Monthly Archives: September 2009

Emotions and Bungee Jumping Do Not Mix

Posted on by
Reply

bungeedreamstime_6014792

Now just about any time a guy bungees off the Rio Grande Bridge in New Mexico…I’ve got to figure his Emotional Guidance System had something to do with that decision.  I can think of no fact-based reason to make such a jump and I can think of about a million fact-based reasons making such a jump is a really bad idea.

One of which is what happened to the guy in the tape I just watched.  The guy that jumped off the bridge….and ever-so-slightly miscalculated the distance from the bridge to the rocks.  Turns out the drop was about twenty feet less than figured…not that you’d expect two guys into this sort of thing to be math geniuses.

So, yes, John, the buddy taping the jump is heard saying something like this, “And there goes Andy!  What a thrill! What a leap!  You da man!……..Oh, God….I just watched Andy die.”  Pan to a blob of jeans and orange jacket on the rocks below.  (Now, I don’t know how you are with your friends, but I have to say…I’m a little troubled that buddy John continues the taping and the play-by-play.)

Later, John is videotaping his bud, Andy, this time from his hospital bed.  John says, “I knew I shouldn’t jump that day, I knew something wasn’t right (so far, we still have the Thinking Guidance System trying to stay in charge)….but then, (here’s where the Emotional Guidance System adds its two cents)…but then…it’s just that we’d driven all that way to get there and everything…”

The point here is that when we decide to do something or to keep doing something just because we’re so far in we don’t want to admit that all the effort thus far has been for naught…that’s our Emotional Guidance System blabbing and blabbing.  Which is how I explain ending up in this hideously over-crowded, over-priced restaurant in some tiny Colorado town over a hundred miles from where I intended to stop for lunch.  I’d driven north from Denver thinking (?) I’d find just what I had in mind…a lodge-looking mountain kind of place with excellent steaks and college football on at least two screens…on the outskirts of the city.

When I didn’t find the lodge/sports bar on the outskirts, I thought…I should turn around because I very hungry…but then saw the sign for Boulder…I thought what the heck…For sure, there’ll be a lodge/sports bar in Boulder…When I didn’t, I thought, I should turn around because I’m starting to get faint with hunger…which made me crave that steak even more….

And, there was the sign pointing to Estes Park which is on the edge of the Rocky Mountain National Park…There’s got to be a lodge/sports bar in Estes Park…what the heck, what’s another thirty-five miles….Of course, I hadn’t factored in the car hauling the double trailer about twenty cars ahead of me that never went over 18 miles per hour.

Thus weak and shaking I arrive in Estes Park….to discover that the place is over-run with tourists in town for Octoberfest (Yes, I noticed it was still September, too.)…I thought, hey, I should just cut my losses, chew another stick of gum and go back to Boulder or even Denver…then I thought “it’s just that I’d driven all that way…” and here I am a hundred miles from my hotel eating corn dogs standing up…

The point:  When you realize you aren’t absolutely sure your bungee cord is shorter than the distance to the rocks, settle for any ole café on the way out of town.

Who Left Me in Charge of My Life? What? Are They Crazy?

Posted on by
Reply

coladreamstime_2801484HOW WE THINK about a PROBLEM directs our TIME, ENERGY, MONEY, and WORRY

Okay…Dangerous water here, I know.  Weight loss is definitely the preoccupation of the nation and, while before we only drove ourselves nuts…the facts are childhood obesity has jumped into ugly focus.  Before a word reaches your eyes…keep in mind… Pledge One:  “I, Barbara DeShong, am as nutty and emotionally driven as anyone on the planet.”  No preaching or “expert” psycho-babbling here.  One of my irresistible Texas favorites is Mexican food which I just enjoyed in Denver, so my “failings” are interstate.

How we think about a symptom directs how we spend our time, energy, money, and heartfelt worry, attempting to make a difference.

Option A:  Childhood obesity is on the rise because of EVENTS and the ENVIRONMENT.

If we believe this, we launch programs to change the events and the environment.  We take soft drink machines out of schools, we force the convenience stores across from schools out of business, we applaud fast food franchises for offering apple slices instead of french fries.  We serve angel food cake at birthday parties. We buy exercise equipment. We IGNORE the fact that soft drink machines and convenience stores across from schools were in place long before the current dilemma. 

Option B:  Childhood obesity is on the rise because of a LACK OF INFORMATION.

If we believe lack of information to be the problem…that is, we believe we are overweight because we just can’t figure out how it happens– we will teach the food pyramid and how calories are used in the body.  We will petition school boards to buy more bulletin board materials on healthy eating. We will buy books on dieting and weight loss.  Since obesity is a highly complicated and cutting edge science, we will buy every new book that promises to have discovered “the secret.”  We will buy magazines with a new diet on the cover and filled with pages models in clothes no one we know could wear.  We IGNORE the fact that, logically, if more information on diet and exercise made a difference…all of us would be thinner and in better shape…since we have way more information (If you count saying the same thing a thousand different ways as information) now that we did in the 1950′s.

