Category: Straight thinking

Mindful management for the holidays

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Kudos to you! Taking time to read this in the midst of the pre-holiday “make it happen” rush, showing up for a moment for yourself when we’re counting down to the biggest holiday of the year! Give me a minute–that’s all this takes!

You are one big battery, buzzing through the holiday prep. How many activities zap you, drawing energy, as you aim at multi-tasking? Consider this recent research: we only have so much energy. Energy that you direct to goal #1 (wrapping?) takes away from goal #2 (cheerfulness?). You become less efficient. Pretty soon you are drained, and the lights begin to dim as you exhaust your energy. Or you implode in the grocery store line.

The fix is easier than you think. Focus on one task at a time. Ask if you are mindfully putting your energy where it really matters. Is this really the task you want to emphasize? Apply the “when I’m 80” test. When you are 80 years old, is this where you will be glad you poured out your precious energy? If yes, carry on. If not, stop and revise.

To hone your ability to be more mindful in each moment, help your brain develop the mindfulness habit with one of these three focusing-in-the-moment tricks:

1) At every red light, stop and breathe, notice your body, tune into each of your senses in turn.

2) Before you answer the ringing phone, take a breath, count to three, and smile. Your “answering voice” will be transformed.

3) As you reach for any door, pause as you breathe in as you count 1, 2, 3, hold for 1, 2, 3, and breathe out as you count 1, 2, 3.

Pick one. Practice it. In the total scheme of even the busiest days, you have the 60 seconds this might take. We all have daily triggers to remind us to be mindful in the moment. And with each mindful moment, our brains develop the habit, easing into this brief coping respite more smoothly.

It’s a positive spiral, increasing your stress management skills, offering great return on minutes invested. Saving your energy for what matters.

Don’t take it personally

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Guilt–it’s one of the most common feelings. We feel badly when someone we encounter is disappointed, angry, depressed–and we tend to feel it’s our fault. Lots of energy goes into this belief in our heads, especially in relationships. (Though I have found this to be a common belief in interaction with strangers as well.) Your significant other is quiet and sulky. A friend snubs you at a party. The boss finds fault with a project you completed. A service employee looks at you wrong. The automatic response in your head is “what did I do?” Or even “I screwed up.” The default reaction implies that event A–something you did–led to event B–the negative reaction of the other party.  We take the reactions of others quite personally, particularly when we’re stressed and running on empty.

Over the years, shifting this perspective has been one of the biggest challenges I’ve faced. Women, in particular, are socialized in this culture to believe that others’ feelings are our responsibility. From an early age, we’re questioned and/or chided, “did you make your friend cry?” “Don’t make me mad.” One strategy that does help is encouraging the guilt-ridden to stop and consider alternative explanations. Ask yourself, when that guilt about another’s feelings arises, “what could be going on that’s NOT my fault?”

Recently, however, I read The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom . One of the agreements that Don Miguel Ruiz advises is “don’t take things personally.” Rather than simply saying “it’s not about you,” an idea I have tried to “sell” unsuccessfully for some time, he suggests a powerful perspective shift. Ruiz says when we believe someone else’s feelings are our fault, that exaggerates our own importance. Who says we are that powerful, that moods all around us stem from our actions? Are we that critical in the lives of others? I think not.

There seems to be a paradox in why this alternative view appeals to the guilt-ridden. Just like we’re taught (incorrectly) at an early age that “good girls” make others angry or hurt, so are we taught that good girls don’t brag. Good girls aren’t self-centered. Yet when we attribute the power for another’s feelings to our actions, we are doing just that: claiming powers that are an illusion. (For once, the social training that creates the problem also contains the solution!)

No one has that much power. The flip side of the argument makes this clear. When a two year old (or a thirteen year old) is really upset, do you have the power to make it all better–especially if they’re entrenched in that mood? Maybe you’re more powerful than me, but I never succeeded at that.

Next time the guilt rushes in about another’s emotions, don’t take it personally. Sure, check it out if you want, making sure there’s no transgression on your part. But the majority of the time, moods originate within, and we only inflate our importance when we assume otherwise.

Give yourself a gift

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Is your iPhone a permanent part of your anatomy? Glued to your hand, or your hip? Can’t walk by a computer without checking the latest Facebook feed? Have to see if your “Words with Friends” pals have responded? Need your dose of “Angry Birds”? We’ve become slaves to our technology–phones, email, iPads. A psychology journal even exists to study the multitude of effects this ever-present technology has on our behavior and well-being. Benefits abound; last night my critique group could Skype with one member who is on sabbatical in England for a year. Very fun stuff.

