Monthly Archives: March 2009

You Are What You Think? Oh, No! I’m an Eggplant.

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If you are what you think…then I am an unemployed wannabe writer with a bleak panhandling career look forward to.

The world you make up in your head, and respond to, is More Real and has more Affect on your life than the factual one. Right?

Following this line of “reasoning,”I’m sad to report that I no longer a writer. No book coming out this summer. No big party. You see, this morning at Jim’s Restaurant (My local international world headquarters) I lost the little case in which I store my flash drives. Yep. All three manuscripts…somewhere out there amongst my friends, the coffee shop people.  Might as well have just emailed the manuscripts to a random guy on the internet who wanted to make a few bucks pirating stories. You are following?…I lost ALL my years of hard work in one quick swoop.

“I’m done,” I tell the spouse. “There’s no point in writing,” I continue, “if I’m too much of a mess to even keep up with my manuscripts.” “I can’t believe I’m such a loser–in more ways than one.”

The little mean replica in my head is saying, “You bet you screwed up. Your career is officially over!”

My spouse, daredevil that he is, tried to suggest that, just maybe, whoever found the drives  wouldn’t immediately open the content and think, “Wow! I’ve hit a gold mine! I’m going to publish these wonderful books and have all the benefits of a writer without a lick of work because I–being the luckiest person in the world–have stumbled across what is Obviously my personal winning lottery ticket!” This had to be said rather delicately.

I was in a tough spot. I either had to keep insisting that my words were unbelivale treasures which made me look grandiose or accept that maybe the finder wouldn’t immediately think dollar signs–which means my words aren’t the next Moby Dick. I settled for skipping that issue and claiming, either way, I’m too big an idiot to carry this author thing off.  Which he, of course, refuted…(But who can trust him? He said I’d look great in a string bikini.)…suggesting that just maybe–since my editors and publishers hadn’t burned what I’d written, I’d already proven myself as a writer…and, just maybe…someone else having a copy would amount to nothing since there are edited copies all over the states.

Fine. He didn’t get it…word theives were hanging around me all the time, mixing with the paparazi. I climbed in my car heading back to my base station. I didn’t allow myself to listen to comedy radio.

I found the flash drive dealie on my desk.  I wonder if I can get my job back?  

Post Traumatic Stress, What?

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Just when I thought the Psychobabble Wall of Shame had reached so far down… into the pit of cliches that we psychologist-diagnosis flingers… were holding up the ladder for journalists climbing up to reach the bottom . . .

The psychologist lady on the History Channel says the notorious, murderous, and scandalous Caligula was the way we was because he had (hold on to your shorts!)– Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. 

I know!  I couldn’t believe it either.  Here’s the thing.  Caligula was Emperor of the Roman Empire . . . that is, Caligua lived from year 14 AD to year 41 AD.  That’s right. Think on that one for a minute.  If that lady could diagnose a man who lived THEN, just think how a professional of her intelligent could help out an ordinary Joe.

Most of the time getting YOUR DIAGNOSIS has plusses and minuses.  Emotional illness is a real thing and the right diagnosis can point you to treatment and appropriate medication.  Those are pluses. 

On the minus side–once you have been awarded your diagnosis   (including PMS) or (PMD which is really PMS+, invented to sell that new pill)–other people will blame everything you do on your diagnosis.

So, you have to be careful how you sling your diagnosis thingee around.  I usually recommend keeping it to yourself along with keeping your medication plans to yourself.  Unless you want to over hear other people at the office or a family gathering whispering, “She has depression, you know.” Or, “She’s on medication, you know.”

There you go. Watch out for Greeks or anyone else bearing diagnoses.

Caligula was a pretty crazy guy–orgies, public murders, the works.  But PTSD?

Do You Have Your Hands on the Steering Wheel of Your Life?