Option C:  Childhood obesity, like other “symptoms,” is on the rise due to ANXIETY and DIFFICULTIES in managing ANXIETY …difficulty making choices based on long-term benefit over getting rid of anxiety NOW. 

No blame here.  We got into this shape honestly responding to the emotional systems of which we are a part.  If we believe individual difficulties in managing anxiety…in the parents and the children…is resulting in an increasing pattern of over-eating and under-exercising—we realize we could invest time, energy, and sometimes money into strenthening the child’s, and our own, ability to think and manage anxiety. Remember the migration of the wildebeest (found by searching wildebeest on this site)…We’re just trying to get a little more toward the center of the herd.  Since we as parents know the problem…

Don’t worry, I ducked when you threw that plate at me.  I don’t like it either…focusing on events and information…is so comforting.  Plus, I must go to the vending machines and find some Tums.

What Kind of People Do You “Hate?”

Posted on by
Reply

hatefulguydreamstime_4327781Bumper sticker on the back windshield of a car:  I HATE STUPID PEOPLE.  Ouch.  

In the nonfiction I’ve started (See: Beyond Stress Management, Defining a Self with a Smile), I’ve asked fellow travelers to sign the following pledge.

I,_____________, am as nuts as everyone else on the planet.  As a start on freedom.  To get out from under the burden of a life spent trying to convince ourselves and others that we aren’t.

Is this asking too much?  Maybe.  My special person read the pledge and said, “Whoa!  Lots of people are going to balk at admitting that.”    “That’s just the point,” I say, “the whole point of the book is to quit taking ourselves so seriously all the time.”   He said, ”Maybe that’s what you’re thinking, but I think you will find out most people would rather believe in their superiority.”

“But defending our superiority, defending the idea that we are the only ones who know how to do things right, takes so much time and energy.  We have to be on guard all the time, fending off evidence, arguing, and uselessly trying to convince other people that we are ‘right’ and they are ‘wrong’.  I’m not saying each of us doesn’t have a point of view.  I’m not talking about religious beliefs or political leanings or decisions on how to raise children…I’m talking about the time wasted on issues that don’t matter, time wasted being anxious…whether you should pre-soak stains, avoid sugar, avoid television, drive in the right lane, private school over public school, seek plastic surgery…  I’m talking about letting go of ‘being right’ as a way of life.”

Still, my special person said, “I don’t think your pledge is going to fly.”  Which of course threw me instantly into trying to convince I was right and he was wrong about pledges and how they fly. 

And I held my ground that most people would enjoy the relief of admitting equal nuttiness with our co-inhabitants…I held it until I saw the “I HATE STUPID PEOPLE” sticker.  For sure the owner of the sticker finds stupid people all over the place.  People who spend money, treat their pets, choose professions, choose sports teams, choose books…stupidly.  I wouldn’t want to be married to someone who was ”sensitized” to ”stupid” people, since I’m sure I would fulfill his expectations on a regular basis.  I wouldn’t want to be in his family.  Egad, what if your boss was a “I hate stupid people” fan?   

Maybe “I..H..S..P” guy wouldn’t sign a pledge, maybe IHSPeople guy would say only stupid people would sign such a pledge.  But that’s okay.  I won’t even argue about his choice.  Who has time and energy for that struggle?

The Best Day of My Life, Mom!

Posted on by
Reply

Dateline: Changing Hearts… a a home for abused, abandoned, and neglected girls in Nuevo Laredo (starred project for mysteryshrink)–
Nine year old Christina had come with her mother to “observe” the home as a potential charity recipient of her wealthy and kind parents. Christina’s family lives snuggly and well in the best part of Austin. She has had all the experiences, learning opportunities, resort travel, and material provisions expected in the life to which she was born.

On this day, Christina had joined the girls in the home in their cramped and sparse activities. At the end of the day, Christina was laying on the bare floor with 50 girls she couldn’t understand, watching Spanish T.V., and eating popcorn.  Just moments into the movie she got up off the floor and whispered to her mom, “This is the best day of my life!”

Christina’s mother smiled and tears ran, realizing what she had been able to provide her daughter on this day.

The Jerks are Everywhere…Everywhere!

Posted on by
Reply

daddreamstime_7757727Dateline:   October Evening, East Texas Highway.  Driving with myspecial person on the way to visit a relative in Shreveport, Texas.

