Posted on

Ignore this advice.

This morning, like every weekday morning, I got an email from a guy named Tom.

I don’t know Tom. I don’t know how long I’ve been on his list. But he sends his subscribers an inspirational quote every day — a little insight designed to draw out the optimist in each of us, a message he hopes prepares us to see the day from a positive perspective.

Some days, I get something good out of what he sends.

Other days, there are three words I wish I could share with all Tom’s other subscribers, re: the quote of the day:

Ignore this advice.

Today was one of those days. And this is today’s quote:

“See things as you would have them be instead of as they are.” -Robert Collier

Oh, Robert. According to the Internet (I know — thorough.), Robert wrote a book (which he allegedly later admitted he only wrote in order to make a buck) chock full of advice like the above. Prior to critical thought about it, what Robert suggests sounds like a fun and fluffy effort to propel a person into positive thinking, or to protect him or her from turning negative thoughts into self-fulfilling prophecies.

But if you think harder…

“See things as you would have them be instead of as they are” sounds a lot like “Deny and distort reality because it’s easier than doing hard things.”

Denial and distortion are defense mechanisms. Denial is a person’s refusal to accept reality (because accepting a particular reality would make him or her feel uncomfortable). Distortion, according to this guy, is “a gross reshaping of external reality to meet internal needs” — an out from negative feelings when what’s really going on around us isn’t good.

Both denial and distortion are, essentially, seeing things as you’d have them be instead of as they actually are. Doing so has more to do with avoidance than optimism. If we avoid a difficult situation, we don’t have to do a hard thing about it. If we don’t have to do hard things, we don’t have to feel bad things. But avoidance stunts growth. Give yourself permission to feel.

Posted on

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

I still stand by what I said during my first semester of grad school:

Everybody should take one good counseling class — something basic, like Foundations of Mental Health Counseling or something practical, like Dynamics of Marriage and Family Therapy.

But in case everyone isn’t granted that opportunity, I feel compelled occasionally to share some of what somebody would get out of a good counseling class. Something like the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse — not the ones you read about in the book of Revelation, but the ones that marriage researcher and therapist John Gottman points out as predictors of divorce.

According to my Dynamics of Marriage and Family textbook (1), “it is not the exchange of anger that predicts divorce, but rather four forms of negativity that Gottman calls ‘The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.'”

As a result of Gottman’s study, he can predict with lots of accuracy whether a couple will divorce based on their use of the “four horsemen” in their interactions. What are the horsemen? Criticism, defensiveness, contempt and stonewalling.

Criticism is an attack on a person’s character. The focus is on the spouse instead of on the spouse’s disagreeable behavior. So, let’s say a husband routinely doesn’t warn his wife that he’ll be home late from work. If she responds with criticism, she’ll probably say something like the following: “I cannot believe you didn’t call me again. I am pretty sure there is something seriously wrong with you.” or “You are so frustrating! If you were a responsible adult, you would have told me in advance you’d be home late.”

Defensiveness is “warding off a perceived attack,” according to one great summary of the four horsemen (2). This spouse tends to make excuses for his or her behavior, or to respond to complaints with complaints of his or her own. So after the wife from our scenario says, “I am pretty sure there is something seriously wrong with you,” the defensive husband might say something like, “Yeah? Well, I think there’s something wrong with you because you used all the hot water this morning, again, and I had to take a cold shower.”

Contempt is name calling, eye rolling, insulting, hostility, hurtful sarcasm, harsh tones of voice. It’s ultimately emotional or psychological abuse. Pretty self explanatory.

Stonewalling is emotional withdrawal. It can look like the silent treatment, one word responses or physically leaving the room rather than responding to your spouse. So if after the wife from our scenario criticizes her husband for not telling her he’d be home late from work, he crosses his arms and sits silently or only says, “Yep.” and nothing more, he’s stonewalling.

I’d venture to say that for most humans, not doing these things is easier said than done. But I think we are all ahead when we are a) aware of them and b) aware that their presence plays a big role in a couple’s inability to work through conflict. I also have a hunch that the horsemen show up in an emotions/behaviors cycle that — though seemingly endless — can be broken if a couple commits to breaking it.

So, for instance…

1. Husband works late every night and never calls to warn his wife about it (husband’s behavior). So…

2. Wife feels neglected (wife’s emotion). So…

3. Wife yells at (criticizes) husband when he gets home (wife’s behavior). So…

4. Husband feels attacked, and therefore disrespected by and angry at his wife, and therefore doesn’t much like to be at home (husband’s emotion).

