"I'd Rather Be With Anyone Than Alone"

Let's face it, boiled down to it's basics, counseling people is mostly about helping people deal with their pain and unhappiness. Relationships are a common arena where many people experience pain and unhappiness. Let me talk about one belief, rarely discussed, that causes much pain in relationships. It's a belief that both causes people to enter the wrong kind of relationship, and to stay in a negative one for too long.

The one statement/belief that greatly contributes to prolonged unhappiness in many relationships, dating and marital, is: "I'd rather be with anyone than alone." This feeling is one of the most common statements I hear from people ages 15-60 regarding relationships in general. So how does this statement cause pain? To begin with, it implies that people would rather be in a relationship of any kind, unhappy or not, than be alone---that being alone is worse than being in a negative, unfulfilling relationship. This statement says, "I'll bear whatever negativity there is in my relationship, no matter how extreme, than be without one." I have found this to be a major contributor to the prolonged pain people endure in relationships.

There is always conflict in relationships over time, that is a given. But what we do with that conflict is the real crux to whether the relationship flourishes or decays. The next step in dealing with a conflict involves the couple's willingness to discuss and work on the issue, but even that is affected by this statement because if I am terrified of losing the relationship and being alone, I probably will be reluctant to even address the problem for fear that discussing it might cause a blow up and a break-up. It might be safer to ignore and just bear the problem. If I'd rather be with anyone than alone then I will probably ignore everything I am unhappy with in the relationship so as not to cause waves. This causes any love in the relationship to decay and resentments to build up. So this belief causes people to both initially ignore conflict, avoid problem solving, and ultimately resist leaving a relationship that is beyond resolution. Both actions prolong pain in relationship.

I rarely counsel teenagers, but recently I had a seventeen year old boy talking about the suffering his girlfriend at college puts him through. It was horrible to hear. She said every insulting and degrading thing she could to him whenever she felt he was not being a "good enough" boyfriend. She truly was unreasonable in her complaints of his talking to anyone else but her or wanting to do activities with his friends, but he simply took it and felt worse and worse over time. He only came to see me because his parents insisted I try to "talk some sense into him" and get him to leave this shrew of a girlfriend. When I asked why he stayed he said she was the first girl who showed interest in him, and he'd rather...well, you know. The other side of the coin is his girlfriend who would rather verbally abuse this guy three times a week and be in a constant state of frustration than find someone more suitable to her needs. She would rather beat a slow horse to death than risk looking for a faster one. Rather than ignore the conflict as many do, she went to the other extreme and frantically tried to emotionally "beat" the change into him. Both were unhappy, and both were too scared to move on. She talked about marrying him in a year. He said he saw no solution to her unreasonable demands and complaints, but would probably marry her.

This issue also affects whom we choose as a partner in the first place. It sets up an expectation that I have got to have someone/anyone around me at all times lest I feel the horrors of being alone. That means a dysfunctional person is better than no one. We can see this when people surround themselves with empty "frenemies" who take advantage of the relationship every chance they get, but are not helpful or supportive in any way. This belief also causes extremely negative relationships to continue for too long. What is it about being alone that makes so many of us choose continued unhappiness over it?

Everyone is terrified. I'll leave the discussion here for now...

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

I have had several people this week come to me to ask, "what's up with that?" This question is a new phenomenon caused by the release of my book. You see, when you write a book called "Why Normal People Do Some Crazy Things," everyone expects answers about the crazy things they experience in their day. It is also a test along the lines of, "Okay Mr. Big Shot Smart Guy, explain this..." I actually enjoy it because it tests the range of my "Fundamentals." So this week was interesting because I got a couple of similar stories that involved friends who gave another friend something nice and got blasted shortly afterward by that same friend with something negative about the gift. One story was: friend number one needed money badly so friend number two gave her a portion of her dog walking job and let her keep the money. Friend number two called her back a couple of days later and blasted her about the inconvenience she had caused her because the dog walking job forced her to miss an event she wanted to attend. "I'll never dog walk for you again," she said hissing angrily. Wow! Friend number one gave her the job to help her out and that is the response she gets? This friend (actually a "frienemy") has done similar things like this in the past and this was the last straw for friend number one.

