Monthly Archives: May 2009

No, My Feelings Can’t Be My Responsibility

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Have you ever told your version of a family situation from your own point of view making sure to highlight “bizarre and unacceptable” of another family member” …She made me furious!”  “He did xx again and just ruined my day.”  “I can’t believe xx is still xx.”  “Did you see what xx did?”…you say…only to have that person refuse to jump on your emotional bandwagon?  That’s what it felt like for me when I switched from a relationship-diagnosis-focus on-what-other-people-are-doing-wrong way of thinking about behavior change…to a self-focus model.

Before introducing the third leg of the Triple Blame Whammy, I thought a bit of a review on the self-focused way of thinking about bettering one’s life…might help.  Because taking responsibility for one’s feelings isn’t the popular way of thinking about human behavior and behavior change.  And it’s very hard to work on one’s own reactions.  At least I can be thrown off a good day by a random rude driver or a bit of discouraging news.                     Our Emotional Guidance Systems urge us to tell other people to change.  The easiest response to anxiety is to criticize.  The easiest response to criticism is defense.        1201125312mpwe83      And here we go. Not that other people aren’t making life difficult. 0000709-01262004_thumbJust because you’ve decided to take charge of what goes on inside your chest cavity… doesn’t mean other people aren’t going to go on being themselves.

Let’s face it, some people are easier to be around than others.  All people are easier to be around sometimes and harder at other times….depending on their level of anxiety and our levels of anxiety.  Technically, if we had ourselves perfectly together, it wouldn’t matter who we were around, we’d always be hunky-dorry happy.  But, I’ve never met anyone that together.  For most of us, while we could ideally be happy with anyone, it’s a lot easier to be happy with some people than it is with others.

Taking charge isn’t for everyone.  Words from a cartoon:  Guy A:  “My therapist says you are too controlling.”   Guy B: “My therapist says I need to take responsibility for my feelings.”  Guy A: “My therapist says you are narcissistic.” Guy B: “My therapist says I need to work on managing my anxiety.” Guy A: “My therapist says you have authority issues.” Guy B: “My therapist says….I think I should get a new therapist.”    0000693-01262004_thumb

Wouldn’t the easy way be to blame the driver in front of us, our siblings, the right wingers, the left wingers, the cat people, dog people, our spouse, or our ex-spouse for the way we feel? 

Actually, no.  Because then we’d live out our lives as victims.  If we have no contribution to our negative feelings, if they are only something that happen “to” us.  Then there is nothing we can do to make our life better….and we are powerless husks in the wind.  This is hard.

Second Ingredient in the Triple Blame Whammy, the Spouse

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coupledreamstime_79732351Triple Blame Whammy

Part 2:  If my spouse only loved me enough to treat me the way I should be treated, I wouldn’t be having these problems now.

Following this line of reasoning can mean wasting your whole life.  I’ve spent many an hour explaining, I thought quite clearly, the specific personality flaws my spouse needs to work on and how 24 hour happy I would be if he’d cowboy up.  And yet, he goes right on being himself. 

Now, I’m not talking about extremes, where you really should start over–I’m talking about the 98 percent of us married to special someones with the same level of emotional functioning, but turn out to be different from ourselves. 

I know of only one exception so far and that would be my marriage.  My spouse surely must have snagged me during a temporary low functioning moment in my life.  Hey, you were thinking the same thing about your relationship.  I know it’s scary to think we are muddling through along at about the same level as our spouse, and we may have a better “front office,” but people marry people who are similar in level of emotional functioning.

So, what if we fired ourselves from consistently pointing out how our special other could be different and make us feel better?  Notice I said firing ourselves from our consistent efforts.  We’re not stones, we will slip.

Am I saying we should roll over and take whatever other people dish out?  Of course not.  I’m talking about switching our focus to more productive means of changing our lives to better fit what we want. Doing something that works and, just maybe, is less annoying.

