Let's say that some nerds at MIT or Harvey Mudd or somewhere came out with a device called the "A-Game." You could wear on your belt or carry it in your purse. It's specifically tailored to you and it tells you, with at least 90% accuracy:

• how much sleep and rest you really need
• when to eat, what to eat, and how much to have the most energy and be optimally fit
• how active you need to be, when to push harder and when to lay off
• how much to work on which days
• how spiritually connected you are
• whether someone is taking advantage of you
• whether a person is safe to relate to
• which situations to avoid and which to get more of
• which decision would be the best for you out of several choices.

Would you want an A-Game? How much would you pay for it? Hundreds? Thousands? I mean, imagine the money, stress, and effort that it would save on diet and exercise gimmicks, on purchasing "lemon" products, dodging scary relationships, or paying therapists to figure out what's going on with us. Think of all the extra energy, attractiveness, and years of life we'd have! I think I would pay quite a bit for such a thing. Sure, I might choose to ignore it sometimes, but I think I'd want to know what it said, nonetheless.

Your A-Game: Already Purchased and Delivered

The thing is, most of us already have one of these devices, mostly or fully operational: our body. Careful attention to slight stomach pains and energy drops or stomach stretching tells us when we are hungry for what foods, how much, and when we are satisfied. A "blah" feeling somewhere between sleepy and energetic can tell us we need some more activity or endorphins. Pain that gets worse with activity and doesn't fade in a few days tells us we need to stop that type of activity until we heal. Shoulder tension, clenched teeth, or a constriction in our "gut" can tell us there is something not right about a situation. A "dropping feeling" in our core area and shoulders may tell us that a choice we are considering is not the best for us. A tingly/restful/awake feeling toward the top of the brain or near the heart can reflect how deeply we feel connected spiritually.

When we are paying attention to our body, listening to its signals, obeying whatever it indicates, and then noticing the rewards it gave us for our obedience, it can tell us some amazing things. So why don't we 1) notice what it is saying to us or 2) follow the instructions it provides? I mean, we've got this awesome tool, totally unique and tailored to us. It can accomplish a collection of things that psychics and mentors and an army of professionals hardly have a prayer of matching. So why don't we use it like we could?

Device Duller #1: Contradictory Outside Messages

I bet pressure from other people has a lot to do with it, especially early on. You've probably seen the ways infants or toddlers eat, for example. They tend to know when they are hungry and also when hunger is not a big enough deal to trump the desire to go play. But then adults say things like, "If you don't finish your plate now, you're not getting anything till breakfast" or "Eat up, there are starving kids in Whereverland."

Now, I get that there are lots of good reasons adults give these kinds of messages to kids: concerns about a balanced diet, exhaustion from fetching meals all the live-long day, wanting the little one to learn to accommodate other people's needs, etc. At the same time, the underlying message so many of us pick up is: Don't pay attention to the cues your body is giving you about hunger, the timing for eating, and what you want to eat; take your eating cues from other people, the time on the clock, the amount someone put on your plate, and the ways other people are eating. Without some training or encouragement regarding paying attention to our body's cues about hunger and satisfaction, in addition to learning to accommodate the needs of others, we can eventually numb out our awareness of what we need and want because we have overridden it to accommodate other people so many times.

Or what about when you meet someone and they just weird you out? Period. When you are with them, you feel tense and your gut knots up, even though you can't put your finger on what it is about them that makes you feel that way. Your body is telling you to avoid them even if your mind can't find a legitimate reason for doing so. But then other people come in with messages like, "Give everyone a chance," "Be nice and reach out," and "Everyone needs a friend." Of course I am not disagreeing with these messages! I think they are usually true. But there seems to be a difference between deciding you will reach out to someone even though you don't feel a natural connection with them, and overriding your body's gut message to steer clear of someone because something is not right about them, not just inconvenient or annoying.

I've had experience with overriding a gut feeling in order to be nice: hiring people out of pity/obligation who turned out to be a disaster, including people in intimate friend groups who destroyed the group's ability to be together, continuing to hang out with people who later turned out to be hiding dangerous and illegal habits. After getting smacked around by ignoring my gut for years, I'm starting to notice when it goes off and pay attention! There are so many people to care for and very few people really weird me out that way. Other people can care for and be friends with people with whom my gut is not okay.

Device Duller #2: Personal Fears

Maybe the other main reason we don't pay attention to our body's messages is that we are afraid of what it is telling us. The tension in our shoulders and our recent accident-proneness shouts, "Slow down! Your schedule is too much for you!" But we are afraid that if we slow down, we won't feel successful and valued, so we ignore it. The heaviness of our eyes in the afternoon, our snippiness at others, and our lack of focus says, "Forget the recommended 7-8 hour sleep recommendations, your system needs 8.5 hours to function well." We fear that sleeping that much would mean we would have to relinquish our view of ourselves as busy, fun, and energetic, so we keep sleeping 6 hours per night and abusing coffee (and those closest to us) to make up for it. The fact that we can't feel any sensation in our stomach-not stretched to full and not feeling flat and empty-reports that we are already satisfied and don't need more food, but if we stop eating, we'll be bored, or have to do that yucky task, or have to feel the sadness we've been running from, so we just keep eating.

I realize that the forces that numb out our ability to notice our body's cues and respond to them are significant! Going against long-term caretaker programming, risking offending other people because we are listening to our body instead of (or at least in addition to) what they want us to do, being thought odd or unkind because we dodge a few people who freak us out, facing our fears about our self worth and value that get linked to activities that don't fit our body's needs, feeling our negative emotions instead of running from them-all of these are really difficult.

In fact, they probably wouldn't be worth tackling at all if the alternative to ignoring them weren't worse: health decline from obesity or nutritional imbalance, injured body parts, exhaustion, bad relationships, dangerous situations, spiritual atrophy, bad decisions, or inability to notice negative internal states and external circumstances while they can still be changed.

Increasing Body Message Awareness, Not Guilt

With all these negative consequences, I'll bet you thought I was going to recommend just soldiering through all the fear and shifting your whole life to be responsive to what your body is saying, huh? Well, I'm not.

I don't think that the "everything must change now" approach usually results in feelings of obligation and guilt that eventually sabotage the whole effort. But just making a habit of noticing what our bodies are saying, without any obligation to respond, can nurture awareness over time of how helpful our body's messages can be. Once we become grateful for what it is saying, that is usually the time to respond because only then can we respond out of desire and gratitude rather than obligation. And those are typically the changes that stick.

To start this process, see if for one week, once per day, in a quiet and daily-visited place like the bathroom or another place where you are alone, you can notice what your body is saying:

1. Starting with your toes and moving up gradually to the crown of your head, notice any part of your body that is experiencing a particular sensation: warmth, pain, tension, relaxation, constriction, discomfort, creaks or gurgles, pressure, fatigue, etc.

2. For each sensation you notice, ask yourself what circumstance or event might be related to it, and what your body might be asking you to do regarding that.

Example: The ache in my heel tells me my running injury is not healed yet and I should stretch and keep biking instead of running. The tension in my lower back tells me I've been sitting in an awkward way all day and I need to bring a back pillow to work. The constricted feeling in my stomach tells me I need to eat within the next 30-60 minutes. The tension in my shoulders tells me I'm worried about whether I will have what I need to meet tomorrow's deadline, while having to care for my sick child tonight. I may need to bite the bullet and ask my mom to help care for my child to lower my stress tonight.

3. Resisting the urge to obey your body's wishes unless you really want to and really feel that you can, simply thank your body for all the information it is giving you at that moment.

During the next week, see if you can do this same exercise 2-3 times a day instead of just once. During the week after, try up to 5 times per day. If you are at all like me, you may need to use Outlook, Google Calendar, your phone alarm, or another program to remind you to notice your body throughout the day. As your daily awareness of your body's messages increases, see if you can wait to respond to its messages until you feel grateful for them and really want to make a change.

And for a good read on listening to your body's cues about hunger, nutrition, and fitness, instead of dieting, I recommend Am I Hungry: What to Do When Diets Don't Work by May, Galper, & Carr.

If you or someone you know would like help tuning in to or responding to the body's messages, free to call me at 303-931-4284 for a free 20-minute consultation or email info@jenniferdiebel.com.

To read past newsletters, go to www.jenniferdiebel.com/Helpful_Resources.html.

Thanks for reading!

Jennifer Diebel, MA, NCC
Psychotherapist
 
303-931-4284
info@jenniferdiebel.com
www.jenniferdiebel.com
5370 Manhattan Circle, Suite 203
Boulder, CO 80303

Jennifer Diebel, MA, NCC is a psychotherapist who works with adolescents, adults, couples, and families in her private practice in Boulder, Colorado. For more information about her areas of expertise, background, and methods, as well as additional helpful resources and past newsletters, go to www.jenniferdiebel.com.

Please Try This at Home is a monthly newsletter containing tips for increasing the joy in your life, as well as information about counseling discounts and helpful local seminars and resources. To request a future newsletter topic, include a friend on the subscription list, ask a question, or offer feedback, email Jennifer at info@jenniferdiebel.com. 

 

I wouldn't have dedicated my life to helping people change if I didn't deeply believe that change is possible. And I have seen people make incredible turn-arounds when I least expected it. But I need to be straight with you: Some people were either born with or developed traits that make it extremely unlikely that they will ever change. Short of a frontal lobotomy or divine intervention, some dogs are just not going to learn new tricks.
 