Second story: Friend number one gives another friend a barely worn $1,000 suit he had just grown out of . They were of similar build and as it was custom made to begin with, it needed only slight alterations to make it a perfect fit. Friend number two upon trying it on loved the suit but angrily protested the alterations: "Don't you realize the most expensive part of a suit is the alterations? Forget it!" Whatever that means, it didn't even make sense. He was just livid at the suggestion that he would have to spend maybe $80 to own a like-new custom $1,000 suit.

Wow again. What is going on here? The answer to this is simple and something generous people deal with often. When someone is generous by nature they are always looking to do things for other people. These are the rare people in our society, very low percentage in relation to the population at large. Generous people by nature are also recognized by those around them as just that, generous in spirit. This causes a resentment factor in people not generous in nature---people having low esteem. Low esteem people are rarely generous because they are usually angry at how the world/people/job/life screws them all the time. They never feel they have enough in the first place so they never feel they have enough to give something to others. The low esteem folks now are angry at the generous people because in their heart they know they are not like them and cannot be generous themselves so they have to try to denigrate what the generous people are giving or doing for others in order to lessen the "goodness" of the act. It is as if they are saying, "Since I do not do things for others like you do, I will belittle your act of kindness in any way I can." They may take the offered gift, but they will belittle it in some way. That way, you see, the act doesn't "count," therefore "you are no better than I am" (who doesn't give at all).

I once bought several friends a dinner at a nice restaurant and afterward several gave glowing praise and thanks. One friend was initially silent and later interrupted the praise with, "I don't know why you all make such a big deal about the dinner, he just bought it for us to show off." There was stunned silence. I could not believe he had said it at all, let alone so sneeringly angry in tone. That was my first taste of this issue as I had never noticed it before.

Years later I experienced this kind of reaction more and more, both from this friend and others. I realized it was the adult equivalent of a school child destroying something someone else had received praise for. We often see siblings do this when a parent praises one over the other. The low esteem person has to destroy or belittle the object of praise.

So for those of you out there trying to simply be kind to another, remember, no good deed goes unpunished (if a low esteem person can get their hands or words on it), and just keep doing your good works. We don't do it for praise or thanks anyway...well maybe we do sometimes...but just keep on doing it, and let the acts speak for themselves.

(Whispering) Also, you can put in your back pocket the knowledge that generosity is a sign of high esteem. Happy giving.

Surviving Holiday Family Gatherings: An Anthropologist's View

Yes Folks, it's Holiday Season! At this point half of the readers are groaning and the other half are smiling (usually the one's with small children). It is in this glorious season that many of us have the great privilege of spending time with all of our family members, many of whom we only see once or twice a year. What a Joy!

Or not...

Let the craziness begin! It is at this time that friends share their wonderfully crazy stories of what they can expect to happen during their visitations with family. If someone else is sharing the "crazy Al" story then it is inevitably funny. If you are the one telling the "crazy Al" story, it is not funny at all. Funny how that is, huh? What do we do with these cringing experiences that inevitably occur in our family visits during the holidays? How do we survive our "crazy Al's" during the holiday season?

Here is what I advise people who are genuinely dreading their newest edition of "America's Funniest Holiday Gatherings": I tell them to approach the visit as if you are an anthropologist visiting an unknown tribe to report on their native customs during their holiday season. I advise them to approach the gathering with the objective, non judgmental eye of strict observation. Ask the important questions about what you are actually observing without getting distracted by the actual events. Be totally involved, but unattached to whatever transpires. Ask yourself: Who is the tribal chief? Is this a true leader or just a figure head? Who is really running the events? How do they interact with one another? Who is the conflict producer and how does this serve the tribe? Who is the tension reducer (the tribal clown) and how do they accomplish it? What are the different roles people play and how do they serve the tribe? All of these questions are important to the trained anthropologist to better understand tribal dynamics within any system they study. Take the interest in the questions seriously.

Once one approaches their holiday gatherings this way, they have accomplished two wonderful things: They have a technique to be able to analyze family dynamics without getting caught up in the whirlwind of activity that gatherings inevitably produce, and they can take in information never before seen by adopting an "observing witness" role rather than a "reactive participant" role. They are fully engaged in the activities, but unattached to outcomes of the activities. They simply observe the events and let them play out from a place, not of horror, but of curiosity. The event simply unfolds: "How curious their behavior is!"

