her home, attacked her, and caused the injuries.
The coach was arrested and taken to jail. With a woman stumbling into the hospital with multiple, serious injuries, the police and the community were not kind to the accused man. Disappointed Baseball Mom was a convincing victim…Just the sort cameras love. The coach is suspended, his job was in jeopardy. He put out bucks for a lawyer. His days and weeks were a mess.
Gradually, the truth came to light, or at least the story developed two sides. Amazingly, the case actually went to trial. Plenty of witnesses showed up clearing up what had actually had occured. As you might imagine, character witnesses were plentiful for the coach and thin for the Lady Who Beat Herself Up. Even the husband grew a spine. Still, the angry lady refused to drop the assault charges.
Her point, she said, was to make the coach miserable which could best be accomplished if she forced a trial…Even knowing she would lose, she’d have satisfaction…
And you thought you were pushy about complaining until you got your way. Ha.
No Shirt, No Shoes, Pajamas…No Problem
Mar 28th
The more things you take personally, the less enjoyable your life is going to be.
Your Emotional Guidance System…exaggerates how much other people’s choices actually affect you.…I am reminded of the wife who prayed when leaving the house with her husband driving…that their car would at no time be behind a woman in an SUV talking on a cell phone….Because, should Fate be so unkind…the tone of the outing would be sacrificed to a rant on the downfall of society.
Your Thinking Guidance System is able to distinguish between events passing over your life like puffy clouds in the clear blue sky…and events truly affecting you….such as a piano falling on your car.
Dateline: Dallas, Hilton International Headquarters…Substation
The next Jessica LeFave mystery will include inside travel tips, Mysteryshrink style, on how to enjoy yourself in Las Vegas. Someone should benefit from all the mistakes I’ve bumbled into. ….Not that I would complain. Not for a second.
Here’s an early bonus travel tip: When people show up for breakfast in the hotel dining room dressed in their pajamas….you might want to bump up what you’re willing to pay per night. Now, I’m the first to say, I wish I were more flexible. Having no standards would be absolutely yummy. I wish I could be as cheery as the wife and mother of the Pajama Family…who appeared perfectly okay with her husband trotting across the dining room in flip-flops and a kid’s discarded Winnie the Pooh bathrobe cinched over…but, not quite concealing…his boxers…. Who knows what kind of trauma I caused the children requiring them to give up the jammies and comb their bed hair before eating in restaurants. And, no matter how much my Thinking Guidance System repeats that a negligee and fuzzy slippers shouldn’t be an issue….I don’t know that I could test out the proposition.
At this sub-genre of Hilton products, the Pajama family parades back and forth from the far wall to the buffet…buffet to the wall table…occasionally yelling out orders to whichever of the clan is elbow deep sorting through the bacon bin.
Bonus Pre-view Travel Tip: When a hotel-like facility promises a ‘complimentary hot breakfast’ and your fellow diners show up in pajamas, you can expect two things for sure. One: When a restaurant feels a need to add the word ‘hot’ to the term ‘breakfast’ this is best translated as—“Stuff will be defrosted and micro-waved for you.” And, “No room service, but feel free to roll out of bed and schlep to the breakfast table without any concern regarding whether or not the sight of you in your makeshift coverings is killing the appetites of the other guests.”
I know. The ads spin these issues, saying that such places are ‘homey’; that when you stay with them you are ‘one of the family’. Well, this is not an appealing concept to someone who’s played Omaha in the summer and made last minute reservations.
This concept would perhaps work, if the guests treating the hotel as ‘home’ was a set of those constantly recurring young couples making romantic comedies…and the perky pair trotted in all trim, modeling European designer pajama ensembles. But, alas, most of us aren’t haunted by either the paparazzi or modeling contracts…thus ’pajama casual’ isn’t likely to take off.
Speaking for my family’s likelihood of being welcomed in public in our pj’s, I’ll quote my sister regarding the time a cousin, lost in a back-to-nature illusion….an illusion based on her experience living in a tent during a lengthy stretch of unemployment….The cousin informed us that a nude wedding was planned and we were invited. My sister responded: “No, thanks. I see my family members in clothes on a regular basis….and, given what I’ve seen so far, I have no desire to see any of them naked.”
