Monthly Archives: August 2009

When You Avoid an Activity, Is It FEAR or GOOD SENSE?

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messydeskdreamstime_8527843Dateline: Dallas, Texas.  Hilton Branch Office

Is your desire to avoid something a fear based excuse or is there a factual reason you should avoid the activity?

The Point:  Being able to tell the difference between when you are avoiding something because… you have thoroughly experienced the activity before and determined factually that your participation in the activity makes no sense…and the times when you are avoiding an activity, saying you are operating from facts…but, in truth, you’re just afraid…Telling the difference between these two is important.

Clue:  An example of the first occurs when you eat tacos from a street stand in Mexico City several times and each time become violently ill…An example of the second type occurs when you didn’t have a date to the Eighth Grade Valentine Dance and you told your friends and yourself that you didn’t like dancing.

Code red:  Once again, going against unrelenting screaming evidence against such an endeavor….one more time….I determined that I would fix my website myself.  After all, everyone I ask about the wisdom of such an effort, jumps in with “Oh, yeah.  You can do it.  Anyone can do it.”

What could get me to undertake such foolishness?  Anxiety, of course.  Anxiety because the site isn’t perfect and I want it fixed NOW.  Thus, “I have to do what I have to do to get rid of this anxiety.  Prisons are filled with people having these same thoughts. I did try to listen to My Thinking Guidance System, that part of the mind capable of reviewing the past. 

My Thinking Guidance System said: “Look, you’ve let your anxiety seduce you into this website fixing fantasy before…and it was one step forward and two yards back.  It took days before you were back to where you started…You were a crazy person, a miserable mate, and you PROMISED me, your logical self, that you would never, ever, even with a gun at your head…never, ever…pull the first curtain of mystery code aside from your website and attempt….emphasis on ATTEMPT…to make improvements on your own….

My Emotional Guidance System said:  “You don’t understand.  This time is different.  I’m so anxious, I squeaked.  “I’ll just try a little…”

Thinking Guidance System:  “Nooooooo…save yourself… you WILL regret this…”

Emotional Guidance System:  “No, really, if the project starts to go South, I’ll abort.  I’ll come right back to the beginning and get some help.”

Of course, the above reasoning… if  my pathetic rationalizing and delusional ignoring of the past can be called reasoning…assumed…once I began my project, once I punched that button that said, “Consider your next move carefully as data and programming could be permanently erased from your computer,” ….there would be a way back.

Where ever you are, whatever you might have been doing on your computer at approximately two p.m., Central Standard Time, yesterday…if you experienced a random crash…I’m sure I caused it.  Also, that scream you so faintly heard coming from the central southwest…that was mine, too.

And what do we do when we get anxious?  Yep.  Go random and fling money around.  Yes, dazed and confused, I signed up for a site promising ten thousand website templates anyone can use….which I can’t even bring up.  Another fifty bucks into the Emotional Guidance System kitty.  So, I owe you one.  Go ahead and buy that new “breakthrough in abdominal flattening science”…..the thing that where you get on your hands and knees, lock your knees into these little cups, and whirl side-to-side…and you have the flat belly you’ve always dreamed of without any effort at all!”  Then we’ll be even.

Perception: Taking a Chance on Dubuque

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dubudreamstime_6044818The good news in the reality that we make up our world…is that…while our anxieties can make the world and people scarier than they are…We’re in charge of the process!  We can change our experience.  The effort, however, is not for sissies.

Heh…heh…Since we make people up….We can even make them up nicer than they are.  (I suspect that everyone is secretly crazy about you and me.  Even though some of them are prit-tee excellent at keeping their feelings hidden.)

Will the real Galena, Illinois, and the REAL Dubuque, Iowa, please stand up?

What?  There isn’t a REAL Galena, Illinois?  At least not ONE that can be seen and reported by a human…because we’re all subjective nuts, you say?

“Which is more important?  The Galena, Illinois that could be captured in a photograph?  Or the Galena, Illinois I made up?”