So…

1. Husband works late every night and never calls to warn his wife about it (husband’s behavior).

You see where this is headed.

And where the cycle actually starts is moot. (It doesn’t matter if the chicken or the egg came first.) What’s important is that a couple a) becomes aware that what they always do isn’t working and that b) the awareness of that propels them into doing something different. “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.”

So maybe, to start, the husband changes things up by calling his wife mid-day to warn her he’ll be home late again tonight. Or — better yet — he arranges to be home at a decent hour. So rather than feeling neglected, his wife feels informed, or loved, or like she’s important to him. And when they see each other at home for the first time since morning, because of what she feels, she greets him with a kiss instead of with criticism, and maybe tells him she appreciates that he called or came home early. And — naturally — her husband feels respected (or, at least not disrespected) or loved and discovers that being at home isn’t so bad after all.

This, of course, is also always easier said than done. But it is doable. And according to Gottman, the need to do it isn’t necessarily bad.

In a study he did with Krokoff in 1989, he concluded that “while conflict engagement (that is, direct, if angry, expressions of dissatisfaction) between partners might cause marital distress in the short run, such confrontation is likely to lead to long-term improvement in marital satisfaction by forcing couples, together, to examine areas of disagreement. (1)”

– – – –

1. From this book.

2. From this summary.

Posted on

Invulnerability.

Early this year, I posted a video of a talk by Brene Brown about the power of vulnerability.

I’m a little enthralled lately by Brown’s research. She is really tackling something that — at some points or others — tries to tackle each of us. In the spirit of not letting that happen, I have to share another, equally awesome talk by Brown. This one’s about the the price of invulnerability. Worth the 15 minutes to listen or watch.

Posted on

Fear.

I can’t count how many wedding receptions I’ve wasted.

How many ball rooms whose floors I haven’t scuffed.

Until last fall, while (almost) every wedding guest at almost every wedding I’ve attended danced to the music provided by a DJ, performed by a live band or provided and performed by a DJ and a drummer…

everyone else from my table could rest assured that no rogue wedding guests would swipe their bags of candied almonds. Because I’d never, ever leave my seat. Until the bouquet toss* — the part of every wedding at which, oddly enough, I always have to use the restroom.

This 20-something year feud with the dance floor did not start because I don’t like to dance. On the contrary, I love dancing. I enjoy it so much I have injured myself doing it (like the time I poked a hole in my foot when I accidentally danced onto one of these.) Also, my dog is probably scarred for some of what he’s seen. I’ve got moves. Maybe not the moves, but they are moves.

My fight, it turns out, was not against dancing. It was against the letting go it takes to dance. The willingness to risk poking a hole in your foot. The willingness to risk looking ridiculous. In her book The Gifts of Imperfection, Brene Brown says it best:

It didn’t take me long to learn that dance is a tough issue for many people. Laughing hysterically can make us feel a little out of control, and singing out loud can make some of us feel self-conscious. But for many of us, there is no form of self-expression that makes us feel more vulnerable than dancing. It’s literally full-body vulnerability. The only other full-body vulnerability that I can think of is being naked, and I don’t have to tell you how vulnerable that makes most of us feel. 

For many people, risking that kind of public vulnerability is too difficult, so they dance at home or only in front of people they care about. For others, the vulnerability is so crushing that they don’t dance at all. One woman told me, “Sometimes if I’m watching TV and people are dancing or there’s a good song playing, I tap my feet without even noticing it. When I finally catch myself, I feel embarrassed. I have no rhythm.” 

There’s no question that some people are more musically inclined or coordinated than others, but I’m starting to believe that dance is in our DNA. Not super-hip and cool dancing, or line dancing, or Dancing with the Stars dancing—but a strong pull toward rhythm and movement. You can see this desire to move in children. Until we teach our children that they need to be concerned with how they look and with what other people think, they dance. They even dance naked. Not always gracefully or with the beat, but always with joy and pleasure.

Until we learn to be concerned by how we look, and with what other people think of us, we dance.

Until we learn to be concerned by how we look, and with what other people think of us, we aren’t afraid to dance.

Until we learn to be concerned by how we look, and with what other people think of us, we aren’t afraid to [fill in the blank].

What would you do if you had never learned to be concerned by how you look, or with what other people think of you?

What would you do if you had no fear?

*which will not be part of my hypothetical wedding reception. For the record.