Martini Rescue Squad

"Here’s what goes on in your brain when you laugh" from Business Insider

"Here’s what goes on in your brain when you laugh," Business Insider.  Retrieved from: 

 

http://www.businessinsider.com/science-laughter-funny-2015-8

 

Happy October!

 

 

"Let It Go!” by Judith Sills, PhD

Link:  https://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/201410/let-it-go

Excerpt:  "But there's a point where appreciation and analysis of the past become gum on your psychological shoe...You need to do some scraping...Letting go means confronting these invisible emotional barriers...It means challenging irrational, unproductive thinking...it means facing up to your fear and then calling on your courage and your character to face it down..."

"Multitasking Damages Your Brain And Career, New Studies Suggest" by Dr. Travis Bradberry

This post is dedicated to anyone who has ever checked their email while on the phone, started cleaning their kitchen while boiling their pasta or tried patting their head while rubbing their tummy...i.e. all of us.

Link:  http://www.forbes.com/sites/travisbradberry/2014/10/08/multitasking-damages-your-brain-and-career-new-studies-suggest/

Excerpt:  "The frequent multitaskers performed worse because they had more trouble organizing their thoughts and filtering out irrelevant information, and they were slower at switching from one task to another. Ouch...Research also shows that, in addition to slowing you down, multitasking lowers your IQ...Multitasking in meetings and other social settings indicates low self- and social-awareness, two emotional intelligence (EQ) skills that are critical to success at work."

Hunter's Moon

 

If you noticed the moon looks fuller and more beautiful this evening, this is the Hunter's Moon, or the first full moon after the Harvest Moon.  I intended to spend only a few minutes looking into this to satisfy my own curiosity and...that did not work out as planned.  

To share the benefits with you if you want some more information, here are some interesting insights...

• To satisfy your left-brain curiosity, this excerpt is from extremetech.com:  

"Early tomorrow morning (Wednesday, October 8), a total lunar eclipse will be visible from North America, East Asia, and some other countries that border the Pacific Ocean. This lunar eclipse — which coincides with tonight’s full moon — should also be a blood moon; that is, it will take on a dusky red-orange hue as the eclipse approaches totality. Furthermore, if you’re lucky enough to be on the east coast of the US, the blood moon will set on the western horizon at exactly the same time as the Sun rises in the east — you’ll be able to see the Sun and a total lunar eclipse at the same time — a weird quirk of celestial geometry that should technically be impossible.

"The lunar eclipse of October 8 will reach totality and be directly overhead in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Those of you on the west coast of the US will see the Moon rise as normal...On the east coast, the eclipse will begin at 4:17am (Eastern Time), with the total eclipse lasting between 6:27am and 7:22am."

(Reference:  http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/191602-how-to-watch-tonights-celestially-impossible-blood-moon-lunar-eclipse)

• ...And from earthsky.org:

"These are the dates for the ongoing tetrad – four successive total lunar eclipses – in these years.

2014:
Total lunar eclipse: April 14-15
Total lunar eclipse: October 7-8

2015:
Total lunar eclipse: April 4
Total lunar eclipse: September 28...

"How common is a tetrad of total lunar eclipses? Depending upon the century in which you live, a lunar tetrad (four consecutive total lunar eclipses, spaced at six lunar months apart from one another) may happen fairly frequently – or not at all...

 

"For instance, in our 21st century (2001-2100), there are a total 8 tetrads, but in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, there were none at all. If we include all the centuries from the 1st century (AD 1-100) through the 21st century (2001-2100), inclusive, there are a total of 62 tetrads. The last one occurred in 2003-2004, and the next one after the 2014-2015 tetrad will happen in 2032-2033."

(Reference:  http://earthsky.org/space/what-is-a-blood-moon-lunar-eclipses-2014-2015#tetrad)  

• To fulfill your right-brain sense that there has to be a more poetic reason as well:

"Many moons ago, Native Americans named this bright moon for obvious reasons. The leaves are falling from trees, the deer are fattened, and it’s time to begin storing up meat for the long winter ahead..Probably because of the threat of winter looming close, the Hunter’s Moon is generally accorded with special honor, historically serving as an important feast day in both Western Europe and among many Native American tribes."

(Reference:  http://farmersalmanac.com/full-moon-names/)

• ...And according to Susan Miller, astrologer quoted on Time Magazine's website:

"What does a lunar eclipse signify?