I feel compelled to be the bearer of this bad news today and flesh out some themes of my last newsletter, because of the agony I keep seeing in those who love these "unchangables" and who keep holding on, white-knuckled, to the hope that they will change, only to be bitterly disappointed time after time.  
 
I tell you, the Cirque du Soleil contortionists have nothing on Lovers of Unchangeables. These folks put themselves through no end of effort in an attempt to get Unchangeables to change. They'll diet, take classes, learn new hobbies, or have sex when they don't want to in an effort to please the person; they'll confront the person, host umpteen interventions, go to years of therapy, and explain away endless breaches of trust; they'll give money they can't afford, answer calls at all hours, and conceal painful things the person has done from themselves and others; they'll neglect other relationships, sacrifice their own health, and turn to their own addictions to cope with all the effort they are exerting. There's no end to what they'll try. And sacrificing one's self through repeated attempts to get an Unchangeable to change is simply a horrible way to live.
 
But what if there was a way to tell the difference between old dogs who can learn new tricks-even if slowly and not too many at a time-and old dogs whose tombstones will read, "Never, ever, ever changed no matter what anyone tried"? If so, it might be possible for Lovers of Unchangeables to mourn the fact that the person will never change and then figure out what they themselves would need to do to live healthy, joyful lives themselves in ways that do not at all depend on the Unchangeable changing. They could be confident in their choice to shift their strategy with the Unchangeable from useless attempts to get them to change to setting limits on the amount they will let that person affect their own self worth, time, money, relationships, career, future plans, etc.
 
How to Spot an Unchangeable
 
I'm not claiming to have the final word on what traits absolutely prevent people from changing without exception. But these are the ones I've read about and seen in my own relationships and my work with adults. (These may not apply to folks younger than about 25, whose resistance to change may be a matter of brain development more than personality trait problems.) I've listed them in rank order, with the first ones being those that are most likely to prevent change:
 
1. Total Failure to Take Responsibility for Anything. Whenever the person is confronted with a shortcoming, breach of trust, or anything negative, they find a way to blame it on something else-their childhood, another person, you, their circumstances, etc. Or they rationalize it away until the behavior is not bad (e.g., "I don't drink that much," "You are just too sensitive," "It's not personal, it's business," "I just do what I need to do to get the job done"). They can't stand to admit even partial fault. It's like they've got a Teflon shield for negativity that insures nothing negative can touch their consciousness. Because they can't allow themselves to perceive that anything about them is negative, there is no internal motivation to change it. The invitation to change gets knocked down before it can ever take root.
 
2. Not Understanding the Difference between Talk and Change. Some people, when confronted, will admit to being at fault. They will show remorse that looks real and convincing. But no matter how many times they are confronted about the same issue, no matter how much the consequences for their behavior escalate, no change results. It is as if they believe that having a conversation about a hurtful behavior is the same as doing something about it. If 10 conversations that include clear, specific behavior change requests, promises, and increasing consequences haven't led to any behavior change, what are the odds that the 11^th conversation will change anything?
 
3. A Trail of Wrecked Relationships and Opportunities. All of us make mistakes in relationships, jobs, school, and other choices. What sets Unchangeables apart is that it seems like they keep making exactly the same mistakes over and over again, though they may be able to tell you a different reason for each one. If someone is telling you about (or you learn about from other sources) a long history (5+) of romantic relationships or friendships that ended for similar reasons, helpers they tried and left without really giving it a shot, jobs they were fired from or quit without really trying to make them work, then you would need to see some pretty clear and long term (more than a year) evidence that the person has made a successful break from that past way of being in order to substantiate hope that the person really is different now and is really capable of sustaining a changed direction.  
 
4. Failure to Change Started Young and Stayed Around. Traits that started in the teens or early twenties and then kept going after about age 25 are likely to be much less changeable than those that either peaked in the teens and early twenties and then declined as the person matured past 25-30, or those that appeared after 25-30. The longer a trait has been with someone, especially if it spans more than one season of life (adolescence, early adulthood, middle adulthood, late adulthood), the less likely that it will change.  
 
What to Do If You Suspect Someone You Love is an Unchangeable
 
So let's say you think you've got an Unchangeable on your hands. What now?
 
1. Make Sure You've Communicated Clearly. While I've described the dangers of hoping an Unchangeable will change when they won't, it's also wise to make sure that someone is pretty darned Unchangeable before giving up on efforts to help them. So it's best to start by asking yourself whether you have ever clearly communicated to the person what you would like them to change in specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-defined (SMART) ways; the effect that their not-changing has on you and others; and what steps you will need to take if the change does not happen. If you have not been able to communicate these things to them clearly, start by doing that once or a few times to see if clarity and repetition has an effect.
 
2. Mourn What You Have Lost. If you have already tried everything you can imagine to get someone to change and you have growing certainty that it's just not going to happen, take some time daily or weekly over several weeks to really think through everything you had hoped could happen, followed by the anger and sadness you feel because of the helplessness of the situation and the hurt that the person has caused you. If you can, share these disappointed hopes and your anger and sadness with another person who can support and comfort you in your loss.
 
3. Set New Habits and Limits. Take some time to think about what a healthy, joyful life could look like for you if you had an absolute guarantee that nothing about the person would ever, ever change. What time, space, emotional, physical, sexual, communication, social, legal, etc. limits would you need to set on the person to ensure that you would be able to make sure your own needs get taken care of? Who else in your life could you go to for help meeting the needs and hopes that you had expected that person to satisfy? What new practices, hobbies, support networks, or schedules could you begin (or stop!) to make sure that your needs get met? What organizations or other relationships could you invest in, where you would get to see positive change happening effectively in the world?
 
4. Don't Forget! Write out the evidence that you have seen that this person will not change. Add some phrases that help you to focus on what you plan to do to increase your own health and joy, despite the fact that the person won't change, like the Serenity Prayer. Review this list daily or weekly to help yourself break the habit of returning to fruitless efforts to get the other person to change.
 
If you or someone you know would like help with discerning whether someone in your life will change or with changing strategies with an Unchangeable, free to call me at 303-931-4284 for a free 20-minute consultation or email info@jenniferdiebel.com.
 
To read past newsletters, go to www.jenniferdiebel.com/Helpful_Resources.html.
 
Thanks for reading!  
 
Jennifer Diebel, MA, NCC
Psychotherapist
 
303-931-4284
info@jenniferdiebel.com
www.jenniferdiebel.com
5370 Manhattan Circle, Suite 203
Boulder, CO 80303
 
Jennifer Diebel, MA, NCC is a psychotherapist who works with adolescents, adults, couples, and families in her private practice in Boulder, Colorado. For more information about her areas of expertise, background, and methods, as well as additional helpful resources and past newsletters, go to www.jenniferdiebel.com.  
 
Please Try This at Home is a monthly newsletter containing tips for increasing the joy in your life, as well as information about counseling discounts and helpful local seminars and resources. To request a future newsletter topic, include a friend on the subscription list, ask a question, or offer feedback, email Jennifer at info@jenniferdiebel.com. To unsubscribe, simply reply to this email with "unsubscribe" in the heading.

I am weirded out by Carl Rogers' observation: "The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change." I am even further unsettled by the extension of this concept that it's when we accept other people just as they are, somehow it frees them to change, too. I don't feel like either of these should be true.

A part of me feels like the truth should be: "As long as I refuse to accept the parts of me I don't like, I can starve them out of existence until they are no longer there," followed by, "As long as I make every effort to get another person to change, so that no interaction is free of that effort, I can corral them into change by never giving up." I mean, doesn't change happen through constant, repeated effort and the refusal to accept what is just not acceptable?

Apparently not. What I keep seeing in my own life and those of my clients is that change often somehow begins once we give up or hope that we or other people could be different and instead accept that we or they are not as we'd like. Specifically, I'm talking about the kind of hope that strives to control an undesirable part of reality by refusing to allow it to be what it is. Let me give two examples, one related to relationships and the other to the self.

How Acceptance Frees Us

Let's start with two parents who have done everything they can think of to get their son to stop drinking and are now holding fast to the belief: "We can't give up hope that our son will stop drinking or he never will." Since they have already done everything they can think of to do, clinging tightly to "hope," as if the sheer act of clinging to that thought can change what nothing else has been able to change, does not give them increased power over the situation. It simply keeps them from living in the reality that they've done everything they could and if the situation ever changes, it will be due to circumstances or miracles beyond their control, not their "hope."

If refusing to live in reality wasn't bad enough, the parents' "hope" may actually be getting in the way of their son's change. Whenever he interacts with them, he's having to interact with their unreal image of him as "the boy who wants to change and could at any moment" not as the reality of who he is right now: "the boy who is stubbornly happy to be drinking thank-you-very-much." Their refusal to interact with him as he is causes distance in their relationship and makes any advice they give seem even more out of touch. If they at least acknowledged the full reality of where he is at right now, rather than clinging to what he is not, they could at least have some real conversations. He wouldn't have to put so much energy into standing up for who he knows he is in his own mind, resisting their unreality. He might even have some energy left over to consider whether he's made the best choices. Oddly, accepting him where he is at might free him up to consider whether that's where he wants to be. But that could only begin with his parents' giving up that clinging "hope" that blocks acceptance of what is.

