Breaking Bad (Part II in a series)

People who suffer and struggle throughout life are most typically caught up in a loop of patterned thoughts, feelings, and behaviors they don't fully understand.  Of course it's easy to do if you are otherwise uninitiated to what factors contribute to thinking "bad", feeling "bad", and doing "bad" whenever we are so compelled.  As presented in my last post, fear/shame/guilt/dread/avoidance are what comprise the inner life of a suffering and struggling individual.  People who allow these thoughts and feelings to run them will find that they are easily enough ruined as well over time.  

How we get ruined over time is that we live in a lot of expectation, disappointment, anger, rage, resentment, and bitterness over what we believe "should" happen in any given significant-enough moment---but hasn't happened.  That's our "go to" mentality when we let that fear/dread/avoidance loop control our thought life.  I could throw paranoia in there as well, because plenty of folks with undiagnosed and untreated mood and thought disorders definitely become paranoid when things don't go their way "enough" for however long they have been monitoring such in their own life....

It'd be one thing if we just thought "bad" and felt "bad", but still focused always on doing the "right" thing.  Yet it doesn't work that way.  We hurt people because we have been hurt.  We say and do bad, wrong, and yes at times evil things to one or more others.  And we of course forget about what we say or do that is bad, wrong, or evil because we can.  If I had even a dime for everyone I've seen in 23 years of practice who has said "I don't remember" when being confronted by something they said or did that was traumatic and/or significantly harmful to another human being, I'd be rich for real....

Breaking bad in your own life really begins by being aware of what you think, feel, and do right now that keeps you "stuck" in your own messy and complex past history.  When we are or get stuck, we find it pretty near impossible to change.  But as Dr. Nicole Labor, an Addiction Medicine specialist out of Ohio has said...there are just three things we have to do in order to change our life in a positive direction over time.  

First, we need to interrupt the thought(s) and/or feeling(s) we are having to say, do, or pursue the wrong action(s) we are being tempted by.  In her example, she is speaking of addictive substances or processes.  In my post here, I am talking about "anything" that makes you want to do what's "bad" to yourself and/or to others just so you can feel better momentarily.

Interrupting yourself isn't rocket science.  You can breathe slower and more deeply for 60 seconds and that counts as a "pause" moment.  Then what you do after the pause, depending on who you are and what works for you, you find that "thing" and do that instead.  Listen to your favorite song(s), watch something that makes you laugh out loud, go outside and start walking in nature, attend a group meeting, read something that interests you online, start coloring in your adult coloring book, call a friend, make something new and healthy in your kitchen, pick up your knitting, go to the gym...whatever "it" is you do to interrupt yourself without harm attached---go do that thing.

Next, replace those negative thoughts and feelings with something "better".  And what I say better, I mean it.  Focus on what is true, right, and good in your life---in other words, what you are genuinely grateful for!  As interrupting yourself also involves distractions of some kind or another as mentioned above...this "replace" step means you literally practice changing your thinking because now you are finally thinking about how you think---and you are choosing to replace those thoughts and feelings with something that is more helpful rather than harmful.  Instead of being all kind of pissed off because you didn't get what you wanted when you wanted it....focus on what you are grateful for to replace those thoughts and feelings.  Instead of being bitter about what didn't happen in your life that you had always hoped would happen....focus on what your "right now" life and what is right, true, and good about that.  Without your "right now" life to focus on, you will keep nailing your own feet to your past history.  Nobody can drive forward by staring back at their rearview mirror.  

As an example, my own mother didn't like working around the house.  Never did and never would.  So by being her only daughter, I was raised to believe that "domestic duties" was not unlike forced labor under great duress.  She never gardened, she rarely cooked, and she preferred to "shop" as her go-to activity on a daily basis.  Fast forward to decades later after we first moved into our present home.  I was outside weeding....and I started thinking about how I "hate" weeding and what the hell such a thankless job...and before I knew it, I was getting very angry about all the "stuff" I had done or still needed to do "domestically" speaking around our home in order for it to be the way I wanted it to be and look.  And then it hit me...time to replace!  I remembered how it was with my mother and how she rolled...and I began thinking of everything in my life that was beautiful, that was good, and that was right.  I eventually grew to love gardening and was even asked to participate in our local garden tour as a featured home.  Who said "replace" doesn't work?  It does!

