Lessons from waiting for the Sears repairman

Last week my washer started leaking. I scheduled an appointment with Sears to come and see why. Of course they can only give a 4 hour window of when they will arrive, but you can call on the day of the appointment to get it narrowed down. So, my window was from 8am to noon. I called at 7 that morning and was told the repairman would be there between 11:30 and noon. They also told me he would call when he was on the way.

Okay, I would have preferred to be on the earlier end of that 4 hour window, but at least I knew what to expect and could plan my morning accordingly. When 11:30 rolled around and I hadn't receive a call, nor had the repairman shown up, I called again to get an update.

I was told that an appointment took longer than expected and he would now arrive between 12:30 and 1:45. Well...I was pretty upset about this change, to put it mildly. After allowing myself to spin for a while on the same thoughts that were making me upset, I thought perhaps I should take my own advice, and apply some of the tools I teach to clients.

Using the basic concept of cognitive therapy, which is that our thoughts about an event create our emotions related to that event, I took a look at what I was telling myself.  What it boiled down to was that I felt unimportant, that my needs (and time) didn’t matter and that I had no choice but to put up with being treated badly by Sears.

I then came up with alternative ways to look at this situation.  Sure, it would have been nice to get a call that the repairman was running late, but separate from that I really did understand that they cannot predict how long any given service call will take; i.e. it didn’t mean that they thought my time was unimportant.  They are running a business, and trying to provide this service in the most cost effective way possible.

Secondly, I did have other choices.  I don’t have to use Sears’ repair service (and believe me, initially my self-talk was that I never would again).  I could have chosen at that point to cancel my appointment and schedule with another plumber or handyman instead.  For convenience sake, I chose not to.  But it was a choice, my choice.

After going through this process, I did feel better.  I still didn’t like that I had to wait around for a couple more hours, but I didn’t feel nearly as upset about it.  It also helped that when the repairman arrived, he was friendly and helpful.  I found out that he had to drive from Carnation (I live in Seattle) and he could have been just as grumpy as I had been feeling, but he wasn’t.

Additionally, I discovered that my tweets on Twitter had been picked up by Sears (isn’t technology something?), and they called me to see how they could make things right.  Of course they couldn’t give me back the extra time it cost out of my day, but I did get someone to listen to me and my pain, which I think was all I really wanted anyway.

Change Yourself - Change The World

“I wanted to change the world. But I have found that the only thing one can be sure of changing is oneself.” -Aldous Huxley

For many of us, it's easier to look outside ourselves and see what needs to be changed in the world, or in other people.  How many times have you thought "If so-and-so would just do xyz, then everything would be fine."?

It's true that we do not have the power to make others (or the world as a whole) change in a specific way.  We only hold the power to choose how we would like to change ourselves.

However, by changing ourselves, we are changing the world.  This is true in several ways:

1. By definition, we are part of "the world."  If I change, the world is not the same as it was, hence the world has changed.
2. When I change the way I interact with you, it forces you to change in response.  I cannot necessarily predict how you will change, but certainly our interaction will be different if I am different.

As each of us makes conscious choices to change, the world cannot help but be changed.

As it was put so eloquently by Mahatma Gandhi, "Be the change you want to see in the world."

Changing the Fabric of Your Thought

“He who cannot change the very fabric of his thought will never be able to change reality, and will never, therefore, make any progress.” -Anwar Sadat

A friend shared this quote recently, and it really resonated with me and the work that I do.

Cognitive therapy, mindfulness, law of attraction and many spiritual beliefs all hinge on the idea that our thoughts create our reality.  They can't all be wrong!  By changing our thoughts, we can change our experience of life.

As I frequently explain to clients, any given event is neutral; it has no intrinsic meaning.  It has only the meaning that we give it.  As long was we stay stuck in old thought patterns that attribute meaning that bring suffering to us, we will not be able to change our reality to something we might prefer.

This is true of communication between two or more people, as well.  As long as we attribute motivations to others that create a negative experience for us, we cannot move into a place of changing and growing those relationships.  We are destined to stay stuck in a place we do not like very much.

It thrills me to know that we each have the power to alter how we experience any given event or interaction.  How great it is that!?

Is it Time to Break the Pattern?