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Imagine in your head there is a steering wheel directing your life.  Your emotional Guidance System is one pair of hands trying to steer you.  That pair of hands is telling you what?  “Just get out this anxiety, don’t think of the future costs! Do whatever you have to do to get rid of anxiety now. The other set of hands, your Thinking Guidance System, has wider choices–but who has the strength to listen?

More needs to be said clarifying how the Emotional Guidance System (if this is new, go back a few posts) sneaks aboard, takes charge of our functioning, and keeps our life a mess. Now, some people mistake this statement as saying “emotions are bad.” Of course not. Feelings are some of the juiciest elements of life. Memories are made up of feelings. Sometimes our emotions give us motivation. Feelings make watching a basketball game fun. Unless our feelings “carry us away,” we get into a shouting match and end up in jail.

Feelings of love are wonderful, too. Unless, chasing “in love” feelings results in making our “special other” responsible for the way we feel. (“If you loved me you would ___”) Unless, slave to our “in love” feelings we end up not having much of a life. Unless our “love” cripples someone else’s functioning. Unless what we’re calling love- is neediness. “When is it Love and when is it Neediness?” is an upcoming entry.

Absurdity Break: What’s happened to reality? The National Geographic Channel is showing some explorer types deep in Africa. Makes sense. Except the narrator is doing voice over for the ”video” showing himself and his female companion on the trip. He now has dirt on his face and a wild look. The lady is stumbling, sure to not make it. Then the native helpers turn on them, one threating with a knife. The guy is saying how “it could be all over for them,” rushes to help the gal. There’s not enough food. The guy and the gal all alone in the jungle don’t know if… they will survive!… I’m so confused. Why doesn’t one of them ask one of the dozen camera men (maybe the one doing the zoom shots from overhead or the one doing closeups) or one the men on the lighting and costume truck FOR SOME HELP? The caterer’s maybe? Reality’s done this weird thing. Reality is staged. Reality is not reality. And this is the National Geographic Channel.

Back to emotions. There are four factors contributing to the likelihood that your Emotional Guidance System will be in charge of your actions.

1) Your physical functioning.

2) The events in your life, including history.

3) Your basic leveling of functioning.

4) The Emotional System of which you are a part.

Before we go on to the Thinking Guidance System, we need to get familiar with how these factors affect our actions.

Why Is Understanding the Emotional Guidance System Important?

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  Change your Mind . . . Change your Choices . . . Change your Life.

To what degree do your emotions run your life? A review. The human has two guidance systems which compete to direct our decisions.  Think of them like rival gangs. 

The Emotional Guidance System  is that part of our brains that pushes us to make decisions based on the pressure of our feelings.  The EGS is not a thoughful advisor. The EGS has one and only one reason for pushing our decisions. That reason is to get rid of anxiety. Dogs, cats, and even snakes have Emotional Guidance Systems–automatic moves to dive away from perceived threat. If you stress a group of apes and watch from the arbors, you’ll see one run to be alone, another cling to the leader, one will get bossy, and another will start a fight. These are the same automatic responses humans have, but we have made up rationalizations, causes, and descriptions.The Emotional Guidance System  is based on getting comfortable Now. The EGS is incapable of considering the facts of the past.  Incapable of asking, “How did it work out the last time I (ate the whole thing?  went back to the man who cheated on me? put off a task that needed to be finished? hit the snooze button three times? stayed in my comfort zone at a conference? , etc.? 

The Emotional Guidance System  is incapable of considering the future. Incapable of asking, “If I don’t send in an application, what are my chances of reaching my goal? If I show up at the office (or at home) always complaining, how will that affect how other people relate to me? If I present myself as a victim of my childhood, how does that affect my life and my current relationship with family? How do negative comments affect my spouse’s and children’s relationship with my family? If I talk negatively about my “demanding” mother, how does that affect my child’s future relationship with me? If I never start the training I’m interested in, what are my chances of being chosen for the next job I’d like to have?

