birdfeather

The end of the semester

Thu, 31 May 2007 04:44:53 GMT

Well, that’s the end of my Psych journal. I just sweated through the take-home final and turned it in yesterday. I’ve read all of the chapters assigned in the book (less about thirty pages sprinkled throughout) and done all of the assignments, so I think I did pretty well. Actually, my daughter figured it out for me: I got full points for all of my homework, I did a total of fifteen points extra credit, and I get five points of extra credit for perfect attendance (ok, I was late one day). I only missed three questions on the mid-term, so that’s an A. The final itself is only worth 20 points, and I have that in the extra credit, so I could fail the midterm and still get an A in the class. No, that didn’t keep me from doing it. It was the first test I can remember taking where I had trouble figuring out which questions NOT to answer (we were only to answer 5 out of 10).

I didn’t mention the gold star. I got a gold star for turning in all of my homework assignments! Can you believe it? It made my whole day! Programmed from kindergarten, I just love gold stars. I think my mom still has all of the little strips of paper with the stars on them (or lack thereof), documenting my behavior for the week. Isn’t it funny how such small rewards can mean so much? I wasn’t the only one who was thrilled. My best friend in class got one, too. Imagine a guy built like a linebacker bubbling over his gold star! He said it was better than finding ten bucks on the street. I feel sorry for the home-schooled kids who never experienced the exhilaration of the gold star. The only sad part was that we had to turn in our assignment sheets (with the gold star on it) along with our final, so I’ll never see it again.

If you’ve read this far, you’ve heard my gripes about our textbook. I’ll have to admit, though, that I actually liked arguing with it. It really made me take a look at what I believe about the way the human mind (mine specifically) works. There was a lot I disagreed with, but there was a lot of good points, too, some of which I needed to be reminded about. The teacher is great and the class was fun. It was the most work I had ever done to have that much fun, but it was well worth it. It was a little odd being the oldest one in the class (after attrition had taken it’s toll), but I don’t think anyone held it against me. I still don’t feel a day over 26 (except when I wake up), so I don’t see any reason why I should act it. With any luck I will remain 26 well into my sixties!

There was a poem at the end of the book by Channing that got badly misquoted. Since he is one of my favorite poets, I will conclude this post with the complete text of his poem.

My Symphony
By William Henry Channing (1810 - 1884)

To live content with small means;
to seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion;
to be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not rich;
to study hard, think quietly, talk gently, act frankly;
to listen to stars and birds, babies and sages with open heart;
to bear all cheerfully, do all bravely, await occasions, hurry never.
In a word, to let the spiritual,
unbidden and unconscious,
grow up through the common.
This is to be my symphony.

Process Painting

Thu, 31 May 2007 04:35:28 GMT

“I want you to draw a picture for me, anything you like, and then we will talk about it afterward.” My eight-year-old fingers grasped the oversized crayon as I drew a picture of a tree, grass, a bird and the sun. One cloud floated in the opposite corner, well away from the shining sun. My mother would have said it was a pretty picture. My therapist said quite a few other things, analyzing what all of my symbology meant to his years of training and experience. That was kind of thing I thought I might find at the Discover and Experience Process Painting seminar at the JFK University Campbell’s open house event. I was very wrong.

“I am not unique. I am not gifted. I am not talented… but I can do THIS!” proclaimed Maria Mattioli, M.S., MFT, the lecturer of our seminar. She shared with us her personal journey of self-discovery through the practice of process art. We saw a number of her paintings which, contrary to her statements on her talent, I thought were quite impressive. She described herself as an “art appreciative;” someone without any formal training who enjoys art and “knows what she likes when she sees it.” She works with high quality tempera paints on plain drawing paper, using her closet door as her easel. She paints about once a week, working on one painting at a time until its completion. She works while the art flows from her, stopping when the process gets blocked. She said she “cultivates” the mindset to allow her the freedom needed to work from her subconscious. She challenged us to “respect the flow of what you are doing,” and to “let the art direct itself.” Don’t worry if you seem to get stuck in a rut. Repetition, she said, is your subconscious trying to become an expressive form that keeps getting blocked. “If you keep painting the same flower over and over again, it means there’s something that’s not getting properly expressed… so keep painting flowers!” She warned us that you should never rip up your paintings or start over if it isn’t working out for you. That invalidates your feelings and plants in your mind “that what you are doing is not worth shit. (This is a college campus. You can say ‘shit’ here, can’t you?)”

When I asked her if we were going to analyze our pictures, she said, “The less you try to analyze your painting, the better off you will be. Analyzing invites the judging mind and wrecks the process.” She did admit that symbology, often recurrent, shows up in her paintings. She had many examples of her work hanging around the room from the time surrounding her mother’s death. Skeletons, the symbol of her attempt to deal with the reality of death, appears in almost all of those paintings, most prominently in her self-portrait from that time, which is her depicted as the skeleton. Sometimes it takes a while for her to understand why certain things show up in her work. For a while she was painting tropical scenes, seeds and other growing things. It wasn’t until a year later that she realized these growth forms were symbols of her internal struggles with her own fertility and whether or not to have children. Even so, she emphasizes that looking for meaning in the paintings is not the point of process painting. The idea is to become more in touch with the inner workings of your own mind. “When you become more integrated, more of a whole, you go out into the world in a whole new way… You have more confidence in yourself as a whole to deal with the things you find there.”

We were each given a piece of paper, along with a backing board to make it easier to write on. Oil pastels and wax crayons were passed around the room for everyone to choose their favorites. The woman next to me said that she wished she had closed her eyes to choose her colors, so that they wouldn’t interfere with her drawing. I saw the wisdom of her thoughts because I had naturally gravitated to my usual palette of blues and browns. Since these colors already have associations for me, it had the ability to direct my drawing.

The idea of process drawing is to allow yourself to draw without inhibitions or preconceived notions of what the drawing should be or look like. You are to draw “as a child would draw,” allowing the form to flow freely from your subconscious, without making any judgment about whether it is “good or right.” Most children start out this way, but as they grow older, they are told things which hold them back. They are told that their drawings don’t look as they should, or that the content isn’t acceptable, or that they have no talent. It is these critical judgments internalized that prevent people from being able to express their inner self through art. The trick is to get outside the “judging mind.” If you stop to criticize, find fault, or evaluate the work, you have lost the subconscious mind’s flow. The judging mind also causes creativity blocks. You may lose confidence in yourself, doubting your ability to paint or the worth of your efforts, even in doing the painting at all. Also, people often have a preconceived notion of what the drawing “should” look like before they begin. When the painting starts to change from what they had envisioned, they try to “fix” it or get frustrated with their perceived incompetence. They try to direct the painting, rather than letting it flow naturally. If you “try” to make something, the freedom of the process breaks down. The idea is to allow the painting to direct itself, “as if you had all the freedom in the world.”

After we had received our supplies, we were led through a relaxation exercise. With eyes closed, we took deep breaths, exhaling the stress in our bodies and quieting our minds. Once we were properly relaxed, we were directed to “begin with a very little something.” She said, “You have to start where you are… with your dot or your line, and allow your internal voice to have an expression.” I looked at my paper, and immediately decided that was a bad idea. My mind filled with pictures of what I “should” draw. I closed my eyes and focused again. Without opening them, I began to move my crayon around the paper, just making marks that felt good. By not looking, I didn’t worry about what I was drawing or how it might appear. Once I had loosened up a bit I opened my eyes again. I found a group of upward facing wavy lines, very different from what I had thought it might look like. I discovered that I had kept track of the lines and had a preconceived notion of what I thought it must look like. I had expected to see something like a tree, but what appeared was much more like a flaming torch. Again I had to refocus to get away from my preconceived ideas. What happened next surprised me. In the lower left corner of the paper I felt the desire to draw a circle. As I was drawing, the circle kept expanding and redefining itself in my mind. I could almost see the image drawing itself with my crayon trailing behind, making the image more prominent upon the paper. When that form had run out, I found that I had another desire to make a different image in the upper right corner. This turned out to be a series of zigzag lines following the widening of the corner toward my central design. I felt satisfied with that, but we were encouraged to keep our drawing implement moving. If we stopped drawing, there was a likelihood that our conscious mind would kick in, bring with it the evaluations we have been trained to use. By continuing to draw, even if we don’t have any direction, the creativity continues to flow, without giving yourself time to think about it. I went to the lower right corner and just started scribbling. To my surprise it looked just like the kind of grass I used to make in my childhood pictures. My mind was pleased and called it grass, and I drew some more. That left only the upper left corner. I put my crayon there, but couldn’t think of what to draw. Then I realized I was letting my thinking get in the way again. I refocused and just started moving my crayon in a way that felt good again. This scribble took on a likeness of a bird in flight, and my brain labeled it “bird.” The bird didn’t surprise me, as they are a recurrent theme in much of my work. What bothered me was that it had no eye. I had done an entire series of unicorns in junior high during a period when I was becoming increasingly introverted. I had taken to “playing deaf” when other people spoke so that I wouldn’t have to deal with them. None of the twenty-some unicorns had ears, and, although it wasn’t intentional, it was indicative of my feelings at the time. I was going to draw the eye in it’s logical location, but I realized that would defeat the processing nature of the drawing again, and I was beginning to enjoy having the drawing surprise me. I refocused and left the eyeless bird alone for a while. I added some more lines to my formless central drawing and some left and right curves in my circle, as dictated by my mind’s whims. I then felt that I should switch to the other color I had chosen. At first I just started following the lines of the previous color, but eventually new forms started appearing. Probably the best moment for me was when I looked at my bird-form and suddenly saw where the eye went and what it would look like. It was almost like tracing a line that had already been drawn for me, and it looked and felt “right” when I did it. It was much better and more natural than the one I would have drawn simply because I wanted the bird to have an eye. It actually belonged there. I have only one forced part of my drawing. A dark line, an extension of the upper right corner’s zigzag, touched one of the lines from my central figure, which has gone back to looking something like a tree on fire. I attempted to “fix” this problem by blending it with its connecting line. It is the only part that I don’t feel satisfied with. Yes, that’s the drawing in my portrait space. Sorry it’s so tiny, but it doesn’t loose much in its small size. The original was 10X16.

Another thing that startled me about this exercise was that, while I could, to a degree, suspend my judgment about my own drawing, I was still quite critical of my neighbor’s drawing. She drew a large black tree with an X through it while small, tortured looking stick figures crouched near its roots. I thought, “Wow! My old therapist would have a field day with that one!” I felt that she must have forced the drawing and that the X was correcting the “mistake” of the large tree. I was brought back down to ground when she voluntarily announced to the group that she was really quite pleased with the results of her picture. I was sure that she would have been upset that she had made such a large “mistake” that would have “destroyed” her drawing. Clearly I was wrong altogether, and I made a note to review how I wish to think about other people. That one slip-up on my part I found very revealing to me. I must work on my judgmental attitude.