In the previous full post (there was the ‘quick post’ on my complete failure at being cool)…title, your fearless leader was preparing for a book-signing venture to Galena, Illinois and Dubuque, Iowa.

Now…Was I preparing for the REAL Galena, Illinois, and Dubuque, Iowa?  Was I preparing to meet people like myself with their own imperfect natures?  Of course not.  That sort of preparation would depend on the facts regarding these two spots…and a reasonable way of rating my experiences with humans so far.  Neeeuuuu.  I was preparing for the Galena and Dubuque I constructed in my head.  I was preparing for experiences based on my anxieties, which, given my weinnie nature…well, let’s just say…it ain’t a pretty picture.

Had I visited either place before, or met the people I was working with before, perhaps I’d been slightly more prepared to take in how terrific, exciting, and interesting these places and people are.  But, no guarantee. 

We fit the people we meet into the people we ‘expect’ them to be…and this varies depending on whether or not we’re hungry, down about something at work, reactive to physical traits, oh good grief.

Think of what happens when you visit family in another city.  You do not prepare for them …as they are…you prepare for them as you remember them…even though your memory is a subjective mess based on your anxieties and expectatations….and…

Come on… those people have changed from the people YOU MADE UP last time you visited.  Are you with me here?  Repeat:  We are all nuts making up people and the world as we go along.  And that’s okay, because…We live and work with other people who are all nuts and who are MAKING US UP out of their anxieties and expectations.

We’re all a mess.  Really.

Update on “Appear Cool” Efforts

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So, I’m in Dubuque, Iowa (Full post on what incredible places and people are in Dubuque, Iowa and Galena, Illinois…thanks for coming out.)
….But, anyway. My plan was to satisfy the fears of my Emotional Guidance System (“Oh, God, what if they can see right through you and know that you don’t know everything?”) by being very cool. Suave, even.

This morning, I’m packing my boxes of books and my computer on one of those valet carts for the haul down to the car. #@%# box of books falls off starting a cascade topped off by my computer and about a hundred postcards. I’m “expressing myself” as a spiffed up couple in tennis togs makes their way around me and my mess. The wife looks deftly down her nose and says, “I wouldn’t complain, lady. You’re just lucky you have a job!”

Fear and Loathing of ILLINOIS and IOWA

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scarywooddreamstime_10152994Dateline:  Going live here.  Airport, Austin, Texas.  Goal: Chicago and certain unfamiliar spots in eastern Iowa and Illinois.  (I, a product of the hot sidewalks of Falfurrias, Texas, and other near-border villiages, none of which you have ever heard of, I am not disparaging the rural and small town.)

****Remember, I show you my trembling journey because you, too, are working on becoming more of  A SELF-DESIGNED PERSON?  Because you, too, want to better manage the anxiety keeping you in chains and wasting your life?… If this isn’t true… if you don’t have any of these issues…there’s always Dr. Laura.

Random Emotional Guidance System Self-talk:  “I don’t want to go.  I’m too tired.  My special person just had three surgeries in ten days.  (Good surgeries…the kind done to help you function better.)  I’m still not recovered from book launch party as I am congenitally deficit when it comes to hosting crowds….My feet are already are killing me and I didn’t have time to get a pedicure so that my appearance as a street person is complete… I have too much junk to carry…I don’t have any idea where I’m supposed to go…who I’m supposed to meet…and did not I go to graduate school SPECIFICALLY because I’m not good at selling stuff?” 

Emotional Guidance System is now in PRIMAL WHINE mode.

Specific Emotional Guidance System “WHAT IF”  Fear-inducing Statements in order of CRITICAL IMPORTANCE:

1) WHAT IFs concerned with appearing “cool and in-charge”:  (These fearful statements are the fertilizer for ‘blah’ feelings.)

