persuading yourself that it's not so bad

[summer bee]

my persuasion professor broke his leg about a month ago. he was out of school for the entire time, and he just got back yesterday. his lecture yesterday was RIDICULOUSLY INSPIRING to me, and i think it's totally relevant to post it here. ever since class ended yesterday, i'm on a new track & i really hope someone else can benefit from this, too.

here goes. pardon his typos. i've bolded what i find to be fantastic:

Emotions are part of how we navigate our lives –

The potential to experience shame, guilt, or loss is part of what keeps us following the rules – the experience of these emotions are not functional in and of themselves – it is the possibility of feeling them that serves to keep us on the straight and narrow.

Some psychologists argue that even emotions like envy are functional (they help perpetuate the consumption and production of goods and services). Jealousy (or more accurately, preventing it in our romantic partners) serves to enforce fidelity in marriages.

In the most basic sense, the flight or fight instinct that we share with other mammals is functional for basic survival. The same is true for the nurturing instincts we share with mammals – without them, our young would not survive.

Other emotions like happiness, excitement, contentment, and love are what make life worth living. We strive for such emotions. Compassion is probably the “highest” human emotion. Compassion is the goal of most religions because it takes us out of ourselves and focuses our awareness on the needs of others. Compassion not only makes the world a better place, it makes us better people.

So clearly, emotions (both pleasurable and painful) are functional. Except – when they are not. When anger erupts over and over again – our relationships suffer. Some psychologists suggest that people become addicted to emotions. At their most basic level – emotions are chemical reactions that occur in the XXX of the brain. For example – when I become angry over something – my brain releases a chemical that bonds with specific neuro-receptors and activates them. That is the point when I “feel” the anger. The problem is – the more often I get angry – the more “anger receptors” my brain produces to bond. My brain gets rewired to become more easily and more intensely angry. In a word – I become a “rageaholic”.


The other problem with emotions, is that we often create them ourselves without any help from the environment. Anxiety is an excellent example of this. Students nearing graduation can often not stop worrying about what they are going to do after graduation (parents and other relatives often don’t help much here). Even though they have succeeded in school, internships, and every other thing they have ever tried, they can’t stop worrying that they are about to fail at getting a job. Spiritual teacher Ram Dass says that our consciousness is “captivated” by the possibility of failure.

How do you convince yourself that it will be ok? How do you stop worrying? Should you stop worrying?

On the last question – yes, stop worrying. If you have done all that you realistically can do and there is nothing else you can do – then worrying is not going to help. Moreover – you are letting your anxiety highjack your life. Graduating seniors often let worry steal their satisfaction at succeeding, steal their last moments of friendship and camaraderie before graduation, and steal the moments of happiness and fun they may be sharing with their friends and family. Anxiety is a thief – we try to drink it & drug it into silence at a bar or party – but it is still there in the morning.

How do we persuade ourselves not to worry? Instead of trying to runaway from anxiety – we should try to look at how we become anxious in the first place.

Do you ever play the “what if game”? What if I don’t get a job after graduation – my folks are gonna be so pissed. What am gonna do for money? All my friends are going to have jobs and I’m going to be a total loser? I’ll have to move back in my parents – that’s gonna suck so bad. I’ll be stuck bussing tables or flipping burghers. Everyone is going to pass me up – I GOTTA GET A JOB

What if I lose my job? What if I don’t get tenure? What if my lover doesn’t really love me? What if I never find someone to love? What if someone breaks into my house? What if someone steals my identity? What if terrorists get me or someone I love? What if what if what if ?????
?

Recognize the “what if” game for what it is – a game inside your head – not reality. When reality has given us something to worry about – then we have cause to worry. Even then – we can blow a minor problem into crisis by playing “what if”. But needless worry – what if worries – are stealing the most precious thing we have – our moments of happiness, satisfaction, contentment, and connection to others. You can’t really be present to another person if you preoccupied with worry. What if worries also can keep us from focusing on fixing or better handling the actual problem because we are “captivated” by “what might” happen.

When you find yourself getting caught up in “what if” call it for what it is – an anxiety game and stop playing. Focus instead on “what is”. I have to do this when I get freaked about failing to get tenured. What is – is that I have successfully published a bunch of studies already. What is – is that I never failed at something I have thrown my all into – I got the MA the PhD and the job at a great school. What is – is that plenty of sharp people tell me I have what it takes.
And that there is what it is.

How many times have you failed at something you wanted in school, the organizations you have joined, the interships you worked at, past jobs, sports endeavors? If your life is not a list of failures – why would start to be now? Does that really make sense?
Ask that of your anxiety? Why are you jacking me up with fear about failure when I succeeded at everything else? Shut the hell up then – you’re messin with my groove, you’re stealing my moment.