Not everyone seemed to understand the concept behind process art. One woman I spoke to afterward said that she was very disappointed that she “couldn’t draw a leaf the way (she) wanted to.” She showed me her drawing and expressed her frustration that her leaves all looked like feathers when she was “trying to draw leaves.” I tried to explain to her that the point of the exercise was not to “try” to draw anything, that maybe her processing needed her to draw feathers instead. She angrily informed me that she wanted to draw leaves, so rather than have her angry with me as well as her drawing, I gave her a few pointers on how to draw realistic looking leaves. I figured that I wasn’t likely to get through to her any time soon if a professional couldn’t, and the tips made her happy. I spoke to another student whose drawing I had seen when we were cleaning up. I told him how impressed I was with his drawing and how the rips that had formed in the paper during the process, I considered part of the art (he had complained about his “being too rough” with the media during the process). He responded by signing his picture “RT07” and giving it to me. We had been told that we should keep the drawings that we had done tonight because we would want to look back on them. (Our speaker has never thrown any of her paintings away.) I tried to encourage him to keep his drawing for future reflection, but he was quite insistent. His drawing shows an excellent use of the media and dynamic expression, with multiple layers of images showing through each other. It is a very good piece, but I’m not sure what to do with it.

I stayed for a time after the lecture. There was a pitch afterward to go to the school, but I don’t have an interest in being an analyst of any kind. I still get bored too easily, so I waited in the hall for a while, hoping to ask Mattioli a few questions reguarding process painting on an individual’s self esteem. Unfortunatly for me, it was getting dark and I had to head home before she emerged. If you ever get a chance to attend one of her lectures though, I would highly recommend it. You might well be amazed at what you get out of it!

And So Receives the Giver

Thu, 17 May 2007 03:25:17 GMT

Depression, loneliness, and boredom are some of the modern man’s most vexing ills. The more acutely felt, the more likely the person is to withdraw from society. I’ve been there. With all the worries of the world weighing on your shoulders, about the last thing you want to do is go out and help your fellow man, and why should you? Haven’t they all abandoned you in your time of need? Actually, no, they haven’t. You have abandoned them by crawling into your shell of self-pity and despair. You may have even roughly sent them away in your fit of melancholy. After all, they might have cheered you up when you have so many more unhappy thoughts left to dwell on. It might be time to make it up to them. What? You’re too despondent to reach out to others? Unless you are really enjoying wallowing in your misery, helping your fellow man is the best way out.

When my husband left me, I was destitute. I really didn’t want to live. I mostly lay on my bed and cried. The more I thought about how horrible the whole thing was, the less I wanted to do anything else. I had a built in catch. I had a baby to take care of. She would toddle in and tug on my shirt. I would do whatever she needed from me, then go back to my morass of misery. Then one day she needed something that wasn’t a clean diaper or food. She needed a hug. I gave her one, and she gave me a new start in life. By focusing on her needs and others’ around me, I brought myself out of the downward spiral I had cast myself into.

When my next relationship burst into flames, I vowed that I wouldn’t spend a lot of time feeling sorry for myself. I didn’t. I spent most of my time being angry and badmouthing him to all of his friends. A funny thing was that, not only did I not feel any better or become any more productive, I made a lot of enemies that would have otherwise been my friends. While I was still floundering around, trying to figure out how to deal with my feelings, I met David. He was exactly what I needed at the time. He had a short tolerance for slander and a great capacity for charity. He gently reminded me that I had focused on the needs of others to get out of my depression the last time. It would work again. Now that my daughter was older and in school, I had too much time on my hand for self-indulgence. He took me to a homeless shelter in his area and informed me that there were people who could use the vast amounts of energy that I was currently using to keep myself inundated with gloom. My first job was to find a seven-year-old girl a pair of shoes. Better than that, I discovered a pair of Beauty and the Beast shoes just her size in the bottom of the donation barrel. She gave me a hug and ran off with her mother. I would have cried, but there was an elderly woman who needed a dress for an interview. The blue one looked especially good on her, and we even found a matching purse! I turned around and a man had brought in his three children to get school clothes. I was beginning to get good at this. I found them three “new” outfits each, plus work clothes for dad. I was about out of steam when it was announced that they needed someone in the cafeteria. It took me a few tries, but I actually did learn how to pass a bowl of stew under a sneeze shield without spilling. It took me a little longer to look at the person to find out if they actually wanted stew. By the end of my shift, I realized that most of the people were greeting me as they went by. Some even asked me if I was new and if I was planning on continuing to work here. I was stunned that they noticed me as more than a bowel of stew. I helped hand out blankets to those who were staying at the shelter and told a story to the children before bed. David took me aside when I was done and we had a long talk about what it means to be human. By the end of the day I was exhausted, but pleased. I went home and hugged my daughter and went to bed.

The next morning I got out of bed, but somewhere between the shower and the front door I remembered that I had been rejected again. I saw my daughter off to school and went back to mope in my room. Less than an hour later, I got a call. David said that he needed help washing and sorting the new donations that had just come in. I told him that I wasn’t up to it. I had helped yesterday, wasn’t that enough? “I don’t know. Are you still depressed? If so, then it wasn’t enough. Now get down here.” I went and had a wonderful time. I washed clothes and toys, changed linens, served lunch, and read stories to the preschoolers. After three days of this, I started looking forward to getting up in the morning. I would race to the shelter to see what they needed me to do today. I knew many of the clients of the shelter on sight, and a few even by name. The kids were glad to see me and eagerly gave me books to read to them. I was actually having fun. I had to quit in order to get a paying job, but I’ll never forget how wonderful these people were to me. Yes, I was the volunteer, there to help them, but I was the person who got the most help.

A year later I went to hike with the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society in order to raise money to fight these cancers. It was slightly more than a passing thought that I might meet someone new through this charitable organization. I liked helping people, and it would be nice to find someone with a similar disposition. It worked, after a fashion. About half way through training for the even, I got together with one of the kindest men I know. He wasn’t with the organization or going on the hike. He was someone I had known all along, but never really talked with much. While I was asking for donations, I mentioned that I needed someone to hike with in the local area. He volunteered and we got to know each other through the trails around the Silicon Valley. Before I left for the hike, we had formed a relationship that lasts to this day.

So here is my advice to anyone drowning in despair or drenched in self-pity: get yourself out of the house and find some kind of charity you can volunteer for. It doesn’t really matter what you do, as long as it gets our head out of your own problems and sets it to start solving someone else’s. You will be amazed at how quickly your own plight will dwindle into insignificance once you stop feeding it the energy and attention it needs to seem so insurmountable. I can guarantee that the benefits you get from caring for others will greatly exceed the effort you put into it.

The hidden support group

Tue, 15 May 2007 21:16:27 GMT

As I write this, I am sitting in a coffee shop, sipping a blended spiced chai. It is a coffee shop that I go to on a regular basis to study, do paperwork for my job, or just generally hang out. The barista says I am one of the regulars. I don’t know her name, and I doubt that she knows mine, but in an odd way we are somehow friends. There are other “regulars” here also. I recognize their faces and we nod to each other in greeting when we walk in. We don’t talk. We’re all here for our own business, and we tend to keep to that. I know the people mostly by what the barista calls out for them to get. The lady in the corner who always wears the Hawaiian print dresses is a double blended mocha. The guy who always rides his bike here and chooses the table in the middle of the room is the large spiced latte. The guy who sits against the wall and reads the paper cover to cover is an Earl Grey tea and blueberry scone. The young lady who sits at the table in the back is an extra large Colombian black. I guess any of them might identify me as “second table along the window, blended spiced chai.” I know only scant bits about them; Double Mocha is writing a book and Colombian Black is a law student at San Jose State. I’m always glad to see them and I worry when they don’t appear in their accustomed place for a protracted period of time. I am sure that I would come to their aid if they needed it, and I am reasonably sure that they would come to mine. The day that Spiced Latte crashed his bike on the way to the shop, we all rushed to him to tend his skinned knees and twisted ankle. Double Mocha once chased a guy out of Earl Grey’s chair when the stranger wouldn’t move voluntarily.

I was discussing the concept of the “familiar stranger” with my boyfriend, and he told me the following story that had happened to him several years ago.

“There was a guy who practically lived at the bar that my best friend and I used to hang out at. I never saw a day when he wasn’t there. He was a nice, older guy. You could tell that life hadn’t been very kind to him and he was here to drink away the pain. He was, perhaps, a little too sensitive to survive well in this world. He was a loner and always sat at the bar, while almost everyone else sat at the tables. He wasn’t unfriendly, though. He would join us in a game of darts from time to time. His name was Jake (name changed).

“One evening my friend and I were having a few beers when two guys came into the bar. They started going from person to person around the room. They were clearly looking for a fight. When they finally got to Jake, I guess they figured they had found their mark. Jake, a very seasoned drinker, had already put away a few pitchers of cheap beer and was beginning to get a little unsteady on his feet. The guys were harassing him and trying to get him to step out into the parking lot. Jake was doing everything he could to try to defuse the situation, but these guys just wouldn’t leave him alone. Jake was old-school, with the kind of pride that occasionally kept you in trouble if it came looking for you. You didn’t ask for help under these kind of situations, and he couldn’t accept any help offered without losing his dignity. I really wanted to help Jake, but I couldn’t think of anything to do that wouldn’t potentially make the situation worse or make Jake feel worse about himself afterward. Then I saw a guy stand up from his table a few seats away. He just pushed back his chair and looked at the guys harassing Jake. I thought, ‘Oh, yeah! That’s the way to do it,’ and stood up from my chair as well. My friend, who’d had his back to the situation turned around to see what was going on. As soon as he understood, he also stood up. One by one, people began to rise from their seats. No one actually did anything, they just stood by their chair and watched the two guys who were harassing Jake. By the time they noticed, easily two thirds of the very populated bar were on their feet, arms crossed, in silent solidarity supporting Jake. You’ve never seen two guys trying so hard to quickly, verbally backpedal out of a situation. They came up with some kind of lame excuse and backed out of the bar. A low chuckle went around the room and everyone went back to their seats.”

Even though we may not know their name or anything about their life, there may be friends out there that we never even thought about. The people we always see at the bus stop or on the train to work or school become familiar. The cashier at the supermarket who always checks our groceries or the gas station attendant who waves to us through the security window, now that we pay at the pump. We are creatures of habit, and the people who are habitually there become a part of the familiar, comfortable pattern. Without knowing who they are, we become fond of them, and hopefully they of us. Since we don’t truly become aquatinted, except in the most peripheral way, we might never know for sure, until we truly need a friend.

The following is an excerpt from "Epitaph for the Race of Man," by Edna St. Vincent Millay.

