Tag Archives: joy

Reaction or Over-reaction?

Posted on by

horse2.gif    The Horse In the Cattle Guard Incident

    Summers during college I taught riding at a day camp.  One morning I arrived driving a Volkswagen busload of kids to see Blackjack, a horse I’d bought at auction the day before, stood screaming, one of his legs jammed down in the cattle guard. 

Note:  Examples may be used more than once.  I cannot keep up with what I’ve used in a current clinical session or reported here.  vm__cr00485485_ss100_sholmessmarterbrother.jpg   Uncle.  Defeat.  Can’t do it.   

     Okay.  Back to Blackjack, the big, old, raw-boned, hundred dollar horse that was perfect for carrying beginners for a few weeks.  Unfamiliar with the cattle guard, he’d stepped through the bars and was ramming his bloody hoof upward, over and over, in an attempt to escape his problem.  He was clearly in terrible pain and desperate to improve his circumstances.

    So why didn’t he do what would work instead of doing the SAME THING, which clearly did not only NOT WORK, but was causing more and more DAMAGE? mv5bmjawnde3oty2of5bml5banbnxkftztywoduzmjg4__v1__cr00333333_ss100_.jpg

    If Blackjack could have called on his THINKING GUIDANCE SYSTEM, he would have have thought . . .  “Hmm . . . if I got my hoof down between these bars . . . if it fit going down . . . then, if I slow down, study my situation, and THINK . . . I can get my hoof back up through the bars. 

    But Blackjack didn’t have access to his THINKING GUIDANCE SYSTEM.  Later that morning he was put down.

    Now, we’re not ”putting anyone down” here, but how often do we do to ourselves what Blackjack did to his leg?

    When we worry about events we can’t control?  When we can’t stop bickering?  mv5bmti0mdkyodeznl5bml5banbnxkftztywody3nju2__v1__cr00336336_ss100_.jpgWhen we drive too fast?  When we hold a grudge?  When we refuse to apologize?  When we can’t stop apologizing?  When we get into someone else’s business?  When we complain and complain mv5bmtg1ota4otk0nf5bml5banbnxkftztywnda5ndi2__v1__cr00330330_ss100_.jpg   even though we know we’re bringing other people down and turning them off?  When we say negative things about someone else?  When we say negative things about ourselves?  mv5bmtayntixntkxmzzeqtjeqwpwz15bbwu2mdy0nzy5nw__v1__cr650325325_ss100_.jpg

     When we can’t say clearly what we will do and won’t do?  When we can stop criticising? 

     We are pulling a Blackjack.  We are being a Blackjack.   

    More tomorrow on being more in charge of your reactions. 

SPEED KILLS

Posted on by
Reply

vm__cr00485485_ss100_sholmessmarterbrother.jpg      But, I need help now!

      You have an idea now what it means to base your actions more on your BEST THINKING and less on EMOTIONAL PRESSURE from others or EMOTIONAL PRESSURE from within yourself.

     Still . . . how?  I need specifics, doc.   mv5bmtqxmdyzodu1m15bml5banbnxkftztywnzq3mdu2__v1__cr00334334_ss100_.jpg 

     First step is to breathe.  Leave a space between what the other person says and your response.  Heck, let that other person say something, then you breathe, wait ten seconds, and THEN respond.  If you’re my “other person,” you’ll look stunned and clear your ears, thinking, surely, I’d jumped right in that tiny little space with my defensive remark and he’d missed it.

     Another advantage of slowing down.  You can think better when you’re not rushing your response.  Or, at least you can leave the impression you are thinking.  That’s pretty cool.  vm__cr860313313_ss100_afterthesunset.jpg   I’ll settle for that.

SELF-FOCUS is not SELF-CENTERED

Posted on by

d44059.jpg     This is the hard part.  I’ve had graduate students who, after two years on what it is to be a SELF DEFINED person, still don’t get this part.  And, without being able to know, feel, get a grip on SELF FOCUS, not much else is possible.

     How can you better manage your anxiety if you can’t get a grip on what you are focusing on? 

     How can you better manage your anxiety if you are convinced SOMEONE else  vm__cr00354354_ss100_.jpg   is CAUSING it? 

SELF FOCUS is pulling your energy back inside yourself and PAYING ATTENTION to WHAT’S GOING on vm__cr800324324_ss100_.jpg   inside YOU instead of investing your energy in figuring what others are doing, particularly what they are doing wrong.

     

Movies: What Does a Self Defined Person Look Like?

Posted on by

vm__cr00261261_ss100_shawshank.jpg   Before we hone our skills at driving ourselves and others crazy, a clear picture of what the non-crazy person looks like.

     Let’s start with a simple test of our current capacity to manage stress.  What would you do if you were sentenced to life without parole for a double murder you did not commit?  Life.  In a maximum security prison with no hope.  Bad, bad neighbors.

     Talk about a chance for your Emotional Guidance System to take charge.  To what degree would you be able to manage what goes on inside your chest cavity?  Me?  I’m writhing on the floor tearing my hair out.  They’d have to pry my teeth off the baseboards to load into the transport van.  I would be “shoulding”– like crazy.  “This shouldn’t be happening to me!  Someone should have saved me!  My parents should have raised me to be tougher!  And, you, warden guy, shouldn’t be smirking like that.”  As you notice, it doesn’t matter that according to law this shouldn’t be happening.  When it is, it is.

     vm__cr00336336_ss100_live.jpg    Then, of course, I’d move into catastrophizing.  “This is horrible!  I can’t take this!  This is terrible!  I can’t stand to live in a prison!”  Again, the conditions might be awful in fact, the point is WHAT ARE YOU THINKING ABOUT? 

     “Which is more important?  The world we can touch, or the world we’re responing to?”

     Tim Robbins, playing Andy, in “The Shawshank Redemption” makes another choice.  (I know, you’re thinking, “Choice?  What kind of choice does someone unfairly imprisoned for life have?”  After all, Andy’s the VICTIM right?  He doesn’t have any control over his situation.  Andy takes on his fate in a remarkable way with remarkable results.   

     He thinks about his situation and arranges a fulfilling role for himself.  He locates and associates with the most emotionally stable group with the most solid self leader (Morgan Freeman.)  And he makes a long term goal, a plan for escape that will take many years of work and patience.

     A Self Defined Person:  vm__cr00262262_ss100_.jpg   is able to pull focus off surroundings . . . returning energy to managing anxiety and planning actions.  For starters. 

Practice Sentence:  “This is unpleasant, inconvenient, and less than perfect, but not a disaster unless I DECIDE TO MAKE IT ONE.”