The Story of the Story Teller

“A lie gets halfway around the world before truth has a chance to get its pants on” —Winston Churchill

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been a story teller. Give me a subject and within seconds, my brain sorts through my memory banks and comes up with a story about it. I’ve always attributed that ability with the creativity of the right side of my brain.

So imagine my surprise when I recently read that a primary function of the left side of the brain is to be the “interpreter” of memories, experiences, and actions. The left brain “interpreter” tries to explain things by linking new information with what was known before.

As it turns out, the left brain is a very chatty “story teller,” taking whatever details it has (that car just cut me off in traffic), filling in the blanks with memories/beliefs (that guy is a jerk and thinks he’s entitled to be in front of me), and weaving everything together in a believable “explanation” (people are terrible, rude drivers who don’t care whether they cause accidents, blah, blah, blah).

Granted, the left brain’s purpose is to help me make sense of the world around me, but because it’s only concerned with cohesion, not accuracy, it can be very misleading in the story line it creates. In fact, Michael Gazzaniga, a cognitive neuroscientist, says the left brain will do anything to hold the story together, including adding things that didn’t actually happen.

Today, using the DBT skills of “observe” and “describe,” I noticed some of the “stories” my left brain was telling me. I quickly realized that most of these “stories” had a judgmental theme, a worrying plot line, and a lot of “what if” scenarios.  And, in many cases, not very much of the story my left brain was telling me was really happening.

The left brain was just doing its job, of course. And I do love a good story as much as the next person. But I’ve decided many of my left brain’s stories are a lot like the yarns my late Aunt Millie could spin: full of cliff-hangers, wild adventures, and, as I eventually came to realize, an awful lot of hooey. From here on in, I’ll make a greater effort to stick to the facts, except when I’m intentionally telling a tall tale, that is.

 

This Too Shall Pass

I’m dedicating today’s post to my mother, who died eight years ago today.  I’m wiping away tears fairly steadily today and I think now is a good time to act upon the “C”—which stands for “contribute to others”—from the DBT concepts of A.C.C.E.P.T.S.

I hope these words from handwritten excerpts from my mother’s journals lift your spirits as they did mine when I came across them and “contribute” in some way to a positive moment or two for you.

“If you ever get a chance to ride a bull, fly an airplane, or stand on your head, do it.”

“Thank you, God, for eyes to see our loved ones, birds in the trees, and clouds in the sky. Thank you for the power to enjoy children—if not our own, those of others. Thank you for the chance to help others.”

 “Dress wild if you want to. Don’t live for others.”

“It sometimes takes longer to get over a good time than it does to have one.”

“I do my thing and you do yours.”

“The greatest need in the world is common sense.”

“God remind me that no matter what I do or fail to do, there is still hope for me as long as I have faith in you.”

“Hug people.”

“If all your thoughts are negative, you’ve been marinated in vinegar.”

“Take a sweater along.”

“Teach children and don’t protect them from life.”

“Help me, Lord, to feel the strength of your power inside me to do your will.”

“This too shall pass.”

 

 

Lessons from Sally

Fred and I bought a wooden doll house at a yard sale for the grandkids about 14 years ago. It wasn’t a meticulously detailed Victorian style house. This one was handmade, a bit rustic, and constructed from wood as thick as my hand. It reminded us of our own modest and sturdy house built in the 1860s, which we chose to withstand the shenanigans of all of our grandkids--the ones we already had and those to come.

The doll house held up well over the years, despite repeated invasions of rubber snakes by the boys, the girls deciding to put in an indoor pool one day, and the dog chewing up furniture from time to time. A miniature ceramic house cat—“Sally” as our first granddaughter dubbed her—was not as lucky.

Sally was the darling of the grandkids—boys and girls alike. Maybe it was because she had one paw lifted and outstretched almost like an invitation to play. Maybe it was because she looked so friendly with over-sized, blue eyes and a pink smile. Maybe it was because she could hide so easily in the curled up hand or overalls pocket of a child.

Whatever it was, Sally was quickly pilfered from the doll house family and was never again found actually inside the doll house. Instead, she sometimes turned up in a residue of soap bubbles at the bottom of the tub after a bath. She lost an ear catapulting out of a pocket onto the sidewalk at the library. She kept a salamander company in an old Easter basket for a short time one summer day. And she once missed an entire Christmas season while “sleeping” underneath the sofa.

