Monthly Archives: January 2013

Day 21: I’m dealing with two old challenges today — illness and mistakes

Posted on January 21, 2013 by Ann Koplow

If you noticed that yesterday’s blog post was a little more … how should I say it? discursive? rambling?  spacey? … than usual,  dear reader — I have an excuse.

I’m sick.

I don’t think I have The Flu. (I seem to be escaping that, thank goodness.)  I think it’s just a cold.  Two days ago on Saturday, the first day of the long weekend (of course), I came down with a sore throat and had a slight fever. And when I was writing yesterday morning, I was definitely feeling under the weather.

And because I was sick,  the following blog topic occurred to me:  how illness affects my sense of self worth.

Even when I’m a little bit ill, being sick affects how I feel about myself.

I’m not sure whether that’s common for people. I haven’t really checked that out in any real way with other people. In other words, I haven’t used the helpful skill — an “antidote” to the Cognitive Distortion of Mind-Reading — of Reality Testing.  To put it more simply, I haven’t asked other people, “When you are even slightly ill, does it affect your sense of self worth?”  I mean, I know that serious and chronic illness can definitely affect people’s sense of self-worth, but A COLD?

The reason I haven’t really checked that out  before is this:  I assume that I’m different from other people in how illness affects me, because I dealt with so much illness when I was a child.  So I just assume that I’m “weird” when it comes to that.

So I guess I’ll take this opportunity to do some Reality Testing, right here and right now.  That is, dear reader, feel free to leave me a comment on this post, answering these questions:  When you are ill, does it affect how you feel about yourself?  Does your self esteem — your sense of how worthy you are — get affected?  If so, how?

Well, I think that’s another first for me, in This Year of Blogging Daily — asking for a response from my readers, in a specific way.  I enjoyed asking, I have to say.

And it occurs to me, at this moment, to write this:  If this blog is more — how shall I say it? — discursive? rambling? spacey? — than usual (and I know it is) what do you want from me?  I’M SICK!

And it’s super early in the morning, too.

So, yes, it’s super early in the morning.   I woke up at 3:30 AM, a little while ago, and my throat was hurting.

And that leads me to the second “challenge” I named in the title of this blog.

Mistakes.

When I woke up at 3:30 AM, and realized that my throat felt worse, I believed that I had made a mistake yesterday.  And here were some thoughts that ensued:

Oh, no!  My throat feels worse!  I shouldn’t have gone outside yesterday for a walk!  What is the matter with you?  Even though you felt a lot better yesterday, you should have known better than to start doing things that early!  If you had stayed in bed all day yesterday, you would be feeling better now. You’ve probably screwed things up for this week, too. And you have so much to do at work and so many other things to take care of!

Wow.  That was actually kind of amazing to get those out of my head and into this post.  A little harrowing, actually, but helpful.

So, those are the kind of Judgmental Thoughts that can come up for me, when I believe that I’ve made a mistake.  And I know I’m not alone with THAT ONE.  I hear about people’s self-judgment when they believe they’ve made a mistake, a lot.  (And I’ll write about that more, in a future post, for sure.)

But here’s the good news:  After I woke up and started having the thoughts described above, I noticed them and said this to myself:

Okay!  You’re having judgmental thoughts because you think you’ve made a mistake.

And that helped a lot, dear reader, just to notice that and to Name It.

And I got out of bed, got some orange juice, grabbed my laptop, and decided to write a post.

And I did!

I think I can go back to sleep now.

One more thing.  I’m going to make a commitment to myself — and to you, dear reader — right now. Even though, at some point in the near future, I might have the thought  that I made a mistake by writing this post (instead of trying harder to fall back asleep),  I will do the following:

Notice it, name it, and let it go, dammit!

Thanks, dear reader.