Yes, whatever we pay attention to grows larger.
What you notice and focus on in the world…and ‘yes’ you do have a choice…grows bigger and what you leave alone…doesn’t. The next entry, “Texas Psychologist Freaks Out in Oklahoma Motel Incident,” will fill in a few details on how to trash an evening and frighten farm folks in town for the rodeo by focusing on the less than perfect features of a festive motel room…
How to Ruin Relationships, Part 2, Assume the Worst
Feb 12th
If you’re not up to speed on the ‘Power Hose’ incident, review ‘How to Ruin a Relationship’, Part 1.
At the close of Part 1, I am standing in my underwear, soaked, and holding a power hose packing enough force to blow asphault off the interstate. This is not the pretty picture you may be imagining.
Having completed washing the ‘doggie pad’, I now need my special person to do the ONE THING I have asked that he do in the process…I need him to go downstairs and turn off the water at the spigot. That’s it. All I ask. I will do the scrubbing and rinsing (picture a bent woman, gasping for air, working so hard and going unappreciated)….The trip downstairs and what….a couple of twists of the spigot is ALL I ASK. Twenty minutes earlier my special person had stuck his head out the French doors announcing he was going to run an errand….
At which point I sighed deeply…hoping to remind him of the burdens I bear…then I’d said something gentle, such as: ”Fine. Just leave me up here in my underwear to run back and forth …barefoot and soaking wet…through a tile-floored house, slamming into furniture, slipping and crashing into walls, breaking my neck going end-over-endo on the stairs….then sliding out the kitchen door the veranda, where, if I’m lucky I can watch the power hose explode instead of having my face blown off when it detonates in my hand.
….Something sweet like that…
He said: “Oops. Sorry, I forgot.”
I said something (on the inside) straight from the sickest part of my Emotional Guidance System ….Something like, “Perfect. Just what I needed. Another reminder of how important I am in your life.”
Back to what’s really happening. I’ve finished the task. I open the French doors and call for help with this just one lee-tle bit of help I’m needing. “Honey, I’m ready for your to turn off the hose….Honey?….Honey, I need your help here! Hey! Need a little help here! Help!”
Hmmmm….My special person does not seem to be home. At this point, I could survey my circumstances and pay attention to the facts….my Thinking Guidance System…but this entry is about how TO RUIN a relationship. Consulting my Emotional Guidance System, these are the words tripping through my head: It appears I have been forgotten…standing on the upstairs terrace with a power hose going full blast in my hand…. “OBVIOUSLY, in spite of the years showing me otherwise, my special person does not love me….In spite of years of evidence proving otherwise….in spite of what I would have said about him thirty minutes ago…I now realize he must get a kick out of torturing me.”
I recall our earlier interaction when he mentioned the errand during which I’d been a bit snippy. Using the ‘logic’ of my Emotional Guidance System….and ignoring all facts to the contrary…I conclude that he’s mad at me and his leaving is some kind of punishment.
I know. Pathetic, but I’m hoping my brutal confession can help someone else….
And then….my tiny, struggling Thinking Guidance System managed to be heard over the noise….Pointing out that my ‘conclusions’ about my special person made NO SENSE given everything I knew about the man. He is a kind person who goes out of his way often to make my life easier… and, I like to think he does so, not just because I can be really unpleasant when uncomfortable, but because he is a good person and he cares about me and takes our marriage seriously. Those are the proven facts.
How can you ruin a relationship? Always expect the worst of the other person. Always jump to the worst possible conclusion. Always assume he has no good reason for disappointing you. Always assume he doesn’t care. Always assume he doesn’t care if you’re uncomfortable. Always assume he’s selfish.
And, after a while, your special person will start to wonder….”Why do I feel like a good person everywhere else in my life…everywhere except when I’m with you?”
When you find yourself in your undies on the second story verandah with a power hose in your hand. Just maybe he didn’t leave you hanging on purpose. : Practice words “Don’t worry about it, I’m sure you had a good reason….I have confidence in you….You have good judgment….Everyone has a lapse now and then, I have plenty…”
And, if you learn that he did leave you hanging on purpose….Well, you still have the power hose.
