Category Archives: Learning to Think

Stress. The “Ha Ha, We’re Here to Help you…” Incident

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Dateline: Voice Mail Hell.

Dealing with the stolen luggage was nothing compared to the day I spent working for Dell.

I have a dream.

One day, I will take my seat on a plane and the person who plops down next to me will be the pathologically cheerful woman who makes all the sugar-laced phone tree recordings. She’ll say, “Welcome! Thank you sitting next to Time Warner, Dell, Hilton, American Airlines, Southern European Sushi.”

I cannot in a pubic medium give you the exact words I will choose. But my first sentence will begin with “Please choose from the following options…” And none of the options are going to be pretty.

Not since Hitler has any one person caused so much screaming by so many people.

Hour One

When my luggage was stolen in Albuquerque, I had two expensive Dell batteries inside. That very miserable day—anxious to get back to work–I called Dell and ordered replacement batteries. Today I’m calling Dell because they sent me the wrong batteries.

The call began, of course, when Bubble Voice Lady Sugar Voice greets me with: “Thank you for calling Dell!”  We all know what the woman THE VOICE is as really saying, which is:  “Hi, sucker. So glad you are willing to do this company’s work for us. Because by you spending your time trying to match the words I’m saying, we don’t have to pay real people to work for us. You can just imagine how this is helping our profits, since we don’t have to pay social security or benefits to machines!”

I punch one for English.

“Great! You are now with customer SERVICE and I want to help
you….Now TO SERVE YOU BETTER…”

Which really means: “To continue not having to provide you with services… please choose… between the following sixteen options…. And don’t even think you can skip this trial by fire, because if you do, you will be punished by having to start the game over….and over and over until you shoot yourself and we don’t have to take the chance that you will ever bother customer service again. Now aren’t we having fun?”

I punch buttons like a trained donkey and get to this message: “Okay! Great! Now I can get you right over to someone who can help you!”

I breathe a sigh of relief. I’d walked through the fire. I hadn’t thrown anything or cursed. Would this be the one time customer service solves my problem? Had I previously been too hard on invisible mankind?

Now I am on terminal hold…Every two minutes the Bubble Cheery Voice comes back on to gaily remind me how important my call is and ask, “Did you know you can have your order completed faster and more conveniently online at www.DoThisCompany’sWorkForNoPay? If you choose to stay on the line,
your call can take up to an hour or however long it takes to get you to give up.
Now wouldn’t you rather do this all online?”

I’m trying to remember where I keep the pistol….to be continued.

Fall Series on Bowen Family Systems Theory

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Bowen Theory: Chronic Anxiety and Defining a Self

Fall 2011 Seminar

This early notice is to provide information for department heads and agency directors.

As a part of our commitment to study and share Bowen theory, eight sessions on the theory originated by Dr. Murray Bowen will be presented in Austin by Hal DeShong, Ph.D. and Barbara DeShong, Ph.D.  Programs will be two hours each on every other Tuesday beginning September 13 and concluding December 13.  To accommodate the holiday season, December sessions will be held on the first two Tuesdays of that month. The time for the program will be determined by surveying participants for a time the time that is the best fit.

Classes will be held in the DeShong offices off Mt. Bonnell Road in
northwest Austin.  Class size will be limited to provide a comfortable, interactive program.  To sign up or for questions, please email: hdeshong@austin.rr.com or telephone (512) 451-9426, Option 1(for Hal
Deshong).  For a brief introduction to the topic of defining a self, a tab can be found on: barbaradeshong-mysteryshrink.com.

Who can benefit from this program?  Anyone interested in learning something new regarding how to think as opposed to what to think.  Anyone interested in reducing the amount of anxiety in their life.
Anyone interested in being more in charge of their functioning.  It is not necessary to have had any prior introduction to Dr. Bowen’s well-researched and thoughtful theory. This format will provide lectures, interactive questions and answers, and the opportunity to present and receive feedback on one’s multigenerational family history. Supplemental readings will be offered, but not required.  Additional information can be accessed by clicking Bowen Center for its homepage.

The fee is $200 per participant for the full program payable at the first session.  If a different arrangement is preferred, please let us know.

This program can be offered for credit.  The number of hours will meet continuing education in virtually all fields.  If you are a student, an instructor, or an instructor with a student you would like to have attend, materials will be provided to meet all requirements for receiving credit at your institution.  Exams developed for the course can be given if required and written assignments can be made and reviewed to meet class
requirements.