Most of the grandkids are teenagers now and the doll house has been relegated to the attic. But not good old one-eared Sally. She still turns up from time to time. Sunning on a windowsill on the porch. Holding out that paw waiting for a manicure next to bottles of nail polish in the girls’ room. Heck, some days, I think she might even make it onto the top of a wedding cake down the road.

What does this have to do with DBT? Well, I use imagery and visuals of safe places to foster a life worth living. Whether it’s a picture in my mind or comforting and pleasant spaces or objects, this practice helps keep me grounded and gives me something positive on which to focus my attention if I’m having a bad moment. Today, I bought some miniature plants at the nursery and gathered them in a mossy container to give myself something enjoyable to view as I wash dishes (often a time when my mind takes to ruminating).

It turned out okay, but something was missing. I just wasn’t getting the warm, pleasant feeling I was hoping for. It needed… I needed… Sally! That tiny, ragged, toy cat was just what I needed to remind myself to stop dwelling inside and get out and participate in life. Adventures are waiting. Love doesn’t care how many ears you have. And when you stretch out a hand, you never know where life can take you!

Beautiful, Wonderful

We are beautifully and wonderfully made and our possibilities appear endless.

I am dumbstruck by the beauty of these “wiring images” of the human brain.

I never envisioned the neural “highway” that transports information in my brain as magnificent as these images depict!

If you have an outdated view, as I did, of the structure of the human mind and its capabilities, I encourage you to reflect on these newer images (courtesy of the National Institute of Health’s Human Connectome Project).

 I think they speak for themselves. What do you think? Post your comments below.

 

 

 

 

 

Snow and Spring

 

I glared out the window this morning at snow piling up on three little “Easter Bunny” statuaries I’d set out in the garden last week. Geez, talk about dialectical (two opposing ideas that are true at the same time), I thought. Here we are, well into spring and it’s snowing. Like many of our neighbors, we’ve already put away our winter coats and boots. But there they are, the contradictory facts. It’s snowing. AND it is spring.

Seemingly everywhere I go lately, people are grumbling about the weather. Like most of the country, the east coast has endured a lot of snow, ice, and cold for months. And from what I’m hearing, folks are just plain sick of it.  As for me, I’ve been trying to approach the weather as I am other areas of life right now. That is, to accept what I cannot change. But today, I looked at our snow shovel and groaned. Enough is enough.

At that moment, I observed how irritated, disgusted, and down I was feeling. Uh, oh.  I knew that even though not accepting the weather seemed like a small thing, it had the potential to set the stage for a pretty miserable day. So I rattled my brain for something that would help. And here’s what popped out: “Pros and Cons.”

In this DBT exercise, I list both the pros and cons of using and not using my DBT skills to tolerate something. I’ve used this activity often over the past year, so this morning I was able to make the comparisons in my head. (However, for bigger emotional issues or more intense distress, I use paper and pencil. Writing things down makes it easier for me to distance myself a bit from the intensity. Furthermore, I can review them with my therapist) Here’s part of what I came up with today:

Pros of using skills: I will be able to “turn my mind” and have a more positive day.

Cons of using skills: I won’t get the feeling of fitting in with others as we commiserate about the snow on Facebook, the grocery store check-out line, etc.

Pros of not using skills: I will be able to commiserate with others and feel more like I "fit in."

Cons of not using skills: Negative thoughts might stretch from a momentary reaction to an all-day mood. (The 90-second rule from a previous post)

In the end, I chose to practice my learned skills to have a more positive day. I chose to say, “It is what it is.” And just as importantly, I chose to apply the DBT skill of “compare.” When I compared the dusting of snow in my yard to a cataclysmic, fatal weather event that happened Saturday in another part of the country, I instantly felt blessed and grateful—and, for me, that perspective was a much better way to start the day.

Small Achievements, Big Results

One of the DBT skills that helps to regulate emotions is called “Building Mastery.” The idea is to pick an activity or endeavor and achieve it.  When I do that, I feel more competent and strong and less powerless and fearful.