How to Ruin a Relationship, the ‘Power Hose Incident’, Part 1
Jan 29th
The Setup: Along the upper terrace which goes the width of the house, we have a section of ‘doggie turf”. The doggie turf is a layer of heavy plastic sheeting covered with a layer of outdoor grasslike carpet. Thus, Crazy Dog can be let out in the semi-open when neither of her human buddies has what it takes to toddle down the stairs and let her out the back on the real greenbelt…which is often on a cool morning or even more often when it’s over a hundred degrees.
Every couple of months, the doggie patch requires cleaning with a power hose. This job I could complete without assistance, except the outdoor water spigot is, of course, on the downstairs veranda. Thus, I need my special person to throw the power hose up to me and turn the water full blast on once I have the hose pointed in a safe direction…and I need him available to turn the water off when I’m finished.
Without someone to turn the water off, I would be required to close the power valve on the hose (otherwise the nozzel would spin wildly), run (barefoot and in my underwear) the length of the upstairs, go down the stairs, reverse and run the length of the house again through the living room, dining room, and kitchen….then going out the kitchen door, then I’d have to reverse field once again on the lower veranda and run the length of the house again, step into the fountain enclosure, find the spigot, and twist it off.
That is, if I didn’t slip and kill myself in route as all floors are tile and I would be barefoot with a tinge of soap left on my soles. Meanwhile, of course, the expensive power hose and nozzle would have exploded.
On the particular day of this incident, my special person had coordinated with me on the first two aid requirements—tossing up the hose and turning the water on. I am now out on the terrace pouring cleansers and power-washing like crazy…. When my special person sticks his head out the French doors to inform me he’s taking off to run an errand.
“You’re going to do what?…” I exclaim, as if he’d just told me he was off to climb Mt. Everest in a bikini and taking Crazy Dog with him. Alas! I can’t believe he’s thinking about his life and what he needs to get done and not MY life and I have to get done. I heave one of those I-can’t-believe-you-can-even-say-something-so-thoughtless…sighs….Then I elaborated on what would happen if I was left to finish alone….Reciting with great importance the above paragraph beginning with ‘Without someone to turn the water off….ending with the explosion.
Twenty minutes later, I finish the cleaning job and open the French doors calling for my special person: “Honey, I’m done…. Honey?….I’m ready for you to turn the water off….Honey?….Honey?…..Honey!…Hey!…Need some help here! Help! I need help here!”
No one answers.
Tune in for the next episode of “As the Nozzel Turns” and watch the Emotional Guidance System go crazy….
The Color of Strawberries
Jan 25th
One hot day a man is walking along a narrow mountain trail with steep sides dropping off hundreds of feet into the canyon below. At one point, the man steps into some loose gravel at the edge of the trail and slips off the path. (Work with me here. Think of Nepal…fog.)
The poor man is destined to plummet to his death. And, yet, just as he begins his descent, several yards from the top surface…the man notices a thin branch sticking out from the wall of rock. He grabs hold of the branch and ‘whew’ holds on for his life. But all is not well for long. The branch has only weak, spiny roots, which are quickly loosening from the wall.
His time on earth is definitely brief. For a moment, the blather of his panicked Emotional Guidance System dominates his life experience screaming: “This is horrible! This is terrible! I can’t stand this!”
Then, at the moment of his greatest soul-gripping horror, the man notices a wild strawberry plant growing out of the wall next to the slipping roots of his lifeline branch. The strawberry plant offers nothing in terms of a hold. So what possible use is a stupid plant? The man’s brain is going wild. “This is horrible! This is terrible! I can’t stand this! What good is a stupid plant if it won’t help me in my life? What good is a strawberry plant if it can’t help me live longer?”
The man’s mind clearsfor a fraction of a second. He iss able to set aside his desperate demand to live forever or even longer. The man realizes all any man or woman has is the present moment. He becomes accutely aware that, though he is clinging to a brief …and getting briefer…lifeline, his life now…is no different from the life possessed by any man or woman.
His mind quiets and with his sudden clarity, the man notices that…on the strawberry plant are several plump red berries. He glanced up at the branch which is now barely a sputtering string. He glances down. No question, within minutes, maybe seconds, he will be a lifeless body on the canyon floor. Above him is the past he so longs to continue and improve upon. Below him is the sure future he feared and dreaded.