Categories: personal growth | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

Day 20: It’s not All That (or All Anything)

Posted on January 20, 2013 by Ann Koplow

I’ve started several different blog posts today, unsure about what topic I wanted to pursue. I think this topic might be “it”, though.  That is, I think this post is going to make it to “The Show”  today, rather than being delegated to the Farm Team — the Drafts bin.

This Post with Good Prospects has to do with another cognitive distortion, another “psychological epidemic” of unhelpful thinking.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy calls this distortion “All-or-Nothing Thinking” (or “Black-and-White Thinking”)

Here’s a description,  from a hand-out I use on cognitive distortions:

All-or-Nothing Thinking (also known as “Black-and-White Thinking”)

With this distortion, things seem either all good or all bad, people are either perfect or failures, something new will either fix everything or be worthless. There is no middle ground; we place people and situations in “either/or” categories, with no shades of gray, or allowing for complexities.  Watch out for absolute words like “always”, “never,” “totally,” etc. as indications of this kind of distortion.

Boy, a lot of people have a reaction when THIS ONE comes up.  As a matter of fact, people often say this (all-or-nothing) response:

I do that ALL THE TIME.

No, they don’t.  They have other types of thoughts, too. It just SEEMS like it’s all the time. And there’s the basis of All-or-Nothing thinking.

There are shades of gray, even when we are only noticing the black and white.

The reason that All-or-Nothing thinking became The Alpha Topic today is this:   I realized that All-or-Nothing thinking was the subtext of every other topic I was considering. One of those other topics was Fears about Fragility — how we can worry about our own fragility, other people’s fragility, and the fragility of connections with others — and how this affects how we are with others.  And I realized there was some Black-and-White thinking involved there, too. I realized this had to do with All-or-Nothing thinking about people and connections    — that they are either Fragile OR Resilient, not allowing for variations and shades of gray.

Hmmmm. I’ll tell you what I’m wondering right now, dear reader.

I’m wondering if I’m being confusing. I’m wondering if I’ve lost you.

Hey! That relates to both topics, I think — black-and-white thinking and fears about the fragility of connection.

Now that I’ve noticed that, I’m going to try to challenge some possible distortions.  Want to come along?

Okay, so maybe my writing DID get more confusing above.   That doesn’t mean there’s an All-or-Nothing switch, changing this post from Coherent to Incoherent.

Or from Useful to Useless. There are degrees of usefulness, aren’t there?  This post — and every other blog post in the Great Blogosphere —  is neither Completely Useful nor Completely Useless. Different readers will take different things away, from whatever they read.

Communication, in general, is not All-or-Nothing.  No matter what the form of communication — in blogs, in person, in writing, in speech — there’s no perfect communication of meaning. (In order to attain that, we’d all have to be mind-readers.)   There are so many shades of gray there — so many shifting variations and levels of understanding and being understood.

And if I did “lose” you, dear reader, that was — most likely — momentarily. Connections — of understanding, between people — don’t have to be perfect. There’s room for variation, for shifting degrees of engagement and disengagement.

Okay!  Thanks for reading. Because even though this blog post wasn’t All Coherent or All Useful or All Anything, it is this:

All done.

Categories: personal growth | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

Day 19: sleep, Judgment and fears about

Posted on January 19, 2013 by Ann Koplow

I would say (and I am going to try to use non-judgmental language here) that I have a challenging relationship with sleep.

It might be hereditary, because my son, from when he was a little boy, has talked about sleep in interesting ways.  Sometimes he sounds like he thinks sleep is his enemy.  “I don’t want to sleep.”  “Sleep is a waste of time.” “I feel better when I get less sleep.”  “Why can’t I stay up all night?  I’ll feel better if I do.”  I talk to him about how humans need sleep and how sleep is one of the most important ways to nourish and take care of ourselves, even though he may not believe it.

And I believe what I say to my son about sleep.  I really do!

However, it is undeniable that I have a challenging relationship with sleep.  I rarely get enough sleep.  I don’t fall asleep easily.  Whenever I wake up and  start thinking, uneasy thoughts usually creep in, almost immediately. (See Day 17 for a posting about that.)

