Tuesday, March 20, 2012

It's all in the attitude


The authors of our book write, “Probably the most important tool available for managing hyperstressful and distressful events is our thought process. How we think about matters affects the way we perceive the events we experience.”

Through the ups and downs of life, I have found this to be very true. Life throws challenges at us that are totally unexpected. Sometimes these challenges are life-changing. I’ve had a couple of these life-changing events that have caused nervous breakdowns, divorce, you-name-it, in other people. I have been asked many times how I cope so well. It’s all in the way I look at things, in other words, my thought processes and my attitude. 

Of course I have my moments when I think, “why me, why our family?” when all I want to do is yell and scream and cry, but I know that doesn’t accomplish anything so I immediately go about finding out everything I can about the situation and all the possible things I might be able to do to improve the situation, and then I do all in my power to make the situation better for me and everyone else who is involved.

Monday, March 19, 2012

"Joyful Living"


It was interesting to read about the three “solutions" to bringing more “joyful living” into our lives. The following is how I might apply these solutions to improve how I feel about my job and school.

Looking first at work, I will go back in time to when I didn’t have a job I enjoy. When I was first going to college many years ago, I worked nights at the phone company processing payments half the evening and encoding them the other half, which was very boring work! I can easily apply all three “solutions” to this situation.

The first solution makes a distinction between work and play. We work for the sake of something else; we play for its own self. I was working in order to pay for school and I “played” on Friday nights by going to Happy Hour at restaurants to eat the free food and have fun. The second solution is to take the view that play is an attitude that can take place in any activity. During my boring job, I challenged myself to be the fastest, most accurate processor, and I had fun achieving that. The third solution is to understand that joy and pain often come together and both can be valued. I knew that the pain of working brought the joy of being able to afford my education, so that’s how I valued both.

As far as my school goes and the first solution, I work in courses for career development and I walk and hike in natural settings for play. For the second solution, I make it a game to see if I can finish my homework one week in advance. For the third solution, I know that doing all the assigned reading, homework, projects and papers can be real work that is sometimes a pain, but I do enjoy learning, so there’s pain and joy in taking courses.

Anger


When I was growing up, I tended to express my anger by blowing up, so I definitely demonstrated “anger-out.” However, since then I have had too many experiences with people who lose their temper quickly and it is not a pleasant thing to be on the receiving end, so I have learned to control my temper.

Now I am an “anger controller” because I generally express my anger calmly when it is appropriate to do so. Generally the outcome of expressing my anger calmly is good. I vent my anger at the person with whom I am angry, and if I stay calm, they listen and respond, so we begin to communicate.

If I am angry at my boss, it is generally not appropriate to let her know, so I practice “anger-in.” However, I generally still voice my anger, just not to my boss. I talk to my family about the issue. I have noticed something related to this that the authors of our textbook talked about. If I am angry with my boss and I don’t talk it out with her but talk it out with other people, my anger with her seems to build. I am actually reinforcing that anger.

I do notice that if I’m tired it’s much harder to be rational with my anger and stay calm. It’s hard to come up with the energy it takes to control my anger.

Monday, March 5, 2012

Tread lightly in unbalanced power relationships


Years ago I was in a seven-year relationship with an alcoholic boyfriend. When he was drinking, he was abusive. He had power over me because he was my first serious boyfriend and I talked myself into thinking that this was the person I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. When he was sober, he knew that this was my goal, so it gave him power. He had no need to change his behavior and drink less because he knew I would take whatever he dished out when he was drunk because I wanted the relationship to last.

It was definitely an unbalanced power relationship. I felt disrespected, demeaned, worthless, sad, hurt and angry.

When I moved far away to get myself out of the situation, I once again had power over myself. I gained self-confidence because I had done what I needed to do to get out of an unbalanced power situation.

This experience has stayed with me. If I find myself in a situation where I have power over someone, there’s a nagging inside of me that lets me know to be careful not to take advantage of the other person. So I would say that for me, to have more power over someone makes me nervous that I will abuse it; however, to have less power reminds me of those horrible years spent with the abusive boyfriend, so I do everything to avoid being in situations in which I have more or less power than someone else.

Loss of trust restored years later


This was a hard question for me to answer. Normally, if I lose my trust in someone because of an action of the other person, my trust in the other person is gone for good. The only time I find myself having trust again is if extenuating circumstance explain adequately to me whatever it is the other person did that led me to decide not to trust them.

An example of this would be way back in grammar school. I trusted my seventh grade teacher, Sister Eric, until I got A’s and B’s and two C’s on a report card, but a “U” in in effort. She explained to my dad and me that I was capable of all A’s with a little effort.

During the rest of that school year, and for many years after that, I distrusted Sister Eric. I lacked confidence in her and took whatever she said during the rest of the school year with a grain of salt, questioning it. It’s only years later when I looked back that I realized she had my best interests at heart because she saw through me and realized what I could accomplish if I only tried. Thanks to her and my dad’s reaction to her action and comment, which resulted in his insistence that I live up to my potential, I have ever since given my full effort toward whatever I have undertaken, whether it be school work, job , family, etc. So if I were to meet her today, I would once again trust her, and actually thank her!