Aug

22

I’m In Denial

Filed Under The Mystery 

SPACER

Imagine that you “operate” your waking life using a mental control panel. If you closed your eyes, you could see something like the “desktop” on your computer, with rows of little “windows” from which you mentally select. When you select one, it “opens” and you’re looking at a scene representing some element of your Life.

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SPACER

Then imagine that each of these windows is connected to an “interface” with the neuro-transmitters or whatever the heck those things are that determine how you feel about Life. [What my favorite teacher, Esther Hicks, calls your “Emotional Set Point.”]

Assume the result of this setup is that whatever window you are focusing on will be the major input into how you are feeling in that moment. Assume further that how you are feeling in the moment is the primary determinant of how you will be and how you will act in that moment.

If you are feeling good - elated or confident or encouraged or just enjoying a sense of wellbeing - you will be more likely to act in the best interests of yourself and your fellow humans. If you are feeling lousy - bored, worried, depressed, hostile - you will be more likely to act in ways you’ll wish you hadn’t acted once you start feeling good again.

[Oprah didn't invent the idea that we prefer to feel good and function better when we do. If you think this is a goofball model, you probably also thought buying stock in the makers of Prozac, Zoloft, Effexor, et al, was a goofball idea. Not to mention the makers of vodka, gin, bourbon, and cigarettes. The thing is, we need to look beyond pharmaceuticals, alcohol, and nicotine. Even the hard-headed cognitive therapists understand that what we focus on makes a big difference in how we feel, and how we feel makes a big difference in how we behave.]

Here’s my major thesis:

What we tend to do is look mostly at the windows on our mental control panel that are showing flash videos of problems. Past problems, current problems, possible future problems. Problems, problems, problems. We think that by looking at them, even focusing on them intently, we’ll be able to figure out how to fix them. Unfortunately, if we use my model, what we do mostly when we look at them is begin to feel like @#$%. So, the likely result of looking at them will be that we’re less likely to do something positive and more likely to just feel and act worse, or fail to act at all, because we’re just feeling too @#$%-ty.

SPACER

SPACER

We take the windows showing pleasant things for granted, or assume they don’t need any attention. We focus on the problems, imagining that our best use of time is to try to fix them. Unfortunately, the way the control panel works is that focusing on the “window” just keeps that window open, in full screen mode, as the active window. So, we just feel worse and worse and our life starts to feel like a problem.

What we should be doing is ignoring, as much as possible, the control panel windows featuring problems. Instead, we should be opening up and focusing on the windows that are showing flash videos of what makes us feel good.

This - at least in my model - increases the Feel Good Energy Input and makes it more likely that we’ll be and do things that will make us - and those around us - feel good or at least better.

I’m not one of those folks who believes, using my model, that ignoring the unpleasant windows means they’ll disappear or automatically transform into feel good windows.

On the other hand, have you ever had an experience something like this?:

SPACER

SPACER

You wake up on Saturday morning, after a week of crappy days, look around your domicile and want to burn the place down and start over. Everything looks awful. Disorderly, in need of paint or major (professional) cleaning, beyond reclamation in the years left before retirement. You desperately hope there is, in fact, the opportunity to reincarnate, because this lifetime is toast.

Or,

You wake up on Saturday morning, after a week wherein you were selected Employee of the Week and you got a raise. Enough to trade up to a Toyota. You look around. What a quaint and comfy little nest you and your family have created. Those handprints on the wall are from when Billy and Sally were just learning to walk. How sweet that they’re still there. All those stacks of books and unopened junk mail are how artists live, and you’re sort of an artistic type. That’s it! This ambience of quirky casual just shows you know what’s really important, and it’s not neatness. Listen to the birdies! I’ll bet the neighborhood cats just love skittering through that tall grass. Why not let it go another weekend before you mow it?

SPACER

SPACER

See? How you’re feeling, generally speaking, makes such a difference in how you look at “problems.”

To get back to my model, at some point you will, indeed, want to take a look at the windows showing things that you’d like to transform. I submit - and I believe the mental health care community is with me on this - that you increase the likelihood of transforming yourself and your life experience when you fricking feel good and you make it more likely you’ll just keep fricking things up when you try to solve problems or do much of anything when you feel like @#$%.

I submit you have to feel good to do good. I’ll grant you that sometimes the best way to start feeling good is to start doing good, but I’ll also argue that it works best the other way round.

[I'm sorry: I think the preponderance of the evidence is that doing anything that really qualifies as "good" requires "good" energy. When you're not operating on "good" energy, the odds that you'll be able to start anything "good" are somewhere between "fat effing chance" and "when they start selling sno-cones in hell." One way or another you're going to need a transfusion of at least mild relief to get you started. Situations involving four-way emergency flashers could be the exception.]

SPACER

SPACER

So, I recommend a practice of knowing which of your Inner Control Panel windows are showing happy movies. Learn to immediately click on one of them whenever you start feeling like dog pucky on God’s walking shoes. For me, the kitty window is my “go to” window. I love our two indoor kitties. They represent absolute unselfconscious spiritual purity. Zen Cats. Anytime I click on the cat window I immediately transcend my hopeless self and feel better. Works every time.

Now we come to denial.

If you tell people you are living some version of my model - ignoring the @#$% that makes you feel bad, focusing on what makes you feel good - at least some of the folks considering your approach to solving problems will tell you ”you’re in denial.”

I suggest you do what I’m learning to do. Tell them - politely - some version of this:

“Damn skippy. But I think of it as creative denial.”

Comments

One Response to “I’m In Denial”

  1. Free To Feel Good | The 23rd Floor on August 24th, 2008 7:05 am

    [...] I’m In Denial [...]

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