But if you’re tired of the energy drain of this instant connecting–always having to keep up with the email or keep the cell phone immediately accessible–consider joining Day to Disconnect this weekend. We worry that we might miss something. The kids or sitter might need us. Catastrophe might befall someone. We might fail to nab a great Groupon deal or a must-have-it freebie on Freecycle. Oh well.

Sounds like the kind of all-or-nothing, black and white thinking that I love to diffuse. You can take an hour–or a day–off from your technology, just to test out the theory that the sky might fall. Turn it off. Leave it alone. Connect with a loved one, or nature, or an old-fashioned book. See if the frantic, always-on pace that makes our nervous systems hover about ten degrees below panic mode relents, just a tiny bit.

I dare me. I dare you. We deserve it.

Truth in advertising

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The phone rang. I still have a land line, though callers on that line other than political, nonprofit, and home remodeling solicitors are few. So I check the caller ID before I pick up. And this is what I saw:

I was literally rolling on the floor laughing. How transparent! I didn’t pick it up (hmm, did I really need to clarify that point?). The machine did, promptly recording a message about the super low interest rate I could receive on my credit card if I’d just call promptly. I wondered how this happened. What company lists it’s business name as “phone scam”? Really?!?

The more I pondered, however, the more impressed I became. How freeing, to be able to be completely honest about who you are. Moving through life, how often do we truly embrace this concept? It’s a socially-accepted construct to put our best self forward. Everyone wants to look like they’re breezing through life, no problems, loving their lives, ever-confident. Sounds like another version of pretending to be superman/woman to me.

It takes so much energy to hold up that mask. Exhausting after awhile. It also distances us from each other. We back off on sharing trials, angst-ridden moments, frustrations, fearing that we will look weak. Certainly we are the only ones stumbling, since no one else talks about it. Must be we are deficient. The problem seems our ability to excel–not the less-than-honest story-telling.

When I turned 50, the impact of having lived half a century felt heavy. I no longer wanted to put on a front, hiding my true self. And I ran with the sudden impulse to present myself as I am. Some friends drifted away, confused looks on their faces as I spoke up in matter-of-fact ways they’d never witnessed. Some activities I let slide. I got pretty good at saying “I don’t know” and “I’m sorry, I screwed up” and “I disagree” and “Please don’t treat me that way.” I started honestly living my full warty self.

I’m human. I make mistakes. I’m good at many things and lousy at others. Being honest about who I am is freeing, and while difficult at first, appears to take less energy eventually, leaving more for creating the life I want to live. Proclaiming the equivalent of “phone scam” in my own life is not a single event, however. It’s a step down the path to living the right life. This step for me was important ground work for growth, for embracing self-compassion, for building a life infused with joy.

Once is enough

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Self-compassion is a favorite focus of mine–with the goal that we all want to beat ourselves up a little less each day. In our human habit of black and white thinking, there’s the tendency to think that means letting ourselves off the hook for any mistakes. That would be dysfunctional, unhealthy, like we’re getting away with proverbial murder.

It is healthy to evaluate our failures in order to correct our course and grow. But need to punish or judge ourselves, for character building, exists once. But only once. Would you have a criminal punished again and again? Isn’t that what we do when we relentlessly chastise ourselves for our human failings?

The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz addresses this human tendency to make ourselves pay for a mistake thousands of times. Other creatures make a mistake, learn from it, and move on. True justice, says Ruiz, is paying only once for an error. True injustice is repeatedly punishing ourselves, through guilt, shame, and self-derogatory talk.

When I was a teenager, learning to drive, we had a three foot diameter maple tree on the absolute edge of our home’s driveway. This tree abutted the black top–no grass for buffering error. Backing the car out of the driveway meant the tree loomed and teased, begging me to scrape up against it, every time. Most of the time I drove my dad’s VW Beetle, so it was easy to miss the tree. After I’d been driving some months, my dad let me drive the big fancy sedan, necessary to haul our little Sunfish sailboat, to the local lake. He was so worried about me taking the big family car and driving an hour away, boat on top. I promised I’d be so careful, and I worried all day, even making my friends walk farther across the hot parking lot in bare feet, boat in the air, so I could park FAR away from other cars. All went well. No scrapes for the car, all the way to the lake and back. We unloaded the boat, and I had to back the big car out of the drive once more to let my sister out of the drive with the VW. The sickening sound of the driver’s side front fender on that tree, on this final backing, is forever burned in my brain. As is the shame. My dad wasn’t even that mad–but I felt terrible. Even though my big sister had driven this same big sedan into a HUGE ditch the year before, miles from civilization in a Canadian campground, and she’d survived.