Let's get more personal, now. What is something that really bothers you about yourself that you wish weren't there? For me, it's my knees. I'm grumpy that even though I'm only in my 30's, I can't seem to go running, cut a rug on the dance floor, or even wear heals for a few hours without damaging my knees in some painful way that never seems to heal all the way. I do not want to accept this. I want to hold on to the "hope" that the right combo of physical therapy, rest, and steroids or something can make my knees 15 years old again and I could still be one of those "soldier through the pain" athletes who can do anything. I've been secretly hoping to change reality by remaining pissed off at it and holding onto the "hope" of perpetual knee youth.

As long as I hold onto this "hope," I not only keep trying activities I know will hurt me, I stay angry at the reality of life that things decay and even more angry at myself for not being able to overcome that. What kind of wimp am I that I can't just keep going through pain? What's wrong with my stupid tall body? Why wasn't it made right? And on and on. Anger at one's self takes up a lot of emotional energy, and often slips over into depression.

Now beginning to give up that hope of knee youth, what happens? Mourning, first of all, that life does involve decay and that it will lead to death someday. Then, acceptance of the reality that there may be some things I can do about this, but I can't turn back the clock. This gets followed by acceptance of my self, somehow, too. If it just so happens that I live in a world where I am subject to decay and that I have been given my body's form of decay, not that of an Olympian's body, I don't have to keep strangling the part of myself that is reflecting that reality because I don't like it. I can make my peace with it. Giving up that anger disguised as "hope" frees up a lot of energy and some good feelings toward my self. I've got some energy left over to be grateful for what I still can do. And likely, by not making myself do things that hurt me, I'll have less knee pain overall. I might even heal enough to chase my kids around the playground. But I can't get to the real change of increased peace with myself about my limits and increased rest that could heal my body without giving up the false, angry "hope" that refuses to accept what is.

I am pretty sure that it's this process that allows acceptance to be a catalyst for change. I keep seeing it over and over again. I see people who have clung so tightly to the hope that a parent could really accept them after so many years of criticism finally give up that hope and accept their parents' limitations. And suddenly the parent becomes more accepting. So weird. I see people who haven't exercised in years, say, "Even though I hate exercise, I deeply love and accept myself." And then-again so weird-start exercising. Even though I don't totally get it, I think there's something to it.

An Oddly Effective Acceptance Technique

So since it seems to work, let me tell you about an acceptance technique that I've seen help some people change in pretty short order:

1. Identify something that is bothering you that you would rather not be feeling/thinking about/doing, e.g., being depressed, craving sweets, not feeling able to forgive your dad, not being able to accept that another person won't change, not exercising, having pain in your back, feeling like a failure, etc.
2. On a 1(low) - 10 (high) scale, rate how much the issue is bothering you. For a week, try repeating 7 times a day, "Even though I (insert whatever is bothering you), I deeply and completely love and accept myself." If you are a person of faith, feel free to alternate this back and forth with the phrase, "Even though I (insert whatever is bothering you), God deeply and completely loves and accepts me." 
3. As you continue to do this, you may notice specific parts of the issue that really bother you coming to mind more intensely. So feel free to change your phrase to address these specifics.
4. Check in with your 1-10 scale at the end of the week to see what has changed and continue until you get down to a 1 or to wherever feels okay to you.

If nothing's changed, you might also try a tapping sequence that goes along with it in something called Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT), found here: http://www.jenniferdiebel.com/uploads/EFT_Tapping.pdf. For people who are more body-oriented learners, or who have thinking patterns that are more entrenched, this can help to connect the desired acceptance to parts of the brain that are activated by these touch points to boost the effect. And even if it doesn't work, I have found it to be quite relaxing :)

If you or someone you know would like help with accepting reality, free to call me at 303-931-4284 for a free 20-minute consultation or email info@jenniferdiebel.com.

To read past newsletters, go to www.jenniferdiebel.com/Helpful_Resources.html.

Thanks for reading!

Jennifer Diebel, MA, NCC
Psychotherapist
 
303-931-4284
info@jenniferdiebel.com
www.jenniferdiebel.com
5370 Manhattan Circle, Suite 203
Boulder, CO 80303

Jennifer Diebel, MA, NCC is a psychotherapist who works with adolescents, adults, couples, and families in her private practice in Boulder, Colorado. For more information about her areas of expertise, background, and methods, as well as additional helpful resources and past newsletters, go to www.jenniferdiebel.com.

Please Try This at Home is a monthly newsletter containing tips for increasing the joy in your life, as well as information about counseling discounts and helpful local seminars and resources. To request a future newsletter topic, include a friend on the subscription list, ask a question, or offer feedback, email Jennifer at info@jenniferdiebel.com. To unsubscribe, simply reply to this email with "unsubscribe" in the heading.

Anyone else notice that predicting the future used to be the exclusive job of prophets and oracles, but now it seems like everyone's supposed to do it?  I mean, let's take a closer look at the messages so many of us manage to pick up from our culture:

• You must do well in school to go to a good college, get a good job, and have a good relationship; you will not be happy without these things. 
• You should always know what you want to do next.  
• If you get what you want, you will be happy.
• There is one right path for your life and if you miss it, you will never recover.
• You should pick one career in your teens or early 20s and do it happily for the rest of your life.
• Sufficient planning can guard you from future pain.
• You can achieve clarity about your next step if you only think hard enough about it and ask enough people about what you should do.

At first glance, these might seem like reasonable proverbs: sayings that are likely to be true as long as circumstances don't do anything too weird.  At a second glance, though, these don't actually match the lived experience of the majority of people. Frankly, how many of us have gotten what we wanted and then realized we didn't like it?  Or our hard work in college got us a job we hated (or didn't get us a job!) that actually hurt our relationships? Or by trial, error, failure, luck, and indirection-not careful planning-we ended up loving something we never would have dreamed we'd like in our teens and twenties? 

Since these cultural "shoulds" don't match most people's experience, they aren't actually conventional wisdom. They're really more like oracles: predictions of the future particular to one  person's situation that are not really transferrable to everyone. 

What's so sad though, is how we torture ourselves when our experience doesn't match these supposed predictions. We tell ourselves we are failures because we couldn't stay on the course we originally planned. When we pursue what we wanted and don't succeed, we tell ourselves that our desires and reasoning must not be trustworthy.  Or, we feel dysfunctional because we can't figure out what we want, or because we get what was supposed to make us happy and it doesn't fit.

The Necessity of Muddling

But what if told ourselves and our children the truth about life: that there is just no way around muddling?  What if we guaranteed ourselves that there will be periods where all the thinking and planning in the world will not be able to produce the experiences we would need to be confident about what to do next? Even if we take years to think through a "foolproof" 5, 10, or 30 year plan, our planning can only take us to the circumstances a little ways ahead, maybe a few months or a year or two.  During that time, unforeseen directions and opportunities will come our way and there is no way we can know in advance how we will feel about them and the kind of person we will become as a result of it all. We will just have to reevaluate what we want and what to do in light of these unexpected experiences. 

Imagine the pressure that could be lifted if we approached our major decisions with the necessity of muddling in mind.  Rather than stressing out about whether we will like engineering forever, as we choose our college major, we could tell ourselves, "With everything I know about me and life right now, engineering seems like a good choice.  Maybe something else will come along and I will change my mind later, but this is what I've got to work with now.  No use stressing about what I can't know.  I won't ruin all my chances of future fulfillment by changing my mind about a career.  These days, people average 7 career changes in a lifetime.  This one could be just a good place to start."

Or, rather than flogging ourselves because we've hit a confusing life transition and we don't have an answer for all those people who always asking us what we will do next, what if we told ourselves, "There are about four things I can kind of imagine myself trying at this point. I don't have enough experience with any of them to know whether I'd like any of them long term. So there's no way I can make a "perfect" choice that will guarantee I don't end up disliking whatever I try.  I guess I will just try something for awhile and see if I like it and what unforeseen opportunities it might present themselves in the process."

Learning to Muddle

What decision has been bugging you lately? You keep thinking about it or asking other people what they think you should do, but the pressure of everything you can't know about the future is keeping you stuck at the crossroads, unable to go one way or the other because of all you can't predict.  It may help to ask yourself the following questions about this decision:

1. What future things that are impossible to know right now are you pressuring yourself to know to feel okay with your choice? How can you practice accepting these unknowns?
2. What good things could come out of your making the "wrong" choice?  What possibilities might that open up even if you don't succeed?
3. What do you fear is true about you because of your difficulty with this decision? If you were to ask a reasonable friend about these fears, what would that person say is probably true about you in this area, as opposed to what you fear is true?
4. What experiences have you not yet had that you would need to have had already to be really confident about this decision?  How might you free yourself up to try out some of these experiences to grow your confidence through them, rather than pressuring yourself to have clarity and confidence beforehand?
5. Who might you ask about the path their life has taken-the twists, turns, and unexpected possibilities and tragedies-to help reassure you that other people can't make foolproof plans either?
6. Looking back on past life transitions, what was the muddling process like?  What unexpected events happened in the middle of confusing periods to help bring you to your next direction?  In what ways is your current transition similar to that past process?

If you or someone you know would like help muddling through a major decision or life transition, free to call me at 303-931-4284 for a free 20-minute consultation or email info@jenniferdiebel.com.

To read past newsletters, go to www.jenniferdiebel.com/Helpful_Resources.html.

Thanks for reading!