Sweeter was loss than silver coins to spend,
Sweeter was famine than the belly filled;
Better than blood in the vein was the blood spilled;
Better than corn and healthy flocks to tend
And a tight roof and acres without end
Was the barn burned and the mild creatures killed,
And the back aging fast, and all to build:
For then it was, his neighbor was his friend.
Then for a moment the averted eye
Was turned upon him with benignant beam,
Defiance faltered, and derision slept;
He saw as in a not unhappy dream
The kindly heads against the horrid sky,
And scowled, and cleared his throat and spat, and wept.

Victim mentality, forgiveness, and Spiderman

Tue, 15 May 2007 21:12:55 GMT

I just love it when current mass media so beautifully ties in with what I am studying. I just got done watching Spiderman 3 (now showing in theaters near you) and I couldn’t help analyzing the characters in it. In the first half of the movie, everyone is a victim seeking restitution for the wrongs done to them. Peter Parker needs to hunt down the man who killed his uncle (no, it turns out he didn’t off him in the end of the first movie), Peter’s buddy, Harry Osborn, needs to punish Spiderman for the death of his father (yes, he’s still doing that), and the Sandman needs to take out his aggressions on anyone who stands between him and the money he needs. We even have a brand new victim who needs to kill Spiderman (no surprise there either). The movie actually does a reasonable job showing how each victim envisions their wrong, and how that perception changes as new developments occur. Everyone is going off half cocked with only part of the information they need to make rational decisions and everyone is unwilling to listen or think much about it, lest it ruin their plans for some satisfying revenge.

The second half of the movie is all about forgiveness. Aunt May says at one point, “First you have to do the hardest part. You have to forgive yourself. Then you can go about setting things right again.” Each character in turn must forgive himself for the wrongs he has committed, generally by explaining his side of the story to the person he wronged (the women don’t seem to need to explain or forgive much of anything in this film). It’s more of an excuse than an apology, but it does get the person listening to something other than his own pain. This ends up having a kind of chain reaction, where the forgiver now must atone for his wrongs as well. No one seems to be willing to explain things to Marry Jane, but that’s the way these things go. In the end, the bad guys are killed or vanquished, the good guys have cleansed their souls, and peace and justice is restored, at least as far as our main characters are concerned. Sorry if I spoiled the ending for you.

Although it is a bit moralistically heavy handed (all of the Spiderman movies are), it does illustrate how quickly moral indignation crumbles in the light of a point of view other than your own. Once you start looking outside yourself and your own perceptions of how hurt you are, the pain doesn’t seem to last long. I had to do a fair bit of that myself not that long ago. I was really mad at a former lover of mine that I felt had taken advantage of me. I wasn’t really willing to take responsibility for my own thoughts or actions, mostly because I found it so much easier to blame him for these supposed wrong-doings. Blaming him was easy. Forgiving myself was hard. It was, however, impossible to heal from the event without coming to terms with what had actually happened, especially my part in it. I had to admit that it was my interpretation and unreasonable expectations of the events which caused the problems for myself, that it was my compromising my own morals and beliefs that actually caused me pain, and that I allowed these things to happen to me in spite of overwhelming evidence that I should have taken action to the contrary. It doesn’t really matter what his part in the whole thing was. I am only responsible for myself, but that responsibility is entirely mine. If there is any blame for him to have, it is up to him to look after his own. Once I came to know and understand the true nature of my injury, I attempted to apologize to him for blaming him in the first place. I am no master of words, and I have no idea if I even managed to have him understand what I had intended, but I did try. Whether he will forgive me or not will probably always be a mystery to me, but he doesn’t really have to. I have done what I can to forgive myself, and that has allowed me to move on.

Positive Anger?

Tue, 15 May 2007 21:10:04 GMT

“…negative anger leads to hostility and aggressive impulses – and to distress within oneself. Positive anger leads to motivation to alter the situation in a positive way based on assertiveness.” (Walt Schafer, Stress Management for Wellness, fourth edition, p. 380)

The above mentioned book defines anger in its glossary with both the positive and negative version. “Negative anger is a feeling, expressed or unexpressed, of hostility, aggressiveness, or a desire to hurt. Wanting to punish the source of frustration. Positive anger is the motivation to change or correct the source of frustration. Both are based on wanting something, not getting it, and being frustrated.” It sounds to me like there are really two definitions under this one heading. Anger, according to my 1963 Random House American College Dictionary, is defined as “a revengeful passion or emotion directed against one who inflicts a real or supposed wrong; wrath; ire.” Perhaps this definition is a bit outdated and has been replaced with the newer definition above, but it more accurately describes what I feel when I say I’m angry. Schafer’s definition of “positive anger” seems more like determination than actual anger. Frustration can lead to many emotions. I have felt depressed from being kept from what I desired. I have cried because I could not get what I felt I needed. I have also just shrugged and walked away, allowing that it either wasn’t meant to be mine or that I would likely have another chance to get one at a later time. More often in my life, frustration leads to a single-minded bullheadedness, which the kinder people refer to as persistence.

My experiences with what I refer to as anger have been much less then positive. For me, anger is a form of blindness. When I get angry, I stop looking at the facts. I don’t try to see other people’s point of view or try to figure out if there is a misunderstanding. I stop looking for answers and start looking for ways to express my displeasure. Anger will occasionally be a catalyst, something to kick me in the pants and get me to take action, but the action is never constructive unless I put my anger aside or replace it with something more useful. Anger can give me the energy, the fuel I need to launch a plan into action, but anger in and of itself has no ability to plan. The times that I have acted in anger have always been regrettable. Without a course of action I tend to lash out. I explode in a flurry of fists and foul language. I say things I don’t mean and haven’t thought through, and regret them for a long time to come. I don’t listen when I’m angry, not even to the people I would usually ask for advice. Anger doesn’t think. In order to use the energy that my anger has provided, I have to change gears. I need to take a deep breath and look at the problem objectively. If someone else has given me a plan, I might start on it blindly, but at some point during implementation my anger turns to persistence or determination. By the time I am engaged in the project, I am no longer angry. I have a direction and a goal and am driven by a fierce passion to correct whatever has gone wrong. This drive, fueled by the energy that my anger has provided, is what gets the job done.

Arguably there is no such thing as “positive anger” because the anger has been replaced by assertiveness, determination, and/or persistence in order to achieve those positive results. Assertiveness combined with anger leads to bullying, not constructive change. Schafer’s definition seems to indicate that if the result from getting angry is positive, then you have experienced positive anger. If the result of the anger is negative, then you have experienced negative anger. Since the only thing which determines the positive or negative aspects is the outcome, I would like to propose that the definition does not address the emotion, but only the conclusion.

I do not wish to discount anger. Certainly there have been people throughout history, like Gandhi, who felt that anger should be suppressed or done away with. I don’t entirely agree. Anger is clearly a natural emotion. It is primal and basic to much of life on earth. Animals express anger all the time. The trick is to not let it take over and control our thoughts and actions. Anger can build up an incredible supply of internal energy. Trying to suppress or ignore this energy seems to be detrimental to the individual. But expressing it unchecked can be dangerous, not only to the individual, but to those around him. There have been all kinds of attempts to direct the energy from anger. Some try to direct it into other parts of the person’s life, such as assertiveness in work or active sports. Others simply look to release it under controlled conditions, such as scream therapy or primal drumming. There are many meditation techniques to help you breathe the stress and energy away or to put it into use through controlled movement. It is a shame that the energy from anger doesn’t seem to be able to be stored for later use, like a battery. If it isn’t managed, the energy seems to leak out into other forms, such as a back ache or short temper. Ideally, you would relax to the point where rational thought is possible, analyze the source of the anger, then use the energy that the anger has provided to resolve the issue which caused it. Sometimes that isn’t possible, and sometimes the energy doesn’t last to see the completion of the project. If the irritant is persistent, the anger may take action before a reasonable plan has been formulated. Cleaning up the collateral damage is very sobering.

“Call for the grandest of all human sentiments, what is that? It is that man should forget his anger before he lies down.” Thomas De Quincey (1785 – 1859)

It’s Personal

Tue, 15 May 2007 21:04:26 GMT

“I think if I have one message, one thing before I die that most of the world would know, it would be that the event does not determine how to respond to the event. That is a purely personal matter. The way in which we respond will direct and influence the event more than the event itself.” – Virginia Satir (1916 -1998)

I will admit I was unaware, years back, how much my thinking changed my world. I remember being angry (I was angry a lot back then) and hearing people say, “Don’t be upset. It is nothing. It will all come out fine.” I can remember thinking, or saying, “How can you tell me not to be angry. It is a bad thing. Anyone in their right mind would be angry. I should be angry.” And I was.

A friend of mine said, “You seem depressed so much of the time. I think you should see someone about it.” The thing was, I didn’t feel depressed. I was at times hurt, angry, and sad, but I had a right to be, didn’t I? My emotions were real, not something like an allergy that you take pills for. I was a thinking, feeling human being. My emotions were not to be discounted as an ailment! I could understand it if I were upset without cause, but I had reasons for feeling the way I did. I was not overreacting! I was divorced and unloved by my current partner. I had a lousy job that didn’t pay enough for the stress it put me through. I had demands on me from all sides; from my child, my lover, my parents, my boss. There was never enough time for me to get myself together, and the demands became ever greater. Of course I was angry. Of course I was depressed. These things were real and I was reacting to them the way anyone would!

I cried, “I just can’t do this anymore. It’s all too hard!” I barely ate. Almost anything that the people around me did annoyed me, but no one listened when I yelled. No one did things the way they should be done, no matter what I did to change them. I remember thinking, “When they do an autopsy on my body, the doctors will all say how amazed they are that I was walking around for so long.” Living was more of an obligation than a choice. Life was evil and boring and not anything I would choose to do. I lived because the demands were too great. I didn’t have the time or energy to die.

I went to the doctor and he prescribed me a pill. It took away my emotions. I floated through life feeling nothing. I didn’t feel good or bad, I just didn’t care. I did what I usually did, but it meant nothing. I stopped taking the pill. It was better to be angry and sad and suicidal than to feel nothing at all. I went to an herbalist. She gave me some capsules. She told me that it would take about a month before I noticed any effect. She said that I couldn’t be on them forever because my liver wouldn’t take it. I would feel what it was like to be well, then I would have to learn how to feel that way on my own.

I took the capsule, three times a day with meals, for a month. I hadn’t noticed a change. It was too subtle. I went from slogging through life to simply walking. Because I had to eat, I did, but it didn’t sit in my stomach like a stone anymore. I went from school to work to daycare to home, but I had stopped dreading the routine. I hadn’t noticed a change, but it had happened. I didn’t feel angry, or depressed, or sad all the time. I actually smiled occasionally. Once or twice I laughed.