Many times what brings clients in to work with me is that they are stuck in a pattern of behavior that is no longer working for them.  One pattern I see on a regular basis is the client doesn't like conflict, and so they avoid it or accommodate the other person.  Of course their needs don't get met this way. Over time they become resentful and eventually reach a point where they just can't take it anymore and choose to leave.

This may happen primarily in one situation (perhaps at work), or may be more pervasive, occurring throughout most relationships.  Regardless, the client comes to realize that they have a pattern and the way they are handling conflict is a not working for them.

Sometimes it is difficult to acknowledge that our way of coping doesn't work.  It can make us feel wrong, or feel stupid to continue doing something that doesn't work.

I remind people that the strategy did work at one point in time, or they would not have developed the habit of dealing with similar situations in that way. We don't repeat behavior that doesn't work the first time (usually).

It's helpful to acknowledge that this behavior did serve you at some time in the past, just no longer.  When you are able to accept that your old ways no longer work, you can open yourself to find new ways that do work.

The Complaint Free World Challenge

I recently read the book:  A Complaint Free World: How to Stop Complaining and Start Enjoying the Life You Always Wanted by Will Bowen, and decided that I wanted to do the 21 day "complaint free challenge" the author talks about in the book.  The idea is that you try to go 21 days in a row with complaining, criticizing or gossiping, if you do any of these things you begin again your 21 days.  You wear a bracelet that you switch to the other wrist each time you have to start over, to help you remember your goal. Mr. Bowen says that the average time for someone to successfully complete the 21 consecutive days is about 4 months.

I have been attempting to reach the 21 days since February 14th.  So far the longest I've gone without starting over is 7 days.  This is harder than it looks!  I thought it would be a piece of cake.  I've spent many years paying attention to my thoughts, and so I imagined that just monitoring what I actually said aloud would be much easier than it has turned out to be.

This has been a great exercise in awareness.  What I've learned is that I use complaining as a way to engage with others (the author talks about this in his second book, Complaint Free Relationships: How to Positively Transform Your Personal, Work, and Love Relationships).  It's amazing to realize how often we interject complaints into our conversations in order to connect with others.  I've found that I do it with my hairdresser, my acupuncturist and my friends.  Sometimes it is initiated by me, and sometimes I join in with complaints from others just to be sociable.

On the surface these seem like innocuous interactions: complaining about politicians, criticizing "others" we don't know personally who don't share our views, and other interactions that aren't directly hurtful to another person.  However...they are hurtful to us.  Engaging in conversations that focus on the negative leads our thoughts to be of the negative - what is wrong in the world - rather than what is right.

The 21 day challenge has been eye-opening for me in just how insidious this negative perspective is in our culture - and in myself.  I'm continuing to work hard at making it 21 days without complaining, criticizing or gossiping.  I invite you to join me!

Master Your Emotions!

Do you sometimes feel like your emotions are running your life?  Do you react rather than respond?  Do you get triggered easily?  Do you push difficult emotions away only to have them pop up and bite you (i.e. surface at an inappropriate time) in the end?  Do you feel that your life would be easier if you managed your emotions rather than the other way around?  If so...read on.

First a little education about emotions and how they work.  Our emotions are created by the thoughts we think, what we tell ourselves about what is happening around us.  This can be concsious, or quite frequently an automatic thought - something we've conditioned ourselves to think about a given situation.

Emotions act something like waves in the ocean.  You may have noticed that a wave starts from flat sea, builds up to a peak, then subsides.  Emotions act much like this.  If we feel an emotion building within us and simply allow ourselves to feel it, it will peak and utltimately subside.  This is the natural way of emotions.

However, when we get caught up in the thoughts that created the emotion and perpetuate them, we fuel the continuation of that state of emotion.  Conversely, if we feel the emotion beginning to build and then shut it off before it flows through it's cycle, it will build and build until it overflows - frequently at an inconvenient time.

So, how do we "master our emotions", as advertised in the title of this piece? 

1. Allow your emotions to come into existence, build and subside without becoming fearful and fueling them, or trying to suppress them.  Simply notice what is happening and let the feeling move through you until it subsides.
2. If you notice that you are having emotions that are inapproprate or out of proportion to a given situation, pay attention to what you are telling yourself just before you feel that emotion.  Examine those thoughts for if they are appropriate to the current situation.  You may find that you are really reacting because the situation reminds you of something that has happened earlier in your life, not what is happening now.  Change your thoughts in those situations to something that more accurately represents what is currently happening.