Jennifer Diebel, MA, NCC
Psychotherapist
 
303-931-4284
info@jenniferdiebel.com
www.jenniferdiebel.com
3393 Iris Avenue, Suite 104
Boulder, CO 80301

Jennifer Diebel, MA, NCC is a psychotherapist who works with adolescents, adults, couples, and families in her private practice in Boulder, Colorado. For more information about her areas of expertise, background, and methods, as well as additional helpful resources and past newsletters, go to www.jenniferdiebel.com.

Please Try This at Home is a monthly newsletter containing tips for increasing the joy in your life, as well as information about counseling discounts and helpful local seminars and resources. To request a future newsletter topic, include a friend on the subscription list, ask a question, or offer feedback, email Jennifer at info@jenniferdiebel.com. To unsubscribe, simply reply to this email with "unsubscribe" in the heading.

Is there such a thing as a "balanced diet" of self pity? Does it have a legitimate, healthy purpose that should be nurtured? Or should it be stomped out of existence as soon as possible like a disease-carrying cockroach? I've been wondering about that recently, since I keep running into folks who seem to be on the extremes of the self pity spectrum. 

The Self Pity Anorexic

On one extreme, there are people who have been run over, not by a truck or two, but by a whole convoy. They crawl away from the wreckage back into a culture that pressures everybody to buck up and bounce back quickly from setbacks. Or they stagger back into communities that say the universe or God or the American Dream rewards virtuous people who work hard. So if something bad happened to them, at some level, it's gotta be their fault. So now, they are not only run over, they are also responsible for it. 

The people in their lives who should be offering them compassion (often including themselves!) seem allergic to the idea that bad things can happen to good (or at least average) people...at least for very long. Out of that fear, they refuse them the right to say, "I am a good, worthwhile human being trying just as hard as other people. Valuable, important things were taken from me in ways I could not prevent. I need to thoroughly acknowledge and mourn what was stolen!" It seems like affirming a bit more of this kind of self pity-thoroughly acknowledging and mourning what was lost personally and in community-is what could be healing for this kind of person. Soldiering along as if nothing has happened is keeping them stuck as the "walking wounded," not helping them to heal. They need a healthy booster shot of pity from self and others!

The Self Pity Glutton

On the other extreme, there are people who have been hurt by something a long time ago. The hurt may have been a huge trauma or one of the inconveniences and disappointments that the majority of us encounter as we bump along through life. But rather than mourning the event, doing the work to repair the trauma, and then moving on to see what else might be going on with life, these people become stuck in self pity. No matter how often you talk to them, the conversation eventually (if not immediately) turns to all that they could have been if "X event" had not happened, how X makes it so hard for them, how other people can never really understand X, how because of X they will never be able to do what other people can do, how they could never think of the world or God or people as being good because of the existence of X, and so on. 

What feels extreme is not so much the content of this litany. Certainly, there are things about life that make each of those feelings feel deeply true. Rather, it's the frequency and repetition of these things that feels extreme, making even the most patient, giving friend wonder if listening supportively, yet once again, is just feeding the self pity parasite that is sucking the person dry of any present or future joy, hope, or excitement that might interrupt the endless stream of victimhood. The question here is how to stop the self pity sucker before it consumes all of the person's life.

Considering the dangers of both of these extremes, how are we supposed to know-both for ourselves and those we love-when self pity is an important part of the healing process that needs to be encouraged, not bypassed, and when it is a destructive parasite that drains the energy and meaning from life and relationships?

Reading the Times

It seems like the amount of time that has passed is a key element here for determining whether to feed a self pity anorexic or starve a self pity glutton. The tricky part that I am finding is that it is not so much the amount of time that has passed since the hurtful event as the time that has passed since the person has started to be able to talk through the details and emotions of the event with supportive others. 

If less than a year has passed since the person first started talking about what happened, the person probably still has some healing to do. Healing needs feeding and support, not withdrawal and starvation. In our culture, it often seems like our tolerance for mourning is about a month after the event, or maybe 90 days if we are super patient. But when people have a had a major trauma or loss, this may only give them enough time to put a band aid on the most acute pain. Working through the change in world view, the changes in the logistics of life, and re-crafting their identity and community in light of what has happened takes a lot longer. It's not unusual for someone to legitimately need support a year or so after they have started to be able to talk about what happened.

If after over a year of being able to talk meaningfully about the details and emotions of the event, there is not a decrease in the amount of time and focus spent on re-hashing the event, that may mean: 1) that the person's brain is stuck in the trauma and they will probably need help from a trauma-focused therapist to get un-stuck; 2) the person may be in danger of allowing their victimization to define who they are, cutting themselves off from meaningful activities and relationships that could still afford them joy, even in light of the terrible losses they have experienced. The support offered to these folks may need to shift from empathetic listening and care-taking to ongoing encouragement to engage in meaningful activities and relationships that make a contribution to the present and the future, gradually focusing less and less on the past.

Below, I've listed some ways to figure out what you or others are experiencing in the way of self pity and some things that you can do to help yourself or others, depending on whether there's too much self pity or not enough. As there are quite a number of signs and suggestions here, feel free to skip ahead to whatever if helpful to you!

Detecting and Supporting Self Pity Anorexics

Signs of needing more self pity. If you or someone important to you experienced a significant loss within the past year, the following may be signs that you need an increased level of validation and support to help you heal from your pain: 

 

• loss of interest in activities; 
• irregularities in sleeping patterns, including more frequent nightmares;
• feeling like you are maxed out and don't have enough energy to give to anyone else;
• feeling jumpy and scared often;
• irregularities in appetite;
• drawing back from community, 
• low energy; 
• short fuse, quick anger; 
• tears right beneath the surface; 
• feeling emotionally numb; 
• suddenly feeling as if the loss is happening all over again in the present;
• needing to drastically simplify life to make it through; 
• feeling stuck in a "waiting" place, unsure of what you could possibly do next;
• having a hard time using emotion words about the hurtful event, or just about life.

 

Self-help for insufficient self pity. If you are experiencing several of the signs above, the following things may help:

 

• joining a group of others who have gone through similar events to talk about what has happened to you;
• writing down what you are tempted to believe is true about you based on what has happened and asking trusted others to lovingly evaluate the list with you;
• figuring out what kinds of get-togethers feel good to you and making specific requests to trusted others to initiate these things on a regular, but not overwhelming schedule to help you when you can't reach out;
• figuring out what kinds of things others say and do that are not helpful, then telling them what these are and asking them to try to avoid these things with you; 
• scheduling a specific amount of time each day or week to fully experience your emotions about what you have experienced; 
• cutting yourself some slack in your regular tasks, just as if you were healing from a significant physical injury; 
• finding between 5-10 trusted friends, family members, therapists, mentors, or groups you could talk to about your experience so that you don't wear out those closest to you; 
• getting lots of rest, exercise, and eating as nutritionally as you can to give yourself the energy you need to heal; 
• giving yourself permission to distract yourself and not feel the hurt intensely all the time; 
• finding a specific and meaningful way to memorialize the loss-dedicating a work of art, holding a service, taking a trip, making a photo album, getting a tattoo, etc.

 

Help for others who lack sufficient self pity. If you are supporting someone who has been through a significant loss in the last year or so, the following things may be helpful:

 

• letting them know that it is okay for them to take a long time to work through what they are feeling;
• listening and being with them rather than giving suggestions about what to do;
• telling them that based on what they have experienced their feelings make sense;
• telling them that what has happened is a significant loss that really should be mourned and that they are not weak for feeling the loss;
• telling them they are still good people even though hard things have happened to them;
• reaching out to be with them more often than they reach out to you;
• not saying that you understand what they are experiencing, only that you are sorry for what has happened;
• encouraging them to cut themselves some slack;
• asking permission before offering any suggestions and not giving advice if they refuse it;
• assuming they are doing the best that they possibly could to recover;
• affirming them for all steps they take to recover, including intense grieving;
• being willing to follow their lead in needing fun and distracting things to do or needing to talk about what happened, often in the same get-together.

 

Detecting and Supporting Self Pity Gluttons

Signs of stuck pain. If it's been over a year since you or someone important to you started talking about a major loss with supportive others, the following may be signs that you may need help from a trauma therapist to get unstuck from your pain:

• persisting problems with sleep, eating, nightmares, or flashbacks;
• continuing to be easily startled;
• continuing to need to make a fast getaway from certain stressful environments;
• continuing to avoid people, places, and things that remind you of the hurtful event. 

Signs of excessive self pity. If the above things are not occurring and it's been over a year after the event, the following signs may indicate that self pity has begun to take over your identity and cut you off from a meaningful connection to current and future activities and relationships:

• the amount of time spent discussing the event or grieving is not gradually decreasing;
• difficulty thinking of meaningful plans for the future or finding meaning in present activities;
• difficulty following through on plans that would put the event further behind you: moving to a new place, changing routines and hobbies, starting a new career, trying a new relationship, investing in a new community, finding a new group of people to care for, etc.;
• difficulty showing a genuine and consistent interest in others because thoughts constantly return to what is hard about your life because of the event;
• the event is one of the first things you talk about when meeting a new person or in social situations;
• noticing that close friends or family who were previously caring and sympathetic now seem bored, short with you, or seem to change the subject when you talk about the event.