Last, repeat these good things you are doing to interrupt and replace what has the ability to take you down into the pit of despair, hopelessness, and powerlessness.  You are not hopeless or powerless unless you CHOOSE to be those ways.  Nobody owes you a good life, but you owe a good life to yourself.  Nobody is responsible for your daily care 24/7 like you're still an infant...so stop acting like one whenever you don't get your way.  When you don't get your act together, you end up spreading your pain around to others---especially to your child(ren) if you have any.  Stop it now.  Get the books, get the support through self-help groups, and get connected to whatever other people or groups that can speak truth into you with grace attached.  You are not as bad as you believe you are, but you aren't as good as you believe you are either.

Breaking bad starts with you...and ends with you also.  Nobody wants to be remembered for being a #1 donkey hole (if you catch my drift there!) because he/she/they were too narcissistic and too delusional to believe nobody noticed that basic truth.  Don't be a donkey hole.  Be grateful.  Be present.  Be real.

Until next post....

Fear/Shame/Guilt/Dread/Avoidance: Breaking "Bad"! (Part I in a series)

If fear is the lowest vibration, then so is shame and ditto for guilt.  As human beings, we hate thinking about the things that scare us (real or imagined!), let alone that which leads us to genuinely believe we are less than zero in whatever way(s) we do.  

Just the other days I heard about a man who has a habit of grabbing and throwing the nearest available clubs around willy nilly whenever he misses or makes a "bad" shot on the golf course.  Really?  Yes, really.  As he starts swearing and carrying on as if it is his own inalienable right to behave in this matter, it would be easy to forget that he's behaving like a brat without thinking twice about "why" that is.  Oh wait, a moment of insight emerges:  youngest of eight....easily forgotten and neglected by any and all family members....had to scramble to get own needs met generally speaking while growing up...often the butt of pranks and jokes at the hands of older sibling(s)....

This isn't rocket science people.  When we have to make it loud in order to be noticed and acknowledged, throwing golf clubs around the course while swearing definitely gets attention!

As children, for example, do we authentically understand why mom and dad fight and argue as much as they do in our presence?  Of course we don't!  Or why dad is mostly angry when he comes home from work?  Or why mom goes over to her sister's house a lot---or just sits there staring into space smoking cigarettes all night long?

As kids, we are all too young to understand what it means when adults forget we exist (as children) and carry on as if we are inside a theatre watching the movie of their adult lives unfold before our own childish eyes and minds.  I can remember as a young child just jumping behind our sectional sofa and calling it a day (or a night!) to get away from it all.  And what child is emotionally mature enough to say to themselves, "Oh, this nonsense they are engaging in---it all has nothing to do with me!"  Yeah, right!  Because children are so egocentric, we really do believe that anything "good" that happens to us is because we have "been good", while anything "bad" that happens---or happens to us personally---is because we have "been bad".  End of.

And then after we have internalized all this nonsense about how adults communicate with one another at home---only to end up repeating a similar dynamic in our own romantic relationships---we wonder why we feel everything BUT happy to be here with him/her/them as our chosen life partner (?!)

Until we learn how to connect the dots regarding where our fear/shame/guilt began and how we have, ourselves, fed that beast over time, we don't.  We just accept and live in and with the fears associated with our own past and present life's experiences.  That's why so many of us live in a loop of patterned behaviors that has been happening within our family system going back generations. It's called epigenetics by the way in case you were wondering...

Even if your parent(s) were stellar members of your community and did everything "right" so as to raise productive citizens, many children grow up with a lot of emotional and/or physical neglect which we tend to downplay as adults sitting inside the therapist's office. "I was fine!  We went to social gatherings.  My parents worked hard to support us.  I went to camp every summer.  They paid for my college....

Really?  What about when you just wanted to be listened to and understood...or have your parent/older sibling/grandparent explain to you "how this works" when you became curious about something and wanted to understand it better?  In a household where this type of familial dynamic exists, ironic how being in school can serve as a lifeline for the smart-enough and curious-enough child.  At least in school, the teachers are there TO listen, to understand, and to teach when the student is ready...

Emotional and/or physical neglect is one of those life experiences that we definitely minimize because of the damage it does to us;  we learn how to function as dismissive/avoidants as a result of significant-enough neglect.  These folks have a near impossible time listening and understanding others to achieve into-me-you-see genuine intimacy.  In fact, these are the same folks who complain to me by saying things like "Hey, I had to figure everything out myself;  why shouldn't he/she/they do the same?"  Dismissive/Avoidants are notorious for paying only selective attention to that which makes them feel good about themselves.  Otherwise, they are checked out emotionally as a general rule.  Now you don't have to wonder why or how that occurs.