Of course, this takes practice as any student of anthropology will tell you. Reactivity to difficult events playing out before your very eyes is hard to keep in check at first attempt, but every good student realizes that the only way to gain understanding and empathy for the way a tribe interacts is to maintain an objective witness role and observe without judgment. Then, and only then, can one attain a true understanding of how the system supports, nurtures (or not), but pushes toward growth, every one of its members. It may not be a pretty process, but it somehow works toward the evolution of all tribe members in some way.

Happy Holidays, Anthropological Students!

Small Talk as Spiritual Service

Growing up, and especially in my teenage years, I absolutely hated "small talk". I thought it represented the worst of small minds. Whenever I was in a public place and somebody said to a stranger, "Boy the weather sure is Hot/Cold today," I would just roll my eyes in disgust. "What idiots," I would say to myself, "Why would anyone need to say that to a stranger?" And yet everyone would do it in some form or other each time I was in a public gathering for any length of time. Someone inevitably would just have to say something about the weather, our sports team's chances in the playoffs, or any other number of superficial topics that truly meant nothing, it seemed, of importance.

Boy was I wrong!

Shift to fifteen years later. I am walking in from an incredibly hot summer day into a lunch line at Subway and out of my mouth came the unexpected, "Whew," I gasped, "It is hot as an oven out there!" I couldn't believe I said it. I wanted to die right then and there. I had just made my first stupid, weather comment in public, and it just blurted out unexpectedly. Before I could duck my head in shame, two people in front of me in line turned to me with huge smiles. "Isn't it though," one of them said, "I just about had a heart attack walking in from my car." Another person next to him said, "It hasn't been this hot since twenty years ago when I was in the service." A third person chimed in, all smiles, "I'm just glad I have a job with air conditioning, it's the only time I don't mind going to work, saves me A/C money at home." A fourth person jumped in, "Yea, and my air conditioning just busted." Everyone in the line spontaneously chimed in unison, "Awwwwwww," and added some version of "that's horrible." I stood back watching this unfold, my mouth agape. People continued excitedly telling their hottest summer stories to the person next to them, and this continued until everyone got their order and left.

Watching that interaction changed everything for me. I blurt out one superficial comment about weather and look what sprang up: social connection. Strangers spoke to each other as if they were old friends. All this from one stupid, weather comment. That's when I got it. Small talk isn't about exchanging stupid comments to strangers, it's about finding a topic total strangers have in common (weather, local events) and using it to connect socially.

Small talk is the tool that enables people to instantaneously connect with a total stranger. And if one believes that one purpose we are on this planet is to build relationships with those around us throughout our lives, then one could make the argument that engaging in small talk---bringing total strangers together, connecting even for one short minute---is truly service work of a spiritual nature. My stupid weather comment allowed nine strangers, who would probably have never spoken to each other otherwise, to connect for a brief moment in time as friends. No longer were they estranged from each other during those moments. Just a group of people with something in common that allowed them to connect with each other.

So now, when I am in line somewhere, I cannot wait to say, "Man, is the weather crazy out there or what" just to watch the smiling eyes light up around me and the comments of agreement lead to shared stories. Relationship building with total strangers all because I was willing to rethink an action that I once dismissed as stupid.

And the weird thing is, not only am I good at it these days, I now LOVE to small talk. Who'd have thunk it? Stupid me.

Playing the Fool in Life

Nobody can feel better than the man who is completely taken in.

To be intelligent may be a boon, but to be completely trusting,

gullible to the point of idiocy, to surrender without reservation,

is one of the supreme joys of life.

Henry Miller

As a counselor over the years, I have heard countless, heartbreaking stories of my clients who were unwittingly tricked or cheated by someone they totally trusted in their life, or were treated in a way they never expected, in short, being played as a fool. I have struggled over the years to find something consoling to say to them, and until recently had nothing comforting for them except to say that "this too shall pass," which, while true, is not the most consoling tidbit to say the least.