So I thought I would write about sleep today, in a non-judgmental and perhaps helpful way.

How might I start doing that?  Well, I’m thinking about how I move towards a non-judgmental stance with anything — people, situations, whatever.  And how do I do that? Well, I think the elements include the following: (1) curiosity about what is going on, (2) acceptance about what is,  (3) maybe some hopes or wishes about what direction I’d like to move in,  (4) ideas about how to start moving in that direction, (5) taking a step, and (6) losing my investment in what happens when I take that step. (Geesh!  Who knew that there were so many steps involved?)

Note to self:  write future blog post about the steps towards a non-judgmental stance, including how the language “paradoxically” includes both movement and standing still.

Where was I, before the italics? (Another alternate title for this blog:  “The Year of Writing Digressing-ly.”)  I know where I was: non-judgmental stance.  And then before that, the topic:  Sleep.

Hmmmm, maybe nests of digressions like that indicate some avoidance on my part, in writing about this topic of sleep.  And, maybe I’m over-analyzing there, but, hey!  I probably am avoiding that topic.  As a matter of fact, last week, I was doing a group where I  passed out a worksheet on “Self-Care.”  The worksheet included questions like “What does self-care mean  to you?”  “What have you done for self-care?”  “What gets in the way of you doing more self-care?”  “What might help you do more self-care?”  And as I was filling out the worksheet myself, I could feel my mood getting lower. I was pissed at myself for choosing this worksheet.  I thought, “I wish I had chosen a different worksheet instead!  This worksheet sucks! I don’t want to do this!  This is probably depressing other people in the room!”  And it’s true that it was a difficult topic, but it was a helpful one for the group to discuss. But when I thought about why I had that reaction to the worksheet, I realized it was because of The Topic Du Jour.

Sleep.

And how “bad” I am at that — a very important part of my own self-care.

So, now, I’m realizing that I have a lot of self judgment about how I take care of myself, sleep-wise.  And I need to accept THAT, too.

I need to not judge the judgment.

“Not judging the judgment.” That’s a phrase I use a LOT in my work. And that does seem to blow people’s minds.  People have remarked “Yes, my head is now going to explode.” Sometimes, when I say “No judgment about the judgment”  and I see people’s expressions,  I feel like Captain Kirk in Star Trek  when he’s disabled yet another dangerous robot or computer by saying something paradoxical, like “You are perfect AND you’ve made an error.”

Arrrghh!  Another digression! This is ridiculous. But, again, there it is:  I guess this is a tough topic for me.

As a matter of fact, here’s a thought I’ve had several times while writing this: “Maybe I should press Save Draft, and write about this later!  I mean, it is a long weekend, dammit, and I want to relax and have some fun.”

And maybe I will press Save Draft at some point, but not yet.

I also think that, as with EVERYTHING,  I don’t have to “finish” this  today.  Maybe just starting it is helpful.

So, what else would I like to write about Sleep today?

I guess that I do have some judgment and fears about sleep.

The judgment includes thoughts like these:

I’m not taking care of myself well enough.

I “should” know better.

Even though I know and believe that enough sleep is important,  I often don’t give myself that gift, as much as I want my son to have it.

My fears?

Hmmmm, those fears feel scary.  (I think I do fear the fear, at times.)  So I’ll do my best right now to write about them, a little.

What are my fears about sleep?  Maybe that I won’t wake up?  Wow. That’s the ultimate fear, isn’t it?  Also, maybe I have some fear of losing control. And maybe because of the operations I had when I was a kid, maybe I associate sleep with the forced sleep of anesthesia, too, in some ways.

Maybe.

As I often find (and encourage other people to do), just writing down fears — getting them out of your head, on paper or screen, so you can see them —  can help. (As scary as it might feel to do that.)

I think that may have helped.