“This eclipse is a full moon so something is coming from to an ending or culmination,” she explains.

“Eclipses are non-negotiable,” Miller says. “They end something and they brings something else. But it really needed to end… There’s a shock factor first, and then a solution that turns out to be so good that you realize, wait a minute, this is a blessing."

(Reference:  http://time.com/3479488/lunar-eclipse-astrologyzone-susan-miller/)

Happy Hunter's Moon.

 

 

"How Bad Sitting Posture at Work Leads to Bad Standing Posture All the Time" by Jeanne Whalen

Try reading this while sitting in your normal work posture and tell me if the bit about kyphosis sounds really familiar to you too...

Link:    http://online.wsj.com/articles/how-bad-sitting-posture-at-work-leads-to-bad-standing-posture-all-the-time-1403564767?mod=djem10point

Excerpt:    “There's growing evidence that good posture contributes to a range of health benefits, from reducing back and joint pain to boosting mood...It has long been known that depression can lead to a slumped posture. But new evidence suggests the reverse is also true—that slouching can spark negative emotions and thoughts.”

Rescue, Part I of II

Sometimes, all you need is a sign.  Fortunately and occasionally with unfortunate results, when you want a sign, you’ll get one.  It will come to your rescue.

Many people in my intimate circle, me included, have made decisions against our better judgment because of that faith in inexplicable coincidence’s revealing powers.  In fate.  

“It doesn’t make any sense, but...that has to be the real reason!”... “this must be the right job!”...“he has to be the one!”  Oy.

“...There’s no other logical explanation.”

Exactly.  We became converts to our own baloney’s ministry.  And what a charismatic minister that baloney can be.

Thus fate becomes the default, but indisputable and high holiest reason many of us have made some questionable choices.

Each time that’s the justification to which we are ready to default, we will get the sign we need to confirm we’re about to make the correct decision, despite its dubiousness.

And only later, possibly years later, after we’ve repaired our heart or ego, realized unrelated success or noticed  “things” have taken us an entirely different direction  from our fated decision do we admit little-by-little that our signs may not have meant anything.

They may not have been anything more than an inexplicable, nonsense coincidences.  Laugh them off.

One of mine tends to be a recurring visitor.  A suburban wanderer who would blend with nature, who you would mistake for an indigenous creature, if it weren’t for his coloring.  A groggy, 5 x 4.5-inch fluorescent-painted turtle.

 

(To be continued next week...)

"The Laughter Cure" by Rachele Kanigel

Link:  http://www.yogajournal.com/health/2533

Excerpt:   'When you start laughing, your chemistry changes, your physiology changes, your chances to experience happiness are much greater'

"Why Gratitude Makes You Happier and Wealthier" - Christine Kane

To complement "Ungrateful"...

From: http://christinekane.com/why-gratitude-makes-you-happier-and-wealthier/

(In Honor of Thanksgiving.)

Gratitude is about so much more than being thankful. Gratitude is a practice. For some, it is a way of life. Why do some people swear by this practice? Why do those people live happier and more abundant lives than everyone else?

- Because gratitude is about presence.

Gratitude is about waking up in this moment and being here – really being here – and noticing what’s around you. Most people are so busy thinking about the next thing, or their horrid past, that they don’t wake up and look around at their present moment — the only moment there is.

- Because gratitude is about honoring your life.

Do you ever compare your life with someone else’s? Do you ever wish your life were better and more like another’s? Sometimes we can lose ourselves in wondering how we “measure up” to some standard set by someone else or by the media or by our parents. My belief is this: Comparison is the mind killer. And the antidote is gratitude.

Gratitude requires you to validate your own life. (And you really don’t have any other life, do you?) It forces you say YES to the gift that is you. The choices you’ve made, the changes you’ve gone through, the track you’re on — all of those have brought you here. Even if here is a place that needs a little adjustment, that’s okay. There are always gifts in any present moment.

- Because gratitude is about attracting.

It’s difficult to attract abundance and joy if you are saying “no” to what IS. You say no each time you focus too much on the future or past, or when you criticize something that is in your present moment. When you say yes, you shift. Attraction is about “yes.”

Gratitude says, “Yes, I love this!” And then more of this is attracted, because the this is what you’re focusing on.

- Because gratitude is about choice.