I remember the day I discovered the difference. I heard a crash in the living room, and ran in to find a broken lamp and my little daughter standing wide-eyed in terror, her hands clutched to her mouth in horror. “Oh, heck,” I said as I began to clean up the shards. “Well, it wasn’t one of my favorite ones anyway. Lamps are pretty cheap at the thrift store.” I looked up for a moment and saw my daughter, retreated into a safer corner. Her expression hadn’t changed. She was trying not to make a sound, waiting for the screaming, waiting for the anger, waiting for the punishment. I called her over and gave her a hug. “It’s ok,” I said. “It was an old one that someone had left behind when they moved. It was an accident. Tomorrow we will go to the second hand store and get another one. You help me pick it out, ok?” She relaxed a bit and nodded and I sent her off to play in her room. I cleaned up the mess and went to fix dinner. I stopped half way into the kitchen and turned to look where the lamp had fallen. I remembered the look on my daughter’s face. It occurred to me that a month ago there would have been screaming. There would have been blame. There would have been the sinking feeling that this was just one more lousy thing to pile onto a horrible day. After punishing my daughter for breaking the lamp, I would have gone in my room and cried. Instead I was making dinner and adding to my mental list for tomorrow to take my daughter lamp shopping. I was even looking forward to it in a strange way.

I could see both sides of me, the before and after, and I realized that the “bads” weren’t so bad, I had just thought them that way. No one had been hurt because the lamp had broken, and the dollar or so it would take to replace it wouldn’t keep me from paying rent. Before, it would have been the end of the world. I would have ruined a day over the death of a lamp I didn’t even like. The emotion was real, but it didn’t have to be. The lamp was broken, that didn’t change, but I didn’t have to feel awful about it. Sane and rational people didn’t have to get angry over the little things, or make them into big things. This was what it felt like to be well. I liked it!

Over the course of two months, I weaned myself off of the capsule, taking smaller doses every week. I took a deep breath the day I no longer had any capsules to take, and tried to fix in my mind how I felt when I had the herb to guide me. It took a lot of work, and I backslid occasionally, but I remembered how calm those few months felt. It is well worth the effort. The “bads” aren’t so bad now, and the “goods” are much better! It really is all in my mind. Things happen all the time, but how I deal with them is up to me. I can choose to be sad, to loose my temper, or I can choose to shrug and say, “Oh well, it doesn’t matter that much,” and move on to enjoy the rest of my life.

Where my writer went wrong

Tue, 15 May 2007 21:02:04 GMT

There is a thing in the psychological field known as a Life Script. It is a preconceived notion of how your life is going to progress, how you should act, and what you should want, which you set up for yourself during your childhood or early teen years. It is formed mostly from what you were taught by your parents, by society at large, and what you observed from the people around you. Most people have one, whether they know it or not. It runs in the background, giving you a formula for how to live your life. The problem with it is that it is static and resistant to change, even when the life script no longer works for you. It also allows you to react to things with little awareness or deliberate choice by having you blindly living out your preconceived notions of how to act, think or feel. It can make you miserable, often without knowing why, because you are “supposed to” want a certain kind of life that may not fit with who you truly are or the situations you find yourself in.

When I was five years old I already knew I wanted to have two kids, a boy and a girl, and that the girl should be born first. I wanted to be a veterinarian and live in the country. By the time I was eight, I knew that I would have a boyfriend when I was sixteen. When I was eleven, I had figured out that my boyfriend would propose to me when I was twenty so that we could be married when I was twenty-one. This would allow me to have my veterinary practice established for a few years before I had my children when I was 25 and thirty, respectively. Yes, I really did have all that figured out by the time I was eleven. I even had the boy I was going to marry picked out, although he didn’t know that yet. I was always a big one for plans. I believed that everything would be fine, as long as you had a plan. My father is very analytical and seemed to have a plan for everything. My mother always looked to him when things didn’t go the way they were supposed to, and he would tell her the plan he had to make everything better. Plans were good.

The problem was that the plan was absolute, without any ability to change or to adapt to change if something happened along the way. There are quite a few years between eleven and twenty and a lot can happen during that time. A lot did happen. When I was fourteen, the guy I had intended to marry died in a car crash. I found a new guy when I was seventeen. We were a poor match and he wasn’t at all what I had in mind, but he was fun and interesting and, above all, willing to get into a relationship with me. I hadn’t told him about the rest of the plan yet, but I was already behind schedule. Two days after my twentieth birthday I started pushing for marriage. I had already been hinting at it for a year, but he didn’t seem to be taking the clue. I gave him a ring to present to me “when the time was right” because I knew he was short on cash (I was also afraid that he would get a ring other than the one that I wanted. He and I had very different tastes). When he finally got around to proposing, I told him that I didn’t care when we got married, as long as it was before I turned twenty-two.

The baby was early and my graduation from college was late. I wasn’t in veterinary school either. My parents had promised to put me through college. What I didn’t know was that I wouldn’t be allowed to choose the major. Without any talent or desire, I was in a university art school. My parents told me that, as long as I had a degree in “anything,” the world would beat a path to my door. I neglected to ask if this worked with veterinary jobs. I had my daughter when I was twenty-three. I wasn’t going to graduate until I was nearly twenty-five. Now I didn’t know when to have my second baby. I wanted my children spaced five years apart, but I wasn’t scheduled to have the second one until I was thirty. It was a quandary that didn’t resolve itself until my husband handed me a divorce. Being a single mom was not in the plan.

A guy I’d had a crush on for a while took an interest in me. It seemed that the plan might work out in spite of everything. All I had to do was get him to marry me before it was time to have my second baby. The problem was that he turned out not to be the marrying kind. He also wasn’t the kind to settle down with just one woman or to like kids much. No matter how hard I tried, he wasn’t conforming to the plan. I had already had to drop my dream of being a veterinarian, and it looked like my minimum-wage job would never buy me a big house in the country, and this guy wasn’t likely to pop the question before I was past menopause. Something had to break. That something was me.

I had compromised a lot to try to follow my life script. I had given up a lot of morals and beliefs in order to try to make some ill-suited relationships follow what I believed I wanted. It was time for a new plan. I took two years off from everything I was capable of taking off from to try to figure out who I was and what I really wanted. I had failed to live “the ideal dream” and found myself without any real dreams at all. I broke it down into the basics of what I needed to survive; food, housing, transportation, and money enough to pay for it. It was my daughter who filled in the rest. I took her to the beach one day and watched her explore. She marveled over every pebble and shell. She stood in the serf and was mesmerized by the ebb and flow of the tide. Through her eyes I rediscovered the world. For the first time I could remember, I really enjoyed things for what they are at the moment, as opposed to what I thought they should become. I suddenly realized how much I had been missing. I had no plan, and I was happy anyway, something I had thought couldn’t happen. I lose track of it sometimes and get caught up in “should be’s,” but I generally seem to be happier without a grand plan to live my life by. I take things a day at a time and don’t plan much beyond getting the things done that I feel I need to do. I am in a wonderful relationship now and am able to just enjoy being with him, without feeling I need to fit him in to some kind of plan. Plans can be good, but life should be enjoyed!

Why I like junk

Tue, 15 May 2007 20:59:07 GMT

“Things are more and more transient. If you are like most people, you buy things, then discard them more quickly than your parents did. Consequently, you make and break emotional ties with things more often than people did 25 to 50 years ago. Each time you do, you must adjust.” (Schafer, pg. 254)

This might explain why I, and so many other clutterers, have had such a hard time letting go of things. Geared for an earlier time, we make more lasting emotional ties with the things we have, even though we no longer need or use them. Socially, we need to have the bigger, better, faster things in order to keep up with the speed and technology of the day. Old things become obsolete and aren’t compatible with the rest of society. Old ways are too slow and can’t meet the demands of a faster paced world. The problem is that we still see the value in the things we can no longer use. They still work perfectly well, performing the functions as they were designed to do. The old fashioned thinking (of 50 years ago or so) says that you only get rid of things when they are broken beyond repair. These things may work fine for their intended use, or only need one small part, inexpensive but impossible to find now, in order to make it as good as new. We remember the joy these things gave us when we got them. They were cutting edge, or close to it, when we paid our money for them, and we are reluctant to let them go, particularly while they are still “good.”

I have to wonder how much of this transitory thinking is bleeding into our dealings with people. Are we training ourselves to look at all relationships as transitory? Among my friends, most are divorced, some multiple times. Among my peer group I have seen a sharp increase in open relationships and marriages, and an upsurge in the polygamous lifestyle. People seem to spread themselves out, preferring lots of shallower relationships to fulfill their needs, than to “put all of their eggs in one basket.” I found it very difficult to find another person who was interested in a monogamous relationship.

When I was very young, it was common to go to school with the same kids year after year. It was big news when someone’s parents had to relocate in order to get or keep a job. I only remember it happening once through my entire elementary school years. People bought houses, settled down and put roots out into the community. They developed fast friendships and people grew old in the neighborhoods they had selected to start their adult life in. My parents still live in the same house that they bought two years before I was born. Today that’s extremely rare. I was told that, when I went away to college, I would form friendships that would last a lifetime. In truth, I only remember five people from my first run of college, and I haven’t heard from any of them since we graduated.

By the time I turned 18 and moved out of my parents’ house, I was already becoming aware of the transition. The people in my neighborhood, once an established community, had started to move away, and the people that replaced them didn’t tend to stay long. When I moved into my first apartment, I found that the people in my new neighborhood weren’t very interested in getting to know me, or have me know much of them. It was lonely and I didn’t end up staying long. When I got my second apartment, I was only there to attend the local college. I didn’t even try to make friends with my neighbors because I knew I would be moving as soon as I got my degree. My thought was that I would only be there for four or five years. Why bother to make friends when I was just going to leave again? It turned out that five years was a long time in that complex, and I was one of the most seasoned residents when I moved.

My marriage was brief and my employment spotty. I moved six times in three years. Things that were supposed to last a lifetime, or close to it, now are counted in months. Employment, organizations, and communities that we used to look to for stability are now unreliable and temporary. The truly sad part is that I have adjusted. I don’t get upset when my neighbors move, even though I like them. Moving for me is just a necessary hassle, but not an uprooting event. I don’t join the clubs and community activities that my mother relied upon for social interaction. They rarely last over four years. Either the group collapses or I have to move out of the area. I talk to my friends through email, though rarely see them face to face. My daughter keeps tabs on her friends through various journaling sites, and my extended family has chosen to blog rather than to mail the yearly newsletters. I’m not even sure where most of them live now. I will admit that I am a lousy corespondent. Has this all become so easy because we live in such a disposable society? Are we so used to throwing away our household items that we now throw out our friendships as well? It’s a hard price to pay for a transitory society.