So from time to time, I challenge myself to try something I haven’t done before. But I don’t set the bar too high. That way, I’m more inclined to be successful and to enjoy the process, not just the achievement.

Looking back over my diary cards, here are some new things I did in the past six months:

Took balloons to kids at a new

local homeless shelter

Made and ate kale “chips”

 Made my own inexpensive laundry soap with Borax™, washing soda, and Zote™

Restored a vintage train set with Fred

Applied online for a copyright from the U.S. Copyright Office

Went to a new state park and climbed on a rock

Learned the rules of Cub Scout Pinewood Derby

Started a blog

Today, I decided to try my hand at a Pinterest idea for making artificial pussy willow branches to use as spring decorations. Outside, Fred did a double-take as I stood picking through a huge pile of hundreds of branches that had fallen into our yard during the last ice storm. Later, he wandered into the kitchen where I sat cutting the cotton ends off Q-tips™ (to use as the catkins.) When I asked him to search on his phone for an internet photo of pussy willows I could use as a reference, he wrinkled his forehead.

 “Okay, I give up,” he said. “What are you doing?”

 I explained. He stared at the heap of headless Q-tips on the counter and shook his head.

  “Honey,” he said. “Why don’t you just go buy some fake branches at the craft store?”

 “Because,” I answered. “I’m giving my brain a new experience. Creating new connections. Re-wiring, you know?”

He smiled, picked up the scissors, and started cutting up Q-tips. “Good job,” he said.

Flowers and Twigs

In previous posts, I’ve described what the word “dialectical”  in Dialectical Behavior Therapy means to me. That is, it’s all about looking at the world and myself in a way that allows for contradictions, opposites, and differences to co-exist.

For example, I comprehend warmth because I understand cold. I perceive happiness because I also experience sadness. Relationships are enjoyable and disappointing. I accept myself while recognizing I need to change in some ways.

I thought of this yesterday, the first day of spring, when I picked up my camera and went outside to look for signs of spring in the garden. Forsythia buds were swelling. Tips of daffodil leaves were pushing through thawed earth. Snow drops were swinging in the cold breeze like small, white bells.

As I positioned my camera for the first photo, I reached out with my other hand to sweep away dried leaves, dead twigs, and decomposing mulch. I only wanted what was pretty and “spring-like” in the photos. But then the word “dialectical” popped into my mind. So I paused for a moment and considered the scene another way. The dry sticks and leaves were part of the whole story, weren’t they? After all, it was the absence of life that gave meaning to the renewal of it.

Coming to grips with things just as they were posed a challenge for me as I knelt there in the garden. Could I allow both the flowers and the sticks? Could I accept not just the visions of spring but also the evidence of winter? Both were true at this moment in time.

In the end, I chose to let the camera capture the photo complete with its seasonal contradictions. I think these photos just might help me remember that there are far more experiences, situations, and facts in my life that include the word “and” than there are with the words “either/or.” Spring and winter, happy and sad, life and death—they are all part of understanding and accepting the dialectical nature of life.

Spring, Family Ties, and Eggs

My brother-in-law John called me this morning to remind me to stand a raw egg on one end since today is vernal equinox, which he alleged has special gravitational powers to enable the egg to stand on end.

Snopes.com dismisses this as an ancient myth having to do with fertility rites, superstition, and Chinese lore.

But I adore my brother-in-law. He’s 17 years older than me and was like a second father when I was growing up. He’s taught me many cool things over the years. So I raced downstairs, grabbed an egg, and voila!

I snapped the photo you see here and posted it on my Facebook page. Throughout the course of the day, others saw the photo, successfully replicated the experiment, and posted photos of their own egg triumphs.

No one seemed to mind very much that the equinox theory was dubious. Instead, it was just a fun thing to do. Also, I had posted this caveat alongside my photo: “If you google this and determine it is an urban legend, shhh.  Don’t tell me. Today I’m enjoying the magic of spring, family ties, and fun with eggs.”

 

 

The whole experience was a healthy and much-needed mini-vacation for my brain which has been working a bit overtime on some of the more serious aspects of life. And what better time than today—the first day of spring—to renew, refresh, and relax? Sound good? Grab an egg.