Self-help for excessive self pity. If some or all of these things have become true of you, you may want to try:

• thoroughly writing out a description of the event, what it meant to you, how it has affected you, how you expect that it will continue to affect you, and what meaningful things you could expect the future to include despite the event (This can help to reassure you that you have thoroughly thought through the event and what it has meant to you, allowing your mind to begin to move on to other things);
• every day, making a list of 20 things that you are grateful for about your current situation and state of life;
• keeping a checklist/calendar where you note days in which you did not dwell on the event in thoughts and conversations, seeing if you can increase the number of these days as time goes on;
• limiting mourning and self pity to a particular schedule-15 minutes a day, one hour per week, with a particular support group only, etc.
• thinking through what things about the present and future feel most meaningful and setting a plan to increase the amount of time you devote to these things;
• asking friends and family to help you stay on track with increasing meaningful present and future activities;
• finding another person or cause to invest in and whenever your own pain comes to mind, finding a way to positively contribute to that person or cause.

Ways to help others stuck in self pity. If you suspect that someone in your life has become trapped in self pity to the point where they are missing out on good things they might experience, you may want to:

• lovingly tell them that, while what they experienced was a legitimate hurt, continuing to dwell on it is robbing them of joy and that you would like to do what you can to help them invest in a more meaningful future, whether that involves helping them set goals or gently noting whenever they return to talk about past events, allowing them to change the subject;
• assure them that their regrets and hurts are not the only or even the most interesting thing about them, that what is going on in their present and their hopes about the future are even more interesting to you;
• expressing the need for them to ask you more questions about your life and show interest in your struggles more evenly, so there is more back and forth to the relationship;
• telling them that you will begin to change the subject or shorten conversations about the past because you want to gently help them focus on new things and other people;
• congratulating them on any new goals they set and follow through on.

If you or someone you know would like help with processing or moving on from grief or traumatic events, free to call me at 303-931-4284 for a free 20-minute consultation or email info@jenniferdiebel.com.

Thanks for reading! 

Jennifer Diebel, MA, NCC
Psychotherapist
 
303-931-4284
info@jenniferdiebel.com
www.jenniferdiebel.com
3393 Iris Avenue, Suite 104
Boulder, CO 80301

Jennifer Diebel, MA, NCC is a psychotherapist who works with adolescents, adults, couples, and families in her private practice in Boulder, Colorado. For more information about her areas of expertise, background, and methods, as well as additional helpful resources and past newsletters, go to www.jenniferdiebel.com. 

 

Have you ever been in a conversation with someone where you are stating your views about something important to you and you'd really like the other person to stop being all polite or passive or something and just tell you what they really think?  Then, you could finally buckle down and have a real conversation.  You could really know each other and stop all the smoke and mirrors.

Or maybe you've been on the other end of that conversation. All you want is to have a pleasant interaction where both of you share a bit about what's going on with you and find out what you might have in common in the messy process of bumbling through life.  But the other person always wants to debate things. Either you're not really sure what you think about the topic and you don't want to look stupid, or you know perfectly well what you think, but you're not a vigorous debater and would rather not be told you're wrong just because you're not loud. Either way, you'd rather just leave the topic alone and go back to what you have in common.

Chances are that you more often identify with one side of this conversation, though you've felt the frustrations of both sides from time to time. I certainly have. I think the hardest part of these different conversational goals and styles are the assumptions about the other person that get attached to these frustrations. 

Debaters who thrive on animated exchange of contrasting ideas can feel like the people in their lives who minimize disagreement and mostly focus on commonalities are hiding from them.  The debater is thinking: Why won't that other person just say what they think?  Am I that scary to be with?  Don't they care enough about me to take the risk of being real with me here?  Is the truth behind their politeness so hideous they think I can't handle it?  Where are they?  I keep reaching out to engage and coming back empty and alone in this.  How can I respect them if they won't stand up for what they think?

Meanwhile, folks who thrive on commonality and just being together, rather than engaging around disagreements, can feel attacked by debaters. The commonality lover is thinking: Why can't that person just accept me as I am? Can't they trust that I'm a reasonable, valid thinker even if I'm not always proclaiming my opinions? It's so stressful to not only have to figure out what I think and feel on the spot, but then to have to come up with all the reasons why I do and articulate it in a convincing way. If they cared about me, they would cut me some slack and acknowledge what is sensible and valuable about what I do contribute, rather than challenging me all the time as if they think they know everything and I'm some intellectual infant.  Why are they always insisting I do things their way?

What makes me so sad about my own relationships and those I observe is that in many cases both people really do want to connect with each other in a way that feels good to both of them.  The differences in their understanding of how to do so, though, lead to assumptions that the other person is more interested in controlling the interaction by asserting their agenda than in connecting in a meaningful way.  While sometimes that assumption is actually true, often it is simply an ongoing misunderstanding.

The Known vs. the Liked

I heard a talk awhile back that shed some light on this process for me.  The speaker was saying that all of us have a deep desire to fully known and to be fully loved (or at least liked).  Along the way, we find that it is very difficult and rare for both of these desires to be met at the same time.  Usually, we have to choose one over the other. 

Those of us who have some early success at being liked or at keeping the peace by figuring out what parts of ourselves to hide in which situations tend to gradually develop relational patterns in which we sacrifice being known in order to be liked.  We avoid contentious topics that are likely to bring up conflict. We may enjoy collaborative activities more than competitive ones, or stick to activities where the competition doesn't get personal.  In conversation, we're more likely to share related stories from our lives or say things like, "I agree" or "Wow, that's cool" or "Way to go" rather than asking challenging questions or presenting experiences that run counter to what another has shared.  What we most want from interactions is the overall feeling that we've got something in common and both of us are okay with each other just as we are today.

Those of us who tried everything we could to be liked or to keep the peace early on, only to fail repeatedly, may choose being known over being liked.  If others won't like us whether we act like who we are or whether we try to be someone else, we might as well be known for who we are.  So we're more likely to let others know straight up what we think and feel, inviting debate and engagement, rather than expecting commonality and smooth interactions.  We're more likely to state an opinion strongly just to try it out to see how others react.  After all, we can certainly change what we think if it proves wrong. Since we're trying to let others know us better according to what we're thinking now, not trying to secure their approval, an opinion change is no big deal. Competition feels perfectly fine to us.  And our conversation is more likely to feature counter-examples, strongly stated facts, or phases like, "Actually, it's more like..." or "I disagree..." or "But what about..." What we want most in interactions is to feel like we fully stated what currently feels interesting or valid to us and, though solid engagement with another's differing views, further honed our understanding about what we think and feel.

As you can imagine, when two "Liked" people get together, they tend to have fairly satisfying exchanges, as do two "Known" people. But frustrations are sure to follow when Liked people interact with Known people, or, as often happens, marry each other.

AND: The Conjunction that Really Satisfies

What do we do about those people we love so dearly who are always frustrating our attempts to relate with them in a satisfying way?  Probably a good place to start is to use the descriptions above to figure out what the other person is most likely to want from most interactions.  Do they want to feel like you both were real about where you are coming from, whether or not you agree, or do they want to feel like you had a peaceful time together in which conflict did not make you fear that you have nothing in common?  You'll probably want to think through what you typically want from your interactions as well. 

Maybe the hardest part about moving toward a more satisfying relationship would be initiating a conversation with the other person in which you describe what you often want from your time together and give them the chance to say what they most often want as well.  This may take several conversations because many of us don't really know what we want off the top of our heads.  We may have to think about it for awhile.

If a few conversations about the ways in which you interact shape things up in short order, that's great!  If not, you might want to try out the following discussion steps with a topic you often disagree on.  This "Listen to Learn" exercise from Heitler and Hirsh's Win-Win Waltz Video can help both Known and Liked people to get more of what they want:

Person A: States an opinion about something.
Example: I love the snow. I hope it keeps snowing until May!

Person B: First states something about what Person A has said that B can agree with.  Then, using "and" rather than "but," Person B adds their own differing opinion.
Example: Yeah, snow makes the world look so fresh and clean AND I am so tired of fighting the morning snow storm traffic.

Person A: First states something about Person B's differing opinion that A can agree with. Then, using "and" rather than "but," A adds their next differing opinion.
Example: Some drivers really do slow things down AND I like having more time to decompress and listen to the radio when my commute is longer. I feel like I have a little more "me" time before I have to return home to all the kids' needs.

Person B: First states something about what Person A has said that B can agree with and uses "and" to add a new differing opinion.
Example: It must feel nice to know you don't have to do anything but pay attention to the road for a little while AND when I have to drive in traffic, I feel like I have less energy for the kids because I am so frustrated when I get home.

The conversation can continue in this same pattern as long as you like, with the goal of having a discussion where Liked people get to hear that their friend can understand and accept parts of who they are and that there is a foundation of commonality and agreement there.  Known people get to say what they really think, while providing the extra safety Liked people need to be able to come out from their shell and say what they really think and feel, rather than hiding for fear of having something vulnerable about them feel disliked and unaccepted.

While relational exercises-like new physical exercises-are usually clunky and awkward at first, practicing with them can begin new relational patterns that help people with different relational goals and styles to finally feel like the other person gets them and cares for them.  The fact that another person with a different way of interacting in the world is willing to try something annoying, awkward, and new just because the relationship matters to them goes a long way.  As both people see each other's effort over time, that helps to erode the negative assumptions that were built up through previous experiences of relational frustration.  It becomes possible to trust that the other really does care for us, despite the very different approaches we have to relationship.

If you or someone you know would like help increasing relational satisfaction, free to call me at 303-931-4284 for a free 20-minute consultation or email info@jenniferdiebel.com.

To read past newsletters, go to www.jenniferdiebel.com/Helpful_Resources.html.

Thanks for reading!