Emotions are wonderful sources of information for us; they tell us that we need to pay attention to something.  Mastering your emotions is not about suppressing them, but rather it's about allowing them to ebb and flow naturally, and noticing what they are trying to tell you.

The Power of Our Thoughts

"If we have a positive mental attitude, then even when surrounded by hostility, we shall not lack inner peace. On the other hand, if our mental attitude is more negative, influenced by fear, suspicion, helplessness, or self-loathing, then even when surrounded by our best friends, in a nice atmosphere and comfortable surroundings, we shall not be happy." - The Dalai Lama

Over the past several months many books and other resources have come to me that continue to reinforce my belief in the power of positive thinking.  I was first exposed to cognitive therapy about 22 years ago.  I was experiencing a mild depression that had been going on for about a year.  My therapist recommended using David Burns' book "Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy," and I found it extremely useful.

Since then I have been reminded of how our thoughts create our experience in many different ways.  This, of course, is the basis for Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), which has proven to be effective for the treatment of depression and anxiety. 

The important thing to understand is that any given event is neutral, it is the meaning that we make of the event - what we think about the event - that creates the emotions we feel.  By changing our thoughts, we can change how we feel. 

Taking this a step further, the Law of Attraction says that what we think also creates what manifests in our lives in the future.  For some of you this may feel a little "out there," so another way to look at it is that we draw to us what we focus on.  It is human nature to see the things that support our beliefs, and to be blind to things that do not.  When we change our focus, we change what we see, or notice.

There are several books and resources that have recently found their way to me (as well as some old favorites) and continue to reinforce the power of our thoughts from both a therapy or mental health perspective, as well as a personal an spiritual growth perspective:

Patience, Love and Letting Go

"The webs we create around ourselves need to be unwound. If you have ever untangled a ball of string, you know that yanking and pulling only makes it worse. You need to very gently and patiently unravel the knots. Be gentle and patient with yourself as you untangle your own mental knots. Get help if you need it. Above all, love yourself in the process. The willingness to let go of the old is the key."

I love this quote.  It reminds me that working too hard at something, pretty much anything, can be counterproductive.  Patiently and gently moving in the right direction is much more effective, not to mention much less traumatic. 

When we are in distress or wanting to make changes within ourselves, we can get very impatient and rough with ourselves.  We frequently just want to be done with whatever it is an move on, and can be very critical and blaming to ourselves if it doesn't happen immediately. 

We first need to come to terms with whatever has occurred in the past that is keeping us stuck.  We cannot let it go (i.e. forgive ourselves or others) if we continue to blame ourselves or someone else for what happened.  We want to learn to accept that this "thing" has happened, and then we can let it go and move forward.  It is more useful, not to mention feels much better, to meet ourselves with love and understanding.

CBT and Intentions

For a while now I have been working with setting intentions in my life and experiencing them manifesting. I've also used Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) successfully not only in my own life, but with clients. I had recognized for some time the connection between these things, but yesterday it just so happened that I was doing some CBT training and also attended an Intention Circle, so their relationship to one another is very much in my mind.

In addition, yesterday I was also doing some prep work for the Career Enhancement class I will be teaching beginning in September. As I mentioned in a previous entry, taking a similar class was instrumental in my choice of my current career. At that time setting my intention about changing my career also made the end result (my current career) possible.

What I am reminded of every time I attend an Intention Circle (check out Meetup.com in Seattle if you're interested) is how every thought I have is an implicit intention. If I wake up in the morning and think "I hate this rain. It always makes me feel depressed." then guess what -I'm going to be depressed today. In CBT I would then change this thought to a positive thought like "I'm happy to see the rain; the poor plants really need it." and I am setting my intention to enjoy what is rather than be miserable about what is. If I can't change it, why let it affect me negatively?

Which leads to the basic premise of CBT: my thoughts determine my emotions. Many people have heard that we each choose how we feel, but many people either don't believe that or just don't get it. In my next entry I'll talk a little about choosing how we feel and owning our emotions.