It’s late, both of us have worked full days before starting on the 250 mile trip.  The purpose of the trip was to comfort an uncle and aunt after uncle was given a diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.  Why am I adding these details?  Because later, when I’m decribing the movie of the world I have chosen to live in…I’m going to need some excuses. 

Looking Cool Tip:  Gaining sympathy is a useful technique when you realize you are being a jerk.  Prepare others for your jerk behavior by beginning every conversation by relaying how much you’ve been working lately, that you haven’t been sleeping well, or eaten in days.  The best excuse…and this is gem, so save it for when you’ve really made a mess of things…The best explanation for your out-of-control emotional spraying of others is…to say, “My doctor (‘cardiologist’ has the best pull) has me taking a new medication and I think I’m having a bad reaction…”   The I’m-on-a-new-medication-for (pick important body organ) and I think I’m having a bad reaction is so good…the very people you have been abusing with your immaturity will calm down and try to help you.

The road is a two-lane highway, only one each direction through hilly country.  Thus, the ability to pass was limited and iffy.  Most of the time a “no passing” stripe occupied the center of the highway.  At some point along this lonely stretch of limited visibility…in my rearview I see an enormous truck growing in my rearview of my small sedan.  (Read: economical…this helps with the sympathy factor.)  “I can’t believe this guy!”  I glare in the mirror as if the truck driver is a mass killer who knows me… and has sign in his windshield announcing he hates me and I am his next victim… “What is thabt bozo back there thinking?”  I ask my special person in that little superior lilt that comes so naturally.  

“He can’t be thinking he can pass on this stretch of highway?”

That’s when the roaring started.  When I clutched the steering wheel in disbelief, barely able to hold my economical sedan on the road (at least that’s the way I was acting) as the White Freightliner pulled up alongside and stomped the diesel pedal with all he had.  The White Freightliner Maniac blew by me, then swung back in front of me.  Of course, I yelped and hit the brake as if I could barely avoid hitting him…which clearly wasn’t a problem since he’d outrun me already.  “I can’t believe he just did that!  Can you believe that?”  I ask.  “Get me some paper!  I’m taking down his license plate.  Look, there’s the number for his company.  Can you see that?  Get it down.  Just wait until his company’s going to love to hear what this guy has been doing!”

Armed with the Maniac’s phone contacts, I’m planning my scathing report to end jerko’s truckdriving career, when we stop at a station for fuel and a cold drink.  I notice the White Freightliner parked on the street.  I go in the mart for the drinks. While waiting to pay I notice a man at the pay phone. (It was a while back before cell phones, and of course, before I grew into the totally mature person I am now.)  He’s saying, “Ah, honey, I know it’s hard with the twins both sick. And junior teething and you still recovering from surgery…I’m coming as fast as I can.  Just hang on, I’ll be home soon…and stay up with the kids so you can get some sleep.”

I take the paper with his numbers on it out my pocket, tear it up…and slink back to the car.

Beyond Stress Management: Defining a Self with a Smile

Posted on by
Reply

Ffrogdreamstime_1940604 

 

It’s Your Movie, and Welcome to It

“Which is more important?  The world that exists?  Or, the world you are responding to?”

Consider this situation.  You are tired, though the day is young. In your hand or in your mind, have a list of tasks for the day.  You’re going to exercise, finish up several home projects and eatat least two servings of fresh fruits. The truth be told, you’ve had the same list for days, maybe weeks. When you wrote the list, you were optimistic, you were confident you would follow through. But today, with the way you feel, you’ll be lucky to not lose ground on every front of your life. You certainly do not have the positive outlook and enthusiasm to tackle new projects, no matter how over due. You have a slight headache. You reach for a cola and a couple of cookies. Maybe you’re coming down with something. You dread interacting with other people….Maybe a coffee or one of those energy drinks would help. Maybe one of each.

Then you pick up your email.  The children’s story you wrote is being published in a major magazine!  Your favorite friend is coming for a visit!

Power, energy, and ideas swell up in your body. The muscles of your legs and arms, a moment earlier weighing you down like slabs of concrete, are now warm with vigor. Ideas, plans, and actions take over your mind. You jump into shorts and a T-shirt. You can get in a half hour of walking before you start your work day.  You grab a pad of paper, creative ideas are whirling in your brain and you don’t want to chance missing a one. You back out of your driveway waving to your neighbors and singing alone with the radio.

What happened?  The world—you, other people, events, and all the other parts of life—did not change.  The effort to “Define a Self with a Smile” is about trying to catch the power of that little moment when the energy changed.  To join the journey toward a self with a smile takes a willingness to smile at yourself.

If you’d like to jump on the fast track, here’s step one.  Fill in the blank below and you’re signed on for the trip.

Pledge 1:  I, ______________, am as nuts as every other person on the planet.