I’m going to stop there, dear reader, for now.  Thanks so much for your curiosity, and for witnessing me, as I stand still AND move towards non-judgment. (And I hope there were no head explosions or any destructions of computers or robots, at any point during the reading of that blog.)

Categories: personal growth | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Day 18: If there’s something you need or want, just ask for it.

Posted on January 18, 2013 by Ann Koplow

Note:  This here is another blog-ified version of a chapter I’ve been working on for a book.   My friend Jeanette really likes this, so this is dedicated to her.

Yes, indeed.  If there’s something you need or want, just ask for it.

If  you’re skeptical about this, I understand.  If I hadn’t encountered this lesson countless times so far in my life, I couldn’t be writing about it now. And believe me, unless I read this post over and over again, I’m pretty sure I’ll doubt it again in the future.

There are lots of reasons why it’s difficult to ask for what you want.  Here are two really common ones:

(1) You fear that that you won’t get what you ask for, and you’ll feel  much worse than if you hadn’t asked at all.

(2) You  believe that people will judge you and maybe even reject you for burdening them, or for being selfish or unreasonable.

Let’s look at these, one at a time.

(1) If you ask for what you want, sure, there’s no guarantee you’ll get it.  But here’s the good news: you WILL be able to deal with feeling lousy about it.  Don’t believe me? Think of all the times you’ve survived being disappointed before. And while sometimes we might feel that we’re filled up with disappointment, and one more “no” would damage or even kill us, it won’t.  And the more you’ll ask, the more you’ll get.

It’s the fear of the Power of that NO,  I think, that keeps us from asking.  Once we overcome that fear, and ask more, the odds will be good. You’ll actually get what you want,  some of the time (If not most of the time.) That huge payoff will make the few “no’s” totally worth it.  It’s a great business proposition. You’ll get fine return on your investments (ROI),  and ROI governs how most people take business risks.


(2) And as far as being judged by people,  remember this:  no matter who the person is that you’re asking, they’ve dealt with lots of people asking — a lot less reasonably — for a LOT more than what you’re asking for.  No matter how outrageous you think your request is, lots of people have outdone you.  I guarantee it. Think of the shameless requests you’ve witnessed in your life, for heaven’s sake. Your request will most likelly be somewhere in the middle of the reasonable-to-shameless request scale. Again, we’re talking excellent ROI here. More often than not,  you’re not going to be judged or going to be rejected even close to the way you fear.

There are ways to ask for what you want that can improve your ROI even more, including being clear and direct.  But I think the most important factor is believing that you deserve to get what you’re asking for — that you’re worthy of getting your needs met.

And you are, dear reader.

© 2013 Ann Koplow

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Day 17: I think I wake up most mornings feeling uneasy

Posted on January 17, 2013 by Ann Koplow

I think when I first wake up, I have some sense of unease, some measure of worry and anxiety.

I can’t say for sure how long that’s been going on, because I seem to have a bad memory for certain things, especially feeling states.  I see that “bad memory” in other people, too, when I ask them, “How long have you been feeling this way?”  I can see people struggle to give me a good, accurate answer, and I reassure them that I just need a rough estimate. A ballpark figure.  Has it been days?  Has it been months?  Has it been years?  And that they can tell me.

(Okay I have a writer’s problem now.  I floated my topic sentence, and now I want to write more about this issue of emotional memory. I have a proposal, dear reader.  Stay with me on this detour, for a moment, and then I will guide us back to that promised topic.)

So, I think I’m noticing a pretty common human phenomenon there: no matter what emotional state people are in, they tend to remember the times when they felt the same way. When somebody is depressed, they tend to remember those times. The depressed periods are highlighted, and memories of joy, hope,  love, and other  mismatching emotions  fade. This selective memory can work for other feelings, too.  That is, when you’re happier and more secure, the sad times can recede in memory, too.  It’s like looking at your life with a certain search filter on.

