Dateline: Threadgill’s Restaurant, Austin, Texas. The servers wear black T-Shirts with the caption “Dang!” The “motto” originated when one fellow gazed over the list of vegetables on the menu, stood, and said, “Dang!”
Self-Defeating Behaviors or Why Diet Books Are Next to the Cookbooks at Barnes and Noble.
Why would anyone continue in behaviors that make life more difficult? Anxiety, that’s why. Example behaviors are endless and include: complaining, nail biting, addictions, eating too much, avoiding exercise, hoarding, smoking, taking in too many stray cats, losing it with customer service robot-people, watching too much reality television, and over-reacting to perceived criticism. And that’s just me. Not really. I don’t smoke.
“Most problems can be solved by three minutes of thought. The difficulty is, thinking is hard and three minutes is a long time.” A.E. Housman
Each of us has two guidance systems behind our thoughts and actions. One is the Emotional Guidance System. The Emotional Guidance system has one goal –get rid of anxiety as soon as possible. The Emotional System is primitive and automatic.
We also have a Thinking Guidance System. This guidance system is directed by facts– how previous actions have turned out, how actions not will affect the future. The Thinking Guidance System is not as automatic and requires the capacity to manage anxiety.
Anxiety, Thinking, and Why Horses Don’t Run for President. (Okay, maybe the second half of a horse or two has run for president.)
The idea behind behind Bowen Theory is learn to manage anxiety and learn more effective ways to be in the world. MysteryShrink is not about “tips” that make no long term difference–very popular in today’s quick look instant answers media world–MysteryShrink is about changing your life.
“Blackjack and the Cattle Guard” Incident
Summers during college I taught riding at a day camp. As part of my job I drove a load of kids to camp in a faithful Volkswagen bus. One morning I arrived to a horrendous scene. Blackjack, a horse I’d bought at auction the day before, stood screaming, blood spurting everywhere, one of his legs jammed through the bars of the cattle guard.
Blackjack, the big, old, raw-boned, hundred dollar horse was perfect for carrying beginners. His downfall was his lack of knowledge about cattle guards. Unable to understand his dilemma, he rammed his bloody hoof upward, over and over until the bone was in shreds. His actions determined by his anxiety, Blackjack was unable to think through alternatives. The poor horse knew only once response and when his response was not effective, he simply continued the behavior harder and faster. (Sound familiar?)
Had Blackjack been able to consider his options, this thought might occur (Okay, I know that pigs are smarter than horses, but hang with me here.) “Hmm . . . ” thinks Blackjack “if my foot fit through these bars on the way down…I can line my hoof up at the same angle and escape.”
But Blackjack could not access his Thinking Guidance System. As a result, he had to be “put down” within a couple of hours. We humans put ourselves “down,” that is lose our lives, when we continue in habitual methods of ridding ourselves of immediate anxiety that result in long-term failure.
The easy examples are over-drinking, drug use, and compulsive eating. But also included in this group are: procrastination, over-apologizing, worrying, exaggerating loss, exaggerating task difficulty, over-spending, compulsive email and text checking, avoidance of new experiences, and a slew of others. There’s plenty to go around.
Next: Anxiety. How to Make Yourself Miserable and Make Stupid Mistakes. “The Lawnmower Gas Incident.”