Authentic Happiness

Tue, 15 May 2007 20:56:02 GMT

As I have mentioned earlier, I have been taking a lot of “happiness surveys” from a number of psychologically based sites. These surveys are supposed to help you quantify your happiness by pointing out areas in which you are doing well and bringing your attention to possible roadblocks which keep you from being as happy as you might wish. I know of two people who’s lives have been profoundly altered by this information. Based on the results they have changed their lives for the better, getting jobs better suited to their personality types and changing the dynamics of their personal relationships. So far they have mostly made me confused.

The problem I have with these tests, and nearly all tests like them, is that there isn’t enough gray area for me to accurately answer the question or that the answer is dependant on the circumstances surrounding the hypothetical situation. Often I find the wording of the question causes a conflict in my answer. For example, a question that reads, “I am comfortable with questions about meaning and purpose; I don’t feel a need to defend certainties or sacred truths.” My only answer choices are “True” or “False.” That doesn’t really cover it. I suppose I could address questions about my meaning and purpose in life, but I wouldn’t call it “comfortable.” I don’t feel a need to defend certainties or sacred truths mostly because I’m not sure I believe in them. Does that make my answer true? A large number of the questions contain phrases such as “I always…” or “I never…” and I am suppose to answer whether or not the statement is “like me” based on a five degree scale. I hate to say it, but I don’t seem to work in absolutes, and I don’t know many people who do. That would make me answer either to the extreme negative or very neutrally. Given those interpretive problems, I have attempted to answer as truthfully as I can based on what I think the question is getting at. Having said that, let’s move on to the tests themselves.

The four I will talk about in this journal page are from www.authentichappiness.org. You have to log in to take the tests, which will put a lot of people off, but they might just change your life. The information collected by the tests, in addition to possibly being useful to you, is also used by the organization to gain data on what makes a happy, satisfying life. I gave them a fictitious name, which I figure is fine as long as it continues to be used only me. The tests that I took are the VIA Signature Strengths Test, the Authentic Happiness Inventory, the Work-Life Questionnaire, and the Brief Strengths Test (a mini version of the VIA test). Below are my results, listed in reverse from the order I gave them above because I consider the VIA test to be the most significant. (It certainly was the longest!)

Brief Strengths Test – the self-ratings are compared to those of other users of this questionnaire. You are to answer the questions based on the last four months of your life. The test gives you six percentages for each category score. I have averaged them together for brevity. Creativity – 80%, Curiosity – 72%, Love – 78%, Appreciation of Beauty and Excellence – 73%, Gratitude – 56%, Humor – 59%.

Work-Life Questionnaire – I ranked a 5 in job satisfaction on a scale of 1-7, which was 69% of what the other test-takers said.

Authentic Happiness Inventory – I scored 3.13 on a scale of 1-5, with 51% of test-takers having the same score.

VIA Signature Strengths – My 24 are ranked in order from my strongest to my least strong and are based on a 240 question survey. For brevity, I will only list my top five, which are Curiosity and Interest in the World, Gratitude, Appreciation of Beauty and Excellence, Capacity to Love and be Loved, and Honesty. These results aren’t compared with other test-takers.

Well, there you are. What does it all mean? Darned if I know. You have to buy a book to interpret your answers, and I don’t plan on doing that any time soon. Still, it looks good, whatever it is or means. My friend, who changed his career path based on his results, looked at mine and said, “Wow! I don’t see anything here you could use to get a job, but, based on this, you sure are a cool person to know.” I can take that.

A Change in Perception

Mon, 16 Apr 2007 10:08:57 GMT

I’ve been taking a lot of stress and happiness tests lately as part of my research into stress reduction. Many of these tests are based on how I would react in a given situation. The thing that amuses me is that I answer each test as if I were two people; one as I am now, and one as I was six years ago. It is funny how change, even when it is something you are striving for, seems to creep up on you slowly. I wasn’t sure how much progress I had made until I started trying to actually evaluate my happiness. I knew I was much happier than I was six years ago, but I hadn’t quantified it until now. It, of course, also showed me how far I have left to go and what I still have to work on.

The most recent evaluation I took was on hardiness. People who can handle large clusters of rapid personal change without illness (either mental or physical) are said to be hardy. Hardiness is known by its three C’s: challenge, commitment and control. Anyone who thinks that it is impossible to change their outlook on life might be interested in my “then” and “now” answers to this hardiness evaluation.

Challenge:
· “Do you consider it natural for things to change?” Then: No. Things shouldn’t change. I like the way things are and I will fight to keep them that way. Now: Everything changes. Whether it is good or bad, change happens. Without change there is stagnation. Very little that is here today was here a hundred years ago, so trying to keep things frozen in time as it is now is silly. Old things must make way for new.
· “Do you anticipate change as a useful stimulus for creativity?” Then: Change means that the things I like are going to be gone or altered so that I can’t have them any more. I want my comfort to be preserved. Now: Change does take away the familiar, but it also opens up the way for new and potentially better things and experiences. Even walking was new once. If we are the sum of our experiences, why would I want to stunt my own growth?
· “Do you thrive under conditions of challenge, difficulty, and adversity?” Then: No. Adversity in particular is to be avoided. I already have to work too hard. Everyone else’s life looks so easy. My life should be easy, too. Now: Actually, I’ve already had quite a bit of adversity in my life, and dealt with it as a matter of course. I’m not saying that it was fun, but, looking back on it, I really learned a lot and I see it as a necessary step to get where I am today.
· “Do you turn change and difficulty into opportunity and challenge?” Then: No. I try to force things back the way they were or the way I think they ought to be. Now: Some change isn’t difficult enough to be a challenge. All difficulty can be considered a challenge.
· “Do you rise to the occasion?” Then: No. The occasion lands on my head and crushes me. I can only do my best to overcome it. Now: I’m still not sure how well I rise to the occasion, but occasions don’t seem to crush me to the floor like they used to. Perhaps my occasions aren’t as devastating as they used to be, or maybe I just deal with them better now.

Commitment:
· “Do you find it easy to be contented in whatever you are doing?” Then: I’m not given the option of contentment. I do what I have to do because it needs to be done. There is no other choice. Now: I actually have more control over what I do these days, so I am more contented in my work and other activities. The people in my life have also made what I do more fun, either by introducing me to new fun things to occupy my time or just by being there and keeping my spirits up while I do some of my less-fun tasks.
· “Do you do what you love and love what you do?” Then: I do what is necessary. I don’t have time for anything else. Now: I’m doing well enough now that I can pick and choose to a degree what I do and who I work for. I really like all of my clients, so doing any kind of work for them seems fun and challenging.
· “Are you rarely at a loss for things to do?” Then: I’ll say! I have so much to do that I rarely have time to sleep! Now: I still have a lot of things to keep me busy. It might take the rest of my life to finish up all of the projects I have started over the years, but I have that lifetime to work through them. New opportunities present themselves all the time. The hard part is choosing which one to do next.
· “Do you make a maximum effort?” Then: Everything I do require my maximum effort in order to get it done. I’m at full throttle for as long as I am awake or I fall behind. Now: I like doing things to the best of my knowledge and ability, but I have found that I occasionally have to say ‘that’s good enough’ in order to get everything done I want to do without burning out or falling behind.
· “Do you do things zestfully?” Then: What the heck is that supposed to mean? Now: What the heck is that supposed to mean? (Ok, not everything has changed.)

Control:
· “Do you believe that you can influence events and your reactions to events?” Then: My reactions to events are honest and true. Things happen to me and I react to them. That’s the way it works. Some things I can change, others I can’t, but I react to them as anyone would. Now: I don’t take things so hard now and it helps me deal with the events over which I have less control. ‘Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity.’ I may not be able to influence others, but I am ultimately responsible for my own thoughts and actions.
· “Do you reflect on how to turn difficult situations into opportunities?” Then: I just try to get through a difficult situation as best I can. Afterward I may try to figure out how I can avoid encountering this situation in the future. Now: If I am in the middle of a difficult situation, I don’t always think to look for opportunities. After I have dealt with the situation, I try to figure out what I have learned from it so that I can use it in the future. Everything has a lesson you can learn from. You just have to find it.
· “Do you have a strong sense of initiative?” Then: I do what I have to in order to provide for my family. I don’t go looking extra challenge. Now: I still don’t have a lot of initiative, but I do like trying new things. I mostly rely on my friends and family to introduce me to new things and ideas. If I come across something that intrigues me in my travels, though, I will generally stop and find out more about it.
· “Are you slow to give up on a challenge?” Then: I will fight when I am right. I won’t be falsely accused or belittled. If I am told I can’t do something, I will do my best to prove them wrong. Now: I still don’t like to be told I can’t do things, particularly if the reason is that it doesn’t fit with what other people think I should be. I think I must really enjoy a challenge because I will work on a problem until I find the answer, even waking up in the middle of the night to try my latest theory. I like to work challenges on my own, asking for help only when I am irrevocably stuck. I will still work on a problem long after I needed the answer. I might actually be too driven. I tend to beat a dead horse into chutney.

Learned Helplessness

Tue, 03 Apr 2007 20:08:20 GMT

Stupidity is said to be doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. But how many times do we get a result and expect that it will stay that way forever, without ever trying?

When a baby elephant is trained to become a work animal, they shackle it to a strong post with a heavy chain. The baby elephant is encouraged to try to break the chain, but it cannot. Eventually it gives up. When it grows up and has completed its training, it is given a beautiful golden anklet with a thin, decorative chain. The elephant could easily break the chain and escape, but it has learned from its early training that it is useless. The elephant can even be trained to pull up the spike that the chain is attached to and reposition it on command, but the elephant never tries to break the chain or escape.

When I was a sophomore in high school, there was a drinking fountain near the athletic field that did not work. When I was a senior, a bulldozer was hired to remove the drinking fountain. My friends and I went out to watch and commented that we were glad to see it go since it never worked anyway. “What are you talking about,” the workman said, “I fixed this drinking fountain over a year ago. It works fine. I was told to take it out because no one ever uses it.”

As you can probably guess, I was pretty fascinated by the concept of learned helplessness when it came up in class. I wondered, “ How many things have I learned incorrectly over my life? How many things that I thought were unchangeable are actually caused by running into the same results enough times to make me give up? How many things have I left unquestioned because I failed to test their value? How much in life do I pass up because the answer would be too easy, so I don’t ever look for it?” Elephants and I are not the only ones with Learned Helplessness problems. Here is some clinical research I found on the subject.

