Monthly Archives: February 2008

Movies: What Does a Self Defined Person Look Like?

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vm__cr00261261_ss100_shawshank.jpg   Before we hone our skills at driving ourselves and others crazy, a clear picture of what the non-crazy person looks like.

     Let’s start with a simple test of our current capacity to manage stress.  What would you do if you were sentenced to life without parole for a double murder you did not commit?  Life.  In a maximum security prison with no hope.  Bad, bad neighbors.

     Talk about a chance for your Emotional Guidance System to take charge.  To what degree would you be able to manage what goes on inside your chest cavity?  Me?  I’m writhing on the floor tearing my hair out.  They’d have to pry my teeth off the baseboards to load into the transport van.  I would be “shoulding”– like crazy.  “This shouldn’t be happening to me!  Someone should have saved me!  My parents should have raised me to be tougher!  And, you, warden guy, shouldn’t be smirking like that.”  As you notice, it doesn’t matter that according to law this shouldn’t be happening.  When it is, it is.

     vm__cr00336336_ss100_live.jpg    Then, of course, I’d move into catastrophizing.  “This is horrible!  I can’t take this!  This is terrible!  I can’t stand to live in a prison!”  Again, the conditions might be awful in fact, the point is WHAT ARE YOU THINKING ABOUT? 

     “Which is more important?  The world we can touch, or the world we’re responing to?”

     Tim Robbins, playing Andy, in “The Shawshank Redemption” makes another choice.  (I know, you’re thinking, “Choice?  What kind of choice does someone unfairly imprisoned for life have?”  After all, Andy’s the VICTIM right?  He doesn’t have any control over his situation.  Andy takes on his fate in a remarkable way with remarkable results.   

     He thinks about his situation and arranges a fulfilling role for himself.  He locates and associates with the most emotionally stable group with the most solid self leader (Morgan Freeman.)  And he makes a long term goal, a plan for escape that will take many years of work and patience.

     A Self Defined Person:  vm__cr00262262_ss100_.jpg   is able to pull focus off surroundings . . . returning energy to managing anxiety and planning actions.  For starters. 

Practice Sentence:  “This is unpleasant, inconvenient, and less than perfect, but not a disaster unless I DECIDE TO MAKE IT ONE.”

MOVIES, “Psycho” and Defining a Self

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  “Which is more real? psycho8.jpg The world you can touch, or THE WORLD YOU ARE RESPONDING TO?”

     Talk about your family issues.  Anthony Perkins in “Psycho” is definitely a person with a problem staying calm around his mother.  In fact, his Emotional Guidance System rules his behavior so thoroughly when he’s around his mother, he becomes his mother.  The view his mother’s subjective view, based on her fears, has become his view.  When he has thoughts unacceptable to his mother’s view of him as an innocent little boy, he punishes himself. 

    psycho4.jpg  And, there was that unpleasantry in the shower.  Janet Leigh screaming, her bloody hands streaking down the tiles.  Actually, his mother (who was dead and drying in the main house) slashed up the beautiful blonde.  She was just trying to help.  Just trying to keep her/his view of the world steady. 

     Isn’t this what all of us are trying to do when we tell people the way they see the world, the way they do things is wrong.  We’re only trying to help.  Right?  Actually, like Anthony, what we’re doing is trying to calm our own anxiety.  When someone presents a view that doesn’t fit our picture of the “way things are” our anxiety goes up and we go into a defensive mode trying to get comfortable by convincing the other to change. 

      Hopefully, we stick to arguing, dismissing, or avoiding rather than murder.  But murders happen everyday between family members unable to accept disagreements in world view.  If I can bully you into agreeing, then you have to go.  For those folks, the cut-off method may be the best they can do to manage anxiety.