Is your life filled with emergencies?

Is your life filled with emergencies?  Your relationship? 

I lived that way for a time in college.  The "fact" that I was busy or had tons of emergencies to take care of was exciting.  It gave me the chance to look and feel important.  It gave me reasons to not be available when I didn't want to be.  It gave me excuses when I didn't do something I was supposed to do.  The crises created intensity and seemed to make my life more interesting. 

I finally decided living that way wasn't fun.  It definitely wasn't healthy. 

First I had to come to the realization I was causing most of the emergencies.  Either by procrastinating, being stupid, being unrelational, or just plain letting myself "forget" things I brought many of the problems upon myself.  I had the brain and the abilities to live a better way, but the emergencies were a distraction, a way of feeling important or busy.  I realized that's all they were. 

Then I learned I could feel important in better ways.  I could be distracted by healthy things.  I could even learn to live with myself rather than distract away from me.  I learned to speak up when I didn't want to do something instead of using an "emergency" as my excuse.  I learned to say "I'm sorry" when I forgot something and then heal any hurt.  I learned to like a calm and interesting life rather than running away from living through intensity.

It wasn't easy; I was used to the hectic style of constantly fixing, but I noticed my life truly improved.  I felt better.  I had real and wonderful relationships.  I could actually relate to others and myself without needing distractions.  It was great and I was even more motivated to stop the madness.

So, I ask again, is your life filled with emergencies?  Your relationship?  Who is creating them?  Do you use them as excuses or to feel needed?  Is your time filled with "things to fix?"  Are you overwhelmed by crisis and then give yourself permission to shut down?

So your courageous work is to honestly look at your life.  Are you creating distractions and emergencies in order to avoid?  Are you using events as excuses?  Are you building a life filled with unreal excitement rather than centered strength and enjoyment?  What things can you do to decrease the "emergencies" you experience? (stop procrastinating, use time management techniques, say "No" when you want/need to, etc.)

I have a personal motto from that time in college- it says, "A crisis is only a crisis if you make it one."  Stop making crisis.

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Thoughtful vs. Thoughtless

While walking back from the boardwalk Saturday with a friend I saw a plastic ice cream bowl and spoon sitting along the sidewalk in the grass.  The real kicker?  It was only 10 feet from a garbage can! 

What I made up was someone was too lazy, busy, or important to walk 10 feet to throw out their garbage.  They would rather litter than do the right thing (even though throwing it out would have been easy.)  I was a bit steamed while I picked it up and took it to the can.

What does this have to do with relationships?  Well, how many times have you been too busy, lazy or self-important to do the healthy thing in your relationship?

Some examples: "I'm too tired to speak nicely to my partner."  "I have too much to do to remember to say 'I love you' today."  "I'm the one wronged, why should I bring the subject up?" 

Let's face it, most people know it's not good to litter, but look along our roads, in our cities, and around the parking lots- trash everywhere.  (I won't even talk about the beach!)  It may be little things like cigarette butts, candy wrappers, or receipts, but it is still trash.  Do people minimize their littering because they think it's only a small thing? 

How about minimizing the unhealthy things you do in your relationship because they are small?  "Hey, it was a little lie!"  "It really isn't important I do that one small thing my partner asked."  "I don't have to use 'I' statements or make a request in this single instance."

The real problem is doing the healthy things (like throwing your garbage out, recycling, or being healthy in your relationship) takes thought.  You must be aware and conscious of what you are doing and how you are acting.  Horrors of horrors, you must be responsible for yourself!  :)

So your courageous work is to be thoughtful.  Don't minimize the small things.  Be healthy by choice with your partner (and your trash.)  Stop finding excuses and just do it.  Be responsible for yourself today.

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Image edited from terminallychl's Flickr page

The "whys" will drive you mad!

I love the pun in the title of this post!  Most people think if they know "why" something happened or "why" they did a certain thing or "why" they are a certain way then they will be "wise."

Not so.  Why will drive you mad. 

Searching for the answer or the reason for why things happen or why exactly you do certain things (or your spouse does) will drive you to distraction.  It will also drive those around you away.


Why?  :)

Well, firstly because most things have numerous causes.  To look for the one reason or event that started the whole thing is impossible.  Most often it is a long list of choices, events, thoughts, and behaviors that got you to a certain place.  It is impractical to think you can untangle it all.  If you can figure out a few major reasons, you are ahead of the game, but stop looking for the exact why or you'll go mad. 

Another problem is you aren't living in the now, and so focused on the past you stop paying attention to how important it is to live and react in today.  You make problems in the life you are living now which will stress you out even more and lead to a breakdown.

This unending search will also drive those around you away.  People have only a certain level of patience, and they don't want to join you on a lifelong search for a pivotal millisecond of time; they have other things to do.  They also will lose patience with your inability to learn from what you do know and move on.