Not only do we punish ourselves on multiple occasions for the same flaw, we often punish those we love as well: every time we remember their mistake. We label, categorize, and judge–based on one incident. Whether we are judging ourselves or others, once is enough. Talk it out with yourself or your loved one, and let it go. If it recurs, revisit the issue. Otherwise, offer some compassion, remember the ratio of good to bad, and move on.

I think I’m ready to let go of that visceral memory. Here it goes: floating away like an errant helium balloon. Have any of your own balloons to release? Join me–I feel better already.

It’s not a super path

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Superman/woman syndrome is a sneaky snake in current culture. No matter how many times we’ve heard it, somewhere deep within we harbor the feeling that we can do it all, being all things to all people. This myth dies hard. In straight thinking moments–or days–we embrace the bunk that is superwoman/man, and free ourselves from those expectations. Hurray for a small dose of reality.

However, even when we readily admit that we can’t achieve superpowers, a sneaky leftover part of that drive to be super deserves the ‘who says’ challenge: beliefs about the path to change. We still expect to be like Superman himself, clearing buildings in a single bound. The one-click culture encourages us to expect change to happen just like that. Click off the old behavior, click on the new. Door open or door closed. Instant change and everything is now rosy–i.e. perfect.

Magic wand at the ready, I wish it were this way myself. (Though of course that would mean I was out of a job and I’m not quite ready to retire.) The reality is that it’s a path, often a twisting path at that. It’s two steps forward, then one back. Or it’s a spiral, my favorite illustration about moving toward change, cycling by the same issues again and again, reworking and fine-tuning as we make our way to the goal at the top.

Accepting this winding path as reality stops that old automatic “failure” thinking. When we stumble, or it seems that we are NOT achieving that goal in a single leap, we lose track of the big picture. We conclude that we’ve failed. Time to step back and see that you are on the path. It’s just not a single step, or even a song and dance two-step.

Have a little self-compassion. No single leaps aided by a ruby cape. Just steadily wind your way up the stairs, or along the path, and you’ll soon be where you wish to be. Enjoy the climb.

The View

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Remember this?

For most of us, this common optical illusion was our first lesson in shifting viewpoint. Did you see a vase, or did you see two profiles? Lots of fun in elementary school–or intro psych class–to try to see both, and explore which friends saw things the way that you did.

I’ve been enjoying this series over at LiveScience called “What The Heck Is This?” It’s good brain-stretching to view their photos, playing the same little guessing game. I particularly like this recent one:

Simple: clouds, right? As to not steal any thunder from LiveScience, you’ll have to click over to their site to get the answer.

Here’s another one:

Others in our world are often the best source of valuable perspective, and this fountain reminds me of that lesson learned from my two year old, years ago. In my best mom-teaching voice, I called out to my daughter in her car seat to “look at the pretty fountain, with the water shooting up!” To which she replied, rather disdainfully, “and falling down again.” I simply hadn’t focused on both aspects. Silly me, in her eyes.

I’m reading a book called Happiness: A Guide to Developing Life’s Most Important Skill

Imagine you are in a small boat in the midst of this:

Your experience? Likely to be tossed around, sick to your stomach, maybe even crash and hurt yourself?

But what happens if you back off?

Kind of pretty, I think. Certainly not threatening. Incredible shift in perspective.

Next time an emotional storm threatens to sweep you crashing into the rocks, remove yourself from it. Tap your fingers. Breathe deeply. Count to ten. Drink a glass of water. Meditate. Take a walk. Talk to a friend. Write. Pound up and down the steps. And find yourself rising above it, able to react in a much less damaging way.

Want to develop the skill to shift your perspective? Join me and a host of like-minded souls in my upcoming meditation training.

Family “vacation?”

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Practically everyone is looking forward to a vacation this time of year. Sit back, close your eyes, begin to let images drift into your mind about the perfect getaway. What do you see? Maybe you’re escaping the heat for a dose of mountain cool air or sinking into soft sand with the latest beach read. Maybe you’re sleeping until noon or bonding with your family, enjoying a beer and a raucous round of cards. Ahhh, each picture ramps up those expectations of your personal version of relief from summer and the hectic life you live, right?

Or maybe you have just returned and are devastated, or at least disappointed, about the discrepancy between what was imagined and what occurred. It rained, the kids screamed. You didn’t get to sleep in. Diapers, baths, meals continued to bombard you, if you’re a parent. Or maybe the magnetism of old family patterns launched you into autopilot. Within minutes during my last visit to my mother’s, I was bickering with my sister about who was right. Didn’t matter what the issue, the habitual way to relate seemed to grab us both and slam us into history.