Preliminary Outline:

September 13              Bowen Theory: A New Way to View Human Behavior

September 27              The Family as an Emotional Unit: Emotional Process in Action

October 11                  Differentiation of Self: A Way of Thinking and Functioning

October 25                  Anxiety and Symptoms: Forces for Togetherness and Individuality

November 8                The Multigenerational Family System: The Flow of Chronic Anxiety

November 22              Marriage: Children’s Involvement in the Family Emotional Process

December 6                Emotional Process in Physical Disorders: Inflammation and Stress

December 13              Bowen Theory Wrap-Up: Touching Untouched Bases

 

Dr. Hal DeShong has studied and taught Bowen theory for almost three decades, receiving his training at the Bowen Family Center in Washington, D.C. and the Menninger Center in Kansas City. Relevant national and regional publications include: Power and Differentiation of Self;  Thinking and Differentiation of Self;  The Processes of Self-Focusing and Other-Focusing as Related to Objectivity and Differentiation;  Thinking About Suicide; Broadening the Context: Rethinking Participation in Religious Issues;  Bowen Therapy: An Introduction;  From Relationship Therapy to Bowen Theory Based Clinical Work;  Organizational and Family Reaction to Death;  From Other-Focus to Self-Focus as the Essential Shift; Suicide: A Family Emotional Regression; and, What Does a Bowen Family Systems Clinician Think Like?

Dr. Barbara DeShong has been studying and utilizing Bowen theory in private practice, in teaching and in conducting seminars for over twenty years. She received her training through a three-year program at the Menninger Foundation Bowen Theory Center in Kansas City and attending numerous seminars at the Bowen clinic in Washington D.C.   Her presented papers include: Elements in Clinical Changes Using Bowen Theory; Bowen Theory After One Year of Study;  Consistency Over Specialness: The Therapeutic Relationship; and, Are You an Emotional Prisoner?

Start times will be in the early evening, either 6:30 or 7:00 p.m. as best fits participants schedules.

Last Mexico Tourist Standing Update, Blood Everywhere

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Stress in Mexico.
One sign that you have a stress prone personality is when you don’t listen to solid advice. I didn’t, and now there’s blood everywhere.  I’ve been forced to confine myself in my hotel room.  I’m in Mexico City, what did I expect was going to happen if I wasn’t careful?
I should have listened to the warnings.
It happened just as predicted. Yes, I pulled a computer battery out of my case and dropped in on my big toe. It split along the cuticle.  What a mess. I let out the shout, “Viva Mexico! Viva Revolucion!”
Oh, well, it’ll keep me out of trouble.  For now, but not for long.
Later, the Central Cathedral a couple of blood-stained blocks away.

 

 

Stress, Anxiety, and All the Pretty Little Drinks, Part 1

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Stress, Anxiety, and All the Pretty Little Drinks

“Thinking for Yourself” Therapy on Someone Else’s Dime

Dateline: Mi Terra Restaurante, San Antonio.  Davy Crockett died down the street not that many blocks in Fall of the Alamo.  (Played in the latest remake by Billy Bob Thornton who delivered the one good line in the movie.  As the Mexicans held him up to be shot, he shouted, “I gotta warn you, I’m a screamer!” ) The remains of the Alamo dead are in a vault a few blocks at Flores and Commerce in the San Fernando Cathedral.

Group Think versus Thinking for Yourself is a tricky proposition because it is much easier to run with our emotions when we are anxious.

A.E. Houseman:  “Most problems can be solved by three minutes of thought. The difficulty is that thinking is hard, and three minutes is a long time.”

When is thinking for yourself, breaking the mold, merely not taking responsibility for paying your way? What about the free thinker who rants about everyone else selling out to
“the man” but who is perfectly willing for you to pick up every check?

The Stress Multiplying Anxiety-Driven Mind of the Adolescent

What about when we were teens, excusing our over-the-top emotionally driven choices on our valiant effort to grow up and become independent. Of course, what we meant by “independent” was to decide our own curfew.  To our parents, our use of the word “independent” meant we were planning to someday pay our own way in the world. Excited by the thought of a time when they could return to lives of their own, our parents fell for our speeches.

Which is good, because each of us benefits learning the hard way during those years .  (Billy the Kid was only 18 years old when he killed his first man.)  Speaking as a proponent of Bowen theory therapy, the teenager who questions and goofs, is less scary than one who goes all the way through without ever putting his or her opinion to the test. (Did you know that, at one time, the credit card company sent the actual carbon of every use to the cardholder with the statement?  I learned this at the breakfast table when my father pulled one such carbon out of his pocket and asked, “Barbara, you want to tell me what you were doing in Eagle Pass just across the border from Piedras Negras?)