The Emotional Guidance System  is not interested in the facts.  The EGS will scare us, flatter us, lie to us, come up with rationalizations and fake lines of “thought” … “I can do this tomorrow…One more purchase on this account won’t hurt…Because these items will never again be on sale….Those diet pills might work and afterall, they’re free, just the shipping and handling…What I need to turn my life around is a new piece of exercise equipment…a different sized ball, or a treadmill that does jumping jacks…I don’t care what people think…It’s important to say everything that crosses my mind, that’s just me…I should never be criticized…I shouldn’t be inconvenienced…Making choices on purchases isn’t necessary, the only thing that matters is cash flow per month…It’s important for everyone to know how I feel, that’s what it means to be a person…If someone does me wrong, I never forget, grudges are great…He’s a jerk, she’s a bitch, they’re are a bunch of nuts…”

The Emotional Guidance System urges choices based on feedback from others.  

There is hope.  Tomorrow, The Thinking Guidance System

Chocolate Cheesecake and Thinking…

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 This is not about “righteous not-eating or dieting.” It’s about chocolate turtle cheesecake, the Emotional Guidance System, and the Thinking Guidance System. The obsession with dieting (that doesn’t work or we would have fixed the problem)…is a product of the Emotional Guidance System.  The EGS drives both the self-torture of repeated starvation-feel artificially great-hate yourself business. The Thinking Guidance System is not about skinny-not-eating-on-a-diet Good Person vs. not-skinny-not-buying-the-latest-Jones-Smith-diet Bad Person. Who needs that?

I admit that I’m too lazy and preoccupied to take an interest in cooking, and luckily my laziness and preoccupation carries over to even going to the trouble to eat. Though I’ve always been the same size, I’m sure if I got into dieting like I do say–writing mysteries–I’d be fat in little time. I’m emphasizing this because clients usually think I’m gearing up to talk about dieting and suffering and self-torture gifts of the Emotional Guidance System that we are trying to tame.

Okay.  I’m at my branch National World Headquarters, the Dallas-Ft. Worth Airport. I’ve had most of a cheese burger   with fries and I want something sweet. I order up the chocolate turtle cheesecake and am brought a small sailboat made out of fudge and sweet cheese and nuts.   Right away I go through the facts, “This is way bigger than I anticipated. If I let my EGS control this situation with statements like, “This is so good I should eat all of it because I’ll never have the chance to have something this special again.” “If I sin by eating it, I might as well eat it all.” And, the worst emotional reasoning, “This cost six bucks, I must eat all of it regardless of the consequences.”

The “Fettucini Incident” when I ignored the gastro-intestinal side effects fresh on my mind, I determined I’d eat the amount equal to what I expected the dessert to be.  I’m not being a good American woman who constantly thinks about her wait and believes chocolate turtle cheesecake is the work of the devil. (or a Dr. L, who has none of the human desires) I am desperately forcing myself to THINK through what I will feel like on the plane having just eaten a crate of sugar and chocolate. That’s it. Chocolate not bad, cheesecake not bad. I’m not bad. I simply do not want to be sick. No halo here.

I won! This doesn’t happen often, but that’s where we’re going, right? A tiny step at a time toward a Self-Defined Life.

Welcome Australia folks.  Sorry about comments impossibility. I’m working on it.

Who’s Going to Crack First?

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  The plane has landed early at the Dallas-Fort Worth mega airport.  Along with the others in the full silver tube, I’m feeling a bit punchy. Almost fifteen minutes early. Cell phones engaged, passengers report our fortune and expectations of leisurely transfers and rides home. Ah…

Then the horror begins. Not all at once. In flight attendant school one of the required courses is: Fifty reasons why a flight is delayed without suggesting American Airlines personnel, planes, or selection of in-flight fake potato chips for only five dollars–had anything to do with it. To graduate from “smiling through the bad news” flight attendants are required to go to the scene of a house fire and convince people trapped inside not to panic, and, by the way, the guy with the live blow torch the police drug out of your garage–was not responsible for the fire in any way…not in any way no matter what it looks like.

