Lynn Lott Therapy Talk

Come to Lynn Lott with questions and leave
with answers that enrich your life and
the lives of others

Sorry if I’m being repetitive, (but not that sorry!)  I am so annoyed by conversations and lists in books that label feelings as negative and positive.  It’s time to rewrite this fallacy.  Feelings are simply feelings.  They won’t kill you.   They come and they go.  They are like the warning lights on the dashboard of your car–here to give you valuable information about your thoughts and your actions or possible actions.   Some feelings may be more uncomfortable or unfamiliar than others, but they are not your enemy.  You can learn from them.

One of the feelings that has gotten the worst rap is anger.  That’s probably because people look at behavior and think behavior is a feeling.  If someone is ranting and raving or being a bully or abusive, that behavior is thought to be anger.  It’s not.  It’s disrespectful behavior, which can be generated by many different feelings.  Some people want to eradicate anger completely, and insist there is no such feeling, that anger is only a cover-up for hurt. 

Many people are out of touch with their feelings or afraid of them.  Anger is one of those feelings that scares people and sometimes is referred to as a “negative” emotion. Anger is a human response to being out of control, over-controlled, powerless, having a lack of control, being bossed, or not getting what one wants.  All of these relationship situations can be improved if you stop discounting the angry feeling. If you would like to understand more about your anger and what it is trying to tell you, try the following activity.  With increased understanding, you can work on behaving more respectfully to deal with your feelings.

Hold up your hands in front of you.  Imagine putting something you are angry about on each of your fingers. You don’t need to remember what is on each finger, other than the last three.  This activity helps you get to deeply buried anger issues that rise to the surface after the smaller issues get unloaded.    Some people can very quickly think of ten things they are angry at; others take longer; and for those out of touch with their feelings,  it can take even longer, but is well worth the effort.  Just be patient and encourage yourself  by knowing it is okay to take as long as you need.

Here’s an example of what one person came up with for his 10 fingers of anger:  I’m angry at my boss because he doesn’t appreciate me; I’m angry because I don’t make enough money; I’m angry because my wife is on me to help the minute I walk in the door; I’m angry because my children are spoiled and expect too much; I’m angry at my parents for not teaching me more skills when I was a kid; I’m angry because I never get to go fishing; I’m angry because when I go fishing I rarely catch any fish (this made him laugh); I’m angry at myself for not standing up for what I want; I’m angry because life isn’t turning out the way I hoped; and finally, I’m angry because I don’t see a way to make things better.

 After the activity, ask yourself what you learned from the exercise.  Take one of the last anger responses (from finger 8, 9, or 10) and explore how you handle that feeling in real time.  Do you ignore it, hold it in, explode, drown the feeling in alcohol and drugs, etc.  Any of those behavioral responses are disrespectful to yourself and others and won’t really make the anger go away.   In the example above, this guy handles his anger by giving up and blaming others for his life.

 There are many ways to deal respectfully with your anger.  One is to simply acknowledge it, saying to yourself, “I’m angry, and that’s okay to feel that way.”  Or you could say to the person you perceive to be making your life miserable, “I’m angry because__________and I wish___________. ” It’s a simple, yet effective release of anger.  Another solution is to look for choices, as anger results often from the belief that you have no choices.  If you can’t see alternatives, sometimes it’s helpful to brainstorm with someone else about choices you might have.  You can also look for small steps to get yourself moving freely again.  Although it may be hard to believe, no one is the boss of you except you, and the only person you can change is yourself! 

Back to the example.  The angry guy was shocked at how angry he was.  He never thought of himself as an angry person, just someone who was unlucky.  He decided that he would plan one thing each week that he wanted to do and then he would do it.  Surprisingly, some of the things he wanted to do were with his kids and his wife.  He told his kids he wanted to go fishing with them, and they agreed.  He told his wife he wanted to give her a night off and that he would cook dinner and clean-up.  Just from these simple steps, he started to feel better about himself and his life.  He realized for the first time that he was more in control of his life than he previously thought.  By zeroing in on his anger and acknowledging it, he was able to begin to make his life better.

The mind and body are connected.  What we think leads to what we feel, and what we feel is the energy that drives our behavior.  If we ignore any part of the human condition, we are missing out on valuable information that can move us toward a more socially interested and respectful, fulfilled life.