 

 

 

DBT Self-Soothing for Men

I remember a rugged, outdoorsy-looking man in my DBT group staring at a list of self-soothing activities and scratching his head. “Um, I don’t see anything on here for guys,” he mumbled.

Sure enough, as I scanned the list myself, I saw suggestions such as “take a bubble bath, rub on some scented hand lotion, and sip tea from a pretty china teacup.”

While these activities aren’t necessarily gender specific, I did see his point. In twenty-five years of marriage, I’ve never once seen Fred neck deep in bubbles or reaching for lilac-scented lotion no matter how stressed he is. Yet men, just like women, benefit from creating sensations that help calm the body’s alert system.

So with that in mind, here are just a few things I’ve observed Fred do to unwind using the five senses.

Visual: He thumbs through his hobby magazines and admires the newest equipment and ideas. He plays a video game for 30 minutes or so. He watches America’s Funniest Home Videos. He goes to the hardware store and walks around and looks at stuff for a while. He reads the latest James Patterson novel.

Taste: He finds a spicy, exotic recipe and makes it for dinner. He goes to the farmer’s market or supermarket and tastes every free sample! He knows where all the bowls of hard candy are at his office. He makes pancakes.

Smell: He fires up the barbecue grill. He burns some wood in the outdoor stove. (He likes camping and this reminds him of peaceful times.) He has a favorite aftershave:  Pinaud© Clubman—it smells like his barber shop and a fresh haircut.

Touch: He puts on one his favorite, very well-worn flannel shirts. He pets the neighbors’ dogs. He exercises and notices the muscle sensations. He takes a hot shower. He holds my hand.

Hearing: He pops in his ear buds and listens to his favorite music on his IPod. He cranks up the volume and bass on the car radio. He listens to instructional videos of YouTube.

These are just a few ideas. The point is this. The ways in which I soothe myself are activities I’ve found that work for me. Similarly, Fred has discovered what works for him. What’s most important, I think, is to identify what works and to have a list and/or a collection of items that can quickly calm the brain when it’s over-aroused.

Looking back over what I just wrote, I’m  now thinking about tucking a Pinaud© scented cotton ball inside the little self-soothing kit I keep handy in my purse. Even though it’s a men’s cologne, it smells like Fred and that makes me feel safe. Do what works.

It Is What It Is.

“It is what it is.” Those five little words are often as hard for me to swallow as a mouthful of hot peppers. By nature, nurture, or both, I am often the last one standing when it comes to a battle of circumstances, problems, or hardship. So today, I’m once again needing to work on the DBT skill of “radical acceptance.”

It seems my psychiatrist is concerned about the negative impact of my re-occurring trauma-related nightmares and disrupted sleep patterns which returned after he discontinued two medications. He recalls that these sleep problems have caused debilitating emotional/mental consequences in the past. So he directed me to start the prescriptions again.

I nodded my head, but internally, I dug in my heels. I know he believes the benefits of the medications outweigh the side effects. But I’m tired and dizzy during the day on the medicine and I wasn’t convinced. Could I find a way to accept his expertise over my feelings? I wasn't so sure. So I went home and sat down with a DBT “Radical Acceptance” worksheet.

Among other things, the exercise required me to check my facts about this situation. I did. And as I reviewed the past year and a half of DBT diary cards, I saw a direct correlation between not sleeping well and dangerously diminished coping abilities, mood, and emotional regulation.  

Another step on the worksheet was to say out loud what I have to accept and repeat it until it seemed more real. I also practiced relaxing and calming my body while imagining what I have to accept which, after a while, made the whole thing seem like less of a big deal.

By the end of the exercise, on a scale of zero to five (not accepting/denial to completely accepting/peaceful), I’d moved from a zero to a two. Better. Not peaceful, but better. So tonight when I take my pills, I’m hoping they’ll be a little easier to swallow.

Doing the Opposite

Today being St. Patrick’s Day, morning television greeted me with “all things Irish” on
every channel. There were shamrocks and leprechauns on the news desks, corned beef and cabbage and green martini recipes, and plenty of music to jig by.

But it’s cold, drizzling, and gray outside. It’s Monday morning.  I’m at the Walmart Vision Center and the eye doctor just told me I have cataracts.  In both eyes.

