New Year...New Choices?

Well, it's that time of year again!  2023 is right around the corner!  When you look back at this past year...what were the important lessons presented to you?  Have you thought about this at all?  If not, you are missing out on an excellent series of opportunities to apply what you have learned from this past year---to your brand new year ahead.  If you doubt the importance of what I am suggesting here, let's take a look at some of what others have learned by recognizing both the mistakes made, and lessons learned, from their own past experience(s)....

"I never realized until this past year how my father is a coward.  He knew my mother was not a good one;  we kept telling him all our lives what she did to us when he wasn't home.  Now it's becoming abundantly clear that he didn't care about how her abuse affected us.  He just wanted to make sure she wouldn't get upset with him---or leave him.  He sacrificed his own kids' well being so he wouldn't be in trouble with her.  How tragic!"

"It took me twelve years with a "wounded" boyfriend to figure out that I have been doing the majority of the work to make sure "we" are o.k.  He's always too depressed, too anxious, too unsure about his future direction...while I'm working my a** off to keep our financial heads above water.  Wow.  How dumb have I been?  Well, I'm moving on finally.  Better late than never.  I'm heartbroken, but I need an equal enough partner...not just a "nice guy" who tells me how he can't imagine his own life without me!"

"My child was always difficult.  He tried to attack his aunt's dog when he was just three years old.  I ignored his behavior then.  Wanted to believe he was just "troubled" a bit, but that he would grow out of it.  After his mother and I divorced a few years later, he didn't improve.  Then he got angry about most anything I asked him to do when I had him.  Now that he's 18, he's struggled with drugs, alcohol, and the wrong crowd for the past few years.  I see now how I just wanted everything to be "easy" and thought sports would be his way out of his troubles.  It wasn't."

"I have been that person who was always willing to give to others, without thinking first.  I have made a doormat out of myself because I so desperately wanted people to like me...and accept me.  All that came out of my efforts is that I feel very resentful and bitter towards those who took the most from me, without reciprocating in return.  I'm focusing big time on self-care this new year.  I have learned that all that "helping" I did was really for the purpose of making myself feel good and having a sense of control over someone else's life!  How crazy was I to believe all that garbage?"

"I kept fooling myself about my drinking.  I would do "Dry January" every year...only to get back to "Loaded February-December" AS IF that made me just a social drinker.  It wasn't until I took a good look around my own house that I realized the level of denial I've been in.  Even my favorite wine glasses can hold a whole bottle of wine!  So this January, I am purposing to attend an AA meeting every time I want to drink.  I may be going every night at first, but I can't keep doing this to myself.  I'm an alcoholic...and now I finally see how it's affected me and my life not in a good way..."

"My brother, who I always considered my best friend, is a manipulative liar.  I even stopped myself from getting close to other guys as friends...because I didn't want to disturb the dynamic between my brother and myself.  He has always said to me, "I'm the only one who will be there for you..", when in fact, he has NOT.  This is the year I am going to be establishing some very clear boundaries with him, which begins with him returning the key to my house that he's had for way too long..."

"I have a chronic medical condition that my family has consistently downplayed and minimized.  Even my doctors have said that their attitude isn't helping me stay on track with my own treatment.  I denied this for a long time, but now I see the truth of what my doctors have kept telling me.  When I am with my family, I do not eat propertly---I don't pace myself as I should--and I definitely don't know how to manage any incoming stress in their presence.  So...I am learning how I need to create some distance between us until I can manage myself better when we are together."

"My wife left me for my best friend.  I ignored all the signs of what was building between them.  I realize now that everything she told me about me...was pretty spot on.  I am remote.  I am distant.  I am very uncomfortable with expressing myself and my deeper feelings.  I hate that this had to happen in order for me to finally get myself some therapy.  But that's what I will be doing in 2023.  I have to fix me.  It's not anybody else's responsibility but my own."

"My alimony ends at the end of 2023.  I still haven't figured out what I am going to "do" career wise, and I have been fighting doing the work to see what my real options are.  I am afraid I am too old and too irrelevant to really be hired by any organization that can meet my salary requirements.  I know I have to get myself together here...so I know this is the year I have to start somewhere by basically getting a job where I am working 8-9 hours a day instead of just doing a bunch of nothing day in and day out."

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It isn't always easy to face what we would rather not face.  But it is definitely worse when we keep avoiding that which is uncomfortable or undesirable for us to take a good hard and objective look at.  Let this be the year where we can look back at our past, and learn what we need to from what happened to us---or those we love and care about.  THEN...do our work so we can solve our own problem(s) by our own effort(s)!  Nobody gets better by just staying the same...waiting for someone "else" to fix, save, or rescue them....or doing nothing new and different to proactively improve the quality of their own lives.  When we do nothing, we don't remain "status quo".  In fact, we get and become worse over time.  Don't let this be your story as 2023 comes to a close same time, next year!

After all, if nothing changes---then nothing changes!

Until next post....

How Anxiety Allows You To Avoid....

I was listening to a friend the other day talk about her "ex".  She said that he has struggled with chronic and intense anxiety ever since they first met over 30 years ago.  Due to his issue with being stuck in a constant "fight, flight, or freeze" mode...they parted ways after several years together.  Today's post is about how anxiety and avoidance are inextricably linked together so people can remain under-responsible in their own day-to-day lives....

