Self-Awareness

Wanting It Both Ways

Ron Johnson Discovery, Feelings, grief, mindfulness, morality, Self-Awareness, Spiritual

I recently had a therapeutic hour with a patient who “wants to have it both ways.” I know exactly how he feels because I have had the same desires, as have many people who privilege me by coming to my office for my presence and counsel. Let me explain what “wanting it both ways” means. It means that you want two things, both valuable, that are incompatible. Like, I would like to have a million dollars and I don’t want to do what it might take to make a million dollars. I don’t exactly know what it would take for me to make a million dollars, but I suspect that if I did what millionaires do, I might be able to do it. I have a patient whom I recently saw together with his wife. During the conversation, which included finances, the man said that they had lost a million dollars during the recent economic turndown and stock market decline. A million dollar loss, I thought; what does that mean about what this man is worth? My conclusion, if my figuring is correct, is that the stock market is down about 25% and so losing a million dollars that suggests that this man (and his wife) used to be worth 4 million. Interestingly, this man reported to me that he often worked 80 and 90 hours a week to build his independent business. He evidently did this for many years and now a man of about 60, he is hoping for an early retirement and bask in the sunshine. So, here we have guy who’s worked his ass off for like 30 years and made his millions. What has been the cost? Why do you think I’m seeing his wife and him in my office? Is it not obvious? He has worked and worked but he has not put anything like 90 hours a week into his relationship with his wife and kids (now grown). He hasn’t put 9 hours into a relationship with his wife. Now, what he has done is quite remarkable, if we singularly see that he has made millions of dollars by his blood, sweat, and tears. But the cost has been the marriage. I am now working with people who are not only substantially different in personality. He is an ESTJ and caretaker/analyst temperament; she is ENFP and lover/player temperament for those of you familiar with such things. These differences have never been noticed, much less appreciated with the result that they have been unhappy together for years if not decades. The more remarkable thing about this scenario is that this hard-working, intelligent and honest man seems to think that the millions he has made should offset the lack of any kind of depth relationship with his wife. He wants it both ways: work all the time and make his millions, and then expect that his wife would honor, respect, and “appreciate” him, as he has often said. Not going to happen. He can’t have it both ways. He can’t have his millions, wrought by his hard work, and have a meaningful relationship with his wife. He really doesn’t get it…yet. We’re still working on it. By the way, his wife, as noticed by her personality type and temperament, also wants it both ways: she wants the millions but also wants a relationship. This man and wife collectively “have it both ways,” but one of them has the millions while the other has the desire for an intimate relationship.

“Wanting it both ways” covers a multitude of sin, meaning multitude of situations where people seem to think that they can have two things that are incapable. We have recently taken the responsibility of caring for our 14-year old grandson due to a complex set of circumstances, agreeing to this arrangement for a period of a few months, or less if it work out well. My grandson is bright, loving and kind, but he has no interest in doing any kind of work, no real passion, no direction, nor any purpose in life. He is effectively 7 years old emotionally and socially, meaning that he wants to play all the time like typical 7-year olds want to do. Nothing wrong with wanting to play all the time, but by the time you’re 14, you would think that you would have some understanding that life is a combination of work and play, that those two elements are intrinsically related, and come to grips with the fact that you have to work to play. Unfortunately, he has not learned this fact, so he tolerates work of any kind, always looking to race through it and get back to playing. There are many other children that are in this situation, almost always due to indulgent parents who didn’t provide the balance of loving and limiting. I wrote a blog (and a book) that I entitled “The 4-8-12 Child” that describes many children. My grandson got too much loving and not enough limiting, or perhaps more accurately, not a balance of the two. He wants it both ways: play all the time and have the privileges that only work can provide, like money, success, and a spirit of pride in work.