“What if I show up at the book-signing without enough books and come off as silly for going to so much effort?”  Even more tragic, “What if I brought too many books and look silly and amateurish?”… “What if I get a lousy, unimpressive rental car?”  Or worse, “What if Avis only has SUVs left like happened a couple of weeks ago in L.A. and, like then, I underestimate the height of the vehicle and rip out a couple of water pipes out of the ceiling of the Hilton parking garage?  What if I over-react like I did then, back up wildly, and pop off that striped garage entry arm like it was a toothpick?”…  “What if I’m the oldest fattest worst dressed person there…given the chipped toenails and all?”

2} WHAT Ifs concerned with “survival”:  (These fearful statements actually stir up a little energy, though survival is a concern coming in a distant second to the concern to come across cool and sophisticated.) 

“What if I can’t find Galena, Illinois and Dubuque, Iowa?  What if it’s too hot?  What if it’s scary?  What if it’s rush hour traffic when I leave O’Hare in my rental car? What if, if I’m fortunate enough to find Dubuque, but room service is closed down by the time I get there?”

By the way, the need to appear cool and in-charge pretty much ended my ill-fated, short-lived relationship with skiing.  I know, I know…catching the lift seat under your rear is easy (right); and no one crashes off the lift after landing on her face the first four or five times…well, guess what?  I can handle my lack of cool in most circumstances and I looked as hot and with it as anyone else buried in my ski togs, goggles and wooly hat….but….it was the screaming that got to me…not mine…I refused to utter a peep as careened off the lift chair, gave a little swush, then accomplished more triple axels and whirling manuevers than an Olympic figure skater on crack…before sliding on my face until an act of nature ended by journey.  The watchers…the really cool ones…they were screaming in fear.  They screamed, too, everytime I got knocked down by the next lift chair when I tried to get up from my first fall. Bunch of weinnies. 

Okay, Illinois and Iowa.  Here I come.  Be gentle.  My knees are shot.

Dangers of Friendly Persuasion

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swmmerdreamstime_5544572How much of your life have you spent in activities you said “Yes” to, when you meant “No?”

The world is a constant demand situation.  If you do not define yourself to the world…and other people…the world and other people will define you. 

Could anyone convince you… that you were the sort of person who would like setting your alarm for five in the morning… dressing with a swimsuit as underwear… driving downtown to an ancient university gymnasium and… diving into a chlorine-heavy basement pool?  And that you would do this without someone holding a gun on you? 

….What could get a woman to not only do this once, but agree to do this insane routine five days a week for six weeks?

…Yep. The beast who agreed to the routine was, of course, my Emotional Guidance System.  The same critter that landed me in the Water Tower Place shopping mall.  (See previous post.)  I agreed to the bizarre morning swimming routine because when my special person claimed that something called “aerobic swimming” was not the work of the devil, but something that I’d be glad I’d completed, and that he was leaping on the opportunity…

My brain shot right out the window and, for ever how long it took for me to sign up… 

I ignored “the facts”… 1) I read into the late hours and get up grouchy; 2) I’m a terrible swimmer;  3)  Indoor pools are yucky;  4) There was zero possibility that I would continue ‘aerobic swimming’ if I should be fortunate enough to survive the course.  And the strongest fact of all, that if I had no intention of making ‘aerobic swimming’ part of my lifestyle…there really was no point outside a few weeks of bragging and living in the “lying to myself zone” that is what sells every new diet, new piece of exercise equipment, every project that depends on pretending we are on the verge of a personality transplant.

“Oh no,” he said.  “You’ll like it,” he lied.  “You are too rigid and unwilling to try new things.  This would be good for you.”  And yep. The challenge to my personality perfection along with the “good for you” baloney got me to question what I knew to be the facts about myself.

I did come to my senses.  But it took three times of me quitting…the last departure quite public and spectacular.  I did eventually engage my Thinking Guidance System, but not until I’d suffered through weeks of torture. 

Here’s the picture.  I arrived on the first day and hopped into my lane, ready.  From there it was downhill.  The pool was awful, the water was cold, I sucked royally at swimming, and nearly drowned on at least four occasions. Particularly amusing that first day was my exit when the class was over.  The coach Nazi blew his whistle and said something diabolically cheery and that we were done.  Everyone else, including my special person, bounded out of the pool and headed for the dressing rooms.  Now this is the pool the swim team used early in the last century, which means that the lanes area had no ladder.