Recently I saw a James Bond movie, "Live and Let Die," for the twenty-third time, and saw a scene that involved a Tarot card deck and the "Fool" card. It hit me that throughout ancient mythology the Fool was a revered character. I also remembered that the Fool is a notable character in every indigenous tradition and every culture that exists. What is it with this iconic role? Why was it so respected as evidenced by its mythic and ubiquitous role throughout history in every existing culture? I wondered, "What if this role is so prevalent, not just because we all experience it sometime in life, but because there is some larger spiritual reason for it's existence? What if the playing the Fool in life was far from foolish and actually a higher calling?

To understand this line of thinking, one only needs to look at the role of the Fool in every story that it appears. It usually involves an unknowing "innocent" (usually being set up over a period of time) who is deceived or duped into having something taken from them. Usually the "innocent" is totally trusting or unsuspecting that this person could do anything bad to them, in essence giving this person the rare gift of total trust. This is where the divinity of the character appears. The Fool gives this person involved the gift of utter trust, and by doing so bestows a sacredness to the relationship. How many people in your life have you known who gave someone total trust? Not many I'm sure. The Fool does this without any reservation. If you have ever received this honor, you may know how such a gift feels inside. It is rare and special.

The "Betrayer", then, is held within a sacred relationship right up to the point that he commits the act of betrayal. It is through this gift of trust that the Fool plays his cosmically divine role: The Fool actually gives the person a chance NOT to commit the act of betrayal and remain in the privileged role of "trusted friend", a high and rare honor in life. If the person does NOT commit the act, knowing full well that he could get away with it, he avoids a weaker urge within himself and therefore grows in character and spirit. He overcomes a weaker impulse that we all experience in life, and flies with his better angels. The Fool, therefore, is the rare archetypal character that allows us, in an instant, this glorious opportunity---a redemption of sorts.

Whether it is a cashier who gives us too much change, or the trusting partner who gives us access to the private bank account, or the relative who signs over to us all financial rights, these are all examples of the Fool acting in total trust and allowing us an opportunity to fight our lesser impulses and rise to a higher standard of purpose in our life. Only the Fool gives us this opportunity in such a definitive way. So by giving back the extra change to the cashier, or NOT acting in an irresponsible or greedy way allows us an immediate character "check" and an opportunity to grow in one's own esteem.

It is interesting to note in one's life, can you remember a time when you had the opportunity to do something you knew was wrong and resisted it? Can you remember the struggle involved in your mind including the rationalizations like: "They won't even notice that much gone", or "I deserve it for all I've done", or "Who will it hurt"? This is the sacred vessel into which the Fool puts us and let's us decide for ourselves in that moment: "Who am I going to be here?"

I don't know how consoling this explanation will be for my clients in the future. One thing is certain though, playing the Fool is not as trivial or foolish as it may initially appear because playing the role of "the tester of Souls" is no small matter. It can only be played by those with the capacity for complete Trust in the first place. How rare and sacred such a person seems to be these days.

Emotional Moving Day

Ten years ago I had an executive client with a particularly difficult CEO for a boss. The CEO was famous for shouting at meetings so loudly that the surrounding offices could clearly hear him through the walls. On top of this, he was usually shouting about topics or issues about which he knew nothing. His CFO stopped correcting him about the factual mistakes he would be screaming about because there was no point anymore as the CEO would not remember having screamed about them after the meeting. On one occasion, after a meeting where my client was screamed at over some arcane reporting form, he asked the CFO, who was sitting there the whole time, why he had not defended him. The CFO answered, "Oh we haven't used that form for three years. Why bother pointing it out, he will just be embarrassed and besides, he won't even remember he said it by tomorrow."

After a five year tumultuous relationship, the CEO was fired one day for "inappropriate use of company funds." My client was thrilled to be finally rid of the crazy CEO and was elated for two whole days. What happened next surprised him. On the third day after the CEO was fired, he experienced a wave of anger that seemed totally disconnected to anything in his life at the time. Memories started flooding his head replaying the numerous crazy meetings he had with the CEO. Memory after memory came and went and he even found himself cursing the CEO as if he were in the room. These memories and anger feelings continued off and on for several days and then just stopped. My client was concerned that he might be going crazy himself and talked to me. I explained that it was a form of post-traumatic stress release. He had been forced to stoically bear these angry rants by his boss because the power differential would not allow him to fight back, and only after the boss was fired could he release the tension he felt at the time. He was literally "boxing away" his anger at the boss until such time that he could feel safe in releasing it. That time came when the boss was no longer his boss. After a couple of days of yelling at his past traumatic memories, he had released his pent-up anger and felt normal again.

