| Are You Loving Yourself As You Love Your Neighbor? |
Defensiveness If we love ourselves in a healthy way we can laugh off our minor mistakes and readily apologize for our bigger ones. We know our strengths and weaknesses, and when a mistake is pointed out to us we can accept it, even if it pinches a little. Defensiveness is that human tendency to strongly deny or distract when one of our mistakes is revealed. A person may frantically defend because he doesn't have a sense that most of his flaws are just normal human stuff. He may (unconsciously) be mortified that he will be exposed as much worse than any body else, because he really feels that way about himself. So we can understand his impulse to justify, minimize, change the subject, or counter-attack. But it sure gums up genuine communication.
Pete: (very frustrated and speaking angrily) Ty, you are an hour late picking me up! I don't even feel like going to the mall now. Where have you been? Tyrone: (immediately stiffens) Look, I had to stop and get gas, and besides we still have an hour and a half before the stores close. I know you have never been late to anything in your whole life, Perfect Pete. In fact you do everything right, Perfect Pete. That's you—Perfect Pete. (Ty then retreats into a loud silence) Pete's accusing comments here are not as tactful as they might be, but when Tyrone gets so defensive their interchange becomes paralyzed. It could quickly become even hotter—or colder. Both sides feel like they have been wronged and try to communicate that by tossing verbal grenades. Pete feels exasperated because Tyrone arrived so late, and Tyrone tries to deflect attention from his lateness by objecting to Pete's impatience. A more positive replay of the episode might sound like this: Pete: (upset, but controlled) Hey, Ty. Is everything OK? I thought you were picking me up at 7:00 and it is almost 8:00. Did I misunderstand the time? Tyrone: No, you are right. I'm sorry, I just couldn't get going today. I felt like I was in slow-motion all day long. I should have called you. Then halfway here I saw I was almost out of gas, so I had to stop. If you still want to go to the mall we can, or if you want we can do something else… Pete: (more softly) Yeah, I guess if we leave right now it will still be worth it… Even if we have a healthy amount of regard for ourselves, there are days when we can still fall back into pride and defensiveness. "Oh, sure—I have my faults all right—but that's not one of them!" Oops. Laugh, redirect, and move on. You can likely recall times when you were effective in getting through and having some genuine contact with another person, and times you were not. Maybe they were defensive, maybe you held back a little from speaking authentically. Remember? |
When someone tries to talk to me about a sensitive subject I have used these defenses: (Yelling? Silence? Changing the subject?) Some of the defenses that people use that really stump me are |
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Healthy Steps Through Messy Times |
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| This column features the thoughtful action taken by somebody in a tough spot. Sometimes they experience soaring exuberance in a world of pain and challenge, other times they just muddle through, doing what is right, good and healthy but having little impact on their world. | This may put you in touch with sometranscendent times, or it may help you find satisfaction in a job you did well-but-not-perfectly. Maybe you will begin (or continue) to notice the amazing little stories that are swirling in and around you all the time. And to respect yourself for the good you do. |
The Girl Laughed |
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She was buoyant enough to bob to the surface and continue who she is. |
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Wanda is married to Juan, and they have four young children. Juan is a manager in a store and he brings home a decent check. Wanda does everything else. She fills all the gaps. She takes the kids for their appointments and makes the meals and helps with homework and pays the bills. She reminds Juan to eat well and hires the guy to cut the grass, otherwise it would never get cut. She meets with the principal when their second son acts out in school—which is frequently. Wanda is organized, she is a doer, she is responsible and she is caring. She takes extended family members to their medical appointments, too. And when Juan has a personnel problem at work, he calls home and asks Wanda what to do. So Wanda is almost always in a hurry and at the end of each long, busy day she is exhausted. She gets little help, sees little relief on the horizon, and she doesn't know how much longer she can hang on. Get the picture? Do you know some super-responsible person like Wanda in your world? Or are you the Wanda in your world? One sunny spring day Wanda was bustling through her list of gotta-dos, running a little late while trying to do everything-for-everybody. She might have been on her way into a store before taking her aunt for a chemotherapy appointment. After that she hoped to get to a once-a-month counseling session she allowed herself. It was the best she could do for now to vent and restore herself so she could continue to live her life in the spinning teacup. Striding towards the store, Wanda tripped in the parking lot and splatted face-first on the asphalt. Her knees and elbows came down hard on the jagged pavement. Her hands flew out to protect her face, so of course they were scraped raw. New signals of screaming pain from a body already aching and spent. Stunned, hurt and embarrassed, Wanda sat for a moment and took stock of her bloody hands. In the middle of her inventory, she heard the sound of a girl laughing nearby. Wanda looked up at the laugh. A teen-aged girl sitting in a car right there in the lot had seen Wanda fall and was now laughing at her! |