You see, when you search for the why all the time, you don't move forward.  You don't become wise in any way, you are stuck.

Your courageous work and this week's relationship resolution is to stop looking for the whys and live in the now.  Be present, learn from what has happened, but don't get caught up in the past seeking reasons.  Make healthy change in the now.

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I love the camel picture!  I read somewhere camels spit because they are so wise they know the name of God 

and thus they look down upon us mere humans (and spit!)

Are you being held back in your relationship?

Are you being held back in your relationship?  Well, it is most likely your fault.

Didn't want to hear that?  Sorry, but it is true.

Here are some common reasons you may not be progressing in your relationships:

1. Dishonesty - If you aren’t honest with yourself and your partner, you’ll never move forward.
2. Negativity - If you are negative all that will happen is the relationship will fall apart.
3. Stagnation - If you aren’t willing to grow the relationship, it will wither.
4. Acting out - If you act inappropriately, no one wants to be personal with you.
5. Disinterest - If you aren’t interested in your partner, they won’t be interested in you.
6. Poor attitude - If you act bored or arrogant to your partner, they won’t like you.
7. Venting without action - If you constantly dump on your partner (and don’t do something to heal things,) they’ll get tired.
8. Selfishness - If you are only focused on what a relationship does for *you* and not in return for your partner, it’s one sided.
9. Lack of goals - If you can’t tell your partner what you want, only that you are unhappy, then you’ll not be able to get what you both want.
10. Lack of skills - If you don’t take the time to learn skills for healthy relating, you’ll obviously stumble at doing so.

These are the types of problems which can lead to divorce, especially if you suffer from multiple ones.

The good news is these issues are fixable.  The bad news is you have to fix them yourself; no one else can do it for you.  Get honest, interested and focus on the relationship not yourself.  Stop venting and being negative and make movement.  Be healthy in your actions and attitude.  Create goals and grow.  Learn skills, theories, and techniques that help you have a healthy relationship (by reading things like this blog or seeing a specialist like me!) 

Your courageous work is to look at the list above and honestly identify which of those things you are doing.  Then take some action to improve them and your relationship.  You change your relationship most by changing how you are in it; I hope you chose to change it for the better!

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Shoving ten pounds of manure in a five pound bag!

I apologize for being away for a few days from my regular posting.  The reason relates to the title of this post; I've been trying to shove too many things into my days.

Do you do that?

It may seem "natural" to multitask and keep a ton of things juggled into the air, but it negatively affects you.  In addition, it hurts your relationships.

How?

You get tired, short-tempered, short on time, distracted, inattentive, and sometimes downright rude.  You forget things like telling your partner how important they are or telling your child "good night."

Don't you find yourself less patient when you are struggling to "get it all done?"

You let the doing get in the way of being.  Remember, we aren't human doings, we are human beings.

There are a multitude of books, blogs, articles, and speakers showing you how to "simplify" but too many of them are really preaching how to manage your time so you can "do more."  That's not simplifying, it's packing ten pounds of stinky manure in a bag meant to hold five pounds- and the poo ultimately hits the fan.

Stop doing more and start being more.

What do I mean?

Focus on how you want to be with others.  How you want to act.  What things you want to say and do.  What type of person you want to be.  Let go of the fluff and extra and pare down to who you are and what your relationship really means.

Your courageous work is to stop overdoing (at work and at home.)  Be who you are, get done only the things that are very important to you (and your relationship.)  Be who you are, stop doing all the other distracting things.

Now, what was the next thing on my to do list?  :)  Just kidding!

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I could not resist the picture; "moo poo" cracked me up!  Thanks to roland on Flickr

Half a dozen reasons your doctor may refer you to a therapist.

Your relationship with your body is a very important part of your life.  Like a marriage, your body needs care, attention, and maintenance.  That's where your doctor comes in.  Any good doctor may recommend you see a therapist, and here's why:

1. To help you manage your pain.
    According to Harvard Medical School, people with chronic pain reported a significant decrease in their experience of pain after regular use of techniques that elicit the body’s relaxation response.  A properly trained therapist can teach you these techniques and help you practice them.  (Using the relaxation response is 5x more efficacious than sleep.)

2. You’ve had a change in your health status.
    A change in your health affects all aspects of your life, not just your physical functioning.  Talking to a knowledgeable therapist can help you determine how the change could influence your life and plan how to minimize the negative consequences in your life.

3. Because you’ve been talking to your doctor about feelings of anxiety, fatigue, stress, or sadness.
    Your doctor might have suggested medications to help with these concerns, but he/she is also aware of the mind-body connection; how you feel physically affects your mood and visa versa.  A good therapist can help you explore how these two parts of yourself are interacting and how to tap their potential as a whole.