Then, he noticed how red, and full, and perfectly ripe the berries were on the plant in front of his face. Okay, then…he decided. He CHOSE then to focus on the strawberry plant. The man dared to loosen his grip on the branch long enough to pluck one of the fruits. He popped the strawberry in his mouth. The flavor took over his mind…his life experience. The strawberry was sweet and tart and wonderful. Wonderful.
Rumble over the Jungle
Jan 21st
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
Friendly Persuasion Can Take Your Life
Nov 17th
The ‘Woman Who Didn’t Stop at the Bathroom’ Incident–
Dateline: Willie’s Place, I-35 between Dallas and Austin. If I can’t get a grip at Willie’s Place, I might as well just jerk that license off the wall and give up the pretense.
Hail to those of you tagging along on this rickety journey toward growing up just a wee little bit. Now, friends, we begin an examination of HOW MUCH of WHO WE ARE is the result of CHOICE and how much is no more than our automatically acting and re-acting in TO KEEP OTHER PEOPLE CALMED DOWN.
Figuring out when we are using our BEST THINKING and when we are doing the please CALM DOWN JIG is not an easy task. Because the EMOTIONAL GUIDANCE SYSTEM is not just a big fat liar, the EMOTIONAL GUIDANCE SYSTEM is tricky. U
Sometimes we make a choice against what we think…we say “Yes” when we mean “No” (this usually involves some sort of volunteering) or “No” when we mean “Yes” (This often involves FEAR).
We react automatically …because we pick up on the choice an important other person wants us to make….and the relief of going along FEELS like we’ve made a thoughtful choice. Example: a woman says to her husband, “I have decided to take up mountain biking.” The husband says, “What?”and proceeds to outline the costs, dangers, and generally neglect of others…should the woman persist with the mountain biking idea.
For a while she struggles. Then she gives up the idea. The tension in the couple goes down. The woman eats a pie and criticizes the man next door for leaving the lid off his trashcan. The whole neighborhood is ruined!
The relief experienced when ‘going along’ FEELS like we’ve made an actual choice. This sort of capitulating may look noble, but there’s nothing brave about deciding that the best way to stay calm yourself is by doing whatever will keep the other person calm.
Of course, after studying the costs, dangers, and time required the woman could have opted out of mountain biking following her own BEST THINKING. I’m just saying the glory of ‘relief’ makes it hard to tell ‘why’ a particular decision is made.
Now, about the woman who thought she needed to make a bathroom stop and over-ruled herself . Oops, here’s my chicken-fried steak. Tune in tomorrow to hear the exciting adventure of ‘Go-Along-Woman.’
The Rugby Coach Who Changed the World
Nov 8th
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…
Why You Must Keep Your Limitations to Yourself
Nov 3rd
Mysteryshrink’s You Get What You Pay For Psychology Tip: It’s best to keep your limitations to yourself for as long as you can. Once they are out there, they are etched in the minds of others forever.
Think of something you are uncomfortable doing…say, for example…you are one of those otherwise lovely people who has secretly avoided the role of being the candy-the-giver-outer on Halloween…for years and years.
I’m just saying… maybe you’re one of those people who turn out all the lights and hunker down in a back bedroom with only the light of the television. Maybe even, one time when your special person promised a certain group of teachers that he would bring a slab of Mississippi Mud Bars to a meeting on Novemeber 1st, maybe you and he whipped up a batch using only the light from the refrigerator…your heads stuck inside the door…
Dateline: Not quite dark, Halloween Night, family gathering.
I hadn’t spent Halloween with my siblings and clan since we were kids. When I walked into the house, I noticed the countertop in the den was stacked with all sorts of individually wrapped candy and I knew what that meant. Now, usually, I could have gotten away with my “gee, I’m so busy doing something” expression and not been faced with wondering who was going to answer the door for the goblins and such. But not on this night as my sibs had limitations to their mobility and the always faithful niece had her wonderful girls to manage.
I’m good at avoidance, but even I couldn’t pretend to be lost in the football game while my sister, recovering from a knee replacement, hobbled to the front door on her walker. Or my brother, who had broken his hand, and on pain meds felt his way along the wall to the door. Yikes. What to do, What to do?
