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.