I’ve been thinking about this for awhile, and it’s about time I got started.  So many of my clients semi-jokingly tell me that when they get into a bind, they ask themselves, “What would Lynn say?”  Or their children or spouses ask the same question.  Or they email me, asking what I would say about an issue they are struggling with.  I think it’s time I share some of their questions and my answers on this blog.  I don’t think of this as an advice column, but rather me sharing questions and answers because you may have many of the same ones.  When I write books, I use a lot of vignettes which are a compilation of many different clients, yet when my clients read the books, they are always sure I am talking about them.   I’ll do the same thing in these entries so that I can guard my clients’ privacy.

Here’s the first question:  My pre-teen told me he feels angry a lot and wants to annoy people.  He says he can’t control it and wonders if there’s something wrong with him.  What would Lynn say?

It’s easy to chalk up angry feelings in adolescents to hormones and maybe miss something else important that is going on.  Don’t get me wrong.  I’m not saying adolescents aren’t hormonal, but often they have some very good reasons for being angry coupled with some very poor methods of expressing that anger.   One of the questions I ask right off the bat is about what I call family constellation, because problems often make a lot more sense when seen in a context.  For instance, if a child follows a “perfect” kid or a “good” kid and believes he or she can never be as good, that’s often cause for anger.  Or if in a family one kid either perceives he is always getting in trouble while the other(s) are over-looked or treated like victim(s), or that is really happening, that’s also cause for anger.  

In this case, there was a clear issue of good kid/bad kid stereotyping by the parents.  My suggestion was to let the angry pre-teen know that it was okay for him to be angry and that anyone would be angry with that kind of favoritism going on and there was nothing wrong with him but he was making poor choices as to how he displayed his anger.  He needed to know that he was loved and important and special and that his parents needed to stop putting him in the “bad guy” seat as a knee jerk response to problems.  I also suggested that his parents ask him to say what was upsetting him without any judgments or defensiveness, expressing, “I hear you,” without trying to fix or improve the situation. 

It’s not unusual for kids to think that parents love the other siblings more, especially if the other siblings never get in trouble and they always do.  What kids don’t understand is that when these feelings aren’t validated or heard, they build up and are released with acting out behaviors.

It’s best not to make assumptions when people around you are expressing feelings.  It’s really important not to label them, i.e. “He’s an angry person.”  Rather, let the person know they are having a feeling, that a feeling won’t kill anyone, that you care how they feel, that you want to know why they feel the way they do, and that you understand.  Understanding isn’t the same as agreeing that you feel the same way, but if you’ve ever felt understood, you know just how powerful that can be in helping you move forward in a more postive way.

It’s a hot topic, right?  Don’t get stressed.  Are you stressed?  How do you feel less stress?  Reduce stress!  Live stress-free, and on and on and on.  Here’s a simple explanation of stress.  Think about it.  If you think life should be one way and it is another way, the space in between those two thoughts is called stress.  Different things stress different people and people handle stress in many different ways.  The trick to reducing stress is to narrow the space between the two lines (see video below).  That involves either changing your expectations or changing your life.  Easier said than done, but possible, and it doesn’t take a pill to do it.  What’s wrong with a pill, you ask?  Maybe nothing, but for many of us, we’d prefer to work on the deeper issues rather than medicate ourselves.  We like to know there are choices, which there are!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KA2Cfee_JPA&feature=youtube_gdata

 A client came to see me because he was experiencing what he called “a nervous breakdown.”  We talked about what had triggered his panicked feelings and about his unmet expectations of himself and others and how the difference between his beliefs about how life should be and how life was were tearing him apart.  He has always looked at depression as a biological event, but after our work together and his processing it, he’s came to find the power of his internal belief system and noticed the problems his old thinking caused. 

 I asked if I could publish his conclusions in my blog as I think what he came to could help others.  He agreed saying, “You may definitely use it if you think it will be helpful; after all, it’s just a reflection of your great work.”  What a charmer!

 These days it’s too easy to look at problems in life as an illness with a corresponding pill to correct things.  But the insight work this client did with his list of suggestions to himself will serve him well and get his life back.  He’s gone the anti-depressant route for years without ever working on his deeper issues, so nothing really changed.  If he reminds himself of his 4 conclusions and practices them, I expect that he’ll experience lasting change and a richer life.  I hope blog readers can benefit from his work, too.