I looked so deceptively capable…walking to the door-wise. Thus, I decided the fairest thing to do was to step up and nip the old bud. I announced that I would not be doing the giggling, good-neighborly handing out the candy thing as I am not constitutionally capable of the task. I admitted my years of cowardly hiding and stated that if they were going to leave the porch light on, I would not be responsible. My choice would be to leave the light off and go on with our evening as if we were a perfectly normal family.
I’d thought I’d done a gentle, firm job of stating my position. My announcement was met with six sets of squenched eyes and headshakes of disbelief. “Not my fault,” I claimed, “I thought you guys knew.”
Clearly they’d never even suspected. My siblings and various other chips of my Danish father’s block were horrified. Various gasps of distress filled the awkward space I’d created in the evening. After the ugly truth that I was not kidding sunk in, the questions began. “Why?” “Was it some terrible Halloween experience?” “Did we do something back when you were a kid?” “Is it the children?” “Are you against children?”
Now here’s the kicker. My fellow evening partners were so absorbed in my admission, they forgot to turn on the porch light. Not one innocent child or anyone else rang the doorbell.
Thus, I am now, and will be forever, the “one who can’t hand out candy on Halloween.” Not that my reputation for other weirdnesses doesn’t precede me. It’s just that I threw in a new quirk…when I didn’t have to.
Thus, my friends. Learn from my mistake and don’t mention any of those odd little fears until you are absolutely positive you are about to be exposed.
Treat a Horse Like a Show Horse…the ‘Happy Afternoon Incident’
Oct 28th
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.
Think, then Speak, the ‘Talkative Guy in Bicycle Shorts Incident’
Oct 12th
How much trouble can a person get into by speaking ‘off the top of his head’ to a televsion reporter?
Doesn’t talking ’off the top of your head’ boil down to simply blithering random words as they pop into consciousness? Yes, ‘off the top of your head’ can, and often does mean, talking without using your head at all. Using the Thinking Guidance System,you recall, means taking into acount the LONG TERM effects of your actions.
Which brings us to the ’Talkative Guy in Bicycle Shorts Incident’
A few weeks ago, a husband, obviously in the grip of his Emotional Guidance System…shot and killed his wife while she was packing up to leave him. Now, the actions of the murderer guy aren’t even the actions we’re talking about, but admittedly a good example of not taking LONG TERM effects into consideration.
But, jump ahead, if you will, to the reporter for a local television station who travelled to the small town outside Austin where the murder happened to provide that ‘on the spot’ illusion for the five o’clock story.
The little town hosting the murder is a rural haven left over from when the railroad first came through that part of Texas, though a few Austinites have moved to Red Rock to fulfill dreams of pastoral peace and to ride their bike instead of burning fossil fuels like the lesser forms of humanity. But, mostly Red Rock is a ranching and agricultural enclave. Our lively television reporter arrives in Red Rock ready to take the pulse of the townspeople.
Most of the town’s residents were busy with target practice, baking pies, and herding longhorns, but our reporter did find one unoccupied Red Rock resident who happened to be one of the Austin-transplants, a spry fellow riding his bike. Somehow the reporter didn’t notice that Red Rock regular residents don’t ride ten-speeds and they certainly don’t wear flashy bicycle pants and bodysuit tops…or red and green banana helmets or earrings, or scraggly beards.
Our reporter has the camera going and needed just the one clip to go with his story of the murder. Thus, his brief interview of the guy in bicycle shorts (GIBS) would come and go in his life without causing undo harm. The guy in the bicycle shorts, I fear, was not so lucky.
Because, you see, when the reporter asked the GIBS, “Do you find it hard to believe that a murder like this could happen in such a pleasant little town?”
The grinning GIBS looks right into the camera and says, “Not really. This town is full of POT-BELLIED, KNUCKLE-DRAGGING REDNECKS.”
Did I mention he LIVED in amongst the people he just so colorfully described? Or, at least he did.
When to Let Go, the “Elementary View Incident”
Oct 7th
Now before we get started here, I should describe my effort to engage my THINKING GUIDANCE SYSTEM and let go of something I cannot change. I am giving up arguing with and spewing sarcasm to the ‘virtual people’ (recorded voices, used by any company with more than one employee) trapping me into playing ‘Voice Recognition Hell’. You know, I say, “Jerry’s Bar and Grill,” and cheerful virtual person says, “Jerrold Barbill? Did I get that right?”…I am giving up the fight, joining technological reality… Now on to the elementary view.