“Learned Helplessness - In psychology, a mental state in which a laboratory subject forced to bear aversive stimuli becomes unable or unwilling to avoid subsequent applications, even if they are “escapable,” presumably through having learned that situational control is generally out of one's hands. Experiments, first on dogs and later on humans, led some researchers, including Martin E.P. Seligman (b. 1942) in Helplessness (1975), to believe that chronic failure, depression, and similar conditions are forms of learned helplessness.” (Encyclopedia Britannica Online - http://www.britannica.com/ebc/article-9369901)

“Hirito and Seligman (1975) assigned subjects to one of three groups. Group one was exposed to loud noise that could be terminated by pushing a button. Group two received loud noise but had no control over its termination. Group three received no noise. In the second session, all three groups were exposed to loud noise that, unknown to them, could easily be stopped by pushing the button. The ‘controllable’ and ‘no noise’ groups quickly discovered how to stop the noise and did so. By contrast, the ‘uncontrollable noise’ group failed to discover how to stop the noise and instead passively endured it. They had ‘learned’ – quite incorrectly – that the noise was uncontrollable.” (Stress Management for Wellness, Fourth Edition by Walt Schafer - p. 214)

“A similar experiment was done with people performing mental tasks in the presence of distracting noise. If the person had a switch that would turn off the noise, his performance improved, even though he rarely bothered to turn off the noise. Simply being aware of the ability to do so was enough to substantially counteract its distracting effect.” (Helplessness: On Depression, Development, and Death By Seligman, M.E.P. (1975). ISBN 0-7167-2328-X)

The discovery of Learned Helplessness came as quite a surprise to the scientists who first observed it. The original experiment was to observe a Pavlovian response in dogs to negative stimulus. Pavlov noticed that, when a dog was given a treat following the ringing of a bell, the dog would salivate just by hearing the bell. Seligman wanted to see if a dog could be conditioned to fear a sound that preceded an unpleasant event. To test his theory, he put a dog in a hammock such that he could not escape. The dog was then subjected to a tone, a bright flash of light, and then a “harmless” electric shock. Once it was clear that the dog associated the sound and the flash with the electric shock, he was taken out of the hammock and placed in a room. Dividing the room was a small fence that could be easily jumped by the dog. The dog was subjected to the tone and the flash. It was expected that the dog would jump the fence to safety, but the dog did nothing. The floor of half the room was covered with an electrified mat and the experiment was repeated with the dog sitting on the mat. The tone sounded, the light flashed, and the mat on the floor gave the dog an electric shock. The dog only looked uncomfortable and whined, but did not try to escape. Subsequent test subjects behaved in the same way. The dogs had learned to anticipate the electric shock, but not to escape from it. The dogs had learned that the shock was inevitable and that they were powerless to stop it. The dogs learned helplessness.

As cruel as this sounds, these findings have been instrumental in helping therapists deal with people who suffer from depression, chronic failure, and with infant-trapped families.

My Essay Answers

Tue, 03 Apr 2007 16:19:03 GMT

It might be considered cheating, but I wrote all of these essay answers for the test and no one is going to see them but for the two that actually made it onto the test. I figured I could subject you to them here.

*Briefly describe four common myths about stress and explain why they are myths.*

According to the book Stress Management for Wellness, by Walt Schafer (fourth edition), there are ten common myths about stress. I am going to list all of them here, along with the statement that dispels them, because I don’t know which will be most useful on the test.

a. "All stress is bad." Stress can be helpful as well as harmful. Positive stress can provide zest and enjoyment, as well as attentiveness and energy for meeting deadlines, entering new situations, coping with emergencies, achieving maximum performance, and meeting new challenges. In moderation, stress is useful. Even in large doses, it is often appropriate and vital.
b. "The goal of stress management should be to eliminate stress." Stress cannot and should not be eliminated. As Hans Selye, father of this field, has stated, only the dead are free of stress. Arousal is part of life. The goal of stress management should be to control stress so it turns into harmful distress as infrequently and as briefly as possible.
c. "The “good life” should be free of stressors." Stressors, demands on mind or body, are an ever-present part of existence, just like stress. It is vital, insofar as possible, to control stressors and your interpretations of them so they are now overburdening in intensity or number. But fulfillment of human potential, in fact life itself, depends on exposure to appropriate kinds of stressors.
d. "The less the stress, the better." Not necessarily. The more arousal the better when facing challenges or emergencies, up to a certain point. Stress mobilizes for action, shapes interpretations of events, and heightens attention. The less distress the better, since by definition distress is harmful.
e. "A person can always adapt to difficult circumstances if he or she tries hard enough." This belief is false on two counts. First, each person has limits of adaptability. If physical, social, or psychological pressures exceed your upper stress limits for an extended period, wear and tear will lead to eventual breakdown. This state of resistance gives way to the stage of exhaustion. Second, “trying harder” is not always the answer to distress. The opposite may be true, in that activity needs to be alternated with rest and recovery.
f. "Some people are destined by their heritage to be highly stressed." It is true that to some degree genetic and social background can affect resistance and vulnerability to pressure. But environmental and biological inheritance sets only very broad limits, except in cases of severe mental or physical handicaps. Whatever the background, most people can take personal responsibility and constructive steps, which can dramatically increase the ability to handle and reduce stress.
g. "Distress has only harmful effects." By definition, mental and physical distresses are harmful to the self and others. Yet even intense distress can have positive side effects – learning about the self and others, a new beginning, or a renewed relationship with someone, for example. (Dafter, 1996; Remen, 1996).
h. "Physical exercise drains energy that otherwise might be used to cope with stress." Moderate, progressive physical exercise increases energy through the body’s marvelous adaptive process. The claim “I don’t have enough energy to exercise; I need it to meet the demands of my life” is a hollow excuse without foundation in the reality of exercise physiology. The only exceptions are when a very hard workout might leave one temporarily too tired to cope well, when recovering from illness, or during the early weeks of exercise after a long period of sedentary living.
i. "Meditation is cultish, anti-Christian nonsense." Some forms of meditation indeed are associated with gurus and cults. But meditation itself is a highly effective method of controlling stress by means of quieting the body (releasing the relaxation response) with repeated mental focus, such as a silent sound, word, or thought. Research clearly shows that deep relaxation through meditation is effective in preventing and reducing stress-related illness and psychological disorders. It is important to assess meditation as a method separately from any persons or organizations that might promote it.
j. "Stress affects only adults." Stress is part of everyone’s life, young or old. Children and adolescents experience the same responses as adults and run the same risks of distress illness. Therefore, the guidelines and techniques presented in this book apply equally to persons of all ages.

*Discuss and illustrate five steps suggested in the text for overcoming procrastination.*

Again, since I don’t know which will be the most useful during the test, I will present all ten techniques for overcoming procrastination presented in our book.

a. “Knockout” Technique – The harder and more distasteful a task is, the more quickly it would better be done: so do it immediately.
b. Small Sequential Steps – When you procrastinate on a task, break it down into smaller, manageable parts, and set yourself the goal of doing a small step by a specific deadline. Once you have finished one step, do the next one.
c. 5-Minute Plan – Take a task you have been procrastinating at, and work a minimum of 5 minutes on it. Once you have finished 5 minutes, then you can set yourself another 5 minutes and then another.
d. “Work First” Approach – Identify the most difficult part of the task, and do it first.
e. “Remember Forgetting” Technique – Whenever you remember a task you keep forgetting to do, do it – or at least some of it – immediately.
f. “Swiss Cheese” Method – Do anything at all that is connected to the task you want to accomplish. Gradually eat large chunks or holes in the task until it becomes easier to do.
g. Self-Reward – Reward yourself with something pleasant when you have finished any difficult or onerous task.
h. Self-Punishment – Penalize yourself by depriving yourself or forcing yourself to do something you do not like until you finish the task.
i. Cost-Benefit Analysis – Make a list of all the good things that will happen if you stop procrastinating on an important task, and review the list regularly. List all the miserable results of your procrastination, and review that list each night before bed.
j. Stimulus Control – Make as many changes in your environment as necessary to remove distractions, ensure privacy, become neater, and have important materials on hand.

*Explain the general adaptation syndrome, together with its usefulness in understanding human stress.*

Generalized Adaptation Syndrome (GAS) is Hans Selye’s theoretical model of the body’s response to sustained stress, which includes a sequence of three stages: alarm, resistance, and exhaustion.
During the alarm reaction the body is immediately prepared for direct, decisive physical action (the fight-or-flight response), largely through instantaneous activation of the sympathetic nervous system, sometimes before the person is even aware of the stressor. Large amounts of glucose and oxygen are supplied to organs most active in warding off danger, such as the heart, the brain, and the skeletal muscles. The body often is temporarily set back as it fights to restore internal balance. The physiological responses during the alarm reaction include enlargement of the adrenal cortex, enlargement of the lymphatic system, and an increase in hormone levels, such as epinephrine, leading to high physiological arousal. The behavioral responses include increased sensitivity to changes in stressor intensity and increased susceptibility to illness. If the alarm stage is prolonged, the person moves into the resistance stage.
As the body mobilizes additional resources, largely through arousal of the stress hormones, the stage of resistance ensues. The body and mind cope with the difficulty in a sustained way, usually quite effectively. We can see the physiological responses to this stage in the shrinkage of the adrenal cortex while the lymph nodes return to normal size, although the high hormone levels continue. The parasympathetic branch of the autonomic system attempts to counteract the high arousal levels. Behaviorally, the sensitivity to stress in increased as the individual attempts to endure the stressor and resist further debilitating effects.
If the stressor is too intense for too long, however, the body’s adaptive reserves begin to become depleted, at which time the stage of exhaustion begins. At this stage, wear and tear is progressive. Stress becomes distress, and illness is likely. The type of illness will be determined by particular weaknesses in the individual’s organ system. The lymphatic structures become enlarged or dysfunctional, or both. Hormone levels are further increased or maintained at high levels while adaptive hormones are depleted. The individual’s resistance to all stressors is reduced and the individual often becomes depressed. The person becomes physically ill and, in extreme cases, may die if the severe stress continues.
The good news is that humans are incredibly adaptable. Like athletes training for an Olympic event, incremental amounts of stress can teach the body how to handle a stressful situation over time, such as moving to a new town or starting a new relationship. As you adapt to the new event, coping with it becomes easier and your stress levels associated with it go down. It is important to note, however, that people often delude themselves into thinking that they are adapting to a stressful situation, when they are, in fact, living for a protracted period of time in Selye’s stage of resistance. The tell-tale signs that you are merely coping rather than truly adapting are increased health problems, irritability, and constantly feeling run down. Stress levels stay elevated, but we become “comfortable” with these high levels of stress. This is often the case when someone is stuck in a bad marriage or a demanding but unrewarding occupation. Eventually exhaustion kicks in and the person “crashes” from the wear and tear on their system. It may take a while, sometimes years, to reach the exhaustion stage, depending on the individual’s personal adaptive reserves.