What happens when you do lose? **** happens and we lose. Sometimes we do fail. Sometimes friends and lovers screw us over. As Pema Chodron says “life nails us”. Ram Dass who spent his whole life teaching others to learn to live with limitations and suffering with grace and love fell out of bed one morning and found that the left half of his body was paralyzed – he had stroked.

Four weeks ago – I was walking out to the car. I was really happy – my wife and I were leaving for a weekend in Manhattan the next day. Nothing but great food, art museums, cool clubs, and NO KIDS for three whole days – it was gonna rock. All week long I had been warning my kids not to play on the ice that kept forming in the driveway. The whole town was out of rock salt so all had to be careful. I just strode right out of over it. My feet slid put, there was an agonizing snap in my left foot, and I hit the concrete.

Despite the agony, I could see my foot was angled too far over. I braced my leg against the concrete and smacked my thigh – my foot snapped back into place. I howled for my wife. We went to the ER. My leg was broken in two places – one which was my ankle. Not only that – I needed surgery. They needed to pin and wire my foot back together. 5-8 weeks in a cast and physical therapy for even longer after that.

Instead of going to eating at Les Halles and strolling through the Met, I was writhing in agony. Five days after the break – I had surgery. It hurt worse than when I broke it. I went from percoset to morphine. When I wasn’t in a drug induced fog I was going out of my mind as pain surged through my leg for hours on end. I’d try to fight it, breath through it, console it, bargain with it, plead with it to stop – finally I would just break down and weep. When the morphine finally kicked in – I would fall asleep exhausted. During this I dislocated my already bad left shoulder. Now I was down to one good leg and one good arm. I literally felt like half a man. Day after day, I was in pain, I couldn’t move, I was trapped and imprisoned.

My life was snatched away. I couldn’t be a husband to my wife, a father to my kids, or teacher to my students. I couldn’t drive, go out to dinner, or walk in the woods. All the things that made me who I was were gone, and I couldn’t tell when they were coming back. I was in despair. I was ashamed – I was worthless. I could not produce or assist in anything. All around me there were things to take care of that I could not help with. I was 200 pounds of constant need. Not only was my life gone, my wife had been hijacked as well. She was constantly running to take care of everything. She was, for all practical purposes, a single parent. And I had made her that way whether it was my fault or not.

Every night on the pain meds, I would have vivid dreams: Going to parties, eating out with my wife, swimming in rivers, running with kids. Every morning, I would wake up broken, aching, and trapped. And I knew I would be broken the next day, and the next, and the next, and the next….

I was in despair – I just wanted to go to sleep and not wake up, every morning. On one of these desolate dawns, I started thinking about something Pema Chodron said – “The present moment is the best teacher”. I started thinking, what is happening right now, in this moment? Right now I’m warm in my bed. The pain meds are working so I’m not hurting. I can hear my sons cutting up and laughing down stairs. My wife is making me breakfast. In a few minutes we will eat together and talk about what we dreamed last night. I’m being cared for. I am healing. Right now is …actually pretty good. I felt the sadness lift and soon my wife came up the stairs eggs, salsa, tortillas, and coffee.

Every morning, sadness would hit upon awakening. And every morning, I would say to myself – what is happening right now, in this moment? Sometimes sadness would hit when I saw someone doing something I couldn’t – but what is happening right now? Not what may or may not happen later – not what happened back when – what is happening right now?

We all get nailed – we all lose and there is a legitimate time for real grieving. In fact we have to let it out – hanging onto it will make us sick. Crying releases stress hormones and makes us feel better. Letting out rage over loss frees up our energy to attend to what is. But sometimes grief hangs onto us like an unwanted guest whose time is up. Our moments are better spent in another orientation – we have to keep going on with life.
When grief or sadness over a past loss comes unbidden to us, darkens an otherwise bright day, takes the joy out of a moment with friends or family – ask yourself – what is happening right now, in this moment? Pull your awareness out of the past – As the Jedi say – “Don’t center on your anxieties – keep your focus where it belongs, in the moment.”

!!!!

[blankets]

Bloody brilliant. Would you mind if I posted this elsewhere?

[summer bee]

i'd say go for it! if you want to attribute it, my prof's name is Dr. Steve Mortenson (just incase he ever decides to publish it somewhere; i doubt it would go anywhere other than into future lecture-handbooks for this class, though). but yeah; he's an awesome guy.

[rdjanis]

Was an amazing read summer, thanks for sharing it!

[imokay]

I am going to print this when I get to work so I can read it.

[tcl18]

I really really like this post. Thanks Summer!

[scotia21]

I am going to print it off too and sit in my car at lunch and read it. I really do need some inside on the "what if game". I play it all of the time and I never win.

[nicemom]

So true and wonderfullly written! Thank you for sharing that. What ifs and living in the moment. Both things I have been working on daily!