We humans like to control our space. Maybe it’s an evolutionary element…maybe those who best managed to get take care of their space …survived.
Now, wait a sec, this doesn’t mean you get to walk on other people’s toes and blame it on evolution. We have a ‘fight or flight’ stress response hanging around in our psyche to save us from saber-toothed tigers, too. And, just like our stress response is not all that useful… (How many times in your life will you actually be called upon to lift a car off a person?)
…Our little desire (desperate need) to control our space can do more harm than good in our lives. Which brings us to the six houses across from the elementary school and the people who live there. Houses in the area around the school have sweeping St. Augustine front yards. Every school day, carloads of parents and children park along the curb across from school. In the morning, parents are busy covering last minute reminders, kids are searching for backpacks, and sliding out of the cars. Every afternoon parents return loading talking kids into cars. Morning and night neighborhood children close enough to walk to school converge from all directions.
So where’s the problem? Several years ago, one of the home owners with the elementary school view decided to reclaim the slightly beaten down St. Augustine along the curb in front of the house. He or she put up a homemade sign– cardboard tacked to a ruler…which read: “Please stay off the grass.”
The sign was beaten to the turf with the first car door swinging open. A few days later a larger sign, still cardboard and a Sharpie, but this time nailed to a stake from Home Depot, replaced the first effort. The homeowner’s efforts stirred the hearts of others along the street who had suffered the patter of little St. Augustine. Two other signs popped up…to no avail.
Homeowner number one then sticks two signs along the curb, this time printed in RED Sharpie. His or her fellow protesters next door followed suit. Still the kids with more on their mind did not notice the signs. Blades of grass were trampled. Little lives were not changed.
Next, the homeowner surrounds the contested strip along the curb with a low white wire Home Depot fence. Children think the little fence is fun to hop. More signs, more little wire fences….Until today. Today the distressed homeowner put up a two foot high white wire fence….about 50 feet long and two feet wide….think about it…this is really ugly…and the homeowner has planted spindly shrubs close together along the fifty feet of weird looking white picket fence. Children do not step on homeowner’s lawn.
Can we say the homeowner has won? How much time and money and stomach lining has gone into this project? Are you glad, as I am that I am not the spouse of the obsessed one? Can you imagine the evening conversations?
Oh, and yes, I have to say it…the EMOTIONAL GUIDANCE SYSTEM is that part of us that can convince us to persist in a LOSING ACTIVITY. The THINKING GUIDANCE SYSTEM…is telling us we can’t win this battle….or, that if we do win….(the homeowner still has the ‘sit out in the yard every morning and night with a shotgun’ strategy)…the victory will not be worth the cost.
Marriage and having siblings usually awaken us to the skill of ceding territory…but not always. We can’t have our territory OUR WAY all the time and share the planet or house with other people. I’ve awarded my special person the edges of the bed for his shoes…I thought of the ‘sitting watch with a shotgun’ ploy, but he’s sneaky, he’d distract me somehow. My picture of the world has all shoes in the closet. I do not get everything I want.
Now, as for giving up territory…let’s talk about Crazy Dog and her pushy ways….
The Best Day of My Life, Mom!
Sep 12th
Dateline: Changing Hearts… a a home for abused, abandoned, and neglected girls in Nuevo Laredo (starred project for mysteryshrink)–
Nine year old Christina had come with her mother to “observe” the home as a potential charity recipient of her wealthy and kind parents. Christina’s family lives snuggly and well in the best part of Austin. She has had all the experiences, learning opportunities, resort travel, and material provisions expected in the life to which she was born.
On this day, Christina had joined the girls in the home in their cramped and sparse activities. At the end of the day, Christina was laying on the bare floor with 50 girls she couldn’t understand, watching Spanish T.V., and eating popcorn. Just moments into the movie she got up off the floor and whispered to her mom, “This is the best day of my life!”
Christina’s mother smiled and tears ran, realizing what she had been able to provide her daughter on this day.
