A Crying “Do”

done

Goethe wrote about crying, “It’s not the tears we cry that hurt us, but the one’s we struggle not to cry for they drip within our sad and weary hearts.”

Here’s a “Do” for crying.

One of the Ugliest Words in the English Language

What would the worst words in our language be for you? Swear words? Name calling words? For me one of the ugliest words is “should.” I think it’s ugly because the implied criticism is a sneaky spirit dimmer.

It’s sneaky because people usually think they are trying to be good by ‘shoulding’ themselves (or others). But they are actually hurting themselves (or others).

How are we hurting ourselves? Whenever we use the word ‘should’ we are basically saying that what we are being, doing or having is wrong. We should have in the past. So we were wrong. Or we should now. So we are wrong now. Or we should in the future. So we will be wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Always wrong. We are shaming ourselves. And that’s the spirit dimming.

One thing to do to stop shaming ourselves

So what can we do? I like to change the ‘should’ to “could.” For example, Instead of thinking I ‘should’ return the book to the library today, I ‘could’ return the book to the library today. Or I ‘could’ wait until tomorrow and pay the fine.

Just now when I let go of my ‘should,’ I could begin to think more creatively. I realize other ways I could get the book there. I ‘could’ ask my son to take it in with his returns today, or I ‘could’ call the library and renew it. I didn’t even think of other ways to get the book to he library until I released myself from the creativity freeze of my ‘should.’

When we think in ‘coulds’ we experience more fully our power of choice. We are the boss of our choices. We do not have to obey some edict given to us by others. We can determine our own values and priorities.

A ‘should’ releasing exercise

Here are some steps to take to release constricting should messages.

• Make a list of 3 things you consistently tell yourself you should do.
• Ask yourself how effective it has been in getting yourself to do those things.
• Now change the ‘should’ for each item into a could.
• Now ask yourself what has made you not do what you thought you should. Was it that you never wanted to do it in the first place? Was it that was somebody else’s idea, and not freely chosen by you? What else?
• Ask yourself what you notice now. Write your insights down s that you can jog your memory later.

I hope this gives you a sense of freedom and creativity so that you can make choices that support you, not dim your spirit.

Help For Stress In Times of Threatened Financial Security: Or When Life Sucks, Suck Back Your Life

Suck Back Your Power

We all need to feel as if we can predict and control our lives. So when something unpredictable or uncontrollable occurs, such as the threat of joblessness or stock market loses, we can feel powerless. Then the mere state of feeling powerless can trigger all the so-called “negative” affects (shame, distress, fear, anger, disgust, dissmell). And we can freak out.

Our society, and in fact all societies, mandate that we suppress, or at the very least, don’t show many of those “negative” emotional states. But what happens to the emotional energy when we suppress our emotions? The suppression causes a kind of emotional and physiological back-up. That back-up we call “stress.”

What can we do?

The first step is to acknowledge your real feelings. Don’t hide in the generality of “I’m stressed out.” One way to recognize the state of experienced powerlessness is when you are feeling intense rage. You can say to yourself, or another person, “I feel so helpless and I’m furious at feeling that way!”

The next step is to observe the situation and determine in what ways you can take your power back. We do have power over how we react to any of life’s scary events and states.

One way to regain power is to realize the things over which we do not have power. You can’t make someone hire you. You cannot make someone love you. You cannot make the Dow Jones Industrial Average go up. Focusing on the areas in which you do have power is restorative.

To take back your power involves  setting realistic expectations. If you are looking for a job, know that it most likely will not happen overnight. It may take months. Don’t demand something impossible of yourself.

Another way to regain your inner power is to make sure you separate yourself and disengage from any belief  (if you have it) that these life events mean that YOU are inadequate. Even if someone else is so threatened that they are blaming you, you can over time,  learn that YOU are not your job or your earning capacity. You can learn not to take inside and believe the evaluations, criticisms and rejections from others.

I don’t dismiss the pain, even anguish, that you may go through on the way to developing the skill of detaching your self- worth from external circumstances. But developing that ability may be an enourmous gift that later you will say was well worth the initial “stress.”

Self-Esteem Building: Do You Notice Your Adequacies or Your So-Called Inadequacies More?

Gift Yourself

I like to give clients homeplay of writing down every day, and reviewing at the end of the day at least 5 ways they showed adequacy or competency. While doing this homeplay  is an immediate  self confidence raiser for some, many find it difficult to do at first.

Some of the common difficulties are expressed in the following objections people have to doing the homework. “I won’t give myself credit until my whole book is finished. Each finished chapter doesn’t count.” Another self-discounter is, “It’s no big deal. I do it every day, so how’s that an accomplishment.” Yet another way of robbing the Self is holding to the belief, “If I pat myself on the back, I may not continue working.”

The people who think this way are withholding from themselves an important tool for self-esteem: a focus on what is good and competent about themselves.

When we pay more attention to what we have accomplished rather than what we have not accomplished, we are gifting ourselves. We receive pride in the Self, more assertiveness and feeling more worthy and competent.

Doubt and Shame

I just saw the movie “Doubt” yesterday and it has me thinking about how we respond to our own emotional states of uncertainty.

Doubt is defined as the state of being unsure of something; to lack confidence in. When they are feeling doubt, sometimes people then feel shame as a secondary response to their own lack of certainty. They think they are “weak” if they are not certain.

The secondary shame reaction comes partly from the belief that we “should” be certain. But to paraphrase (because I don’t remember completely; I’m uncertain), “Certainty is only a feeling. It’s not a fact.”

In contemporary psychology, being able to tolerate uncertainty, to handle ambiguity is an important developmental step. We can then handle the “gray”s, and not devolve to black or white thinking.