Stress Control Central

Can a Person Change, Really? “The Teapot Incident,” Part 1 of 2

Dateline: Racebook at the Paris in Las Vegas. If you ever have a big project to do that requires hours of concentration and organization, I’d recommend this place. Picture a huge room with forty flat televisions. Across the front is a double layer of theater size babies. Every screen shows a different live sporting event. During the day these are mostly horse races. Now, here’s the good part (not that watching twelve horse races at once isn’t terrific fun, cause it is), the seating is made up of long rows of private carols each with its own screen which you can More >

The Banquet of Consequences, Stress. Get a Grip, Part 1

The Banquet of Consequences, Stress.One

Dateline: Threadgill’s International Branch Office. Chatting with Eddie Wilson, the man who set up Willie Nelson’s First Fourth of July Picnic. At a later time, I’ll address the mental and physical reminders of that spectacular event. We could start with a study of the effects of second-hand pot smoke. But, it was Willie’s party.

Set-up: “Everybody, soon or late, sits down to a banquet of consequences.” Robert Louis Stevenson

Well, here I am at the banquet of consequences and I write about it, because, alas, I am not alone. (Here’s where you take a look in the mirror, or at More >

BANNED IN VEGAS, The Road Rage Tour

Banned in Vegas, The Road Rage Tour

Dateline: International Branch Office in the Las Vegas Paris Sports and Race Book. I just won $2.40 on a horse named “BR’s Funny Money.” Initials of maiden name? BR. I had to bet. Even My Sister the Baptist couldn’t pass up that kind of omen.

Set-up: To withstand the horrors of what follows, you need to read Banned in Vegas, Episode One.

Here we are in Vegas, my friend, Janie on her rented red scooter.

Stress. Anxiety. Therapy. Humor. How can I make sense of what happened? Perhaps, I should begin by saying, “Cycles change people.” Once my More >

MysteryShrink BANNED IN VEGAS!

MYSTERYSHRINK BANNED IN VEGAS!

Dateline: Las Vegas Branch Office in the Paris Hotel Race and Sports Book.

You’ve heard about the awesome high rollers banned in Las Vegas? The wise guys banned for counting cards or using some other complicated system at the Blackjack tables? The just too famous for their own good celebrities banned for their wild antics?

Well, turns out, getting banned in Vegas is not as nearly as hard as those celebrities make it sound.

In fact, with the help of my friend (Let’s call her Janie) I, too, was able to achieve “banned in Vegas” status.

Anxiety. (That word is a plant. The guy who helps me with More >

Money, the “Seven Days in Florence Incident”

A friend of mine passed away two years ago today. She was eighty-four and a millionaire many times over. Those are two important numbers. 84 years. 12,000,000 dollars.

T was my wealthy friend and because of her, I enjoyed many a treat beyond my economic reach—the use of a condominium, including endless room service, atop the classiest hotel in Dallas, charity balls to hear celebrity bands, and postcards and tales of her world travels. T knew about every culture and every religion in the world. She read extensively and had a curious mind.

But when it More >

Other People’s Money

Dateline: VW Dealership Service Lounge. Never a good start to your day.

Before continuing with the warning about cots and huts, I’ve been trying to ‘heal thyself’ and notice when I violated the MysteryShrink number one way of instant stress reduction. Giving others the right to spend their money without our comments or wasting our time thinking how they should be different than they are.

MysteryShrink Words to Remember: “I (your name) give every human on the planet my permission to spend his or her money how he or she chooses. It is not my business. When I focus on More >

Horrors! Cots and Huts!

Stress, Avoid “Huts” and “Cots”

Dateline: DFW Airport Branch Office

MysteryShrink Lesson to remember: “It’s unfortunate, unpleasant, and inconvenient—but not a catastrophe unless I decide to make it one. . . . Or unless flight attendants aren’t speaking any longer and they are handing out cots.”

That’s right cots.

Then there was the “$12,000.00 South American Renewal Experience” with each traveler upgraded to their own private hut. That’s right hut.

More on the story when recovered from trauma.

More on the Stress Prone Personality. When I wrote a book on the subject, I was quite sure events couldn’t turn an average person into a Stress Prone Personality—but More >