I do not feel one bit like doing a jig.

If you have depression, you probably know how out of sync with the rest of the world you sometimes feel. At least, that’s how it is for me. And when I’m down on a holiday and the rest of the world seems to be having more fun than me, depression feels worse simply by comparison.

And that was the case today. I felt much, much more like going back to bed this morning than joining the fun.

However, DBT emotional regulation skills advise me to try “doing the opposite of what I feel.” So I decided to give it a go, but the best I could do was to mark the occasion of Irish whimsy by putting on a green shirt.

Later, when I took the garbage out, my neighbor noticed my green shirt and called out, “Happy St. Patrick’s Day!” Then she told me she was on her way to work and couldn’t wear green because of her uniform.

“Maybe you could be green with envy,” I joked. She laughed. I laughed. Hmmm. That lifted my spirits a teensy bit—maybe hers, too.

I still felt like going back to bed, but not quite as much.

Since I was up anyway, I took a minute to straighten up one of our guests rooms. Through the window came the unmistakable sound of Uilleann pipes playing an Irish melody. I peeked out and saw a young, strawberry-blonde-haired woman in Irish attire, standing all alone on a street corner, and filling the air with music from her bagpipes.

I paused and let myself fully experience the moment and felt happiness. I also felt grateful. If I’d been in the back part of the house in my bedroom with my head under the covers, I’d have missed it.

It is now mid-afternoon and I still haven’t gone back to bed. Mood-wise, I’m nowhere near “top o’ the morning,” but the depressed feeling hasn’t risen to a level of controlling my behavior. either. Maybe it’s all because I put on a green shirt instead of my bathrobe. Maybe it’s because “doing the opposite” caused some beneficial physiological reaction in my brain. Either way, I am feeling as though I have a bit more luck on my side today—even without a four-leaf clover.

90 Seconds

One afternoon in the 1950s, when my sister and I were little girls, our mother gave us each what she called an “all day” lollipop. Their bright swirls of colors and enormous size—they were almost as big as our faces—initially evoked collective squeals of delight from us.

But the giddiness didn’t last. As it turned out, those darn things seemingly did take a whole day to lick to the stick.

After ten minutes or so, our tongues got tired, the flavor became monotonous, and our jaws ached--and we’d scarcely scratched the surface. We tried biting them but they were too hard. We dueled with them like swords, but our mother yelled at us. Finally, we abandoned them on the kitchen counter and ran off to fill the rest of the day with activities we considered more fun.

That’s how it is with anger and me these days. It is no longer an all-day event. Seething, simmering, ruminating, and arguing make my jaws hurt, wear me out, and take me away from things I’d rather be doing with my life.  So I keep the “90-second” rule in mind.

Neuroscientists say it takes only 90 seconds for this entire process to take place: an initial trigger happens (the thing that made me angry), my brain releases a chemical, it surges through my body, creates a physiological experience (the feeling of being angry), and then completely dissipates from my blood. At that point, my automatic response is over.

All within 90 seconds.

How is it then that throughout my life I’ve often remained angry long after 90 seconds have passed—sometimes stewing about something for days?

I learned the answer in my DBT class. Turns out, it’s because I choose at the end of that 90 seconds to have another triggering thought, hence, re-triggering the brain circuit with yet another anger response and so on and so on. Experience has shown me that 90 seconds can stretch into minutes into hours into days.

So yesterday, when I felt anger overwhelm me, I quickly excused myself for a moment, walked to a chair in a sunny window, sat down and stretched out my arms with my palms up. I focused on the warming sensation on my skin from the late afternoon sun while waiting out the anger’s temporary rise, cresting, falling, and dissolving away.  

Within moments, I felt it subside. But to completely let it go, I had to consciously decide to turn my thoughts to a positive memory of the person with whom I was angry. From this less aroused/emotional state, I was able to forgive and stop judging.

I’ve decided that anger, just like that unrewarding lollipop, is just no fun to spend “all day” on. Besides, there are jelly beans.