Stress Management…Manana

As I roll yet another fluffy tortilla with queso and mochahete salsa, and contemplate the “thinking for self” dilemma….—Stop what you’re doing just for a moment. Ask yourself, “Why am I hurrying to get to the next thing?  What makes me believe that I will be more able to be happy at some future time than I am able to be happy now?”—

See?  There’s all sorts of therapy, all sorts of ways to calm anxiety.  Okay, back to the mochahete, queso and freeloaders spending someone else’s money and calling their efforts “self defining.”  Oops, too late for the Pretty Little Drinks tale of how the decisions made by a couple of young teens….unsupervised lounging around a pool at the fabulous old Mocambo Hotel in Vera Cruz, Mexico….. with no vision of the future… came back to haunt them.

For now, as I stagger dripping and over-heated down Commerce Street, I’ll call up the breezes of the Pretty Little Drinks afternoon….Leaving the unfortunate tale of consequences till manana.

“I Buy, Therefore I Am” Part 1

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What Could Be More Christmas than a Few Outstanding Commercials?

“Happy Holidays…Mind if I Sneeze on You and Will You Pay My Taxes?”

Dateline: Las Vegas Hilton International World Headquarters

Set-up: This is Part One of a series of entries on “I Buy, Therefore I Am” as we make decisions in the New Year.

“What are the thoughts that define you?” “What stuff can you can buy to define you?”

Just for Fun:  December Television Ad Awards–

Most Out-to-Lunch:  Shared by K-Mart and other retailers.  Children are shown Christmas morning jumping with glee opening packages of pajamas.  Pajamas.  Do these people not have any kids?  Or, perhaps more likely, they’ve never been kids.

Most Inside-Out:  Kleenex pushing for a paper towel dispenser in every bathroom in every house in the United States.  Think “no germs” ignore “We’re a green company doing our part to save the planet.” What?

Most Claim to Illiteracy:  Bayer A.M.  Aspirin and secret new ingredient.  Think coffee.

Best Double Talk:  Herbal weight loss supplement listing an ingredient as proven to take the pounds off. The statement goes, “Emerging research (read: some ad guy’s wild guess) suggests (read: could, maybe, who knows, sorta possibly, not more than the effect of air, sounds like a good idea)…that X may be a factor (read: may or may not be a factor)…in weight loss.”

Most Ambiguous: Kay’s jewelers.  We understand that if our husbands love us they will take the family credit card we’ve sacrificed to pay down…and charge a chunk of diamonds, but the Kay’s ad leaves too much unanswered. What size of diamond equals true love forever?  Jared’s is straight-forward. Anything that comes in a Jared’s box means you are recognized as a goddess among women.

Most Insulting:  Young lady behind the wheel, longing to get her nails done, says she cannot fulfill her dream because her car insurance is too high. Oh yes, her prayers are answered…and relax…she gets her nails done.

Are We Supposed to Cheer? Awards: (1) The couple smiling and saying they owed three million dollars in income tax but thanks to X services….they only paid a few thousand dollars.  So, then…what group of schmucks ended up paying what the smiling couple was able to avoid?  (2) The ads for cold medications promising that with their product you can continue your usual activities without taking a break ….thus infecting thousands of other victims.

Stuff you can get today for FREE (no shipping and handling):  A DVD on a wheelchair scooter (Great, I didn’t have plans for Saturday night and now I do!), time share brochures, a sales pitch price quote for car insurance.

What about the FREE memory foam mattress for ninety days?  The FREE face creams, credit scores, and women’s Viagra.  Here’s a tip.  When they  ask for your credit card number….it’s not FREE. Personal favorite is the women’s sexual stimulant cream which is absolutely FREE…the teeny white print mentions that acceptance of your FREE supply signs you up for a marvelous monthly shipment every month for the rest of your life…which costs just over $45 dollars per month, which will gladly be deducted from your credit card.  Sure, you can withdraw your “membership” just any ole time. Any old time you can take a few days off work to write letters, package the magic cream back in its orginial jar, cut proof-of-purchase bar codes out of the original box you threw away months ago, collect DNA proving you are the person you claim to be, photocopy your birth certificate to prove you were over 18 when you agreed to have the monthly charge to your credit card, photocopy your passport to see if you’re on the “no fly list” and therefore are not allowed to use the US mail system or make changes of any kind on your credit card, photocopy proof of car insurance, and book an hour with your lawyer composing a letter promising that you are not now, nor have you ever been, a member of the Communist Party.