How Much Are You Making UP? The Knock-Knock Incident
Jul 14th
Dateline: Dallas Hilton Branch Office. Giant flat-screen television. Antique remote. The Sleep Timer can be set by using manual controls. Whew. It’s not easy being a walking Emotional Guidance System patsy.
Which is more important? The world of facts? Or, the world you are responding to?”
How much of what you are talking so assuredly about….is just made up? Our Thinking Guidance System would have us get the facts…before we act…but who has time for that?
So we respond to people AS IF they are the people, the characters, we’ve made up. If we expect them to be kind, we’ll get that. If we believe he or she is a CONTROL FREAK will we encounter a lot of pushy interfering behavior.
The “Knock Knock Incident”
The scene is the waiting area for those of us needing to have lab work done at a large medical facility. About thirty of us wait, people coming in and out in this busy area. There is a unisex bathroom off to the side which is quite popular. As the lab is near the hospital exit, some people notice the bathroom on leaving and opt to take advantage. The people come, they leave their blood, the people go.
One fella decides on the bathroom option on his way out of the hospital and asks his wife to wait. She has a seat and picks up a magazine. The man closes the door. Another man soon spots the bathroom on his way out and tries the door, which is locked, of course. He shrugs and goes on with his day. Then a women enters the waiting area on her way to other parts of the hospital. She spies the bathroom, gives the door handle an unsuccessful pull, and moves on. A few minutes later a young woman in a T-shirt and shorts crosses the room and tries the door.
At the moment she twists the lever, the man inside happens to open the door. He sneers at the lass and says, “What’s wrong with you? Are you stupid?”
She stares blankly. He says, “You must be stupid to have to try the door three times to figure out it was occupied!” Girl looks stunned. “Abused” man and wife walk out talking about how kids today have been ruined by cell phones and texting.
Stranger Anxiety….INVASION OF THE CRUISE PEOPLE…
Jun 29th
Dateline: Seattle Hilton Branch Headquarters.
Reasonable success is to be reported from the behind the lines attempt to approach a new experience with the Thinking Guidance System a bit ahead of Emotional Guidance System. In other words, in the attempt to let the facts, rather than fears, direct behavior.
How many experiences have we not tried because we’ve made up scary barriers that do not exist? Scary people who do not exist? Who among us hasn’t approached an educational experience–like graduate school, for example–sure we are the only moron who slipped through the entrance requirements? Personally, I always enjoyed the fantasy that brain surgeons were in a whole different category of brilliance from rest of us. If someone is opening my skull, I wanted to think that person had something the rest of us didn’t….I especially wanted to believe their Emotional Guidance Systems never got the best of them. Then I had to put out that marriage counselor shingle and shot the dickens out of that little fantasy. Oh well.
The ”Cruise People Fantasy,” is shared with the hope that the next time you are facing a new situation with new people, you can think of the Cruise People Fantasy and relax.
We were planning a cruise to celebrate our tenth anniversary. That same summer the girls had a favorite retro show called “The Love Boat” featuring a cruise ship on which wonderful little romances happened. One evening we’re watching an episode which involved a gathering around the ship’s pool….and intermittently discussing what little tidbits we might need to add to our wardrobes before launching ourselves into the cruise people jet set. The characters on the Love Boat were one hundred percent… women in bikinis and stilettos and men mostly preening in deck chairs with fancy cocktails siting on their rock-hard abdomens. Everyone had great hair and walked with grace.
We studied the people around the Love Boat pool and concluded that investing in those expensive bathing suit covers was definitely called for.
Now picture what people on a cruise really look like. Yep. You got it. 
We’re everyone of us…nuts. Have a school reunion coming up? Remember the Cruise People Fantasy and go forth. And, don’t underestimate the value of a swimsuit cover.
You Can Change Self Defeating Habits
Jun 23rd
On the notion of finding (even welcoming) an opportunity to break the habit of ‘push-pull’ power struggles over who is ‘right”… I can report two successes today, one mine and one my spouse’s. And neither was easy.
Remember, acting out the need to be right is the body’s automatic self-defense (the Emotional Guidance System), the automatic action to rid ourselves of the anxiety that comes with not being seen as ‘right’.
The first occurred when a song came on the radio and my spouse said, “Who wrote that song, do you know?”