Similarly, a client called me the other day who was going through a divorce and was disturbed that she was having crying fits after the divorce was finalized. "Why am I just crying all the time when I am glad to be out of the marriage?" I recounted the client's story and explained that it was literally all the tension of every fight and frustration she had experienced in the last ten years in her marriage. "Your psyche realizes it is now safe to release these emotions, since y0u are finally away from your husband," I told her.

We often bear the pain of interactions in relationships without realizing how much much pain we have actually gone through. We simply take the pain and put it in a box somewhere inside our self. Power differentials, the difference of perceived or accepted power between two or more people, are often the cause of this. We cannot yell back at our bosses because they might fire us---power differential---so we bury the pain/anger. We cannot yell/fight back with our spouses for fear of some retaliation---power differential---so we bury the emotion. Sometimes we cannot fight back because we realize that we are the more powerful in the situation and it might cause harm to the offending person, so we box the emotion just the same. I know of 240 lb. men who have been sent to the hospital by their 120 lb. wives because they did not feel they could fight back as their wife hit them with things. It does not matter who has the true power in the situation, whoever is not able to fully express themselves will have to eventually release the suppressed emotion from the box. It might be five days or five years later, but it will eventually have to be released.

The good news in all of this is that we really do not even have to know what it is that we are releasing when it happens, only that the release is healthy and necessary. Insights connected to the release are helpful and interesting at times in the process, but ultimately less important than the sheer release itself. If the emotion is coming out unexpectedly, just let it come out and the insight might come later. Have faith that you are not going crazy just simply unboxing old emotions---think of it as your emotional "moving day." Who knows, maybe you can move some of those extra boxes out forever.

When Personal and Work Life Merge

I have discussed in previous blogs the issue of the business world and the personal world merging in the workplace. I said that through the 1970's, there were several expectations at work that were referred to at that time as being a "professional." One was that you keep your personal life and problems at home, and when you are at work, you work with no personal distractions. Another was that everyone who was above your pay grade was referred to as Mr. or Ms. _______ and not by their first names at the workplace. This kept a more formal atmosphere at work and delineated job titles. People at the same job level were informal with each other, but no one ever referred to their bosses by their first name. Dress codes were enforced, there were no casual days and any requests for time off were put in writing, not requested in the break room or hallway.

Wow, have things changed in 2010. One manager I know has put it this way, "Starting professionals these days believe that work is interfering with their personal texting, cellphone calls and computer surfing. When I ask them to work on projects, they actually shrug as if irritated by me. They act like my teenagers at home when I ask them to do a chore."

What has happened to the workplace?

My belief is that once we lowered the standards of physical/verbal decorum in the workplace, making it look and feel the same as it is at home, the employee's psyche registers that similarity as a sufficient equivalence, and starts to act, feel and express themselves the same in the workplace as they would at home. The problem with this is that now the employee's psyche begins to see the boss as Mom/Dad, co-workers as their siblings, and believes that any personal issues or feelings are both appropriate to express here and should be your problem as well. With no psychological separation between workplace and home employees feel entitled to act any way they want and vent any emotion as they want. Because this attitude has been around for a while I get a lot of clients who regularly ask me, "Why do I have to treat them any differently if they are having relationship problems or something, and why do I have to deal with their home problems at work anyway? Just do your job for God's sake, I'm your boss not your Mother!"

One client recently discussed how an employee found out that her husband was having an affair and now felt entitled to leave early every day, come in late and let deadlines slide because, "I'm going through a tough time, you know." My client felt unable to put her foot down because of the new belief that we have to be hypersensitive to everyone's needs and therefore cannot ask them to do their job if they are going through a rough time. There is a big difference between letting someone take the rest of the day off on a particularly difficult day and maybe a few personal days following, and expecting shortened work days for weeks on end.

I am not going to offer solutions to this issue at this time, but I would love to hear from other managers and hear their stories relating to this problem. It is a very real issue that is getting out of hand in the modern workplace, and it all started with making the workplace physically and psychologically more informal.