Jennifer Diebel, MA, NCC
Psychotherapist
 
303-931-4284
info@jenniferdiebel.com
www.jenniferdiebel.com
3393 Iris Avenue, Suite 104
Boulder, CO 80301

Jennifer Diebel, MA, NCC is a psychotherapist who works with adolescents, adults, couples, and families in her private practice in Boulder, Colorado. For more information about her areas of expertise, background, and methods, as well as additional helpful resources and past newsletters, go to www.jenniferdiebel.com.

Please Try This at Home is a monthly newsletter containing tips for increasing the joy in your life, as well as information about counseling discounts and helpful local seminars and resources. To request a future newsletter topic, include a friend on the subscription list, ask a question, or offer feedback, email Jennifer at info@jenniferdiebel.com. To unsubscribe, simply reply to this email with "unsubscribe" in the heading.

Recently, I have found the thought that I have both strengths and non-strengths by design and that I should major in my strengths to be rather freeing. Sounds like a pretty obvious revelation, huh? But it speaks to an old, wounded place in me: that feeling that I'm weird, that I just don't fit in, that not fitting in is a bad thing, and that I should get busy fixing it or at least doing a better job of faking it if I possibly can. Anyone else have that place in there, deep down?

This week, though, I've been dwelling on the idea that my design may be right on, while it's the "fitting in" place that is off. I suspect that I was made to derive joy and excel in certain things and not others. Period. Because I don't get to control the world, sometimes I'll have to do things I'm not great at and don't particularly like. I'll have to work with others who don't much appreciate my innate design. But that doesn't mean I've been made badly. It just means that to the extent that I can, I should tap into places that match my strengths and pour most of my energy into people who need what I've got to offer because this is what I do best. As Frederick Buechner says, my "vocation is where [my] greatest bliss encounters the world's deepest need."

I like the screening criteria this gives me. When someone asks me to do something, or I consider adding another career or activity on the side, I can check in to see if it taps into my deepest passions and my super skills, not my wimpy ones. Then I can decide whether it's a place I can hit the ground running-yee haw!-or if it's just a schedule filler I'm tempted to throw in for the illusion of importance that comes from busyness. It can be so freeing to say "no" with the confidence that comes from knowing that although I might want to do X to please someone, or I feel like I should be good at X, Y is what I was made to do, not X!

The Pressure to Be Who We're Not

It's kind of hard, though, to just be who I am and not who I'm not. I remember hearing all those messages growing up like "do what you love and the money will follow" or "follow your bliss" or "everyone has something unique to contribute." Looking around at the world, though, it sure felt like some things I could love would make more money than others. Some kinds of "bliss" got a lot more attention and understanding at parties or dates. Some "uniquenesses" felt a lot more acceptable to parents or coworkers.

As we explore who we are during various life transitions and then decide what to do now, the pressure from others and ourselves to "discover" that we are made to do something particularly auspicious, tangible, praiseworthy, money making-or even the family's favorite vocation-can be pretty intense. Sometimes it's so intense that it obscures what our personality, strengths, and passions actually are, even to us! It might be years, decades, or most of our lifetime before we have the courage to take a long, gentle, realistic look at ourselves, and then at the mold that was held up for us to fit into, and finally declare, "You know, that's really not me. I might feel like that's who I should be, but darn it, that's just not who I am!"

The Cost of Being What We Do

As long as we neglect to pop the hood on our identity, take a look inside, and accept what we find there for better or worse, we can't do what we actually are. So instead, we end up trying to be what we do. Because so much of what we do does not really fit who we are, we need more compensation. We need at least enough money or praise to make up for the fact that we spend our best waking hours on things that hate or just pretend to like, though they bring us so little real joy.

We also tend to need excessive amounts of other pleasurable things to make up for that hollow feeling that we are not meeting our potential: more food or alcohol than we need, extreme exercise, intense relationships, a packed schedule, tons of sex, super successful kids, "better than thou" stances toward others, exotic vacations, the latest gadgets, video game marathons...pick your favorite over-compensation strategy. Lack of identity-based satisfaction in what we do sets us up for a binge-and-purge cycle of long hours of drudgery followed by increasingly destructive addictions that compensate for the misery, while making us feel out of control.

When We Do What We Are

Figuring out who we actually are is hard in the short run. Not only does it take effort and time to examine our personality, passions, and skills through assessment tools or intentional conversations with those who know us well, it also takes courage to face up to what we find. Both the strengths and non-strengths we discover can be frightening. If we find ourselves particularly skilled, that may raise fears of arrogance or pressure to perform exceptionally well. If we find that we are not strong in areas that our family or culture values, that means that to live out who we are, we will have to say some pretty significant "no's" along the way.   

But oh! the freedom of knowing our vocational DNA, our design! Of knowing it is fundamentally good and that if it doesn't feel good some place or with some people, it's the place or the people who are off, not our design. I mean, sure, as I psychotherapist I'm in the business of helping people correct their personal "off" places. But it's always to help them to become more of who they were really designed to be, not less! It's to help them discover and accept what is there, mourn the loss of who they are not, and rejoice in what is delightful about who they actually are.

What's Under Your Hood?

I ran across versions of this exercise in two separate books this week.* I like it because it cuts beneath questions like "What are you good at?" or "What do you want to be?" which are so laden with social pressure to answer in certain ways. Our joys can provide some really good clues as to what we are designed to do best.

Thinking through your life, list 10 events, activities, or projects that have brought you the greatest joy.

1. For each of the 10, list at least 5 specific things about them that made the experience joyful for you. For example, if you liked making a 5-course meal, maybe what you liked was: 1) The challenge of researching recipes, 2) The organization of scheduling the preparation, 3) Having a tangible result of your efforts, 4) Being able to work with your hands, 5) Feeling like the eaters felt truly cared for, 6) Being praised for your work.
2. Looking over your 50+ specific components (10 x 5), note any themes that appear in several or most of your joyful 10. Do creativity, problem solving, physical activity, teamwork, meeting others' basic needs, or other things appear throughout?
3. From these identified themes, which feel most "core" to you? Do you like to problem solve no matter what, but sometimes you do that in cooking, other times in management, and other times in your marriage so that the common element for all three enjoyable events is problem solving? Do you like to create beautiful things no matter what, but sometimes for homeless people, sometimes for holidays, and sometimes for your wardrobe?
4. Once you've identified which elements of your joys feel most "core" to you, take a look at your life: your job, relationships, hobbies, etc. Which of these tap into your core joys or your more peripheral joys? Which joys are missing in your current schedule? Do the places you spend the most time and the people with whom you interact most frequently tap into these joys?
5. Focus on one area that you would like to better align with the way you were designed-a job, a relationship, a hobby, etc. What is one thing that you could do in that area to increase the joy you derive from it? 

I had a lot of fun and learned a lot by trying out this exercise this week. I hope you do, too!

If you or someone you know would like some help in discerning your vocation, feel free to call me at 303-931-4284 for a free 20-minute consultation or email info@jenniferdiebel.com.

To read past newsletters, go to www.jenniferdiebel.com/Helpful_Resources.html.

Thanks for reading!

Jennifer Diebel, MA, NCC
Psychotherapist
 
303-931-4284
info@jenniferdiebel.com
www.jenniferdiebel.com
3393 Iris Avenue, Suite 104
Boulder, CO 80301

*See Courage and Calling: Embracing Your God-Given Potential (1999) by Gordon T. Smith, and Performance Addition: The Dangerous New Syndrome and How to Stop It from Ruining Your Life (2004) by Arthur P. Ciaramicoli.

Jennifer Diebel, MA, NCC is a psychotherapist who works with adolescents, adults, couples, and families in her private practice in Boulder, Colorado. For more information about her areas of expertise, background, and methods, as well as additional helpful resources and past newsletters, go to www.jenniferdiebel.com.

Please Try This at Home is a monthly newsletter containing tips for increasing the joy in your life, as well as information about counseling discounts and helpful local seminars and resources. To request a future newsletter topic, include a friend on the subscription list, ask a question, or offer feedback, email Jennifer at info@jenniferdiebel.com. To unsubscribe, simply reply to this email with "unsubscribe" in the heading.

 

Ever seen that bumper sticker that says: Don't believe everything you think? Or that quote: Don't take yourself too seriously; no one else does? I've been thinking about these quotes recently in light of some things I'm learning about the brain. On one hand, I'm amazed at the brain's ability to synthesize information and come up with assessments of situations that keep us alive and help us grow. As I work with hurting people and continue to mine the depths of my own thinking, though, I'm becoming more and more aware of ways in which our own minds fail to tell us the truth.

It seems like most people can critically evaluate messages that come from others. After all, we live in a world of advertising with fine-print at the bottom, Ponzi schemes, email spam that promises fortunes if we'll only hand over our bank info, and a growing line of significant others who hurt us or go back on their promises. In the school of hard knocks, we've learned how to ask penetrating questions about what we hear from other people and then to fall back on our own judgment for a final assessment about what we think is going on in a situation or inside of us. 

Often, though, we do not ask the same penetrating questions of our own judgment that we ask of others'. We assume our thinking is solid and accurate because it feels that way to us. We are used to it, so it feels normal, which feels right. We often miss the fact that whatever thought patterns get repeated in our brains will eventually feel normal. That includes repeated inaccuracies in the ways we think about the world and ourselves.