*What is known through research studies about the effects of regular practice of meditation?*

Meditation is the practice of quieting the mind and entering a state of deep relaxation. It is often associated with religious or spiritual beliefs, but this is not necessarily the case. The purpose is to slow the jumble of thoughts that typically run through the mind during a regular day, often by repeating a sound, word or phrase in your mind as a means of focusing your thoughts onto a single task. This gives the mind a greater chance to relax and recuperate from the day’s events.
Since 1970, thousands of careful studies have been conducted on various forms of deep relaxation and meditation. They show a number of specific benefits, including the following:
1 Increased measured intelligence
2 Increased recall, both in long-term and short-term
3 Better “mental health” (decreased anxiety, depression, aggression, and irritability and increased self-esteem and emotional stability)
4 Greater perceived self-actualization or realization of potential
5 Better academic performance in high school and college
6 Improved job performance
7 Improved job satisfaction
8 Improved athletic performance
9 Better mind-body coordination
10 Increased perceptual awareness
11 Normalization of blood pressure
12 Relief from insomnia
13 Normalization of weight
14 Reduced drug abuse
15 Decreased chronic pain
There are also studies which suggest that regular meditation can reverse the effects of coronary artery disease, and that mass meditation can benefit a community by improving the well-being of the surrounding environment (lower crime rates, heart attacks, suicides, and accidents).

*Distinguish between guilt and shame and give examples of each.*

Guilt is regret and self-reproach over the belief that one has done (or will do) something wrong or inadequately. It results from the perception of falling short of expectations from the self or others.
Shame is feeling disgraced or humiliated, especially in the eyes of someone considered to be important. Shame is based, first, on an internalized image of what others expect, and, second, on the perception that one has fallen short in other’s eyes.
The important difference between shame and guilt is that, with guilt, there is an action impulse to make amends, atone, or even seek punishment, whereas the action tendency with shame is to hide or avoid others in order to minimize the perceived damage to one’s image with others. Guilt can be beneficial as a drive to repair the perceived damage or to keep it from happening, where shame is almost always debilitating. Guilt can be assuaged, but shame is believed to be unforgivable.
If you break someone’s prized vase, guilt may make you seek out a replacement, as well as apologize to the owner. Guilt can run amok, however, if you can never seem to atone for the transgression.
If someone you respect tells you to be careful of their prized vase, and you break it anyway, you may try to hide and avoid the owner out of shame. This shame can last a lifetime, without any chance to “make good” of the accident.

*Imagine you needed to write a brief and clear description of Type A behavior for someone who knew nothing about it. What would you write?*

The Type A personality is an aggressively driven and highly competitive personality type. An individual with a Type A personality is very focused and tends to expect perfection from himself and others. He takes on a large workload, often more than would be reasonable, and leads a highly demanding lifestyle. He is often striving for "the next level," rarely stopping to enjoy the fruits of his success at having achieved the level he has already reached. He is often very productive, attempting to outperform his coworkers. He pushes to "win" in whatever kind of competition he may be in, whether it is in sports or an argument with a friend.
There are some drawbacks to being a Type A personality. Type As often suffer from low self esteem and an insecurity of status, feeling that they have to "prove" themselves constantly in order to keep their place and not appear weak. They often suffer from "hurry sickness," a time urgency disorder which compels them to try to get more out of the hours in a day than is possible. The Type A is always rushing, trying to do many things at once in order to accomplish everything as quickly as possible. Even when there is nothing to do, the Type A feels driven to do something productive and even pushes his relaxation time to get the most out of it. A Type A personality may be hyperaggressive, going beyond simply striving for high goals to wishing to dominate everyone around him, without concern for the people he may harm or offend. He can tend toward being perpetually agitated, having a permanently indwelling anger that comes out at the slightest problem or offence. This free-floating anger may lash out at anything, from annoyance of a person who lives a more relaxed lifestyle to a noise that is "too loud." Living this intense lifestyle may lead to a drive for self destruction. The constant stress of overachieving without being able to enjoy the rewards leads to a feeling of entrapment and helplessness that the Type A person often doesn't even notice in himself until he is forced, by disease or illness, to slow down. Often they welcome the event of a heart attack or stroke because it gives them a faultless excuse to slow down and break out of their hectic lifestyle. Due to the constant levels of stress in their lives and the anger and resentment they often have for others, Type A people are prone to coronary artery disease and heart attacks.

*Can Type A behavior be changed? Present evidence.*

Type A behavior can be changed, as long as the person in question is willing to make the change. A blend of behavioral and attitude-changing methods, coupled with learning relaxation techniques has been very effective in reducing Type A behavior. These techniques include heightening the awareness of Type A behavior and of the physiology of stress in general, learning both brief and deep relaxation techniques, time management strategies, steps for redefining situations so that they become less irritating, and methods of handling anger more effectively.
A recent report by Moller and Botha (1996) shows that a rational-emotive therapy program as brief as nine weeks succeeded in reducing Type A behavior, especially its time urgency component. Friedman and associates studied more than 1,000 post-heart-attack patients in California (Friedman et al., 1984; 1986) to find out if Type A behavior could be changed and if doing so would reduce the risk of a second heart attack. Nearly 80% of an experimental group who completed monthly behavior-change groups over a three and a half year period did show measurable reductions in Type A behavior and reduced their incidences of repeat heart attacks by one half, compared with two control groups.
Schafer (2000) conducted a study over several years at the Enloe Hospital Stress and Health Center of several hundred community residents which have taken his class aimed at reducing Type A behavior. This class met in groups of ten to fifteen persons every other week for ten sessions. Several positive findings emerged among persons who had completed the class and filled out both pre- and post-measurement questionnaires. Type A behavior did appear to change, the stress level seemed to decline markedly, health habits seemed to improve, participants seemed to become less easily irritated and angered, quality of life seemed to improve, and participants seemed to experience less stress associated with time. He points out that he had no control group, so these observations are more subjective than the others, but still significant.
In 1985, Friedmen and colleagues (Gill et al., 1985) sought the cooperation of the U.S. Army War College to see if behavior changes could be made in people who had not had a heart attack. Half of a group of healthy, middle-aged career officers who volunteered for the study were assigned to a control group and received no special instruction. The other half participated in classes over a nine-month period aimed at reducing Type A behavior. Again, a significantly higher percentages of those in the experimental group decreased their Type A patterns. Of interest is that their colleagues reported no adverse effects on the subjects' work performance - allaying the apprehension that to reduce Type A qualities would endanger one's chances of a successful career.

A little too relaxed

Tue, 03 Apr 2007 16:08:19 GMT

I’ve spent a lot of time and energy trying to learn how to handle stress with a fair amount of grace. I have tried to learn how to stay relaxed when demands are being made upon me and how to handle pressure without panicking. Clearly I still have a lot to learn.

The class was given eight essay questions to study for the midterm. Two of these questions were to be part of the test itself. The test was to be open notes, but not open book. This, to me, sounded like a piece of cake. I don’t think well under pressure, but I figured that, if I wrote all of my essay answers into my notes, the hardest part of the test would already be done.

I started working on my answers the day after I received them, but only managed to get two of them done. The weekend was busy, but I managed to get two more done before it was over. I finished the fifth on Monday after work. Tuesday I got one more done between classes. I was going to get the last two finished Wednesday evening in preparation for Thursday’s test, but I didn’t even get them started. Much to my delight, the class that comes just before the one with the midterm had been canceled. Two hours and fifteen minutes extra to work on the essays! That’s where things started to go wrong.

I went into the writing lab and sat down at a computer. I decided that I didn’t need to set an alarm because the computer would have the time displayed in front of me. I didn’t check the computer to see if it had the correct time. Most of the computers I work on get their time from the Internet anyway, so there isn’t usually a reason to check. It takes me a long time to write, even though I touch type. I finished the seventh essay question and looked at the time on the computer. I still had over an hour to write my last question! Full of confidence I continued to type. I proofread my work several times and submitted a request to have my answers reviewed by one of the tutors. I even got selected by one of my favorites, a teacher from the English department! I asked her to look at my work on the computer, but she was in charge that day and could not turn her back on the room. I would have to print it out and, since the whole thing was over sixteen pages long, I would have to print it out at the pay printer. I saved my work and took my portable drive to one of the computers in the main computer lab that is hooked up to the pay printer. I loaded it onto the computer and sent it to print, then put my student body card into the printer so that it could charge me for the job. The icons on the printer screen are large. So is the time display. I stared at it, bewildered, for a while, and then it finally sunk in. When the printing job was over, I ran back into the writing lab and looked at the computer I had been using. According to it, I still had nearly a half an hour before class. I asked the teacher what time she had. Her watch said nearly a half an hour past class time. An old proverb says, “A man with one clock knows what time it is. A man with two clocks is never sure.” I dug my cell phone out of my pouch, which gets its time from the network, and looked at it. Over a half an hour past my midterm! I thanked the English teacher, but informed her that I was already quite late. I forgot to sign out as I left.

I ran to class and came in the side door. I had been a teacher before and, while I disliked it when students came in late, I liked it even less if they distracted the class while doing it. I was trying to bring as little attention to myself as possible while getting to my seat. The problem was that my seat wasn’t where I’d left it. It was turned sideways among a jumble of other desks. I then discovered what a creature of habit I am. I waded through the other desks to my own, rather than sit at the one closest to me. Since I had gathered my belongings in a hurry, I was a bit disheveled. My open backpack hung strangely from one shoulder and knocked over one of the desks I was passing by. So much for a silent entry. I got out my binder and my notes and looked around for a test. There wasn’t a pile of them out where I could get one, so I walked to the front of the room, the last place I wanted to be. I whispered, “sorry,” as I was handed the test and went back to my seat. I went through the true/false and multiple-choice questions fairly quickly, and then on to the much belabored essay questions. The chosen questions weren’t either of the ones I had written today. I could have skipped them both and been fine, but I had no way of knowing that. I wrote. My penmanship isn’t the greatest, so it took a while to copy the answers out of my notes into the required bluebook. I didn’t notice that everyone else had finished until the last person passed in front of me. The clock said I still had an hour of class time, but I had missed any introduction he may have given about time schedules. I apologized and said that I had only one paragraph left to write. It was true, but it was also the longest paragraph in either of the essays. I was about half way through the paragraph when I was told that I had only ten minutes left. “Ten minutes. Ok. I’ll be done in ten minutes,” I said with absolutely no confidence. I was to bring it to his office when I was done. I asked what the office number was, and he said, “Gee… 206, kay.” I dutifully wrote down 206K. He left and I finished with only two minutes to spare. I had never been to a teacher’s office before and I didn’t know the building number. I brought out the map of the school and looked for the “K” building. It was all the way across campus! I trotted over to it, only to discover that it was the daycare building. I ran around for a while looking for something that looked like offices before I finally pulled out my binder to look for his number. Next to his office extension was his office room number: General Education Building – G206K. Even out of breath I came up with some colorful expletives that would surprise my mother. I called his number and explained my mistake and begged him not to leave. I was on my way. I ran all the way around the outside of the building looking for the lettered offices, then up the stairs. I found 206 A-I without any problem. I was getting ready to chew my own arm off if it would lead me to 206K. “Where the heck is K?” I finally gasped. A nice man, built like a line backer, emerged from an office behind me down a corridor that I hadn’t seen. “May I help you, miss?” he asked. I was out of breath and out of brain cells. I couldn’t remember who I was looking for so I just squeaked out “K?” Luckily the person I needed to get my test to stepped of the doorway behind him. “Ahhh!” I exclaimed, and handed him the papers, thanking him again. “May I have your binder?” he asked. Have I mentioned that I was out of brain cells? I couldn’t think why he would want it, but I figured I owed him. I offered him my rather jumbled binder. “No, I mean your homework folder.” Ah, now it all came clear to me. I took out my homework folder and handed it to him apologizing again. I figured I owed him a few more apologies.

