A Psycholgist on the Loose
Posts tagged self-designed life
What Can Princess Diana Do For You?
Jan 1st
Resolution for 2010: Start Living Now
Resolution for 2010 in two parts:
1) Live in the Present.
2) Take RESPONSIBILITY for the quality of the present moment.
The plan is to report steps… forward and back…hoping others can learn from my frailties.
Inspiration: A non-so-good French movie set in Monaco. The female lead has her one room apartment decorated wall-to-wall with Princess Diana memorabilia.
The male lead asks, “Why the overwhelming adoration? Did you love Princess Di that much?”
She says: (paraphrasing) “Yes. Princess Di had it all…and I have nothing. She was beautiful. She was wealthy beyond anything I can even imagine. She was loved by everyone. She was famous. I think she’s the luckiest woman who ever lived. I loved her so much my life was nothing but a poor immitation. I didn’t know how to be alive as just me. When Princess Diana was alive, I lived through her. I spent my simple, unfamous life, wishing I was her.”
He asks: “Why do you keep all these pictures?”
She says: “To remind myself I have something Princess Di does not have. I am alive. I can plan things. I can meet new people.”
He asked: “So?”
She said: “I keep all these pictures and stories to remind myself I am alive. That one day I won’t have the chance to enjoy the day….but unlike Princess Di…I’m not there yet. That one day when it’s over …is not TODAY.”
Thus, following these words from a bad French movie, my Resolution for 2010 is to live in the present…instead of ruing the past and worrying about the future. And to make an honest effort, moment by moment, to take responsibility for the quality of my experience.
Want to come along? Actually, the present being the way it is…None of us have a choice….as long as we are alive…we can change…we can do better…. Let’s have some fun.
Next: The Joy of Strawberries.
Reduce Stress, Stop Telling Other People What to Do
May 14th
Dateline: San Diego Mission Valley Hilton Branch National World Headquarters. Update on management of self-inflicted flight stress: minimal peanut delivery anxiety; mildly distracting doo-looping irritation with the man in the seat in front of me who thought just because his seat was adjustable, he was free to spend three hours crushing the book I was reading. Eight Hertz courtesy buses passed while I waited on the sidewalk for an Avis bus. Potential personal insults from possible less-than-perfect television, still to be determined.
Okay. To continue thinking about how we get ourselves in trouble with our human need to tell other people what to do… “Helping” is sometimes nothing more than our effort to get rid of our own anxiety. Anxiety is our physical and automatic response to real or perceived threat.
One pretty useless, but highly seductive method of dealing with anxiety that pops up around another person’s behavior…is to try to change their behavior. Of course, we do not admit that we are trying to change their behavior so that we can calm down—it doesn’t even seem to us that we could possibily be doing that. The way we see it, we are only trying to help the other person to change because our way is better. Because once they’ve changed they’ll agree. Probably even be grateful and see us as really cool and smart.
Thus, when we make a royal pain of ourselves trying to change another person…No matter how bloody annoyed the person we are “helping” becomes…we can rock back on our heels and humbly say, “Gee, I was only trying to help.”
And maybe we were. But “helping,” particularly when our efforts are unsolicited (see Obsessed Stranger Lady and the Chicken Noodle Incident), is a tricky proposition.
When are we “trying to help” and when are we merely “uncomfortable” with the behavior of another person and wanting them to change to keep us calm?
Picture that you have two lists. On one, you list the behaviors of the people around you that you wish were changed, but do not directly affect you. Next make a list of the behaviors of other people that you wish were different, and that do have a direct affect on your life experience.
When your partner breaks the agreement the two of you have on spending, the behavior affects you directly; when your partner spends agreed upon leisure money in activities or on items you do not value—those are behaviors that do not affect you directly.
Okay…Right away, we have a problem. Highly reactive people will claim that everything anyone does that they become aware of in person or from other sources, directly affects them. And, before you jump to “Oh but that’s not me,” remember we’re all highly reactive some of the time. It’s wired in to being human.
So, why is it so hard to let other people be? Our faithful Emotional Guidance Systems. The EGS is threatened easily and sends us into unattractive spins. Our Emotional Guidance Systems scream: “You SHOULDN’T be (drive, cook, eat, read, choose a husband, think, worship, email, talk, call, answer, vote, dress, spend money, etc.) the way you are!” “The way you do (all those things) is terrible and awful and MUST be changed.” “I can’t stand for you to continue (all those things) the way you do!”
It is quite exhausting going through the world in high threat, continuous evaluation mode. The pay’s not too good either.
“Helping” others to slow our own anxiety is quite popular and will be the topic of the next several posts.
Reader Response