Sounds innocent, right? Never. If a person asks you a question like that, isn’t he obligated to accept my answer?… Well, apparently not.
I said, “Hank Williams.”… He said, “No, I think it was Lefty Frizzell.” (Okay, hold back on the disbelief and laughter on the age and music of reference.) I say, “That’s not even possible because Hank Williams sang that song and he was dead before Lefty Frizzell started singing.” (I’m pretty smug at this point. And, by the way, I am RIGHT.) He says, “No, I’m pretty sure you’re wrong on this one.” (I know! He’s the one who asked me!)… Now comes the big moment. I felt the rise and fall of my chest, exasperated with the lack of cooperation of my listener….and then… I actually thought: Hey, this is my chance! Then I said, “I do think it was Hank Williams, but could be I’m not right on that.”
Yea!
A few minutes later, I was backing out of a tricky spot when my spouse said, “Come on back, you’re clear on this side.” I said, “I don’t feel comfortable when I can’t see where I am.” I pulled forward and repositioned. “I’m telling you, you have plenty of room. Why don’t you just trust me?” he asked. I said, “It’s not that I don’t trust you, I’m just paranoid about this and I’d rather take it slow. I know I probably overdo it, but that’s the way I’m comfortable.” He says, “I don’t get you… (pause)… Then he said, “There’s no reason you have to back up my way. I’m sorry. I should just let you drive when you’re driving.” He said this. He really did.
Doesn’t matter that I’m talking about two psychologists with years of training and experience. This stuff is hard.
Pick How You Want the Other to Be…You’ll Be Right
Jun 16th
And… if you believe something to be true about a person…you will ’see’ it…you will prove that what you believe about him or her is true. You will look for what you believe…what you fear…and you will find it.
The “Mean Farmers are Everywhere! Incident”
A man was out for an evening country drive when he had a flat tire. On opening his trunk he discovered he had no jack to raise the car. He’d seen no traffic, thus spotting the lights of a farmhouse in the distance, he struck out to ask for help. After walking for a few minutes, the man started wondering about the people in the farmhouse. What if they got mad at having their evening interrupted? Maybe they were having supper and would feel like they had to interupt the pleasant meal just because a stranger was so careless he didn’t have a jack in his car? What if they insisted he join them in supper? He didn’t have time for supper, now they’d think he was rude. What if they have a jack, but it’s out in the barn and they expect him to find it own his own? What kind of people wouldn’t help a guy who just needed a jack? Yes, but what kind of people would invite a stranger into their house? What kind of person would expect him to find a jack in a barn? It was pretty late. They weren’t going to trust him to return the jack, that was for sure. They’d say, “You didn’t have the sense to make sure you had your own jack. What kind of person is that foolish?”
About this time, the man reached the door of the farmhouse and knocked. When the farmer answered, the man said, “Fine! Just keep your damn jack!”
Other “Keep Your Damn Jack!” scenarios when the EMOTIONAL GUIDANCE SYSTEM … (FEAR AND ANXIETY) is running the show:
The wife waits at the airport for her husband who is late picking her up. While she waits, she rehearses worst case possibilities based on her fears. ”Well, thanks a lot,” she says, climbing in when he arrives, “I can see how important I am to you!” (This before knowing why he was late.) … Alternate (Just a suggestion, this is hard) “Hi, sweetie. Don’t worry about being late. I’m sure you had a good reason.” (Lose interest in whether or not you are right. That’s a dead end. We’re just going for what works… the facts about what works….by way of the THINKING GUIDANCE SYSTEM.)
A husband comes through the door with a dozen roses. His wife is on the phone with her sister. She smiles and shows excitement, but stays on the phone for another twenty minutes, then says, “These are gorgeous. Thank-you!” The husband shrugs and says, “Thank you doesn’t mean much to me now.” …Alternate, (see above re: thinking running the show)… “I had to wait, honey, but you’re always worth it!”
What happens next after first responses? After alternative responses? Which outcome do you want?
If you believe you are not lovable, no one….absolutely no one…can convince you otherwise. If you believe you are not lovable…you will not recognize love.
Deciding to live “as if” you are lovable or “as if” you are not lovable… is something like deciding to live believing in an afterlife. You have to go one way or the other. There is no middle.
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