Everyone can relate to what anxiety feels like.  By definition, anxiety is defined as "imagined fear" plus worry combined.  That's it.  Some have referred to "imagined fear" as "vain imaginings" (which I do like that way of putting it for sure!).  In other words, when we are into our own practice of "vain imaginings"...it means that WE have control over what we are going to fixate on, obsess over, and worry about on a moment-by-moment, hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, and/or longer-term basis!  And when we make this a comfortable habit we don't consciously aknowledge in the first place, guess what?  We won't do much of what "else" we'd rather not think about and be responsible for on a daily basis!  

Just last night, I was told about someone who hasn't "ever thought about" moving into a safer area.  For this person, it has been much easier to avoid thinking about the topic of "moving" in spite of the evidence which keeps pointing to his need to move out sooner---than later.  Avoiding our own work is always easier when we choose to focus our minds on "other stuff"---even when that other stuff is chronic and intense anxious thoughts and feelings!  Now re-read this paragraph about ten times before moving on with the rest of today's blog post!

We are all different.  Some highly anxious people are complete slobs.  They live in chaos, just as their mind reflects that chaos through the ways in which they think, feel, and behave.  Other highly anxious people are meticulous about their personal spaces and wouldn't let a speck of fuzz linger on their wooden floors for more than 30 seconds.  Both highly anxious people, but both with very different ways of "coping" with the management of their personal space(s) on a daily basis.

Avoidance-of-what is the key to understanding how each of us chooses to manage our own personal struggle(s) with anxiety.  People who don't like talking on the phone;  yes, that may be due to a language processing disorder---yet there is help for that.  A person just can't go through life avoiding telephone conversations because of....high anxiety (?!?)  Puleeze!  Think Howard Hughes.  As this guy got older, he just got weirder and weirder about what he "chose" to do (and not do!) in order to keep his anxiety under control in his own mind.  Read up on him.  His story will flip your lid.  Hughes, in his time, was the equivalent today of Elon Musk, by the way---with a little Nick Cannon thrown in for good measure (number of spawns generated).

People who isolate themselves from social contact;  yes, that may be due to HSP (highly sensitive person-status)--yet there is help for that as well.  However, isn't it always MUCH easier to avoid that which we would rather not do---than to face it and do our work in that regard in a timely manner?  Of course it is!  Avoidance of whatever and whenever is anyone's first clue how much anxiety is running, ruling, and potentially ruining ANY person's real and right now life!

Avoidance in order to feel "less" anxious is a chosen lifestyle.  Yet so is recruiting others to manage our anxiety for us, by the way!  Of these two realities, past clients have been more open to recognize the detrimental and self-destructive effects of avoidance in their own lives when chronically anxious;  not so much when it comes to pursuing other-destructive dynamics by seeking out certain other people to manage their anxiety for them!

I've told the story before of the wife who screamed at her husband when he came home from work one day about "Fix the Vacuum!" because her relative was due over for a visit in 20 minutes.  That's a clear-cut example of the wife expecting her husband to "manage" her anxiety for her as soon as he walked through the door from work.  What we are capable of doing in order to "feel less anxious fast" most certainly can include the ways in which we treat our boyfriends, or girlfriends, or kids, or co-workers, or neighbors, or ANYBODY who has contact with us in any given moment!  

This mentality of "don't do or say anything to trigger my anxiety" is a terrible way to live.  Truly!  Yet we do this to each other way too often because we either don't know any better...or we like it like that.  Take your pick.  I know that NO person should ever function as someone else's doormat because they have been recruited to "manage" someone else's anxiety for them!  Then again, NO person should ever function as someone else's King or Queen Baby either!

I remember several years ago being at church when a random stranger came up to me and said "I need some size 8 shoes!"  (No kidding!)  Not knowing this person or why I was chosen as the recipient of that remark, I replied with "O.K. thanks."  As it turned out, I literally found a pair of lovely J Crew size 8 shoes in the middle of 8 Mile Road as I was walking that next week along 8 Mile Road.  They must  have fallen out of a passing vehicle. (Can't imagine any other explanation for it!)  When I saw this same person the next weekend at church, I had the shoes with me.  I just said as I handed them to her, "Here you go."  Whatever motivated her to recruit me to manage her anxiety about size 8 shoes...at least her request was heard by Someone bigger than myself to ensure her need was satisfied!

In that case, Divine intervention can certainly work to solve anyone's problem with anxiety as well.  Just don't presume you know "who" is supposed to be managing your anxiety for you in human form, o.k.?!

Just the other day, someone online posted something which basically said, "I've been down that road.  It doesn't work"....this in reference to seeking out therapy and doing the work of more effectively treating and managing one's issue with high anxiety.  Wow.  That's like saying, "I missed my flight through Southwest Airlines this week.  I'm NEVER flying on an airplane again for the rest of my life."  Okay then!  Throw out that baby with the bathwater!  Others have done it.  You can too.

And when you do...you'll be telling the whole wide world around you---that you know better than anyone else how keeping chronic and intense anxiety your own unwanted and yet closest companion for life---IS and has remained your own choice!

Until next post....