There seems no better time to examine expectations than when facing holidays–and vacations count. I think we can start by dropping the word “vacation” in connection to visits to family, or trips to Disney World with preschoolers. Maybe we need to ban the word entirely when small children are in tow. Whether you are a parent or not, think back to your little reverie from the first paragraph–were there pictures of children in that? Be honest. Hmmm, I thought not.

Let’s change our ever-powerful wording again, and call these what they are: family trips. Excursions like this can be fun. But they are not relief from a parent’s regular life.

Just as with other celebrations, sit down and examine what you really want to get out of any trip. Make a list. Make concrete plans to have at least some of that happen. A psychologist friend, when his children were small, set up a schedule with his wife. When the family was out of town, he and his wife took turns being on kid duty: 8 am to 2 pm and 2 pm until 8 pm. Whichever parent was on duty fed, clothed, comforted, and amused the offspring. The next day the shifts switched. In this manner, each parent got to sleep in, go snorkeling, or lay on the beach and read. Takes two active parents and some discipline to enact this, but it’s well worth it.

So lay out your expectations, examine them, and develop a realistic plan. And when you’re stuffing those suitcases, make sure to pack your perspective and your sense of humor. Both are essential to a satisfying trip.

It’s all about the ratio

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We fallible human beings are inveterate black and white, all or nothing thinkers–especially when stressed. Either everything is good, wonderful, 110% perfect– your life, your parenting, your relationship, your job, your holiday, last night’s sleep, your weight, your food consumption–or everything is a mess and you are a dismal failure. One minor slip, and (fill in the blank) is all shot to h*)). One cookie wrecks the diet, so may as well have six more. One cranky moment where you snap at a child or loved one, and you are a wretched parent/partner. One hour–or even two–of restless tossing and turning at 3 a.m. ruins your whole night’s sleep. One traffic jam in an eight hour journey or one rainy day dooms the whole vacation. One missed deadline and you’re a terrible worker. If none of this rings true for you, sign off right now and go crack open a well-deserved bottle of champagne. You are perfect–or at least your thinking is!

If any of the above thoughts have ever crept into your embattled brain, consider one of my favorite phrases:

It’s all about the ratio.

Our lives aren’t judged by any single moment of success or failure, but by the ratio of wins to losses, grand slams compared to falling-flat-on-face-in- mud moments. Bad mommy moments to tender bedtime stories. Decisions that worked versus backfired with a vengeance. Judith Orloff says there are no wrong choices–some just lead to more painful paths than others.

When you are feeling badly about some completely human action you have blundered into, stop. Take a deep breathe. Do the math. There are 168 hours in the week. “Oh well” if you got sucked into sulking for one of them. You need to ingest 2000 extra calories to gain a pound. One cookie is only 1/10th of that. There are 365 days in the year, eight hours in a night of sleep, 100 assignments in a college career. Etcetera. You get the picture.

Self-compassion comes into play again. Forgive yourself, your errors; maybe even define what you can learn from them. Then refocus on your successes by calculating the ratio. Embrace the fact that we’re all doing the best we can, given our circumstances at any moment.

Standards to bear–or not?

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Last week, I wrote about the common human misperception that everyone around us shares our world view. When we believe that others think like we do, we stumble into dangerous territory, full of land mines of expectation.

You may recognize this thinking glitch in your own life. We expect others to hold themselves to the same standards that we enforce for our own behavior. “That idiot driver–he should use his turn signal.” “My mother should want the best for me–not be competitive and threatened.” “My friend should say thank you.” “My partner should put some thought into what would make me happy.” “The kids’ dad should play with them when he has them, not park them in front of a movie.” Who says?

Yes, in an ideal world, we would surround ourselves with people who acted just as we strive to act. What happens when reality hits, and many we encounter simply don’t behave in the way we would? It’s a certain recipe for frustration and anger.

In this situation, it’s helpful to take a deep breath and release that expectation. The standards are in your head. The target of your frustration can’t hear–or maybe does not adhere to–those rules in your head. Short of learning Jedi skills to instill the desired thoughts in that person’s head, you really have little control over them. But you do have control over your thoughts–that the party in question “should” (fill in the blank.) That’s all you can control–your expectation of others.

To release that expectation, try saying “huh–imagine thinking that way.” No time to judge; that judgement only fuels your anger. The situation just is. What other people expect of themselves is none of our business. Expect others to be who they are, to act according to the rules in their own heads. That’s what they’re going to do anyway. When you switch your own thinking, you can then either a) ask them to do it differently, in a very direct manner or b) realize that there can be any number of acceptable approaches to the problem at hand.

Control what you can: the thoughts in your head. Let go of the rest. That’s truly the full scope of your influence, after all.

But if you locate a Jedi mind training course, let me know. I’ll be right in line, signing up with you.