The wanting it both ways phenomenon comes in many forms, not only in adults and children as illustrated, but with one’s own life. Another man that I see is also very bright with a deep sense of intuition, particularly about other people. It may be his most important gift.  Recently, I had a conversation with him in which we talked about how he is able to “know” something about other people. He would like the privilege of telling people what he “knows” about them. He would also like to have the security that he will not hurt the other person, much less be rebuffed by the other person. Additionally and importantly, if he “knows” something about someone and says what he knows, he might actually discover that he sees only part of the picture of the other person. So his intuitive knowledge, while accurate, may be one of several matters that are relevant to the other person. This might be like someone telling me that I did not  put together colors in my attire for the day, and then telling me that the colors were out of sync without knowing that I am color blind and do not see colors the way most people see them. Now, it could be that I could profit from my friend’s analysis of my color scheme for the day, but it would be equally possible that I would be offended, perhaps depending on what else was going on in my day. So this individual who would like to be able to “know” something about other people, speak his intuitive knowledge, and be confident that his speaking will be well received, is not possible. He can have it one way or the other. In other words, he can speak his intuitive knowledge and take the consequences, which are unknown. Or he can keep his knowledge to himself and take the consequences. The consequences, by the way are, on the one hand, the distinct potential of hurting or harming the other person, or on the other hand, failing to say something to this person that might be life enhancing or even lifesaving. He would like it both ways. Nothing so out of the ordinary to want “your cake and eat it too,” but you can’t have both.

I would like to be able to be face-to-face with everyone during this time of medical caution during the Covid crisis. I really don’t want to do mostly conference calls with patients although I have already done three this week. I do them because it is required of some people to do them, whether out of state, out of city, or simply by individual choice. So, I can’t have it both ways, i.e. see patients face-to-face and occasionally shake hands or hug some of them, and take the chance of acquiring, or God forbid, spreading some kind of disease. I have to decide how I shall meet this current crisis.

I am not the only person who has to decide how to acknowledge that we can’t have it both ways despite the desire to do so. We all have to make this kind of decision every day: speak or don’t speak, hug or don’t hug, laugh or don’t laugh, swear or don’t swear, tell the truth or tell a while lie out of respect for the other person, and many more such difficult decisions. I think, however, it is not a “decision” so much as it is a discovery of what we should do in situations when we want it both ways. To discover is to listen to one’s inner spirit, not so much one’s thoughts, not one’s emotions, not one’s normal way of going about life. Inner spirit is never wrong, but it is deathly hard to see, feel, trust, and act upon. Then, when I have trusted my inner spirit and discovered which way I should turn in a certain situation, I will then be sad. Why will I be sad? Because I will have lost one opportunity for the sake of the other. If I force a hug on someone who might not like it, it might be good for him or bad for him, but if I think it is necessary to hug him, I will need to take the consequences of my action. The only way I can discover whether I should hug him or not is to find, trust, and follow my inner spirit.

If we can’t have it “both ways,” what can we have? We can discover which of two (or perhaps three or four) ways to go: speak or not speak, move or not move, hug or not hug, swear or not swear. What are we trying to discover? We are trying to discover what it right to do. How do we know what is right? By find, following, and trusting our inner spirit, a spirit that is never wrong. While the spirit is never wrong, the words, lack of words, action, or lack of action, might be wrong in some way. So, if I have discovered what is right, I must conclude that it is right for all concerned. Einstein said that the universe is “friendly” and God is not chaotic, or as Desiderata says it, “whether or not it is clear to you, the world is unfolding as it should.” The “right” may be hard on you or good for you, hard on the other person or good for him, or maybe a mix of all of these. Finding the right means pushing away any and all concern about what you think and feel, as well as any concern about what other people might want and feel to find the “right” thing to do. You can learn from your thoughts and your feelings, but then put them aside and do the right thing.

You will not succeed in this endeavor. By this I mean that you will do your best to find the right thing to do, and then sadly, realize that you didn’t trust your spirit enough, listen intently enough, said poorly constructed words, or taken action that was not entirely thought through. But you will have done your best: speak or not speak, acted or not acted. And whatever discovery you made for words or action, you will most assuredly be sad. You will be sad because you can’t have it both ways, whatever these two ways might have been. Deb and I have written about the centrality of sadness in life and have proposed that of the four basic emotions (joy, sadness, fear, and anger), sadness is the most important because it is based most squarely on love and the loss of love. We eventually lose everything that we love, whether property, person, or idea. An important part of maturity is coming to grips with this essential nature of human existence. The more you become familiar with taking action (or not), speaking (or not) and taking the natural consequences of these words and actions, the more frequently you will be sad, and most importantly, the shorter this sadness will be.

So, go forth into the realm of uncertainty. Do as Luther suggested when asked how one could find God’s will: “study thoroughly, pray fervently, ask wise people, and then sin boldly.” “Sin boldly” means going forth into the unknown, but with confidence that you have done your best to trust your inner spirit where God most certainly resides.

