Paradigms

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Conned by Guilt

Feeling guilty? Many of us do. Some people are wired to in fact, more often than others. It’s in their temperament. This guilt nips their heels, urges them to attend birthday party’s, call their in-laws, respond to emotionally based petitions. You don’t have to be a Mom to imagine how kids can work it!

Paul Zak PhD believes that the hormone, oxytocin, is a key player in our emotional decisions. His book (The Moral Molecule) will be published in 2012. Oxytocin levels might even predispose us to being conned.

How bout us? Are we being conned by our guilt? Please let me know what you think….

But to be useful with this idea, what do we do with it? There’s nothing like the led weight of guilt to slow our steps, dim our lights and disinterest the once lion-hearted.

1st ask if the guilt is appropriate. If you can’t clearly sus that out, than run it by someone(s). After all, good science is one that demonstrates something that can be repeated. If more than one person tells you yes, than it’s more likely to be true.

In the situation that it’s not appropriate however, what now?
2 moms sitting on the step. Kids in a play-date in the background making noise. Their conversation turns to taking care of themselves and how guilty they feel just running errands without the kids, let alone taking time to exercise, a shower, a doctor’s appointment…. The conversation swivels through what to do with that guilt? (Let me clearly state we’re talking about the inappropriate type of guilt here.) Is there any hope?

Inappropriate guilt isn’t good on many levels.
1st off, you suffer.
But secondly and often less obviously, your “other” suffers – your kids or spouse or whomever is in the space of it’s heroic bleeding path. Frankly, it’s too much emotional responsibility for anyone to be on the receiving end for. People are grateful when you take care of yourself and leave them out of it. However, when you can’t, everyone suffers rather than benefits. It’s counter-intuitive to the giver but what comes from guilt is not a gift.

Insight helps. Personal support helps. Self-care helps. But what if it persists? Inappropriate guilt is common in many emotional illnesses, but especially ones involving mood and anxiety. If this guilt is building up a stink in your life, you may want to consider a medical reason.

Self Care Tip #18 – Do it for the right reasons. Be a friend to yourself.

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Find your Trust

A knot of tension moving and changing and can’t be trusted is there. Tightness around the eyes and mouth and there is a grim determination not to pull the pin. The determination is supported by love, by choice, by insight, by all that is good.

However, like a dog on a slope, paws outstretched, gripping at the pebbles and dirt, there is the gravity to account for. The mass of triggers accumulated into a planet – kids woke you up and you couldn’t fall back to sleep, emotions, people not keeping their word, your birthday was a flop, knowing that when you get past this moment there will be more and more and more. All this is a force you know you want to suppress.

Wanting is good. But like Randy Travis sings,

“I hear tell the road to hell is paved with good intentions, but Momma, my intentions were the best!”

Like him, we find ourselves with wings singed, wondering how can we try something new? Whatever we’re doing isn’t working. We want heaven to start right here on earth.

Break it down.

There is the matter of trust. Where do we put it? Where is our hope?

There is the matter of patterned behaviors. Have we put up roadblocks? My kids are delighted to see the growing dollars in our family money jar. They are also delighted when a day goes by when nothing went in there. I see it in their growing comfort around me.

There is the matter of biology. Do we remember that the brain is indeed attached to the rest of our body? Do we remember that emotional health affects the rest of our body? That it is contagious to our kids and partners and families. That we can control it as well as we control our liver function. …That doesn’t mean no control.

But today, I’d like to turn back to trust. Trying to stuff emotions can be like trying to push springs into a box. We know at some point, the lid won’t shut. We can’t trust that method.

Each of us needs to find the answer to that question and hold on to it. That is where our energies go when we succeed. Holding on to what we trust with both hands. Then we can let the rest go. Both hands are occupied so to speak.

This morning, I did that. The most beautiful little girl then came, cuddling me in bed, laughing and joking in a way that I knew could only mean she felt safe. I was rewarded with my own self, present with her and my source of Help. It felt like Christmas.

There is the next moment to contend with and the next – the same way. We can put this in the category of coping skills and biology as well. The brain is messy that way. One thing affects the other.

Self Care Tip #17 – Where is your trust? Hold on to it and nothing else. Be a friend to yourself.

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My Essence – A Matter of Love

Betrayal?

Connecting that behaviors are linked to brain health is often confusing. The distance traveled to reach that point may have been long. It may have involved experiences painful to themselves and their loved ones.

For example, they may have lost a job because they couldn’t get out of bed in the morning. A divorce might have come after changing into someone irritable and angry. A trucker might no longer be able to drive on the freeway because of panic. But once they connect that this change in personality relates to a change in their brain health, how do they feel about that?

Some people feel relief. That they didn’t personally fail. That they aren’t a bad Christian. That it wasn’t because they didn’t try hard enough to “feel good,” to stop itching, to get up and do something with their life, to quit gambling, etc… Maybe they feel for a moment that judgment can be suspended for them.

However there is a group of people, maybe overlapping these, who feel betrayed. Betrayed by their very essence. The question of, if they can’t trust themselves, what is real in life at all? They struggle with the shame of betraying their own person. “Who am I if I’m not…?” and the questions roll on. It must be a question for all of us with changing bodies, Who are you if your mind gets sick?

There is the temporal line of thought, that if your brain changes, your memories, your personality, than you change. Your human form is different. Like getting your arm cut off, you have to grieve and grow a new picture of how you see yourself. A changing person through the span of life. This is in fact healthy adaptation.

There is also a thread in this weave of believing that our essence isn’t wholly related to our changing bodies. That somehow when the various curtains of life fall and open and the final curtain comes around, that this bit remains. I don’t think you can believe this unless you believe in a Love which is stronger than death.

Love is stronger than the death of my neurons, my dendritic connections, stronger than the death of my mind.

The adaptability needed for this life is a no-brainer. We can’t survive if we don’t. It takes courage to adapt when your person is changing. It takes courage when you are loosing yourself. Such courage, like someone in war or flight or determined movement that others could only imagine.

But how you define your essence also matters. I see it as a related step, but also apart from these excellent coping skills. I see it as a matter of Love. It’s win-win when Love weaves through you.

Self Care Tip #16 – Choose Love. Be a friend to yourself.

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Keep It Simple

Being a friend to yourself is obviously a changing effort, depending on your needs. It includes many intersecting paradigms including physical health and biology, genetic predisposition, coping skills, what you do to your body, what is done to your body (such as trauma), emotional triggers, spirituality. I’m sure there are more that we will continue to learn about through the ages.

Deciding where your energies will go can be more objective when we tease apart these paradigms. For example, if I’m tired during the day, have irregular sleep hours, feeling emotional and irritable, I’d start with sleep hygiene. This basically says that if you aren’t having sex in your bed, all you get to do is sleep. No food, no phone, no tv, no reading; just sleep.

Where you are going to spend your energies should be as basic as possible. As preventative as possible. As elemental as possible to start out with. Although the efforts you make shift with your needs, being friendly with yourself means picking your battles wisely. You only have so much energy. Keep it simple.

Self Care Tip #13 – Keep it simple. Be a friend to yourself.