(I think this selective emotional memory also relates to why, all my life, I’ve lived in a place that gets friggin’ freezing every winter.  I don’t like the cold. At all. And every winter, I say to myself, “Why do I stay here?  I hate this!  I deserve better than to be in this kind of pain, for this long, every year!  Life is too short, dammit! I am definitely going to look into moving (south, west, to Hawaii, etc.)!”  And every year, the beautiful, warming spring comes, and I forget about it.)

So (heading back around towards original topic!),  I don’t know how long I’ve been feeling this way, but I seem to wake up most mornings — at least, these days — feeling uneasy.  I suspect that this Initial Waking State is common for me, and has been going on for much of my life

And I guess that makes sense.  Why shouldn’t I wake up, ready for the day, with a sense of what needs to be attended to?  Wouldn’t that be an effective coping strategy for effectiveness, and maybe even survival?  If I wake up in a state of Zen and calm, maybe I won’t be as prepared to solve the problems, meet potential threats, avert possible calamities.

Screw it, though. I think waking up in a state of calm would be quite nice, don’t you?  And I’m sure I have woken up that way on certain mornings, but just not that often.

I will say this, though. As hazy as my emotional memories might be, I know that there have been times when I’ve woken up with a considerably higher level of discomfort and anxiety — more “on alert.”  Compared to those times, I am waking up kind of Zen-ish, actually.

I think I can do better, though. Let’s see how I’m waking up in April.  And November.

Categories: personal growth | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | 16 Comments

Day 16: Battling judgment (while planning a birthday party)

Posted on January 16, 2013 by Ann Koplow

This post relates to a lesson that I keep encountering these days.

When I’m working on creating or learning something,  which I haven’t quite figured out yet, and I’m disappointed in where I am, I have this thought:

This [thing I’m working on] sucks!

And, almost always, this is followed by this more vicious, shame-based thought:

And you suck for not figuring it out yet!

Unfortunately, sometimes the above gets abbreviated to:

You suck!

Arrrrgh.

Lately, I’ve been noticing, over and over again, that after the You Suck! phase,  I actually come out the other end with some good ideas. That is, once I start to feel better, I come up with several new solutions that often solve the problems I’ve been encountering up until then.

Do I think the You Suck! Step is necessary?  No, I don’t.  However, it does seem to be a signal that something’s not working and needs my attention.

Believe me, I would love to skip the You Suck! Step. I haven’t quite managed that yet, but I have been making a lot of progress in getting off that step — and moving on — a LOT more quickly these days. Thank goodness.

One thing that is helping is the phrase (which I believe i mentioned in a previous post): “It’s good enough already, AND I can make it better.”

Of course, when I’m in the “I suck!” phase, I don’t believe that sweet and helpful phrase. But perhaps using that mantra, whenever I think of it, is helping me inoculate myself.  And maybe that’s one of the reasons I’m moving through that step more quickly.

I want to give you an example of this process, which is on my mind, because I lived it this morning, between 5:30 and 6:30 AM.  Yes, I did.

Here’s the deal: I am planning somebody’s 60th birthday party.  And I’d like it to be a meaningful AND fun event, for the birthday girl and also for the participants.

I searched on-line for ideas, and I didn’t find anything that was particularly helpful.

So I’ve been working on the idea of Story-Telling, and how to create a space where people can share memories in a way that feels comfortable.

I’ve checked out this concept with people, and several of them have cautioned about the dangers of this, pointing out that this kind of party might seem awkward or forced, and that people might feel anxious or on the spot.

Here’s where I was at 5:30 AM this morning:  I had been working on the idea of designating a time during the party when people could gather around and share memories, tell stories, or say whatever they wanted to say. I was going to try to make this easier by having “prompts” available to suggest ideas for stories, if they hadn’t thought of one ahead of time.  For example, these prompts might include “Tell a story where you and the birthday girl had an adventure.” Or “If you were going to spend a whole day with her, what might you do?”  Or “If she appeared to you in a dream, what might she signify?” (I’ve facilitated going-away events at places I’ve worked, and I’ve used these sort of prompts to help in the process of people expressing appreciation and saying goodbye to the person who’s leaving.)