Because your plane has landed, that doesn’t mean you are in the terminal. The first announcement made is something self-congratulatory about arriving early, drifting off at the end pointing out, in case we hadn’t noticed, we’re not actually at a gate. Ten minutes later, same line.  Thirty minutes later, comes the announcement that we are going around the airport to an open gate in another terminal.  Okay. We sit back to enjoy the ride over the highway and through the woods to grand–eight or so minutes later we are poised once again behind a bank of loaded gates. Inhabitants are ringing call buttons, silly complaints…”If I miss my connection, I’ll miss my aunt’s funeral.” “I just a poor South by Southwest musician, I’ll have to sleep in the airport…”

It’s right along here that I decide to notice anxiety in the plane ping around from person-to-person. Who’s in the grip of their emotions, and who is sticking with the fact that there’s nothing we can do about our situation.

NOTE: What I’m suggesting here is a way we can learn to slow our own emotional reactions by trying to observe WITHOUT JUDGMENT.   Sitting back and pointing fingers isn’t nice and, hey, I’ve already admitted I am as a big a pain in the rear as any other person alive. Doing the judging thing is just recycling anxiety in a negative way. Unless they’re funny, of course. The next annoncement the flight attendant gives is one a level two answer…unexpected traffic…ground crew on break…thunderstorm in Great Falls, Minnesota has the aviation industry on its knees…do not get up to go to the lavatories, we’ll be moving at any moment…

We’ve gone from being fifteen minutes early to being forty-five minutes late.  The flight attendant now announces that we are going back under the highway to the original gate which is now available.  Well, there’s a lie..okay ”That is a lie is,” is an anxiety-poofing-up statement. Let’s just say the orginal gate still had a plane in it. We wait, call buttons are pinging, babies, crying, threats to complain to people high on the American food chain fill the air.

The reason I’m sharing this lovely experience is, because I decided to observe and breathe slowly, to be more interested in what was going on around me…than cranking up the anxiety as a way of keeping my EMOTIONAL GUIDANCE SYSTEM a bit at bay. And it worked. Okay, I admit, I was getting off in Dallas, so no connection and no sleeping in the airport potential. 

 

So, I cheated. But, I’m still giving myself some credit. Because the truth, the FACT that did not cause me significant inconvenience, has never shut me up before.   …Mexico…

How to Get Lucky

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    A couple of weeks ago, I had an “unfortunate” experience.I had an hour before my flight and the airport cafes were packed. The only table left in Earl Campbell’s Longhorn Barbeque and Bar was practically in the lap the singer-guitar player in the corner. What could I do? I settled my Baja tacos, opened my computer with business-like efficiency, and pointedly, placed the screen between myself and the singer–like a low fence. And yet, after the man sang a couple of songs, he put down his guitar and SPOKE to me. Now I likes his music, but was he blind? I had WORK to do. 

He was interesting and knew some muscians I did.  He gave me a card.  StevetheTruck–invited me to a jam at Freddy Powers house. What? Freddy Powers wrote more hits than you can imagine.  So, the spouse and I leave Crazy Dog and head out this afternoon.  Unbelievable.  Songwriters, singers, whole bunch of favorites–   Yes, I said over and over like a great big dork, “I’ve got his CD!”

The most incredible experience–and all because there was only one chair left by the singer. 

How much of luck is luck?  And how much is walking around in the world being open to possibilities?  I know this much.  There’s lots of interesting people out there and you never know what might happen. That’s the THINKING GUIDANCE SYSTEM talking, because the statement that there are a lot of interesting people out there is a FACT. That anything can happen is a fact.

Those voices holding us back, the little creeps on our shoulders whispering in our ears, “Be careful, there’s danger everywhere.    Don’t take chances because if a new experience turns out to be a dud, that would be terrible and awful…”  Those are the Non-factual emotional show stoppers. Here’s another FACT.  If you don’t go for it nothing will happen.