4. You’ve been experiencing the effects of a stressful life.
    Causing such ailments as ulcers, cardiac disease, TMJ, teeth grinding, and frequent physical ailments such as colds and flu, stress drains and harms our bodies.  A skilled therapist can help you identify sources of stress and develop a plan to cope with, and hopefully lessen, the stress you experience.

5. You doctor may see an illness he/she believes can be better treated by a specialist.
    Just like your doctor may refer you to a medical specialist, he/she may determine you have symptoms of a clinical condition a therapist and/or psychiatrist could address.  A compassionate therapist can help you determine if you do suffer from symptoms of an illness and begin to treat them so the quality of your life improves.

6. Your doctor realizes you are an open-minded individual interested in learning more about yourself.
    Your doctor cares for your physical wellness; however, he/she is quite aware there are other aspects of you as a person that effect your overall wellness.  An experienced therapist can help you enhance your physical, cognitive, emotional, social and spiritual health making you a healthy whole person. 

Your courageous work is to listen to your doctor in all ways.  Exercise, eat right, get good sleep, and if they suggest it, call a therapist (like me!)

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Clever cupcakes by Clevercupcakes on Flickr!

It's bigger and deeper than you think.

Did you ever hear there is a kernel of truth in every joke?  Well, there's a deeper truth in even the smallest complaint.  The small complaints, especially when repeated, represent something more.

For example, when your spouse asks you repeatedly to stop some behavior, and you don't, it is an interesting interactions.  It's also a sign there is something more, deeper, bigger. 




Here's what I ask as the therapist watching a couple do this:

1. What keeps you from stopping it?  What makes that particular behavior more important to you than your partner?  Are you addicted to that action?  Are you lying about it?  If you are, it's probably an addiction.  Are you resenting the request, even if it is done in a healthy way and the request is doable?  What makes you resent a reasonable request?  Can you take your partner into account as part of your life?  Do you want to be married or single? 

2. How do you think your partner feels about your refusal?  Do you think they are happy?  Are they feeling unimportant, disregarded, disrespected?  Let me clue you in, when you blow off your partner's request, you aren't being respectful and you aren't treating them as important.  How do you react to your partner's feelings?  Do you dismiss them?

3. What do these actions represent to you and to your partner?  What messages are being sent by your continued behavior?  What are the responses by your partner?



Here's the deal, even if you think the behavior is a small thing, it represents something to your partner. 

Example: a woman complains that her husband drives too fast and too close to the traffic.  He counters, "I only drive like the others on the road.  It's the way traffic is here."  They could argue if it is "too close" or not, but that's not the point.  The point is something about the way he drives is uncomfortable for her.  She may be making herself uncomfortable, but she's not happy.  He can continue to drive that way; it is his right.  However, she doesn't have to put up with it; she can take a cab, call a friend, or refuse to ride with him.  He loses out on her company, but he can do what he wants. 

The question is, why is driving like that more important than his relationship?

Your courageous work is to look at the behaviors you resist changing.  Figure out what it represents to you that keeps you from changing.  Learn what it represents to your spouse and makes it important to them.  Then determine where the negotiated point lies; what can help you both feel okay about things?  How can you get your needs met?  How can you help your partner feel comfortable again (or respected, connected, calm, etc.)?  Remember it is a partnership, so you both matter.  That's what caring is about.

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Don't you like the lion fish photo I took while at the Georgia Aquarium?  To care for them takes care and negotiation- they have poisonous spines!

Listen

Today, just an anonymous poem called simply "Listen".  I ran across it while cleaning out old papers.

When I ask you to listen to me

and you start giving advice

you have not done what I asked

When I ask you to listen to me

and you begin to tell me why I shouldn't feel that way,

you are trampling on my feelings.

When I ask you to listen to me

and you feel you have to do something to solve my problem,

you have failed me, strange as that may seem.

Listen!  All I asked was that you listen.

Not talk or do- just hear me.

Advice is cheap: 10 cents will get you both Dear Abby and Billy Graham in the same newspaper.

All this I can do for myself; I'm not helpless.

Maybe discouraged and faltering, but not helpless.

When you do something for me that I can and need to do for myself,

you contribute to my fear and weakness.

But, when you accept as a simple fact I do feel what I feel, 

no matter how irrational,

then I can quit trying to convince you and can get about this business 

of understanding what is behind this irrational feeling.

And when that's clear, the answers are obvious and I don't need advice.

Irrational feelings make sense when we understand what is behind them.

Perhaps that's why prayer works, sometimes, 

for some people, because God is mute, and he doesn't give advice of try to fix things.

"They" just listen and let you work it out for yourself.

So, please listen and just hear me.

And if you want to talk, wait a minute for your turn; 

and I'll listen to you.

Your courageous work: listen.

Are you moody? Would you know if you were?