Anyway, at 5:30 this morning, I wasn’t liking this plan very much.  I was imagining all the different attendees at the party — many of whom don’t know each other — with all their different interpersonal styles. And I could see, very clearly, that this activity might be …. awkward or forced, and that people might feel anxious or on the spot.

And then the “This sucks!” and “You suck!” thoughts came in for a little while.

But then, about a half hour later, I started to have more ideas.  I thought: What if I set up a sort of  Meaningful-Birthday Amusement Park throughout the party and give people more room and choices to say what they’d like to say to the birthday girl?  What if I have a room set up where people (who might be more introverted) could use a computer to record a message (which might be a story, or anything they chose) and to look at the other messages recorded?  And what if there were places to write down stories and share them?  And I also remembered these cool magic wands, that make noise when you wave them, that I had seen at a toy store.  What if there were a bunch of those around, and at any point in the party, somebody could grab one of these, wave it, get people’s attention, and make a wish for the birthday girl?  (Sort of the equivalent of tapping a glass to propose a toast.)

Anyway, I just kept coming up with more ideas to integrate the meaningful stuff throughout the party, and it started to seem like an evening that might be fun for a wide range of different types of people.

By 6:30, I was no longer feeling nervous and insecure about the party.  All thoughts of “This sucks!” and “You suck!” were gone. I was actually looking forward to planning the party AND attending it.  The pressure was off.

Now, did I have to come up with all these ideas to make this party work?  Probably not.  The party probably would have been good enough, as it was.

But I think it’s going to be more fun for all, now.  And I’ve been telling people about these ideas and — so far — the advance reviews have been good.

I’ll tell you how it turns out, dear reader.

And maybe, just maybe, I’ll skip the “You suck!” step next time.

Categories: personal growth | Tags: , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Day 15: The Yearning to Connect

Posted on January 15, 2013 by Ann Koplow

The yearning to connect is something that’s on my mind this morning for at least two reasons: (1) new types of groups I’ve been developing where I work and (2) this blog.

The new groups I’ve been offering are different in several ways from “conventional” ones.   Most therapy groups have the same people meeting each week and are either (1) short-term, with a specified amount of meetings (6 weeks, 10 weeks, etc.) or (2)  on-going, with no end point specified. People commit to attend every week, if possible.  People might leave the group and new people might join, but those comings and goings are rare and pretty controlled.

And there are lots of great reasons why therapy groups work so well this way, which I won’t go into in this post (but could, in future posts).   Because conventional therapy groups do such wonderful things and promote healing so effectively, however, conventional wisdom might suggest, or believe, that a group that does things very differently — like the ones I’ve been facilitating lately — might not work.

Here’s how these groups are different. People, once they are oriented  to the structure and guidelines of the group, can attend when and how often they choose.  If you were attending these groups, you would never know for sure who was going to be there when you showed up — you might know some people but other ones would probably be new .  And, you’d have control over when and how often you attend. You could come once a week, once a month, whenever you wanted. You could book  a space way ahead, decide to come spontaneously (if space was available), and cancel if you couldn’t make it.

So why do these groups work ?  That’s what I’m writing about in today’s blog.

I think it’s because people are hungry to connect in authentic ways to other people.  So, if  people feel safe enough, they will connect in some way —  even if it’s for a single session, with people they don’t know.

I constantly witness how healing it is for people — strangers! — to come together with some hope of presenting all of themselves (their strengths, vulnerabilities, histories, pain, triumphs) and to connect with each other.  People have remarkable abilities  to find common ground with each other, and to work together at moving forward.

It’s amazing.  And even in one session, where people might not know the other people, where they are — of course! — anxious about revealing themselves to others, helpful and wonderful things can happen.

As I said in my intro to this post, blogging was another reason that the yearning to connect was on my mind.