Thoughts at the Coffee Shop

Waiting for a friend to arrive at Folklore Café in Elizabethtown this morning, I sipped my coffee near the reading section. A book on one of the shelves caught my eye: My Stroke of Insight by Jill Bolte Taylor. Looking inside, I realized the writer had suffered a catastrophic stroke in her 30's. As a scientist who studied anatomy and nervous systems, Taylor was keenly interested in what had physically occurred in her brain—and, even more importantly, how to recover from it.

One bit of narrative resonated so clearly with me, I wrote it down. Taylor wrote: “I allow myself to remember that all thoughts are merely fleeting physiology.” Therefore, by the very nature of how the brain works, she continued, “the feeling of peace is something that happens in the present moment. It is not something we bring with us from the past or project into the future.”

These words seemed to echo a thread of Facebook comments I’d read the day before. A friend asked what would make someone happy. The person responded that if Jesus took away all his problems, he could be happy. My friend responded with a Biblical reference of a time when Jesus slept through a storm that filled everyone else with terror. She asked if he thought he would ever be able to learn how to sleep in a “storm.”

Both writers seemed to be making a similar point—that is, within us, we have the ability to experience peace in the here and now. In the midst of recovery. At the height of the storm. In the corner of a coffee shop.  

With that in mind, whatever journey has brought you to these pages today, I hope you discover a DBT skill or two that will help you soothe, quiet, and turn your mind toward peaceful thoughts. As best as you can, let go of anger, blame, resentment, guilt, and fear. Even if it is just for a moment. I have found that when I do this, the feeling of peace often comes with my very next positive thought..

Riding the Waves of Emotions

I never learned how to swim properly. Growing up surrounded by streets and sidewalks in the middle of a city, heavy rain filling the street gutters was about as close as I got to moving water.

I was an adult the first time I ventured out into the ocean. Knocked off my feet, somersaulting and swallowing sea water, I tumbled toward the sand—where I immediately crossed “learning how to ride the surf” off my list of fun things to do.

So at first, the DBT skill of “riding the wave of emotion/urges” was not a metaphor that I was easily able to apply to my life. At least, that is, until I understood that getting overpowered by the wave (as I literally did in the ocean) is not the objective of this skill.

Rather, it’s more like taking a small step back, observing feelings rise, peak, and recede—knowing they will pass, not acting upon them, and not letting them control my behavior or knock me off my feet.

Yesterday, I had two cups of a new brand of coffee. I had a coupon for a box of Starbucks Keuring™ cups plus they were on sale. The coffee advertised itself as having a stronger kick than what I usually drink. But I had a coupon.

By the end of the second cup, I knew I was in trouble. I was shaking, talking fast and loud, and my mind was racing. That extra caffeine was clearly adversely affecting me.

Later that day, I was still shaky and hyper-aroused when Fred asked what he thought was a simple question: “Do you want to go for a walk downtown?”

Already over-stimulated with caffeine, my brain lit up with activity. Self-judgmental thoughts raced back in forth in indecisiveness starting with “but my hair isn’t combed and it needs to be colored” to “I don’t feel like seeing people but I don’t want to disappoint Fred” to “everyone else is outside enjoying the sunshine—what’s wrong with me?”

I told Fred I needed a few seconds to breathe deeply and observe what was going on inside of me. I described the physical symptoms from the coffee, the self-judging thoughts that were happening, and the feeling of being overwhelmed. He stood quietly in the doorway. I sat in a chair. A minute or two passed and, miraculously, so did the panic. I had ridden it out.

Once I returned to “wise mind,” we decided that we’d take a walk another day, he’d go for a run by himself today, I’d finish a little sewing project I was working on, and we’d eat dinner later. The emotional wave had come, peaked, and fallen. It did not overtake me. I had come out the other side. Not bad for a woman who can’t swim, I told myself.

Wise Mind: The Elephant and the Peanut

Last night, smack dab in the middle of helping our little grandsons carve their Pinewood Derby race car entries, Fred discovered he needed a tool part and had to make a fast trip to the hardware store.

He was hurrying because it was a school night for the boys and even a slight delay in the project might interfere with bedtime. However, before heading out, he hastily tried to log in to our online checking account to check our budget.

Now he’s effortlessly logged in countless times in the past.  But in a hurry and with the boys clamoring at his side, he let out a sigh so loud I heard it downstairs in the kitchen.