Example.  When having friends over, the worst part, anxiety-wise, is the first few minutes.  My special other had the habit of finding himself conveniently occupied during the first fifteen to thirty minutes of a gathering.  Usually, “things came up” which rendered him unable to start his shower until showtime.  After many years of psycho-babbling why he was the way he was (running his parent’s through the wringer, making up all sorts of cute explanations), then trying to convince him to own up to his “problem” and promise to greet guests with me now and forever after.  Which of course he did.  The promise part I mean.  My harranges and psychobabble left him no choice but to promise to change as the trumped up alternative I provided was to admit to acceptance of life-long emotional disorder that was clearly “causing” me too lose my grip.

As for the being present when guests arrived?  You know the answer.  But, rolling over isn’t in my nature.  The next time we had guests coming over, I didn’t say a word and I stayed happy and pleasant.  I did, however, make sure that my getting ready procedures did not get out ahead of his.  If he hadn’t showered and he asked me if I was taking a shower, I’d answer, ”That’s okay, I’ll wait until after you…I’m not sure what I’m going to wear”….”But, people will be arriving soon,” he’d say.  “That’s okay, the door’s open,” I’d say. “I’ll just hollar down….I don’t know…I could wear the black Polo polo with the eagle…or the one with the white collar…what do you think, honey?”….”I think one of us should be downstairs when our guests arrive,” he’d say.  “Me, too,” I’d say, pausing to give him a long kiss that had him totally confused.  “It’s just that I have this eagle-white collar dilemma…”  Smooch, smooch.

Manipulation you say. Darn right, it was.  And exactly what was all that haranguing and psychobabbling?  At least this way, I didn’t have to pretend I didn’t want my way or that my way of doing things was some kind of moral imperative.  I also wasn’t mad. We ended up laughing about it and kind of playing a dare game about who was going to crack first and go down where the guests were helping themselves to hospitality.

Parents, Part One of the Triple Blame Whammy

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parentsdreamstime_40390031While on the topic of  not wasting so much time and energy wishing other people weren’t themselves, why not really go for it and give parents permission to be themselves?

Which brings us to the infamous Triple Blame Whammy.

And, no, you don’t get the Triple Blame Whammy at Dairy Queen.

Part one of the Triple Blame Whammy:  “If only my parents had loved me enough… (and showed me appropriately)…I wouldn’t have the problems I do now.”

Take a look at the photo.  See how young these people are?  Your parents were them.  Yikes!

There was a time a few years out of graduate school when I was ready to switch professions.  This was the era when ’hospitals’ sprang up in every neighborhood for the treatment of addictions and insurance paid big money for 28 day programs for ’co-dependents’, ‘family jesters’, and ‘scapegoats’.  Each family member was given a title to identify with and each was encouraged to take time out to remember all the ways they’d been wronged by family members… and how these wrongs caused their current problems.  The ‘theory’ was that by family members (courageously) taking turns describing just how they’d been terribly wronged, some sort of change miracle was supposed to happen.

And, as is true in lynch mob behavior, most participants do, for the moment, feel as if something life-changing has occured(I guess for the lynch-ees, something life-changing events has taken place), when all that’s happened is a big burst of emotional togetherness (momentary closeness based on fusion and group think) and…people swinging in nooses.

**Self-loathing alert!  I’ve vented with the best of them, justifying myself the whole time.  Pitching my version of victimhood…ala the family from my point of view…Oh, my view isn’t reality?  This is not a case to pretend nothing bad happen–our goal is to get free of  the powerless position of hanging on to ‘reasons’ we are the way we are…that define us into mindsets wasting time and energy and even hope.**

After all, can we really buy that we are the first generation of adults having children who have tried their hardest and done the best they could by the children?  Are we so arrogant as to think such a thing?  Are we really so different?

Of course, the relentless Emotional Guidance System encourages false superiority.  Could be…parents are products out their emotional systems just as we are.  Not that much worse, not that much better.  If this is too scary, you can cheat a little and hang on to the illusion of functioning way up the ladder from your parents. But it is kind of annoying.