Contagious

Ron Johnson Connection, emotional maturity, Feelings, relationships, Self-Awareness

We’ve been hearing about the contagious aspect of the coronavirus. So, we’re invited to be careful with what we touch, smell, taste, and breathe. There is great debate, however, as to how serious this epidemic is, as well as how to engage in these practices, if we even choose to do so. In this blog I will not be advising on this matter primarily because I am not an expert in such matters, but more importantly, because I have my opinion on this matter, which is not particularly informed. What I would like to discuss, however, is the “contagious” aspect of things psychological, which are many.

There have been some very interesting studies of how there is some kind of “connection” between all things, something appears to be a central aspect of the physical universe, whether how planets are connected, how atoms are connected, or how plants and animals are connected. There have been some fascinating studies showing how people are connected to one another in mysterious ways. An interesting study occurred some years ago in a woman’s college dormitory. The researchers found that after a semester of living together these college women tended to menstruate at the same time. There have been other studies about this component of how we connect to one another, which is clearly beyond any kind of conscious control. I will leave this discussion to people more familiar with such things. I will note only one of many examples of how people are connected in this mysterious way.

The essence of “things psychological” is what I choose to call “feelings.” Everything that people feel has an effect on at least some people, often many people. Furthermore, the more intimate the relationship you have with someone, the more inclined you are to “catch” something psychological. You can catch someone’s feeling most easily, his/her actions moderately, and even their thoughts to some degree. I want to focus primarily on how you “catch” people’s feelings. When I use the word “feeling,” realize that I am not talking specifically about emotions. I have written a number of blogs of feelings that might be valuable to peruse. Deb and I have written a book that summarizes our thoughts about feelings and which we entitle I Need to Tell You How I Feel. We describe feelings as the first expression of one’s soul/spirit/core. These “feelings” erupt sequentially physically, then emotionally, then cognitively, and then in activity. People tend to experience their feelings in one of these categories first, and then express them in that category or another category. So, for instance, I experience feelings first emotionally and then actively. I other words I feel something emotionally as an expression of my “feelings” and then do something. You’ll have to read the book to understand this more, if you choose. You tend to “catch” someone’s feelings by simply being around someone, the closer you are, the more impact that person’s feelings will have on you. My current task is to suggest how someone else’s feelings affect you, whether they are what the person feels physically, emotionally, cognitively, or in action.

Someone’s physical feelings can be contagious. If someone has a stomachache, you will feel something in your stomach, which may not be an ache, but it could be a kind of agitation. If someone is “all smiles,” you will “catch” the feeling under the smile and feel accordingly. This smile may be a Duchenne smile, which is artificial, or a more genuine smile, which is a reflection of someone’s joyous feeling. If someone is Italian-like in her use of hand gestures, you will be “caught up” in her feeling, whether anger, joy, sadness, or fear. If the person is quite overweight or underweight, you will be affected by that person’s physical appearance; likewise, you might be caught by one’s physical beauty or unique physical posture. A brilliant therapist named Milton Erickson used a technique in therapy where he mirrored a patient’s physical posture to “feel like” the patient felt.

Someone’s emotional feelings can be contagious. This is rather obvious. If the person is sad, you will feel sad; likewise, if the person feels joy, fear, or anger, you will catch these emotions and feel them yourself. Deb and I have to be quite aware of this phenomenon in therapy so as to be aware when we feel something emotionally with a patient. Sometimes, we actually feel what the other person feels emotionally before he or she notices what they feel. We had an unexpected visit from a friend to our house recently. When this man left our house, Deb noted that she felt a bit down in spirit even though she had even feeling great before this visitor came in. She reflected on the phenomenon on her feeling a bit distressed and concluded that she had “caught” the feeling of depression that this guy was feeling. I worked with a physical trainer for a couple of months some time ago, but every time I left the gym, I felt “less than good,” something akin to feeling down, but it was more like an irritation. I reflected on my emotion and determined that I had “caught” some of the trainer’s rather obvious tendency to be critical and angry. I stopped going, and felt good about that decision even though I learned quite a bit good in my few meetings with him.

Someone’s thoughts can be contagious. This could be one’s “opinions” about some topic, like the current epidemic of coronavirus or about some political figure in the public. Opinions are rarely without emotion, so this example may be a mixture of emotion and thought. Note, however, that when you hear someone speaking, whether an erudite professor or just the guy next door, you will have a “feeling” about that. It doesn’t matter whether you agree with him or not, you will have a feeling when he expresses his feelings even though these feelings are expressed in facts and figures. I had such a feeling yesterday morning in church when the pastor spent a fair bit of time discussing the coronavirus giving facts and figures.