Society vs. Emotions

Tue, 03 Apr 2007 16:01:50 GMT

I had the opportunity to speak with a clinical psychologist about the Type A personality in an informal setting. She mentioned that some people who do not normally express a Type A personality might temporarily exhibit Type A traits. This unusual behavior often had to do with unexpressed losses. The person would return to their more natural personality traits once the loss was properly acknowledged and grieved. This got me wondering how many Type A personalities society has created out of our intolerance of strong emotions? As a society, we encourage repressing emotions both in intensity and duration. If a person is only allowed to express their loss to an unresolved lesser degree or for a very short span of time, would they truly become a Type A personality?

When I was young, I was sent to my room if I laughed too loud, got angry, or cried. Only happy emotions were allowed in public, and then only in moderation. I was quite spoiled as a child and as a result was often disappointed on the rare occasion when I didn’t get my way. I spent a lot of time in my room. I will say that screaming into my pillow isn’t nearly as satisfying as throwing a full-blown temper tantrum in front of an audience of horrified onlookers, so maybe my parents had something there. I would often calm down quickly so that I could either play with my toys or rejoin the group. The only problem was that it didn’t teach me a constructive way to deal with my emotions. It only taught me to hide them. It wasn’t until I was well into adulthood that I tried to address living with my emotions.

A friend of mine died of breast cancer after being married only a year. Her husband maintained a “stiff upper lip” and was encouraged to go back to work immediately “as if nothing had happened.” He resumed his regular routine the following week and everyone assumed that he had made a remarkable recovery from his loss. No one thought much of it because he was married for such a short time. He dove into his work and received numerous awards for his achievements. The only problem was that “nothing had happened.” He had not grieved, or even acknowledged her death, even eight years after her passing. He still wore his wedding ring and, if you managed to be invited into his house, you would see all of her belongings and toiletries exactly where she had left them. When he was offered a substantial promotion, he turned it down because it would have required him to relocate out of the area. When his brother pressed him for the reason for his decline, he finally admitted that he was concerned that his wife wouldn’t know where he had gone when she came back. While he understood intellectually that his wife was dead, he was still emotionally waiting for her return. It was at this point that he and his family had to acknowledge that he had a problem. He was admitted into a grief-counseling program where he was able to express his grief properly and learn how to get on with his life.

A friend’s brother died tragically. My friend and her brother were not particularly close, but it sent her family into a tailspin. For the month following her brother’s death, my friend had the sympathies and support of many loyal friends. People would ask her if she was “alright,” and she would reply that she was, even though she didn’t feel it. She went back to work as soon as her brother’s affairs were settled and people were supportive there as well. After a month had passed, however, the support died off. People went back to “business as usual” and didn’t think about her loss. Sometimes she would be overcome with grief and just stare at the work in front of her. People would stop by her desk and ask if she was ok. She would say that she was and return to her tasks, but she confessed to me that she wanted to scream, “No! I’m not ok! It still hurts and I’m still sad and I still need the support of my friends!” She finally had a breakdown and her friends couldn’t understand what had happened. She admitted that she was still grieving over the loss of her brother. “But that was months ago,” some of his coworkers replied. “Aren’t you over that yet?” Her grieving had taken longer than was socially permissible and she was no longer getting the support she needed from her peers.

My “Magical Thinking"

Sun, 01 Apr 2007 00:20:45 GMT

My aunt called me up the other day and asked me if I knew of any fairytales that prominently featured a bag. It might sound like an odd request, but I studied fairytales and folklore for several years. I hit the books and found three tales in which a bag was a major component. The problem with all three of them was that our heroes don’t come to a very good end. “Don’t you know that fairytales are supposed to have happy endings,” my aunt said, appalled. “I have to read theses to kids!”

In truth, life very rarely has a happy ending, even for children, and most of the older fairytales reflect that. It’s only been in the last two hundred years or so, a mere flash in the pan for fables, that we have insisted, “everything come out all right in the end.”

Everyone has his or her own fairytales. Mine was that I would get married and live “happily ever after.” It is a common myth in our society that marriage, for women at least, will solve all of our problems. Marriage will turn a womanizing sponge into a hardworking, faithful man. Marriage will provide you with love and security for the rest of your life, even if it wasn’t there before marriage. Marriage will eventually lead to that American dream of a house, two cars, and a couple of kids. I’ve tried to live this dream twice. It doesn’t work.

There are a lot of popular cultural myths that people believe in. Most people simply take them as “shoulds.” “Life should be fair.” “If I am a good person, things should go my way.” “I should be recognized for the person that I am.” Most people understand that these are desires, not fundamental truths. There are three basic “musts” which, I am told, are also myths and are believed, on some level, by most people. “I must be virtuous.” “I must be perfect.” “I must be loved.” I would like to argue the “myth” status of the last one.

People are “herd animals.” We live socially in groups. Whether we intend to or not, we rely on other people to help us survive. Individuals who are cut off from other people tend to have severe mental issues before very long. Individuals who are actively shunned by their social group often die, either by their own hand or by illness. In a tribe in South America, there are no jails or executions, not even for heinous crimes. Perpetrators of severe crimes are declared “dead” by the community, and no one interacts with the “dead” individual. Usually by the end of a month, the death declaration has become a self-fulfilling prophecy and the person simply dies. Newborn infants will “fail to thrive” if they are not cared for in a loving manor, even if they have all of their basic needs (food, shelter, and cleanliness) provided for. Statistically, when a married person dies, the spouse is likely to follow within a year, even if there is no medical cause. This is particularly true of an older couple that has been together over twenty years.

Problems arise when people believe that the person that they love must be the one who loves them equally in return. My experience is that it very rarely works that way. A lot of first time parents want to have a baby, in part, for the unconditional love which is thought to be associated with it. I have a wonderful child, but I discovered very quickly that her love in her early years was quite conditional. She loved me when I gave her what she wanted. She hated me when I didn’t. It is very hard to accept that the being that you have nurtured and slaved for can dismiss you so completely because you won’t let them run across the street or eat ice cream for dinner every night. “I don’t wike you ‘emore. You’re not my fwiend ‘emore.” I heard this far more often than I heard “I wove you,” from those tiny lips. Yet it is the “I love yous” that we cling to.

My marriage was never blissful, but there were defiantly good parts in it. I lived from one “I love you” to the next, hoping that it would some day feel true. There is no doubt in my mind that he cared for me deeply, but I needed the love that I had been assured would bloom once we were married. Throughout our relationship, and many of the other relationships I have had since, the balance of love was always out of kilter. I would love my mate more than he loved me or I would be interested in calling it quits just as the flame of love burned brightest for him. This teeter-totter of emotions kept us going far longer than the relationship might have lasted otherwise, but in the end, it was never love.

It may be the hope for love that keeps us going, but it is love itself that makes us feel alive. The myth that love must be mutual may be what keeps most people from being happy, or it might be the expectations associated with love. Giving love unconditionally, without needing anything in return, certainly is an amazing high. Having someone express love when it is not expected is quite intoxicating. Even if we don’t feel love for that person (we might even find the affections annoying), the loss of that love is painfully felt. Love takes precedence over food and water, shelter, warmth, sleep, and almost any other basic need. I believe people need to love and be loved to survive.

Stress has a voice

Sun, 01 Apr 2007 00:18:08 GMT

Today I got to play with a biofeedback machine. Biofeedback is a way to monitor your stress levels, in real time, as a way of learning to control your stress reaction. It gives you a way to quantify your stress and observe how your levels flux under various stimuli. The one I used measures the conductivity of your skin based on how much you perspire, much like a lie detector test. It is extremely sensitive and can detect very minute changes in surface conductivity. As you encounter stress, either by external forces or just by thinking about things, your pores open and the moisture content of your skin increases. When you relax, your pores close down, reducing surface moisture and conductivity. I’m not saying you sweat bullets every time you think about Brussels sprouts. The changes are very small and occur relatively quickly, adjusting constantly to what you are feeling at that precise moment. Most of these adjustments your body makes are too small to be noticeable by most people. The biofeedback device gives you a way to monitor these tiny changes. Ours read off of two fingertips and produced a sound in response to the changes it detected; a lower tone for a relaxed state and a higher tone for an excited one.

I shared the device with a friend of mine. The device was a bit on the quiet side and the room we were in was noisier than I would have liked, so we shared a set of earbuds so that we could both listen to the results. I went first and slipped my fingers over the detection plates. The biofeedback machine started screaming immediately. It reminded me of a little toy chicken I had played with once. You touch the two connectors and the chicken starts peeping. Take your hand off and it’s quiet. The directions said that we should adjust the dial so that we had a low-to-medium tone, so I turned the adjustment wheel until it sounded more or less like a cat’s purr.

Our next instruction was that one person should read the booklet that came with the machine and the other should listen. The biofeedback machine began screaming again. “I take it you would rather I read the directions,” my partner asked in amusement. I nodded sheepishly and the tone returned to its purr. In the end, we just held the book between us and we read at our own speed. Since I am the slower reader, he had me turn the pages. It got to be comical because, as I read the last line of each page, the tone from the device would rise back up again as I thought about turning the page. He’d shift his grip on the book before I had even raised my hand to turn the page. Once the page was turned and I started reading again, the tone went back down. I was only turning the page, for crying out loud, not reciting the Gettysburg address before a live audience! The darned thing was very sensitive.

Our next assignment was to think of something that would arouse our stress index. I was curious, so I thought of something, shall we say, arousing, but defiantly pleasant. The biofeedback machine squealed like a schoolgirl covered in spiders. That proved that the machine measured our level of excitement, but didn’t differentiate between good stress and bad stress.

By the end of my turn, I could, by deliberately concentrating on calming my mind, get the machine down to a low fart. Another girl in the room on a different machine, actually shut her device down a few times and had to turn the dial up to get it to register again. She was told that it was probably due to a low battery, but I was very impressed.

When it was my partner’s turn, it was very interesting to watch him try to reduce the tone of the biofeedback device. He is a very nice, but quite aggressive person. I was really quite surprised at how low he managed to get the tone to go, until his hand slipped and he nearly did a face plant on the table. He said it was the best nap he’d had in a while. Even the biofeedback machine sounded like it was laughing.