Cheater phrase when others or self tempts you into discussing what messes your parents are and how they messed up your life….” Oh well. I guess everyone comes by who they are naturally. Say, did you here about that guy who tied a bunch of weather balloons to his aluminum lawn chair and floated up into the flight path at the local airport?”

Get Over It? You Can’t be Serious?

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angerdreamstime_5437183How can we give people permission to be themselves when what they’ve done has hurt us?

In a Divorce Recovery Workshop I was leading, we’d reached the stage where I’d asked each person to come up with the one thing their former spouse did that they would never be able to forgive.  Going around the room, each person would have their chance to confess their favorite private grudge.  I’d started out by confessing an incident involving Cheetos and Ping Pong and must be kept private for the sake innocent bystanders. The idea was to soften hard edges by having some fun with ourselves….that once you’ve confessed, then mooshed around, and even laughed at whatever you have a death grip on, well…the death grip loosens a bit.

We were halfway around the room and having fun topping each other’s ‘hideous, unforgivable incident’ when the woman who’s turn it was, looked me straight-on and vowed: “My husband of thirty-three years left me to marry his twenty-two-year-old secretary. I will never forgive him and if my children forgive him I will have nothing to do with them.”

Well, that was a downer.  I don’t remember how the bump in the smooth workshop road worked out, but I never quite forgot the intensity with which that woman gripped the piece of the past.  And, I’m not saying I would be right in there gripping, if I’d been in her place.  She had a right to go at life however chose.  Thirty-three years is a big piece, but it’s not now…so’s it’s still a piece.  A piece that’s over. Over.  Nothing can change it. Keeping a death grip on the bad stuff cuts off our own circulation.  And the person who did us wrong….grrr…

The Emotional Guidance System isn’t logical or even reasonable, even when it’s trying to protect us from further hurt. Yet, just maybe ‘giving other people permission to be themselves’ when they’ve hurt us is the most important time to do so.  We don’t have to agree with their choices.  We don’t have to put ourselves near them again.  But we do have to let it go. 

Next, what about family?  Surely, we don’t have to give them permission?

 

Achew! Don’t You DARE say, “God bless you”

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sneezedreamstime_1146330The more you take personally, the tougher life you’re going to have. 

From an article in one of the many free magazines that come to my office. (Why is it my little practice gets fifteen to twenty free mags a month and all I find in my doc’s offices are vintage Field and Stream and Parents’ Weekly?):

 ”I wish people would stop saying ‘God bless you’ when I sneeze…”  Complaintant goes on to rant about how distressed he is that when he sneezes people he doesn’t even know foul his private space and push their version of religion on him. 

What?

“Which is more important?  The world you can actually touch?  Or the world (full of rude, intrusive, mean religion-force-feeders) you are responding to?”

Now I’m pretty twitchy and quick to expect criticism.  (Especially from those ladies in lab coats at the cosmetic counters.  They see right into me and know about every night I’ve landed in bed without a thought to taking off make-up, which would be would every night).

But, demanding that all the people in the world stop trying to be kind?  Does he really think people ignoring other people is a swell way to go?  Does he really think that when a stranger takes the time out of their day to say “God bless you” their plan is to invade…  This has to be a terrible way to live  if allergies where he lives are anything like they are here.  Maybe this guy should stay in his house or wear a sign, “In case I sneeze, do not say ‘God bless you’.”  That probably won’t work though, because, what are the odds that the same people who see your INSTRUCTIONS ON HOW THEY ARE SUPPOSED TO LIVE their lives will be the same people on the other side of the cereal aisle when that sneeze comes on?  Not too good.

I mean, I can go through the cosmetic department at warp speed with my eyes slotted straight ahead like I’m late for an appointment inside the mall.  But, you can’t time a sneeze like that.  Could happen anywhere, anytime…poof, the guy’s invaded by rude people. 