Part 2.  When does a person cease to exist?  When you stop buying stuff?  The perfect marriage always includes a BMW.

Death by Yoga

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I know.  “Yoga’s not a competition…go at your own pace…woo…la…la…”

That’s the party line and those are the words of the teacher in front of the class in her flowing clothes.  She wasn’t just saying that to me, even though I was the one coming in late.  She was setting a tone for the session.  I get that.

I’ve never been in a yoga class, which would be no problem said the receptionist at the Nirvana front desk as she scheduled me for “beginning yoga.”

Well, guess what?  I now know what the receptionist meant.  She meant my signing up for the class without previous experience would be no problem for her.  I didn’t even know what I was supposed to wear, but guessed right on the shorts and T-shirt.  I was committed to give yoga a try and only a little bit late.

Judging from the glances I received from the woman to the left of me and the lady to the right…flying in late is an anti-yoga thing.  Right away, I took up a spot on the back row and flashed side to side at the other women trying to figure out what I was supposed to do.  They were all on their stomachs on the floor.  I could do that.  I lower myself in stages until I am face-down with the gym boards.  I let out my breath delighted to be somewhat in sync.  Which is when I notice that the other ladies aren’t exactly flat on the floor.  They have mats.  Well, nobody told me.

Then someone told me.  She pointed at the stack of mats against the wall.  Oh.  Now I have to get up, which doesn’t make me stick out too much since the rest of the yoga brigade is already standing and pointing at something only the yoga-trained people can see on the ceiling.  

I teeter up and collect a mat.  By now the group is on hands and knees and the Yoga Nazi is calling out animal names like we were on a bus tour at the zoo.  I know, “Yoga is not a competition…go at your own pace.”  But I just don’t think my own pace is going to work since I haven’t completed a single animal shape before another animal is called for.

And, you want to explain, if this is a beginner’s class, why does the teacher purposely go from crawling animals to standing animals and flying animals….back and forth and up and down and back and forth and…

Couldn’t we just pick an animal height and stick with it?  I know, “Yoga is not a competition…go at your own pace…” Well, my pace is still.  On the floor.  It’s now that I notice I’m the only one wearing shoes. Fine.  No one told me. I feel like I’m in the sixth grade again listening to the boys in the class list the ten prettiest girls… “Yoga is not a compe….”

Now the Yoga Nazi is all cheerful about whatever it is that everyone else sees on the ceiling.  “Reach for the stars…the soles of your feet touching lightly…one leg out parallel behind you…now the other arm…cross your hands behind you, other leg up, down, elephant, cobra, tiger, flying marlin, diving shark…smiling monkey…

Last year I happened to be at my Las Vegas Hilton International World Branch Headquarters during a fitness conference.  You can’t tell me those babes weren’t competitive.  Maybe not with each other…but when I was going up in the elevator with just me and fifteen or so skinny gals in loopy pants clutching mats, water bottles, and granola bars to their flat chests….

I know they thought they were counting themselves as coming in way ahead of the chick in the over-stuffed cargo pants, T-shirt, glass of wine, laptop, and a Sports Book ticket which would pay me 300 to 1, if the Astros won the World Series…clutched to my chest.

Not sure how the yoga class ended.  I had to leave early.  No, really, I had an appointment.

I Feel, Therefore I’ll Take a Couple of Those Hollywood Cookies…

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thinkdreamstime_10546152Let’s say there’s a continuum of Emotional Maturity….a continuum where ‘0’ represents a person who employs her Emotional Guidance System at all times, in all situations….without any interference from her Thinking Guidance System whats-so-ever…

In other words, ‘0’ represents a person whose momentary feelings determine all decisions in her life….Let’s say…the Octamom.

And ‘100’ represents the person who confers with the Thinking Guidance System, a human who considers the long term results, when making decisions….Let’s say….Gandi.

Remember, feelings are not bad….feelings make life rich and deep.  But if you use transient feelings to decide long term issues for you….Your life will not turn out so well.  Which brings us back to our continuum. 

Where the ‘0’ end is headed up by the Octamom.  And the ‘100’ end, is represented by Gandi.

Notice, particularly, to what degree each person takes the welfare of others into account.  One person draws attention to herself by sacrificing eight (14 children in all)… The other person sacrifices himself to call attention to the plight of his people.

Now, if you’re still thinking, uh, FEELING, there’s a new miracle diet out there….You should know that the Octamom is coming out with a book on….Yep….on the special weight-loss secrets she employed to take off that extra baby (X8) weight.

Personally, I can do without her advice.  Just hand me a couple more of those Hollywood Cookie Diet goodies, would you please?