“What’s the matter?” I called.

“I can’t log in! The bank must have changed something! Everything’s all messed up! I’m lost!” he yelled back.

I toweled off my hands and went to help. Peering over his shoulder, I recognized the page he was on and saw no problem. I clicked on the “start over” tab, entered the login identity and password, and answered the security question.

A few minutes after they left for the store, the story of “The Elephant and the Peanut” came to mind. When our own kids were children, they heard me tell this parable many times. Here’s how it goes.

An elephant was having a lovely day, munching on peanuts, and staring out on a calm, blue lake.

Suddenly, he dropped one of his delicious peanuts into the water. He instantly felt upset and began swishing around in the water with his trunk to find his snack.

Not finding it, he began to feeling frantic and thrash his trunk faster and wilder churning up mud and debris from the bottom. He could see nothing at that point—the water was far too cloudy.  

A small monkey perched overhead on a tree branch said, “Elephant, if you stop stirring things up, the water will clear, and you will see your peanut.”

So the elephant quieted and calmed himself and, sure enough, within a few minutes, the water settled down and he was able to spot and retrieve his snack.

“Emotional Mind” is one of three states of mind DBT describes. In this state of mind, I’m likely to be the elephant in the story with my thinking and behavior controlled largely by my emotions. I am far less able to think logically (“Reasoning/Reasonable Mind”). And I am far more likely to distort facts and act impulsively.  

On the other hand, the wise monkey in the tale represents the third state, which is “Wise Mind,” a more balanced way of experiencing life by integrating both emotions and reason. In other words, if emotions and reasoning are on opposite ends of the spectrum, “Wise Mind” is somewhere in the middle.

Today, as it usually does, life will throw situations my way which invoke emotional responses. It’s only natural—so I will observe, accept, and not judge my feelings. In addition, as best as I can, I will practice being present, breathing mindfully, doing one thing at a time, and listening to my inner monkey.

Sawdust, Mashed Potatoes, and Little Boys

I'm having a lot more fun in our house these days. Our grown kids can attest to that. They could tell you tale after tale of my, well let’s just call it, serious preference for tidiness and order when they were growing up.

For instance, there was the time I had the powder room scrubbed and polished for company—complete with pristine, new hand towels and a sign I’d posted for the children: “Do NOT use these towels!!!!” An hour or two into the party, I suddenly noticed guests exiting the bathroom and wiping their hands on their clothes or furiously shaking and waving them dry. I’d forgotten to remove the sign.

Then there was the day lots and lots of chlorine bleach went into the washing machine along with my hopes of restoring graying socks to their original immaculate whiteness. A few days later, the boys came home looking miserable after basketball practice. They pulled off their sneakers to show me that the bleach had disintegrated the socks into whorls of strings wrapped around their toes and nothing but frayed cuffs around their ankles.

And so it went. That is, until my own mother died at age 85 and I saw firsthand that the home she’d dedicated a lifetime to straightening, organizing, and keeping spic and span passed quickly into the hands of a family who didn’t give one whit about a spotless house. It took them less than a week to strew their kids’ toys all over the yard and let the newspapers pile up on the porch.  Apparently, a sparkling clean house is not a very lasting legacy.

With that in mind, I quickly began challenging my beliefs about the “ideal” home. One quote I adopted came from the late comedic writer Erma Bombeck. She disagreed that cleanliness is next to godliness, pointing out that no one she knew had ever gotten a religious experience out of scraping burned-on cheese from the toaster oven. Amen! So now things are different at our house. 

Take tonight, for example.  The house will be clamoring with our three Cub Scout grandsons getting their racers ready for Saturday’s Pine Wood Derby event. There will be sawdust hitching rides on their shoes from the downstairs workshop to the upstairs kitchen.  There will be dripped paint, raucous arguing over who uses Pop-Pop’s hammer first, and handprints all over the bathroom towels from little boys who are having too much fun to remember to use soap. And there will be potato peelings and splatters on the kitchen counter, because while baked potatoes are far less messy, the boys love big piles of buttery mashed potatoes on their dinner plates.