How you translate any situation is the situation. What you choose to see is the truth (for you). This isn’t proposing that you live in denial or phoniness. It’s reminding you that your translation of any life situation is your own choice. Over and over we’ve all heard stories of people who have ignored others’ translations of their talent, their projects, their art, their looks, their lives. These people chose their own translations and succeeded. You always have a choice when it comes to how you look at things. Choose to choose gratitude.

- Because gratitude is about wisdom.

I think people believe they’re being smart if they criticize, complain, and focus on the problems of the world around them. Smart? Maybe. Clever? Sure. But not wise. It is wise to look for and find the knowing place in your heart. It is wise to choose joy. It is wise to honor your riches. It is wise to focus on and grow the blessings of your life.

- Because gratitude is about recognition.

Use your power of focus to hone in on the beauty and on what makes your heart smile or sing. Recognize the spirit in your life. It’s all around you waiting to be noticed. In the words of Franz Kafka, “It will roll in ecstasy at your feet.”

- Because gratitude is about receptivity.

Gratitude makes you receptive. It makes you concave. It makes you a vessel, waiting to be filled.

I carry a small notebook with me everywhere I go. In it, I write down song ideas as I hear them. I write down quotes I hear. I write down ideas for stage stories. As I do that, I become more receptive, and more ideas and songs come to me. It’s a tool that says to my subconscious, “Send more my way!” And the subconscious always responds.

Gratitude is the same way. It says, “I am receptive! Send more!” And more arrives.

- Because gratitude is about creativity.

Creativity is really all about attention. When I write a song, I build a relationship with that song. I spend time with it. I get to know it. I pay attention to it. Artists do the same thing with drawings. They spend time in rapt attention and the drawing is born.

Gratitude is the same way. It is a creative act to notice and pay attention to the moments of your life. Some days it’s an enormous act of creativity to even find things for which to be thankful.

Be creative. Be present. Be receptive. Be wise. Be wealthy. Be grateful.

Evolutionary

Memories are usually something we try so hard to retain for our school, our work, our relationships; we diligently studied - or crammed - in school to remember everything for the exams...We take terrific mental or written notes to recall the ins and outs at work...We do everything we can to avoid that heartbreaking moment when our relative gently reminds us we forgot their birthday.  Again.

We don’t want to wash that blanket from our departed or absent loved one's bed in fear we’ll forget what it was like to be close to them.

We work so hard to hold onto memories while sometimes forgetfulness, might be more helpful and healthier than anything we remember.

“That's a no-brainer!,” you might think.  “How could you go on through each day with a smile if you’re constantly aware of the heavy things in your reality?”

Or “How could you interact with the negative people in your life if you always remember how horrible they can make you feel?”

Or “How can you have any peace within yourself until you fix A, B and C...?”

All good questions, I think.

Forgetfulness as mental revisionism is a somewhat infuriating, somewhat appealing idea.  Especially if your long-term retrospective vision has a rose-colored lens.

Forgetfulness as a means of distillation, of boiling your memories down to the most important nugget in each is slightly less alarming, slightly more assuring.

But it isn’t it also equally packed with subjectivity?  That idea could be equally infuriating and/or equally appealing.

An interview on NPR earlier this week brought all of this to mind.

The guest was a neuroscientist who discussed her new book about sleep and memory.  “People might think that memories, once they're formed, remain static," she said, "and it's just, you know, kept like a library book on a shelf, and then you can pull it out when you want to...”[1].

Sounds good.

“...But actually that's not the case. Memories evolve constantly. They change, and a lot of that evolution seems to happen while you're asleep.”[2]

For me, as for probably most of us for our own reasons, this is a bizarrely personal issue.  After the horrible car accident I’ve referenced over the last few weeks, I had absolutely zero memory.  For weeks and weeks and weeks...

That is a hidden blessing from some forms of neurotrauma – I’ll never remember the accident or my time in the hospital.

However in those weeks and weeks and weeks... I could tell you the same joke in the same five minutes without recalling.

Or I could tell you the same joke in the same five minutes without recalling.

Haha...TBI humor.  Sorry.

Thanks to all higher powers for the friends who kindly worked with me and laughed.  Repeatedly.  At the same jokes.  For weeks and weeks and weeks...

