Pushups in Jail

Do pushups in the jail cell.

Get your GED during your sentence.

Go through your pocketbook while you’re waiting for the next train.

During your recuperation from the operation catch up on that pile of magazines.

Many can be the uses of adversity

There are some up sides to restricted choices.

You are turning something yucky to some good.

A Mess With a Purpose

Renovation is a mess with a purpose.

When you decide to renovate your kitchen, it’s because the kitchen as it was organized didn’t work the way you wanted it to.  So you renovate.  In the middle of the renovation project the kitchen is a mess.  The stove doesn’t work.  Everything is out of the cabinets.  You cannot prepare a meal.  Things don’t work as well as they did before the renovation.  You may  feel discouraged “Will things ever work again?”

When you are in therapy it’s a different kind of renovation.  Things weren’t working so well....and then you undertook identifying old patterns that were not constructive....and trying to catch yourself and not simply fall into them.  While this is going on should it be surprising that things don’t work as well as before the therapy, before trying to make changes?

Renovations aren't just ordinary messes.  They are messes with a purpose.

When you are in a mess,  perhaps there is a purpose lurking there to be discovered and made into a project.   

Projects take time, effort and toleration of the mess.

Blame Has Got To Go

Blame is worse than useless.  If it were only useless it wouldn’t be so destructive.

Blame is broad-brush.  Black and white.  No shades of gray.

Blame is simple-minded.  Way too simplistic.

Let’s look at the blamer,  the person who blames other people for his troubles.  “It wasn’t my fault.  I had a right to be angry at what they said to me.  I was willing to talk, they weren’t.  I tried,  they didn’t.   They never support me.  They are so annoying.  They expect too much.    I was right about it.  I didn’t do it to hurt them.”

Let’s take a look at the other kind of person who blames,,,,,,,,,,the person who blames himself.  “I’m such a loser.  It was my fault.  I blew it.  I screwed it up.  It was me.  I shouldn’t have said anything.  I opened my big mouth.  It was me who lied.  It was me who let my partner down.”

I conceptualize the blame mechanism being embedded in the blamer and having  only two settings:  THEY’RE WHALE SHIT and I’M WHALE SHIT.   Nothing in between.  No neutral setting.  

Learning outperforms blame.

You Are a Committee

It’s like a committee.  Imagine a group of people gathered in a room discussing something, not necessarily in a harmonious way.  But the committee is YOU.  All of the different personalities and voices on the committee are parts of you.  Facets of your personality.  

Some of the voices may bear a striking similarity to actual people, living or dead, who have been in your life.  Your mother.  Your father.   Your teacher.  Your high school rival.

You really like. some of the members of the committee 

And some of the members of the committee you really hate.

I’ve tried to get rid of some of the members of my committee for years.  I wanted to get rid of the stupid Philip.  The sloppy Philip.  The emotionally hungry Philip.  The doubtful Philip.   

When I’d throw them out the door, they’d climb back in the window.

Eventually I discovered that I couldn’t really get rid of any of the unruly troublesome pain-in-the-ass members of my committee.  Eventually I discovered that I didn’t need to get rid of them.  I needed to find a place for them....and that if I found a place for them they didn’t cause as much trouble.

Sadness

Sadness is an acceptance emotion.

Sadness and goodbyes go together.

Goodbyes allow letting go.

In a good goodbye you feel the pain of the parting.

In a good goodbye you know what you are letting go of.

In a good goodbye you know in that moment what you had

.In a good goodbye you know what you had and don't have anymore.

In a good goodbye you know what you didn't have.

In a good goodbye you know what you didn't have and now never will.

Goodbyes are SPECIFIC.  It's not just goodbye Charlie.....it's goodbye Charlie's laugh....goodbye Charlie coming to visit to this apartment, walking with his particular walk and laughing, provoking, demanding in his particular way.  It's goodbye Charlie  and the way I felt warmed by his presence.  Or goodbye Charlie, I never got to know your softer side...goodbye to the hope of getting to know your softer side.

Often bringing forward  your sadness or feeling your goodbye brings clarity,  clears the air, and releases energy.   It is a quiet kind of energy.

What is the difference between sadness and disappointment?  There are nuances.   Disappointment  marks some particular expectation or hope not being met.   At the moment I feel disappointment I am feeling a heightened sense of awareness of the disaparity between what I'd hoped for and what I got, between what I expected and what actually happened.  

The way that I am using this language, sadness and disappointment are slightly different MRI views of the same body of emotional experience.

Disappointment is often that first awareness of the disparity of hopes and actuality, with at least a hint of protest.  The expectations while not met are still close to the surface and there is energy attached to  them:   "I expected a bigger party;   I thought the food would be better;  You didn't say as much in your letter as I expected;  I thought I had done better on the test.   Disappointment involves a comparison of what happened vs.  what was hoped for or expected.

In sadness such comparisons may lie in the background. “I'm sad that I don't get to see more of my old friend Jack.  I'm sad that I don't belong to the gym anymore.  It's sad that so many young children grow up in families with the negative after-effects of divorce.”  These experiences wouldn't be felt  as sad unless there were an implicit something else to compare them to:  what it would be like to still see Jack, still belonging to the gym, children growing up in families not damaged by divorce.   But the comparison is more implicit;  less emphasis is placed on it.

Sadness has less of the energy of protest in it.  Whether through resignation or acceptance there is not energy for fighting.

Moving  the sadness from resignation to acceptance involves facing the pain of letting go.  That is what goodbyes are about.