Unable to pull myself out of the pool and now surrounded by bouncy college students readying for swimming class…I flopped desperately against the side of the pool, one foot stuck up over the edge.  I’d almost make it, then plop back in.  I supposed that once my special person was dressed and ready, he’d notice I was missing and re-trace steps until he found me half in, half out of the pool. Either that, or he’d find me in two days when the class started up again.

The point here is how persuasion…or FUSION…can get us to waste time and energy in activities that are someone else’s idea, someone else’s challenge.

The Body Snatchers Invade Psychologist: “The Chicago Water Tower Place Incident”

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shoppingdreamstime_126183Each of us has three limited entities–time, energy, and money.  And one boundless entity–love.  Love we can afford to splatter around and we’ll never run out.

How we “use up”  our time, our energy, and our money…is another matter.  How much of your time, your energy, and your money…is thrown away in the service of your Emotional Guidance System?  How much of your time, energy, and money is sacrificed in efforts to rid yourself of anxiety?  (See ‘What Would You Give Not to Feel?)

‘Worrying’ is the king thief of time.  Saying ‘yes’ when we mean ‘no’ and ending up on projects we don’t value takes lots of energy.  And money?  Well, someone’s buying that tape that you place over your chubby spots and it sucks the fat away while you sleep.  Someone’s out there renting a storage locker to escape the anxiety of making decisions.  And, “Yes”  the reason my name is listed with five stars next to it on every company that makes downloadable emergency disk rescue software…is because when my computer crashes in the middle of the night…I thrash around like a big, desperate fish on a sidewalk, clicking “Buy Now” on every rescue offer popping up and promising to save me.  internetshppingdreamstime_1813235  The ‘Water Tower Place Incident’ provides an example of FUSION (when the functioning of one person is determined by the functioning of another person) and how the breakdown of boundaries led to one person (me) almost spending some of my life ‘time’ doing something I had no desire to do.

Dateline: Chicago, a while back, still in graduate school and attending a downtown conference.  Mental state: google-eyed impressed with the opportunity to have my expenses paid in a wonderful, sophisticated city I’d never visited.

Exact place:  I am on the escalator of Water Tower Place, a multi-storied shopping complex with all the best stores…when I realize my physical self has been invaded by the Body Snatchers.  “How did I get here?” I’m asking myself.  “How did I end up on this escalator in a monster shopping mall?”  “This couldn’t be me.  I don’t even like shopping at home, how could I have chosen this place for the afternoon?”  

The fusion:  Earlier that week back in Austin, I’d remarked to a professor–a world-travelled, highly respected researcher and writer, who I greatly over-valued as I did most of my teachers– that I was going to Chicago.  With my excited annoucement, Over-valued World Traveler said, “Oh, you are going to have a great time.  You want to put shopping at Water Tower Place at the very top of your ‘must do’ list!”

I said something like, “Oh, that sounds perfect!  I can’t wait!”  Then it was: fly to Chicago, check into the hotel, and take the first opportunity to check out Water Tower Place.  Had I consulted my Thinking Guidance System, I’d have asked myself, “How did things turn out the last time someone (at least she had been with me, not just in my imagination) talked you into going to a shopping mall?  And I wouldn’t have woken up standing on a crowded escalator wondering how in the hecko I’d gotten there. 

Okay, this example is kind of ‘fusion-lite’, but it’s still fusion.  Fusion of this sort–when you agree with someone because you value them as a person without thinking for yourself–is common.   Careful now, I’m not saying that the ‘self-defined’ move…when the professor says ‘you must go shopping at Water Tower Place–is to pop back with “Well, I don’t really don’t enjoy shopping, so I won’t be going to Water Tower Place.”  To respond with an unsolicited negative response is just as much having behavior determined by the other person… as was the ‘unconcious’ following of her advice.