Someone’s actions can be contagious. Have you ever been around someone who is always on the go, always doing something always busy? You catch the feeling of doing. Likewise, if you’re around someone who doesn’t do much, perhaps just sits and stares, you catch this person’s feeling. Then, you might feel compelled to do as much as your friend is doing, or react against doing anything at all. We happen to be now involved with a family member who is of the latter category, and it is a chore to note how I feel around this individual and not catch too much of his apathy. I cannot avoid catching the feeling, but I can be aware of the contagion and work to keep my distance.

In all of these circumstances, the key is to know how you feel around someone else, whether physical, emotional, cognitive, or active. If you are aware of the feeling that is stirred in you, you have control of this feeling. If you are not aware of it, you will begin to feel what the other person feels and be caught in it. Then, you can stay caught, react to being caught, or simply control how you feel so as not to be drawn into a fruitless conversation, which always turns to an argument. The key is to stay aware of your feelings.

Daily Disappointments

Ron Johnson appreciation, emotional maturity, Feelings, grief, mindfulness, Self-Awareness

S**t happens, right? Indeed it does. No way around it. Things happen that are unexpected…and ultimately disappointing. If that were the end of it, I wouldn’t be writing this blog because if people actually understood that s**t happens, they would be able to handle it, process it, remember it, and prevent the almost universal reaction to the s**t that has happened. It would be great if people could really understand that things don’t always go as you expect them to go, that you are naturally and understandably disappointed in what happened…or didn’t happen, and then find a good way to accept the loss and the accompanying disappointment, together with the emotion attached to disappointment without allowing disappointment to deteriorate into anger, avoidance, anger, assault, and addiction.

Since Deb and I have traveled quite a bit out of country, we have had the opportunity of learning about other countries together with their customs, many of which are substantially different from what we have in the U.S. So, we have learned to expect the unexpected, the wrong turns, the mistakes, and the simple misunderstandings that occur when you are in a different culture, much less a different country with a different language, different currency, and different physical/emotional customs. We have such differences in subcultures in the U.S. and in Newfoundland, Canada where we lived for four years. When seeing someone in my office of Asian descent, Latino background, African-American heritage, or nonbinary gender, I have learned to pay close attention to cultural and subcultural differences although I readily admit that my understanding of cultural and subcultural matters is minimal at best. I’m pretty good at seeing and understanding differences in personality type, personality temperament, developmental differences, and gender differences albeit certainly with an orientation of being an American. Facing a different culture, even a subculture can bring a good deal of disappointment, whether from misunderstanding someone, being misunderstood by someone, or simply not liking some part of the culture because it is irritating. But disappointment is not limited to culture or personality factors.

I think disappointment comes every day, usually several times every day, and it is a central piece of what it means to be a person, to be a person with emotion, to be a person with thought, and to be a person who loves something. Deb and I are just back from a lovely trip to Europe, starting in Malta (and accompanying island of Gozo), which lies just south of Sicily, which itself lists just south of mainland Italy. Let me give you an example of one day that Deb and I had during our recent trip.

  • The day started out looking good as we intended to hike a good part of Gozo, a relatively easy hike without a lot of steps or hills to climb, almost all of the hike being on the seaside. We were disappointed to learn that the “bed and breakfast” didn’t serve breakfast. OK, but disappointing.
  • We came to a place in our hike where it was unclear as to which way we should go because of the lack of signage. (The Maltese islands do not have much in the way of signage, whether of hiking paths, roads, or even villages.) Disappointing to not really know whether you should go right or left. We chose right. We chose wrong. We were disappointed to find that the path eventually deteriorated.
  • We found our way to a small village and asked for directions from a generous Maltese fellow whom we encountered as he was about to enter his house. He directed us in a certain direction. We thought we understood him and proceeded to take our best guess of following his directions. Wrong again. Disappointed again. Now we were in another village with another choice of direction.
  • We proceeded further down what seemed like the best path to get to a place that we had read about. Eventually, we saw our destination down a mountain (high hill) just on the east coast of Gozo. About halfway down the path we discovered that we had taken the wrong path and needed to forage out way through various rocks and crevices to get to the sea. Disappointed again. Not bad though. Just disappointed.
  • We stayed at the seaside for a cup of espresso and then began our trek back to our lodging, and oops, another wrong turn and then needing to retrace our steps. Disappointed again.
  • We eventually got to the larger village on the island but were pretty worn out having hiked about 7 hours, and hoped we could find a taxi to take us the last couple of kilometers to our temporary home. Couldn’t find one. Disappointed again.
  • When we finally got home truly ready to eat dinner, we couldn’t find a place open. Note it was about 6 PM. Nothing open. Eventually, someone told us that restaurants don’t open until 7 “or so” (usually about 7:15 at the earliest). Disappointed. And hungry.