Oh well.  I’m reminded of a long ago woman who, like the rest of of us, was experiencing major pre-Christmas stress. On this particular day she lamented how she dreaded going to her mother-in-law’s for Christmas because Grandmother always went so overboard buying presents for the children.  “What kind of values are the kids learning?”  (This, save the character of the poor children argument is commonly used to justify what we want. Apparently, if we don’t stop relatives from being themselves, our children will all end up in prison.)  “She’s just ridiculous with the gifts,” she said.

“That’s it?” I asked.  “Grandma’s too generous and must be stopped?  That’s all you got?”

She smiled.

Relationship Heaven..Let People Find Their Own Way

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holeinwalldreamstime_2998410A while back, I wrote a book on stress which resulted in myself and my spouse booked into separate speaking engagements five days a week in five different cities. I was in charge of travel arrangements, etc. (There is the rumor that I grabbed this position at birth, leaping out of my mother’s belly to complain about the temperature. But those are  rumors.)  This particular morning, the spouse was driving and I was rattling off his literary.

His  Monday keynote was in Brownsville which is the southernmost tip of Texas, his Tuesday was in Kerrville, ninty miles south and west of Austin, from there the week bounced all over the nation.  But we didn’t get to Tuesday before I began with  get resistence from the troops. 

I’d announced the following:  “Drive to Austin airport Sunday afternoon…fly to Brownsville (two hour flight, counting switch in Houston)… fly Brownsville to Austin, pick up car and drive to Kerrville… and…and…

“But wait!” comes from the driver.  “That all sounds efficient and I really appreciate your efforts, but I think I’ll get up Sunday morning and drive to Brownsville.”

I did mention that Brownsville is that little bump of Texas, waaaay down at the very bottom…I recovered from being stunned at having my plan questioned and replied sweetly, “Are you nuts?”

I went on to elaborate on the geography of the state, in case he hadn’t noticed, finishing up rather nicely reminding him how tired I knew he would be on Monday after speaking in Brownsville, and how he couldn’t possibly want to face that drive from Brownsville to Kerrville.  I threw in how I’d grown up in South Texas and he was from Oklahoma–as if this fact made my map skills more accurate.

He persisted.  “I know it’s a long drive back and forth, but I have the new car with all the gadgets and a great sound system. I think I’d enjoy settling for the drive and playing some music I’ve put together.”

“What?”   I repeated the geography lesson on Texas and reminded him that I am much better at determining what will make him tired than he is. I ran by a little scenario involving running out of gas coupled with the lack of good places to eat in the Austin-Brownsville corridor.  He mentioned his favorite Mexican restaurant in San Antonio, his capacity to read the gas gauge, and did he mention, HE WANTED to drive to Brownsville?

Having been married a while, I stuck with it a few more rounds. (Marriage means believing that the only reason your spouse hasn’t agreed with your position is that you have not repeated in enough times.)

Then he said.  “Look.  I know YOU wouldn’t want to drive back and forth from Brownsville.  But we are NOT the SAME PERSON.

Here’s the thing.  I actually knew we weren’t the same person, that his tastes and preferences were different from mine.  It just hadn’t occurred to me that his tastes and preferences were on equal footing with mine.  After all, I work  pretty hard on getting everything right.  The notion that, not only did he have an opinion, but he had a right to his opinion…(If this is too much, remember you can always follow Dr. L on the radio, a woman who has never had a thought or statement she needed to take back.) 

Now, this was quite a bit back, and since I’ve done a little better at letting other people be themselves. 

This is a huge stress relieving strategy.   Not only give others your permission to go on being themselves. Recognize that they have a right to be how they are , as long as no one is harmed. 

That means the Obsessed Stranger Lady gets to keep on hounding laptop openers, that guy in front of you in traffic gets to keep putting those decals on his car, the people next door can leave their Christmas lights up, Taco Bell can advertise late night specials as “the fourth meal America’s been needing”,  Dr. L has my permission to blame every husband’s infidelity of his wife’s whining, Nancy Grace can keep the helmet hair, your co-worker has your full and gracious permission to vote the way she does, your siblings have your permission to choose their lives according to their own distorted (oops!), their own views and determination of the best way for them.

This means you’re going to have a lot of free time on your hands.