Taking on my memory loss was very difficult for me at the time – I’ve always remembered peculiar, sometimes arbitrary but often personally loaded things;  my sixth grade crush’s 12^th birthday party calendar date,  my primary school best friends’ phone numbers, a song that played on the car radio that night in high school when some friends and I drove to the farthest end of the next county  over for the boys’ school volleyball championships....Specific things that don’t mean anything to anyone else.

And I was afraid I’d never remember them again.

Remembering the facts, the specifics, has always been very important to me.  Ideally, for people like me, our ability to preserve those details hold us accountable for preserving the events as they actually transpired.

But then sometimes we forget how we felt in those moments and thus make the same decisions, repeat the same mistakes.

For others, remembering their emotions is very important.  Ideally their ability to be fully present in their momentary reality holds them accountable for preserving their emotional recall and letting that guide their decisions.

But then sometimes their emotional recall can vary in intensity based on their life’s content at any given moment and they have not retained any specific information to ground their recall in fact.

“...It doesn't necessarily always help us remember exactly what happened,” the neuroscientist said.  “Sometimes it helps us to recombine information, kind of extract out the gist, the main points, from, you know, lots of different experiences.”[3]

It helps us to let go of the facts and the emotion, and reduce it all to the most important take-away.

Which is itself subjective and, yup, evolutionary.

It's somewhat infuriating and somewhat appealing that might be the one thing we can hold onto.

---

[1] Gross, T.  (2013, August 15).  Of Neurons And Memories: Inside The 'Secret World Of Sleep' [Interview].  Retrieved from: http://www.npr.org/2013/08/15/212276021/of-neurons-and-memories-inside-the-secret-world-of-sleep?sc=tw.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.

 

 

Vacancy: Universe Preferred, Part III of III

“Keep your day and your mind open for the universe to fill it,” my more judicious, tactful internal voice continued.

Novel idea.

“Be present and aware in every step, in every breath.”

I know, buh…

“Shhh...just watch and listen.”

Now that’s getting a bit radical.

“Shhh!”

OK, OK!…Calm down.

I laughed as my internal voices settled their debate, one gloating and the other harrumphing as it acknowledged the one’s correctness.

As that noise in my brain settled into a stalemate, I took the next step with purpose, as I did with the next one, and the next one…The purpose to fully inhabit each moment.

The dogs and I did not walk any slower. I don’t think we changed our pace at all.  Instead we, or I, started to take it all in.  It was all perfect.

The world became brighter.  The air became softer.  My dogs’ perpetual curiosity and indefatigable sweetness became more self-evident.  Every step became more precious than it would have been.

I rolled the day’s accidental perfection over and over in my mind with each meditative step.  “We’re happy, we’re healthy, we’ve exercised...Sure, that’s pretty basic.  Very lucky, but still pretty basic.”

Over and over in my mind, I rolled that gratitude.  It lovingly repeated itself in various ways without really promising to manifest anything more than that.  And that was OK.

If that had been all that day would hold, that would have been OK.

On the last leg, right before the end the fifth sixth - right where everything gets very busy and distracted again - I grabbed two orange-red flowers from the vine spilling over the tall fence.

This is a public vine spillin over a very tall public fence, not a private garden.

And I tucked one flower into each dog’s collar for the home stretch.

“Oh, God!  This is beyond perfect!,” I thought.  “But it’s time to hurry,” I realized.

How many of us are not as good at relaxing as we would like to think we are?  Despite lengthy, altruistic, verbally aggressive internal debates in which the pro-relaxation voice wins.  Right.

I ran into the market where the dogs and I had parked to select a bottle of champagne for that evening’s host and hostess and hurried home to shower and dress.

After a few bloopers, i.e boneheaded mistakes, I arrived at the party with the last couple of guests.  I was the last of the last, due to forgetting the champagne in my car…which I’d not realized until the second-to-last guest and I were about to walk into the party.

After looping back to my car for the champagne, I quieted my mind again as I returned to the party.  With that group, it’s easy to do.

All of the people at the party that evening have been friends for 10, 15 or 20 years...since we moved to town - which is home to many of us - after college.  Most of us met through community service or professional groups, if we did not already know each other.

When we met, all of us where single.  Perhaps a few of us were in a relationship, but all of us were unmarried.  Some of us were unemployed.  Very few of us had a clue who we would be if and when we grew up, no matter how firm our plans sounded at the time.