The way people use blogs, whether they are posting or commenting, sometimes reminds me of what I see in group therapy.  As I look at other people’s blogs,  I see people often choosing to bring different authentic parts of themselves here, to communicate with a hope to be understood, to connect, to relate, to learn, and to grow.

And, dear reader, I didn’t realize all those similarities until I was writing this blog today — listening again to my own yearning to connect.

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Day 14: The sounds of silence (and how we respond)

Posted on January 14, 2013 by Ann Koplow

I’ve been thinking about silence lately.  Specifically, I’ve been thinking about how people react to silence – how it “speaks” to them (interesting word).

I’m thinking about how we can fill in silences with all sorts of thoughts and assumptions.

I’m not thinking about the silence that exists when we’re alone. I’m thinking about the silence in response to an attempt to connect.  That is, interpersonal silence.

As a group therapist, I’ve witnessed and observed lots of people’s reactions to interpersonal silence. In a group, there might be a lull, a stretch of time were nobody says anything.  Often, somebody will fill in that silence,  perhaps out of discomfort and anxiety.  Sometimes, the group therapist has to fight the feeling that the silence means that the group isn’t a “good” one. (This is something I’ve worked on, and now I actually like silences, because interesting things often come out of them.)

Often in a group, somebody will share something intimate, risky, or important, and nobody will say anything.  Or somebody might change the subject, almost immediately.

I’ve seen all sorts of people – in and out of therapy groups — react similarly when they say something that feels important and then don’t seem to get a response.  They may know, intellectually, that silence can mean many different things. They may know that the silence might indicate that people are thinking and even very much affected by what they’ve heard. They may know that silence might mean that people didn’t know what to say (or what they were expected to say).

Even so, speaking without a response often causes something really painful.

Shame.

And that’s not surprising, since humans react that way, almost from birth. It’s been said that infants are “hard-wired” to have a shame response, which is triggered when a baby actively tries to make eye contact with the mother (or other primary caregiver) and they get an inattentive or disinterested response. The baby’s response looks like adult shame – head drooping, eyes down-cast, face turned away.

So when we try to connect with others and we don’t get a response within a certain amount of time, sometimes we’re going to feel bad about that. It’s natural to fill that silence in with all sorts of assumptions.

But feeling shame doesn’t necessarily mean that the situation is as bad as we fear. In Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, another common distortion is Emotional Thinking. Emotional Thinking is, in a nutshell, the following:

I feel it, therefore it’s true.

For example, “I feel hopeless, therefore there’s no hope” or “I feel inadequate, so therefore there must be something wrong with me” or “I feel shame, so therefore people must be rejecting me.”

I think it’s important to be aware of how hard-wired we are to feel shame when we reach out and don’t get a response, and to be open to other possibilities: that the other person is busy, for example.  I’m not saying we won’t get rejected sometimes, but maybe we’re not being rejected as often as we fear.

And it’s important to remember that even when we feel shame, we still matter.

I’ve heard guilt vs. shame defined this way:

Guilt is feeling like you’ve done something wrong.

Shame is feeling like YOU are wrong.

That’s such a painful difference, dear reader.

Categories: personal growth | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Day 13: Focus on what you’re doing (rather than on what you’re not doing)

Posted on January 13, 2013 by Ann Koplow

(Note:  This is another blog-gy adaptation of a chapter from a book I’ve been working on since August 2012. My friend, Lawry, who is a very smart, big-shot lawyer, tells me that I should put the following in my blog postings:  (c) Ann Koplow.  All rights reserved.  Except I have to figure out how to replace “(c)” with a copyright logo. That’s something I’m not doing right now, though.) 

No matter where I am, when it is, or what is going on, there is ALWAYS something I’m not doing.  No matter how many things I’m doing and taking care of, inevitably there are things I’m not attending to.

Unfortunately, What I’m Not Doing always seems more important than whatever I am doing and have done.  No matter how much I’ve accomplished during the day (or the week, month, my life), what I haven’t done seems … bigger.