How our brains lie to us

Repeated errors in the ways we think come from a variety of places. Genetically, some of us have areas of over- or under-activity in the brain that consistently fit a "lens" over our perception of experiences. These lenses incline us to view whatever we encounter in a particular, limited way. Abnormal activity in certain brain sectors produces an anxious lens where everything we encounter feels like a threat to avoid; or a muted lens, where nothing feels engaging or worth the effort; or an aggressive lens, where everything needs to be fought; or a depressive lens, where everything we encounter proves that we are worthless and that hope for change is foolish.*

Even if our brains start out genetically normal, past repeated or traumatic experiences can create thought pattern tendencies related to certain experiences. When we encounter a future experience that in any way reminds us of past ones, we're much more likely to think about the new experience as we did in the past, even if the situation is not exactly the same. With a thought pattern tendency in place, it's much harder to consider other possibilities or alternative points of view that would be valid in the present circumstance.

For example, say we once dated a musician with "brilliant prospects" and no day job. After she borrowed money from us and didn't pay for the umpteenth time, the following brain pattern solidified: musician = financial instability = feeling used = pain = never again. Then we meet another musician who happens to have good business sense. Despite the difference in her personality and savings account, it will be much harder for us to give her a chance because simply the word "musician" triggers the thought that ends in "pain" and "never again." 

If we totally rely on our own thinking in this case, we'll never be able to give another musician a chance. Ourthought/feeling about musicians is not telling us the whole truth that some musicians, like some accountants, or grocers, etc. are bad with money and take advantage of people and some are good with money and take care of people. Our thinking here feels like absolute truth because it has been painfully ingrained, but it is not the whole truth. It is partly a lie. 

What happens when we don't question our own lies

While bypassing the musicians in the dating pool might not be a big deal, other lies people tell themselves are a hugedeal. Here are some I have heard people tell themselves, just in the past few months:

• My situation is absolutely hopeless; there is nothing I can do.
• Anything bad that I do is part of who I am because I am a bad person; anything good I do doesn't count because it is just what anyone else would do.
• I am not the type of person who other people could value; I'm the type they use.
• The way I feel right now is the way I will always feel.
• If I share my real self with others, they will take advantage of me.
• I have to be upbeat all the time or I won't have any friends.
• Since I don't earn as much money as my friends do, I am worthless.

Looking into another's thought patterns from the outside, it's not hard to see that these are half-truths, half-lies. Some situations are totally hopeless, but usually there is something that can be done, even if it's just a shift in perspective. If the bad things people do "count" as being part of their character, the good things should also count. Some people aren't trustworthy with others' real feelings, but other people are. Some people need their friends to be upbeat all the time; others want the whole range of emotions. Some people evaluate others on the amount of money they make, but not everyone; worth comes from a wide range of sources.

But can you imagine how difficult it would be to see the world from an accurate, balanced perspective if these lies are what the mind focuses on 24/7 without questioning? Can you imagine what behaviors might follow from leaving these lies unquestioned? If they were absolutely true, as we often believe our thoughts to be, it would make sense to stop trying to make things better; to isolate or commit suicide to rid the world of such a "bad" or "worthless" or "terminally sad" person; to never be real with or get support from others; to never demand that significant others treat us with respect. Horrible consequences can follow from taking ourselves too seriously and genuinely believing whatever we think because it feels normal and therefore right!

Freeing ourselves from our thoughts

Since we can't really trust ourselves or others, does that mean we're destined for ruin? Hardly. It just means we need to apply to ourselves the same degree of questioning and consideration of other sources that we do to others. If other people say they have a great deal for us, or that they think we are awful (if they happen to be our 15-year-old), we consider other sources. We ask around to see what other deals are out there. We consult with our spouses or friends to ask, "Am I really awful?" We do the work to get a more accurate, balanced picture. 

The trick with ourselves, though, is deciding to believe the other sources, knowing that what feels normal to us about the deepest, most hidden parts of ourselves will not necessarily be the absolute truth. Sometimes others see us better than we see ourselves because of our biased genetic and experiential "lenses." Here's a way to start:

1. List the beliefs you have about yourself or the circumstances in your life that feel shameful, troublesome, or that make you feel stuck.
2. Among the list, note any that are extreme (implying all, never, ever, always, only, etc.) or that predict the future in ways you cannot absolutely prove. 
3. For these extreme or future-predicting thoughts, write down what is probably a more balanced perspective that could be verified by other sources. For example, a more balanced perspective on "I have always been a bad person" would be "Sometimes I do things that I don't approve of." For a future-predicting belief like "I will never be a good student," a balanced, provable perspective would be "Right now, I feel unable to get the grades I'd like."
4. Show the people in your life who know you best and are most trustworthy all or part of your list. Ask them what they believe to be true about you in each of these areas. How would they argue with the beliefs you have about yourself and circumstances?
5. Whenever you notice your shameful or troublesome thoughts going through your mind, effortfully and consistently remind yourself what a balanced, accurate perspective would be and what other trusted people believe about you in these areas.
6. Doggedly keep doing this for a long time until it feels natural. Patterns that took years to create will take a long time to change. It takes consistent practice-usually 40 days or more-for something new to start feeling normal.
7. Begin to enjoy the freedom that comes from not believing everything you think!

If you or someone you know would like some help in changing destructive thought patterns, feel free to call me at 303-931-4284 for a free 20-minute consultation or email info@jenniferdiebel.com.

To read past newsletters, go to www.jenniferdiebel.com/Helpful_Resources.html.

Thanks for reading! 

Jennifer Diebel, MA, NCC
Psychotherapist
 
303-931-4284
info@jenniferdiebel.com
www.jenniferdiebel.com
3393 Iris Avenue, Suite 104
Boulder, CO 80301

*See Change Your Brain, Change Your Life: The Breakthrough Program for Conquering Anxiety, Depression, Obsessiveness, Anger, and Impulsiveness (1999) by Daniel Amen.

Jennifer Diebel, MA, NCC is a psychotherapist who works with adolescents, adults, couples, and families in her private practice in Boulder, Colorado. For more information about her areas of expertise, background, and methods, as well as additional helpful resources and past newsletters, go to www.jenniferdiebel.com. 

 

Since ‘tis the season for sending out cards with quotes on the front that really capture the holiday spirit, I nominate the following quote for this season's card.  I think it really nails it.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair...*

I suppose it may be a bit cynical to attribute to the holidays what Dickens said of the French Revolution.  But isn't this closer to our experience than something that captures only one side of the season's sentiment:  Happy Holidays or Bah Humbug?

After all, it's the season where we look around with deep gratitude at our friends and family, or kinda wish they would go away.  It's the season where we give graciously out of the bounty we've received and wonder if we can satisfy that coworker we don't like with something under $10.  It's the season where couples sip eggnog in front of the fire and singles get to be the 3^rd wheel, the 5^th, the 7^th, sitting at the end of the table as a reminder that once again, they're not coupled.  It's a magnifying glass season.  Whatever happiness or sadness, joy or loss that has been lurking in the background comes into HD clarity, paving the way for celebration, despair, or resolutions for change on the other side.

Holidays: The Extreme Sport
           
How do we handle such confusion?  There are lots of ways, many of them extreme.  We might go all out, putting out 40 boxes of decorations and buying presents for every person whose name we know.  Or we boycott the whole thing, avoiding parties, turning off the phone ringer, vacationing to places where no one knows we're exhausted or miserable.  We drink too much.  We stay so busy with work or helping others that there's no down time to feel hurt or disappointment.  We write extended holiday letters informing the people in our lives about just how happy and perfect we are, carefully editing out the ugly breaks and failures that occurred along the way.

But like trite holiday cards, extreme coping strategies don't honor the full truth that this season is a mix of good and bad, just like so many other seasons of life.  And whatever side of the emotional spectrum we've been avoiding-joy or heartache-keeps knocking at our door, asking us to let in whatever we are forbidding ourselves or numbing during this time.

So in answer to the mixed-up-edness of this season, this year I'm selling two Holiday Mind Games to help us through, one fold for the good stuff and one for the bad. 

Expanding Our Joy Tolerance

Brain researchers have found that our brains dedicate increasingly greater energy and space (numbers of neurons and strength of neural connections) to whatever emotions we spend the most time on.  Whatever feelings we focus on tend to grow and get more and more of our time and attention.  That's why it's not a good idea to repeat or vent anger over and over-it just keeps getting bigger!  On the positive side, this brain trick can give us a certain amount of power to increase our ability to feel good.  By intentionally dwelling on whatever good does occur in our lives this season, even if this is our hardest holiday season yet, we can expand our current capacity to take in joy and stay in joy longer than we could if we simply let the sadness or frustration have all of our attention.

This season, by dedicating some time each day to listing those things that we are grateful for or that brought us joy that day, we can increase our attention to any good things that do come along and expand our ability to feel good more often.  Plus, anyone can do it!  See:

• I'm grateful that I'm still breathing.  
• I'm glad I have one fewer day in prison.  
• I am glad my son who is overseas this holiday at least sent me a card.  
• The sunrise was beautiful this morning.  
• It only took me 5 minutes to find a parking place at the insane mall.  
• At least Aunt Maude only burned the potatoes this year, not the stuffing as well.  

Shifting our attention daily to whatever is good, even in a hard situation, or to the sheer abundance of good in a great situation trains our minds to step back from negative thought ruts and make room for the good in the mix. 

"Depression, I'll Be with You in a Minute!"

Now before you accuse me of going all "Pollyanna" on you with the Glad Game, let me also tell you about the Containment Game.  This one's for sadness, anger, disappointment, loneliness, dread-all the yucky stuff. 