I have to say also that I had these issues to a much smaller degree pre-paxil but they are so much stronger post paxil. I often wonder if its because I had a long period where I was drugged and didn't have these so I have lost the skills to deal with it?

And what I found very important also is that it perpetuates itself. The more you let the negative feelings have control the stronger they will build and the more often they will pop up. Beating them down is not easy feat but I keep working on it and it keeps getting better.

I can't help but be jealous of people like that who have such strong levels of reasoning and reality. It goes to show that we are sometimes not a different as we might think. Everyone in the world has issues they deal with and anxiety related to that.

I loved this!

[Amaya's Nana]

Originally Posted by nicemom

I have to say also that I had these issues to a much smaller degree pre-paxil but they are so much stronger post paxil. I often wonder if its because I had a long period where I was drugged and didn't have these so I have lost the skills to deal with it?

Diane -- I was just thinking about this on my drive into work today. It seems that post-Paxil, everything is magnified. The good AND the bad but it seems that the bad is just so friggin' awful. I think you hit the nail on the head about being drugged for so long we lost the skills to reason properly and deal with the bad in an appropriate way. At least it seems that way in my life at the moment. I have a LOT of stressors going on and it seems I do not get a break but when I stop myself from catastrophizing (is that a word), its really just a blip on the radar screen of life.

Great post Summer. Thanks for sharing it with us.

[eileen]

Thank you Summer, the lecture is amazing. I learned a lot from it.
eileen

[Johnnny off Paxil]

Great article...

Amaya..I would say that it not the drug issue that "exaggerates" things but more the "shock" of the trauma that happens to our bodies..I think really this is what throws you off balance...makes one no longer trust ones body and gets ready for the worst..you sort of develop an "anticipatory reflex" so that any slight little bump or imperfection is suddenly blown way out of proportion..this I believe is normal because the symptoms can be so debilitating and "seem" or may actually be life threatening...everything is chaos, ambiguous , unknown and scary... I dare say pass anyone through WD from an SSRI , especially Paxil and see what happens to their "psychology"

Regards, Johnny

[Amaya's Nana]

Originally Posted by Johnnny off Paxil

Great article...

Amaya..I would say that it not the drug issue that "exaggerates" things but more the "shock" of the trauma that happens to our bodies..I think really this is what throws you off balance...makes one no longer trust ones body and gets ready for the worst..you sort of develop an "anticipatory reflex" so that any slight little bump or imperfection is suddenly blown way out of proportion..this I believe is normal because the symptoms can be so debilitating and "seem" or may actually be life threatening...everything is chaos, ambiguous , unknown and scary... I dare say pass anyone through WD from an SSRI , especially Paxil and see what happens to their "psychology"

Regards, Johnny

This is a great post Johnny. Scotty's son, Ryan, was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder after his ordeal. Damn you wish you would've known how horrible it is to get off of it before you ever took it!!!!

[Fleet86]

Summerbee, I love this and I have copied it so that I can print it out and read it over and over. Even when in my darkest night of Paxhell withdrawal, I hope that I can check around and find a chink of something that feels good. I see clearly how his experience relates to our experience of the withdrawal.

Nicci x

[Sunnysideup]

Great lecture. I have definetly play the "What If" game far too many times. One reason children are so happy is they live in the moment. Thanks for sharing! By the way what degree are you working on. I have a Bachelors in Counseling Psychology. I would love to go back and get my Masters so I could actually Counsel. One thing is I'm getting old. I haven't gave up on my dream yet though!

[summer bee]

oh, i am SO excited that everyone is enjoying it! honestly, i've had a fantastic week, thanks to these thoughts. i've been able to relax more right before my classes -- usually, i think "oh my gosh, class is starting in an hour or two; that sucks". and that THOUGHT would stick with me until class & suck up all of the FREE TIME! jesus. it's no wonder i always feel like i don't have any free time; i probably have a lot of it that's just gotten clogged up from mentally prepping for the next event.

Originally Posted by Sunnysideup

By the way what degree are you working on. I have a Bachelors in Counseling Psychology.

sunny, i'm working on my MA in Interpersonal Communication. i would have been fine with the bachelor's, but i got a good deal (financially) that i really couldn't pass up. i have no idea how this master's will help me, as i've scrapped my pipe dream of going into academia (thank god!). i'm sure i'm learning something these days, even as i'm buried under tons of awful books & research articles. and i swear to god, if this particular persuasion lecture continues to affect to me the way it has all week, then this grad school bit was worth it -- even if just for THAT!! ha.

[eileen]

Summer, you've touched on me also. I'm using the concept, when I can.
eileen

[summer bee]

i re-read this today and found it nearly as inspiring as when i read it the first time. maybe some new members would enjoy this read