And how we defined that “who” has changed at least a few times for most of us, whether we defined it by career, marital status, having children or simply by quality of life.  The latter was definitely a bit too intangible for most of us back in the day.

This party venue is sacred territory.  At our adult friendships’ genesis, it was where we had wine and appetizers occasionally after work.  Then it was where we had the holiday gift exchanges.  Then we had the wedding showers, the baby showers, the promotion/moving away parties…all in this one home.  Many of them on that one terrace.

Its size always seems just large enough and just intimate enough.  Its size always seems to conform to fit the occasion.

In this venue, with that group, quieting your mind is pretty easy to do.

“Shhh...just watch and listen.”

Almost every friend there had their spouse or significant other with them.  The host and hostess had left their sweet baby with the hostess’ parents.  As I went into the kitchen to refill my water, one of the two husbands tending to the grill whisked me around the kitchen floor. Our party’s music, laughter and happiness filled the sky.

The radical thing I noticed there, some 10, 15 or 20 years after becoming friends, or becoming friends as adults, is everything feels so complete.

I wouldn’t say any of us are who or where we thought we’d be now, but I think we’d agree we’re right where we need to be to feel fulfilled.  We’re happy, we’re healthy and we’re fulfilled.  Or we’re getting there.

What better, more inclusive aspiration could any of us have?

When I lost my original plan or agenda for the day, the universe filled it with clarity.  When all of us lost our original plans for our lives, or how we defined who we were going to become, the universe filled them with quality.  With fulfillment.

 

Distilling the Pragmatism from the Nebula, Part III of III

That cycle is not simply futile, it’s destructive; the more times we repeat it, the less we believe the happiness we imagine is possible.  We start bartering down our expectations and settling for “Eh, that could work.”  That’s the rational thing to do.

Like many of us, I would convince myself the externalized trappings of the dream – the degree, the job, the partner by age 32, the baby...add on as applies to you – are what will make me happy.  Eventually, once we get well on our way to achieving those trappings, we find they come to symbolize our disillusionment.  It gets messy.

But what if we quiet our minds and listen to our dreams instead – about how we want to feel?  What if we stand underneath our cloud of dreams with our hands cupped to catch everything that condenses?

Let it distill out of our nebula, let it overflow our hands and rain all over us, washing us clean – and pushing our messy, splintery “Pragmatism” construct back out to sea.

What if we trust those dreams to guide us and see what solid sense we can make of them – instead of trying to shove those dreams into whatever sounds like the most sensible plan?

What if that horizon of heart/mind wholeness is inside of each of us and all we have to do is let it rain?  Let ourselves believe in what our mind sees when we are not consciously in charge.

It’s very likely we remember our dreams as children. We may also remember how proud we felt of ourselves when we became “sophisticated” enough to dismiss them.  A few of us may also remember the approximate time when we stopped remembering our dreams.

It’s very likely we remember when we started forgetting or discarding any information that did not fit into our box.

When we started feeling empowered that we can wake up, turn off the alarm and start our day with very little recall of everything we had seen the night before.

Perhaps we recall fragments throughout the day, or the week and it gives us pause, but not for long.

We quickly shake our head, straighten our posture, wince as we take another sip of our sour room temperature coffee and refocus on the task before us.

I read something over the weekend that is absurdly appropriate - Albert Einstein said “The intuitive mind is a sacred gift, the rational mind is a faithful servant; we have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.”[1]

Society does that and, as single women in our age group, we have to own up to being its accomplice.  The further along we get into our careers and our adulthood, the more we agree we need a “thicker skin,” we need to attend this seminar about our career strategy and to read that book about developing our professional network.

We need to hush the intuitive vision and manipulate it into a rationalized version.  A set of actionable goals that we think will enable us to achieve the success we want to see for ourselves - something that works.

We need to “get real” about the direction our life is going.  We need to stop dreaming.

Then we wake up in a job that is not fulfilling, or dating a partner who we don’t feel really gets us - who only sees us in a little box - or overcommitted to a series of committees and obligations that just don’t give us the time to find any peace.

Or worse – we have convinced ourselves that is the best we can expect.

Guess what?  We got what we asked for.

We have this moment right now – this immaculate moment when we are reduced to our elements – to look up to our dreams and to see what they have to say.

Not about the job, the house, the partner, the baby...not about the trappings, but about what they symbolize about how we want to feel in our life.