Look up "Dismissive/Avoidant" attachment style and you may be finding yourself reading about not only your parent(s) of choice, but about yourself and/or your partner as well.

As for "Dread"....dread comes into our picture when we allow ourselves to worry about those real or imagined fears we are struggling with.  Dread = Worry in case you forgot. Also, Fear + Worry combined = Anxiety.  For all who struggle with chronic and intense anxiety most of the time, what I am speaking about in today's blog post, part of your issue IS making your Fears and your Worries constant companions instead of working to interrupt the cycle once it shows up in your own mind/thought life.

So, there you have it;  the formula which has the power to keep us stuck in a loop of thinking, feeling, and behaving that is more "bad" than good for us!  Our job is to demonstrate the courage to be breaking bad whenever it pops up in our thought life, and to re-regulate our emotions after they become dysregulated...and to literally stop making the same poor choices (behavior!) that we later come to regret (if we still have a conscience to work with that is!).

While all this is going on, by the way, we are also simultaneously managing any "stuck" negatuve emotions that have to do with our messy past experiences that have a funny way of cropping up during our own hard, stressful, and overwhelming times.  Being grief-stricken.  That's a big one.  Being angry.  Being resentful.  Being Bitter.  These are the "Big Four" emotional grenades that can pop off immediately when unexpected and unwanted "negative" situations and/or circumstances show up on our own life's path and out of left field.

I just happened to go to NYC this past weekend when the "snow emergency of 2026" blew into the city on Sunday night.  I was at a party when Mayor Mamdani declared the snow emergency and shut down the roads throughout New York city and its surrounding boroughs at 9PM until 12 noon the next day.  

To say I was afraid of the snow would be a joke.  I'm not afraid of snow. I'm used to it living here in SE MI.  To say I was afraid of being holed up in our airbnb for the next ??? hours without knowing when we'd be able to move about freely---that would be a joke too. I'm not afraid of being holed up anywhere.  As long as the power is on and I have access to cable, I'm good.  

To say I was afraid of the area I was in would not be a joke, but I adjusted my sails very quickly.  I was in a "gritty and unevenly gentrified" area of Brooklyn...and it showed.  But me being me, I was fine so long as no rats showed up for breakfast, lunch, or dinner where we were staying.  And they didn't.  All good!

To say I was afraid after my flight home got cancelled on Tuesday and I couldn't get through to Delta on my phone app....yes, you would be correct!  Bingo!  Without my desktop computer to work off of, I knew I had to interrupt myself from spiraling down and out into the black hole of OMGWHATAMIGOINGTODOTOGETBACKHOME?!?!?  This is just one minor example of how my own "imagined fear" about getting a flight back to Detroit was the specific trigger that I could have let myself go down the rabbit hole with.  Yet, I didn't.  I interrrupted the "loop" of thinking I was about to engage in (fear/shame/guilt/dread/avoidance)...by focusing on genuine curiosity as to how I would be able to move past "stuck" and get through to a "live" Delta agent from my phone....

When we can move past our fear/dread/avoidance as our default mental habits when triggered negatively, we need to move right into authentic hope/true anticipation/genuine curiosity about how we can go about "solving" our real life and right now issue or problem.  

In my case, I went right to perplexity.ai.  Why not?  So I explained the situation, how I was unable to get through to Delta on my phone app...so what were my other available options?  Of course, Perplexity came through.  Gave me a number to call, which I did.  When prompted to ID myself, I did not respond with the typical "Push 1 for.."  Within 30 seconds I was connected to a live agent.  Got my next available flight scheduled for the next evening;  the next morning decided to check on any earlier flights using the same strategy.  Was able to do that and be home by 7:30PM Wednesday night instead of midnight.  Yay Perplexity.  Yay Delta.  Yay me.

Who said AI technology was full of *$(#?  Not for me!  My new "stay curious" partner when life throws me a curve ball.

So big yay YOU when you can practice courage and curiosity as your own "Step 1" in breaking bad in your own thought life and associated interactions with others!  Just like I did last week in two feet of snow. :-P  

Next post, a continuation of the process which frees you from being stuck in the loop of avoidance...

Until next post!