Note all these disappointments, pretty much all of which having to do with our misunderstanding of the Maltese culture, like lack of signage, different language (Maltese is a language of Arabic/Italian/French heritage not spoken anywhere else.) These disappointments were essentially unavoidable because of our limited understanding of the landscape, the seascape, the language, and the culture. So, we allowed ourselves to have these various disappointments and trek on. Along the way, however,, we also had many experiences that were quite pleasing, and even astonishing: the guy who gave us some directions was very kind and generous; the seascapes that we did see off the standard path were stupendous and probably not seen by many off-islanders; the destination at the east coast was marvelous; the espresso was great (I get a cappuccino. Deb gets the real stuff.); we were not hurt; we had a wonderful hike; we had our standard lunch of bread, cheese, fruit, and wine; and we got home safe. Then when we finally got to eat, we had a wonderful meal with great service. And the next morning the matron of the B & B set out a bit of breakfast for us knowing that we had been a bit disappointed the day before.

So, what’s this disappointment all about? Expectations for sure. Misunderstandings for sure. But more important than that, a deeply felt awareness that we needed to be disappointed, allow for the emotion of sadness to occur, and then see how the disappointment and sadness waned on their own. Much different from what seems to be the American way: get irritated, get angry, or God forbid, get even in some way. Not that such things didn’t cross our minds, but we have worked on this central theme of the necessity of sadness, that we migrated the waters of disappointment pretty well. I could bore you with every other day of our two-week travels replete with disappointments every day, like taking a left turn when I should have taken a right turn, both literally and figuratively. Thank goodness for the prevalence of roundabouts in Europe where you can get back to where you should have been easily.

I’ve been thinking about disappointment as coming in levels, like maybe 1 to 10. I’m using the nomenclature of D-1 to D-10 depending on the significance of the disappointment. Like, the disappointment of taking the wrong turn on the hike is maybe a D-2; the disappointment of no breakfast at the B & B maybe a D-3; the disappointment of the taxi maybe a D-1. I think it is important to allow for as much disappointment, as much emotion, and as much time as is needed to finish the disappointment phase of the day. Could be seconds (taxi), minutes (hike misstep), or more minutes (B & B breakfast).

Then there was the disappointment that occurred to Deb (and somewhat to me) that occurred at a train station in Florence, Italy. We were waiting for the train, which was a bit late, and Deb ran for another espresso. About that time I thought it right to take both of our luggage rollers up the track to train car # 10 where we were supposed to board. Wrong decision. I thought it was right and would save Deb from having to carry the luggage. But when she got back to where we had parted, I was nowhere to be found. She told me later that she walked up and down the gateway looking for me. Finally, I saw her about 4 minutes before the train was about to leave and instructed her from about 100 meters away to get on the train where she was (about train car 7) and walk through cars 7, 8, and 9 to meet me at car 10. Minor disappointment to me because I thought she would understand that I had moved up to car 4. Maybe a D-3 for me. Big disappointment to Deb. Maybe a D-7 or D-8. It took many apologizes, much sadness, much restraint of understandable irritation for this D-7/8 to finish. Maybe an hour. But it did finish.

This “finishing” is not what often happens when people get disappointed. They get irritated. They get angry. They get even. And they explain. Yes, they explain, explain, and explain. This is the stuff of arguments, which all have the essence of, “The way I see it is….” I certainly wanted to explain my perspective of what I did, but restrained myself from doing so. Deb needed to explain how she was upset at not finding me and not knowing where I was, whether on the train, off the train, or God forbid, somewhere else in some kind of trouble. D-8, I think. She did explain a bit, and I did a bit, but mostly we just felt the disappointment until we were no longer disappointed. Hard work, but it is work that we continue to learn to do. What are the other options: not good, not productive, and “delusional” as we have suggested in our book. Anger is the delusion that I can change the past by being angry; anxiety is the delusion that I can change the future by being anxious. Reality is disappointment. And sadness. And finishing. Eventually, what is important in such things? S**t happens, good things happen just as often, and s**t ends…if we let it end.

Consider your day and the disappointments that come every single day, some small, some large. Almost all of them ones of misunderstanding, missteps, or miscalculation.