Do you realize the mood you are in effects how you react and how well you react?

Yes, your emotional state influences everything you do in all parts of your life.

What does this mean?  You need to be aware of your mood- how you feel, how it affects your actions and words, and how it influences your interpretation of events.

Need an example?  Let us approach Joe one morning and ask him how his life is going.  He looks up with a small smile and says, "Things are going well.  My new car is a blast to drive, my wife is such a giving person she's volunteering at the local church, and my son just got on the baseball team."  He's pretty content and happy with his life.  Later that morning, Joe is called into the boss' office to be corrected in something he did.  Right before lunch someone else approaches him and asks how life is going.  Joe looks up with a small scowl and answers, "Things are pretty depressing.  My car is expensive to maintain, my wife is so busy at that darn church I never see her, and my son can't make honor roll."

Same Joe, same life, different mood. 

So, be aware of your mood and how it affects you.

Remember, too, monitoring and correcting for your mood is your responsibility.  It is not the chore of your spouse, best friend, children, boss to know how you feel and tip-toe around you or help you.  It is your responsibility to know and be aware of how it affects you.  Then you make a choice on what you want to do.  You may want to ask for help, and then those around you can step up and help if they are able.

Your courageous work is to monitor your moods.  Keep a weather eye on how you feel and how you act when you feel certain ways.  Be aware of trouble spots or moods for you and ask for help if you need it.  Maybe you can become as zen as the pine tree. 

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Making "them" pay only makes YOU pay.

Why do people do things that are unhealthy for themselves to "make" someone else "pay."

For example a teen may act out sexually because they are mad at their parent for not trusting them.  Or the guy who gets repeatedly drunk because he thinks his wife isn't giving him enough sex.  Or the woman who has an affair because they are mad at their husband for being withdrawn.

This acting out goes to the extreme ultimate when people kill themselves to "show" someone.

Unfortunately, "payback" is used as a distorted form of communication- a way to try to express something to another person.  Let me ask, what does acting out really do for you?  Nothing at all, it just hurts you and mangles your relationships. 

Let us look at the examples I gave.

• First the teen who is acting out sexually.  What they really want and are mad they don't have is their parent's trust.  They want to be trusted and allowed to do things.  Do you think the sexual acting out will make their parents trust them more?  Very unlikely.
• How about the man who is getting drunk because he thinks he needs more intercourse with his wife?  Do you think she really wants to make love to someone who is regularly drunk?  Few people find a drunken person sexy.
• What about the woman who has an affair because her husband doesn't talk "enough."  She becomes attached to someone else and withdraws further from her husband.  This doesn't encourage him to open up about himself.  He's even less inclined to share with her when he finds out she is cheating (and it always comes out into the open eventually.)

The old phrase is "cutting off your nose to spite your face," but it would be more apt to say "cutting off your own nose to spite someone else's face."  Either way you are the one who is paying.  Retaliation or manipulation through acting out never works.

Your courageous work is to really look at your own behaviors.  Are you doing things to spite someone?  Are you acting out in order to get something from your partner?  Stop acting out and start acting healthy.  Why don't you just talk about the feelings and ask for what it is you want? 

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Yoda on Relationships

The other day I was thinking of a sage who knew a lot about relationships.  Despite the fact that he lived in a smelly drippy swamp, he often had great things to say.  After a short visit with him, I thought I'd share some of his wisdom.

“No! Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.”

Our wise master knows that to try is linked to failing.  It is to be done or it is not to be done.  What things in your relationship have you been only trying but not really doing?

“Grave danger you are in. Impatient you are.”

Impatience is often a great danger for relationships.  Instead of taking time to work on things and move forward, you want it now.  If you don't get it then you may do things to destroy or hurt your relationship.  Learn patience and clarity.

“Always in motion is the future.”

The sage knows none can know the future.  Quit predicting how your partner will answer or act and just do the healthy thing in this moment.  Let the future move forward from your healthy actions.

"So certain are you. Always with you it cannot be done. Hear you nothing that I say?"

Be wary when you "know" something is "true."  Your truth may not be the only truth (and probably isn't!)  In addition, your "truth" may be keeping you from doing something in a healthy manner.  Watch out when you are "being right."

"If no mistake have you made, yet losing you are ... a different game you should play."

If you are trying one way to get something accomplished in your relationship and it isn't working, try a different tactic.  Don't rely on one tool for every situation and don't stick to an action that is obviously not working.  Remember, though, keep healthy in all interactions.

"Much to learn, you still have."

Like learning to be a 900 year old mystic, creating a rewarding relationship is an ongoing and growing process.  Remember no matter how much you know, there is still more you can learn.  Even as a couples' therapist I learn new things about relationships daily.
 

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Image from PhillipWest's photostream on Flickr.  What cool paper creations!