And I will be okay with all of it, having challenged my beliefs about housekeeping, letting go of what doesn’t work, and embracing what does. And for tonight, that's sawdust, mashed potatoes, and boys who will only be Cub Scouts for a short while. Positive experiences just might create a different kind of legacy, And that's the kind I am choosing today.

P.L.E.A.S.E

Last night, we adjusted our clocks one hour forward to accommodate Daylight Savings Time.  As I moved the hands on the last clock, I paused and did a quick self-observation to see if any part of me now believed it was midnight instead of eleven o’clock.

It was no darker in the room.  I did not suddenly feel any more tired. And I’m pretty sure my suprachiasmatic nucleus—a group of brain cells the size of a grain of rice that influence my sleep/wake cycle—wasn’t buying it, either. So, no.

This morning, Fred and I woke up, according to the altered clocks, at 8:30. We usually start our day at 7:30 A.M. Without paying much attention to the actual time, we stopped for lunch around 2:00 in the afternoon instead of noon. Right now, as I’m blogging, it is 5:30 P.M., our customary dinner time. Neither of us is hungry. To sum it up, our circadian rhythms seem to be on yesterday’s time.

All this got me thinking about how my inner clock affects my behavior—such as when I fall asleep, when I become hungry, when I wake up. And, while I’ve known about my body’s need to maintain balance and rhythm for a long time, I’ve only recently begun consistently helping things along.

That’s because, DBT calls for me to care for myself physically as a way to help regulate my emotions. One of the skills uses the acronym P.L.E.A.S.E to emphasize the benefits of treating PhysicaL illness, balancing Eating, Avoiding mood-altering substances, balancing Sleep, and getting Exercise.

These days, I eschew coffee after breakfast—I don’t want to create “false energy” when my body is trying to tell me it’s tired. I consume far less sugar because I always feel grumpy twenty minutes after I eat it. I made a plan with my doctor to help manage chronic arthritis pain. And while sleep isn’t always easy to regulate, I do my best.

As I’m writing this, I noticed the sun is still brightly shining outside even though it’s well after 6:30 P.M. It seems Daylight Savings Time has given an extra hour of daylight to me so I can put “getting exercise” into practice. So I will take Fred’s hand and walk through the neighborhood before sundown. Eventually, my circadian rhythm will catch up. In the meantime, there’s a sunset to see.

Avoid Re-Telling

A woman with whom I grew up recently re-entered psychotherapy sessions after a lapse of a few years. Her new therapist, unfamiliar with her family and life history, asked her to describe her childhood, which I know included a lot of trauma.

At one point of our conversation, she sighed deeply and said, “I’ve told these stories over and over in my life and I never feel any better. What’s the point?”

She then went on to tell me what she’d told the therapist—in essence, re-telling me in detail what she’d already re-told the therapist.  Since I experienced similar childhood abuse, it wasn’t long until my brain located my own trauma memories; triggered my sympathetic nervous system to flood me with adrenalin and cortisol in preparation to flight or fight; and, through a series of complex biological reactions, initiated a process of dissociating.

Fortunately, I’m learning through DBT to observe what is going on within myself. I noticed I was feeling a bit numb and cold and acted quickly to “turn the mind.” I focused on the second hand of a clock on the wall and listened with my full attention to the rhythmic tick, tick, tick. I began to count along silently, thereby switching brain activity to a different area—the part responsible for counting.  I breathed deeply and felt myself becoming less aroused and more anchored to the present moment.

Then, more centered in the “wise” part of my mind as opposed to the “emotional,” I was able to think more clearly about how I wanted to respond to her. I asked if I could tell her how DBT skills are helping me these days.

She wanted to know more, so I told her that one of the skills that offers some relief to me is to “avoid re-telling.” I explained that if my therapist needs information about a particular trauma, I take a more broad-brushed approach to informing her of these painful events and trauma—being careful not to close my eyes and not to describe every sensory detail over and over again.

During those times, my therapist uses relaxation, breathing, and mindfulness techniques with me to help keep me grounded in the present moment. Granted, avoiding re-telling takes a lot of “observing” and DBT skills practice, especially “turning the mind” exercises. But I believe there’s some healthy “re-wiring” going on in my head these days. And for me, that’s a much more beneficial story to tell.