The girl was amused with the sight of Wanda hurrying, falling, and sitting in a daze looking at her wounds. Wanda finally pulled her sore self together, stood up, and continued slowly into the store. The girl never said a kind word or offered any assistance. She just laughed. Later that afternoon Wanda did make it to her monthly counseling session after driving her aunt back home from her appointment. She was about 20 minutes late to her 45-minute session. She came in very jangled and harried, and in desperate need of someone to listen to her. Which I did. I like Wanda a lot. I admire and respect her for all she does. I would like to see her get more help and show more love for herself, but above all I like her for her amazing goodness and compassion. She is about the last person I would want to see humiliated by the laugh over her fall. Wanda got up at the end of our session and thanked me more than once for listening to her—which I was quite happy to do. On the way out the door she pulled some cash from her purse to pay me, and then included an extra $10 at the end. Wanda, who does so much and asks for so little. The young mother of four who carries at least six, tipped me. In the middle of another crushing day for her, it occurred to her to extend a kindness to me. After falling in the lot and tearing her pants and her flesh; and after being laughed at instead of helped, Wanda paid me more than I asked for. She wasn't pulled off her own center of generosity by it all. The mean-spiritedness did not pull her down; she was buoyant enough to bob to the surface and continue who she is. One more thing to like about Wanda.
(an excerpt from my forthcoming 10 by 10 book: |
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Possibly Made Up Q & A? |
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Yep, this is one of the oldest tricks in the book–pretending I have been asked a question about something I want to write about. Except I get asked about things like this a lot. |
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Dating Again |
You can get the process of genuineness started—and help it along—by not pretending yourself... |
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Q: I am divorced, and starting to think about dating again. Does everybody A: Good question, Nelly. And how is everything in Shakeytown these days? You know, a person who is mentally healthy is grounded in reality. He takes in the world and relates to the world with a minimum of distortions. We are all absorbing way more sensations than we can give attention to at any one time, and our personal history colors what we notice and how we interpret the world around us. And although we are all affected by our early life experiences, a person who is mentally sound has a lot of overlap with others about what is real. He can usually build bridges to others and experience a ‘meeting of the minds.’ (That is not to say that consensus always proves mental wellness—people can get together to reinforce each other’s distortions, as in the case of mass prejudice.) A person who is mentally healthy is stable, with a solid internal sense of what is right and wrong. He is settled but not rigid. He can see patterns and be flexible. He can see novelty and enjoy it. He can and does discipline himself, and he can delay gratification. This person uses his Thinking Brain to execute final decisions. He is not blown around by his feelings. He feels, then he thinks, then he acts.
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How will you know if your date has such traits? You will have to spend time with him, and get him to show you who he really is. You can get the process of genuineness started—and help it along—by not pretending yourself, and by sharing what is real and most important to you. Hopefully he is moved by your unguardedness, and matches you in honesty, revealing some of his fears and weaknesses. Then you decide if this is the person you want to share your life with. |
Hey!
If you know someone else who would find the 10 by 10 newsletters |
Want to Know a Little More? |
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I have a web site that tells you more about who I am, what my credentials are and how I think. You can gain more of a sense of my morals and spiritual values there as well. I will store this series of newsletters there and also offer other help such as: If Someone You Care About Is in Crisis Right Now Excerpts from my 10 by 10 Workbook If You Are Having a Panic Attack An Invitation to my 10 by 10 Funshops |
