A Psychologist on the Loose
Posts tagged brothers
Baseball, Rose Colored Glasses, and Family Stress.
Baseball, Rose Colored Glasses, and Family Stress.
Dateline: Las Vegas Paris Sportsbook International Branch Office. Just put my twenty on my team to win over 59 games this season. Usually, I put my twenty on them to win the pennant. Odds 500 to 1. I’m pretty sure the bet taker doesn’t even register my bet. The cashier merely winks at his co-workers and pockets the money. But this time I could bet only on them winning 59 out of 162 games. Happy Dance.
Loyalty is not about winning. Or depending on others, including family, to make you feel like a winner.
Why Do You Make Me Feel Like This? “The Man Who Couldn’t Ask His Wife a Question” Incident
Why Do You Make Me Feel Like This? “The Man Who Couldn’t Ask His Wife a Question” Incident Dateline: Las Vegas Branch Office at the Bellagio Race and Sports Book. This is the kind of place where when I bobbed my cargo-shorted person into the restaurant, the host asked if I preferred an allergy menu, a non-gluten menu, a vegetarian menu, or, in case I was one of those crass Texas types, a regular menu? They make a dandy hamburger, but I can’t remember what they called it.
First a little booster shot of the Mysteryshrink pledge. Repeat after me, I, More >
The Intoxicated Babysitter and the Third Graders at the Renaissance Hotel
The Intoxicated Babysitter and the Third Graders at the Renaissance Hotel
Dateline: Chili’s bar, Little League World Series Final. These kids are great fun.
What was your first thought when seeing the two boys in the pool. Was it, where were their parents? Not that the question is a bad one, just not the only one.t was your level of fear seeing pic? Remember herding sheep in other countries. The swimmers do look a bit younger than the third graders in the situation below.
Okay, one more shot at James Arthur Ray, then I’ll let him go. Maybe. The sweat lodge situation is just such a good More >
Anxiety, Stress, and All the Fascinating Little Drinkies, Part 2
Anxiety, Stress, and All the Pretty Little Drinkies, Part 2
Anxiety and Thinking for Yourself
Do you think for yourself? Are do you just think you think for yourself—and what you’re really doing is “what feels good at the moment” and expecting someone else to “lump” the consequences? Remember our goal: To have more of our decisions, actions, and internal dialogue, more determined by our best thinking and less determined by emotional pressure from others or emotional pressures (fears and anxieties) coming from within our own minds. A little thing called Differentiation of Self.
The “I Want It Now” feeling is one way More >
Letting Others Be Themselves
Which, of course, they are going to be anyway. But since we’ve given our precious permission, what that means is that we CANNOT be all surprised when they are themselves.
Remember we expected that. Gave permission. Later in evolvement we’ll even recognize that others have THE RIGHT to be themselves. But, not yet. For now we’re just being generous.
Which means:
The person who cuts in front of you at the grocery store with 80 items, you said she could do that.
The person who’s late to Thanksgiving dinner–you said that would be fine.
You gave the person who doesn’t return your e-mail for four days–you More >
Who’s In Charge?
I was going to lie low until the Spring as I have a book coming out in early summer, timing and all. But I can’t wait. Yesterday on the plane the man behind me chastised his wife, “You make decisions based on your emotions while I make decisions based on what I see and hear for myself.”
I had to mention this because so many times this argument is used as if WHAT YOU HEAR and WHAT YOU SEE isn’t determined by your emotions. Example later.
I’m A Big Wennie, Too
Lest there be any question, I did not intend to put down the struggling wife mentioned yesterday. Never. Some people have better “front offices” than the rest of us.
They hold in their anxiety, and thus they come across cool instead of HYSTERICAL like the rest of us. But the husband in the example was no more functional than the wife, just using means other than obvious “relationship dependence” to calm himself down. Who knows, maybe he had someone on the side (or gets someone) using relationship dependence in spades.
“Relationship dependence” is when we need a particular response from a particular other More >