 “Thanks Lynn.  As you might expect, I’ve been thinking a lot about what you said and what I’ve been going through and trying to make sense of it.  I wanted to share my thinking with you to see if you think I’m on the right track.  I’m a bit desperate to make conclusions/meanings, but don’t want to replace old bad conceptions with new bad ones.  Here’s my current thinking:

 1.  Accept myself for who I am.  I have been feeling like I can’t be successful while still being me, because I am not good enough.  This has led me to push myself beyond my limits to be something I am not and has totally stressed me out.  If I can be aware of this underlying insecurity and calm my inner critic, I think that might be a good direction to start with.

 2.  Establish healthy boundaries.  This seems like the practical implementation of accepting myself, i.e. by asking for what I want/need and saying no to what I am not comfortable with, I can protect myself from unduly stressful situations.  I really see now how I routinely give up my boundaries because I want so badly to be accepted.

 3.  Resist obsessive thinking.  I never really realized it before, but if I look back on my life, I have always obsessed on some external desire as the basis of my happiness: success in sports, drugs, girlfriends, school, nature, and now work.  Just living in the moment and putting one foot in front of the other is really hard for me, but the obsessing has always deprived me of the real joys in life: family, friendships, and simple appreciations.”

 4.  Resist grandiose and catastrophic thinking.  I honestly have felt it is my duty to save the world from itself, and that I could be some kind of pivotal hero (like John Muir or Aldo Leopold).  When reality hits me, I fall flat on my face and feel like a worthless piece of shit.  And, as you noted, make great big meanings out of isolated events (e.g. I failed a test, therefore I will never amount to anything).  I think this more than anything is what I am going through when I feel “depressed”.  Monitoring my thought processes, and stopping myself was a good suggestion.”

I think I’m clear, but obviously, I’m not as clear as I think I am.  I’ve been making some assumptions.  When I say “parent” or “teacher”, I am sure the listener knows I’m talking about leadership, though I may not use that word.  When I talk about parenting styles or classroom management, I’m sure the listener knows that I’m talking about the leader in the family or the classroom.  You can imagine my surprise when I heard from two parents who have been working diligently with me to implement Positive Discipline, that they had no idea I was referring to leadership.  So let me make it perfectly clear as to what I think:  if you are the teacher, you are the leader in your classroom.  If you are a parent, you are the leader in your family. 

As a leader, I encourage you to be both kind and firm rather than a dictator or a pushover.  I hope that you have more maturity than your kids and aren’t afraid to set the parameters in the family while leaving room for flexibility and learning from your kids.  I expect you to think long and hard about your goals as a classroom leader and/or family leader and constantly question whether your methods are moving things in the direction you want.  My wish is that you will never use punishment or criticism or shaming or blaming to help young people grow into empowered, encouraged, capable, resilient, responsible, loving beings.  Naturally, I encourage you to read any and all of the Positive Discipline books to accomplish this if you need some help.

A kind and firm leader knows how to listen for feelings, offer choices, use family and class meetings to involve kids in decision making.  A kind and firm leader isn’t afraid to say, “No,” or “I understand how you feel, but it’s time for…”  The suggestions are too many for this blog, but if you are curious, go to my website, www.lynnlott.com and check out the list of books available.  I have excerpts from all of them to give you a taste of what you might learn by reading them.

I’m hoping that maybe, just maybe, as you read my books, you’ll actually find the word “leader” somewhere within.  If you don’t, throw another egg on my face!

I’m excited to add something new to my blog.  With the help of Ken Ainge, techie extraordinaire, I’ll be working on publishing a regular feature for LynnLottTherapy Talk.  It’s called “Conversations with Lynn.”  Each week I’ll be interviewing someone who has an issue who, by sharing it on the Internet, would like to help others learn and help themselves in the process.  The interviews can be found at http://feeds.feedburner.com/LynnLottTherapyTalk or can be downloaded for free from iTunes. 

In the first interview, Ken and I talk about therapy (Is it for sissies?), resistence (It’s better to accept or ignore your problems), getting stuck in the either/or lack of clear choices, top card personality test, the joys and woes of avoiding, what is stress and how is it different for everyone, and finally, Ken’s philosophy of right way/wrong way/my way.