What I’m not doing certainly gets more of my attention.  I need to constantly remind myself about what I am doing. Otherwise, I focus on — and judge myself for —  all those things I haven’t gotten around to yet.

 
And this all makes sense, I guess. Each day, we all need to make choices about what we pay attention to and accomplish. Once we accomplish something, we don’t need to worry about it any more. Once something is done, it tends to disappear — Poof!  out of our consciousness.

Yes, that makes sense.  Our brain wants to leave more room for what we need to do. (It’s more efficient for survival of the species, I would think.)

So we need to remind ourselves about what we’ve done.  And we need to notice how that natural focus — on What We’re Not Doing — can cause guilt, stress, and a sense of being overwhelmed.

Here’s an example of my incredible ability to be more aware of what I’m not doing than what I am doing:

For years, I’ve been wanting to write a book.  I didn’t know what the book would be, but I knew I wanted to tell and share some parts of my story.

But it took years before I figured out what I wanted the book to be, and I couldn’t start writing before then. During those years, I had a lot of negative thoughts about the fact that I wasn’t writing yet.  I tried to whip myself into shape with “shoulds,” like “You should just sit down every day and write for 15 minutes!”  And I wouldn’t.

However,  when I was ready to start writing, I did.  Yay!

I am actually writing those words you’re reading right now on a day that’s been really productive for me. It’s 12:45 on a Sunday, and I’ve been writing for hours, since 7:30 this morning.  And for the most part, that feels pretty good.  However, I’ve also been noticing  some nagging, increasingly unpleasant feelings.

The feelings are guilt.

And this is the thought I just identified:


It’s a beautiful day.  You should be out enjoying it.

Arrrghhhh!

These thoughts are just NOT going to stop, apparently.

Can you relate to this way of thinking? It’s what Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)  calls  “negative filtering” (and  I’m calling another Psychological Epidemic, because I see it all the time).

If so, try this:  Focus on things you are doing, give yourself credit, and try to make those things you do —  and have done — as big and important as all those things you’re not doing (no matter what your judgmental thoughts are telling you).

And, dear reader, something you ARE doing right now is reading my blog  — which is big and important to me.

© 2013 Ann Koplow

Categories: personal growth | Tags: , , , , , , | 13 Comments

Day 12: Confessions of An Obsessed Blogger

Posted on January 12, 2013 by Ann Koplow

On the 12th Day of Blogging, my true voice said to me:

I’m kind of obsessed with this  blog.

I’m thinking about it a lot. Not just what topics to write about. I’m thinking about How I’m Doing.

In other words, I’m thinking in terms of Success/Failure.

In my work, I like to invite people to consider the possibility that “Success” and “Failure” are constructs  —  ultimately meaningless and unhelpful.  I ask questions like, “What if failure did not exist as a concept?”  I love asking that question.

But here’s me — The Zen-like Questioner of Failure — on the 12th day of blogging, and Success/Failure thoughts are creeping in.

Creeping?  Hah!   They’re up-right, running around, and screaming.

I’m not thrilled about those thoughts, but what’s REALLY bothering me is how I’m behaving.

That is, I’m checking on how I’m doing, throughout the day and night.  I do a circuit — a roundelay among WordPress statistics, Facebook, and  e-mail — to see if anybody else has liked, commented, followed, or responded in some way.

Click: WordPress.

Click: E-mail.

Click: Facebook.

Repeat, as needed.  And I seem to need it,  a LOT.

I don’t like that. And I’m labeling it.   Narcissistic. Self-absorbed.  Solipsistic (my favorite way to say the same thing).

Hey, I know it’s human to want to be important — to dream that once you put your precious thoughts out there, that the world will care — and be riveted.

However, that’s a part of my humanity that I have to work — really hard — to accept.

I’m working on it.

Like right now, dear reader.

Categories: personal growth | Tags: , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

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