We have this moment to let that dictate our course of action.  We have this moment to let it rain.

 

 

 

---

[1] Smalley, S.L. & Winston, D.  (2010).  Fully Present, The Science, Art and Practice of Mindfulness.  New York: Da Capo Press. 

The Genius of the Cheeseburger

The cheeseburger.  The muse and undoing of many a modern-day tragic hero; Homer Simpson, Jimmy Buffett, Matt Damon...this culinary Helen of Troy gets a very bad rap.  Unduly so.

This poor beaten and abused delicacy that has been vilified as the symbol of gluttony, the slow and gradual killer hiding behind the Golden Arches, nay, the source of all that is wrong with the American family.

I think it’s time we stand up for the cheeseburger – stand up for its simplicity, its intelligence, its efficiency and yes, oh yes, its flavor.

Before we go any further, by “cheeseburger,” I mean a meal consisting of a meat patty with real cheese that came from cows, perched on a bun made from grains -  add tomatoes, greens and condiments to your liking.

Got it.

Let’s visualize this – you are on a date, or you are out with some friends after work.  You’re happy, but tired.  The menu comes...hmm...what to have?

You can have the salad, to which you have to add all sorts of fattening things to make them moderately satisfying.  Some of which will inevitably end in your lap, despite your deft slicing and stacking on your dainty little fork.

You can have the pasta, which is another production to get into your mouth somewhat gracefully and ooh...the carbs.  And garlic.  I think it actually makes a kathunk sound when it arrives in your stomach.

You can have the fish, which is probably over priced and, well fishy.  Or the chicken, which you eat for almost every meal featuring meat – unless you go for the turkey, but the tryptophan could kick in at any point and game over.  No more cute, flirty evening.

Or, finally, your eye catches the cheeseburger.  The grilled panacea that allows you to check off all of your food groups in one dish.  A dish that does not require utensils, unless you prefer to slice it in half before eating it.  A dish that you can eat with your hands, all as one unit.

This is very clever, because frankly, the beef is probably not much lower quality than the steak, but it is considerably easier to eat and perhaps half the price.  Furthermore, you have more latitude to have fun with it.

Would you put mayo, relish or mustard on a steak?  Probably not.

Would you put all of that plus any other creative topping you fancy, thus creating your own van Gogh-like masterpiece, on a cheeseburger?  Bien sur!

Moreover, it does not take a significant amount of time to prepare.  Or to eat.  No maneuvering with your knife and fork to avoid the gristle, or finding the meat so tough you send your knife careening to the adjacent table in your attempt to conquer the beast.

No.  None of this is necessary with the gorgeous, hot, beefy perfection on your plate.  And it requires a lot less plate, therefore conserves space on the table top for other useful things, like your antioxidant-rich glass of red wine.

Very few bad days can withstand the healing magic in a glass of red wine and a cheeseburger.  Come to Mama.

There are some spoilsports who try to tell you red meat is e-v-i-l evil.  A prominent article in a prominent paper proclaims, “All red meat is bad for you, new study says.”[1] 

It cites doctors, studies, editorials, etc...but I quite like this input, well toward the bottom of the article, thank you, from a certain doctor at USC’s Keck School of Medicine, who “cautioned that it can be hard to draw specific conclusions from a study like this because there can be a lot of error in the way diet information is recorded in food frequency questionnaires, which ask subjects to remember past meals in sometimes grueling detail.”[2]

Well played, Doctor. Well played.

If you want to get right down the specific measurements, a serving of tofu is no angel compared to ground beef.[3] 

How many of those study’s subjects confessed their tofu intake while besmirching our sacred sandwich?

It’s time we free the cheeseburger.  Time we celebrate this inventive, nutritious, cost-effective, logistically sound and delicious creation.  Time to liberate this muse from its tragedy.

 

---

[1]Brown, E.  (2012, March 12).  “All red meat is bad for you, new study says.”  Los Angeles Times.  Retrieved from:  http://www.latimes.com/health/la-he-red-meat-20120313,0,565423.story

[2]Ibid.

[3] “Food Exchange Lists.”  (2012).  National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, National Institute of Health.   Retrieved from: http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/public/heart/obesity/lose_wt/fd_exch.htm

 

 

 

 

News story re: Congresswoman Giffords with input from UCLA Neurosugery

Take a look at this story with input from UCLA Neurosurgery. Please keep Congresswoman Giffords and her family, and all other victims from the Arizona assassination attempt, in your thoughts and prayers.