Basically, these emotions are here for a reason.  Their job is to tell us that something's not right.  And until we stop and let them have their say, they're gonna keep stalking us till we do.  If we keep busy or numb, always shutting them up, we are adding the fear of feeling the emotion to the intensity of the emotion itself.  Fear is like Miracle Grow.  It makes other negative emotions grow larger.  So to get the emotions back down to their actual size, we need to appease them by really hearing the message they are sending, while not letting them take over the whole season and cut us off from any joy that comes our way.

We can do this by scheduling a limited time to really feel any emotions we've been dodging.  Maybe 15 minutes once a day, one hour every other day, two hours once a week, or whatever works.  During that time, we might journal about the feeling, lock ourselves in the bathroom and scream about it, call someone to talk about it, buy some cheap-o plates and drop them while thinking about it-whatever!  How we choose to enter the feeling is not as important as the choice to really feel it. 

Choosing to feel what we've been avoiding, but for a limited amount of time, lets us know that we can be in the feeling we've been avoiding and it won't suck us into The Eternal Vortex of Misery.  Going in for awhile and then out again over and over gradually decreases our fear of the feeling so that it does not get to stalk us all of the time and take over all of our holiday experiences.  It's like we're telling the part of our brain whose job it is to let us know we need to mourn or scream: "I hear that you're hurting and I will be mad and sad with you tomorrow from 9-9:30.  But right now, I'm focusing on this good experience and the people I am with right now.  It's okay. You can wait."  

Disciplining our minds to express emotion and to contain it, or to attend to good things that we normally miss in our hurt or frustration is not easy!  But neither are the holidays!  These "mind games" are like time we spend doing pull ups in the gym so that when we fall out of the raft, we can pull ourselves back in and not drown.  Even though setting aside time for these things is downright annoying, it can be the difference between an awful holiday season and an okay one, or an okay one and a great one. 

If you or someone you know would like some help navigating the holidays or the new year, feel free to call me at 303-931-4284 for a free 20-minute consultation or email info@jenniferdiebel.com.

To read past newsletters, go to www.jenniferdiebel.com/Helpful_Resources.html.

Thanks for reading!

Jennifer Diebel, MA, NCC
Psychotherapist
 
303-931-4284
info@jenniferdiebel.com
www.jenniferdiebel.com
3393 Iris Avenue, Suite 104
Boulder, CO 80301

*Opening lines of Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities (1859).

Jennifer Diebel, MA, NCC is a psychotherapist who works with adolescents, adults, couples, and families in her private practice in Boulder, Colorado. For more information about her areas of expertise, background, and methods, as well as additional helpful resources and past newsletters, go to www.jenniferdiebel.com.

Please Try This at Home is a monthly newsletter containing tips for increasing the joy in your life, as well as information about counseling discounts and helpful local seminars and resources. To request a future newsletter topic, include a friend on the subscription list, ask a question, or offer feedback, email Jennifer at info@jenniferdiebel.com. To unsubscribe, simply reply to this email with "unsubscribe" in the heading.

I'm in a funny place right now. The questions I'm asking life are changing again. For quite a few years, I was asking exploratory questions about who I am, what I want to do, who I want to be with, how I want to be in the world. When I found some answers for that season of life, my questions turned into active preparation questions about how I could do and be what I wanted. I remember that being an odd season. I was excited to narrow my options down to some things I could really sink my teeth into. But there was also loss. I had to grieve any number of things that I would not be doing, that would not be part of my story.

Now I find myself in another odd transition. I've shifted from the intensity of preparation to the smoother pace of implementation and maintenance of the goals that have mattered most to me. I'm finally doing it! I am so grateful to be doing work that I love and engaging in loving relationships that I've worked so hard for. But there's a part of me that misses the intensity of preparing for something, as opposed to just doing it. I miss the unique kind of meaning and adventure that comes from focused striving for a goal.

Looking around, I see other people dealing with this kind of feeling by making "bucket lists" of things they want to do before they kick the bucket, or at least before their next life transition: run a marathon, publish a book, see the Taj Mahal, get the kitchen remodeled, etc. But since I've only recently stopped preparing for major life goals, I'm still a bit tired of all the activity those kinds of goals require. I'm craving meaning, really, not more busyness or distraction. I want a different kind of adventure, of digging deeper not adding more.

The Extraordinary Underneath

Ever seen Planet Earth or Discovery Channel specials on deserts or caves? Isn't it amazing how during the day the desert can look absolutely barren and lifeless, but at night all kinds of little adaptive creatures emerge, magically finding water and shelter in places we'd never dream of looking? Or how about the caves? They're usually not all that amazing on the surface. Even the biggest ones get dark so quickly that you'd never know how deep they go or what extravagant formations and creatures they are hiding unless you get a bunch of equipment (and permits!) and take some serious time exploring their depths.

I am coming to believe that believe normal, ordinary life is a lot like caves and deserts. And I'd wager that people who face life threatening circumstances or a major loss would largely agree with me. You've probably seen these kinds of people in movies like The Doctor with William Hurt, Regarding Henry with Harrison Ford, or Last Holiday with Queen Latifah. Like many of us, these folks who face major loss start out as "tourists" of life, taking a superficial walk through life's scenery, assuming they've "been there done that," and quickly moving on to the next task, the next diversion. When they run out of "travel money or energy, they grow board and dissatisfied with where they've gotten stuck.

Then, along comes the threat that everything they've taken for granted could all go away. All the sudden they are asking deeper, different kinds of questions: With limited time or energy, what people and activities are really the most important to me? How do I want to change the way I treat those I love with the time I have left? What truths or apologies have I not passed on to those I love? What kind of legacy do I want to leave at my work? What beautiful things about every day will I miss? What kind of spiritual realities might I be encountering soon and how do I square up with those? These kinds of perspective questions turn casual sight seers into spelunkers who go deeper to find the richness right under their feet in circumstances they had assumed to be boring or short on meaning before.

Mining Meaning from the Here and Now

Because I am not up for adding a bunch of new activities or experiences right now, I'm wondering if I might find that sense of deep meaning that I crave by asking depth questions about my present circumstances. It seems like many people dodge these kinds of questions until they face a crisis or major transition like a bum knee, a cruddy economy, a demanding 2 year old, a 50^th birthday, relocation to assisted living, a terminal disease, etc. But I'm wondering if I could mine for meaning right where I'm at by asking these questions now, before I face something huge.

If, like me, you feel like there should be a deeper meaning to your life, or you're wondering about interesting possibilities in your current circumstances that you haven't explored, I wonder if you'd join me in choosing a life area that feels stagnant and trying out some of the questions below on that area.  And by "trying out," I do mean trying out.  In my experience, some of the deepest questions and sources of meaning seem trite on paper, but are powerful when lived!

Work

·         If my current job were my dream job, how would I approach it differently?

·         Is there one task in my current job that I could "own" and be personally proud of, even if no one else notices?

·         Are there any coworker tasks I could help out with in ways that might establish more grateful and meaningful connections with people at work?

·         Are there parts of my work that connect to my deepest values or the ways I want the world to be? Could I shift to engaging in more of these tasks?

·         What's one thing I could do to take my "tried and true" skills to the next level?

Activities

·         If I found out I had 4 months to live, which activities would I drop right away? If they are not all that meaningful to me, what is keeping me from dropping them now?

·         What activities have I wanted to do, but haven't because I've been too afraid or too busy? Is there a way I could move closer to beginning them, even if I can't start right now?

Relationships

·         If I found out I was going to die next Saturday, who would I want to call and what would I want to tell them? What part of that could I say now?

·         What kinds of interactions have blocked connection in my significant relationships for some time now? What would happen if I directly pointed out that pattern to those I love and asked them to work on it with me?

·         What kinds of things do I most love doing with those I love? How could I adjust my life to include more of these times together?

Spirituality

·         What questions about the meaning of life, God, or the world do I keep putting off because they feel too painful or overwhelming? What would it look like to intentionally dive into one of these questions?

·         What spiritual practice or activity have I been doing so long and so "religiously" that it no longer feels genuine or worthwhile? What is the purpose of that activity? What different or creative ways have others found of achieving that same purpose that I'd like to try?

·         Who in my life can I have meaningful interactions with about my spirituality? Where might I find others who could share this with me? How might I intentionally pursue deeper spiritual discussions and companionship with others?

·         What "clutter" activities in my life can I clear away to have time to explore spiritual questions and connections?

 

If you or someone you know would like some help finding meaning in current circumstances, feel free to call me at 303-931-4284 for a free 20-minute consultation or email info@jenniferdiebel.com.

 

Thanks for reading!

 

Jennifer Diebel, MA, NCC
Psychotherapist
303-931-4284
info@jenniferdiebel.com
www.jenniferdiebel.com
3393 Iris Avenue, Suite 104
Boulder, CO 80301

 

Jennifer Diebel, MA, NCC is a psychotherapist who works with adolescents, adults, couples, and families in her private practice in Boulder, Colorado. For more information about her areas of expertise, background, and methods, as well as additional helpful resources and past newsletters, go to www.jenniferdiebel.com.

 

Please Try This at Home is a monthly newsletter containing tips for increasing the joy in your life, as well as information about counseling discounts and helpful local seminars and resources. To request a future newsletter topic, include a friend on the subscription list, ask a question, or offer feedback, email Jennifer at info@jenniferdiebel.com.