Dr. Neil Martin is one of the doctors who saved my life 15 years ago:

http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/video?id=7890702

Optimistic Realism

Few things have made me angrier than the words “Defensive Pessimism.”  I was en route to an alumni mixer for my college and tuned into my favorite news radio station for the ride – to catch up on anything important I had missed in the world events during the day – and I became furious.  The guest on the talk show sounded oh so erudite explaining Defensive Pessimism as though it were the greatest thing since psychological sliced bread.

As its experts define, Defensive Pessimism is an anxiety-management strategy whose practitioners “expect the worst and spend lots of time and energy mentally rehearsing, in vivid, daunting detail, exactly how things might go wrong.”[1]

The examples the author gives include worrying before a business presentation that “the PowerPoint might fail, that the microphone will go dead, that – worst of all – they will stare out at the audience and go blank”[2] or “Before a dinner party, (Defensive Pessimists) imagine that the new neighbors will clash with the old and the sushi will give everyone food poisoning.”[3]

Sounds healthy, right?

If you hear about it on the radio or anywhere else and it resonates with popular models that expecting the worst is a sensible approach to life, don’t get too comfortable with that interpretation.  I picked up a book on the topic by one of its experts and have to tell you this author is an optimist in denial.  She just packages it under a misnomer.

I think most of us will agree Optimistic Realism is a better way to go.  More on that later.

This author continues, “Defensive Pessimism is a strategy that helps us work through our anxious thoughts rather than denying them, so that we may achieve our goals.”[4]

This only makes sense based on the premise that optimists, or Strategic Optimists as she calls them, are not strategic at all.  Instead, she portrays them as happy-go-lucky, unrealistic and narcissistic airheads who don’t really plan for things or make provisions for things going awry; their strategy is simply to trust that we should “Relax – It’ll all work out.”[5]

I’d rather consider this Defensive Pessimism/Strategic Optimism issue a common sense debate.  Per the Defensive Pessimism doctrine, you should convince yourself the worst case scenario is going to happen.

The most likely outcome, after repeatedly implementing this strategy, is that your results become a self-fulfilling prophecy.  You are therefore glad with anything better than the worst possible result; you bargain down your expectations to the very least satisfying/saddest/most tragic outcome so reality has no place to go but up.

Guess what?  That’s about the least emotionally competent, counterproductive, most-destined-to-failure strategy I have ever heard.

The author only makes passing reference to how that is not what she means.  That Defensive Pessimists have the fortitude to keep chugging past all of that doubt and succeed.

What happens when you have reduced your paradigm so far that the result surpasses expectation and then, in time, you realize you could have had much better?  You wanted, were willing to work for and probably deserved much more.  Great.  What do you do then?

Whatever happened to setting a goal, considering the strategies, the risks and benefits of each – and then once you are satisfied you have done the appropriate prep work, proceeding with faith that all will go well.  And if it doesn’t you have the pieces in place to deal with it properly?  That is what I referenced above, Optimistic Realism.

If you have not read Jim Collins’ Good to Great, I suggest you do so ASAP.  Boiling one of it’s bigger messages down to its essence, Collins suggests facing the bald facts, the likely outcomes, the worst things that could happen – and holding steadfast onto the belief that the best can happen if you commit yourself to it and take rational action to pursue it.  Not convincing yourself the worst is likely to happen and trying to capitalize on your anxiety to avoid it.

Think about this in your life’s context.  If you need some help and recall my 15 Years Ago series over the last two weeks, let’s frame it thusly; if my doctors, family or friends had believed the medical precedent for head trauma cases like mine, they would not have done as much as they did to save me.

If most medical professionals made it habit to expect the worst will happen on the chance that could drive them to outperform, it’s not likely any of us would have some incredible, inspiring stories.

If most of us had bargained ourselves down to the most likely worst case scenario to relieve any anxiety we may have felt about our likelihood to achieve what we really want, many of us would not be happy, functional adults.

Toward the beginning of college, I recall the first time I heard the “Have a Little Faith in Me” song in a long time.  I started crying uncontrollably.  Sure, the song about a romantic relationship, but let’s look at the lyrics:

 

And when your back’s against the wall
Just turn around and you, you will see
I will catch you, I will catch your fall
Just have a little faith in me.

  

… I will hold you up, I will hold you up
And your love, gives me strength enough to
Have a little faith in me

 

If that’s what we want in a relationship someday, then let that be so.  However, let’s apply it to our relationship with ourselves.

At the moment I reheard that song, I was 18, remembered myself before the accident as an accomplished student, a relatively secure, lovable person and I trusted myself.  After the accident, I did not feel any connection to that person.  I felt awkward, needy and incompetent.  I felt a genuine anxiety I would never return to someone I could trust or respect.

At that point, it seemed a heck of a lot easier to convince myself I would be happy redefining my goals and reframing my whole success paradigm based on the most likely outcome.  Although my situational specifics are different from yours, I am sure all of us have hit a low like that at some point.

During those times, convincing ourselves our worst fears were going to happen and using that anxiety to propel us was not an option.  We were not yet strong enough to do so.  Maybe that is not our style anyway.  Not for most of us.

And then I heard that song. And then I felt the hot, syrupy tears stream down my face.

How the hell do I dare pretend for one minute that I will be happy expecting anything less than a full recovery?

How the hell do any of us risk expecting the worst in order to generate the energy to make the responsible, common sense provisions we should make anyway?   How do we justify bargaining down our expectations without realizing that approach may eventually convince us the worst is all we deserve?

If all of society did that, we would all be temporarily comfortable, but largely unsatisfied people.  Wouldn’t we all live semi-contented lives as we continued building our own fear of failure to rationalize not taking any risks?

Let’s get granular: you would not have made the team, gotten the part, gotten into that college or out of that relationship, gotten the job, overcome that challenge or, frankly, believed in yourself at any point in your life when that faith in yourself was the precise determining factor from which all success in the situation flowed.  To hell with worst case scenarios.

While it might be easier for some people to convince themselves they could be happy always expecting the least favorable outcome, none of us have ever accomplished anything extraordinary by buying into that.

The very psychology experts who coined the term “Defensive Pessimism” would not have had the outrageous audacity to propagate the idea that mentality is healthy if they did not believe they could achieve an unlikely success by marketing it.  To boast their view is “contrarian.”

I’d prefer to call them Tasteless Opportunists; they have come up with a tacky, self-defeating idea, they expound upon it at a time when the economy looks bleak and they throw their educational credentials behind it to add some false credence.  Good luck to them in the karma department.

I’d much rather find myself driven by anxiety from the likely, battled by an earnest desire to achieve and belief that’s exactly what I will do than commit myself to expect the worst in order to protect myself from being disappointed.

And shame on the professionals who would ever profess that’s healthier than always stoking faith in yourself to work toward and deserve what you honestly want.

What a shameful waste it would be to settle for something that’s even a fraction of what we want to avoid the fear that we are not likely to achieve any more than that.

As the author writes at the end of the book, “Defensive Pessimists do, however, risk getting stuck in the forest if they can’t make the transition from focusing on bad things that might happen to focusing on how to prevent those things from happening,”[2] which is exactly what is most likely to happen if we always expect the worst.

“They need to be able to look up and follow the path. They may also fail to see the beauty of the forest if all they think about and remember is their worry about tripping over branches.”[3]

Sounds to me like Optimistic Realism.

 

And when your secret heart
Cannot speak so easily
Come here darling, from a whisper start
And have a little faith in me

And when your back’s against the wall
Just turn around and you, you will see
I will catch you, I will catch your fall
Just have a little faith in me

Have a little faith in me
Have a little faith in me[9]

---

 

[1] Norem, Julie K., Ph.D.  (2001).  The Positive Power of Negative Thinking, p. 1.  Cambridge, MA:  Perseus Books.

[2] Ibid, p. 2.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid, p. 3.

[5] Ibid, p. 2.

[6] Hiatt, John.  (1987).  Have a Little Faith in Me.  Santa Monica, CA:  Universal Music Publishing Group.

[7] Norem, Julie K., Ph.D.  (2001).  The Positive Power of Negative Thinking, p. 195.  Cambridge, MA:  Perseus Books.

[8] Ibid.

[9] Hiatt, John.  (1987).  Have a Little Faith in MeSanta Monica, CA:  Universal Music Publishing Group.